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Archive 1

Smaller payload fraction due primarily to weight of wings

The current revision of the article claims the smaller payload fraction of orbital spaceplanes (compared with expendable launch vehicles) is due to the mass of the wings. But the Space Shuttle also carries its main engines all the way into orbit. Since ELVs leave their first stage engines well below orbital velocity, it is at least plausible to think the mass of the SSMEs plays a major role in the smaller payload fraction. It would be great if an editor with a reliable source would add a reference citation regarding this! (sdsds - talk) 02:38, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

The SSMEs have a thrust:weight ratio of about 70:1, and the shuttle is capable of about 3.5g carrying a nearly empty ET, so you can work out roughly how much engine mass there is (not that much), although you have to add on some support structure as well.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 06:13, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
There's a fairly big penalty on the wings and the reentry system. The system should be more or less Saturn V class without lugging around all the extra winged stuff- the GLOW is similar. They lost the moon when they gained the wings.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 06:13, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Also: this analysis is misleading because it compares launched payload fractions, not the returned payload fractions. No ELV with a reentry capsule can bring anywhere near all its launched payload home again.... (sdsds - talk) 05:18, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

The basic principle of rockets is that you want to minimise the amount of stuff you do things with. Minimising the reentry mass as far as you possibly can is nearly always a good idea.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 06:13, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Pegasus

Should mention of the pegasus rocket be included in the article? It is winged, flies through the atmosphere, reaches space and can even place a payload in orbit. Of course it is a one-way trip for the vehicle, which is not recovered. Are spaceplanes by definition recoverable and reusable? If so, those features probably deserve more prominent mention in the article! (sdsds - talk) 03:11, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I think of a "plane," space or otherwise, as manned and reuseable. As such, pegasus might better be described as a winged ELV (expendable launch vehicle). It is a good argument though that a winged spaceplane is not such a silly idea as some comentators on this page would seem to be espousing. Jmdeur (talk) 12:51, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
I certainly consider it an error for this article to have no mention of Pegasus at all. I've just added this statement:
The Pegasus winged booster has had many successful flights to deploy orbital payloads, but since its aerodynamic vehicle component does not operate in space as a spacecraft (only as a booster) it is not typically considered to be a spaceplane.
...and also a link in the See Also section.--Tdadamemd (talk) 06:50, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
Such details are better placed in body of article instead of the Lead, which is supposed to be a summary of the whole article. A link in the body of the article should not be repeated in the See also per Manual of Style guidelines. -Fnlayson (talk) 09:17, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Wings

The theoretical advantages of wings are really illusory during launch. The L/D at hypersonic speeds with wings is about 6-8. But a rocket pulling 3g, by angling up above the horizon can achieve 1g vertically with still 2.82 g sideways (by pythagorus). That means you've only lost 0.17 g to gain 1g lift(!) That's an effective L/D ratio of 5.8; which is not much less and it doesn't cost you extra dry mass. If you're using a scramjet, you probably can't even accelerate at 0.5g. The only reason it's better is because the Scramjet you're using to cancel the drag has a higher Isp, but really, overall, it's a wash, allowing for the longer time, the higher Isp and the miniscule improvement in L/D and the heavier wings and horrible thermal situation, there's hardly anything in it.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 04:22, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The other big consideration is the sustained gee force due to acceleration. Early ELVs accelerated hard, minimising the time hanging in the air and hence the energy wasted just fighting gravity. The Shuttle accelerates slower, so astronauts do not need to be hyper-fit - the penalty is longer time standing on its rockets, which is one reason a shuttle launch is so much more expensive. The more the max gee force is reduced for comfort, the longer time hanging around in atmosphere and the more wings and scramjets begin to make sense. -- Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:26, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Needs improvement

I have to say that the article is really not up to standard we would expect from a Wiki article on this topic, it's pretty disappointing. I mean for one thing where's the Pictures? You should have loads of great pictures of actual and proposed Spaceplanes. Also the article doesn't really mention the history of the idea, in say Science fiction and other writing, etc. It could really do with some improvement. --Hibernian (talk) 13:01, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Validity of claims

It says that only pure rocket craft have reached space, but I propose that the SR-71 Blackbird reaches "space" (by the standard definition, despite the fact that atmosphereis still present. I disagree with this definition of space, but that is another issue entirely). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.101.205.119 (talk) 05:49, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

The "standard" definition for the Edge of SPace is the Kármán line, at 62.1 miles. The SR-71 was limited to an altitude of about 20 miles - not close. - BillCJ (talk) 14:11, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
The SR-71 is a bad example. Indeed, any pure airbreather will, by definition, never make it as a spaceplane since it needs air (lacking in space) to keep it running. However, the X-15/B-52 combination did accomplish it - you can think of the B-52 as a reusable, airbreathing first stage and the X-15 as the spaceplane second stage. It's perhaps hard to think of it as such since it was kind of an ad hoc assemblage of aircraft instead of a purpose built system, but nevertheless, the X-15 did make it to space - several of its pilots earned their astronaut wings that way. It's interesting that early shuttle concepts were not that dissimilar, but alas the cost of building something like the B747/orbiter combination that would actually get the orbiter to, er, orbit was too much and the SRBs were substituted for the aircraft-like first stage. IMHO, where Shuttle is faulty is not that it is a spaceplane, but the idea of combining heavy lift launch vehicle with human access to space. A smaller, X-20 sized shuttle would have been a much better next step over Apollo for human access. They just should have left heavy lift to ELVs. The downside would be little ability to bring back bulky stuff, but this capability has been rarely used with Shuttle in any case. Jmdeur (talk) 09:54, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

What happened to the Soviets and the Russians?

Visual evidence of the Buran space plane about to enter orbit.

Well, where are they? The Americans aren't the only ones to have built space planes.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.208.114.164 (talk)

They are mentioned. Try re-reading the article. - BilCat (talk) 02:08, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
A good point there. The lead section image caption read "Space shuttles are the only manned orbital space planes created.". Although this could possibly be is technically correct, the famous Buran project was obviously planned to be manned but the one and only flight ever was an unmanned test, and the project was never complated due to the the downfall of the Soviets. I don't think Wikipedia should take misleading sides here, for example by giving the careless reader an image that the Space Shuttle was the "only space plane created". --hydrox (talk) 02:15, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
One could argue that the statement is still true, as the Buran orbiter was arguably a near copy of the US Space Shuttle Orbiter. ;) Either way, it's better dealt with in the article text, as the statement was written needs too many qualifiers to be inculded in a image caption. - BilCat (talk) 14:46, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree. To make it more balanced statement I expanded the sentence and added an endnote. This is ridiculous and maybe unneeded detail for one image caption, but I did it just to show that I will insist against the statement in its previous form, as it is easily misunderstood to mean something broader that it actually means. --hydrox (talk) 00:33, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
The quote was "the only manned orbital space planes created", don't try to mislead people reading this discussion. According to the wiki page the year of the first flight in 1988 the Buran program was at least six years away from a manned mission. And it appears the shuttle (1.01) that flew in 1988 was never intended to be manned. Nor its yet to be built sister ship, the 1.02. Only the 2.0 series was meant to carry men and no 2.0 series shuttle was ever completed or to my knowledge even near completion. There is insanely long list of planned space planes, and admittingly the Buran was far closer than many but pretending that it actually was ever an operational manned orbital vehicle is not correct. --Craigboy (talk) 15:48, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Misleading?? Your last sentence just pointed out why the caption is wrong: "pretending that it actually was ever an operational manned orbital vehicle is not correct" is far different from ""the only manned orbital space planes created." The Buran was created as "a manned orbital space plane", though never used oprationally as such. Again, such differences are better left to the text, not image captions. - BilCat (talk) 17:32, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
But a manned version was never created. Buran, the first vehicle appears to have never been intended to be manned. So it (the first vehicle) wasn't neccarly created as "a manned orbital space plane", the fleet planned might have been similar to Russia's Soyuz and Progress spacecraft. Just because a progress spacecraft was tested doesn't mean that a Soyuz vehicle has been created. --Craigboy (talk) 18:25, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Ah, now I see the problem. You're using "created" to mean built, as in the individual craft itself. We are interpreting "created" in the sense of "design", as in the whole program, which is the normal sense in this context. Either way, "created" is not the best word to use then, as it is far too vague. - BilCat (talk) 18:58, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
How about for the sake of simplicity we change the caption to something like "The Space Shuttle, a manned orbital spaceplane" and somewhere in the article we add some more info about Buran and add a picture? --Craigboy (talk) 20:18, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Boeing X-37

I've added it to the list of "orbital spaceplanes"; but more should probably be said about it, as it's one of the only two spaceplane programs (Space Shuttle and X-37) currently going; so it should probably be more prominent in the article. Vultur (talk) 03:19, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Correction, the Skylon development program is also active as well..--Novus Orator 05:55, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
OK, yeah. I meant "now flying". 165.91.189.75 (talk) 02:51, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Should be BOR-4 be mentioned? Seems to be similar to Boeing_X-37 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.171.130.164 (talk) 18:13, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Revision

This article is about to be cleaned up to Wiki standards..Please help...--Novus Orator 05:56, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Let the Cleanup Begin Here

I am removing BOR-4 from Spaceplane. Here is why:

History of aviation: The Wright Flyer is considered the world's first powered aircraft. Of all the self-powered aircraft that preceded the Wright Flyer, the Wright Flyer is still considered to have been the first, in 1903. Why?

Why? Because of what "successful aviation" entails:

  1. Sustaining: The first aircraft that successfully sustained itself before, during and after flight was the Du Temple Monoplane. This craft represents the first successful powered flight in history, in 1874, almost 30 years prior to the Wright Flyer. Yet, the Wright Flyer is still considered to have been the first powered aircraft. Why?
  2. Controlling: The first person to realize how to successfully control flight (solving the problem of aerodynamic instability) was Octave Chanute. Octave Chanute, considered the "father of both aviation and heavier-than-air flying machines," readily helped, advised and shared his knowledge with the Wright brothers. Octave Chanute was first to realize that the biplane design was best (for 19th century technology) at solving instability. Octave Chanute's team successfully flew biplane designs, in 1896, almost a decade prior to the Wright Flyer. Yet, the Wright brothers are still credited for having invented and built the world's first successful airplane. Why?
  3. Powering: Alexander Mozhaysky, Clément Ader, Hiram Maxim, Percy Pilcher all are credited in one way or another with producing self-powered aircraft, up to 20 years prior to the Wright Brothers. (?)

Successful Aviation: You need to sustain the flight, control the flight and power the flight. The Wright Flyer did all 3, and so it is recognized as having been the world's first successful airplane.

A Rocket glider achieves flight by a rocket but then glides to an unpowered landing. It sustains itself, controls itself and powers itself ... successfully. Of all the spaceplanes that have successfully flown (X-15, Space Shuttle, Buran, SpaceShipOne, X-37) they have all successfully sustained their flights, controlled their flights, and powered their flights. All five of these successful spaceplanes are successful rocket gliders that have successfully aviated their flights.

The BOR-4 is a spacecraft. The BOR-4 is an aircraft. But as with the Du Temple Monoplane, and as with Octave Chanute's successful biplanes, and as with all the self-powered aircraft flown by Alexander Mozhaysky, Clément Ader, Hiram Maxim, and Percy Pilcher, the BOR-4 never successfully aviated.

The BOR-4 did not sustain its flight. It stopped flying, parachuted and splashed in the ocean.

The BOR-4 did control its flight. It is an aircraft, just as with the Du Temple Monoplane, and as with Octave Chanute's successful biplanes, and as with all the self-powered aircraft flown by Alexander Mozhaysky, Clément Ader, Hiram Maxim, and Percy Pilcher. It flew. But it did not land.

The BOR-4 was also a spacecraft. It flew, but it never landed. It was designed to stop flying, open a parachute and then splash in the ocean. Unlike the X-15, Space Shuttle, Buran, SpaceShipOne and X-37, the BOR-4 was not a successful rocket glider. It flew in space. It flew in the air. But it never landed. The X-15, Space Shuttle, Buran, SpaceShipOne and X-37 all successfully sustained their flights. The BOR-4 did not sustain its flight, because it was not designed that way.

The BOR-4 was a spacecraft. The BOR-4 was an aircraft. But it did not sustain its flight. The BOR-4 was not a rocket glider. The BOR-4 did not fly back to earth from space. The BOR-4 stopped flying and splashed in the ocean.

An aircraft that is designed to stop flying, open a parachute and then splash in the ocean, does not sustain its flight. It does not successfully aviate.

The BOR-4 was not a spaceplane, because it was not designed to successfully sustain its flight. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kelvin Case (talk • contribs) 12:18, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Citations and sources are needed

Please be sure that all additions to the Spaceplane article are verifiable. Any new items added to the article should have inline citations for each claim made. As a courtesy to editors who may have added claims previously, before Wikipedia citation policy is what it is today, some of the existing unsourced claims have been tagged {{citation needed}} to allow some time for sources to be added. N2e (talk) 22:02, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

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Archive 1
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