Douglas all-purpose space vehicle

[hesham]

Hi,

The Douglas engineer P. Bono designed all-purpose space vehicle.
http://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFArchive/1964/1964%20-%202572.pdf

 

[Brickmuppet]

Hi,

The Douglas engineer P. Bono designed all-purpose space vehicle.
http://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFArchive/1964/1964%20-%202572.pdf

That is ROMBUS. It was a notational VTOVL semireuseable launcher in the Saturn V class put forward by Phil Bono. It was a giant version of the sort of thing Max Hunter was doing with the DCX and was an inspiration for some of Gary Hudson's ideas.

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/rombus.htm

Bono had a whole family of developmental vehicles leading up to this gloroius thing of joy, some of them were intended to be modified from in production Saturn hardware. There were proposals for using the thing as the basis for both an intercontinental ballistic passenger rocket and the ominously named and tactically dubious Icarus intercontinental ballistic troop transport. He worked the numbers to take the thing (with an earth orbit fuel top off) all the way to mars.

Lots of info can be found in Frontiers of Space, by Bono and a Ken Gatland of the B.I.S......if you can find the thing.