The thread title is hopeless... "Reusable Launch Vehicle concepts" would be better.

Space Shuttle is strictly ...
That brings to mind a thing about this English language, and language generally, words move, they change spellings, shift meanings, sometimes even reverse meanings. This English language has a many centuries history of specific terms becoming generalized.
For instance, the words meat, bread, fruit, have each had a term of being employed to mean food generally.

Space Shuttle, space shuttle, is now living that evolution.

Space shuttle is no longer strictly The Space Shuttle.
English language users are adopting it as the general term for a concept.
The language will do what its users do with it and there is no stopping such change, such evolution.

Related reading:
The books Words on the Move, and, Word on the Street, by the linguist John McWhorter.
The books discuss this phenomenon and others at length with many examples.
I believe comment is also made within them that while such change is happening in real time, some people will express their protests regarding said change via the certain irony of employing words which went through their own evolutions in prior decades or centuries.
 
Or maybe it is just a case of "Space Shuttle" vs "space shuttle". The second one however is rarely used. For example, if you browse "reusable rockets" on Google Scholar, the nomenclature is
- Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLV)
- Single Stage To Orbit (SSTO)
- Two Stage To Orbit (TSTO).

I think the media (as usual) is at the root of the confusion... because of the X-37. Admittedly, the X-37 has a "Shuttle orbiter shape". So many medias are calling it "the X-37 shuttle."
DreamChaser is also a victim of that siliness. Because its manned variant (on the backburner) was the one CCDEV vehicle that was winged - just like the Shuttle: unlike Dragon 2 or Starliner.

But outside Dreamchaser and X-37, nobody call RLV or SSTO "space shuttles". It's ridiculous.

And I'm know what I'm talking about: I've browsed and downloaded RLV stuff (Pdf and links) since 2002 and I have a few thousands documents.
 
Last edited:
Last edited:
Icthink the media (as usual) is at the root of the confusion... because of the X-37. Admittedly, the X-37 has a "Shuttle orbiter shape". So many medias are calling it "the X-37 shuttle."
DreamChaser is also a victim of that siliness. Because its manned variant (on the backburner) was the one CCDEV vehicle that was winged - just like the Shuttle: unlike Dragon 2 or Starliner.

But outside Dreamchaser and X-37, nobody call RLV or SSTO "space shuttles". It's ridiculous.
Exactly. Dreamchaser and X-37 are just winged spacecraft. The Space Shuttle was a first and foremost a launch vehicle. And it had a reusable upperstage/fairing that could carry crew and return the main engines.
Nobody called DynaSoar a space shuttle.
 
Or maybe it is just a case of "Space Shuttle" vs "space shuttle". The second one however is rarely used. For example, if you browse "reusable rockets" on Google Scholar, the nomenclature is
- Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLV)
- Single Stage To Orbit (SSTO)
- Two Stage To Orbit (TSTO).
Strictly speaking, both SSTO and TSTO can either be reusable or expendable.
 
When I think of RLVs, I usually think of concepts from the 1990s.

Falcon 9 is a true RLV…yet I don’t think I have heard it called an RLV in popular literature…just “reusable.”
Because the second stage is not reusable.
 

Attachments

  • 44.jpg
    44.jpg
    83 KB · Views: 60
  • 43.jpg
    43.jpg
    37.5 KB · Views: 55
  • 42.jpg
    42.jpg
    34 KB · Views: 47
  • 41.jpg
    41.jpg
    31.1 KB · Views: 54
  • 45.jpg
    45.jpg
    41.5 KB · Views: 56
Some studies from a 1971 Lockheed report.
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot (10700).png
    Screenshot (10700).png
    985.8 KB · Views: 41
  • Screenshot (10681).png
    Screenshot (10681).png
    1.7 MB · Views: 44
  • Screenshot (10683).png
    Screenshot (10683).png
    2 MB · Views: 38
  • Screenshot (10690).png
    Screenshot (10690).png
    1.2 MB · Views: 37
  • Screenshot (10691).png
    Screenshot (10691).png
    1.2 MB · Views: 42
  • Screenshot (10696).png
    Screenshot (10696).png
    1.2 MB · Views: 40
  • Screenshot (10697).png
    Screenshot (10697).png
    1.8 MB · Views: 41
  • Screenshot (10699).png
    Screenshot (10699).png
    1.3 MB · Views: 53

Similar threads

Please donate to support the forum.

Back
Top Bottom