single stage to orbit robotic space plane

Description

so is this guy kidding hell no so you want to build a spaceship and blast your ass off in to outer space and your not elon musk or even close to being in the billionaire boys club you don't even have a million bucks stuffed under your mattress even mentioning it mite get you sent to the cu cu farm at least to the halls of crack pots but can it be done by the dedicated home builder I think so yes in deed so lets get down to business This design is not a definitive plan all of these will be one offs using materiel's at hand the uses and flight geometry's and building methods that the builder is comfortable with. the whole design concept is modular and adaptable the plane consists of a lifting body fuselage reentry vehicle where most of the internal volume is fuel tank built in three section's with the main center built in Monique construction for ease of build with two outer sections molded in high temp polymer. with a folding canard wing pack on top.

Details

so interested in personal space craft on a budget the only viable option I see at the moment is a fairly self contained single stage to orbit lifting body craft I hybrid aircraft spacecraft flying fuel tank with rocket I will start out at the beginning and give some of the background on my design and some more details and the logic my design solutions and reasons for sharing this very viable design I've been developing off and on for the last ten years then get in to more detailed descriptions of hardware and then go into the different flight geometries and there uses also in the upcoming weeks I will be scanning my notebooks and showing my designs in more detail with hand written sketches and then start digging out and dusting off my cad models and start cleaning them up and putting in some more detailed explanations IN the beginning I was always interested in aviation but never quite having the funds to get that involved past basic flight instruction a sport of the well off at least not for one with one foot in the poverty level so I figured I will build a kit plane and studied all the designs methods of construction reading the story's of dedicated builders there heartbreaks and triumphs and had a few ideals of my own but always that one small problem I am fuc!#$%^&* broke I don't got no dam money. so I kept studying and designing. then came Burt Rutan and his space ship one the first private spaceships to break gravity and I said I can build one of them maybe better. The ultimate hack of all hacks if you survive . lets get into more detail as previously stated I am using a lifting body fuselage built in three sections so why three sections first off ease of manufacture building the main larger center section in common frame tube Monique construction seams the most logical also a note on this center section as far as scaling. it would be easier widening and or lengthening the design. and this center section with large flat curved surface on the bottom is ideal for hanging different thermal protection systems for different flight geometries that I will get in to more detail later..so lets talk more on lifting body you mite have noticed in the pictures of the cad models and if you opened my note book file most all these designs have a blunt nose those are tradeoffs I made for the reentry part of this fuselage what this does is upon reentry sets up a shock wave in front mitigating some of the heat blast effect similar to what was used on the space shuttle the currant Boeing air force space plane and the Russian space plane designs .lets talk outer fuselage sections these components can be built in high temp composite in pieces using standard methods but now with the advanced materials at hand can be build cold molded meaning you don't need a giant oven or autoclave like Lockheed martin or Boeing .basically using composite boat building practices. o by the way also you may have noticed you don't see much in the line of landing gear or wheels on these fuselages hell no we don't need no stinking landing gear these are flying space boats 75% of the earth is water. wheel wells trap doors mounting points hydraulics struts wheels brakes all this weight and some holes down on the bottom where the blast furnace is happening no thanks keep it simple keep it light. dumb ass landing gear was probably why the space shuttle burned in. No we don't need no stinking landing gear hell I am a Alaskan we don't need no stinking landing strips I land where I want. talking of the home land this bird that I designed is called the black raven in the first nation tribes the spirits of the elders when they die are taken by the raven to the after life so I thought it would be a good name as this bird ...

Files

mars raven cad.igs

here's my mars raven lander concept enjoy you can 3d print and test I left the wings and tail as separate components for you to play with further discussion on it on my updates page

Initial Graphics Exchange Specification (IGES) - 34.11 MB - 04/14/2018 at 05:05

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nasa space plan tms.zip

here's some of nasa tms on space planes that are good reading and helpful in the design if only nasa built all there paper dreams

x-zip-compressed - 30.66 MB - 04/05/2018 at 07:57

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3 piece fuselage.igs

hers cad model of my thee piece lifting body fuselage same as in pics in my descriptions page im still working on refining my top cover fairing you can print this out to get a good ideal of the general concept

Initial Graphics Exchange Specification (IGES) - 156.15 kB - 04/04/2018 at 05:36

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spfuselagonepiece.igs

here's a cad model of a one piece lifting body easy to print will be putting out some better examples shortly

Initial Graphics Exchange Specification (IGES) - 211.01 kB - 04/04/2018 at 05:12

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2001spaceplan note book.zip

here's some of my work to give you a ideal of my spaceplane concept building and hacking a space plane your not just hacking a space ship but a whole space program your own off world corporation your own off world government unto its own self answerable to no one but god and nature in effect you would be for the first time in your life a free man or woman the first people in a thousand years not owned by assholes how cool is that forget fame forget money no good out there give me freedom sweet sweet true freedom

x-zip-compressed - 35.65 MB - 03/24/2018 at 05:41

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Components

1 × fuselage center section three section lifting body center section tube frame construction

2 × outer fuselage sections high temp composite rentry sections

2 × tail fin base interface between fuselage and fins houseing actuatores

1 × engine multy mount interface between rail pact and engine

1 × air to air refuleing boom system a standard milspec compatable refuleiny probe but retractes

Project Logs

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still going at it
starlord • 09/10/2018 at 07:03 • 0 comments

the project is still in the works I haven't given up im still working on refining my design and saving up for another test model and also exploring the concept of furthering this morphing wing system further with a combined morphing fuselage where you go from a stol type low altitude aircraft to a hypersonic wave riding fuselage to a reentry vehicle fuselage and back to stol configuration another holy grail on top of having a single stage to orbit space plane I believe this is the direction to go to further the project for a ship to brake orbit my currant published design concept is still very viable and does do some morphing l left out a front spoiler or trim device and details on control surfaces I still have to test going forward with more complex systems and components 3d printing and design will be even more extensive
lets set this off
starlord • 04/29/2018 at 05:29 • 0 comments

I been searching through all my hard drives flash drives and sd cards and digging out the goods looking for some of my best space plane works that are worth detailing further in the upcoming weeks and months I will be taking them and cleaning them up finishing them out adding more details and descriptions and explanations and testing some stuff out before I start building the next more detailed validation prototype realizing this is going to take some work im wanting to also hit this project from a few different angels as mentioned earlier with the advances in 3d printing I am going to use what I got so far and start from scratch on a 3d print friendly version from the ground up the advantages to this are many but the big one hear is builders can out source the ideal situation being to buy the harder to build components a piece at a time like a kit plane reducing a lot of fabrication time to assembly so we I looking at this from a lot of different angles how can I fast track this project make it blast off to sort of speak im not getting any younger just getting fatter and I want to break gravity with some hot super models and get in the 369mile high club I got the hang glider harness and bungee chords ready to go alright lets cut the bs and get back to business im not the know it all I don't have all the answers someone out there mite but I doubt it if they do there keeping to there self so where's all the talent well for starters right hear on hackaday i.o looking at all the projects there's a bunch of out right genus's right here so if you look at my projects page I started a parallel space plane project for every body to join in chine in participate you can just go hog wild on it after all space is the new wild wild west so where else can we get some brain farts the aerospace industry otherwise known as the industrial military complex oh shit the star lords going over to the dark side traitor bastard now just hold on one second before you start getting your torches and rope hear me out the industrial military complex where talking about every aircraft aerospace company and all there supporting company's both world wide collectively and individually the bottom line is the hard truth that hardly anyone talks about all these corporations and all the people in them from the stock holders to the ceos to the guy mowing the grass the designers the sectary's the lunch lady are participating in a massive endeavor to kill other human beings alright that's harsh but at the rock bottom line that's the absolute truth this is a massive world wide undertaking where the end result ends up being the whole sale killing of human beings how stupid is that for whatever reason and usually the reason is bull shit these are the serious enablers but have to be considered just as responsible its like if someone robes a bank and kills everyone in the bank the getaway driver gets charged with murder to but when you have thousands of getaway drivers its ok right like then you have hundreds politicians waging tribal warfare does that not spread out the blame I think not so the point im getting at who better to try and co opt turn than these misguided souls use there evil genius that have kept the world one push button away from nuclear Armageddon to finally man up and help humanity but how the hell you plan on doing that these are some serous greedy rotten bastards exactly just point out to them how much more money they can make enabling a open source space economy and that's what I been doing going down the list boeing spacex Grumman lockhed relativity space scaled composites im just getting started think of it like this out of the hundreds of world wide corporations even if none sign on the word will eventfully get out to some employees so say if I get one employee or past employee from even one percent of the world wide system I would be able to rival or surpass...
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pic of silver raven drop test model
starlord • 04/27/2018 at 07:32 • 0 comments

this old girls been through hell
reentry operations
starlord • 04/19/2018 at 03:50 • 0 comments

here's a couple of pics showing the black raven on reentry the first one shows dragging a balute basically a large high temp reinforced balloon that's inflated before reentry creating more aerodynamic drag the second represents skip reentry a type of airo braking technique where you bounce or skip off the atmosphere in stages to reduce heat build up I would like to combine both to try to get the coolest reentry as possible
low earth orbit to high earth orbit
starlord • 04/19/2018 at 03:47 • 0 comments

here's a couple of pics of jettisoning cargo pods in low earth orbit or near space the second pic shows how a orbital craft can come in and do a pickup or transfer the orange ball is a balute decelerator for manned pod incase it misses pickup and has to do a hot reentry
lets keep moveing up with flight geometry and space operations
starlord • 04/15/2018 at 06:58 • 0 comments

as previously discussed before I started wading through to much bull shit we where talking air to air refueling a refueling probe will almost be a necessity these are proven systems easily to reverse engineer with two most common variants one the navy type one type used by air force a duel type probe would seem to make more sense or a common one but does the government make sense? what im saying is using a common probe would add some extra redundancy just in case one day they throw you a bone and actually help out but most of all ease of reverse engineering these space plane refueling probes will retract under the top aero cover out of the way for reentry also as previously stated the best way to refuel a space plane is your buddy's space plane this would be one of the most important collaborations to keep everyone's cost down so of course having a probe design that can be reconfigured and lengthened for pumping fuel would be desirable. Ok your toped off and ready for the big push it all depends on what engines your packing say at first you can only get your hands on one surplus jet engine and you made it this far the max altitude you can only go so high with a air breathing jet you could try to squeeze more out by retro fitting some type after burner setup or introducing some type oxidationer like liquid nitrous highly risky and more complicated as a note im quite parcel to using a rocket that uses jet A and liquid nitrous. but say your just using a jet as your primary propulsion for now all you got so far is a very high performance high altitude aircraft but you can still launch remember those pods I was talking about there ideal for jettisoning at extreme altitude and could very well reach low earth orbit with minimal rockets either solid or liquid this methods like the poor mans stratolauncher the advantages are a little less risky for initial flight ops less reentry burn quicker turnaround. as a note lets look at some ruff expectations for these type craft all depending on configuration engines and flight geometry hopefully im looking to launch around 1000lb maybe 1500lb a striped down non manned autonomous remote control bird with a high performance duel cycle air breathing rocket using jet A and liquid nitrous might get 2000-2500lb in orbit . lets talk other options o yell this designs a modular beast designed to morph at this time your wing pack is out the main inner wings are ideal for hanging drop tanks or solid propellant ascension rockets.
added mars lander igs. lets talk flight geometry
starlord • 04/14/2018 at 06:33 • 0 comments

I added my mars raven space plane concept you can 3d print ,modify test on this model I have glider wings in canard configuration and a tail set up for more lift in breaking my rule of keeping the tail strait for reentry this is just a concept open to you to test and develop further I can see Burt Rutan shaking his head now and saying that boy needs to go back to canard school. lets talk flight geometries and also the many and varied uses and implications of a open source space plane a open source space program and a truly free open source space fairing society and culture. first off trying to build and fly a experimental space plane and launch your ass in to outer space. there's nothing more dangerous more crazy more inspiring more allsome than that endeavor it would almost be akin to your next evolution for humanity all you need are giant balls made out of steel whether your a man or a woman and be able to spit death in the eye. but for some people just wanting to go up for a joy ride look at the pretty planet sight see I would say that would be almost a crime the black ravens made for hauling shit its the Toyota pickup truck of space planes the Conestoga wagon for the new pioneers with this birds lifting body it has a huge internal volume so once in orbit and fuel expended and tankage is reconfigured the options are only limited by your imagination for off world operations so how to get there. as said this is a flying space boat made for water take off and landings so we will start from there the flight geometry's all depend on what your trying to accomplish but most of all propulsion propulsion propulsion o that small little detail no motor you have a funny looking very slow sail boat .with a maximum fuel load and using only a single jet engine your options are varied you could use two jet engines and still yet not have enough power to get up on step you could use small detachable or retractable hydrofoils to break suction with the water you could use a single lower powered jet just enough to gain altitude and fire up the rocket and turn it off for take off one of the easiest is to takeoff with a minimal fuel load and do some air to air refueling or any combination that gets the job done once airborne your golden your the master of the universe you only got 300 or so miles strait up to go and your home. air to air refueling you almost certainly will need to use it unless elon starts selling some high efficiency duel cycle air breathing/vacuum operating rockets for the kit space plane market hay there making flame throwers seams rockets for home build space craft would be less off base but I would still love to have one of his flame throwers you never know when you mite have to barbeque some aliens hope there good eaten. no matter what combination engines you use your probably going to air to air refuel. who does that oh the air force lets just call them up hay guys im up here at 100,000ft can you swing by and top me off right. lets talk open source space culture for a minute I just mentioned two possible malty billion dollar niche business in the last six lines some one could jump on kit rocket engines for the home builder and a private high altitude space plane refueling company these are just the tip of the iceberg when you develop a open source space program what's the best way to air to air refuel a space plane another space plane in the open source model you can take the various collaborations you jackoffs do on the computer to the real world and beyond. just right here on this hackaday site I see enough raw talent and outright genus's to start and develop more than a hundred space planes/programs with niche specialty's and corporations I can see differing groups from all over the world collaborating to help each other...
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decals
starlord • 04/09/2018 at 07:37 • 0 comments
patches
starlord • 04/09/2018 at 00:41 • 0 comments
a brief rundown on flight controls
starlord • 04/08/2018 at 02:56 • 0 comments

lets talk flight controls as can be seen from the cad model this bird uses twin tail fins. that particular tail fin is not the final version I kind of cheesed that one out the details and theory on the tail I am keeping my tails well in board to keep them as cool as possible un like other designs as they have them on the outer edges of the fuselage I made that decision taking the home build nature of the ship in to account the root or base of the tail will house the actuators to move the fin on the final version im using a much larger base which will act as a stationery fin in its self for redundancy in case the moveable fin fails you will still have some stability also im debating on having any camber to the fin like other designs or have a adjustable system im using two split panels on top and bottom for altitude control with smaller trim tabs on outer edges lets go back to the tail for a minute as said im using a canard wind pack these canards usually don't employ a traditional rear tail as the dual wing acts as the attitude control this has caused problems in some canard planes with uncontrollable unrecoverable spin with the heavy fuel hauling nature of the bird I was pondering having a extendable tail and fin system on a retractable boom so that it extends out the back of the ship and retracts either under the wing pact fairing or on top in its currant position a boom system could tie in with the wing pact rail but were talking a lot of extra weight these options can be explored in fight test scale models but im leaning to keep it simple and lite lets talk in orbit flight control most space craft use a thruster system small reaction rockets built in to the ship in different areas to move the ship in differing directions some have quit a few plumed in all over the bird and in some places that could cause problems on reentry my proposal would be a thruster system mounted on a retractable boom possibly the air to air refueling boom or a robot arm the advantage is it can be retracted under the wing pact fairing for protection you can use fewer thrusters easer to repair replace and maintain but most of all weight savings. think the early space walkers had a hand held thruster system to move around with before they came up with there fancy jet pack.

View all 15 project logs

Build Instructions

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the fun begins

step by step on how to build the black raven Rutan class series of space planes. first off going down this long hard road is not something for the faint of hart the casual dabbler this type of project is most suited for someone's who built something like a kit airplane or a large ocean going sailboat or a couple of houses or restored a few cars or at least builds and fly's remote control aircraft not saying these are any kind of requirements or being some kind of rocket scientist I don't think there necessary but a solid will and fortitude would be a must when building experimental space craft with a empathies on experimental with a big X at onetime I pondered going the crowed funding rout but for this type of project it didn't seem like the right thing to do there so many risks and variables involved just the amount of time alone and what could I offer as a reward for pledges a free ride to space right plus you get all types of crazy's screaming for instant satisfaction for there one dollar investment .kickstarter and indigogo are full of rip-offs plus they censored my ass on a book project no if im going to fleece anybody and raid there pocket's it needs to be the good old government any government so I thought about doing the darpa rout good old darpa the wizard's of destruction the masters of mayhem but wait a second hold on one dam minute there part of the reason we want to get the hell out of dodge in the first place are all these dam crazies going around killing each other and thinking up new and exciting ways to end the world in the name of national defense. hears one thought for darpa the ultimate weapon to end all weapons if achieved there would be no more use for darpa what is it its not even a weapon at all its superluminal flight if they put all there resources in that one goal and came up with the goods we could have our own dam American planet or some dumb ass cammie world and the list of other fringe groups can go on and on from there to infinity . no I think I do better alone without a lot of outside distractions but im willing to collaborate and share ideals like right hear . so im thinking what is the best way to get this spaceplane built so I thought you could start a club a space club so I started pondering that ideal and the ramifications and came up with one of the deadliest scariest ideals yet so bad I had a essay written up on it or a manifesto depending on your sensibility's and destroyed it but for a group of brave souls wanting to conduct open source space operations you may want to hear some of the watered down version of ideals. first off my disclaimer im not starting any kind of dam club I don't want to be In any kind of dam club unless there's hot women and beer involved also don't send me any club money I will just spend it on carbon fiber and beer also my space club ideals are for off world use only also I am not internally trying to disparage any person or group as per hackaday io rules but the only way to try to convey some of these ideals is to try and give a comparison or analogy between a space based system and what I would call fatal flaws or system failures in our government our society and in corporations. so how to start off delicately carefully logically don't hurt anyone's feelings do you think our great president Donald trump gets his feeling hurt every day every hour he's human being to and who are these nay sayers what gives them the right where's there moral authority very few people in history have been attacked with such venom and vigor from all sides and every angle over partisan politics so in a space club the rude behavior that we see from our esteemed role models shouldn't be tolerated one bit in a offworld society where one bad apple could very easily kill every one and doom whatever endeavors underway so what ways can you safeguard not repeating the same cycle of tribal warfare on one level or another or at least within your immediate group. also when I say space club its a different type of club it would be considered a hybrid corporation and government more than a club so how can you have something that is open source where anyone can join ,buy in sign up participate and not have never ending warfare and anarchy. how can you keep a group of dedicated builders from being compromised by say the rich and powerful the moneyed up if you will or the out rite criminal element or a bunch of dead beat self entitled or a rouge faction trying to do a hostile takeover or takedown first at some point you need founding fathers or mothers a constitution or charter that has all the rules to play by in thinking about this I wanted one thing democracy no not our bullshit fake democracy not a delegated bought and payed for democracy but a true real pure tec democracy here's a dangerous bad word pure crypto democracy. what is a crypto democracy a system of direct voting and governance using the same block chain technology as in bit coin but with accurse more checks and balances and validation methods . so you have a system of secure voting and governance noticed I said governance in this system the participants are in direct control of the system instead of say electing a crooked senator and hope that he or she does your bidding like that really happens of course you will still need some administrators but these will be more like hired hands able to be replaced in a moments notice if they don't fulfill exaptation's there contract or violate the charter or constitution unlike the said pompous ass senators who are put up on a pedestal as some kind of all knowing savvier in a spaced based system the resources spent on what amounts to hundreds of to bit petty dictators cant be wasted. in space and offworld colonies decisions need to be made clear decisively and on a timely bases. ok but what about the jokers trying to game the system you know that's going to happen its human nature you have to take that in account. ok I will try to tread lightly on this subject in the united states everyone's vote suppose to count suppose to be equal but is that really fair take for example letting felons vote in mass like recently in new York is that fair to honest citizens who contribute to society and does that degrade the system even more or for example new arrivals whether legal or not why should there vote count as much as say a person who's served there country most of there life is this really a fair system I think not its a generalized method that hopes for the best. but only achieves mediocre results under the best of circumstances in a pure crypto democracy im proposing a system similar to credit rating or Chinas social rating system but one that cant be gamed by commes. where someone's citizenship or voter points are determined by things like participation conduct productivity basically what you contribute to the club where birthright and money are not the automatic in. I could go in to a lot more detail on this subject for quit a few more pages and seriously piss off a lot of people both lefty's and righty's but I will leave it here for now the main point hear is for people who want to get involved in a open source space plane project but don't want to go it alone can form some type of group and maybe work together collaborate share ideals and get the job done without being greedy evil bastards.

lets build

so you decided to build a space plane either your going lone wolf or going to do a group effort you have to be realistic as far as your resources and money available the big ticket item a jet engine what ever engine you end up with you build your bird around so research research . everything written here so far in my descriptions page updates and iges files are all just a basic descriptions and specification's and concepts before you start building airframes and sinking money you need more validation models and more sound engineering if I had a shit load of money I would be flying some more fine-tuned scale models and have a manned orbital space plane flying by now or probably be very dead by now. but that should not stop you from doing the parts scrounging and gathering up of raw materials in the up coming week and months I will be dusting off some more cad models doing some fine tuning and some more amateur engineering to where I can get to a point to start building my next validation prototype. something bigger than my silver raven helicopter drop test model or what's left of it and smaller than a lite plane with the folding wing pack. also note if you ever looked at some of my sketches of the large cargo carrying space planes those where designed to be 3d printed in space by a space station/3d printer with a built in gravity ring centrifuge these beasts where designed to be printed in space and drop heavy loads on mars or titan I called them martin wales they had a finer entry on there nose that reminded me of wales and where strait drop gliders I started thinking about that setup and going the 3d printing route back when the first 3d printer kits started selling but since then huge advances have been made in 3d printing when I was thinking space printers it was mostly for autonomous and robotic building purposes but now with advanced carbon fiber printers on line and other huge format printers printing high end materials and I know of two of but there could be many more start up company's wanting to print space structures one was doing tanks and possibly rockets and the other space habitats I want to start looking a little closer at adapting the black raven to be more 3d print friendly the outer fuselage sections and top aero cover and possibly center fuselage frames would be prime candidate's plus a lot of other parts I already printed a few small scale parts i just need a big ass printer and better materials the ultimate outcome for this project will be a proven validated ship with sound engineering open source cad models and blue prints and alternative models and methods of construction it would be nice to be able to buy reasonably priced spaceship sections 3d printed and put together like a giant model airplane kit.

silver raven

hears my silver raven drop test model or what's left of it no those are not little wings on the sides that's where I had different outer fuselage sections I was trying with different geometry's also the top fairing with tails are missing what do you expect this old girls older than space ship one older than space x I cooked this up after the space shuttle burned in as a better reentry vehicle if only I had some pay pal billions and a hot super model girlfriend there's no telling where these could have gone synchronized space plane landings any one instead got duct tape

Discussions

Zoé wrote 11/19/2018 at 21:23

Is this written by a Markov chain?

Are you sure? yes | no

starlord wrote 04/15/2018 at 22:40

thanks Dr Cockroach ultralight as pertaining to spacecraft is a relative term I am shooting for the lightest craft possible with a huge fuel load by doing away with landing gear a traditional cockpit and minimal thermal protection using instead possible skip reentry, balutes and high speed chutes and air to air refueling and other entry and reentry techniques to keep it light and cheap as possible with existing technology.

Are you sure? yes | no

Dr. Cockroach wrote 04/16/2018 at 00:16

Oh yes, a different kind of utralight but generally the same idea. I was thinking about re-entry and forgot about using a balute. I am not a engineer but too many years as a QA Manager and inspector in the military aerospace industry so have had a chance to work with some interesting materials and processes but much of it way over designed. I would like to see this fly :-)

Are you sure? yes | no

Dr. Cockroach wrote 04/15/2018 at 08:02

I have always been interested in space and had owned a ultralight aircraft back in the 80's so why not combine the two. Lifting bodies have been tested before so why not :-) Oh yes, I am one of the poor folks as well these days...

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single stage to orbit robotic space plane

Description

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