Posts: 725
Threads: 32
Joined: Mar 2013
This is obviously only relevant to very early in the OA timeline, but:
I seem to remember that, some years ago, there was much talk and some design work on spacecraft using aerospike rocket engines; apparently, there were some advantages in mass budget and efficiency. What happened? None of the recent designs seem to use them.
Posts: 607
Threads: 66
Joined: Jun 2013
They've been researched off and on for about half a century--same with scramjets, jetpacks, flying cars, post-Hindenburg advanced airships, and probably quite a few other things.
Posts: 268
Threads: 19
Joined: Mar 2013
Evidence separates truth from fiction.
Posts: 2
Threads: 0
Joined: Mar 2019
Every time they get built, they never get launched. NASA looked into them this century - as in the 2000s+ for one of their projects. ARCAspace says they've built one, had a series of videos leading up to the test/launch and then...took a break for a month, returned, and didn't act like anything happened, going back to their conventional nozzle rocket for a spell.
Maybe they're cursed by the ghost of Proxmire. They also seem complex; basically ten or so smaller thrusters in a parallel array - maybe the TurboPump problems come back in a sort of spectre? In any case, I hope they actually fly one day.
Posts: 16,235
Threads: 738
Joined: Sep 2012
Bumping this from a day ago.
