/sci/ - Science & Math

>>14602995
>>14602997
>>14603002
4/4

Here’s the Titan-Launched Big G. Note the date: 1969. This design seems slightly later than the Saturn-launched one. It’s reasonable to assume NASA ran the numbers and realized the Saturn-Launched Big G was too expensive to fly, or maybe it’s lifter was.
The Titan-Launched Big G was only 16 tons when fully loaded with its 2.5 tons of payload. 2.5 tons of payload is kind of bad - Dragon capsules carry more, and they’re much simpler vehicles. Apparently that service module only massed 7.5 tons. I guess that’s reasonable but it also has as much habitable volume as some space station modules so goddamn.

To conclude this, Big Gemini is an interesting road not traveled. NASA was dead set on using a spaceplane but the benefit of hindsight shows us that the shuttle was a mistake. Was Big Gemini the right course of action? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not.