The Bimese Concept: A Study of Mission and Economic Options
Author(s)
Tooley, Jeffrey
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Abstract
The ideal NASA space transportation system of the future consists of a fleet of low cost
vehicles that can provide a wide variety of payload options while leveraging future
commercial launch markets. The Bimese concept, a NASA Langley design for a reusable
Earth-to-orbit space transportation system, tries to fill this future by attempting to,
"provide the broadest range of payload and mission capabilities with the minimum
number of architectural developments (Talay)." Creating a vehicle that meets this
requirement can minimize development costs because the same vehicle design (and hence
the same development cost) can be used to support various missions. Such a
transportation system can also result in a more efficient operational and manufacturing
scenario by creating a learning curve effect on these processes. A vehicle that can
perform various missions also has the advantage of early initial operating capability
because it can be phased in over time with early missions consisting of the simplest
configurations. These characteristics of the Bimese space transportation system make it a
candidate for a future NASA supported launch vehicle. The intent of this paper is to
analyze the performance and economics of the Bimese space transportation system in
terms of trying to fulfill NASA’s ideal future
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Date
1999-08-01
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Text
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Masters Project
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