I would like to say thank you Mr. Schnitt for this column. It is
very
informative and inspiring. It also unfortunately shows how the
government
and people can negatively react when someone starts "rocking the boat".
How does Robert Truex's Sea Dragon concept fall into the history of
MCD?
Thank you, Scott Pearson
- Scott Pearson
Scott Pearson: This is in reply to your comment and
question......Your
comment is gratifying and very much appreciated.......With respect to
your
question, sometime in the 60s I learned of Robert Truax and that he was
thinking along the the same lines as the MCD criteria. At that time he
was head of advanced planning (if my memory serves me correctly) at
Aerojet
General. I invited myself to visit with him and learned what he had
done
experimentally and his views toward design. He was using some of the
concepts
upon which the MCD criteria is based. We had several subsequent visits.
As I stated in the Aerospace report, “Proposed Minimum Cost Space
Launch
Vehicle System,” p. 3-17, I considered the first stage of an advanced
version
of the MCD/SLV to be sea recoverable, as “suggested by the ‘Sea Dragon’
study (Ref. (5).” The reference describes some of Truax’s work. I am
still
a proponent of the cost-effectiveness of this approach and I hope that
some organization makes use of his knowledge and experience.
- Artthur Schnitt
- Consultant