HOTOL: Britain's Spaceplane - Dan Sharp

The start of Space Shuttle operations in 1981 marked a new era in spaceflight – with the five orbiters launching numerous satellites, interplanetary probes and the Hubble Space Telescope. But Shuttle was only partially reusable, its external fuel tank being expendable and its solid rocket boosters having to be recovered from the ocean and refurbished. Putting a satellite into orbit using a rocket was even more wasteful – with boosters such as Ariane being one-shot only. The costs were literally... Zobrazit více