Reply To: General thought on old coal mines.

[QuantumDot]

well there are some technologies that can change a number of those figures.

the biggest new technology would be plasma aerodynamics would has in scale models reduced drag by 30 percent and reduced heating by 50 percent. the current major problem with it is the amount of power needed to operate it.

the heat shielding system i think is about 30 percent of the dry weight could be significantly reduced with a better reenter trajectory and with new technologies the mass could be significantly reduced even more with flexible aerogels, new ceramic blankets, phase change materials, the already described plasma aerodynamics, meta-materials, etc.

current hydraulic flight control systems take about 10 percent of the dry weight of the space shuttle, there are currently two real alternatives either ferromagnetic shape memory alloy or plasma based flow control.

then there is the basic structure and design which could be moved to a more blended wing body and the mass could be reduced with new technologies. no real facts here but 20 percent more room and 30 percent less mass seems possible.

a precooler system should be able to improve the performance the only question is the trade off between something like the system for skylon or a pulse tube cryogenic cooler.