During the 1960s, some of the first concept designs for this kind of craft began to emerge. One of the earliest SSTO concepts was the expendable One stage Orbital Space Truck (OOST) proposed by Philip Bono, an engineer for Douglas Aircraft Company.
A reusable version named ROOST was also proposed. Another early SSTO concept was a reusable launch vehicle named NEXUS which was proposed by Krafft Arnold Ehricke in the early 1960s.
Careful studies have shown that some dense fuels (for example liquid propane) exceed the performance of hydrogen fuel when used in an SSTO launch vehicle by 10% for the same dry weight. In the 1960s Philip Bono investigated single-stage, VTVL tripropellant rockets, and showed that it could improve payload size by around 30%. Operational experience with the DC-X experimental rocket has caused a number of SSTO advocates to reconsider hydrogen as a satisfactory fuel.
The Apollo Lunar Module ascended from the lunar surface to lunar orbit in a single stage. A detailed study into SSTO vehicles was prepared by Chrysler Corporation's Space Division in 1970–1971 under NASA contract NAS8-26341.
Star-raker would have had 3 x LOX/LH2 rocket engines (based on the SSME) + 10 x turboramjets. Around 1985 the NASP project was intended to launch a scramjet vehicle into orbit, but funding was stopped and the project cancelled.
He proposed a vehicle which would burn [fuel] while in the atmosphere and then switch to [fuel] for increasing efficiency once in space. Further examples of Bono's early concepts (prior to the 1990s) which were never constructed include: ROMBUS (Reusable Orbital Module, Booster, and Utility Shuttle), another design from Philip Bono.
Neither of these were built, but the project was taken over by NASA in 1995, and they built the DC-XA, an upgraded one-third scale prototype.
The project has not been continued since. ===Roton=== From 1999 to 2001 Rotary Rocket attempted to build a SSTO vehicle called the Roton.
The project has not been continued since. ===Roton=== From 1999 to 2001 Rotary Rocket attempted to build a SSTO vehicle called the Roton.
The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2004, . ==References== ==External links== A Single-Stage-to-Orbit Thought Experiment Why are launch costs so high?, an analysis of space launch costs, with a section critiquing SSTO The Cold Equations Of Spaceflight A critique of SSTO by Jeffrey F.
In November 2012, it was announced that a key test of the engine precooler had been successfully completed, and that ESA had verified the precooler's design.
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