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Shuttle SERV

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	Topics Shuttle SERV Topic Home Shuttle SERV was a concept that was never realized, put forward in 1971 by Chrysler Corporation, for NASANASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an agency of the United States Government, responsible for the nation'... 's Alternate Space Shuttle Concept program. SERV stands for Single-stage Earth-orbital Reusable Vehicle. For ascent via an integrated aerospike engineAerospike engine The aerospike engine is a type of rocket engine that maintains its efficiency across a wide range of altitudes through the u... , a manifoldManifold A manifold is an abstract mathematical space in which every point has a neighborhood which resembles Euclidean space, but in... with 12 turbopumpsTurbopump As the name suggests, a turbopump comprises basically two main components: a pump driven by a turbine, both mounted on the s... provided 120% of required capacity, to ensure online redundancy. The engine would provide 5,800,000 lbfPound-force A pound-force is a unit of force. One pound-force is the force equivalent to that exerted on a mass of one avoirdupois pound... (25.8 MNNewton The newton is the SI unit of force.... ) of thrust. Total vehicle mass would be 4,500,000 lbPound (mass) The pound is the name of a unit of mass in a number of different systems, including various systems of units of mass that f... (2,040 Mg) and place 52,800 kgKilogram The kilogram or kilogramme, is the SI base unit of mass.... (116,400 lb) in low Earth orbitLow Earth orbit A low Earth orbit is generally defined as an orbit within the locus extending from the Earths surface up to an altitude of ... . Descent engines consisted of 28 lift jets. Development time was 4 years and would cost approx US$3.5 billion and would include 3 test flight items. Production vehicles would cost $350 million. External links (PDF)