 | STORM RIDER - Technical notes | |
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| Discuss this page! | Storm Rider - background information about a space ship in the Dragon Knights web comic |
The space elevator caused great uncertainty about the future of launch vehicals so, from the mid 21st century, few companies or governments were willing to invest in their development and few succeeded. The only reusable manned orbiter/re-entry vehical to be comercially successful in this period was the Storm Rider.
The "Storm Rider" has an unmanned second stage and a manned orbiter, both parts being reusable. Unlike the Space Shuttle of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, it's simply designed to transport personell and their luggage into orbit. It can take an eight-man crew into low eart orbit and a four-man crew to geosynchronous orbit (if fitted with solar sails or ion drive). It can also return an eight man crew to Earth.
Although designed so it could be launched by any heavy lifter first stage, in practice it was almost allways launched by the "Red Bishop".
