For any and all of the plans for moon or of mars they all boil back down to a small group of variables that defines the ship or ships that we will use to do each.

1 crew size
2 Habitat
3 duration
4 consumables
5 reusuability or expendable
6 cargo or equipment to do mission
7 where are we going
8 transfer points to change or assemble vehicles ( earth to LEO, LEO to lunar orbit, Lunar orbit to lunar surface)

Unfortunately the numbers are linked together some more tightly than others. Man can not survive if he does not have food, water, oxygen, fuel, and power sources.

Can one vehicle design do all or must we have different vehicles for all or could we plan for the future use that it may be put to in order to make a universal unit design in a Manned an unmaned version. A third version would be a leave in orbit unmanned cargo. Leave the basic shell all the same just strip out what is no needed for each version.

Make the Mars Lander and Earth re-entry vehicle one in the same, also reusuable. Make the unit a biconal design much like a stretch klipper but rather than wheels to land on a runway. Lets glide from orbit using the well known spiral method but finish it off with a banking to climb manuever, where at the top of the glide up the cone would release with drone parachutes openning for a verticle landing using the landing engine and legs much like on the lunar surface for both the Earth and for Mars future ships.

Design the ship fuel tanks for a single stage to orbit for mars since that would also be more than adequate for the lunar surface since both would be basically empty. Design the universal lander for a down mass size for the mars mission using the glide, parachute and verticle landing. Unit left in orbit could carry the needed fuel for Mars return, plus food and water.

What that means is the section left in orbit for the moon is smaller than that of the one for the Mars mission.

HI...WITH THE FLIGHT OF SPACESHIP ONE IN THE BOOKS.....WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF NASA TESTING A LARGE PROTOTYPE OF THE SPACEHIP ONES'S NITROUS OXIDE/RUBBER ENGINE FOR FUTURE MANNED BOOSTER ROCKETS FOR LOW EARTH ORBIT....SINCE THE ENGINE IS ALREADY MAN-RATED I DON'T THINK IT WOULD BE FARFETCHED TO THINK THAT NASA MAY EVALUATE THE SYSTEM..DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT THE THRUST PARAMETERS ARE COMPARED TO THE SPACE SHUTTLE SRBS POUND FOR POUND ?......JAKE

I don’t believe the idea of separating crew and cargo is intended to be taken so far as to launch crews separately from food, water and oxygen. That type “cargo” would always be launched with a crew, at least some quantities of each in any case.

However that does not preclude the separate launching of large quantities of water, food and oxygen (along with other consumables like medical supplies etc.) aboard a habitat module intended for docking with later. Such a module would be useful in extended stays in lunar orbit, transits to near Earth asteroids or even to Mars. With such large quantities of consumables required in these extended mission timelines launching them aboard a habitat following the cargo separated from cargo guidelines would make sense.

The basic premise of separating crew and cargo is, I believe, valid. Launching satellites from a crewed Space Shuttle has proven to be much more expensive than launching a satellite aboard an expendable booster. Likewise incorporating the ability to carry large and heavy cargo has imposed penalties on the ability of the Shuttle to safely deliver humans to and from orbit. In other words the compromises made in the attempt to develop a vehicle capable of all mission types has created a vehicle that is not 100% suitable for any of those mission types.

The CEV “system” (I look on the CEV or Constellation project as more than just one vehicle or one spacecraft) should, again in my opinion, concentrate on having a highly reliable and robust vehicle capable of delivering humans to Earth orbit and returning them safely as the first priority. The first “spiral” of development of such a vehicle would simply be capable of LEO operations, rendezvous and docking. With the addition of latter propulsion “blocks” (to use the Russian term) this vehicle would be capable of extending its operation to higher orbits and/or lunar orbits. Also adding habitat modules and vehicles cable of landing on the lunar surface would extend the primary manned vehicles capabilities. But these would be launched separately, or if a heavy launch vehicle were developed they would be stacked below the manned component so that the manned vehicle could be pulled away by an escape system if trouble develops during the launch phase.

Using this route of development, upgrading through spirals and separating crew and cargo the basic crewed vehicle is always maintained as a separate “entity” in which all manner of safety measures are taken so that it is rugged, redundant in all life support, navigation and propulsion systems and capable of returning it’s human cargo to Earth independently of any other modules used during a particular mission.

Jake: here is the numbers I can find on http://www.astronautix.com/

SpaceShipOne
Engine Thrust: 7,500 kgf. Main Engine Propellants: N2O/Solid. Main Engine Propellants: 2,400 kg. Spacecraft delta v: 1,700 m/s.

Shuttle SRB
Gross Mass: 589,670 kg. Empty Mass: 86,183 kg. Thrust (vac): 1,174,713 kgf. Isp: 269 sec. Burn time: 124 sec. Propellants: Solid Isp(sl): 237 sec. Diameter: 3.71 m. Span: 5.10 m. Length: 38.47 m

here is some other numbers from Astronautix for Spaceship one

Gross Mass: 3,600 kg. Empty Mass: 1,200 kg. Thrust (vac): 7,500 kgf. Isp: 250 sec. Burn time: 80 sec. Propellants: N2O/Solid Diameter: 1.52 m. Span: 5.00 m. Country: USA. No Engines: 1. SpaceDev Hybrid Status: In production. Comments: Wing area 15 sq m.

Which does match close to the numbers you have harold assuming the gross and empty mass does not include passengers. (The math is kinda too complex to get in here, I'm using chapter 8 of William Thomson's Introduction to space dynamics)

I'll figure out numbers to what would the SRB would be if we remove half of the Empty mass of Spaceshipone and scale it up to its size but with a higher ISP the SRBs are better thrust wise.

I decided to be a little conservitive when hacking of the wings and cockpit so i reduced empty weight by only 25%

The SRBs have a delta v: 3800 m/s massratio: 0.14 Thrust Ratio: 1.583

now if i adjust the burn time of the hybrid to match the srb i get
delta v: 2022 m/s
mass ratio: 0.27
thrust ratio: 1.46

even if i cut half the empty weight of SSO i get
delta v: 2725 m/s
mass ratio: 0.2
thrust ratio: 1.612

because of the low Specific Impulse you need to get the mass ratio down to at least 0.13 or so to get the delta v.

I still don't know the size of these boosters will need to be to match the SRB performance (actual thrust) As i only currently comfrotble in figuring out the Delta V.

Would also need the volume of fuel required for the flight if we had even the length of the rocket motor inself (including fuel tanks) we could approximate the size of the a hybrid booster

You can divide the types of cargo we need to lift to LEO into three broad categories, personell, equipment, and consumables. Personell is self-explanitory, the primary concern for a personell booster/vehicle is safety. A good example of a pure personell vehicle is the old Titan II booster/Gemini spacecraft combination. Personell acount for the smallest mass fraction of your lift needs to orbit.

Equipment is a pretty broad definition, it includes power systems, propellent tanks, rocket engines, habitat systems etc. The primary need of an equipment booster is adequate payload capacity to lift the equipment in one piece. A great example of an equipment mission is how the 77 ton Skylab was lifted to orbit by an unmanned Saturn V booster. Equipment accounts for a large fraction of the mass you need to lift to orbit.

Consumables includes air, food, water and rocket fuel/propellent. The primary need of a consumables booster is lowest cost per pound of payload to LEO. My favorite idea of a pure consumables lifter is the SHARP high velocity gun which is proposed to fire 5 ton rockets which would deliver 3.7 tons to orbit at a cost of only $250 per pound. Very high G forces don't matter if you are only launching consumables. Consumables account for the majority of the mass you need to lift to orbit, especially the rocket propellent for deep space manned exploration vehicles.

If you divide your lift requirements you can specialize your lifters to meet the primary needs of each type of cargo. The drawback, of course, is the need for orbital rendevous to mate the separate cargos for your mission. But it's pretty clear by now from our spacefaring experience you can't get away from orbital rendevous to complete even simple manned missions.

Because mistakes will happen with orbital rendevous a fourth type of vehicle will be required, an orbital tug to chase down and put into correct orbits those components which fly astray. An solar-electric rocket orbital tug would be ideal for correcting unmanned orbital rogues. A much more formidable rescue vehicle will be required for saving manned spacecraft in LEO. It would likely be an unmanned capsule launched from the ground which would either dock with the target enabling a crew transfer, or after docking boost the target into a correct orbit.