Armadillo Aerospace Big thrust gains

I am a big Armadillo fan, but I have a problem with this landing plan. I believe (from what I've read here and on armadillos site) that the biggest reason Armadillo abandoned the parachute landing was the potential it presented for drift, and how this made it more dificult to get a launch license. I am no rocket scientist, but I am pretty sure that what they are proposing is nearly impossible, and is entirely impossible (with any degree of safety) with the ship they are building. If I am wrong please explain how they could do it. I have a number of concernes the not the least of which is the scalablitiy of their tanks. If ONE of the ships comes in balistic the whole contest is over and the feds will once again have a hammer lock on the space industry.

Are you saying that a vertical powered landing is not practical? Because that concept has already been proven, both by Armadillo's earlier vehicles and by the famous DC-X project of the early 1990s. Or are you referring to some other aspect of the Armadillo design?

I'm saying it is not economical and it's dangerous. The DC-X Burned. When you have to take into account the extra fuel load and the mechanics required to restart and/or continually run your engine the complexity of the system increases exponentialy as does the cost. It seems to me that this may put the target out of reach. An example would be the tanks. When you consider the increased amount of fuel you will need to have and the size of the tank to carry it in and the additional stress caused by the weight you are talking about a whole new level of engineering and a materials list that would bankrupt a small nation. This is what killed the DCX and The Roton. And then there is safety. Comming in hot, with a fuel load is dangerous. I am an Armadillo fan and supporter, but to me it looks like the Feds have backed them into a corner with their licensing requirements that there is no easy way out of.

@kwhawk, As a programmer and I studied at school industrial elecitricity, also got mechanics... I see it as a very very good solution and the fuel is neither expensive and the extra fuel storage (weight) isn't a problem.

I don't see any problem and even if it isn't used world wide or wouldn't be proven successfull, then it doesn't say, it can't be succesfull, I think this system will be a large succes

I don't think this is more dangerous then any other space vehicle with humens, I don't think this will be "not economical", I think it's a perfect, not too expensive, even more cheap working system.

kwhawk, I agree with you. Totally. Armadillo has spiralled upwards in complexity, weight and cost at alarming rate lately.

As an engineer, the system seems complex way past reasonable.

Well (developmnet/research)cost isn't a real problem for john.
Weight.. will need better engines.. (and some other changes) but I think their engines can handle it.
Complexity.. they may need more time, invest more into it... but knowing john his previous work (in programming etc) he really loves to invest time in difficult problems and he kinda always beated it and made it work

So the real question for me is, is it possible ? will it work ? I think both answers are yes it is possible, it will work.
How long they will need before success ? it may take a while... but scaled will win anyway before john his team, so I think they will invest more time in making it better, instead of "as fast as possible".
And if it fails... they can always go back to use the other system.

yea, i haven't followed armadillo as much as i probably should, but it seems to me that their design is very solid and very much made as a commercial vehicle rather than simply a research tool or as something that can fly at most twice in two weeks. obviously this means that their design is much more complex and challenging than it needs to be but i don't think they expect to win (not that they're not trying), rather i think they want to use it as a tourist ship that they can launch at least once a day and land with precision. if they're really ambitious they might try to scale up the design once more after the x-prize vehicle is done and add some manuvering thrusters to make an orbital ship. because they plan to do powered landings it seems like reentry heat might not be as large of a problem due to the fact that they could deaccelerate some in space before going back into the atmosphere. obviously all of this is just speculation but who knows, they might actually do it.