far have agreed that the development of appropriate launching technology is the major bar to their implementation. Both the USSR and the USA are aware of this limitation, but only the USSR appears to have the necessary long-term political will, coupled with the combination of a sympathetic cultural background and high technology. This makes the USSR the major driver of world space programmes at present in any case and will make it the major driver of space industrialization in the future. Fig. 8 gives a somewhat oversimplified statement of the case, but does convey the underlying mechanism. From open literature sources, particularly over the past three years [12], it has been apparent that the Soviets are developing a new transportation system based upon a core vehicle with strap-on boosters, designated as the SLW by the USA DoD. CST calculations using the DoD information show that this system of vehicles would be capable of orbiting between 165-280 tonnes, for 4 to 8 strap-on boosters, in a tandem staged version. (Fig. 9). (CST refers to these as the SLW (4), SLW (6) and SLW (8) respectively.) Further development of this system up to the acknowledged 500 tonne environmental limit could also be possible. One early payload (side-mounted) would be the USSR shuttle, which is rather similar in appearance to the USA one, but with a greater payload. However, the tandem staged vehicle with 6 strap-on boosters seems to
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