Black Horse (rocket)

The Black Horse was a study concept for a proposed winged

US Air Force Captain Mitchell Burnside Clapp, who was familiar with the Air Force's use of aerial refueling to extend the performance of combat aircraft. The concept was further developed by others, including a smaller concept developed by Robert Zubrin, named the Black Colt. Clapp left the Air Force in 1996 and partnered with Zubrin to form Pioneer Rocketplane

, who proposed a slightly larger version known as Pathfinder.

Black Horse Development

Clapp proposed Black Horse as a solution to the Air Force's ongoing TransAtmospheric Vehicle (TAV) mission. The concept was picked up by the

oxidizer. Other mixes considered, mostly for comparison purposes, were liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LOX), methane/LOX, and RP-1/LOX. Although the performance of the alternate fuels was higher, they all included at least one cryogenic component and were much less dense. Using peroxide had the additional advantage of cooling the combustion, which allowed the use of conventional JP-5 rather than the more expensive RP-1.^[1]

The study demonstrated that Black Horse would outperform any

hypersonic at Mach 5.5.^[1]

Black Colt

The concept was also picked up by Zubrin, who was then working at Martin Marietta, who carried out their own design series from January to May 1994. This developed the smaller Black Colt concept. Clapp and Zubrin later wrote an extensive article on the concepts in the June 1995 edition of Analog magazine.^[1] The Black Colt would take off with a tank of fuel, but load oxidizer while in the air. Zubrin considered the Black Colt to be a more feasible concept, as it would fly at a much lower speed.^[2]

Clapp partnered with Zubrin to form Pioneer Rocketplane, who proposed a slightly larger version known as Pathfinder.

Rocketplane XS

A similar launcher, Rocketplane XS, has been proposed by Rocketplane Global Inc.^[3]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Zubrin & Clapp 1995.
^ "Black Colt". www.astronautix.com. Archived from the original on 27 December 2016. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
^ "Rocketplane XS", Rocketplane Global Inc. web page.

Bibliography

Zubrin, Robert; Clapp, Mitchell (June 1995). "Black Horse: One Stop to Orbit". Analog. Archived from the original on 19 November 2001.

External links

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[FOOTNOTEZubrinClapp1995-1] Zubrin & Clapp 1995.

[2] "Black Colt". www.astronautix.com. Archived from the original on 27 December 2016. Retrieved 26 September 2021.

[3] "Rocketplane XS", Rocketplane Global Inc. web page.

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