Philip Bono

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Philip Bono (? – 1993) was a Douglas Aircraft Company engineer. He was a pioneer of reusable vertical landing single-stage to orbit launch vehicles.

Bono pursued single-stage space launch as simpler and cheaper. He realized to do this he would need to use high specific impulse liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket engines. Afterwards he proposed to make these vehicles reusable. From his ROOST design onwards Bono advocated space launch vehicles without wings, usually using rocket assisted vertical takeoff and landing or VTVL. According to his estimates, wings consisted mostly of dead weight that decreased launch payload mass. He patented a reusable plug nozzle rocket engine which had dual use as a heat shield for atmospheric reentry. His early 1960s concepts influenced later designs like the 1990s Delta Clipper, also from Douglas.

Contents 1 Designs 2 Bibliography 3 Papers 4 Patents 5 Other sources

[edit] Designs

• One Stage Orbital Space Truck (OOST) ^[1]
• Recoverable One Stage Orbital Space Truck (ROOST) ^[2]
• Reusable Orbital Module, Booster, and Utility Shuttle (ROMBUS) ^[3]
• Ithacus ^[4]
• Pegasus ^[5]
• Hyperion
• SASSTO ^[6]

Hyperion was HTVL, the others VTVL.

[edit] Bibliography

Philip Bono & Kenneth William Gatland, Frontiers Of Space, ISBN 071373504X

[edit] Papers

• Bono, Philip; ROMBUS - An Integrated Systems Concept For A Reusable Orbital Module Booster And Utility Shuttle; AIAA-1963-271
• Bono, Philip and Goldbaum, George C.; "Ithacus" - A New Concept Of Inter-Continental Ballistic Transport (ICBT); AIAA-1964-280

[edit] Patents

[edit] Other sources