Comment by supportengineer
5 days ago
A long time dream of rocket scientists is single-stage-to-orbit. Ideally you'd have a vehicle that takes off and lands like a conventional jet plane at a regular airport. I've always thought that perhaps AI and evolutionary algorithms might be able to navigate a way through the various tradeoffs and design constraints that have stopped us so far.
As an avid observer of rocket design, I suppose that hasn't happened because SSTO may not have any good solutions. I further suppose that the design parameters are so constrained there is very little opportunity for a generative or evolutionary, or any other AI-driven design approach, to do more than optimize some components.
SpaceX's solution with Starship definitely demonstrates how difficult a problem it is. Raptor are the best engines humanity has, all the landing hardware is part of the launch tower to save weight, and those seem to be table stakes. Stoke aerospace has a fantastically genius solution with their regeneratively cooled heatshield / expander cycle aerospike engine. It literally turns the energy you're trying to burn off during re-entry into delta-v in the opposing direction while reducing weight and complexity.
As a rocket scientist I assure you it's been tried