User:Scribbleink/sandbox

= July 2015: Removed by copyedit =

Original source: Liquid fly-back booster

Early studies of liquid booster rockets were undertaken by Wernher von Braun in 1952. In his design, the first two stages were recovered with parachutes, while the third was a manned orbital vehicle. Early Space Shuttle designs (1960–1971) were also based on fully reusable piloted liquid rocket boosters. These were abandoned due to prohibitive costs, in favor of partially reusable Redesigned Solid Rocket Motors (RSRM). The Challenger disaster of 1986 rekindled interest in replacing solid rocket boosters with liquid ones, leading to the recommendation of the liquid fly-back booster as a key improvement to the Shuttle program. This initiated NASA's investigations into the LFBB in September 1994, culminating in the Rockwell (now Boeing) catamaran LFBB design of 1996–97.