First things first: it confirms what we (and by "we" I mean @littlebluena who did all the digging) suspected: that CSS is indeed working with Titans in a consulting role. https://bizzinfohub.com/much-s...

It contains a lot of fluff we've all heard a million times about how truly commercial space can only be achieved by rapidly reusable vehicles, yadda yadda yadda.

I bring this up for two reasons: 1) because the document mentions it A LOT, and 2) because it's very interesting that the author of this document, who makes a big point of how much he dislikes SpaceX and thinks they're doing it all wrong, likes to repeat SpaceX talking points.

They're also planning two generations of spaceplanes: one that's literally just Star Raker as described in the original report (linked below), and a second generation with unspecified modifications. https://web.archive.org/web/20...

Titans handwaves the reentry issue, and includes no details on their thermal protection system. They address this by saying that Star Raker's report concluded that the high wing area would reduce thermal loading on the spacecraft.

While this is true, and the original report proposes a lighter TPS because of this, they do note that these low temperatures occur across 80-85% of the surface of the vehicle. Titans does not address this anywhere.

This is a good time to point out that this report is a mess. There's tons of grammar errors, some repeated sentences, and a few plain factual errors.

They spend a good amount of time ragging on how dangerous rocket propulsion is, and how doing a spaceplane solves this. This is fascinating because Star Raker also requires rocket propulsion and is thus susceptible to all these problems (see earlier thread on cargo cult design)

They also include a long block quote of CSS criticizing SpaceX's abort system, which is incredibly dumb on every level, but most notably in that it includes no criticism of Boeing's Starliner, which is later than Dragon and uses the same escape system.

Note here that they offer no details on their own abort systems, only criticizing Dragon's system and Starship's lack of one.

They then spend a long time dragging orbital refueling via rocket, and say that their spaceplane solves all of this because it operates like an airplane.

They include this table as evidence, again ignoring that about 82% of Star Raker's wet mass is taken up by fuel (assuming a due-east launch from KSC with max payload capacity), because it's much more similar to a rocket than a spaceplane.

And that's pretty much it. I'm cutting a lot of anti-Starship ramblings, because it's all just CSS' talking points repeated undigested even though they've all been debunked a million times.

Here's the link to Titans' report one more time: https://bizzinfohub.com/much-s...

And a link to a web archive of the original Star Raker report from the 70s that both Titans' document and this thread reference several times: https://web.archive.org/web/20...

update: @TitansBenefit, Titans' official account has blocked me.