The NEXUS reusable rocket was a concept design created in the 1960s by a group at General Dynamics

General Dynamics

General Dynamics Corporation is a U.S. defense conglomerate formed by mergers and divestitures, and as of 2008 it is the fifth largest defense contractor in the world. Its headquarters are in West Falls Church , unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, in the Falls Church area.The company has...

 led by Krafft Arnold Ehricke

Krafft Arnold Ehricke

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. It was intended as the next leap beyond the Saturn V

Saturn V

The Saturn V was an American human-rated expendable rocket used by NASA's Apollo and Skylab programs from 1967 until 1973. A multistage liquid-fueled launch vehicle, NASA launched 13 Saturn Vs from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida with no loss of crew or payload...

, carrying up to eight times more payload. Several versions were designed, including 12,000 and 24,000 short ton vehicles with payloads of one thousand and two thousand short tons respectively. The larger version had a diameter of 202 feet (61.5 metres). It was never built.

External links

• SP-4221 The Space Shuttle Decision - Chapter 2
• Encyclopedia Astronautica - Nexus
• diagrams of NEXUS versions