From a decade or two ago, my cobwebbed memories are that aerospike's advantage is that it's performance is far less atmosphere (or lack thereof) dependent. Where-as bell nozzles grow and shrink to tune the engine for certain specific altitudes, the aerospike theoretically was going to stay efficient across a huge range of altitudes.
From a decade or two ago, my cobwebbed memories are that aerospike's advantage is that it's performance is far less atmosphere (or lack thereof) dependent. Where-as bell nozzles grow and shrink to tune the engine for certain specific altitudes, the aerospike theoretically was going to stay efficient across a huge range of altitudes.