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Spin it up to orbital speeds. You can orbit a black hole just like you can orbit a sun. Keep well back.
CaLV nneds to be pushed up. Later administrations may be hostile, unless VSE has the foce of law givin it to make it immune to later changes. Perhaps a bill could be passed to make NASA cuts require 100% votes from both houses, with NASA increases needing only 50% of the vote of either house and needed no Presidential signature.
The NASA Protection Act of 2006 we could call it.
Might be a good SE add on 100-200 yrs out.
I like the concept of Big Pressure feds. To me, a gradual increase in the size of launch vehicles needs to be given the force of law. First CaLV (no Stick), and later something like Sea Dragon for massive logistic transport.
I wonder if Musk (if he could get some others to help) could obtain plans for the Saturn IB. It used a cluster of Redstones of about the same size as the current Falson, and would actually be tiny compared to the Stick and carry about as much. But the rumor has it he is already rolling metal on Falcoln V/IX.
As for the article--no...I didn't write it. But I agree with it 99%.
Thinking about the various "jet plane carries rocket to edge of space" schemes - how about using a giant jet-powered hang-glider to get the rocket off the ground?
How about we just build a bigger rocket? A wider core is mostly empty space. You are only using a bit more metal for a 10 meter core than an 8 meter core. Enough with wings for now.
Valid points. Multiple medium launches get you ISS assembly delays, and you spend more on engines and upper stages in the long run. With CaLV you reduce assembly time and have a good Mars ship. What is more, larger boosters allow for larger automated probes. IIRC the Mars science craft will need an aeroshell wider than CEV.
The days of playing with Delta II toys should be over.
Time for a step up.
Olympus smiles upon the R-7
Sometimes I wonder if everybody in Goddard was required to read the Unabomber Manifesto.
..Speaking of unreasonable however, I am not knee-jerk against Bell's solution to the "problem," which is to skip the CLV and use two less expensive down-rated CaLVs instead. This would be acceptable to me, particularly since it would give us a launcher the right size for Mars later.
Well put.
At least he didn't attack Griffin or NASA like Forrest Gump. I think that trying to find a use for CaLV outside of NASA is a noble goal. It is easier for a space start up to build a payload for a craft than it is to build an LV after all.
I am very glad that the Air Force is actually helping the cause of spaceflight for once.
I guess things are better now that Jumper is gone.
That is the same propellant load that the Beal Booster was to use.
It just seems to me that we have more than enough ~20 ton+ boosters out there.
We have Delta IB 'heavy' , we had Titan IV. They have the new Long March, Ariane 5, Proton. Even India is shooting for this class rocket with the new GSLV concept (over a www.bautforum.com)
Enough with this class rocket already. There is a glut. CaLV needs to get built as soon as possible. A wider core now means that if it is stretched at some later point--you will at last have a good Mars ship.
If the pointy heads and the white coats like Wes Huntress and Louis Friedman would go away.
Rumor has it that both Delta IV and Atlas V production will be all in Decatur Alabama. If Atlas V comes here, it might be great for jobs.
But the 1989 F-4 Huntsville tornado and the recent twister this year seen moving towards Redstone before passing aloft like the Guin AL twister of 1974 might give them pause.
One bad storm, and we lose both EELVs.
I might drop the Ares Magnum name and call it Saturn VI to get more support.
All these Rube Goldber LACE sytems give you is complexity and headaches. All in a vain attempt to lower oxidant weight which isn't a big deal. Just make a big simple rocket and be done with it.
This is all far future talk. The ablative nozzle concept might be good for NSWR systems, that would be more energetic.
Time to stick with CaLV and Chemical systems.
All this anti-matter talk sounds like some back door attempt to keep the white coats in labs and to sabotage the infrastructure of VSE.
"Well, if we cut VSE and got rid of Griffin, look what we could do>"
I've had enough of spacecraft on screens and simulations.
It's time to bend metal.
I would love to place a very wide copper coil around that or a magnetar for a super generator.
Maybe if the canned the stick and went with two CaLVs. That may cost more over time--but if CaLV is built first--you get the hardest part done and you can build stick later.
The best way to get space paid for is to quit playing house on Devon island--and save the money wasted there on hookers and private eyes to entrap senators.
Fund CaLV or your wife gets the pictures.
H-2B will be an R-7 class rocket if that. With payloads getting larger, R-7 is almost being considered a small LV--what with the new Alpha bus coming on.
I don't like it when people compare computing advances with rocketry.
Rocketry is about big infrastructure--raw power, etc. This is very blue-collar work that the Soviets mastered with Lycurgus' currency of iron.
Many computer-types are pie in the sky libertarians who simply don't understand big infrastructure or big science.
Space launch is more TVA than MSN--and will remain so for some time.
Falcon wasn't the only loss from human error. LockMart guys knocked a weathersat on the floor and one of the Arianes went up because a workman left a rag inside some engine plumbing IIRC.
Crap happens.