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In the long run though, particularly with better orbital construction capacity, spaceplanes will replace nonreuseable BDBs for the vast majority of payloads.
I assume by "better orbital construction capacity" you don't mean taking the orbital equivalent of bricks and mortar from earth to LEO by spaceplane (a sort of Berlin airlift to LEO), but the evolution of space-based, or moon-based, or Mars-based, etc. mining and industries that can create the orbital equivalent of bricks and mortar up there?
Anyway, 1st stage BDBs like Sea Lions canbe made reuseable.
Nah, SeaDragon et al. are not suited to people or other "granular" payloads, and BDB will never be able to take advantage of the economies of scale that a SSTO/TSTO spaceplane could offer, if for no other reason than its extreme size... Which beyond a point, is a liability, not an advantage.
Oh come on GCN, are you just trying to pick an argument with me here? We've been through all this before.
To say SSTO/TSTO spaceplanes have the economies of scale advantage over BDB, you are kidding, aren't you?
You know as well as I that unless you can guarantee a huge demand for traffic, all day, every day, year in, year out, any SSTO/TSTO spaceplane system is a sure-fire way to throw away a very large fortune. When you can convincingly guarantee that sort of demand, I'll be the first to support the spaceplane concept. But until that wonderful day dawns, what you'll need are BDBs with the throw weight to deliver huge chunks to LEO. These chunks can be space stations, Mars expedition vehicles, SSPSs, or even Orion-style, nuclear-powered, real spaceships.
Now on these Orions, what I'm thinking of is, (a) it goes up to orbit uncrewed and unfuelled, and (b) I'd want a fusion pulse (more like Daedelus) propulsion system instead of throwing a-bombs out the back.
But generally, the way to create a demand that justifies your spaceplane or whatever is to build the infrastructure in space that will need it. And you do that with BDBs like Sea Dragon that can deliver the components that make up that infrastructure in suitably big chunks.
Sure, BDBs are unmanned, but what's needed to answer that need in the immediate future is not a spaceplane, but more like a revived Apollo capsule.
Nah, rockets and airplanes can do the job...
Airplanes? By definition, these are creatures of the air, not space. If airplanes, why not submarines?
But rockets can do the job for a long time to come. Think Sea Dragon or bigger, lifting 500 tons or more per launch.
Think Sea Dragon or bigger, launching Orion-class nuclear-powered space cruisers.
Perhaps, but I don't even want to think about how much trouble that would be... black holes will eventually run down too.
Of course. I said it would be a potential nearly-permanent gravity power source"
Afterthought.
In the special case of a spinning black hole, you have a potential nearly-permanent gravity power source, if you know what to do and are very careful not to fall in.
Bah you know what I mean, you can't make a gravity-powerd perpetual motion machine
As you will have seen, I agree 100%
Could a gravity wheel be this easy?
Nope.
It pains me to say this, as these people seem to come from Scotland, but what they are proposing is one of the classical forms of that grand old fallacy, the perpetual motion machine.
I shall refrain from comment on Star Trek and/or Jesus Christ.
You can't use gravity to power anything, its against the laws of thermodynamics.
Darn! My plan to make electricity by building dams and letting the water fall down through turbines to make power (I thought of calling it "Hydro Power") won't work after all.
(Could somebody pass the bad news on to those good people who powered their mills and suchlike with water-wheels for centuries before the Industrial Revolution. please?)
Oh, the political spin happens again. Energia could be reactivated. I argue that reactivating Energia is easier than developing Magnum. Shuttle-C would be easiest, if managed properly.
Energia could be reactivated. The V-2 could be reactivated. The Hindenburg could be rebuilt.
Shuttle-C will take much longer, cost lots more, lift much less, and be unreliable. Like everything else to do with Shuttle, it is cursed.
Saturn would be easier to revive than Energia, as I said earlier. And we know Saturn works.
Red vs Green comes from KSR's novel
Sorry, I should have thought of that. And what does that make a Blue?
Scotland and France have been allies against England since 1295. This is known as 'the Auld Alliance' in Scots and 'la Vieille Alliance' in French. It is (or was) very close indeed. French and Scots are still automatically citizens of the other country when they go there. The personal guards of Jean d'Arc as France fought England were all Scots, and these soldiers went on to become the Garde Écossais, the fiercely loyal bodyguard of the French Kings until the French Revolution. One of Napoleon's Marshals was named Macdonald.
Even today, it lives on. On a couple of occassions when trying to swing business deals in France I have let it be known that I'm not Englsih but Scots, and the tension could be seen to fade away, the smiles appeared on the French faces facing me, and the deals were done. And when England is playing France at Rugby or Soccer, all Scotland will support France. Mind you all Scotland will support whoever is playing against England, still known as the Auld Enemy.
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Meanwhile, back at the ranch:
Objectively you have to acknowledge all bodies except Earth are 'just' bunches of rock, but it's the 'red' vs 'green' argument all over again...
I'm not sure what you mean here by 'red'. But certainly if extreme greens were to put a total lock in exploitation of the Solar System, then the prospects for the human race would be pretty hopeless.
To survive, we are going to have to exploit the Solar System sooner or later. But the worst possible damage we could do to the Solar System would be so minor, it would be practically invisible. People who do not appreciate the shear scale of the Solar System should go and study this before they criticise from a false basis.
For instance, the 'surface area' of the Solar System (if you could imagine it spread out as a plane from the sun to Pluto) is so vast that divided equally between every human on earth today, each of us would have about 60 times the entire surface of the earth to call our own.
Or contemplate the Big Red Spot on Jupiter -- a storm that has lasted for at least 400 years and is about five times bigger that the entire earth.
Humans polluting the Solar System? Ridiculous. We are just not anywhere nearly powerful enough.
...but the problem is with Nasa... not Shuttle itself so much.
Well yes, but it is the NASA problem, which has been with us for a while, that delivered the Shuttle, "USS Kludge"
NASA, I suggest, has been living off its Apollo reputation ever since Apollo 17 returned from the moon.
I have nothing but praise for the NASA that delivered on Kennedy's promised and landed men on the moon before the decade of the 60s was out. But the NASA of today is quite different. It has become fat and complacent and a serious drag on the whole manned space program. It is comfortably embedded with its iron triangle pals, and reverted to the traditional role of any public bureaucracy, which is to continue its own existence for its own sake. Meanwhile its iron triangle pals do what any private company is supposed to do, make money--and what a milch cow they have here; their pal NASA extracts billions every year from the government for them and awards cost-plus contracts that cannot fail to make nice juicy profits for acheiving very little.
Indeed, to call what we have today a 'space program' is a travesty.
The reason I believe NASA is probably beyond redemption as a driving force for a space program suited to the 21st Century is that it is stuffed full of people who were young and effective and enthusiastic back in the 1960, but now... well, let's just say, now they are not.
I'd be tempted to suggest shutting down NASA and starting again, but as a second best, I'd let JPL go away to be on their own, and take from NASA all responsibility for developing and running any sort of space transport system--meaning that any successor or successors to Shuttle are not specified or build or run by NASA but a private space transport company that is ultimately intended to operate at a profit.
Then if the US wants to mount a mission to Mars, say, it should ask for bids, not just to design and build the ships, but also to operate the mission, with the big profits coming in after going there and returning successfully. In other words, there is a real prospect of the bidding process helping drive down the cost... indeed if they could find the capital, the Mars Society (for instance) could form a company and make a bid themselves.
The Energia is not going to come back...
Yes, I came to that view myself a year or so ago after checking out all I could find out about Energia from Russian and other sources. I reluctantly came to the conclusion that you could say Energia almost didn't exist. Apart from one or two cobbled together to lauch a test payload and then an unmanned Buran, no Energia was ever brought near completion; it was always more of a paper study than a real live rocket. This vehicle, which has acquired near-mythical status among some is indeed just that today-- a myth. That's why I came to the conclusion that it would be much easier and better to revive Saturn. At least we know how to build one and we know it works, and as you say, all the facilities needed for Saturn are there at Cape Canaveral, 'borrowed' for now by Shuttle.
(BTW, the Russians did not have a VAB for asssembling Energia. Like all their other stacks they assembled it horizontally and rotated to vertical at the launch pad. Of course it was not fuelled until vertical, but still...)
...do the Europeans have the money to do the huge amount of enegineering involved?
Yes, the EU has the money. It has a GDP roughly equal to the US. The problem is persuading them to part with enough of it, but I think there is the same problem in the US regarding PlanBush, no?
The premise behind the shuttle is wrong it is not the Orbiter we need to reuse but the launch systems. But that can be fixed.
The most useful service Shuttle can do now for the space program is to serve as an Awful Warning.
I just found out that there is already an euro version of a Mars human mission. Look for the Aurora programme on esa's website.
Yes, information on Aurora is available http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Aurora/SEMX … .html]here
ME: England is not my nation. Wherever did you get that notion from?
YOU: Your profile.
Just because I live there doesn't make it "my country".
I'm Scottish, if you want to know. There is no deeper insult than calling a Scotsman an Englishman.
Of course England is full of Scots running the place for them(*). We look upon this as missionary work.
(*) Tony Blair is Scottish, for a start.
The shuttle is not cursed, Its designed wrong, and is very very inefficient and been the subject of make work programs.
If it's designed wrong, is very very inefficient, and has been the subject of make-work programs, then it's cursed.
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then it's a duck.
Found this link and posted it in "The Myth of Heavy Lift" but then decided it deserves its own thread.
I agree. Here's what I posted to Myth of Heavy Lift on this earlier:
The Shuttle or anything derived from it is cursed. The design and execution is fundamentally flawed. And it's not just Shuttle that's cursed, any project built and run by the iron triangle of NASA and its cost-plus pals Boeing and Lockheed Martin is going to cost the earth by the time it gets finished--if it ever gets finished. Why? Because they have zero interest in doing things the cheap way. Why should they? If you get paid on a cost-plus basis, the more it ends up costing the more profit you make--and with public and politicians trained to believe and accept that space is extremely, extortionately expensive, why dissolution them?
What's to be done to overcome this monopoly (and it is an effective monopoly in the US) that amounts to a total roadblock on real progress in space? The answer--the only answer I can see-- is have space move forward somewhere else, enough to frighten the US out of its complacent slumber withe the iron triangle. Today there is only one organisation that has both the knowledge and the money to do this, and that's ESA. (Especially if it can bring in the Russians as 'honorary members', which takes care of getting people up and down from orbit.)
Therefore yes, I'm extremely interested in Mars Society Deutschland's plan to use a European Very Heavy Launcher (which could lift more to LEO than Shuttle C, BTW) derived from Adriane 5 as the basis of a Zubrin-style expedition to Mars. It does not seem to depend on American technology for any of its major components, so if it happened it would break the Iron Triangle's monopolist grip on space by providing serious competition from a non-American yet western organization. (Rather like Boeing and Airbus, if you like.) To get the best results, competition is a necessity. If you don't believe that, you were probably on the wrong side during the Cold War.
The Solar System looks trashed out now? I completely disagree. It's beautiful.
I agree it's beautiful... beautiful trash heaps, you might say--"Mangnificent desolation." Because whatever you may think, that's what it is today. The entire collection of objects orbiting the sun, from speck of dust to Jupiter itself, consists of the detritus left over after the formation of the sun itself. Any other interpretation is self-delusional.
Another common self-delusion is that we, as a species, are powerful enough to make any significant impact on that in the forseeable future.
And since India is your nation's (England) old colony...
England is not my nation. Wherever did you get that notion from?
Will the Solar System look like one huge trashed-out BLIGHT in 2000 years? I sure hope NOT.
Look around the Solar System today. It looks like it's trashed-out right now. That's the natural condition of the universe, you know.
If there was a thermonuclear war on the moon tomorrow, once the dust settled it would only look different from now in so far there would be some new craters to add to the enormous existing collection already there.
Us humans can really only make the Solar System better. I know that's not PC, but it just happens to be true.
He said he visualised in 2050 an Indo-US team establishing a habitat on Mars
One must eat, so this sounds like a wonderful idea.
Is it too early to place my order?
I'd like mulugatawny soup, chicken tikka dubiaza, chicken vindaloo, onion bhajee, special fried rice, pashori nan bread, and mango pickle. Oh-- and lots of ice cold beer to wash it all down.
Super-heavy Ariane, here.
We need a cheap heavy lift option the ESA Ariane 5 m has the problem that it is a lot more likely to fail, It carries less cargo to orbit and none of it is reusable and at 1.2 Billion Euros it and its development cost mean that the Shuttle C seems to be winning at the moment.
The Shuttle or anything derived from it is cursed. The design and execution is fundamentally flawed. And it's not just Shuttle that's cursed, any project built and run by the iron triangle of NASA and its cost-plus pals Boeing and Lockheed Martin is going to cost the earth by the time it gets finished--if it ever gets finished. Why? Because they have zero interest in doing things the cheap way. Why should they? If you get paid on a cost-plus basis, the more it ends up costing the more profit you make--and with public and politicians trained to believe and accept that space is extremely, extortionately expensive, why dissolution them?
What's to be done to overcome this monopoly (and it is an effective monopoly in the US) that amounts to a total roadblock on real progress in space? The answer--the only answer I can see-- is have space move forward somewhere else, enough to frighten the US out of its complacent slumber withe the iron triangle. Today there is only one organisation that has both the knowledge and the money to do this, and that's ESA. (Especially if it can bring in the Russians as 'honorary members', which takes care of getting people up and down from orbit.)
Therefore yes, I'm extremely interested in Mars Society Deutschland's plan to use a European Very Heavy Launcher (which could lift more to LEO than Shuttle C, BTW) derived from Adriane 5 as the basis of a Zubrin-style expedition to Mars. It does not seem to depend on American technology for any of its major components, so if it happened it would break the Iron Triangle's monopolist grip on space by providing serious competition from a non-American yet western organization. (Rather like Boeing and Airbus, if you like.) To get the best results, competition is a necessity. If you don't believe that, you were probably on the wrong side during the Cold War.
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You say none of this ESA vehicle is reusable but imply some of Shuttle C is.
Maybe, but it costs more to reuse the reusable bits than throwing them away would.
(1) It costs more to recover and refurbish a SRB than a new SRB costs.
(2) If Shuttle C is powered by SSMEs, the first question is why? How many little old ladies are you planning on hoisting to orbit on board Shuttle C? The second thing is that SSMEs cost about $55 million each, and you are bound to lose some. The third thing is that those you don't lose will require special, and heavy, re-entry shielding, parachutes, etc. The fourth thing is that each SSME requires to be effectively rebuilt after each flight, at very considerable expense. The fifth thing is there are better and cheaaper (cheaper than refurbishing SSMEs) conventional engines available off the shelf.
So, nothing of Shuttle C is truly worth recovering. And so by now it really is very unlike Shuttle indeed. I have always said that at this point in the space business, reusablity is a snare and delusion, at best no more than extremely expensive pandering to fashion.
Good news if true. There are plans for an ET derived SSTO. With three RS-68s and 20tons of cargo it would have a deltaV of approaching 9,000mps - which should be enough to reach orbit. At $10M/engine and a rather generous $30M for the tank, you get a a launch cost of $3000/kg, which compares quite favorably with many US launchers in that weight class.
Bad news even if true.
Fully fuelled, the ET mass is 1,655,000 lbs; the RS-68 mass is 14,560 lbs, so three weigh in at 43,680; 20 tons of payload is 40,000 lbs of course; then allow 80,000 lbs for thrust platform engines/OT, structural stenthening of ET to take thrust and loadbearing, payload shroud and platform, turbopumps, piping, telemetry and control systems, etc., etc. So gross vehicle mass at launch is 1,818,660 --- say 1,820,000 lbs. RS-68 100% thrust at sea level is 650,000 lbf, so three deliver 1,950,000 lbf. Thus the thrust to weight ratio of vehicle at launch would be 107%.
Your vehicle is going to spend so much time (and propellant) fighting gravity as it struggles for maybe a minute or so just to clear the launch tower as it accelerates at a snail-like 2 feet 3 inches per sec/sec, it's never going to come close to making it into orbit.
Now why do you suppose the Shuttle has SRBs?
YOU: SSO isn't designed to be a rocket though.
ME: Really? That'll be news for the designers.
Oh how we laugh. Such clever word play. How easily you twist my word rocket (as in launch vehicle) to rocket (as in any vehicle powered by a rocket engine)
Eh? This is just balderdash. A rocket is a rocket.
WHAT
"...completely different meaning I obviously never intended."
??
You said SpaceshipOne was not a rocket. I said it was.
And what do you know, glory be, it is and always had been a rocket.
If you think it is 'clever word play' to state the obvious plainly and simply, then I fear you are utterly beyond reasoning with.
You know, I looked at your supposed refutations of GNRevenger's list of reasons why small payloads joined together in orbit was a bad idea and saw that every single one of your answers did not stand up. Then I came to your list of so-called advantages and saw that not one of them held water either.
I considered refuting every one of your 'refutations' and 'advantages' item by item but then thought, to what end? Virtually everyone else will have seen through your specious arguments in any case, leaving just yourself to convince--but you are too thick. So why bother?
Since you're so keen on building things up from small pieces, why don't you just go off and play with your Lego?
(And all without any clever word play, although some words are longer than one syllable. Sorry about that.)
SSO isn't designed to be a rocket though.
Really? That'll be news for the designers.
Development costs for a orbital vehicle with tens of times the power of a little reuseable suborbital vehicle would be astronomical...
I think you underestimate here.
For example, I reckon that once you subtract the 'boost' given to SpacehipOne by its piggyback ride, the deltaV that comes from its own rocket is somewhere about 700m/sec. Realistically, the deltaV required for LEO insertion is about 8000m/sec.
Rule-of-thumb One, the energy required goes up with the square of the deltaV, so an 'orbital' SpacehipOne would need to pack about 130 times the punch.
Rule-of-thumb Two, the development cost goes up with the cube of the deltaV, so an 'orbital' SpacehipOne would cost about 1,482 times the cost of SpacehipOne.
We're told SpacehipOne cost about $20 million. On that basis, an orbital big brother would cost about $29.6 billion.
(This is very broadbrush. A detailed estimate may differ by several $ billion. But it gives you the general idea.)
JimM, I'm full of surprises.
What you're full of is not surprises.
This logical trap of yours is imaginary.
You're in it, imaginary or not, and still digging. Advice to those in holes like you're in is, stop digging.
Cheap tricks, I've seen them before.
I bet you have; they seem to be your stock in trade.
So when do you want to actually defend your idea?
The idea of opening a bank requires no defence in moral terms. There may be technical arguments this way or that, but that seems outside your area of interest.
...try to denigrate my point based on the assumption that since I hide my financial details from you, I have no leg to stand on?
Here you make it all so clear: I'm not trying to denigrate your point--you abolished your entire argument yourself by your answer. You just don't have the wit to see this yet, apparently.