Low-cost-reusable vehicle design-FICTION *2* - last topic got borked

Josh Cryer · 2004-05-01 15:52:14

http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2403]Here is the original topic.

JimM wrote last (that could be recovered):

A "railroad to space" when you get your train back (and to the station to boot!) would be pretty nice for getting lots of people and stuff into orbit; it worked pretty well here on Earth for the American development of the West.
-- Because a transcontinental railroad was the sine qua non of 19th Century western development does not automatically make spaceplanes the sine qua no of 21st Century space development. I would expect spaceplanes, VTOL SSTO vehicles, or whatever to develop naturally to fill an existing market need when that market has been developed by other means.
-- It would be… no, it has been extremely foolish of us to hang the entire future of manned space on the performance of marginal “reusable” semi-spaceplane that has effectively to be refurbished after each mission. I hope we are all agreed that the Shutle has been an abortion that has only one clear achievement under its belt— the stalling of manned space for about a quarter of a century.
I disagree that space ships are "not aircraft" or whatnot, they very much are, the gravity & atmosphere of the Earth, …
-- That’s like saying an aircraft is an automobile because it spends part of its life traveling along a paved surface that resembles a road; or an ocean-going surface ship is an aircraft because most of it travels through the atmosphere, not the ocean.
… you aren't going to launch fifty 5MT satelites to GEO on a Sea Dragon
-- Why ever not? Sea Dragon puts the 50 in LEO, which are then launched on their transfer orbits to GEO one at a time so as to match their station at GEO. It’s simply an extension of the existing method used to launch two separate GEO-bound satellites launched by one booster such as Ariane V. It’s quite easy, actually, and happens all the time.
… and what if you only need to move 200MT?
-- Two possibilities present themselves.
-- First, wait until other payloads come along to take the total manifest up to 500 tons. This would be the cheapest option.
-- Second, pay a surcharge to cover the cost of the missing payload so your 200 tons can be launched right away. This would obviously cost more than the first possibility, but is still much cheaper than any available alternative. (Actually, it would alway be a good idea to bring the payload mass up to 500 tons with water. Water will be in perpetual short supply and highly saleable up there in LEO, I'm sure.)
-- Of course, if the only alternative was Shuttle, say, the 200 ton payload would have tp be broken down into Shuttle-digestible chunks—seven trips, perhaps? Then if it was a spaceplane, none of which seem to be able to handle payloads exceeding 10 tons, that would mean at least 20 trips. And of course TRC’s DH-1, with its itsy-bitsy 5,000lb payload, would need to make 80+ trips. (And you could be 300 tons of water down. What do you bet you could sell that water up there for enough to offset the cost of launching your own 200 ton payload. Effectively, FREE to LEO!)
-- Then you’d have to add on all the additional trips needed to get the assembly crew up, provide them with living accommodation up there, rotate them up and down (doubling the number of trips by Shuttle, etc. would be a reasonable guess) Of course none of these extra trips are needed with BDB … Sorry, one big lift wins by a mile, even if the launch vehicle was half empty.
More routine flights …
-- Until there is enough demand, what for?
… with smaller vehicles is a requirement for this sort of travel …
-- Given that BDB is unmanned, a small man-rated vehicle and launch system is indeed what is needed.
… nor is using a capsule + parachute route good enough either for people...
-- Why not? As a crew recovery system, it’s got a better safety record than Shuttle.
… the vehicle has to return to a launch site in essentially flyable shape quickly and reliably with short turn- arounds for large scale manned flight…
-- What large-scale manned space flight is there going to be until BDBs put the infrastructure in place up there on the first place?
… and not all payloads are big.
-- So they go onto the manifest for the next available BDBs ‘common carrier’ bus. (It’ll be so cheap it should capture just about all the existing launch market and create an even bigger one by virtue of its cheapness.)
2: Will never be routine enough...
-- That’s the point of BDB. It isn’t routine! It’s launched when it’s needed, not according to a schedule like an airliner.
when considering large spans of time with lots of available business, the development cost becomes much less relivent versus operational costs,
-- Only if you have the traffic. Shuttle proved you can’t count on the traffic just turning up. My point now is that there never will be the traffic until you build the space infrastructure, and that’s where you need the BDBs. Trying to build the infrastructure in penny pieces is just ludicrous. If you doubt this, look at the farce which is ISS.
… launching of large expendable vehicles will always be a signifigant undertaking that cannot be simplified as much as a good RLV could on a per-flight basis …
In fact I don’t see why not. A real BDB like Sea Dragon would be vastly simpler vehicle (that’s what the ‘D’ stands for) than any conceivable spaceplane; so it’s far less likely to go wrong.
, if for no other reason that RLVs are smaller and you must build a new vehicle for each flight.
So the RLV will be so few in number you’ll never get the economies of large scale production runs; it’ll be like each one is hand-built cost-wise. Meanwhile the ELVs will get these economies from larger production runs, and anyway it’s a much simpler vehicle to build.
I also think that because of all the stuff that is needed for a large launcher, that it will probably never be able to trump a true RLV fleet in operations:
-Saturn V/Sea Dragon/EELV/etc... Large assembly structure because of the volume of fuel required for weight efficency. Large roll-out vehicle or ship, launch table, and careful allignment thereof. Often requires a large launch skyscraper really and definatly a large assembly building. (Shuttle also requires all these things, which makes me deem it not an RLV.) In order to increase launch rate, many of these facilities will have to be duplicated and operated in parallel.
-- Sea Dragon would be built in a shipyard and launched from the sea, not unlike a underwater-launched missile, except it would launch from the surface, so none of this new support stuff would be needed. Saturn-V would take back the VAB and Pad 39. It’s all there waiting, once Shuttle gets kicked off the site.
RLVs can scale in parallel easier than ELVs, so in the long run they can be cheaper per-pound than even the biggest of ELVs.
-- True in principle but pointless in practice, because the Business Will Not Come. Instead it will just turn out to be a second fabulously expensive failure, like Shuttle—and this time, it would killed manned spaceflight for good. Unless, of course, BDB’s enable the space infrastructure to be built first.
If you can make a space RLV able to carry 20MT a flight 100 times a year, then Sea Dragon would be competitive... but if you had twenty such vehicles or whatnot, then Sea Dragon or whatever megarocket wouldn't be able to keep up.
-- Again, this scenario is based on the better mousetrap fallacy. The cargoes did not turn up for Shuttle and they will not turn up for your RLV until there is somewhere to deliver them to. For that, your RLV will have to wait until BDB has enabled such places to be created.
I'm also dubious of any ocean-recovery mechanism in general...
-- Sea Dragon’s recoverable First Stage, I remind you, is basically a sturdy pressure vessel built in a shipyard. It is not a series of relatively flimsy rings held together by O-rings, etc. Anyway, recovering Stage One is not essential for Sea Dragon viability.

ANTIcarrot. · 2004-05-01 16:37:04

I think the intervening chapters (since April 18th) have laid many of JimM's points to rest.

*Even at twice the unit price there would be buyers.
*Even if several times the shuttle's launch cost/kilo a reasonable manned space programme could be sustained for a mere few hundred million dollars a year.
*Unlike big dumb rockets, the DH-1 can be launched by anyone who can buy one and lay claim to a few square miles of open space.
*Once flights/year and the number of DH-1s in operation reaches a critical value, prices could drop below values offered by any BDB option.

ANTIcarrot.

GCNRevenger · 2004-05-01 21:08:59

Unfortunatly, the DH-1 cannot launch sufficent masses. You simply cannot do anything 5,000lbs pounds at a time, not even launch satellites to GEO. Definatly nothing manned. No. No there would be no buyers.

Using SeaDragon for common launches is like driving a supertanker to the corner market, but thats beside the point... i'm thinking down-the-road, when TSTO is easy for medium loads and SSTO for lighter ones, when its time to DEVELOP space... when you need airliner easy access to space. Dozens of vehicles with decade service lives, operated in parallel from airports with nothing more than cryogenic fuel plants. The whole vehicle goes up and comes back down, inspected/integrated, refueled, and thats it... Easily able to blow SeaDragon "out of water" pounds for dollars.

Thats not to say that a large launcher wouldn't have its uses even with a 30-40MT weekly RLV, quite a few things will be easier to make and launch than it will build even with advanced robotics technology and such, but the economics of a giant mega rocket for general purpose travel aren't there versus a well built RLV. And dropping an oil tanker out of the sky into the ocean a thousand miles from shorre and hoping its okay isn't an RLV.

Capsule style flight is a nonstarter for airliner like access to orbit as well... there ain't gonna be no Pan Am space capsules, thats for sure.

Rxke · 2004-05-02 00:26:25

Unfortunatly, the DH-1 cannot launch sufficent masses. You simply cannot do anything 5,000lbs pounds at a time, not even launch satellites to GEO. Definatly nothing manned. No. No there would be no buyers.

as i understand the series, DH-1's payload is 5000lbs PLUS an astronaut, so it's actually more than 5000... see: http://www.hobbyspace.com/AAdmin/archiv … ml]Chapter 5: Small payload, small market, but not a toy and your assessment that 5000lbs is insufficient is right for space-launch capabilities/operations as we know them of today, but a DH type of vehicule would schange that... For the price of, say 1Bil, you'd have a spacecraft, and money to do *a lot* of 'fooling around' missions in LEO, you could build a kick-stage (also discussed in the series) or a semi-autonomous platform that collect the 5000lbs pieces to build bigger stuff...
DH-1 would be the perfect 'toy' for private enterprizes, doing small-scale manned tourist-stuff, servicing bigger sats etc... Creating a market for bigger RLV's, that would otherwise not be feasible (no maket initially)

A heavy launcher could be used to haul bigger pieces in orbit, for a 'full capabilities' station, interplanetary craft etc... and being served cheaply by DH-1's in LEO, lowering the operational cost tremendeously.

250mil for a reusable manned launcher? There would be customers for sure, even if the extra payload would be 50lbs...

GCNRevenger · 2004-05-02 09:59:01

No no... the "pilot" on the DH-1 stays with the first stage if memory serves; the DH-1 is not a manned space vehicle! And 5,000lbs far too low to do anything with... thats the way it is. An economical and safe vehicle able to carry 3-4 people into orbit and back should weigh no less than 20,000 pounds... the ultralight nonreuseable cramped Soyuz-TMA weighs in at 16,000lbs! And what do you need a man for? All modern space vehicles are automated entirely except for Shuttle's landing phase (which doesn't need people either really).

And this notion of using it for supply or for rendevous with a "platform" or somthing... rubbish. There is no last-mile guidence on the DH-1, no docking hardware, and worst of all very little payload volume. The Progress-B vehicle, which weighs about the same as Soyuz-TMA loaded can only carry 2.5MT to an ISS orbit and is too small to accomodate ISS racks, the DH-1 couldn't even cary a single ton... And about "bringing little bites of stuff to a platform:" uh, no. Again, no last mile guidence, and frankly 5,000lbs is still not enough, it can't even launch a decent satelite to LEO.

And this notion of "piddling around in LEO?" One word: Iridium. There is no market for dozens of launches of 5,000lbs apiece to LEO. There isn't any market for 5,000lb shots to GEO even... today, the cost of launch versus making and operating a satelite is actually fairly small, if LEO was a useful orbit, then customers would be flying there on expendables already.

And as far as it being "reuseable," well, it isn't... there is no way to retrieve the upper stage. Ain't gonna happen. So you are left with a less-than-half reuseable rocket, payload faring included, and that will absolutely kill its price-per-pound and flight rate over the long haul.

The DH-1 is a horrible idea as a practical vehicle, it would need to be tripple or quadruple that size and be an SSTO before it could do these things... Customers that can afford teeny-weenie launches just aren't going to cough up the cash to make DH-1 profitable.

ANTIcarrot. · 2004-05-02 10:35:14

Capsule style flight is a nonstarter for airliner like access to orbit as well... there ain't gonna be no Pan Am space capsules, thats for sure.

I don't se Pan Am offering 747 flights to orbit either. (Or see them offering them across the atlantic for that matter. If there's one thing we should learn from the shuttle it's that trying to cover wings with a thermal protection system is giving yourself problems you don't need. The thermal protection for a capsule though is simple and offers the minimum TPS area/mass for any given ship-size.

The Rocket Company explains this. It also explains that *both* stages are manned. I'd also like to see proof that you can't do anything useful in space with two metric tons. And personally I wouldn't call 1100cf (equal to a 3m cube) cramped.

Maybe you should have another look at that link. In the meantime put this hat on and go stand in the corner...

ANTIcarrot.

GCNRevenger · 2004-05-02 10:46:39

Actually Shuttle proves that it can be done, and there aren't going to be giant tripple-decker capsules on a HLLV with dozens of seats and football-field sized parachutes... no no, you aren't ever going to fly bulk passengers in a capsule. The whole thing MUST return to the launch site in flyable shape, which a capsule cannot, and not expose the passengers to a 4-G plunge on return.

Oh the upper stage is manned too? That makes it even more silly... About 5,000lbs being not enough, most launchers right now are launching much bigger payloads, Zenit-III SeaLaunch can push 12,000lbs to GTO. If such small masses that DH-1 could move (roughly 2,000lbs to GTO), then why aren't launch customers already using smaller rockets? Launch costs aren't a huge factor in total satelite costs... No, a measly one ton makes no sense, that would limit you to around 500kg of actual mass to GEO.

ANTIcarrot. · 2004-05-02 11:52:38

The shuttle proves it can be done at huge cost in terms of man-hours and money. And why not have giant capsules? With that scale the square-cube rule would make parachutes impractical, but other things like jet engines and retro-rockets would become practical.

The DH-1 does return in a flyable state. It needs to be inspected, serviced, reloaded, remounted on top of the first stage and refueled. But that's basically what you do to a 747 on the tarmac. The process may take days instead of hours, but for a first of type vehicle, that's hardly a crippling feature.

Would you say that Stephen's Rocket wasn't a proper engine because it had to be cleaned daily? Or because it had limited capacity when compaired to the runner-up?

And I'm sorry, but you're just plain 'Earth is really flat' wrong about launch costs not affecting satellite prices. The reason satellites are so expensive is that launch costs mean they can't be fixed if they go wrong, so they have to work perfectly the first time. They are therefore complex and expensive. It's a feedback loop. Launching parts and assembling/testing in orbit before gently sending them to GEO would be easier and cheeper.

You also seem unreasonably certian the DH1 has no docking capacity. You've seen technical blueprints perhaps? May I point out the chapters up till now (2/5/04) have been about the prototypes vehicles and their fundimental problems. There could and probably is space in the nose for a docking system. Remember, a *docking* system doesn't have to be complex, as opposed to a docking/airlock combination. The DH-1 is supposed to be depressurised for deployment. The logical way to transfer cargo from ship to station is to use a mechanical arm to reach inside the DH-1's open hatch.

If you want soyuz style dockings, I'm sure the main hatch could be replaced with an airlock and the required docking aids. There'd be plenty of remaining volume and weight for several passengers and a small amount of cargo.

ANTIcarrot.

RobS · 2004-05-02 23:55:04

GCNRevenger, I am curious: what aerospace credentials do you have? You speak with such authority, it seems you must have some.

As for the primary author of *The Rocket Company* he is not inexperienced:

"Patrick J. G. Stiennon (rockets@machinepatents.com) is a patent attorney in a small firm in Madison, Wisconsin. Trained as a mining engineer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he was attending law school when he moved to California to work for Gary Hudson at GCH Inc. in 1981. After graduating from law school in 1982 he wrote a business plan for a low-cost two-stage pressure-fed vehicle.

"In 1983 he went to work for Lockheed Missiles Systems Division in Sunnyvale, CA, managing subcontracts for Reentry Systems, as part of the D5 Fleet Ballistic Missile Systems. In 1985 he transferred within Lockheed to the Advanced Development Division where he worked with Max Hunter on the design of the X-Rocket, and also worked with Max Hunter on “The Figure of Merit Study”, which analyzed the limitations of air breathing vehicles. In 1988 he again transferred within Lockheed back to the Missile Systems Division, where he worked on a program to develop a launch vehicle based on existing Fleet Ballistic Missile Assets.

"Leaving Lockheed in 1989 he again worked for Gary Hudson as Manager, Vehicle Systems, at Pacific American Launch Systems Inc. where he oversaw the design of the Liberty-X, a single stage expendable launch vehicle. In 1996 he was granted patent 5,568,901 to a Two Stage Launch Vehicle and Launch Trajectory Method, which is now owned by Kistler Aerospace. He was also Rotary Rocket's outside Patent Counsel."

Of course, credentials do not in themselves guarantee a sound argument. But neither do mere assertions like "this is silly" or "this won't work."

-- RobS

GCNRevenger · 2004-05-03 18:26:56

The primary author created (obviously) a work of fiction... and if he believes his work to be a practical concept for a commertial launcher, then I think he is not grounded in the reality of the situation...

First off, its economics, not rocket science.

If it were practical to launch very small payloads on small rockets to only LEO then companies would be doing it already! No useful payloads in the 5,000lbs region to LEO exsist. Its cheaper to build one big satelite and put it in GEO than a host of little ones in LEO by avoiding duplicity of hardware, not because of this stuff about "feedback loop" or whatnot. You would need many multiple satelites to serve a region from LEO, each one with engines, power controllers, computers, etc... or just one big satelite to GEO. Ion tugs would also need docking hardware and such, so would a secondary GTO kick stage, and would be expensive and risky from an invesment point of view. Its easier just to buy a Soyuz or a Zenit-IIISL and shoot it directly.

Going from a few million a shot for a expendable to under a million on DH-1 is not such a big difference for a multimillion dollar satelite. A tiny RLV wouldn't suddenly open any "floodgate of business" to support its >$Bn development program. Even if you could lift the whole payload to GEO with the DH-1, there still wouldn't be any business because there aren't that many satelites to launch to justify the RLV. Satelites are expensive; you aren't going to make one in your garage, and launch costs are not the problem which makes them so.

And this idea of "docking" and mating GTO boosters in orbit and such... the docking port and gear (not airlock) on Soyuz weighs well over a hundred kilos, like the one built for the aborted Russian moon flights... the OMS fuel several hundred more. Engines? A few more there. Batteries, gotta have those for orbital chase rendevous. Life support too. Larger vehicle dimensions. There goes your 5,000lbs

The DH-1 IS a toy. It would need to be quadruple the size before it would be competitive, and I am very unconvinced that the upper stage can be so easily retrieved... heat shield, parachutes, deorbit motor... these things add up, especially when they need a high level of reliability since you can't go losing those stages often. If it were that easy, somebody would have done it already.

The fact that the stages are manned makes no sense... why in heavens name would the author want to put people on a cheap satelite launcher? Thats silly... you don't need people to fly a rocket, computers are much better at it, and it would eat up a ton or three of useful payload mass. If the author is serious about making the vehicle, and putting a man in the upper stage, then he better stick to writing fiction cause' I sure won't take him seriously.

The X-Prize again... what have they accomplished? Even the best of them, which have actually created hardware, have no hope of launching anything bigger than lunch boxes to orbit. There exsists a large gulf of performance between SO and LEO flight, which none of these dreamers will be able to convince investors or customers that they can cross this gulf of capability, and do it profitably... They a joy rides, rollercoasters for the rich, not space vehicles.

Edit: Bill's got me thinking about figures... lets say you can build three DH-1 prototypes and fly them 50 times a year at the mythical $100/lb. That seems a nice round figure to launch all the satellites concieveable plus some touristy missions with a varient upper stage. Thats only $75M a year in revenue, and would take you like 20 years to make any money with a reasonably low interest rate.

RobS · 2004-05-03 21:54:04

Well, thank you for not answering my question.

-- RobS

GCNRevenger · 2004-05-03 21:56:46

More on giant capsules - why not:

Parachutes are out, that much is a given, for a large passenger-carrying megacapsule. Using active propulsion to slow down will require additional engines, since you aren't going to use the ones from the booster, and fuel to power them. You have to get a large vehicle and its passengers from the supersonic region down to the ground for a soft landing. Thats really heavy for a large capsule, which kills the weight advantage of the capsule... Ain't gonna happen.

Then you have the dynamics of it... a ballistic capsule, coming down through Earth's atmosphere from LEO orbital velocities, will nessesarrily expose the contents to a 4-5G+ load depending on weight and heat shield area. This isn't acceptable for John Doe space travelers, and cannot be avoided without making design comprimises.

And what are you going to fly this big capsule on? An expendable rocket? As we have already established, this is unacceptable economically... you can't go throwing away rocket engines and flight hardware on every flight. Processing such a large capsule would also be quite hard.

Shuttle if you will note was designed along USAF needs for a high crossrange vehicle. Capsules have essentially zero, so they have no margin for error and no "circle round to landing" capacity either. That said, Shuttle has too much crossrange; it has this because of the small surface area of its underside, so it doesn't lose momentum as readily, and since it is so heavy and has a small area, silica tiles are needed due to the heating. Its not mass, its not area, its mass per area.

Now, a vehicle somewhere inbetween... lift body or wide delta wings... has a fundimentally lower mass per heat-shield area than Shuttle, and so less heating overall. So, you can use METAL heat tiles and ceramics, which have improved with the advent of aluminum foam and advanced ceramic mixtures... No flimsy glass tiles, and meets a more reasonable re-entry dynamic for plane-jane astronauts.

Bill White · 2004-05-03 22:01:36

Check out the prices on a recent launch of a Proton K.

http://www.ilslaunch.com/proton/0proton … /0protonk/

http://newsfromrussia.com/science/2004/ … 53647.html

= = =

The 2nd link says 600 million rubles at 29 rubles to the dollar.

More or less $20 million US dollars if my mental math is right.

19,760 kg to LEO for $20 million, right?

I will edit if I am wrong.

GCNRevenger · 2004-05-03 22:05:26

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to critique one... I am working on my PhD in chemistry and two years of economics under my belt if you insist on being high-and-mighty about it...

Either he wrote Rocket Company as a quasiplausable fiction about average-joe getting into orbit, or if he is serious then I can't figure out why a level-headed engineering type would propose such a collection of common-sense contradictions and "Alt-Space Bubble" business models as the DH-1.

Edit: Kistler Aerospace, the people who were working on the rocket that most resembles the DH-1... filed for bankruptsy

ANTIcarrot. · 2004-05-04 06:03:31

GCN, you do not seem to have read the Rocket Company. If you want to prove the DH-1 wouldn't work, then do just that: Prove it. But remember, 'I say so' does not count as proof. Cite paragraphs from that publication, or external sources please.

-----

Bill White,

Numbers sound right. However Russia isn't getting any poorer, and those rockets are made in the high-tech equivolent of sweat-shops. As russian living standards and wages go up, so will the price of those rockets. Not sure what the time-frame of this will be though.

-----

DH-1 comparisons:
At $100/lb 19760kg would cost $4.3M. Since a DH-1 flyer would want to only marginally undercut the competition, they'd launch it for ~$18M and pocket the $11.7M as profit.

Refueling the DH-1 in orbit requires 81,000lb of LH&LO, which would cost $8M assuming no losses. Call it $10M with. You then have an OTV capable of 7.5Kmps delta-V. That's more than enough to go to GSO and back again. Link two together and for the cost of $20M you can take ~15MT to GSO quite happily. In theory similar numbers could go to luna or mars.

I'm rather dubious when it comes to some of the numbers the example mars mission but they do kinda make sense if you assume more than one ship will be going.

ANTIcarrot.

Bill White · 2004-05-04 06:51:47

DH-1 comparisons:
At $100/lb 19760kg would cost $4.3M. Since a DH-1 flyer would want to only marginally undercut the competition, they'd launch it for ~$18M and pocket the $11.7M as profit.

Isn't the DH-1 payload about 5000 pounds? 19760 kg would require eight flights of DH-1. To even match you need to fly at $2.5 million per lfight.

Next, DH-1s are cheap to make, right? Otherwise capital costs blow your profit out the window.

Team A undercuts by 10% then Team B builds the EH-1 knockoff and undercuts by 20% then Team C builds the EH-2 modified knockoff and undercuts by 30% and then you end up with the modern airline industry where NO ONE makes any money. The competitors of course are really flying your base DH-1, just charging less. Think American Airlines and Southwest Airlines.

The bankers see this of course and guess what? Kistler is in bankruptcy court.

= = =

5000 pounds to LEO, right? At $100 per pound gross income would be $500,000 per flight. How the hell will DH-1 ever make money with gross revenues of $500,000 per flight?

At $1000 per pound gross revenue would be $5,000,000 per flight but $1000 per pound exists today and there is NO DEMAND, very, very few payloads worth flying.

= = =

Sweatshop labor? Hehe!

Tell that to the textile workers of North Carolina or the IT guys outsourced to Dehli.

The logic of globalization says one thing. Buy Russian, or Ukrainian.

= = =

PS - Whether DH-1 is even technically feasible is a question I cannot answer, not being a rocket scientist, yet lots of smart people say no. Okay so lets invest $1 billion in a technically suspect project with NO possible profit scenario.

Cool!

Rxke · 2004-05-04 07:15:33

Their profitability plan is simple: sell em off at 250mil apiec, for that price you get a manned reusable launcher, with a 5000lbs *extra* payload. If they succeed to sell 8 the first year, 10 2nd, 12 3rd... they make a profit.

A manned vehicule for that price will be irresistable for many countries, even some private people (Bill can buy tens of 'em)

*they* don't care how much people will ask, launch-wise, not their problem, let the buyers work it out... Surely it'll be a lot less than 20mil for a joyride, a launch costing 1mil (IIRC) NOT using them makes them more expensive, (10 mil to keep 'em qervicable a year...) so the more they launch the better, but then again... launch exactly what?

ANTIcarrot. · 2004-05-04 07:48:18

So the more they launch the better, but then again... launch exactly what?

Yes, well... That's the two hundred and fifty hundred million dollar question. Initially payloads would be people, small experiments, micro-sats, fuel, and parts/supplies for a mini-station. (Mir size, not ISS.)

What the DH-1 could do though is rapidly increase space flight man-hours. Ir would also offer many nations the security of being able to build and launch a satellite within the borders of thier own country. Or to perform MOL style recon missions.

ANTIcarrot.

Bill White · 2004-05-04 08:00:36

Their profitability plan is simple: sell em off at 250mil apiec, for that price you get a manned reusable launcher, with a 5000lbs *extra* payload. If they succeed to sell 8 the first year, 10 2nd, 12 3rd... they make a profit.
A manned vehicule for that price will be irresistable for many countries, even some private people (Bill can buy tens of 'em)
*they* don't care how much people will ask, launch-wise, not their problem, let the buyers work it out... Surely it'll be a lot less than 20mil for a joyride, a launch costing 1mil (IIRC) NOT using them makes them more expensive, (10 mil to keep 'em qervicable a year...) so the more they launch the better, but then again... launch exactly what?

Rxke - believe me I would love for this to happen. Not that I could afford to buy one. . .

???

Yet the point of my other thread is that the United States government simply cannot allow "many countries" let alone private individuals to buy cheap off the shelf Earth to LEO launch capability.

Think Iran and North Korea and Osama bin Laden.

Edit to add:

5000 pounds of fuel air explosive (a "conventional" weapon) would wreak unbelievable havoc in the center courtyard at the Pentagon.

ANTIcarrot. · 2004-05-04 08:21:34

One of the lessons of 911 is that terrorists can be very clever about using commonally available technology and seem to avoid the high-tech stuff. When they used an 'FAE' bomb to attack an American embassy, it wasn't russian army surplus, but a normal fuel tanker with a conventional bomb as detonator. Want a remote detonator? Use a freshly stolen mobile and a $5 electronics kit.

Up till now they've tended to avoid methods that are complex or materials that are difficult to access. I don't see them using a DH-1 type vehicle as a suicide space-truck when there are so many more lower-risk and more 'profitable' things they could do.

In an case the DH-1 would be easier to spot and track than an ICBM, and is designed to slow down during re-entry, making it easy to shoot down at fighter-altitude.

The concerns and possible solutions are discussed in chapter 23:
http://www.hobbyspace.com/AAdmin/archiv … ...e2.html

ANTIcarrot.

GCNRevenger · 2004-05-04 09:02:05

Right on Bill... Oh and didn't that page from the RC quote a per-launch cost of $250,000? Hey, there goes half your revenue just to make the thing fly.

"DH-1 comparisons:
At $100/lb 19760kg would cost $4.3M. Since a DH-1 flyer would want to only marginally undercut the competition, they'd launch it for ~$18M and pocket the $11.7M as profit.

Refueling the DH-1 in orbit requires 81,000lb of LH&LO, which would cost $8M assuming no losses. Call it $10M with. You then have an OTV capable of 7.5Kmps delta-V. That's more than enough to go to GSO and back again. Link two together and for the cost of $20M you can take ~15MT to GSO quite happily. In theory similar numbers could go to luna or mars."

Which rocket at you referring to Anti? This isn't the DH-1... the DH-1 can lift a grand total of 2,250kg to orbit, not almost 20,000. In order to haul that much fuel, assuming a reasonable 25% tankage, plumbing, and boiloff penalty (since it will take time to launch that many tankers), that would require over twenty flawless flights. In order to just get to GEO and back.

Okay now lets say for a minute that you wanted to launch a two-ton satelite to GEO using DH-1 and a GTO kick stage... you will need one launch for the satelite, another launch for the kick stage proper and docking hardware to mate them (robot arm, radar, etc), and a third flight to bring up the fuel for it plus docking hardware to again mate to the assembled vehicle. Thats three flights, just for one dinky satelite thats under half the size of conventional ones. $300,000 x 3 puts you around $1,000,000 each of flight costs, and that doesn't count for the massive insurance you'd need for all those failures you'd undoubtably have with such a Rube-Goldberg aproach.

So assuming a cost of $500/lb for flight, and six missions to deliver the same mass to GEO as one Zenit, multiplied by 10 (a reasonable figure for number of satellites launched yearly today if costs were cheaper) leaves you only $60M in profit... that would hardly pay interest on the >$Bn development costs. Even at double the flight rate, a fantastic number, it would take over a decade before you could turn a profit of one red cent.

Kistler Aerospace is (or was) trying to do what the DH-1 could do, except that it had almost double the payload... They are $600,000,000 in the hole, their rocket - which uses Russian engines and alot of off-the-shelf hardware to minimize development costs... have nothing to show for it. No customers. No test flights. No heat shield. No launch tower. Only a half-finished rocket; the half thats easy to make.

The DH-1, which is far more complex with its cryogenic upper stage, wasted mass and complexity on a pilot, and best of all a tiny worthlessly small payload in a faring thats no bigger than a Soyuz capsule... Profitable? I think not.

Rxke · 2004-05-04 09:39:08

(ANTIcarrot:) Initially payloads would be people, small experiments, micro-sats, fuel, and parts/supplies for a mini-station. (Mir size, not ISS.)
What the DH-1 could do though is rapidly increase space flight man-hours. Ir would also offer many nations the security of being able to build and launch a satellite within the borders of thier own country. Or to perform MOL style recon missions.
......I don't see them using a DH-1 type vehicle as a suicide space-truck when there are so many more lower-risk and more 'profitable' things they could do.
In an case the DH-1 would be easier to spot and track than an ICBM, and is designed to slow down during re-entry,

Yay! At least someone's reading the stories thouroughly... And tries to be optimistic

(GCNRevenger:) So assuming a cost of $500/lb for flight, and six missions to deliver the same mass to GEO as one Zenit, multiplied by 10 (a reasonable figure for number of satellites launched yearly today if costs were cheaper) leaves you only $60M in profit... that would hardly pay interest on the >$Bn development costs. Even at double the flight rate, a fantastic number, it would take over a decade before you could turn a profit of one red cent.

But they intend *SELL* the craft for 250 mil, and make a profit that way (8 per year) They don't want to operate them theirselves...
Buyers launching according to your numbers, and making 60 mil profit per annum would make money too, then after a bit more than four years... And some of the DH-1's will be bought *not* for profit but for national prestige, research etc...

Rxke · 2004-05-04 09:57:07

Wildly offtopic: GCNRevenger: do you know what happened with SpaceDaily's messageboards? Looks like they went off-line without a trace...

Bill White · 2004-05-04 10:19:43

First, a comment on criticism.

There are two types of critics, one type who wants you to fail so they can laugh at how stupid you are and the other type who wants you to succeed but insists on pointing out as many objections as possible with the goal actually being to help you succeed.

My objective is to be the 2nd variety of critic. Fair enough?

= = =

From the story:

By the third year, Forsyth was counting on strong international pressure to make the vehicles available to any country that wasn't actually involved in hostilities or harboring terrorists. The technology incorporated in the vehicle was not particularly advanced, and it was - at least in theory - not beyond the capability of most European countries, China, or Russia. It would certainly be an expensive missile. At a cost of $250 million and a payload or throw-weight of 5000 lb, you could do a lot better by strapping together a few obsolete Korean missiles. As 9/11 had shown, are were few things more dangerous than fully fueled passenger jets, and yet those are routinely sold to practically every country in the world.

I disagree. Airliners travel slowly and no airliner that hasn't satisfied US security protocols isn't allowed within hundreds of miles of the United States. AirFrance and British Airways jets are returned to Europe on suspicion.

Once a DH-1 is o orbit, how to you stop a US overflights based on a suspicion?

A DH-1 on an approved trajectory over the contintental United States it could deploy a 5000 pound bomb to nearly any location giving less than 15 minutes warning to potential targets.

No boost phase intercept, no mid course intercept, the first warning would be the heat signature from an unauthorized re-entry burn. And that is for attacking ground target within the United States.

Visualize a loadout based on 450 pound air-to-air missiles.

Each DH-1 could carry 10 slender missiles wrapped in high tech heat shielding and with guidance systems programmed to lock onto airliner transponders or follow satellite guidance towards combat air patrols over a carrier battle group.

A DH-1 working hand in hand with a spy satellite could probably stick a 4000 pound bomb smack on the middle of a carrier flight deck patrolling off Taiwan.

3 DH-1s could send a volley of 30 missiles at any combat air patrol over a carrier battle group just before a land based air attack was initiated. Hit the AWACs on patrol with DH-1, then send in the fighter bombers

And the US Navy couldn't possibly know it wasn't tourists on their honeymoon until it saw the re-entry burn and radar revealed a 4500 pound object approaching at terminal velocity (or faster if rocket enhanced) or a volley of air-air missiles with satellite guidance locked onto the battle groups air cover.

Chinese DH-1s makes the defense of Taiwan far more dificult.

Combine a DH-1 with Magnetic Anomaly Detection and drop anti-submarine ordinance from LEO. A spy sat detects a submarine through MAD. A DH-1 is scrambled and drops anti-submarine ordinace from LEO.

A squadron of DH-1s could neutralize the airfields at Diego Garcia.

Bill White · 2004-05-04 10:21:37

If the US president is giving a speech in Grand Rapids Michigan, do we outlaw DH-1 overflights?

= = =

The more I think about it, the more I think DH-1s might make the US carrier battle groups quite vulnerable.

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