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As Robert Zubrin pointed out in "The Case for Mars", course corrections in the plane of rotation can be made by waiting until the hab is aligned with the direction of the correction then firing thrusters away from the center of rotation. That always pulls the spent stage, no tangential forces. The trick then is to align the plane of rotation with the spacecraft's plane of orbit about the sun. The Earth and Mars are both orbit in the plane of the ecliptic, so a transfer orbit will be in that same plane. Course corrections will also be in the same plane. Course corrections will also be in the same plane. Course corrections tend to be due to solar wind pushing the spacecraft, so that drift does not leave the plane.
Such alignment will be momentary so propulsive manoeuvres will have to be made with very short pulses - a very inefficient way to use fuel unless low thrust, low Isp thrusters are used.
Space shuttle RSC thrusters use N2O4/MMH for fuel, with Isp of 289 seconds. Arcjet thrusters use hydrazine monopropellant, with an electric arc to ignite it: 570 to 600 second Isp. That's considered a form of electric propulsion. Good enough?
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Space shuttle RSC thrusters use N2O4/MMH for fuel, with Isp of 289 seconds. Arcjet thrusters use hydrazine monopropellant, with an electric arc to ignite it: 570 to 600 second Isp. That's considered a form of electric propulsion. Good enough?
Nope. Thrusters are used for attitude control and steering not course corrections, they can't provide enough dV for a 50MT space ship.
[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond - triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space] #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps] - videos !!![/url]
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Space shuttle RSC thrusters use N2O4/MMH for fuel, with Isp of 289 seconds. Arcjet thrusters use hydrazine monopropellant, with an electric arc to ignite it: 570 to 600 second Isp. That's considered a form of electric propulsion. Good enough?
Nope. Thrusters are used for attitude control and steering not course corrections, they can't provide enough dV for a 50MT space ship.
OME is the Orbital Maneuvering Engine, that is the engine in each pod of the Orbital Maneuvering System on the space shuttle. It is specifically for course corrections of a 100 metric tonne spacecraft. It can insert the orbiter into orbit once it achieves the correct altitude, and de-orbit the spacecraft so it can fall back into the atmosphere. Two engines are used at once, one in each pod, each with 26.700 kN force. Wouldn't a single engine do for a 50 metric tonne Mars craft? Rather proven technology.
By the way, same technology as RCS thrusters, only bigger.
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That type of engine would have the thrust, but does it work in pulse mode? According to astronautix the typical burn time is a few minutes. Given that such a mission is many years in the future, there should be time to develop a suitable engine. This is just one problem that arises from a rotating spacecraft design, the key issue still remains - will it counter the effects of long duration spaceflight? The only way to answer this is by flight tests. A NEO mission of several months could be a good way to prove it out. If that works, a fast return mission to Phobos would remove the risk of the transit without the landing issues, as well as demonstrate spacecraft reliability.
[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond - triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space] #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps] - videos !!![/url]
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NASA’s Road Map Toward Possible Nuclear Rocket Flight Demo
With the capability of generating high thrust and 100% more specific impulse than the best chemical rockets, the time and cost-saving potential of nuclear thermal rockets (NTR) for deep-space missions is once again gaining interest at NASA. Although never flown, the NTR concept is relatively simple. The rocket engine is based around a nuclear fission reactor, which heats the liquid hydrogen (LH2) propellant instead of igniting combustible fuel
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi. … 015032.pdf
http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2012/07/09/na … al-rocket/
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That suggests to me that they have not been entertaining the notion of a chemical drive trip to asteroids or Mars, and might suggest why their hardware does not seem to be able to do anything useful. With a better propulsion unit, maybe it will make better sense.
I am starting to ask seriously "Why do I do this?"
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Mars Design Reference Architecture 5.0 (DRA5) which was released in 2009.Lunar COTS: An Economical and Sustainable Approach to Reaching Mars
Was reminded of this topic when I saw the sand chart on pg 3.
Much of this document talks about leveraging the insitu resourcess of going to the moon as the means to getting to mars.
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There's simply no funding available for DRA 5 to function as intended and the rocket that was going to lift these massive NTR stages to LEO does not exist. DRA 5 required Ares V. SLS is not Ares V. If NASA designed SLS the way they should have to begin with, namely using a 10M core for SLS and more powerful LOX/LH2 engines, then DRA 5 would have been workable, albeit extremely expensive.
If NASA is pinning their manned Mars exploration aspirations to solid core NTR's, we're done.
There is no part of the manned Mars exploration mission that can't be easily accomplished using SEP-CTV's and storable chemical propellant kick stages. I find the notion that we must start every mission in LEO because that's how it was done during the Apollo Program to be an absurd idea that completely ignores all technological advancement that occurred after that chapter of our manned space exploration program.
Quite frankly, the only real purpose I see for having SLS is lifting payloads to LEO that are dimensionally incompatible with commodity rockets like Falcon Heavy and Vulcan. The habitat modules are the only payloads that fit that description. Everything else can be launched aboard commodity rockets at greatly reduced cost. Mating chemical kick stages to payloads is hardly an impossible task. ISS was built using orbital assembly and any realistic manned Mars mission is going to use orbital assembly.
NASA has two propulsion development imperatives for manned exploration beyond LEO:
1. Develop a SEP-CTV to deliver heavy cargo to other planetary bodies
Solid fuel NTR's are not going to meaningfully improve cargo delivery capabilities per dollar expended towards that effort. We either go for the jugular of the Isp problem with nuclear thermal propulsion through development of gas core NTR's (GCNR's) or move on. Once your Isp is in the 3000s range, then delivery of heavy cargo using Hohmann transfer from LEO becomes possible.
2. Determine the feasibility of microwave cavity engines
President Obama gave NASA a mandate to develop better in-space propulsion technology. Apart from SEP, there is no other in-space propulsion technology in development capable of delivering the tonnage required for manned exploration. EM Drive is merely a SEP replacement that produces the same or slightly better thrust levels and removes the dependency on expensive inert gas propellants. Whether physicists understand microwave engines or not, this is the closest advanced propulsion technology to reality that we have right now.
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We are in agreement on the points you made on NTR and fancy engines not required. As well as SLS not being the rocket that is needed as designed as its not the capability that was needed for this mission design.
As it was we wasted money from 2004 through 2011 on constellation to these same rocket monopolies that are bloating the costs of even the current version of sls.
The Orion capsule could have been launch on something other than the Ares I (aka Da Stick) but that design which would have used the 2 unmanned rated RS68 was not to be with the regular 4 segment srb's. Which even after Nasa did do engine work to uprev the ability was also wasted. Much as the redesign of the J2 engine as well that is in mothballs.
When I look at the SLS its a 70 and 130 mT unmanned chunk lifter with no need any men on board...This is just for the large stuff which if we do not need all that much does not make sense to put all the cash into it, so since we have done so then we need to show how to use it to send up what needs to be done in large chunks. One could send all the machinery needed to lunar surface to build a base to be able to launch from the moon instead of from the earth's deep gravity well with the SLS fully packed.
At this point orion is only good for Lunar return and little of anything else. So launch a ton of then into lunar orbit to await for when we need one to return from there.
There are lots of things we can do but we should not keep a standing army employed to keep skills or the lines ready for production...that is the point of automated machinery and good programing....
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I can see the appeal of having a brute force solution to lift requirements when less capable solutions would significantly complicate the issue of getting all payload sub-assemblies to the required orbit. Even so, brute force should be used sparingly.
I also think any super heavy lift rocket that can't deliver at least 125t to LEO is simply a solution in search of a problem. Every trade study NASA conducted indicated that a 150t lift capability was required for manned Mars missions. Somehow we wound up with a rocket that's only capable of 95t to LEO and 115t to LEO with advanced solid boosters. With composite core stage tanks and composite solid rocket casings, we could potentially hit that 125t figure, but we're never going to hit 150t.
The liquid boosters require a redesign of the ground facilities and the composite casing solid boosters require a significant development and testing program. Either way, both solutions are incredibly expensive and only net a 30t to 40t improvement in lift capability at a cost that would far exceed any practical benefits. In other words, SLS was improperly designed because it can't provide the required lift capability without a re-development program.
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ITEM
DRA 5.0 Reference (kg)
Structure 2,020
Crew Accommodations 4,210
Environmental Control & Life Support 3,950
Thermal Management System 1,260
Power System 5,840
Avionics 290
EVA Systems 870
Mass Growth Allowance (30%) 4,920
Additional Spares 4,180
Crew 560
Total Transit Habitat Mass 28,100
Food (Return + Outbound Trip) 5,480
Food (Contingency) 7,600
Total Consumables Mass 13,080
TOTAL MASS IN LEO 41,340
Artificial Gravity at 8.2 m
Moon 0.16 7 rpm
Mars 0.38 12 rpm
Earth 1.00 18 rpm
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2010 NASA Human Space Exploration Development
bump just to add link
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Nuclear is the way to go or at least thats what the documents nasa are indicating and even in this one as well
Mission to Mars: How to get people there and back with Nuclear Energy
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Bump, for how nasa is still going down the road to mars with the SLS.
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NASA will never get there using SLS. At best, SLS will fly 2 or 3 times before being hopelessly outmoded.
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The long term goal to develope a rocket for man space access has gone on at to high of a cost already and it keeps going long after the expense was considered to high. There choice of contractors as well stinks at they always over charge to force costs to rise on everthing they do work for.
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Lets look at the document
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/file … 6-ADD2.pdf
table 1-1 page 30 number 5 at the bottom
6 crew with a 40t mars lander
4 crew with a 20t mars lander
first the smaller the crew is the harder to justify the large heavy pressurized rover unless we ditch the open rover and extra items that are hidden to support this function.
Also notice the habitat is nearly all of the landing capability by its self and for a small crew connect the tunnel to the rover and use that as the spreading out space to help keep peace of mind...
There also seems to be an error in the ISRU Plant only needed 1 versus 2 for the 6 to 4 crew are reversed...
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The plan may finally have the piece that has been missing.
Ultra Safe Nuclear Technologies delivers advanced Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Design to NASA
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NASA thinks US needs nuclear-powered spacecraft to stay ahead of China
This is classic NASA saying we can no do it with what we have.
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The quick flight to mars requires This nuclear-powered rocket could get humans to Mars in less than 2 months]
NASA and the former Soviet space program spent decades researching nuclear propulsion during the Space Race. A few years ago, NASA reignited its nuclear program for the purpose of developing bimodal nuclear propulsion — a two-part system consisting of an NTP and NEP element — that could enable transits to Mars in 100 days. As part of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program for 2023, NASA selected a nuclear concept for Phase I development. This new class of bimodal nuclear propulsion system uses a “wave rotor topping cycle” and could reduce transit times to Mars to just 45 days.
The proposal, titled “Bimodal NTP/NEP with a Wave Rotor Topping Cycle,” was put forward by Ryan Gosse, the Hypersonics Program Area Lead at the University of Florida and a member of the Florida Applied Research in Engineering (FLARE) team. Gosse’s proposal is one of 14 selected by the NAIC this year for Phase I development, which includes a $12,500 grant to assist in maturing the technology and methods involved. Other proposals included innovative sensors, instruments, manufacturing techniques, power systems, and more.
How it works — Nuclear propulsion essentially comes down to two concepts, both of which rely on technologies that have been thoroughly tested and validated. For Nuclear-Thermal Propulsion (NTP), the cycle consists of a nuclear reactor heating liquid hydrogen (LH2) propellant, turning it into ionized hydrogen gas (plasma) that is then channeled through nozzles to generate thrust. Several attempts have been made to build a test this propulsion system, including Project Rover, a collaborative effort between the U.S. Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) that launched in 1955.
While NEP concepts are distinguished for providing more than 10,000 seconds of Isp, meaning they can maintain thrust for close to three hours, the thrust level is quite low compared to conventional rockets and NTP. The need for an electric power source, says Gosse, also raises the issue of heat rejection in space — where thermal energy conversion is 30 to 40 percent under ideal circumstances. And while NTP NERVA designs are the preferred method for crewed missions to Mars and beyond, this method also has issues providing adequate initial and final mass fractions for high delta-v missions.
This is why proposals that include both propulsion methods (bimodal) are favored, as they would combine the advantages of both. Gosse’s proposal calls for a bimodal design based on a solid core NERVA reactor that would provide a specific impulse (Isp) of 900 seconds, twice the current performance of chemical rockets. Gosse proposed cycle also includes a pressure wave supercharger — or Wave Rotor — a technology used in internal combustion engines that harnesses the pressure waves produced by reactions to compress intake air.
When paired with an NTP engine, the Wave Rotor would use pressure created by the reactor’s heating of the LH2 fuel to compress the reaction mass further. As Gosse promises, this will deliver thrust levels comparable to that of a NERVA-class NTP concept but with an Isp of 1400-2000 seconds. When paired with a NEP cycle, said Gosse, thrust levels are enhanced even further:
In addition to propulsion, there are proposals for new reactor designs that would provide a steady power supply for long-duration surface missions where solar and wind power are not always available. Examples include NASA’s Kilopower Reactor Using Sterling Technology (KRUSTY) and the hybrid fission/fusion reactor selected for Phase I development by NASA’s NAIC 2023 selection. These and other nuclear applications could someday enable crewed missions to Mars and other locations in deep space, perhaps sooner than we think!
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Lockheed Takes the Lead in the Race for a Nuclear Spaceship
The U.S. military likes nuclear power -- and I mean, it really likes nuclear power.
Powered by highly enriched uranium nuclear reactors, U.S. Navy submarines and aircraft carriers can operate for as long as 30 years before needing to add fuel.
Several months ago, if you recall, I wrote about the DRACO spaceship that NASA and DARPA -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- were building. For $499 million, Lockheed Martin would build a small craft to test nuclear-powered spaceflight in Earth orbit, and its partner BWX Technologies (NYSE: BWXT) would build a high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) nuclear engine and provide the fuel to power it.
The DRACO project is expected to launch in late 2025 or early 2026 and begin testing in 2027. Before this project has even gotten off the ground, however, it turns out that Lockheed is already working on another nuclear spaceship project.
Dubbed the Joint Emergent Technology Supplying On-orbit Nuclear Power -- "JETSON" -- project, this is a relatively small bet on nuclear power's potential in space. In total, AFRL is doling out only $60 million -- $33.7 million for Lockheed, and a bit less than that split between Intuitive Machines and Westinghouse.
In June of last year, if you recall, NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy awarded a total of $15 million to these same three companies (plus a few other partners working with them) to draw up plans for a 40-kilowatt mini nuclear power plant. As the government explained at the time, that would be enough electricity to power about 30 average American homes...or one lunar outpost, once Project Artemis gets around to building one on the moon.
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Note that the same Lockheed-Martin has been talking about an SR-72 sine the mid-1980's when it was Lockheed without the Martin. Talk is cheap. Hardware is not.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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GW,
They've already built the single-engine SR-72 prototype. As near as I can tell, they're actively developing the twin engine production aircraft. It can supposedly achieve speeds of Mach 6 to Mach 10. It's a combined-cycle scramjet that uses conventional turbofans to get up to Mach 3, and then the scramjet engines take over. Lockheed-Martin's been low-key advertising it all over the place, then abruptly quit when they signed the contract for the production airframes. Did you not notice the Top Gun producers and LM executives giggling like schoolgirls when asked if the SR-72 was real? That's as close to an outright admission as you're ever going to get. As you stated, it definitely wasn't cheap, but hasn't been outlandishly expensive when compared to the F-22 and F-35. I think they're going to build 1 to 3 squadrons of these spy aircraft, which means they can be hand-built.
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The combined-cycle engine for this SR-72 thing has been the insoluble bugaboo for some 40 years now. It really isn't a combined-cycle scramjet /turbojet at all, and that turbojet cannot be a turbofan. It has to be low bypass to achieve supersonic flight speeds near Mach 2.5. They might call it a turbofan if the bypass ratio is not zero, but it really is not what we usually think of as a “turbofan”.
The turbojet and a SUBSONIC-COMBUSTION ramjet can share the same inlet capture features, post-capture ducting, and exit nozzle, using the turbojet afterburner duct as the ramjet combustor. The caveat is that the flow through the turbojet must be entirely zeroed by the time it accelerates to about Mach 3, because otherwise, the turbomachinery and combustor cans are destroyed by the overheating. That is 100% air bypass, from ahead of the compressor face. That is not at all easy to accomplish, and so accounts for part (but not all) of the 40 year delay getting this craft done. The ramjet has a takeover speed requirement near only Mach 2.5, and is capable of taking the craft to maybe just over Mach 4 at realistic engine to frontal blockage area ratios. Those determine speed, more than any other factor.
The only flow path component that the scramjet can share with the turbojet and ramjet, is the supersonic capture feature of the inlet. It cannot share any of the post-capture ducting, because the duct geometries required are UTTERLY INCOMPATIBLE. And it cannot share the same nozzle as the turbojet and ramjet, again because the geometries are UTTERLY INCOMPATIBLE. The scramjet is basically mostly a separate, parallel-mounted flow path, sharing ONLY the supersonic capture features of the inlet with the other flow path. It has a min takeover Mach number of just about 4.
You end up with the scramjet engine flow path as a "duct shell" along the bottom of the airframe, fed by a straight(!) supersonic isolator duct fed by the supersonic capture feature. All the captured flow is fed to the scramjet, zero to the ramjet (turbojet), because above about Mach 3.5, the captured air is flame-hot if decelerated subsonic through the ramjet /turbojet post capture ducting. It is so hot it cannot be used as cooling air. The afterburner/combustor and nozzle hardware would be destroyed by the overheating, if that flow were not zeroed.
That means the ramjet/turbojet cross section can be a big fraction of the overall frontal blockage area, enabling turbojet to Mach 2.5, then ramjet to Mach 4, for scramjet takeover. The scramjet cross section is the rest of the frontal blockage area. I have VERY serious doubts about the Mach 10 claims on that scramjet. That would require it being virtually the entire frontal blockage, and that simply cannot obtain, when the turbojet/ramjet must also be there, and be a big fraction of the blockage area just to reach the Mach 4 scramjet takeover at all! I really think that's just BS. They will be quite lucky if it ever actually reaches Mach 6.
BTW, ASALM-PTV demonstrated back in 1980 that a clean aerodynamic design and a subsonic combustion ramjet that is all of the frontal blockage area actually can fly at Mach 6, without any scramjet at all! I worked on ASALM. We set that speed record accidentally, in a throttle runaway accident during the first flight test. It accelerated in ramjet (!!!) from Mach 2.5 to Mach 6, down at only 20,000 feet. It was still accelerating when it ran out of fuel at Mach 6, plus its skin was melting, since it was not designed to fly that fast. It was designed to fly only Mach 4, and that only at 80,000 feet. The other 6 flight tests were letter perfect.
That speed record was not broken until NASA's X-43A scramjet research test vehicle reached Mach 7 in its first successful test in 2004. That was rocket-boosted all the way to test speed, at a bit over 100,000 feet to limit the aeroheating to tolerable values, for a 3 second hydrogen fuel burn that did NOT accelerate in scramjet. The other successful X-43A flight was rocket-boosted to Mach 10 for a 3 second hydrogen fuel burn that did NOT accelerate in scramjet. The other attempt failed and crashed.
The USAF X-51A flights were both rocket-boosted to Mach 5 at over 100,000 feet, each for a 3-minute burn using JP-7 thermally-stable kerosene fuel (the last remaining stocks of the SR-71 fuel, actually). Neither test accelerated in scramjet. The other two attempts failed and crashed.
Given those historical facts, I think you can see why I might be rather skeptical of claims about scramjet-anything and combined-cycle-anything. I really hope Lockheed-Martin succeeds with its SR-72 thing. But I am not holding my breath about it. I think going into production is quite likely still premature. I have not seen anything about any flight tests addressing any of the potentially fatal issues I laid out just above.
Maybe my not having heard anything is due to secrecy, and maybe not. Maybe those tests still have yet to be run. If so, odds are they will be surprised and disappointed by the test results, causing yet more delay flying anything that might actually work. That’s what happened repeatedly over the last 40 years.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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Helicity Space ignites deep space nuclear fusion engine with new funds
California-based startup Helicity Space has successfully raised $5 million in a recent seed funding round.
Prominent space companies Airbus Ventures, TRE Ventures, Voyager Space Holdings, E2MC Space, Urania Ventures, and Gaingels have all invested in Helicity, according to a press release.
The start-up’s work focuses on the development of nuclear fusion propulsion technology for deep space missions. Unlike traditional chemical propulsion systems, fusion propulsion offers the potential for significantly higher energy efficiency and speed.
According to their official website, "fusion produces ten million times more energy per unit mass of fuel."
As a result, fusion-powered engines might drastically reduce travel time to the Moon and, eventually, Mars, making space exploration more efficient and sustainable.
“Nuclear fusion propulsion technology is the critical missing ingredient to fast, sustainable and safe space exploration of our solar system, said Dr. Stephane Lintner, Co-founder of Helicity Space, in a press release.
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