SpaceX-Wing Fighters!

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-12-01 00:10:39

The ability to land a rocket and then reuse it adds a military dimension to space. Imagine what you can do with a rocket that can fly halfway around the world, land on its tail, and then extend a hose into a nearby body of water, and with a nuclear reactor, convert that water, plus some carbon-dioxide into methane, liquefy it and then take off again! Imagine deploying rocket troops this way! This would be a rapid reaction force. Now imagine some larger rockets landing and unloading tanks, refueling and then flying back to get some more. Would this make aircraft carriers obsolete?

Will rockets replace airplanes? if you have rockets, who needs helicopters, why do you need runways? Rockets don't need them!

RobertDyck · 2016-12-01 00:47:54

ISPP for Mars Direct was supposed to do that. It included an SP-100 nuclear reactor, which was about the mass of a truck engine. Today we would use SAFE-400 which does the same job but is substantially lighter. But it was able to produce enough propellant to fuel an ERV in several months. That's months to produce fuel and oxidiser for this...

or this...

Trying to do that with CO2 from Earth's atmosphere? Our atmosphere is thicker, but it's only 400 ppm CO2. Environmentalists complain about CO2; during ice ages it was 200 ppm CO2, past interglacial periods it was 300 ppm, today it's 400 ppm. First stage of Falcon 9 is much larger than the ascent stage of a Mars ERV. I don't think you could call that "rapid".

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-12-01 01:24:02

What does climate change have to do with our ability to produce methane from Earth's carbon-dioxide? So long as we have some, it should be enough. The point is the rockets are reusable, so we can talk about doing things in space that were previously unthinkable. You could have passenger liners with reusable rockets, that vertically take off and land somewhere else. Going above the atmosphere should be faster than air travel. I think rockets would be an excellent way to deliver fighter-drones that provide air cover for our rapidly deployed rocket troops! Would we really need air craft carriers anymore? Why not just go with an aerospace force?

RobertDyck · 2016-12-01 05:33:13

Tom Kalbfus wrote:

What does climate change have to do with our ability to produce methane from Earth's carbon-dioxide?

The point is 400 ppm = 0.04%. That's not much. It would take significant time to collect enough CO2 to produce fuel to fill the rocket. Producing propellant faster requires larger, heavier equipment. If you want to carry cargo, then you are restricted how much equipment mass. If you keep equipment mass down to the same size as ERV, then you will produce propellant at the same rate.

By the way, Mars Colonial Transport uses Raptor engines with LCH4/LOX. Falcon 9 uses Merlin engines with RP1/LOX.

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-12-01 09:43:30

Fuel production is not that important if you don't go into orbit. If you shorten your distance enough, you could have enough fuel to make two trips, and you can avoid the problem of traveling through other country's airspaces for that portion of the journey in which you are above the atmosphere.

Suppose you wanted to supply or send troops to Afghanistan, but Iran and Pakistan refuse to allow you to fly through their airspace. You send a rocket instead over their airspace, and there is not thing they can do to stop up, unless they want to start a war by violating he outer space treaty.

GW Johnson · 2016-12-01 10:52:47

As a historical sidebar note, rocket troops halfway around the world was the original purpose of the Saturn 5 when von Braun started designing and proposing it to his Army employers, before there ever was a NASA. (Saturn-1 started out as a big, heavy bomb-flinger.)

The troopship rocket was supposed to be a one-way shot to Russia for 100 men per rocket. Second wave after ICBM's delivered LSD-25 bombs. The Russians wake up after 3 days of watching hallucinogenic "pretty colors" to find a US occupation army in place.

No, it wasn't a practical idea back then, either. But a few generals supported him enough that he had most of a giant rocket design available when NASA formed and hired him and his Operation Paper Clip crew, and they already had some Saturn-1 stuff in early testing.

By the time JFK told them to go for the moon, the Saturn rocket technologies were mostly there, or in later-stage development work.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2016-12-01 10:54:28)

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-12-01 11:29:07

GW Johnson wrote:

As a historical sidebar note, rocket troops halfway around the world was the original purpose of the Saturn 5 when von Braun started designing and proposing it to his Army employers, before there ever was a NASA. (Saturn-1 started out as a big, heavy bomb-flinger.)
The troopship rocket was supposed to be a one-way shot to Russia for 100 men per rocket. Second wave after ICBM's delivered LSD-25 bombs. The Russians wake up after 3 days of watching hallucinogenic "pretty colors" to find a US occupation army in place.
No, it wasn't a practical idea back then, either. But a few generals supported him enough that he had most of a giant rocket design available when NASA formed and hired him and his Operation Paper Clip crew, and they already had some Saturn-1 stuff in early testing.
By the time JFK told them to go for the moon, the Saturn rocket technologies were mostly there, or in later-stage development work.
GW

The Saturn V rocket couldn't land however and be reused, you'd be throwing away a billion dollars to send 100 troops somewhere without support, the rocket that got them here would be scrap. The ability to land and reuse rockets means they could be used like airplanes and helicopters for troop deployment and extraction! Remember that airliner that got shot down over the Ukraine? Malasian Airline, what if those passengers flew in space over Ukraine in a rocket instead? Don't think the rebels had asat weapons.

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-12-02 00:07:33

RobertDyck wrote:

Tom Kalbfus wrote:
What does climate change have to do with our ability to produce methane from Earth's carbon-dioxide?
The point is 400 ppm = 0.04%. That's not much. It would take significant time to collect enough CO2 to produce fuel to fill the rocket. Producing propellant faster requires larger, heavier equipment. If you want to carry cargo, then you are restricted how much equipment mass. If you keep equipment mass down to the same size as ERV, then you will produce propellant at the same rate.
By the way, Mars Colonial Transport uses Raptor engines with LCH4/LOX. Falcon 9 uses Merlin engines with RP1/LOX.

You don't need to get CO2 from the atmosphere, you can burn stuff to get it, just bring along a multi-fuel furnace, that will burn wood, coal, gasoline, the carbon fuel of your choice, the result is carbon dioxide plus heat, the heat can power the process, and you get as much carbon dioxide as you need to make methane out of. Most of the Earth's surface is covered with vegetation that will burn!

JeffreyGox · 2017-04-16 09:38:06

Awesome game Freedom Fighters, I only played the first few levels but man that it was fun me and my bro loved it back then.

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#1 2016-12-01 00:10:39

SpaceX-Wing Fighters!

#2 2016-12-01 00:47:54

Re: SpaceX-Wing Fighters!

#3 2016-12-01 01:24:02

Re: SpaceX-Wing Fighters!

#4 2016-12-01 05:33:13

Re: SpaceX-Wing Fighters!

#5 2016-12-01 09:43:30

Re: SpaceX-Wing Fighters!

#6 2016-12-01 10:52:47

Re: SpaceX-Wing Fighters!

#7 2016-12-01 11:29:07

Re: SpaceX-Wing Fighters!

#8 2016-12-02 00:07:33

Re: SpaceX-Wing Fighters!

#9 2017-04-16 09:38:06

Re: SpaceX-Wing Fighters!

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