New Space Race - Private vs. NASA

GCNRevenger · 2004-04-24 14:55:31

Ehhh I doubt that dreaming and suborbital runs will be enough... the trouble of getting into orbit and back is still much much harder. I think that the technology of spaceflight will have to improve before investors are willing to jump the chasem from funding SO tourist rides to robust orbital spaceship.

On a more general note...

The problem with getting large numbers of people into space is all about the efficency... Gravity on Earth is pretty powerful and we have the atmosphere in the way which makes escaping either one difficult. The efficency of means to reach space (orbital that is) today are pretty low, where getting an RLV back at all is very difficult, and using throw-away rockets for routine travel despite their better mass fraction is prohibitivly expensive. The only way people will leave the Earth in number is to improve the technology, which is what Nasa was doing, working on ways to improve the mass fraction... Until it gets easier to launch things into space, I don't think we'll see any real number of people do anything up there.

Hazer · 2004-04-24 15:23:03

Well then, let's take a look at a company that has been doing some dreaming-Space Island Group. They have some good ideas, but need about a few billion dollars (Or so they say) to make it work.

Now where are you going to find investors who are willing to put down a few billion dollars at a single time? (That's QUITE a bit of money you know)

You simply aren't going to find enough wealthy investors who will look into backing your venture with that sort of cash unless you have at least managed to fly some hardware--or unless the investor is insane.

GCNRevenger · 2004-04-24 15:29:17

Ahh yeah the SIG people...

I'm saying that even SO flights aren't enough to wow investors or overcome fears about feasability/profitability because its so much harder to do orbital than it is to do suborbital, and this isn't going to change until spaceflight technology improves.

Hazer · 2004-04-24 15:32:56

We shall see won't we?

Ian Flint · 2004-04-24 16:07:31

Ahh...

The eternal battle of ideologies...

GCNRevenger and Co. with their "Improve technology first" attitude, and...

Hazer, Ian Flint, and Co. with our "Get up there now" mentality...

Will our paths ever converge? Maybe when we get up there...or maybe when technology improves...

idiom · 2004-04-24 21:18:50

Um... Both Sputnik and Explorer 1 were launched on craft which were derived from X-Prize class vehicles. The Jupiter C's and R-7's are not that different from Starchaser and Canadian Arrow work.

I think an Orbital project would be built from a Sub-orbital project for less than fifty mil. That said, a company that was well managed could make that off of their SO flights. Poof! No investors needed.

From Astro:

Sputnik 1 had 1 watt of power, producing an 0.4 second duration signal on the 7 and 15 m bands. Four antennae were deployed at 35 degree angles. Power was provided by three silver-zinc batteries. Thermo-regulation was by a ventilator. The 580 mm sphere had a mass of 83 kg and was made of highly polished Aluminium AMG6T alloy 2 mm thick. It was built without drawings due to the quick time schedule

Euler · 2004-04-24 21:45:20

An orbital vehicle would probably need at least 5 times as much delta-v as a 100km altitude vehicle. This is a huge gap, and not as easily overcome as you seem to think. A successful x-prize contestant will be roughly equivalent to the x-15, not Jupiter C or R-7.

GCNRevenger · 2004-04-24 22:42:55

"Well we'll just make the rocket five times bigger"

Its not quite that simple... making a rocket half an order of magnetude bigger is no trivial task, delta-V requiring exponentially more fuel because of the rocket equation, and may well exceed the reach of any private ventures until rocket technology improves. The venerable R-7 Soyuz can only lift like ~2.5% of the vehicle mass to orbit and its as big as a 14 story tall building... When liquid hydrogen engines become "garage shop easy," or mass fractions otherwise increase several fold, then it might be practical...

Otherwise, private space ventures are held back by one of the few things that can dominate the human spirit of enterpanuralship... physics. (Gravity, fuel efficency, materials mass, etc).

The only people I know of that are close to anything practical is Space-X and Elon Musk, who have done some good work, but their little rocket is too small for the commertial market, and it has yet to fly even once.

idiom · 2004-04-24 22:58:53

Canadian Arrows vehicle can make 250kms at design spec if the engine was tweaked and the fuel mix maxed out.

If it had an alternate payload and second stage it would be within range of putting something in a funky orbit.

Still to go would be stable controlled orbits and getting stuff back, But I don't think thats a magnitude, just a whole third step roughly equivalent to getting one stage going, or a second stage.

Magnitudes is building a rocket plane than can do manned orbit and be reusable. That stuff is hard.

Mad Grad Student · 2004-04-24 23:55:57

Once again, astronautix.com to the rescue!

http://astronautix.com/lvs/vos8k72k.htm]R-7- Vostok

Okay, so one Vostok core stage+four strap-on boosters+one 11,000 lb-thrust second stage= 10,00 pounds in LEO. Doesn't seem to harsh to me, but it gets better. I'll use Canadian Arrow as an exmple. Now, the Canadian Arrow vehicle weighs 31,000 pounds ready to go and can reach aobut mach 4.5 or 3,400 mph-ish. That means that the Canadian Arrow is actually about 10,000 pounds heavier than the Vostok minus stage one. However, the Canadian Arrow engine is also three times as powerful as the Vostok second stage engine and probably has a better specific impulse. Overall, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that the Vostok core, or at least the complete Vostok stage 1, could lift an X-Prize vehicle into orbit.

Of course, other changes would have to be made. The vehicle would need new life support equipment, along with a better heat shield and probably manuvering thrusters and engines, but those were mastered 40 years ago. Besides, the Spacex Falcon V will be able to carry 10,000 pounds of stuff to orbit for only $12 milllion. It's not exactly a bargain, but $4 million definately beats the $20 million it currently costs to get into space.

GCNRevenger · 2004-04-25 10:39:07

Oh well then you'd have a Soyuz with an X-Prize vehicle on top, not exactly a private venture anymore... The R-7 is still a rather large vehicle (43m long) and an expensive one, coming it at around $40M a pop for the man-rated version - too much for a commertial vehicle. And then there is the launch facilities...

And then they have to build the space ship... thrusters, LSS, etc are not as hard as they used to be, but I think you are shrugging off how hard it is to make a space ship with them. These are still expensive, and stuff you don't want to make in your garage, plus putting them all together is not a simple task either. Getting down is still pretty hard, making a light weight heat shield, parachutes, etc is not a "sure, no problem!" thing.

I think that the construction and launching of such a vehicle is currently beyond any private ventures doing it profitably without a 9-digit investment, unless they get government help.

Space-X has yet to prove that it can do anything other than make small rocket engines... they have not yet flown even a single time with their tiny Falcon-I rocket, which I might add is too small to place any practical payload to GEO. The Falcon-V if it ever leaves the concept phase may still be too weak to get anything useful done. There is no commertial LEO satelite market. I also have questions about the effective flight rate will kill profitability.

Side note: The Soyuz TMA, which I think is a baseline minimum mass for a safe 3-seater vehicle, weighs in at 15,900lbs and contributes zero Delta-V to its acent.

Hazer · 2004-04-25 11:35:05

So do you think we should leave all attempts at getting out of the atmosphere up to NASA, the Chinese, and the RSA?

I think GCNrevenger has a healthy case of skepticism.
But using what exists already isn't exactly what the CATS/Suborbital tourism crowd is trying to do. They are trying to innovate.

Some of them have suggested getting a third of the way to LEO by using giant balloons, some go a sixth of the way by carrying the rockets with a plane. Others try to see how well they can build a conventional rocket.

The name of the game is innovation. Thus I will hold on to the hope that some of them succeed, but GCNrevenger is right to a certain degree--innovation in such an area is very risky and spaceflight is no walk in the park.

Howeverever, I do not think that the difficulties preclude the possibility of an NGO being successful.

GCNRevenger · 2004-04-25 12:10:44

Unfortunatly, its still not just about altitude. You have to acend 100km and accelerate to nearly mach 25. None of the X-Prize class vehicles have a prayer of reaching this goal, with all their energies focused on just getting up 60km, and it takes a rocket as tall as a 10-story building and weighing hundreds of thousands of pounds to loft a small manned orbital vehicle or a commertial satelite to a useful orbit... This is roughly an order of magnetude beyond the X-Prize croud's capabilities.

Unfortunatly innovation can only take you so far, physics still stands in the way, and all ingenuity is bound by the limitations of basic forces. The biggest issue of easy access to space is still the efficency of propulsion, that a simple easily built rocket propelled vehicle cannot move a large fraction of its mass to orbit. Ultimatly, this is a limitation of the chemical reaction and weight of the fuel, which dictates that a vehicle that can launch substantial payloads must be very large... balloons and small air launch planes and such are still a drop in the bucket.

Hazer · 2004-04-25 12:16:42

As I said before, we'll have to see where things go from here.
Oh and you are slightly wrong about the distance upwards they have to reach. It isn't 60 kilometers, it is 100 kilometers or 62 miles.

Algol · 2004-04-25 12:56:30

Once the X-Prize teams establish themselves in the commercial SO market they will represnt viable buisnesses, and as such will attract investment.

No one can knock-up anything capable of reaching orbit in their garage, but they will have created a SO vehicle on a shoestring and i for one would be interested to see what they can achieve given the funding.

These teams are full of passionate people full of ideas and enthusiasm, personally i'm confident that some of the teams will eventually make the transition.

GCNRevenger · 2004-04-25 13:04:46

The performance gap between SO and LEO is still a huge gulf, and I doubt that any investor(s) will put up the money needed (hundreds of millions minimum, probably in the billion plus range) to go from tiny light-weight SO vehicle to somthing orbital... its a huge difference in capabilities and complexity.

That said, it will probably happen eventually, but not until technology matures substantially. The "biggie" issue is that conventional rockets just aren't going to cut it since their fuel is too heavy, and I think that a private venture will need a friction-preheated Scramjet engine or an exotic metastable fuel and advanced ultra-high temp ceramics before contemplating building a small vehicle with that high of a mass fraction.

Ian Flint · 2004-04-25 14:37:44

If the jump from suborbital to LEO is only one order of magnitude then X-Prize contenders can easily do it.

It's simple:

The X-Prize is $10 million. Most people agree that at least one team will make it work.

If LEO is one order of magnitude harder to reach then the Prize should be a mere $100 million. If the X-Prize is reached (which is very likely) then many more millionaires will be willing to donate to the $100 million LEO prize. The X-Prize teams will have already built up an infrastructure and expertise so they will have a running start to reach this new goal.

The main point is this: If the difficulty increases by one order of magnitude and the prize increases by one order of magnitude then the results will be exactly the same -- 10-20 contenders with one or two eventually reaching the goal.

GCNRevenger · 2004-04-25 14:50:59

Nooo, I mean the performance and complexity of the vehicle will need to increase an order of magnetude with today's technology before a small-time outfit can think about orbital manned flight.

If your car that costs $20,000 can go 100km/hr, then you can make a car that goes 1,000km/hr for $200,000? The invesment needed to increase performance increases exponentially, not linearly.

Rxke · 2004-04-25 14:59:16

The invesment needed to increase performance increases exponentially, not linearly.

Maybe it's not that bad...

from AviationNow (or somethingsimilar, it's a quote taken from Hobbyspace, around march, didn't keep the link)

" Elon Musk says the cost of "the Falcon development remains under $100 million" and he has reserves to sustain up to two failures. If the first launch goes OK, he hopes to attract outside capital in the $50-100M range. "

Algol · 2004-04-25 17:42:12

and I think that a private venture will need a friction-preheated Scramjet engine

GCNRevenger - What is the concept behind friction pre-heating the scramjet?

My understanding of teh concept was that at low speeds not enough oxygen passes through the engine for it to work (as it is incapable of drawing any in) - it isnt until higher speeds combined with a large 'mouth' (for want of a better word at the moment) that enough atmospheric oxygen can pass through teh engine for it to work.

GCNRevenger · 2004-04-25 17:55:49

Getting up to Scramjet speed isn't so much the problem, that can be done with modified jet engines, the trouble is that air friction will limit the efficency of a Scramjet aircraft since it must scoop up air to operate and make the skin of the vehicle very, very hot.

A Scramjet vehicle today could probably hit Mach 15, and so the other ten mach numbers have to be pushed by rocket power, which hurts the vehicle mass fraction quite a bit. It needs to at least hit Mach 20 or so in order to make it worthwhile and keep the orbital insertion burn short. If you can hit Mach 25, you don't need the final rocket boost at all.

The USAF solution (I think it was them) was to pipe the fuel, liquid or slush hydrogen, through the skin of the vehicle to keep the thing cool, and also the friction heating would pre-heat the fuel before being injected into the engine, thus improving its efficency especially at high speeds.

Edit: To make an SSTO one practical, that is.

Algol · 2004-04-26 09:46:47

Ah i see. I though you were proposing a method of getting the scramjet to work from a stand still. :laugh:

clark · 2004-04-26 09:58:16

Whew! I see my question has been answered and left to wither on the vine. Let me try the 'constructive' side of day-dreaming. How to do orbital?

Okay, let's say we want to get a bare minimum of three people to orbit. Nothing fancy, totally cheap.

We're going on a rocket, on a ballistic trajectory, for just a few days. We don't need a week becuase we have no where to go (yet!). We just need a few days, and a cheap ride.

Sure, it's not much different that sub-orbital, but hey, orbital for a few days versus sub-orbital for a few hours. People always want a bigger, better fix.

So, what about about a ballisitc shape reentry orbital capable ship launched on a near-fully reusbale rocket? Design the capsule so that the insides of the ship can be transferred to a basic capsule "skin". Think of it like a banana (not the shape, the idea). The life support et. al. is encased in a capsule skin that is peeled off between orbital flights. The life support functions are then repositioned into a new, fresh capsule skin. It's just metal after all.

This provides the ground floor for future orbital tours, since it acts as a financial base upon which to improve (make bigger, better ships that can stay longer in orbit). Then, as time and finanaces dictate, build that orbital hotel to keep people up for longer, and to charge more money, and to attract more people.

Yeah, going orbital is hard, so think outside the box and find some novel solutions.

Now tell me why this won't work.

Rxke · 2004-04-26 10:22:37

You wouldn't need a full skin, some parts of the outside won't get that hot during reentry, so a partial expendable skin on the 'bottom' is enough.

But then again, if it were so simple, it would've been done before... so what is the problem with this idea? Weight, cost, compexity?

clark · 2004-04-26 10:36:04

Ah, but Soyuz is designed for 6 months on-orbit. That requirement adds to the complexity. So let's nix it, and have an on-orbit capability of no more than a month. Afterall, the thing isn't going to stay up there very long, and if we're replacing most of the outside bits (the parts exsposed to space and reentry) it shouldn't be a big issue, right?

I'm not about to say this is simple, I'm just saying it might be made simpler. When people approach space, they have a tendancy to think "BIG". Scrap that. Think as small as possible. the bare minimum (the Wright Brothers didn't try desiging a 747, they tried for a flimsy glider thingy that lasted a few seconds in the air).

Cost will always be an issue, but can be resolved by improvign the carrying capacity of the orbital ships. Same concept as the eventual airline industry (they didn't try to put hundreds on the first planes). We have a price estimate for orbital now, $20 million. But this also includes training and check-ups by the space experts. So that's the current price to beat, the current set up to improve on.

Now, the way I look at it, the explosion in commerical space never materilized becuase there simply wasn't enough stuff that could be launched, or that could be afforded. The prices are coming down, slowly, and with human cargo, there is no limit to the number of launches you might have (other than the number of rockets you can produce). But here in lies the solution- greater demand for the rockets allows us to maybe realize cost savings on the production side (yeah, I know, we can't save all that much, but I remain unconvinced, let's try anyway I say).

Now, since we're just going up, then coming back down, we don't need training for EVA, or any of that other stuff. We cut back on that side. Since we're going bare bones, we don't need any of the fancy extra's that might be on the current Soyuz (as an example), so we would save weight there. We don't need to take up supplies (just food and water for a couple of days). Perhaps enough space and weight can be saved to add another person to the cargo manifest. That makes four (three passangers, one pilot). Or automate everything, and just send up four people at a go.

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#26 2004-04-24 14:55:31

Re: New Space Race - Private vs. NASA

#27 2004-04-24 15:23:03

Re: New Space Race - Private vs. NASA

#28 2004-04-24 15:29:17

Re: New Space Race - Private vs. NASA

#29 2004-04-24 15:32:56

Re: New Space Race - Private vs. NASA

#30 2004-04-24 16:07:31

Re: New Space Race - Private vs. NASA

#31 2004-04-24 21:18:50

Re: New Space Race - Private vs. NASA

#32 2004-04-24 21:45:20

Re: New Space Race - Private vs. NASA

#33 2004-04-24 22:42:55

Re: New Space Race - Private vs. NASA

#34 2004-04-24 22:58:53

Re: New Space Race - Private vs. NASA

#35 2004-04-24 23:55:57

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#36 2004-04-25 10:39:07

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#37 2004-04-25 11:35:05

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#38 2004-04-25 12:10:44

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#39 2004-04-25 12:16:42

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#40 2004-04-25 12:56:30

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#41 2004-04-25 13:04:46

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#42 2004-04-25 14:37:44

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#44 2004-04-25 14:59:16

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#45 2004-04-25 17:42:12

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