Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

clark · 2004-05-04 11:27:29

Sounds like Burt Rutan (or perhaps some other private concern) going orbital within 10 years.

I think Musk could do it.

Come to think of it, if Boeing gets the Constellation deal, what's to stop them from spinning that off into another company and selling surplus Orbital boats to any rocket company willing to pay? Afterall, the CEV has to work on either Delta or Atlas, and Musk is designing a cheaper version of Boeing's own rockets.

We could even sell them to the French (ESA) and undercut the Russian relationship a bit...

deagleninja · 2004-05-04 11:56:34

Yes Bill, Earth to LEO, private funded only, at least partially reuseable, in 10 years.

How long do you think it will take the private sector to do it?

clark · 2004-05-04 12:02:06

20 years for a privately funded, similar to X-prize, for orbital. No promises on the "resuable".

There are two components to getting to orbit- the rocket that takes you up, and the piece of hardware that brings you back.

Most rockets are (or were) government funded or subsidized.

deagleninja · 2004-05-04 12:14:46

20 years? Geez, that's 70 years for the private sector to follow the public. I think Burt could do it in 5 years if someone plopped a billion in his lap.

clark · 2004-05-04 12:17:11

Alright, I'll bite- How could he do it for a billion in 5 years?

It took the Chinese a lot more than that, working with more resources, more people, and copying the Russians.

Getting into space is remarkably difficult. It is rocket science afterall. :laugh:

deagleninja · 2004-05-04 12:21:56

Easy, double the efficency of White Knight and SpaceShip One.

RobS · 2004-05-04 12:30:14

Regarding a cable, if it goes up to and a bit beyond geosynchronous, it will circle tjhe earth once a day, and since the earth will rotate once a day it won't encounter wind resistance in the atmosphere, because it will be moving round and round at the same speed as the atmosphere.

Regarding the dangers of a small reusable shuttle, such a shuttle would not need to drop a bomb on a city from orbit; rather, it could explode the atomic bomb IN orbit. The flash would blind thousands and the EMP (electromagnetic pulse) would fry every computer on the ground within 50 or 100 miles, including all the computers operating the electrical, telephone, water, sewage, and natural gas systems. In short, the bomb would render a city uninhabitable, even if it caused relatively little damage from fire and none from blast or fallout. I suspect the flash and EMP damage from 100 miles altitude would require a bomb larger than those dropped on Hiroshima, though. But I don't know (and don't want to know!) how much larger.

-- RobS

deagleninja · 2004-05-04 12:38:46

Robs, so winds travel at the same rate as the planet spins? I didn't know that....

clark · 2004-05-04 12:45:01

"Easy" the dreamer says, "daft" the engineer says...

Just ribbing ya ninja.

I don't beleieve you need much of a nuclear device to do the EMP burst. The pulse will travel farther higher up in orbit. One EMP pulse of sufficient power, detonated in high orbit over the continteal united states would reduce or destroy almost all of the US space based assessts. It would also fry every TV, car, and computer from coast to coast.
Power generators would probably go. Hospitals would be crippled, first responders would be unable to respond to anything. GPS, goodbye. It is truly a worst case scenerio.

The Russians did a study during the Cold war and found that they could detonate a series of nuclear bombs in the upper atmosphere starting over the north pole, slowly working south, and it would pretty much cripple us.

That's one of the main reason our back up equipment used to be old vacuum tubed electronics (resistant to EMP).

The hardened stuff would survive, but to degrade that, it only takes a bit more juice in your nuclear device.

Rxke · 2004-05-04 13:19:56

20 years for a privately funded, similar to X-prize, for orbital. No promises on the "resuable".
There are two components to getting to orbit- the rocket that takes you up, and the piece of hardware that brings you back.

Falcon V...
Musk *is* unoficially saying it might be fitted with a manned capsule, after a while, grinning wildly when pushed for further comments...

Of course, let's first see how his all-but ready 'little' Falcon delivers...

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/rocketsc … b.html]And it won't take 20 years...

Bill White · 2004-05-04 13:34:16

20 years for a privately funded, similar to X-prize, for orbital. No promises on the "resuable".
There are two components to getting to orbit- the rocket that takes you up, and the piece of hardware that brings you back.
Falcon V...
Musk *is* unoficially saying it might be fitted with a manned capsule, after a while, grinning wildly when pushed for further comments...
Of course, let's first see how his all-but ready 'little' Falcon delivers...
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/rocketsc … b.html]And it won't take 20 years...

Musk could deliver humans to LEO with Falcon V. Price per seat remains unclear, IMHO, and not necessarily lower than Soyuz (but maybe. . .)

Lets see Falcon fly first.

But here is another question. Why would Musk fly humans to LEO in Falcon V? Its not like there are many places for him to go and a Falcon V capsule would be pretyt small, correct? Not much capability for a sustained on-orbit duration mission.

A NASA contract to fly folks to ISS and cut out the Russians doesn't count. Its not privately funded.

= = =

Could the private sector put a man in orbit? Sure. No problem.

Could the all-American alt-space people beat Soyuz on price? Perhaps, but doubtful IMHO, at least for the next 10 years.

Will they? Only if someone finds a good enough reason. This last question is the only basis on which I would consider taking the bet.

SpaceShipOne in LEO is far more unlikely.

clark · 2004-05-04 13:44:16

But here is another question. Why would Musk fly humans to LEO in Falcon V? Its not like there are many places for him to go and a Falcon V capsule would be pretyt small, correct? Not much capability for a sustained on-orbit duration mission.

Why would Musk fly Humans to LEO? Because people will pay him. It's the same underlying principle behind any suborbital industry- now that's a short duration mission. Few minutes of zero g, or a few hours and days? I think most of the thrill seekers out there would want to go as high as they can, for as long as they can.

Now, that is one piece of the equation. The other, well, that's your space hotel. With the establishment of an infrastructure that can take people into LEO, and a sizeable market that is willing to pay the price, it becomes that much easier to get the bonds and loans to build a hotel for these people to stay in. This dosen't have to be a chicken and egg situation- develop along a defined path, with the expectation that the chicken will lay the egg.

People are paying 20 million, which buys them a spare seat when available on the Soyuz, to go and sit on the ISS for a few days. A lot of people will pay less just for the opportunity to get into space. People will pay more to stay up there for a while.

Think first class and coach for the orbital ride. A couple seats reserved for the people who can afford to stay up on the newly minted orbital hotel, coach is just going along for the ride up and down. Swap out the people on the hotel between each trip (say a week or two).

Do long duration zero-g studies on the side and sell the info to NASA.

RobS · 2004-05-04 13:54:14

Regarding the rotation of the atmosphere, yes, it must rotate. The equator of the earth rotates at 1,000 miles per hour (1,600 km/hr) and the surface does not suffer winds of that speed. So the atmosphere rotates as well.

Of course, any cable coming into the atmosphere will be blown around a bit, and any spot on the Earth has prevailing winds (from the west in the mid latitudes, from the east in the equatorial belt; they are caused by coriolis, because the earth rotates). So a tether or cable will have some forces working on it. Presumably one could neutralize them by ion engines at the top of the cable, or electronmagetic propulsion (running power through the cable so that it pushes against the Earth's magnetic field). At the equator, easterly winds will tend to slow a cable down over time. But right at the equator one has a zone of mostly vertical wind, rather than horizontal, so that problem is lessened. There might even be ways to use wind power on the cable to one's advantage.

-- RobS

Rxke · 2004-05-04 14:08:45

Now, that is one piece of the equation. The other, well, that's your space hotel.

Heehee... And that's Bigelow's objective (see other thread, wich is spread, actually in two...)

Bigelow is just pouring money into his project, not necc. expecting to get richer out of it in the short term, if at all... Another Angel investor...

(EDIT:) and he just ordered a Falcon V!

Rxke · 2004-05-04 17:06:18

Musk is no longer grinning secretively: from their website: (actually an article posted there from errr... dang... Aviation weekly((((?))))

" He has also held formal discussions with NASA about using later versions for manned missions such as to the International Space Station. With that in mind, the avionics and other parameters of the Falcon V will be man-rated from the beginning, Musk said. "

Bill White · 2004-05-04 17:24:05

Is Falcon really alt-space? Anyway, this

http://www.spacex.com/index.html?sectio … w.php]sale of Falcon V is to http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/]Bigelow Aerospace for a precursor mission to investigate building a space hotel based on TransHab.

If a plan for private Earth to LEO access is based on immediate deployment of a private space hotel, then I ain't betting becuse that is the exact scenario I have been calling for.

(I also suspect clark has been holding this news in his vest pocket hopeful I would bet. . .)

GCNRevenger · 2004-05-04 19:37:59

"Easy, double the efficency of White Knight and SpaceShip One." He says... Permit me to illustrate just how big of a difference it is between suborbital and LEO.

White Knight/SS1 could today, with an expendable SRB kick stage, move about twenty five pounds into orbit. So you double the performance of the combination... then you can get fifty whole pounds to orbit, wow-wee...

Gemini-B the updated production model, which was really a bulky one-seater capsule with two seats in it and on the lower end of safe weighs in at around 8,400lbs give or take a few hundred for equipment.

Lets review:
~White Knight/SS1 from Rurtan - 25lbs, maybe up to 100lbs with modification
~Falcon-I, which has yet to fly even a single time, can haul perhaps 1,000-2,000lbs
~Smallest practical vehicle weighs in at around 8,000lbs. Probably >15,000lbs for a minimal 3-seater and >20,000lbs for a four seater.

So, WK/SS1 only needs to be several hundred times more powerful and Falcon-I needs to be ten or twenty times as big.

I am also throughly puzzled about all this talk that "space tourism" will be the limitless fount of eternal wealth. Reality check: There aren't that many millionaires. The "space tourism" market is not more than hundreds of millions yearly most likly, which is not much of a market for developing space vehicles... And the more you preach "angel investors," the more I think the whole endeavour isn't going far.

And as already been established, there isn't a market for really small satellites big enough to justify any new rocket, and the current ones launching large satellites to GEO work just fine.

Rockets to SO are easy. Rockets to LEO are hard.

Rxke · 2004-05-05 06:18:12

Washing machine-sized, 200 pounds suborbital sat that turned out to be a real asset for *a lot* of people... (and built in Belgium, too, i'm proud to say...)

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/eo-04zv.html]PROBA put to many uses (SpaceDaily)

deagleninja · 2004-05-05 08:14:18

Dear GCNRevenger,

Easy big guy, it was a joke. I don't think SS1/WK could be modified enough to do the job. Best for Burt to start from scratch.

Okay, millionaires, yes there's a whole butt load of them! As I said, the US alone has over 100 Billionaires (a billion is a thousand million) according to Forbes. I'm not sure how many millionaires there are, but let's be conservative and say that there are 50 times as many millionaires as billionaires (probably closer to 100x). That would mean that the US has 5,000 millonaires. Say that the rest of the world has an equal number and you have 10,000 millionaires (I'd bet its more like 100,000 worldwide). So going by the estimate that 1 percent would be willing to pay for a million dollar trip to space and/or space station, you get between 100 and 1,000 potential customers. In revenue that comes to 100 million to 1 billion. Reduce the cost of a 'space-hop' to $100,000 dollars and your customer base is in the millions worldwide. Let's face it, people apply for loans in this amount every minute to purchase a house, why not for the trip of a lifetime?

Do I think that space tourism is going to be the savior of space development, not by itself no. But there is plenty of interest to jump start space industry.

It will be interesting to see how much an inflatable space habitat costs and if it can be efficent enough to house someone for years. When this comes true there will be a lot of people wanting to live in LEO.

clark · 2004-05-05 08:46:42

(I also suspect clark has been holding this news in his vest pocket hopeful I would bet. . .

Bill,
If it makes you feel any better, I always feel a little dirty afterwards...

Never bet againt the house. :laugh:

GNC,

And as already been established, there isn't a market for really small satellites big enough to justify any new rocket, and the current ones launching large satellites to GEO work just fine.

There is a market. The market exsists in new military sats (look to the airforce research plans related to micro and nano sized sattelites as working constellations. This is all part of that "securing" space policy. Then there is that untapped market of small sats to LEO and GEO for small organizations and universities. Part of Musk's strategy is to exploit the small sats who usually have to piggyback on a bigger launch, so they end up making trade offs on orbit an what not.

There are a lot of people who would like to get their own small sattelite in orbit to do their own weird research, the only problem is that price of launch precludes anybody but the largest companies. And these guys have the big budgets to afford a robust sattelite.

For the space tourism market, well, Bill can justify that. Something about companies offering tickets to Sultan's of Oil or Lottery's can produce amazing monetary results.

deagleninja · 2004-05-05 09:04:10

Excellent point about lotterys Clark. A space lottery held by our pioneering space enthusiasts is an excellent way to raise money from people who don't have enough to make major contributions but would still like to travel to space themselves.

People used to dream of flying like birds, now we have a thriving airline industry. Now people dream of traveling to space. The demand is there. Soon these dreams will be realized too.

Bill White · 2004-05-05 09:22:01

Excellent point about lotterys Clark. A space lottery held by our pioneering space enthusiasts is an excellent way to raise money from people who don't have enough to make major contributions but would still like to travel to space themselves.
People used to dream of flying like birds, now we have a thriving airline industry. Now people dream of traveling to space. The demand is there. Soon these dreams will be realized too.

A lottery would work best with an intermediary, IMHO.

What do I mean? A 10% partner/investor in a private space hotel is given the exclusive right to run lotteries for that hotel. The lottery investor buys a Soyuz launch and a week or two at the hotel and then runs the lottery.

But the other investors and the hotel ownership have NOTHING official to do with the lottery. Starsem sells SpaceLotteryInc a Soyuz for "X" and Bigelow sells two weeks at the LEO Suites for "Y" and SLI (an independent corporation) figures out how many tickets it needs to sell at what price to make it work.

Its the financial equivalent of water tight doors on a ship.

= = =

And SpaceLotteryInc kicks in $50 or 75 million as upfront money to finance a share of the space hotel in exchange for the right to sell lottery tickets.

clark · 2004-05-05 09:36:33

Beautiful suggestion Bill. The intermediary would also place more pressure on the rocket company and the hotel company to expand capabilities, and reduce overall costs, so as to maximize and increase profits.

What would be neat though would be a non-profit organization that takes this general idea, and uses it as a prize for a science contest for kids. That ought to increase interest, no?

deagleninja · 2004-05-05 10:57:49

Hehe, that brought back some memories. I used to write the Mars Cooperation (think candy bars) and pitch the idea of selling mars for Mars, you know, school drives. Oh, well.

idiom · 2004-05-06 02:59:55

If you can't stop a plane with overflight rights how in the world do you plan to stop a rocket?

Thing is the rocket attack could only be used once and then the U.S. would go beserk and ban all the space flight it could, everywhere.

Think of a non-American X Prizer selling rocket systems to all the governments in Africa for dirt cheap as a way to kick start their leap into space.

I think it could lead to global-government really fast actually. Either the U.S. has to own everybody, or allow the U.N. to.

Global borders just go all to phooey.

You don't even have to make full orbital. Take of in Mexico heading for "Canada" and make a quick stop in Washington...

Basically I don't think countries want to play MAD with nutter trigger happy Presidents. Terrorists want to invoke terror, not just kill people. Rockets are not their style and are a lot harder to hide than a few pounds of C4 in a bag on a bus.

Although Bruce Simpson in New Zealand proved you could build a rudimentary cruise missle (supersonic, ground hugging) for only $5000.

Someone would have to show significant benefit to a terrorist to go to all the effort to build a raft of ICBMs (to beat SDI).
Cuz that is hard and expensive and really hot potato.

However it might be the only way to deliver a decent nuke (if you aquired a nuke you will have no trouble building ICBMS).

You would have to have a really good aerosol to deploy a Biological. A infected suicide could cross the border far more easily.

If you had a bunch of nerve gas... your missle would have to be really really accurate.

It would have to be a nuke and you would have to really believe you couldn't smuggle it into the country.

Otherwise there is no motivation for anyone to build an offensive capable RLV (or EEELV) other than for profit.

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#26 2004-05-04 11:27:29

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#27 2004-05-04 11:56:34

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#28 2004-05-04 12:02:06

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#29 2004-05-04 12:14:46

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#30 2004-05-04 12:17:11

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#31 2004-05-04 12:21:56

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#32 2004-05-04 12:30:14

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#33 2004-05-04 12:38:46

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#34 2004-05-04 12:45:01

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#35 2004-05-04 13:19:56

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#36 2004-05-04 13:34:16

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#37 2004-05-04 13:44:16

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#38 2004-05-04 13:54:14

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#39 2004-05-04 14:08:45

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#40 2004-05-04 17:06:18

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#41 2004-05-04 17:24:05

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#42 2004-05-04 19:37:59

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#43 2004-05-05 06:18:12

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#44 2004-05-05 08:14:18

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#45 2004-05-05 08:46:42

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#46 2004-05-05 09:04:10

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#47 2004-05-05 09:22:01

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#48 2004-05-05 09:36:33

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#49 2004-05-05 10:57:49

Re: Why "alt-space" won't work - Invite to a flame war! :-)

#50 2004-05-06 02:59:55

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