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

ANTIcarrot. · 2004-05-06 05:37:36

If $100/lb is alt-space, then thinking that RLVs will drop bombs from orbit is alt-terrorism.

If I want to nuke a US city, I don't use a DH-1, I use an ISO shipping container. If I want to wage germ warfare, I don't buy bioweapons from a rouge state, I pay a Chinese restaurant $10K to not wash their hands this week. And as others have said, if I want to get nerve gas into the country, I just drive across the border with a can of 'propane' in the car-boot. And if I really wanted to kills LOTS of Americans ofer a yearly period, I'd really have nothing more sophisticated than campaign against gun control.

Of course the pentagon *likes* alt-terrorism because it stops the public and the politicians from asking akward questions about real security threats. Which onfortunately means the pentagon will be very eager to ban things like the DH-1.

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On the other hand, if the DH-1 is possible...

Exactly how would the US shoot down a manned manouverable target (potentially fitted with countermeasures to deal with 'evil terrorist states') overflying it's territory at an altitude of 100miles or more?

And exactly how do you 'drop' a bomb from orbit when everything is under microgravity? Wouldn't you need beacon-bright retro rockets? And how long does it take a ballistic capsule (weapon) to drop from orbit and hit the ground?

ANTIcarrot.

Bill White · 2004-05-06 06:14:02

All of this wild talk comes back to this:

The Pentagon would be very unhappy if DH-1 were cleared for export.

ANTIcarrot. · 2004-05-06 07:44:17

<nods>
Just like the middle east woul be very unhappy if we stopped destroying the ozone layer. Oh sorry - I meant stop buying their oil. For similar reasons the MOD classified the engine designs for HOTOL for a number of years, until they realised how impractical they were.

However I still don't see the rest of the world bowing down just because the US DOD throws a temper tantrum. :rant: The US decided it wanted to be the only country with nukes at the end of WWII, dispite having signed treaties to share the technology with the UK. Ten years later US paranoia and diplomatic backstabbing hadn't stopped the proliferation of desired technology. If it didn't work then, what chance would it have now, let alone by the time RLVs arrive?

ANTIcarrot.

Bill White · 2004-05-06 08:19:28

<nods>
Just like the middle east woul be very unhappy if we stopped destroying the ozone layer. Oh sorry - I meant stop buying their oil. For similar reasons the MOD classified the engine designs for HOTOL for a number of years, until they realised how impractical they were.
However I still don't see the rest of the world bowing down just because the US DOD throws a temper tantrum. :rant: The US decided it wanted to be the only country with nukes at the end of WWII, dispite having signed treaties to share the technology with the UK. Ten years later US paranoia and diplomatic backstabbing hadn't stopped the proliferation of desired technology. If it didn't work then, what chance would it have now, let alone by the time RLVs arrive?
ANTIcarrot.

Okay, lets work backwards on this one.

Since the Pentagon is NOT going ballistic over alt-space and ideas like DH-1, well, that tells me they don't think it can really work, engineering-wise.

I ain't no rocket scientist and cannot argue engineering but the Pentagon does have excellent engineers and have been lusting after a global bomber for decades.

If DH-1 was feasible, they'd have one already.

= = =

Elon Musk's Falcon "X" may well lower launch costs to $500 per pound. How? Not with a fancy new RLV but rather by taking the Zenit approach combined with the manufacturing and production savvy of Michael Dell. (Dell Computers)

Zenit + a Dell mentality = Falcon, a state of the art expendable.

Start with a clean sheet of paper but don't re-invent the engineering. Use what works and tweak the tubopumps and make your innovations in the guts of the thing.

What does GNCR often say? Engineering is an iterative process?

= = =

Edit: If Zenit-2 really can fly for $1500 per pound then Falcon may well be what Boeing could have easily done decades ago if they didn't have "cost-plus" contracts with the Pentagon.

IF this is true then a private space hotel and a follow on race to deliver passengers at the lowest possible price will drop launch costs faster than any NASA prize fund.

GCNRevenger · 2004-05-06 08:30:30

I don't think that the technology behind the DH-1 is all that far-out, the big issues are vehicle dry mass and the recovery mechanisms, the problem is still economic... that there is no good use for a vehicle that small. 5,000lbs and so few cubic meters is simply not viable for an RLV orbital spacecraft, period. You can't launch satellites to GEO cheaper or easier, you can't launch large numbers of people, you can't launch anything of practical size other than mini-sats, and you can't launch much bulk cargo per-flight.

Kistler Aerospace, using as much off-the-shelf hardware as possible to make a rocket, which is 100% reuseable in similar fasion to the DH-1, but with double the payload and no crew, has no customers and little hope of ever being completed, plus is >$600M in debt... Oh and get this, quoting from their very own website, guess how much it would cost per-flight? For a dumb simple buy-the-engines LOX/Kerosene rocket? 14 Million Dollars a Shot!... I don't think it gets any clearer then that just what a bad idea DH-1 is.

The only kind of orbital RLV I can see building in the near future is somthing along the lines of a slightly enlarged DC-I (ala DC-X) SSTO rocket. Tailor it 3-4 varients, one for 10-15MT unpressurized loads to LEO, 8-12MT pressurized, or seats for six in a crew cabin... perhaps a tanker version for maximum payload mass using stretched main tanks.

ANTIcarrot. · 2004-05-06 16:52:59

In all fairness, the DH-1's company AM&M is set a few years into the future. The DH-1 could be seen in context as a K-1 version two. Differences (improvements?) between the two is the DH-1 has a powered tail-down soft landing for both stages and re-enters tail first. Air cusioned landings on the side would put extra stresses on it. And of course the former is manned, which some peopel are willing to pay any price for.

Overall the Rocket Company is probably si8milar in intent to the book MArs Direct: A guide to an alternative methodology, which may be more successful than the current ones, with a given engineering example, not a perfect nuts and bolts blueprint.

EDIT: I think the DC-X follow on was to be the DC-Y. And yes I agree that would be a better design than the DH-1 or the K-1. And definately better than the X-33 MPTN*.

ANTIcarrot.
*Money Pit To Nowhere.

GCNRevenger · 2004-05-06 21:42:45

More stress perhaps, but certainly easier and lighter than a powerd landing... and thats only for the first stage.

Adding people will only make the thing more expensive to fly, and there isn't enough room for paying tourists on the tiny DH-1 tin can.

I really don't see how anybody can take the DH-1's "quarter mil a shot" seriously, where the fuel alone will cost that much. 14,000,000 to 250,000? For half the payload? A more than fifty fold decrease for a more complex and less efficent vehicle? Comparing Rocket Company to MarsDirect is somthing of an insult to MarsDirect.

Edit: Barring a substantial improvement in technology, as in "beyond rockets," I don't think that cost per-flight for an orbital vehicle of any kind is possible.

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#51 2004-05-06 05:37:36

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

#52 2004-05-06 06:14:02

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

#53 2004-05-06 07:44:17

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

#54 2004-05-06 08:19:28

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

#55 2004-05-06 08:30:30

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

#56 2004-05-06 16:52:59

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

#57 2004-05-06 21:42:45

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

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