Nasa/faa
blue.planet
At what point should NASA become strictly a regulatory and research
administration after the role the FAA plays in air travel?
The profit motive is probably the best way to bring costs associated
with getting payloads into orbit down. Just as private companies led
development of economical and efficient air travel(with some government
assistance), the same is probably true for space travel.
--
blue.planet
Rand Simberg
blue.planet <blue.plan...@spacebanter.com> made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:
>
>At what point should NASA become strictly a regulatory and research
>administration after the role the FAA plays in air travel?
Never. The FAA is already doing that for space.
Michael Rhino
news:blue.plan...@spacebanter.com...
If NASA has a $10 billion budget, private companies want a piece of that
budget. If NASA has no money, private companies may find themselves with
insufficient revenue.
jacob navia
brothers could do by themselves with some materials
from a bycicle shop in 1905, and building a spaceship, something
nobody has done in a garage.
What all this NASA bashing "private sector" people refuse to
acknowledge is that a spaceship is just NOT POSSIBLE as a private
enterprise and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
The last "records" done by the private sector would put us back
at the level of technology of the 50s: just putting our nose
a few meters above the atmosphere. And they were financed by
a prize. Not by customers.
Just to reach orbit, the requirements change so much that I see
no "space tourism" in the next 50 years!
What can be done of course, is that a state with enough resources
pioneers space tourism, as the russians have demonstrated. But that
is a state, with all the resources and funding of a state, not
a private company. And the ticket can be paid only by the really
happy few: 28 million dollars /trip!
jacob
Pete Lynn
news:43fbf7f3$0$18327$8fcf...@news.wanadoo.fr...
>
> There is an enormous gap between building a plane,
> something two brothers could do by themselves with
> some materials from a bycicle shop in 1905, and
> building a spaceship, something nobody has done in a
> garage.
Yet...
With each passing year it becomes easier.
Even an LEO capable one person spaceship might have a drymass of less
than 500 kg. This is in the range of home built cars, aircraft and
boats. Modern day equivalents of the Wright brothers, with modern day
equivalent workshop facilities, funding and time schedules could
probably do it. Especially if they did not have to develop their own
engines.
Note the progress of Armadillo, the volunteers of which only spend a
couple of days at it a week.
Pete.
Rand Simberg
navia <ja...@jacob.remcomp.fr> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:
>There is an enormous gap between building a plane, something two
>brothers could do by themselves with some materials
>from a bycicle shop in 1905, and building a spaceship, something
>nobody has done in a garage.
>
>What all this NASA bashing "private sector" people refuse to
>acknowledge is that a spaceship is just NOT POSSIBLE as a private
>enterprise and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
Tell Burt Rutan.
>The last "records" done by the private sector would put us back
>at the level of technology of the 50s: just putting our nose
>a few meters above the atmosphere. And they were financed by
>a prize. Not by customers.
Tell Richard Branson.
>Just to reach orbit, the requirements change so much that I see
>no "space tourism" in the next 50 years!
No one cares what you see or don't see! Even if you put exclamation
marks at the end of it!
jacob navia
> On Wed, 22 Feb 2006 06:34:43 +0100, in a place far, far away, jacob
> navia <ja...@jacob.remcomp.fr> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
> such a way as to indicate that:
>
>
>>There is an enormous gap between building a plane, something two
>>brothers could do by themselves with some materials
>
>>from a bycicle shop in 1905, and building a spaceship, something
>
>>nobody has done in a garage.
>>
>>What all this NASA bashing "private sector" people refuse to
>>acknowledge is that a spaceship is just NOT POSSIBLE as a private
>>enterprise and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
>
>
> Tell Burt Rutan.
>
I didn't know that Mr Rutan has put someone in orbit...
Did he?
>
>>The last "records" done by the private sector would put us back
>>at the level of technology of the 50s: just putting our nose
>>a few meters above the atmosphere. And they were financed by
>>a prize. Not by customers.
>
>
> Tell Richard Branson.
>
>
Mr Branson has sent someone in earth orbit?
That would be news to me.
>>Just to reach orbit, the requirements change so much that I see
>>no "space tourism" in the next 50 years!
>
>
> No one cares what you see or don't see! Even if you put exclamation
> marks at the end of it!
Note the exclamation mark at the end of your "arguments".
There wasn't any arguments in your reply, not a single
fact.
The difference of energy from sub-orbital to orbital is
QUITE big... not speaking about reaching Jupiter, or other
planets. "Private sector" means:
STOP ALL SPACE EXPLORATION NOW.
Then, let's wait till some millionaires feel like
exploring other planets for fun.
jacob
Rand Simberg
navia <ja...@jacob.remcomp.fr> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:
>Rand Simberg a écrit :
>> On Wed, 22 Feb 2006 06:34:43 +0100, in a place far, far away, jacob
>> navia <ja...@jacob.remcomp.fr> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
>> such a way as to indicate that:
>>
>>
>>>There is an enormous gap between building a plane, something two
>>>brothers could do by themselves with some materials
>>
>>>from a bycicle shop in 1905, and building a spaceship, something
>>
>>>nobody has done in a garage.
>>>
>>>What all this NASA bashing "private sector" people refuse to
>>>acknowledge is that a spaceship is just NOT POSSIBLE as a private
>>>enterprise and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
>>
>>
>> Tell Burt Rutan.
>>
>
>I didn't know that Mr Rutan has put someone in orbit...
You said space.
>Mr Branson has sent someone in earth orbit?
You said space.
>>>Just to reach orbit, the requirements change so much that I see
>>>no "space tourism" in the next 50 years!
>>
>>
>> No one cares what you see or don't see! Even if you put exclamation
>> marks at the end of it!
>
>Note the exclamation mark at the end of your "arguments".
I see that your sarcasm meter is busted.
>There wasn't any arguments in your reply, not a single
>fact.
>
>The difference of energy from sub-orbital to orbital is
>QUITE big...
Which has almost nothing to do with how much it costs, or how
difficult it is.
mma...@my-deja.com
> The last "records" done by the private sector would put us back
> at the level of technology of the 50s: just putting our nose
> a few meters above the atmosphere.
Indeed.
So on that basis, we should expect tourist flights to the Moon by 2020.
Maybe NASA will be able to afford to buy a few tickets after they scrap
the shuttle.
Mark
Chance
commercial space industry is certainly up for debate, but some of your
points are very general. Have you read the market study by Futron? If
so, where do you disagree with their analysis? If not, it can be found
on the FAA website. Besides, if there is more supply, prices should
eventually come down.
I mean, several universities run huge and expensive science
departments. They run nuclear accelerators, neutrino detectors, ect.
Imagine if they could buy an expandable module from Bigelow, launch it
on a rocket from Space X, and perform experiments up there. I believe
that at least some would take the oppurtunity. What if google decides
to send up satellites to supplement google earth? Unlikely I know, but
concievable. These are only examples. The point I am trying to make
is that while you may be right, it is equally likely that a market will
develop for these services, expensive or not.
Henry Spencer
jacob navia <ja...@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:
>There is an enormous gap between building a plane, something two
>brothers could do by themselves with some materials
Remember that those two brothers had to, among other things, build their
own engines (because commercial ones were much too heavy). It wasn't a
small project for them; it took them years of constant effort.
It's not beyond reasonable belief that the same sort of dedicated
long-term effort by a small team could achieve spaceflight. It *is* a
harder problem, but we also start from a much higher technological base;
the major practical impact of that is not that you need armies of people,
but that you need slightly more than a bicycle-shop budget, because you
have to be able to buy that technology.
>What all this NASA bashing "private sector" people refuse to
>acknowledge is that a spaceship is just NOT POSSIBLE as a private
>enterprise and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
Such a statement would be stronger if it were justified in more detail.
As it is, you're just loudly repeating: "The Emperor *can't* be standing
there with no clothes on. He can't be, he can't be, he can't be!"
>The last "records" done by the private sector would put us back
>at the level of technology of the 50s: just putting our nose
>a few meters above the atmosphere.
Quite so. The 50s were followed by the 60s, please note.
>And they were financed by a prize. Not by customers.
No, they were financed by people whose immediate interest was the prize,
but who saw customer potential beyond that. Winning the X-Prize cost
Allen and Rutan *substantially more* than the cash value of the prize; by
itself it was not a profitable venture. But they and Branson think that
the follow-on vehicles can be profitable.
>Just to reach orbit, the requirements change so much that I see
>no "space tourism" in the next 50 years!
Space tourism doesn't require reaching orbit, as witness what Branson
and others are already gearing up to do. Orbit would be *better*, yes,
but first things first.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | he...@spsystems.net
Henry Spencer
jacob navia <ja...@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:
>The difference of energy from sub-orbital to orbital is QUITE big...
Energy just means fuel. More fuel is cheap. Bigger tanks to hold it are
not expensive. Remember that it was done half a century ago, using
technology that's ridiculously crude by today's standards.
The one crucial area of technology that's still poorly developed is
reentry thermal protection -- getting *rid* of all that energy. There are
usable solutions, mind you, just not particularly convenient ones. Some
innovation there may be called for. It doesn't have to be terribly
high-tech; the heatshields used on the Mercury capsules were something you
*could* make in your garage, given a bit of expenditure on materials first.
>not speaking about reaching Jupiter, or other
>planets. "Private sector" means:
>STOP ALL SPACE EXPLORATION NOW.
Why? Note that the private sector includes non-profit ventures as well as
profitable ones. The real golden age of space exploration will not start
until the National Geographic Society can fund Mars expeditions the same
way it used to fund polar expeditions.
(Note that it almost certainly will not build its own spaceships -- it
will buy them or rent them from for-profit suppliers.)
The main prerequisite for that is lower price tags. There is every reason
to believe that those are possible, but you'll never get them from
government programs.
Jim Logajan
> There is an enormous gap between building a plane, something two
> brothers could do by themselves with some materials
> from a bycicle shop in 1905, and building a spaceship, something
> nobody has done in a garage.
Keep in mind that Robert H. Goddard and the German rocket clubs managed to
develop the field of liquid fuel rocketry on the proverbial shoe string.
In the west, private companies already do all the development and
construction of rockets. The only issue today is the source of the funding
and the economic viability - the technology is essentially established.
Earl Colby Pottinger
> There is an enormous gap between building a plane, something two
> brothers could do by themselves with some materials
> from a bycicle shop in 1905, and building a spaceship, something
> nobody has done in a garage.
That would be a great arguement against private enterprise execpt for the
little fact that the government run program to develop a flying machine at
the same time as the Wright Brothers was spending far more money than them
and failing!
> What all this NASA bashing "private sector" people refuse to
> acknowledge is that a spaceship is just NOT POSSIBLE as a private
> enterprise and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
Was not H. Stine told the same when he help develop model rockets? Whatever
you do, do not go to the ArmadilloAerospace website then as they look like
they will make it in the forseeable future. And never look at the Scaled
Composites where they spend thier time making aircraft that others said were
not possible.
> The last "records" done by the private sector would put us back
> at the level of technology of the 50s: just putting our nose
> a few meters above the atmosphere. And they were financed by
> a prize. Not by customers.
And compared to the X-33 and X-35 which also were not financed by customers
SS1 has far suppassed the government programs.
> Just to reach orbit, the requirements change so much that I see
> no "space tourism" in the next 50 years!
Weird, considering a number of space tourists have already lifted off. What
you are claiming is there is not a market for a product that has already had
close to a $100 million in sales. That is some weird market :)
> What can be done of course, is that a state with enough resources
> pioneers space tourism, as the russians have demonstrated. But that
> is a state, with all the resources and funding of a state, not
> a private company. And the ticket can be paid only by the really
> happy few: 28 million dollars /trip!
Opps, you just contradicted you. The sales of those trips were done thru a
corparation and it is still "space tourism" no matter if the funds are paid
to a private or public company. The same as if I go to the zoo or museum, it
does not matter who owns it, I still have to pay at the door to enter and I
never bother to ask who owns it, I ask how good is the tour compared to what
I paid.
Space Tourism already exist because people have paid and gone on the trip.
Earl Colby Pottinger
--
<Cruising, building a Catamaran, Rebuilding Cabin, New Peroxide Still Design,
Writting SF, Programming FOSS - What happened to the time?>
Eric Chomko
: jacob navia <ja...@jacob.remcomp.fr> :
: > There is an enormous gap between building a plane, something two
: > brothers could do by themselves with some materials
: > from a bycicle shop in 1905, and building a spaceship, something
: > nobody has done in a garage.
: That would be a great arguement against private enterprise execpt for the
: little fact that the government run program to develop a flying machine at
: the same time as the Wright Brothers was spending far more money than them
: and failing!
Same thing with rigid air baloons.
: > What all this NASA bashing "private sector" people refuse to
: > acknowledge is that a spaceship is just NOT POSSIBLE as a private
: > enterprise and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
: Was not H. Stine told the same when he help develop model rockets? Whatever
: you do, do not go to the ArmadilloAerospace website then as they look like
: they will make it in the forseeable future. And never look at the Scaled
: Composites where they spend thier time making aircraft that others said were
: not possible.
Goddard as well.
: > The last "records" done by the private sector would put us back
: > at the level of technology of the 50s: just putting our nose
: > a few meters above the atmosphere. And they were financed by
: > a prize. Not by customers.
: And compared to the X-33 and X-35 which also were not financed by customers
: SS1 has far suppassed the government programs.
: > Just to reach orbit, the requirements change so much that I see
: > no "space tourism" in the next 50 years!
: Weird, considering a number of space tourists have already lifted off. What
: you are claiming is there is not a market for a product that has already had
: close to a $100 million in sales. That is some weird market :)
But that market is thin indeed.
: > What can be done of course, is that a state with enough resources
: > pioneers space tourism, as the russians have demonstrated. But that
: > is a state, with all the resources and funding of a state, not
: > a private company. And the ticket can be paid only by the really
: > happy few: 28 million dollars /trip!
: Opps, you just contradicted you. The sales of those trips were done thru a
: corparation and it is still "space tourism" no matter if the funds are paid
: to a private or public company. The same as if I go to the zoo or museum, it
: does not matter who owns it, I still have to pay at the door to enter and I
: never bother to ask who owns it, I ask how good is the tour compared to what
: I paid.
: Space Tourism already exist because people have paid and gone on the trip.
I think the poster meant available to a segment so as to be able to
sustain itself. Face it, a couple of folks in space isn't a "market" per
se. Not to try and rain on the parade, but, when will SSn make it into
orbit? Will the time between SS1 and SSn be less than the Mercury flights
of Shepard and Glenn? Or has that already transpired?
I want to see commercial space work because I think it will solve the high
cost of access to space. Certainly goverenments aren't going to be able
to do it, otherwise it would already be here. OTOH, the track record for
commercial spaceflight isn't a long one and much more needs to be done.
Eric
: Earl Colby Pottinger
blue.planet
Under the current situation large scale funding of NASA is not ensured.
Last year $1 billion in funding was removed from the food stamp program
and money was cut from the budget to heat schools nationwide. As the
Defence budget continues to grow along with the deficit, politically
it's going to become increasingly difficult to justify money for space
travel and exploration. IMO the days of a single launch costing $ 500
million+ are ending and if NASA wants to stay in the "Space" business
it's going to have to reinvent itself.
One of the ways to do this is use it's experience to help private
companies find truly cost effective ways to get people and payloads
into orbit.
--
blue.planet
j.hal...@rogers.com
jacob navia wrote:
> There is an enormous gap between building a plane, something two
> brothers could do by themselves with some materials
> from a bycicle shop in 1905, and building a spaceship, something
> nobody has done in a garage.
>
It's a far different world now from 1905, with many things much easier
now and some things harder. There is far more information available
now, but also a lot more public scrutiny and criticism.
If the Wright brothers had posted their 1903 plans on the internet:
6 posters would criticise their front mounted elevator as unstable and
dangerous,
8 more would consider the chain driven propellors as heavy and
unreliable,
3 human factors engineers would rate the hip operated controls as
impossible to learn,
1 of them would decry hip wiggling as lewd and immoral, and likely to
bring down the wrath of the Almighty,
18 engineers would show that aircraft needed large amounts of energy
merely to stay aloft, while balloons needed none,
29 historians would point out that balloons have been used successfully
for over a century, but that no one had ever flown an airplane. A
debate would arise as to whetger this was due to the laws of physics or
a plot by the balloon industry.
16 balloonists would note that a ten foot altitude was only 0.05
percent of 20 thousand feet, so even a sucessful flight would be
meaningless,
17 fanboys would claim that the Wrights were the greatest visionaries
since Leonardo da Vinci, and predict transcontinental flights within
five years,
3 environmentalists would point out that gasoline is polluting while
hydrogen is environmentally wonderful.
The Wright brothers would respond to all comments, prepare a business
plan, facter in the technical and legal risks, and conclude the
greatest financial return would be made if they got out of the airplane
business and concentrated on importing bicycles from China.
john Halpenny
John Savard
wrote, in part:
>There is an enormous gap between building a plane, something two
>brothers could do by themselves with some materials
>from a bycicle shop in 1905, and building a spaceship, something
>nobody has done in a garage.
>What all this NASA bashing "private sector" people refuse to
>acknowledge is that a spaceship is just NOT POSSIBLE as a private
>enterprise and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
This is why Atlas, Delta, and Titan boosters are built at the No. 1, No.
2, and No. 3 United States Spaceship Works, and not by privately-owned
companies like Boeing and Lockheed-Martin.
While private companies *do* build rockets, they are not allowed to
actually launch them themselves... which is also why the workers at
Sylvania aren't worried that General Electric might decide to nuke the
competition one day.
Although one very *basic* fact is wrong, it certainly _is_ true that
space travel is so expensive as to be totally uneconomic in relation to
rewards for private companies. A company the size of Microsoft might go
into space as a *very* long-term investment... but don't hold your
breath. So I basically agree with you, even so.
John Savard
http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html
_________________________________________
Usenet Zone Free Binaries Usenet Server
More than 140,000 groups
Unlimited download
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blue.planet
John Savard Wrote:
>
> Although one very *basic* fact is wrong, it certainly _is_ true that
> space travel is so expensive as to be totally uneconomic in relation
> to
> rewards for private companies. A company the size of Microsoft might
> go
> into space as a *very* long-term investment... but don't hold your
> breath. So I basically agree with you, even so.
>
>
artificially high level by the way it's been funded. Government
contractors have been paid on a "cost plus" basis. They are paid for
the cost of the product delivered(ex. shuttle launch) plus a percentage
of that cost as "profit". The more the launch costs the bigger the
profit. There has been no incentive to reduce the costs of space
launches by NASA contractors.
Private companies on the other hand are going to have to find the
cheapest way of delivering mass into space or their customers are going
to find a cheaper alternative. And like in the early days of air travel,
if you start offering a new service you will create a clientele that
didn't exixt before.
--
blue.planet
jacob navia
> Whether or not there is sufficient demand to support a robust
> commercial space industry is certainly up for debate, but some of your
> points are very general. Have you read the market study by Futron? If
> so, where do you disagree with their analysis? If not, it can be found
> on the FAA website. Besides, if there is more supply, prices should
> eventually come down.
>
That is a market study for space turism.
It can be even true, I do not care. I am not interested in space
turism but in space exploration.
What is important for me is that mankind can pursue the avenue
of knowledge that started with the exploration of space:
o a mission to Jupiter's stallite Europa will discover the first alien
life forms. The Galileo spacecraft discovered the first extra-
terrestial ocean there.
o Pursuing the exploration of Mars, Venus and Mercury.
o Exploring Neptune, Uranus and setting permanent orbiting machines
over there as we now have with Saturn.
o Developing space astronomy: more space scopes, more specific
missions for specific targets like finding earth like planets.
All of this have absolutely no place in a commercial context,
science is not profitable by itself.
> I mean, several universities run huge and expensive science
> departments. They run nuclear accelerators, neutrino detectors, ect.
> Imagine if they could buy an expandable module from Bigelow, launch it
> on a rocket from Space X, and perform experiments up there. I believe
> that at least some would take the oppurtunity. What if google decides
> to send up satellites to supplement google earth? Unlikely I know, but
> concievable. These are only examples. The point I am trying to make
> is that while you may be right, it is equally likely that a market will
> develop for these services, expensive or not.
>
There are already a lot of usable platforms: Arianne space, the
russians, the chinese, the brazilian, and several other nations
that will enter the race shortly. Japan has been plagued by bad
chance but they are persevering.
This universities could use cheap russian rockets already now,
instead of waiting till some private company appears.
Please do not misunderstand me: I am NOT against space tourism.
If some millionaires get into orbit si perfectly OK with me, I do
not give a damm about what millionairies do or do not do.
I am interested in KNOWLEDGE gathering, i.e. SCIENCE, in space.
I am interested in space exploration, not about having some
rich guys orbit earth for fun.
jacob
jacob navia
> In article <43fbf7f3$0$18327$8fcf...@news.wanadoo.fr>,
> jacob navia <ja...@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:
>
>>There is an enormous gap between building a plane, something two
>>brothers could do by themselves with some materials
>
>>from a bycicle shop in 1905...
>
> Remember that those two brothers had to, among other things, build their
> own engines (because commercial ones were much too heavy). It wasn't a
> small project for them; it took them years of constant effort.
>
> It's not beyond reasonable belief that the same sort of dedicated
> long-term effort by a small team could achieve spaceflight. It *is* a
> harder problem, but we also start from a much higher technological base;
> the major practical impact of that is not that you need armies of people,
> but that you need slightly more than a bicycle-shop budget, because you
> have to be able to buy that technology.
>
>
>>What all this NASA bashing "private sector" people refuse to
>>acknowledge is that a spaceship is just NOT POSSIBLE as a private
>>enterprise and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
>
>
> Such a statement would be stronger if it were justified in more detail.
> As it is, you're just loudly repeating: "The Emperor *can't* be standing
> there with no clothes on. He can't be, he can't be, he can't be!"
>
There is a simple reason: SCIENCE, i.e. space exploration, is not a
profitable activity. There is no money to be earned by going to
the planets, setting up a robot to explore Mars or Venus. Of course
it is possible to build cheaper spaceships but the objective would
be to earn money with a few millionaires that would get into orbit.
Not space exploration, and surely not planet exploration as we do it
now.
You can yell at NASA as much as you want, the fact is that that
organization has brought us the disoveries of Mars, Jupiter, etc etc
discoveries that will be the most stunning legacy of our generation.
No private enterprise would have objectives like that.
jacob
ianpa...@gmail.com
The mass of a body and the stresses go up as the cube of linear
dimensions, whereas the thickness and strength go up to the square of
the linear dimensions. Put very simply this means that if at
L = 1 we can launch 1000 Kg and have a deadweight of 500Kg
L = 2 we must have a deadweight of 8000Kg and can only launch 4000Kg
L = 3 we have a deadweight of 40500Kg and we can't get into orbit
Note DW = L^4 Payload = L^3
This is very oversimplified, it ignores the effect of scaling on
combusion characteristics. However it is instructive.
When the Shuttle was designed NASA in fact wanted a SMALL vehicle which
approximated to true SSTO. The miliary wanted the giant which is the
Shuttle to launch spy satellites. Consequence the Shuttle is in no way
SSTO and is not really reusable.
I believe that HOTOL or some variant is the best SSTO concept
If we target payloads of the 250-1000Kg range we get a project which is
doable (just about). Also the same dimensional analysis applies to heat
loads. It is easier to get 1500Kg down than a Shuttle.
You cannot build a HOTOL in your garage. There is a lot of complex
aerodynamic analysis to start with. NASA could provide aerodymamic
codes to run on a PC at its website. If I were building something in my
garage I would think of using Blackbird or something like it to do a
Mach 4 launch. BB does not need large tanks. It needs to get upto Mach
4 and return as an unmanned aircraft.
This I am convinced is the way to SSTO. It will mean building
spacecraft in a modular way.
Pat Flannery
ianpa...@gmail.com wrote:
>I believe that HOTOL or some variant is the best SSTO concept
>
>http://groups.google.co.uk/group/sci.space.policy/browse_frm/thread/6899c634f15f2058/31941dc2231e8308?lnk=st&q=group%3Asci.space.policy+insubject%3Awhip&rnum=1&hl=en#31941dc2231e8308
>
>If we target payloads of the 250-1000Kg range we get a project which is
>doable (just about).
>
But that is an awfully small payload to fly a whole space mission for;
less than a small pick-up truck can carry in its rear box and
considerably less than a single-engine Cessna 208 Caravan carries. You'd
be awfully limited in what types of payloads would be deliverable by
such a system, particularly since this seems awfully light for any sort
of payload that needs a attached stage to carry it on to GEO.
Developing something like this wouldn't be cheap, especially developing
the high tech HOTOL type engines, and one has to ask oneself if the
development cost would be worth the economic payoff of the rather
limited number of payloads that it would probably attract.
> Also the same dimensional analysis applies to heat
>loads. It is easier to get 1500Kg down than a Shuttle.
>
>You cannot build a HOTOL in your garage. There is a lot of complex
>aerodynamic analysis to start with. NASA could provide aerodymamic
>codes to run on a PC at its website. If I were building something in my
>garage I would think of using Blackbird or something like it to do a
>Mach 4 launch. BB does not need large tanks. It needs to get upto Mach
>4 and return as an unmanned aircraft.
>
>This I am convinced is the way to SSTO. It will mean building
>spacecraft in a modular way.
>
>
Even at around 1000 kg per flight, that's going to be a lot of modules.
A fueled Apollo LM for instance would take around 15 flights, as it
weighs 14,696 kg.
Pat
Will McLean
Henry Spencer wrote:
> In article <43fc62ff$0$19689$8fcf...@news.wanadoo.fr>,
> jacob navia <ja...@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:
> >The difference of energy from sub-orbital to orbital is QUITE big...
>
> Energy just means fuel. More fuel is cheap. Bigger tanks to hold it are
> not expensive.
For certain values of "not expensive". How many million dollars for a
shuttle fuel tank? OK, they're selling to the government. But they are
also treating design, development and tooling as a sunk cost.
And a big tank full of cheap fuel is just a lawn ornament without
engines to get it off the ground. Engines to lift a heavy tank of fuel
are not cheap.
> Remember that it was done half a century ago, using
> technology that's ridiculously crude by today's standards.
>
Using an R-7 booster, which is still highly competitive with the most
advanced boosters on the market today.
Will McLean
jacob navia
> Henry Spencer wrote:
>
>>In article <43fc62ff$0$19689$8fcf...@news.wanadoo.fr>,
>>jacob navia <ja...@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:
>>
>>>The difference of energy from sub-orbital to orbital is QUITE big...
>>
>>Energy just means fuel. More fuel is cheap. Bigger tanks to hold it are
>>not expensive.
>
>
> For certain values of "not expensive". How many million dollars for a
> shuttle fuel tank? OK, they're selling to the government. But they are
> also treating design, development and tooling as a sunk cost.
>
> And a big tank full of cheap fuel is just a lawn ornament without
> engines to get it off the ground. Engines to lift a heavy tank of fuel
> are not cheap.
I would like to emphasize this. Engine development is really the crux
of the matter, as it was in the brothers Wright case.
Developing a cheap engine that can lift a huge tank is not within
the reach of any "startup" now.
ianpa...@gmail.com
>A fueled Apollo LM for instance would take around 15 flights, as it
>weighs 14,696 kg.
Agreed BUT if you could have cheap HOTOL flights this would be
possible. If you had a runway with 15 flights an hour you would soon
get it up.
I agree that there will be heavy indivisible loads, probably with
careful design not that many. We were discussing too the two bicycle
mechanics in their garage. 1000Kg would put them into orbit just fine.
In a capitalist system economics is the driver. Suppose 1000Kg cost let
us say $100,000 that is 100$/Kg. To put up 20,000Kg cost $50M. Now if a
Heavy indivisable load cost $50M and 20 flights cost $2M - Quite an
incentive. Probably you could put 4 people into space per flight. Fare
$25,000 - Quite a few takers at that price.
I believe in the ability of people to make economic decisions.
Incidentally the modularity of space systems depends on fabrication
technology. Robotics again.
Rand Simberg
>I would like to emphasize this. Engine development is really the crux
>of the matter, as it was in the brothers Wright case.
>
>Developing a cheap engine that can lift a huge tank is not within
>the reach of any "startup" now.
If you ignore SpaceX.
Chance
"What is important for me is that mankind can pursue the avenue
of knowledge that started with the exploration of space....
All of this have absolutely no place in a commercial context,
science is not profitable by itself."
This is where I feel your are mistaken. There are direct reasons why
commercial interests have a place in space exploration. To cite one of
your own examples:
o Europa - This is a huge resource. There are billions of tons of
water that can be extracted and used for everything from drinking water
to fuel. If they had the capability, a company would have strong
interest to visit and explore their. But what about ecological damage
you say? Well, of course governments would step in if necessary, but
can you imagine the backlash against the company that discovers life on
europa, and keeps it a secret/harms the life there? That would be
commiting coporate suicide.
You also said:
"There are already a lot of usable platforms: Arianne space, the
russians, the chinese, the brazilian, and several other nations
that will enter the race shortly. Japan has been plagued by bad
chance but they are persevering This universities could use cheap
russian rockets already now,
instead of waiting till some private company appears. "
Well, while russian rockets are cheaper, they are still not cheap. And
the launches are government, and so may be changed due to political
whim. For instance, right now NASA can bump your mission, since the
Russians are not going to choose you over NASA. Customers need low
cost and they need reliable partners who will honor their contracts.
Governments cannot or will not fill that need.
Finally, while your goal of gathering knowledge may be noble, and
probably the ultimate goal of almost everyone on this board, it just
isn't enough by itself. It is those same joy riding millionaires who
write grants to and make donations. As costs come down and the upper
middle class (and not just millionaires) has experienced space, they
will be more willing to invest tax dollars into Nasa exploration.
Right now Nasa struggles to keep all it's programs floating. Big
increases in budget do not appear on the horizan. The average voter
supports NASA, but in a very mild way. Now, once companies have
launched say, several thousand americans into either suborbit or orbit,
you will have a group, a constituancy, with the money, political pull,
and motivation to support the very programs you want. You may not
care about the millionaires sir, but you are going to need them.
Rand Simberg
<chanc...@yahoo.com> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:
>Finally, while your goal of gathering knowledge may be noble, and
>probably the ultimate goal of almost everyone on this board, it just
>isn't enough by itself. It is those same joy riding millionaires who
>write grants to and make donations. As costs come down and the upper
>middle class (and not just millionaires) has experienced space, they
>will be more willing to invest tax dollars into Nasa exploration.
>Right now Nasa struggles to keep all it's programs floating. Big
>increases in budget do not appear on the horizan. The average voter
>supports NASA, but in a very mild way. Now, once companies have
>launched say, several thousand americans into either suborbit or orbit,
>you will have a group, a constituancy, with the money, political pull,
>and motivation to support the very programs you want. You may not
>care about the millionaires sir, but you are going to need them.
That's not the point. The point is that by offering rides to
millionaires, the activity will increase to allow prices to come down
to the point at which even non-millionaires can afford them.
Furthermore, the prices will come down to the pont at which we can
afford to do a lot more space cience and exploration, whether funded
by the government, or by the National Geographic Society. People who
denigrate public space travel in favor of space science are only
hurting their own cause.
Pat Flannery
Chance wrote:
>This is where I feel your are mistaken. There are direct reasons why
>commercial interests have a place in space exploration. To cite one of
>your own examples:
>
>o Europa - This is a huge resource. There are billions of tons of
>water that can be extracted and used for everything from drinking water
>to fuel.
>
The Sono-Squids ain't going to like this idea one iota. And there is
nothing that can get quite as pissed as a Europian Sono-Squid. As they
would say: "this idea has ink all over it.".
> If they had the capability, a company would have strong
>interest to visit and explore their. But what about ecological damage
>you say? Well, of course governments would step in if necessary, but
>can you imagine the backlash against the company that discovers life on
>europa, and keeps it a secret/harms the life there? That would be
>commiting coporate suicide.
>
>
You won't have to worry about that- the first drill string that comes
out of the bore hole will have a nuclear arm-grenade strapped to the
end, with all ten pins pulled. :-)
Pat
Chance
I thought that was the point I made! Was I that unclear?
To Pat,
LMAO. You know, it's funny cause it's true.
jacob navia
Yes, they look as if they have something. They built from an engine
developed by NASA:
"The SpaceX five and nine engine architectures are improved versions of
those employed by the Saturn V and Saturn I rockets of the Apollo
Program, which had flawless flight records despite losing engines on a
number of missions."
OK, then maybe it works, they haven't flown anything yet:
"Falcon 1 Maiden Flight Update: Posted February 10, 2006
We were very happy to be able to execute a flight countdown all the way
to lighting the engine. Although there wasn't a launch this time, we
made a lot of progress refining the rocket and launch pad -- all work
that needed to be done anyway. I will post a longer update next week,
after we have enough time to finish forensics of recent events and
formulate next steps.
---Elon"
Rand Simberg
>To Rand,
> I thought that was the point I made! Was I that unclear?
Yes.
Your point seemed to be that we had to get rich people on board to get
more taxpayer funds for it. My point was that we had to get rich
people on board so that we wouldn't need to.
Rand Simberg
navia <ja...@jacob.remcomp.fr> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:
>>>Developing a cheap engine that can lift a huge tank is not within
>>>the reach of any "startup" now.
>>
>>
>> If you ignore SpaceX.
>
>Yes, they look as if they have something. They built from an engine
>developed by NASA:
>
>"The SpaceX five and nine engine architectures are improved versions of
>those employed by the Saturn V and Saturn I rockets of the Apollo
>Program, which had flawless flight records despite losing engines on a
>number of missions."
It's an all-new engine, though.
Will McLean
Henry Spencer wrote:
> In article <43fbf7f3$0$18327$8fcf...@news.wanadoo.fr>,
> jacob navia <ja...@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:
> >There is an enormous gap between building a plane, something two
> >brothers could do by themselves with some materials
> >from a bycicle shop in 1905...
>
> Remember that those two brothers had to, among other things, build their
> own engines (because commercial ones were much too heavy). It wasn't a
> small project for them; it took them years of constant effort.
>
The Wright brothers didn't build their engine. Charles Taylor did, and
it took him about six weeks using basic machine tools on mechanic's
wages.
Three years work for two brothers is still a tremendous difference from
the number of man years in even Rutan's suborbital craft.
Will McLean
Rand Simberg
<mclea...@aol.com> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:
>The Wright brothers didn't build their engine. Charles Taylor did, and
>it took him about six weeks using basic machine tools on mechanic's
>wages.
Charles Taylor worked for them. I'd say that the aviation R&D firm
that was the Wright Brothers developed the engine.
Henry Spencer
John Savard <jsa...@excxn.aNOSPAMb.cdn.invalid> wrote:
>While private companies *do* build rockets, they are not allowed to
>actually launch them themselves...
Sorry, wrong -- most launches at the Cape and Vandenberg nowadays are done
by commercial crews. They're using a government *launch site* and have to
comply with a large assortment of USAF regulations as a result -- over and
above the FAA regulations governing all commercial launches -- but it's
not the government doing the launch. With the exceptions of the shuttle,
the now-defunct Titan IV, and the still-hypothetical VSE launchers, the
government has been out of the launch business since the late 1980s.
>Although one very *basic* fact is wrong, it certainly _is_ true that
>space travel is so expensive as to be totally uneconomic in relation to
>rewards for private companies.
So long as it's done using the old government-developed cost-is-no-object
methods, yes, that's true. But that's not a law of nature, just an
accident of the stupid way we traditionally do things in space.
For a government program, the X-15 was cheap... but Rutan's Spaceship One
beat the X-15's altitude record for about 1% of what the X-15 cost.
>...A company the size of Microsoft might go
>into space as a *very* long-term investment...
Richard Branson seems to think there's money to be made in the short term.
There is evidence that he knows more about making money than you do. :-)
Will McLean
Henry Spencer wrote:
>
> For a government program, the X-15 was cheap... but Rutan's Spaceship One
> beat the X-15's altitude record for about 1% of what the X-15 cost.
>
On the other hand, the X-15 program went to Mach 6.7, flew free almost
200 times, and built three rocketplanes instead of one.
Will McLean
Greg D. Moore (Strider)
"Will McLean" <mclea...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1140733584.4...@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
The biggest difference here really is the speed. But again, that wasn't
Henry was referencing.
I doubt two more flight vehicles and 190+ more flights would have cost 99%
more than it did.
>
> Will McLean
>
Pete Lynn
news:43fdd0e4$0$18302$8fcf...@news.wanadoo.fr...
>
> Developing a cheap engine that can lift a huge tank is
> not within the reach of any "startup" now.
Why does it have to lift a huge tank?
Pete.
Will McLean
The goals of the X-15 and SS1 were so different that a cost comparison
isn't very meaningful. The X-15 was designed to fly sustained flight
campaign and reach very, very high speeds in a flight envelope that had
never been flown before.
It's more reasonable to compare Falcon 1 and Pegasus. Musk's
development costs are reported to be higher than what Orbital spent to
develop Pegasus. He's quoting a lower per launch price, but time will
tell whether he can make money at that price.
Will McLean
Chance
message boards.
blue.planet
out they've gone a long way to making space commerce much more
practical.
With the Falcon 9-S9 they list a price of $78 million to put around 10
metric tons in GTO. The same price to put 25 metric tons in LEO.
If my math is right that's about $1400/lb for LEO and $3600/lb for GTO.
--
blue.planet
Fred J. McCall
:In article <43fc62ff$0$19689$8fcf...@news.wanadoo.fr>,
:jacob navia <ja...@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:
:>The difference of energy from sub-orbital to orbital is QUITE big...
:
:Energy just means fuel. More fuel is cheap. Bigger tanks to hold it are
:not expensive. Remember that it was done half a century ago, using
:technology that's ridiculously crude by today's standards.
:
:The one crucial area of technology that's still poorly developed is
:reentry thermal protection -- getting *rid* of all that energy. There are
:usable solutions, mind you, just not particularly convenient ones. Some
:innovation there may be called for. It doesn't have to be terribly
:high-tech; the heatshields used on the Mercury capsules were something you
:*could* make in your garage, given a bit of expenditure on materials first.
Weren't the Chinese at one point using OAK heat shields? I mean, as
long as it burns off and carries the heat away, pretty much anything
can be an ablative heat shield. Just need to make sure it's thick
enough to get you through the heat pulse.
--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw
Henry Spencer
Fred J. McCall <fmc...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>:The one crucial area of technology that's still poorly developed is
>:reentry thermal protection -- getting *rid* of all that energy. There are
>
>Weren't the Chinese at one point using OAK heat shields? I mean, as
>long as it burns off and carries the heat away, pretty much anything
>can be an ablative heat shield. Just need to make sure it's thick
>enough to get you through the heat pulse.
Yes, the Chinese used (possibly still use) oak, possibly impregnated with
something or other. The problem with such low-tech materials is that they
tend to be heavy, cutting into the spacecraft mass, and also conduct heat
too well, requiring additional insulation. More sophisticated ablators
emphasize lower density and lower conductivity. There are commercial
ablators now, by the way -- they have uses in construction.
The trouble with any kind of ablator, though, is precisely that it's an
expendable component. For one thing, it's impossible to test before use,
so you have to be fussy about manufacturing to try to make sure it'll
work. For another, crud boiling off it during reentry can mess up windows
and such. Most seriously, it's awkward to make such systems reusable.
The ablator itself, of course, is expendable, and that's no big deal if
it's cheap. However, you want a safety margin, so no normal flight will
use *all* the ablator. That means you have to clean the remnants of it
off the backing plate. But for obvious reasons, you want the ablator very
solidly bonded to the backing plate, meaning that it's not easy to clean
it off. (Making the backing plate removable lets you swap an old
heatshield for a new one, simplifying vehicle turnaround, but that doesn't
eliminate the cleaning problem, it just transfers it to the factory. A
good lightweight heat-resistant backing plate is probably too expensive to
just throw away.) Nobody's got an entirely satisfactory solution to this.
Henry Spencer
<ianpa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>There is one engineering fact which I think people are losing sight of.
>The mass of a body and the stresses go up as the cube of linear
>dimensions, whereas the thickness and strength go up to the square of
>the linear dimensions.
You're oversimplifying to the point that the results are meaningless.
The square-cube law becomes a significant issue only for *extremely*
large rockets.
In rockets of more normal size, things generally get better, not worse, as
the rocket gets bigger. In particular, fixed overheads like guidance
hardware take up less of the mass, as do things like wiring and
insulation.
>When the Shuttle was designed NASA in fact wanted a SMALL vehicle which
>approximated to true SSTO.
Uh, no -- NASA studied SSTO shuttles, a bit, but concluded that with the
technology of the day, an SSTO would have to be very *big*. NASA's dream
shuttle was a fully-reusable two-stage design, with about half the payload
of the design that was actually built.
>The miliary wanted the giant which is the Shuttle to launch spy satellites.
True. NASA wasn't happy with doubling the payload, especially since the
added requirement didn't come with any extra money, but they needed the
military's political support.
Even so, NASA really wanted the reusable two-stager. The upper stage
acquired a drop tank, and the lower stage went semi-reusable, basically to
reduce development costs. Similar considerations prevented a redesign
when it became clear that the vehicle being designed was really slightly
too small for the specified payload; that caused numerous troublesome
compromises.
>I believe that HOTOL or some variant is the best SSTO concept
Maybe. Others would say it's doing things the hard way, accepting a lot
of compromises to get rather marginal performance improvements over the
much simpler pure rocket.
Henry Spencer
jacob navia <ja...@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:
>>>...a spaceship is just NOT POSSIBLE as a private
>>>enterprise and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
>> Such a statement would be stronger if it were justified in more detail.
>
>There is a simple reason: SCIENCE, i.e. space exploration, is not a
>profitable activity.
You're confusing two separate issues. Space exploration and science are
not the same thing. Science is not the only reason for exploring space;
in fact, it has never been the primary reason for *manned* space
exploration, despite what you might think from NASA propaganda (Apollo was
not about science).
>There is no money to be earned by going to the planets...
Sure there is. Even if you assume that science is the only goal of space
exploration, it's perfectly possible to make money by selling things like
transportation services to the scientists.
By the way, remember that "private" doesn't have to mean "profitable".
The National Geographic Society sponsored polar expeditions (which in turn
bought goods and services from commercial suppliers). Organizations like
that would be interested in sponsoring planetary expeditions; the only
problem is that the price currently is much too high. That can change.
>Of course
>it is possible to build cheaper spaceships but the objective would
>be to earn money with a few millionaires that would get into orbit.
Or a much larger number of somewhat less-rich tourists. And if serving
that market leads to reliable Earth-to-orbit spaceships with low operating
costs, that will benefit exploration missions too.
>You can yell at NASA as much as you want, the fact is that that
>organization has brought us the disoveries of Mars, Jupiter, etc etc
>discoveries that will be the most stunning legacy of our generation.
If you think of spaceflight as something to watch on TV, that may be true.
Not everybody thinks that's enough.
jacob navia
Mmm, please read my other post in this group:
Manned interplanetary space flight is IMPOSSIBLE with current technology.
Better watch Mars in TV that do not watch it at all. No human
is going to Mars until we solve:
1) Human muscle decays in space. After 1 year you are *really*
sick, and after 1.5 years you are dead. This means that
a trip to Mars must be quicker than 1 year to go and come
back.
2) Space radiation is deadly without adequate shielding. Any
trip to Mars would be a death sentence without a shield several
meters thick.
3) Maintaining a crew for 2 years in autonomous flight has never
been tried, the longest trip beyond earth orbit is the Apollo
adventure. And that was a few days.
To build an interplanetary spaceship we need to lift several
THOUSAND tons into orbit. There is nothing like that today,
and the fact that some rich tourist go around the earth will
not change anthing at all.
jacob
Henry Spencer
jacob navia <ja...@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:
>> If you think of spaceflight as something to watch on TV, that may be true.
>> Not everybody thinks that's enough.
>
>Mmm, please read my other post in this group:
I did.
>1) Human muscle decays in space. After 1 year you are *really* sick...
References, please.
Valeri Polyakov wasn't, after 437 days on Mir.
The story I hear -- from Dr. Ken Money, who's an expert in the field -- is
that the muscle and bone problems are largely solved, at the cost of a lot
of exercise time. The somewhat-mysterious immunological changes are still
a bit of a worry.
>2) Space radiation is deadly without adequate shielding. Any
> trip to Mars would be a death sentence without a shield several
> meters thick.
References, please.
Given a spacecraft with a "storm shelter" area for use in the event of
giant solar flares, the only issue is cosmic-ray dose. On a long trip
that's definitely a concern -- Dr. Money's estimate was 10 years of brain
aging in a 3-year Mars trip, and there are other effects as well -- but
it's not lethal, merely a bit unhealthy. (Being a crewman on one of
Columbus's ships was much worse.)
Completely blocking cosmic rays does take massive shielding, but that's
not a necessity, especially on an exploratory mission which faces plenty
of more serious hazards. Less time spent in transit would be desirable --
on the Martian surface you can dig in for shielding -- but it's not vital.
>3) Maintaining a crew for 2 years in autonomous flight has never
> been tried, the longest trip beyond earth orbit is the Apollo
> adventure. And that was a few days.
There's nothing special about "beyond Earth orbit" in terms of maintaining
a crew. Skylab did it for three months; ISS routinely goes six, if I'm
remembering its current resupply schedule correctly. 2-3 years is indeed
more ambitious, but it's not a huge leap into the unknown. Especially
since quite a bit of that time is spent on the Martian surface, which is
*not* autonomous flight -- local resources, although limited, are present
and potentially useful.
>To build an interplanetary spaceship we need to lift several
>THOUSAND tons into orbit.
Even if we do... so what? With a launch market of that size, you'd be
amazed at what would happen to launch prices.
In fact, there is much to be said for mounting what I once dubbed a Big
Dumb Mars Landing, ruthlessly substituting brute force for expensive
cleverness at every step: off-the-shelf hardware, lots of redundancy,
plenty of spare parts, big crews with hands and tools rather than an
attempt at gleaming automated perfection. So what if it weighs 10_kt at
Earth departure? It still might be the cheapest way to do it.
G. L. Bradford
has been a way to finesse a space frontier. There never will be. The fact
that we are still sitting here in the starting gate after nearly a half a
century and about a half trillion or more dollars wasted proves it. ("Ask of
me anything but time." -- Napoleon)
NASA's existence was supposed to be technical assistance to the rest of us
in reaching the space frontier, not to be a totalitarian state over us, or a
tax supported competitor to us taxpayers, in space. Now after a half a
century of [masslessness] and [energylessness) in space, it faces the fact
that the great majority of us who once supported it are praying very hard
for its total extinction. And that the great majority of the rest of America
no longer cares whether it dies or not. It has proven to be nothing but a
stone blocking our way to space.
It can cry about the need for "science first!" all it wants. It has cried
"science first!" for at least fifty straight years, a half a century.
Doesn't its "scientists" understand yet that 1-dimensionality goes nowhere
at all? Not in half a century or a century. Not in a thousand years. Not in
a billion years. Not in an eternity. Not ever!
And the cost to go nowhere at all -- the price to circle "science first!"
around and into itself, thus into a black hole -- steadily rises to
infinity....beginning not today but beginning day one more than fifty years
ago.
GLB
kert
boy im glad that sci.air.policy wasnt around in 1903 as i intend to fly
across europe in next week for about twenty dollars on discount airline
-kert
ianpa...@gmail.com
>Dumb Mars Landing, ruthlessly substituting brute force for expensive
>cleverness at every step: off-the-shelf hardware, lots of redundancy,
>plenty of spare parts, big crews with hands and tools rather than an
>attempt at gleaming automated perfection. So what if it weighs 10_kt at
>Earth departure? It still might be the cheapest way to do it.
A big dumb system will be incedibly expensive. The ISS is costing
$100e9 and rising a manned expedition to Mars probably about the same.
Thise who advocate spending money on this sort of scale had better have
a cast iron justification. The onlus is on them to prove their case.
Personally I do not think a credible case has been made for eirher.
The future of technology lies in automation and AI and on this basis
NASA is a 20th century dinosaur which is totally incapable of leading
us into the 21st.
Do we need leadership? Moot point - Commercial enterprises should pay
for themselves. Sky television pays the full cost of all their
launches. Should we simply have a scientific program led by scientific
organizations like NOAA.? There is a case -
1) For basic research whioch is valuable but no one else will pay for.
Standardization NBS, National Geological Survey and NOAA spring to
mind.
2) Government should enable interested paries to come together and do
research on topics like robotics.
All counties do this. Should NASA have Mega Projects? NO NO NO.
If you can aise the money by sponsorship and wish to go to Mars you
should be allowed to. If you can't you should not expect a government
to bankroll you Multi billion time.
Earl Colby Pottinger
> >In fact, there is much to be said for mounting what I once dubbed a Big
> >Dumb Mars Landing, ruthlessly substituting brute force for expensive
> >cleverness at every step: off-the-shelf hardware, lots of redundancy,
> >plenty of spare parts, big crews with hands and tools rather than an
> >attempt at gleaming automated perfection. So what if it weighs 10_kt at
> >Earth departure? It still might be the cheapest way to do it.
>
> A big dumb system will be incedibly expensive. The ISS is costing
> $100e9 and rising a manned expedition to Mars probably about the same.
> Thise who advocate spending money on this sort of scale had better have
> a cast iron justification. The onlus is on them to prove their case.
> Personally I do not think a credible case has been made for eirher.
Wrong, the ISS is not a big dumb system. Far from it, it is a dumbly run
system.
A big dumb ISS would be a single huge rocket with the entire station onboard.
One shot, one station.
Earl Colby Pottinger
--
<Cruising, building a Catamaran, Rebuilding Cabin, New Peroxide Still Design,
Writting SF, Programming FOSS - What happened to the time?>
Fred J. McCall
:The future of technology lies in automation and AI and on this basis
:NASA is a 20th century dinosaur which is totally incapable of leading
:us into the 21st.
Then I vote we cancel all funding for space and space science. I'm
not interested in sending toasters to the planets. And that pretty
much kills commercial space, as well, except for things like comsats.
:If you can aise the money by sponsorship and wish to go to Mars you
:should be allowed to. If you can't you should not expect a government
:to bankroll you Multi billion time.
Doing it your way America never would have been colonized because
Columbus wouldn't have had the money to make the initial trip.
--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn
Henry Spencer
<ianpa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>In fact, there is much to be said for mounting what I once dubbed a Big
>>Dumb Mars Landing, ruthlessly substituting brute force for expensive
>>cleverness at every step: off-the-shelf hardware, lots of redundancy,
>>plenty of spare parts, big crews with hands and tools rather than an
>>attempt at gleaming automated perfection. So what if it weighs 10_kt at
>>Earth departure? It still might be the cheapest way to do it.
>
>A big dumb system will be incedibly expensive. The ISS is costing
>$100e9 and rising a manned expedition to Mars probably about the same.
You missed the word "Dumb" in the name. There's nothing "Dumb" about ISS,
except maybe its management; it's trying to be incredibly clever about
everything, on cost-plus contracts, and *that* is why it's spending
incredible amounts of money. What makes ISS expensive is not the launch
costs, but the swarms of engineers on the ground.
"Dumb" means, for example, pressurized modules built by diving-equipment
companies, who know how to build pressure hulls and can do them cheaply.
They would weigh considerably more than corresponding hardware built by
aerospace companies, but so what? The quick rule of thumb, based on some
experiments folks ran a number of years ago, is that a given piece of
hardware from an aerospace company weighs half as much, but costs ten
times as much, as the same hardware -- to the same specs! -- built by an
ordinary industrial supplier.
Sure, it takes twice as many launches to launch it all, but the net cost
still comes in lower. The payloads cost *much* more than the launches.
Back in the early 90s, Art Dula thought he could build a space station
broadly comparable to ISS for about half a billion dollars, by using
non-aerospace contractors and a bulk buy of Russian launches. He may have
been over-optimistic, but he probably wasn't two orders of magnitude
over-optimistic.
ianpa...@gmail.com
diving equiment manufacturers and Russian launchers would indeed reduce
the cost, but to me the fundamental question to be asked is, do we need
it. Is it a stepping stone to more grandiose dreams.
The short answer is it can't be. Why? Because the key enabling
technology for grandiose plans is robotics. Basically what you need to
do is to develop robots that can do the manual tasks of humans. The key
to mining n the Moon, and building any large structure is just that. If
you have that technology it is fairly obvious that you do NOT need an
ISS in any shape or form. If we assume that new vaccines, new materials
etc.stc. can only be developed in microgravity, and I personally doubt
whether this is really the case, then let robots do the experiments.
All the scientific exploration of space has been done by relatively
small spacecraft (I am calling Hubble small in this context) dedicated
to a specific task.
OK you say robots can't self repair. Oh yes they can if they are
depoloyed in a swarm.
G. L. Bradford
<ianpa...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1141987203.5...@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
There is no future here on Earth in what you say about there in space.
Either Man has a future out in the space frontier, beginning yesterday, not
tomorrow, or the future is a Dark Age (already begun -- and no alternative
future at all).
Can we get more efficient on Earth and survive? There is such a thing as
negative efficiency. You get so efficient you go extinct from inflexibility.
Life needs all the [frontier] waste room to maneuver it can get. Life needs
waste margins and plenty of them, most especially all the waste margin for
error it can get or the slightest error, the slightest mistake, the
slightest crack no matter how small, will spell catastrophe of titanic
proportions throughout whatever the system. It needs energy to exhaust, to
burn, to waste.
Just to look through all world history, as Alfred T. Mahan said in "The
Influence of Seapower Upon History," we see that everywhere in history the
most efficient control systems produced the least efficient frontier
systems. The most machine-like systems broke down the most, losing fortunes
and producing no increasing returns. The least efficient control systems,
the more life-like, life filled, systems, produced the most efficient
frontier systems, losing and winning fortunes, wasting massively only to
produce ever increasing returns from that very wasting massively. That is
what expansion and growth is, increasing loss and gain. Increasing gain
almost imperceptably over increasing loss. Limit the one, limit the other.
End the one, end the other. Zero tolerance of the one....well just forget
the other.
Robots cannot do for man in space -- cannot replace man in space...cannot
go in man's place or before man, not even once. Because the next one will
cost more. Each succeeding one will cost more than the last. You won't be
able to make them individually small enough, the numbers of them plurally
large enough. The cost benefit ratio will increasingly imbalance toward ever
increasing cost and ever diminishing returns the longer Man sits here on
Earth. That is deterioration. There is no such thing as Utopia or
"betterment" coming from "all mankind," all of it without exception, staying
imprisoned in a trap (one not of the many's choice, even though they be
unaware of the what, how and why they are trapped -- just [instinctively]
sensing they are trapped (thus mindlessly instinctively radicalizing their
thoughts and behaviors).
GLB
ianpa...@gmail.com
>go in man's place or before man, not even once. Because the next one will
>cost more. Each succeeding one will cost more than the last. You won't be
>able to make them individually small enough, the numbers of them plurally
>large enough. The cost benefit ratio will increasingly imbalance toward ever
>increasing cost and ever diminishing returns the longer Man sits here on
>Earth. That is deterioration. There is no such thing as Utopia or
>"betterment" coming from "all mankind," all of it without exception, staying
>imprisoned in a trap (one not of the many's choice, even though they be
>unaware of the what, how and why they are trapped -- just [instinctively]
>sensing they are trapped (thus mindlessly instinctively radicalizing their
>thoughts and behaviors).
A clear immediate goal is self replication. If we can achieve that
grandiose plans - Space colonization, energy systems even terraforming
planets is on the table. If we can't then O'Neill colonies etc. will
remain pie in the sky. It is as simple as that.
Can it be done given existing knowledge? I would say without question
it can. The critical step is assemble of an assembly from parts given a
random distribution. Car manufacture is done on a production line and
is based on absolute positions at each stage. Clearly we need pattern
recognition that will bring a displaced part into position. The
requirement in terms of AI is the ability to take a CAD drawing,
recognise components and place them in the correct position and
orientation for assembly. This is what a human worker does.
You need robots to be self repairing. That is satified by having a
swarm or more than one robot. The robot is specified in CAD. A random
distribution of parts.
NASA is indeed 20th century. I would in fact trust IKEA more than NASA.
A flatpack assembler is a vital enabler. I could say the critical step.
Having done that VN is downhill, what you then need to do is specify a
circular pathway with CAD/CAM - Basic input - The Moon/Asteroids.
When and in what way should humans fly in space? If you are going
someplace you need to fly in space - fairly obviously. Until you are on
the point of colonization - no I don't believe in manned spaceflight.