Fwd: YOU are CORDIALLY INVITED to a FUNERAL...

[rrdd...@aol.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: rrdd...@aol.com
To: rrdd...@aol.com
Sent: Mon, Aug 16, 2010 6:08 pm
Subject: Fwd: YOU are CORDIALLY INVITED to a FUNERAL...

           ...THROWN by OBAMA to CELEBRATE HIS MURDER of NASA

                                           by Richard DePersio                                                                      (All comsats listed and described at groups.google.com/group/rickcosmos-eclectic)

(WHAT CAN YOU... 

and  follow it up with a party at the Capital Building for the purpose of laughing at

congressional logic. BYOB! You will need it when you realize that it is dangerous not funny

regarding AMERICA's SCIENTIFIC-TECHNOLOGICAL-ECONOMIC FUTURES not to

mention our NATIONAL PRESTIGE!.Let's do a quick review. The Bush Plan: Ending the Space Shuttle Program in 2011 and    ......DO TO STOP...

the ISS (International Space Station) in 2015. Replacing the Space Shuttle with the Orion

Spacecraft atop the Ares 1 Rocket in 2013 (due to under-funding goal was pushed back to

2015). The Orion Spacecraft would take astronauts to the Space Station, to the Moon in

2020 and Mars in 2035. The Ares 1 would be used by Orion to get to the Space Station and

to the Moon. The Ares 5 Heavy-Lifter would be able to lift as much weight to earth orbit as the

Space Shuttle and be unmanned. It would lift the propulsion system needed to go to Mars

and beyond and be operational by 2016.      ...THE...

The Obama Plan canceled the Shuttle in 2010 too but extended lifetime of Space Station to

2020. Orion, Ares 1, Moon Base, Ares 5 all scrubbed. SpaceX's Falcon 9 would bring

cargo to Space Station beginning in early 2012 and astronauts in early 2014. The private

sector would be responsible for earth to earth orbit and back. A Heavy-lifter would be NASA's

job and be ready by 2016 but it wouldn't be Ares 5. Mind you, he wants to terminate

Constellation Program (Orion, Ares 1, Altair - moon lander - Ares 5) on which we already

spent $9 billion - it would go down a presidential black hole! He favors the commercialization

of space - a capitalistic idea? We subsidize the Oil and Agricultural Industries, Fannie

and Freddie and, now, the auto industry, commercial and investment banks - all

uncapitalistic and wrong! Obama had to give SpaceX an additional $1 billion and it

sill won't meet it's 2012 and 2014 goals!      .....MADNESS..

.

We don't object to SpaceX using NASA facilities for R & D and picking the brains of NASA

experts. The House Plan calls for spending less on SpaceX then Senate - both

less then Obama wants - - both too much in our opinion. Private industry is at it's best

when their is a minimum of government interference not when their heavily regulated and

worse funded and controlled by BIG GOV. The House Plan calls for developing space

hardware largely based on Orion, Ares ! and Ares 5 while the Senate to a lesser degree.

Both do away with Moon landings leading to a base and extend lifetime of Space

Station to 2020. PUTTING THE CART AHEAD of the HORSE... The Senate gives equal priority to Heavy-lifter and NASA vehicle for earth to earth orbit to earth by 2016 (and, perhaps, eventually,system will be part of beyond earth orbit mission system for 2025).Both are under-budgeted. House is under-budgeted but gives priority to returning NASA to earth orbit and spreading money over more years - Heavy-Lifter by 2019 - - for what purpose if Space Station ends in 2020 and we don't plan to leave earth orbit until 2025!

..SEE...

THE ELEPHANT in the ROOM...Let's assume SpaceX can succeed in spite of gov 

interference. It can't do cargo by '12 and crew by '14. We are going to have to pay

Russia an astronomically large price tag to take astronauts to our Space Station - we

paid bulk of the cost! The HUMILIATION!!! We BEAT THEM in MOON RACE, we will

have to beg them for a ride on their timetable! The Three Space Shuttles have been

certified Flight-Capable for over 75 more missions a piece. Spend less on SpaceX -

subsidizing is socialistic and don't pay Russia to carry us like a baby. NASA

shouldn't be grounded.WE are the GREATEST!!! With the money saved, we can afford

7 to 10 Shuttle Missions over next three years and, perhaps, 12 to 15 over next six

years. $3 billion additional can get us Ares 1 by between 2014 and 2016 ending Shuttles Remember: NASA is unique gov program; NASA gives a $7 return in the form of pure science and spin-offs/applications (technology)on each dollar it's budgeted and creates jobs unlike

Obama(NASA and private companies that contract with NASA have begun issuing

pink slips.because Obama is spending tax-payer money irresponsibly and UNCONSTITUTIONALLY!!! TWENTY-SIX BILLION to states to save jobs of teachers and police because governors and mayors are afraid of unions and won't act to cut wasteful spending. Spend like Obama until the dollar is worthless!

He's A.D.D..-ing.You know the rest of Citizen's Reporter's Plan regarding Moon, NERVA,

X-37B.            ...BELOW...

Ladies and gentlemen, What makes more sense: extending Shuttle for 4 to 6 years or 

giving money to Russia and subsidizing another private company. What makes more 

sense: Saving as much of Ares 1 and 5 as possible or staring from scratch like

Obama wants to do?Recently, NASA announced that for $2.5 billion it can have an    Upgraded New-Version Shuttle that can lift only half as much as present Shuttle but be capable of lifting as much by 2020I It would have the large external fuel tank and two solid booster rockets but instead of portion of Shuttle that looks like a space plane, it would     have something similar to Orion/Ares 1which some day can be part of beyond earth orbit missions.NASA builds on existing technology which is a cost-effective.

and safe thing to do while it develops new technologies.

Shuttle by 2016 which can lift only half as much as present Shuttle.

EXTEND LIFESPAN OF SHUTTLE FOR FOUR TO SIX YEARS AND SAVE, MODIFY

and BUILD ON WHAT WE HAVE ACCOMPLISHED THUS FAR IN 

CONSTELLATION PROGRAM.... TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE....TIME IS RUNNING 

OUT. YOU MUST PHONE AND/OR LEAVE A MESSAGE AT WEBSITE OF 9 KEY

MEMBERS OF CONGRESS - EVERYDAY THIS WEEK, SATURDAY, SUNDAY, MONDAY.TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY - - - ONE TO THREE PER DAY.

SENATE PHONE: 202-224-3121; HOUSE PHONE: 202-226-7200 GET THE PHONE
NUMBERS OF YOUR TWO U.S. SENATORS AND ONE US. CONGRESSMAN. 

 USUALLY, SENATE OPERATOR WILL SUPPLY ALL INFO. YOU NEED NOT KNOW THEIR NAMES BUT YOU MUST KNOW STATE IN WHICH YOU LIVE!

TWO KEY PLAYERS: SHELBY (R; ALABAMA) and NELSON (D; FLORIDA). 

(www-?)Nelson.senate.gov/public/    PHONE: 202-224-5744; SHELBY: 202-224-5274.

Conrad, Greg, Sprant, Ryan

NASA RESTORED AS MAIN SCIENTIFIC/TECHNOLOGICAL ENGINE OF ECONOMY.

NEITHER PLAN IS GOOD BUT HOUSE BETTER THEN SENATE PLAN. NEITHER PLAN
PREVENTS AMERICAN HUMILIATION!!! WE WILL NO LONGER BE NUMBER ONE
IN SPACE AND THAT WILL DO GREAT DAMAGE TO OUR PRESTIGE AND OUR ECONOMY!!!!

[Al Globus]

The decision to terminate the shuttle was made six years ago.  It is, for all practical purposes, irrevocable.  The shuttle cost between one half and one billion dollars PER FLIGHT, depending on what you count.  To keep the shuttle flying at any rate, even once a year, costs two to three billion a year.

It's just too expensive.  Those flights aren't worth that much money.

The commercial option is not just about SpaceX.  In fact, Lockheed and Boeing will probably get most of the money.  The commercial option is about doing what NASA has been unable to do -- frequent, low cost access to space.  Without it, we will never do much more than we are doing now.  With it, we can do  lot, lot more. 

The short story is that the original Obama proposal was simply brilliant.  It has been significant watered down but is still MUCH better than Constellation -- which wasn't going to get to the moon before 2028 (if at all) and would dump a $100 billion space station in the sea after five years of operation.

For details on my thoughts ...

http://alspolitics.blogspot.com/2010/02/obamas-brilliant-space-policy.html

http://alspolitics.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-space-policy-targets-launch.html

For the paper on space settlement I reference, see

http://alglobus.net/NASAwork/papers/PathsToSpaceSettlement2009.pdf

BTW: if what you really value is national prestige, we part ways.  I value practical results delivered to real people.  Chest beating is for turkeys.

-------------------------------------------------------

If the dinosaurs had a space program, they'd still be here.

Al Globus

http://alglobus.net

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the position of any organization I'm familiar with.

[Stephen Ashworth]

Richard DePersio,

I disagree with your analysis.  The object of the Obama plan is not to "murder" NASA, as you picturesquely put it, but rather to break up its monopoly on manned spaceflight in the US.

I agree that a rationally designed programme would hold back on retiring the Shuttle until a replacement was ready to fly.  But NASA and Congress have between them conspired to prevent a Shuttle replacement being developed for the past couple of decades.  If progress is to be made, it must now come from the private sector, with whatever government encouragement or stimulus is necessary for it to create a new industry.

Orion-Ares is of course in no sense a Shuttle replacement.  It is an Apollo replacement.  If the US gets into another Moon race or a Mars race with Russia or China or somebody else, Orion-Ares might even be politically useful.  But it certainly has little to do with creating a sustainable human presence in space.

The real business at hand is to complete the mission of the Shuttle, which was to make manned space access routine, and by dropping the price to stimulate new sustainable commercial opportunities in orbit.  Until that mission is fulfilled, we are stuck at the level of occasional, government-only, expensive and controversial missions, and the real Space Age has not yet begun.

Stephen Ashworth

*****************************************

Stephen Ashworth, Oxford, U.K.

http://www.astronist.demon.co.uk/

Do we choose growth in the infinite universe

or decline on the overcrowded village Earth?

===  ASTRONAUTICAL EVOLUTION  ===

http://www.astronist.demon.co.uk/astro-ev

*****************************************

[Keith Henson]

Perhaps this is the time to take a brand new look at space flight.

What does it take to get a substantial payload to LEO with a mass ratio 3, SSTO?

All rocket designs to date have assumed they were limited to the
exhaust velocity of chemical fuels. This drove them to high mass
ratios and staged designs. This is no longer the case, but rocket
designers don't realize it yet.

Let's partition the rocket as 200 tons of reaction mass, 50 tons of
vehicle structure and 50 tons of payload. Take off is 300 tons, 69%
of the MTOW of recent 747s and 10% less than the original 747s
delivered over 40 years ago (tons here are actually tonnes).

The configuration would be HTHL, similar to the Skylon design of
Reaction Engines. Until the engines run out of air, the performance
is equal to 10.5 km/sec exhaust velocity. At some point in the
flight, perhaps 20 km, 6 GW of laser takes over heating hydrogen for
an average exhaust velocity of around 8.5 km/sec (starting at ~5.5
km/sec and going up ~10 k/sec as the vehicle mass declines). There
is, unfortunately, no reasonable way to scale down the design because
the laser power is directly proportional to the unit payload. In
power input and thrust this is about what a NERVA ran. "The final 2A
test in June 1968 ran for over 12 minutes at 4,000 MW, the most
powerful nuclear reactor ever built."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_thermal_rocket

This transport system only reaches the target of $100/kg to GEO with a
nearly full time flight rate. One reason is the high capital charge
for the lasers, $60 B over ten years is a capital cost of $6 B a year.
That's very reasonable spread over 3-4 flights per hour, but
ridiculous for a few flights per year. The estimated cost for
everything else including RDT&E less than doubles the front end cost
(~100 B--which was the cost of the ISS).

The only market for this kind of transport I am aware of is building
power satellites. A million tons per year of cargo to GEO will build
200 GW per year (at 5kg/kW). At 2 cents per kWh (so you can get this
much market) the income from selling power plants at $1.6 B/GW is $320
B per year. The transport system, capital write off, vehicles, power,
and hydrogen costs $100 B/year or about 1/3 of the sales price of the
power satellites.

The technical advance that makes laser heated hydrogen possible is the
high efficiency laser diode.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_diodes#Applications_of_laser_diodes

Laser diodes of the type pictured were what Laser Motive's team (led
by Jordin Kare) used to win the tether climbing contest last year.
They are not coherent (needed to track the vehicle over the long
distances needed to reach orbital speeds on reasonably sized lasers)
but the can pump other media at rather high efficiency. Overall the
electric power in to laser light out is expected to hit 50%. So for 6
GW out, it would take 12 GW of electric power. That's a lot to draw
off the grid, but it would be replaced with power satellites in a few
months.

The lasers are not a high technical risk. The current largest
military laser is 105 kW. Scale up by a factor of ten and then buy
them by the thousands.

For a launch point in Brazil, the lasers might be located in Spain or
France, the Fresnel tracking mirrors in GEO would be 25 to 35 degrees
to the east of the launch point. Other possible launch points include
Somalia and Indonesia

The problem with power satellites is competition from other energy
sources. I became aware of one such that looks like it could generate
power for less than 2 cents per kWh and by comparison has almost no
front end cost. I have been trying to find flaws in it for 6 months
and so far failed.

Keith Henson

PS. This might scale down to perhaps 1 GW of lasers and a vehicle
plus cargo mass to GEO of 6 tons. RDT&E would not be much smaller but
the whole transport system might come in at $50 B. However, I can't
think of a market for 18 tons per hour (in 6 ton pieces) to GEO.

If anyone wants to go through my spread sheets for this analysis, just ask.

[Stephen Ashworth]

Keith, you said it all: the high capital costs of developing any kind
of efficient space launch system are "very reasonable spread over

3-4 flights per hour, but ridiculous for a few flights per year."

I would suggest that in order for your hybrid jet/laser plane to be
funded (whether by govt, investors, or a public-private partnership),
a market already needs to be in existence. This suggests that a jet/
rocket plane like Skylon may appear first. But in order for that to
be developed, a smaller market already needs to be in existence, so a
well established transport industry using ballistic missiles and
capsules may appear first. The latter is what SpaceX, Orbital
Sciences, Almaz and others appear to be offering us, so this is where
we are at. Progress by small steps.

What, out of interest, was that "other energy source" you referred to
which might undercut satellite solar power?

Stephen

[Keith Henson]

On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 3:29 PM, Stephen Ashworth
<s...@astronist.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Keith, you said it all: the high capital costs of developing any kind of
> efficient space launch system are  "very reasonable spread over 3-4 flights
> per hour, but ridiculous for a few flights per year."
>
> I would suggest that in order for your hybrid jet/laser plane to be funded
> (whether by govt, investors, or a public-private partnership), a market

> already needs to be in existence.  This suggests that a jet/rocket plane

> like Skylon may appear first.  But in order for that to be developed, a
> smaller market already needs to be in existence, so a well established
> transport industry using ballistic missiles and capsules may appear first.
>  The latter is what SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, Almaz and others appear to be
> offering us, so this is where we are at.  Progress by small steps.

I would love for this to be the case, but I don't think it is. There
is a small tonnage market for communication satellites that is served
by existing and projected rockets. They will not do for the big SBSP
market where for it to take off you need a cost reduction of around
200 to one.

> What, out of interest, was that "other energy source" you referred to which
> might undercut satellite solar power?

I can't talk about it till Oct unless you want to sign an NDA. If you do, ask.

Keith

[Stephen Ashworth]

Keith, my anticipated markets are personal space exploration ("space tourism" -- see David Ashford's book Spaceflight Revolution for details) and commercial microgravity research.  Obviously there are differing opinions as to whether these are viable or not: the only test is to try them out and see what works in practice.

Stephen

*****************************************

Stephen Ashworth, Oxford, U.K.

http://www.astronist.demon.co.uk/

Do we choose growth in the infinite universe

or decline on the overcrowded village Earth?

===  ASTRONAUTICAL EVOLUTION  ===

http://www.astronist.demon.co.uk/astro-ev

*****************************************

[Keith Henson]

On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 11:33 AM, Stephen Ashworth
<s...@astronist.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Keith, my anticipated markets are personal space exploration ("space
> tourism" -- see David Ashford's book Spaceflight Revolution for details) and
> commercial microgravity research.  Obviously there are differing opinions as
> to whether these are viable or not: the only test is to try them out and see
> what works in practice.

I tried to make space tourism work based on an additional use of the
transport capacity to GEO. I could not.

Roughly figure a passenger as 100 kg. You need to wrap at least a
1000 kg around a person as life support. 1000 kg at $100/kg (a 200
fold reduction from the current $20,000 per kg to GEO is a hundred
thousands dollars for the ticket. And that does not count food or the
cost of the habitat or the cost of the service people paying that much
would expect. Paying for that might well bring the cost without
profit to half a million a person. :-(

1000 workers at GEO makes sense because they are producing close to a
$1 B/day of product. But could could not make a case for the market
(at this cost) being large enough for tourism to make sense.

Others have made a case that microgravity research doesn't make much
sense either.

I have been trying for a couple of decades to get someone to do an
experiment with a heat transfer pseudo fluid. It's simple, has
application in things like communication satellites and requires
microgravity to test. No luck.

I am not sure there is such a thing as commercial microgravity research.

Keith

[Stephen Ashworth]

Keith,

British engineer David Ashford reckons the price will fall to $20,000
per seat for a few days in space, i.e. a one thousandfold fall from
the price current when he wrote his book. I'll let you argue it out
with him -- I have no particular expertise on the question.

The problem at the moment is how companies like Space Adventures can
increase private passenger traffic from an average of one passenger
per year to two, especially when the ISS partners seem to be more
interested in ignoring the business altogether!

Regarding commercial microgravity research, I defer to Jonathan Goff
and Ken Murphy -- see "Microgravity Musings":

http://selenianboondocks.com/2008/02/microgravity-musings/

Best wishes,

S.

[Keith Henson]

On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 4:27 PM, Stephen Ashworth
<s...@astronist.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Keith,
>
> British engineer David Ashford reckons the price will fall to $20,000 per
> seat for a few days in space, i.e. a one thousandfold fall from the price
> current when he wrote his book.  I'll let you argue it out with him -- I
> have no particular expertise on the question.

I looked at his book. It is focused on being a popular book rather
than a technical one, "mass ratio" for example only shows up in the
appendix. There are really difficult problems with two stage
vehicles, one is getting the first stage back to the launch point. He
doesn't discuss the serious operational problems to any extent.

> The problem at the moment is how companies like Space Adventures can
> increase private passenger traffic from an average of one passenger per year
> to two, especially when the ISS partners seem to be more interested in
> ignoring the business altogether!
>
> Regarding commercial microgravity research, I defer to Jonathan Goff and Ken
> Murphy -- see "Microgravity Musings":
>
> http://selenianboondocks.com/2008/02/microgravity-musings/

Lots of political and history there, but I didn't see anything useful.

Keith

[Al Globus]

On Aug 24, 2010, at 2:12 PM, Stephen Ashworth wrote:

> The real business at hand is to complete the mission of the Shuttle,
> which was to make manned space access routine, and by dropping the
> price to stimulate new sustainable commercial opportunities in
> orbit. Until that mission is fulfilled, we are stuck at the level
> of occasional, government-only, expensive and controversial
> missions, and the real Space Age has not yet begun.

Hear, hear!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Just because you invade a country stupidly doesn't mean you have to
leave it stupidly," Lt. Col. David Kilcullen, Australian Army, advisor
to General Petraeus in Iraq.

Al Globus
AlGl...@gmail.com

[Al Globus]

On Aug 24, 2010, at 3:29 PM, Stephen Ashworth wrote:

> Keith, you said it all: the high capital costs of developing any
> kind of efficient space launch system are "very reasonable spread
> over 3-4 flights per hour, but ridiculous for a few flights per year."

Keith's work is brilliant. But it is all-up with no incremental path
from here to there. Tourism might supply some of the increments.
Also, a super-light-weight PowerSat might. We are closer to this than
you might think. I'm attaching a short pdf of an abstract I sent to
the SSI conference.

[Al Globus]

On Aug 25, 2010, at 11:33 AM, Stephen Ashworth wrote:

Keith, my anticipated markets are personal space exploration ("space tourism" -- see David Ashford's book Spaceflight Revolution for details) and commercial microgravity research.  Obviously there are differing opinions as to whether these are viable or not: the only test is to try them out and see what works in practice.

It's being tried.  One company has derived about $150 million in revenue over the last few years flying people to the ISS.  There are two companies within months, or maybe a small number of years, of flying sub-orbital tourists.  There is one company with two pressurized sub-sized stations in orbit today and plans to launch a full sized one in a few years.

Obama's plan will fund the critical step of developing a private orbital-tourism vehicle to go to Bigalow's station, among other things.

Stephen

*****************************************

Stephen Ashworth, Oxford, U.K.

http://www.astronist.demon.co.uk/

Do we choose growth in the infinite universe

or decline on the overcrowded village Earth?

===  ASTRONAUTICAL EVOLUTION  ===

http://www.astronist.demon.co.uk/astro-ev

*****************************************

On 25 Aug 2010, at 00:51, Keith Henson wrote:

I would love for this to be the case, but I don't think it is.  There

is a small tonnage market for communication satellites that is served

by existing and projected rockets.  They will not do for the big SBSP

market where for it to take off you need a cost reduction of around

200 to one.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Space Solar Power (SSP) can supply massive amounts of electrical power to Earth with no greenhouse gas emissions and no dependence on the Persian Gulf.  The basic idea: gather solar energy in space and transmit it to Earth.  Today's satellites already use solar energy  and transmission has been demonstrated with 90%+ efficiency. If the space segment is built from lunar materials, SSP may be the cleanest possible energy option since most of the work is done in space.  The energy available is far, far more than used today, more than enough for everyone.

[Al Globus]

I'll respond the same way I did the first time I got this message:

The decision to terminate the shuttle was made six years ago.  It is, for all practical purposes, irrevocable.  The shuttle cost between one half and one billion dollars PER FLIGHT, depending on what you count.  To keep the shuttle flying at any rate, even once a year, costs two to three billion a year.

It's just too expensive.  Those flights aren't worth that much money.

The commercial option is not just about SpaceX.  In fact, Lockheed and Boeing will probably get most of the money.  The commercial option is about doing what NASA has been unable to do -- frequent, low cost access to space.  Without it, we will never do much more than we are doing now.  With it, we can do  lot, lot more. 

The short story is that the original Obama proposal was simply brilliant.  It has been significant watered down but is still MUCH better than Constellation -- which wasn't going to get to the moon before 2028 (if at all) and would dump a $100 billion space station in the sea after five years of operation.

For details on my thoughts ...

http://alspolitics.blogspot.com/2010/02/obamas-brilliant-space-policy.html

http://alspolitics.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-space-policy-targets-launch.html

For the paper on space settlement I reference, see

http://alglobus.net/NASAwork/papers/PathsToSpaceSettlement2009.pdf

BTW: if what you really value is national prestige, we part ways.  I value practical results delivered to real people.  Chest beating is for turkeys.

On Aug 17, 2010, at 10:32 AM, rrdd...@aol.com wrote:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first space tourism business is already profitable! Burt Rutan spent about $40 million of Paul Allen's money to build SpaceShip One.  This vehicle was piloted into space three times in 2004. The third flight won the $10 million dollar Ansari X-Prize, writing 'Virgin' on the vehicle's tail pulled in some more cash, and technology sales put it over the top.  The flights lead to a $120 million contract with Virgin Galactic to build the first true sub-orbital tourist vehicle.