Civilian Space Travel
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Pretty cool timelapse of construction on the next two Virgin Galactic ships:
https://twitter.com/thespaceshipco/status/1112786683206856711
That makes three VG ships that will be active, including VSS Unity, which is currently undergoing cabin modifications for passengers this year.
https://twitter.com/thespaceshipco/status/1112786683206856711
That makes three VG ships that will be active, including VSS Unity, which is currently undergoing cabin modifications for passengers this year.
Smaller than Falcon, but in some ways looks cooler.
Speaking of....
I don't have a problem with Starhopper's appearance because it isn't about looks.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/04/spacex-renders-metal-starship-on-moon-and-mars.html
But still...
If none of the usual snarky posters at space websites knew who or what Elon/SpaceX was, and you showed them a picture of Starhopper (the same rocket mind you)--but told everyone it was from Russia, (or worse...North Korea)-- the internet hate would be pitiless.
Oh, the cutie pie remarks write themselves....something to the effect about building a laughable 1950s-ish finned contraption on a dirt pile using pallet jacks, cranes and sheet metal, etc.
But on the flip side, maybe there would be more love on the web shown to Old Spacers about the tried and true "Gradatim Ferociter" approach.
Some advances that might be of use, say, to Sea Dragon concepts
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/I...beautiful_demonstration_of_mechanics_999.html
The upper stage (or starship) from this:
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1147843.shtml
www.spacedaily.com/reports/New_polymer_films_conduct_heat_instead_of_trapping_it_999.html
Speaking of....
I don't have a problem with Starhopper's appearance because it isn't about looks.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/04/spacex-renders-metal-starship-on-moon-and-mars.html
But still...
If none of the usual snarky posters at space websites knew who or what Elon/SpaceX was, and you showed them a picture of Starhopper (the same rocket mind you)--but told everyone it was from Russia, (or worse...North Korea)-- the internet hate would be pitiless.
Oh, the cutie pie remarks write themselves....something to the effect about building a laughable 1950s-ish finned contraption on a dirt pile using pallet jacks, cranes and sheet metal, etc.
But on the flip side, maybe there would be more love on the web shown to Old Spacers about the tried and true "Gradatim Ferociter" approach.
Some advances that might be of use, say, to Sea Dragon concepts
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/I...beautiful_demonstration_of_mechanics_999.html
The upper stage (or starship) from this:
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1147843.shtml
www.spacedaily.com/reports/New_polymer_films_conduct_heat_instead_of_trapping_it_999.html
So if we had to guess now how many years down the track do you think we will have to get to a future like Star Trek where people can hop onboard a shuttle and visit a space station or just go into earth orbit for a bit of sight seeing, and I mean anyone, not just the filthy rich?
It's not going to happen for the forseeable future, in my opinion. Rockets and spacecraft aren't much more reliable than they were in decades past. They are still finely tuned machines with wafer thin tolerances. They still have not demonstrated the airliner level of safety and flight cadence necessary in order to make spaceflight accessable.
I would also caution against drinking the Spacex koolaid. If you look at the employee reviews on Glassdoor, you see a consistent theme about how broken their management culture is. There are also hints that money is very tight right now (this is consistent with their letting go of a lot of their workforce earlier this year.) I am still unconvinced that reusable orbital class rockets ala spacex offer true cost savings, at least not on the level claimed. Falcon 9, for all its wonders is, like I said earlier, a finely tuned machine with wafer thin margins. It takes a lot of time, people, and money to operate one compared to an airline.
There are some interesting smallsat startups coming through now, and that is where I currently see us inovating. Rocketlab is picking up pace, and hopefully they can start making money whilst maintaining their low launch costs. Right now it is companies like them that are offering humanity the easiest access to space, even if it is only in the form of cubesats.
I am also very intetested in Relativity Space. The idea of keeping workforce costs down by 3d printing 95% of the rocket is very intriguing. Who knows if this is a technology that tilts the real Rocket Equation (that is to say, the economic one, not the physics one.) I'd like to think will.
But as for the idea that we are anywhere near an age where one can hop on a rocket as easily as one would a train - I just can't see it happening, personally. Perhaps in a century or two? I'd be over the moon, if proven wrong!
I kind of agree with that 100 years maybe 50 if we're being conservative about it, that is if technology will advance and we don't hit some kind of plateau or hurdle or regress.
Now here is the thing.
It might actually be easier to build a Sonny White FTL warp drive than the SSTO shuttle craft that could just hover up to it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive
You may have heard of the WarpStar1 but that is actually a sublight EM drive concept--something like a shuttlecraft
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=36313.620
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...-Warp-Field-Still-Generates-Works-In-A-Vacuum
Not buying it myself. If something like that did work--it'd be our luck that it would only be good enough for things already in space to maneuver without thrusters.
There is nothing to prevent you from building an object the size and shape of a shuttlecraft from 'trek or an X-wing.
But you still need that blunderbuss rocket to get it up there--and it would be no more agile than a Soyuz.
A gravity well is a hard thing to fight. Once you get into space, solar sailing, nuclear electric--nuclear thermal--there are all kinds of ways to get around--with time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_1
Getting off a planet itself--that may always need rockets., no matter how much more advanced the actual in-space craft itself gets.
Anti-matter photon drive?
Fine.
Still need a capsule to get to it.
That's the hell of the laws of physics that came with this bloody universe.
It is just as well. If gravity were any more closely related to the electromagnetic force--static repulsion/cling would matter more, and Earth wouldn't form, or it would be a dust bunny.
Over unity energy production? If that were a thing--I'd be scared to death. Remember how some folks thought the early atomic tests would go Mike-style runaway and eat the whole Earth?
If over unity power was real--I'd be afraid to light a match.
The best we can hope far is for HLLVs to get bigger and bigger so that huge stations, space elevators and other things can get built.
We can have 2001.
We will never have Trek.
I'm sorry.
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LASERS............
Whatever happened to that, I remember reading about it ages ago and there are some videos online about it where they projected a laser into the bottom of a spacecraft and that got it off the ground. Also aerospike engines, howcome they are not used much?
Whatever happened to that, I remember reading about it ages ago and there are some videos online about it where they projected a laser into the bottom of a spacecraft and that got it off the ground. Also aerospike engines, howcome they are not used much?
That was the work of Leik Myrabo you're thinking of
http://www.cgpublishing.com/Books/lightcraft.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightcraft
Thing is, like the launch loop--you need a very big power source. Now, that may serve as a two-fer what with breakthrough starshot--but we are talking big money here....maybe even beyond what Bezos has. That is why I support a space force, so that F-35 kind of money can be spent on things like lightcraft.
That is how you beat Musk. Lower part count, then chunk the tube.
Zander went one step farther. His concept was to make the rocket like a lit cigarette that burns itself away--self-consuming.
That finally looks do-able:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/sp...utophage-rocket-would-devour-itself-for-fuel/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Zander
AMROCC wanted a three stage hybrid. The LOX tank was atop the third stage--great for stealth cold gas thrusters and breathing gases. The lower two stages were like SRBs, but with only tire rubber
As far as they got:
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20060048274.pdf
I thought it was bad at Tesla.
There, he tried too much automation--and it bit him. Making a car is--in a lot of ways--a bigger headache than rocketry. The Space X folks looked happy, except for one person I saw next to Elon, who was sitting. He did seem to have a look of fear on his face.
It could be worse
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...aphy-plesetsk-mezen-cosmodrome-rockets-space/
http://www.cgpublishing.com/Books/lightcraft.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightcraft
Thing is, like the launch loop--you need a very big power source. Now, that may serve as a two-fer what with breakthrough starshot--but we are talking big money here....maybe even beyond what Bezos has. That is why I support a space force, so that F-35 kind of money can be spent on things like lightcraft.
That is how you beat Musk. Lower part count, then chunk the tube.
Zander went one step farther. His concept was to make the rocket like a lit cigarette that burns itself away--self-consuming.
That finally looks do-able:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/sp...utophage-rocket-would-devour-itself-for-fuel/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Zander
AMROCC wanted a three stage hybrid. The LOX tank was atop the third stage--great for stealth cold gas thrusters and breathing gases. The lower two stages were like SRBs, but with only tire rubber
As far as they got:
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20060048274.pdf
I thought it was bad at Tesla.
There, he tried too much automation--and it bit him. Making a car is--in a lot of ways--a bigger headache than rocketry. The Space X folks looked happy, except for one person I saw next to Elon, who was sitting. He did seem to have a look of fear on his face.
It could be worse
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...aphy-plesetsk-mezen-cosmodrome-rockets-space/
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SpaceX periodically fires the lower performing 10%. The higher performing take their bonuses and options and get the hell out after a few years. You won't find many long term employees at SpaceX except for the very top. I don't know if that culture will change, but eventually it will have to be addressed. Right now, SpaceX is providing a lot of good talent for startups an traditional aerospace companies that realize employees have lives.
That is a very good point. Apollo was not only better funded than NASA programs now--but the divorces!. It looks like NASA is dragging their feet--but the folks are doing good work--and are able to have their lives as well now. The flavor-aid thinkers call it stagnation of course, or pork. I call it inrastructure and the keeping alive of tribal knowledge that simply can't be passed down easily in textbooks.
Indeed: They've got to get into orbit first, with a new and extremely powerful rocket. A rocket that will have tons of complicated bugs to work out, because all rockets do. They've got to do all that and do it quickly and repeatedly.
I'm getting a little burnt out on all these outrageous claims glossily put forward in press junkets. Whilst Blue Origin isn't a vapourware company like Mars One, that doesn't mean they are going to be able to run, a mere 4 years after they've learnt to crawl.
Get the fundamentals down first!
I still think they're the ones to watch. the New Shep allows them to test their upper stage engine every time they launch it, and with paying customers that will help pay for part of the development plan. But mostly Im interested in the Blue Moon lander and the BE7, because they've got almost 4 years of development in it. No one else has anything like a lunar lander development going on right now.Indeed: They've got to get into orbit first, with a new and extremely powerful rocket. A rocket that will have tons of complicated bugs to work out, because all rockets do. They've got to do all that and do it quickly and repeatedly.
I'm getting a little burnt out on all these outrageous claims glossily put forward in press junkets. Whilst Blue Origin isn't a vapourware company like Mars One, that doesn't mean they are going to be able to run, a mere 4 years after they've learnt to crawl.
Get the fundamentals down first!
I don't realistically think that anyone is landing on the moon in 2024, though its possible, but if congress at least funds LOP-G gateway station and its operable by then, we're closing the gap on getting a permanent moon settlement started. Most likely the first lunar settlement will be Shackleton.
Did you see the size of the lander mockup Bezos was showing off? That thing looks pretty big.
Supposedly, it can transfer from Earth orbit as well as land on the Moon so quite a lot of delta-V. I doubt it's designed to take off again though.
The Apollo LM was 23 feet 1 inch (7.04 m) high and 31 feet (9.4 m) wide and deep with the landing legs deployed. The descent stage on its own probably looked as big as this lander although perhaps not as tall. It was 10 ft 7.2 in (3.231 m) high (not including the landing probes).
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If they're landing at Shackleton they might be considering cracking water for fuel and from what I read the Me7 engine is hydrolox. That's the only reason I could imagine they'd want to do that, in-situ, and another reason the Blue Moon is so large, due to necessary tank size. If it flew with dense hypergolics it might not be that much bigger than the old LEM.
NASA has changed its reqs for a lunar lander to allow single stage now, so it doesn't have to have a separate ascent and descent stage, which is a good move.
