• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

India begins quest for manned missions to the Moon.

Just a note: The very first unmanned mission to the orbit of Mars, which was successful, cost much less than the Hollywood produced movie The Martian.

Also, the newly created Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) was set up to enable private companies to utilise the country’s space infrastructure, and allow ISRO to guide them. So any industrialisation of resources from the Belt (which is a long way off) would be cost-effective from India.
 
I'd like to see India build Sea Dragon. The steel at the Alang ship-breakers looks inexpensive, and I think India has a submarine yard.
 
I would love nothing more than to see the launch of a manned Indian spacecraft into LEO. Unfortunately I doubt that will be happening any time soon, much less a Moon landing.
 
I'd like to see India build Sea Dragon. The steel at the Alang ship-breakers looks inexpensive, and I think India has a submarine yard.
I don't think they need to put 550 tonnes into LEO quite yet. India also has nuclear weapons but I don't think they have enough of them to build an Orion nuclear pulse propulsion drive (800 30-tonne yield devices are required to put 300 tonnes into LEO). India has not signed the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty despite Nehru being one of the first world leaders to appeal for such a ban to be introduced back in 1954. However, I doubt they'd go that route. It's a peaceful use for nukes provided they're detonated outside the earth's magnetosphere. Maybe use Sea Dragon to get it there.
 
India can make their lunar program work without super heavy lift. If they develop in-orbit fuel depots and in orbit construction they can go anywhere their program reasonably wants to go. If they US had adopted using their then-current EELV fleet and refueling back in the early 2000's, rather than Mike Griffin's bloated pork-friendly Constellation program with the Ares i and Ares V, the US might be back on the moon now.

I get the big rocket fetishism of Sea Dragon, but except for Bob Truax and people who keep rediscovering it, I don't think it ever has a reasonable shot of being built. It would have had to have had a dedicated nuclear aircraft carrier to provide both power, support, and LOX generation. So add on to that a standing army of a few thousand sailors. On a prime security asset that might have to leave at any moment's time because it's real job would have been being an aircraft carrier. It would have had to have been overbuilt to handle the pressure at the depths its most critical components would be sitting at. it would have to be built to loiter at such depths. Despite the fact that it's seen as a low tech brute force launcher, it would have had to have sensors to allow full checkout and telemetry at those depths, unless the aircraft carrier was also suppose to have a team of padrats trained as saturation divers handling things down below.

Not to mention the ecological disaster if that behemoth had a tank rupture and dumped its full content of RP1 into the equatorial sea. I don't think Sea Dragon ever had a chance. Like Nuclear Orion it's one of those ideas that kind of seems cool but really would not have worked out. While it was billed as a low cost way to heavy-lift, I suspect the true costs of developing and maintaining it would have dwarfed the most expensive launch systems ever in use such as Titan IV or STS.
 
India rocket relies on massive pile of people with fart power for thrust after eating a hot vindaloo, that stuff will make you fly if it's hot enough
 
India has not signed the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty despite Nehru being one of the first world leaders to appeal for such a ban to be introduced back in 1954. However, I doubt they'd go that route.

It's true, and we wouldn't simply because we don't live in a safe neighborhood like the UK, the US or Australia. Both China and Pakistan have nuclear weapons. China is a single-party authoritarian state and Pakistan is a near-failed state about to go bankrupt which regularly sends state-sponsored terrorists across the LOC to terrorize the people of India.

Also, The United States and China are the only remaining NPT Nuclear Weapon States that have not ratified the CTBT.
 
India can make their lunar program work without super heavy lift. If they develop in-orbit fuel depots and in orbit construction they can go anywhere their program reasonably wants to go. If they US had adopted using their then-current EELV fleet and refueling back in the early 2000's, rather than Mike Griffin's bloated pork-friendly Constellation program with the Ares i and Ares V, the US might be back on the moon now.

I get the big rocket fetishism of Sea Dragon, but except for Bob Truax and people who keep rediscovering it, I don't think it ever has a reasonable shot of being built. It would have had to have had a dedicated nuclear aircraft carrier to provide both power, support, and LOX generation. So add on to that a standing army of a few thousand sailors. On a prime security asset that might have to leave at any moment's time because it's real job would have been being an aircraft carrier. It would have had to have been overbuilt to handle the pressure at the depths its most critical components would be sitting at. it would have to be built to loiter at such depths. Despite the fact that it's seen as a low tech brute force launcher, it would have had to have sensors to allow full checkout and telemetry at those depths, unless the aircraft carrier was also suppose to have a team of padrats trained as saturation divers handling things down below.

Not to mention the ecological disaster if that behemoth had a tank rupture and dumped its full content of RP1 into the equatorial sea. I don't think Sea Dragon ever had a chance. Like Nuclear Orion it's one of those ideas that kind of seems cool but really would not have worked out. While it was billed as a low cost way to heavy-lift, I suspect the true costs of developing and maintaining it would have dwarfed the most expensive launch systems ever in use such as Titan IV or STS.
Yeah, I've always suspected the economics and the potential for ecological damage of Sea Dragon have never been costed properly.
 
Most of it was hydrogen oxygen.
Bunker oil used by ships is more commonplace.

We’ve even seen asphalt volcanoes/seeps on the sea floor. An enclosed spot can keep noise down.

Something occurred to me. We have seen boost-backs, fly-back concepts...

Early Angara drawings even had drop away tanks.

Has anyone looked at fly back tanks?
No rockets on them, just some landing jets.

The engine would be tri-propellant, with kerosene strap-ons and a hydrogen core.

This stays as a wet workshop as the smaller oxygen tank engine pod comes back via parachute perhaps?
 
Last edited:
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top