Big Rocket, Little Support
Expensive NASA rocket draws skepticism, Houston Chronicle
“As engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama begin designing a rocket that would eventually be capable of blasting 130 metric tons into orbit, many spaceflight experts are questioning why NASA chose what could be the most expensive and riskiest approach to expanding the human spaceflight program beyond low-Earth orbit. “I’m very skeptical about the heavy-lift rocket,” said Chris Kraft, NASA’s first manned spaceflight director and the director of flight operations during the Apollo 11 mission.”
One thing is for sure, NASA doesn’t have enough money to build this or any other rocket. You hear that the $25 billion Apollo program is $150 billion in today’s dollars, but that’s a bunch of BS. Apollo today would be more like $250 billion. Things are 10 times more expensive than they were 50 years ago. A decent car was $2,000, now it’s $20,000. I saw a newspaper at my grandad’s house from 1963 about 10 years ago and houses were $9,995. Albeit as small cookie-cutter house of less than 1,000 sq ft, but the bottom line is the cost was around $10 per sq ft and these days it’s at least $100. A loaf of bread was 25 cents, now it’s $2.50, and the list goes on and on. NASA was getting nearly $5 billion per year at it’s peak back then, what it needs now to succeed is $50 billion per year. Saying we can’t afford this kind of money for NASA is more BS because one of the few things that has gone up more than 10X since then is the federal budget. It was around $100 billion per year back then, now it’s close to $4 trillion, up 40X. It’s not that we can’t afford it as a nation, we just don’t care about space any more. Apollo was the greatest single achievement in human history. Unfortunately, it won’t be duplicated for 100 years. Oh, but we need a fifth generation fighter plane called the F-35 that is going to cost nearly $1 trillion. Now you know where this nation’s priorities lie.
What I don’t understand is the statement that there have been “other studies”. Yes, Direct 2.0 was done outside of NASA’s approval. But if you look at the SLS, what is it but a Jupiter 232 except using 5-segment SRM’s? Another question is how is this a waste (assuming anything can be funded at all), when the intended purpose is to get Americans beyond LEO, not just to the ISS? We can and have rehashed and rehashed, and we get nowhere! (Sigh)
“Another question is how is this a waste (assuming anything can be funded at all), when the intended purpose is to get Americans beyond LEO, not just to the ISS?”
Because it probably doesn’t have the funding to actually get built. Even if it gets built it doesn’t have the funding for missions. And even if they cancel other things to pay for bare flights, they don’t have the funding to do missions that achieve anything (like a lunar landing; no lander, no possibility of funding for a lander.)
It doesn’t advance space technology, it doesn’t lower cost for future missions, it doesn’t streamline operations, it doesn’t add capacity (in a usable form), nor is it integrated into other missions (like science launches), and it doesn’t enhance competition in the commercial space sector.
It will almost certainly be scrapped at some point, when it finally dawns on TPTB that it’s actually worse than the shuttle. Every dollar spent on it up to that day has been wasted. Every day we wait is a day wasted.
An analogy: You want somewhere to live. You have a limited budget. So you spent all your money building a frame for a giant mansion. You have no money to finish it, no way to live in it, and you built it on land with no resale value. Have you wasted your money?
Meanwhile, you publicly berate your son (and try to cancel his bank account, over your whole family’s objections) because he is spending just a tenth of what you are, hiring young enthusiastic carpentry students to build a smaller (but actually livable) home as part of their attempt to create their own business.
Paul, that is only true if my son has built more than one home, that is up to code, and will withstand a good blow. Question? Do you want to go through a hurricane in a home with concrete and steel reenforced walls, or a mobile home?
“Do you want to go through a hurricane in a home with concrete and steel reenforced walls, or a mobile home?”
But that’s not the choice. SLS, like Constellation before it, consumes the entire available budget. Without budgeting for missions.
That’s like having one element of a house, like the frame, or the foundation, but not being able to build the rest, nor live in it.
The choice is a mobile home, or sleeping on your Russian friend’s couch (oh, and his house is falling apart.)
(Actually foundation is a better analogy than frame. SLS spends all its money and time building the foundation, but leaves nothing for the walls, roof, etc. When criticised, supporters cry “But a good foundation is the basis of a strong house!” Which doesn’t change the fact that it’s not a house if you only build the foundation.
(Plus SLS is a weak foundation anyway. Because it’s big, people confuse size for strength.))
You’re probably right that we just don’t care about space anymore. At least not enough people to make space exploration a priority. Still, we just have to move forward as best we can. Maybe some of the commercial space will succeed or maybe NASA will be brought in to save the day again against another future rival.
Right now we’re all feeling the post Space Shuttle blues just like we all felt the post Apollo blues. If we’re lucky we’ll be sending American’s into space again by the end of this decade and if it turns out to be primarily just to LEO again then it will be a colossal failure.
Things aren’t all 10 times more expensive, particularly where competition is at play. The cost of computer memory and processing power has fallen dramatically in price since the 1960s, as has the cost of jet travel to anywhere on the globe.
True, but you can’t make spacecraft or launchers in a wafer fab. The means of production controls cost, and the SLS would largely be hand-made, and therefore very costly.
“what could be the most expensive and riskiest approach to expanding the human spaceflight program beyond low-Earth orbit”
Well, if it is not Expensive and not Risky, why bother doing it.
“NASA chose?” Weren’t the payload mass and technology (Shuttle-based) mandated by Congress? How is that NASA’s fault?
“NASA chose”? Weren’t the payload mass and technology (Shuttle based) mandated by congress in the budget? Why does NASA get the blame – besides Congress having better PIOs?
The money is already gone for SLS, however you still have four crusty senators who are pushing SLS (and JWST). Frankly, that is all that matters as long as they are in power. Senator Mikulski is so powerful she can put in a $529 million dollar earmark… and get away with it.
When NASA gets hit with its share of the $1 trillion cut come 2013 NASA will have to choose between SLS and JWST, or delay both (best case option) and then they will both die.
There is nothing fiscally responsible about either SLS or JWST.
Respectfully,
Andrew Gasser
TEA Party in Space
“As engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama begin designing a rocket that would eventually be capable of blasting 130 metric tons into orbit“
“begin designing?” It’s the end of January 2012. How long has this silliness been going on already? (with tons of money already gone down the drain.) And they are “just beginning”? If this is true, it’s inexcusable. Every additional day that SLS exists takes us farther from where we need to be and throws more money out the window. And amazingly, there are still many people who believe that the US is the leader in space. It’s getting very hard to retain any hope for an intelligent space program.
Steve
Well to be fair they didn’t select a design until last September…it’s only been 4 months.
It’s time for Space Transportation Unlimited to take over all the transportation rolls and functions of NASA and go directly to the American people, showing how they are being RIPPED OFF by congress, NASA and the primes and we at STU can do it cheaper and better.
We are a commercial Space transportation company only. We do not build space telescopes!
Get the STU lobby team together!
Call up the tea party!
Sorry for ranting but it sure is true that all things could be done so much cheaper and faster better.
I guess that’s how Elon felt when he saw the cost to put his plant experiment on Mars.
And said I can build my own rocket for that.
It’s time to go after the ELETE good old boy space community!
NASA has some mothballed Saturn V F-1 engines lying about, but somehow NASA and/or Rocketdyne failed to keep any blueprints for same. (?!?!?) I’ve never heard a good explanation for that , as Werner vB turns in his grave. The 1.5 million lb/ thrust F-1’s seem pretty viable to me today, 38 years after they last flew especially since they burn kerosene-LOX instead of liquid hydrogen-LOX. Oh…they were man rated, too. They may date back to 1955 , but they work.
As long as we are trying to build a Frankenstein booster from leftover Apollo and Shuttle body parts , we need to revisit the F-1 engine as well. Rocketdyne even developed a follow-on engine called the F-1A that developed 2 million pounds thrust, but it never made it onto a booster from the test stand before the remainder of the Apollo program was cancelled by Nixon to pay for a stupid war somewhere.
Back to the Future !
Revisit the F-1 sounds good
SEND THE PLANS TO SPACEX AND AND YOU COULD GET IT UP AND GOING AT A REALISTIC PRICE.
SpaceX’s Merlin 2 engine, in development, would generate a minimum of 1.7 million pounds of thrust. Given SpaceX’s business model, it no doubt will be cheaper to build than the cost of reviving the F-1.
Don’t use the F-1, use the F-1A (http://www.astronautix.com/…. They are 33% more powerful.
Steve HELPPPPPPPPPP!
Last night i was thinking of ideas to get fuel into space cheaper using mountian rail launch.
After just learning that any vertical lift rocket only gets about 5 percent of its mass to LEO or for every 100 tons of rocket fuel on the pad you get 5 tons up there I was thinking we have to do better.
So I started thinking we need a rail launcher plus recoverable first stages using jets and rockets and wings to even have any hope.
Only to wake and see this SLS porky junk again.
I sure don’t want to hear someone say NASA needs to be the head of the spear 🙁
NASA needs to be cutting the cost to LEO making it possible to fly around LEO They can barley do that old Gemmi stuff.
NASA ENGINEERS need to be doing somthing like this not the big ROCKET to no where.
· Wouldn’t Hawaii be the best place for the USA to build a rail launcher that could get fuel to Leo for the cheapest price???
Couldn’t you push a fuel tanker off the top of that mountain at a 45 degree angle to use jets rockets and wings for a recoverable fly back first stage that could air launch a x-37 tank that took fuel to a cheap LEO fuel depot ???Make the launcher a rail cheap!
Human vehicles could use more wings and jets since they would have to leave the mountain at lower velocity for safe acceleration.Maybe a professor could have his students design such a rail and have students design recoverable rockets that use it. They could get in touch with Hawaii which could get them Interested in the idea.
A while back I was told by others here how hard it is to have an ISS astronaut jump in an orbital Vehicle. They were right I had never thought that NASA didn’t even have the capability to have a few astronaut jump in spaceship, punch up the computer fill up at the local depot and go do something !
MAIN REASON no LEO fuel depots
cost of fuel in leo to high.The more I learn the more I realize how far we have to go.
DTARS
Hawaii provides highway to the stars to fuel the expanding Space economy
Parallel lines
NASA wants to RUN WHEN THEY CAN”T EVEN TIE THERE DARN SHOES.
STOP SLS STOP WASTING MY MONEY!
After just learning that any vertical lift rocket only gets about 5 percent of its mass to LEO or for every 100 tons of rocket fuel on the pad you get 5 tons up there I was thinking we have to do better.
We can, from the Moon.
Or from Earth. Cost is what matters, not IMLEO.
I realize cost is the issue and an electric rail launcher can give you that extra fuel to make sure you do recover all the expensive rocket parts. I’m all in on fuel depots. Just looking for ways to make it happen soon! While SLS burns another day of good money.
The SLS / Orion debacle probably has to run its course before we can make progress. Something useful could be salvaged from Orion, but I fear it’s only a technical possibility, the powers that be will only fall back to that possibility once it is too late to be useful.
Great post. Hope you will join us DTARS.
Respectfully,
Andrew GasserTEA Party in Space
DTARS,
Hawaii is not really the best place for a rail launcher. There are lots of problems, but at the top of the list is the fact that the islands are geologically unstable (look up “Ring of Fire”). Also, the bedrock is solid lava, which is very hard to work with. Plus, Hawaii is not all that big and the area usable for something like a space port (flat) is very limited.
Hawaii is very tall relative to its base, which is on the ocean floor, but actually its peak elevation is very low, not much above sea level. To get the most out of a rail gun (or any launch type) the higher the elevation (above sea level) you are, the better. Also, the closer to the equator you are, the better. And finally, wherever you launch from, you ideally want a large area (like an ocean) to the east (down range) where you can abort, dump fuel, whatever, without falling on people or assets.
(FYI: down range — the direction you pitch over to and travel after launch — is always east, because that way the Earth’s rotation is adding to your orbital velocity; at the equator that’s almost 1,000 mph added to your velocity for free; if you launched and went west, you’d lose 1,000 mph, so the difference is 2,000 mph.)
If you wanted a good location for launching (high altitude, close to the equator, ocean down range) you might want to look at leasing land in a place like Ecuador. The ESA/Russian launches are made from Kourou Spaceport in French Guiana, South America, for exactly these reasons.
On a different (and totally wacky) note, if you want to get propellants into space, keep them as gases in thin-shelled, light-weight containers (like air in a balloon) with rockets on their bottoms; build a super winch on the continental shelf (ocean floor); winch the containers down to the sea bed and then release them; the gases will cause the containers accelerate upwards out of the water; a few seconds after they leave the water you fire the rockets, so you’re already accelerating upwards when your rockets start to fire, instead of starting from zero on a launch platform. This scheme probably wouldn’t work worth a damn, but it would probably be great fun to watch.
Steve
“the gases will cause the containers accelerate upwards out of the water”
Heh. But they’ll only reach “terminal velocity”. Which I suspect in water isn’t that much.
In another thread I suggested DTARS search for “atomic cannon” or “nuclear Verne gun”. You drill a 2mi deep shaft through a compliant medium like a deep salt dome, at the base of the shaft you put a pool of water and a 150kt nuke. On top of the water, there’s a crushable sabot, and on top of that a high-G tolerant payload. Evacuate the shaft to reduce resistance above the payload. Detonate the nuke, water turns to hypersonic plasma, propels the payload. Atomic cannon. Almost all of the radiation is retained underground, only a whisper escapes.
(Another variant is to use a tube suspended in the deep ocean. Releases radiation into the surrounding ocean, but the amount globally is trivial.)
My own variant is to use conventional high-explosives, ringing the entire length of the shaft, implosion shape-charges, detonated in a sequence to simulate the nuclear pulse wave. I have no idea whether it would work, but if it does it would be politically more saleable.
“Human vehicles could use more wings and jets since they would have to leave the mountain at lower velocity for safe acceleration.”
DTARS,
Not necessarily needed. Humans can survive any velocity at all. It’s just the acceleration (the rate of change of velocity) that kills. To move humans faster without crushing acceleration, you just need to accelerate them longer at a tolerable acceleration. In others words, either use a higher mountain, or dig a deep hole in the ground at the base of the mountain and start from the bottom of the hole (a ballistic people silo).
Steve
Circular track with mountain off-ramp. Smaller, safer.
You’re just exchanging linear for angular.
(Formula is the same whether it’s a straight track or curved. Ie, linear distance = velocity_squared / acceleration. Or radius = velocity_squared / acceleration (at constant angular velocity). For 8km/s launch velocity and 5g load, it’s 1300km. So either a 1300km linear track, or a circular track with a 1300km radius or 8000km length, excluding the length of the off-ramp. A linear track is vastly shorter.)
It’s actually worse, of course, because you’ll have centripetal acceleration and angular acceleration.
In reality, neither kind of system isn’t really suitable for human launches, just cargo.
[edit: Elsewhere DTARS said he wants to accelerate F9 to 1000mph. At just 1g, that would require only 20km. The distance is reasonable, I just suspect the mass is beyond our engineering for linear accelerator.)
DTARS,
What is powering your rail gun? You’d have to go to a superconducting magnetic repulsion system (a genuine rail gun) to get what you’re after. A rocket-based gun won’t do it. You’d actually lose acceleration.
A superconducting magnetic repulsion rail gun of the scale we’re talking is not currently doable, but it is probably within our reach within a decade (my estimate) if the R&D were taken further with enough money. THAT is one of the things that I think NASA should be working on.
Steve
I don’t understand. Does this mean the SLS might not happen as expected? Never saw it coming.
Lololol you saved my spirits 🙂
There’s really no support for the SLS/MPCV except in Congress who created the SLS and from aerospace companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne:-)
Marcel F. Williams
The Orion could morph into the bridge of a transfer vehicle. Such a vehicle would need a docking port, ECLSS, cockpit controls, guidance system with sensors, radios and solar panels.
The transfer vehicle would be a different shape and may not need a heat shield. Larger living quarters will be needed. The service module would be permanently attached with bigger oxygen gas tanks. The main engine would need to be infinitely restartable and refuelable in space.
“The transfer vehicle would be a different shape and may not need a heat shield.”
While the whole transfer vehicle doesn’t, keeping the heat-shield on your Orion-based bridge means that in an emergency it the bridge can serve as a lifeboat.
That said, the actual Orion will be too expensive, and I suspect too specialised, to be adapted for less than the price of designing a bridge-lifeboat from scratch. Because NASA (and the Primes) don’t build systems incrementally, the technology tends not to be very adaptable. (Even though common sense told everyone that “reusing shuttle parts” was a cheap way to build a HLV, reality has proven otherwise. However, had the shuttle been designed incrementally over the seventies and eighties, many of its components would have already been used in other configurations and would be much more flexible.)
So you have a good idea for a ship, but a terrible idea for a program.
Pity.
If used as a bridge for Mars transfers the Orion will simply have to dock to one end of the transfer vehicle’s habitat module and control the engines by wire.
Yes, the politicians and pundits are ignorant and pathetic human beings as usual.
The more pressing issue is that NASA administration and to an extent
many employees at NASA are content just pulling in a paycheck just as
they have been since Shuttle started flying decades ago. A financially
viable launch vehicle…even a moon base should be a reality by now, a time which is now 40+
years since Apollo.
All of this talk about better ideas without any action is really inexcusable. When they put Von
Braun at MSFC years ago, he was going over peoples heads and lobbying in
D.C. This guy, an ex-Nazi could have been easily scorned into a hole, but instead
even with that looming on his public appeal, he was brazen enough to
show his face and put his opinion on the line. You do that now, and
you’ll get fired and/or moved. If that continues the agency will be
pointless.
SLS, AREV-V is an embarrassment to this country. There is clear evidence of politicians being lobbied to support that monstrosity without technical basis. Too many technical admins just sit and twiddle thumbs thinking well, I have a paycheck and “I’m smart.” I know a couple of them personally who do it to spite Obama. spite him! We really advance this country that way.
The Fastrac engine,which is what SpaceX’s Merlin engine is based on was
developed at MSFC over a decade ago. Fasttrac should have been part of
NASA’s launch vehicle development, perhaps not just the X-34. Nobody
spoke up loud enough or cared enough to listen and it was cancelled more
than once. SpaceX is using much of that tech now. Guess who gets the
credit? NASA?
This leading NASA workforce and admin generation is often only whiney when they don’t get their paychecks and tickets to suburbia. I don’t think many of them realize we have no manned launched capability right now and ambiguous plans at best to restore it. Maybe not such a big deal to many.
50 years+ of Nasa and all we have now are “it costs too much” or “It’s the politicians fault”…
GOOD WORK.
SLS is nothing more than a HUGE wast of time and money! We shouldn’t even be thinking about colonizing the Moon and Mars with this kind of technology because it could only possibly happen in a society entirely composed of space nerds–which is far from reality. (And would be using something better anyway.)
NASA, Congress, stop wasting time and powerpoint and figure out a way to make space travel CHEAP and safe so that human spaceflight can FLOURISH and make that dream of colonizing the solar system a reality!
Im glad to see that SLS has little support.
Cooking up a Saturn V and strapping it with Shuttle SRBs then calling it “new and revolutionary” is an insult to the American public’s intelligence!
You forget that Ares I-x was Time magazine’s “Invention of the Year”.
Never fear, Congress here. We’ll simply outlaw failure. Then it must work!
Nice to see some of my silly thoughts stirred some of your creative juices anyway I’ll consider some of your thoughts then detail my silly idea so it will stop bother me and hopefully keep you all entertained.
Note Steve some times you assume I know less than I do but that’s fine hopefully it helps other new readers.
Example
A human rocket would have to leave rail at slower velocity do to fix length of rail which would make for a different acceleration than you could fire a fuel tanker.
DTARS,
Speaking for myself, I don’t consider any of your thoughts to be silly. Silliness enters the picture only when people insist on proceeding with a plan that has been shown to be unworkable (for reasons of science, cost, risk, or whatever). Like SLS; now that’s silly. Watching the comments on this site over the last few weeks, I note that some of those who persisted in favoring SLS are now changing their opinions. Only Congress remains in support of it.
If I’ve been talking down to you, I most sincerely apologize. You came onto this site claiming to understand little about the science and engineering, so I always try to explain myself, instead of making assumptions about what you, or anyone else, already know. Besides, the fact that you’re concerned about space and that you can see its value proves that you’re smarter than many millions of other people on this planet. As far as I’m concerned, we’re all the same here and one person’s ideas area as good as the next guy’s. I see the regulars at NASA Watch to be members of the club, and a little bit like family. If we can’t change the world, we can at least share our ideas with people who understand why we spend so much time at our keyboards, logged in to NASA Watch.
Steve
How much more percent of payload do you get for every 100 miles per hours of throwing an lv lol?
The lv throw graph lol
I read spacexs goal was 4.7 percent
If you throw a falcon 9 to 1000 mph or 2000?
Couldn’t you double fuel to Leo pretty easily?
Paul I wAs thinking more like a Disney world monorail not nuking Hawaii lol
“Paul I wAs thinking more like a Disney world monorail not nuking Hawaii”
Hawaii wouldn’t be suitable for an atomic cannon. Setting off a nuke 2 miles under a volcano would be… brave.
A 1000mph Falcon-9 launching “monorail” would be pushing maglev/railgun technology to an extreme. That means you’re paying “early adopter” costs. A cheaper option might be a rocket sled system. Essentially, your first stage is a rocket powered sled on a steel rail. It’s fairly proven technology.
1000kmh (keep it under mach 1), at just 2g acceleration, requires only 4km of track. Use air-brakes, then solid-rocket braking-motors, to slow the now-empty sled at 5g, needs an extra 1.5km.
So you accelerate at 2g up to 1000kmh along the 4km straight. Then you bank upwards for 1.5km up to whatever height your budget and engineering can handle. During which the first stage separates and brakes to a stop before the end. The second stage rocket lights up to accelerate off the end of the ramp. Rest of the flight is normal rocket surgery.
That should simplify your engineering. Plus your first stage sled is reusable. And it’s human rateable. Sort of.
You’ll need two tracks. Say you’re launching at latitude 35 degrees in the northern hemisphere, you’ll need one track pointing 35 degs north, another pointing 35 degrees south, in order to increase the available launch windows. And you’re still very limited into what orbital inclinations you can launch into. But if you can get the launch cost down, building a new track for 57 degree launches, and another for polar launches, gives you upgrade potential. The key is to keep the track itself low cost, low maintenance, super reusable.
Thanks thinking about your comment 🙂
Interesting article. I’ve always favoured building heavy lift, principally so we can send large, and heavy payloads into orbit, or on interplanetary missions. But the economics matter, and if SLS is going to consume all of NASA’s budget and then have nothing left to actually fly, its the wrong approach.
A better approach is to rely on evolved Atlas V and Delta IV for boosting cargo, and commercial space for crew. Focus on assembling vehicles for deep space exploration at a Lagrange Point, rather than trying to haul complete vehicles out of Earth’s gravity well. That may require commercial space stations (i.e. Bigelow) which act as ‘construction shacks’ whilst the vehicle is being assembled, and wherever possible, assembly is controlled from Earth. Once assembled, these exploration spacecraft which are permanently space-based which can be reconfigured as needed, and which are powered by non-rocket based propulsion (i.e. nuclear thermal, nuclear electric, or solar electric) become the main means of deep space transport for crew and cargo. Add the appropriate lander to a vehicle, suitable for either the Moon, Mars or an Asteroid, and you have the basis for a more elegant and sophisticated approach to human exploration of space.
I feel we do have to get beyond rocket technology wherever possible. Say what you want about his plan for lunar bases in ten years, I think Gingrich is right about the need for next-generation propulsion. Its clear how constrained our approach to deep space exploration is when you rely on the chemical rocket engine. We should be seeking to go places as fast as possible, and chemical rockets are just not competitive with other forms of propulsion, and worse the technology limits what you can do to the point where your early 21st century Moon mission inevitably becomes just a more evolved repeat of Apollo.
Permanently space-based fully reusable and reconfigurable spacecraft, assembled at a Lagrange Point, which through nuclear propulsion, can travel anywhere in the inner solar system reasonably quickly, with a significant crew aboard, and significant payload, including landers for surface operations, is where we should be thinking. That’s what NASA should be building – not SLS.
Malcolm Davis,
Canberra, Australia
Paul451
Sorry when I joked. That idea looks interesting not using nukes to recreate that blast wave sounds smart.
What I had in mind was much smaller.
After stratolaunch unvailed their idea I got pretty excited about all the possibilities of using jets rockets and wings to get into space.
The last thought that I had was a big bi plane jet that used merlins to get it to go to falcon9 booster height and speed and use merlins and as merlin rocket breaks to slow it down and return it to a runway. Well after typing that idea. I was ready for Steve to say a bi plane? That’s to much drag it won’t work lol. Anyway no one answered so I guess it’s possible.
As you know I’m a fan of tinkers lifter idea which has me thinking about recoverable tugs a lot. Anyway I started thinking about what if you had a x-37 as your payload on a rocket strato launch recoverable small jet. The duel core rocket jet plane (that can fly faster and higher than a stratolaunch plane) air launches a recoverable tank that can return to earth. It’s an x-37 full of fuel
I had just seen a special on the German buzz bomb which uses a rail launcher too lol.
So it seemed to me that if I wanted to get my rocket to be big enough to get a useful fuel load to space and have enough fuel to slow the booster back down to recoverable speed I needed a little push.
How much I don’t know???
The idea of the launcher was more to get enough fuel off the “runway”/ launcher to make a horizontal fly back launch system big enough to be really useful taking decent loads to LEO.
So I figured my rail launcher didn’t have to be all that big
Which all gets to the question of how fast do I need to be going when I release my rocket with fuel from the rail launcher,
and be able to push how much mass??
I’m guessing I don’t have to going all that fast if I can push a large mass of fuel.
Maybe your rocket load is on wheels or ball berings and you only use your electric magnets to accelerate your load???
Seems to me there are many cheap possibilities.
?????????????
I figured the rail could be like a mono rail using electo magnet to accelerate the load.
I was thinking that the system would be open to the air so that you could put different rockets on it.
What if you had a system that flew small or medium size fuel tanker has its meat and potatos to cover fixed cost.
Flights every day
Yet you could put a rocket as big as falcon 9 on it and boost that too 1000 miles per hour before lighting her up.
Anyway I know you will all start talking about fix costs and flight rate and how its to expensive. But it seems to me that mixing wings/ jets / rockets plus a little boost has all kinds of possibilities that should be explored.
What good commercial space port wouldn’t have a rail launcher lol?
Couldn’t both vertical and horizontal launch systems benefit a little boast from a rail launcher??
Circular track hummm ? a switch for 45 degree launch or vertical launch.
Just trying to think of something has NASA AND CONGRESS WASTE ANOTHER DAY.
And Steve I think you are right NASA SHOULD be working on electric rail launchers
But without a mission plan or useful goal I bet having nasa do the R and D their way would just cost 10 times as much, take very long and then just get shelved.
WHEN I hear the word Exploration I think SLS
When I hear the words R and D I think people milking the grant money budget.
So whenever possible and I know that is not in all cases let commercial do the R and D like Spacex is doing now with recoverable boosters and give them a little help.
PS Don’t put SRBS on SLS they are to dangerous to ever be human rated. they are a bad idea for rockets. they are best left firing bombs off of tanks.
Doesn’t take a rocket scientistt
Steve, never let the facts or a lack of knowledge prevent you from forming a strong opinion.
MSFC has studied thousands of heavy lift vehicle configurations over the past 2 years. The optimum configuration is driven by the mission, the Level I requirements, and the budget profile, among other things. The mission and the requirements aren’t well defined yet by NASA HQ (suprise). So they aren’t “just beginning”, but they don’t have a final design either.
I value Steves remarks highly if not rely on them to guide my wishful thinking and I read the posts closely when Steve engages with an expert and draws out his/her thoughts so others can learn.
Thanks though I’m pretty sure he knows when I’m joking here. He is a big reason I come here so often.
And I do realize that nothing I can dream up is new.
I wasn’t sure if you were talking to me or Steve
NonPublius,
I’ve been arguing for years that the requirements need to be nailed down first, because in any program, the requirements drive everything, and all else follows.
As for NASA not defining the mission and the requirements, Congress mandated to NASA what SLS would be, as we all know, and then immediately turned to NASA management and asked, “what are you going to use it for?” And since then they’ve just sort of ignored the issue as much as they can manage. Not only did Congress create this unsalvagable cart before the horse situation, they made it law.
So, Congress painted us all into a corner by brute force and then completely ignores their responsibilities. They’ve tried blaming NASA. They’ve tried blaming the White House. They’ve tried to pin the blame everywhere except where it clearly belongs — with the fools who created the situation, themselves.
But, actually, the original point that I wanted to make was (quite aside from who did or didn’t do what) money has been spent, very significant amounts of money, and there is no demonstrable evidence of any progress being made — no requirements, no missions defined, no specific plans of any kind, and no indication that anybody in power is actually addressing these omissions.
As usual, it’s Congress that is responsible for the lack of sanity, and they’re waiting for someone else to fix it, yet won’t relinquish any of their autocratic control. Stalemate, and everybody loses.
Steve
Steve
NO NEED TO APOLOGIZE lol I’m not thin skinned. Steve you are too polite. lol
Missed this post because with the new DISQUS system I can’t find the internet with my little Ipod and look to the bottom of the thread and know that’s where I’ll find ALL new comments. It is now oh look 3 more posts look hunt through the list to find them. After clicking on the see more post button 3 times. Oh well its better in some ways not others I’m Not complaining. Still have to hunt for replies : ( Sure would be nice if ALL comments went to the top or bottom when you clicked that option.
Also if I say things that don’t work I sure WANT to be corrected. I don’t feel the need to always say I think this I think that. I feel that should be understood.
Steve I already gave you at-a-boys in the other post lol Lets change the world lol : )
I have a dog chued puzzle piece here and I can see many of you have several puzzle pieces …..
All thoughts are modular….
NonPublius if your were talking to me
I have opinions but never consider them strong opinions I’m here to learn most of all and maybe say something to anyone of you that may in anyway help with the dream.
Doesn’t take a rocket scientistt
DTARS,
Like you, I keep coming back to NASA Watch because I keep learning more about things that I didn’t fully understand, or was unaware of.
There are two things that I like best. First is when someone corrects “facts” that I got wrong, or properly explains something that I misunderstood. Getting a better understanding than I had about something is an even bigger blast than being introduced to something that I didn’t know anything about. But that’s just me. I know that some people take it very personal when someone else corrects them, so I try (mostly) to be polite in discussions, but everybody has their own style (or lack of style).
But what I like best of all is when one of us in the crowd, any one, makes a proposal or suggests an idea that sparks everybody off and the really interesting and intensive exchanges begin. Within 2 or 3 posts we forget who’s comment was the originator, and we just take the idea and collectively run with it. To me, those sorts of discussion are the best — fabulous examples of synergy and thoroughly enjoyable. And, it’s when I think the best ideas are introduced.
I’m often reminded of a comment made by one of Robert Heinlein’s best known characters — “I intend to keep on learning until I’m too smart for my own good.” To me, it’s not the knowing, but rather the learning that’s a true high. And being in good company makes it even better.
Steve