On Sunday, June 26, 2016 at 2:27:42 PM UTC+12, William Mook wrote:
***LUNAR TOURISM***

A 4.5 km/sec exhaust speed in vacuum imparting a 3.0 km/sec delta vee to get to the moon and 0.8 km/sec to enter lunar orbit and 1.0 km/sec to leave lunar orbit and return to Earth - requires a 66.4% propellant fraction. This is 28.2 tonnes of propellant in the single element launcher and 129.4 tonnes of propellant in the three element launcher. The vehicle is 2 tonnes and 9 tonnes respectively. The useful load is 12.2 tonnes and 56.4 tonnes respectively. Enough for 24 passengers and 112 passengers respectively and rocket belt and fuel - for tourist flights.

They use rocket belts and biosuits to land five times each and return from the lunar surface during their stay in the orbiting hotel.

http://rocketbelt.nl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRqnTODwvEA

An inter-tank region between the LOX tank forward and the LH2 tank aft, is not the most efficient propellant tank, but it does leave a space between the tanks that you can put the payload. The payload is ejected on orbit and carries out its deep space operations and returns separately from the booster.

A 42.4 tonne payload nestled between these two tanks, with 28.2 tonnes of propellant and room for 24 passengers, and the fuel they use loading up their rocket belts and so forth. An 8.2 meter (14 ft) diameter section that's 15 meters long is adequately sized to hold the lunar stage described above. A 5.6 meter diameter sphere, with another 3.42 meter diameter sphere within, with the inner sphere holding 23.9 tonnes of LOX and the space between the inner and outer sphere holding 4.3 tonnes of LH2 - contains enough for the maneuvers called for.

So, there's a 5.6 meter diameter sphere inside a 8.4 diameter cylinder. So, at the LH2 upper bulkhead of the booster there's a 5.6 meter diameter sphere. Just above the equator of the sphere there is a 2 meter wide shelf that's the floor of the lower deck and there is a 2.2 m cabin height to the floor above. The upper deck is far wider. Both decks have 12 seats facing radially outward each through its own bubble canopy. Each acts as a cabin and may be accessed from behind or from the outside by opening the canopy. Each is air tight and can operate as an airlock to the rest of the ship. Travellers were biosuits, throughout the trip, and the suits maintain passenger comfort safety and cleanliness automatically through micro devices built into the suit. The suits are lightweight, powered, and very comfortable. The seats are equipped with individual supplies of hydrogen and oxygen, have their own power supply and their own food supply, custom made for each traveller. The life support units are compact and built into the suit - made of MEMS devices. Hydrogen and oxygen is used as a propellant for personal rocket belts as well as used to produce power, and water. Water is recycled and mains power aboard the ship recycles reclaimed water into hydrogen and oxygen. Mechanical areas are behind the upper deck, and a MEMS rocket array is below the lower deck.

Above the passenger decks is the common area, and above that, command and service cabins.

Suits are easy to get into and out of and all passengers are well trained in their use. While the suits maintain bodily functions - suits can be gotten out of and a jump suit worn - and there are steam showers and toilets of conventional design available as well as a bar and restaurant. Seat and suit (and rocket belt) can be stowed in flight to make a sizeable private cabin in zero gee. Though during launch all seats can be ejected and flown using an AI expert piloting system to a safe landing in an emergency.

After launch and orbit is attained, the oxygen tank disconnects from the ship and the ship disconnects from the LH2 tank. The oxygen tank connects with the hydrogen tank and the reconfigured booster slows for re-entry, moving gracefully away.

As the booster falls back to Earth, all passengers are in their seats and the ship is rolled slowly so all passengers can see the view.

It is several hours before the ship is in its position relative to the moon to boost along its trans lunar trajectory.

Service Crew Members leave the ship for a space walk after checking the interior, and take passengers from the vacuum side a few at a time, on a space walk for a final check out and test of their capacities.

This is not only interesting to do, but it serves as a final training exercise and check out, so they can become familiar with their suit and rocket belt operation.

Once all 24 check out, they return to their cabin, secure the vacuum door, remove their suit and stow it along with the acceleration couch, and the interior door is opened.

As the passengers were outside, a meal was prepared in the common room. They are well into their meal when the thrusters fire to propel the ship at low gee into a trans lunar orbit. Boost time is such that when the burn is over, its time for everyone to bed down in their cabin for the night.

The next morning the Earth is visibly farther away - and people have breakfast in their cabin, though, they also have a continental breakfast in the common bar/restaurant area. Those who wish to schedule it, may also take a space walk again.

Couples pair up in one cabin where things are kept stowed, and unstow their suit and hardware in the second cabin. The cabins are large enough to admit two fully suited people at once, if the acceleration couch is stowed. So, couples can spread out and easily enter and exit the ship.

Singles, who don't pair up, are not that bad off. The stowage area for personal articles is pressurised during blow down of the airlock.

Every passenger has a state of the art tablet computer with autostereoscpic screen. Each cabin's canopy can be made opaque and operate as a wall sized heads up display with an autosterescopic projection system with face voice and motion recognition.

A complete entertainment system with the entire corpus of human film books and magazines video games are available.

There is also a mission planning software suite that each passenger can access to plan and rehearse their own personal exploration of the moon. The system is also equipped with cameras and facial recognition software.

So, appropriate visual data is recorded for each passenger and made available to their own personal database of the mission. These cameras exist in the suits, and outside the ship, and autonomous cameras, similar to advanced camera drones today, built into each suit. So, people can share their experience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vGcH0Bk3hg

Much smaller and more capable than the drones of today, all this hardware merges with AI expert editing suite software that allows passengers to compose videos, magazine articles, books, narratives, as they wish. These two pieces of software, in combination with the broadband open optical data link with Earth giving internet connectivity to the passengers, is the principal activity other than eating, drinking, space walking and conoodling during the four day journey to the moon.

At the moon the vehicle enters a low lunar orbit above the poles only 50 miles above the lunar surface. On the third day out from Earth, a dozen drone cameras that link optically back to the ship, are released in sequence, and take up positions ahead of and behind the ship. These return to the ship before departure for Earth.

This camera array provides a real time high resolution view of the moon coming up in each two hour orbit. In the 8 days this ship stays on orbit, the moon rotates over 90 degrees, so travellers can vist any spot on the moon they choose.

The entire moon is mapped with a high precision, and that provides an update to the growing data base in the mission planning software. This mission planning tool by the way is the principal means by which serious buyers are attracted to the service. The data is also scientifically useful and has commercial use for developers as well.

When the ship enters lunar orbit, after several days of training, passengers who have attained excellence are released for autonomous flight to anywhere on the moon they wish to go, after the first group landings.

Those few who need assistance, receive it from the service crew during their visits. The command crew are free to travel as they wish to the lunar surface - a perk of the job.

The passengers are broken up into four teams of six each, and the first flight to the moon is a group affair. Each visits an historic site and are shown around. They also do a final check out of their capabilities in the lunar environment.

It takes about 100 kg of propellant to land on the moon and return. Each person is equipped with their suit and rocket belt, and an inflatable tent that can be pressurised from the suit's life support.

Sufficient surplus fuel is carried for 5 trips per passenger. Three trips are included in your ticket. One is a group visit. Two are privately planned with your mission planner on the way out from Earth, and before launch.

Additional trips are purchased through a bidding system on flight for the fuel which has an element of risk - so 'the game' is also another entertainment exercise during the orbital stay.

The suit acts as a sleeping bag. Though couples can set down on the moon and share a pressurised 'tent'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YnKoLnw9V0

The ability to recover objects from the surface exists, though capacity in terms of mass and volume is strictly limited. However, trading can take place on the way back to Earth, of collected objects, and objects are offered for sale by the crew and this is an interesting exercise as well.

So, what's all this cost?

Well, a $20 million booster rocket and a $30 million lunar passenger rocket - and $7.6 million worth of other hardware - flown twice a month - with a ten year life - 240 trips with 24 people each. 5,760 people $10,000 per person. Another $10,000 for the suit - they're standardised in different sizes and are articulated and powered so adjust easily to custom fit.

The suits may be rented. They may be purchased. They may also be customised at additional charge.

The 800 tons of propellant at $150 per ton is $120,000 - divided by 24 is $5,000. Food consumables and personnel, another $2,500 per person, but this can be customised as well at added cost.

Base price, $17,500 per trip - Selling price? Well, I would invest $57.6 million in the hardware, and likely double that to get all the details right and build all the support infrastructure. Say $180 million.

If it takes three years to do that - at $5 million per month - I need to create a revenue stream worth $347 million per year to earn VC rates of return (41.2% per year).

With a 10 year life span and an 8.5% discount rate, we must generate an EBITDA of $52.89 million per year.

24 flights per year that's $2.20 million per flight - or $91,700 per passenger. Now add this to the $17,500 - $109,200 base price. Extras are available! You will note I've counted hardware costs twice, well, that's because over time, we'll spend that much on insurance and maintenance.

With selling costs, and commissions, say $150,000 per flight. About 2x to 3x the cost of high end tickets from one spot on Earth to another.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/tr...-revealed.html

Its easy to get 576 passengers each year for each of the ships.

* * *

***SOLAR POWER SATELLITE***

42.4 tonne inflatable concentrator powering a solar pumped thin film multi-spectral laser array that is 80% efficient yields 22 megawatts of usable power on the ground for every tonne in orbit. 932.8 MW per satellite. At $0.18 per kWh the system earns $167,904 per hour. Earning $1.47 billion per year. Its worth $9.65 billiion the day it switches on, with a 8.5% discount rate over a 10 year life span. The cost is $108 million to build each unit, with a $324 million development and production cost for the first one. A three year development project $9 million per month. This must return $674.21 million the day it switches on to achieve VC rates of return (41.2% APR). You must sell of $102.75 million in revenue per year over 10 years to attain this valuation with a 8.5% discount rate. A small proportion of the total revenue at $0.18 per kWh.

* * *

***COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK***

42.4 tonnes payload consisting of 53 satellites of 800 kg each - using an inflatable concentrator for a solar panel and an inflatable phased array antenna, with a MEMS based ion rocket with 54 km/sec, and inflatable optics for open optical satellite to satellite communications. The system provides 300 Terabytes/second which is larger than the 88.4 terabytes/second internet bandwidth in 2012.

This has the potential to produce $2.8 trillion per year from the satellite array, for 10 years. A tremendous return on investment for a single launch!

A similar array of satellites launched into Lunar Orbit during a cruise to the moon testing the lunar operations described above - links with the Earth orbiting array - to Earth.

http://ipnsig.org

* * *


The trouble I have with long-duration interplanetary travel is the impact it has on brain function.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...14552414000339

GCR causes a reduction in brain cells by about 4% per year. This is equivalent to that of a severe alcoholic. A few years of that, and you have a very diminished capacity for thought.

Solutions:

This may be addressed through suspended animation after treatment with anti-radiation drugs similar to Ex-Rad - and housing the astronauts in a 'storm shelter' during transit.

Another way to address this is improved propulsuion. Fusion rockets or positronium energised inert material ejected at very high speeds exceeding that of fusion or positronium stored at the density of iron aboard ship, producing collimated neutrino beams for propulsion, allow constant gee acceleration between worlds. This reduces travel to Mars to a few days and permits very large payloads, which carry adequate shielding. (10 tons per sq meter of outer surface to match Earth's atmosphere)

http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs-wm/14613.pdf
http://www.eichrom.com/PDF/gamma-ray...d.m.-rev-4.pdf
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...0130014272.pdf

Though radiation exposure can be reduced with as little as 1 ton per sq meter of atmosphere according to this last model.

600 kg per square meter of tungsten carbide embedded in polymer, a sheet 32 mm (1.25 inches) thick, should provide adequate protection. A cylinder 4 meters in diameter and 40 meters long (about the size of an A320 cabin) 502..7 sq m - mass 301.6 tonnes. Not including end caps, which add another 25..1 sq m (15.1 tonnes) This is about 5x the max landing weight of an A320!

A sphere 9.87 m in diameter has the same volume as the cylinder above - and only 305.7 sq m of area massing only 183.4 tonnes. Nearly half the weight..

So, something like this

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...7b364aca8f.jpg

Excepting a very powerful engine.