Space review: The vision thing

"Terrell Miller" wrote:

Anybody out there think it's remotely feasible for anybody on Earth to
assemble, check out, and launch a couple thousand boosters within a 5-10
year span? Didn't think so.

With a properly designed booster, and production/checkout system,
there's no particular reason why a one-launch-a-day rate can't be
sustained indefinitely. (Assuming the money is available and barring
a strike or massive bank failures.)

D.
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In article ,
Derek Lyons wrote:
Anybody out there think it's remotely feasible for anybody on Earth to
assemble, check out, and launch a couple thousand boosters within a 5-10
year span? Didn't think so.

With a properly designed booster, and production/checkout system,
there's no particular reason why a one-launch-a-day rate can't be
sustained indefinitely. (Assuming the money is available...

2000 launches in 10 years is 200/yr, which is only twice the rate that the
Soviets consistently sustained during their busiest launch years. And
much of that traffic was Semyorkas -- fairly complex rockets with a long
checkout/launch cycle. (You wouldn't think anyone would build an ICBM
with a countdown longer than the B-52 flight time from Maine to Plesetsk,
but that's exactly what they did...)

It's not merely remotely feasible, it's clearly and straightforwardly
feasible. Good design in the launcher and the ground-support facilities
will certainly help, but the only part that's *necessary* is ample money.
--
MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec | Henry Spencer
pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well. |

(Henry Spencer) wrote in message ...
In article ,
Derek Lyons wrote:
Anybody out there think it's remotely feasible for anybody on Earth to
assemble, check out, and launch a couple thousand boosters within a 5-10
year span? Didn't think so.

With a properly designed booster, and production/checkout system,
there's no particular reason why a one-launch-a-day rate can't be
sustained indefinitely. (Assuming the money is available...
....
It's not merely remotely feasible, it's clearly and straightforwardly
feasible. Good design in the launcher and the ground-support facilities
will certainly help, but the only part that's *necessary* is ample money.
Does anybody have a clue how much money is needed to design such a
booster (Zenit?, Angara?, ??) and the related automated production and
launch facilities? The scale (thousands of launches) would certainly
justify investing
quite a big $$$ into production/launch automation.

A rocket could (and should), after all, be simpler then the car I am
driving. While it would have much more metal and fuel, the costs of
those should be in the noise (about as much as in my car).

Stefan

P.S. What I would like to see (in addition, and in parallel with the
research into cheap launchers) is basic engineering research into
- simple, low cost and reliable reentry systems (ballutes?, ...)
- how to operate machinery in the lunar environment (dust, thermal
extremes)
- how to process lunar regolith into solar panels (the panels
could be inefficient, but the process should be automatic)
- trying out a small scale rotovator with currently available
technology (spectra?), just to figure out the potential unknown
problems
- ...

All of this done in real space, not just viewgraph engineering.

"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...

2000 launches in 10 years is 200/yr, which is only twice the rate that the
Soviets consistently sustained during their busiest launch years. And
much of that traffic was Semyorkas -- fairly complex rockets with a long
checkout/launch cycle. (You wouldn't think anyone would build an ICBM
with a countdown longer than the B-52 flight time from Maine to Plesetsk,
but that's exactly what they did...)

It's not merely remotely feasible, it's clearly and straightforwardly
feasible. Good design in the launcher and the ground-support facilities
will certainly help, but the only part that's *necessary* is ample money.

Henry, will you please take a moment and actually listen to your own
rhetoric?

You just said that a flight rate that has *never* been achieved *anywhere*,
under any political or economic system, and is in fact twice that of the
nearest analog, is "clearly and straightforwardly feasible".

There's *no way* you can make that assertion, amigo. None.

*Possible*, maybe, given all the handwaved requirements you spelled out.

But *clear*, *straightforward* and *feasible*?!?

Look bro, nobody wants a robust space infrastructure more than you and I,
but it's still a pipe dream and will be for decades *at best*, unless we
find a way to dump our chemical rocket dependency. And if that happens, who
knows whether we'll even need SPS anymore, we may find something orders of
magnitude better and cheaper.

--
Terrell Miller


"Very often, a 'free' feestock will still lead to a very expensive system.
One that is quite likely noncompetitive"
- Don Lancaster

Terrell Miller wrote:
"Henry Spencer" wrote:
2000 launches in 10 years is 200/yr, which is only twice the rate that the
Soviets consistently sustained during their busiest launch years. And
much of that traffic was Semyorkas -- fairly complex rockets with a long
checkout/launch cycle. (You wouldn't think anyone would build an ICBM
with a countdown longer than the B-52 flight time from Maine to Plesetsk,
but that's exactly what they did...)

It's not merely remotely feasible, it's clearly and straightforwardly
feasible. Good design in the launcher and the ground-support facilities
will certainly help, but the only part that's *necessary* is ample money.

Henry, will you please take a moment and actually listen to your own
rhetoric?

You just said that a flight rate that has *never* been achieved *anywhere*,
under any political or economic system, and is in fact twice that of the
nearest analog, is "clearly and straightforwardly feasible".

There's *no way* you can make that assertion, amigo. None.

*Possible*, maybe, given all the handwaved requirements you spelled out.

But *clear*, *straightforward* and *feasible*?!?

Yes.

One: Is a rocket necessarily more complex or difficult to manufacture
than a jet airliner or bomber? No. What was Boeing's peak production
of aircraft post-war? I'm looking for some better statistics, but in
the 2003 year to date, arguably one of the worst years for air transport
purchases in a long time, it's 174 aircraft. 14,000 since 1954,
which works out to an annual average of around 280 aircraft.

Two: Is there anything about rocket operations which are inherently
difficult to launch at a rate of one per day, on the launch side?
No. The Russians' limitations on launch rates were due to their
vehicle assembly limits, not their pad facilities. And their rockets
were just sort of well designed for rapid launch from the pad.
Designs done with operability as the major goal from step one
would do much better. The Soyuz flight history, going from the
list in Iaskowitz 3rd edition (1979 onwards) includes quite a
few multiple launches in one day, many more launches with 2 or 3
flying one per day for that many days in a row.

And these are with conventional complicated rockets, albeit well
engineered robust models. BDBs could use 2 orders of magnitude
fewer parts; RLVs will eventually operate with aircraft-like
maintenance requirements.

No credible examination of the historical data and engineering
issues involved can avoid the conclusion that high flight rates
are supportable if there are sufficient payloads. Just looking
at the US experience, and failing to note the real lessons of
the Soviet program, are not credible examinations. What the
Soviets proved was that they could build the infrastructure
for a given flight rate, could expand that on demand, could
build as many rockets as they needed for demand up to about
100 flights a year, and keep their operational tempo and quality
going over the course of a year or longer flying several flights
a week on the average.

The additional infrastructure, rocket production and assembly
capabilities, and staff to support 200 versus 100 flights
per year would be merely incremental. And designing rockets
to be cheaper and easier to assemble and stack and launch
would make it even easier than that.


-george william herbert

George William Herbert wrote:
Terrell Miller wrote:
"Henry Spencer" wrote:
2000 launches in 10 years is 200/yr, which is only twice the rate [...]

It's not merely remotely feasible, it's clearly and straightforwardly
feasible. Good design in the launcher and the ground-support facilities
will certainly help, but the only part that's *necessary* is ample money.

But *clear*, *straightforward* and *feasible*?!?

Yes.

I would like to follow this up a bit.

I can't really go into details without violating MTCR,
however, a field of apparently 25-odd companies,
including my business, bid on a recent DARPA/US Air Force
R&D project towards building a low cost high flight rate
space launch / ICBM program, the FALCON project.

While an actual annual flight rate of 200 per year
exceeds the rate which the specifications required,
meeting some of the other specifications basically
required a system which could easily fly 200 flights
per year.

Some of the bidders on FALCON were bidding equipment
that is already in development or partially flying.
Many others were bidding new proposals. Many of the
names involved will be very familiar to those following
the field.

I didn't win; I believe I know who did, though there has
been no official announcement yet. But it's probably
going to be more than 5 winners on the launch vehicle
side, and that means that the USAF and DARPA have
found at least 5 credible winning proposals out of
a field of 25 or so submitters, who believe that they
can build a system which should be capable of, among other
things, flying 200 or so missions a year as a logical
extension of some of the other requirements, if that
many payloads were to show up.

It's not that someone thinks they can fly that often;
it's that *everyone* thought they could match the specs.
Including all of the usual big aerospace suspects,
all of the usual suspects small aerospace companies,
and quite a few out of nowhere startups.


-george william herbert

In article ,
Terrell Miller wrote:
It's not merely remotely feasible, it's clearly and straightforwardly
feasible. Good design in the launcher and the ground-support facilities
will certainly help, but the only part that's *necessary* is ample money.

You just said that a flight rate that has *never* been achieved *anywhere*,
under any political or economic system, and is in fact twice that of the
nearest analog, is "clearly and straightforwardly feasible".

Yes. Exactly.

I don't have to have built a dining-room table to assert confidently that
it is possible for me to do so. I *did* design and build the desk I'm now
sitting at; it is not as large as a dining-room table, but it is actually
significantly more complicated. The same tools and skills apply.

In the case of launch *rate*, it's particularly easy. Building rockets
that are ten times bigger can be a technical challenge, but building ten
times as many of the existing design is just a matter of more production
plants. The Soviets showed that they -- with their poor technology and
miserably inefficient economy -- could launch 100 times a year. And that
was never a large fraction of their government spending. Even they could
have launched 200 times a year quite straightforwardly: all they needed
to do was build and staff a second copy of each facility involved. More
manufacturing plants, more assembly buildings, more rail lines, more pads.
The only really scarce resource -- engineering brainpower -- doesn't have
to be duplicated, not when you're just building a second copy of something
that's already debugged. Want 300/year? Build a third copy.

Look bro, nobody wants a robust space infrastructure more than you and I,
but it's still a pipe dream and will be for decades *at best*, unless we
find a way to dump our chemical rocket dependency.

Your obsession with the inadequacy of chemical rockets is not supported by
facts. While not ideal, they are perfectly adequate to get us into orbit
cheaply and conveniently, if built and used properly.
--
MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec | Henry Spencer
pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well. |

(Henry Spencer) wrote:

In the case of launch *rate*, it's particularly easy. Building rockets
that are ten times bigger can be a technical challenge, but building ten
times as many of the existing design is just a matter of more production
plants.

It occurs to me that the biggest obstacle, next to money, will be the
environmentalists. Building the plants and launch facilities is sure
to attract their attention, not to mention the vast amount of
combustion products dumped into the atmosphere.

The biggest bottleneck in operations will be transport I suspect.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.

(Derek Lyons) writes:
It occurs to me that the biggest obstacle, next to money, will be the
environmentalists. Building the plants and launch facilities is sure
to attract their attention, not to mention the vast amount of
combustion products dumped into the atmosphere.

The biggest bottleneck in operations will be transport I suspect.

A quick web search indicates that the US burns 131 billion gallons of
gasoline in one year. The Saturn V first stage "only" held 203,000
gallons of kerosene. That means it would take 645,000 Saturn V first
stages to equal the amount of gasoline burned in the US each year.

The reality is that you could scale up operations of launch vehicles by
several orders of magnitude before there is any significant
environmental impact above and beyond what we're already doing today.

Jeff
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In article ,
jeff findley wrote:
...That means it would take 645,000 Saturn V first
stages to equal the amount of gasoline burned in the US each year.
The reality is that you could scale up operations of launch vehicles by
several orders of magnitude before there is any significant
environmental impact above and beyond what we're already doing today.

Agreed, with one reservation: you need to look carefully at things
injected into the *upper* atmosphere by rocket exhausts, especially things
that don't naturally get there in any quantity, such as water vapor (!).
Rockets are utterly insignificant compared to all the things we already do
to the lower atmosphere, but the upper atmosphere sees much less human and
natural activity, and is generally less massive and more fragile.

The ozone layer is obviously a special concern... and even water vapor in
the stratosphere is probably bad for the ozone layer! (The stratosphere
is normally extremely dry. Water vapor there turns into ice crystals, and
various forms of undesirable chemistry happen on their surfaces.)

Such problems *probably* are not serious even with major growth in launch
activities, but the matter bears watching, and automatically dismissing it
as insignificant is politically dangerous.
--
MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec | Henry Spencer
pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well. |