NASA Back to Moon by 2018 - But WHY ?

Cardman wrote:

NASA's current plan is not such a bad start for going down this
grander colonization route. Their main issue is to try and minimise
their launch costs.

Huh? Either you are seriously deluded about how much this "plan" will
cost, or you are expressing yourself very poorly.

Also I just cannot see that digging long tunnels and open caverns into
the ground can be done efficiently using remote controlled robots. It
may be possible, but such projects on Earth usually need quite a lot
of human assistance.

NASA just announced a competition for digging robots as part of the
Centennial Challenges.

On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 11:34:26 GMT, Alan Anderson
wrote:

Cardman wrote:

NASA's current plan is not such a bad start for going down this
grander colonization route. Their main issue is to try and minimise
their launch costs.

Huh? Either you are seriously deluded about how much this "plan" will
cost, or you are expressing yourself very poorly.

They would have a lot to launch from Earth. So getting the best launch
price per kg is the ideal. A resulting low cost launch market can
better help future trade between these two places.

Also I just cannot see that digging long tunnels and open caverns into
the ground can be done efficiently using remote controlled robots. It
may be possible, but such projects on Earth usually need quite a lot
of human assistance.

NASA just announced a competition for digging robots as part of the
Centennial Challenges.

Fine for sample collection no doubt, but the words "remote controlled
heavy regolith moving vehicles" sounds much better, even if the
"heavy" part is bound to be a lot more light weight.

So a remote controlled bulldozer, digger, and at least two dumper
trucks, and they are all set to move lots of regolith.

Cardman.

Cardman wrote:

On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 11:34:26 GMT, Alan Anderson
wrote:

Cardman wrote:

NASA's current plan is not such a bad start for going down this
grander colonization route. Their main issue is to try and minimise
their launch costs.

Huh? Either you are seriously deluded about how much this "plan" will
cost, or you are expressing yourself very poorly.

They would have a lot to launch from Earth. So getting the best launch
price per kg is the ideal. A resulting low cost launch market can
better help future trade between these two places.

Low launch cost is an appropriate goal. However, it's not even remotely
part of "NASA's current plan", much less "their main issue".

Also I just cannot see that digging long tunnels and open caverns into
the ground can be done efficiently using remote controlled robots. It
may be possible, but such projects on Earth usually need quite a lot
of human assistance.

NASA just announced a competition for digging robots as part of the
Centennial Challenges.

Fine for sample collection no doubt,...

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005...moon_dirt.html says
it's for excavating, with an emphasis on quantity. That's rather far
from "sample" collection.

J.J.
You're making far too much sense with using superior robotics that
should be at least a 1000:1 improvement over anything that can be
accomplished by a few LLPOF humans, except for that little part about
"just to do it again" since we never did it in the first place.
-
How much near-surface Radon (Rn-222) can the lunar environment offer?
How much raw Radium (RA-226) can the moon itself provide?
~

Life upon Venus, a township w/Bridge & ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm
The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator)
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm
Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm
War is war, thus "in war there are no rules" - In fact, war has been
the very reason of having to deal with the likes of others that haven't
been playing by whatever rules, such as GW Bush.

This next honest color photo contribution isn't even nearly as good as
the true to life Kodak originals via those NASA/Apollo shots as having
their Kodak moments obtained robotically from nearby orbiting of the
reactive moon way back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but it's
certainly a whole lot more reliable than having seen our moonsuit
astronauts strolling through such extensive lunar near white-out zones
of cornmeal and portland cement for as far as their unfiltered Kodak
eye could see. Apparently the closer NASA/Apollo get to our comet like
lunar surface, the brighter it all gets and, most colors (especially of
any UV contributions and of subsequently generated near-blue) entirely
vanishes, even basalt moon rocks become a gray composite that better
than 55% reflective and somewhat eroded at that. And to think, they've
built massive and spendy museums and commercial display sites of
educational/entertainment impact that's fortifying if not fornacating
upon this near white-out concept that's anything but dusty, much less
the truth.

Our Colorful Moon :
http://www.rc-astro.com/img/moon_colors_2005-04-18.jpg
All images and site content are Copyright =A92002-2005 by Russell
Croman.
=A9 2005 Russell Croman, www.rc-astro.com
http://www.rc-astro.com/contact.htm
The colors in the Moon image are real, in a sense, Croman explained.
"To bring out the differences between the various regions, the color
saturation has been greatly enhanced," he explained. "The hues are
correct."
"Differences in color on the lunar surface indicate different ages and
types of materials. Croman offers prints of this and other space
images."

Too bad that such incest cloned borg bigots have mutated as to being
color blind as were those TBI and micro meteorite proof Apollo
astronauts and of their unfiltered Kodak moments, except that wherever
it comes to involving real people, especially non-Jewish/Muslim folks
that don't even seem to count as humans to our KKK/NASA and obviously
the Third Reich likes of their rusemasters as having been hard at work.
That's why I asked of the all-knowing lords and rusemasters Art Deco
and Bookman, do you even have any of those token blacks as minions
working within your brown-nosed staff? (apparently not).

This terrestrial obtained moon shot by Russell Croman is basically a
good 2:1 if not 4:1 brighter overall than the moon actually is if
otherwise viewed from orbiting the moon at 100 km. Although, because
there's nothing of albedo reference, such as having a portion of an
illuminated Apollo spacecraft or that of mother Earth or even the truly
horrific intensity of Venus as could have been easily viewed from lunar
orbit and most certainly from the deck itself, is why this image is
offering us such a nicely exposed frame that's as illuminated as it is,
instead of the average 11~12% albedo that's actually the darker and
nastier case. Even the official NASA/Apollo image archives that haven't
been PhotoShop altered proves that I'm telling the truth and nothing
but the truth, and lo and behold if there hasn't been other satellite
obtained color images since, that more than sufficiently nails the
lunar albedo and true color on the head to boot.

Even "tj Frazir" knows for a matter of fact that there are deep blue
portions of our moon, and otherwise mostly vast zones of dark
golden-brown portions with loads of nearly coal black exposed basalt
and mostly covered by local and ET deposits of iron and titanium plus
having been carbon soot coated for good measure. Not half bad for
what's left of such an icy proto-moon that arrived on behalf of
creating our salty oceans with a sal****er icy diameter of perhaps 4000
km.

Oops, I guess those comet like sodium trails of 900,000 km never
existed.
Leonids on the Moon
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast26oct_1.htm

Of course this trail affect had been spotted before but went either
misunderstood or merely excluded because it didn't quite fit within the
status quo holy grail of our NASA/Apollo science. The sodium cloud has
actually been visible to the naked eye, however a spectrum band-pass
filter of the yellow-green (somewhat greenish mustard) tint of sodium
works best. A search for "moon sodium" or "sodium trail" should get
lots more than you'll actually need to know about.

Wherever there's a trail of sodium there's got to be a good cash of O2
since the portion of O2 is roughly 50% of the vaporised basalt and, it
seems the sodium(Na2O) content is usually contributing something less
than 4%. Therefore, if the lunar basalt had been vaporised upon impact
as to releasing the sodium, then also the O2 had to have been released
along with most all the other elements of lunar basalt, thus having
created a fairly substantial atmospheric population of closely packed
atoms near the lunar surface (especially of the nighttime/earthshine
surface), starting with perhaps having to blend in with several meters
worth of radon, then other elements as made available via the natural
process of the lunar core outgassing, and of course via those impacts
that would have piled their lighter elements well above the surface
clinging of whatever radon as mixed along with a good amount of local
argon and perhaps having CO2 essentially as the icing on top of one
another until the lighter sorts of basalt released O2 and of the sodium
portion that was simply far too light of an element for the lunar
gravity to hold onto, especialy once having been further impacted by
the solar influx worth of additional heating plus otherwise the likes
of sodium as easily excavated by the 300+km/s solar winds.

Raw as nearly pure basalt of 3.1 g/cm3 (as having been processed into a
basalt fiber density =3D 2.7~2.75 g/cm3), contains little if any carbon,
but offers these primary elements:
SiO2 58.7
Al2O3 17.2
Fe2O3 10.3
MgO 3.82
CaO 8.04
Na2O 3.34
K2O 0.82
TiO2 1.16
P2O5 0.28
MnO 0.16
Cr2O3 0.06

Other items cruising through space seem to have provided a sodium
trail, thus our moon is basically a very large comet like item that's
still capable of releasing the likes of sodium, which certainly has to
represent that it's also capable of releasing other elements in even
greater volumes and mass, although perhaps a bit less noticeable unless
you're specifically focused and spectrum filtered upon identifying
such.

http://www.americanwest.com/pages/uncomnws.htm
Sodium gas trail discovered behind the Hale-Bopp comet
Update 4/20/97:
"Astronomers say the have found a third tail trailing behind the
Hale-Bopp comet - a thin straight jet of sodium gas unlike any other
seen before, The Boston Globe reported yesterday. The discovery was
made Friday by a team of astronomers at the Isaac Newton Group of
telescopes in the Canary Islands. The scientists were at a loss to
explain how the sodium tail was created. The astronomers used a filter
over a telescope that allowed them to detect the light given off by
sodium gas, the same yellow glow seen in ordinary sodium-vapor street
lamps. Astronomers have long known that comets have two types of tails
- one made of dust and the other of electrically charged gas called
plasma. They have also known that comets contain sodium, but had never
seen it before in the form of a tail."

Perhaps using a deep-green band-pass filter for selectively imaging
whatever trail or atmosphere there is of lunar O2 is just a matter of
someone doing just that. Although at times our own polluted atmosphere
acts as an optical spectrum band-pass filter that's even a bit photon
reactive all on it's own. Although for the most part O2 should stick
around, though not nearly as good as radon.
~

Life upon Venus, a township w/Bridge & ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm
The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator)
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm
Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm
War is war, thus "in war there are no rules" - In fact, war has been
the very reason of having to deal with the likes of others that haven't
been playing by whatever rules, such as GW Bush.

J.J.,
Apparently lord/rusemaster B1ackwater pullued his own usenet plug,
How about we discuss going back to our moon for the very first time, so
as to get an honest to God grasp upon whatever the lunar atmosphere is
actually all about. Of course, I'm speaking robotically since it's so
downright hot, reactive and nasty or otherwise just damn cold and nasty
upon our moon.

Rather gosh darn pathetically odd that there was never one usenet
contribution or even a sub-topic generated as to this perfectly nifty
NYT published consideration;
Moon's thin atmosphere extends farther than thought
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.a...201e82b060a176
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES:
Moon's thin atmosphere extends farther than thought
(c) 1995 Copyright Nando.net
(c) 1995 N.Y. Times News Service

Now researchers at Boston University, who two years ago determined
that the rarefied gas bubble surrounding the Moon extended 5,000 miles
high, say new studies show that the lunar atmosphere reaches out twice
as far.

The astronomers, Dr. Michael Mendillo and Dr. Jeffrey Baumgardner of
the Center for Space Physics at Boston University, said that during
the eclipse the Moon was totally in Earth's shadow, blocking the
bright moonlight that obscures observations of gases in the lunar
atmosphere. Under these conditions, the astronomers were able to
detect the faint glow of sodium gas, which serves as a marker for
other gases in the lunar atmosphere.

"We were surprised to find that this glow extended to over nine times
the radius of the Moon, to a height of about 14,000 kilometers, or
9,000 miles above the Moon's surface," Mendillo said.

The researchers say their observations have enabled them to rule out
some theories on the origin of the lunar atmosphere. They believe that
the most likely explanation is the evaporation of atoms from the lunar
surface when it is struck by light particles called photons coming
from sunlight. Sodium and other elements escape the surface through
erosion caused by the bombardment of photons.

The astronomers earlier ruled out a suggestion that the lunar
atmosphere was formed by the constant bombardment of the surface by
micrometeorites. If the micrometeorite theory was true, they said, the
atmosphere would be evenly distributed instead of being irregular in
shape, as their measurements indicate.

Another theory holds that solar wind -- charged particles streaming
from the Sun -- kicks up surface atoms as it lashes the lunar surface.
But the researchers said this theory now appeared to be eliminated
because Earth's magnetic field traps solar wind and shields the lunar
surface during the full-moon phase, when their observations show the
tenuous lunar atmosphere fully extended above the surface.
-

If the regular lunar atmosphere extends out as far as having been
reported, then obviously doing the math of what was at the time of Nov.
1993 as detectable at 14,000 km off the lunar deck as being perhaps 100
atoms/cm3 worth of sodium, whereas that certainly represents quit a bit
of what's compiled upon the deck, especially since sodium is certainly
one of the lighter elements of mass that's associated within the mostly
basalt lunar surface that's having been continually giving berth to
such sodium gas. Obviously the meteor impacts that contributed a great
deal of further insult to injury were subsequently generating massive
amounts of additional sodium atmosphere, thereby having co-generated
the other vaporised raw elements, such as good old O2 that which
wouldn't have been so easily excavated away by the typical hot and
nasty gauntlet of solar winds.

According to Mike Williams;
"The strength of the surface gravity (1.623 m/s/s) isn't the critical
factor. What's more significant is the escape velocity (Moon 2.38km/s,
Titan 2.65km/s)."

"The heavier gas sticks around but the useful gas escapes. The various
types of molecules settle down to having the same average kinetic
energy, but that means that the lighter molecules move faster than the
heavier ones. They move just as fast, in fact, as if the heavier
molecules were not present."

"There's a piece of JavaScript on this page
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/kinetic/kintem.html#c4
that will calculate the average molecular speed given the molecular
mass and temperature. N2 molecules (m=28) on Titan (T=-197C) average
260m/s which is about a tenth of the escape velocity. CO2 molecules
(m=28) on the Moon (daytime T=107C) average 464m/s which is about a
fifth of the escape velocity. That might sound OK, but not all
molecules travel at the average velocity, some travel faster and leak
away. The Earth isn't able to hold on to hydrogen molecules, and they
average about a fifth of Earth's escape velocity."

"Radon atoms would travel at an average of 206m/s on the Moon, which
suggests that you could build an atmosphere of pure Radon."

Of course, for building and sustaining that sort of a radon atmosphere,
for that to happen the moon might require having a good amount of
Radium(Ra-226) as for generating the Rn-222 gas, although a good amount
of raw solar influx and thus secondary/recoil reactions might otherwise
accomplish this same task, that plus the matter of fact that our moon
is considerably more radiaoactive than Earth should go to waste.
~

Life upon Venus, a township w/Bridge & ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm
The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator)
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm
Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm
War is war, thus "in war there are no rules" - In fact, war has been
the very reason of having to deal with the likes of others that haven't
been playing by whatever rules, such as GW Bush.

B1ackwater,
As usual I'm not sure; should this become another topic or sub-topic?

KODAK's PHOTOCHROMATIC/AI FILM TO THE BLOODY RESCUE of NASA's SORRY
BUTT

For mere starters, the Kodak grey card offers a neutral albedo of
0.18(18%), which is somewhat similar to that of new PVC gray pipe (mid
tone as illuminated by the atmospherically filtered sunlight and
subsequently perceived by the human eye). A lunar form of 12% albedo as
a gray-scale tone is getting more into a mid-charcoal or deep slate
gray.

Photographic examples of albedo as based upon various real world
cement/concrete composites, each image having the 18% gray background
as color and albedo reference.
http://www.epa.gov/heatisland/resour...ce_chap3&4.pdf

Because I'm such a nice guy, I've often used the earthshine albedo/flux
as being a conservative 50 fold that of moonshine. However, the full
Earth along with a typical amount of cloud cover being worth nearly aan
lbedo of 38% can actually represent a bit more like 80 times better off
than moonshine upon the surface of Earth. Thus 80+lux or lumena or
perhaps roughly 8.5 w/m2 and, each watt/m2 (depending upon spectrum or
frequency) can contribute 3.8e18 photons/s, thus portions of nighttime
upon our moon is getting quite nicely illuminated by earthshine.
Earthshine is also somewhat of a bluish tint and thus offers by fare
the most sensitivity as to being photo recorded upon film that's
extremely extra sensitive to the blue and near-blue spectrum, that
which the human eye isn't all that sensitive to, thus all such
photographics should have been impacted by their being a fairly
noticeable degree of a bluish shift or tint, and/or at the very least
the as-is blue of any American flag should have been a fluorescent
(extra bright illuminating) glowing amount of blue.
http://cc.ysu.edu/physics-astro/star...arch22003.html
"The light from the full Earth as seen from the Moon is about 80 times
brighter than the light of the full Moon from the surface of Earth."

As for "The solar radiation spectrum and Transmission through different
media"
http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/600...drc/01-09.html
http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/600...drc/10-19.html
Terrestrial surface UV-a contributes 0.6 to 1.5 mw/cm2 (6 w/m2 to 15
w/m2) as having been extensively filtered/moderated by our atmosphere,
however much less of the UV-b get through and almost none of the UV-c
passing through the atmospheric gauntlet that's keeing us alive by
doing such a good job of being our radiation shield that's worth
roughly 10t/m2, but even that's worth a whole lot mot than any
artificial methods such a water that's a thousand fold more dense and
thus a whole lot more secondary/recoil capable of generating those
nasty hard-X-rays.

A bright-white moonsuit offers an albedo of 80%, although with extra
brighteners (retroreflective additives or micro prism like chemical
elements) can push most any super-white moonsuit to better than 85%. An
ultra white photo reflectance board is officially worth 0.9(90%)
albedo. Truly retroreflective elements of a micro corner cube like
coating of such additives can exceed 0.95(95%) albedo, and from that
point on it'll take polished aluminum in order to exceed the 0.95 mark.
Thus it's reasonably safe to conclude of moonsuits and a good number of
white painted items of those Apollo missions can and should be utilized
as the albedo reference bench mark, that plus those official
photographic gray-scale strips that were actually incorporated within
certain images is obviously offering us yet another observational
validation as to how gosh darn reflective the average lunar landscape
of 55+% for as far as the unfiltered Kodak eye could see was the case,
with certain areas or patches as having clearly exceeded 65% (a few
even seem nearly a glaring 75%) as compared to a given moonsuit plus
other artificial items that we know of for certain were of 80% albedo,
and also because supposedly there's insufficient atmosphere as for
moderating the illumination intensity and/or having color/spectrum
shifting affect upon whatever was included in each of the frames.

However, without an atmosphere and taking on the the raw solar UV
influx of 118 w/m2 that simply had to have been reacting with
everything in sight, plus fairly darn good chances of some of that UV
energy creating the near-blue photons of exactly what the
secondary/recoil photons should have been creating is somewhat of a
mystery, since in none of the images was there any hint of a bluish
color skew or that of any black-light generated near-blue, not even
fringing of blue or under any direct lighting, shadow or shadow-fill
(thus secondary) illumination offered us an example of what the raw
solar influx should have provided, especially as being photo recorded
without and color spectrum blocking filters or even that of an optical
sharp UV cut-off filter, yet the Kodak film somehow managed to exclude
all of the UV-a, extra solar near-blue, secondary near-blue and even
the bluish earthshine had a zero affect upon what had been recorded. In
other words, apparently Kodak had invented their first full-spectrum
photochromatic/AI film and ever since having lost that formula.

OK folks, someone walked upon a nearly colorless/monotone moon that
simply wasn't our moon, thus we're even better at this space-race game
and of all the required talents and expertise than anyone ever thought
possible, so damn good that we even tossed out all of the fly-by-rocket
R&D and every one of the working prototypes. Apparently the moon we'd
walked upon had a Xenon spectrum illuminating sun, that of an Earth
like planet that was either a bit smaller and/or much further away and
at times even having been situated a bit near the horizon, that plus
there was no such nearby Venus or the likes of any extremely Kodak
bluish-white bright Sirius star system. On this other moon there wasn't
but at most a couple of inches of highly clumping moon-dirt that
offered nearly 100 g/cm2 worth of easily compacted surface-tension, and
lo and behold, it wasn't even the least bit electrostatic nor even all
that dark because, the nearby sun had little if any iron or carbon to
spare. To top all of that off is that the moon had an invisible
atmosphere that nicely protected astronauts from being physically
nailed or even the least bit TBI impacted, whereas this was
accomplished in part because the density of that moon wasn't the least
bit reactive because it must have been made of anti-matter, clumping
anti-matter none the less.

Silly me, as here I'd though we'd been snookered, when in fact these
NASA/Apollo guys are freaking wizards that are beyond any known realms
of the ordinary laws of physics. I guuess you don't need any stinking
remorse if you're damn near a God like our resident warlord(GW Bush).
~

Life upon Venus, a township w/Bridge & ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm
The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator)
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm
Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm
War is war, thus "in war there are no rules" - In fact, war has been
the very reason of having to deal with the likes of others that haven't
been playing by whatever rules, such as GW Bush.

Check out "How Rockets Differ From Jets", and certainly not for
anything regarding "jets" but for all of the other nifty contributions
by "tomcat" and myself, such as the latest blast of topic info;
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.s...03bae1d059c3d8

tomcat; It may have something to do with 'X amount of energy
requirement for a 200 mile high orbit'. Wings or not you have
to have 'X amount of energy', they say.
"They say" a lot of things. "They say" the mutual
gravity-well/nullification zone between us and the moon is roughly 84%
of the distance towards the moon, and thereby we're talking 16% of the
distance away from the moon. "They say" we've walked upon the moon but,
somehow managed to lose all of their related fly-by-rocket lander R&D
as well as having lost their Kodak conditional laws of photon and film
physics that apparently only applies to our moon.

16% of 384,400 km is 61,504 km away from the center of the moon and
thereby 59,766 km off the gravitational center portion of the lunar
deck that's always nicely aligned with the gravitational center of
mother Earth (actually the Earth CG somewhat moves about as Earth
rotates and the moon doesn't seem to budge so much as a micro-degree
with respect to the whole of Earth, suggesting that the moon in fact
has a slushy core that's somewhat self aligning to the well certified
variable CG alignment of mother Earth.

With regards to spaceplane wings or perhaps that of one massive
aerodynamic foil worth of a waverider spaceplane body, thus affording
far more usable interior than any tile covered wing outfitted body as
suggested by your "huge gleaming white triangular spaceplane";
Rocket equations take drag into consideration, but not gravity's
assistance. While vertical/tubular rockets have drag too, it doesn't
apply to them, because they don't have wings for using atmospheric
energy.

This is why it is true that it takes 'X amount of energy' to do a given
amount of work for whatever vehicle is chosen. And, it explains why a
'winged rocket' does so much better than a vertical/tubular rocket.
Wings draw energy from gravity itself through the medium of air
molecules that are being 'squeezed' to the Earth.

So, all in all it means that success will come by making one gigantic
monster of a waverider: tomcat's huge gleaming white triangular
spaceplane.
I see no problem with your bigger is better. Of course folks like
"George Evans" seem to think small by way of continually thinking
inside the box, as well as having those pesky ulterior motives of
saying one thing while acting upon getting something entirely different
across.

Just wondering a bit; Are you thinking of a 45 degree final atmospheric
assent?

The composites of what basalt fibers and basalt microballoons as having
a degree of CNT involved seems likely of what should eventually become
doable. However, of what I've already provided upon existing basalt is
just the iceberg tip of what that composite alone can achieve as a
structurally insulative material that need not exceed 64 kg/m3 unless
the added mass of using more fibers and less balloons becomes a
priority.

Too bad that what I have to suggest is much like what you have to offer
as a plate full of the first, second and third helping, all of which
should more than have the inert mass of what any SRB assisted
spaceplane and of it's massive ET should amount to. Thus a replacement
shuttle as in the form of your "bigger is better" spaceplane should
have any problem whatsoever achieving those 100t deployments at 400+km,
with energy to spare.

Of course, if my Ra226--LRn222--ION thruster arrays become the
alternative to those SSMEs that are worth a 10t investment plus fuel
and the vast volumes necessary for accommodating such fuel per each
fully integrated SSME and, no matters what these SSMEs should still
suck LH2 and LO2 like there's no tomorrow, whereas without SSMEs but
instead LRn--ION thrusters might represent payloads that can become
half again or roughly 50/50 of the spaceplane package. Meaning a 150t
spaceplane that's still having to be SRB assisted (possibly two-stage
SRBs) past 250,000'(76 km) could thus manage to safely deploy a 150t
item or that of multiple items that amount to 150t past the 400 km
mark.

Unfortunately the ulterior motivated likes of "George Evans" being
rather mindset upon carbon fibers that are extremely frail and spendy
as all get out compared to basalt fibers, whereas as far as I know of
there are no such things as carbon microballoons, nor for that matter a
CNT microballoon. There are however terrific insulative and combined
structural capability per cm3 of basalt, along with those existing
graphite epoxy as binders is still the overall king of the hill that's
not one cent on the dollar per carbon fibers and, perhaps not .001 cent
on the CNT dollar that's still another good decade down the winding R&D
road.

George Evans; Here again, the extreme thermal conductivity of CNT is a
drawback. Everybody mocks the TPS tiles on the shuttle but they really
are amazing. If they are banded to a CNT/graphite epoxy composite
structure, those fillers you are concerned about probably wouldn't be
necessary.
George is another all or nothing sort of guy by way of his thinking
100% CNT or bust. Whats' so hard about thinking a little outside the
box, such as incorporating the CNT fibers as a fabric layer or perhaps
that of a wise matrix of CNT/basalt fibers representing the outer
structural composite layer that's containing the bulk of basalt
microballoons?

In inner most hull layer and certainly the likes of stringers, ribs,
decks and bulkheads could be 100% structural basalt composite that
could range anywhere from 32 kg/m3 to 2560 kg/m3. Purely insulative
basalt microballoons might easily represent less than 1 kg/m3 if those
little basalt suckers are full of H2 or even He. Christ almighty folks,
what more can you or the likes of lord/wizard "George Evans" possibly
ask for that has been doable for the past several decades?

I'd actually think that a little extra thermal conductivity for what's
directly below the Corelle/ceramic tiles or whatever spray-on ceramic
microballoon coating would be highly desirable, as possibly performing
a similar thermal rate of expansion by which this CNT/basalt outer
shell could best match the rate of ceramic expansion. I do agree with
"George Evans" that tile fillers need not be incorporated unless no
other thermal expansion alternative becomes available.

BTW; I'm not exactly sure how LH2 and slush LH2 differ in energy
density by all that much. In either case, a terribly insulative
containment of the likes of LH2 (slush or not) and the same goes for
LO2 could each be accommodated by way of using a composite of basalt
fibers and those highly insulative balloons along with the graphite
epoxy binders if not in some cases just utilizing good old end-user
friendly JB-WELD. A metallic internal coating via plasma spray could
make for quite another weight saving improvement. In fact, there could
be two or three viable containment layers of plasma applied metallic
coatings at less weight impact than a conventional tank that's
composite wrapped.
~

Kurt Vonnegut would have to agree; WAR is WAR, thus "in war there are
no rules" - In fact, war has been the very reason of having to deal
with the likes of others that haven't been playing by whatever rules,
such as GW Bush.
Life upon Venus, a township w/Bridge & ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm
The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator)
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm
Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm

B1ackwater wrote:
(CNN) -- NASA Administrator Michael Griffin rolled out NASA's plan for
the future Monday, including new details about the spaceship intended
to replace the shuttle and a timeline for returning astronauts to the
moon in 2018.
OK - the question is "WHY ?". A few people for a few days at
a time ... it's just not worth doing (except to enrich certain
aerospace companies).

The problem is both NASA and those who think like you, pretending to be
on opposite sides of the relevant issue even as you agree to agree on
the very thing that makes the disagreement contrived.

The correct question is NOT "why should NASA waste time and money
getting to the moon by 2018 just to allow a few people to plant more
footprints on the moon"; it is: "why should NASA waste time and money
getting to the moon by 2018, by which time it won't have any place left
to land and place footprints out there, when there's already going to
be 100's of operations from the private sector in and around lunar
space? Why does NASA, ESA, and all the other SA's still clunk around
stuck in the Industrial Era of the pre-1970's, still thinking like
people in the previous millenium, instead of just getting the HELL out
of the way, stepping aside, and make room for the rest of the world
(i.e. private sector) to run circles around it at 1/1000 the cost, and
infinity times the gain?"

wrote:

Why does NASA, ESA, and all the other SA's still clunk around
stuck in the Industrial Era of the pre-1970's, still thinking like
people in the previous millenium, instead of just getting the HELL out
of the way, stepping aside, and make room for the rest of the world
(i.e. private sector) to run circles around it at 1/1000 the cost, and
infinity times the gain?

Heck, why even wait for that? Let's all just flap our arms and wish
real hard.

Look, I'm very happy to see alt.space developing, and wish success to
every entrepreneur involved. But private enterprise isn't magic, and
-- despite the ideological frothing -- NASA is actually well down the
list of obstacles to private space ventures, over the last 25 years as
well as today.

If you really believe there will be hundreds of private businesses
operating on and around the moon 13 years from now, please share your
stash.