NASA panel says US cannot do space any more.

On Sunday, June 8, 2014 6:01:06 AM UTC-4, Fred J. McCall wrote:
bob haller wrote:



congress and nasa need to end the good old boys giving killer contracts for stuff like SLS orion.



They need to fund more $$$ as eed money for people like elon Musk.



Orion . SLS shouldnt be built.....



Bob, why in the hell do you think Congress and NASA should be picking

winners and losers?



--

"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar

territory."

--G. Behn

congress needs to spend bucks where they can do the most. SLS Orion is way over budget, way over time, will be so costly at over a billion bucks per flight, its just political pork at its finest

Meanwhile look at what Elon has accomplished with a shoestring budget and some innovative thinking

meanwhile congress is cutting seed money to private space, and ordering nasa to pick one to elminate competition.......

On 2014-06-08 11:12:29 +0000, bob haller said:

congress needs to spend bucks where they can do the most. SLS Orion is
way over budget, way over time, will be so costly at over a billion
bucks per flight, its just political pork at its finest

Meanwhile look at what Elon has accomplished with a shoestring budget
and some innovative thinking

Musk's people are working 60 hours weeks continously. You'll never
get LM or Boeing or Northrup etc to do that.

On Sunday, June 8, 2014 7:48:33 AM UTC-4, Fred J. McCall wrote:
bob haller wrote:



On Sunday, June 8, 2014 6:01:06 AM UTC-4, Fred J. McCall wrote:

bob haller wrote:







congress and nasa need to end the good old boys giving killer contracts for stuff like SLS orion.







They need to fund more $$$ as eed money for people like elon Musk.







Orion . SLS shouldnt be built.....







Bob, why in the hell do you think Congress and NASA should be picking



winners and losers?





congress needs to spend bucks where they can do the most. SLS Orion is way over budget, way over time, will be so costly at over a billion bucks per flight, its just political pork at its finest



Meanwhile look at what Elon has accomplished with a shoestring budget and some innovative thinking



meanwhile congress is cutting seed money to private space, and ordering nasa to pick one to elminate competition.......





Your avoidance of the question is noted.



--

"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar

territory."

--G. Behn

SLS is not cost effective! its way too big, it costs so much payload cant be afforded. government companies have no interest in saving money...

Meanwhile Elon is working on a reusable first stage that can cut costs a lot...

I think a 2 stage to sub orbital is coming, new york to anywhere in 2 hours.

with everything reusable....

"jody lee" wrote in message ...


They need to change there approach, bigger rockets are not the answer.
smaller satellites and probes is the answer they need to go miniature
even Nano. surely a Nano probe could be fired into space (not orbit)
from a ground based canon. either that or put all there efforts into the
space elevator.


Guns into orbit from Earth don't work overly well.

The drag from the atmosphere is a huge problem. And something smaller in
some ways is even worse (less momentum).

And you can't get into orbit using JUST a gun, need something to circularize
it.






--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net

Keith Lofstrom's idea is to circulate iron masses through a magnetic 'beam line' in such a way as to use momentum to lift the beam line, the vacuum chamber, and everything else into the sky and in this way create a 2,600 km long loop that is floating 80 km in the sky. Spacecraft then make use of the moving magnetic fields to accelerate as in a rail gun. Particle stream momentum can also be shifted to adjust the aim of the loop.

http://launchloop.com/

At 80 km altitude, orbital velocity is 7.864 km/sec.

CIRCULARIZING ORBITS

A speed of 7.923 km/sec at an altitude of 80 km sends a payload to an apogee of 280 km. At that altitude it is moving at 7.685 km/sec. To stay in a circular orbit at 280 km altitude requires that you add 0.060 km/sec to the speed of the spacecraft.

Using a rocket with a 4.2 km/sec exhaust speed at this altitude requires a propellant fraction of 0.0142 - less than 1.5% of the total take off weight, a similar amount of propellant returns it to the launch loop, where it operates in reverse to slow the spacecraft and bring it in for a landing.

A very low cost way to get to orbit.

To accelerate to 7.923 km/sec in 2600 km requires an acceleration of 12.072 m/sec2 or 1.231 gees. The FAA permits up to 2 gees at take off and landing for commercial airliners.

So, this is quite gentle.

GEOSYNCH ORBITS

A speed of 10.36 km/sec at 80 km sends the payload to an apogee of 35,798 km - geosynchronous altitude. At that altitude it is moving at 1.583 km/sec.. By adding 1.491 km/sec to its speed, you circularize the orbit at geosynchronous altitude. Total propellant fraction must then be 0.314 when using rockets with 4.2 km/sec exhaust speeds in vacuum. A typical airliner has propellant fraction in excess of 0.400 for long distance flight.

THE S-II AS A KICK STAGE

The S-II was built by North American Aviation at Seal Beach, California. Using liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, propellant it had five Rocketdyne J-2 engines in a similar arrangement to the S-IC, also using the outer engines for control.

The S-II was 81 feet 7 inches (24.87 m) tall with a diameter of 33 feet (10 m), identical to the S-IC, and thus was the largest cryogenic stage of its time.

The S-II had a dry weight of about 80,000 pounds (36,000 kg) and fully fueled, weighed 1,060,000 pounds (480,000 kg).

The second stage accelerated the Saturn V through the upper atmosphere with 5.1 meganewtons (1,100,000 lbf) of thrust (in vacuum). When loaded, significantly more than 90 percent of the mass of the stage was propellant.

The S-II used a common bulkhead that was constructed from both the top of the LOX tank and bottom of the LH2 tank. It consisted of two aluminum sheets separated by a honeycomb structure made of phenolic resin. This bulkhead insulated against the 126 °F (70 °C) temperature gradient between the two tanks. The use of a common bulkhead saved 7,900 pounds (3.6 t). The S-II was transported by sea.

With a propellant mass of 444,000 kg a stage weight of 1,414,000 kg can be sent to GEO and 970,000 kg remain there in orbit, with 934,000 kg being useful payload.

At 4 grams per square meter a thin film concentrator focusing sunlight on a thin disk laser array intercepting 330 GW of sunlight is possible. At a 30% conversion transfer efficiency by laser a 17.5 km diameter satellite can generate 108 GW of useful energy on the ground.

LUNAR MISSIONS

A speed of 11.029 km/sec at 80 km altitude sends the payload to an apogee 384,400 km - the distance to the moon. At 324,400 km from the moon the spacecraft is moving at 0.645 km/sec - the Lagrange Point 1 - where the gravity of Earth and Moon balance. By the time the vehicle reaches the surface of the moon it is moving at 2.47 km/sec. To bring it to rest on the lunar surface using a rocket with a 4.2 km/sec exhaust speed requires 0.445 propellant fraction - nearly that of an airliner.

Finding a water source on the moon, and using solar energy to reduce it to hydrogen and oxygen, allows us to refill the spacecraft on the moon and return to Earth.

Accelerating to 11.029 km/sec velocity over a 2600 km distance requires an acceleration of 23.392 m/sec/sec or 2.385 gees. A little more than airliners generate at take off and landing.

An S-II type stage sent to the moon in this way can be 997,750 kg total weight which deposits 517,750 kg useful load. 150 MW of electrical power supports the conversion of 614,768 litres of water into 444,000 kg of hydrogen and oxygen propellant along with 170,768 kg of oxygen gas every day. This supports daily flights of 517,750 kg to the moon and 517,750 kg back from the moon. Supplies are sufficient to support a base of 36,500 people with no recycling and 365,000 people assuming a local water supply and power plant on this scale (total recycling of water and air). Returning an empty vehicle requires far less propellant.

At 500 people per flight, it requires only two months to reach the lower population and two years to reach the larger one.

MARS FLIGHTS

On 3/24/2017 a launch from a launch loop of 12.035 km/sec (in the right direction, which means at the right time, with only minor shifting of the loop's position) a payload will find its way to Mars by 3/9/2018. Using aerobraking at Mars, other than course correction along the way, very little additional propellant is needed. A 1,414,000 kg payload ALL arrives at Mars. With 5,300 kg consumed for each passenger along the way (assuming its manned) 266 persons can be sent to Mars. Refuelling on Mars permits the return of 91.5 tonnes on 6/7/2018. Sufficient to send 17 people back to Earth (the crew) arriving 11/24/2018.

RETURN FROM MARS

Of course, building a Lofstrom Loop on Mars, permits 1,414,000 kg to be sent back to Earth using a Lofstrom Loop - and expending very little propellant along the way.

With launches every 10 minutes possible, and 5 day launch window every 2.15 years, a fleet of 720 ships can be dispatched every 2.15 years. At 266 people per flight this is 180,000 every 2.15 years. At $500,000 per person this is $41.86 billion per year. There are 29 million people with over $1 million in the bank. There are 344 million with more than $100,000 in the bank, and less than $1,000,000 who could arrange a $500,000 personal financing for Mars emigration. There are 1.04 billion people with more than $10,000 in the bank who could arrange for their company to send them and their family to Mars if the company had an incentive to do so.

So, finding 180,000 people to ride the Lofstrom Loop at these prices is rather easy.

The only question is, can $41.86 billion per year support it?

Solar power satellites on orbit, plus Mars emigration, can pay for it.

Lofstrom Loops can also be used to provide high speed ballistic transport between points on Earth as well as send energy efficiently around the globe.

President William McKinley ran for office on the promise of keeping California and Alaskan gold in America, and for his programme to 'ring the world with rail' and in that way challenge the British Empire's rule of the seas. This spread enthusiasm throughout the Empires of Europe. The Russian Tsar built a rail link to Siberia in anticipation of America building a tunnel across the Bering straight. Germany and France built a rail line to Damascus and into India. Plans were laid to build rail lines throughout Africa and China.

These plans still exist today

http://newparadigm.schillerinstitute...d-land-bridge/

With a Lofstrom Loop technology we might be able to do this at far less cost - especially when crossing large tracts of ocean.

This would also be a potential revenue stream for the developers of the Lofstrom Loop.

The report notes the current approach of doing an asteroid retrieval
mission is not the best way to go. Preferred would be an approach that first
returns us to the Moon. In point of fact the current NASA idea of dismissing
any return to the Moon is making it that much harder for us to understand
how to get to Mars.

The only reason for the perception we can’t return to Moon is the idea
developing a manned lunar lander would be too expensive. But you need a
lander anyway to land on Mars, and by developing a lunar lander you can also
use that as a Mars lander. And if you break your mindset out of the box that
the lunar lander has to look like the $10 billion Altair lunar lander, you
grasp the lander can actually be developed at over a *hundred times* cheaper
than that. Both the Masten XEUS lander and the NASA Morpheus lander can be
made into manned landers at only a few 10's of millions of dollars in
development cost.

So this self-imposed limitation on their own thinking is making it that we
can’t get to Mars either.

Bob Clark


===========================================

"William Mook" wrote in message
...

Because NASA isn't getting enough money!

rt.com/usa/163736-mars-nasa-funding-strategy

You need bigger rockets to do bigger things, and NASA doesn't have the
budget for that.
....
===========================================

On Tuesday, June 10, 2014 9:49:17 AM UTC-7, Robert Clark wrote:
The report notes the current approach of doing an asteroid retrieval

mission is not the best way to go. Preferred would be an approach that first

returns us to the Moon. In point of fact the current NASA idea of dismissing

any return to the Moon is making it that much harder for us to understand

how to get to Mars.



The only reason for the perception we can't return to Moon is the idea

developing a manned lunar lander would be too expensive. But you need a

lander anyway to land on Mars, and by developing a lunar lander you can also

use that as a Mars lander. And if you break your mindset out of the box that

the lunar lander has to look like the $10 billion Altair lunar lander, you

grasp the lander can actually be developed at over a *hundred times* cheaper

than that. Both the Masten XEUS lander and the NASA Morpheus lander can be

made into manned landers at only a few 10's of millions of dollars in

development cost.



So this self-imposed limitation on their own thinking is making it that we

can't get to Mars either.



Bob Clark





===========================================



"William Mook" wrote in message

...



Because NASA isn't getting enough money!



rt.com/usa/163736-mars-nasa-funding-strategy



You need bigger rockets to do bigger things, and NASA doesn't have the

budget for that.

...

===========================================

Now that our NASA has a viable fly-by-rocket lander that can be scaled to suit, we should be exploiting the innards of our moon.

On Tuesday, June 10, 2014 9:49:17 AM UTC-7, Robert Clark wrote:
The report notes the current approach of doing an asteroid retrieval

mission is not the best way to go. Preferred would be an approach that first

returns us to the Moon. In point of fact the current NASA idea of dismissing

any return to the Moon is making it that much harder for us to understand

how to get to Mars.



The only reason for the perception we can't return to Moon is the idea

developing a manned lunar lander would be too expensive. But you need a

lander anyway to land on Mars, and by developing a lunar lander you can also

use that as a Mars lander. And if you break your mindset out of the box that

the lunar lander has to look like the $10 billion Altair lunar lander, you

grasp the lander can actually be developed at over a *hundred times* cheaper

than that. Both the Masten XEUS lander and the NASA Morpheus lander can be

made into manned landers at only a few 10's of millions of dollars in

development cost.



So this self-imposed limitation on their own thinking is making it that we

can't get to Mars either.



Bob Clark





===========================================



"William Mook" wrote in message

...



Because NASA isn't getting enough money!



rt.com/usa/163736-mars-nasa-funding-strategy



You need bigger rockets to do bigger things, and NASA doesn't have the

budget for that.

...

===========================================

The current fly-by-rocket lander which can be scaled to suit, puts another old question as to how in the hell it was accomplished so easily with those Apollo era landers that worked perfectly with fuel and payload to spare.

hey wonder if nasa could gently impact a asteroid onto the moon? perhaps the backside so as to avoid damaging any apollo landing sites.....

On Monday, June 23, 2014 6:13:01 AM UTC+12, bob haller wrote:
hey wonder if nasa could gently impact a asteroid onto the moon? perhaps the backside so as to avoid damaging any apollo landing sites.....

Why?