Are politicians averse to leaving LEO?

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 05:47:56 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Martha
Adams" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:


That's a lot of discussion up in this thread, but it misses a key
point.
The idea of an orbiting supply station has been around for a long time
and I cannot believe anyone lost it before thinking of today's ISS.
Yet
the ISS is placed 1) in such a low orbit that if not reboosted
frequently, it will come down shortly ("re-enter") and 2) in an orbit
very inclined from the Solar System's orbital plane so that *you
cannot*
launch from the ISS out to the rest of the System except by
extravagant
fuel usage to correct the bad velocity vector you have from the ISS
orbit.

That this would be the case, would be clear enough to any highschool
student interested in space travel; and so there must be *some reason*
the ISS is in such a useless orbit. Since the basic physics is so
plain
and obvious, I think it's reasonable to believe the reason ISS is in
such an orbit is *just so* that it cannot be used for a System travel
launch resource. My guess is that the reason for doing this is to be
found in Washington's religious/ideological character: they thought,
if
we don't do this now that's progress toward *never* doing it.

(Yes, I've heard the reasons that were given for this orbit, so far
out
of the ecliptic. Isn't PR a useful resource for covering-up things?
My
guess is some Big Names wanted that space money kept here, available
for
coming wars.)

There are no earth orbits that remain in the ecliptic. And the reason
that ISS is in a 52 degree orbit is because the Russians can't reach
one in any lower inclination from Baikonur, your nutty paranoid
conspiracy theories notwithstanding.

Hi randy. Try *thinking* a little. Titeotwawki -- mha [2009 Jan 16]

On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:22:17 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Martha
Adams" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

(Yes, I've heard the reasons that were given for this orbit, so far
out
of the ecliptic. Isn't PR a useful resource for covering-up things?
My
guess is some Big Names wanted that space money kept here, available
for
coming wars.)

There are no earth orbits that remain in the ecliptic. And the reason
that ISS is in a 52 degree orbit is because the Russians can't reach
one in any lower inclination from Baikonur, your nutty paranoid
conspiracy theories notwithstanding.

Hi randy. Try *thinking* a little.

Physician heal thyself.

I think a lot. All the time. "marthy."

Rand Simberg wrote:
On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 05:47:56 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Martha
Adams" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:


That's a lot of discussion up in this thread, but it misses a key point.
The idea of an orbiting supply station has been around for a long time
and I cannot believe anyone lost it before thinking of today's ISS. Yet
the ISS is placed 1) in such a low orbit that if not reboosted
frequently, it will come down shortly ("re-enter") and 2) in an orbit
very inclined from the Solar System's orbital plane so that *you cannot*
launch from the ISS out to the rest of the System except by extravagant
fuel usage to correct the bad velocity vector you have from the ISS
orbit.

That this would be the case, would be clear enough to any highschool
student interested in space travel; and so there must be *some reason*
the ISS is in such a useless orbit. Since the basic physics is so plain
and obvious, I think it's reasonable to believe the reason ISS is in
such an orbit is *just so* that it cannot be used for a System travel
launch resource. My guess is that the reason for doing this is to be
found in Washington's religious/ideological character: they thought, if
we don't do this now that's progress toward *never* doing it.

(Yes, I've heard the reasons that were given for this orbit, so far out
of the ecliptic. Isn't PR a useful resource for covering-up things? My
guess is some Big Names wanted that space money kept here, available for
coming wars.)

There are no earth orbits that remain in the ecliptic. And the reason
that ISS is in a 52 degree orbit is because the Russians can't reach
one in any lower inclination from Baikonur, your nutty paranoid
conspiracy theories notwithstanding.

I see my decision to killfile Ms. Adams some time ago has been fully
justified by subsequent events.

In addition to Rand's arguments on orbital inclination, the argument on
orbital altitude is that ISS had to be situated below the Van Allen
belts to minimize radiation shielding requirements, and had to be
reachable by both the space shuttle and Soyuz/Progress, the latter of
which has an altitude ceiling of 425 km.

That is the reason why ISS must be in such a low orbit. The basic
physics are so plain and obvious, I think it's reasonable to believe
that only an idiot or a paranoid schizophrenic could believe otherwise.

Jorge R. Frank wrote:

That is the reason why ISS must be in such a low orbit. The basic
physics are so plain and obvious, I think it's reasonable to believe
that only an idiot or a paranoid schizophrenic could believe otherwise.

It also had to do with keeping it at a low enough altitude so that it
didn't hit the radiation of the South Atlantic Anomaly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Atlantic_Anomaly
....like Mir did, forcing the crew to seek shelter in the Soyuz reentry
module from the radiation of the inner magnetosphere when it did pass
through it.
It's a interesting mathematical balance of four things:

1.) Weight of station modules versus radiation protection they provide.
2.) Altitude versus air drag, and how often altitude reboosts are required.
3.) Convenience to crew in not periodically needing to take shelter.
4.) Orbital inclination versus payload that can be launched by NASA,
Russia, and ESA.

Since ISS needs fairly frequent resupply missions via Shuttle/Progress
(and wait till they get it up to a six-person crew, water recycling or
not) a pretty low orbit made sense as the supply vehicles could reboost it.
Von Braun's donut station was to be in a 1,000 mile high polar orbit.
That crew would be dead in pretty short order from radiation exposure.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:

Since ISS needs fairly frequent resupply missions via Shuttle/Progress
(and wait till they get it up to a six-person crew, water recycling or
not) a pretty low orbit made sense as the supply vehicles could
reboost it.

BTW, I couldn't figure out why the water usage amounts per ISS crew
member per day were so high; it's not due to its use as drinking water
or for sanitation, its due to the fact that that's how the oxygen for
the station is being generated. Water is being broken down into hydrogen
and oxygen:
http://www.space-travel.com/reports/..._To_ISS.h tml
With the hydrogen being jettisoned into space - very similar to the
system used on a nuclear submarine.
Which is dumb.
What's needed is a system that breaks the CO2 the crew exhales down into
oxygen and carbon (they used something like this on Mir involving
red-hot metal plates that the carbon got deposited on and could be
scrapped clean of.), then the oxygen recirculated for breathing again.
Of course there will be a net loss of oxygen as you go along due to the
amount of energy extracted from it the body uses.
But tossing the hydrogen overboard is wasteful - when it could be
recombined with oxygen to produce electrical power in a fuel cell, or
used as rocket propellant of some sort (say in a small nuclear-thermal
engine based on a RTG for orbit boost?).
In regards to that, this was one mighty slick idea:
http://www.astronautix.com/engines/rd0410.htm
The reason that thing has so much plumbing involved with it, and has the
big ring around its base, is that it's a dual phase nuclear engine.
Crank it up full tilt and it heats hydrogen flowing through it like
NERVA, but reduce it to idle power, and it just heats up a liquid to a
vapor state to drive a turbine and generate electrical power via a
dynamo in a closed-cycle system - with radiators to cool the vapor back
into a liquid state.
That is downright brilliant.

Pat

"Martha Adams" wrote:

"When the
Solar System is settled, will its language by English -- or Mandarin?"

And by the time it happens, will either the English-speaking or
Mandarin-speaking nations/cultures be similar enough to today's that I
should assume my preferences of today will still apply?

Kinda like asking in the 1920s whether this new liquid-fueled rocket
technology would lead to world domination by Germany, France or the
UK.

On 17 Jan, 02:18, "Jorge R. Frank" wrote:
Rand Simberg wrote:
On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 05:47:56 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Martha
Adams" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

That's a lot of discussion up in this thread, but it misses a key point.

Ian Parker wrote:

:On 17 Jan, 02:18, "Jorge R. Frank" wrote:
:
: In addition to Rand's arguments on orbital inclination, the argument on
: orbital altitude is that ISS had to be situated below the Van Allen
: belts to minimize radiation shielding requirements, and had to be
: reachable by both the space shuttle and Soyuz/Progress, the latter of
: which has an altitude ceiling of 425 km.
:
:That is the reason for the low orbit. The inlination is another
:matter, If anything a high inclination gives more radiation.
:

You're ignoring the latter part of his comments, Ian. Decrease the
inclination of the orbit and Soyuz/Progress can't reach it anymore,
regardless of altitude. One of the requirements once we brought the
Russians in was that Soyuz/Progress must be able to reach it, so the
inclination of the original intended orbit was increased to allow
that.

Original plans put it in the inclination most convenient for the US,
which is much lower.

:
:As far as myself and the necessity for VN machines is cioncerned I
:feel I should say this. What is clearly necessary for MANNED
:spaceflight is a series of intermediate points. These intermediate
oints must be set up using the resources of space. We have low orbits
Earth, Mars etc.) surfaces and quadratures.
:

True, but no VN machines are required for that.

:
:A Zubrin type system is needed.
:

Not necessarily, but it does make the required lift smaller and allow
you to do things earlier.

:
:By this I am not really
:distinguishiong between methane and hydrogen, whether of not you have
:CO2 or just H2O is a detail. To achieve Zubrin you need one hell of a
:lot of automation.
:

Doesn't require either AI or a VN machine.

:
:You would cetainly want to know whether the system
:worked or not before you risked the lives of astronatuts.
:

Again, doesn't require either AI or a VN machine.

:
:There is one
:further point Zubrin solves one problem, how to get back from Mars.
:There is still a raft of other problems.
:

There always are.

:
:The level of automation requires :-
:
:Essential
:
:1) The ability to assemble a chemical processing kit, and operate it
:reliably.
:

It could be launched in one piece or it could be 'self-assembling' in
a simple way.

:
:Interestingly I see that Pat Flannery regards the breakdown
f CO2 as "desirable" for the ISS. Needed a piece of solar processing
:kit that operates reliably.
:

Solar is only one way to power things.

:
:Stongly desirable
:
:2) The ability to build a habitat on Mars. The ability to carry out
:what is in essense a small scale civil engineering project completely
:automatically.
:

Not required nor even particularly desirable. If you wait for this
you will wait forever.

:
:3) The ability to repair a chemical processing plant should it go
:wrong.
:

That would be nice, but if the thing goes wrong you just don't launch
the humans. Or, if the humans are already there, THEY fix it.

:
esirable
:
:4) Complete self repair
:
:This is NOT a strict VN machine, but I think it comes fairly close.
:

Omniscience and omnipotence would be handy, too, but I don't think
they're required and I don't think we need to wait until we have them.

:
:Unmanned flight by contrast simply means building on the corpus of
:knowlwedge we have already built up. Desirable might well include fast
~5km/h) movement on the surface of Mars.
:

Which we'll never do, since a single bad decision on the part of the
vehicle leads to loss of a very expensive mission.

:
:Are the resources of space required for SSP? No, but they are strongly
:desirable.
:

Probably required if you're going to produce economically competitive
power.

:
:Essential for transmission is a coherent array.
:

If by 'coherent array' you mean your wet dream about 'fragments', it's
not required.

:
:A number of people seem to be in complete denial about this. They seem
:to think thast there is some agic solution that will provide cheap
:access to LEO.
:

What does "agic solution" mean?

:
:In point of fact the Pentagon has already done a series
f experiments documented here.
:
:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstar_(spaceplane)
:

All speculation. Please show REAL evidence that any such program even
existed.

:
:Fred, Rand et al. all know this better than me. Why they keep
:wittering on about low cost spacflight in the presence of all this
:evidence I really don't know. If their ideas were sound the Pentagon
:would be flying now. I think it is all part of the master's degree in
sychology and is calcklated disinformation.
:

Sorry, no degree in psychology here. Ian, as usual, is raving on
again.

:
:Martha Adams in fact strikes me as one of the more sensible people in
:this group.
:

This says more about how loony you are than it does about anything
else.


--
"Ordinarily he is insane. But he has lucid moments when he is
only stupid."
-- Heinrich Heine

On 17 Jan, 21:30, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Ian Parker wrote:

:On 17 Jan, 02:18, "Jorge R. Frank" wrote:
:
: In addition to Rand's arguments on orbital inclination, the argument on
: orbital altitude is that ISS had to be situated below the Van Allen
: belts to minimize radiation shielding requirements, and had to be
: reachable by both the space shuttle and Soyuz/Progress, the latter of
: which has an altitude ceiling of 425 km.
:
:That is the reason for the low orbit. The inlination is another
:matter, If anything a high inclination gives more radiation.
:

This in itself speaks volumes. Radiation is a technical point. The
Russian launch sites are political. An equatorial orbit would be
perfectly ascessible from Kourou where Soyuz is now based. If you are
INTERNATIONAL you make your launch facilities available to everyone.
What is the rooted objection to launcing a Proton from Kourou? Or even
a Shuttle? It is on the coast, there is good access by sea.

"I" to be implies that the best facilities are used from every nation.
Kourou is overwhemingly the best launch site in current operatrion.
This is what TRADE means. There is a site in Brazil even closer to the
equator but that lacks the facilities of Kourou.
:
:Martha Adams in fact strikes me as one of the more sensible people in
:this group.
:

This says more about how loony you are than it does about anything
else.

This is the case in point. I am beginning to see that the fact that
anyone going to a space colony would be able to build a VN machine
easily is something that the Establishment wishes to hide. A colony
may well be constructed without a closed loop, but the colonist will

1) Be able to close the loop fairly easily. Just as you can make a
machine gun very easily from a semi.

2) Despite the dangers AI will be added to the VN genome.

3) If the AI is allowed to evolve the consequences are readily
forseeable.

If colonists go into space with a united World these dangers will not
be present to the same extent. Rules like no mixing of AI with VN
machines, strict controls over the way the genome can evolve. These
rules will be enforcable with a united world.

If the "eternals" - the colony built to survive meteor strikes,
supervolcanoes etc. finds itself in competition with another colony,
they will strive to maximise "fitness" with all that that inplies.
They will already have "semis" provided for them.


- Ian Parker

Ian Parker wrote:

:On 17 Jan, 21:30, Fred J. McCall wrote:
: Ian Parker wrote:
:
: :On 17 Jan, 02:18, "Jorge R. Frank" wrote:
: :
: : In addition to Rand's arguments on orbital inclination, the argument on
: : orbital altitude is that ISS had to be situated below the Van Allen
: : belts to minimize radiation shielding requirements, and had to be
: : reachable by both the space shuttle and Soyuz/Progress, the latter of
: : which has an altitude ceiling of 425 km.
: :
: :That is the reason for the low orbit. The inlination is another
: :matter, If anything a high inclination gives more radiation.
: :
:
:This in itself speaks volumes. Radiation is a technical point. The
:Russian launch sites are political. An equatorial orbit would be
erfectly ascessible from Kourou where Soyuz is now based.
:

But it wasn't based there then. If ISS wasn't where it is the
Russians wouldn't have played. End of story.

:
:If you are
:INTERNATIONAL you make your launch facilities available to everyone.
:What is the rooted objection to launcing a Proton from Kourou?
:

None, except you couldn't do it until last year.

:
:Or even a Shuttle?
:

No capability and no way to get everything there.

:
:"I" to be implies that the best facilities are used from every nation.
:Kourou is overwhemingly the best launch site in current operatrion.
:This is what TRADE means. There is a site in Brazil even closer to the
:equator but that lacks the facilities of Kourou.
:

The same facilities that Kourou lacked until last year. Why are we
building in Kourou and not in Brazil?

: :
: :Martha Adams in fact strikes me as one of the more sensible people in
: :this group.
: :
:
: This says more about how loony you are than it does about anything
: else.
:
:
:This is the case in point. I am beginning to see that the fact that
:anyone going to a space colony would be able to build a VN machine
:easily is something that the Establishment wishes to hide.
:

Yes, because it's NOT a 'fact'.

snip silly speculations


--
"Ordinarily he is insane. But he has lucid moments when he is
only stupid."
-- Heinrich Heine