Space review: The vision thing

"Paul F. Dietz" wrote ...
Paul Blay wrote:

'Most likely be paying more' makes me one of those doomsayers?

Didn't say you were, now did I?

The presence of such ambiguity being why you got a question mark.

And one decade = short term fluctuation?

Sure. Look at the 'energy crisis', for example.

It's about twice as long as the average politician plans.
It's also at least half as long as the amount I'd need again
for my 'Most likely be paying more' to turn out right.
Of course just because something has been going roughly one way
for a decade or so there's no given it will stay that way.
However I see nothing likely to make a significant difference
in the /cheaper/ direction for at least the next decade or so.

The power infrastructure is /big/ and any improvements are going
to have a proportionally big lag from decision to implementation.
At present I haven't seen even seen decisions being made that will
be make /much/ difference - although there are plenty of half-hearted
efforts in .gov documents that could make some difference if well
implemented (even if they do seem rather schizophrenic in places).

Mary Shafer wrote:
On 12 Nov 2003 22:56:20 GMT, Andrew Gray
wrote:


In article , John Penta wrote:


Somehow, I
doubt many average people (assuming "average" physical fitness) could
sustain the G-forces of launch without either getting themselves
killed, or hurting themselves.


Hmm. What are the G-forces pulled on launch? I suspect from vague memory
they're nothing that a reasonably average (ie, not clinically obese,
asthmatic, or suffering any other notable problems) adult couldn't
handle with a modicum of training and possibly some assistance - padded
couch, or the like. (Aborts may be more interesting, though)


People are a lot tougher than you think. Flight in the Shuttle, in
aborts, is nowhere near the physiological limits of the average,
out-of-shape, overweight couch potato. In fact. the human limits are
much higher than the vehicle limits.

I'm pretty sure the Shuttle never pulls more than 3 g and it's in the
best direction, into the chest. The g load that's harder to sustain
is the head-to-toe load, because that's the one that pulls all the
blood away from the brain, down to the legs. This is why the 9-g F-16
has a semi-reclined seat. However, even I, an asthmatic, obese,
out-of-shape older adult, can tolerate 4 g head-to-toe without a g
suit and over 5 g with one.

I almost lost consciousness on a carnival ride where the acceleration
forced blood to the lower parts of my body. How many g s do carnival
rides typically exert?


--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html

"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...

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.

bangs head against the wall

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.

Fine. Now build two hundred of them each year for the next decade.

Are you *now* getting the picture, H?

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.

Henry, Henry. That is *exactly* the same kind of wild-assed handwaving that
you, I, and a buch of other people here have been criticizing NASA for. I
really, really hope you can understand what you are doing, but it seems to
me like you're just substituting one castle-in-the-air for another one.

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.

So why didn't they? Probably because they were feeling the pinch from those
100 launches (or more specifically, because 100 launches is all they could
squeeze in with the other Oppressive State **** they had to do).

And not to put too fine a point on it, but: what has happened to the
Russians' launch rates now that they are no longer a "controlled" economy?
They should be cranking out boosters as fast as they can to bring in all
that free-market lucre, right? Wrong.

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.

And have massive QC failures (read: disasters) because there aren't nearly
enough people around who actually understand how all the parts are supposed
to fit together, and besides the ones that do haven't been paid in a year so
they keep all that info to themselves and parcel it out piecemeal when
somebody offers a good enough bribe.

Get real, Henry. I'm disappointed in you, you know better.

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.

again: this is a prime example of "don't let the facts get in the way of a
good theory".

The simple fact is that *nobody* anywhere, anywhen has sustained the kind of
production for chemical boosters that you insist is a piece of cake. Not
when they didn't have to pay for it. Not when they were getting paid for it.
Not when building lots and lots of rockets was a matter of national
prestige. It just will never happen, *ever*.

--
Terrell Miller


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

On Sun, 16 Nov 2003 12:28:54 -0500, in a place far, far away, "Terrell
Miller" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

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.

Fine. Now build two hundred of them each year for the next decade.

I'm sure that if you gave him budget, he could easily do so.

Are you *now* getting the picture, H?

It's yours that seems out of focus.

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.

Henry, Henry. That is *exactly* the same kind of wild-assed handwaving that
you, I, and a buch of other people here have been criticizing NASA for. I
really, really hope you can understand what you are doing, but it seems to
me like you're just substituting one castle-in-the-air for another one.

How is it "wild-assed handwaving" to point out the simple fact that if
one factory can be built, that many can be built? Where are the
roadblocks?

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.

So why didn't they? Probably because they were feeling the pinch from those
100 launches (or more specifically, because 100 launches is all they could
squeeze in with the other Oppressive State **** they had to do).

Because they were broke. We're not.

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.

And have massive QC failures (read: disasters) because there aren't nearly
enough people around who actually understand how all the parts are supposed
to fit together, and besides the ones that do haven't been paid in a year so
they keep all that info to themselves and parcel it out piecemeal when
somebody offers a good enough bribe.

That's an interesting speculation, but I doubt if you have any idea
whether it's true or not. Hire the people who understand the plant to
draw up plans. Build more plants. Have them train people to operate
them. Employ standard TQM.

Sorry, but this actually *isn't* rocket science.

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.

again: this is a prime example of "don't let the facts get in the way of a
good theory".

The simple fact is that *nobody* anywhere, anywhen has sustained the kind of
production for chemical boosters that you insist is a piece of cake.

Becaue there's been no demand for it, not because it's technically
challenging. And you remain hung up on the notion that chemical
rockets are the problem. There's no technical or economic basis for
this.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

(Derek Lyons) wrote in message ...

It's difficult because we have never actually *had* a space policy.

Sure we did. Lots of 'em.

"Beat the Russians to the moon!" OK, done. Next?

"Um...isn't Tang great!" Huh?

"Orient Express!" OK, go for it.
"Um...it didn't work...mumble mumble materials mumble mumble" Right.
Next?

"Space Station! We'll build a space station!" OK, but only on a
shoestring.

"Operational space truck!" Now we're talking. What was that cloud?
"Um, we lost one. It's not really operational." Right. Next?

"OK, um, let's go to Mars!" Sounds great. What's the sticker price?
"About two months' wages from every working American." You're on
drugs.

"That's it! War on drugs! We'll spot cocaine from orbit!" Americans
fighting a capitalist market. Whatever...

"Space Station! We're building a space station!" On a shoestring?
Nice job. What's it do? "It gives the truck someplace to go!"
Check. And what's the truck for, again? "It supports the station!"
You can't be serious. Do the words, circular reasoning, mean anything
to you people? "How about those Yankees!" Don't change the subj--
What's that cloud? "Um, we lost another one. Space is really hard,
see..."

Lots of policies. Lots of visions. Some more hallucinatory than
others. You can't blame NASA too much, though; they were trying to
stay alive, and to do it, they needed a mission. Any mission. Since
We the People didn't give them one, they invented their own. Congress
reluctantly went along with it, and here we are.

So the problem - for NASA - is as people here say it is: there is no
consensus vision on what they ought to be doing. But this assumes a
postulate with which I disagree: NASA = space = NASA. NASA is not the
best way for Americans to get into space. (Soyuz is. The next best
way is to get elected to the Senate; NASA has flown 2 of the roughly
200 Senators in office since 12 Apr 1981. Flying on a Soyuz is
cheaper than getting elected to the Senate, though.) NASA also is not
doing anything in manned spaceflight that the American people really
want done.

So the solution for We the People is not the same as the solution for
NASA. I'm not going to try to solve NASA's vision problem - I don't
really care what NASA does in manned spaceflight - but the solution
for We the People is a no kidding commercial launch industry that
launches people into space at a price they can afford. Or sends them
to Mars at a price they can afford. Or sells them lunar mining
equipment at a price they can afford. Or whatever.

The point is, let the people decide for themselves as individuals,
rather then collectively as a nation.

Why shouldn't there be a national ocean policy or national air policy?

My error, as Kert pointed out. I used "policy" where I meant
"program."

-R

Terrell Miller wrote:
[...]
The simple fact is that *nobody* anywhere, anywhen has sustained the kind of
production for chemical boosters that you insist is a piece of cake. Not
when they didn't have to pay for it. Not when they were getting paid for it.
Not when building lots and lots of rockets was a matter of national
prestige. It just will never happen, *ever*.

I suggest you look at how many Minuteman ICBMs the US built
between 1961 and 1978.

And how fast and how many Trident (C4 and C5) missiles were built.

And how many ICBMs the Russians made...

990 SS-11 SEGO missiles between 1966 and 1972, for that one model
alone. Over 500 SS-18s were built, and over 100 SS-9s before them.
130 SS-17s. 360 SS-19s. 60 SS-13s. 360 SS-25s, and over 100 SS-27s.
90 SS-24s. The total of models that I can quickly inventory is that
post-SS-6, they built at least 2250 ICBMs between 1961 and 1991,
an average of 77 per year, with the peak production in the 1970s and
early 1980s twice that.

Plus the 1600-odd Soyuz launchers which have flown.

Plus, you have not made any qualitative or quantitative
argument as to why shifting money and resources from Bear or
B-52 production into Soyuz or Atlas or whatever wouldn't have
worked to increase production numbers for rockets as opposed
to jetliners, bombers, etc.


-george william herbert

"Terrell Miller" wrote ...
"Henry Spencer" wrote ...

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.

Fine. Now build two hundred of them each year for the next decade.

It's quite simple*. If you were a government or large commercial organisation
saying that with a big (but not impossibly big) budget Henry would be
saying "Ta muchly" right now** and phoning a few relevant firms.

Suppose you dropped into an alternative Earth where the car had not been
invented but technology was otherwise at a similar level. Hand over a blue
print of a recent car and say "I'd like one of these please" - how much do
you suppose it would cost? Now go to the same scenario but hand over the
blueprint and say "I'd like one million of these a year please, you market and
sell them and I'll take a percentage" it isn't going to cost them one million
times as much or be a million times as difficult is it?

Current launch vehicle pricing and availability is widely agreed to be
a) 'Cuz there's no market.
or
b) 'Cuz there's no market at that price.
I don't know anybody else (apart maybe for a certain J.O.) who thinks
it's
c) 'Cuz it's impossible to make more of them.

* Although I /have/ over-simplified and I'm far from the most knowledgeable
in this group.

** Although probably also "Can't do it this year, is the next OK?"

"Terrell Miller" wrote in message .. .
..
The simple fact is that *nobody* anywhere, anywhen has sustained the kind of
production for chemical boosters that you insist is a piece of cake. ..


Taken altogether, the launch rate of chemical missile/space launchers
during the mid-1960s exceeded 200 per year (the launch rate mentioned
here). Here is a partial list of peak rates recorded during that time
for some rockets. There were many other launches not listed here, and
many additional missiles built that did not fly.

-------------------------------------------------
R-7 35 (later peaked at 64 in 1980)
Titan 27 (1963, 1965)
Atlas 47 (1962, 1966)
Thor 50 (1962)
R-36 20 (1965, more than 30/yr during 1970s)
R-12 10 (1965)
R-14 6 (1965)
Redstone 5 (1963)
Saturn I 3 (1965)
Proton 2 (later peaked at 14 in 2000)
-------------------------------------------------
Subtotal 205

- Ed Kyle

In article ,
Terrell Miller wrote:
I don't have to have built a dining-room table to assert confidently that
it is possible for me to do so...

Fine. Now build two hundred of them each year for the next decade.
Are you *now* getting the picture, H?

Su that you don't know what you're talking about.

Two hundred tables a year is about one per working day. Given some
investment in facilities and equipment, careful design for streamlined
production, and a reliable supply of materials, I could probably do that
without even hiring an assistant or doing serious automation. But it'd
get a bit boring after the initial few months of debugging and improvement
were over and things settled down to routine.

To build ten a day -- roughly one an hour -- I'd need some automation and
some assistants.

Building a hundred a day -- roughly one every five minutes -- would take
substantial automation and a sizable staff, and I'd be doing management
and quality control rather than actually cutting wood myself. Still not a
big deal, with those same givens.

...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.

So why didn't they?

Because they had no requirement for it. They were launching all the
satellites they wanted to launch.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but: what has happened to the
Russians' launch rates now that they are no longer a "controlled" economy?
They should be cranking out boosters as fast as they can to bring in all
that free-market lucre, right? Wrong.

They're building them as fast as they can sell them, actually. Sales have
gone slowly due to inexperience, unfavorable politics, and the vehement
opposition of the Western launcher cartel, but are improving steadily.
Proton is now generally the preferred launcher for large commercial
comsats, and launch business for Soyuz, Rockot, etc. is picking up.

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.

And have massive QC failures (read: disasters) because there aren't nearly
enough people around who actually understand how all the parts are supposed
to fit together...

Duplicating the facilities includes training more staff. It's not a
trivial exercise, but it's not a prohibitively difficult one either. The
guys who originally designed the Semyorka or the Proton weren't down on
the factory floor solving production problems; they had trained production
staff for that.

and besides the ones that do haven't been paid in a year so
they keep all that info to themselves and parcel it out piecemeal when
somebody offers a good enough bribe.

The Soviets never had problems paying their people. (The post-Soviet
Russians, yes...)

The simple fact is that *nobody* anywhere, anywhen has sustained the kind of
production for chemical boosters that you insist is a piece of cake.

As others have already pointed out, look at the production rates for ICBMs
achieved in the early 1960s -- far above anything needed for launchers
since. There was no magic to this, just motivation and 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
...

The simple fact is that *nobody* anywhere, anywhen has sustained the kind
of
production for chemical boosters that you insist is a piece of cake.

As others have already pointed out, look at the production rates for ICBMs
achieved in the early 1960s -- far above anything needed for launchers
since. There was no magic to this, just motivation and money.

that and a little thing called national security...

--
Terrell Miller


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