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"To The End Of The Solar System"



 
 
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  #11  
Old December 16th 04, 02:53 AM
Henry Spencer
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In article ,
Reed Snellenberger wrote:
All three
presidents of that era end up looking rather different than the popular
beliefs would have it.


You've obviously fished before -- because you sure know how to set a
hook... :-)


Okay, from memory -- my copy of the book is out on loan -- a very
quick summary:

JFK got "preeminence" (opening the New Frontier, not just going to the
Moon) started, but backed away from it almost at once. Within a year or
so, Webb was having to remind him that preeminence was his official policy
and was strongly supported by Congress and wasn't consistent with refusing
to fund long-lead preparations for post-Apollo projects. Toward the end,
JFK was actively trying to dump everything but Apollo, and he wasn't even
that enthusiastic about Apollo any more.

LBJ really was pro-space, but although he strongly supported Apollo, he
was willing pretty much from the start to dump most of the rest to keep
the budget in line. One of his first acts as president was a budget
compromise that cancelled plans for a near-term NERVA flight test, thus
essentially conceding that post-Apollo plans would be seriously scaled
back or seriously postponed or both.

And Nixon, despite his evil reputation, seems to have been personally
pro-space. Had his administration been run the way LBJ's was, space might
have come out rather well under him. Trouble was, his administration was
organized *very* differently, with layer after layer of underlings around
him to insulate him from, well, most everything. Like most presidents, he
didn't give space a high priority. With most presidents, that would mean
that little of his time was spent on decisions about space; with Nixon, it
meant that *none* of his time was spent on them. When Webb had a big
fight with the budget people, it ended up in front of LBJ, but when the
equivalent happened under Nixon, it happened two or three layers out from
him, and not only was his opinion not asked, he never even heard about it.
Even powerful and mightily unhappy Senators couldn't reach him.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |
  #12  
Old December 16th 04, 05:30 AM
Reed Snellenberger
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Henry Spencer wrote:
In article ,
Reed Snellenberger wrote:

All three
presidents of that era end up looking rather different than the popular
beliefs would have it.


You've obviously fished before -- because you sure know how to set a
hook... :-)



Okay, from memory -- my copy of the book is out on loan -- a very
quick summary:

snipping an excellent summary of the Presidents' positions...


Thanks, Henry...

I'm a little surprised that Kennedy would have been backing away from
the space program already, but the timing is about right. The Mercury
program had been completed in May '63 and both Gemini & Apollo were
deeply into their "spending money like water without any flights to show
for it" phases, so it's the most probable time for a politician's mind
to ask "Why are we doing this, again?"

--
Reed
  #13  
Old December 16th 04, 06:55 AM
Derek Lyons
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Reed Snellenberger wrote:
I'm a little surprised that Kennedy would have been backing away from
the space program already,


It's hard to back away from what one was never really close to.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
  #15  
Old December 16th 04, 07:11 AM
OM
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....On a side note, D - e-mail me, please. I tried to contact you using
the address listed in your posts, and it bounced.


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr
  #16  
Old December 16th 04, 09:46 AM
Revision
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"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
Just finished reading "To The End Of The Solar System: the story of

the
nuclear rocket", by James A. Dewar.


It has occurred to more than one correspondent that chemical fuels lack
the energy density needed for an aggressive deep space exploration. So a
nuclear powered approach is the obvious alternative.

I need to familiarize myself with these engines. It sounds like they
were trying to use thermal energy to accelerate a gas, which is sort of a
chemical engine approach all over again. Now that it is 40 years on,
perhaps some new ideas such as a powerful ion drive or lasers (?) could
use another look as the underlying motivation of getting more energy at
work than is available through chemical fuels is worthwhile.


  #17  
Old December 16th 04, 10:42 AM
Chuck Stewart
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On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 02:46:52 -0600, Revision wrote:

I need to familiarize myself with these engines. It sounds like they
were trying to use thermal energy to accelerate a gas, which is sort of a
chemical engine approach all over again.


Ok... you familiarize yourself with concepts like that while the rest of
us peruse the nuclear-electric deep space probes currently under design at
NASA...

If you want to join the rest of us instead of reinventing the power window
you might reference Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) and the Neptune probe.

p.s. The JIMO referenced is the nuclear-powered version, and not the
byline-powered one.

p.p.s. The current art for the Neptune probe actually shows the Boeing
JIMO design...lot of that going round....

--
Chuck Stewart
"Anime-style catgirls: Threat? Menace? Or just studying algebra?"

  #18  
Old December 16th 04, 08:04 PM
Henry Spencer
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In article , Revision k@tdot-com wrote:
I need to familiarize myself with these engines. It sounds like they
were trying to use thermal energy to accelerate a gas, which is sort of a
chemical engine approach all over again.


Done better. The "chemical engine approach" has huge advantages; in
particular, it permits a piece of machinery the size of a small car to
handle gigawatts of power, by keeping almost all of that power at arm's
length. The only problem with chemical rockets is inadequate energy
content of the fuels, which a nuclear engine addresses.

The biggest Rover/NERVA test engine had a reactor about the size of a VW,
producing 5 GW -- the single most powerful nuclear reactor ever built. By
comparison, a very large nuclear power station on Earth, probably weighing
a hundred thousand tons or more, might produce 2-3 GW. That's the price
you pay for abandoning thermal rockets (the "chemical engine approach").

perhaps some new ideas such as a powerful ion drive or lasers (?) could
use another look as the underlying motivation of getting more energy at
work than is available through chemical fuels is worthwhile.


While ion drives do work, they inherently have pitifully low thrusts.
Trying to make them do better requires a prohibitive mass of machinery
to handle all the power.

A true "solar system spaceship" needs both high thrust and low propellant
consumption, and that combination of requirements means tremendous power
output. Thermal rockets are the only known way to do that without
excessive machinery mass.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |
  #19  
Old December 16th 04, 08:21 PM
Henry Spencer
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In article ,
OM om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_researc h_facility.org wrote:
Based on all the recollections of JFK's visit to the Saturn I site,
and those of his response to the Mercury successes, he was becoming a
rather strong Astrobuff in his own right...


There's precious little evidence of it in his political actions. Webb was
having to fight hard to keep JFK from gutting post-Apollo projects.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |
  #20  
Old December 17th 04, 01:57 AM
Scott Hedrick
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"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
Techno-geeks of all stripes however tend to ignore these unsexy bits.


According to a display at the National Atomic Museum many years ago, the US
decided to rent a Russian space reactor to study, since the SP-100 wasn't
working out.

So far, no problem. After thoroughly studying it, it was time to ship it
back. Big problem- can't export nuclear techology to the commies. The fact
that it came *from* them in the first place was irrelevant.

The reactor sat on the dock until a practical solution was arrived- the
guards were asked to take a coffee break while the reactor was loaded.

In short, rather than go through all the effort to create a special one-time
exemption to the law, the law was blatantly ignored. After all, since the
Russians invented the think, it's rather obvious that they won't learn
anything new from it upon its return, and it was their property.


 




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