SSTO one step closer

In article ,
says...

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...
In article ,
ess says...

Reaction Engines completes precooler testing

http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/news_updates.html

Congrats on the precooler testing, now they need to move on to the next
phase of R&D. See: .signature

Put this head to head with SpaceX's Grasshopper and tell me which one is
going to be cheaper to develop and will be flying on an operational
launcher sooner.

But the wrong problem is still being solved. Lowering the
cost of space travel by an order of magnitude is not the
problem that needs to be solved.

I disagree. Low cost access to space is *the* problem that needs to be
solved to enable lower cost solutions to *every other problem* once
you're in orbit or beyond.

It's finding a product from space that's an order of magnitude
more valuable. Once that product is found, cheaper access
will find a way, and in a hurry.

You're turning the problem around, which does *not* make sense. We
already know what markets are possible and profitable at current launch
costs. The status quo has been in place for decades. I don't see that
changing without lowering launch costs significantly.

Money talks, sci-fi pipe-dreams like mining asteroids or colonies
walk.

And we all know there is only one commodity with that kind
of huge potential for scale, profit and need. Space Energy
doesn't have to compete, it can find all kind of energy
niches, and have them all to itself.
http://www.spaceenergy.com/

But at today's launch costs, what niches would be served that couldn't
be served by existing or emerging (non-space based) technologies?

And besides, NASA should be about thinking big, about
technology that can create a better future.

Nothing revolutionary will come out of NASA. They're too busy working
on Ares V warmed over and renamed to SLS. SLS will do nothing "big" to
"create a better future". Today's NASA runs programs dictated by
politics. They honestly don't care much about actual results.

Maybe the single greatest technological advance in terms
of changing the world for the better has to be AC power.
Which allowed electricity to travel far and wide in
comparison to DC. Suddenly much of the world can
access electricity ...for the first time...with that advance.

What's the next great leap forward with energy???

It's...wireless....power transmission that can have
the same kind of transformational effect on the world
Allowing access to power, for the first time, to just about
all the places AC still can't serve.

Wireless would have countless new market niches
all to itself.

Just imagine how many people around the world
might be saved and helped by truly wireless power
...falling from the sky?

I dare anyone to name any other space activity
that could have even a fraction of that potential
effect on society and the future.

The energy market is the second largest market
on Earth, just barely behind food. Some $5 Trillion
dollar a year market, where new $10 billion dollar
projects are weekly events.

Yet none of these expensive energy generation projects are space based.
If not because of high existing launch costs, why?

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...
In article ,
ess says...

Reaction Engines completes precooler testing

http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/news_updates.html

Congrats on the precooler testing, now they need to move on to the next
phase of R&D. See: .signature

Put this head to head with SpaceX's Grasshopper and tell me which one
is
going to be cheaper to develop and will be flying on an operational
launcher sooner.

But the wrong problem is still being solved. Lowering the
cost of space travel by an order of magnitude is not the
problem that needs to be solved.

I disagree. Low cost access to space is *the* problem that needs to be
solved to enable lower cost solutions to *every other problem* once
you're in orbit or beyond.

It's finding a product from space that's an order of magnitude
more valuable. Once that product is found, cheaper access
will find a way, and in a hurry.

You're turning the problem around, which does *not* make sense. We
already know what markets are possible and profitable at current launch
costs. The status quo has been in place for decades. I don't see that
changing without lowering launch costs significantly.

Money talks, sci-fi pipe-dreams like mining asteroids or colonies
walk.

And we all know there is only one commodity with that kind
of huge potential for scale, profit and need. Space Energy
doesn't have to compete, it can find all kind of energy
niches, and have them all to itself.
http://www.spaceenergy.com/

But at today's launch costs, what niches would be served that couldn't
be served by existing or emerging (non-space based) technologies?


NASA wants to build a railroad into the middle of the Congo, and
just hope the gold mines manage to find it. It's better to go find
the gold mine first. NASA is putting the cart before the horse.

It's just like what they said about the Space Station, just
build it and the world changing discoveries will find a way
and usher in a new era....what a load that was.

What is waiting for lower cost to orbit that has even
1/100th the potential market as energy?



And besides, NASA should be about thinking big, about
technology that can create a better future.

Nothing revolutionary will come out of NASA.



My point exactly, it doesn't have to be that way.
If enough people want something badly enough
it can happen, almost anything can happen, even
putting people on the ...moon.



They're too busy working
on Ares V warmed over and renamed to SLS. SLS will do nothing "big" to
"create a better future". Today's NASA runs programs dictated by
politics. They honestly don't care much about actual results.

Maybe the single greatest technological advance in terms
of changing the world for the better has to be AC power.
Which allowed electricity to travel far and wide in
comparison to DC. Suddenly much of the world can
access electricity ...for the first time...with that advance.

What's the next great leap forward with energy???

It's...wireless....power transmission that can have
the same kind of transformational effect on the world
Allowing access to power, for the first time, to just about
all the places AC still can't serve.

Wireless would have countless new market niches
all to itself.

Just imagine how many people around the world
might be saved and helped by truly wireless power
...falling from the sky?

I dare anyone to name any other space activity
that could have even a fraction of that potential
effect on society and the future.

The energy market is the second largest market
on Earth, just barely behind food. Some $5 Trillion
dollar a year market, where new $10 billion dollar
projects are weekly events.


Yet none of these expensive energy generation projects are space based.
If not because of high existing launch costs, why?


Because George W Bush canceled the SERT program
back in '02, right after 9/11, in favor for his Vision for
returning to the moon, which almost any reasonable analysis
would show is either a Lockheed sweet-heart deal, or
related to missile defense.

If you haven't read the SERT program, you should.
If not for Bush, we'd have several demonstrators
already flying.

NASA'S SPACE SOLAR POWER
(SERT) PROGRAM

"NASA focused the SERT effort3 by utilizing the definition
of a "strawman" or baseline SSP system that would provide
10 to 100 GW to the ground electrical power grid with a series
of 1.2-GW satellites in geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO).
For each of the major SSP subsystems, NASA managers developed
top-level cost targets in cents per kilowatt-hour (kW-hr) that
they felt would have to be met to deliver baseload power at a
target of 5 cents/kW-hr. The result of this work was a set of time-phased
plans with associated cost estimates that provided the basis for a
technology investment strategy."

"Central to the SERT program was a series of five or six experimental
flight demonstrations of progressively larger power-generation capacity,
called Model System Categories. These demonstrations will serve as
focal points for the advancement of SSP-related technologies and will
provide advancements in technologies benefiting other nearer-term military,
space, and commercial applications. NASA made extensive use of cost
and performance modeling to guide its technology investment strategy."
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10202&page=1


And ten years of new technology and much higher energy costs
have passed since then, meaning SSP is only that much closer
to practical by now.


It the way business plans have worked since day one, first
you find a need, then go build the product, not the other
way around.




Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer