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Japans Moon Ambitions - They're KIDDING, Right ?
BlackWater wrote: (cnn.com) TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- Japan's space agency is drawing up plans that could include manned space flights and a manned research base on the moon, a newspaper said on Monday. "However, I believe there is no change in our stance on manned space flight," he added. . . . . . What, are they KIDDING ??? Despite the spacefaring success in their cartoons and their overall mechotechnological prowness , Japan has hardly been able to get a rocket off the ground without the thing exploding. It's downright embarassing to watch. I seem to recall something similar with American space launchers and Euro ones too, their newest heavy lifters. Learning how to build and fly rockets includes explosions. It's part of the game. I dunno WHAT their problem is, but frankly I'd be more inclined to ride on a ricketty old NASA shuttle or even a Chinese missile than anything Japan is likely to build in the near future. Japan could decide to buy or borrow technology from the Russian Soyuz. This could get them seriously into manned LEO in less than a decade for not that much money. What does a Soyuz cost now, about six euros or something? Face it, the moon is gonna belong to CHINA, not Japan, not the USA, not Russia. Only China has the resources to turn an eclectic collection of space tech into a moon base. They've got the money (unlike western nations OR Japan), they've got the manpower, they've got the WILL and they've got the work of the US/Russian programs to build upon. I don't think that it would be that difficult to build a manned moon base. To do it on the cheap would require thinking in ways that are fundamentally different from Apollo though. It'd put out bids to everyone one the planet with heavy lift capability and buy from all of them. I'd have some standard moon lander that could be used to take whatever amounts of cargo that particular launcher could lift. Trips could take weeks, months or even a year as I harvested the energy in the gravitational eddies between where pure rocket power could get us to where we wanted to go, the Moon's surface. I'd investigate landing cargo on parts of the Moon which are flat and not very rocky so that some of the velocity could be used up bouncing perhaps for hundreds of miles. People would arrive one at a time after much of the base was configured by automation. They would literally arrive with nothing but a spacesuit and a rocket pack on their back. Errors in landing location would be corrected by sending automated vehicles on the surface out to help. The rocket needed to do that for one human to the Moon one way is much smaller than Apollo. In fact, it might even be currently in production. -- Personal accounts are good because they lessen the liability against future taxes of the retiree while sequestering the funds he's been paying in so they cannot be used to mask current general fund deficits. |
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Bill Bonde ( ''The chamber was in confusion, all the voices shouting
loud'' ) wrote: People would arrive one at a time after much of the base was configured by automation. Why not do it like a space station? Land some mining equipment first, no fancy autonomous stuff. Then take a big lander, shoot it up there and call it "station". Then you can have people on the ground from day one to supervise or take part in the (semi) automatic build of a shielded underground station. Lots of Greetings! Volker |
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Bill Bonde ( ''The chamber was in confusion, all the voices shouting
loud'' ) wrote: BlackWater wrote: Despite the spacefaring success in their cartoons and their overall mechotechnological prowness , Japan has hardly been able to get a rocket off the ground without the thing exploding. It's downright embarassing to watch. Japan's H-IIA has had six successes in seven flights, putting it roughly into the same success rate category as the U.S. Titan 4B (13/15), Europe's Ariane 5 (17/21), Ukraine/Russia's Zenit 3 (13/15), and China's CZ-3A (19/22). Delta 4, a U.S. rocket being touted as a possible human launcher to replace space shuttle, has one failure in four flights. - Ed Kyle |
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March 1, 2005
The Delta IV Medium is not a Delta IV Heavy. Those are two very different launch vehicles. The Delta IV Medium (no SRBs) is two for two. In my opinion, this is the only credible man rateable ELV in the United States fleet. Thomas Lee Elifritz http://elifritz.members.atlantic.net http://elifritz |
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Ed Kyle wrote:
Japan's H-IIA has had six successes in seven flights, putting it roughly into the same success rate category as the U.S. Titan 4B (13/15), Europe's Ariane 5 (17/21), Ukraine/Russia's Zenit 3 (13/15), and China's CZ-3A (19/22). Delta 4, a U.S. rocket being touted as a possible human launcher to replace space shuttle, has one failure in four flights. - Ed Kyle It is also well worth remembering that many of the current 'reliable' launchers had serious problems early in their program. Those launchers that were reasonably reliable from the get go were almost all produced by organizations with significant prior experience (although plenty of organizations with experience have produced lemons too...). However, I would say that the reports of a manned Japanese moon program follow the same pattern we've seen about China and India: - someone inside the space agency shows a few viewgraphs of what they would like to do, given unlimited budget. - Some reporter reports it as if it was an official program. - A bunch more news outlets pick up the story for 'gee whiz' value. - A clarification is released somewhat later, and largely ignored. |
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On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 12:59:31 -0800, "Bill Bonde ( ''The chamber was in
confusion, all the voices shouting loud'' )" stderr@abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnop qrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com wrote: BlackWater wrote: (cnn.com) TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- Japan's space agency is drawing up plans that could include manned space flights and a manned research base on the moon, a newspaper said on Monday. "However, I believe there is no change in our stance on manned space flight," he added. . . . . . What, are they KIDDING ??? Despite the spacefaring success in their cartoons and their overall mechotechnological prowness , Japan has hardly been able to get a rocket off the ground without the thing exploding. It's downright embarassing to watch. I seem to recall something similar with American space launchers and Euro ones too, their newest heavy lifters. Learning how to build and fly rockets includes explosions. It's part of the game. Well yes and no. It's not as if nobody has BUILT big rockets before. There's a huge engineering and theoretical database on the subject. You'd think the Japanese didn't even bother to read it - and started entirely from scratch. I dunno WHAT their problem is, but frankly I'd be more inclined to ride on a ricketty old NASA shuttle or even a Chinese missile than anything Japan is likely to build in the near future. Japan could decide to buy or borrow technology from the Russian Soyuz. This could get them seriously into manned LEO in less than a decade for not that much money. What does a Soyuz cost now, about six euros or something? Something like that ... :-) Of course Soyuz has serious LIMITATIONS. Perhaps simply "getting someone up there" isn't enough for Japan ? A larger disposable or semi-disposable rocket for people and significant cargo might be more what they're looking for. Face it, the moon is gonna belong to CHINA, not Japan, not the USA, not Russia. Only China has the resources to turn an eclectic collection of space tech into a moon base. They've got the money (unlike western nations OR Japan), they've got the manpower, they've got the WILL and they've got the work of the US/Russian programs to build upon. I don't think that it would be that difficult to build a manned moon base. To do it on the cheap would require thinking in ways that are fundamentally different from Apollo though. It'd put out bids to everyone one the planet with heavy lift capability and buy from all of them. I'd have some standard moon lander that could be used to take whatever amounts of cargo that particular launcher could lift. Trips could take weeks, months or even a year as I harvested the energy in the gravitational eddies between where pure rocket power could get us to where we wanted to go, the Moon's surface. I'd investigate landing cargo on parts of the Moon which are flat and not very rocky so that some of the velocity could be used up bouncing perhaps for hundreds of miles. People would arrive one at a time after much of the base was configured by automation. They would literally arrive with nothing but a spacesuit and a rocket pack on their back. Errors in landing location would be corrected by sending automated vehicles on the surface out to help. The rocket needed to do that for one human to the Moon one way is much smaller than Apollo. In fact, it might even be currently in production. I agree that any moon (and especially Mars) base should be largely constructed by automation - with an eye towards using indigenous materials. On the moon, telepresence would be viable since the action/reaction/confirmation loop is only a few seconds. Mars would require largely autonomous robots or swarmbots, where just occasional updates would do the trick. Electronic intelligence isn't quite up to that yet ... but then we're planning to start with the moon anyway and we CAN build telepresence machines with enough rudimentary IQ to simplify & smooth out performance. Sintered moon dust should make a decent construction material. The base can be built of modular, mostly circular, sections. We'd have to ship gasketing material up there, to seal each module as it was added, but that would be relatively cheap. Solar sintering furnaces and molds for the basic structural shapes would also need to be sent. The 'furnace' would be mostly ultralight reflectors - no biggie - reusable refractory molds and such would weigh a ton however. Your notion that cargo doesn't HAVE to arrive three days after launch is a good one. Much fuel can be saved, or more cargo sent, by taking longer routes. Dunno about the solo-seat moon shuttle however. ANY kind of launch is expensive, and the up-front cost of the rocket and fuel probably isn't but a fraction of that expense. We're mostly talking EXPERTS and their valuable time and energy plus the peripherial infrastructure. As such, it may actually be CHEAPER to send ten people than just one. Some kinds of STANDARD spacecraft are a must, for a variety of reasons both technical and economic. We want to be able to part-out the work to any capable manufacturer in the world and have all the parts fit properly at assembly-time. Also, it's MUCH easier to build facilities here and on the moon - and get calculations right every time - if there are just a few standard vehicles with standard dimensions, standard fittings and standard weights. If you've launched a hundred "type one" rockets, a computer hiccup giving you weird numbers stands out clearly. Just off the top of my head, I'd suggest four standard craft : 1) A 'light lifter', disposable, for maybe two people and a ton of cargo. Should be ultra-simple and rely heavily on SRBs so they can be configured and launched on short notice. Standard re-entry technology. 2) A 'heavy lifter' aimed mostly at major cargo loads but potentially configurable to taxi ten or fifteen people. This could be 100% disposable too. NO re-entry - in fact the big cargo/people pod should always be left in space or landed/crashed on the moon for raw materials. 3) A reusable 'shuttle' type vehicle - using the same boosters as the heavy lifter - for bringing people and some cargo up AND back. 4) A standard, re-usable, moon lander for transferring people from lunar orbit to the surface and vice-versa. Magnetic-assisted launch from the surface would save on valuable hydrogen & oxygen. I'm sure we could think of a few more, but keeping the number small and using the same parts as much as possible amongst the fleet is important to the overall economy and safety. The engines and SRBs used in ship #1 should be used in #2 as well ... just more of them. The liquid engine for #1 should be used on the lander too. The more standard the parts, the easier and cheaper it is to make them - and make them RIGHT. |
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On 1 Mar 2005 18:41:03 -0800, "Ed Kyle" wrote:
Bill Bonde ( ''The chamber was in confusion, all the voices shouting loud'' ) wrote: BlackWater wrote: Despite the spacefaring success in their cartoons and their overall mechotechnological prowness , Japan has hardly been able to get a rocket off the ground without the thing exploding. It's downright embarassing to watch. Japan's H-IIA has had six successes in seven flights, putting it roughly into the same success rate category as the U.S. Titan 4B (13/15), Europe's Ariane 5 (17/21), Ukraine/Russia's Zenit 3 (13/15), and China's CZ-3A (19/22). Delta 4, a U.S. rocket being touted as a possible human launcher to replace space shuttle, has one failure in four flights. Hmmm ... maybe we should think of these things as revolvers with four to 22 cylinders and one bullet. If I handed you such a weapon, would you put it to your head and pull the trigger ? Even the 22- cylinder gun ? Sorry, but for this endeavour to be viable we need an EXTREMELY low failure rate ... one in five thousand perhaps, or better. It CAN be done ... but it means not using bleeding-edge technology or engineering and it means a major effort to simplify and standardize too. The rockets, pound for pound, might not be as efficient lifters as *possible* ... but they'd be CONSISTENT lifters you could trust with your, and your childrens, lives. |
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BlackWater wrote: On 1 Mar 2005 18:41:03 -0800, "Ed Kyle" wrote: Sorry, but for this endeavour to be viable we need an EXTREMELY low failure rate ... one in five thousand perhaps, or better. It CAN be done ... but it means not using bleeding-edge technology or engineering and it means a major effort to simplify and standardize too. It means just one thing : high flight rate. You cant have one in five thousand failure rate without flying five thousand times. Everything else derives from high flight rate, i.e. low cost per flight will be inevitable to avoid instant bankrupt, technologies that actually can withstand high flight rates etc. -kert |
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BlackWater wrote:
Sorry, but for this endeavour to be viable we need an EXTREMELY low failure rate ... one in five thousand perhaps, or better. ... The Russian and American human rated launch systems in use today have a mission failure rate of roughly 2% - meaning loss of crew. They also have a 2-3% launch vehicle failure rate, which doesn't necessarily coincide with crew loss. On two Soyuz missions, for example, crews survived launch vehicle failures. Three of the four fatal human space flight missions (two Russian, two U.S.) involved failures during descent. As for China, one of its unmanned Shenzhou test flights reportedly ended with a parachute failure. ... It CAN be done ... but it means not using bleeding-edge technology or engineering and it means a major effort to simplify and standardize too. ... Space launch reliability in excess of "three-nines" isn't going to happen with current technology. The current state of the art in space launch vehicles are the EELV launchers built by Lockheed Martin and Boeing. These vehicles were designed to have hardware-related vehicle failure rates of less than 1%, but non-hardware failure modes like bad software loads or bad ground processing steps (e.g. forgetting to remove a piece of tape from a connector pair that is supposed to separate - something that really happened) now account for more failure modes than the hardware - resulting in the total predicted failure rate for these newest of rockets being roughly 2%. At one time, NASA convinced itself that shuttle was 0.999 reliable, but 2 failures in 113 flights proved otherwise. Given this reality, it is clear that human launch systems must have crew escape systems to improve survivability. But launch escape systems don't handle reentry phase failures, or Apollo 13-type in-flight failures. The risk to space flight crews will be very real for the forseeable future. - Ed Kyle |
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