DIRECT team planning a Sea Dragon-type vehicle: the Leviathan?

In article 04e0be0a-ddc1-4e0e-bd08-a474e5b49d33
@x38g2000pri.googlegroups.com, says...

On May 6, 5:53*am, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article d753a806-006c-4e1e-a91a-83dee87c7dd2@
22g2000prx.googlegroups.com, says...



Many others have suggested the same, and even Mook claims to be
publishing volumes of good stuff. *By the time he's dead it'll
actually be of some value as long as himself and none of his surviving
relatives never receives a dime. *That is how it works, isn't it?

The way it works is that the volumes of "good" stuff really isn't that
good. *It's far too superficial, ignoring all of the details, especially
building and flying actual hardware.
Don't ask William Mook for details, because you'll get volumes of it.

Unfortunately, you don't get the right details. You get details on lab
experiments not directly applicable to launch vehicles without tons of
R&D.

Mook isn't necessarily right about a number of things, but he is
sufficiently correct about a sufficient number of items, many of which
should have been worked on for more then a decade so that we'd have
them up and running as of today.

No, he's not. What Mook does is try to integrate disparate technologies
which have never been applied to launch vehicles into something that he
thinks is a coherent design.

Unfortunately, he's going about it all wrong. He thinks he's
innovating, but he's really just going down the same path as many
aerospace engineers who are convinced that some new technology (never
used in launch vehicles) is all we need to reduce the costs of
spaceflight.

Look at SpaceX. They've got costs low enough even the Chinese can't
touch them. And what new technologies have they used? None really.
They've just applied existing technologies to the problem. How do they
get costs so low? They design, build, test, and fly everything
themselves with the emphasis being on low cost, not maximum performance.

"Idea men" are a dime a dozen. *If you never build actual hardware,
you
can't fail, can you? *Except for the fact that if you never build
anything, all you've got is pretty pictures and ascii characters on the
Internet.

There's not many "Idea men" nearly as good or as collected info
providing as William Mook. I agree that Mook needs to focus and
deliver, at least a few prototypes.

Mook is positively insane. His approach to the problem is all wrong.

1. "design" a new launch vehicle which is "clearly" better than
anything previously designed
2. a miracle happens and Mook gets tens of billions of dollars
3. Mook spends the next 10 years and all of the billions trying to get
something flying

Now how exactly is that low cost? The next "big" technology that's
"almost ready" shouldn't be part of any sane launch vehicle design who's
goal is to lower launch costs now.

It's far too easy in this day and age to post fluff to the Internet
and
get some people to believe it's real. *Just look at all the crap on
YouTube.

Some people believe Obama isn't a US citizen. Others believe the moon
landings were faked. Others believe 9/11 was orchestrated by our own
government. They're all fracking nuts, just like Mook.

Correct, and some of Mook's YouTubes are clearly somewhat excessive
overkills and otherwise going over the top or off the hook for most of
us. However, if you ask a very specific question, he'll give you a
very specific answer along with multiple cites or links in order to
help support his interpretation.

Unfortunately, his need to be our global domination technology wizard
of Oz is a little too aggressive and a wee bit top-heavy for most of
us. It's as though only Mook knows best in every conceivable category
of science, physics and history. At least whatever Mook doesn't know,
he'll investigate by researching and report back.

Once you realize his somewhat bipolar mindset, and otherwise cheery-
pick whatever is helpful, is when Mook starts showing us how some
things can be accomplished better and cheaper, as well as greener than
most other alternatives.

No, his way is the way of perpetual high costs. The endless search for
a "silver bullet" which costs billions and produces little to nothing of
value.

William Mook is not unintelligent or even impossible to deal with.
Others here are most likely mainstream FUD Masters and and difficult
as hell to believe because parrots and brown-nosed clowns really can't
honestly figure anything out for themselves, whereas Mook actually
can, especially if it relates to any of his ideas to start with.

He's quite impossible to deal with. He's an insane egomaniac who thinks
everyone else is wrong and he's right. All the while, the industry
marches forward.

I killfiled Mook last week. I think you might be next.

Jeff
--
" Solids are a branch of fireworks, not rocketry. :-) :-) ", Henry
Spencer 1/28/2011