LIFE ON VENUS EXISTS!!!

On 10 May 2006 01:24:06 -0700, wrote:

Yeah, why does he need it all up front?

I can think of several reasons, none of them involving honesty. I
mean, this is the guy who freaks out when people look at his pictures
of rocks, and call them rocks - because he believes there are "aliens"
in them.

I mean, if I'm doing a project
I just need regular payments to keep the project rolling. I need a
commitment to the project sure, but not the cash. Of course those
putting up the cash need milestones to release the cash. Maybe that's
what tomcat wants to avoid. More likely he paranoid about the folks
paying out the $8 billion. Sure they promised they'd pay it, but he
doesn't trust them unless he has it.

Still, $8 billion over 8 years assuming a straightline burn rate will
earn an additional $2.88 billion over that period assuming it earns 8%
on the unspent balance. That's a hefty price tag to pay for tomcat's
paranoia. Also, regular payments can be used to build up a performance
bond gradually while increasing your bondablity because you're
achieving milestones all along the way. Actually, you use qualified
vendors who back you up with formal quotes and they get the performance
bond.

I can't figure out tomcat's program. Most projects start with a
revenue stream, and work out a value of it, and work backwards from
there to justify an expenditure.

For example, if you're going to build an $8 billion offshore oil
drilling platform, you start out with independent reserve estimates and
engineering reports that tell you how much oil this puppy will produce
and how fast, and how much it will cost. You get the rights to the
stretch of water it will operate in. You get all the subs lined up
with formal quotes and all. Then, you find qualified partners to
operate it. Then, you're ready to find folks to invest.

In an aerospace context this would work like, well, lets say we have a
sponsor who owns some IP related to providing telephone services
worldwide. A method of using phased array antennae to paint many
stationary cells on the ground from a single moving satellite all
without cell towers, a method of satellite to satellite open optical
communication that allows 20 trillion bits per second exchange rate, to
create a open optical backbone among hundreds of satelites, a method of
control and command that allows global connection to existing cell
phones, the legal framework to allow you to operate all over the world
with this setup... this would be funded with VC money, probably to the
tune of $20 million to $30 million - with cool models, computer
simulations and so forth...

Now, you get estimates of demand for this service - say 10 billion
telephone channels - pricing structure $1 per month, and cost structure
84 satellites costing $120 million each, with qualified vendors giving
formal quotes, then you find qualified partners to operate it. Now,
you're ready to find folks to invest.

The qualified vendors put up the bonding money in this case... but its
the discounted value of the cash flow that drives the project. In the
case of the oil drilling platform, it might produce 78,000 barrels of
oil per day over 30 years to justify the $8 billion expenditure. In
the case of the telephone in the sky you might make $1 billion per
month in fees initially growing to $10 billion per month over a 30 year
period to justify the $10 billion in cost.

So, tomcat wants $8 billion up front to build a spaceship. Okay, but
what's the economic utility of it? What good is it? Sure, you can zip
around the solar system, but what is the economic utility of that? If
he can answer that question at least his proposed program would start
to make sense.

Then, there are the technical questions. How does his spaceship work?
I dunno, he can't figure out the limits and strengths of an SRB, and he
can't see the difference between lifting something slow versus lifting
something quick with a rocket out of gravity field - it makes me wonder
about his ability to do anything in this context.

Ah, but he is "brilliant", and "smarter than almost everyone else".
Just ask - he'll tell you all about how "smart" he is. No doubr he
has "many supporters in email", too.

ESL!

--
Bookman -The Official Overseer of Kooks and Trolls in AFA-B
Kazoo Konspirator #668 (The Neighbor of the Beast)
Clue-Bat Wrangler
Keeper of the Nickname Lists
Despotic Kookologist of the New World Order
Hammer of Thor award, October 2005

"I'd love to kill you in a ring" - Bartmo gets all touchy-feely

"****SPV....... So yes I am an idiot."

"ASK THE NWS, YOUR TAX DOLLAR GOES TO THEM NOT TO DR.TURI."
- Mr. Turi explains how to accurately predict hurricanes

Bookman is yet another Usenet fignuten, meaning naysayer and/or
rusemaster of their incest cloned Third Reich. In other words, you're
communicating with an intellectual if not a biological clone of
Hitler.
- Brad Guth tries to wax "scientific", but invokes Godwin, instead.

WWFSMD?

On 8 May 2006 12:57:22 -0700, wrote in
alt.fan.art-bell in message
. com:

I didn't quite get that. Are you a saying you're a triple 9 now? lol.
Or did someone say you should try to be a triple 9 to shut you up?

He'd be lucky to be a double 7.
--
V.G.

"i would blame them it they went on a holy jhiad and killed off all the infidels, would you?"
- AssLexa's "200+" alien-implanted IQ jumps the rails and crashes into a grade school, killing all inside.

Change pobox dot alaska to gci.

Sarcasm is my sword, Apathy is my shield.

On 9 May 2006 10:41:01 -0700, "tomcat" wrote
in alt.fan.art-bell in message
. com:


John Griffin wrote:
Damn...you had been doing a nearly perfect job of concealing all
intelligence you might have, but now you ruined your pretense by
telling us about it. I guess we'll start seeing evidence of
intelligence in you any day now.



You're right I do have to hide it.

Damn good job of it, so far.
--
V.G.

"i would blame them it they went on a holy jhiad and killed off all the infidels, would you?"
- AssLexa's "200+" alien-implanted IQ jumps the rails and crashes into a grade school, killing all inside.

Change pobox dot alaska to gci.

Sarcasm is my sword, Apathy is my shield.

On 8 May 2006 14:33:06 GMT, John Griffin
wrote in alt.fan.art-bell in message
:

"Brad Guth" wrote:

Vanilla Gorilla (Monkey Boy),

Clearly you have too much local incest sperm in your mouth,
and you're knowingly spreading AIDS via your brown nose.
-
Brad Guth

snicker That was a colossally stupid tantrum (not to mention
stupefyingly lame), ignorant Brad, but not nearly as stupid as your
assertions about the lifeless planet Venus.

Lately, Brad has been as full of surprises as a party balloon.
--
V.G.

"i would blame them it they went on a holy jhiad and killed off all the infidels, would you?"
- AssLexa's "200+" alien-implanted IQ jumps the rails and crashes into a grade school, killing all inside.

Change pobox dot alaska to gci.

Sarcasm is my sword, Apathy is my shield.

On Wed, 10 May 2006 18:37:40 -0800, "Vanilla Gorilla (Monkey Boy)"
wrote:

On 7 May 2006 21:53:42 -0700, "tomcat" wrote
in alt.fan.art-bell in message
s.com:


Brad Guth wrote:
Vanilla Gorilla (Monkey Boy),
Clearly you have too much local incest sperm in your mouth, and you're
knowingly spreading AIDS via your brown nose.
-
Brad Guth



Brad, you have noticed they have medical problems too. Aids isn't the
only one. They are afraid of I.Q. tests. I mentioned them and
underwent massive attack. Especially from William Mook.

Well, if my I.Q. were low I'd be worried too, I guess.

Apparently not.

Have either one of them managed to explain how they manage to
"diagnose" AIDS from text posts? (Be unir gurl whfg qribyirq vagb
nabgure nq-ubzvarz fyhec-srfg?)

ESL!

--
Bookman -The Official Overseer of Kooks and Trolls in AFA-B
Kazoo Konspirator #668 (The Neighbor of the Beast)
Clue-Bat Wrangler
Keeper of the Nickname Lists
Despotic Kookologist of the New World Order
Hammer of Thor award, October 2005

"I'd love to kill you in a ring" - Bartmo gets all touchy-feely

"****SPV....... So yes I am an idiot."

"ASK THE NWS, YOUR TAX DOLLAR GOES TO THEM NOT TO DR.TURI."
- Mr. Turi explains how to accurately predict hurricanes

Bookman is yet another Usenet fignuten, meaning naysayer and/or
rusemaster of their incest cloned Third Reich. In other words, you're
communicating with an intellectual if not a biological clone of
Hitler.
- Brad Guth tries to wax "scientific", but invokes Godwin, instead.

WWFSMD?

Bookman,
We see that you're off-topic naysayism is sucking and blowing as per
usual.

Too bad that other nearby intelligent life, as well as for that within
the universe, is going to have to first exterminate the inferior incest
cloned forms of "Bookman" before they dare set their ET foot upon
whatever's left of our global warming Earth.
-
Brad Guth

tomcat wrote:
wrote:
Yeah, why does he need it all up front? I mean, if I'm doing a project
I just need regular payments to keep the project rolling. I need a
commitment to the project sure, but not the cash. Of course those
putting up the cash need milestones to release the cash. Maybe that's
what tomcat wants to avoid. More likely he paranoid about the folks
paying out the $8 billion. Sure they promised they'd pay it, but he
doesn't trust them unless he has it.

Still, $8 billion over 8 years assuming a straightline burn rate will
earn an additional $2.88 billion over that period assuming it earns 8%
on the unspent balance. That's a hefty price tag to pay for tomcat's
paranoia. Also, regular payments can be used to build up a performance
bond gradually while increasing your bondablity because you're
achieving milestones all along the way. Actually, you use qualified
vendors who back you up with formal quotes and they get the performance
bond.

I can't figure out tomcat's program. Most projects start with a
revenue stream, and work out a value of it, and work backwards from
there to justify an expenditure.

For example, if you're going to build an $8 billion offshore oil
drilling platform, you start out with independent reserve estimates and
engineering reports that tell you how much oil this puppy will produce
and how fast, and how much it will cost. You get the rights to the
stretch of water it will operate in. You get all the subs lined up
with formal quotes and all. Then, you find qualified partners to
operate it. Then, you're ready to find folks to invest.

In an aerospace context this would work like, well, lets say we have a
sponsor who owns some IP related to providing telephone services
worldwide. A method of using phased array antennae to paint many
stationary cells on the ground from a single moving satellite all
without cell towers, a method of satellite to satellite open optical
communication that allows 20 trillion bits per second exchange rate, to
create a open optical backbone among hundreds of satelites, a method of
control and command that allows global connection to existing cell
phones, the legal framework to allow you to operate all over the world
with this setup... this would be funded with VC money, probably to the
tune of $20 million to $30 million - with cool models, computer
simulations and so forth...

Now, you get estimates of demand for this service - say 10 billion
telephone channels - pricing structure $1 per month, and cost structure
84 satellites costing $120 million each, with qualified vendors giving
formal quotes, then you find qualified partners to operate it. Now,
you're ready to find folks to invest.

The qualified vendors put up the bonding money in this case... but its
the discounted value of the cash flow that drives the project. In the
case of the oil drilling platform, it might produce 78,000 barrels of
oil per day over 30 years to justify the $8 billion expenditure. In
the case of the telephone in the sky you might make $1 billion per
month in fees initially growing to $10 billion per month over a 30 year
period to justify the $10 billion in cost.

So, tomcat wants $8 billion up front to build a spaceship. Okay, but
what's the economic utility of it? What good is it? Sure, you can zip
around the solar system, but what is the economic utility of that? If
he can answer that question at least his proposed program would start
to make sense.

Then, there are the technical questions. How does his spaceship work?
I dunno, he can't figure out the limits and strengths of an SRB, and he
can't see the difference between lifting something slow versus lifting
something quick with a rocket out of gravity field - it makes me wonder
about his ability to do anything in this context.




There's uranium on the Moon too, not just He-3. In the evening the
miners could guzzle down beer made with Moon water. They could line
their caves with Moon manufactured titanium/aluminum alloy. All this,
not to mention their $300,000 dollar a year salary.


tomcat


There's Uranium and He-3 on the Earth too. So, if you can make money
mining these products on the Moon, you can make a helluva lot more
money mining them on Earth.

BTW - your 3 million pound saucer would have to be built in place. If
you used pressurized stainless construction you'd spend about $6
million on stainless. Now, the thing is you'd have to form about 5,500
separate pieces of stainless and weld them together. Each 3' x 3'
piece would mass about 510 pounds - steel plate really, well it IS the
size of a small battleship!!! You'd have to use a big press to form
each one. And you'd have to use a separate mold for each piece. Now a
mold that big would cost around $60,000 - and it would be made by an
automated 5 axis mill - under computer direction. If you gave yourself
3 years to set up your shop, you'd need 5 years to build it - no
testing except static ground tests for something this big - um, and
you'd produce 1,100 pieces per year - about 100 per month. 25 per
week. Five per work day - which can be supplied by a single press -
with a huge shop surrounding it - everyone tied to some sort of network
to keep pieces straight so they get the right work done on them.

Now,you'd break the disk up into similar shapes so that you don't have
as many molds to make as you otherwise might. So, you'd form the disk
in rings made of similarly shaped pieces. If any special pieces had to
be made, or modifications, that would be done by hand. There'd also be
finishing work. You might get by with 200 or so molds - and at $60,000
a piece - that's another $12 million. The handwork and finishing work
on each piece might add another $3,000 per piece - that's another $16.5
million and you'd want to make spares of everything so if you ****ed up
a piece you'd be able to pull a spare out and use it. So, lets make
two spares for every live one - that's another $18 million in
stainless, and we'll mold them but not finish them. So, we need a
warehouse, and a good tracking system. Does tomcat run SAP? Who
knows.

Let's see where are we?

$6 million - original stainless
$18 million - spare stainless
$12 million - tooling
$ 2 million - rework
$ 5 million - warehousing, tracking, movement
-------------------
$43 million - for the main saucer

Assembly will be a bitch. To big for wheels, and tomcat doesn't want
to put enough engines on the thing for direct ascent, so you'll build
it in place, and use ground effect to move it, as in some plans for
very very large military transport aircraft proposed in the past (but
never built) Ground effect is good for a disc, and you can even use
the turbopump exhaust gases from the 30 SSME you've got - vent those
around the edge of the disc - the disc itself forms a skirt - and
you're floating.

I'd build it in Bonneville Salt Flats - that's big enough and flat
enough, and if something goes wrong, you won't kill too many people.

I'd also use a pressure stabilized main assembly structure - a 500
foot diameter hemisphere of kevlar fabric - white to reflect most of
the heat, but transparent enough to provide lighting. The white kevlar
also can be illuminated by spots around the edges inside at night, to
provide nearly daylight conditions. Computer controls can maintain
constant lighting throughout the 24 hour period inside.

The 197,000 square foot of floor space with pressure stabilized roof,
and air handling, you'd probably want it air conditioned, filtered,
would likely cost something on the order of $19 million to build.
You'd also want you press area and shops around the edges of the
structure, with a noise reducing block wall rising to the kevlar
ceiling surrounding the presses and other noise producing operations.

Since the structure is pressure stabilized it will have to be held in
place during assembly until it is gas tight. So, that means each of
the 5,500 pieces will need a special fixture. Those pieces on the
underside are easy, they'd be on a mobile table that gimbaled around on
a telescoping arm and then locked into place with pressure fittings -
all to hold the piece in place. This could be controlled by GPS and
networked to a central controller, so that you'd get an image of where
you were relative to the 'virtual' saucer being built in the computer
memory. The table would consist of a piece of molded plastic, that
actually was blow molded against the stainless piece itself, so it fit
snugly.while being attached to the gimballing telescoping arm. So, as
a piece was finished you'd blow a support around it with a thermoset
plastic,attach it to its arm, and a worker with a gps enabled laptop
would walk it over to its spot, and set it in place. He or she would
lock it in place and go get another piece. Each table would likely run
around $4,000 - and you'd need around 2,750 of them - which would add
another $11 million to the underside.

The topside is a little more tricky...

You could have an overhead crane 300 feet wide - as long as a football
field, carrying as many as 100 pieces each on a telescoping arm, each
weighing as much as 1,100 pounds! You'd need about 100 of these to
hold all the pieces in place. Each of these would likely cost around
$200,000 and you'd need 100 of them - that's another $20 million.

For each 'row' of pieces and then attach telescoping arms to
them,pulling them downward and rotating the stainless piece snugly in
place. with the GPS guided heads (removable so you'd only need one, but
would want spares)

You'd need to place 5 a day over a five year period. So, that's one
shift I'd say - and one person. I'd dress everyone in a bunny suit who
had access to the central core, and the ring would be separated not
only by block walls, for noise reduction, but also the ventlation
system would blow from the center outward, to keep dirt and dust to
zilch in the center. Inside the block wall would be the staging area
for tools and parts.

As you positioned the pieces in place, you'd have a welder who
referring to his gps guided computer screen, perhaps built into his or
her welding helmet, who would weld each of the pieces in place.
Again, 5 pieces per day, one person one shift is sufficient.
You'd need a vacuum source drawing air from around the welding point so
that weldment particles didn't contaminate the work. But that's not
especially difficult to do.

So, you'd proceed from one side of the saucer to the other, putting
pieces in place a row at a time,and welding them all in place. You'd
pull tables and overhead cranes from one side and pull them over to the
other side. The welder and placer could work together to pull the
overhead cranes and place them at the end of each row. This would be
done every 20 days or so.

Each of the guys doing this work if paid $200,000 per year - would cost
another $2 million. You might want two back up crew - in case one of
these dudes got sick, or died or something. Another $4 milion -

So where are we at?

Assembly bay $19 million
Assy tooling: $31 million
Assy labor $ 6 million

Total assembly $56 million

As the saucer was assembled, you would have things attached to this
airframe, and that could be done as it was completed. Avionics,
electrics, mechanicals, etc., etc., would have to be added - that would
take more manufacturing space, and another five or six people. But
you'd also have more tooling and so forth...

Then you'd have to devise a testing program for the thing. Tests of
welds and so forth during assembly. Tests of subsystems as they were
completed, pressure tests. Then system level tests and static tests of
the complete article. Then, you might consider a flight test or two.
Hover test. Flight in hover mode. Flight in dynamic mode,
transitioning back to hover and stopping. You could have landing gear
on the thing, but not typical landing gear. The ground effect would
operate until you were stationary, and then, there would be supports
that the monster would sit on once it was stationary. If you did
things right four to six people around the edge of the saucer in ground
effect could guide it with ropes - to position it precisely using GPS
again - inside its 'hangar' Reminiscent of how they got dirigibles to
dock at the old sky ports.

I imagine that the production area would ring 180 degrees of the base
of the hemispherical assembly area. That way the kevlar roof could be
folded back to launch the saucer.


$43 million - parts
$56 million - assembly

$99 million - TOTAL


Costs typical of aircraft construction are such that if the airframe
costs something on the order of $100 million - then avionics,
mechanicals and all the rest, add about another $100 million -

So, the big ass saucer, complete, would likely cost around $200 million
- add another $50 million to that to be safe, and we have the engines.

Now, an SSME costs around $70 million if you buy one. If you buy more
the price goes down. Assuming you can get NASA to approve the use you
have for it. But, you might get them as cheapy as $40 million. So, 30
of them are $1,200,000 - and you'd likely spend another $5 million each
attaching them to the airframe we just constructed and outfitted. So,
that's another $150 million.

Pretty pricey.

You might want to talk to TRW folks about a pintle fed engine - and to
lockheed about fabricating a linear aerospike expansion nozzle across
the back of the saucer to provide lift - and I'd use differential
thrust along the aerospike, and pitching of the aerospike itself - to
provide directional control.

I think a custom designed engine for this thing could cost as little as
$200 million - and that includes testing and development. While you're
putting your assembly and production area together and completing
design of the saucer section, over the first three years, you could be
funding a TRW/Lockheed program to adapt their aerospike pintle
technology for use on the saucer. The entire thing could be developed
for $45 million or so, and a section even built. The linear engine
would be built in sections over the five year period and attached to
the trailing edge of the saucer. So, you'd want to complete the
trailing edge first, in the first 90 days, and then start attaching
propulsion sections to the tail as you completed the main saucer
section.

So, lets say propulsion is $250 million - over the 8 year period. - so
that's $500 million total for the whole thing.

I'd build three of them in parallel just to have some spare test
articles - that's $1,500 million -

Payload - don't know what's up there. Damn certain not to be a radium
based ion engine as they keep saying, because radium engines put out
only a micro-gee and it takes a century to go from LEO to lunar free
return trajectory with them... so, that's not going to work.

But one things damned certain, $8 billion - up front - is way too
costly. Um, you could likely build a copy of the first saucer once you
had all tooling in place, for another $200 million - so using $1.5
billion to build up three saucers and three production hangars you'd
have $8.5 billion left after 8 years (time value of money, earning
interest on the unspent balances) you could build 45 more saucers -
probably all in the alloted time, by hiring 4x as many people and
putting them on a 24 hour shift.

What would you do with 48 saucers each 225 feet in diameter and each
fully fueled massing 36 million pounds each capable of putting 1
million pounds into LEO per launch

wrote:
There's Uranium and He-3 on the Earth too. So, if you can make money
mining these products on the Moon, you can make a helluva lot more
money mining them on Earth.


If He-3 can be obtained from natural gas as easily as you say, then
mining them on Earth might be preferable. The literature on natural
gas He-3 sounds to me like it would be a slow process because of the
scarcity of He-3 in natural gas and production might not meet demand or
even come close to meeting demand.


BTW - your 3 million pound saucer would have to be built in place. If
you used pressurized stainless construction you'd spend about $6
million on stainless. Now, the thing is you'd have to form about 5,500
separate pieces of stainless and weld them together. Each 3' x 3'
piece would mass about 510 pounds - steel plate really, well it IS the
size of a small battleship!!! You'd have to use a big press to form
each one. And you'd have to use a separate mold for each piece. Now a
mold that big would cost around $60,000 - and it would be made by an
automated 5 axis mill - under computer direction. If you gave yourself
3 years to set up your shop, you'd need 5 years to build it - no
testing except static ground tests for something this big - um, and
you'd produce 1,100 pieces per year - about 100 per month. 25 per
week. Five per work day - which can be supplied by a single press -
with a huge shop surrounding it - everyone tied to some sort of network
to keep pieces straight so they get the right work done on them.

Now,you'd break the disk up into similar shapes so that you don't have
as many molds to make as you otherwise might. So, you'd form the disk
in rings made of similarly shaped pieces. If any special pieces had to
be made, or modifications, that would be done by hand. There'd also be
finishing work. You might get by with 200 or so molds - and at $60,000
a piece - that's another $12 million. The handwork and finishing work
on each piece might add another $3,000 per piece - that's another $16.5
million and you'd want to make spares of everything so if you ****ed up
a piece you'd be able to pull a spare out and use it. So, lets make
two spares for every live one - that's another $18 million in
stainless, and we'll mold them but not finish them. So, we need a
warehouse, and a good tracking system. Does tomcat run SAP? Who
knows.

Let's see where are we?

$6 million - original stainless
$18 million - spare stainless
$12 million - tooling
$ 2 million - rework
$ 5 million - warehousing, tracking, movement
-------------------
$43 million - for the main saucer

Assembly will be a bitch. To big for wheels, and tomcat doesn't want
to put enough engines on the thing for direct ascent, so you'll build
it in place, and use ground effect to move it, as in some plans for
very very large military transport aircraft proposed in the past (but
never built) Ground effect is good for a disc, and you can even use
the turbopump exhaust gases from the 30 SSME you've got - vent those
around the edge of the disc - the disc itself forms a skirt - and
you're floating.

I'd build it in Bonneville Salt Flats - that's big enough and flat
enough, and if something goes wrong, you won't kill too many people.

I'd also use a pressure stabilized main assembly structure - a 500
foot diameter hemisphere of kevlar fabric - white to reflect most of
the heat, but transparent enough to provide lighting. The white kevlar
also can be illuminated by spots around the edges inside at night, to
provide nearly daylight conditions. Computer controls can maintain
constant lighting throughout the 24 hour period inside.

The 197,000 square foot of floor space with pressure stabilized roof,
and air handling, you'd probably want it air conditioned, filtered,
would likely cost something on the order of $19 million to build.
You'd also want you press area and shops around the edges of the
structure, with a noise reducing block wall rising to the kevlar
ceiling surrounding the presses and other noise producing operations.

Since the structure is pressure stabilized it will have to be held in
place during assembly until it is gas tight. So, that means each of
the 5,500 pieces will need a special fixture. Those pieces on the
underside are easy, they'd be on a mobile table that gimbaled around on
a telescoping arm and then locked into place with pressure fittings -
all to hold the piece in place. This could be controlled by GPS and
networked to a central controller, so that you'd get an image of where
you were relative to the 'virtual' saucer being built in the computer
memory. The table would consist of a piece of molded plastic, that
actually was blow molded against the stainless piece itself, so it fit
snugly.while being attached to the gimballing telescoping arm. So, as
a piece was finished you'd blow a support around it with a thermoset
plastic,attach it to its arm, and a worker with a gps enabled laptop
would walk it over to its spot, and set it in place. He or she would
lock it in place and go get another piece. Each table would likely run
around $4,000 - and you'd need around 2,750 of them - which would add
another $11 million to the underside.

The topside is a little more tricky...

You could have an overhead crane 300 feet wide - as long as a football
field, carrying as many as 100 pieces each on a telescoping arm, each
weighing as much as 1,100 pounds! You'd need about 100 of these to
hold all the pieces in place. Each of these would likely cost around
$200,000 and you'd need 100 of them - that's another $20 million.

For each 'row' of pieces and then attach telescoping arms to
them,pulling them downward and rotating the stainless piece snugly in
place. with the GPS guided heads (removable so you'd only need one, but
would want spares)

You'd need to place 5 a day over a five year period. So, that's one
shift I'd say - and one person. I'd dress everyone in a bunny suit who
had access to the central core, and the ring would be separated not
only by block walls, for noise reduction, but also the ventlation
system would blow from the center outward, to keep dirt and dust to
zilch in the center. Inside the block wall would be the staging area
for tools and parts.

As you positioned the pieces in place, you'd have a welder who
referring to his gps guided computer screen, perhaps built into his or
her welding helmet, who would weld each of the pieces in place.
Again, 5 pieces per day, one person one shift is sufficient.
You'd need a vacuum source drawing air from around the welding point so
that weldment particles didn't contaminate the work. But that's not
especially difficult to do.

So, you'd proceed from one side of the saucer to the other, putting
pieces in place a row at a time,and welding them all in place. You'd
pull tables and overhead cranes from one side and pull them over to the
other side. The welder and placer could work together to pull the
overhead cranes and place them at the end of each row. This would be
done every 20 days or so.

Each of the guys doing this work if paid $200,000 per year - would cost
another $2 million. You might want two back up crew - in case one of
these dudes got sick, or died or something. Another $4 milion -

So where are we at?

Assembly bay $19 million
Assy tooling: $31 million
Assy labor $ 6 million

Total assembly $56 million

As the saucer was assembled, you would have things attached to this
airframe, and that could be done as it was completed. Avionics,
electrics, mechanicals, etc., etc., would have to be added - that would
take more manufacturing space, and another five or six people. But
you'd also have more tooling and so forth...

Then you'd have to devise a testing program for the thing. Tests of
welds and so forth during assembly. Tests of subsystems as they were
completed, pressure tests. Then system level tests and static tests of
the complete article. Then, you might consider a flight test or two.
Hover test. Flight in hover mode. Flight in dynamic mode,
transitioning back to hover and stopping. You could have landing gear
on the thing, but not typical landing gear. The ground effect would
operate until you were stationary, and then, there would be supports
that the monster would sit on once it was stationary. If you did
things right four to six people around the edge of the saucer in ground
effect could guide it with ropes - to position it precisely using GPS
again - inside its 'hangar' Reminiscent of how they got dirigibles to
dock at the old sky ports.

I imagine that the production area would ring 180 degrees of the base
of the hemispherical assembly area. That way the kevlar roof could be
folded back to launch the saucer.


$43 million - parts
$56 million - assembly

$99 million - TOTAL


Costs typical of aircraft construction are such that if the airframe
costs something on the order of $100 million - then avionics,
mechanicals and all the rest, add about another $100 million -

So, the big ass saucer, complete, would likely cost around $200 million
- add another $50 million to that to be safe, and we have the engines.

Now, an SSME costs around $70 million if you buy one. If you buy more
the price goes down. Assuming you can get NASA to approve the use you
have for it. But, you might get them as cheapy as $40 million. So, 30
of them are $1,200,000 - and you'd likely spend another $5 million each
attaching them to the airframe we just constructed and outfitted. So,
that's another $150 million.

Pretty pricey.

You might want to talk to TRW folks about a pintle fed engine - and to
lockheed about fabricating a linear aerospike expansion nozzle across
the back of the saucer to provide lift - and I'd use differential
thrust along the aerospike, and pitching of the aerospike itself - to
provide directional control.

I think a custom designed engine for this thing could cost as little as
$200 million - and that includes testing and development. While you're
putting your assembly and production area together and completing
design of the saucer section, over the first three years, you could be
funding a TRW/Lockheed program to adapt their aerospike pintle
technology for use on the saucer. The entire thing could be developed
for $45 million or so, and a section even built. The linear engine
would be built in sections over the five year period and attached to
the trailing edge of the saucer. So, you'd want to complete the
trailing edge first, in the first 90 days, and then start attaching
propulsion sections to the tail as you completed the main saucer
section.

So, lets say propulsion is $250 million - over the 8 year period. - so
that's $500 million total for the whole thing.

I'd build three of them in parallel just to have some spare test
articles - that's $1,500 million -

Payload - don't know what's up there. Damn certain not to be a radium
based ion engine as they keep saying, because radium engines put out
only a micro-gee and it takes a century to go from LEO to lunar free
return trajectory with them... so, that's not going to work.

But one things damned certain, $8 billion - up front - is way too
costly. Um, you could likely build a copy of the first saucer once you
had all tooling in place, for another $200 million - so using $1.5
billion to build up three saucers and three production hangars you'd
have $8.5 billion left after 8 years (time value of money, earning
interest on the unspent balances) you could build 45 more saucers -
probably all in the alloted time, by hiring 4x as many people and
putting them on a 24 hour shift.

What would you do with 48 saucers each 225 feet in diameter and each
fully fueled massing 36 million pounds each capable of putting 1
million pounds into LEO per launch





I found this post to be fascinating. Thank-you. I disagree with some
of the points made, however.

The cost per saucer is bound to be at least around 4+ billion dollars.
Your post assumes everything goes smoothly and does not get into some
of the costlier aspects of the construction such as certain necessary
R&D, Computer Design, pricing changes over the years, or even the very
costly inner and outer skin, with the inner skin capable of at least
2000 deg. F. and insulating the saucer as well, and the outer skin
capable of 20,000+ deg. F. to handle planetfall emergencies.
Manufacturing 'air brakes' would take this current technology into the
realm of reentry heat of 20,000 deg. F. with airflow exceeding mach
100. Real R&D here!

Yes, 2 should be built with spare parts to build a third. But I will
charge more for the second saucer. An additional 7 billion dollars,
upfront, to be exact.

I might even enter into a contract where the buyer would be returned --
at the end of the construction -- any unused money less the interest.
The interest would become the 'profit' on the deal and stay with the
corporation I form. My personal salary would be 1 million U.S. dollars
per year; it would be included in the 8 billion U.S. dollars upfront
amount.

I would look for an alternative to relatively heavy stainless steel,
but I know that, for cryogenic tanks, stainless is best to prevent
embrittlement. The outer hull inner skin would be thin titanium
laminated with basalt fabric and graphite epoxy. Might even get a
little carbon fiber into the inner skin. It is strong and can take the
heat better than basalt, but basalt is also very strong and thermally
insulating.

Once again, a truly fascinating post, that I will reread and get back
to.


tomcat

http://web.umr.edu/~om/soho.prn.pdf#search='helium%203%20abundance%20luna r%20soil%20.pdf'

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/moon99/pdf/8002.pdf#search='helium%203%20abundance%20lunar%20 soil%20.pdf'

In Earth's natural gas supply there is 1 He3 atom for every 1 million
He4 iirc. And if I read these papers right, there is 1 He3 atom in
oxygen rich lunar soil for every 260,000 He4 atoms. So, I don't see
much difference in the process, except one can take place at natural
gas transmission/compression facilities and the other takes place on
the moon AFTER you've scraped up millions of tons of the stuff, heated
it all to 1050C and sucked off the vapors that come out! And THEN,
cryogenically separate the liquids, and THEN istopically separate the
He3.

shrug

Clearly talking to a specialty gas company about installing and
operating some equipment you pay for and pay them to run, in an
existing Helium production line is a far better way to go. In fact,
just agree to pay them 10x the cost of Helium 4 for your Helium 3 and
agree to take as much as they produce, and they'll do it all for you.
All you gotta do is store it and wait for the day He3 reactors are
developed.

If you want to increase production of He4 to support increased
production of He3, start a dirigible company and guaranteed minimum
purchases of He4 in the quantities needed and use them to refill your
dirigibles.

As outlandish as this sounds (because there's no clear market for a
dirigible airline and there's no clear market for He3 yet) its far
saner and technically doable than building a moonship and lunar city to
extract He3 on the moon.