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X Prize 2
Once the X Prize is won, is a goal of achieving orbit reasonable? Could
someone build a reusable ship that is capable taking three passengers to orbit in a week for less than $10,000,000? |
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X Prize 2
"Bootstrap Bill" writes:
Once the X Prize is won, is a goal of achieving orbit reasonable? Could someone build a reusable ship that is capable taking three passengers to orbit in a week for less than $10,000,000? Let's look at it this way: Imagine a (somewhat lesser) second X-Prize for "an suborbital intercontinental flight in less than one hour, repeated on two days". What kind of problem do you see with a private company able to launch a suborbital intercontinental craft with a payload of a few hundred kilograms within one days notice? The current X-Prize is still somewhat harmless, a toy, but demonstrating a way to launch an *orbital* (or even suborbital) craft with a payload enough (among other things) for manned flight is actually demonstrating an ICBM built by means available to privately financed entities. You and me might think this is great but the world as it is doesn't. I do not think that the current political situation in the world is that much in favor for that kind of adventure. Jochem -- "A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery |
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X Prize 2
In article ,
Bootstrap Bill wrote: Once the X Prize is won, is a goal of achieving orbit reasonable? It would be better to have a smaller step between the first prize and the second one. The difference between an X-Prize vehicle and an orbital one is very large -- many people don't understand just how big a jump that is. The X-Prize guys have talked a little about follow-on prizes for more demanding suborbital flights, and about possible competitions between X-Prize-class vehicles. (Both ideas have promise, but the big question is whether donors can be found to fund such prizes.) Could someone build a reusable ship that is capable taking three passengers to orbit in a week for less than $10,000,000? Not by any orthodox route. Nor by mildly unorthodox routes; even Rotary Rocket thought Roton development would take over a hundred million. I hesitate to say that it is utterly impossible, but it would take a very unorthodox approach, even assuming that the costs are all technical and there are no significant regulatory overheads. (Note that there is a big difference between building a vehicle that can carry such a payload, and getting approval for it to carry paying passengers. Back in the 90s, Rutan's company spent about $2M building and testing a single-engine business jet... and eventually gave up on getting it certified for commercial service, after spending about $70M trying. The regulatory picture is different for spaceships, however. The good news is that orthodox certification doesn't seem to apply. The bad news is that just what *does* apply, or more precisely *will* apply, is still very unclear.) That amount of money is *not* hopelessly unreasonable for building a "bricklifter" class demonstrator -- something that will lift 1kg to orbit, come back intact, and do it again a week later. Assuming no major regulatory problems, that is. -- MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. | |
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X Prize 2
"Bootstrap Bill" wrote in message ...
Once the X Prize is won, is a goal of achieving orbit reasonable? Could someone build a reusable ship that is capable taking three passengers to orbit in a week for less than $10,000,000? The differance between the X-prize and orbit is night and day. Thay are not really comparable at all. But you need to start somewhere. So no 10 million is not enough. But then again most people that enter a race arn't there to win the money, thay are just there to win. Greg |
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X Prize 2
"Bootstrap Bill" wrote in message ...
Once the X Prize is won, is a goal of achieving orbit reasonable? Could someone build a reusable ship that is capable taking three passengers to orbit in a week for less than $10,000,000? I believe so. Single stage to orbit has been discussed here many times over. I have developed an air breathing engine that can get you to orbit with a mass ratio of about 7. This means you have enough reserve mass to have fuel for landing as well as mass for heat shield. Pure rocket SSTO designs are also possible with a small payload fraction. (1%) Such a vehicle could be built for well under 10 million. Zoltan |
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In article ,
Jochem Huhmann wrote: The current X-Prize is still somewhat harmless, a toy... Hardly -- the V-2 was not harmless. Even an X-Prize vehicle is usable as a weapon, given a suicidal pilot. It's not hard to sketch out nasty scenarios, but I will refrain. ...demonstrating a way to launch an *orbital* (or even suborbital) craft with a payload enough (among other things) for manned flight is actually demonstrating an ICBM built by means available to privately financed entities. Uh, I have news for you: privately financed entities already operate orbital launchers, and have since the late 1980s. Most of those launchers were originally government-surplus hardware... but Pegasus, first flown in 1990, was entirely privately funded. (Pegasus's creators initially rented time on a government launch aircraft, but for a decade now they've had their own private one.) The cat is very much out of the bag on this. It is so much easier to build *expendable* war rockets than to build reusable spaceships that there is simply no point in building the latter for use as ICBMs. (And if you're a terrorist, you don't bother with any of this rocket stuff, it's too conspicuous -- you buy a secondhand jet.) In the long run, when these things get *common*, then it's going to be necessary to have space traffic control, and police/military forces are going to need the ability to shoot down such vehicles, if only as the final guarantee that traffic-control orders will be listened to. Trying to limit the spread of the technology might postpone that day but won't prevent it. -- MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. | |
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Those first, history books. Those second, forgotten, other than in
court. Mike |
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