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Japans Moon Ambitions - They're KIDDING, Right ?



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 1st 05, 09:59 PM
Bill Bonde ( ''The chamber was in confusion, all t
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Default 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.



--
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  #2  
Old March 1st 05, 11:23 PM
Volker Hetzer
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Default

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
  #3  
Old March 2nd 05, 03:41 AM
Ed Kyle
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Default

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

  #4  
Old March 2nd 05, 05:43 AM
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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

  #6  
Old March 2nd 05, 07:32 AM
hop
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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.

  #7  
Old March 2nd 05, 02:15 PM
BlackWater
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Default

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.

  #8  
Old March 2nd 05, 02:25 PM
BlackWater
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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.

  #9  
Old March 2nd 05, 03:29 PM
kert
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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

  #10  
Old March 2nd 05, 04:19 PM
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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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