Post Shuttle SSME Applications

(Resent : removed sci.space.tech, added sci.environment)

Here's one we've been looking at closely :

Single SSME on a CBC with two GEM-60s in an SSTO configuration.

Frankenstein and upper stage variations available.

http://cosmic.lifeform.org

On a pleasant day while strolling in sci.space.shuttle, a person by the
name of Thomas Lee Elifritz exclaimed:
(Resent : removed sci.space.tech, added sci.environment)

Here's one we've been looking at closely :

Single SSME on a CBC with two GEM-60s in an SSTO configuration.

I thought the consensus was the SSMEs are an incredibly complex and
expensive rocket that nobody would use by choice. (hence, dropped from
the new program...)
--
aaronl at consultant dot com
For every expert, there is an equal and
opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke

Aaron Lawrence wrote:
On a pleasant day while strolling in sci.space.shuttle, a person by the
name of Thomas Lee Elifritz exclaimed:
(Resent : removed sci.space.tech, added sci.environment)

Here's one we've been looking at closely :

Single SSME on a CBC with two GEM-60s in an SSTO configuration.

I thought the consensus was the SSMEs are an incredibly complex and
expensive rocket that nobody would use by choice. (hence, dropped from
the new program...)

The new program sucks, the SSMEs are the most powerful and efficient
rocket engines ever produced my mankind, and the only engines which even
approach the thrust and Isp required for SSTO development. They're the
only game in town. What I'm trying to do is use them now, and not have
them be dug out in another 40 years from now by some geeky Mike Griffin
clone and refurbished for use on another ill advised moon program in the
manner that the J-2 is being resurrected 40 years after the fact now.

Right now I'm leaning to a new tank with no top mounted payload shroud,
just the hydrogen on top and the oxygen underneath, with the GEM-60s
running from the engine thrust structure to the intertank segment, and
any payload side mounted at the thrust structure. Here the tanks and
residual fuel is the payload, along with the pressurization subsystem
and the fuel scavenging system, all mounted adjacent the engine, and in
the intertank section. The Boeing CBC is just too heavy the way it is.

I've just recently come to the conclusion that a pair of GEM-60s is
cheaper than any flying wing variation of an air launched mothership.

I've heard that a minimum of 12 flight ready SSMEs will be available.

http://cosmic.lifeform.org

two stage to orbit much less costly, already been done, black program

Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote in
:

Aaron Lawrence wrote:
On a pleasant day while strolling in sci.space.shuttle, a person by the
name of Thomas Lee Elifritz exclaimed:
(Resent : removed sci.space.tech, added sci.environment)

Here's one we've been looking at closely :

Single SSME on a CBC with two GEM-60s in an SSTO configuration.

I thought the consensus was the SSMEs are an incredibly complex and
expensive rocket that nobody would use by choice. (hence, dropped from
the new program...)

The new program sucks, the SSMEs are the most powerful and efficient
rocket engines ever produced my mankind, and the only engines which even
approach the thrust and Isp required for SSTO development. They're the
only game in town. What I'm trying to do is use them now, and not have
them be dug out in another 40 years from now by some geeky Mike Griffin
clone and refurbished for use on another ill advised moon program in the
manner that the J-2 is being resurrected 40 years after the fact now.

Right now I'm leaning to a new tank with no top mounted payload shroud,
just the hydrogen on top and the oxygen underneath, with the GEM-60s
running from the engine thrust structure to the intertank segment, and
any payload side mounted at the thrust structure. Here the tanks and
residual fuel is the payload, along with the pressurization subsystem
and the fuel scavenging system, all mounted adjacent the engine, and in
the intertank section. The Boeing CBC is just too heavy the way it is.

I've just recently come to the conclusion that a pair of GEM-60s is
cheaper than any flying wing variation of an air launched mothership.

I've heard that a minimum of 12 flight ready SSMEs will be available.

http://cosmic.lifeform.org


You always gloss over the hard parts.

You previously stated that these tanks are payload intended as modular
habitat units to be assembled into a grand hotel in LEO. The easy part is
TSTO of these tanks -- the hard part is converting them into something
useful while wearing bulky space mittens in short duration vacuum EVAs.

Shuttle flights, say to Hubble, carry the shuttle as a Winabego Camper as
a base of operations for EVAs. You are silent on this part.

Tankage capable of surviving launch forces presents penetration problems
for astronauts suited up and working in pretty adverse and hostile
conditions, but you never mention these hurdles.

You seem intent on recycling 16 rocket engines because they are available
without thinking through, opr telling your thoughts, on the reality that a
space fleet needs to be in terms of 500 operational vehicles with spare
parts and backups, rather than 16.

Like everybody before you, you are staying with bad decisions simply
because it is the momentary path of least resistence, rather than
conceptually designing a comprehensive pathway to space which may have
more resistence on the front end but overall greater efficiency by many
magnitudes.

Unless you are capable of showing fully thought-through plans that
describe from construction on the ground through assembly in the sky,
including details of the tools in the astronauts hands, you are fostering
the continuation of noisemaking and obscurity of others plans better
thought through.

We don't have any shortages of ideas and enthusiasm -- what is absent is
comprehensiveness and attention to details. That is not attention to a few
details, like SSME thrust figures, but inattention to details of
conversion of tanks into usefulness after orbiting them.

What's so bad about giving a few month's thought, or a few years, instead
of rushing to chatter about some grand plan which you can't fully explain
and can't afford to accomplish?

Space is some 15 billion years old, humans 5 millionish. What's five more
years of deep thinking compared to that?

Weather From HELL!!! CO2 Storms!!! wrote:
Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote in
:

Aaron Lawrence wrote:
On a pleasant day while strolling in sci.space.shuttle, a person by the
name of Thomas Lee Elifritz exclaimed:
(Resent : removed sci.space.tech, added sci.environment)

Here's one we've been looking at closely :

Single SSME on a CBC with two GEM-60s in an SSTO configuration.
I thought the consensus was the SSMEs are an incredibly complex and
expensive rocket that nobody would use by choice. (hence, dropped from
the new program...)
The new program sucks, the SSMEs are the most powerful and efficient
rocket engines ever produced my mankind, and the only engines which even
approach the thrust and Isp required for SSTO development. They're the
only game in town. What I'm trying to do is use them now, and not have
them be dug out in another 40 years from now by some geeky Mike Griffin
clone and refurbished for use on another ill advised moon program in the
manner that the J-2 is being resurrected 40 years after the fact now.

Right now I'm leaning to a new tank with no top mounted payload shroud,
just the hydrogen on top and the oxygen underneath, with the GEM-60s
running from the engine thrust structure to the intertank segment, and
any payload side mounted at the thrust structure. Here the tanks and
residual fuel is the payload, along with the pressurization subsystem
and the fuel scavenging system, all mounted adjacent the engine, and in
the intertank section. The Boeing CBC is just too heavy the way it is.

I've just recently come to the conclusion that a pair of GEM-60s is
cheaper than any flying wing variation of an air launched mothership.

I've heard that a minimum of 12 flight ready SSMEs will be available.

You always gloss over the hard parts.

You previously stated that these tanks are payload intended as modular
habitat units to be assembled into a grand hotel in LEO. The easy part is
TSTO of these tanks -- the hard part is converting them into something
useful while wearing bulky space mittens in short duration vacuum EVAs.

Actually, we have a TSTO launcher already : The Boeing Delta IV Medium.

I'm trying to get closer to SSTO, this is a stage and a half. By using
the SSME with GEM-60s, I get rid of the orbiter in shuttle configuration
and the upper stage in the standard TSTO configuration, and I get to
design the tank from scratch for weight and retrofit preengineering.
Those aspects alone give me order of magnitude simplification over TSTO.

Shuttle flights, say to Hubble, carry the shuttle as a Winabego Camper as
a base of operations for EVAs. You are silent on this part.

Well, I'm still thrashing out the top level design configuration.

The entire stack, engine, tankage, residual fuel, pressurization,
attitude control, is just 3 axis stabilized to point at the sun.

Any payload will be solar panels to shade the entire vehicle, and a
thermal radiator on the opposite side, attached linearly on the tank.

The hydrogen tank itself is already pressurized and residual fuel is
stored in smaller tanks, so basically the tank is good to go for
internal inflatable habitats. The airlock is built in at the top.

So basically the job is to open the airlock, move the inflatable module
inside the tank lengthwise, secure it, plug it in and then inflate it.

With a properly well preengineered tank, I think I could pressurize it
without the inflatable module, or get three inflatable spheres into it.

Tankage capable of surviving launch forces presents penetration problems
for astronauts suited up and working in pretty adverse and hostile
conditions, but you never mention these hurdles.

Hydrogen goes in at the top, there is always a large port there. That
device has to be preengineered for the airlock, as do the feed lines.

The entire pressurization system is designed from the bottom up for fuel
scavenging, it's not as if you are running that engine dry or anything.

You seem intent on recycling 16 rocket engines because they are available
without thinking through, opr telling your thoughts, on the reality that a
space fleet needs to be in terms of 500 operational vehicles with spare
parts and backups, rather than 16.

Well, it's something, rather than nothing. This is just something like a
mini shuttle, without the orbiter, and the tank goes all the way to LEO.

I want to experiment with double walled tanks, or tanks in any form.

I've thought this through, this is the simplest big rocket around.

Like everybody before you, you are staying with bad decisions simply
because it is the momentary path of least resistence, rather than
conceptually designing a comprehensive pathway to space which may have
more resistance on the front end but overall greater efficiency by many
magnitudes.

Unless you are capable of showing fully thought-through plans that
describe from construction on the ground through assembly in the sky,
including details of the tools in the astronauts hands, you are fostering
the continuation of noisemaking and obscurity of others plans better
thought through.

We don't have any shortages of ideas and enthusiasm -- what is absent is
comprehensiveness and attention to details. That is not attention to a few
details, like SSME thrust figures, but inattention to details of
conversion of tanks into usefulness after orbiting them.

What's so bad about giving a few month's thought, or a few years, instead
of rushing to chatter about some grand plan which you can't fully explain
and can't afford to accomplish?

I've been designing Frankenstein rockets for 30 years now. It's only
been recently that shuttle retirement has been mandated, and then the
SSME designed out of ESAS. This is a great chance for SSTO enthusiasts,
which on the entire planet appears to have a population of one - me.

Space is some 15 billion years old, humans 5 millionish. What's five more
years of deep thinking compared to that?

The way things are going now, I'll have 30 more years of thinking, and
after another 30 years in space, humanity will still have nothing to
show for it. We have a ****load of launchers at our disposal, and very
few payloads to fly on them, because payloads are expensive and time
consuming to put together. The SSME assisted by GEM-60s provides an
excellent set of existing engines to create a system where the launcher
itself is the payload. What I get is a very large spaceship that happens
to have a very large engine attached to it. It's not as if I'm throwing
the engine away or anything. Once I work out the details of the hyper
efficient space launch, then later I'll add the capsules and the engine
reentry pods. Eventually, I'll have full flow staged combustion engines
with hydrostatic bearings, which will be able to fly themselves back
from orbit, but to get to that point, I need to start launching tanks.

Anyways, this is looking like my best design yet :

Daughter of Frankenstein.

The 'Marilyn Munster'.

http://cosmic.lifeform.org

wrote:

two stage to orbit much less costly, already been done, black program

The 'Marilyn Munster' - One (1) SSME and two (2) GEM-60s, would be a
stage and a half (1.5) launcher with a 25 t payload - the vehicle.

http://cosmic.lifeform.org

Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote in
news
Weather From HELL!!! CO2 Storms!!! wrote:
Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote in
:

Aaron Lawrence wrote:
On a pleasant day while strolling in sci.space.shuttle, a person by
the name of Thomas Lee Elifritz exclaimed:
(Resent : removed sci.space.tech, added sci.environment)

Here's one we've been looking at closely :

Single SSME on a CBC with two GEM-60s in an SSTO configuration.
I thought the consensus was the SSMEs are an incredibly complex and
expensive rocket that nobody would use by choice. (hence, dropped
from the new program...)
The new program sucks, the SSMEs are the most powerful and efficient
rocket engines ever produced my mankind, and the only engines which
even approach the thrust and Isp required for SSTO development.
They're the only game in town. What I'm trying to do is use them now,
and not have them be dug out in another 40 years from now by some
geeky Mike Griffin clone and refurbished for use on another ill
advised moon program in the manner that the J-2 is being resurrected
40 years after the fact now.

Right now I'm leaning to a new tank with no top mounted payload
shroud, just the hydrogen on top and the oxygen underneath, with the
GEM-60s running from the engine thrust structure to the intertank
segment, and any payload side mounted at the thrust structure. Here
the tanks and residual fuel is the payload, along with the
pressurization subsystem and the fuel scavenging system, all mounted
adjacent the engine, and in the intertank section. The Boeing CBC is
just too heavy the way it is.

I've just recently come to the conclusion that a pair of GEM-60s is
cheaper than any flying wing variation of an air launched mothership.

I've heard that a minimum of 12 flight ready SSMEs will be available.

You always gloss over the hard parts.

You previously stated that these tanks are payload intended as modular
habitat units to be assembled into a grand hotel in LEO. The easy part
is TSTO of these tanks -- the hard part is converting them into
something useful while wearing bulky space mittens in short duration
vacuum EVAs.

Actually, we have a TSTO launcher already : The Boeing Delta IV Medium.

I'm trying to get closer to SSTO, this is a stage and a half. By using
the SSME with GEM-60s, I get rid of the orbiter in shuttle configuration
and the upper stage in the standard TSTO configuration, and I get to
design the tank from scratch for weight and retrofit preengineering.
Those aspects alone give me order of magnitude simplification over TSTO.

Shuttle flights, say to Hubble, carry the shuttle as a Winabego Camper
as a base of operations for EVAs. You are silent on this part.

Well, I'm still thrashing out the top level design configuration.

The entire stack, engine, tankage, residual fuel, pressurization,
attitude control, is just 3 axis stabilized to point at the sun.

Any payload will be solar panels to shade the entire vehicle, and a
thermal radiator on the opposite side, attached linearly on the tank.


So you really haven't given this idea any deep thought, have you?

The shuttle orbiter has several convenient functions all in one:

(1) It carries a crew in relative comfort for a week stay.
(2) It serves as a refuge to come home to after extra-vehicular
activities. (3) It serves as a re-entry vehicle to bring the SSME back to
Earth for re-use.

You imply a "Gemini-type" capsule on the fuel tank. The crew then lives in
that cramped quarters until they rehab the tank, presumably through some
hatch connecting the two.

No provisions for airlock appears in your description, so the means for
detaching the SSME and then building an entire re-entry vehicle to return
the SSME has to be done in vacuum from inside the tank initially, then
outside, wearing space mittens that hardly flex.

The inflatable return vehicle, the parachute thingy, may eventually get
solved, but the mindpower spent on that instead of the SSTO flying wing
has a steep a cost with a far lower payback.

Don't even think any more on this path whatsoever until you have
assimilated the state-of-the-art of carbon fiber geopolymer composites.

Do the math on surface area on the tank and on a wing.

Do the math of cost of metal tanks versus carbon-geopolymers.

I told you, that you are stuck in the past mistakes and you must break
that path completely to climb the Ladder to the Planets and to the Stars.
You can't skip a single rung on that Ladder -- there are no shortcuts. The
Ladder not only is the shortest most direct path, it is the only path
possible because you (all) are burning your base on Earth faster than you
are climbing high.

In order to make it in space you not only need the right hardware, you
need the right mind -- not any old mind will do.

First off, you don't own any SSMEs. Cronyism already has them passed down
the line to others who salivate over them.

Secondly, .. well forget about it, I could go on to make a list of over
100 items.

NOBODY has ever gotten into space by inattention to details and nobody
ever will.

Space will kill you in a second for getting one detail wrong.

snip -- no point in arguing...


Anyways, this is looking like my best design yet :


That's a scary thought. Don't tell anybody that or their opinion of you
will go down. It's better if people think you are putting the junk out in
public and keeping the good stuff to yourself.

Weather From HELL!!! CO2 Storms!!! wrote:
Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote in
news
Weather From HELL!!! CO2 Storms!!! wrote:
Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote in
:

Aaron Lawrence wrote:
On a pleasant day while strolling in sci.space.shuttle, a person by
the name of Thomas Lee Elifritz exclaimed:
(Resent : removed sci.space.tech, added sci.environment)

Here's one we've been looking at closely :

Single SSME on a CBC with two GEM-60s in an SSTO configuration.
I thought the consensus was the SSMEs are an incredibly complex and
expensive rocket that nobody would use by choice. (hence, dropped
from the new program...)
The new program sucks, the SSMEs are the most powerful and efficient
rocket engines ever produced my mankind, and the only engines which
even approach the thrust and Isp required for SSTO development.
They're the only game in town. What I'm trying to do is use them now,
and not have them be dug out in another 40 years from now by some
geeky Mike Griffin clone and refurbished for use on another ill
advised moon program in the manner that the J-2 is being resurrected
40 years after the fact now.

Right now I'm leaning to a new tank with no top mounted payload
shroud, just the hydrogen on top and the oxygen underneath, with the
GEM-60s running from the engine thrust structure to the intertank
segment, and any payload side mounted at the thrust structure. Here
the tanks and residual fuel is the payload, along with the
pressurization subsystem and the fuel scavenging system, all mounted
adjacent the engine, and in the intertank section. The Boeing CBC is
just too heavy the way it is.

I've just recently come to the conclusion that a pair of GEM-60s is
cheaper than any flying wing variation of an air launched mothership.

I've heard that a minimum of 12 flight ready SSMEs will be available.
You always gloss over the hard parts.

You previously stated that these tanks are payload intended as modular
habitat units to be assembled into a grand hotel in LEO. The easy part
is TSTO of these tanks -- the hard part is converting them into
something useful while wearing bulky space mittens in short duration
vacuum EVAs.
Actually, we have a TSTO launcher already : The Boeing Delta IV Medium.

I'm trying to get closer to SSTO, this is a stage and a half. By using
the SSME with GEM-60s, I get rid of the orbiter in shuttle configuration
and the upper stage in the standard TSTO configuration, and I get to
design the tank from scratch for weight and retrofit preengineering.
Those aspects alone give me order of magnitude simplification over TSTO.

Shuttle flights, say to Hubble, carry the shuttle as a Winabego Camper
as a base of operations for EVAs. You are silent on this part.
Well, I'm still thrashing out the top level design configuration.

The entire stack, engine, tankage, residual fuel, pressurization,
attitude control, is just 3 axis stabilized to point at the sun.

Any payload will be solar panels to shade the entire vehicle, and a
thermal radiator on the opposite side, attached linearly on the tank.


So you really haven't given this idea any deep thought, have you?

The shuttle orbiter has several convenient functions all in one:

(1) It carries a crew in relative comfort for a week stay.
(2) It serves as a refuge to come home to after extra-vehicular
activities. (3) It serves as a re-entry vehicle to bring the SSME back to
Earth for re-use.

You imply a "Gemini-type" capsule on the fuel tank. The crew then lives in
that cramped quarters until they rehab the tank, presumably through some
hatch connecting the two.

No provisions for airlock appears in your description, so the means for
detaching the SSME and then building an entire re-entry vehicle to return
the SSME has to be done in vacuum from inside the tank initially, then
outside, wearing space mittens that hardly flex.

The inflatable return vehicle, the parachute thingy, may eventually get
solved, but the mindpower spent on that instead of the SSTO flying wing
has a steep a cost with a far lower payback.

Well, that's what the Delta IV Medium is all about, I've already
demonstrated that these kinds of easy rendezvous and retrofit operations
are possible with the high energy upper stage. Here the hydrogen tank is
also on top of the oxygen tank, with the hydrogen fill port readily
accessible. The 'Marilyn Munster' configuration is the next step past
the all hydrogen TSTO Boeing Delta IV Medium, an *unmanned* habitat
launcher, the Mitsubishi tanks are just the hotel rooms and the Boeing
Delta IV Medium and the Lockheed Atlas V are the lifeboat and crew
transfer vehicles. I just need a private enterprise versions of what
NASA is doing, as now they have abandoned rationality with the ESAS.

Ultimately, I want to take many many 10 meter tanks to orbit, and I'm
certainly looking forward to space telescopes with 8 meter mirrors.

Going back to the moon is insane, we want tsunami satellites, and
earthquake satellites, and cloud and climate satellites, ice birds,
radar and whoo doos and whoo dads. It would be nice to know about when
we can expect the next supervolcano, and it would also be nice to know
when the next impact is going to be, these are all things we can nail
down, and the technology will bring the surprises necessary to find the
technological answers to our technological problems, since it is the
technology itself that seems to be the problem. Reality is harsh.

Don't even think any more on this path whatsoever until you have
assimilated the state-of-the-art of carbon fiber geopolymer composites.

Like a pair of GEM-60s.

Do the math on surface area on the tank and on a wing.

No wings involved, just six person capsule lifeboats, upper stage hotel
rooms and big ass spaceships with engines. That's what you want, right?

I wanna get SLC-34 involved again here. I want all the nations on the
planet Earth involved with this, and we aren't going back to the moon.

We're going to Phobos and Ceres, just for starters, before 2020 too.

The human race can do this, with or without the weapons.

I would rather do it without the weapons.

It's the journey to the fifth planet.

http://cosmic.lifeform.org

Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote:

I wanna get SLC-34 involved again here. I want all the nations on the
planet Earth involved with this, and we aren't going back to the moon.


Now *there* a gurantee for failure. Some (most?) things are better
done by a dedicated, non-politicized, non bureaucratized few. (recent
events in New Mexico tend to prove that. As did the DC-X, at first.)
Don't involve others just for the sake of involving them.


We're going to Phobos and Ceres, just for starters, before 2020 too.

The human race can do this, with or without the weapons.


'The human race' doesn't have anything to bring to the table. Find
those nations, organizations, companies, individuals who do. (And that
isn't just technical expertiese, but money and influence. 'The human
race' never totally agrees on anything. That's why when socialist
nations make exhortations about 'The People,' I yawn...)


--

Frank

You know what to remove to reply...

Check out my web page: http://www.geocities.com/stardolphin1/link2.htm

"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the
human spirit."
- Stephen Hawking