More good news

In article ,
Scott Lowther wrote:
Except, of course, for the fact that we *do.* The fact that it hasn't
flown doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I think it is worth distinguishing between a technology in general and a
specific application of it.

Just because we have the technology to do X doesn't mean we can build an X
that works 100% on the very first try, especially in a somewhat unusual
environment. It is to be expected that some testing and debugging, indeed
perhaps quite a bit of it, might be required. That doesn't mean that we
"don't have the technology"; it just means that in the real world,
*applying* even a well-mastered technology to a particular task is often
not a trivial process.

Only in the aerospace world, more specifically the space side of it, do
people delude themselves into thinking that provided there's no new
technology involved, the first prototype should work perfectly, if they
analyze it expensively enough and ground-test it endlessly enough before
flying it. (The aircraft people have no such illusions; they expect to
spend quite a while debugging their hardware once it's in the air, even if
it's a straightforward design with no radical novelties.)
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

Paul F. Dietz wrote:

Scott Lowther wrote:

In broad terms, it is. Changing components or even materials does not
necessarily change fundamental technologies. There is very little in,
say, an F-1 rocket engine that Werner von Braun ca. 1946 would have been
stumped by. The technology was essentially the same... just considerably
more developed.

This is the core of our disagreement. I do *not* consider these technologies
to be the same.

Eh. A shovel is a shovel, whether it's got an aluminum handle or a
wooden one. A rocket engine that uses fuel regen cooling, turbopumps, a
delaval nozzle and multiple spray-port injectors stands a good chance of
being pretty much a rocket engine that uses fuel regen cooling,
turbopumps, a delaval nozzle and multiple spray-port injectors. Most of
the differences are *design* differences, not fundamentals.

--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address

Scott Lowther wrote in message ...
Vincent Cate wrote:
For space space settlements to be affordable, I think we need a
vehicle with a reliable and reusable thermal protection system.

For space settlements, we have very little need for re-entry into
Earth's atmosphere *at* *all*.

You think we can have space settlements with ELVs? I think most of
us are counting on some type of RLV to bring launch costs down.
We need some kind of CATS, which has not yet been demonstrated.

There's nothing on orbit or on another
celestial body that is more valuable to a space settlement if dropped
down to Earth's surface.

A moon rock is far more valuable on the Earth's surface than on the moon.
I happen to think that using a tether to snatch some regolith from the
surface of the moon while in orbit, bringing it back to Earth, and
selling it, could be a very profitable first tether project. There
is a thread on this idea on sci.space.tech.

Technology is applied scientific theory. If nobody has flown and
tested hardware, then we don't have the technology.

Except, of course, for the fact that we *do.* The fact that it hasn't
flown doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Building but not flying is not fully applied. I don't think it is
correct to say we have a technology in hand if it has not been tested.
You can not say how much work is yet to be done.

Would you say we had the technology for powered flight before anyone
had done powered flight? I don't think most people would.

Don't fall into the Dietzist
luddite trap of believign that it desn't exist, can't exist, never will
exist. because we already have or have developed all the technologies
we'd need for any sort of reasonable "space" settlement. there are some
technologies we'd be well advised to develop to make the settlements
*better*, but we can make do with what's currently available.

Maybe next year SpaceX will finish designing, building, and even launch
their Falcon-5. I would say that at that time it will be the latest
in launch technology. Would you say the Falcon-5 technology already
exists? I think it is only correct to say that most of the technology
going into the Falcon-5 already exists, not the full system. A lot of
technology development goes into putting the pieces of a new puzzle
together.

If at the end of 2005 the Falcon-5 is the latest (and I expect the
greatest) orbital launch technology, I still don't think we will have
in hand the launch technology needed to start space settlement
(unless SpaceX surprises us and the whole thing is reusable). But you
would say we already have the launch technology needed for space
settlement today?

Remember that at the moment it is Russia who is keeping 2 guys
in space alive after maybe $60 to $100 billion has been spent.

I think things in space will now happen really fast, starting
this year, because private enterprise will be really deciding what
to do and not just government agencies. But we have a bit of work
to do yet before we can start space settlements.

-- Vince

Vincent Cate wrote:

Scott Lowther wrote in message ...
Vincent Cate wrote:
For space space settlements to be affordable, I think we need a
vehicle with a reliable and reusable thermal protection system.

For space settlements, we have very little need for re-entry into
Earth's atmosphere *at* *all*.

You think we can have space settlements with ELVs?

Most of the transportation for the settlement setup is one-way.



A moon rock is far more valuable on the Earth's surface than on the moon.
I happen to think that using a tether to snatch some regolith from the
surface of the moon while in orbit, bringing it back to Earth, and
selling it, could be a very profitable first tether project.

Uhh... sure. You get right on that.


If at the end of 2005 the Falcon-5 is the latest (and I expect the
greatest) orbital launch technology, I still don't think we will have
in hand the launch technology needed to start space settlement
(unless SpaceX surprises us and the whole thing is reusable). But you
would say we already have the launch technology needed for space
settlement today?

Back when we had the Saturn V, sure.

Remember that at the moment it is Russia who is keeping 2 guys
in space alive after maybe $60 to $100 billion has been spent.

There's sometimes a big-ass gulf between doing somethign, and doing it
very, very expensively.



--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address

Henry Spencer wrote:

In article ,
Scott Lowther wrote:
Except, of course, for the fact that we *do.* The fact that it hasn't
flown doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I think it is worth distinguishing between a technology in general and a
specific application of it.

Just because we have the technology to do X doesn't mean we can build an X
that works 100% on the very first try, especially in a somewhat unusual
environment. It is to be expected that some testing and debugging, indeed
perhaps quite a bit of it, might be required. That doesn't mean that we
"don't have the technology"; it just means that in the real world,
*applying* even a well-mastered technology to a particular task is often
not a trivial process.

Only in the aerospace world, more specifically the space side of it, do
people delude themselves into thinking that provided there's no new
technology involved, the first prototype should work perfectly, if they
analyze it expensively enough and ground-test it endlessly enough before
flying it. (The aircraft people have no such illusions; they expect to
spend quite a while debugging their hardware once it's in the air, even if
it's a straightforward design with no radical novelties.)

That's what I've been *saying...*


--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address

On Mon, 5 Jan 2004 03:01:01 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Henry Spencer) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

In article ,
Scott Lowther wrote:
Except, of course, for the fact that we *do.* The fact that it hasn't
flown doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I think it is worth distinguishing between a technology in general and a
specific application of it.

Just because we have the technology to do X doesn't mean we can build an X
that works 100% on the very first try, especially in a somewhat unusual
environment. It is to be expected that some testing and debugging, indeed
perhaps quite a bit of it, might be required. That doesn't mean that we
"don't have the technology"; it just means that in the real world,
*applying* even a well-mastered technology to a particular task is often
not a trivial process.

Only in the aerospace world, more specifically the space side of it, do
people delude themselves into thinking that provided there's no new
technology involved, the first prototype should work perfectly, if they
analyze it expensively enough and ground-test it endlessly enough before
flying it. (The aircraft people have no such illusions; they expect to
spend quite a while debugging their hardware once it's in the air, even if
it's a straightforward design with no radical novelties.)

Yes, it always comes down to differing notions of the meaning of the
word "technology."

Clearly, we need technology to attain cheap access, since the vehicles
to do so in themselves constitute "technology." But we don't need
technology in the NASA sense, of having to fly many billion-dollar
X-vehicles. The needed technologies are on the shelf, and only have
to be integrated into space transport systems and their associated
infrastructure.

Scott Lowther:
Claims
that we don't have technologies that we do in fact have are massively
counter-productive.

Claims that we have technologies that we don't are also counter-productive.

Vince:
But it would be an unusual event to find either of them wrong.

Well, both have been wrong. Henry and I tangled a number of years ago
[...]

I did not say infallible, just that it would be an "unusual event".
Henry may well have made a mistake a few years ago. :-)

on
Dyna Soar, and he was dead wrong on that (claimed that DS could only
haul one astronaut, when the actual number was five, and six with you
wanted to strip it bare);

I have not actually read my Dyna Soar book yet, just sort of flipped
through. There were many many different designs and nothing ever flew.
I don't have it handy, but I think some of the pictures had single
pilot designs and some had more than one. Don't know what hardware
was built, but my guess would be a smaller design.

Dietz is wrong in claiming that we'd need to
develop entirely new technologies to, say, move Martian dirt around.

There is a difference between developing new technologies (such as goign
from piston engines to turbojets) and making those technologies better
(making turbojets that ran a long time and had good fuel economy).

I think you added the "entirely new" requirement. This started with
someone saying we had the "technology in hand" which is not true.
Getting a bulldozer to work on the moon or Mars would really be some
new technology. We don't have the whole package now. We may
understand the issues and some possible solutions, but that is not
the same as having the thing solved. The difference can be many
millions/billions of dollars of development and a few failures in the
first attempts.

-- Vince

Vincent Cate wrote:

Scott Lowther:
Claims
that we don't have technologies that we do in fact have are massively
counter-productive.

Claims that we have technologies that we don't are also counter-productive.

Oh, sure. But the fact is, we've got what we need to start.



I have not actually read my Dyna Soar book yet, just sort of flipped
through. There were many many different designs and nothing ever flew.
I don't have it handy, but I think some of the pictures had single
pilot designs and some had more than one. Don't know what hardware
was built, but my guess would be a smaller design.

??? Smaller design? Now, there was really only the one basic size
finalized; the Boeing Model 2050E Dyna Soar, as known and loved was the
final and very refined design. The prototype was approximatley 40%
complete when cancelled, but if you can find photos of it, then you're
doing better than anyone else on the planet.

The "X-20", as such, would ahve been a single seater. Behidn the cockpit
was a sizable cargo bay, which on the X-20 would ahve been filled with
instrumentation. There were to be literally thousands of sensors all
over the craft, measuring temperatures, pressures, you name it. But once
the craft went operational, that instrumentation woudl not be needed.
And, being early sixties tech, it took up a lot of space and weighed a
lot... meaning that when you stripped it out, it cleared up a lot fo
space and paylaod weight. The cargo volume could seat four. I've photos
showing the seating arrangements, both in scale model and full-scale
humaned-mockup forms; a tight and uncomfortable ride, but who cares. And
the very aft compartment could be cleared out to seat a sixth, but this
woudl greatly reduce available power.


This started with
someone saying we had the "technology in hand" which is not true.

Except that it is. There is no need for new technology... just new
designs.


Getting a bulldozer to work on the moon or Mars would really be some
new technology.

If you wanted to. But the point is you wouldn't *need* to.

--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address

Scott Lowther wrote:
that it hasn't
flown doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Don't fall into the Dietzist
luddite trap of believign that it desn't exist, can't exist, never will
exist.

Dietz believes all that in your fevered imagination.

because we already have or have developed all the technologies
we'd need for any sort of reasonable "space" settlement. there are some
technologies we'd be well advised to develop to make the settlements
*better*, but we can make do with what's currently available.


And don't fall into the Lowtherist Zubrinite trap of dreaming away the
details.

--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html

Hop David wrote:

because we already have or have developed all the technologies
we'd need for any sort of reasonable "space" settlement. there are some
technologies we'd be well advised to develop to make the settlements
*better*, but we can make do with what's currently available.


And don't fall into the Lowtherist Zubrinite trap of dreaming away the
details.

Wow. You're not just an idiot, you're illiterate as well. Or did you
choose to not read my repeated statements that development would be
needed?

--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address