Solar Power Satellite Concept

On Sep 7, 11:16*pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
William Mook wrote:
On Sep 7, 2:04*pm, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article 1db3b1b1-11ae-4562-83e1-377ea9825ba0
@m1g2000vbh.googlegroups.com, says...

Yeah, Jeff got that one wrong. *Just as you got the one wrong about
the design status of my ET derived launch system.

You might want to read the manual for a modern engineering
workstation.

http://www.flightlevelengineering.com/

I've got 20 years of experience writing engineering software (some of
that has been supporting customers in the aerospace engineering field).. *
I know all about garbage in/garbage out when it comes to these sorts of
napkin drawings. *CFD software is getting better all the time, but it's
still a poor substitute for wind tunnel and flight testing.

Have you run a fatigue analysis on your wing structures yet? *How about
a vibration analysis? *Is there any coupling between your dynamics and
control model and the results from your vibration analysis?

I agree that's why we had a few universities do wind tunnel tests with
models.

I don't think he understood the question, Jeff...

--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
*man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
*all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * --George Bernard Shaw

This is the first time I"ve seen the question. In fact, I don't know
how I didn't see the question. Lucky you said something here. I use
an adaptive predictive feedback methodology developed on matlab.
Note, inflatable wings can have their pressure varied - and the
tension varied - to control flutter and so forth.

http://spie.org/x648.html?product_id=474699

On Sep 7, 11:53*pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote:
On 9/7/2010 10:45 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:

So, where are the actual engineering drawings? * When do we get to see
those? *What peer reviewed journal has published your papers so we can
all read them?

While he's working on that, he can also move the wings forward so that
they are near the ET's center of gravity, which will be more than
halfway to the front given the weight of the intertank structure between
the forward LOX tank and the rear LH2 tank.
The way it's designed in those drawings, all the wings and tail are
going to do is act like fins on a dart as it heads into the ground
nose-first.

That won't happen, Pat. *I mean, he used the word 'fugoid' and
everything!

--
"Ordinarily he is insane. But he has lucid moments when he is
*only stupid."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * -- Heinrich Heine

Does pat even know where the CG of the empty ET is? Or why they
loaded the dense oxygen up front? Or why a rocket is more stable if
as it empties the CG moves back? Or done a CG estimate by adding
weight equal to the ET itself AFT of the rear bulkhead? No, obviously
he hasn't so he has just revealed himself to be an idiot, and you've
revealed yourself to be an ass.

Do you know what phugoid mens Fred? I doubt it.

In article 857cfbea-3269-428f-97bc-6d9d000e4692@
11g2000yqq.googlegroups.com, says...

On Sep 7, 4:20*pm, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article 8ca3fad7-25b4-4439-a437-24c9e8fa7558
@i5g2000yqe.googlegroups.com, says...



I did subsonic tests only of the winged structure to get moments and
lift right on 1:100 scale. *I relied on published data for transonic

Truly this is only a first step. *The tricky part is those folding
wings. *I want to see the deployment of those tested in a wind tunnel. *
Heck, I'd settle for seeing the design of how they fold. *Care to share?

Think of an accordian and an airbag and you have most of it.

Inflatable wings made of flexible material or are these made of
conventional materials such as aluminum? The details here are sorely
lacking. Even with this scant bit of info, to my knowledge there has
never been a wing on an operational aircraft made in the way you're
describing.

In terms of R&D, you're delving into high risk territory here, which is
the impression I've had of these folding wings all along.

Jeff
--
The only decision you'll have to make is
Who goes in after the snake in the morning?

In article 765492e8-b048-4f8a-937a-
, says...

On Sep 7, 4:37*pm, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article 929a1499-c750-42ee-9a4e-2f1269420415
Wings which fold up oragami style
into tiny little compartments simply don't exist yet. *

Hmm... They're not orgami - more like accordian. I've been thinking
about setting off a CO2 cannister with an estes booster and putting it
into a styrofoam model and taking a picture of it.

Again,
extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Given what's been done over 40 years ago with inflatable wings - I
don't find what I'm doing that incredible - maybe I should.

Perhaps you should. There has been some *research* into inflatable
wings, but they've never been used on any operational aircraft, to my
knowledge.

NASA has done some research in this area in modern times:
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/plane...-wing-01a.html

Definately a research topic:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006APS..DFD.BM007S
http://papers.sae.org/2005-01-3392
http://www.ilcdover.com/products/aer...files/FEMofWar
pingInflatableWings.pdf
http://www.ilcdover.com/products/aer...rtfiles/07ATC-
217.pdf
http://www.ilcdover.com/products/aer...rtfiles/07ATC-
217.pdf
http://pdf.aiaa.org/preview/CDReadyM...PV2008_425.pdf

The problem you'll have here is that you'll have trouble finding
engineers who can turn this research into what you want, which is an
operational inflatable wing. The people with experience in this field
are, for the most part, researchers. They'll be all too happy to take
your money and spend it on endless research without actually building
actual flight hardware.

Also, in decades past, such innovative designs proved fatal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodyear_Inflatoplane

When people die, people can be skiddish to re-adopt failed concepts such
as this.

One problem with them is that they can prove to have a single point of
failure. That is, if the pressure in the wing drops for any reason,
you've got loss of vehicle on your hands. And since you propose to tow
the boosters with a huge tow plane, you're potentially putting the tow
plane and crew at risk.

Similar problems plague lighter than air craft to this day. Despite
their potential for lifting and transporting very heavy oversized cargo,
they simply aren't put to wide spread use.

Jeff
--
The only decision you'll have to make is
Who goes in after the snake in the morning?

In article 9cb3f9ff-be3f-40bf-8728-
, says...

See Jeff, you have the tendency to say the following; that you are
experienced that you looked at the data and that it won't work whether
you think it works or not. I mean the only reason you are asking me
publicly is to humiliate me if I say **** off, and to humiliate me if
I accede to your request. Bottom line you've got to do a whole lot
more suck up before I share that level of detail with you - and I got
to understand your interest as well. Certainly any reasonable person
can see that.

Bottom line, your comments are what I find incredible given just
general knowledge of the art. I wonder where its combine from.
Answer me that, and what this specific data will tell you about what
you find incredible and you have a shot at getting your hands on the
data you seek.

I find it extremely annoying that you repeatedly post this extremely
high level (napkin drawing) "design" of yours to these newsgroups
without anything to back it up. What you really have is an initial
concept whose numbers check out only in the sense that they are all high
level, rough order of magnitude sorts of estimates. The devil is in the
details. The history of aerospace projects is littered with thousands
of these sorts of concepts that never make it into production because
the details just didn't pan out.

You think you have a concept that will work, but it has many
technologies in it which have not flown on any production launch
vehicle. These include, but is certainly not limited to:

1. aerospike engines
2. cross-feeding of propellants
3. inflatable tps
4. inflatable wings
5. towing of a gliding vehicle as heavy as an empty launch vehicle by
tow plane

What you describe is no less than 5 individual R&D projects which must
somehow all prove successful and be merged into a single operational
vehicle. This is a recipe for failure.

Jeff
--
The only decision you'll have to make is
Who goes in after the snake in the morning?

In article ,
says...

William Mook wrote:

On Sep 7, 2:04*pm, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article 1db3b1b1-11ae-4562-83e1-377ea9825ba0
@m1g2000vbh.googlegroups.com, says...



Yeah, Jeff got that one wrong. *Just as you got the one wrong about
the design status of my ET derived launch system.

You might want to read the manual for a modern engineering
workstation.

http://www.flightlevelengineering.com/

I've got 20 years of experience writing engineering software (some of
that has been supporting customers in the aerospace engineering field). *
I know all about garbage in/garbage out when it comes to these sorts of
napkin drawings. *CFD software is getting better all the time, but it's
still a poor substitute for wind tunnel and flight testing.

Have you run a fatigue analysis on your wing structures yet? *How about
a vibration analysis? *Is there any coupling between your dynamics and
control model and the results from your vibration analysis?


I agree that's why we had a few universities do wind tunnel tests with
models.


I don't think he understood the question, Jeff...

Clearly. This clear lack of understanding of the details is why he
thinks his concept (napkin drawing) is an actual design.

The fact that his "design" relies on so many technologies which have
never flown on an operational vehicle the size of shuttle ET would scare
away any investor with half a brain. He's got the makings of at least 5
R&D programs with the aerospike engines, the cross-fed propellants, the
inflatable wings, the inflatable TPS, and the capture and towing of the
gliding vehicle back to the launch site.

If funded, this would be such a disaster of a program that it would make
the X-33 program look like a resounding success by comparison.

Jeff
--
The only decision you'll have to make is
Who goes in after the snake in the morning?

In article dc8591ea-da30-4f00-8100-577f8f16a2f5
@a36g2000yqc.googlegroups.com, says...

Does pat even know where the CG of the empty ET is? Or why they
loaded the dense oxygen up front? Or why a rocket is more stable if
as it empties the CG moves back? Or done a CG estimate by adding
weight equal to the ET itself AFT of the rear bulkhead? No, obviously
he hasn't so he has just revealed himself to be an idiot, and you've
revealed yourself to be an ass.

Do you know what phugoid mens Fred? I doubt it.

Just so you know, you're spouting trivia that any aerospace engineer
would learn in his required undergraduate introduction to aircraft
design class (provided he or she didn't learn such trivia while building
and flying model rockets or model aircraft as a teenager).

Congrats! You're now qualified to carry on a conversation with a 20
year old engineering student. This does not inspire confidence in your
launch vehicle concept in any way, shape, or form.

Jeff
--
The only decision you'll have to make is
Who goes in after the snake in the morning?

On 9/8/2010 4:52 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article857cfbea-3269-428f-97bc-6d9d000e4692@
11g2000yqq.googlegroups.com, says...

On Sep 7, 4:20 pm, Jeff wrote:
In article8ca3fad7-25b4-4439-a437-24c9e8fa7558
@i5g2000yqe.googlegroups.com, says...



I did subsonic tests only of the winged structure to get moments and
lift right on 1:100 scale. I relied on published data for transonic

Truly this is only a first step. The tricky part is those folding
wings. I want to see the deployment of those tested in a wind tunnel.
Heck, I'd settle for seeing the design of how they fold. Care to share?

Think of an accordian and an airbag and you have most of it.

Inflatable wings made of flexible material or are these made of
conventional materials such as aluminum? The details here are sorely
lacking. Even with this scant bit of info, to my knowledge there has
never been a wing on an operational aircraft made in the way you're
describing.

The wings shown on his drawings look like something taken off of a DC-9,
not something inflatable. Also, if they inflate there is no reason for
the slot shown in the side of the ET for them to fold into, which is
longer than it needs to be anyway, given the length of the wings shown
As far as inflatable wings for spacecraft recovery, although it was
never used operationally, remember the inflatable Rogallo parawing for
the Gemini:
http://www.capcomespace.net/dossiers...lider%2004.jpg
There was also some investigation into using it to recover the first
stage of a Saturn I.
If you really did want to recover a ET, sticking one of these inside the
intertank structure would make a hell of a lot more sense than trying to
put wings on it, although the parawing would have to be mighty big to
let it land on water slowly enough that it could surf over the surface
without collapsing (keeping the propellant tanks pressurized,
Atlas-style would help a lot) The big problem is of course that a ET
isn't designed for surviving reentry, and adding a TPS covering on it
that would let it survive will make it a lot heavier...although when
empty it might have fairly low heating loads on it compared to the
Shuttle, as its light weight for its size would mean it would decelerate
fairly quickly at high altitude, like the Lockheed Venture Star was
supposed to do.

Pat

On 9/8/2010 5:13 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:


Perhaps you should. There has been some *research* into inflatable
wings, but they've never been used on any operational aircraft, to my
knowledge.

CIA apparently used some of the Goodyear Inflatoplanes for extracting
agents from hostile territory. I imagine its rubber structure meant it
had a very low radar signature other than the engine.
The concept was that the agent would be inserted with the folded up
Inflatoplane in a big storage bag, bury or otherwise conceal it at some
remote hidden location (maybe hide it submerged in a lake?) and then
return to inflate it and leave when they wished to.

Pat

In article
tatelephone,
says...

On 9/8/2010 5:13 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:


Perhaps you should. There has been some *research* into inflatable
wings, but they've never been used on any operational aircraft, to my
knowledge.

CIA apparently used some of the Goodyear Inflatoplanes for extracting
agents from hostile territory. I imagine its rubber structure meant it
had a very low radar signature other than the engine.
The concept was that the agent would be inserted with the folded up
Inflatoplane in a big storage bag, bury or otherwise conceal it at some
remote hidden location (maybe hide it submerged in a lake?) and then
return to inflate it and leave when they wished to.

O.k. I'll have to ammend my comment to inflatable wings have not been
used on an operational aircraft as large as the shuttle ET. Scaling the
concept up to ET size may prove problematic (still an R&D problem).

Jeff
--
The only decision you'll have to make is
Who goes in after the snake in the morning?