DARPA and starships

As the power and exhaust velocity of rockets increase their
performance improves. As the cost of energy declines, the cost of
operating these rockets declines. As appropriate investments are made
in appropriate supply chain - vehicle costs decline.

There is no reason we cannot reduce the cost of structural hardware to
$12,000 per ton from the present $3,500,000 per ton. There is no
reason we cannot increase uses from 1 flight per vehicle to 10,000
flights per vehicle or more with maintenance dropping from 100% of
vehicle cost to 0.01% vehicle cost per flight.

Investments in improved rocket technology ended in 1964, the first
fiscal year following the death of JFK.

As costs decline and utility and capacity improves the cost of
transporting materials between worlds, and volumes increase. Since
the minimum delta vee between the Earth's surface and points in the
cosmos are relatively fixed. So, we can see how things will develop
over time based on these facts.

We built the first rockets that entered space in the 1940s and by the
1950s they orbited the Earth for the first time. By the 1960s we
landed people on the moon. Then things stopped. Yet had appropriate
investments been made we would have seen a continuing development
along the following lines;

1940s sub-orbital ICBM world peace
1950s orbit satellites world communication
1960s lunar Apollo world politics

1970s interplanetary Powersat world energy
1980s asteroid Factorysat world production

At this point the cost reliability safety and performance of rockets
achieved such levels that we repeat the same development arc - on a
personal level.

1990s sub-orbital Ballistic transport - world travel
2000s orbital Space Home - diaspora
2010s interplanetary Mobile Space Home

At this point, with 70 years of continuous serious development driven
by market forces we finally see emerge in the 2020s the ability to
travel interstellar distances

2020s interstellar Interstellar Space Home
2030s interstellar+ Spacetime travel

The technical approach is also simple to predict;

1940s - single stage high performance chemical rockets - V1
1950s - multi-stage high performance chemical rockets - Juno
1960s - large multi-stage high performance chemical rockets - Saturn
* * *
1970s - very large single stage very high performing nuclear rockets -
Orion
1980s - ultra large solar powered laser light sails - Forward
1990s - laser driven MEMS rocket arrays -
2000s - improved laser driven MEMS rocket arrays
2010s - laser light sails attached to space homes
2020s - quadrillion watt solar laser systems
2030s - engineered black hole dusts

I have designed a chemical launcher that carries 695 ton payloads into
low earth orbit, using a highlly reusable chemical rocket built around
the Space Shuttle External Tank as a model for the airframe. This
system puts a 5 km diameter 10 billion watt solar pumped laser in
orbit. Solar powered ion rockets provide attitude control, and also
carry the satellite from LEO to GEO.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/31261680/Etdhlrlv-Addendum
http://www.scribd.com/doc/30943696/ETDHLRLV
http://www.scribd.com/doc/35439593/S...-Satellite-GEO

Another version of this satellite is placed in low earth orbit and
flies to Jupiter. After 3.56 years at Jupiter it undergoes a gravity
boost, to zero out the velocity of the satellite relative to the Sun.
It then falls into the Sun and after 3 more years of falling, it
deploys a 5 km diameter reflector that supports a 600 m diameter
collector. On the backside of the reflector, is a radiator. The
system that costs the same amount as the GEO based system produces 220
billion watts instead of 10 billion watts of laser energy and beams it
to a receiving satellite located at GEO, which redirects the energy to
users across the face of the globe and in space. The reflector allows
the satellite to hover 3.5 million km above the solar surface and
navigate to stay directly between the Earth and Sol.

I have designed larger rockets based on the old Sea Dragon concept
capable of launching 20,000 tons into LEO. With these rockets systems
of similar design capable of generating 287 billion watts at GEO and
6.33 trillion watts at SOL. These systems are 27 km in diameter.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/45631474/S...rived-Launcher

Three of these satellites allow domination of the world's energy
markets, capturing a $3 trillion per year market, providing sufficient
resources to achieve more ambitious ends.

I have also designed 20,000 ton upper stages - chemically powered -
that carry 2,000 tons of payload and a crew of 1,200 to Mars and back,
with refueling on the red planet. They deploy self sufficient bases
carried aboard the spacecraft. They operate 5 to 10 years
independently of Earth, living off the land so to speak. While on
Mars, these craft, refueled there from hydrogen and oxygen derived
from Martian water decomposed using solar power plants, explore and
major asteroids and establish bases on ones that have a ready water
supply.

More importantly, a seven element launcher is made into a single stage
vehicle of the following proportions;

20,000 tons payload
9,000 tons structure
38,000 tons propellant

Propelled by a rocket powered by a laser beam originating from space.
The rocket at launch produces a maximum thrust of 841 mega-newtons.
Its laser rocket produces an exhaust with a speed of 11.94 km/sec. It
has an ideal delta vee of 10.00 km/sec. It uses 3.93 trillion watts
of laser energy at lift off.

A single SOL powersat easily supports the continuous launching of
rockets, of up to one every 6 minutes or so. 10 per hour 200,000 tons
per hour, 1,753,200,000 tons per year per satellite.

Payloads to the planets are equally improved. A 20,000 ton upper
stage, consisting of a 2,000 ton structure and 13,000 ton propellant,
using a lower thrust rocket operating at 50 km/sec exhaust speed
imparts up to 52.5 km/sec to 5,000 tons of payload, giving the vehicle
solar system wide capability.

A 500 kilo personal ballistic transport using MEMS ram rockets with 12
km/sec exhaust velocity are capable of flying a suborbital ballistic
trajectory. They consume 100 MW peak power for 2 minutes or less A
6.33 trillion watt beam supports the launch and landing of 63,300 of
these vehicles every 2 minutes. This is 3.8 million vehicles per hour
per satellite. 91.2 million vehicles per day per satellite. With
flight vehicles as common as automobiles in America during America's
heyday - 3.5 billion vehicles require 70 satellites.

A solar sail operating at 6.33 trillion watts generates 42.5 metric
tons of force. So, a 9,500 ton payload pushed by a compact solar sail
may be accelerated at 1/200 gee. A high intensity ion rocket with an
exhaust velocity of 9,075 km/sec operating at the same power level
produces 142.2 metric tons of thrust accelerating 28,452 metric tons
at 1/200th gee. With 17,985 metric tons of propellant, the vehicle
accelerates 350 AU at 1/200th gee for 535 days. The vehicle then
slows at the same rate for another 535 days - arriving at 700 AU with
10,000 tons of useful load.

Located at this distant spot, a dynamic hologon reflector is erected
and the 6.33 trillion watt beam is directed around Sol, using gravity
lens effect to focus the beam reliably at great distances to a very
fine level.

Accelerating a Forward style two stage light sail at 1/200th gee,
sends a 9,500 ton system 4.3 light years to Alpha Centauri in 57 years
9 months. At 1/20th gee, a 950 ton system in 18 years 3 months.

Beaming a focused 6.33 trillion watt beam 32,000 light years to the
4.3 million solar mass supermassive black hole at the center of the
galaxy, Sagittarius A* is made to enter the ergosphere of the spinning
black hole in a manner that exploits Penrose Processes to cause a
portion of the rest mass of the black hole into added photons. In
this way energy is extracted from the black hole. Counterintuitively
some Penrose processes allow photons to be emitted back toward Earth
before the originating beam arrives - if done rightly a return beam is
made to arrive at Earth as the original beam leaves - focused along
the same gravity lens lines.

Highly energetic photons also have the capacity within the ergosphere
to create a directed beam of micro-black holes that are returned to
the beam source. Structuring these micro-black holes allow the
creation of new types of technology that permit direct conversion of
matter into energy, creation of powerful neutrino rockets, and
sensible gravity effects.

A ring of engineered black holes with well structured interactions may
be assembled into computing machinery of immense capacity. Negative
time delay is possible. So, these capabilities transcend what is
possible with conventional matter. Also, femto-scale rocket arrays
within these devices provide immense capability by directing the decay
energy of micro-black holes. Finally, large numbers are assembled
into a self gravitating ring that draw external macro payloads toward
it at high accelerations - while they are in free fall. In this way,
systems capable of accelerating at 100 gees and more can carry large
payloads at these high accelerations without producing any inertial
forces - the payloads are in free fall - or under a controlled force -
recreating a 1 gee acceleration.

At 100 gees near light speed is achieved in half a week. The cosmos
may be crossed in 20 weeks. Ship time. The experience with
Sagittarius A* signals through time, allow us to chart courses through
this supermassive black hole to allow the ships to return to Earth at
a time that synchronizes Solar time with ship time. Signals passing
through the black hole also allow instantaneous communications between
ship and Sol - again with time dilation effects taken out by operation
of the variability of time the ergosphere allows.