Re: Getting Mega Projects Done

From: David Summers (david_at_ualmiles.com)
Date: 11/24/04 

Date: 24 Nov 2004 07:32:42 -0800

"Christian Ramos" <cramos027@yahoo.com.au> wrote in message news:<41d09d63$1@news.syd.ip.net.au>...
> However, what I am still not clear on.

Just to make sure everyone understands, my goal for this thread was
neither funding, bragging, nor checking of my engineering (that will
come here eventually, it just wasn't the question I was asking). I
was trying to get a feel for what needs to be done before seeking
funding. However, since you ask I will attempt to provide the most
accurate responses I can without disclosing what I am not ready (in a
business sense) to disclose.

> a) Have you or someone else calculated the various structural properties
> required for the tether material.

Yes - the design has been made on computer, checking for strength,
durability in cycling, orbital heat balance and others. I have also
developed several different ways to construct the object, coming up
with ways to trade cost for risk.

> b) Have you or someone constructed a sample of this material and tested it
> and shown it meets these structural properties

I have not, but others have done that for me. I find that I am not
very good with tooling, and so I have to "hire out" prototype work in
order to get good results.

> c) Is the you or someone else an experienced engineer.

Well, that depends - I am not a civil engineer (just a polite one
;-}). I have degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer
Engineering. Looking at the current state of the art in aerospace,
however, I believe that an engineer is not necessarily what is called
for. There are many ideas that could probably work (building an SSTO,
and then adding a first stage if the mass fraction doesn't work,
etc.), but there are no businessmen around that understand the
technology enough to make wise decisions. That's why my questions
here were business questions - and why I am going back to school to
get an MBA.

As I said, I'm not sure that an engineering degree is a prerequisite
to develop some interesting stuff anymore - I've learned far more from
the Internet than I learned studying for my EE degree. There is a LOT
of information available on the internet about aerospace design (of
course, at a low SNR). There is almost no information about the
business aspects. (Thus this thread)

> d) Do you have all the paperwork for the calculations and test results

Paperwork?!? Never! It is all on computer, far easier to keep up
with design modifications that way. Besides, that would be a LOT of
paper to keep track of!

> This is the longer form of what I meant by "send me a sample of the
> material".

You gots sum wird mean'ns, tere. ;^}

I have done a lot of work on this project - there remains a lot more
to do! (Orbital shearing stress calculations, reentry calculations
(just in case), etc.) I know that no matter how long I work on this,
it be never be "done," so I'm just trying to find out when "good
enough" is. For many on this thread, good enough is right now - but
they are not people with money laying around waiting for a project
;-). The other question is whether my future work should be
qualifying the existing design (lowering risk), or if I should work on
lowering the implementation cost. What is an acceptable cost, what is
accepable risk?

The question is, how much do you need done in order to get funding -
idea, engineered design, prototype, small model, large model, full
production version. Obviously an idea is worthless and if you have
the full production version then you don't need investment. When is
it appropriate to seek funding, in your opinion?

BTW, Many people have answered - you can't get funding without
explaining your design. That is absolutely true, however you also
need to understand the corolary - if I "bare all" to someone that
doesn't have (or control) money, I still get no funding. I would love
to tell you all, but the risk to benefit ratio is not in my favor.

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