Re: Lunar Space Elevator simply isn't for everyone

Brad Guth wrote:
William Mook,
Thanks for all those interesting and useful rocket-science numbers,

I'm pleasantly surprised that you appreciated them.

and
even a touch of prosay on behalf of actually accomplishing LL-1 and
usage of the LSE alternative.

I'm not averse to making statements that make sense to me, even if they
make sense to you too.

It makes you almost human,

Um, I'm human whether I agree or disagree with you. That's what you
keep missing.

up until the
point that you have to continually support the insane mindset and
actions of our resident warlord(GW Bush)

Ah, <cough> , I didn't say anything about President Bush. So, this
statement by you comes totally from something inside you and has
nothing to do with me.

and otherwise keep insisting
by way of your mindset of infomercial-science

I only know what they taught me in school bubba. When you dis what
they taught me in school, you're looking to get your ass kicked! lol.

that we've walked on the
moon.

Ah, how old are you? haha...

As Red Buttons used to say at his roasts on CBS - "I was there!" Were
you? lol.

If you were, you could never say what you say. To you this is all
theoretical. Its all in your head. Stories people told you about what
happened long ago, against stories you hear from somewhere else.

I've got to believe you're too young to really know what it was like.

Did you sit in front of your TV set that warm September evening and
thrill at Jack Kennedy's Rice University Moon speech when it was
announced on the national news feeds? I did. Did you? I didn't think
so! lol.

But you listen to this speech and imagine what it was like for me and
millions of other Americans. Here it is preserved on the internet for
all eternity;

http://www1.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/ricetalk.htm

I know watching a video clip doesn't have the same impact of a national
news feed on three networks when those were the ONLY networks! And a 9
inch B&W screen was BIG! lol.

We're so overwhelmed with media these days, its hard to credit the
impact of these things in the environment of the late 50s and early
60s.

I was nine years old and me and my dad talked late into the evening
about what the Rice Speech meant to the nation and to my future. We
watched the build up and followed the programs. Mercury, Gemini,
Apollo, the Apollo 1 fire, all through my youth this was the central
theme of excitement and adventure for my generation.

http://trashotron.com/agony/columns/05-24-02.htm

Look, I'm a member of AIAA and I had the opportunity to host a few
regional conferences when I was in school and grad school being trained
as a rocket scientist. I met Edgar Mitchell, I took him to the
airport, shared a smoke with him, and drank some whiskey with him and
talked of his experiences and privately what it meant to him. I met
Edwin Aldrin, even asked him to sit on a board of a space launch
company I formed. I met Neil Armstrong, he lives in Ohio, taught at UC
the same time I worked at the Federal EPA there, and sits on the board
of a few Ohio companies. I met Alan Bean, he brought some artwork
recently to Toledo, and we had a coffee and talked about his
experiences.

My gut tells me, and my entire life experience tells me, everything I
know tells me these men went to the moon and were deeply affected by
it. Buzz Aldrin entered therapy to deal with certain aspects of his
experience.

So, you saying that we didn't go to the moon, and all the naysayers who
come after - are people who don't know *** about what it was like, and
if people have very little patience with your insanely denying we went
to the moon, this is where it comes from.

I don't know how to say it any more plainly than that.

How are you measuring cost?

Negative cost since there gold in them thar hills,

This is nonresponsive. Any legitimate business plan has a cost to
break even and a payback schedule, use of funds risked and so forth.
From this you can apply a discount rate and figure out the discounted
enterprise value today. Do you have all this? If you do then you have
the first step toward a business plan that has a shot at getting
funded.

Of course any enterprise that has a method of making money - in this
case you seem to be saying that you'll mine Helium-3 and use it in
fusion reactors to make low cost energy for people on Earth (which is
quite different than beamed energy from the surface of the moon
generated by sunlight) - this is a legitimate way to make money. But
you need to figure out all the details.

Anyway, you also need to look at different scenarios and compare
overall costs to break even against those scenarios. You see, you, or
anyone who takes people's money have a fiduciary responsibility to give
them the BEST return possible. See? Not a return, not a good return,
but the best return possible given your level of knowledge, skill and
so forth.

This means you MUST look at ALL the alternative ways to achieve your
stated revenue stream and PROVE that your system is superior to all of
those.

That's why I asked how are you measuring cost?

You're answer - was nonresponsive - which tells me you don't know what
the heck I'm talking about - which tells me you don't know what the
lowest cost method to achieve your goals is, which tells me you are
operating from gut instinct.

Now, there's nothing in operating from gut instinct, as long as you are
clear about it. And, rabidly attacking those who follow a logical
analytical process using the best available knowledge they are aware of
- is not useful.


as in He3 that's
actually worth a hell of a lot more than gold,

If we can get the energy out of it sure.

http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/neep533/SPRING2004/lecture26.pdf

But, this depends on a lot of assumptions a lot of things going right.


Did you know it is 10x harder to fuse He-3 than it is say
Deuterium-Tritium ions? I didn't before I looked.

The central advantage of He-3 is that it produces NO residual radiation
and can be converted with 60% conversion efficiency to electricity!.
This is technically sweet.

The energy content of He-3 is large as a consequence. 10,000 MW-years!
per metric ton! That's 87,660,000 kWh per kg. Only 40 metric tons of
He3 would provide for ALL our electrical energy needs. If we could
make tiny portable fusion generators with He3 - only 120 metric tons of
He3 would provide for ALL of our energy needs for a year. If everyone
in the world consumed energy at the rate of US citizens today, the
world would need only 1,000 metric tons of He3 each year. If we had a
fusion powered helicopter in every garage, and people spread across the
planet without roads and all that, we'd only need 6,000 metric tons of
He3 each year.

A fusion powered rocket - fueld by He3 - nuclear impulse operation -
would require only a few kilograms of He 3 material to return tens of
thousands of tons of material from the lunar surface in a single trip.

One gram of He3 has the same amount of energy potential as 51.73
barrels of crude oil. So, if we charged present oil prices for He3
each gram would be worth $300 or more! A kilogram of He3 returned from
the moon would be worth $300,000. A metric ton would be worth $300
million. 100 metric tons would be worth $30 billion! Enough to pay
for a moon program designed to return 100 metric tons per year - and
pay the recurring costs.

plus a few hundred other
benefits I could think of.

He3 has what other benefits? Well, its a nuclear source that is
pollution free - if it can be made to work - Deuterium Tritium hasn't
been made to work yet, and its 1/10th the temperature of He3. Its
easily stored. Its easily transported. Its safe. Lots of good
things. Are there other benefits of which I'm unaware?


What is your ultimate goal?
The ultimate goal is still the LSE along with the 256 megatonne CM/ISS,
the moon dirt depot in the sky that's worth having because it's
entirely doable as is.

A lunar orbiting space station at L1 is doable. Skylab and a Saturn V
could put one up, and a Saturn V could service it. No problem.

A tether to the lunar surface is another matter. I don't see how that
could work.

You could use a magnetic launcher - solar powered - at L1 to shoot
payloads arriving there anywhere onto the lunar surface with very
little delta vee. In fact you could shoot payloads arriving there
anywhere in the Earth moon system. No problem. and no tether - which
I don't know how to build.

Of course crashing into the moon is a problem. And that requires some
sort of braking rocket, so you don't gain as much as you think.

If the aerogel trick can work, you can make a very small aerogel pad to
fall into, and then build a launcher nearby to sent the payload back to
L1. And then use the launcher at L1 to relaunch back to Earth. Of
course, once you had payloads on the lunar surface to deliver to Earth,
you could also use a launcher to launch them back to Earth directly,
without going to L1.


You obviously still don't have a clue as to the greater positive worth
of utilizing LL-1, or especially that of the LSE-CM/ISS,

I've considered it and while there may be some advantages in some
mission cycles, if the goal is to get payloads on the moon as cheaply
as possible and then send He3 back in payloads sufficient to pay for
the whole program, then the L1 station isn't the way to go.

I can demonstrate that a one way flight to the moon with today's rocket
technology is far more less expensive way to get at lunar sources of
He3. You build up hardware and infrastructure and supplies on the
lunar surface, with one way shots -and the folks there build a fusion
powered lunar launcher from the parts that are arriving. And for good
measure an aerogel pad for catching arriving payloads - to double their
capacity (since they don't need braking rockets and the propellant for
that)

We can modify the Space Shuttle hardware to include a seven element
launcher consisting of 7 ETs modified for reuse and flyback each
propelled by 7 SSME - 49 in all at launch - equipped with cross feeding
to operate as a 3 stage H2/O2 launcher. This vehicle launches a
reusable 500 ton kick stage into LEO, and this deposits a 150 ton
payload onto the lunar surface - flying one way. With this vehicle you
launch one 150 ton payload per week, and put 30 people on the lunar
surface with the first shot. In two years and 15,000 tons of payload
later, you have a fusion powered launcher, and a Helium 3 mine and
Helium 3 refinery on the Moon - then you send a 50 ton supply ship
with 100 ton return stage - to begin cycling crews. The launcher sends
1 ton payloads of He3 back to Earth directly per day, which supplies
all the energy needs of the planet.

Parallel with this program is a crash effort on getting He3 to work,
focusing on small He3 reactors that people can use in autos, homes, and
the like. Instead of going to the gas station once a day to fill up,
you'll go to Staples or Wal-Mart and pick up a plastic wrapped pack of
He-3 capsules that you'll throw in your glove box, and when you run
low, you'll replace them like ink jet cartridges in your He3 engine
which drives your all electric car (that btw has a traction motor that
puts a 451 hemi to shame!)


but then
you'll have to support whatever it is that you believe in (or else),


Yes, or else I'll be wrong! lol.

which excludes the truth

<sigh> Now you're getting in a tizzy for no damned good reason. I'm
giving you good engineering and scientific time and talent (as good as
I know how to give) and you go *** on it. Calm down dude. lol.

as to what we should have been accomplishing
as of more than a decade ago,

Yes, I agree that the US government doesn't want a lot of what the
space program delivers, for reasons having to do with immediate
national security concerns. Eisenhower worried about the US public
becoming so enamoured of space that they make emotional rather than
rational decisions regarding it. Analysts in the Nixon White House
worried about a growing feeling of international brotherhood and
concern for the environment that arose out of pictures of the whole
Earth from the moon because it might cause the American public to
embrace policies that were a detriment to what America had to do to
maintain its preeminent position in the world. Regan worried about the
negative impact on public attitudes a successful SDI program would
entail - which were largely the same thing Nixon worried about.
Missile proliferation is a constant concern. Nuclear prolieration
another. Space development provides a path for both of these to occur
in the present environment. This is why there was a policy in the
Johnson administration to curtail NASA spending as soon as it was
apparent that we would be succesful with Apollo. And NASA has never
taken more than 1/1000th the US economy since then. And when a program
was proposed that would actually lower the cost of space access, it has
been derailed in Congress in favor of more difficult technology
development efforts that don't involve expansion of the human range
across the solar system. That's why when John Glenn returned to space
he orbited the Earth much as he did in 1962, and didn't walk on the
moon or visit a mars base, which is what I'm sure he'd rather do!

if not from the very get-go since the
task of accomplishing LL-1 via the Saturn-V would have been absolutely
impressive, entirely doable and absolutely proof-positive believable to
boot.

I agree. A station at LL1 could be established using a Skylab and a
Saturn V, and resupplied regularly. No problem. With a solar powered
launcher of very modest means, payloads could be delivered anywhere in
the Earth moon system. It would be a cool place to do a lot of things.

With a tether - if one were possible - to the lunar surface, we could
cut 2.4 km/sec off the total delta vee off the mission requirements of
a one way trip and 5 km/sec off the total delta vee of a two way trip.

But if you're buiding up a base, you don't need a return vehicle, so
you can send one way ships and save the 2.4 km/sec anyway without a
station. That's why I say in a practical build up, you don't save much
by adding all the infrastructure.

However, I do think it might be worthwhile to put up a L1 station as
part of an overall effort of lunar settlement. That way you could use
it for missions it was best for, and if a tether technology ever gets
developed that would be deployed there first, and you'd develop a base
from L1 at Sinus Medii and explore the interesting goings on around
Hipparchus.


To travel from Earth's surface to LEO requres that you accelerate an
object to about 7 km/sec. When you add in gravity losses and air drag
losses during ascent, of 2 km/sec, you need a vehicle capable of at
least 9 km/sec.

So what?

Its a measure of the problem of getting off the Earth. It puts into
perspective the savings offered by a station at L1 - which is less than
1/3 this speed.

We've had all of that capability as of prior to the Saturn
series,

All you need to get out of leo is another kick stage that adds 3 km/sec
or so to your speed. If you want to land on the moon, rather than
crash into the moon, you need another 2.4 km/sec - if you want to get
back to Earth from the moon you need another 3 km/sec.

You cut your payload in half each time you add this much speed. So, 8
tons in LEO translates to 2 tons one way on the lunar surface. or 1
ton to the lunar surface and back.

Your proposed station at L1 saves 2.4 km/sec so it doubles the payload
you can send to the moon provided you have a tether that works. The
tether operating the other way saves you 3 km/sec.

But a one way shot to the lunar surface and a magnetic launcher to
return payloads to Earth achieves the same thing afaict.

You do have a logistical advantage though, if you put a tiny - I mean
something 1/10000th the size of the proposed lunar launcher - a tiny
launcher on the L1 station - you can send payloads all over the Earth
moon system - so I think this is worth doing.


and now we have the efficient Ariane 5 ECA as looking extremely
good at getting 12t to GSO at better than 66:1,

You're quoting mass ratios with absolutely no fundamental understanding
of the rocket equation.

and that should go past
the 18t mark with merely replacing those inefficient SRBs with LRBs of
h2o2/c3h4o, making the ratio 44:1, and perhaps we're talking as good as
36:1 if the core stage were also of h2o2/c3h4o.

Using LRBs instead of SRBs is a good way to go to increase payloads on
existing airframes since LRBs have higher Isps. lol.

Are you saying that our extremely inert massive Saturn-V did not have
"the right stuff" of what was needed?

Not saying that at all.

Unlike those bogus Apollo missions,

Um, they're not bogus. That you think they're bogus makes you a loon
in my book.

we're not having to zoom any of
this tonnage past LL-1 or even having to get there any too fast, just

The difference in delta vee is about 0.15 km/sec - which is nothing.
This is why the tether gains you a lot, and the tiny launcher can do so
much at L1.

You don't have to dis Apollo's accomplishments (or to you apparent
accomplishments) to make a case for L1.

for gently coasting the payload into the mutual nullification zone, so
that damn little if any retrothrust is necessary.

Yes, its the cross roads of the Earth -Moon system.

We're talking about
parallel parking, not per say going to the moon and back, and thus
nearly 100% efficient by way of using the least fuel/payload and
thereby being of the least inert liftoff mass.

Not necessarily - it depends on the entire mission profile.

The task of getting substantial tonnage into LL-1 should have the
rather significant advantage of a two-body if not a three-body
alignment, of using the considerable Earth, sun plus moon advantage,
not to mention having tidal forces on the side of most efficiently
getting a great deal of tonnage efficiently to LL-1 because, if need be
this effort can take all of 29.5 days and there's nothing that has to
return home or thereby having the negative impact of demanding spare
tonnage of rocket energy and the associated machinery for
retro-thrusting itself into such a gentle halo form of station-keeping
management of this interactive gravity-well orbit. Thus it's pretty
much all usable payload that gets deposited into the LL-1 zone.

Basically, once you get into LEO, a single chemical kick stage can be
used to bring you to any of these points in cislunar space. So, going
from LEO to LL1 doesn't do a whole lot for you.
What the freaking sam hell are you talking about this time?
"going from LEO to LL1 doesn't do a whole lot for you" means exactly
what the hell is with your naysayism kicking in again?
I've never really considered it because its obvious to me that LL1
is pretty much useless.
As I've said before, "its obvious to me" that your dumbfounded
naysayism is pretty much stuck in that very brown-nosed and status quo
or bust rut, and therefore "pretty much useless". If you only intend
to think in such negative terms, in which case we'll need to furth
discuss those NASA/Apollo missions once again, or I suppose we could go
back to living in caves.

Obviously if taking the fullest advantage of a much longer/extended
shot of using Earth itself, plus the sun and moon alignments as for the
gravity boosted exit velocity gain of getting the most tonnage with the
least applied energy as headed for parking at LL-1 is going to involve
some form of an initial elliptical LEO, with a second and perhaps a
third burn plus a few course corrections along the way towards parking
that first 10t sucker at LL-1.

We can double the payload per trip with a space station at LL1 equipped
with a tether to the surface - if we use chemical rockets, which is
worthwhile. We change the payload by less than 2% with a laser
rocket.
I believe you're somewhat underestimating the greater potential and
subsequent worth of not having to utilize those fly-by-rocket landers
that'll need to get invented plus R&D created and proof-tested in the
first place. However, I'll have to get back to a few other points,
along with having a few more questions, that is once I get my three
dyslexic brain cells up to snuff on what you've contributed.

I do otherwise appreciate those notions on "fusion propulsion", however
that's for another day and another time or perhaps other planet besides
Earth, such as whenever we're not too busy at pillaging and raping the
likes of mother Earth while exterminating every other Muslim in sight
for the blood-sport of taking their oil, that's likely going to have to
burn itself out before the civil wars we've caused get down to any
viable dull roar (too bad they don't have the likes of Saddam kicking
butts, since that's pretty much exactly what it took in the past).
-
Brad Guth

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