Re: ballistic package delivery


kT wrote:
Williamknowsbest wrote:

A decade ago I proposed that sub-orbital rockets be used to deliver

Coffee! Damn you're out of coffee, and you're way out here in the middle
of the Atlantic ocean, who you gonna call? Mook's Delivery Service!

So you get out your satphone, and dial 1-800-WILMOOK, and punch in your
GPS coordinates,

You Iridium satellite phone broadcasts GPS coordinates. The
application running in the handset has to have GPS tracking switched to
ON.

and within an hour

Within 15 minutes if you're in the middle of the Atlantic.

you spot the now easily recognizable
bright orange MOOK delivery parachute drifting slowly into your life.

Nope. The package comes at you at about 310 m/sec after re-entry. It
is guided toward the coordinates received minutes earlier. About 5 km
away a microengine array on the propulsive skin segment of the package
springs to life bringing the package in for a soft landing.

http://clifton.mech.northwestern.edu/~me381/project/02fall/Microrockets.pdf
http://www.nsti.org/Nanotech2006/showabstract.html?absno=225
http://clifton.mech.northwestern.edu/~me381/project/02fall/Microrockets.ppt#274,1,Solid
Propellant Micro-rockets: Application, Design and Fabrication

The same technology that delivers controlled amounts of color inks to a
paper *** to form color photos can be adapted to deliver controlled
amounts of propellant to a 'thrust ***' to create highly controllable
thrust vectors.

With the possibility of a 1000:1 thrust to weight ratio, millions of
engines might be one day fabricated into a surface and controlled as
easily as HDTV plasma screens.

Disposable propellant bags that carry cryogens

http://welchfluorocarbon.com/TeflonPFAFEPModifiedPTFELayFlatBags.htm

And disposable MEMS based guidance systems

http://www.stormingmedia.us/24/2456/A245683.html

Have the potential to produce a disposable ballistic delivery package
with a 2% or 3% structural fraction. This allows a 12% payload
fraction. So, delivering a pound of coffee requires the dispatching of
a package consisting of 1/4 pound of propulsive packaging and 7 pounds
of hydrogen/oxygen propellant, prepared from 7 pounds of water using
133 kWh of energy. At $0.08 per kWh, the cost of the propellant costs
$10.69 - at $20 per pound for the packaging material that's another $5
- so, a considerable profit could be made at these prices charging $25
per pound for ballistic delivery. Which is less than what FedEx
charges for 24 hour delivery. This would be 24 minute delivery. The
cost of coffee in the field is around 5% of what you pay - since only
10% of the profits go to those who grow coffee.

http://www.oxfamamerica.org/whatwedo/campaigns/coffee/starbucks

So, even at these prices, substantial shifts can occur in the way
business is done in high margin goods.

With substantial reductions in energy - say to $0.02 per kWh - and
reductions in the cost of propulsive packaging to $2 per pound -the
cost of propellant drops to $2.67 per pound delivered and the cost of
packaging to $0.50 - a little over $3 per pound - and there is a
radical transformation in the way business is done with trucks trains
airplanes warehouses and all the rest going the way of the buggy whip!



Mook Industries solves another extreme wilderness emergency.

Assuming zero cost for the rocket technology and energy cost equal to
that of coal costs ten to deliver a pound of coffee from South American
or African coffee fields directly to consumers anywhere (whether in the
middle of the Atlantic or not) actually uses less energy than
collecting the beans, dragging them out of the field, loading them into
a warehouse, loading them into a truck, dragging them down the road,
loading them into another warehouse, loading them into a plane, flying
them to market, loading them into another warehouse, loading them into
a train, dragging them across the country, loading them into another
warehouse, loading them onto a truck, dragging them down the road,
loading them into another warehouse, dragging them onto the shelf, then
you dragging your ass down to pick them up and dragging them home.



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