Re: The space station is a "turkey in the sky"
- From: Willie.Mookie@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: 14 Apr 2007 09:11:38 -0700
On Apr 14, 11:17 am, Fred J. McCall <fmcc...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Ian Parker" <ianpark...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
:Work in robotics and AI is generally useful ...
To whom?
:... and a
:space program in which these technologies were promenant would have
:loads of spin offs.
Not. All the robotics stuff is done down here (don't need a space
program) and any AI done for space would be mission-specific and hence
useless for anything else.
This is just Ian on his usual 'AI is magic' spiel...
--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn
A space station properly concieved gives us experience in building
long-term habitation in space. So, its useful for prototyping a
moonbase, a mars transfer habitation module, and a mars base - its a
space home..
ISS was less than ideal given where we came from.
Consider a Skylab module. Its an SIVB upper stage adapted for
habitation - AFTER being used as a stage. A great concept. Such a
vehicle is easily adapted for lunar landing (rather than just lunar
flyby). And on a one way pilotless journey it would have worked to
place a moonbase on the moon about the same time Skylab flew. This at
less cost and far earlier than ISS and Shuttle.
And once we had Skylab (which cost less than $2 billion btw) I don't
know why we didn't reboost the Skylab and loft more of those SIVB
elements up there to create a space station 25 years ago.
There were designs on the drawing boards that used several SIVB
elements to create a rotating station with gravity at far less cost
than the ISS. Those same SIVB elements could also be used as a
moonbase and in a mars expedition and mars base, once they were tried
out in those roles in space and on the moon.
Of course I also don't know why we scrapped the Saturn rocket and the
plans for a Nerva upper stages in favor of the Shuttle .
Nerva could also have been adapted for space power to power a moon
base and a long duration mission as well as a mars base. The reactor
would be only marginally more sophisticated than a nuclear reactor for
a submarine, with attention being paid for cooling in a vacuum and
sheilding. A nuclear powered skylab with a nuclear thermal rocket
attached to nuclear upper stage would have been dandy to send people
for long stays on the moon or mars or just tour around the solar
system.
And the Saturn needn't be so costly. What's wrong with putting a
simple heat shield on the nose of a stage and a parachute on its
tail? That's the way SRBs work. Why not all stages?
Developing recovery procedures for the Saturn launch elements would
have been far more useful and less expensive than the Space Shuttle.
Von Braun favored parachute recovery with a simple ballistic entry
and TPS on the nose of each stage that absorbed the shock of
landing. He recovered V2 rockets back in the 40s like this and felt
that 100 or more uses could be made of booster rockets like the Saturn
when reocvered in this way. This is how the SRBs are recovered. It
could easily have been applied to Saturn to reduce costs to 1% their
costs. Today, with GPS we could be there to catch boosters at their
re-entry point. Heck, we could snatch the boosters mid-air and fly
them back to the launch center without touchdown - with very little
modification of the stages..A parasail properly strung on the stage
could easily be snagged mid-flight by a tow plane and towed back to
the launch center no matter where it re-entered.
So, I try to imagine what it would be like if the billions spent on
space shuttle and ISS were spent on improving Saturn rockets, building
Nerva upper stages, and nuclear powered skylab modules adapted for
long-duration deep space missions?
We'd already have cities on the moon, mars and on orbit and a network
of outposts throughout the solar system and the US would be hailed as
a futuristic visionary nation leading the world into the future.
What if the hundreds of billions spent on Vietnam and Korea were spent
on space? We'd have a powerful industrial presence across the solar
system and humanity would be far wealthier than today and the US would
dominate the world's economy with a strong currency based on imports
from space based resources and assets.
What if the trillions of dollars spent on nuclear weapons systems
during the cold were were spent on space? We'd be exploring the nearby
stars in laser light sail starships and there would be a spaceship in
every garage and the average American would own a home aboard a space
colony as well as on Earth and we'd be planning the construction of
black hole dusts to see if we could create a real warp drive.
We can't say we didn't have the chance as we sink to our demise in the
trash heap of history.
.
- References:
- The space station is a "turkey in the sky"
- From: simple_language@xxxxxxxxx
- Re: The space station is a "turkey in the sky"
- From: Ian Parker
- Re: The space station is a "turkey in the sky"
- From: Fred J . McCall
- The space station is a "turkey in the sky"
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