Re: Bigelow Aerospace to offer $760 million for spaceship

On Oct 31, 6:29 am, "Jeff Findley" <jeff.find...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
"Rand Simberg" <simberg.interglo...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:47aed81d.2884442058@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:48:48 +0100 (CET), in a place far, far away,
Jim Davis <jimdav...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Len wrote:

Without funding, we are not very credible. If our funding
firms up, we shall suddenly become qutie credible.

Debatable. Did you find NASP credible when it was funded? Did you
find Rotary Rocket credible when they had funding?

Neither NASP or Rotary ever had full funding.

And it was obvious to anyone who knew anything about hypersonic air
breathing vehicles that NASP was about as technologically challenging as
aerospace projects come. I was glad to see that program die before it got
full government funding. History has since shown just how hard hypersonic
air breathing vehicles are.

Amen.

I certainly didn't see Rotary's concept as especially technologically
challenging. Certainly they were applying some existing technologies in
some novel ways, but that's why they built, and flew, the ATV. I was sad to
see Rotary not raise full development funding since I did see their approach
as credible.

Achievable mass ratio is a strong function of
stage size. IMO, the mass-ratio goals for
Rotary at that stage size were more than
challenging. The rotors probably paid their
way for landing; however, powered rotors
did nothing, IMO, to make reducing mass-ratio
requirements.

Len


Jeff
--
"When transportation is cheap, frequent, reliable, and flexible,
everything else becomes easier."
- Jon Goff


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Shhhh!!! Canada Loves SHEC Labs
    ... SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT TECHNOLOGY CANADA ... New Funding For Canadian Clean Technology Projects ... Funding Will Advance 15 Environmentally Friendly Technologies ...
    (sci.energy.hydrogen)
  • Re: Bigelow Aerospace to offer $760 million for spaceship
    ... Did you find NASP credible when it was funded? ... Neither NASP or Rotary ever had full funding. ... breathing vehicles that NASP was about as technologically challenging as ... Certainly they were applying some existing technologies in ...
    (sci.space.policy)