Re: ISS after completion

On Nov 14, 12:07 pm, Harmon <harmon.ever...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Nov 13, 7:26 pm, "Jonathan" <wr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



"Harmon" <harmon.ever...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:1194876467.828430.181520@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

As I understand it, NASA is planning on "retiring" the ISS at the end
of its nominal planned lifetime of ten years past its completion date
of 2010, that is, in 2020.

In a few decades, we'll be having this very same discusion about
what to do with the shiny new base we have on the moon.

How incredibly sad is that? What a great epitaph.

.....We Built Them and Nobody Came....

NASA needs to have a long term goal that actually
accomplishes something this time. Not another
engineering goal...ie...a make-work program
for the large contractors to maintain their
space capabilities.

s

I think NASA should be involved with basic exploration - and manned
missions to the Moon and Mars. As a Government agency, they are not
supposed to make a profit. Which kinda crimps the next step in the
development of space, because the next step is pretty clearly to make
a LEO space station into a profitable activity. When Christopher
Columbus' men begged him to turn back, he refused; not because he knew
he was right and was determined to prove it, but because when Queen
Isabella had loaned him the money, she not only told him to bring back
her ships filled with loot, but not to come back until they WERE
filled with loot, or she would find him. He couldn't turn back until
he had found something.

NASA can't really go after the space tourist market - they aren't
supposed to use my tax dollars to set up a resort for rich space
tourists, and there isn't a reason for them to do anything to help
space tourists, because they can't make a profit from it. Health and
Human Services isn't supposed to make a profit. DOD isn't supposed to
make a profit. At that point, what do we as a country "get" out of
NASA doing space research? Making our part of the solar system a
better place for our children to live? Preparing the way so our
children and grandchildren can be spacefaring citizens? Developing
enough space infrastructure so we can take care of any incoming
asteroids and comets?

While it is necessary to make space activities make enough money to
support themselves, and encourage more development, that function is
essentially removed from NASA's purview. Space communications
satellites have succeeded because they were able to be expanded and
developed by private organizations, and do what they do cheaper ,
easier and more robustly than earth based solutions. During Hurricane
Katrina, space based resources were about the only thing that was
functioning successfully.

I'm trying to think about how the ISS fits into this environment of
competitive private space stations, and what kind of profit making
activities will work on board an ISS base when it gets turned loose
from NASA. It probably needs more volume - an inflatable module or two
to house resort guests and work crews. If microgravity research is a
serious consideration, it probably needs to have a free flyer
laboratory or two that can undock from the ISS and fly along side it
for a month or two and then be reacquired, so that ISS guest and
workcrew vibrations don't hamper microgravity research.

But then, if microgravity research requires a totally separate
vehicle, is there an advantage to having it attached to the ISS? And
if a space resort high inclination orbit is not suitable for Moon and
Mars expedition outfitting, is that also better achieved by using a
separate new vehicle?
Harmon

Columbus used quite a different vehicle to make the
connection to the new world than we have today. We're
talking not about comparing apples with oranges, but
possibly appleseeds with orangeseeds. The comparison
is a lot more complex. Instead of Queen Isabella,
we've got the leader of an expanding role of govern-
ment into the private affairs of private industry,
namely, the Congressional, legislative, and judicial
branches of government, all acting in unison over
what they all determine together as being "positive
law", when in fact, they have conformed to simply
maintaining the status quo at all costs, by inadver-
tantly "freezing" any further advances in propulsion
technology that would get us there.

There have been no real "goals" set other than to
land on extraterrestrial "bodies" and do a little
exploring, but does that have real value when com-
pared to what we are able to achieve back on earth?
The answer becomes a resounding "no" when we have
things like healthcare and job markets, whose
problems can become better addressed when the
funding for these purely "vain explorations" can
be shifted elsewhere.

The key here is to observe the other part of human
life of the millions of those who wouldn't mind
taking part of some extraterrestrial enterprise if
the payoff was there, to which a "Queen Isabella"
would INITIALLY AGREE TO FUND. - THE VERY ACT
OF SHIFTING A FINANCIAL ENTERPRISE INTO
SPACE WOULD ENERGIZE THE ENTIRE PLANET
TO BECOME AS "AIRPORT TO THE STARS".

Since we're only looking now at the financial
aspect of space, then we have to consider only
bringing the gold back to our "Queen Isabella",
therefore repeating the past of the adventures
on the "high seas" of earth - in this case we're
describing the "high seas" of space.

But our "Queen Isabella" hasn't been so generous
lately. The X-33 had the makings of cheap earth-
to-orbit access, and then the program was suddenly
terminated.

Why?

Was it because, all at once, anybody who wanted to
be somebody then would have had the ability to
launch all of their stuff into orbit. This made any
further prototyping of an RLV of orbital variety a
national security issue.

"The linear Aerospike engine uses an external
expansion nozzle, whereby one side of the super-
sonic expansion is a center body or a "plug,"
while the other side is a free streamline [1].
This free streamline results in a performance ad-
vantage for the rocket engine, thus rendering its
operability in both deep space and within the
atmosphere as a single-stage launch vehicle [2].
As the vehicle ascends into higher altitudes, the
ambient air pressure is reduced; the exhaust ex-
pands further, unlike conventional rocket
engines, where the high area-ratio bell nozzle
can expand the exhaust to pressures lower than
the surrounding atmosphere. The feature that
allows altitude compensation of the plug nozzle
results in higher nozzle area ratios providing
higher performance for the X-33 vehicle and
better thrust-to-weight ratio that the SSME.."

(the word "that" in the last line should have
been "than"). See reference #1. NOTE THE PHRASE
"thus rendering its operability in both deep space.."

Even though Rocketdyne delivered the first flight
engine in September 1999, it was an industry-
government team (Lockheed Martin Skunk Works)
who "redeveloped" the X-33 for "suborbital" purposes.
Any further R&D by private industry was supplanted
by the military industrial complex, and the tech-
nology became successfully subverted.

The Space Shuttle Orbiter was increased to over
30,000 pounds in weight since its initial design,
resulting in limitations on its "operational" capa-
bility - one of those OPERATIONAL capabilities
being, of course, the thrust to weight ratio that
was supposed to provide cheaper earth-to-orbit
access... I guess that reaching orbit "alone" doesn't
create a market "stir" by itself, so it must be
commandeered by an extraterrestrial "discovery"
of some sort... uh, anyone heard of space mining?

So there you have it. Nobody wanted a private
initiative to compete with. Queen Isabella was
prevented from continuing to fund Columbus.
Or was she? Our "Columbus", in this case, has
become Rocketdyne, but NASA is in bondage
to its primary constituent - the dreaded
military industrial complex, who has, at least
at this point, never seemed to support the
application of this technology from within
the country itself. What are they afraid of?
If our stiff necked Congress, Legislature, and
Senate would get off their "business as usual"
kick and "get out of the way" of some major
funding to exploring the asteroids, then I'm
also sure that ALL COUNTRIES WOULD BECOME
INVOLVED. THAT IS WHAT MADE ISABELLA
A NEW AMERICA! (That is, until a "new earth"
was discovered, possibly with its own variety
of environmental hazards to deal with). If
humans then had the ability to catalogue the
many varieties of environments of habitable
extraterrestrial planets within the galaxy,
would not our road-map lead us in the direc-
tion of the source DNA we were derived from?

Then it must have been a world very much like
our own.


American

"For each one there shall be the glory he can
abide, the kingdom and dominion whose laws he
is able and wills to keep."

(Come Armageddon, Anne Perry, 2001)

references:

http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/1998/news_release_981124s.html

http://www.engineeringatboeing.com/dataresources/AerospikeEngineControlSystemFeaturesAndPerformance.pdf

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