Re: How to take a "free" ET to orbit.

At one time, you may have had a plan that could have worked.

Unfortunately, the last external tanks are being manufactured as we
speak (or will be in the very near future). There wouldn't be time to
modify them if NASA wanted to.

NASA is a very conservative organization when it comes to modifying
hardware that sorta works. Look at how many flights it took to remove
the PAL ramps and otherwise modify things post-Columbia. It's not
that the risk is not worth taking, it's just that NASA is an
organization that is under close scrutiny all the time and cannot dare
take the risk. They have set themselves up... and gone from "failure
is not an option" to "we can't fail, and anyone who has anything to do
with a failure will get us all pink slips". Post-Columbia, I wondered
to myself if they were losing their collective "nerve" and being
unwilling to make critical decisions and hard choices...

Exploration *should* entail risk, and does. But the risk should be
meaningful. The thousands of early aviators that died, learning
lessons for the ones that followed, showed that risk is usually
inevitable. But NASA and other govt agencies can't just write a blank
check in human lives. So they write a blank check in dollars instead.

Point:
You have a govt owned and operated, manned spacecraft, with a record
of 99% success (pick a govt, any govt).

The craft costs a *lot* to operate. Plus it kills a random 1% of all
astronauts.

Now you have some of the upstarts. I love these guys. Instead of
putting all their eggs in one basket, they *test test test*. They
fail and rebuild and fail again. Armadillo Aerospace is one of my
favorites. They have crashed and killed more rockets than just about
anybody. They have more flight experience and building experience and
more "rubber meets the road" experience than almost anybody in the
world. They are doing things, for fractions of the cost of govt
programs, and doing things that are at the edge. They have never been
done before by any humans, at any price. Yet they are doing them for
*pennies* on the dollar, because they allow themselves to take
calculated risks, and they allow themselves to fail, and they pick up
the pieces and keep going.

Elon Musk of Spacex, now there's another one of my favorite alt.space
guys. He says that when NASA finally gets to the moon in 20 years or
so, he will fly a CNN camera crew there to film their touchdown live
*from the surface*. (What a money shot!) He knows that people will
be flying to Mars soon, and he will be the one to sell them tickets.

These are the guys to watch. NASA is too slow and too afraid of
failure.

--
Bob the Tomato

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 08:16:24 -0600, Craig Fink <WeBeGood@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Free as in a net zero cost to NASA after it's all said and done.

1. Important to recover all the residual LOX and LH2, quite a bit of LOX/LH2
gets thrown away every mission. Unusables, Flight Performance Reserves,
Fuel bias, unused margin and gaseous "ullage" pressurants.

1.1 This means keeping the ET attached to the Shuttle until all the extra
LOX and LH2 can be sucked back into the ET and stabilized.

2. NASA would have to accept payment in terms of delta-V of the Space
Station, or water (H2, O2, or H2O) as payment to zero the cost.

3. Sources of Delta-V

3.1 The SOFI is going to have to be removed on-orbit. May as well throw it
away very fast and supply Delta-V with the Mass.

3.2 Fuel bias, that too can be thrown away, very fast to supply Delta-V

3.2.1 Can I hook a line up the the Space Station Hydrogen dump port? I'd
like to sell NASA some additional delta-V.

4. Pre-Launch modification to the ET.

4.1 Valved access line to the Hydrogen/Oxygen tanks in the intertank area
between the two tanks.

4.2 Addition of benign hardware in the intertank. Benign in that it does
nothing prelaunch through MECO. NASA controlled "on/off" button.

4.3 Addition of radiator panel on the exterior of the External Tank
intertank, opposite side of Orbiter. Ideally, this could use the intertank
wall as the radiator. So, really only addition are the internal thermally
connected pipes on the inside of ...

4.4 Would be nice, but not necessary, for a electrical power connection from
Orbiter Fuel Cells to ET tank intertank area. That way all excess Orbiter
Power can run the pumps to stabilize LOX and LH2 on the way to the Space
Station.

5.0 Rendezvous modifications, the simplest would be to fly up to the Station
and grab the Station or Orbiter with one of the arms. Then very slowly
maneuver the Orbiter/ET to the docking port. Maybe a small bump with the
RCS might be required for final docking. Getting within an arm's reach of
the Station should be doable.

I think a lot of people enjoyed NASA impromptu solar array repair, it would
be good for NASA to practice more impromptu type things. Taking an ET to
the Station would be a great impromptu exercise to prepare for Lunar and
Mars exploration. NASA seems to have become to reliant on studies and
choreographed everything.

I wonder what NASA charges for renting an Astronaut or two for a few days
along with a couple of Space Walks. The ET Hydrogen Tank access door is
going to have to be removed and an ET docking adapter will have to be
installed to use the Hydrogen tank pressurized tank volume.

Can I have my free ET yet, for zero net cost to NASA? I'd like to start
modify my ET as soon as possible.

TANSTAAFL, how to pay for the non-NASA new hardware? Any ideas, capitalist
and free-market ideas? IPO? I sure hope America wakes up to a change in
direction and Ron Paul is our next President. Taking an ET to the Space
Station would be soo much fun.

Anybody want to be part owners of an ET at the Space Station?

At 50,000 lbs time 20,000 $/lbs equals $1 Billion dollars of real estate at
the Space Station. I would think the non-NASA new hardware could be
developed with some sort of venture capital IPO auction stock offering to
raise a Billion or two. The revenue streams to the company, volume rental,
LOX recovery and storage facility, LH2 recovery and storage facility, LOX
to sell, LH2 to sell, delta-V to sell, ground floor investment in a LEO
futures market, ... Profits could be huge.

Anybody else want to turn a Dream into Reality?

Voting for Ron Paul, is voting for Free Markets in Space, let the Space
rEVOLution begin. ;-)

.

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