Re: Is suborbital a real market?



<ohara5.0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:3473fba9-630b-4632-b064-0a05ee9295bd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Nov 22, 10:13 am, simberg.interglo...@xxxxxxxxx (Rand Simberg)
wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 21:05:01 -0800 (PST), in a place far, far away,
ohara...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:



You might say that this is a step towards an orbital market but
all
you have to do is to compare E=mgh to E=1/2 mv^2 where v is
orbital
velocity to see that suborbital isnt a real step toward orbital.

No, I can't see that, sorry. Even though I'm an astronautical
engineer with three decades of experience, and understand the math.
Can you explain it further?

For orbital, you gotta carry a whole lotta fuel and I dont see
Virgin or
Blue Origin or the others trying to do so.

Of course they're not. They have to do things one step at a time.

Can the Virgin ship be modified to carry a big enough engine to get
to
200 Km and then can it carry a big enough engine to go orbital?

Of course not. Again, what is the purpose of this seemingly stupid
and irrelevant question?

Otherwise they gotta build a whole new system.

So?

Is it really a stupid question? Is it really an irrelevant question?

Yes.

No, going into orbit takes orders of magnitude more energy than simply
raising yourself to 60 Km and it is reasonable to wonder if they can
easily do it.

No one has claimed that they can "easily do it." They aren't even
currently attempting to do it. That doesn't mean that some companies
won't use suborbital vehicles as a stepping stone to orbital
capabilities.

So, my question is reasonable. So, how easy would it be for them to
carry more fuel and go into orbit. I am not the aeronautical engineer
here, just a lowly x-ray physics person so I have no way to answer the
question myself. Obviously, it is a legit question.

You'll have to forgive Rand and his prodigious brain powers. He assumes
that everyone thinks the same way as he does and as a result he can
generally answer with one word answers.

Anyway, in response to your question, folks like Rutan for example don't see
SpaceShip 2 as anything other than suborbital. He may design a SS3 later,
but it'll be very different.

You're right, many of the vehicles designed for the sub-orbital market can
not scale up to orbital flight, nor are they intended to. However, we can
still learn lessons from them, some engineering, some completely
business-oriented.

Some folks here do believe that sub-orbital is a dead-end and not worth
pursuing and believe that going straight to orbital flight is the way to go.

Personally I think both have their place. I like to fly a 747 across the
Atlantic, but would love to fly an ultra-light.

Ultimately we'll see a lot of different designs for different markets. Some
will actually work and some of those will actually make money.


--
Greg Moore
SQL Server DBA Consulting Remote and Onsite available!
Email: sql (at) greenms.com http://www.greenms.com/sqlserver.html


.

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