Re: space travel can change the world


And to think at the daunting velocity of Mook, we'll get there in just
a few centuries, all due entirely at public expense and otherwise to
his cheap if not surplus/free LH2 and LOx.

Mook's Skylon @125 meters, using his 100% renewable LH2/LOx

Not that Skylon (SSTO hybrid jet/rocket plane) is ever going to
achieve those set goals as based upon their existing design, but at
least it's offering us another bold step in the right direction. All
Skylon needs is either to incorporate greater fuel energy density or
simply having more volume of fuel without significantly increasing
their inert mass. Perhaps a 125 meter by 9.6 meter composite hull
with similar wings w/o those bulky and massive engine nacelles, and
perhaps using a small aerodynamic V tail as coming off a single rear
Sabre engine nacelle that's feeding something similar to the J2X
that's offering <130 tonnes of thrust., with otherwise using a primary
SSME thruster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SABRE

Of course there's always SPACEBUS that could use a good amount of
Mook's cheap LH2.
http://www.bristolspaceplanes.com/projects/spacebus.shtml
Next client for Mook's cheap LH2 and LOx fuel is the SR-3/Blackstar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstar_(spaceplane)
Last but not least is the JP-10 fueled scramjet that kept our SR71
kicking spy-plane ***.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-71_Blackbird

Worth noting is that rocket thrust as combusted with h2o2 and
cyclopropane orbits 140% the payload that h2o2/RP-1 can launch ,
whereas the SR-71 doesn't even count when those air breathing engines
run essentially as a scramjet from mach 2à3.2, unless otherwise
becoming so much better off once hauling slush h2o2 and JP-5, not to
mention the added payload boost of using cyclopropane.

Black Horse:
http://www.fas.org/spp/military/docops/usaf/2020/app-h.htm
"Using in flight propellant transfer to reduce the Dv needed to fly to
space makes it possible for a fighter-sized aircraft to achieve orbit.
The enabling technology to do this is
non-cryogenic, non-toxic rocket propulsion based on H2O2 and JP-5."

Our old USAF Black Horse proposed operations and badly outdated fuel
cost:
· Each vehicle flies once per week; 400 total sorties per year
· Base/site operations and maintenance are $10M per year
· Additional site maintenance per flight is $25,000
· Overhead cost per person is $130,000 per year
· Propellant cost is $0.20/lb for JP-5, $0.68/lb for H2O2
· 21,000 pounds of fuel are used per sortie (not including tanker)
· 155,000 pounds of the h2o2 oxidizer are used per flight

Mook's affordable H2 or LH2 economy is of course technically doable,
although little is actually all that new or improved by way of Mook
creating such cheap H2, much less of any H2àLH2 or LOx, and at best
it's simply not compact enough for accommodating most forms of private
transportation on any par with liquid fossil/synfuels and good old
atmosphere, nor without a risk of creating its own fair share of NOx
when having to consume so much of our mostly N2 atmosphere. Of course
the Sabre reaction engine manages to exclude most of the N2,
essentially capable of processing LOx while on the fly.

Best Books on Hydrogen Future Possibilities: whereas this topic holds
some of Mook's better arguments against the established big-energy
gauntlet of perpetual denials and naysayism imposed upon any such
energy alternative notions other than consuming fossil fuels and
creating as much CO2 and NOx as possible.
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.energy.hydrogen/msg/8617469292257c46?hl=en&;

Affordable commercial space travel may be at best decades away, and of
the Mook H2 helicopter notion may never fly in commercial service
unless also incorporating one of those complex Sabre LOx producing
engines, but perhaps the suborbital capable SST/Concorde/Skylon might
actually stand a chance in hell if there's ever going to be such a
cheap and renewable supply of LH2 along with a surplus of other clean
Mook energy for the essential makings of LOx.

Supposedly the pair of Sabre hybrid airbreathing/rocket engines are
offering one viable method of extracting LOx on the fly(sort of
speak). If combined along with Mook's cheap LH2 is where this form of
LOx feed via an airbreathing engine could become the best hybrid
thrusting game in town of using those J2X thrusters. All that's
needed is an extremely large amount of fuel and oxidizer volume in
order to accommodate 100 passengers plus 9 crew.

This much larger Skylon of 125 meters by 9.6 meter primary aerodynamic
composite shell is also going to represent at least 6400 kg worth of
buoyancy offset once most of those LH2 tanks are empty.

Skylon w/reaction thrust via two Sabre hybrid airbreathing/rocket
engines.
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/skylon.htm
"These engines employed liquid hydrogen fuel with atmospheric air up
to Mach 5.5 and on-board liquid oxygen beyond that to orbital
velocities. At take-off the vehicle carried approximately 66 tonnes of
liquid hydrogen and approximately 150 tonnes of liquid oxygen for the
ascent."

http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/skylon_vehicle.html
Length: 82m
Fuselage Diameter: 6.25m
Wingspan: 25m
Unladen Mass: 41,000kg
Fuel Mass: 220,000kg
Maximum Payload Mass: 12,000kg
(I'd give this 6,000 kg or roughly half the Concorde payload)

"The thrust during airbreathing ascent was variable but around 200
tonnes. During rocket ascent this rose to 300 tonnes but was then
throttled down towards the end of the ascent to limit the longitudinal
acceleration to 3.0g."

Two of the Saturn J2S engines are worth roughly 240 tonnes of thrust.
Two of the new and improved 1650 kg J2X engines should accomplish 260
tonnes of thrust (roughly half of the SSME thrust but also less than
2/3 the combined inert mass of one SSME).

Apparently it takes at least 5 tonnes of LH2 just for getting Skylon
down the tarmac, to accelerate and fly itself off the deck as headed
towards the wild black yonder, and by way of burning off that cache of
Mook's cheap hydrogen along with consuming vast amounts of atmosphere
is unavoidably leaving a lethal trail of NOx most all the way (NOx
being much worse than CO2 for our environment because, plants and most
other life on Earth simply can not process NOx nor tolerate more than
a few ppm, of which can become another environmental fiasco since
nothing much breaks NOx down). In other words, it takes a great deal
of applied energy in order to create LOx while on the supersonic or
hypersonic fly, and if that energy is primarily via H2 and atmosphere
combustion is simply never going to avoid creating NOx unless the
Sabre engine itself that's making its own LOx manages to divert the
greater portion of N2 prior to combustion (technically doable in the
lab but not quite commercially airworthy viable as of the existing
technology).

Supposedly at supersonic or scramjet velocity, along with cold enough
air, is when the Saber engine manages to create its own LOx in excess
of its needs, and thereby minimizing the risk of directly creating NOx
within it's primary rocket thrust combustion process, although
indirectly the exhaust will have to interact with the surrounding
atmosphere and as such it should still create some NOx no matters
what, unless the exhaust is moderated with good old h2o/steam, so as
to pull it's temperature down to below the point of creating NOx.. In
other words, burning of plan old water or perhaps using h2o2 as an
afterburner sort of notion might actually do the trick, making Mook's
Skylon a tri-propellant SSTO solution.

Therefore, instead of a pair of complex Sabre hybrid engines
(including their bulky Nacelle, Inlet, Bypass) at 13,200 kg, whereas
one 6,600 kg SSME: offers the Mook suborbital or even orbital LH2/LOx
Concorde/Skylon on 1xSSME or 2xJ2X, as offering nearly twice the
initial Skylon thrust at half the inert mass without having to
incorporate those bulky engine nacelle drag coefficients, by which
should actually work a whole better than Skylon with those complex
Sabre reaction thrusters, especially if we're down to using the one
compact SSME for accomplishing that ascent thrust (@400,000+ lbs and
500,000+ lb at suborbital or LEO altitude).

Engine mass: 6597 kg. Manufacturer Name: RS-24. (SSME) Designer:
Rocketdyne. Developed: 1972. Propellants: LOx/LH2 Thrust(vacuum):
512,136 lbf (232,301 kgf).
104.5% SSME fuel follows: LOx 424 kg/s, LH2 70.3 kg/s

As another point of commercial reference is the fully terrestrial SST
Concorde
http://www.concordesst.com/techspec.html
SST Concorde Rolls-Royce Olympus Engine thrust of 38,050 lb (x4),
provides<10,000 lb each (40,000 lbs) at supersonic cruising for
accommodating 100 passengers +9 crew.

Ideal fuel burn @47 lbs/mile and 1250 mph = 58,750 lbs/hr (26,649 kg/
hr excluding atmosphere tonnage)

Minimum fuel consumption at 7.4 kg/s. (fuel load: 95,680 kg = 12,930
sec or 3.6 hours [maximum] not including anything such as takeoff,
getting to their cruising altitude, of landing or tarmac standby w/
auxiliary APU, as in allowing for nothing but just the best possible
cruise mode), with limited fuel reserves should allow for a maximum
takeoff to landing of 3.5 hours flight time, possibly <3.75 hrs if
having spent zero tarmac standby time and then mostly subsonic gliding
in on near empty from 60,000' for accomplishing their minimum fuel
consumption mode of a twin-engine landing, thereby leaving just barely
enough tarmacàgate maneuvering fuel unless having headwinds to deal
with, in which case their supposedly fuel efficient per passenger mile
SST comes in shuttle like dead-stick(sort of speak) and it gets
tractor towed to the gate.

Instead of our continually making lots of spendy CO2 and NOx via
fossil or synfuel and always having to consume our badly polluted
atmosphere of mostly N2, whereas Mook's Skylon alternative offers us
an LH2/LOx method on behalf of pushing such an SST a whole lot faster
and further as simply using a better thrust application for the energy
demanding task, as well as best off for our badly failing
environment. Of course this SSME powered SST or Skylon needs to be at
least four times the aerodynamic volume of the existing Concorde, and
90~95% of that volume being of its fuel and related infrastructure, as
well as no matters what our lord all-knowing Mook never agrees with
anyone, of which pretty much insuring that nothing of any clean energy
related consumer merit will ever come of anything associated with the
all-or-nothing Mook mindset of his H2 global economy, even though I
fully agree with the makings of such liquid fuels from his vast
amounts of renewable solar energy is technically doable and should
eventually become better off in most every way for our badly failing
environment.

One more note of a well proven LH2/LOX fly-by-rocket is our space
shuttle:
Shuttle GLOW Mass (incl. ET and SRBs): 2,029,203 kg (4,474,574 lb)
Shuttle 3XSSME Thrust: 1,181,400 lbf combined total, sea level liftoff
(5.25 MN)
· Shuttle empty weight: 151,205 lb (68,585 kg)
· Gross Liftoff Weight: 240,000 lb (109,000 kg)

Once again; those main engines of three Rocketdyne Block IIA SSMEs,
each with a sea level thrust of 393,800 lbf (174,089 kgf) that only
get better results at altitude, seems like such a waste of extremely
good and proven as reliable technology, whereas to never apply such on
behalf any commercial transport seems worse than pathetic of us.

Mook's version of the suborbital SST for his rich and powerful friends
will likely need to incorporate at least one such SSME instead of
those complex hybrid air breathing rocket engines, whereas Mook's
Skylon would likely have at least one such conventional subsonic air
breathing engine as his tarmac APU, landing thrust assist and surface
maneuvering engine. Most of the extended and expanded composite
aerodynamic frame will have to be capable of safely storing vast
amounts of his LH2, plus a sufficient cache of LOx, or possibly that
of a hauling along a supersonic Sabre rated APU for the task of making
our mostly N2 atmosphere into LOx. Of course, most all of this
spendier than Skylon R&D and on behalf of creating his initial fleet
will have to be paid at least indirectly with public loot, especially
since Mook's claim that his solar made LH2 is going to become so vast
and gosh darn dirt cheap that his profits will not likely ever become
sufficient to pay for much of anything (poor Mook probably couldn't
afford a ticket onboard his own suborbital SST, much less of any
commercial LEO transport).

I'm not nearly as all-knowing or as pro big-energy and forever in
favor of bigger government, nor as brown-nose qualified as lord Mook,
but I'd have to rethink that perhaps China is already doing us one
better with their version of CATS(cheap access to space), plus showing
us their good intentions of processing all sorts of nifty and valuable
stuff (including 3He) out of our extremely nearby moon seems to
represent the best kind of an advanced technology applied future, of
where the vast bulk of such imported energy is going to happen in
spite of whatever the terrestrial limited likes of Mook or that of our
NASA thinks is best.

Unlike the usual Usenet gauntlet of all-knowing naysayers and deniers,
I have never excluded the makings and use of hydrogen from clean and
renewable energy, though having pointed out that a liquid form of H2
and O2 as formulated in h2o2(hydrogen peroxide) offers another good
deal of stored energy density without some of the LH2+atmosphere or
LOx drawbacks, and h2o2+synfuel or even along with plain old fossil
fuel offers us minimal CO2 and essentially a zero NOx end result (even
the cooler thrust/exhaust is less likely to create atmospheric
reaction NOx)

Once having the energy efficient and least NOx producing Mook Skylon
at our disposal, is also when we can start thinking along the lines of
accomplishing those spendy and somewhat time consuming to/from Venus
expeditions in style. With a pair of fully reusable LRBs should more
than get this spacecraft on its way with fuel and payload to spare,
made even better if having the Chinese LSE-CM/ISS as offering the most
efficient orbiting fuel oasis/depot and best possible exit away from
Earth's gravity.

Perhaps these Usenet MI5/CIA spooks and moles need to rethink upon
their Third Reich infowar tactics of having to continually spew such
infomercial crapolla, especially since not all the rest of us village
idiots are nearly as snookered or as dumbfounded past the point of no
return as they'd like to think. Lord only knows if our resident spook
Mook might even have to get a for-real job and pay taxes like the rest
of us, and learn to speak fluent Mandarin Chinese should go a long
ways.

- Brad Guth


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