Re: Global wireless hotspot

On Jan 29, 4:24 am, Ian Parker <ianpark...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 29 Jan, 00:42, Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:





On Jan 28, 2:57 pm, Ian Parker <ianpark...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

BTW - The decision to have a small number of Saturn flights (LBJ) and
the decision to completely cancel Saturn and go for the Shuttle are
decisions of a completely different nature. The one is comprehensible
on cost grounds, the other completely incomprehensible. You go for new
systems when you are flush with cash.

  - Ian Parker

ITs incomprehensible because you refuse to accept the notion that
Nixon's goals in space were not what yours are.  His goal was to in
effect twiddle the thumbs of the civilian space program - keeping our
technical capacity while not doing something that would create
problems because of space development.

I believe that all the problems that Nixon and Eisenhower saw, were
actually opportunities for greatness that we sidelined, and we may pay
the ultimate price.

There is always risk in change.  There is certainty in no change.
That certainty is called death.  Think about it, total lack of change
is a feature of something that is dead.  Life entails accepting and
dealing with the change life brings you.  Hiding away and lying to
yourself about the world, may seem like the easier way, but it
foregoes the pain of growth by avoiding growth and ceding the growth
to others.

Now the US has powerful means at its disposal to create disparities
between itself and the rest of the world - in economics and technology
and so forth.  So, the US can in this way export this propensity for
death.  So, rather than lose out to others who might challenge us in
space - we see space programs fail - and with it the idea that space
is useful for anything is undermined - so what is the result of that?

Obvious

The whole world dies with us.

And that's what we are seeing surrounding us today.

And people without a thing to lose - will do anything - including
flying planes into buildings, or spending their lives getting their
hands on a loose nuke, and setting it off in the center of a powerful
city.

In the end, we will have created the very problems we hoed to avoid by
our inaction.  And we would have avoided these problems had we
accepted the challenges of growth and worked through them.

Its stil not too late.  Later perhaps than when I started writing this
in the 1990s.  The loose nukes can still be brought under control.
Enhanced proliferation goals can still be propose.  The world can
still be united under a program to do a manned grand tour of the solar
system using nuclear pulse rockets fueled by cold war weapons.

Once, God forbid, the loose nukes go off in our cities - once the
Chinese unload their debt - then the US is down for the count for a
generation at least - and the Chinese will be holding all the
resources - and we will find it very difficult to move forward after
that.

I think we are talking slighly at cross purposes.

Well, you started out saying that it didn't make sense what Nixon/
Johnson did after the moon landing. So, that's what I'm talking
about. It made perfect sense given that they didn't want the nation
to waste gobs of money on what was termed in the record - 'space
stunts' - sort of gives you an idea of where their mind was.

I am talking about
how you spend a fixed sum of money.

Given that you want the public to one day demand that sum equal zero -
then you understand why they did what they did.

The Shuttle in fact cost a lot
more than keping Saturn ever would

You're only counting a fraction of the cost.

While it is absolutely true that developing an efficiently operating
fleet of Saturn Vs with a reusable nuclear thermal upper stage, and
reusable boosters, flown every week for $100 million - would be less
expensive than develolping and flying a fleet of Space Shuttles every
three months would give us much more bang for the buck. The Saturn V
fleet would put up 6,240 metric tons while the Shuttle Fleet puts up
at most 120 metric tons in a year - you are not counting the costs of
having this much capacity - this includes;

1) the cost of the payloads - at $10,000 per kg
Shuttle payloads: $1.2 billion
Saturn payloads $62.4 billion

2) the cost of failures far from home -
Shuttle disaster - instantaneous 'crash'
Apollo 13 disaster - 4 days of live TV coverage

3) the cost of success far from home
Shuttle crews: 28 astronauts in LEO/year
Saturn crews 300 astronauts to the moon and beyond

4) the cost of public enthusiasm
Shuttle operations - hohum we've been in orbit for 50
years
Saturn operations - hotdamn we're going to Mars and
beyond

5) the cost of high volume operations
Shuttle operations - small aerospace depdent on subsidy
Saturn operations - large aerospace independent of
subsidy

An operating Saturn V fleet - with reusable stages, and adequately
maintained launch infrastructure to keep it flying cheaply would mean
we'd spend 50x as much money on payloads. Those payloads would be far
more capable than anything the Shuttle could do. It would involve far
more astronauts farther from home. It would encite public enthusiasm,
and who knows what damned new idea from any one of the hundreds of
astronauts. To get a feel for this, consider the impact of just one
man on America who had an astounding vision - Joseph Smith. He
founded the Mormon religion. With just a few days in space, lunar
module pilot Edgar Mitchell had a religious revelation and founded the
Noetic Institute. Alan Bean became an professional artist to capture
the 'feel' of his journy. Others became ministers and underwent
religious conversions. These are hard boiled top gun pilots and
genius engineers all rolled into one. And of the handful that went to
the moon, fully half underwent significant emotional changes as a
result of their journey.

What do you think having over 300 people a year flying to the moon
and beyond on multi-year missions would do to our culture? It would
make the mess Joseph Smith stirred up seem like a walk in the park -
and that's just ONE aspect. Another difficulty would come from any
settlements off world - where people were independent of Earth. They
would be beyond Earth's ability to monitor or reach out and touch
them, but they'd have the capacity to touch Earth. Consider the 365
ft tall Saturn V sitting on Earth to shoot at the moon. Now contrast
it with the 30 ft tall LEM sitting on the Moon to shoot at the Earth.
Large numbers of people far from Earth will see things differently. A
good percentage will come back and revolutionize the way we all think
with new ideas and perspectives. This will wreak havoc on the way
things are. This will be the easily handled problem. Less easily
handled are those that don't come back. The space equivalent of
mountain men and trappers in early American history. These folks will
live off the land, and have huge technical knowledge and capacity -
and won't be predictable or controllable in any way. If you think
Osma bin Laden is hard to catch, and that an airplane flying into a
building is disaster - you haven't seen some crazy person or group
hiding out in the asteroids chucking pieces at Earth for some damned
fool reason. And this is just the trouble we can think of sitting
here on Earth before it all gets started. Who knows what the hell
might happen down the road?

What we spend in space is a direct response to public demand. NASA
wouldn't exist if it weren't for public outcry to do something about
Sputnik. Well the Soviet Union is no more, and their ability to do
anything shocking in space is severely reduced. So, as a nation,
privately, expert opinion is, we don't want space stunts to drain our
economy for more important things like paying for regime change. So,
what would you rather have? Lots of payloads carrying lots of people
far from Earth doing exciting things, that inspire the public to
demand more in space? Or a few paylods doing the same things you've
done for the last 50 years - that are so boring that when there's a
disaster there's a public outcry - why are we doing this? Of course,
if important new literature, artwork, religions are spawned by a
handful of astronauts who have skated across the solar system and back
to Earth, if important new supplies of strategic materials and energy
are derived fromspace based assets, the loss of a ship or crew would
be mourned and seen as the necessary price to pay for progress - but
if they're doing the same old thing and going no where fast, and very
expensively - its a different story - leading to a different result.

Building a shuttle kept the NASA infrastructure going doing things
close to Earth while minimizing the costs of space travel. They did
this because they didn't see the benefits derived from space travel.
The didn't know how the US could use these 'costs' to take the leading
position in the world as the gateway to the frontier - they didn't
know how to meet the challenges they saw. So, lacking the vision to
realize the benefits associated with the costs, and lacking the nerve
to realize the 'costs' and challenges can be met, and not realizing no
change is the greatest cost of all to a growing society - they made
the choice they did.


have done. In terms of philosophy,
yes standing still is suicidal. In fact the Shuttle has allowed ESA to
very much close the gap. In fact ESA/Soyuz will actually be IN ADVANCE
of America.

Now, I'm answering your original question - why Nixon and LBJ worked
across two administrations to end the Saturn and start-up the Shuttle.
This sort of thing you mention is not something they foresaw. In
fact, I think there is clear evidence that following the first woman
in space and the first space walk, the CIA worked diligently to
undermine the Russian space launch capability. That was far cheaper
than getting ahead and staying ahead for America. So, in that
context, it was likely that Nixon and LBJ thought once we undermine
the one space faring nation that is drawing us into this space race,
we can slack off and not worry about anyone doing anything in space
for a generation or two - because none of the people then could see
any real benefit from space research.

If I had a large/medium sized pot

You don't so why even say this? You say this because it makes you
feel better. Its nothing but mental masturbation. Get some money -
then you can talk.

I would have developed
nuclear and ion propulsion for the upper stages.

Absolutely - read the EMPIRE reports from the early 1960s. Why do you
think the thrust of the NERVA engine matched the thrust of a J2? Take
a 33 ft diameter SII stage - remove the bulkhead between the hydrogen
and oxygen tank, replace the five J2 engines with a single NERVA
engine - fill it with hydrogen - and no oxygen - and you have a dandy
nuclear third stage for the Saturn V that weighs as much as a SIVB -
167 metric tons of hydrogen and 95 metric tons of structure - with an
ISP of 950 seconds - and a payload of 109.6 tons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V

# Stage m0 mp m1
1. S1C 300.0 4492.0 4792.0
2. S2 95.0 942.0 1037.0
3. SIVB 34.0 228.0 262.0
4. IU 4.5 0.0 4.5
5. payload - - 109.6

With an ISP of 420 seconds and propellant mass of 228.0 tons - and a
total mass of 376.1 the fourth stage of the Saturn V is;

Vf = 420 * 9.82 * LN(1/(1-(228.0/376.1)))
= 4,124.4 m/s * LN(1/(1-0.60622)
= 3,843.8 m/s

with a nuclear upper stage

SIVN 95.0 167.0 262.0
IU 4.5 0.0 4.5
payload - - 109.6

With an ISP of 950 seconds and a propellant mass of 167 tons - and a
total mass of 376.1 the nuclear stage of the Saturn V is;

Vf = 950 * 9.82 * LN(1/(1-(167.0/376.1)))
= 9,329.0 m/s * LN(1/(1-0.44403))
= 5,476.5 m/sec

This is enough to take 109 metric tons and deposit it one way on the
moon or mars- and by proper design of the nuclear reactor, power the
moon base once its there. With a supply of water, and a nuclear
reactor, its possible to get oxygen to breath and hydrogen fuel to fly
back -

Note that the SIVB empty masses 34 tons - and the the Skylab massed
77.1 metric tons. Several configurations of 'wet' habitats were
studied. That way the living volume would be used to store
propellant.

And SIVB modified for habitation - but also carrying around 38 tons of
hydrogen - and that hydrogen is burned off first for trans lunar, or
trans planetary injection - would increase delta vee by

SIVN 95.0 205.0 300.0
IU 4.5 0.0 4.5
payload - - 71.6

Vf = 950 * 9.82 * LN(1/(1-(205.0/376.1)))
= 9,329.0 m/s * LN(1/(1-0.54507))
= 7,347.6 m/sec

A translunar injection is 3.7 km/sec and a lunar landing is about 1.8
km/sec - so, the nuclear stage can deposit an SIVB on the lunar
surface. The 'wet hab' can deposit a nuclear stage and return. It
can send an expedition anywhere in the inner solar system - and land -
or enter orbit and return.

Building these stages to sustain re-entry - and reuse - allows a
regular service between the Earth, moon and mars.

Once you have a GW of nuclear space power - you can do a lot with it.
You can power nuclear thermal rockets, you can power nuclear electric
systems, you can process water into oxygen and hydrogen, you can power
a lunar or mars base, you can power an ion rocket.

To LEO would of
course have been non nuclear. A smaller pot and just solar powered ion
drives.

A square kilometer of solar collectors is needed to produce 180 MW -

I think you exaggerate the impact that America now haws.

America is losing influence because America didn't meet the challenge
when they had a chance to take unquestioned leadership role. Kennedy
wanted America to lead the world in space, and spread freedom and
prosperity throughout the world. He was assasinated. When his
brother ran and won the votes to get the nomination after his brother
was killed - he too was killed. After America landed on the moon,
NASA was killed as well - and that chapter of American history was put
behind us - only to live on in fiction - and be increasingly
marginalized by science fiction genres that bear very little relation
to the 'hard' sci-fi that gave rise to real astronauts and real space
travel.


ESA has had a
relatively small pot, but a pot which is consistent year in year out.
ESA money has on the whole been well spent.

Depends on what you want to do. No one has made fundamental
improvements in technology along the lines of the EMPIRE study, no one
has re-created the Saturn V, or its variants. No one has even thought
to go back to the moon. No one has stood up and said it is in their
national interest to spend 5% or so each year of their nation's budget
developing new frontiers off-world. No one has given a clear
convincing reason to be in space in a big way. So, no use of off-
world resources is contemplated in the future, and the vast resources
of the worlds available to us does not impact the conciousness of
those who worry about the survival of industrial society in the
future.

.

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