Re: LA-4541-MS

My goodness, you really don't understand the first fundamental thing
about robotics, but you know all there is to know about imposing your
nayism, as though it were the one and only word of God. Way to go,
Willie (aka God).

Sadly, Willie.Moo just doesn't deductively think, much less outside of
your cozy mainstream box. You can't even hardly make your PC/MAC do
the thinking for you.


Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Apr 7, 2:18 pm, BradGuth <bradg...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Apr 7, 6:43 am, Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:





On Apr 7, 12:17 am, BradGuth <bradg...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Apr 6, 12:15 pm, Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Apr 6, 2:17 pm, BradGuth <bradg...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Apr 5, 1:35 pm, Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Apr 5, 2:56 pm, BradGuth <bradg...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Apr 5, 4:08 am, Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Again, you take statements of facts personally. I neither like nor
dislike any concept. I can say of any concept however, whether it is
workable or not. Your CM/ISS and attached LSE doesn't appear to me to
be workable or especially useful even if it were. I have given you
detailed technical and engineering reasons for these conclusions. You
have not appreciated them, misunderstood them, and generally ignored
them. So, I will not repeat them here yet again.

Now, my conclusions may be in error. If so, then it is up to you to
understand the factual basis of my conclusions, and provide clear and
rational rebuttal. You have failed to do that. While you have stated
quite ardently that you believe my conclusions are in error, you have
failed to provide any rational basis for such a conclusion. That is,
blaming various religious orders and a vast conspiracy to hide or
distort scientific facts - is not a rational rebuttal to the fact that
say hydrogen peroxide has 1/9th the energy content and 3x the cost of
gasoline per gallon. haha..

The thing isBrad, I'm writing about nuclear pulse rockets here. Why
do you think its alright to come along and post endless blahter about
things having nothing to do with nuclear pulse rockets? Because you
need to? Well, you can come to a dinner party uninvited, and that
might be alright, no one will throw you out. And you might even have
to *** urgently. That's okay too, the toilets over there. But when
you come to my dinner party and *** all over my fine china, well I've
gotta ask you to leave old friend. Look at this thread just look at
it. 75% - 3 out 4 posts are about you and me talking about nothing at
all to do with nuclear pulse rockets in the report I mentioned. WHY
IS THATBRAD? Not only that, the stuff you say is damned
offensive! Anyone reading any of the bull*** you routinely put out
- for the first time - would never come back to this thread again.
And 3 out of 4 posts in the thread will contain something that
objectionable - because you've taken a lot of time - to make sure they
are there.

brad, if you were a paid agent dedicated to disrupting reasonable
discourse about nuclear pulse rockets, you couldn't do a better job
achieving it. You are sick, and you are destroying the very thing you
care most about. GET HELP AND LEAVE ME THE *** ALONE! haha..

Finally, imho, fusion powered rockets are the way to go if you have
them. Barring that, laser powered rockets do a helluva job. Barring
that, efficient reusable chemical rockets of adequate size can be made
to serve. Making these technologies possible, and lowering their
cost, is the way to promote the opening of the solar system. Tethers
and all that are highly speculative, far more than fusion rockets -
and they need rockets to be put in place.. They will in all
likelihood be used one day - but they won't blaze the first trails
into the unknown, they're built up after the frontier is opened..
We'll use rockets to start, and once traffic volume exceeds a certain
level, we'll use tethers as a mean to support increased volumes at
lower costs.

Your LSE-CM/ISS nayism is noted. Too bad the best available gateway/
oasis/outpost is going to be created and controlled by China, or
perhaps India.

Boeing OASIS:
Earth-Moon L1 Gateway Missions / Executive Summary 10/2/2001
http://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/design_lib/OASISEXEC_97.pdf

Clarke Station:
An Artificial Gravity Space Station at the Earth-Moon L1 Point
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/reports/CB-1106/maryland01b.pdf

Building an L1 Depot in Phases:
Growing in step with operations on the Moon's surface
http://chapters.nss.org/hub/pdf%20presentations/LIphases.pdf

Getting the most tonnage per any given fly-by-rocket method is by far
the most obtainable if such payload tonnage were intended for
deployment into the moon's L1 pocket. This ML-1 location is an
interactive gravity-null or quiet zone of otherwise being nearly ideal
for efficiently station-keeping as much volumetric size and tonnage as
you'd like, and rather fly-by-rocket efficient if it's robotically
getting there in no special hurry, such as for taking a lunar month if
need be, is good enough as far as robotics seem to care.

However, keeping in mind that this Earth-Moon-L1 location is also
double IR toasty because, that physically dark moon once even
partially solar illuminated is what reflects and/or radiates solar
energy at roughly 33%~50% of the available IR spectrum. Don't kid
yourself about that wide-open space between Earth and our moon,
especially as for the moon's L1 being the least bit cool or much less
cold as reported by those NASA/Apollo missions it is not, especially
if there's multiple human bodies plus loads of systems and
instrumentation heat to continually get rid of, as such thermal energy
is not as technically easy to get rid of such internal and absorbed
solar heat as you'd think, especially since unlike the 50% dark time
of ISS, there's not much greater than 2% dark time per any given year
while situated within the moon's L1, meaning that for days on end
there's none of that shade whatsoever, as well as at times getting
that IR energy as derived from three directions at once.

My fully tethered LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator) along with its
counter mass of a truly substantial space habitat that's extremely
well shielded, and of its tether dipole element reaching that other
habitat capable pod or module to within 2r of Earth, is far better
than either of the above or that of anything NASA's NExT space station/
gateway has to offer.

BTW, I'm not the least bit opposed to nuclear impulse rockets, or much
less of my Rn222 ion thrusters for the long haul so that only a small
amount of controlled thorium nuclear derived energy is required. I'm
actually one of the few good-guys when it comes to using the best
available energy for accomplishing the interplanetary task of getting
folks safely to/from those off-world places.
. -BradGuth- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Using the lagrange points as a transfer point makes sense if you are
energy limited. That does not describe a nuclear pulse spacecraft -
so you need to take your discussion to a thread, or start a thread
yourself, on this subject to share it with others.

The LSE/CM/ISS that's moon tethered and situated at the moon's L1
would offer an ideal remote location and long-term survivable habitat,
as an outpost/oasis/gateway in order to assemble and even fuel up that
massive nuclear pulse spacecraft of yours.
. -BradGuth- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You build it on Earth and depart from Earth. That's the easiest way
to go, and then land where you want to land, and take off from there.

Have it your massive and environment polluting way.

BTW, the private environmental permit ticket to ride will likely add a
few billions to the cost of your budget, just to buy off the horrific
amounts of CO2, NOx and any number of other toxins getting put into
the polluted atmosphere and of our badly failing surface environment.

BTW No.2, is this project of yours or of others going to happen before
or after WWIII?

footnote: In just 60 years has given birth to a 3200% inflation of
common diesel fuel. What's next?
. -BradGuth- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Using chemical rockets to build up a lunar industry sufficient to
capture a counter-weight from the asteroid belt and launch a tether to
L1 - creates far more pollutants than using a fleet of nuclear pulse
rockets for two or three genrations - so, what you say makes no sense
whatever - as per usual.

That's odd, because my 256e6 tonne CM/ISS is 99.9% derived from the
moon itself (including those mostly basalt fiber tethers that could
also incorporate fibers of lunar thorium). Why would you insist upon
doing such things the absolute hardest and thus most spendy and
terrestrial polluting way possible?
. - Brad Guth- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Its not odd at all.

What about unobtainium didn't you understand? haha. You don't know
what you're going to build the thing out of Brad. So, you cannot
know how to design it. And since you don't have a material, or a
design, you sure as hell don't have a valid mass, or a breakdown of
what you need or don't need from Earth.

But lets take your made up number and see where that gets us.

You'll find my number is not odd at all.

Look at the Tsiolkovsky or rocket equation. Look at the specific
impulses of chemical rocket fuels and compute how much chemical
propellant you need to expend and the size of the fleet to expend it
to put 0.1% 256e3 tonne of stuff you say you need on the moon for the
tether.

Now, you've got the material your not getting from the moon - great!
Now what? Oh yeah, you gotta put it together into a tether.

How are you going to do that? Oh, that's easy, people and tools and
time. Alright. How many people? How many tools? How much time?

Well on that you're strangely silent. Probably because you don't
know. Probably because it never occurred to you. Probably because
you haven't got a clue. You certainly don't have a clue about
unobtainium - unless your friends on Venus are giving it to you
telepathically. haha..

Well, let me do a preliminary estimate for ya using your number.

Look at a bridge building project or highway building project or dam
building project on Earth. Take the Grand Coolee dam. Most of the
stuff you get locally for the concrete and whatnot. You bring in the
steel rebar. The rebar in the Grand Coolee dam by the way weighs more
than 0.1% of the total project. So, I think what you gotta bring from
Earth to put in your tether is low. But, we'll go with it for thetime
being - since its a made up number in any case until someone invents
unobtainium..

2.56e8 tonnes - tether station weight (not including counter-
weight)
2.56e5 tonnes - stuff brought from Earth

So, you've given a hard number - so that's something to work with.

To send something one way from Earth requires a velocity to the moon
of 10.85 km/sec - then to land on the moon another 2.4 km/sec - and
gravity and air drag losses - 2.0 km/sec - a grand total of 15.25 km/
sec - no provision for return.

Now, I'm assuming you'll need to reuse all the hardware - so that
means you are careful about the staging you'll need. I've already
described elsewhere - the 7 element launcher built around the ET and
RS-68 engine that puts up 500 metric tons into LEO. That's a fully
reusable system. So that part's solved.

6,160 metric tons of propellant - 840 tons of hardware (reused) The
hardware at $5.3 million per metric ton costs $4.45 billion. Lets
say you have a fleet of 10 and you fly one every other day. That's
$44.5 billion acquisition cost - and a 20 day turn around on the
ground. 1% of the purchase price is spend per launch - that's $45
million - there are 180 launches per year - assuming you take holidays
- and that's an annual cost on the ground side of $8.1 billion per
year. A continuous funding of $8.1 billion per year - for 6 years -
gets you your fleet, and then $8.1 billion per year thereafter lets
you run it.

You're pumping 3,080 metric tons of rocket exhaust into the atmosphere
every day on average - which is water - but not 100% - and a lot of
that is deposited in the ozone layer and outer atmosphere - which has
unknown impact on the environment.

Yet, you are putting up 250 metric tons into LEO at a cost of .$22
milllion per day. That's a good thing as Martha Stewart might say.

Also, re-entry from high speeds produce NOx and other pollutants as
the re-entering bodies tear through the atmosphere. This is an
unstudied problem and no generally accepted way to estimate is
available. Until a better way comes along, I take 1/3 the kinetic
energy disappated during re-entry and figure how much NOx I can make
at optimal rates using that much heat. Its a sizeable number - on par
with the propellant weight. This too occurs at all altitudes between
orbit and the stratosphere.

Now, on to the moon.

From LEO you've gotta add 6.25 km/sec to land safely on the moon in
about 4 days - this is best done in two stages. The first stage is
the translunar injection - and second stage is the lunar landing.

Now, the TLI if done on a minimum energy lunar free return trajectory,
gets you your TLI booster back - after 8 days. The lunar lander is
lost,unless you have provision for return. Well, we'll make that
provision - which takes another 2.4 km/sec - to get back to Earth -
but, as an empty - which is cool.

If you want to do it another way you figure it out. This is
logistically simple, and easy. Its the way I used to come up with
estimates for my lunar hotel and gaming center! lol.

Alright - the other thing we need to know is how hot our rockets are.
I tend to favor hydrogen and oxygen propellants in a 6 to 1 mix oxygen
to hydrogen - and operating at a moderately high pressure ratio in
vacuo - gets you a 490 sec Isp. The Saenger Project in Europe
achieved that in test -and I think its a good goal for the 6 year
program to develop by 2014 - to repeat the performance of 1994 - lol.

That means that exhaust speed of the rocket is 4,811.8 m/sec or 4.8 km/
sec

So, we start with 500 tons in LEO and need to kick the whole thing
into a trans lunar trajectory. How much propellant does that take?

We have everything we need to do a preliminary estimate;

u = 1 - 1/exp(Vf/Ve) = 1 - 1/exp(3.82/4.81) = 54.9%

So taking this figure and multiplying it by the 500 tons we have as
available payload obtains 274.5 metric tons of propellant. A tank
fraction of 12% is easily achievable - actually this is high, but
recall, we're building this thing to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere
to be reused. This means the stage mass budget is 32 tons - and
leaves 193.5 metric tons for the lunar descent.

Of course once the lunar insertion stage has completed its work, it
follows the lunar lander to the moon. Since this is a free return
trajectory, if nothing is done, everything comes back and re-enters at
Earth. That's what happens to the Lunar insertion stage. It re-
enters, snagged by a recovery plane, and towed back to the launch
center to be refurbished and reused.

Development and construction cost of each stage is likely to be more
tha $5.3 million x 32 metric tons - $169.6 million. 10 stages - to
operate with the fleet of 10 launchers - cost an additional $1.7
billion. 2% operating cost per flight cycle is $3.4 million per
flight. 180 flights per year $612 million per year - added to our $8.1
billion annual budget - to pay all the hardworking people who make all
the magic happen with this stage. Our annual budget has risen to $8.7
billion per year - divide this number by $150,000 to get the size of
the standing army you need - while this includes salary they certainly
don't get paid that much but together with salary, they certainly
spend that much in parts tools and so forth on average for each
person. Even a janitor uses mops, buckets, soap, and water and so
forth.

The stage re-entering from a lunar free return trajectory, likely
produces about 200 metric tons of NOx. - per flight. That's 100 tons
per day - during the build up. for as many years as it takes.

Let's see now we've gotta land on the moon with our payload, and
figure out how much we get each time. We've got a mass budget of
193.5 metric tons to work with. Lots larger than the old Apollo
lander. And LOX/LH is far more energetic than the old hypergolics.
Especially the fancy german engine I'm thinking about.

Alright - we've got to reduce our speed by 2.4 km/sec to 0.0 km/sec at
0 altitude. No problem. Easy as pie.

The propellant fraction needed for that is;

u = 1 - 1/exp(2.4/4.41) = 42.0%

That's 81.3 metric tons of propellant. 12% of this mass is 9.7 metric
tons. To loft 9.7 metric tons off the moon with the same speed -
requires an additional 4 tons - 12% of that is 0.5 tons - to launch
this off the moon requires an additional 0.2 tons - 12% of that is
24.7 kg - and since I've been rounding up to the nearest hundred kg
we're covered -we don't need to solve the calculus problem - haha..
which is beyond the scope of this posting. lol.

Alright add up the propellants and structures and subtract that from
the budget - and we get our payload we can dump on the moon before
blowing out of the place back to Earth.

81.3 + 4.0 + 0.5 = 85.8 metric tons of propellant
9.7 + 0.5 + 0.2 = 10.4 metric tons structure

This is a total of 96.2 metric tons of structure and propellant which
leaves

193.5 - 96.2 = 97.3 metric tons of payload left behind on the
moon!!!

Sweet! So, with a flight rate of one launch every other day - we're
putting 48.75 metric tons on the moon (53.35 short tons) every day!!

By the way, the 96.2 metric tons of propellant we're spending at this
stage? Yeah, that's what we're trying to save! lol. Got it?
We'll build the damn tether and save this much for each 193.5 tons
arriving at this point. We'll assume an ion rocket at the insertion
side to get the total increase later - then we'll figure out how many
years of every other day flights to the moon are neede JUST TO BREAK
EVEN!

Each stage will likely cost $55.2 milion to build - and a fleet of 10
$552 million. 3% of the purchase price is allocated to refurb this
lunar lander and return vehicle every time its used - that's $1.65
million per flight - 180 flights per year $297.6 million per year -
for the good people who make this magic happen. We're at $9 billion
per year - and we're getting more than 18,000 short tons per year
delivered to the moon - we're also producing something on the order of
1 million tons of pollutants each year. - about what a coal fired
burning power plant belches out in two weeks.

Now what did we say we needed? 0.1% of 256e+6 = 256,000 tons, so
dividing this by 19,206 short tons per year - we obtain 13.4 years -
add 6 years development to that - and we have 19.4 years from today -
and at $9 billion per year - a total cost of $174.6 billion. unless I
missed a hundred million here or there.

Of course if Brad is a little off on his number, say 0.2% is needed,
then we need to add another 6 years and another $54 billion to the
mix.

This is a standing army of about 90,000 people to keep this machine
turning.

And don't forget the 0.1% of the parts brought from Earth - have a
cost too. Since this is an aerospace object - I would say AT LEAST
$5.3 million per ton would be the cost - even though its hard to
predict the cost of unobtainium - as it is every other property it
has. For all I know, it might be freely available by just snapping my
fingers. Who knows? We just don't know how to do it yet.

A realistic estimate though for 256,000 short tons - (232.7 metric
tons) is $1.2 billion. You'll need a factory of about 800 working for
project - to make that much material. once you know how to make it
and what you need.

That gives you the parts you need ON the moon - now you've got to
assemble them with parts you MAKE on the moon to build your tether-
and that means you need people, lots and lots of people, with enough
time and energy to get the job done.

No worries, you've got a dandy fleet of rockets that can bring 100
tons to the moon each flight once you got all the parts up there, you
can just send the people and hardware and whatnot - no problem.

Lets look at comparables and see what might realistically be needed.

http://www.usbr.gov/dataweb/projects/washington/columbiabasin/history.html
http://www.usbr.gov/dataweb/projects/washington/columbiabasin/history.html#Construction

Grand Coulee Dam, as originally constructed, was 4,173 feet long and
550 feet high. The volume of concrete placed in the original dam was
over 10,500,000 cy.

The outlet works consist of twenty, 8 1/2 diameter steel lined conduits
each controlled by ring seal gates. The capacity of the outlet works
is 265,000 cfs. The spillway consists of an overflow section at the
center of the dam. It is controlled by eleven, 138-foot long drum
gates. The capacity of the spillway is 1,000,000 cfs.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Lake extends upstream more than 150 miles to the
US/Canadian border. It has a maximum storage capacity of 9,652,000
acre-feet and a surface area of more than 80,000 acres.

10.5 million cubic yards of concrete. That's 19.26 milion metric tons
of concrete. Brad has said he can build a lunar tether that will
weigh 232.7 million metric tons - made mostly of lunar material -
compounded into unobtainium to withstand the stress.

Alright so, we're talking about fabricating 12 Grand Coulee dams ON
THE MOON - and launching it INTO ORBIT around the moon - and doing
that in a reasonable period of time.

hmm..

At this point I would invite Brad to crawl out of his basement, take a
shower, put on some clean clothes - or go down to Wally world and buy
a new set - Levis and a nice shirt, and a new pair of shoes - and
drive or hitch a ride over to the Grand Coulee dam.

Go to the park nearby and just look at the damn thing. Go through the
exhibit. Come back outside and look at it again - take in the size
and grandeur of the object.

I've just described a process whereby we can use existing technology
to send 1/50th of the Grand Coulee dam from Earth to Moon in 12 years
for about $180 billion.

Now consider that what we're describing next - using Brad's number -
is over 12 of these suckers! That's what you're talking about
building!!!! ON THE MOON - from lunar resources - and lofting it into
orbit around the Moon and connecting it to a counterweight - which we
haven't even discussed yet..

Buy a soda sit in front of the dam and ponder that one for a minute.

Alright - now let's continue.

First off, I believe with all my heart, that one day, people will live
and work on the moon, and they with people of Earth will build such
things as we're talking about. I just think its crazy for Lewis and
Clark to worry about such things. Madness for Lewis and Clark to say
we've got to invent concrete before we can mount an expedition to the
Great NorthWest.

It will be 50 years from now or more before major structures like this
get built. Its not something that will materially affect life on
Earth today. It will be important in the future. Today we need to
focus on rockets and getting things in order on Earth so we can do
things like this in the future..

But, now we'll continue - now that I've gotten that off my chest.

Mason City is where most of the workers stayed with their families.
The lights first went on in Mason City in October 1934. Mason City
included more than 300 houses, several dormitories, a 1,000 seat
cookhouse, and a 33-bed hospital.

We'll need something like a Mason City on the moon. We'll also need
other things.

Other towns sprung up in the area, ready to provide for the needs of
the workers and their families, those who sought to profit from them,
and those who simply wanted to be a part of it all.

Not far from Mason City, they built Engineers Town to house
Reclamation officials, engineers, and their families. Tightly
controlled by the government, Engineers Town was a model community.

In contrast, other towns that sprung up were wide open and rough,
reminiscent of early frontier towns.

One of the more famous of these was the town of Grand Coulee, which
sprang up in 1933, and soon became the center for sin and vice. Its
dirt streets were lined with taverns and gambling halls while down
dark alleys prostitutes plied their trade in tents and shacks.
Bootlegging, common in the early days, was replaced by dozens of
taverns following the end of prohibition. In the summer the dust from
the streets choked the air while in the winter, those same streets
became a mire of mud and slush. The town soon earned several nick
names, among them " The Cesspool of the New Deal " and the " Toughest
Town in North America."

By the way, this was just to build the low dam and clear the earth for
the low dam in 1934 - a high dam followed in 1937.

Things grew from there.

A careful analysis of the work records of the project, and all the
people that those workers needed to stay happy and produtive,
indicates that 40,000 people would be needed on the moon for the term
of the construction at a minimum - to build something as massive as a
Grand Coulee dam. We're talking something 10x bigger. 200,000 at a
minimum.

Not only that, but we're talking mining and smelting on the moon - to
get the stuff there. This multiplies things even 10x more. 2,000,000
people if we were as productive as 1933 - but of course this IS the
21st century - but we're doing all this ON THE MOON people, but let's
knock it back to 200,000 people on the moon, needed to get 'er done!
lol.

This includes everyone, butcher, baker, candlestick maker - tavern
owner, skanky prostitute, drug dealer, everyone to make the workers
productive and happy whether we like them or approve of them or not.
The work is the thing. Its gotta get done.

Alright.

200,000 people mean that you've gotta increase your mass each year to
the moon to eat least 300,000 tons - from 19,602 tons.

So, that fine and wonderful fleet of rockets - that we just dreamed up
- will have to be increased in number and size. just to keep the
standing army of workers and other hangers on - supplied in diapers
and donuts.

We can do this in two ways.

Increase the size of the ships - increase the number of the ships

And if we're going to need it, might as well design it from the
beginning

Alright - so, I've got an upgraded version of the 500 ton to orbit
deal, 1,000 tons to orbit - stretch the tank a little more, increase
the diameter a little - bam, you've increased everything 2x. Buy 5x
the number for your fleet 50 of the larger boosters - that lets you
put 200,000 tons on the moon no problem.

Since all the equations at this level are linear - we can say that the
project will cost 10x as much - $91 billion per year without counting
economies fo scale, or learning curve effects, or inflation - and the
standing army increases to 606,000 on Earth.

We get our 256,000 tons on the moon - in a little over a year instead
of 6 - but we're spending 10x the rate, so no savings there - now we
need to figure out how much 200,000 people and all their tools and
housing and pots and pans and armchairs and toys and clothes and all
the other *** they bring - and all the life support and you name it
weigh.

hmm..

Well, the number is 4 tons per person. That's about right - not going
into a lot of detail. Agressive - but doable. Alright. We'll also
lower the cost of stuff to about $300,000 per ton - which means that
CAPEX is about $1.2 million per person just to keep them alive on the
moon. We'll also pay the workers $500,000 per year hazard pay - and
that will average out to about $200,000 per person per year on the
moon.

So, 200,000 people will require the construction of 800,000 tons of
equipment costing $240 billion - about half the cost of the larger
fleet we're talking about. It will take 4 years to put it up on the
moon. The people themselves mass 100 kg - that's 20,000 tons - and
the fleet - equipped for passenger service - will still take 7 months
to put every body up there. Bringing them back will be a more
difficult proposition. haha.. We'll have to send up 42% of their
body weight - and anything they want to bring back - first - as
propellant - and then bring them back. That will take at least 18
months - to bring them all back - meanwhile, each month, we're
spending $1.5 billion keeping our big boosters flying.- so, the ticket
price to get the people on the moon - is $37.5 bilion.

Each month salaries for lunar operations total $3.3 billion - $40
billion per year.

Our costs have risen to over $10 billion per month. But now we're
ready, after a decade of sweat and toil - to build our tether.

To process all the materials needed for the tether will likely take a
decade - that's $1.4 trillion - in addition to the $1.1 trillion
needed to build up the capacity to do it. A total of $2.5 trillion.

What have we missed?

Capturing, engineering and placing the asteroid fragment needed as the
counter weight.

Placing the parts on orbit, assembling them on orbit, and deploying
them to form the tether.

Ground installation to attach the tether to

Hardware needed to make the tether work as a lift.

Maintenance of all this crap.

But rather than go into all of that, lets just stand back and see what
we've done.

We've gone to 50 rockets from 10 and from 500 tons to LEO to 1,000
tons to LEO. That's a total of one flight every 10 hours - and over
200 tons on the moon every 10 hours. We're burning 12,000 tons of
propellant per flight of this 180 tons more or less, is used to soft
land the 200 tons on the moon - every 10 hours. okay..

Remember I said this was what the tether saves? With the tether you
can land 180 tons on the moon - without the tether using rockets - you
drop to 200 tons. The fleet that built the whole thing - can deliver
380 tons to L1 every 10 hours. and you can increase the mass flow by
40% with the tether.

It took 20 years and a lot of effort - including the invention of
unobtainium - to achieve this 40% - but by god we did it!!.

Was it worth it? Maybe.

Is there a better way?

ahh... here's the rub.

What if.. and I realized this is far out to your way of thinking Brad
- what if - we improved rocket performance? You know, using a clean
nuclear pulse - with an aneutronic fuel- initiated by a tiny laser
flashbulb illuminating a deuterium spark plug with disposable
optics.. hm.. getting I dunno - 10,000 km/sec exhaust speeds with up
to 10 gees capability - not that you'd use it.

I gave you unobtainium in this analysis Brad, give me clean nuclear
pulse in mine.

Alright - this is a quick calculation..

We spend say $3 billion on R&D over a 6 year period developing a clean
nuclear pulse rocket along the lines I've described. We build a fleet
of 20 along the lines I've already described.

ONE SHIP - delivers 20,000 tons of payload to the moon in TWO FLIGHTS
EVERY DAY! The ship accelerates at 1 gee all the way out and all the
way back - it masses 36,000 tons - a small ship by ocean standards -
and has a delta vee of 239 km/sec. Its propellant fraction is;

u = 1 - 1/exp(239/10,000) = 2.4% or 850 tons !!!

So, 850 tons of propellant are used to carry out this maneuver. And
only the first 18 minutes of the 3 hour flight - is in the Earth's
atmosphere.

AND - since we're NOT using aerobraking to slow down, we're not
polluting the air that way.

In 10 days we've delivered as much payload to the moon with this
system as a year of the larger system - and 10 years of the smaller
system.

hmm..

something to think about.

Which is why I say - at this point in our development - money spent on
improving rocket performance is where we need to be.




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I've intentionally top-posted my limited reply to your insurmountable
nayism mindset.

Technically the LSE-CM/ISS is fully doable as of the existing
expertise and technology that was available as of decades ago.
Obviously you'd never help, because it's simply not the Willie.Moo
nature to help an actual living soul, other than yourself. Of what
you just ranted is simply not helping one damn bit. Of course, I'd
use those Mook nuclear pulse rockets for getting those 250,000 tonnes
of terrestrial stuff deployed to the moon's L1.
.. - Brad Guth
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