Re: space the final frontier

And your solution is to spend trillions upon trillions of our hard
earned loot on Mook LEO stuff instead of on those for-profit cold-wars
and of perpetrating lies upon lies that'll only continue to get
millions in debt, dead or soon enough wasted beyond the point of no
return.

Jesus Christ gave that a shot, as well as a few other nice and well
educated faith-based groups that are either just as dead or wishing
they were.

The world of Mook is truly one of the public educated as dumbfounded
having to follow the Old Testament mindset of Mook, or else.

If the MI5/CIA and DARPA ever needed a certified spook/mole working on
their behalf, Mook would more than qualify.
. - Brad Guth

On Apr 25, 3:33 pm, Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
"If we do not develop the resources of our frontier, we will find
ourselves facing increasingly high energy prices, increasingly steep
commodity prices, and a slowing economy in the face of rising
unemployment and poverty."
William Mook - 1986

A sampling of recent headlines
The Wall Street Journal
April 25, 2008

"A proposed $7 billion downtown Seattle project became the latest
major urban development to be scotched or delayed because of the
credit crisis and a faltering economy."

"Merril's CEO defended directors at the annual meeting from blame
over
the firm's losses."

"Commercial banks increased their use of the Fed's discount window
this week."

"New home sales slumped an unexpected 8.5% in March."

"Microsoft's profit fell 11%"

"Motorola's loss widened as handset sales slid 39%"

"American Express posted a 6.2% drop in net as loan loss provisions
ballooned"

"Credit Suisse swung to a loss on $5.2 billion in write down for
major
buyout loans."

"US Airways and Alaska Air reported losses"

"A strike at a Scotland refinery this weekend could force BP to close
a key pipeline which could have a big effect on the UK.

"Whirlpool's earnings slid 20% amid costly materials and weak US
demand"

"Northrup's net fell 32% hurt by problems at its Gulf Coast
shipbuilding operations"

"Brazilian Mining Titan takes on Global Giants"

"Honda Motor's earnings are likely to provide a gloomy reminder of
the
tough times the auto sector faces amid the stronger yen, high
materials prices, and sluggish US auto demand."
* * * * * *
* NOTE * This all could have been started in 1958 and completed by
1989
* * * * * *

YEAR 1 to 3 - $6 billion

An airframe built around the design for the space shuttle External
Tank. 39 meters longer with the same diamter and equipped with an
aerospike engine at its base the flight article masses 1,000 metric
tons at lift off. Propelled by an engine housing five RS-68
pumpsets,
the engine has a maximum thrust at lift off of 1,450 tons. It
masses 120 tons empty.

The airframe is equipped with a cross-feed capability, fold away
wings
similar in operation to those of a Tomahawk cruise missile, though
the
wings here are larger in size - appropriate to the 120 ton empty
mass. Its nose houses an advanced thermal protection system, based
on
technology developed for the NASP and SSTO programs, but configured
as
a 1959 - winged Titan.

The flight element takes off vertically on its altitude compensating
rocket engine, while gliding to a landing horizontally. The vehicle
slows from flight speed to subsonic speeds behind its nose mounted
thermal protection system. When slowed to subsonic speeds, the fold-
away wings deploy and lift to drag rises from 1.5 to 1 up to 15 to 1.
At this point a GPS guided aircraft flies to the gliding booster and
snags it mid-flight and tows it back to the launch center where it is
released for a gliding touchdown - using much the same software and
equipment as a Predator aircraft.

In its simplest configuration, this booster is equipped with a 300
ton
upper stage propelled by one RS-68 engine and ringed by 6 RL-10
engines. It carries a 75 ton payload to orbit. This stage separates
when the main booster burns out at 3.8 km/sec - and separates to be
recovered downrange. The 300 ton booster has the same diameter at
the
ET sized booster, but is much shorter. It is equipped with a heat
sheild at its base and accelerates to orbital velocity capable of
placing 75 metric tons into a 300 km altitude orbit. The vehicle
deorbits and lands vertically DC-X fashion, for complete reuse.

Aa more advanced configuration consists of 3 boosters staged in
parallel. The two outboard boosters feed propellant to the central
boosters while all fire at lift off. The two outboard boosters drain
first and are released down range and are recovered. The central
booster continues to orbit, carrying a 300 ton payload. This payload
may be a fully loaded third stage that kicks a 125 ton lunar lander/
mars lander along a free return trajectory to either of these worlds
-
with return of the kick stage - or a 150 ton solar power satellite to
GEO - or carries 22 communication satellites in a bus to deploy along
a single orbital plane.

YEAR 4 to 7 - $9.5 billion

A fleet of five vehicles allows launches twice per week to support a
wide range of space services, including lunar and mars tourism,
deploying communications and power satellites.

The lunar lander uses rockets to land vertically on the lunar surface
carrying 25 tons of useful payload and returns it safely to Earth.
The rocket aerobrakes and lands vertically by rocket power upon its
return. The lander may carry 3 tons both ways and deposit 40 tons on
the lunar surface in 'freighter' mode.

As a mars lander the vehicle aerobrakes at mars and lands fully
fueled. The kick stage that accompanies the lander to Mars is
equipped as an advanced Skylab style space station - launched 'wet' -
once drained - is used as a habitat for the crew - and the two
vehicles are tethered together, like the earlier Gemini experiments -
to produce a low gravity environment during the 90 day transfer. The
lander with crew separate from the transfer stage, and land directly
on Mars after aerobraking - executing a vertical rocket powered touch
down. The kick stage on a 2 year orbit - returns to Earth 21 months
after Mars encounter - the orbit after passing Mars is deflected and
passes Mars again on its way back to Earth. At that point, the crew
in the lander, blast off from Mars, and rejoin the transfer stage on
its return to Earth - both vehicles execute an aerocapture maneuver
and execute a powered touchdown - to be reused. The payloads are
comparable with 25 tons of payload sent to Mars and returned to
Earth,
whilst 40 tons may be sent one way, with 3 tons returning.

YEAR 8 to 10 - Break even

A 150 ton solar power satellite consists primarily of a 5 micron
thick
film formed into a donut shaped balloon with a large parabolic
concentrator at the center. At 8.25 tons per square kilometer, this
satellite is 2.4 km in diameter and generates 2.175 GW of laser
energy
which it beams to Earth continuously to solar panel arrays already
established on the surface - increasing output 16x from pure solar
panel operation. At $0.03 per kWh for energy this satellite
generates $571 million per year - and has a life span of 30 years.

22 communications satellites placed into the same orbital plane, form
a ring in polar orbit around the Earth. Open optical communications
provide a broadband optical communications backbone among all
satellites at 50 terahertz. Each satellite is equipped with phased
array antenna that uses GPS signals to paint stationary doppler
corrected virtual cells over the Earth beneath the ring - allowing
simple wireless communications chip sets to communicate digitally
through the network. Each satellite operates as a router for the
network.

30 orbital planes are populated in this way - 660 satellites in all -
to provide 5 billion channels and earn $100 billion per year for
communication services. Banking and financial services provide
additional revenue. Telepresence and telerobotic services add still
more revenues and generate more wealth for Earth.

Year 11 to 12 - Expansion

A seven element launcher - 7-up configuration - puts over 500 tons
into LEO - and allows the placement of 250 tons into GEO for a larger
more advanced 4 GW powersatellite that generates a cool $1 billion
per
year for 30 years - with zero recurring costs.

Unlike today's space launch providers, this aerospace operation is a
one stop shop, where payloads and boosters are built, operated,
maintained - for a piece of the action.

The 7-up configuration (painted lime green with bubbles) allows
larger
landers and transfer stages to operate off-world, allowing 90 tons to
be deposited one way - and 50 tons on a round trip. A small fleet of
30 passenger interplanetary stages along with 90 ton freighter stages
- provide regular service between Earth the Moon and Mars. 300
people
are supported on Mars, and 6,000 people are living on the Moon.

The development of water sources found locally both on the Moon and
Mars cause logistics to improve to the point where 1,500 people are
supported on Mars and 30,000 people are supported on the Moon by this
operation - without any increase in fleet size.

Meanwhile, the revenue from communications and power satellites
continues.

Year 13 to 15 - Break through

Experimentation with inertial confinement fusion continue, with the
development of a fusion power satellite powered by a boron-protium
fuel mix (borane) secondary initiated by deuterium-tritium 'primary'
and a hydrogen-flouride laser 'initiator'. A 40 billion watt fusion
powered satellite is placed in GEO - and generates $5 billion per
year
- beaming energy to Earth at 1.5cents per kWh.

The aerospike engine on an older chemical powered flight element is
converted to a 1,500 ton thrust nuclear pulse propulsion system -
using a 'magnetic blanket' momentum transfer system. The vehicle
before conversion weighed only 120 tons - but with an added 300 ton
nuclear pulse engine - and permanent payload fixturing - the empty
mass has climbed to 450 tons. It is capable of carrying 100 tons of
propulsive units, and 500 tons of payload. The vehicle is capable of
sustained gee flight - and flies directly to the moon and back, in a
matter of hours, and directly to Mars and back in a matter of days.

Successful flight testing of this experimental craft leads to the
wholesale conversion of the entire fleet of flight elements to
nuclear
pulse propulsion. The number of people capable of being supported on
the moon rises to 1,000,000 - the number of people capable of being
supported on mars rises to 200,000 - with conversion of half the
chemical elements to nuclear pulse spacecraft.

The other half are converted to asteroid exploration and development.
...

read more »

.

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