Re: Modest Proposal - Common Interplanetary Booster

On Sep 3, 5:54 pm, Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
You basically double the size of the payloads on high orbit with very
high specific impulses. That's the plus side.

What you have to ask yourself is does the increased cost, complexity
and so forth, pay sufficient dividends to be worth this? Why not
just double the size of the launcher? Would that be prefereable?

That is, I've proposed a 30 million pound vehicle here that puts
550,000 pounds on GEO. Putting some sort of nuclear electric system
together in operate nearly 5,000 sec Isp - doubles your payload to GEO
to 1,100,000 pounds. A large ion rocket that size is an expensive and
complex thing. What about going from a 3 element launcher to a 7
element launcher? That is, add 4 more booster elements to teh first
stage and have a 70 million pound vehicle at lift off. How does that
compare in complexity and cost to building a 650,000 pound ion rocket
engine?

I'm not saying we shouldn't do both. But every battle has a most
effective order to it. The question we have to ask, what's the best
way to proceed today?

I think we need to build heavier launchers and bigger payloads up
there.

This vehicle described here is bigger than anything ever seriously
contemplated before. It also has zero technical complexity (the three
element one) and it puts a crew of 60 on the moon for a year or two -
haha - and a similar crew on Mars for the same period - but only 90
days or so on mars - 2 years in transit.

This is HUGE - compared to what we've got so far.

This system could over a three year period launch a global wireless
hotspot with 50 billion channels - it could land hotels and labs and
big stuff on the moon and mars - launch serious power satellites to
test systems designs and make money doing it - before launching into
really big stuff - put people across the entire inner solar system out
to Ceres.

Once a few power satellites are up, I think beamed propulsion stages,
built around the existing stages would make sense. Laser thermal -
with 10 km/sec Ve (1,000 sec Isp) - laser sustained detonation - with
20 km/sec Ve (2,000 sec Isp) - laser photovoltaic ion rockets - with
50 km/sec Ve (5,000 sec Isp) - laser light sails (infinity Isp no
propellants at all) - These are natural research projects, and ion is
included. When you are power limited, lower isp like low gears give
you more force - at reduced speed.

But, there's a lot that can be done with plain vanilla stuff,and when
you're making money from royalties on the wireless web,and beamed
power sales, then you will increase the efficiency of already
operating upper stages -

Model: Saturn II.
Gross Mass: 490,778 kg (1,081,980 lb).
Empty Mass: 39,048 kg (86,086 lb).
Thrust (vac): 5,165.790 kN (1,161,316 lbf).
Isp: 421 sec.
Burn time: 390 sec.
Propellants: Lox/LH2.
Diameter: 10.06 m (33.00 ft).
Span: 10.06 m (33.00 ft).
Length: 24.84 m (81.49 ft).
Country: USA.
No Engines: 5.
Motor: J-2.
Cost $ : 290.000 million.
First Flight: 1967.
Last Flight: 1973.
No Launched: 24.

I'm proposing a reusable configuration, with thermal protection, and a
zero height annular aerospike engine configured for re-entry base
first and vertial powered touchdown. Landing on the moon and mars also
possible. Two of these guys stacked inline atop the central of three
flight elemets. TPS landing gear and so forth - increases mass to
125,000 pounds - using modern techniques.

The bottom S-II stage carries another S-II stage, that has a 63 ft
tall cone with a 33 ft base - atop the 82 ft tall cylinder - this is
a total length of 125 ft. Its a narrower taller version of this core
stage.

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/rombus.htm

1/5th the structural mass and 1/10th the mass - though the size of
rombus is the same size as the three flight elements described
elsewhere.

A 45 ft diameter element - and 125 ft tall - and masses 10 million
pounds - is midway between an ET and rombus core booster.- ET is 28 ft
x 158 ft length and masses 1.68 million pounds.

And that's supposedly modest?

Do you know of the all-inclusive and thus birth-to-grave accounting?
(apparently not)

~ BG
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Modest Proposal - Common Interplanetary Booster
    ... You basically double the size of the payloads on high orbit with very ... 550,000 pounds on GEO. ... What about going from a 3 element launcher to a 7 ... Gross Mass: 490,778 kg. ...
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  • Re: Modest Proposal - Common Interplanetary Booster
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