Re: Are politicians averse to leaving LEO?

On 17 Jan, 02:18, "Jorge R. Frank" <jrfr...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Rand Simberg wrote:
On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 05:47:56 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Martha
Adams" <mh...@xxxxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

That's a lot of discussion up in this thread, but it misses a key point.
The idea of an orbiting supply station has been around for a long time
and I cannot believe anyone lost it before thinking of today's ISS.  Yet
the ISS is placed 1) in such a low orbit that if not reboosted
frequently, it will come down shortly ("re-enter") and 2) in an orbit
very inclined from the Solar System's orbital plane so that *you cannot*
launch from the ISS out to the rest of the System except by extravagant
fuel usage to correct the bad velocity vector you have from the ISS
orbit.

That this would be the case, would be clear enough to any highschool
student interested in space travel; and so there must be *some reason*
the ISS is in such a useless orbit.  Since the basic physics is so plain
and obvious, I think it's reasonable to believe the reason ISS is in
such an orbit is *just so* that it cannot be used for a System travel
launch resource.  My guess is that the reason for doing this is to be
found in Washington's religious/ideological character: they thought, if
we don't do this now that's progress toward *never* doing it.

(Yes, I've heard the reasons that were given for this orbit, so far out
of the ecliptic.  Isn't PR a useful resource for covering-up things?  My
guess is some Big Names wanted that space money kept here, available for
coming wars.)

There are no earth orbits that remain in the ecliptic.  And the reason
that ISS is in a 52 degree orbit is because the Russians can't reach
one in any lower inclination from Baikonur, your nutty paranoid
conspiracy theories notwithstanding.

I see my decision to killfile Ms. Adams some time ago has been fully
justified by subsequent events.

In addition to Rand's arguments on orbital inclination, the argument on
orbital altitude is that ISS had to be situated below the Van Allen
belts to minimize radiation shielding requirements, and had to be
reachable by both the space shuttle and Soyuz/Progress, the latter of
which has an altitude ceiling of 425 km.

That is the reason for the low orbit. The inlination is another
matter, If anything a high inclination gives more radiation.

That is the reason why ISS must be in such a low orbit. The basic
physics are so plain and obvious, I think it's reasonable to believe
that only an idiot or a paranoid schizophrenic could believe otherwise.

This is my point we don't seem able to treat one and other with
respect. It is true that a usergroup is not a scienific conference.
This means though that we should tolerate a few mistakes and errors,
but we should not be using that sort of language.

The pilot of US Airlines did a marvellous job. However I note from the
newspapers that he was in the Air Force and has a masters degree in
psychology. Is that a standard part of Air Force training? I hope he
has forgotten all he learnt and only remembers engineering and flying!

Quite honestly if you put everyone in your killfile there will be no
discussion at all. Is she really in your killfile or are you just
saying so?

As far as myself and the necessity for VN machines is cioncerned I
feel I should say this. What is clearly necessary for MANNED
spaceflight is a series of intermediate points. These intermediate
points must be set up using the resources of space. We have low orbits
(Earth, Mars etc.) surfaces and quadratures.

A Zubrin type system is needed. By this I am not really
distinguishiong between methane and hydrogen, whether of not you have
CO2 or just H2O is a detail. To achieve Zubrin you need one hell of a
lot of automation. You would cetainly want to know whether the system
worked or not before you risked the lives of astronatuts. There is one
further point Zubrin solves one problem, how to get back from Mars.
There is still a raft of other problems.

The level of automation requires :-

Essential

1) The ability to assemble a chemical processing kit, and operate it
reliably. Interestingly I see that Pat Flannery regards the breakdown
of CO2 as "desirable" for the ISS. Needed a piece of solar processing
kit that operates reliably.

Stongly desirable

2) The ability to build a habitat on Mars. The ability to carry out
what is in essense a small scale civil engineering project completely
automatically.

3) The ability to repair a chemical processing plant should it go
wrong.

Desirable

4) Complete self repair

This is NOT a strict VN machine, but I think it comes fairly close.
There are of course imlications for civil engineering here on earth as
well as in the operation of chemical plants. My point about carbon
capture.

Unmanned flight by contrast simply means building on the corpus of
knowlwedge we have already built up. Desirable might well include fast
(~5km/h) movement on the surface of Mars.

Are the resources of space required for SSP? No, but they are strongly
desirable. Essential for transmission is a coherent array.

A number of people seem to be in complete denial about this. They seem
to think thast there is some agic solution that will provide cheap
access to LEO. In point of fact the Pentagon has already done a series
of experiments documented here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstar_(spaceplane)

If they had worked. If they really did provide low cost to LEO there
would by now be regular Air Force flights. The fact that they have all
been abandoned to me speaks volumes. There have in fact been flights
of varying degrees of success and a number of UFOs have now been
attributed to Blackstar.

Fred, Rand et al. all know this better than me. Why they keep
wittering on about low cost spacflight in the presence of all this
evidence I really don't know. If their ideas were sound the Pentagon
would be flying now. I think it is all part of the master's degree in
psychology and is calcklated disinformation.

Martha Adams in fact strikes me as one of the more sensible people in
this group. A little bit visionary, perhaps we need this. I am really
arguing with her on the best concrete route in scientific and economic
terms.


- Ian Parker
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Are politicians averse to leaving LEO?
    ... :>:primerally a mathematican. ... Yet the ISS is placed 1) in such a low orbit that if not reboosted frequently, it will come down shortly and 2) in an orbit very inclined from the Solar System's orbital plane so that *you cannot* launch from the ISS out to the rest of the System except by extravagant fuel usage to correct the bad velocity vector you have from the ISS orbit. ... That this would be the case, would be clear enough to any highschool student interested in space travel; and so there must be *some reason* the ISS is in such a useless orbit. ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: Are politicians averse to leaving LEO?
    ... Yet the ISS is placed 1) in such a low orbit that if not reboosted frequently, it will come down shortly and 2) in an orbit very inclined from the Solar System's orbital plane so that *you cannot* launch from the ISS out to the rest of the System except by extravagant fuel usage to correct the bad velocity vector you have from the ISS orbit. ... That this would be the case, would be clear enough to any highschool student interested in space travel; and so there must be *some reason* the ISS is in such a useless orbit. ... I see my decision to killfile Ms. Adams some time ago has been fully justified by subsequent events. ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: Are politicians averse to leaving LEO?
    ... and I cannot believe anyone lost it before thinking of today's ISS. ... it will come down shortly and 2) in an orbit ... and so there must be *some reason* ... launch resource. ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: Are politicians averse to leaving LEO?
    ... and I cannot believe anyone lost it before thinking of today's ISS. ... it will come down shortly and 2) in an orbit ... and so there must be *some reason* ... launch resource. ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: OK, Im Ready For the Patronizing Insults From the Resident Gurus!
    ... >>and millions to be saved on particle accelerators designed by relativists, ... (Is the ISS in that kind of orbit? ... Distance ISS will move in 1.2 seconds: 6 miles. ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)