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Old 12-28-2009, 12:32 PM
 
Location: Sinking in the Great Salt Lake
13,139 posts, read 22,708,718 times
Reputation: 14115

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Quote:
Originally Posted by ovcatto View Post
Admittedly, I am a former big fan of manned space flight but considering what what we gain from unmanned flights as compared to manned flights, the cost benefit just doesn't tilt in favor of the latter.

The other problem for me is the utter futility of manned space exploration, without the present inconceivability of approaching anything close to the speed of light, man will for the foreseeable future will be be restricted to an infinitesimal fraction of the known universe, i.e., our own solar system.

Over the last 20 years, the overwhelming discoveries about neighboring planets and the universe in general, have been achieved by unmanned vehicles, so for me, I would rather concentrate on unmanned exploration.

More Big Bang for the buck.

What say you, I could always change my mind.
Man needs to spread out into space if the human race is to survive the future. Exponential growth is a mathematical fact; eventually we will run out of room and stuff to use here.

Now the tech needed to do that is obviously out of our current ability, but it shouldn't stay that way. It's really analogous to ocean going travel. We didn't just up and build 100,000 ton cargo ships and ocean liners to travel across the sea. First we built rafts, then simple boats powered with oars, then sails. Seafaring technology increased slowly over time to be safer, faster, more practical and efficient.

As far as space travel goes, we are still in the "log raft" stage of development. But we will never improve the technology unless we actually get on our rafts and go places, then figure out how to do it better and repete the process, probably over many centuries to come.

Unmanned craft are good tools, don't get me wrong. They have added tremendously to our knowlege of what is out there. But they don't help us figure out how to survive in space and allow for humans to spread. And in the end, that is the point, isn't it?
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Old 12-28-2009, 12:38 PM
 
Location: Sinking in the Great Salt Lake
13,139 posts, read 22,708,718 times
Reputation: 14115
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88 View Post
Just curious. If NASA announced that they were going to launch a one-way space program, and asked for volunteers to go out there and not come back, what kinds of people would apply, and how many of them?

There is obviously an advantage to having a human being on the ship who can trouble-shoot, as opposed to anticipating every possible problem and designing a robotic remedy, which itself is very expensive. As in, "tap it with a hammer and see if that works".

Such a one-way manned flight would reduce the cost in two ways. Reduce the need for on-board robots to do what a man can do, and eliminate the return vehicle. Any volunteers?
I'll go! Just give me a good WiFi connection so I can keep pestering you good people on the way.
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Old 12-28-2009, 07:41 PM
 
Location: Eastern Washington
17,113 posts, read 56,725,836 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sponger42 View Post
Argh! Rutan's sounding rocket is a slower remake of the X-43 rocket plane for dumb rich tourists who don't realize they could pay less to go higher and faster in a MiG-29 ride.

You don't save money until you actually build a launch vehicle that can put something into orbit. You can (on paper) gain a lot of delta-V by avoiding the high-drag regions of the atmosphere, but Rutan's sounding rocket doesn't go anywhere near orbital velocity. It might as well be a high-altitude balloon.



What about the STS?

I agree with a lot of what you say, but take issue with the idea that Rutan is somehow a spacefaring revolutionary. That pioneering award goes to the folks at SpaceX as far as I'm concerned.

It's funny, because I was there at Mojave for the 2nd flight of Spaceship 1 which secured Rutan the X-prize.
True, the current incarnation of Rutan's idea - the 2nd stage of it anyway - does not break any new ground. My point was about the *first* stage, the use of an air-breathing airplane to carry the rocket up to mid-stratosphere. Rutan and company simply couldn't get the budget to build the rocket stage with real orbital capability. Buzz Aldrin has written about this concept as well.

Rutan has more aircraft in the Smithsonian than anyone else I am aware of.

STS is a disappointing lash-up, IMHO, the "worst of both worlds", and the Challenger and Columbia failures with loss of all hands - what can I say - it's an unusually expensive and dangerous way to get to low earth orbit. I forget which one of the original astronauts was the first to cuss the solid booster concept as unfit for manned flight. The whole concept was to have a cheaper way to orbit by re-using the main orbiter, faster turn around time, etc. And it didn't work. NASA, like the old Bourbon French kings, seems to remember everything and learn nothing, going to another vertical launch expendible rocket with considerably less capability than the old Saturn - V.

Cool that you were there for the X-prize. I was busy although for the life of me I can't remember what I was doing that was more important than being there.... I have seen Yuri Gagarin's capsule up close at the Moscow Air and Space Museum, that was really cool...
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Old 12-29-2009, 07:52 AM
 
Location: Bike to Surf!
3,080 posts, read 11,029,819 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M3 Mitch View Post
True, the current incarnation of Rutan's idea - the 2nd stage of it anyway - does not break any new ground. My point was about the *first* stage, the use of an air-breathing airplane to carry the rocket up to mid-stratosphere. Rutan and company simply couldn't get the budget to build the rocket stage with real orbital capability. Buzz Aldrin has written about this concept as well.
I hate to keep arguing with you, because we're generally on the same page, but I'm an engineer so I'll nit-pick you to death.

The air-lauch idea certainly isn't Rutan's. Loooong before him, NASA/NACA/USAF or whomever sponsored it was launching the X-something from a B-52, (or maybe a '36, at first) to go much faster and higher.

After that came Orbital Sciences with their Pegasus Rocket (which does put payloads into orbit) air-launched from under a Lockheed L-1011.

I know that Scaled Composites, or whatever Rutan is calling his company now, has plans for an orbital vehicle--I think to take passengers up to the inflatable space station of XXX company (sorry, I have forgotten all these names) and I'll start cheering for them the moment they field it and not a second sooner.

Quote:
Rutan has more aircraft in the Smithsonian than anyone else I am aware of.
Yes, but they're mostly useless demonstraters like the pedal-agumented thing that flew around the world. From a practical standpoint, I don't view Rutan as really providing much serious advancement to flight or spaceflight. In my view he's more of a glory hound.

Quote:
STS is a disappointing lash-up, IMHO, the "worst of both worlds", and the Challenger and Columbia failures with loss of all hands - what can I say - it's an unusually expensive and dangerous way to get to low earth orbit.
I agree that the STS is not the greatest concept, but it is fairly successful as a reliable launch vehicle. You would probably have many more failures from a Saturn V if you launched it 130 times (as you have the shuttle) instead of just < 20.

Quote:
I forget which one of the original astronauts was the first to cuss the solid booster concept as unfit for manned flight.
Yes, and the current swizzle-stick; Aries is a TERRRIBLE idea.

Quote:
Cool that you were there for the X-prize. I was busy although for the life of me I can't remember what I was doing that was more important than being there.... I have seen Yuri Gagarin's capsule up close at the Moscow Air and Space Museum, that was really cool...
Well, it was easy for me, just a few hours off work and getting up around 5AM to make the drive out to Mojave. Pretty place and nice weather that day. Not too many of the tinfoil-hat types (though they were certainly there...).
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Old 12-30-2009, 03:12 PM
 
Location: Eastern Washington
17,113 posts, read 56,725,836 times
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Yeah, I am an engineer too. Several X-planes were air-launched, starting with the X-1, air-launched from a B-29 IIRC. The X-15 was launched from a B-52 (oddly enough, all the X-15 flights were launched from the same specific B-52, I guess they modded it. But the Rutan Space Ship One was the one that collected the X-prize, I may be giving him too much credit for the idea, but he is certainly the guy who perfected it to the level necessary to take home the prize.

My basic point, which I obviously did not state clearly enough, is that vertical launch like a V-2 is not the best way to get to the stratosphere - carrying the spacecraft up with some sort of airplane is going to be cheaper, if it's done right, and almost certainly safer.

Anyway, we ain't arguing, we are having a technical discussion.
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Old 12-30-2009, 03:28 PM
 
31,387 posts, read 36,899,935 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M3 Mitch View Post
My basic point, which I obviously did not state clearly enough, is that vertical launch like a V-2 is not the best way to get to the stratosphere - carrying the spacecraft up with some sort of airplane is going to be cheaper, if it's done right, and almost certainly safer.
I've read (and wish I remember where) that one of the dumbest mistakes that NASA made was not continuing the X-15 program when deciding to reinvent the wheel with the Shuttle.
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Old 12-30-2009, 03:54 PM
 
Location: Victoria TX
42,618 posts, read 86,577,260 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chango View Post
Man needs to spread out into space if the human race is to survive the future. Exponential growth is a mathematical fact; eventually we will run out of room and stuff to use here.
So will all other species, but isn't it odd, none of them have yet.

Americans will need to spread out into other continents, if the nationality is to survive in the future, too. The nearer future. What is your plan for that?
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Old 12-30-2009, 07:47 PM
 
Location: Bike to Surf!
3,080 posts, read 11,029,819 times
Reputation: 3022
Quote:
Originally Posted by M3 Mitch View Post
My basic point, which I obviously did not state clearly enough, is that vertical launch like a V-2 is not the best way to get to the stratosphere - carrying the spacecraft up with some sort of airplane is going to be cheaper, if it's done right, and almost certainly safer.

Anyway, we ain't arguing, we are having a technical discussion.
I'm in 100% agreement with that point. I recently finished a modeling project for a sounding rocket where we achieved an optimal solution (highest altitude, speed) by moving our launch site from near-sea-level to a remote desert location in Utah with an elevation of 5000 feet. Solved all our problems. Drag losses due to tunneling through the high-density regions of the atmosphere at KSC are phenominal! For most space applications, an air-launch from the equatorial regions would be ideal. Or from a mountaintop.

I don't think you'll get much delta-V benefit from a fast aircraft when you compare the speeds you need to what you can get out of a large aircraft, but you can certainly minimize your drag losses by going high. I wonder if anyone has ever proposed a balloon launch platform; like Sea-Launch but with Zepplins?

There are hundreds of ideas out there for combined-cycle rocket/airbreathing engines.
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Old 12-30-2009, 08:25 PM
 
Location: On the Chesapeake
44,886 posts, read 59,869,542 times
Reputation: 60427
Someone mentioned an X program. That was the X-15 program of the late 50s/early 60s. High altitude launch from a B-52, kind of a follow on to the X-1 project of the 40s. The X-15 went to the edges of space and was really looking to be the way to go until Sputnik and the race to the Moon started. That's when Von Braun and the others got rocket programming changed to the vertical launch mode.

North American X-15 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Old 01-01-2010, 11:35 PM
 
Location: planet octupulous is nearing earths atmosphere
13,620 posts, read 12,680,070 times
Reputation: 20050
i think manned space flight to the moon or mars is not necessary right now. we have sent many unmanned probes into space for a lot less cost. just imagine the cost of all those unmanned probes, if they had been manned missions. all that money would have been spent just to find out what we already have learned from unmaned missions. do you realy think it's worth 50 billion dollars to go to mars just so an astronnaut can hold up a fossilized single cell microbe for the local tv nightly news. like come on we can't even contoll our own planet, let alone terraform another planet.. example the sahara desert is the closest environment here on earth, that resemples mars surface.. and as far as i know the sahara is still 99.9 persent desert. maybe we should try to green a desert here on earth before we even try to think of terrafoming another planet.
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