Slashdot Mirror

I'm surprised nobody mentioned this yet. Considering that $6M is chump change for anything NASA does and also considering that the
NERVA nuclear rocket project was started over 40 years ago I wonder how much actual invention is going to happen here or if somebody us just going to pick up the remaining pieces of NERVA.

I can see the congressional hearing now: "Our brave astronauts lost their lives to bring us 500 channels?"

You mean like the TRDS satellite that was carried aboard STS 51L (Challenger's final flight.)

I know that TRDS does more than transmit TV signals, but that *is* a part of it. The shuttle almost never takes off with just one purpose. Just look at all the stuff that was going on on 51L.

Your point is taken though. Let's keep the astronauts involved in real science, exploration and maintaince. Things that unmanned launch vehicles can't do. And let's use unmanned launch vehicles for everything else.

I agree. Or maybe the Shuttle-C technology could be used ? Massively efficient and proven and relatively cheap since there is no big orbiter. If you want people up there, stick an apollo capsule on top.

The Russian Proton rocket can lift about the same as the Shuttle and is in current use:

The reason Ariane 5 keeps having reliability problems is that they keep changing the design to add more launch capacity without seemingly testing the new parts properly before launch.

If you add together the failures of all variants of Ariane 4 it had the same number of failures.

The heavy variants of the US Atlas V and Delta IV are capable of lifting about the same as the space shuttle. Though none of these actually flew yet the main components have been flight tested already.

The Russian Proton rocket can lift about the same as the Shuttle and is in current use:

The reason Ariane 5 keeps having reliability problems is that they keep changing the design to add more launch capacity without seemingly testing the new parts properly before launch.

If you add together the failures of all variants of Ariane 4 it had the same number of failures.

The heavy variants of the US Atlas V and Delta IV are capable of lifting about the same as the space shuttle. Though none of these actually flew yet the main components have been flight tested already.

The Russian Proton rocket can lift about the same as the Shuttle and is in current use:

The reason Ariane 5 keeps having reliability problems is that they keep changing the design to add more launch capacity without seemingly testing the new parts properly before launch.

If you add together the failures of all variants of Ariane 4 it had the same number of failures.

The heavy variants of the US Atlas V and Delta IV are capable of lifting about the same as the space shuttle. Though none of these actually flew yet the main components have been flight tested already.

The Russian Proton rocket can lift about the same as the Shuttle and is in current use:

The reason Ariane 5 keeps having reliability problems is that they keep changing the design to add more launch capacity without seemingly testing the new parts properly before launch.

If you add together the failures of all variants of Ariane 4 it had the same number of failures.

The heavy variants of the US Atlas V and Delta IV are capable of lifting about the same as the space shuttle. Though none of these actually flew yet the main components have been flight tested already.

Yes, the Saturn V supposedly does have that rare perfect launch record. So let's look.

The Russians were way ahead of the Americans in launch capacity the whole way through the space race. This is one of the reasons Americans got so good at electronics miniturization -- the Russians never had to, with their powerful rockets.

Moreover, the American rockets kept blowing up while they were perfecting the designs. The Russians had comparatively few explostions.

Then, we get to the Saturn V. It supposedly featured the F-1 rocket engine, which if it existed would have been the most powerful engine ever built. At 1.5 million pounds of thrust, it was an incredible ten times more powerful than the engines used in earlier rockets.

The Russians, too, knew that it would take a big booster to land a man on the moon, and began developing the N-1 rocket. In spite of their success with the comparatively smaller rockets, every one of the Russian superbooster launch attempts failed.

Meanwhile, the F-1 worked perfectly from day one. While some of the Russian designs featured huge clusters of up to 52 smaller engines, the Saturn's first stage is powered by just five F-1 engines.

Now we get back to Skylab. In its short history, the Saturn V was used only for the (supposed) moon launches, the Skylab launch, and the 1973 Apollo-Soyuz hookup. And not once in the thirty years since. It would have been indispensable right now, to bring parts of ISS up. It could bring 120 tons to LEO, compared to the shuttle's 25 (which, it should be mentioned, gets most of its thrust not from the liquid propellant engines, but from the solid rocket boosters).

The Skylab launch was essentially an empty upper stage, weighing nowhere near as much as a fully fueled moon shot mission. Ditto for the Soyuz-Apollo mission. The rocket can't have been fully fueled in either mission.

What I'm saying is that if that rocket existed, why hasn't it been used for something useful since then? Empty missions such as Skylab and Soyuz-Apollo don't count.

The Saturn V never existed as such. In the moon missions, the F-1 engine was run at lower power, bringing mostly empty shells into LEO, which is as far as anyone's gone. Similar to a Skylab mission, really.

Think about it.

Yes, the Saturn V supposedly does have that rare perfect launch record. So let's look.

The Russians were way ahead of the Americans in launch capacity the whole way through the space race. This is one of the reasons Americans got so good at electronics miniturization -- the Russians never had to, with their powerful rockets.

Moreover, the American rockets kept blowing up while they were perfecting the designs. The Russians had comparatively few explostions.

Then, we get to the Saturn V. It supposedly featured the F-1 rocket engine, which if it existed would have been the most powerful engine ever built. At 1.5 million pounds of thrust, it was an incredible ten times more powerful than the engines used in earlier rockets.

The Russians, too, knew that it would take a big booster to land a man on the moon, and began developing the N-1 rocket. In spite of their success with the comparatively smaller rockets, every one of the Russian superbooster launch attempts failed.

Meanwhile, the F-1 worked perfectly from day one. While some of the Russian designs featured huge clusters of up to 52 smaller engines, the Saturn's first stage is powered by just five F-1 engines.

Now we get back to Skylab. In its short history, the Saturn V was used only for the (supposed) moon launches, the Skylab launch, and the 1973 Apollo-Soyuz hookup. And not once in the thirty years since. It would have been indispensable right now, to bring parts of ISS up. It could bring 120 tons to LEO, compared to the shuttle's 25 (which, it should be mentioned, gets most of its thrust not from the liquid propellant engines, but from the solid rocket boosters).

The Skylab launch was essentially an empty upper stage, weighing nowhere near as much as a fully fueled moon shot mission. Ditto for the Soyuz-Apollo mission. The rocket can't have been fully fueled in either mission.

What I'm saying is that if that rocket existed, why hasn't it been used for something useful since then? Empty missions such as Skylab and Soyuz-Apollo don't count.

The Saturn V never existed as such. In the moon missions, the F-1 engine was run at lower power, bringing mostly empty shells into LEO, which is as far as anyone's gone. Similar to a Skylab mission, really.

Think about it.

It was launched in 1997

I'm all for civilians building and launcing their own suborbital or orbital crafts, but it'll never recapture the thrill of the early spaceflights. Unless, off course, someone with money gets the same idea as I just got as I read the article:

The Gusmobile, better known as Gemeni, is close to the perfect 'light spaceship'. All around the Gemini was considered the ultimate 'pilot's spacecraft', and it was also popular with engineers because of its extremely light weight. It ought to be possible with todays advances in electronics and metalurgy to build a replica - or better; a fleet of replicas - that are semiautomatic and reusable. Bring back the Rogallo wing (basicly a cross between a paraglider and a hangglider) it was intended to have in the first place to fasilitate GPS guided landings on dry land. Launch it with a semi-reusable rocket (first stage reusable, possible solid, second stage disposable).

Now here is the core of the idea; don't offer people just a ride with five or ten minutes of microgravity. Offer them some basic training to let them control the attitude of their craft during non-vital parts of the flight (vital parts should be guided by a onboard computer or from the ground), and offer them a day or a week in space. It won't be cheap, but it'll give people a change to really experience the thrill of spaceflight.

Off course, I don't have the money to realise this idea, and it probaly ain't that original anyhow. But I'll place it in the public domain - if anyone reading this wants to do it, you have my blessing and my best wishes.

Maybe I should have worded myself clearer... but while both Gemeni and Apollo carried jetisonable servicemodules (in fact, even the spam-in-a-can approach of Mercury had a jetisonable module; the retropack), they also carried a lot of stuff down with them on reentry that wasn't really needed for reentry and which 'ought' to have been in a jetisonable livingmodule to save weight. The genius of the soyuz was that the re-entry module was nothing but a reentry module. While looking at percentages can be interesting*, it is also the matter of what you do with the weight you're carrying. To qoute the Encyclopedia Astronautica: The Apollo capsule designed by NASA had a mass of 5,000 kg and provided the crew with six cubic meters of living space. A service module, providing propulsion, electricity, radio, and other equipment would add at least 1,800 kg to this mass for the circumlunar mission. The Soyuz spacecraft for the same mission provided the same crew with 9 cubic meters of living space, an airlock, and the service module for the mass of the Apollo capsule alone!

It is interesting to note that the General Electric Apollo Proposal was very simular to the Soyuz - so simular that some speculate if the Soviets simply copied it. Parts of the ideas of a modular aproach was also reflected in the suggestion of a lunar Gemeni, where the modularity was built into the servicemodule. The most extreme suggestion, as far as weightsaving goes, in that programe was the use of a 3,284 kg bare-bones, open cockpit lunar module...

You are right that the vehicles are optimised for different missionprofiles - but as the Soyuz and the Apollo both were designed to land a man on the moon and bring him back, they are comparable designs - and while the modular design of the Soyuz allowed it to be adapted for use as a efficent low orbit ferry, the Apollo was quickly phased out. But you ought to remember that what ultimatly determines wether a design is 'successful' or not is wether it remains in use or not. The WV Beetle wasn't a great car, but it remained in production for half a century... so it was most definetly successful. The same can be said about the Soyus.

And I never said we didn't need the Shuttle - all I said was that it really is less suited than a simple capsule to be used as a 'commuter transport' to and from a spacestation.

*) Your percentages for re-entry are off btw. Either you ought to take out the mass of the LEM for Apollo, leaving a massfraction of just over 19%, or you must add the weight of the sovet LK to the calculations of the Soyus.

Maybe I should have worded myself clearer... but while both Gemeni and Apollo carried jetisonable servicemodules (in fact, even the spam-in-a-can approach of Mercury had a jetisonable module; the retropack), they also carried a lot of stuff down with them on reentry that wasn't really needed for reentry and which 'ought' to have been in a jetisonable livingmodule to save weight. The genius of the soyuz was that the re-entry module was nothing but a reentry module. While looking at percentages can be interesting*, it is also the matter of what you do with the weight you're carrying. To qoute the Encyclopedia Astronautica: The Apollo capsule designed by NASA had a mass of 5,000 kg and provided the crew with six cubic meters of living space. A service module, providing propulsion, electricity, radio, and other equipment would add at least 1,800 kg to this mass for the circumlunar mission. The Soyuz spacecraft for the same mission provided the same crew with 9 cubic meters of living space, an airlock, and the service module for the mass of the Apollo capsule alone!

It is interesting to note that the General Electric Apollo Proposal was very simular to the Soyuz - so simular that some speculate if the Soviets simply copied it. Parts of the ideas of a modular aproach was also reflected in the suggestion of a lunar Gemeni, where the modularity was built into the servicemodule. The most extreme suggestion, as far as weightsaving goes, in that programe was the use of a 3,284 kg bare-bones, open cockpit lunar module...

You are right that the vehicles are optimised for different missionprofiles - but as the Soyuz and the Apollo both were designed to land a man on the moon and bring him back, they are comparable designs - and while the modular design of the Soyuz allowed it to be adapted for use as a efficent low orbit ferry, the Apollo was quickly phased out. But you ought to remember that what ultimatly determines wether a design is 'successful' or not is wether it remains in use or not. The WV Beetle wasn't a great car, but it remained in production for half a century... so it was most definetly successful. The same can be said about the Soyus.

And I never said we didn't need the Shuttle - all I said was that it really is less suited than a simple capsule to be used as a 'commuter transport' to and from a spacestation.

*) Your percentages for re-entry are off btw. Either you ought to take out the mass of the LEM for Apollo, leaving a massfraction of just over 19%, or you must add the weight of the sovet LK to the calculations of the Soyus.

Maybe I should have worded myself clearer... but while both Gemeni and Apollo carried jetisonable servicemodules (in fact, even the spam-in-a-can approach of Mercury had a jetisonable module; the retropack), they also carried a lot of stuff down with them on reentry that wasn't really needed for reentry and which 'ought' to have been in a jetisonable livingmodule to save weight. The genius of the soyuz was that the re-entry module was nothing but a reentry module. While looking at percentages can be interesting*, it is also the matter of what you do with the weight you're carrying. To qoute the Encyclopedia Astronautica: The Apollo capsule designed by NASA had a mass of 5,000 kg and provided the crew with six cubic meters of living space. A service module, providing propulsion, electricity, radio, and other equipment would add at least 1,800 kg to this mass for the circumlunar mission. The Soyuz spacecraft for the same mission provided the same crew with 9 cubic meters of living space, an airlock, and the service module for the mass of the Apollo capsule alone!

It is interesting to note that the General Electric Apollo Proposal was very simular to the Soyuz - so simular that some speculate if the Soviets simply copied it. Parts of the ideas of a modular aproach was also reflected in the suggestion of a lunar Gemeni, where the modularity was built into the servicemodule. The most extreme suggestion, as far as weightsaving goes, in that programe was the use of a 3,284 kg bare-bones, open cockpit lunar module...

You are right that the vehicles are optimised for different missionprofiles - but as the Soyuz and the Apollo both were designed to land a man on the moon and bring him back, they are comparable designs - and while the modular design of the Soyuz allowed it to be adapted for use as a efficent low orbit ferry, the Apollo was quickly phased out. But you ought to remember that what ultimatly determines wether a design is 'successful' or not is wether it remains in use or not. The WV Beetle wasn't a great car, but it remained in production for half a century... so it was most definetly successful. The same can be said about the Soyus.

And I never said we didn't need the Shuttle - all I said was that it really is less suited than a simple capsule to be used as a 'commuter transport' to and from a spacestation.

*) Your percentages for re-entry are off btw. Either you ought to take out the mass of the LEM for Apollo, leaving a massfraction of just over 19%, or you must add the weight of the sovet LK to the calculations of the Soyus.

Maybe I should have worded myself clearer... but while both Gemeni and Apollo carried jetisonable servicemodules (in fact, even the spam-in-a-can approach of Mercury had a jetisonable module; the retropack), they also carried a lot of stuff down with them on reentry that wasn't really needed for reentry and which 'ought' to have been in a jetisonable livingmodule to save weight. The genius of the soyuz was that the re-entry module was nothing but a reentry module. While looking at percentages can be interesting*, it is also the matter of what you do with the weight you're carrying. To qoute the Encyclopedia Astronautica: The Apollo capsule designed by NASA had a mass of 5,000 kg and provided the crew with six cubic meters of living space. A service module, providing propulsion, electricity, radio, and other equipment would add at least 1,800 kg to this mass for the circumlunar mission. The Soyuz spacecraft for the same mission provided the same crew with 9 cubic meters of living space, an airlock, and the service module for the mass of the Apollo capsule alone!

It is interesting to note that the General Electric Apollo Proposal was very simular to the Soyuz - so simular that some speculate if the Soviets simply copied it. Parts of the ideas of a modular aproach was also reflected in the suggestion of a lunar Gemeni, where the modularity was built into the servicemodule. The most extreme suggestion, as far as weightsaving goes, in that programe was the use of a 3,284 kg bare-bones, open cockpit lunar module...

You are right that the vehicles are optimised for different missionprofiles - but as the Soyuz and the Apollo both were designed to land a man on the moon and bring him back, they are comparable designs - and while the modular design of the Soyuz allowed it to be adapted for use as a efficent low orbit ferry, the Apollo was quickly phased out. But you ought to remember that what ultimatly determines wether a design is 'successful' or not is wether it remains in use or not. The WV Beetle wasn't a great car, but it remained in production for half a century... so it was most definetly successful. The same can be said about the Soyus.

And I never said we didn't need the Shuttle - all I said was that it really is less suited than a simple capsule to be used as a 'commuter transport' to and from a spacestation.

*) Your percentages for re-entry are off btw. Either you ought to take out the mass of the LEM for Apollo, leaving a massfraction of just over 19%, or you must add the weight of the sovet LK to the calculations of the Soyus.

Maybe I should have worded myself clearer... but while both Gemeni and Apollo carried jetisonable servicemodules (in fact, even the spam-in-a-can approach of Mercury had a jetisonable module; the retropack), they also carried a lot of stuff down with them on reentry that wasn't really needed for reentry and which 'ought' to have been in a jetisonable livingmodule to save weight. The genius of the soyuz was that the re-entry module was nothing but a reentry module. While looking at percentages can be interesting*, it is also the matter of what you do with the weight you're carrying. To qoute the Encyclopedia Astronautica: The Apollo capsule designed by NASA had a mass of 5,000 kg and provided the crew with six cubic meters of living space. A service module, providing propulsion, electricity, radio, and other equipment would add at least 1,800 kg to this mass for the circumlunar mission. The Soyuz spacecraft for the same mission provided the same crew with 9 cubic meters of living space, an airlock, and the service module for the mass of the Apollo capsule alone!

It is interesting to note that the General Electric Apollo Proposal was very simular to the Soyuz - so simular that some speculate if the Soviets simply copied it. Parts of the ideas of a modular aproach was also reflected in the suggestion of a lunar Gemeni, where the modularity was built into the servicemodule. The most extreme suggestion, as far as weightsaving goes, in that programe was the use of a 3,284 kg bare-bones, open cockpit lunar module...

You are right that the vehicles are optimised for different missionprofiles - but as the Soyuz and the Apollo both were designed to land a man on the moon and bring him back, they are comparable designs - and while the modular design of the Soyuz allowed it to be adapted for use as a efficent low orbit ferry, the Apollo was quickly phased out. But you ought to remember that what ultimatly determines wether a design is 'successful' or not is wether it remains in use or not. The WV Beetle wasn't a great car, but it remained in production for half a century... so it was most definetly successful. The same can be said about the Soyus.

And I never said we didn't need the Shuttle - all I said was that it really is less suited than a simple capsule to be used as a 'commuter transport' to and from a spacestation.

*) Your percentages for re-entry are off btw. Either you ought to take out the mass of the LEM for Apollo, leaving a massfraction of just over 19%, or you must add the weight of the sovet LK to the calculations of the Soyus.

Maybe I should have worded myself clearer... but while both Gemeni and Apollo carried jetisonable servicemodules (in fact, even the spam-in-a-can approach of Mercury had a jetisonable module; the retropack), they also carried a lot of stuff down with them on reentry that wasn't really needed for reentry and which 'ought' to have been in a jetisonable livingmodule to save weight. The genius of the soyuz was that the re-entry module was nothing but a reentry module. While looking at percentages can be interesting*, it is also the matter of what you do with the weight you're carrying. To qoute the Encyclopedia Astronautica: The Apollo capsule designed by NASA had a mass of 5,000 kg and provided the crew with six cubic meters of living space. A service module, providing propulsion, electricity, radio, and other equipment would add at least 1,800 kg to this mass for the circumlunar mission. The Soyuz spacecraft for the same mission provided the same crew with 9 cubic meters of living space, an airlock, and the service module for the mass of the Apollo capsule alone!

It is interesting to note that the General Electric Apollo Proposal was very simular to the Soyuz - so simular that some speculate if the Soviets simply copied it. Parts of the ideas of a modular aproach was also reflected in the suggestion of a lunar Gemeni, where the modularity was built into the servicemodule. The most extreme suggestion, as far as weightsaving goes, in that programe was the use of a 3,284 kg bare-bones, open cockpit lunar module...

You are right that the vehicles are optimised for different missionprofiles - but as the Soyuz and the Apollo both were designed to land a man on the moon and bring him back, they are comparable designs - and while the modular design of the Soyuz allowed it to be adapted for use as a efficent low orbit ferry, the Apollo was quickly phased out. But you ought to remember that what ultimatly determines wether a design is 'successful' or not is wether it remains in use or not. The WV Beetle wasn't a great car, but it remained in production for half a century... so it was most definetly successful. The same can be said about the Soyus.

And I never said we didn't need the Shuttle - all I said was that it really is less suited than a simple capsule to be used as a 'commuter transport' to and from a spacestation.

*) Your percentages for re-entry are off btw. Either you ought to take out the mass of the LEM for Apollo, leaving a massfraction of just over 19%, or you must add the weight of the sovet LK to the calculations of the Soyus.

Maybe I should have worded myself clearer... but while both Gemeni and Apollo carried jetisonable servicemodules (in fact, even the spam-in-a-can approach of Mercury had a jetisonable module; the retropack), they also carried a lot of stuff down with them on reentry that wasn't really needed for reentry and which 'ought' to have been in a jetisonable livingmodule to save weight. The genius of the soyuz was that the re-entry module was nothing but a reentry module. While looking at percentages can be interesting*, it is also the matter of what you do with the weight you're carrying. To qoute the Encyclopedia Astronautica: The Apollo capsule designed by NASA had a mass of 5,000 kg and provided the crew with six cubic meters of living space. A service module, providing propulsion, electricity, radio, and other equipment would add at least 1,800 kg to this mass for the circumlunar mission. The Soyuz spacecraft for the same mission provided the same crew with 9 cubic meters of living space, an airlock, and the service module for the mass of the Apollo capsule alone!

It is interesting to note that the General Electric Apollo Proposal was very simular to the Soyuz - so simular that some speculate if the Soviets simply copied it. Parts of the ideas of a modular aproach was also reflected in the suggestion of a lunar Gemeni, where the modularity was built into the servicemodule. The most extreme suggestion, as far as weightsaving goes, in that programe was the use of a 3,284 kg bare-bones, open cockpit lunar module...

You are right that the vehicles are optimised for different missionprofiles - but as the Soyuz and the Apollo both were designed to land a man on the moon and bring him back, they are comparable designs - and while the modular design of the Soyuz allowed it to be adapted for use as a efficent low orbit ferry, the Apollo was quickly phased out. But you ought to remember that what ultimatly determines wether a design is 'successful' or not is wether it remains in use or not. The WV Beetle wasn't a great car, but it remained in production for half a century... so it was most definetly successful. The same can be said about the Soyus.

And I never said we didn't need the Shuttle - all I said was that it really is less suited than a simple capsule to be used as a 'commuter transport' to and from a spacestation.

*) Your percentages for re-entry are off btw. Either you ought to take out the mass of the LEM for Apollo, leaving a massfraction of just over 19%, or you must add the weight of the sovet LK to the calculations of the Soyus.

Other than the first two suborbital Mercury astronauts (who did splashdown in the Atlantic), all the other Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts from the US returned to Earth in the Pacific.

The Pacific is bigger than the Atlantic, which means it is harder to miss.

The Russian soyuz spacecraft has been the longest-lived, most adaptable, and most successful manned spacecraft design. In production for forty years, more than 230 have been built and flown on a wide range of missions.

The fundamental concept of the design can easily be summarised as obtaining minimum overall vehicle mass for the mission. This is accomplished by minimising the mass of the re-entry vehicle. This was achived by putting all the systems not needed for re-entry outside the re-entry vehicle in a jetisonable 'livingsection'*, and by having a re-entry vehicle with the highest possible volumetric efficency**.

Compare this to the US capsules of the sixties (in which almost everything that went up came down, and the volumetric efficency was poor) and todays twenty year old shuttle system. Basicly, by finding a good design, keeping things simple and not fixing that which isn't broken, the soviets and later the russians has keept what is basicly the same design flying for the better part of half a century. And in a way, it's a design more optimised to building large spacestations than the shuttle are - just leave your livingmodule on the station as you detach your capsule, and you have just increased the size of the station. The only thing the shuttle has going for it when it comes to stationbuilding is the canadarm (isn't there one mounted at the ISS already?) and the fact that the shuttle could, theoreticly, bring modules down for repair.

Oh well, anotehr victory for KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. While the shuttle has it's uses, for most everyday stuff in space a simple capsule is safer, simpler and possible cheaper.

*) As a rule of thumb, every gram saved this way saves two grams in overall spacecraft mass, as you don't have to support it with parachutes, protected by heatshields and braked on landing.

**) In theory this is a sphere, as the earlier vostok, but as the Soyuz was originaly planned to be used on lunar missions it was required to bank a little, generate lift and 'fly' a bit to reduce the G-loads on the crew - just like the Apollo was. The optimum shape was found to be the classic headlightshape the soyuz have had for it's entire life.

Most information in this post is taken from the linked websites, even if I've barely scraped the surface. I stronlge recomend following the links to learn more of this four decades old design.

The Russian soyuz spacecraft has been the longest-lived, most adaptable, and most successful manned spacecraft design. In production for forty years, more than 230 have been built and flown on a wide range of missions.

The fundamental concept of the design can easily be summarised as obtaining minimum overall vehicle mass for the mission. This is accomplished by minimising the mass of the re-entry vehicle. This was achived by putting all the systems not needed for re-entry outside the re-entry vehicle in a jetisonable 'livingsection'*, and by having a re-entry vehicle with the highest possible volumetric efficency**.

Compare this to the US capsules of the sixties (in which almost everything that went up came down, and the volumetric efficency was poor) and todays twenty year old shuttle system. Basicly, by finding a good design, keeping things simple and not fixing that which isn't broken, the soviets and later the russians has keept what is basicly the same design flying for the better part of half a century. And in a way, it's a design more optimised to building large spacestations than the shuttle are - just leave your livingmodule on the station as you detach your capsule, and you have just increased the size of the station. The only thing the shuttle has going for it when it comes to stationbuilding is the canadarm (isn't there one mounted at the ISS already?) and the fact that the shuttle could, theoreticly, bring modules down for repair.

Oh well, anotehr victory for KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. While the shuttle has it's uses, for most everyday stuff in space a simple capsule is safer, simpler and possible cheaper.

*) As a rule of thumb, every gram saved this way saves two grams in overall spacecraft mass, as you don't have to support it with parachutes, protected by heatshields and braked on landing.

**) In theory this is a sphere, as the earlier vostok, but as the Soyuz was originaly planned to be used on lunar missions it was required to bank a little, generate lift and 'fly' a bit to reduce the G-loads on the crew - just like the Apollo was. The optimum shape was found to be the classic headlightshape the soyuz have had for it's entire life.

Most information in this post is taken from the linked websites, even if I've barely scraped the surface. I stronlge recomend following the links to learn more of this four decades old design.

Smaller. There was a lot of interest from the 1960s onwards with launching satellites from high velocity artillery. The work was pioneered by Gerald Bull, who later went on to develop long range artillery for the South Africans, develop the Iraqi supergun and ended his days being assassinated - presumably by the Israelis.

Bull was in charge of a 1960s project called HARP which built an enormous cannon to fire projectiles into the upper atmosphere (and we're talking about 180 km here) over Barbados (well if you're going to do science, you should do it somewhere nice).

The projectiles were instrumented devices known as martlets, Bull planned to develop martlets with small motors that would give them enough kick to enter low orbit.

The cannon would have been much cheaper than rockets, but the technology of building advanced satellites capable of withstanding the shock of launching would have been formidable.

The supergun built for the Iraqis by the British company Matrix Churchill would have not been able to fire satellites, but a bigger one designed by Bull would have. He got round the problem of a short, sharp shock by having a series of explosions accelerate the projectile as it travelled along the gun barrel. Since there would be less pressure on the barrel, it needn't be so strong or made of advanced materials. Bull got the idea from the German V3 gun built to bombard London during WW2. The photo is dreadful but it shows the central barrel and the side barrels coming off it. Each of those would have fired in turn behind the shell and accelerated it up the gun and towards Britain.

More on HARP here and other space guns (with an awesome picture of the HARP gun firing here.

Best wishes,
Mike.

Smaller. There was a lot of interest from the 1960s onwards with launching satellites from high velocity artillery. The work was pioneered by Gerald Bull, who later went on to develop long range artillery for the South Africans, develop the Iraqi supergun and ended his days being assassinated - presumably by the Israelis.

Bull was in charge of a 1960s project called HARP which built an enormous cannon to fire projectiles into the upper atmosphere (and we're talking about 180 km here) over Barbados (well if you're going to do science, you should do it somewhere nice).

The projectiles were instrumented devices known as martlets, Bull planned to develop martlets with small motors that would give them enough kick to enter low orbit.

The cannon would have been much cheaper than rockets, but the technology of building advanced satellites capable of withstanding the shock of launching would have been formidable.

The supergun built for the Iraqis by the British company Matrix Churchill would have not been able to fire satellites, but a bigger one designed by Bull would have. He got round the problem of a short, sharp shock by having a series of explosions accelerate the projectile as it travelled along the gun barrel. Since there would be less pressure on the barrel, it needn't be so strong or made of advanced materials. Bull got the idea from the German V3 gun built to bombard London during WW2. The photo is dreadful but it shows the central barrel and the side barrels coming off it. Each of those would have fired in turn behind the shell and accelerated it up the gun and towards Britain.

More on HARP here and other space guns (with an awesome picture of the HARP gun firing here.

Best wishes,
Mike.

Amusing, but on a more serious note, didn't anyone find the following just the least bit suspicious?

"Benson said the company's motor design is thought to be the largest of its type in the world. It uses clean and inexpensive propellants, namely Nitrous Oxide (Laughing Gas) and HTPB (tire rubber)."

Burning rubber is -incredibly- toxic. Note the pictures of the rocket firing? Lots of yellow flame(meaning low-temperature, incomplete combustion- watch the shuttle some time, you -can't- really see the flame out of the liquid fuel motors, it's so damn hot) and TONS of thick, thick black smoke?

I tried googling around, and found out that HTPB stands for "hydroxy terminated polybutadiene"- it's commonly used as a binder in normal solid rocket motors, and...oddly enough, it seems Saddam liked HTPB too. Okay, so I'm getting the sense that Space.com grossly oversimplified HTPB as "tire rubber."

The only thing I could find on the "how clean is it?" question was a page detailing various solid rocket fuels. Interesting to note that HTPB is NOT listed under the section titled "fuels that meet clean air requirements", but then again, the whole nitrous bit isn't mentioned either. I'm no rocket scientist :-), so maybe the nitrous oxide gets things goin' enough that everything burns cleanly; it is, afterall, a pretty sweet oxidizer.

I'd personally like to know more about this, as I think the space shuttle needs to be put through some emissions testing. Lots of states require on-dyno testing; imagine dyno-testing that puppy. Maybe NASA can just slip the guy two twenties(it is the space shuttle after all, one twenty probably wouldn't be enough) and get the sticker...

The 'immense forces' you're refering to is probaly the G-forces of acceleration.. so if you cut back on trust and instead prolonged the burn, you would end up with the same amouth of enegry delivered to the craft with lot less stress involed. You don't need to be a rocket-scientist to know that, but it helps.

For most things spacerelated, visit Encyclopedia Astronautica.

...and the Corona satellite.
What I find interesting is that what most people in the US and the rest of the world thought to be a series of peacefull research sateliets named Discovery, actually was the corona spy satelite system. It's even more amazing when you realise what they actually achived with such a 'primitive' system, starting virtually from scratch.

I also found some links to the Thor booster and Agena spacecraft, variants A, B and D on Encyclopedia Astronautica - my favorite webpage for such things.

...and the Corona satellite.
What I find interesting is that what most people in the US and the rest of the world thought to be a series of peacefull research sateliets named Discovery, actually was the corona spy satelite system. It's even more amazing when you realise what they actually achived with such a 'primitive' system, starting virtually from scratch.

I also found some links to the Thor booster and Agena spacecraft, variants A, B and D on Encyclopedia Astronautica - my favorite webpage for such things.

...and the Corona satellite.
What I find interesting is that what most people in the US and the rest of the world thought to be a series of peacefull research sateliets named Discovery, actually was the corona spy satelite system. It's even more amazing when you realise what they actually achived with such a 'primitive' system, starting virtually from scratch.

I also found some links to the Thor booster and Agena spacecraft, variants A, B and D on Encyclopedia Astronautica - my favorite webpage for such things.

...and the Corona satellite.
What I find interesting is that what most people in the US and the rest of the world thought to be a series of peacefull research sateliets named Discovery, actually was the corona spy satelite system. It's even more amazing when you realise what they actually achived with such a 'primitive' system, starting virtually from scratch.

I also found some links to the Thor booster and Agena spacecraft, variants A, B and D on Encyclopedia Astronautica - my favorite webpage for such things.

Challenger... I rest my case.

LOX (Liquid OXygen) is used because it is both cheap, freely avilable and less dangerous than most other oxidisers. For more info on propelants in general, see here. For LOX + kerosene in particular, the link is here. Off course, if you want to get away from the nasty cryogenic oxidicers, you could always go for hydrogenperoxside and kerosene (se data here). Off course, H2O2 is more expencive and way more poisonous than LOX, but it's give and take... In large quantities, 95 per cent hydrogen peroxide then cost approximately $1.00 per kg - LOX on the other hand cost about 0.08$ per kg. Or you could get exotic and use Liquid Fluorine and Kerosene wich gives a Isp: 322.00 sl. compared to a Isp: 300.00 sl. for LOX/Kerosene (se data here) - but then LF was kosting 6.00$ in 1959, and I don't think the price has dropped.

So in short, LOX has a few drawbacks, but the benefits of using it outweights them. Oh, and Encyclopedia Astronautica is a good place to find this sort of info.

Challenger... I rest my case.

LOX (Liquid OXygen) is used because it is both cheap, freely avilable and less dangerous than most other oxidisers. For more info on propelants in general, see here. For LOX + kerosene in particular, the link is here. Off course, if you want to get away from the nasty cryogenic oxidicers, you could always go for hydrogenperoxside and kerosene (se data here). Off course, H2O2 is more expencive and way more poisonous than LOX, but it's give and take... In large quantities, 95 per cent hydrogen peroxide then cost approximately $1.00 per kg - LOX on the other hand cost about 0.08$ per kg. Or you could get exotic and use Liquid Fluorine and Kerosene wich gives a Isp: 322.00 sl. compared to a Isp: 300.00 sl. for LOX/Kerosene (se data here) - but then LF was kosting 6.00$ in 1959, and I don't think the price has dropped.

So in short, LOX has a few drawbacks, but the benefits of using it outweights them. Oh, and Encyclopedia Astronautica is a good place to find this sort of info.

Challenger... I rest my case.

LOX (Liquid OXygen) is used because it is both cheap, freely avilable and less dangerous than most other oxidisers. For more info on propelants in general, see here. For LOX + kerosene in particular, the link is here. Off course, if you want to get away from the nasty cryogenic oxidicers, you could always go for hydrogenperoxside and kerosene (se data here). Off course, H2O2 is more expencive and way more poisonous than LOX, but it's give and take... In large quantities, 95 per cent hydrogen peroxide then cost approximately $1.00 per kg - LOX on the other hand cost about 0.08$ per kg. Or you could get exotic and use Liquid Fluorine and Kerosene wich gives a Isp: 322.00 sl. compared to a Isp: 300.00 sl. for LOX/Kerosene (se data here) - but then LF was kosting 6.00$ in 1959, and I don't think the price has dropped.

So in short, LOX has a few drawbacks, but the benefits of using it outweights them. Oh, and Encyclopedia Astronautica is a good place to find this sort of info.

Challenger... I rest my case.

LOX (Liquid OXygen) is used because it is both cheap, freely avilable and less dangerous than most other oxidisers. For more info on propelants in general, see here. For LOX + kerosene in particular, the link is here. Off course, if you want to get away from the nasty cryogenic oxidicers, you could always go for hydrogenperoxside and kerosene (se data here). Off course, H2O2 is more expencive and way more poisonous than LOX, but it's give and take... In large quantities, 95 per cent hydrogen peroxide then cost approximately $1.00 per kg - LOX on the other hand cost about 0.08$ per kg. Or you could get exotic and use Liquid Fluorine and Kerosene wich gives a Isp: 322.00 sl. compared to a Isp: 300.00 sl. for LOX/Kerosene (se data here) - but then LF was kosting 6.00$ in 1959, and I don't think the price has dropped.

So in short, LOX has a few drawbacks, but the benefits of using it outweights them. Oh, and Encyclopedia Astronautica is a good place to find this sort of info.

Challenger... I rest my case.

LOX (Liquid OXygen) is used because it is both cheap, freely avilable and less dangerous than most other oxidisers. For more info on propelants in general, see here. For LOX + kerosene in particular, the link is here. Off course, if you want to get away from the nasty cryogenic oxidicers, you could always go for hydrogenperoxside and kerosene (se data here). Off course, H2O2 is more expencive and way more poisonous than LOX, but it's give and take... In large quantities, 95 per cent hydrogen peroxide then cost approximately $1.00 per kg - LOX on the other hand cost about 0.08$ per kg. Or you could get exotic and use Liquid Fluorine and Kerosene wich gives a Isp: 322.00 sl. compared to a Isp: 300.00 sl. for LOX/Kerosene (se data here) - but then LF was kosting 6.00$ in 1959, and I don't think the price has dropped.

So in short, LOX has a few drawbacks, but the benefits of using it outweights them. Oh, and Encyclopedia Astronautica is a good place to find this sort of info.

The Energia booster team has been split up with the breakup of the Soviet Union. The strap on boosters were built in the Ukraine and have now become the Zenit rocket which is used for the Sealaunch programme. The Russian workers have been deployed to other tasks such as the new Angara rocket which should fly this year.

Sadly it looks like Buran will never fly again. The Russians have continued work with a series of ongoing spaceplane projects.

There is the Multi-purpose Aerospace System (MAKS) a 30 tonne, 2 man orbiter with an 8 tonne payload which would be launched off the back of an aircraft, and a programme known as Orel which is developing a single-stage to orbit spaceplane by the name of the Tu2000.

Of course the ongoing crisis of the Russian economy means that these programmes are running almost on empty. The Orel programme has done work on scramjets in conjunction with the French, so it is possible that ESA might get involved at some stage in the future.

Best wishes,
Mike.

The Energia booster team has been split up with the breakup of the Soviet Union. The strap on boosters were built in the Ukraine and have now become the Zenit rocket which is used for the Sealaunch programme. The Russian workers have been deployed to other tasks such as the new Angara rocket which should fly this year.

Sadly it looks like Buran will never fly again. The Russians have continued work with a series of ongoing spaceplane projects.

There is the Multi-purpose Aerospace System (MAKS) a 30 tonne, 2 man orbiter with an 8 tonne payload which would be launched off the back of an aircraft, and a programme known as Orel which is developing a single-stage to orbit spaceplane by the name of the Tu2000.

Of course the ongoing crisis of the Russian economy means that these programmes are running almost on empty. The Orel programme has done work on scramjets in conjunction with the French, so it is possible that ESA might get involved at some stage in the future.

Best wishes,
Mike.

Absolutely correct. Which is why NASA isn't doing most of the mundane transportantion for ISS. That's what the Russian Progress and the European ATV are for. Shuttle is primarilly being used for the construction phase. These are not delivery runs. These are complex missions; exactly what NASA was designed for.

No, the space station was placed in that orbit as a compromise so that both the American (Shuttle) and the Russian (Soyuz) vehicles could get to it. Baikonur and Cape Canaveral are at quite different lattitudes. ISS is half way in between.

> Let's do it over. And do it right.

I'll be honest. I agree with most of your criticisms. But your remedy would be disasterous. If we axe the shuttles and drop ISS into the Pacific, you are starting from square one. The US population isn't interested in constructing anything grand anymore. If we had nothing in orbit, things would stay that way.

If you stop, you'll never get started again. The only politically viable option is to move along one step at a time. Let's make sure that we make each little step count.

Are you sure? Can you prove it? Because, actually, I believe we do know how to build at least the heatshields.

Since I began work at Lockheed Martin (back then it was Martin Marietta), we have made a number of heatshields. If you go to the article linked to above, you will see a picture of the aeroshell. The white cone is one of the backshells we completed for the Mars Exploration Rover missions about this time last year. (The ablator is actually gray, they painted it in Denver.)

A cursory examination of informal records and pictures shows that we've been building them for many of NASA's planetary probes, going back to the Viking probes. I have no doubt that we could make at least Apollo Command Module-class heatshields.

dm

http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/r7.htm The same basic design that launched the first ICBM, first satellite and first human into space is still launching humans, cargo and satellites. It will almost certainly serve well past it's 50th anniversary. Korolev would be shocked and a bit dissapointed, I imagine.

http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/r7.htm The same basic design that launched the first ICBM, first satellite and first human into space is still launching humans, cargo and satellites. It will almost certainly serve well past it's 50th anniversary. Korolev would be shocked and a bit dissapointed, I imagine.

That, my friend, is because the only things that are still around from 30 years ago are the ones that were durable. In another 30 years, people will say the same thing about today's things, because the crap will already be broken and disposed of. Sure, there will be millions of Huffy bicycles in the trash. But people will have forgotten them, and will marvel at the amazing durability of the high-end Treks and whatnot that survive.

And the space program differences are all about cost. The Pathfinder mission (which landed on mars) was part of the Discovery series of missions, capped at $150 million. Cassini, the last of the Voyager/Pioneer-type "heavy engineering" designs cost $3.4 BILLION. Pioneer 10 cost $350 million, in 1970. Voyager 1 and 2 cost $875 million together, in 1977. (those obviously need some inflation adjustment to be fair to a 1996 mission, but even Pioneer is more than double the cost without adjustment!) Of course there's going to be a performance difference when you pay many times as much. Even so, Galileo (another old-school nasa design) cost $1.6 billion, and its main antenna never opened. Would you rather have 10 cheap missions where 8 fail, or one expensive mission that fails?

Sure, we've lost lots of recent mars missions. But all added together, they barely cost as much as some of those single probes.

Links:

pioneer cost

cassini cost

voyager cost

pathfinder cost

Well the latency would, of course, be much higher. Probably something on the order of 300-400ms (I'm probably way off on this...). And we STILL don't have robots that can perfectly duplicate everything humans can do in orbit. Maybe someday but right now it is just easier to send humans up... probably. I mean you cannot build robots that could repair the Hubble for instance, and I would hate to try.

An interesting footnote, the Soviets launched their space shuttle,Buran completely automated into orbit and back again with no problems. To Quote:

The software problem was rectified and the next attempt was set for 15 November at 06:00 (03:00 GMT). Came the morning, the weather was snow flurries with 20 m/s winds. Launch abort criteria were 15 m/s. The launch director decided to press ahead anyway. After 12 years of development everything went perfectly. Buran, with a mass of 79.4 tonnes, separated from the Block Ts core and entered a temporary orbit with a perigee of -11.2 km and apogee of 154.2 km. At apogee Burn executed a 66.6 m/s manoeuvre and entered a 251 km x 263 km orbit of the earth. In the payload bay was the 7150 kg module 37KB s/n 37071. 140 minutes into the flight retrofire was accomplished with a total delta-v of 175 m/s. 206 minutes after launch, accompanied by Igor Volk in a MiG-25 chase plane, Buran touched down at 260 km/hr in a 17 m/s crosswind at the Jubilee runway, with a 1620 m landing rollout. The completely automatic launch, orbital manoeuvre, deorbit, and precision landing of an airliner-sized spaceplane on its very first flight was an unprecedented accomplishment of which the Soviets were justifiably proud. It completely vindicated the years of exhaustive ground and flight test that had debugged the systems before they flew.

Hmm.. I'm actually going to talk about something I don't know a horrible lot about now, but I'll make a stab at it anyway.

Firstly, the chinese got a fairly good looking spaceprograme, which you can learn more about here, and their lunar dream in patucular here. So yes, they have probaly the capability to go to the moon with this decade - if their progame recives enought money (as for the poster who wondered if they wasn't 'still blowing up unmanned rockets on the pad'... isn't NASA the guys who fries seven astronauts at a time? Accident do happen - to all)

Secondly, there is the question of the economic side. Is there things worth mining on the moon? If it is, is it worth sending them back here? I guess, considering that you need a system of capsules, heatprotection, a system to collect all those capsules and so on ad nasaum, that the answer is a loud no. Is it worth sending it somewhere else, like into earth orbit? Ah.. now where talking. They could set up a few mines on the moon, along with a 'factory' to make additional modules for their planned spacestation, satelites and so on. While they still need to lob them into space from the surface of the moon, it takes 1/36 of the power it takes from earth (since the gravity of the moon is 1/6 of earths).

Thirdly, there is the question of wether they should mine the moon or head out in the astroidfield. Off course, this is a simple one to answer; We (they) have the capacity to go to that huge rock that very conviently hangs just above us all the time. We (they) don't have - as of today the capacity to do the same to any of those little rocks that tumble about in the solar system... we don't even know the precise orbital data for most of them. So the moon is the obvious place to go, because it is easy.

Lastly, there is the question about the legal aspect... I was under the impression that the moon - and the other planets - were a no mans land; ie that no nation could or can claim sovreinity. This means, presumably, that they can, unless there is some hidden catch like there is in antartica (where all can go, but no one is allowed to mine, drill for oil or do anything that can disturb the enviroment.

Thoughts on this, anyone?

Hmm.. I'm actually going to talk about something I don't know a horrible lot about now, but I'll make a stab at it anyway.

Firstly, the chinese got a fairly good looking spaceprograme, which you can learn more about here, and their lunar dream in patucular here. So yes, they have probaly the capability to go to the moon with this decade - if their progame recives enought money (as for the poster who wondered if they wasn't 'still blowing up unmanned rockets on the pad'... isn't NASA the guys who fries seven astronauts at a time? Accident do happen - to all)

Secondly, there is the question of the economic side. Is there things worth mining on the moon? If it is, is it worth sending them back here? I guess, considering that you need a system of capsules, heatprotection, a system to collect all those capsules and so on ad nasaum, that the answer is a loud no. Is it worth sending it somewhere else, like into earth orbit? Ah.. now where talking. They could set up a few mines on the moon, along with a 'factory' to make additional modules for their planned spacestation, satelites and so on. While they still need to lob them into space from the surface of the moon, it takes 1/36 of the power it takes from earth (since the gravity of the moon is 1/6 of earths).

Thirdly, there is the question of wether they should mine the moon or head out in the astroidfield. Off course, this is a simple one to answer; We (they) have the capacity to go to that huge rock that very conviently hangs just above us all the time. We (they) don't have - as of today the capacity to do the same to any of those little rocks that tumble about in the solar system... we don't even know the precise orbital data for most of them. So the moon is the obvious place to go, because it is easy.

Lastly, there is the question about the legal aspect... I was under the impression that the moon - and the other planets - were a no mans land; ie that no nation could or can claim sovreinity. This means, presumably, that they can, unless there is some hidden catch like there is in antartica (where all can go, but no one is allowed to mine, drill for oil or do anything that can disturb the enviroment.

Thoughts on this, anyone?

You're right...it is being developed by the ESA, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that the UK had a big hand in the development...

This just doesn't seem like good engineering. The traditional Apollo/Soyuz reentry vehicles had few if any of those risk factors. Compare what happened to Columbia with what happened to Soyuz 5: the reentry module failed to separate from the service module and entered into the atmosphere backwards. But when the service module had burned off, the reentry module righted itself (just because of its weight distribution--that's what it was designed to do) and Volynov landed and survived. Those reentry vehicles require no electronics and no flight control. The only thing that needs to happen is that the parachutes open some time before the capsule hits the ground. I think I'd have a bit more confidence in something like a Soyuz reentry vehicle than in the shuttle. And they are probably a lot cheaper, too.

Unreliable? Hardly. Unless you include the failed first launch of the Ariane 5 EC-A enhanced version, there was 1 failure in 13 launches, the failure being due to the infamous soft-/hardware integration error, which has been fixed.

I'm not sure putting our priorities on designing the next shuttle is what's really needed since it is basically a truck to LEO. In retrospect, in the early 70's NASA would have been much better off ramping up production and building scores of Saturn V's, a hundred Saturn 1B's and a few dozen Skylabs. With 20/20 hindsight, big dumb boosters were probably the best way to go three decades ago and that probably still holds true today. Who knows, maybe we still would have lost 1 out of 50 Saturn launches as well, but at least would have a lot more interesting stuff everywhere between LEO and the Moon for the same money.

For me I'm much more interested in spending the bulk of NASA's limited budget on interesting payloads that leave LEO rather than developing trucks to deliver the payloads to LEO. After all, 60's technology was fine for getting us to LEO and the Shuttle isn't going to take NASA to Mars.

Since the beginning of the shuttle program there were plans for a shuttle derived unmanned heavy lift vehicle that basically looked like a huge boxcar strapped to the side of the external tank. The only recoverable parts were the engines themselves, which would parachute to Earth after entering the atmosphere with an ablative heat shield. I believe that with most of the weight of the shuttle structure, wings, and crew cabin removed, such a booster would have had nearly the capacity of the Saturn V. It seems that such plans could be resurrected and within a year or two we have a heavy lift vehicle that can take advantage of economies of scale for shuttle solid rocket boosters and external tanks which I believe, ironically, are the cheapest parts of the shuttle. NASA can then use the proven Soyuz (thank you very much Russia for keeping the rocket and capsule assembly lines going) to get human crews into orbit until some suitable replacement is made.

Once NASA again has heavy lift capability it can then concentrate on truly interesting payloads that can take us to Mars and beyond. I'll cry if NASA does get the go ahead for a Mars mission and comes up with a scheme where dozens of shuttle missions (either the remaining three vehicles or next generation shuttles) are required to build the spacecraft in orbit from small components.

A new spaceplane, designed for crew. See the Orbital Space Plane.

A new technology, reusable launch vehicle. See the Space Launch Initiative.

Continuing with the Prometheus Project. We fucked up when we stopped persuing NERVA/Rover.

Mars. Need I say more?

I'd also like to see a space elevator persued, but I don't know that we have the tech yet. Then again, I haven't looked into it that much either.

Yeah, so that's my wishlist. Only a few hundreds of billions of dollars in imaginary cash NASA doesn't have...