Slashdot Mirror
Sea Launch Success
After the spectacular failure of the last go-round, Kyle writes: "The commercial venture Sea Launch has successfully launched another communications satellite into geosynchronous orbit, restoring confidence in the floating launch system after a launch failure earlier this year. The video Webcast was entertaining, complete with hints that they threw a pretty good post-launch party out there in international waters." Reader marat points to CNN coverage of the launch. Isn't it neat how the space game is heating up?
...is great and all, but still think Bull's idea
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of shoting stuff into space with a huge fscking cannon was much more elegant:
http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/SGbull.h
[...]
The Israelis, in September 1988, had successfully launched their own Shavit rocket into orbit, an event that had much impressed, and depressed, the Arab League. Bull promised the Iraqis a launch system that could place dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Arab satellites into orbit. *Small* satellites, granted, and unmanned ones; but their launches would cost as little as five thousand dollars each. Iraq would become a genuine space power; a minor one by superpower standards, but the only
Arab space power. And even small satellites were not just for show. Even a minor space satellite could successfully perform certain surveillance activities.
[...]
When you combine that with SkyCorp's robust component satellite assembly system, you wouldn't have to have a floating platform and a 1000' long ship to support you launch acctivities. In fact, the average fortune 500 company might be able to single handly fund and carryout launch activities. Still, 10,000 Gs is a s*itload of force. Maybe if someone were able to develope a hybrid rail gun/megneto-levo/cannon system that would accelerate payloads at lower Gs which would then link up with inertial launch component post explosive acceleration (at the muzzle perhaps)
http://www.spaceviews.com/2000/06/11a.html
http://www.themacjunkie.com/archives/6.13.00.wi
http://www.sky-corp.com/
maybe you could even do some weird shit like putting the railrun/megneto-levitation system underwater (pointed at the surface) and use Cavitation to get the payload upto hypersonic speeds before it joins up with the inertial launch component on a platform at the equator.
Timing would be critical... I'm not sure if computers currently have the resolution required to solve those timing issues. Probably have to use some weirdo-analog-hack to get the payload and inertial components in same spot at the right place.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/07/23/162
The "space game" isn't heating up, just Slashdot's coverage of it is. I'd given up last year on submitting space stories to be ignored by "News for Computer Nerds", but the change of pace this summer is pretty nice. But frankly, with the progress of past years in mind, the current news is pretty depressing.
Rotary Rocket has been gutted of engineers and CEO, and their current progress is destined to be mothballed unless they find a magic money tree somewhere.
Ok, so they were a long shot. But Kistler was playing it relatively safe with their design (after ditching an initial wacky idea), didn't hit any big technical or political snags, but simply is in limbo now trying to raise the last third of their funding.
Did Timothy not read the last SAS newsletter when it got posted to Slashdot? (Big thanks to whomever did that one, by the way; I'd advise interested readers to check out the archives too). The SAS seems to be the group most interested in low cost access to space, rather than in lobbying for a larger NASA budget. And they hit the mark right on with that last article; it takes a billion dollar initial investment to develop a new launch system, there are only two aerospace companies left who can afford that kind of investment, and they've both got good reason to love the status quo.
Oh, but what about government research? The X-33 is a joke. It was never designed as a simple, cheap launch vehicle, just as a way to be a "technology demonstrator" for as much flashy stuff as necessary to win a NASA contract. Of course, except for the aerospike engine, most of that flashy stuff is looking worse and worse. The lifting body shape may need control fins the size of wings, or ballast (yes, ballast on a spacecraft) to keep the center of gravity ahead of the center of pressure. They've just about given up on a high-tech composite tank after discovering it damaged in tests, and will probably have to use plain old aluminum for their wacky, multilobed design.
And did I mention that they're running years behind schedule, over budget, and despite previous agreements that Lockheed-Martin would pay budget overruns, they may renegotiate or scrap the project anyway?
Sea Launch's success isn't even in the same class as these failures. They're trying to squeeze a few extra pounds onto the usual work-intensive expendable rocket, not to reduce the gross costs of space launch by an order of magnitude.
My last glimmer of hope is Beal Aerospace, not because they have any groundbreaking new ideas in their design, but because they've got a sugar daddy financer who can afford all the capital investment before they get up and running. And even if they get started with tried and true booster technologies, they'll be a profitable new space company with no vested interest in squeezing the largest launch prices out of the government as possible. And that might actually heat things up.
http://www.stanford.edu/~erlee/bifrost/bifpart2.ht m
I don't see any of the problems you just listed. In fact, they say a human rated launcher can be built.
Later
Erik Z
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
I was lucky enough to hear one of the guys who engineers for the company speak at an IEEE meeting. Apparently There are a few major advantages to launching from the Pacific. By doing there launches this way they can have all of the equipment that they need transported to a loading dock in a relatively urban setting. Additionally it allows all of the personnel to live in a relatively urban setting while they work on the rockets. But the biggest advantage is that they can transport the rocket to the launch sight by boat (and the launch sight it in international waters) Apparently the U.S. gets pissed off if you launch rockets on real estate that is even remotely habitable, Buying a launch sight and getting the rocket there would be a MAJOR expense.
There set up is also pretty cool, they have two "ships" one is an unmanned oil platform where they keep/launch the rocket, the other is a control ship where a crew of (mostly Russian) engineers controls the launch. They seem to use a lot of Russian parts as well.