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Japan Tests Reusable Rocket
HobbySpacer writes: "Japan's ISAS (Institute for Space and Aeronautical Science) is testing a sub-orbital rocketship called the Reusable Rocket Vehicle Test (RVT). A video of a recent test flight is available. (Alternate source.)
According to Space News, the vertical-takeoff-vertical-landing vehicle
was built on an annual budget of $400k and assisted by volunteers from the Japan Rocket Society. The highest flight so far is 25m but the priority is technology development and low-cost operations, i.e. learning to run a rocket vehicle like a jet. Gradually, the flight envelope will be expanded and later more powerful engines and lighter components will be tested." Low budgets, encouraging volunteer participants -- now that's the way to run a space program!
"Like the DC-X project, the approach is a throwback to the successful X projects of the 1950s when great progress was made by progressing in small steps with small dedicated teams and modest budgets. (As with the X-15, at least 2 or 3 vehicles should be built because if you don't lose at least one during testing, you aren't pushing hard enough.) Perhaps the U.S. will return to this approach, as well, since the mega, 10 bleeding edge technologies at once, all or nothing approach of the X-33 failed miserably."
That's only $160 per centimeter! Damn those Japanese are efficient!
better than the japanese transforming robot project!
I can just see it. NASA dropped the Delta Clipper because it didn't fit their plans. The Japanese will pick it up and run with it. Fifteen years from now, everyone will be flying Honda and Toyota rockets....
This is why I was interested to read an article at the somewhat notorious discussion site adequacy.org detailing how to make space travel and exploration less elitist and more widespread.
This article shows and provides backing for widening the franchise of people we send to space. Meanwhile, this one shows the possible threats we the human race may face from embarking on our seeming destiny among the stars (NB: Both these articles are controversial in nature)
My own opinion is that space needs a public-private partnership in order to best take advantage of the best the state and the private sector has to offer. All nations realise this to some extent just now, but the Japanese and Europeans much more so than the americans. We need to do similar here in the USA.
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Japan doesn't have a military? That's new.
Actually, Japan is among the top 5 military spenders world wide. And has an extremely modern Air Force and Navy.
The Japanese fly Mitsubishi/Boeing built F-4s and F-15s. And they are working on a new advanced F-16 class fighter, as well as buying 767 based AWACS aircraft from Boeing/Ratheyon.
The Japanese Navy has a number of Aegis class DDGs, similar in all respects to the US DDGs of the Burke class. The Japanese Army uses a very nice tank called the Type 74.
Japan is a strong ally of the US in Asia and is vital to US warfighting plans for Korea or other hotspots around the South China Sea.
I went for 3 1/2 years without sex.
You lost your virginity when you were three and a half years old?
Funny, this is basically the same project that Bush Sr (and Dan Quayle) funded, then Clinton strangled, transferred to NASA, which crashed it and replaced it with the X-33 monstrosity. Thanks to the Clinton-era mergers, the corporation which thought DC-X was possible doesn't even exist anymore.
The main question is, what's next? Are we going to let NASA run our entire space program, or are we going to finally let DoD and DAPRA do reusable launch research again? You may not know this, but for about the past eight years, DoD research into reusable launch vehicles was forbidden. Maybe they were scared they'd come up with something that worked.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
The DC-X was SO promising... I hope the Japanese take this technology and make inexpensive, quality, mass-produced copies like they have with so many other American inventions. (Sad that we still haven't learned to do this ourselves yet.)
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Your snide Anti-NASA insinuations are an affront, and baseless, too. Why the insinuation that NASA hasn't done anything worthwhile or impressive since the X-Projects? I think they've done some impressive things, like acheiving orbit, for one. Also, this project is not comperable with the X-Projects. Those were learning aids; this is supposed to become a useful launch vehicle. Further, the X-Projects were nowhere near cheap.
And second, why laud the Japanese for having a low cost vehicle. For one thing yet, it doesn't work, second, it's only acheived 25m (unless the units are a typo on your part.) Also, what is it's carrying capacity? Thing looks like it would have trouble carrying 10 kgs to orbit, much less a payload of useful size.
Japan doesn't have a space program worth a damn because the government wont spend the money. Frankly, private space launches aren't there. We can push for NASA to get us there, which is preferable, since we won't have patents on scram-jets, re-entry sheilds, etc. The point is, NASA is it when it comes to space, for now. (Of course, there are other agencies, like the europeans, who need NASA to exist, but they're far from independant.)
By the way, re-read you last sentence. I'm not talking about your content, just the grammer. It's painful.
Yes, I'm still a junky. Are you still a bitch?
"As we turn our ambitions towards longer space missions, we
can see that the issue of sex in space will become important, and that it is unreasonable and even
cruel to send men on long, protracted missions without romantic company"
Erm, I'm not gay, but I went for 3 1/2 years without sex. By the above reasoning, shoul out medical services provide sex for sale? This is not a troll, it is a serious question, so I'm not posting anonymously.
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
See John Carmack's post above, D'oh!
If he says it's the same, who am I to argue?
Plus, I'm way interested in this 2nd generation vehicle he mentions!
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Carmack's team is building a VTVL rocket, but it's A) manned and B) intended to just do hops. It's intended to be a technology prover, but it's going to be more like a flying rocket chair than a spaceship.
Plus, his budget is at least an order of magnitude less than the Japanese budget.
Who says Americans can't do small and cheap? Go John Carmack!
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
This is not to say that a glider approach could never work, just that every design has tradeoffs.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
I think you may have a point...
If they supplied a room and board, I'd be up for it. There's already government housing in the area at Patrick Air Force Base... I don't know how occupied they are, but perhaps the gov't can make an allocation for volunteers. From the road, they look like reasonable houses/duplexes... and they're accross the road from the Ocean (and that's always cool). I'm sure you could fit a small gaggle of geeks into one of these (we've all had roommates before, right?)
Given some food and perhaps a small clothing/entertainment allowance (money that could easily be obtained through private sponsorship and public fundraising), I'd be up for it.
Maybe I'm asking too much.. i dunno
A guy donates a few hectares of land to the city with an agreement that a non profit group will turn it into a park with soccer and fastpitch fields. Volunteers for the non profit will clear the land, plant grass, install sprinklers, put up washrooms and storage buildings, erect stands, etc., etc. over the course of a few years. All with donated materials.
Only problem is that the local city workers union goes balistic (on topic :) saying that the volunteers are taking union jobs away resulting in lost wages ~C$750,000, yada yada yada. Non profit responds with "that's stupid we just want to improve the local community at no cost to the tax payers."
Long story short: The Union was succesful in stopping the project. The land owner took back the land and it now sits as a vacant weed infested eyesore. And the nearest park is couple kilometres away. But hey that's OK because no union member lost any wages this way :( I'm not bitter, can you tell?
I haven't seen a credible reason offered yet (neither in this thread nor by NASA etc) for why landing under rocket power is a desireable feature. It's a very cool engineering exercise, yes, for fooling around with extremely accurate feedback control of exhaust thrust vectoring. But it's neither energy efficient nor safe--for most of the landing procedure flawless performance of the engines and control systems is *vital*. Failure of either gives you no second chance, because you're hurtling straight towards your landing site.
Long term there's no substitute for aerodynamic assist. Putting a winged vehicle at 50,000 ft using aero engines takes a fraction of consummable liquid (fuel/propellant/oxidant) compared to a conventional rocket. Future space vehicles will without doubt carry either multiple or multi-modal engines to take advantage of each engine type's optimal performance environment. Considering that a conventional rocket consumes a substantial percentage of its fuel just to get out of the atmosphere, it only makes sense to take that first step with jet engines.
Not me. I'd be more likely to volunteer with an organization that would work towards making it possible for lots more people to go. That's pretty obviously not on NASAs priority list.
It would depend on their design and on their testing program. Call me crazy, but for some bizarre reason I'm much more interested in what the results would be than in whether or not they passed out pieces of colored paper to the participants.
Some Links to DC-X:
The really sad thing is, we'd likely almost be at the operational SSTO stage now, if we hadn't killed DC-X. . ..
There's quite a difference between "their next flight could be their last" (emphasis added) and "if you don't lose at least one during testing, you aren't pushing hard enough" (again, EA). The former means that the job is risky, the latter, suicidal (that is, I interpret his meaning to be, "If one aircraft isn't lost, then we're not being risky enough").
Other notes:
1) I wasn't responding to Timothy, rather HobbySpacer, the article's submitter. At least, that's how the quotes lead me to read it.
2) I don't think that this person presumed that this statement was only meant for unmanned flights; the link included in this comment was for the X-15, which did have a fatal disintigration, as memorialized in the link he gave.
3) I didn't mean to suggest that I thought this vehicle was manned. I was responding to his comment about the X-15.
Sorry if I ruffled any feathers; I guess I wasn't sufficiently clear.
---------The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
In fact, on the X-15 page you link to, you give a prime example of why they might object:
I'd have to say that, of course more than one prototype should be built, but it's rather insensitive to snidely say that "if you don't lose one during testing, you're not pushing hard enough".
---------The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
I just want to know how it's going to carry enough fuel for takeoff AND landing, and still be able to lift its own weight.
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To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.
That's ok...Gigantor will save us. Or maybe the Gundam pilots. The Japanese have the whole evil robot thing well under control.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
If there is anything that has in general (at least in my experience) been the trademark of japanese engineering for the devices i use (motorcycles, computers, consumer electronics) it's the reliability. That's very neat, i hope they succeed in getting this thing up to orbit and back eventually, because compared to the shuttle, this is very cool.
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Play Six Pack Man. I
Better yet, I've got a plan for a rocket fuled with old aol cd roms. The stars are ours!!!
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Indian government is researching on a RLV that was on news today. The project is still at a concept stage. But they have the obligatory engineeing model. This one also uses liquid hydrogen as propellant.
There is not much info in that news item but another website has a little more information.
What is unique in this is it collects oxygen while in suborbital cruise, converts it to liquid oxygen and uses it to reach orbit. This process has already been testing at the ground level.
They expect to use it for launching LEO satellites and defence surveillance purposes.
Christianfreak wrote:
:)
""Low budgets, encouraging volunteer participants -- now that's the way to run a space program!"
I would defenatly agree, but why do we have so much ranting here about NASA's low budget?"
Well, you won't hear that from me
I don't think the government should be in the space business at all, except insamuch as it is necessary for national defense.
Darnit.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Some people have solutions that give you VTVL without needing to balance on the point of a needle. Unfortunately, they seem to be out of money.
Kinda sad, really.
The abbreviated Laws of Thermodynamics:
1)You can't win.
2)You can't break even.
"We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking." -Mark Twain
Frankly, I'm all for countries that spend all of their resources on developing advanced technologies and none on defense. The word for this is "future US territories."
-jeff
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
The Big 3 US auto manufacturers took over 15 years to effectively respond to the Japanese, but they had to start losing money. NASA is in a lot worse shape than the Big 3 US auto manufacturers were in the early 1970s because NASA is more:
- government funded (and therefore immune to external demands placed on it).
- immune to private law suits.
- a monopoly.
- more insolent when it comes to grassroots political pressure (see the shuttle launch of the ACTS subsequent to and in violation of the passage of the grassroots Public Law 101-611 and failure to execute on the grassroots Launch Vouchers Experimental Program).
Given this sad situation, NASA should recognize that it is incapable of acting in the public interests, authorize funds for something like Jerry Pournelle & Co.'s Commercial Launch Incentives Act (since Congress will only enforce NASA reforms that NASA has come up with itself and the Executive is a basket case when it comes to leadership).Now, what are the chances NASA is going to act to reform itself based on the Japanese embarrassment alone? I think they need to be embarrassed a whole lot more before they'll wake up and smell the coffee like the Big 3 US automakers did in the 1980s.
Seastead this.
I think there is actually a benefit in not having a military... nobody comes to take over the project because of "National Security" reasons.
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HTML is obsolete. It's time for a new, simpler and richer markup language.
NASA got an unlimited budget to meet the goal of landing a man in the moon and they did it using plain and simple brute force (huge and inefficient rockets). The problem is, they got used to have unlimited resources is the only way they work.
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HTML is obsolete. It's time for a new, simpler and richer markup language.
Sure, it's cool now but reusable rockets are the first step towards GIANT, REUSABLE, WORLD-DOMINATING ROBOTS!
Damn I can go at least 100 meters with my estes Model rockes for 8 bucks an engine.. not reusable... but the body is :)
Damn... too much anime...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
LH/LOX is a renewable form of energy, kerosine isn't, so it is more futureproof.
and they probably aren't even using $600 hammmers!!!
<---[singularity sig]
Japan has teamed up with the Estes Corporation to begin a reusable rocket program. Said chief scientist Bo Bo Li, "I got the idea when I was buying a model car kit in the hobby shop. It's working great for us, except that sometimes we lose the rocket when it falls back to earth."
Origins of NDP for Japan:
* agriculture - 1.9%
* industry, of which: - 38%
manufacturing - 24.7%
* services - 60.1%
Origins of NDP for United States:
* agriculture: - 1.7%
* industry, of which: - 22.9%
manufacturing - 17.4%
* services - 75.4
Hmm.. so who's economy is raw-materials based? I understand what you're getting at, but you'd have a much more convincing case if reality jived with your notion.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Further, your notion that the US approach of science and technology as a "side-effect" is no longer true. Here's an excerpt from an article on Japan's technology policy, which can be found here:
"Traditionally, the public sector in most countries has been an important source of funding for basic scientific research.(6) As recently as 1995, the Japanese government contributed 22 percent of the nation's U.S. $140 billion in total R&D expenditures, while the U.S. government chipped in 35 percent of that country's U.S. $179 billion in R&D expenditures.(7) At first glance, it would appear that government support for basic research is alive and well."
"However, if we examine the numbers more carefully, we find that funding for "pure science" is indeed drying up. If one considers purchasing power parity, Japan's total R&D expenditures for 1995 are cut nearly in half, to U.S. $78 billion.(8) Even if we assume that the bulk of public money goes to fund basic scientific research, this means that only U.S. $17 billion is available for this purpose each year."
"By comparison, using the same assumption, the U.S. government is providing roughly U.S. $63 billion on behalf of basic science. The important element here, however, is the decline in military outlays on behalf of scientific research resulting from the end of the Cold War. Not only have overall budgets been cut, but there has been a fundamental change in philosophy regarding the most efficient way to obtain leading-edge technology."
"Given the limited applicability of products typically funded by the U.S. government, whether for military or aerospace applications, it is often hard to justify massive government investment in the basic research underlying such products. It is far more economical to rely on the private sector for such research, and simply tailor the resulting technology to military needs or purchase the end products outright. Consequently, there has been a shift from a "spin off" to a spin on" policy. Rather than the government financing basic scientific research through Pentagon programs such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which gave birth to the Internet, and then "spinning off" the resulting technologies for private sector commercialization, it is increasingly turning to the private sector for "dual use" technologies that it can "spin on" into military applications."
As for seeds of destruction, how is it that after supporting Japan's defense needs for over 50 years, the United States hasn't been eclipsed by Japan economically?
Remember the 1980s, when suddenly every American businessman was reading books about Japanese business practices? Well, the Americans learned a lot, and managed to make painful changes that turned the American economy around.
Unfortunately, Japan is having a tougher time making the infrastructure changes it really needs. Japan's banking industry is a mess, and the Keiretsu system has shown weakness throughout the 1990s.
Finally, your contention that a Japanese military would become "unbeatable within 25 years" is pure conjecture, and the thought that the Japanese could have a working missile defense system within 10 years is fantasy. There are many primarily political reasons this is true, as this National Bureau of Asian Research paper indicates.
If you want to talk about Asian superpowers, think China, my friend.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I would defenatly agree, but why do we have so much ranting here about NASA's low budget?
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
The Anti-Blog
Run the numbers.
With a 400 Isp engine, one percent of the vehicle landing mass can kill 40m/s of velocity. That is over 80 mph, which an efficient VTVL vehicle could expect to have as its terminal velocity.
A parachute masses more than 1% of its load.
There are lots of other factors that can push the decision either way, but it is certainly within the realm of feasible engineering decision.
John Carmack
Yes, this is very similar to what I am working on.
www.armadilloaerospace.com
Their current vehicle is a good deal larger than ours, has an aeroshell, and significantly, uses liquid hydrogen / liquid oxygen, a much more potent and difficult propellant than the hydrogen peroxide we use.
On the other hand, my project has been a lot faster and cheaper. I have spent about $50k and we have been working on it for nine months, versus their $400k and four years.
Our first up scale vehicle is going to be ready in a few months. It won't go very high or fast, but we can carry a person on it...
Next year, at the very least, we will have a supersonic manned rocket ship.
John Carmack
Has anyone noticed that the X-33 looks remarkably like a penguin when sitting in the vertical takeoff position?
Interestingly enough, the X33 is now dead. I'd be willing to bet that Microsoft had something to do with its demise. That would have been a helluvan advertisement for Linux!
official X-33 site with no penguin-like images.
More
Granted, because the US has to maintain a large military, that to a degree retards scientific research, but it was militray research that helped invent such things as the CD. An overstretched military may one day render the US less powerful, but I doubt Japan will be the successor. They don't have a lot of natural resources, just a lot of hard working people. That can get you far, but once a lot of those African nations (move) if ever to a more democratic way of life (not saying that they should, as that obviously would be me imposing my western views on them, blah blah blah; just I believe they ultimatelty will Westernize more... well, if we don't keep screwing with them... well, that's another story altogether), they're going to kick some serious butt.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Uhmmm.... the outside is heat resistant, so I'm going to doubt any backfire or exahuast will damage the rocket (unless you;re refering to the parachute, in which case the rocket is probably screwed). Also, wasting fuel isn;t the issue, it's whether it is cheaper to make rocket fuel or to build a whole new rocket? I'm thinking rocket fuel is cheaper.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Heck, why even direct the rocket up with any type of controls? We have the atmosphere (wind) anyway. Without rocket fuel to land, we have no way to know how th rocket will land, or where. As someone already mentioned, a rocket fueling landing makes it easier to correct a landing objects position, while with a parachute your fate is pretty much determined by the will of random luck.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
This is an outrage. Renewable rockets are going to be the end of the rocket industry as we know it. If we can simply reuse rockets, what will be the incentive for rocket users of all kinds to buy new ones? Think of the hundreds of jobs that will be lost because of this new found effieciency. We should throw away all used rockets and waste millions of dollars on complete replacements to help supplant this industry which is an integral part of our economy.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Yeah, so? As I recall, we won WWII. Keeping weapons totally up to date is very expensive. Keeping weapons semi up to date, and then replacing everything in the event of a real war makes a lot more sense.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Comic books, cars, games, animation, and now space tech. I seriously need to relocate.
Peace,
Amit
ICQ 77863057
[o]_O
The how do you explain the collapse of Japanese business?
why are the major japanese corporate powers courting Americans for CEO positions?
Why is the role of "salary man" fading away?
Since the Japanese missle defence system would only need to protect an area the size of california, its no wonder it would take 10 years.
If the Japanese where allowed to build a military, how long do you think china would stay away?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In the long run, Japan is going to prove to the United States of Armed-erica that not having to support a pork-barrel military has its advantages. The Japanese are able to divert their funds and ingenuity to real science and productivity. This will prove superior to the USian approach of science and technology as a side-effect of learning better and more efficient ways to blow people up.
The real irony is the way the United States imposed this condition on the Japanese after World War II. While the US may have enjoyed several decades of military and industrial masochistic dominance, the seeds of her destruction were already planted.
The US knows this, of course. That's why several of the hardline "America-First" groups are suggesting its time to let Japan build its own military. The more realistic amongst us know that a Japanese military would almost certainly do more with less and become unbeatable within 25 years. Indeed, experts project Japan could have a working missle defense system within 10 years -- a concept that makes the US Bushies decidedly uneasy.
Japan is the superpower of the future. The US is on its way to being a has-been.
-- In the future, everyone will code Perl for 15 minutes. --
Amazing how such unoriginal anti-American flamebait consistently gets modded UP.
It's not flamebait, just simple economics.
In case you haven't noticed, the post started at 2 and has been modded down to 1.
Anonymous moderation has brought more harm to Slashdot than anonymous posting ever did. Gotta stick with that groupthink, folks.
-- In the future, everyone will code Perl for 15 minutes. --
The biggest problem facing the Space Shuttle is that on re-entry it is the worst glider ever built. It flies like a brick. You have only got one chance to land the thing. If you screw up and overshoot the runway, you're fucked. If you lose too much or too little altitude on your approach, you're fucked.
Shuttle pilots have to practice final approaches again and again and again using a specially modified jet, because they cannot afford to get it wrong.
Powered descent is what is required. Perhaps at some time someone will combine the two so that your space vehicle lands like an aircraft, but under power, not a one-shot glider. And on regular airfields. But that's not likely. I just hope the Japanese manage to avoid the leg problem which hit the DC-X - and perhapse use a lower centre of gravity.
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
"Information wants to be paid"
Are you sure there isn't more to show?
"When It's Done", of course.
We're not going to run out of petroleum products any time soon. The price may go up; perhaps a lot, but that's about all; and fuel cost is less than 1% of launching a rocket anyway.
;-), that means that Hydrogen is less environmentally friendly and uses more fossil fuels.
It is possible to make kerosine from biomass if we really wanted to.
The fraction of CO2 produced by rocketry is totally irrelevant next to the huge amounts used to drive cars or generate electricity. It's going to be maybe one hundred years before we reach the point where launch vehicles are significant; and the technology will probably shift to beamed solar energy or something by then anyway.
Finally, Hydrogen is more expensive because it takes more energy to produce. Practically speaking, unless you use nuclear power (or perhaps even
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Yes. The thrust per kg is 30-50% higher for hydrogen, but the density is 6x lower, so you have to shift many times more liters for the same thrust.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"The space shuttle uses hydrogen. The problem with liquid hydrogen is that it has very low density. Six TIMES lower than other materials. This makes EVERYTHING bigger and hence heavier. Tanks, engines, pipes, pumps the lot. Extra weight in a rocket is not good.
Secondly, liquid hydrogen (LH) is a deep cryogenic fluid- the insulation values needed to keep it are very high, and this adds mass, plus it has lots of nasty habits like condensing oxygen from the air- LOX reacts with loads of things explosively.
If you do the simulations for an entire rocket, the performance of LH/LOX is entirely comparable to kerosine/LOX fuels- kerosine is much denser, lighter engines etc; but kerosine doesn't give as much kick per unit of fuel. So your rocket ends up heavier (more kgs of fuel), but the 'dry weight' is less. But this heavier rocket burns weight off much more quickly and hence goes as far as the LH/LOX.
Another advantage? Kerosine is a lot cheaper than hydrogen, even allowing for needing more of it. Kerosine can be carried in trucks.
Another? The kerosine/LOX rocket is much smaller (easier to build and transport).
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"I thought that the German's made the best cars?
I may, also, win millions of dollars if I play the lottery, but that doesn't mean I buy any lottery tickets.
Think about how many people would volunteer, and then think of the odds that you are the one chosen.
"Lottery is taxes on those with bad math skills" (I know that's probably misquoted, but you get the jist).
--
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
How many people here would jump at the chance to work for NASA for free if it meant the possibility that they may, themselves, go into space?
I don't know about future of the space program or all the rules associated with working for NASA, but I was told that you are not allowed to work for the (US)Federal Government for free, i.e. volunteer your time. Of course you could argue that you are being "paid" with a trip into space. But for some reason all contracters and employees must be paid.
Imagine if you would an opensource space transportation project . . . like openBSD, tightly moderated, but open to general contributions and willng to accept donations of hardware and cash.
Perhaps we'll give "kiddie" rides to finance it as well.
This sort of project is a natural for an open group effort, sort of junkyard wars gone "loony"
Hydrogen Oxygen rockets are well understood, as are flight control systems, vacuum canisters and all the other components that go into making this sort thing.
I think it is time that private people and or corporations realized the long term benefits of the utilization of space and got off their colletive duffuses and starting doing something real.
Of course, I could take my own advice . . . nah, I'm happiest sitting here in the dark.
Later . . . . . . WebBug
Now if I could just go to wallmart and buy the thing for a weekend trip to the space station. :)
3-Server OC-3 Linux Counter-Strike Cluster
www.rnp.ca
Contestant number three thought balsa wood would be a better material to construct the rocket out of; as it is lighter. Please excuse contestant number three; they were unaware that the heat on re-entry with higher altitude missions would actually burn it up well before the rocket boosters did on the way down. (not to mention the way up). They were also unaware that impact with the earth even with a parachute would completely destroy this new innovative wood product. We realise that this lack of understanding is common to all of our contestants (and most of our viewers), and kindly thank you for your prompt notification of said incorrect response. Regards, CyberKnet Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Spokesperson ABC Personell
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Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius
Low budgets, encouraging volunteer participants -- now that's the way to run a space program!
An extreme version of this philosophy is central to the Portland State Aerospace Society, Portland State University's group operating under the auspices of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society (AESS). Check out in particular our ongoing work on our Inertial Navigation System, which currently costs out at around $500. All of our work is open source, and is specifically targeted at usability by other amateur rocketry groups.
There have only been something on the order of 350 people in space. That's all we have to show for 50+ years of serious space research. If it meant all who wanted to go to space could book a flight on the Japanese rocket then it's worth the volunteering.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
I know I would.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
science is a religion
The difference being, of course, that open source has got a lot futher than 25m. I'd say that with Linux and KDE we've landed on Mars...
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But did you know these so-called "volunteers" don't even get paid?!
For those of you who didn't get the reference...the Homer Simpson quote concerning volunteers
Geez, some people...
I would imagine the this would have to be very carefully built, as any stresses on the launch mechanism would transmit to the shaft, possibly collapsing it.
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Vpered na Mars!
Very simple answer:
Why are you carrying wings all the way to orbit and back which are only useful on landing? Wings are heavy, and expensive to engineer, build, and protect from re-entry heat.
Professionals argue back and forth about the relative advantages of powered versus aero-glide landing all the time. It's very clear that at best, it's very close between the two options. Extra fuel requires just slighly larger tanks and restartable rocket motors, which isn't all that hard. The numbers can work out either way.
For more info, and to re-start the perpetual flamewar, Usenet's sci.space.policy is a good place to look (or sci.space.tech, but I moderate it, and hesitate to push outside conversations into the moderated group...).
You're going riiight past it. *launch* weights don't matter a bit for landing. What you're trying to land is the empty weight (plus any returned-to-the-earth payload).
The tradeoff is wings (empty weight) versus fuel (and slightly larger tanks) to land with. You need fuel for say... slowing from 50 meters per second (free fall speed of your empty rocket) to 0 and hover for a bit, from an altitude of 500 meters or so for engine ignition. That works out to about 20 seconds of thrust, at an average of something like 1.25 Gs, or 250 meters per second of velocity change. About 6-10% of the landed mass in fuel, perhaps.
If you don't think wings weigh 6-10% of the landed mass of an aircraft or glider or glide-landing spacecraft, you need to research more. They're typically 9-15% of the weight, including the control surfaces and such.
Lets get rid of all of these... 'computer things', after all, look at all of typists, proof readers, spell checkers, and everyone else who lost their jobs because of the damn thing. They lure our children away from more wholesome things like sports and make them think. THEY MUST BE STOPED!!!
I sure hope my sarcasm wasn't lost. You see my point, with computers many great changes happened and with technology many people lost their jobs, but many new jobs were created. Just think of Bob the intake manifold maker, his job now is building the best damn intake manifold (or some other part) for disposable rockets. If rockets suddenly can be reused, they would still need maintenance, just think of how many mechanics the airlines have working for them to keep their planes flying. This change is not the end, it is only a new beginning.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Reusable rockets are great, but using fuel as a brake for Earth landings is dumb, dumb, dumb. The atmosphere is readily available, and you don't have to haul it up with you. Congrats on a lwe budget and getting volunteers involved, but they need some volunteers who don't have rocket fuel on the brain.
The Space Shuttle has been using the "nice friendly atmosphere" to land without fuel for about the last 20 years. Nobody has to prove it can be done, it's just a matter of doing it at commercial cost. Landing on thrust will always mean using additional takeoff fuel to lift the landing fuel (and itself), which must increase the cost because fuel costs more than nothing. There's no reason to insist on vertical landing; we have airports! You wouldn't need to carry any more landing fuel than it takes to make a couple extra passes at the runway in case of trouble. Why are people so attached to the idea of using thrust to lower the rocket all the way to the ground when gliding is freely available?
At the risk of flaming, I ask everyone to please take a look at this diagram if you really think the Space Shuttle wings are "large," or that they could conceivably weigh anything remotely close to half of the vehicle's weight. The fuel, on the other hand, weighs many times more than the entire ship plus payload. There's just no comparison between a passive lifting body and fuel. To quote Pulp Fiction, "it aint the same ball park and it aint the same league, it aint even the same fuckin' sport!"
Speaking of flames, we haven't even considered what happens to objects sitting around near a rocket launch or landing site. Vertical landing does not mean rockets can take off and land in "any old parking lot" !!?? Can you say, "Dude, where's my car?" There's no way a giant flamethrower is going to be allowed to come down over any heavily populated area. Rockets would need their own special takeoff and landing facilities, and if they didn't land right next to the fueling site (yikes!) they would have to be hauled there, carefully.
The Shuttle has these problems too, but it's not supposed to be the Ultimate Answer to the question of Life, the Universe and Everything. The Shuttle is only the first working example of a vehicle going to orbit and landing repeatedly without fuel. It's particular shortcomings are not arguments for using fuel instead of lift. The goal is to use a regular airport, which rockets will not do.
What? Military spending and research have more often than not HELPED the progress of science and technology? Hogwash. Look at Poland c1939. They rode horses, while their citizens took weekly trips to the moon!
Amazing how such unoriginal anti-American flamebait consistently gets modded UP. And I'm a Canuck, to boot.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
It seems as though using rocket thrust for landing is a HUGE waste of fuel. Plus it seems kinda risky - as you land, the exhaust bouncing back up off the ground could set your vehicle on fire. Dangerous! This is not a practical concept.
Someone better start writing 'Space Travel for Dummies (TM)' and begin working on price schedules for an ACME rental on one of these. Wouldn't want to get left behind once it makes the 50m mark now, would we?
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Bow before my sig, for it is good.
All space vehicles do the vast majority of their braking from orbit using air drag, so the remaining issue is subsonic braking and landing. You can do this with wings, you can do this with parachutes (mostly) or you can do it with rockets. Since a re-usable rocket will have to have the engines along for the landing anyway, it is just a question of whether the fuel weighs more than the necessary wings or parachutes.
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Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
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Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
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Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
You probably don't want to be launching anything out of a mine shaft at supersonic speeds. (You probably don't want to be launching anything until you have the engines running, as it would be bad to find yourself thousands of feet in the air on a ballistic trajectory without thrust... but that's another issue.) Since you don't really need the ultra-high performance of magnetic propulsion, you might as well put a discarding sabot (cradle) on the bottom of the vehicle and launch it with steam. Recover the sabot by parachute or something. If you can pop out of the tube at 500 MPH, you've just saved the equivalent of about (pops up the calculator) 23 seconds of accelerating vertically at 2 G's thrust, which would otherwise cost you (assuming 430 seconds specific impulse, more calculator action) almost 10% of your fully-fuelled mass. You'll lose some of that to increased air drag from going so fast so low, but that's still a lot.
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Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Unlike anothor space angency, They did it right by getting it to work well on a small scale first. Thier bigger challengs will be fuel storage and balance weight distribution during fuel consumpution(since its not spinning? or performing a roll manuever) . Its nice to see them use an aleady successful ship design instead of tring to reinvent the wheel with a unproven exotic piece of garbage.
"Get them before they get....
Sure, the hardware is designed to be reusable, but given the past examples of the Ariane 5 and the Mars Climate Orbiter, I'm sure the software industry will come to the rescue and make these rockets disposable.
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Seriously... wouldn't life be better if it were "open source"??? Oh wait, didn't someone try that... something about being Red??? This rocket program is an excellent idea, and with NASA's growing financial problems maybe they can learn something about how to not to waste an unlimited amount of money.
Govt Official: What will the launch do?
NASA executive: We're not entirely sure but if it works, which is roughly a 50-50 chance, it'll be really sweet.
GO:And... how much will this cost???
NE: Hard to say, the engineers are very optimistic that this will be a cheap project.
GO:Meaning what???
NE:Oh, give or take a billion...
But seriously folks, even nasa's new iniative of cheaper, smaller missions still cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars and seems to fail every other time. No wonder they're having "financial trouble". Hell, if I had that much money and wanted someone to get me in space... I'd make damn sure they knew the differences between metic and standard (*rolls eyes*... how the hell did rocket scientist mess that up???).
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
...and it's the Baikal reusable booster by Khrunichev.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
What... the fuck is your problem? Get a life.
Screw 3...
Acting or done willingly and without constraint or expectation of reward: a voluntary hostage; voluntary community work.
Of course they don't get paid.
Screw 3...
Yeah, but I don't watch the Simpsons 24/7
Screw 3...
That's the way to run anything. The employees are happy, because they aren't doing it for money (hence the volunteering) but for the job itself and the goal in mind, and the results are astounding.
We do this now with Open Source. Many organizations are on route to this style. Globalization will stifle us to death otherwise.
Screw 3...
isn't this the same tech that John Carmack is working on? who wants to take bets he goes higher than the japanese?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That is SO COOL. It lands like SPECTRE's rocket in You Only Live Twice so i think it's apropos that the Japanese made it. Talk about getting smaller, faster and cheaper! No gurney, just a glow on the field.
AD: what's so unpleasant about being drunk?
According to this article, when reusable launch vehicles become commonplace, MRO spending (maintenance, repair and overhaul) will eclipse the revenues from building the launchers.
-- We don't understand software, and sometimes we don't understand hardware, but we can *see* the blinking lights
I could fly to Japan tomorrow, buy a huge circus cannon, buy one of those human cannon ball suits, buy insurance for life, shoot myself through the air and still cost me less then $160/cm.
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Just because a bunch of people believe or do something stupid, doesn't make it any less stupid.
With this technology becoming less expensive, perhaps real space tourism is not far off after craft like these are perfected?
The promise of free enterprise (no pun intended) would make this enticing for private-sector funding.
Heh, Japanese themselves were part of swastika-circle ( or rather triangle.)
How is that "more honorable" than employing German scientists?
...and you can't blame meteors for everything.
NASA should work like this! Have the projects on an open forum, where anyone and everyone can suggest changes, look for problems, etc. I suppose actual scientists would have to have the final say, but many mistakes could be fixed and systems made more efficient if others were given the chance to look at the project with fresh eyes. Do you think that the little feet-meters mixup with that Mars mission would've happened if the project was open source? If a scientist screws up on a small detail, no one will check that. If the project was open source, it is more likely someone would.
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"And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion...." -- J.S. Mill
Volunteer! Now, instead of running Seti@home, You can mill rocket parts in your garage out of all that magnesium alloy you have sitting around.
the best humor is seldom understood by the masses.
now who's a troll?
Can space travel be made as safe as air travel, while allowing $10,000 fares to the moon?
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Don't forget Rocket Guy!
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden