Slashdot Mirror
European Shuttle Program Update
Rolo Tomasi writes "ESA's reusable launch vehicle demonstrator, Phoenix, was recently wind tunnel
tested to determine its low speed aerodynamics. A free flight for Phoenix is
planned for early summer 2004. In case you haven't heard of it yet,
here's an article from last year, describing the Phoenix/HOPPER concept.
Here's another page at ESA, but it seems to be available only in German. What's interesting is the first sentence of the DLR press release, stating that (my translation) 'Europe's future and
competitiveness in space substantially depend on an autonomous access to space and 'on a drastic decrease in the transport
costs of getting there.'"
I mean Phoenix was a bird of fire, maybe ESA should name it after something that does not soar across the sky in fire?
The wings look really small, so is that a lifting body shuttle?
They are hoping if it does crash and burst into flames that it will just rise from the ashes reborn. Phoenix technology would have saved the NASA space program billions.
NASA (and now the ESA) appears to be completely sold on the idea that for a spacecraft to be reusable it has to fly in the atmosphere. Like, with wings. What's wrong with plummeting in an uncontrolled fashion like a capsule? The end result is usually the same and yet you haven't had to build in all those fancy pants expensive avionics. The Shuttle is something of a brick to fly, or so I read, and really, wouldn't the crew be that much safer with one giant heatshield for re-entry like the old Apollos and Geminis rather than the multitudinal tile system that seems to shed like an old labrador?
Also, reusable and cheap seem to be mutually exclusive. The Shuttles are supposed to be reusable but they basically rebuild them completely every time they fly. That's no way to build a regular service to orbit... why not go with cheaper throw-away capsules that don't need piloting in the same way the Shuttle does? More room for the scientists/techs/tourists/reporters!
I am a leaf on the wind
Where is John Carmack to explain this to us when we need him? Why have you left us, Carmack? ::weeps over keyboard::
WHY???
With all the grief NASA gets, one should note how much this proto looks like the shuttle. It is nice to know that a bunch of smart US geeks built something cool back in the 1970s that is the model for today's new designs. Hopefully this one's systems are much less complex. Now why can't we (US) get off our arses and start developing a serious replacement for the shittle (spelling intentional). Now that Al gore is not doing anything, perhaps he can invent something new for us. I mean, really, he invented the internet some years ago. Isn't it time he got cracking on some new stuff for us?
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Space just is not a very friendly environment for men. Machines are much more suitable and they don't require a return ticket. Instead of focussing on building machines to put people in space and take them, ESA should concentrate on developing robots to do the work and research.
.ianal top level domain petition.
Support a lawyer free internet top level domain
Sign the
not a pratical/scientific one. In a sense, by putting a man in space a government is saying "look at what our technical infrastructure can do." Nothing more.
This was the original reason behind the apollo program and winning the space race. Once NASA accomplished this, NASA was left with the difficult job of justifying itself, and arguably the reason why they have not had a sense of direction.
Many will not like this post with responses like;
1) We need to send a man to mars --
This would take a huge amount of money by anyone's standards. Once there, what does he do?? Plant another flag and take soil samples?? A robot could do this much cheaper. Before spending all that money on a mars mission maybe Dubya should give that prescription drug beneffit to the seniors that he promised.
2) We need man in space to mine exotic minerals from asteroids --
The fact is that it will always be economically cheaper to find those minerals on earth, no matter what. It would be cheaper to send a man to the bottom of the ocean to mine it there if need be. But why send a man to do a dangerous job when a robot can do it cheaper and more efficiently in the first place??
3) We need man in space to establish the new frontier where people can go to live --
Again, it will always be cheaper to find places on earth for people to live than to shuttle them (and all the supplies they need) to outer space. Right now it's taking 1.5 billion dollars to maintain a couple people on the international space station. If this was meant to be, how much is it going to cost to shuttle a 100 million of their fellow Americans to orbit?? To say that it will be cheaper in the future is to ignore the obvious. NASA isn't asking for less money to do their job, they're asking for more money. As it is, there is no way for them to replace the aging shuttles that like to blow up every few years. Maybe it will be cheaper in the (very) distant future, but in the history of the space program the cost has never gone down to send a few people to orbit. Maybe they could use atomic rockets. We can only imagine the fun when something goes wrong there, not to mention all the radiation spewed into the enviroment. Fusion power remains a dream occasionally energized by lasers in buildings the size of small cities for a blink of an eye.
I bet all that money that would be spent on new and improved space planes to replace the shuttles could buy vast tracts of homes built by Habitat for Humanity for people to live in. Maybe thay could take a few dollars that they were going to spend on new spacesuits and spend it on saving the enviroment we have.
Everybody has lots of ways to conquer the laws of physics to get man into space. But nobody has a way to conquer the laws of economics.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
It's entirely automatic, it has wings and looks a bit like a plane or the Space Shuttle, but unless I'm completely mistaken it's not meant to carry passengers.
Anti grave is not the answer either. The applied use of directed magnetic fields is interesting again though. The research into this stopped in the 1960s when the distance calculations to reach escape velocity on a field launch ramp was calculated at roughly 30 miles of ramp. The problem was that air density at the ramp hight of 13,000 feet was still too dense to take the velocity achieved without supper heating the payload! Seems to me in the Andes there are places the ramp hieghts could reach 20,000+ feet adjacent to the Altiplano but the ramp construction contraints were considered too great. Well we have much better mag lev and supperconductor tech now and we also have much better high altitude construction techniques. The only reason this tech is not been brought forward is the tech would need to be applied somewhere other than in the US! It would require real international co-operation and would in the long run be so much cheaper than rockets. Houston and the Johnson would go out of business. Fuel payloads could be launched also and staged late burning correcting vessels could also be devised. Get your mind away from rockets for just one second. Yes they are important for getting around once you gain escape velocity but they are a stupid and dangerous way to achieve it!
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
If ESA intends to get cheap access to space they should be looking at cheaper alternatives than a reusable space-shuttle. Even if the NASA model is made more economical, it's only going to be a fraction of the savings compared to looking at other alternatives
I am the Barber of Seville.
Let it be known that I am a multi linguist, who believes in international peace and love!!
Explain the nick name then "evil_one666".
I think it makes sense to post comments in more or less readable English, but to exclude an interesting link to a story just because it is not written in the Kings English makes little sense.
In Europe, especially in "New Europe" (Baltic and Eastern European countries, Russia), German is widely spoken and even more widely understood. Similar cases could be made for French in "Old Europe" and Spanish in the Americas (&Spain ;-).
Using a link to an English page is great when such a link exist, but it would be silly to ignore a great story just because it is not available in English.
Space transporter of the future
11 March 2003
more?Der new one way in the universe? Space transporter of the next generation? if the topic of an high-informative exhibition of the German research council under co-operation of the European space travel organization is ESA, which on Thursday, which 13 March, 18,00 o'clock, open and by 26 April in Munich will have to be visited.
Central problem of space travel are the transport costs for a kilogram of pay load into space. For one-way rocket systems they are to kilogram at present about 11,000 to 25,000 dollar per. Too highly, in order to be able to exist on a long-term basis in the competition. Economical, flexible and environmentalcompatible, re-usable systems are in demand: Unorthodox recycling solutions, which let the costs sink on for instance a tenth.
The exhibition reflects this trend in descriptive way. In the center is located the development of a new generation of space transport systems, which can start and land like a normal airplane on an air haven. By the example of a fictitious mission the visitor learns first the elements of a flight? Start, flight, ascent, return, landing? as well as the respective problem areas know. Parallel for this the results of the three DFG promoted special research ranges become?Grundlagen the draft of aerospace planes? the RWTH Aachen?Transatmosphaerische flight systems? of DO Munich and the German Federal Armed Forces university Munich as well as?Hochtemperaturprobleme the returnable space transport systems? of the University of Stuttgart (heat protection tiles) presented. The German center for air and space travel (DLR) is involved with several projects in these special research ranges.
Flow investigations in the wind tunnel
Hopper - the euro-shuttle
The compiled bases found entrance into projects of several industrial enterprises, as for example the Astrium GmbH, Bremen and Ottobrunn, to the MAN technology AG, Augsburg, the resident of Munich enterprise Kayser Threde as well as OHB system in Bremen. One of these projects is hopper. Behind it an unmanned autonomous aircraft hides itself, of Europe re-usable space shuttle. The start effected horizontal on 4 km carriages of the European space port Kourou in French Guyana are enough. Hopper in 130 km already suspends and returns few minutes after height the satellite pay load with upper stage then automatically to the earth. The upper stage is ignited. It brings the satellites to the desired place in the low, middle or geostationary orbit (LEO, MEO, GEO). With the return compact hopper is optimized in such a way the acceptance angle into the atmosphere that the developing frictional heat is importantly lower than at the outer skin of the US shuttle. With it the susceptible and expensive heat protection tiles can be replaced by a economical and low-maintenance thermal protection system.
Due to its flight path hopper cannot return however again to the starting point. It lands in the territory of ESA member states on the Azores or another island in the Atlantic. The return motion of hopper takes place on the ship way. If the ESA should decide for the hopper concept, then the aircraft can be operational starting from 2015.
Orbital glider Phoenix
By aspera ad ASTRA
In order to be able to build hoppers finally, it requires an intermediate step: Phoenix. With the small demonstrator the innovative technologies at the material object are to be tested. Due to the multiplicity of physical influences in the atmosphere all details of the aircraft cannot be examined by computer simulations or windkanalversuchen.
Phoenix and hoppers are embedded into the development programs TETRA (technology program for future space transport systems) as well as ASTRA (selected systems and technologies for future applications of space transport systems). ASTRA again forms the German contribution for the development of re-usable transport systems on European level. In the context of ASTRA all necessary system abilities for an autonomous entrance to t
Bush is on fire and its not good for my lungs.
that the DLR are NOT involved in the ESA space flight programme!
We don't need shuttles just a very big catapult
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Your first point is absolutely valid to a certain extend.
/. is linking towards non-English sites, there is someone posting a translation in here. (t+5minutes: automatic ones like babelfish, altavista or google; t+20 minutes exerpts in a usable translation; t+1h a nice translation).
While I am a German native speaker, the majority of the information I read is
a) English
b) German with at least 20 per cent English buzzwords.
Every time
This is actually a good thing and the people who are doing these translations are heavyly dependant on your feedback.
From a pracical side, it would be not so nice not to point to non-English sites, when they are covering an interesting topic. As long as there are people here who are helping those people who have chosen to learn different languages, I don't see you being handicapped.
Btw. do I hear you volunteering to answer stupid questions from non-English-native-speakers to explain rare english words which can't be found in an online dictionary for some reason?
This thing is only a sophisticated first stage, an unmanned plane-like vehicule that boosts sats with additional stages to 130 km. After that it returns to earth. Above 130km there's a lot less atmospheric drag, so this makes sense. They plan to have it fling in 2015, but the guys from X-Prize are doing essentially the same thing...
Simple solution, get Ryan-air to do it!
Then we will get:
Moon - from 15.00 return
Mars - from 25.00 return
Sun - from 35.00 (one way)
etc..
Spaceport taxes not included.
Of course if you want to travel at
a time *you* want the cost is:
Moon - from 2.5 billion return
etc..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
Its an old point, but worth repeating:-
I dont believe NASA/ESA will ever deliver
really cheap space transport - they are
good at some things, but they are just
not the right people to do it..
The X-Prize has yielded a whole raft of
promising new vehicles, all for a measley
$10 million. (remember the the shuttle is
$600 million per launch)
Just set up "competitions" for certain
objectives and let entreprenuers figure
out the rest..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
to ESAFirebird because of copyright infringement.
(Next logical step these days: a joke including SCO)
Is this thing going to launch before or after they launch their GPS replacement system? Or finish the ISS?
Besides, shuttles just are soooo 80's.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
however, when are they going to fix the problems with long term space flight? we can have the greatest space ship ever designed, however, unless the issues faced, aka, bone density deterioration due to weightless environment and the ability to haul a large amount of supply of food etc.
Ulimately if there is ever to be a future in space travel and space "exploration", the dogma between the European Space Agency, Russian Space Agency and NASA have to be put to one side, pull all the collective resources together and focus on a common goal.
With out a common goal and unified direction all there will be as a result is 3 organisations duplicating each others R&D, whichm IMHO is not a very efficient way of spending tax payers money.
"The difference between pornography and erotica is the lighting" - Woody Allen
I'd volunteer to live on Mars. Anything to get away from idiots who see no use in a manned space program.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
This article claims a space elevator could be had for as little as $10 B: http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology /space_elevator_020327-1.html
This sig is just as redundant as the rest of this posting
Sigh....
t p://www.nwpamed.com/Phoenix/birdhx.htm
... well let's just not go there....
Egyptian - it's an Egyption legend....
http://cindyart.com/Pages/PhoenixEgypt.html
ht
I'm never very sure whether these sorts of comments are meant to be funny or if it is the famous ignorance of
I can assure you, from practical experience, that the melting point is not as significant as you imply. The physical properties of metals change as significant heat is applied.
I am sure most of us have seen a blacksmith make a wrougth-iron horseshoe, or reasonable equivalent. They heat the work-place up in their forge, until it is red-hot - which is still several hundred degrees below the melting point of iron. You heat it hot enough and iron or steel loses most of its strength and become quite ductile.
I believe you will find the same to be true of all those other metals, and their alloys...
Last time I checked you were using a cold liquid propellant. Does Armadillo have fabrication difficulties with such a design?
-OzJuggler.
Life's a buffer; you can only get out of it what you put into it! C:-)