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Low-Cost Space Shuttle Replacement Proposed
FleaPlus writes "The Washington Times and Space.com has an article on a plan for a low-cost shuttle replacement by t/Space, an organization whose team includes AirLaunch LLC and Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites. Instead of a one-size-fits-all craft, t/Space's plan is to build an air-launched four-person capsule termed the Crew Transfer Vehicle (CXV), specialized for carrying people to and from low-Earth orbit. Once in orbit the CXV would dock with a separately-launched Crew Exploration Vehicle (likely built by Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman), which could be optimized for traveling between Earth orbit and the Moon. The CXV would also be able to dock with a space station or serve as a crew lifeboat. The group, which has already received some NASA funding, calculates that it can have the system ready by 2008 for $400 million, with a per-launch cost of $20 million (compared to ~$500 million per shuttle launch). Development would be done under a competitive fixed-price (instead of cost-plus) contract."
I propose that Mr. Carmack Open Sources the plans to his giant bottle rocket and lets the end user create a deep space mod for it.
Why not just build an international space station or something... ?
"I used to have that really cool,funny sig
"The group calculates that it can have the system ready by 2008 for $400 million".
Alright guys, this means we will have it around 2015 for about $750 million.
Trinity: what do you need?
Neo: estes rockets. lots of estes rockets. and big rubber bands.
Trinity: nobody has ever tried anything like this before.
Neo: that's why it's going to work.
If we can get back into space for 400 million, call it a bargain, secretly poison 90% of the military decision makers and GO!
Otherwise, they will say "Going into space? What a waste of money! That's almost 1/5 of a stealth bomber! No way!"
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
It only costs $12.74 to launch a ship into space.
I'm so sick of people who think that space travel isn't affordable to the average person.
...was mastered long ago by the Chinese official, Wan Hu. He clearly has prior art.
Rockets are bulky and inefficient.
We need to switch to trebuchets.
This is for human launching, buddy. Isn't the earth escape velocity something in the order of 11 km/s? I don't know if this factors in air resistance on the way up but I suppose at that speed you are not in the atmosphere for long. Wouldn't a trebuchet have to give the 'cargo' a velocity in this order to put them in orbit if not to escape earth's gravity?
I say cargo instead of crew because I think they would be more of a paste if accelerated by a trebuchet to this speed in the small time they would be in contact. Plus I'd like to see how you are planning to store and deliver the energy required to fire the aformentioned human 'cargo'.
Ignoring these minor difficulties I would love to be present at the event. I wonder what kind of sound the trebuchet would make upon releasing so much tension, would it sound like a standard trebuchet but louder? God, some days I wish I had money and diplomatic immunity.
Frylock: "We should have cloned twenties, Jackson wouldn't have given a fuck."
I keep reading Lost-Cow Space Shuttle Replacement
Ah, arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you. -- Londo Mollari
My thoughts exactly.
My add-on is multi-stage trebuchets - the first really big trebuchet fires the second trebuchet. When the second trebuchet gets to the peak of its ascent, it fires the third trebuchet...
You probably want to give the astronauts a couple of pillows in case it gets rough.
Uhm, I have this wonderful idea here that needs only $20m(!) to complete. I cannot tell you any more details now (so that others don't steal it, you know), but if you send me this much money now, I promise that in the middle of 2008 we'll rule the world. PS: don't tell anything anyone, just send in the money.
For a moment I read that story title as "Lost Cow Space Shuttle Replacement Proposed." And I was like -- wait, when did we build a cow spaceship? Was it built from cows or for cows? How'd we lose it? Is there now a cow family wandering the vast black reaches of the galaxy looking for a way home, with a cow-robot that keeps saying "Danger, Bessy Cowbinson, Danger!" . . . ? o.O
They should turn the retired submarines into space shuttles. Kinda like they are going to turn old military bases into oil refineries.
I read that we are spending $1B USD PER DAY to keep a military presence in Iraq.
If we start buying this kind of crap, we may have to pull out of Iraq a day early. Then where would we be?