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t/Space Demonstrates New Air-Launch Method
FleaPlus writes "Last month t/Space, an organization with plans for constructing a simple, low-cost successor to the Space Shuttle, was mentioned on Slashdot. Recently t/Space used a portion of the concept study funds it had been awarded by NASA to also build and test actual hardware. They performed three weeks of drop tests of a 23%-scale model from a Scaled Composites Proteus carrier aircraft to demonstrate the feasibility of a new air launch method they had devised, dubbed 'Trapeze-Lanyard Air Drop.' The new method eliminates the need for wings on air-launched rockets, potentially leading to improved safety and cost-effectiveness. Last month at a space conference they also displayed a full-scale model of their vehicle. Unfortunately, with the recent selection of Boeing/Northrop-Grumman and Lockheed-Martin as the two competing teams for the contract to build the Shuttle's successor, t/Space's future path is somewhat uncertain."
Although Boeing-Northrop-Lockheed are the big boys right now, I dont see why one of thsoe teams wouldnt be capable of choosing t/space for crew-space transfer =) Then again Boeing-Northrop probablly wouldnt since Northrop is only involved in spiral 1, but Lockheed might.
Also, Griffin has made it quite clear that he wouldnt probablly fund t/space, BUT if they do get a vehicle built and it is cheap, he will gladly use it for crew and cargo transfers to the ISS.
Whatever happened to launching from lighter-than-air platforms? With conventional rockets, so much weight goes into fuel to move the fuel you'll burn later to move the fuel that comes even later. Surely someone's doing something with a straightforward idea like this?
If I read the article correctly, tspace and scaled composites are after the crew transport vehicle portion of the new nasa vision. That is, the capsule to get to the crew exploration vehicle or the iss space station. The sole purpose of the ctv is to get people in low earth orbit from an in atmosphere launch using a pre-existing capsule design.
I think the contracts for cev were awarded to northrop/grumman and boeing for a 2 party competition. That is, the crew exploration vehicle which resides in space.
Though, nasa might fund them $400m for a alternate/creative role in the process. Who knows, now wouldn't be funny if they could pull it off with the limited funding? That would prod the bigger companies which would be good.
The beauty is if they can get rid of shuttle the savings will pay to get to the moon. The moon has its own resources which could be used to create launches/refueling from the moon and not earth.
http://www.hobbyspace.com/NearSpace/index.html#Roc koons
I think you're thinking of these. They do work, it's just that you have to deal with the time and danger involved with a baloon ride before firing the rocket, while going up in a powered aircraft like a plane gives you more control.
A blimp like thing (lighter than air, powered and with a lifting body profile) that might be nice. That's a whole nother aerospace engineering project in itself.
Gary Hudson, the chief scientist at t/Space, has been trying to spark the spaceflight revolution for 30 years. He had a rocket called Conestoga in the 80s that ran into the infamous "brother-in-law problem" at NASA. He was also the driving force behind another Mojave airport first: the Roton demonstrator. Now he's back with the world's most famous aircraft designer and a bunch of other people from the space activist community.
Burt needs no introduction: he's da man. Burt builds the coolest planes in the world and has finally started building spaceships.
So, t/space has been doing droptests, excellent! They have a great capsule demo and seem to be trying to stretch their funding as far as possible. I'm pretty sure they said that the "CXV" was proposed specifically outside the CEV RFP, because they refuse to fill out that much extra paperwork. You can see what Mr. Hudson was working on in the early 00's here: http://hmx.com/ The pdf is his proposal for a capsule (manned/cargo) for the old Alternative Access to Station program, gives a good idea of where the CXV's heritage is.
t/space is an amazing team. If they can keep the funding coming, they will deliver on this craft.
Josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Computers have been halving in cost for the same power every 3 years for most of the past century. Rockets have hardly dropped in price since the 1960s, *despite* the increased amount of private industry development. Despite the satellite boom of the 1990s. Etc.
PCs kept dropping in price because simpler (and higher power) manufacturing techniques kept being developed - and there was a clear path layed out for the next decade at almost all times, with research laying clear foundations for the every-three-year doublings of the next several decades. Nothing even close to this exists for rocketry. The only major thing that can do an order-of-magnitude reduction in prices are huge materials leaps forward (we'll get incremental improvements, of course - there's some nice ones due soon).
How about air travel in the 40's and 50's?
Driven almost entirely by people who needed to travel, paying the equivalent of several thousand dollars per ticket (not several hundred thousand), and getting to a destination that they had a strong need to arrive at. Very little of it was "joy riding", even if travelling places by plane was somewhat of a status symbol.
Give commercial space travel it's start
Private industry developed almost everything NASA ever built. Private companies like SeaLaunch and Orbital successfully built their own privately funded rockets; there was no leap forward, just incremental improvements. Several dozen companies outrght failed. It's not a "private industry" thing; it's a "technology thing". And no, a rocket that goes a tiny fraction of orbital velocity isn't a step forward; it's a big leap backwards. If you're going to hawk a "private enterprise" technology with promise, you should be hawking SpaceX or whatnot. The "100km straight up and then down" companies are as close to real space travel as a person who makes a go-cart out of a lawnmower engine is to making a car to race in the Indy 500. Seriously. The ISPs are awful, the payload fractions are awful (because of the low ISP engines and high tank/structural masses), they don't deal with much TPS if any, etc. I.e., they don't deal with the real engineering problems of spaceflight, and thus aren't advancing anything. Cheer for those who are actually advancing technology.
And no, before you state it, let me head it off: they're not helping parts be "mass produced" and thus cheaper. The materials that they use are generally all wrong (far more in common with aircraft) and the low performance engine designs share little to nothing in common with real rocket engines, which are more like jet engines. And of course, since they don't need much of any TPS, they don't advance TPS research/costs (most of which are labor, anyways)
Did he just go crazy and fall asleep?
Not always needed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifting_body
I like the idea of not having these things strapped to the side that can break off, they always looked flimsy - maybe it'll save weight.
My! This armchair is comfy!
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
I'm sure you are already familiar with the work of Leik Myrabo , but in case you aren't, you ought to check out his stuff. He is the big pioneer in this area (ref. 3 on your correct link).
You are right that huge savings can be had by separating the power source from the vehicle - Myrabo was writing about this 20 years ago. Most of the energy used by a rocket is used to elevate the fuel to the altitude at which it is burned. If the energy is supplied to energize a propellant (such as vaporized water as suggested in your link), the amount of propellant can be much less than the amount of burning fuel would be. Unfortunately, Myrabo has focused his more recent efforts on rather weak air propelled engines which haven't had much punch.
Because the real limit in terms of how much propellant is needed depends upon the specific energy (and thus the temperature) to which the propellant is energized, it is best if the propellant is heated to a very high temperature. For these purposes, an concentrated ultraviolet light source would work as well as a laser, and would likely be much cheaper than a fairly efficient laser of high power. Also, if a laser is used, the best case scenario would be if the photon energy corresponded to a particular energy jump in the target propellant, similar to the way an excimer laser is used. In the case of simply heating the propellant, material considerations will limit the amount you can heat the material (i.e. at some point, your water vapor will melt the nozzle). However, in the case of the excimer laser, a solid propellant could be used which would not suffer from heat transfer from the solid/gas interface, which means really high specific energies could be used.