Space Tug to the Moon and Beyond

An anonymous reader writes "Andrews Space and SpaceDev, a contributor to SpaceShipOne, are building a cargo transport called SmallTug to travel to the Lunar L1 point using a Hall Thruster and running off of solar power. The final craft will be capable of attaching to and transporting satellites 85 percent of the way to the Moon for use in interplanetary missions. The launch date is scheduled for 2008 and it is being designed to be quite inexpensive. The Inquirer has more details."

Comments

Cheap

[hoka]

$20 million is pretty darn cheap for the whole thing. I'm a little curious about the methodology for getting the thing into space. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this one of the teams that was competing for the X-Prize, which puts things into "space" but not into an orbital launch? Did the group adapt its developed technologies to a more rugged device that will be able to reach a large distance to the moon, or is the IPS that great at moving things into space?

Man some days I really wish I had would have pursued a degree in rocket science.

Re:Cheap

[lorelorn]

I believe the cheapness is related to the fact that there are no fuel costs once earth orbit has been reached. Solar power gets the craft the rest of the way for free- but very slowly.

Re:Cheap

[helioquake]

The company's objective is to research, design and develop this "smalltug" spacecraft, not (guessing based on the articles) about putting it into the orbit. Marshall would most probably pick up the bill for that.

Nontheless, $20mil is a good price tag. I hope Andrews Space does succeed in this (and if it doesn't, well, then it won't get any more than the first phase of the 1.25mil budget...I wish we can slap this kind of thing onto NGST, Boeing or TRW).

Re:Cheap

[helioquake]

No, I feel I'm partly wrong. These guys are working with SpaceShipOne guys and not clear if their bills include that part of the budget.

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[tonsofpcs]

L1 is the first Lagrange point of the moon, the point between the Moon and the Earth where the perceived gravitation is negligable

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[toddbu]

Well, I think that there are three factors here that contribute to the low cost. First, there are no people on board to have to worry about. I don't know exactly how much NASA is spending to have the shuttle sitting on the pad right now, but I hear the term "millions" coming from the news media. One or two delays in manned spaceflight can come pretty close to paying for an unmanned mission.

The second factor at work here is that the private space business doesn't have all the overhead that a government operation does. Look at Spaceship One. No fancy designs, no high priced systems. Just some good old fashioned engineering and the kind of "can do" attitude that made NASA great in its early days. You know how NASA got the first Mercury space capsule to the pad? A sheet of plywood, an old mattress, and a pickup truck. That would never happen any more, and not necessarily because it's a bad way to transport a space capsule. Many of NASA's expenditures are to support its contractor constituency and its public image.

The third and final factor is that NASA's primary mission these days seems to be searching for ET. Don't get me wrong - Missions like Cassini and the Mars Rovers are great, but not because NASA thinks that there's probably life out there somewhere. The commercially funded missions are focused on doing real work that people can understand, stuff like going to the Moon and mining it for its resources. The missions to the outer planets represent a kind of pseudo-science that doesn't have any practical day-to-day benefit. This, of course, is always the problem with science, since the public is less interested in what makes something tick than what it will do for them. But riding the coat tails of ET isn't a good way to approach it. I can tell my friends that Deep Impact will help us understand how comets work and what might need to be done in order steer them away from Earth if they're on a collision course. If we happen to get some great science along the way and better understand the makeup of comets then that's a good thing. It's much harder to make the case that spending billions for Cassini is in the public interest just because there might be life on Titan.

What's ironic is that the ISS was sold to Congress and the public based on its practical merits, yet it can barely support the two occupants currently stationed there. The cost of doing research on board ISS is prohibitive since it is supported primarily with manned flights. When commericial enterprises can start to leverage space at a reasonable expense then that's when we'll see the promise of all the engineering advancements that a weightless environment can provide.

Re:Cheap

[ThreeE]

Look at Spaceship One. No fancy designs, no high priced systems ...,and no real spaceship.

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[demachina]

We all know you love the Shuttle and NASA ThreeeP and you are going to trash anyone and everyone who is trying to do something better and cheaper. You can trash SpaceShopOne all you want but the people who designed and built it accomplished their objectives, as modest as they were, and they did it with a small number of people, pretty much on budget and on schedule. That is indication of good engineering, versus the mess that is NASA, which is probably what the parent was alluding to.

Scaled Composites' whole budget was equal to about 1/50th of the real cost of a single Shuttle launch. In particular watch the Discovery documentary on it, Black Sky: The Race for Space". It will restore your excitement for space exploration, instead of demoralize you like the Shuttle and NASA did this week. In the 60's and 70's lots of kids wanted to be astronauts. I wonder if its true today. I doubt it, NASA has managed to make being an astronaut tedious, uninteresting and unexciting which was really hard to do.

Let's look at the object of your affection, the Shuttle. Its is once again indefinitely grounded. From one press conference I heard the intermittent failure in the ET sensor has been yet another long running glitch in the Shuttle they never fixed and it just bit them in the ass, thankfully not during a launch. The glitch if it had happened in 2 or more sensor during launch could have either resulted in a premature cut off or running the engines dry at which point they might fly apart and cause fatal damage. NASA as only NASA can do has no less then TWELVE teams working the problem, TWELVE. I could see three maybe four, one for the ET/sensor, one for the wiring to the shuttle and one or two for the shuttle processing the data. I guess you can do TWELVE teams when you have an army of like 6,000 on you payroll who are getting paid whether they launch or not, though one wonders why they couldn't find at least 6 teams to fix it before now before it bit them in the ass.

LAUNCH RATE - The shuttle was supposed to launch every month if not more often. Over its lifetime it has averaged 4 launches a year and its launch rate has gone down every year. It now:

- can't launch at night
- can only launch to the ISS and there are daylight windows to the ISS only part of the year
- can't launch if there are any clouds in the area with water drops large enough to damage the times
- can't launch with wind shear in the area
- is launched in Florida where there are perpetually clouds, rain and thunderstorms in the area, especially during the day which is the only time the shuttle can launch

And of course the Shuttle has spent nearly 5 years grounded. The only reason the ISS hasn't been abandoned is the Russians have been supplying it and ferrying astronauts to it at their expense(because NASA wont pay them due to a Congressional boycott against Russia over a reactor in Iran). Russia just recently said enough is enough and aren't going to ferry any more U.S. astronauts, or U.S. supplies to the ISS unless the U.S. pays for it. You see NASA has bad credit bordering on deadbeat status as far as the ISS goes. If the Shuttle continues to fail to fly the U.S. involvement in ISS is in immediate trouble.

COST - The shuttle was supposed be cheap to launch becuase it was so reusable. In fact it is one of the most expensive launchers in history. Counting everything the Shuttle is averaging $1.3 Billion per launch. Part of the problem is there is a full time army of around 6,000 on the direct payroll and even more at contractors providing parts. As the Shuttle remains grounded and its launch rate continues to fall that payroll stays the same so it gets ever more expensive per launch. Amazingly Congressman are mandating they all stay employed during the transition to CEV, NASA being a jobs program, with the possible conclusion CEV will be just as expensive to launch as the Shuttle.

RELIABILITY -

Re:Cheap

[tezzer]

TRW ceased to exist about 4 years ago- it was scooped up by Northrop in a hostile takeover.

Re:Cheap

[ThreeE]

Wow -- another rant. Try thinking about your point first -- brevity is a virtue.

Here's my point: comparing SS1 to the Shuttle is pointless. SS1 doesn't have the problems the Shuttle has because it doesn't have to have the energy to reach orbit, nor does it have to bleed off the energy to deorbit. And the X-15 did what SS1 did a half a century ago!

Regarding the sensor problem, you really don't have a clue. Any vehicle using cryogenics will have a similar system. Do you have a better design? Burt and his team don't, and nobody else has a HLLV like the Shuttle to compare to.

That's right -- the Shuttle provides unique capability. Crap on it all you like, but it's still the best anyone has built. Someone will eventually build something better, and I look forward to that day. From where I'm sitting, that will likely be the good old USA.

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[toddbu]

Crap on it all you like, but it's still the best anyone has built.

Not necessarily true. Even NASA admits that the Buran was a great achievement. (Ok, it was a direct shuttle ripoff, but it was still a different system.)

Any vehicle using cryogenics will have a similar system.

True. SS1 burned a modified rubber compound rather than a liquid fuel. I'm not sure that it will get you to orbit, but it will help you prove out a lot of other unproven systems. I can't wait to see what their final solution is for reaching orbit. Maybe it will be cryogenic. But cryogenic systems can be built a lot more safely than the Shuttle design. I find it interesting that all astronaut deaths to date are directly attributable to the design of the boosters, which is forced in part by the design of the spacecraft. If a Saturn V had blown in flight, at least you had a fighting chance with the ejection tower. And there was none of this foam nonsense. I love watching a Saturn V shed big chunks of ice on launch.

That's right -- the Shuttle provides unique capability.

I agree. But my original question still holds, which is "for what purpose?" Other than being a great jobs program, I can't think of a single advance that ISS or the Shuttle has given us since the inception of either program. Hubble and other great science programs could all have been launched on expendable systems. When Hubble was found to have a flaw, we could have built and flown a new one for a lot less than the Shuttle program has cost this nation.

For what it's worth, I'm not against manned spaceflight. I'm against manned spaceflight that could be done by other means for less money. The only lesson that we've learned from the Shuttle and ISS is that bigger is not necessarily better. Let's put together real missions back to the Moon and Mars and have the local junkyard dealer come pick up the remaining Shuttle fleet. Hopefully the value of the recyclables will offset the towing charge.

Re:Cheap

[Anakron]

How exactly does solar power help with propulsion? I thought you need to throw stuff out the back in order to move forward.

Re:Cheap

[ThreeE]

Not necessarily true. Even NASA admits that the Buran was a great achievement.

I think this is stretching it. For example, the reason Buran could only do one orbit was because the Russians didn't develop an APU -- a critical piece of any large manned spacecraft -- which the Buran was not.

True. SS1 burned a modified rubber compound rather than a liquid fuel. I'm not sure that it will get you to orbit...

I can assure you it won't get you to orbit. Yes -- it's innovative and a great idea for a suborbital vehicle. But it emphasizes my point -- you can't use it for higher energy missions. Using cryos requires a big leap in technology -- one that SS1 hasn't made or demonstrated.

But my original question still holds, which is "for what purpose?"

If you want to go anywhere in cislunar space or beyond, you have to establish a LEO capability. LEO is 80-90% of the way to the moon in terms of energy required. The Shuttle and ISS are our current and best ways of doing this.

Thank-you for being civil in this post.

Re:Cheap

[toddbu]

The Shuttle and ISS are our current and best ways of doing this.

Not really. A Saturn V/CSM stack are still the best technology that we have for the job. It isn't sexy, but it is a proven workhorse with eight successful missions (not including Apollo 13) and zero in-flight astronaut deaths across all 11 manned flights. I'm sure that you already know this, but it goes without saying that only Hollywood can send a Shuttle to the Moon.

I lost most of my interest in LEO after the deorbit of Mir. She was a great ship and the Russians should be proud of her, even though she had lived long beyond her service life.

Can you tell me one thing that we've learned about LEO that we didn't know before the advent of the Shuttle or ISS that would help us do anything really useful beyond LEO? I'll grant you that we've learned how to launch and recover aerodynamic vehicles and there might be some value there, but other than that the Shuttle and ISS programs have been a huge waste of good money.

Re:Cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

Without having read the article I can think of two obvious ways.

1) Solar sail type technology where the photons provide the reaction mass.

2) Ion drive tech where the reaction mass is used much more effectively (>1000X).

I would lean towards the latter case. The tug could get its reaction mass in several ways:

a) Massing missions. Every N-th launch is a remassing mission. This is very straightforward but means that most of the time the tug is carrying around far more mass than it needs.

b) BYOM. Every mission that goes up carries a cartridge of reaction mass to give to the tug. This seems like the most elegant solution since the amount of mass required per mission is only a tiny fraction of the payload and the tug would never have to move too much extra mass.

c) Recycling. The tug could recover mass from orbiting space junk or from the mission's packing materials. Eventually, this mass could come from the moon or asteroids. You would need some kind of space factory to do this and the other alternatives should work almost as well . I don't think this makes sense until the program is well established and some craft are no longer involved in directly assisting planetary launches.

d) Supply dumps. Like approach (a) but most of the supplied mass is left in a higher orbit where the tug(s) can load up as needed. Doesn't provide any advantage over (b) in the short term but again it could be useful when there's a need to operate continuously in high orbit or in interplanetary space.

Re:Cheap

[ThreeE]

The Saturn V was a marvel. I was generally referring to currently available vehicles. Most people in the industry believe that the reliability of the Saturn V to LEO was probably less than that of the Shuttle. By this I don't mean launch record (13-0 to 111-2 I think), but rather a theoretical value. Admittedly, this is debatable and I'd be willing to concede the point.

As far as what we have learned, I'd have to start with something having nothing to do with either the Shuttle or the ISS -- operations. Keeping a vehicle going and maintaining a reasonable launch rate. Some would say the Russians accomplished this as well -- and I would agree -- but not with a HLLV or with a Space Station of ISS-class.

Other areas include, despite the FUD, 1) long-term human physiology, 2) assembly of large components in orbit, 3) life support system design, 4) systems engineering, 5) robotics and autonomous systems, 6) orbital power systems, 7) micrometeorite environment, 8) and I think I could name more.

Remember -- sometimes the best lessons come from learning what not to do. If you are not willing to risk some degree of failure, you'll never get off the ground. 747s don't look anything like the Wright flyer, but that flight at Kitty Hawk had to happen first.

Re:Cheap

[toddbu]

... but that flight at Kitty Hawk had to happen first.

Hmm, interesting analogy. I would have used Mercury and Gemini for non-Earth operations. :-)

So let's take your list and see what we get:

1. long-term human physiology - done on Mir and Skylab. I believe that the current record is still held by a resident of Mir after his country disappeared while he was on orbit.
2. assembly of large components in orbit - Mir, and to some extent Skylab, ASTP, Apollo, Gemini and Hubble (admittedly with the help of the Shuttle). In my book, the single most important mission ever in the assembly of large scale systems was Gemini 9 where Gene Cernan learned what Newton knew all along - that for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction.
3. life support system design - done on Apollo, Skylab, and Mir. You should really read Sy Liebergot's book Apollo EECOM where he talks about helping to improve Shuttle environmental systems using feedback from Apollo designs and operation. (I should also note that he doesn't have much good to say about the current crop of NASA flight operators or directors.)
4. systems engineering - Initiated in Gemini, proven in Apollo, Skylab, and Mir.
5. robotics and autonomous systems - done on Mars going back to Viking, and of course my all-time favorite, the Voyager probes. Also Deep Space 1. Russia has also done a lot in this area with their automated Progress cargo ships and space probes to Venus, Mars, and the Moon. NASA's most recent successes were unmanned - Cassini, Mars Rovers, and Deep Impact.
6. orbital power systems - proven out countless times by hundreds of government and commercial satellites. I'd argue that we'd taken a big step backward in this area since we no longer regularly fly RTGs.
7. micrometeorite environment - Skylab, Mir. LDEF was arguably the most important experiment in this area, and while it was deployed and retrieved using the Shuttle, there were other options available for its flight.

Maybe I'm just nitpicking, but when we're spending billions on a system then I expect something more than small, incremental gains. I'm not sure that you'd call them gains anyway since the systems are no more reliable today then in previous years. (How many times have the oxygen generators failed on ISS this year? Sure, you can blame the Russians, but NASA approved them for manned spaceflight.)

NASA's current funding requests would be like Christopher Columbus coming back from the new world and telling the queen that he needed ten times the number of ships to get 150 miles out into the Atlantic. Magellan circumnavigated the globe with only 60% more resource than Columbus and traveled a lot further distance-wise. Shouldn't we be demanding more for our money than the systems that we currently have?

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[ThreeE]

orbital power systems - proven out countless times by hundreds of government and commercial satellites. I'd argue that we'd taken a big step backward in this area since we no longer regularly fly RTGs.

I picked this one from your list as an example of some misinformation. The power systems on satellites don't come close to generating or managing the amount of power on ISS or that will be needed on planetary missions. Moreover, RTGs are tiny -- both in terms of power output, size, and efficiency. The ISS is by far the largest producer of power ever placed in LEO. We are both learning and setting the standard. These arrays ,by the way, are American.

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[ThreeE]

I couldn't resist saying more.

Human physiology -- while Mir cosmonauts hold the record for duration on Mir, they did very little for furthering human physiology studies. Not so on ISS.

Assembly of large components -- yes, the early missions were critical for fundamental knowledge, but Mir and ISS have presented us practical issues, like mechanisms, reliability, logistics, etc.

Life support systems -- I haven't read Sy's book but it seems odd to be dissing the current crop of NASA engineers. Most of them had nothing to do with Apollo or the some of the decisions made in the 70s. Moreover, anyone that thinks that Apollo life support systems show us how to design modern, long term, reliable, supportable systems is simply not getting it. Sure, there are valuable lessons, but we can't rely on LiOH canisters and oxygen candles (although we have had to) forever.

Systems engineering -- while challenging, the programs you mention pale in comparison to setting up a permanent presence on the moon, at LX, or on Mars. It's just not the same problem -- it is vastly more complex.

Robotics -- yes, JPLs work on Mars is especially inspiring. But even the MER team will tell you we've got a long ways to go. Building autonomous systems for manned mission support is a nascent field.

Orbital power systems -- see my previous post.

MMOD environment -- LDEF was critically dependent on the Shuttle -- but even that point is moot. LDEF simply characterized the environment. The ISS is showing us what works with pragmatic examples of bumper structures etc.

You should expect more for your tax dollars -- a lot more. But there have been great advances -- just look beyond the popular anti-hype.

Finally, remember that if you are in LEO, you are 80-90% of the way to just about anywhere else in the Solar System. It also represents 80-90% of the effort, technology, power, and, most importantly, the risk. Why not support the team that's on the field?

Re:Cheap

[ThreeE]

And of course the Shuttle has spent nearly 5 years grounded.

How does 2 1/2 years become 5?

Re:Cheap

[toddbu]

Why not support the team that's on the field?

Because the current team has done little to build confidence, and I'm not willing to throw good money after bad. If you think that the current NASA management team doesn't suck, just compare the response of the guys on Apollo 1 to those responses of the guys overseeing Columbia. Read any book from an Apollo-era flight controller and they'll tell you that they played a hand in killing their crew. After Columbia, it was a mad scramble for everyone to cover their ass and point the finger at someone else, presumably so that they could keep their job. There are continuing reports of cultural problems at NASA that have yet to be fixed. These people inspire no confidence.

Robotics -- ... Building autonomous systems for manned mission support is a nascent field.

The discussion here was about how the expense of the Shuttle has contributed to deep space exploration. So what advancements have been made in the Shuttle program?

Systems engineering -- ... It's just not the same problem -- it is vastly more complex

Same argument as above. Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo were all delivered on time, unlike the Shuttle or ISS.

Moreover, anyone that thinks that Apollo life support systems show us how to design modern, long term, reliable, supportable systems is simply not getting it.

Really? Then why are 40 year old technologies currently keeping the astronauts alive on ISS? I'll take a tank of oxygen over an oxygen generator any day. Maybe the oxygen generators will be improved some day, but I'm not betting the farm that either the Shuttle or ISS will ultimately prove them out.

Finally, remember that if you are in LEO, you are 80-90% of the way to just about anywhere else in the Solar System.

Are you really that naive to believe this? If so, then I can see why you think that the Shuttle's a good deal. As far as I'm concerned, however, getting to LEO is kind of like driving from New York to Key West, FL. You'd like to think that when you hit the Florida state line that you're almost there, but it's a very long drive from the Florida/Georgia border all the way to Key West.

ISS and the Shuttle have taught us very, very little about how to manage radiation bursts from CMEs because we're still within the influence of the Earth's magnetic field for protection. We still know little about managing food/water resources at long distances or how to keep astronauts from going crazy on a long distance trip to Mars. Astronauts on missions to the Moon describe experiences of loneliness, and that was only 3 days and 250K miles away.

LDEF was critically dependent on the Shuttle

Could you elaborate please? Are you saying that it would have been impossible to launch and recover the system without the Shuttle? Or was it dependent on the Shuttle because it was designed that way?

Re:Cheap

[demachina]

"And the X-15 did what SS1 did a half a century ago!"

Thats a pretty petty way to dismiss a great accomplishment. Again the key thing SS1 accomplised was it succeeded at what it was designed to do, on a budget and and a schedule and that is something NASA is completely incapable of at this point.

The feathered wing is a very innovative approach that was a vast improvement over the X-15. X-15 reentry was very hot and very dangerous. The SS1 reentry is cool enough they can use composites instead of Titanium. It will be interesting to see if Rutan can use a derivative of the concept at the higher energy of reentry from orbit. Bottomline is SS1 adheres to KISS which is usually good engineering. Shuttle is antithesis of KISS which is why it never launches on schedule and has had to fatal accidents.

"Regarding the sensor problem, you really don't have a clue"

Actually you seem to be the one that missed the whole point...again. Wasn't argueing about the instrumentation methodology used to measure the liquids. I was pointing out that I heard in a NASA teleconference that they've had this same glitch in the past and they never got to the bottom of it. Sounds a lot like the O rings and the ice damages to tiles. If two of the fuel sensors failed after launch they would have risked another catastrophic failure. Problem with the Shuttle is it so glitch prone it can't launch on schedule and when it does you better cross your fingers....

"That's right -- the Shuttle provides unique capability."

I'm at a loss to know what it offers at this point. Its mission capability has been reduced to flying to the ISS and back. Yes it is necessary to finish the ISS but that is because the ISS was designed to be built using the Shuttle and of course no one can tell you what the ISS offers that justifies the price tag. I can't think of much the Shuttle has done that will win it any esteem in the anals of space history. Servicing the Hubble was the only one that comes close.

Re:Cheap

[demachina]

"How does 2 1/2 years become 5?"

For someone who keeps telling us how superior your knowledge and intellect is you sure aren't very bright.

The shuttles were grounded from Jan 28,1986 until Sept 28, 1988 after the Challenger explosion

5 = 2 1/2 after Columbia + 2 1/2 after Challenger

Of course the Challenger grounding is more like 2 3/4 years. Of course the Shuttles are still grounded now, and if NASA misses this window they are going to be headed for 2 3/4 years and counting again, so it could be 5 1/2 years.

Re:Cheap

[demachina]

"Human physiology -- while Mir cosmonauts hold the record for duration on Mir, they did very little for furthering human physiology studies. Not so on ISS.'

I'm sure there must be some examples what exactly have we discovered about physiology on the ISS or Shuttle that justifies the $100 billion price tag. If there was some discovery big enough to justify the price tag, I'm shocked I haven't heard about it. Was it, "its a good idea to exercise if in zero G"? I could have figured that out for a lot less money.

"Assembly of large components"

The question was what have the Shuttle and ISS done that was groundbreaking. They've assembled some things that weren't small, YAY! Next.

"Robotics"

I will grant you Canadarm 1 and 2 were groundbreaking but you have one problem touting them as a sign of NASA's success, they were designed and built in Canada.

"Orbital power systems -- see my previous post."

I don't think there is anything revolutionary here. All they did was scale up solar panels. Its an achievement, not a big one. Worst problem with all that power is most of its going to waste because the BIGGEST failure of the ISS is it only has 2 people on it, not the full crew compliment, and the 2 spend most of their time repairing it. ISS is a categorical failure until it has a full crew on it and I haven't heard anyone propose a near term fix for the emergency escape requirement. Not sure why they dont add a docking port and hang two soyuz on it. But of course the second problem, due to the unreliability of the Shuttle, NASA can't supply the two people that are there let alone a full crew, Russia is doing it at their expense.

" Why not support the team that's on the field?"

Because its not doing the job, and neither the shuttle or ISS is going to do ANYTHING to help you get out of LEO. In fact they are going to do the opposite, they are frustrating getting launch costs to LEO down and slowing CEV, going to the Moon or Mars. They are draining NASA's coffers as they have throughout their history so NASA can't afford to start a manned space program that works. If the current Shuttle army just switches over to Shuttle CEV is going to end up as expensive and screwed up as the Shuttle is. Its a completely disfunctional team.

Re:Cheap

[toddbu]

I recommend picking up a copy of SMAD and reading section 11.4 starting on page 407. Pay real close attention to table 11-33 which compares current power technologies. Also check out section 10.3 on design budgets, including the power budget. You'll see that the power budget is where all the "heavy lifting" is done when it comes to power management. Building a slightly larger set of solar panels doesn't help you at all on deep space missions. It all depends on the power budget, and the Shuttle and ISS have done nothing to help us understand how to better manage power budgets. In fact, with 36KW (Shuttle) and 110KW (ISS) systems, there's even less need to manage a power budget as tightly as they did in Apollo at levels as low as 43 amps, or about 2800 watts (more than 40 times less than IIS).

Re:Cheap

[ThreeE]

they played a hand in killing their crew.

This comment is beyond poor taste and is simply cruel.

These people inspire no confidence.

You know nothing about these people.

Could you elaborate please?

What other system could have launched and recovered it?

Are you really that naive to believe this?

I guess so -- if you do the energy calculation, getting to LEO takes about 83% of that required to achieve escape velocity.

Re:Cheap

[ThreeE]

I'm still waiting for you to point to a vehicle (not a dream) that does 1/2 of what the shuttle can do. Something the shuttle has done over a hundred times.

Re:Cheap

[ThreeE]

Bottomline is SS1 adheres to KISS which is usually good engineering.

I don't wish SS1 any bad luck, but every flight has been lucky. Each time, they barely pulled out of huge attitude departures. They collapased a landing gear on landing. They never came close to staying within their designated airspace or on their planned flight path.

Re:Cheap

[toddbu]

This comment is beyond poor taste and is simply cruel.

I didn't say this. Chris Craft, Gene Krantz, and several others did in their autobiographies. Try reading them sometime.

You know nothing about these people.

Not personally, but I see their handiwork. I'm sure that they're really nice folks, but I'm not willing to turn over the keys to the bank vault without some demonstration that they can manage the pot of money.

What other system could have launched and recovered it?

At 11 tons, there were expendable systems large enough to launch it in two pieces. Recovery would have been possible by deorbiting smaller pieces with built-in heat shields and recovering them by parachute, much like a capsule. If we hadn't abandoned heavy lift systems and spent all our money on the Shuttle, we'd have lifters capable of putting up 100 tons. Putting all our eggs in one basket was a huge mistake, one that we're still paying for today.

if you do the energy calculation

Ok, but I hope that you agree that manned missions to deep space require more than just applying energy and delta-V budgets. We are talking about manned missions, right? Otherwise there would be no need to talk about the Shuttle or ISS, and we could be talking about rail guns instead. :-)

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[demachina]

Stop shedding the crocodile tears, you back hand Rutan, SpaceShipOne and Scaled Composites in every post you mention them, right after you say how much you really like them, like you just did AGAIN.

Re:Cheap

[ThreeE]

Those were just facts -- I don't see any "back handing..."

Re:Cheap

[toddbu]

I hate replying to my own post, but I really hosed some names here. It's Chris Kraft and Gene Kranz. I knew they looked wrong and forgot to fix them prior to posting. Sorry for the errors folks. I still hope that you read the books.

Re:Cheap

[demachina]

Nice, instead of admitting how stupid your post was, just change the subject.

"I'm still waiting for you to point to a vehicle (not a dream) that does 1/2 of what the shuttle can do."

Thats easy Saturn V. It did ten times more than the Shuttle has. Thank you Richard Nixon and you assholes at NASA for scrapping it and turning the last one in to a rusting lawn ornament. If we had stuck with that stack and made incremental improvements we would be way ahead of where we are today. CEV is going to take years, and billions of dollars just to get back there and I'm not sure they will even come close.

In the future all my money is on Kliper and who knows what China might do now that they are raking in all of Americas money.

Maybe NASA, Boeing and Lockheed will pull a miracle out of CEV, but their culture is so disfunctional it would take a miracle. There are certainly good people there but the disfunctional organization is the thing that needs scrapped even more than the Shuttle and the ISS.

I'll grant you the Shuttle had some promise before Challenger. After Challenger and especially now after Columia the shuttle can't do ANYTHING except fly to the ISS and back. It has been completely crippled by safety constraints. Get it in to your head Threeep, stick a fork in it, the Shuttle is done.

I would say you are the one living on the dream, a dream of what the Shuttle might have been if it hadn't failed, a dream based on what was promised not wasn't delivered.

Re:Cheap

[demachina]

"Those were just facts -- I don't see any "back handing..."

"They never came close to staying within their designated airspace or on their planned flight path."

Well its a subject for debate but I don't think these are really the facts, you are bending facts to the point they are more mud slinging and back handing.

One of the last envelope expansion flights was of trajectory but that was only because the pilot was being conservative about a potential problem and delayed the burn.

The first flight in to space had a 22 mile departure from trajectory due to a pitch trim problem, which is no doubt the one you are fixated on, but they didn't violate any "air space" and they made it back to the runway with ease. Such is life in test flights, it was a big envelope expansion.

The first X prize had a roll departure, but it was in very thin air and Melville wasn't that concerned about it. They made their altitude goal and landed with no problem.

As best I remember the last X prize flight went great, its the one they broke the X-15 altitude record on and they landed with no problem. Probably the first flight that wasn't an envelope expansion and a test flight so you want it to go smoothly.

Considering most of their flights were envelope expansions and test flights except for the last two they did pretty good, especially considering the shoestring budget. Unlike the shuttle their missions are flown entirely by the pilot and not a computer. There are pros and cons to each, but the con to flight computers for Rutan was they would have cost a fortune to develop and would have blown the schedule. His design is so simple and robust it had no problem recovering from the pilot error induced problems. The pitch trim problem was dicey for a while. The feathered wing reentry was the ingenuity that made the fault tolerance possible. Both X-15 and Shuttle pilots need substantial automated help to not burn up on their hot reentries and they can't devitate much at all without catastrophe.

Radiation envrionment

[lorelorn]

The first phase of the mission will be to measure the radiation environment between the Earth and the Moon.

Part of me wonders why this is not known in detail already, plus wouldn't it be related to solar activity anyway? Solar wind and so forth.

They need to know though, since the trip to L1 will take 1 year.

I remember reading in New Scientist about a decade ago now that you can get to the moon using very little energy- an orbital transfer basically. Catch is, it takes 2 years to get there.

Re:Radiation envrionment

[ForumTroll]

"Is there a standard punishment for this?"

This is Slashdot; by the looks of the titles and stories submitted to the front page from time to time I would think there was a reward.

Re:Radiation envrionment

[ArbitraryConstant]

Send cargo on the slow boat, then send people in a faster craft when everything they need has arrived.

Re:Radiation envrionment

[Overzeetop]

Minimum energy for an orbital transfer is via a Hohmann (sp?) transfer, and takes less time than one orbit of the outer body. Basically a deltaV at periapse of the lower orbit, then another at the apoapse of the transfer ellipse, which is the radius of the new (circular) orbit.

The two year scenerio is probably a Mars mission, as the proper transfer will send you out to intersect the mars orbit, but a failure to complete the final burn at Mars will return you to earth orbit, at earth, in 2 years.

Re:Radiation envrionment

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

I will take a guess that the answer to your first question is implied by your second question.

Apollo, if it carried radiation instruments, only gave us 3-day samples. We still need to know likely worst-case values over the course of a year. Then there's enough data to correlate with sunspot numbers and whatnot, to make forecasts possible.

Re:Radiation envrionment

[Anonymous Coward]

check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Superh ighway for an even longer transfer than Hohmann with lower energy

Re:Radiation envrionment

[MyLongNickName]

Yes. You are condemned to being an editor for the rest of your life.

Re:Radiation envrionment

[DestroyAllZombies]

It's worth considering the source of the energy you need. If you are using a typical solid or liquid propellant, then the Hohmann-type trajectories are optimal. Of course you don't get these more than every 23 months, and some opportunities are better than others because of relative inclination and planetary orbit eccentricities (this year's MRO launch is particularly nasty). Anyway, if you are using something like solar propulsion then you get 'free' energy and a completely different launch/arrival space due to the ability to thrust constantly. Just being pedantic.

Re:Radiation envrionment

[Overzeetop]

Yes, you're correct. I was referring to impulse delta-V transfers in two-body mechanics.

I was being impatient, the good, card carring American citizen that I am. (If I had all the time in the world, I'd walk to work instead of driving a big SUV and accelerating from stop sign to stop sign at full throttle ;-)

Why stop?

[Anonymous Coward]

85% Why stop there? If it can get to 1.5 million km at L1 why can't it go all the way to 0.35 million km for the Moon? It seems to me that almost any spacecraft that can get to the 85% of the Moon in a finite period of time can make it all the way to the Moon.

Re:Why stop?

[jacen_sunstrider]

I believe it's because past L1, there is more influence of gravity from the moon than from the Earth, so it's rather inefficient for a tug to take something all the way to the moon and have to fight against its gravitational pull, thus expending full is doesn't need. It's not that it can, it just doesn't want to.

I could just be totally wrong, though.

Re:Why stop?

[MGDruss]

"85% Why stop there? If it can get to 1.5 million km at L1 why can't it go all the way to 0.35 million km for the Moon? It seems to me that almost any spacecraft that can get to the 85% of the Moon in a finite period of time can make it all the way to the Moon" Because the purpose of this mission is to travel using the Interplanetary Superhighway. This is a very slow, but extremely energy efficient (almost energy free) way of travelling round the solar system. There are Lagrange points between any two bodies in the solar system, these are points where the gravitational forces balance out. Some of these are stable, but some are not and drift around. The Interplanetary Superhighway is the map of these drifting ones. Basically, you get to a drifting Lagrange point and you are on a highway which connects to any place in the solar system! It just takes ages to get anywhere though.

First Prime Factorization Post

[2*2*3*75011]

85 = 5*17
2008 = 2*2*2*251

Re:First Prime Factorization Post

[Dilaudid]

Why don't you ask 900124 (900122), 900115 (900116), 900101 (900100)?

Re:The moon is a liberal myth.

[terrox]

Boring in the extreme. Super boring and not funny. Also assumes every reader is a US citizen, insensitive clod.

SmallTug?

[matt21811]

Ha, could they come up with a more porno sounding name?

Of course it comes as no suprise that "Andrews Space is a privately held company"

Re:SmallTug?

[cheezus_es_lard]

One speculates that once operations are in order, they will refer to work that the SmallTug gets to be a 'tug job'. In addition, you could have such services as 'a rub and a tug', where the SmallTug rides along the edge of a target and looks for a place to attach, or 'a tug and a blow', where the tug would tow out a solar sail and let it be blown away by the sun. Use your imagination and I'm sure you can see many more tug services.

Hall Thruster

[Planetes]

It should be noted that hall thrusters are extremely low thrust but high ISP. This is effectively an ion drive. This means that it's a relatively slow method of doing orbital transfers. In other words, don't expect this thing to drag the satellite L1 in half an hour.

Our nanosat-4 project is using a PPT although we considered an MET for a while. We have to maintain formation flight between three satellites which requires high thrust/quick burn types of thrusters. That burn time ruled out the MET.

Re:Hall Thruster

[Migraineman]

A PPT is a Pulsed Plasma Thruster. Usually a stick of somthing like Teflon is ablated by a big spark (i.e. the plasma part) and ejected out the back. The reaction force moves you in the opposite direction.

An MET is a Microwave Electric Thruster. You use microwaves to ionize a gas like Xenon and accelerate the ions out the back with a high-voltage electric field grid.

Here's a nice table of thruster technologies with specific impulse characteristics.

"off of"

[Anonymous Coward]

If we can't spell correctly here, can we at least make English the primary language.

Interplanetary Superhighway

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Superh ighway

Once you are on the IPS, it's pretty easy to get where you want with very little fuel expenditures. What I'd like to know is how they plan to get there, since in order to get to the nearest IPS orbit, you probably still need amount of energy, comparable to what it takes to get into LEO. SpaceShipOne lacked the capability to get into LEO by a long shot.

Re:Interplanetary Superhighway

[ThreeE]

Once you are on the IPS, it's pretty easy to get where you want...

Unfortunately, most of humanity is not immortal -- and to get between most useful places using this interesting, but impractical IPS requires long durations -- often in excess of centuries.

Bottom line, you still need lots of energy on trajectories that are closer to that of Hohman Transfers.

Own a part of this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Andrews isn't, but SpaceDev is a publicly traded company.

Disclaimer: I own a few shares that I bought a little while after the SpaceShip One media blitz had died down. Scaled Composites is a private company, but SpaceDev builds their rocket engines. For me it's a long term bet - I may not win, but the sheer coolness of putting money in on this seemed like a good idea at the time.

Since I work in a completely unrelated field [entertainment], get horribly sick on a rollercoaster and would never see space willingly even if it was possible for me in my lifetime [I can get 30 minutes of me screaming, closing my eyes and being sick quite cheaply while in our atmosphere] - this is probably the only way that I can contribute to our expansion into space.

(Stocks go up and down and may become worthless and make your money explode, burn and you'll never see it again if you do anything I suggest, blah, blah, don't sue me for any of this).

Modularity

[James A. D. Joyce]

How well could it interface with existing satellites? It's all well and good having a cheap and convenient space cargo ship, but it's pointless if it only attaches properly to a particular proprietary type of craft.

faster speeds for transport?

[John Seminal]

I believe the cheapness is related to the fact that there are no fuel costs once earth orbit has been reached. Solar power gets the craft the rest of the way for free- but very slowly.

in space, there is no reduction of speed, the inertia will carry the object forward at the same speed. so, in addition to the solar panels, why not have some small and inexpensive fuel source for the start of the trip that gives a speed boost. the increase in speed will last the whole trip, unlike a car where it only lasts as long as your foot is on the gas pedal.

could a small inexpensive rocket at the start significantly cut the time of the trip?

the reason i ask, is because i am thinking this kind of tech will become valuable one day, when humans have science bases on different plantes, like mars, or even the moon. we will need supplies in a timely manner, food and such. if it takes half the time to get supplies there, that is better, isn't it?

i hope in my lifetime, ordinary people will be able to go live on colonies on far away planets. it will be like the wild west 200 years ago. it would be rough going at the start, but if a food source could be cultivated, power plants built, an atmosphere created in a controlled environment or bubble, it could be exciting. it would keep the mind busy and occupied with all sorts of challanges. i have always dreamed of living on a planet like pluto, at the last planet, having a gateway stop for explorations to far away places.

Re:faster speeds for transport?

[radu124]

that doesn't really work, even when you are in orbit, in order to increase your distance from the Earth you have to spend energy (the gravity still exists and pulls you down).

So getting in orbit is just the first step. Escaping entirely from the earth's gravity is something different. I think this is the distinction between the first and second "cosmic speed". (I am not sure whether the term is correct in English)

I am curious if you could use alternate types of energy to get into orbit. I mean, there are solar powered planes, it's true they only work in the atmosphere, but as you climb, the atmosphere grows thinner and you could increase speed. If the transition between atmosphere and void is really smooth what would stop you from slowly increasing the speed until you switch from gliding to orbiting.

Does anyone care to do the calculations what speed you would need in order to start orbiting at the edge of atmosphere? (My guess is that it probably is too high, but it was just an idea)

Re:faster speeds for transport?

[radu124]

ah, only 32 Mach, that's not even much for a solar powered airplane

Re:faster speeds for transport?

[FooAtWFU]

The term in English for "cosmic speed" is, I believe, "escape velocity" - the speed required to escape from the Earth's gravity and go off into the cosmos, I suppose. The alternate term, however, is fascinating - what language is it from?

Re:faster speeds for transport?

[radu124]

Romanian.

And what do you call the speed necessary for an object to orbit at ground level?

Re:faster speeds for transport?

[Jardine]

The term in English for "cosmic speed" is, I believe, "escape velocity" - the speed required to escape from the Earth's gravity and go off into the cosmos, I suppose.

There is an escape velocity for Earth, but there's also an escape velocity for the Sun. If you reach the escape velocity for Earth but don't reach the one for the Sun...I hope you brought lots of marshmallows because you're going to have one hell of a campfire.

Re:faster speeds for transport?

[nyekulturniy]

No, because you can be in a terrestrial escape velocity but not in the Solar escape velocity, which means you orbit the Sun independently.

Re:faster speeds for transport?

[Buradorii]

And what do you call the speed necessary for an object to orbit at ground level?

I'm assuming you mean maintain an orbit above the same spot on the ground at all times, as 'orbiting' at the level of the ground would be rather futile.

We that type of orbit a Geosynchronous orbit, or if above the equator, Geostationary. I dont think we have an actual term for the speed required, at least I've never heard one.

Re:faster speeds for transport?

[at_18]

If you don't reach the Sun's escape velocity you'll just orbit it like any other body in the solar system. Reaching escape velocity for the Sun means leaving the solar system for outer space.

Naming rights...

[John Seminal]

Someone made a joke about calling it SmallTug. I laughed and thought "well, at least it is not called TugJobs", which got me thinking in my usual demented manner...

Ox might have a copywrite lawsuit. Or maybe they would settle for Ox advertising on the side of the spaceship "Brought to you by BangBro's".

Come to think of it, I am suprised Nasa has not sold naming rights yet. If Comisky Park can get 30 million to change their name to US Cellular Field, how much could NASA get to change the name of their space shuttle from Challanger to the Anhiser Bush Space Shuttle. Maybe they could even get a 30 second advertising clip of the astronauts floating in space drinking a cold refersing budwieser. Nike could be next in line, having an exclusive contract to provide all NASA shoes. It could be like what Nike did 10 years ago in college basketball when they paid 7 or 8 of the best college program universities millions of dollars to force their athletes to wear nikes as part of the uniform. When the final 4 came, all 4 universities were in contracts with Nike, and all the basketball players were wearing Nikes. Every 3 hour basketball game was free advertising for Nike, as every basketball player was wearing their shoes. Well, in space, there is only one team, and it would be lots of free advertising when they are interviewed. Maybe Kennith Cole could pay a couple million to help design the artistic look of the new space suits.

With all the different industries that could contribute money for advertising, I wonder how much NASA could get per year? 100 million dollars? 250 million dollars? If you were IBM and you were smart and wanted to keep OS/2 alive, what better advertising could you have then to have your OS used on the space shuttle, to have advertising?

Just imagine every chemist, biologist, mathematician and physicist in the USA, dressed in Nike Moonwalkers, wearing Kennith Cole Space Pleather jackets, with their IBM laptops running OS/2, and drinking a coca-cola before thier big exam or buisness meeting because it is what the astronauts drink before a critical mission.

Re:Naming rights...

[Punboy]

Actually, they drink tang.

Re:Naming rights...

[rsynnott]

Sounds like a horrid orgy of capitalism's worst points to me.

Re:Naming rights...

[chawly]

I'll believe you. If they drank coke just before a space flight, I don't know what might happen to the accumulated gas in their stomachs. Don't like to think about it either.

Re:Naming rights...

[imthesponge]

They might get shaken up, but I don't see what else would happen.

Re:Naming rights...

[chawly]

Hum. Well, taking it as a given that there is considerable vibration (I'm ready to consider it, for one) during a shuttle launch, and that the thing rotates on its vertical axis, I'm ready to suggest the following experiment. Take 2 bottle of coke, let them stand at room temperature for a couple of days - just so everything is stable. Put them in the 'fridge if you want - though this makes the experiment less realistic. Now open the first bottle - you should find that it behaves quite normally. Now take the second bottle and subject it to moderate but gradually lessening vibration for 10 minutes - in other words shake it violently, no need to worry about the degree of violence since this will lessen as you get tired. During this period you must remember to turn the bottle on its vertical axis - we're looking for realism here. You might want to tie a string to the bottle and swing it around your head at different angles (this would mean that you'd have to stop shaking it though). This would simulate pressure changes, G force etc. After (immediately) open the second bottle - You may find that the contents behave differently from the contents of the first bottle. For added realism - since all this is supposedly happening in somebody's stomach - you might want to decant the second bottle into a plastic bag before beginning the shaking and swinging routine. If you want to go this route though, you might want to take the prelimary step of getting in the shower. At the conclusion of this experiment I believe that you will be ready to accept the idea that there are some circumstances where Tang may be preferable to Coke. Indeed, your thoughts may even turn towards the idea of plain water drunk at ambient temperature. Just explaing my reasoning ..... hope that you don't mind. Cheers

Re:Naming rights...

[Llewdin]

it may well be, but it would certainly give NASA the funding that this government is holding back on. But of course, it would have to be a private company and not govt. affiliated for that kind of thing.

Re:well.....

[barc0001]

Seeing as how it's from the Inquirer and all... IF it's real

You DO know that the Inquirer site in question is NOT the American rag that prints things on the Sasquatch's illegitimate chilrden with Elvis and all that, but rather a British IT/Tech news site?

The fake news mag is spelled Enquirer, not Inquirer. And technically it's known as the National Enquirer.

Just tired of explaining this to people when they ask about an article from the Inq.

Re:The moon is a liberal myth.

[mederjo]

Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950.

Replying is troll feeding, and frankly I'm surprised you spent the energy to type all that out ( unless you're trying to be funny ), but I was reading this just the other day :

Romeo

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon

by William Shakespeare, 1597

...if such a person even existed, that is...

Really, really lame....

[Ancient_Hacker]

Notice the article doesnt give any useful details. Solar-powered ion-thrusters have been studied since 1959 or so. They are inextricably limited to providing really teeeeensy amounts of thrust. The only big winning point is you don't need much reaction mass to throw out, as the stuff goes out really quickly. Downside is you don't have much power to work with, and you can't make more than a very tenuous cloud of ions (they repel each other).

Hey

[PunkOfLinux]

My name's tug; can I call the ship mini-me? And... what would this be used for, exactly

Re:The moon is a liberal myth.

[rsynnott]

Ah, but the great joint-Iluminati/World Zionist Consipracy/Knights Templar/other causers of tinfoil hat wearing group responsible rewrote all the books, obviously. Also, tides are caused by special machinery installed for the purpose. ;)

Re:The moon is a liberal myth.

[mederjo]

Ah, but the great joint-Iluminati/World Zionist Consipracy/Knights Templar/other causers of tinfoil hat wearing group responsible rewrote all the books, obviously.

Ah, of course, how foolish of me.

Also, tides are caused by special machinery installed for the purpose. ;)

Let me get this straight though - could the giant balloon not also be responsible for the tides ? No need for what would have to be some impressive machinery ( and associated maintenance, salt water can be rough on things ) if it were just a side effect of the giant balloon flying about. Those nuclear reactors would probably have a quite a bit of mass after all.

We also have the moon here in New Zealand. We're pretty liberal already, and we don't have the same issues with guns as the US does, so what could the liberal moon pilots be looking for ?

Food for thought...

Re:The moon is a liberal myth.

[Staniel]

I thought it was kinda silly. Besides, I've never read a slashdot post that actually made me laugh. They're mostly just humorous in theory, like when you giggle at a joke that others don't understand just so they know you're smarter than them. "That's funny because if I don't find it amusing, it means I'm not l33t."

Another badly titled article.

[hey!]

When somebody says "Space Tug", what comes to mind is a space version of the powerful little boats that haul barges around -- something compact which moves a lot of mass around.

The system, however, is called "Small Tug". It only costs $20 million becuase it's a technology demonstration. It's not meant to be practical, it's meant to show that it's principles of operation are sound and to get experience with the technologies involved. It's still a bargain, but if we could build something that would haul tons of cargo to L1 for 20 million, we'd be half way to Mars.

Re:well.....

[RoboRay]

If I had control of something with such a similar name to something that I tended to get a bad rap by association, I would change the name I used.

Reusable?

[Manhigh]

Is this tug going to be reusable? I mean, will it come back to low earth orbit after it drops off its payload to pick up more propellant and another satellite?

NASA has looked at similar things, though none have been built yet. http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/RT2001/6000/6920verhey .html

Re:The moon is a liberal myth.

[rsynnott]

Ah, in other countries, it's a fundamentalist-fascist-police-state conspiracy headed up by Hitler, Fred Phelps and Margaret Thatcher; they shift-work with the liberal group responsible for aiming the mind control beams at America. Different paranoias for different people...

Re:The moon is a liberal myth.

[rsynnott]

Hmm, so who are these decent, God-fearing Americans? They're obviously not the Bush regieme, who are in charge and could just nuke the liberal death-satilite. (Before they got into space, but after the Soviets did, the Americans did indeed have a plan to nuke the moon; it was abandoned as too silly). And they can't be the filthy liberals, either. So who are they? Fred Phelps?

On a mildly unrelated note, I can't halp being very, very glad that we don't have "second-amendment rights" here.

And was the OP serious? I sometimes don't know, with Americans...

Larry Niven will sue ;)

[rsynnott]

A worrying number of space systems were invented by science fiction writers...

Only piece of the puzzle..

[lightyear4]

..doesn't this suggest a major need for an orbiting cargo facility of sorts? If this and technology like it were to be become more prevalent (whether for placing satellites in lunar orbit, at the lagrange points, or simply in higher orbit) then surely it would make sense to have an orbiting queue to hold a satellite while waiting in line for the next slow tug to come back on duty. (earth-->LEO+docking@cargo-->L1,etc).

Low earth orbit and beyond are a crowded place these days, and the placement of satellites in roomier real estate seems both beneficial from an orbital stability standpoint and for staying out of the way of everything else.

Billiard ball mechanics is reversible

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

If you can fall off a Lagrange point and drift into other locations, then there should be windows when you can drift from given locations back to a Lagrange point.

But yes, you do need to dig yourself out of the gravity hole we're in. Once in LEO you could spiral out with a slow efficient drive like a solar sail or ion propulsion, but LEO is the price of admission.

I propose a new name:

[No Such Agency]

"Marcus Garvey". Make sure to spray the control console bright pink too.

Re:The moon is a liberal myth.

[arbitraryaardvark]

Short version of parent: "That's no moon!"

Re:The moon is a liberal myth.

[rsynnott]

The British space progamme hasn't existed for some decades now, you know... And here in Ireland we've never had an independant launch vehicle (a university tried to launch an orbital rocket a few years back, but it exploded).

But really, it's hard to know when Americans are joking sometimes, and this ludicrous persecution complex some people seem to have? "Ooh, they want to take our assault weapons! How on earth will we defend ourselves if we are personally assaulted by a small to medium military unit"?

Do people really babble such rubbish on the radio?

And for what it's worth, my other response to that thread played along with the joke; I was just hedging my bets ;)

Re:The moon is a liberal myth.

[Procyon101]

The original post is a hyperbole and a joke meant to poke fun at hyper conservative lunacy. I can see how it could be difficult for someone growing up under your conditions to mistake joke for reality in such an alien culture where people still occasionally make decisions not dictated to them by a ruling body. In case you missed it, the preceding sentence was another hyperbolic joke intended to poke fun at European elitist liberalism.

I've said it before and you can read my words there rather than me repeat them ad nauseum. Now I know that most people have absolutely no idea what it is they believe in any culture. Ask the typical American Democrat why they are a democrat and they will say something like "Because I like to help people." Similarly a Republican will probably say "I believe in freedom." This is because most people cannot think for themselves. If you wish to refrain from putting yourself into a similar category, I suggest not sticking to statements that show a blatent misunderstanding of the opposing viewpoint to your own such as you did above. Your country has already given up the right to gun ownership outside of the government so it's easy for you to shout "Hey look! No Hands!" whilest you temporally ride by the bodies of your Easterly neighbors that have completed a cycle within your own lifetime and gone from superpower to revolution in a matter of months.

You see, every government in history has failed. Miserably and most of the time in bloobaths. Yours is one of the worst offenders, rising and falling in centralized government countless times throughout the ages, each government lasting only a couple generations. The arrogance of a people to say that they are immune to governmental failure on a massive scale is unsupportable by historical evidence. The normal evolution of a government is Vigilance->Prosperity->Complacency->Power Grabbing->Oppression->Revolution/Reform. The US was designed with this firmly in mind so that such a progression would take as long as possible, because staving off a bloody revolution should be high in the minds of anyone instituting a government if they are honest people who are willing to sacrifice power for longevity of ideals. The "right to bear arms" is one stone in a large wall designed to make it as difficult as possible for the government of the United States to actually get any agenda accomplished, because that "Power Grabbing" stage of government where factions begin vieing for power of a successful economy shepherded by a complacent people is where problems usually start. As I look at the evolution of our respective governments, myself being American, I see your society being much further along the path of complacency then our own, which is why statements from you about the lunacy American Whining can go unchallenged among your peers; I doubt your populace would allow such statements unchallenged shortly after the bloody French revolution when your government underwent its last major reform to avoid massive fighting. In America, we are only beginning to settle into this complacency phase, so of courece we are going to look a bit backwards to you. However, because of the rigorous protections from govenment demanded by the institutors of our country, if I were a gambling man, my money would be on the American government outlasting yours, as our "Whining about rights" tends to slow the progression of governmental expansion and ultimately oppression. I figure we've got a good 75-100 years left in this old ship, and who knows, maybe technilogical advancements will actually change the very way that rulership evolves just as computers have changed the way information flows, but at this moment in history I see no fundamental signs that governance ability is any different than it was 15 years ago during the collapse of a superpower, or 60 years ago during a world empire of fascism. In fact, with modern propaganda, sociology and remote monitoring t

Re:The moon is a liberal myth.

[penguin_strut]

Umm, it's called the Freedom Globe, and it's ours.

--------
Spacemen won't be green. They'll be white...and Republican.

(...so I really WILL need a giant, luminescent keyboard to communicate with them.)

Re:The moon is a liberal myth.

[rsynnott]

Sorry, my government? I'll have you know that we were an almost perfectly stable colony of the British Empire/part of Britain for about 400 years (we had a parliament for about 150 of that, then elected people to Westminster for another 120 years), and transitioned moderately smoothly into self-government. And you were rather arrogant in talking about "my government". I could have been Dutch (Holland has had an elected government and guaranteed rights like freedom of religion since the 1400s)

And normal citizens never, ever had the right to gun ownership here, without good reason. Nor did they in any other European country that I know of. It never occured to anyone that guns were the sort of thing that random maniacs had a right to carry.

And your government seems to be doing a far better job of oppressing both your own and other people right now than any western European power has since WW2. (With the possible exception of France with Algeria in the 60s). We have not gotten complacent about our governments, but you certainly seems to; any mad new oppressive law is justified under "oh, but the terrorists will get us". You accepted USAPATRIOT hardly noticing, Europe's new constitution has effectively failed beucase of lack of public trust (and most of the voting public did apparently have some idea of what they were voting on). Sadly, to an extent, the UK seems to be following you; however, the whole thing is massively unpopular there, (Blair's government was only re-elected because the alternatives were so dreadful, and he lost 200 seats) and people are increasingly unwilling to stand for it.)

You should be whining about losing the rights to privacy and freedom of expression. You should certainly be worried about a place where it seems to be considered blasphemy to be unpatriotic. Here, patriotism is a bizarre aboration; people know the government isn't to be trusted, and they know there's nothing that wonderful about our country. You shouldn't be whining about losing the "right" to carry offensive weapons. And you're seriously expecting the US to be in a state where it requires conscripts to provide their own guns? If a war gets that bad, in our new world, someone will already have used the nuclear option.

Re:The moon is a liberal myth.

[Procyon101]

I knew you weren't Dutch because You said you were Irish in your previous post ;) And I was refering more to the British government rather than the Irish one, because honestly, I don't know my Irish history very well.

In this country, "random maniacs" are labeled felons and their gun rights are removed. The only people who can carry guns are citizens, onto which all law enforcement and militia rights are granted (there is, constitutionally speaking, very little distinction between police, soldier and citizen in rights, as any citizen inherently is a member of all 3).

Yes, the Patriot act swept through congress with hardly a speedbump, but that doesn't mean it wasn't noticed, nor unopposed. It was definately noticed, for even you non-Americans think it a salient point. If you have problems with it across the water, imagine the squirming many of us over here are doing. And don't let the "we didn't know what were were voting on" BS line get to you... that's a lie told by moderate and left leaning congressmen to try to save some face after the fact; they knew exactly what they were voting on. But, the Patriot act mostly gives up rights that most Europeans never possesed in the first place. The rapidity of the investigations into the London bombings in relation to the New York terrorist incident is atributed to law enforcement in England not being constrained by the rules that applied in the US before the Patriot act. In fact, even with the Patriot act, I know for a fact that Dutch law gives much less credence to the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" then the American restrictions.

The "Oh no the terrorists will get us" is pure Mooreish propaganda. That may have been the overwhelming sentiment in late 2001, but most Americans have settled down and are acting pretty rationally. I can sympathise with your dismay at the reelection of Blaire because our choices were just as ghastly.

It is most certainly not blasphemy to be unpatriotic over here. Michael Moore is not only allowed to exist, but his inaccurate and unsupported rants become best sellers! Most Americans, however, are not patriotic towards their government, but rather to their constitution. In America, all congressmen and military men swear oaths to defend the constitution. Almost no oath in America is to defend the government, rather most oaths include the premise to defend the constitution FROM the government.

I disagree greatly with your premise that guns (or armaments in general) would never be needed do to this being the Nuclear age. The Soviet Union had all the means to defend their government by nuclear force, but it would have been idiotic to resort to that option. During a revolution or restructuring of governemt the means of conflict will most certainly be conventional as the powers that be generally want to retain control of something worth controlling. I highly doubt that the US would Nuke Los Angeles.

Anyway, there are great political movements in the US defending all our rights, including the second ammendment. Even if we were to disagree on guns being a good or bad thing, the ignoring of such an article removes a great deal of the sanctity of our constitution, which is really the only thing other than guns themselves that defend our people from an opressive regime.

Re:conceived of != invented (n/t)

[rsynnott]

It was a joke (tho Clarke, in particular, went into a lot of detail on the geostationary satilite.)

Re:The moon is a liberal myth.

[Llewdin]

bah. the 2nd ammendment is a joke nowadays. it held water in the days where a small group of people could do what the colonies did centuries ago. But not now, now it harms more than good. if the government wanted to take us over, its not stupid enough to use force. It's costly and unpopular. It's much cheaper to use hidden policies and law. We're not getting into our 'complacent' years. We're well past those, that was the reagan/clinton era. we're well into the 'power grabbing' end of things. one point one should always keep in mind with anylizing social issues, is that, first and foremost, people are stupid. have been since the days of inception, and will most likely continue to the day we wipe ourselves from existence. people believe what they want to believe, and not necessarily what is true. secondly, people are lazy, the less work they have to do, the better. that includes actually having to do their own trolling for news, or even a few easy keystrokes to get soemthing done (a reason why linux hasnt taken hold of the main consumer market). Finally, people are greedy. We always want more. That, you can apply to anything. Keep that in mind and you're golden. and i still reseve my right in saying that, "Guns are for small dicked, shitheads." you wanna protect yourself, carry a knife. dont be a pussy and pull out your glock.

Poop

[Llewdin]

actually, i wouldn't expect anything from NASA, or any other space agency on this planet, to present anything to the public that would floor them, until they get this 'gravity' thing under control. Once we've got that, you can expect to see insanely cool things (and practical too, for our day to day lives that is). Keep in mind, so far, we know that it exists, and that we're all subject to it. Why matter tends to do that in large clumps? So far, its only theoretical. Mass is a tricky thing. I know someone mentioned rail guns on this thread somewhere, now, i recall a few years back of an experimental launcher for shuttles and other ships, that used the same basic technology. Anyone got any info on that? I totally forgot what it's called..

Solar electric wikipedia link

[UnapprovedThought]

Generally, you do need to "throw stuff out the back." Solar electric merely refers to the fact that solar power is used to energize particles so that they shoot out the back at a very high speed. The extra high speed they shoot out means that you can use a lot less propellant mass in order to provide a bit of forward momentum to the rest of the craft.

This link provides more details.