NASA Studying Solar Powered "Space Tugboat"

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NASA Studying Solar Powered "Space Tugboat"

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 1, 2012 @08:57AM from the Teddy-the-space-tugboat dept.

Zothecula writes "Last year, NASA announced it was seeking proposals for mission concept studies of a high-power solar electric propulsion (SEP) system that could be used in a 'space tugboat.' Such a ship would be used to ferry payloads in low Earth orbit (LEO) into higher energy orbits, including geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) and Lagrange point one (L1) — saving on fuel and the use of expensive secondary boosters. NASA also anticipates an SEP system could be used to propel spacecraft into deep space for science missions and for the placement, service, resupply, repositioning and salvaging of space assets by commercial operators."

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Sigh by ShooterNeo · 2012-02-01 09:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

Welcome to the 1970s? Solar panels + some kind of high ISP, extremely low thrust engine (used to be ion engines but apparently casamir effect thrusters are much better) have been planned ever since.
The problem is really simple. It's cheap to study a potential space travel mechanism on paper. But you cannot make any real progress unless real hardware is built and tested in space. And that costs a fortune, because a kilogram in space costs about $10,000 to get it there. Not to mention costs other than money, such as time and launch windows and delays and so forth.
SO...a rational person at NASA, if the organization was not at the mercy of Congress for every project, would dedicate ALL of their budget to getting that $10k/kilogram cost down to something affordable. Even if this took a large up-front investment to solve this problem.
1. Re:Sigh by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 09:07 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Obviously Gingrich had this in mind when he proposed setting up a permanent base on the moon by 2020 and making it the 51st state. The guys a frickin' genius. I propose calling this type of propulsion a Newt drive.
2. Re:Sigh by rtb61 · 2012-02-01 09:30 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Might be smarter to attempt to 'surf' the planet's electromagnetic field.
  
  --
  Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
3. Re:Sigh by ShooterNeo · 2012-02-01 09:41 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  SpaceX has spent less money to get actual rockets to orbit than NASA spent to build a launchpad. Perhaps privatization isn't always better, but apparently in some cases it works incredibly well. Privatizing something is a bad thing, I think, when you are essentially having government give a private entity a natural monopoly. Hence, privatizing the power grid, etc.
4. Re:Sigh by AnotherBlackHat · 2012-02-01 09:45 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Ion thrusters have a distinct advantage over Casimir effect thrusters in that the former actually exist.
  For LEO to HEO I think tether propulsion is a far better candidate.
5. Re:Sigh by Intrepid+imaginaut · 2012-02-01 10:04 · Score: 2
  
  Have we not actually found a material that enables the construction of a space elevator in graphene though, which would reduce the costs to orbit to a tiny fraction of what they were previously? Yes spinning it out to the correct length is a serious engineering challenge, but its not physically impossible. And for the record, I was one of the greatest sceptics of space elevators until I heard about graphene.
6. Re:Sigh by Grishnakh · 2012-02-01 10:54 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The problem with reducing launch costs is there's only a couple ways to really do that. One is to improve existing rocket tech and costs, the way SpaceX and others are doing with privatization. That might help some, but you're not going to get order-of-magnitude or better improvements out of that approach, because the laws of physics and the cost of fuel put big limits on just how cheap you can make launching that way.
  The second way is to build a space elevator. Of course, we're still in the phase where people are laughing about it instead of doing it, because the idea seems too far-fetched for morons^H^H^H^H^Hlaypeople, and also because it relies on a material that's extremely new and not yet proven in industrial applications. Even with graphene or carbon nanotubes or whatever, the initial cost will still be extremely high, and you know how short-sighted humans are with economics (they'd rather pay much more over a long term than pay a big up-front cost and spend less over a long term; that's why they get loans for everything and buy subsidized cellphones).
  Another way is to follow Newt's idea and build a moon base. (I can't believe I'm defending Newt here; the guy is a scumbag, but just like a stopped clock is correct twice a day, he's right about the moonbase, though I have no idea how he proposes to pay for it since he, like every other non-Paul Republican, wants to maintain giant military expenditures and start a war with Iran to boot.) With a moon base in place that has manufacturing facilities, researchers on Earth would be able to send stuff to their colleagues on the moon base to be manufactured and tested either on-site or in space. The launch cost for anything from the lunar surface would be dirt cheap compared to here, because of 1/6g gravity. Of course, that's only once you have the base in place and fully stocked with equipment, and able to mine and refine materials and energy or fuel from the lunar surface. Getting to that point will probably cost a lot more than building the space elevator (just guessing), but it can be done with present technology mostly, and would have some other additional benefits as far as providing us experience in sustaining human life off-world.
7. Re:Sigh by hairyfeet · 2012-02-01 11:44 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I thought the Russians solved this problem with their Hall Effect Thrusters which they have been using in space since the early 70s? So there you have it, its proven mature tech that has been used in space and i'm sure the Russians have most if not all the bugs worked out. hell we buy many of our rocket engines from them anyway, not to mention hitch rides with them, i'm sure we can buy some HETs that will be suitable for purpose.
  The really great thing about this idea IMHO is how much money we could save if we turned the ISS into basically a "space fixit shop" so that the next time Hubble or some majorly expensive sat starts malfunctioning we could have the space tug pull it up to the ISS where they could work on it instead of trying to go out to where it is and work on it there. Hell when not pulling sats maybe we can tie some sort of net or sticky material to try to clean up the massive amount of floating debris we have out there right now, making it better all around for our sats and ships.
  . I'd just like to say if any NASA guys are reading this I really like the new direction you've taken. Instead of wasting tons of money on meatbags in space between the probes and ideas like this it looks like you guys are back to being the goto guys for hard science and that's just great. We probably learn more real facts from a single one of your probes than a dozen LEO trips at a hell of a lot less cost and ideas like this just shows you can still come up with some really cool ideas without them involving meatbags in space. I just hope you guys get the funding for this because the amount we could save long term if we could repair sats easily from the ISS would make this worth every penny IMHO.
  
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  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
8. Re:Sigh by LifesABeach · 2012-02-01 11:48 · Score: 2
  
  Well, it sure beats what NASA is doing now, which is watching re-runs of what NASA use to do. The side benefit is that it might be possible to push a spent satellite that's still useable into an location where it can be repaired, and sent back to work. How about space junk retrieval? Spare parts from the space junk might not be pretty, but if they're working, why not use them?
9. Re:Sigh by khallow · 2012-02-01 13:35 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Unfortunately, the teabagger types seem to think that "government = bad, corporation = good"
  Careful, your insipid bigotry is showing.
  
  so they want to privatize everything regardless if there's any competition at all.
  If only there were evidence for this assertion. Demonizing political opposition is a favorite past time on Slashdot, but it rarely hits the mark. But as it turns out, there are a lot of perils in privatization.
  
  Failures of privatization can sometimes be traced to a market that naturally lacks competition, such as the electricity grid, but more common causes of failure are forced actions, artificial scarcity and abundance, or rent seeking.
  
  For example, California attempted to deregulate its electricity industry, but the three main providers had the option to deregulate or not (that means here that they had a choice between fixed rate and a floating rate for consumers which started lower, but actually exposed them to the cost of the electricity they were buying). Only one of them had made the switch by the time that the California electricity crisis happened and the other two were prevented from doing so.
  
  The three primary negative effects were: rolling blackouts which had a modest effect on California residents and industry, a huge distortion in generator-provided electricity prices in and around California which resulted in regional energy intensive businesses such as aluminum smelters in Washington state and copper mines in New Mexico shutting down, and the depletion of capital of the three big Californian electricity providers which resulted in one bankruptcy and another coming very close to bankruptcy.
  
  This all got fixed by first, allowing electricity providers to set up long term contracts for peak electricity rather than forcing them to buy all that power on the spot market, and second, by exposing electricity consumers to the actual cost of their electricity. Thus, we have here both forced actions (required to buy peak electricity on spot market) and artificial abundance (consumers not paying the cost of their electricity). It's also worth noting that California had blocked virtually all new power plant construction for about a decade (artificial scarcity of power generation capability) which contributed to the problem greatly.
  
  The Russian attempt to privatize its oil industry (a policy which it has done much to reverse, I gather) provides an excellent example of rent-seeking. The "oligarchs", a collection of well-positioned businessmen, politicians, and/or crime lords bought assets for a fraction of their cost and made vast amounts of wealth almost instantly. If those assets had been sold by open auction, Russia would have gotten a lot more money for them, the local industry would have been more competitive and probably vigorous, and there wouldn't be subsequent moves to seize and redistribute these assets to a new set of cronies.
  
  So in summary, it's worth noting that privatization at any cost routinely results in remarkable failures. I think in general it's a good idea to privatize most government functions, but it's worth remembering that such a process is very easy to break and/or corrupt.
10. Re:Sigh by Jeremi · 2012-02-01 16:56 · Score: 2
  
  How about a tension-leg platform that is made to be lighter than air by large rigid balloons that contain a vacuum?
  That way no unobtainium is needed
  Except for the unobtanium that you'll be constructing the balloons out of.
  
  --
  
  I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
11. Re:Sigh by khallow · 2012-02-01 17:29 · Score: 2
  
  large rigid balloons that contain a vacuum
  This is a very hard design requirement. You'd be better off with hydrogen filled balloons that have a lot less structure to them. And even with perfect unobtainium balloons, you'll only float to about 100-150km, the limits of the buoyant part of the atmosphere. As another poster noted, you need to get past 36,000 km. That's not going to happen even with magic balloons.
12. Re:Sigh by Zorpheus · 2012-02-01 21:12 · Score: 2
  
  Why are you so negative about reducing the cost of transfers to GEO?
  The same Atlas V can transport about 5 times as much to LEO as it can transport to GEO. A space tug could transport a satellite from LEO to GEO. The cost for this is mostly in bringing the tugboat into space. Since the ion drive needs only small amounts of propellant the running cost is pretty low.
  The tugboat reduces the cost of a transport to GEO to the cost for LEO (which is just 1/5th) plus the cost for the tug. This can save a lot of money, no matter what launch system is used.
In Another Newsflash by NEDHead · 2012-02-01 09:24 · Score: 2, Funny

Dr. Einstein - a german patent clerk - has declared a galactic speed limit. It is estimated that this limit will extend our whale oil supplies well into the next decade.
Technical Question by NEDHead · 2012-02-01 09:26 · Score: 5, Funny

How will this work at night?
Re:Electricity source by Darth+Snowshoe · 2012-02-01 09:34 · Score: 4, Informative

The sterling engine work that NASA is doing is to make the RTGs more efficient - this is not for propulsion but for providing power to other systems on the spacecraft (avionics, transceiver, instruments). Part of the motivation is to reduce weight, or to get more power for the same amount of weight. The other issue is that the isotopes which are commonly used for RTGs were byproducts of nuclear weapon production, hence, have not been produced (in America, at least) for decades.
maybe invent a by FudRucker · 2012-02-01 09:39 · Score: 4, Interesting

solar powered sanitation satellite that just robotically collects debris in orbit, and when its payload is full it commits suicide by diving in to the atmosphere over the pacific ocean so what does not burn up on entry falls harmlessly in to the sea

--
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
1. Re:maybe invent a by Detritusher · 2012-02-01 09:47 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  No need to commit suicide, just tow junk down into an unstable low orbit, leave the junk there, and then it's thrusters to boost back into a higher orbit and collect more.
2. Re:maybe invent a by jpmorgan · 2012-02-01 13:36 · Score: 2
  
  Reasonable engineering certainly does not.
3. Re:maybe invent a by TheTurtlesMoves · 2012-02-01 20:58 · Score: 2
  
  It is easier to send it into interstellar space. Which is *not* easy.
  
  --
  The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
4. Re:maybe invent a by Sinn3d · 2012-02-01 22:21 · Score: 2
  
  Nah, fire it at the moon, so when Newt gets there he can use it to build a shelter ;)
Yes! by Intrepid+imaginaut · 2012-02-01 10:01 · Score: 4, Interesting

This is exactly the kind of basic space infrastructure NASA should be working on. Space tugboats, construction vehicles, mining drones and assayers, cargo haulers, all the simple stuff that makes a civilisation run smoothly. We need to walk before we run, and that means mastering the basic techniques of constructing and operating these types of vehicles long before any thought is given to colonising the moon or Mars.
Casamir effect thrusters? by buback · 2012-02-01 10:26 · Score: 4, Informative

Do you mean VaSIMR?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_Specific_Impulse_Magnetoplasma_Rocket
Or Hall Effect Thrusters?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall_effect_thruster
And Ion Thrusters of various types have been used as primary propulsion n space successfully ever since Deep Space 1. They've been used for satellite orientation and station keeping for decades. They are vastly more efficient than chemical thrusters, reducing the amount of propellant you need to carry, and therefore reducing launch costs.
Re:A tugboat by Glonoinha · 2012-02-01 13:33 · Score: 2

It'd be a good place to listen to Rasta dub music, mon. Not to mention the occasional need to move stuff around Freeside.

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Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer