When you realize you're not reading an "April Fools'" headline... Seriously, this looks like a story you'd see on The Onion, not SienceMag. We live in interesting times, indeed.
Yes, I know that. But if your payload only weighs a few pounds, you don't need much thrust for TLI. You could make a "multi-cube" CubeSat which includes the necessary propulsion and still get a pretty cost-effective ride to the moon.
A "spring" doesn't have to be made of steel. The same function could be served with a gas/piston mechanism, a plastic spring, etc.. You're talking about a minor engineering challenge, not a show-stopper.
Mining isn't a goal of the GLXP, but it is a goal of Moon Express. They are using the GLXP as a "bootstrap" to develop the lander technology. Once the capability is demonstrated, they intend to use it for further exploration. They also intend to sell "rides" to the moon for others.
Landers for the moon are not what I'd call cheap. But for a tiny GoPro, it might be feasible. Packing it into a CubeSat format could make it fairly cheap to launch as well. If the GoPro can withstand a "not-so-soft" landing, it could greatly simplify the design of the lander. Perhaps a spring-loaded "hopping" mechanism could travel 500m in lunar gravity. It still wouldn't be "cheap" by most people's standards, but could well be within reach of a corporate marketing budget.
The GP's notion sounds like a standard "parliamentary" system. How is that going to lead to Balkanization? For that matter, considering how polarized we are in the USA right now, would it really be any worse?
If you're "quite aware" of what they're planning then why do you think DSI wants to sell water as "reaction mass" for a "low performance" propulsion system? That is not what they intend at all. They intend to split the water in to H2 and O2 to use as rocket fuel (btw, H2/LOX is one of the most high performance rocket fuels we know of, at least for chemical rockets).
As for the "huge gap" between planning and reality... what are you talking about? Bigelow has had two modules on orbit for years, functioning perfectly. SpaceX could fly astronauts today if they weren't so picky about waiting for their launch-abort escape system to be ready.
As for your claim that "cheap materials on orbit are more than offset by the costs of assembly and checkout of all the non structural bits".... please provide a citation. There are a lot of very smart, very rich people who seem to disagree with you on that point, many of whom have decades of experience in the business. Pardon me if I take their word for it over yours.
By the time they deliver their first ton of materials to earth orbit (or L2, or whatever), SpaceX will be offering rides to space for less than $10m per seat, and Bigelow will have living quarters and lab space available for rent. The orbital "market" is opening up a lot sooner than you realize.
You need to get out more. Or at least pay more attention to what's actually happening with technological development and industry. Lots of very smart people are building the necessary tech right now.
I would. And with a long waiting list it would seem I'm not alone. By all accounts the Model S is every bit as "up-scale" and luxurious as any BMW or Mercedes. Oh yeah, and then there's that whole 2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year thing... Who in their right mind would want a BMW when they could have a Tesla for the same price?
Back when nobody I knew even HAD a hard drive. PC-Write was a mainstay of the floppy-only era, favored for its light footprint and snappy responsiveness. If I remember right, the executable was around 32kb, which meant it would load off of a 5.25" floppy in just a few seconds.
I remember when "consumer" HDDs hit the market, and a friend of mine saw one in action for the first time. He described its speed in terms of PC-Write: "You know how when you load PC-Write, the disk whirs for a couple of seconds, and then it opens? Well, with a hard disk, you hit 'ENTER' and the hard disk goes 'zzzt!' and then 'pow!' it's loaded. Amazing!"
Considering the current state of "bloatware", one might say we've gone backwards since then. (sigh!) Time to get an SSD...
Baloney! All Obama did was carry through the plan initiated under Bush to retire the shuttle fleet. There were some who wanted to continue flying the shuttles for a few more years, but they were so damned expensive to service they would have chewed up most of the NASA budget, putting other more important projects at risk, such as the JWST.
"Shut down the manned space program"... yeah right, I guess all those ASTRONAUTS are just figments of our imagination then. Hm?
Certainly it's a bit embarrassing to have all those astronauts without any domestically built man-rated vehicles ride, but that won't last for long. In fact, if it weren't for NASA's overabundance of caution, they could fly on Atlas or Delta rockets today, but getting those platforms man-rated is going to take a while. And in the meantime, NASA is spending a lot of money on building the Orion capsule and the SLS rocket. (Sadly this is mostly a waste, since the SLS will almost certainly never get off the ground. Orion may eventually fly, just not on SLS. Both are basically make-work programs to keep taxpayer dollars flowing to a few favored contractors.)
The simple fact is that the shuttles were an experiment in reusability that never really worked as intended. Instead of making spaceflight cheaper and more reliable they did just the opposite, and because they used up so much of the budget, we were basically stuck eternally in LEO as long as we kept using them. It will take a couple of years, but soon we'll have an array of privately built options to choose from -- SpaceX, Sierra Nevada, etc. -- which will be orders of magnitude less expensive than the shuttle. Though inconvenient in the short term, this will end up being a huge advantage in the long run.
Plate tectonics also play a role. Atmosphere gets fixated and precipitated by various geo/biological processes. We wouldn't have much atmosphere either if the Earth's crust weren't getting constantly recycled. Still, the ultimate cause is the same; Mars's core is not active enough.
Yes, that's what I was trying to say. (A customer came into my shop as I was writing that, so I had to cut it short.) A Falcon Heavy (even a reusable one) would have plenty of excess capacity for a standard Dragon capsule. And the same economies of scale and reusability would all still apply in this case. Yes, fuel costs might be $500~600k per launch instead of $200k, but that's still "dirt cheap" for a ride to LEO, especially if you can split that cost between 4~6 passengers.
In any case reusable rockets will be a HUGE game changer.
To be fair, a LEO-to-LEO comparison is probably more apt than GTO-to-GTO capacity. Even so, the Falcon still wins easily, even without being reusable.
The big question-mark is how much the new reusability features will end up costing in terms of performance and payload. If they lose more than about 20% of current capacity on the F9, it probably won't be able to loft a standard Dragon capsule. They'll either have to develop a smaller Dragon or use Falcon Heavy instead.
If you want to build LFTRs, I'm all for it. But I would NOT build another pressurized water plant. That technology has run its course; it's time to move on.
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When you realize you're not reading an "April Fools'" headline... Seriously, this looks like a story you'd see on The Onion, not SienceMag. We live in interesting times, indeed.
Yes, I know that. But if your payload only weighs a few pounds, you don't need much thrust for TLI. You could make a "multi-cube" CubeSat which includes the necessary propulsion and still get a pretty cost-effective ride to the moon.
A "spring" doesn't have to be made of steel. The same function could be served with a gas/piston mechanism, a plastic spring, etc.. You're talking about a minor engineering challenge, not a show-stopper.
Mining isn't a goal of the GLXP, but it is a goal of Moon Express. They are using the GLXP as a "bootstrap" to develop the lander technology. Once the capability is demonstrated, they intend to use it for further exploration. They also intend to sell "rides" to the moon for others.
Landers for the moon are not what I'd call cheap. But for a tiny GoPro, it might be feasible. Packing it into a CubeSat format could make it fairly cheap to launch as well. If the GoPro can withstand a "not-so-soft" landing, it could greatly simplify the design of the lander. Perhaps a spring-loaded "hopping" mechanism could travel 500m in lunar gravity. It still wouldn't be "cheap" by most people's standards, but could well be within reach of a corporate marketing budget.
The past tense of plead is pled or pleaded (both are acceptable). The word "plead" (unlike "lead") only has one pronunciation.
Or as Stephen Colbert famously put it, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias!"
The GP's notion sounds like a standard "parliamentary" system. How is that going to lead to Balkanization? For that matter, considering how polarized we are in the USA right now, would it really be any worse?
If you're "quite aware" of what they're planning then why do you think DSI wants to sell water as "reaction mass" for a "low performance" propulsion system? That is not what they intend at all. They intend to split the water in to H2 and O2 to use as rocket fuel (btw, H2/LOX is one of the most high performance rocket fuels we know of, at least for chemical rockets).
As for the "huge gap" between planning and reality... what are you talking about? Bigelow has had two modules on orbit for years, functioning perfectly. SpaceX could fly astronauts today if they weren't so picky about waiting for their launch-abort escape system to be ready.
As for your claim that "cheap materials on orbit are more than offset by the costs of assembly and checkout of all the non structural bits".... please provide a citation. There are a lot of very smart, very rich people who seem to disagree with you on that point, many of whom have decades of experience in the business. Pardon me if I take their word for it over yours.
By the time they deliver their first ton of materials to earth orbit (or L2, or whatever), SpaceX will be offering rides to space for less than $10m per seat, and Bigelow will have living quarters and lab space available for rent. The orbital "market" is opening up a lot sooner than you realize.
You need to get out more. Or at least pay more attention to what's actually happening with technological development and industry. Lots of very smart people are building the necessary tech right now.
Different market. They're talking about the value of these materials in orbit, not here on earth.
I would. And with a long waiting list it would seem I'm not alone. By all accounts the Model S is every bit as "up-scale" and luxurious as any BMW or Mercedes. Oh yeah, and then there's that whole 2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year thing... Who in their right mind would want a BMW when they could have a Tesla for the same price?
Ditto.
Back when nobody I knew even HAD a hard drive. PC-Write was a mainstay of the floppy-only era, favored for its light footprint and snappy responsiveness. If I remember right, the executable was around 32kb, which meant it would load off of a 5.25" floppy in just a few seconds.
I remember when "consumer" HDDs hit the market, and a friend of mine saw one in action for the first time. He described its speed in terms of PC-Write: "You know how when you load PC-Write, the disk whirs for a couple of seconds, and then it opens? Well, with a hard disk, you hit 'ENTER' and the hard disk goes 'zzzt!' and then 'pow!' it's loaded. Amazing!"
Considering the current state of "bloatware", one might say we've gone backwards since then. (sigh!) Time to get an SSD...
Eventually we'll get back to the moon someday, and who knows what we might find up there?
+1 Pithy and self-evident.
Ramen noodles == "healthy" food?
HAHAHAHA! Hahahahaha!!! Heeheeheee.... [sigh]
You're funny!!
I'll take your VAT as long as it applies equally to stock trades and financial transactions, not just goods and services.
Baloney! All Obama did was carry through the plan initiated under Bush to retire the shuttle fleet. There were some who wanted to continue flying the shuttles for a few more years, but they were so damned expensive to service they would have chewed up most of the NASA budget, putting other more important projects at risk, such as the JWST.
"Shut down the manned space program"... yeah right, I guess all those ASTRONAUTS are just figments of our imagination then. Hm?
Certainly it's a bit embarrassing to have all those astronauts without any domestically built man-rated vehicles ride, but that won't last for long. In fact, if it weren't for NASA's overabundance of caution, they could fly on Atlas or Delta rockets today, but getting those platforms man-rated is going to take a while. And in the meantime, NASA is spending a lot of money on building the Orion capsule and the SLS rocket. (Sadly this is mostly a waste, since the SLS will almost certainly never get off the ground. Orion may eventually fly, just not on SLS. Both are basically make-work programs to keep taxpayer dollars flowing to a few favored contractors.)
The simple fact is that the shuttles were an experiment in reusability that never really worked as intended. Instead of making spaceflight cheaper and more reliable they did just the opposite, and because they used up so much of the budget, we were basically stuck eternally in LEO as long as we kept using them. It will take a couple of years, but soon we'll have an array of privately built options to choose from -- SpaceX, Sierra Nevada, etc. -- which will be orders of magnitude less expensive than the shuttle. Though inconvenient in the short term, this will end up being a huge advantage in the long run.
Plate tectonics also play a role. Atmosphere gets fixated and precipitated by various geo/biological processes. We wouldn't have much atmosphere either if the Earth's crust weren't getting constantly recycled. Still, the ultimate cause is the same; Mars's core is not active enough.
Yes, that's what I was trying to say. (A customer came into my shop as I was writing that, so I had to cut it short.) A Falcon Heavy (even a reusable one) would have plenty of excess capacity for a standard Dragon capsule. And the same economies of scale and reusability would all still apply in this case. Yes, fuel costs might be $500~600k per launch instead of $200k, but that's still "dirt cheap" for a ride to LEO, especially if you can split that cost between 4~6 passengers.
In any case reusable rockets will be a HUGE game changer.
To be fair, a LEO-to-LEO comparison is probably more apt than GTO-to-GTO capacity. Even so, the Falcon still wins easily, even without being reusable.
The big question-mark is how much the new reusability features will end up costing in terms of performance and payload. If they lose more than about 20% of current capacity on the F9, it probably won't be able to loft a standard Dragon capsule. They'll either have to develop a smaller Dragon or use Falcon Heavy instead.
And that 1000-mile cross range capability is useful for space travel... how?
If you want to build LFTRs, I'm all for it. But I would NOT build another pressurized water plant. That technology has run its course; it's time to move on.