Simplify things by using non-cryogenic propellants like High Test Peroxide (HTP) and Kerosene. Reduced ISP (a measure of thrust) is partially compentsated for by reduced equipment requirements, and the rockets are cheaper to build, or so the theory goes.
Hooray for that! Great series of books, by the way. Well, maybe it got drug out a little, but what the heck? At least there aren't a bunch of songs in Elvish...
But Flynn's idea of the Planck (his name for the SSTO craft) is on the drawing boards of several aerospace engineering companies. It's based on the DC-X (Delta Clipper) series, which, immediately after proving its feasability, had an accident. Politics scrubbed the program. The accident in question? One of the landing struts failed after a test flight (unmanned) and the thing tipped over and blew up. They scrubbed the program instead of rebuilding with a better strut.
You might not be right when you say that the dream will never come true, but it's going to be a long time coming.
The book you refer to is the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars). Having the elevator cable come down didn't destroy the planet, but the author goes into pretty great detail about what happens. It's not pretty.
On the upside, in the book, a lot of the carbon nanotubes turned to diamonds, so there was a planet-wrapping trench (canyon) that was peppered with diamond fragments.:^)
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Simplify things by using non-cryogenic propellants like High Test Peroxide (HTP) and Kerosene. Reduced ISP (a measure of thrust) is partially compentsated for by reduced equipment requirements, and the rockets are cheaper to build, or so the theory goes.
Hooray for that! Great series of books, by the way. Well, maybe it got drug out a little, but what the heck? At least there aren't a bunch of songs in Elvish...
But Flynn's idea of the Planck (his name for the SSTO craft) is on the drawing boards of several aerospace engineering companies. It's based on the DC-X (Delta Clipper) series, which, immediately after proving its feasability, had an accident. Politics scrubbed the program. The accident in question? One of the landing struts failed after a test flight (unmanned) and the thing tipped over and blew up. They scrubbed the program instead of rebuilding with a better strut.
You might not be right when you say that the dream will never come true, but it's going to be a long time coming.
The book you refer to is the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars). Having the elevator cable come down didn't destroy the planet, but the author goes into pretty great detail about what happens. It's not pretty.
:^)
On the upside, in the book, a lot of the carbon nanotubes turned to diamonds, so there was a planet-wrapping trench (canyon) that was peppered with diamond fragments.
Maybe it IS real. Right now. And maybe this discovery is just someone who's found the .history file for root and they think it's all new...
--JD