Posted on 01/30/2007 3:56:18 PM PST by cabojoe
I wonder what the "loss in lift capacity" cost is compared to the "loss of satellite cost" insurance if they could add some sort of Apollo's/Mercury's emergency ejection rocket to the nose.
Seems you could recover the payload (if it were kept dry on landing by a shroud) by an emergency jettison rocket.
Nah.
Projectile's fine. It done went where the energy sent it.
Rocket engine was a tad busted though. Maybe they can repair it ?????
Atmospheric losses at these velocities are astronomical. Even solid iron meteorites at these speeds melt, evaporate and fracture in dense air. And to push the remnants of your projectile into low orbit, you'd have to shoot it not at 8km/sec but more like at 15.
Imagine launching the ISS, 20kg at a time. That is only good for things like raw materials for space maunfacturing. And then, we'll probably see something like that on the moon.
The Odyssey platform's going to be a mess. I think it's going to be a while before they launch again.
That's $90 Million worth of ex-Soviet rocket fireworks (not counting the value of the payload).
You should study the work the EMSL group, a loosely knit network of aerospace ENGINEERS did 20 years ago during the Star Wars/SDI salad days. They had it ALL worked out : nose cone angle of no less than 8 degrees, lithium pore nose(or cast-in Li beads)for ablation losses in the troposphere and thru the tropopause, min weight of 10 kg(max of 1500 kg).
Exit angles anywhere from 15 deg elevation to 90 deg(small on-board rocket to give side thrust once in orbit). Payload : mostly WATER(cryogenically frozen = super HARD). Water for drinking, hydroponics, steam engines, solar flare shields, hydrolysis for H2/O2 fuel cells....
They tested out all the components that would go into an EMSL projectile at up to 150,000 gees, only failure was a delicate clock. They looked at railguns, homopolar generators, ultracapacitors(the ones available then)but the BEST idea was the quenched superconducting ring-cannon.
So, these EXPERTS had it ALL figured out, even back then. Then the VESTED INTERESTS boys at NASA said : Uh OH, there goes our $20,000/# to LEO MONEY that we make on the shuttle with horribly inefficient rockets....So EMSL got quietly forgotten about.
The love of MONEY is the root of all evil. Google ElectroMagnetic Space Launch, LEARN, then get back to us, better educated...
The EM railgun was first proposed for a lunar launch site, even before the Apollo program. See my post to GSlob.
The Zenit rocket has a checkered history. It had looked like SeaLaunch had worked out the bugs and has had a rather impressive string of successes, but maybe the Russian/Ukrainian quality control slipped a bit on this one.
Zenit -- the Quality Goes IN before the Name Goes On.
I do not understand why it was not pursued.
Politics probably.
The rocket meisters just had too much to lose.
WHAT HAPPEN?
BIG BOOM.
Did you know that galiLEO thought of it first : shooting cannon balls into LEO? Cannons were around in his day. He studied parabolic projectile arcs with ink-covered balls on a flat, sloped table with paper on it, and a sort of pinball machine spring-shooter.
There were no reliable clocks then so he timed things by his PULSE. Amazing isn't it? Such crude beginnings and yet he could dream of shooting cannon balls into space, IF only he had a big enough cannon.....
Now, 3 centuries later, we DO, the superconducting railgun. So sad, we knew how to do it TWENTY YEARS AGO, as a spin-off idea of the space based KKV(Kinetic Kill Vehicle). Why not do it on the GROUND? I remember Cap Weinberger(DEFSEC)having real trouble pronouncing Kinetic Kill Vehicle : conneticut...kinicktic....in a congressional hearing on star wars....
So, if YOU(NASA)were making $20,000/# to LEO with the shuttle to do 40 cents of work, wouldn't YOU try to smother the EMSL baby in the cradle? OF COURSE you would! It isn't "conquering the high frontier" that's important, numero uno is the BANK ACCOUNT!!!
Anyway, google ElectroMagnetic Space Launch, there may still be some info that NASA hasn't erased from 20 years ago....As I said then and I'll say it now : the only TRUE path to space is ELECTROMAGNETISM, the Coulomb FORCE. And may the FORCE be with you....
And so all those EXPERTS went off and designed a 500 mpg carburetor, and those bastard oil companies.....
Well, no. There are plenty of technical barriers that can explain why it hasn't gone anywhere.
bump ... interesting idea.
Years ago, during an Apollo moon shot, Jules Bergman had Arthur Clarke on the TV show as a guest. AC, smiling, started to say that mass in LEO was worth mere pennies per pound, and JB cut him off like a MEAT CLEAVER. That's a taboo subject at NASA. What business ever funds its COMPETITOR?
Thus EMSL could have been shooting projectiles into LEO for the past 20 years, the FREIGHT to LEO at 150,000g's whereas the PASSENGERS go to LEO at 3g's in the shuttle. But money TALKS($20,000/#)and BS walks. The love of MONEY is the root of all evil, even in STS.
So, rocket failure after rocket failure, but who cares?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.