Posted on 09/09/2005 5:26:35 AM PDT by nuke rocketeer
In the past month, we have been blessed with numerous leaks from NASA of various study documents relating to the new boosters that will be needed to carry out the new manned moon program. I've been monitoring the large volume of Web chatter about these plans, and have noticed a disturbing theme therein. Many Space Cadets are expressing dissatisfaction with these leaked NASA plans. They say that the Shuttle-derived boosters are too primitive, too expensive to develop, too expensive to operate, and not inspiring enough. They can't understand why we will be returning to the Moon with rockets and space capsules that look like minor variations of those used in the Apollo program 40 years ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at spacedaily.com ...
10K isn't THAT rarefied. Even if you mean miles.
Rail gun, pshaw. I wanna see a giant coil spring compressed and go SPROI-OI-OI-OING up a tube.
Distance is also a shield.
Once you get to Low Earth Orbit via conventional means, you can hook up to a nuke power section via tether (we can make long and very strong strings these days) and have it pull you to Mars orbit via high-efficiency ion drive
It has been determined that the first man made object to truly leave the earth's bounds was a man hole cover from a nuclear test detonation tunnel. High speed imagery was used to calculate velocity.
Most of our satelites are well below 10,000 miles up. Care to reconsider?
The world's longest extension cord, huh. Someone oughtta do the math for how heavy it would need to be in order to carry the requisite current... shoot, even to support itself against high atmospheric winds.
Nope, A HUGE thick hemisphere of steel with a crew compartment on top and injection ports to squirt a hydrogen bomb under it to detonate a few microseconds later. See this site
http://www.islandone.org/Propulsion/ProjectOrion.html
Not if you use the best fat-nucleus element available - the nuclear fuel itself. Design a ship whose uranium or plutonium can double as shielding. There will need to be some additional shielding against radiation from the fuel itself, but that's minimal.
Why don't I have to duck those pesky things while on the Albuquerque Tramway?
If you brought together a layer of fissionable uranium heavy enough to stop the radiation of some presumably localized reaction, the shield would itself be well over criticality and so couldn't even be built. Plutonium? Same thing, except it's also a devil of a material to deal with structurally (goes through something like five phases in the solid state depending on temperature).
Tunnels have been dynamited and bored for roadways much further than 2 miles.
We're still stuck using Chemistry.
Hyrdogen and Oxygen burn fast. Controlled-explosion gets you off the ground. Gliding, friction and parachutes get you back.
A little improvement in technology gets you a little better rocket ship. But you're still stuck using the Chemistry of Hydrogen and Oxygen (and the various solid fuel-based ways of storing the two elements to get a controlled explosion later.)
Nuclear doesn't sound like the next wave except for deep space exploration satellites. Plasma engines give you a good boost in deep space over a long period of time but it doesn't get you off the ground or the moon or Mars.
Until we get a new form of Energy (not based on Chemistry or dangerous Nuclear), we're stuck doing what we're doing now. Slightly better crafts as slight technology improvements come on stream.
New physics, anti-gravity, something else is needed to make the next step.
I read an article in Discover a few months ago about space elevator plans. Very compelling if we can overcome materials restrictions. Once we get out of the Earth's Gravity well moving around gets a lot cheaper.
The climb-up-a-ribbon stuff?
Chewing down the middle of an equatorial mountain would require the same thing.
No. It would require digging and building up to create the required exit angle. An angle that could be much less at 20,000 ft than at sea level. But not anything close to trying to dig that deep. The pressure and heat would not be anything like 5 miles deep. You sure are argumentative about a simple concept.
The biggest hurdles for that approach have to do with the fact that any ground-based boost method will induce high accelerations; and after that, the payload ends up having to go very fast in thick atmosphere.
The only way to handle the first problem is by adding length to your booster system. You'd have to handle the second by adding sheilding (heavy!), or somehow keep the atmosphere in the launch system at low density.
There is potentially a lot of merit in developing an air launch capability, although that's got to deal with other issues.
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