In this year that saw the failure of an Orbital Science cargo launch and the disintegration of the Scaled Composites space plane and with the recent triumph/glitch of the Rosetta lander (did touch down - mind boggling but the harpoons designed to anchor is failed to failure and it landed in shade and could not use it’s solar arrays), I recalled the phrase used by the old engineers (Apollo/Gemini/Mercury/Viking Lander) who I worked with. Space is a hard road.
With all the wailing and mourning over the shutdown of the Space Shuttle program, one would have thought that we have entered into the a new and risky world of private companies being given the responsibility for space launches. And, this was a shocking abandonment of responsibility by our government. In fact, a constant of much early science fiction had been privatized space commerce. There was little in the way of assumption that access to space would be controlled by governments, with the exception of military expediency. And space access was, by inference, pretty cheap.
That is in stark contrast to the reality of national space programs that developed from the 1950's and beyond. Opportunities to privatize space access were viewed as non-contributory to strategic national interests. NASA, Europe (Arianespace), the Russians, the Chinese, these were all governmental programs or still are.
In America, after Apollo, NASA had the hubris to believe it could turn manned space operations into a commuter airline based operation. This obviously did not work out. In its desperation to justify the astronomical cost of each Shuttle launch, they managed to get Congress to mandate that all US space launches, including classified military payloads, would be lofted by the Shuttle. And then came Challenger. And then came two successive failed satellite launches. And then came the budget reality that each Shuttle launch was a billion dollars plus (and growing) and that the cost was unsustainable. We were in a bad place and we had painted ourselves into that corner. And we took our first serious steps towards commercializing space launches and the Air Force started their assured access to space program.
Materials Science and Design
While the members of this committee of correspondence are very informed, most folks I talk to do not seem to understand the limitations of material science in this kind of endeavor. Despite decades of evolution and progress in design/manufacturing techniques and in remixing materials to our advantage, getting to space is still is at the ragged edge of our capabilities. It stresses the materials we have available to their limit, forcing compromises in an eternal circle of weight versus margins in safety versus affordability of payload capacity. I had one of the Shuttle’s program managers tell me that the Orbiter was as fragile as a butterfly, compared to the X-15 program he cut his teeth on. (and that’s how many compromises the Orbiter had as a design)
I believe DARPA actually let out a RFP for a material that could be used in a space cable/elevator. I do not think anyone took them up on it, at least yet. Think carbon nanotubes.
Propulsion designs have stagnated, with the Orbital Science failure coming at the hands of a Russian designed engine that appears to have been manufactured in the 60's, then refurbished. They had an identical engine fail in May 2014 at the Stennis Center.
The current version of the venerable Atlas also uses an older Russian designed engine, albeit with newly manufactured copies. To repeat my point, despite the first successful orbital launch in the 1950s, we are still at the ragged edge of success when it comes to getting vehicles and their payloads into space. Think about how far airliner designs and reliability have evolved in the same period of time. That is how much harder getting into orbit is.
Near Term Cheap
I was really pleased to see that Elon Musk was going to start up Space X and that Orbital Science was also going into the launcher business. I was thrilled when Scaled Composites took on the Ansari Prize and won. I was not so pleased that Richard Branson attempted to turn space tourism into a glitzy, risk free business. That hasn't turned out so well, at least yet. Space is ineed a hard road.
Space X, by all accounts, has done some remarkable things in design and manufacturing. They designed their own engines and vehicles. Their costs per launch may be as little as one half of the legacy companies, LockMart and Boeing. And yet they have had engine failures during launches and had a test vehicle fail just this year. To their credit, their design allowed for a catastrophic engine failure on one launch and still left the other engines functioning and got their bird into orbit. Despite all that, there is still no remarkable new material being used in their product. The same is true of Arianespace and their family of vehicles and engines.
Space X is scaring the hell out of it’s competitors. Even Arianspace is has taken notice of their cost structure and is searching for ways to compete on the basis of cost. One wonders how much the Euro community will pay for that effort.
A quick historical note at this point. I worked with former Chrysler engineers (yes, the car company) who had submitted a design for the Saturn 5 that had redundant main engines, in this case in a configuration shaped like a ring. It was unique in that it was forgiving of one or more engine sections being incapacitated during launch. Their design lost out but Space X has taken that thought and has built it into their Falcon launch vehicles. They have had single Merlin engines fail during launch but still got the vehicle to deliver to LEO.
During the last ISS resupply mission Space X attempted to land the primary booster on a floating platform and they got to the platform but crashed. That they got to the platform at all was remarkable and gets them that much closer to a reusable first stage, further driving down the cost. Given their lead in technology, it will be interesting to see if any legacy company can catch up (without massive government funding).
Ultra Cheap
In 1979, Arthur C. Clarke authored a novel about the construction and use of a space elevator (The Fountains of Paradise). He acknowledged the original idea came from one of the all time great futurists, Konstantin Tsilokovsky. In fact, it is hard to find any futurist idea that Tsilokovsy did not think of first.
As fanciful as a space elevator might appear (the ultimate unicorn?), the physics are sound. Apparently some dreamer at DARPA thinks we might not be that far off from the threshold materials. Yes, the whole program is now beyond daunting but the reward is unlimited access to space. The elevator can be made to generate its own electricity and use magnetics to winch up cargo to LEO or geosynch orbit. At that point, just letting it go gets it into orbit. There is some thought that we could start on a serious effort to get the first cable up by 2035.
Ultimately, it would, of course, take the cooperation of most of the nations of Earth to construct something like this and make it a going enterprise. And, that is probably the most single difficult barrier to getting it done. But what a glorious accomplishment it would be!
http://aviationweek.com/space/orbital-drops-aj-26-after-failure-looking-alternate-launcher-iss
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Tsiolkovsky
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountains_of_Paradise
João, I think the point is that this is a very long term project, beyond our current geopolitics.
And, would the US and Europe stand around and let a potential guillotine be built on the earth? If this thing fell along any part of the US and then across to Europe, it would be beyond catastrophic. It would be hard enough to do it without everyone's cooperation. And, if it takes 60 years, what form of geopolitics would exist at the end of that time?
Posted by: BabelFish | 12 January 2015 at 04:22 PM
ISL,lot's of prose written about throwing away the Saturn 5 and/or the F-1 engines. It is a testament to our politics and national leadership that we stopped.
I can tell you this story. When I worked at the Michoud Assembly Facility, we were look at buildings that had not been used for many years. I went into a hanger and there, packaged but recognizable, were 3 ship sets of F-1s. They were destined for Saturn 5s that were never built. I was just goggled eyed.
Posted by: BabelFish | 12 January 2015 at 04:26 PM
You might want to look at the possibility of setting up on the Moon remote-controlled factories that use the regolith to build what is needed.
In particular, the advent of 3D printing makes it possible to remotely manufacture usable items - though perhaps not with much longevity during actual use - on the Moon.
One will use a boot-strap method; first sending a rocket with a very simple building block factory which then would build more elaborate factories.
Sort of like Von Neumann machines with 3D printers mixed in.
Space elevator, like its cousin the Fusion reactor, requires materials with improved properties several orders of magnitude beyond what is currently even conceivable.
Here is something that is doable - if US works with Russia because, in my opinion, without Russia, there can be no possibility of further manned space exploration.
http://sacd.larc.nasa.gov/branches/space-mission-analysis-branch-smab/smab-projects/havoc/
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 12 January 2015 at 04:40 PM
BabelFish,
Thank you for the excellent discussion. I read all of the Clark space elevator novels and loved them. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and the space race was one of the reasons that I eventually became an EE. However, the closest that I ever came to working on space related projects was time spent supporting SDI when I was at Martin Marietta in the 80s.
When I was in college in the 60s, my girlfriend's dad was one of those Chrysler engineers in Huntsville. He was a ME and worked on the Saturn 5 test cell. Those were heady times and I always lamented the abandonment of the Saturn 5 and the switch to the space truck. It was an awesome site to see them launched even in Orlando but I always thought that we could have lifted much more with the older technology.
Do you think that we would have been able to establish and outpost on the moon if we had continued the Saturn program? I have often wondered about that.
Kind regards,
Posted by: Charles Dekle | 12 January 2015 at 04:54 PM
Charles, we are going to have to compare notes, as we were both Martin M. employees at the same time. I left a little while after the merger to LockMart. I got to Orlando in time to be part of the 'We Won the Cold War' mass layoff contest.
Did you know any of the guys working on the Pershing 2? I used to affectionately refer to them as the "Star Geezers". One guy, Rudy, was in his 70's and was terrified of retirement. Loved that guy.
Posted by: BabelFish | 12 January 2015 at 06:33 PM
Babak, I was wondering when someone would mention Von Neumann machines. Man, that would be a very cool thing to see happen.
And, who saw 3D Printing coming when Sci Fi was being invented? The closest thing is the replicator tech from Star Trek.
My hero, Dr. Clarke, proposed using diamond film for a material. I think that came from the last 20XX book.
Posted by: BabelFish | 12 January 2015 at 06:37 PM
It would still rotate once a day, wouldnt it?
Posted by: pbj | 12 January 2015 at 08:04 PM
BabelFish,
Aside from all the minerals precipitating out and around from the superheated water-outflows from black smokers, I wonder if we will someday be able to harvest the heat itself from black smoker water-plumes. If the problems of getting heat-exchanger/harvester pipe and ductwork systems to work at those pressures could be solved, the other biggest problem would be to prevent the near-immediate crusting over of the machines with minerals from the mineral super-rich
black smoker-water itself. The problem of sending electricity to the surface in cables would seem simple by comparison. (Just guessing, of course).
Posted by: different clue | 12 January 2015 at 08:13 PM
The basic idea is to build tool that would be tools that would build tools...
The same way one builds tool that physically scale up or scale down.
You need to put a nuclear reactor on the Moon - and don't let the solar energy guys fool you - there is no other way to supply the required energy.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 12 January 2015 at 08:15 PM
You know very well that thing need be built at the equator line and so it will be built not near Europe or USA or Japan. It will be built at South America or Africa. Africa is too much mess for try build it there, so my personal guess is that it can be built at Amapá or at Maranhão, here at Brazil. But Lima, capital of Equator, will be best choice, no one at Pacific Ocean for be hit if the thing falls and have ports that go directly to China.
When the technology for built it is finally ready (nanotubes, graphene), it will need 15-20 years for complete and not 40 years. China will have enough economic power for try it after the next 20 years. Before 2020 China will be 20% above USA economic base and the diference will grown a lot after 2020.
the Apollo program used 5% of USA total economy and the chinese have experience with big projects like big walls.
With relation to Japan, it is dead economically and the japanese don`t know it. Europe is going for a long recession. And after the shale oil ponzy scheme go bankrupt this year, USA will have a huge depression and unemployment at the last year of Obama's government. And prob the repubs controlling the Congress will help for that economic disaster be bigger, they want win the elections.
But the worse thing is that USA infrastructure (roads, railroads, airports, energy grid, etc) is obsolete and old and soon will start to go in pieces, like some bridges falling. USA need money urgently for rebuild infrastructure and you need a tax rise for it, but it is politically impossible. While that the chinese are building the Nicaragua's channel that will make Panama useless and the "silk railroad" that will make chinese exports arrive at Europe 40% faster and cheaper. And not forget the US government debt, currently above 18 trillion, that is a time bomb ready for explode, while US government waste money at a futile military campaign at that stan that made URSS go bankrupt.
The next 20 years will be very bad for the Western powers. The pendulum is moving strongly to the East. The chinese are building the infrastructure for world economic domination while USA is sleeping or wasting money at useless wars.
And all the fuss about Ukraine is only helping China, that now will have Russia gas and oil. And soon, Russia money transactions will use yuan and not dollars because Russia will try to evade future economic retalations, making the chinese happier. So, how much time for the chinese too have access to the russian atlas rockets? If USA continue to make pressure, it will be soon.
I don`t see any hope for the governments of USA, Europe or Japan go help that orbital elevator project, because they will have no money for it. That will only happen if chinese show any goodwill, but the price will be high.
The only country we see trying to make a manned land in Moon, currently, is China. It is because they have money for try it. They will have enough money at 2030 for build the orbital elevator.
Posted by: João Carlos | 13 January 2015 at 08:52 AM
João, I have been reading about the economic destruction of the United States for almost all my adult life. I almost stopped reading Sci Fi written by British authors because they seemed to invariably included the destruction of the US as part of their plot.
I think your read of the physics of this device falling back to earth is too simple. It would be a very dynamic event beyond our ability to predict what actually would happen (depending on how it happened. Yes, it is best if it is built near the equator but not mandatory.
Manned landing on the moon? We have a national t-shirt that says "Been There, Done That, Remember Most Of It".
Posted by: BabelFish | 13 January 2015 at 09:32 AM
lack of leadership. Sigghhh.
When I first saw that the NASA ER2 (civilian U2) uses toggle switches from the 1960s, I was amazed. But then again, KISS is excellent advice when someone's butt is on the line. As with the F-35 - when politics over-rides science and engineering we become our own worst enemy.
Posted by: ISL | 13 January 2015 at 12:51 PM
The Space Elevator and possible solutions for our energy needs might be a little closer than we think.
ALexander Franklin Mayer has recently released a 360 odd slide scholarly presentation on a subtle modification to the Theory of relativity which has profound implications if it is accepted. The link is below.
Please note that Mayer is not some "vacuum energy" crackpot, but has been working diligently on this matter for at least Six years. I have early drafts of his book.
http://www.sensibleuniverse.net/
Posted by: Walrus | 13 January 2015 at 01:43 PM
Thanks, we will have to wait and see.
That the Sloan results are inconsistent with the Inflationary Big Bang does not surprise me; the age of Globular Clusters, and indeed the age of the Earth seems to be likewise. And then there are all those anomalous red shifts that Arp had documented decades ago.
But historically, no modification of SR has survived - or any alternatives thereto.
Personally, I think that whole geometric approach to physics - a Platonic prejudice - has been an abject failure.
Just look at nuclear theory - where all that gauge theory machinery cannot help compute a damn thing.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 13 January 2015 at 02:38 PM
I honestly think, at times, that the Air Force should be removed from their own procurement programs. The F-22 and F-35 are both testaments to about the worse program management imaginable.
Of course, the Navy did not do much better with the A-12. I mean, when Dick Cheney recommends a major program be canceled, you know it had to be bad.
I imagine that, like the F-111, the F-35 will eventually be a useful asset and never, ever be close to worth what was spent on it.
Posted by: BabelFish | 13 January 2015 at 03:08 PM
BabelFish,
Wow it is a small world. I was at the Martin Sand Lake Road plant from 1984 until 1994. Since we had won the cold war they laid me off in 1994. That wasn't such a bad thing as I started my teaching career at Valencia Community College. Later that year my wife who was working for the Navy at NTC, Orlando was offered the chance to move to Sicily so we left Orlando and have not been back. For the next ten years I played the role of itinerant teacher as I followed her career from Sicily, to Key West, to Germany, and then to here (northern Virginia) in 2003. Of course that meant I had to find a real job so I went back to work and just retired in 2012.
I worked with some of the old Pershing 1 and 2 guys. Some of them were real rocket scientists. The name Rudy does ring a bell but it has been over twenty years. One guy in particular was a great digital engineer. His name was Tom. If we ever meet in person, I would like to swap stories. As all good Dilberts do I have some interesting tales about the quirks of my fellow engineers. I remember them with affection but quirky does not even begin to describe them.
Most of my time was spent as an ATE Design Engineer and most of that was on TADS/PNVS. I did work on SLAT, aka SPLAT, and Brilliant Pebbles. Once when I was at Army Depot, Tobyhanna a few years ago the director told me that some to the Test Program Sets that I helped develop were still there. Of course now the entire TADS Electronic Unit could be instantiated on a single board computer. In my day it was big black box in the starboard electronics bay. Now that I am retired, I tell people that I am well past my use by date. :-)
I know that electronic design is orders of magnitude more advanced now, however I wonder if the new EEs could bias a transistor if needed. Sigh...
Regards,
Posted by: Charles Dekle | 13 January 2015 at 05:05 PM
That would be fun, Charles. In Orlando, I did Labor/Employee Relations, Project HR and Safety at Martin and LockMart. Supported the F-14 IRST move from Utica, NY to Orlando, ADATS and TARP. Also worked on some site selection stuff and setting up the 'rack and stack' facility in Americus, GA.
Posted by: BabelFish | 15 January 2015 at 10:52 AM