space technology

[bemanos]

sad story rockets rockets capsules more capsules ... by the time that humans started visiting space almost nothing have changed in space tech . even in 2020 orion(manned mission to moon) its going to be a capsule and the same system like appollo is going to be used. why there are no advancements in this area? is there something that stopping us to develpo new methods of going into space? (i heard that they made a laser propulsion system nice news)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAdj6vpYppA

 

[Ozymandyus]

We have plenty of ideas for future space technology, but all of them are currently economically unfeasible. The space shuttle, while a really nifty piece of machinery, was just not a very good or efficient way of getting stuff into space.

I would have you remember, though, that even though the rockets and capsules that we will be using for the foreseeable future when the orion program gets going are much more advanced than 60s rockets in many ways. But sadly methods of transportation are not easily innovated - Cars have been basically the same for 80 years.

In time we will innovate, when space exploration becomes more important to us, but for now we are focusing most of our innovation and on electronics and software, I would say. This will help us improve current and future aerospace tech, so don't fret too much. But I don't we will see major innovation in space travel for another few decades.

 

[scalyblue]

Didn't we have an ion drive functioning out there?

Aside from that, there are very few ways to generate the energy needed to obtain escape velocity, and even fewer that are economically viable.

 

[DeHerg]

Didn't we have an ion drive functioning out there?

we have one(actually multiple Concepts) but its Thrust/Engineweight-Ratio is way to Small to get into Orbit. If we had no Atmosphere an could glide without Resistance over the Ground, then that would be an Option.

My Idea(well not exactly my Idea since other People probably had that Idea too) of an less Energy consuming Start to Orbit would be:
1. a horizontal Acceleration on a Maglev train
2. (if enough Compression is reached) liftoff and gaining hight with a Ramjet(at higher altitude and speed Scramjet)
3. (when the Atmosphere gets to thin to operate the Scramjet) use of a conventional Rocket Drive

 

[MRaverz]

When is that damn moon base going to get built?

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Didn't we have an ion drive functioning out there?

An ionic engin althogh extremely efficient it has almost no power (it generaly a curse of machins or you have efficiency or you have power) and so it is basically only used if at all on intra planetary voyages..
But the technology is not likely to change, in free space Newton rules, the only way to acelerate anything is to throw mass on the oposite direction and there isn't much mass in the void. There are also solar sales but their power is negligent.

we have one(actually multiple Concepts) but its Thrust/Engineweight-Ratio is way to Small to get into Orbit. If we had no Atmosphere an could glide without Resistance over the Ground, then that would be an Option.

My Idea(well not exactly my Idea since other People probably had that Idea too) of an less Energy consuming Start to Orbit would be:
1. a horizontal Acceleration on a Maglev train
2. (if enough Compression is reached) liftoff and gaining hight with a Ramjet(at higher altitude and speed Scramjet)
3. (when the Atmosphere gets to thin to operate the Scramjet) use of a conventional Rocket Drive

Not a good idea to carry lots of different engines, they take to much mass that could have been used as fuel storage.
Maglev train... not going to happen.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

When is that damn moon base going to get built?

I am a bit sckeptical about the utility of a moon base. It is good to setle antenas, but other then that it is a waste of ressources, it is just a dead rock.

 

[Ozymandyus]

We had a really long slightly offtopic discussion about alternative launch methods a while back. I think a lot of people liked the space elevator approach... oh here we go, pages 2,3,4 deal with space elevators and maglev launches a bit.
http://forums.leagueofreason.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=680

 

[DeHerg]

My Idea(well not exactly my Idea since other People probably had that Idea too) of an less Energy consuming Start to Orbit would be:
1. a horizontal Acceleration on a Maglev train
2. (if enough Compression is reached) liftoff and gaining hight with a Ramjet(at higher altitude and speed Scramjet)
3. (when the Atmosphere gets to thin to operate the Scramjet) use of a conventional Rocket Drive

Not a good idea to carry lots of different engines, they take to much mass that could have been used as fuel storage.

not if you manage to combine those Engines into two(make the Ramjet a Scramjet if you eject a Part of the Nozzle) or even one(if you manage to refit the bottom end into a thrust Chamber(here of cource you get to the Limits of your Material and mechanic Parts) and get rid of the Inlet)

Maglev train... not going to happen.

why?

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

not if you manage to combine those Engines into two(make the Ramjet a Scramjet if you eject a Part of the Nozzle) or even one(if you manage to refit the bottom end into a thrust Chamber(here of cource you get to the Limits of your Material and mechanic Parts) and get rid of the Inlet)

If you are capable of doing that then I would reconsider, however if you do that it would still be heavier then a regular rocket. It would be much more cheaper to use the kind of engines that we have, get into orbit and dump what you don't need.

Maglev train... not going to happen.

why?

Because if you go for option one which is to launch stuff with excape from the ground, launching anything that fast under an atmosphere will be inevitably met with incandescent fail.
If you go for option two which is elevtator, then you are not going very far, it is already hard to have a few hundred meters of the ground solid enough not to break like tooth picks in the wind (and they are extremely low) getting material strong enough to handle structure big enough to put anything into space would be impossible. Even if you build it out of a titanium block you will not get very far.

 

[DeHerg]

not if you manage to combine those Engines into two(make the Ramjet a Scramjet if you eject a Part of the Nozzle) or even one(if you manage to refit the bottom end into a thrust Chamber(here of cource you get to the Limits of your Material and mechanic Parts) and get rid of the Inlet)

If you are capable of doing that then I would reconsider, however if you do that it would still be heavier then a regular rocket.

true, but on the other side, it would have a higher fuel Efficiency(so you need less Fuel per kg Shipmass)

Because if you go for option one which is to launch stuff with excape from the ground, launching anything that fast under an atmosphere will be inevitably met with incandescent fail.
If you go for option two which is elevtator, then you are not going very far, it is already hard to have a few hundred meters of the ground solid enough not to break like tooth picks in the wind (and they are extremely low) getting material strong enough to handle structure big enough to put anything into space would be impossible. Even if you build it out of a titanium block you will not get very far.

erm no, the horizontal Acceleration is only ment to get enough Speed for the initial combustion for the Ramjet(well under Mach 1)

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

erm no, the horizontal Acceleration is only ment to get enough Speed for the initial combustion for the Ramjet(well under Mach 1)

OH it's a staged thing.. sorry for the missunderstanding, (even though I associated the ramject, scramjet rocket thing, for some reason this one escaped me)

 

[Unwardil]

I am a bit sckeptical about the utility of a moon base. It is good to setle antenas, but other then that it is a waste of ressources, it is just a dead rock.

Well, it's sort of the same reason for having a bio sphere here on earth.

The great thing about putting an experimental space base on the moon is that you're still relatively safe and able to deal with unforseen difficulties. There's a good window for sending moon expeditions from the earth in an emergency, not quite months appart and if everything goes complettely wahoonie shaped, you still have the option of just leaving everything and going back to earth.

But the things we can learn about living in such an environment can lead to resource mining on asteroids and ultimately self contained space collonies built from resources mined and manufactured in space without ever being brought back down to earth. That's the untility, as a scafold in making bigger things.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

There is just one problem. There is no fuel on the moon.

 

[scalyblue]

There is just one problem. There is no fuel on the moon.

Well, we've observed no fuel on the moon--doesn't mean it's not there. We only have, what, a thousand kilos of rocks and some spectroscopy--and only very recently did we even obtain impact spectroscopy, so we really only have albedo spectroscopy.

 

[MRaverz]

When is that damn moon base going to get built?

I am a bit sckeptical about the utility of a moon base. It is good to setle antenas, but other then that it is a waste of ressources, it is just a dead rock.

A dead rock which would require barely any fuel to launch from. It would make a great space-port, just need to get that space elevator up and running.

 

[MRaverz]

There is just one problem. There is no fuel on the moon.

http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2006/12/72276

 

[Ozymandyus]

If we had working fusion reactors this wouldn't be much of a discussion - a few pounds of fuel could take you to the moon and back anyway. We are presumably talking about conventional fuels.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Well, we've observed no fuel on the moon--doesn't mean it's not there. We only have, what, a thousand kilos of rocks and some spectroscopy--and only very recently did we even obtain impact spectroscopy, so we really only have albedo spectroscopy.

When i mentioned fuel I was thinking on the general sort of fuel that we use.

http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2006/12/72276

Haven't taugh of He3 tough.

I retract my statment then.

 

[Unwardil]

There is just one problem. There is no fuel on the moon.

Um, there's as much solar energy as you can build collectors for it.

I see it working like this.

Here's the things I see being needed for a sustainable moon base.

Large solar collector arrays to power the installation, a ground based linear catapult to launch from the surface, powered by the sollar array which can produce enough power to launch small craft back into lunar orbit, from there you can dock with another ship to take you back to earth meaning the actual pods would need hardly any fuel, and you'd be launching a lot of them, because you'd be mining the moon for resources.

There's also another posibility for fuel and that's Oxygen. There's plenty of oxygen in moon soild because there's hardly any hydrogen on the moon. Bring hydrogen, mix it with the oxygen already there and you've got yourself two things you need, water and power. As you start to get enough water to sustain the rotating population, start working more and more solar cells into the mix.

The last thing you'd need to eventually build is a small space elevator. Most of the difficulties inherent in making one don't apply on the moon. It wouldn't have to be nearly as long and there's no atmosphere to interfere with it, it's just a matter of building it out of lunar materials instead of terrestrial ones and that would be a whole other problem entirely, seeing as how the only thing we can postulate as ever being strong enough to build a space elevator on earth is carbon nanotubes... and there's almost no carbon on the moon. There's Iron, but that doesn't have the tensile strength and there's silicon which does but is ridiculously heavy and brittle.

Unless of course it turns out that silicon is just as maleable a material as carbon is, but I'm pretty sure it isn't.