The space program we have is a joke

[nec209]

I have been having discusses about different propulsion system looking for ways to bring the space cost down. And after looking at the different propulsion system it seems chemical propulsion is the only option

 

 

 

--- Anti-matter ( very very very costly (way more than chemical propulsion) cannot be controlled or stored has fuel. Also hard to make you have smash atoms and it only last for second or so the anti-matter

 

If there was breakthrough where we can make lots and lots of anti-matter very cheap and can control it and store it and use it has fuel it be banned for use in , earth thus only used for deep space has a size of rock would destroy all of New York. It would be banned in earth and close to earth.

 

---Ion propulsion or plasma propulsion does not have the thrust to lift any thing to space ( must be used for deep space only)

 

 

----microwave propulsion very bad on the person health. I would think this is banned for use too .

 

 

---fusion propulsion no point talking about this to we get working fusion but you need big core and would have to be very big so payload may be a problem.

 

---fission not sure have not read much on it. But I would think the core and shielding would make it very big and space would be tight so payload would be a problem more so than chemical propulsion .

 

 

--Laser propulsion there is different types of Laser propulsion . one type people at the ground shine a laser beam to the craft to get it to go up , other type the craft shines a laser beam that heats up the air and the craft goes up.

 

The last type is pulse laser the craft rides on pulse of the laser going on and off very fast.

 

 

From what I read there is some problems with laser propulsion you need gigawatt power well find for the ground if (ground shine a laser beam to the craft but the other propulsion the craft in the air shines a laser beem you need flying power station if the craft in the air shines a laser beam that heats up the air so it goes up.

 

 

Also it could be very costly and also 300 feet is the highest we got a craft to go up than came down so it is along ways off to getting into space.

 

 

--- space elevator I don't see this happing if the cable snap it would cut any thing in path around the earth.

 

 

---Ion lifers work by having 2 electrodes one at the top and one at the bottom .There is high voltage at the top electrode that ionizes the air and the ions are strongly attracted to the downwards electrode , the ions rushing downwards impinges on air molecules causes upward force .

 

 

Problem is no one has done experiments on Ion lifers

 

 

---chemical propulsion not sure but may be they can improved it

 

 

What are the pros and cons ? And problems they have to overcome to the above propulsion system.

 

 

In the end it looks like the space program is doomed, seriously the space program is seriously flawed only 3 countries can put people into space it cost money like a leaking faucet and we are hardly done any think in past 20 years of the space program other than build the ISS !!!! And what go up into space every month or two !!!

If the space program is going to have any chance of getting any where you have to go up in space 2 or 3 times a month and quadruple the space program or even more than what we have now.

 

 

I'm not saying bring the cost down for $2,000 per person or taking up 40 people at time has this is pure scfi talking and we are billion and billion of light years from that level of technology if at all .

 

But if the cost came down by 50% less yes just 50% less to get into space now , and 5 or 8 countries can put people into space and the private sector can pull it of and profit that this is worth having a major party.

 

Has of now it is a joke only 3 countries can put people into space and most of the time do not even have monthly launches. It cost like a leaking faucet.

 

 

And it does not look like any of the propulsion is going work and shine light at the end of the tunnel .

 

It does not look like there is any propulsion system out there that will work other than chemical propulsion but is very very very costly and limited by a payload problem. I was hoping of the above propulsion system talk about here that fusion, fission propulsion or laser propulsion may be the answer to the problem in 50 or 100 years from now.

 

What is your thought? And pros and cons on the propulsion system.

Edited November 24, 2010 by nec209

[Mr Skeptic]

Well, I rather like the idea of the launch loop, although I doubt we could keep it safe from people who want to shoot it down for whatever reason. Nuclear fission propulsion I think would be most practical (space is definitely not the issue there, it is weight and safety). The nuclear lightbulb is my favorite of those, although I'm not sure how it would work in practice. The important thing is the efficiency, which can be far greater than the best possible chemical propulsion. Note that for chemical propulsion the propellant necessarily makes up the majority of the payload.

 

Ion or even fusion if we can get it would be ideal for propulsion once in space, maybe for a dedicated space-only ship.

[D H]

Science fiction is fun, but you two do need to remember that that is exactly what you are writing about. Things like a space elevator, a launch loop, fusion propulsion: Science fiction. They are in the realm of the possible, but they still are science fiction and will be science fiction for a long time. Our space programs may look pathetic compared to Star Trek or Star Wars, but our space programs do have one big thing over the movies: It is real.

[ydoaPs]

At least they're not talking about warp drive.

[random]

Just once on this forum it would be nice for someone to take an idea and build on it rather than "quash all hope" with their superior intellect. Intelligence should be able to understand and expand rather than be so negative all the time. I can quote all the reasons why something won't work too that's easy, someone already figured that out, but I like to find ways to make things work and I think alot of people come here looking for help in that regard.

 

That being said we know in space when an object is set in motion it tends to stay in motion because of no friction or gravity etc. So If you set into motion a ship at say 1000 kph I believe if once that speed has been attained you could then launch another vessel from this one which is already travelling at 1000 kph and achieve (just for arguments sake) an additional 1000 kph so now your travelling at 2000 kph

do this several times and eventually your travelling pretty fast.

 

Another thought i had was simply a slingshot effect. The moon spins at x number kph what would be so hard about attaching a hefty cable with a quick release and once the vessel has gotten it's momentum up and is pointed in the right direction just let it go. I don't know why people smarter than us don't look at low tech as feasible. There are alot of things we can do with today's technology and just a little creative thinking as opposed to over complicating things excessively to justify huge budgets and employ 1000 scientists or so to dream about what they could someday do if they had unlimited resources.

Nuclear power was a pipe dream til someone put foot to ass on development and then it was ready to blow shit up in very little time all we need is for space exploration to become as much of a neccessity and we'll be vacationing on mars in 10 years.

[ydoaPs]

Just once on this forum it would be nice for someone to take an idea and build on it rather than "quash all hope" with their superior intellect. Intelligence should be able to understand and expand rather than be so negative all the time.

That's what science does. Science does not verify; it falsifies.

p->q

p

q

 

That doesn't work, because q could be true even if p was false. So, we have to use falsification:

p->q

~p

~q

 

Using falsification, we can eliminate options and raise our certainty of our pool of the most viable options.

[random]

That's what science does. Science does not verify; it falsifies.

p->q

p

q

 

That doesn't work, because q could be true even if p was false. So, we have to use falsification:

p->q

~p

~q

 

Using falsification, we can eliminate options and raise our certainty of our pool of the most viable options.

 

 

Yeah but it seems we have alot of book smart people and not very many unorthodox thinkers. Seems to me if we combined the 2 in a positive manner then alot more would be learned and expanded upon as opposed to simply saying it's impossible in a polite way. I believe nothing is impossible we just haven't figured out how to do it.

[D H]

Yeah but it seems we have alot of book smart people and not very many unorthodox thinkers. Seems to me if we combined the 2 in a positive manner then alot more would be learned and expanded upon as opposed to simply saying it's impossible in a polite way. I believe nothing is impossible we just haven't figured out how to do it.

What, exactly, makes you think that Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and people like them are orthodox thinkers? They are anything but that. They are, however, practical.

 

Free thinkers who don't care whether their ideas violate the laws of physics can make lots of money making movies or writing novels, but they cannot make those ideas real. Free thinkers who aren't concerned that their ideas require materials far in excess of any material known to mankind, require monetary expenditures in excess of the entire world's economy, or energy levels in excess of the entire world's energy output can similarly make movies. They might even hoodwink some investors. That won't help their ideas come to fruition.

 

Making advances in space technology requires very creative but also rather hard-nosed scientists, engineers, bean counters, and policy wonks. And money. Want a space program that does more? Convince your elected representatives that dedicating a paltry one half of one percent of the federal budget to space program makes for a space program that is but a joke.

Edited November 27, 2010 by D H

[nec209]

Science fiction is fun, but you two do need to remember that that is exactly what you are writing about. Things like a space elevator, a launch loop, fusion propulsion: Science fiction. They are in the realm of the possible, but they still are science fiction and will be science fiction for a long time. Our space programs may look pathetic compared to Star Trek or Star Wars, but our space programs do have one big thing over the movies: It is real.

 

Exactly no .There is working model for the above propulsion but there is problems that need to be fixed to make it practical.NASA has done experiments on most of the above but little money they get, it normaly does not get funded for more than 4 or 5 years of research.

 

Well negetive energy,levitation,anti-gravity, megnetic propulsion is Science fiction has there is no model on that at all .Basacly we don't know if it is real or not well the above is real.Understand scfi is some thing that is not real not a scientific problem

 

And that is just wrong fussion is not scfi they are trying to get controlled fussion it only last for second and there is more input than out put.It may be 20,50 or 100 years before we get fussion .But fussion is not some red crystal used in starship 535d .

 

 

Again with nanotubes you can build towers almost in space .The space elevator is possible with nanotechnology.But if snap it be very bad.

Edited November 27, 2010 by nec209

[random]

What, exactly, makes you think that Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and people like them are orthodox thinkers? They are anything but that. They are, however, practical.

 

Free thinkers who don't care whether their ideas violate the laws of physics can make lots of money making movies or writing novels, but they cannot make those ideas real. Free thinkers who aren't concerned that their ideas require materials far in excess of any material known to mankind, require monetary expenditures in excess of the entire world's economy, or energy levels in excess of the entire world's energy output can similarly make movies. They might even hoodwink some investors. That won't help their ideas come to fruition.

 

Making advances in space technology requires very creative but also rather hard-nosed scientists, engineers, bean counters, and policy wonks. And money. Want a space program that does more? Convince your elected representatives that dedicating a paltry one half of one percent of the federal budget to space program makes for a space program that is but a joke.

 

 

Well if you had read the post I made before you would see I agree with you on needing more money and I never mentioned violating the laws of physics I just suggested a little more be considered possible before throwing the author's idea's on the fire. What ticks me off is when someone posts and then someone comes along and criticizes (somtimes very rudely) It does nothing Maybe I'm in the wrong place because I'd like to see more constructive criticism and valuable input rather than say "It'll never work I read it in a book" "I'm smarter than you and your idea's are useless" cause that is how alot of people respond. It would be alot more fun for say all of us to input our idea's on the subject, someone interested and knowledgeable to come along and advise where it needs further work, so on and so forth. Until it was a feasible and possibly developed model.

[dragonstar57]

if there were some form of launch center on the moon than it would be easier for space missions to launch and would require less thrust.

Well if you had read the post I made before you would see I agree with you on needing more money and I never mentioned violating the laws of physics I just suggested a little more be considered possible before throwing the author's idea's on the fire. What ticks me off is when someone posts and then someone comes along and criticizes (somtimes very rudely) It does nothing Maybe I'm in the wrong place because I'd like to see more constructive criticism and valuable input rather than say "It'll never work I read it in a book" "I'm smarter than you and your idea's are useless" cause that is how alot of people respond. It would be alot more fun for say all of us to input our idea's on the subject, someone interested and knowledgeable to come along and advise where it needs further work, so on and so forth. Until it was a feasible and possibly developed model.

some people define science fiction differently but is cutting edge science not meant to be almost like science fiction?

just because something is not feasible now does not mean that it wont be ever.

discussing the feasibility of theoretical technology in a realistic way is different than science fiction.

[InigoMontoya]

That being said we know in space when an object is set in motion it tends to stay in motion because of no friction or gravity etc. So If you set into motion a ship at say 1000 kph I believe if once that speed has been attained you could then launch another vessel from this one which is already travelling at 1000 kph and achieve (just for arguments sake) an additional 1000 kph so now your travelling at 2000 kph

do this several times and eventually your travelling pretty fast.

Yup. And we've been doing it for the past 50 years. They're called "staged rockets."

 

Another thought i had was simply a slingshot effect. The moon spins at x number kph what would be so hard about attaching a hefty cable with a quick release and once the vessel has gotten it's momentum up and is pointed in the right direction just let it go. I don't know why people smarter than us don't look at low tech as feasible. There are alot of things we can do with today's technology and just a little creative thinking as opposed to over complicating things excessively to justify huge budgets and employ 1000 scientists or so to dream about what they could someday do if they had unlimited resources.

Assuming the above means you want to attach a cable to the surface and let the Moon take you for a little ride with it's rotational energy....

 

First off, the Moon spins very slowly. The speed at the surface of the Moon due to it's rotation (What I believe you're refering to as "x number kph") isn't really that much. Let's work it out, shall we (math included in case I screw up)?

 

Velocity = RadiusOfMoon * Theta

 

where: Theta = angular velocity of the Moon in radians per second.

 

Theta = (1 rotation / 28 days) * (1 day / 24 hours) * (1 hour / 3600 sec) * (360 deg / 1 rot) * (pi rad / 180 deg)

= 2.597e-6 rad/sec

 

RadMoon = 1737 km = 1737000 m/s

 

Therefore... Velocity = 1737000 * 2.597e-6 = 4.51 m/s = 16 kph.

 

Wow... Yeah, you're really screaming there.

[zerokite]

i didn't read any of that stuff but i had an idea u know what happens when you shoot guns i space you get pushed push is better then a constant thrust wasting fuel because its creeper that way like have some giant guns on a rocket use the fuel to get off earth then use guns for most of the trip the power well push them to were ever they want to go just watch whats behind you and landing is hard i guess and the hardiest part of space

[ydoaPs]

i didn't read any of that stuff but i had an idea u know what happens when you shoot guns i space you get pushed push is better then a constant thrust wasting fuel because its creeper that way like have some giant guns on a rocket use the fuel to get off earth then use guns for most of the trip the power well push them to were ever they want to go just watch whats behind you and landing is hard i guess and the hardiest part of space

Is there a sentence in there somewhere?

[nec209]

Nuclear fission propulsion I think would be most practical (space is definitely not the issue there, it is weight and safety).

 

What do you mean? I thought the core and shielding would make it very big so payload would be more of problem with fission than chemical propulsion .

[granpa]

if a rocket with a payload of 1 metric tons and 100 metric ton of propellent can get to velocity v then

it would take a rocket with 10,000 metric tons of propellent to get the same payload of 1 metric ton to velocity 2v

 

the saturn v weighed 3,000 metric tons and had a payload of 45 metric tons

 

i.e. chemical rockets wont be going very much faster any time soon.

Edited December 5, 2010 by granpa

[Mr Skeptic]

What do you mean? I thought the core and shielding would make it very big so payload would be more of problem with fission than chemical propulsion .

 

Don't forget fuel. It doesn't matter if your engine weighs about half your fuel tank if it can use the fuel twice as effectively (actually better since if you add yet more fuel than the better engine wins). The majority of the weight of rockets is in the fuel, and of course also the fuel tanks to hold it. The reactor can do with very little shielding; all that is needed is to shield the astronauts from it (maybe 5% of the total area). This would mean people can't safely stand near the rocket, but then you can't do that anyways since you'll get torched. It will still be safe from a distance because the inverse square law reduces the radiation and air is also shielding.

 

So long as the engine is more efficient, then the overall efficiency can be increased by making everything bigger, bigger fuel tanks and much much bigger payload.

[zerokite]

Is there a sentence in there somewhere?

why would i need a sentience when i'm making a statement? Gramer, not one of my specialty Edited December 3, 2010 by zerokite

[D H]

why would i need a sentience when i'm making a statement? Gramer, not one of my specialty

Tough. Learning to write clearly is not a specialty. It is an essential skill.

 

Write clearly if you want a response to something you wrote. If you continue to post gibberish you won't last long here. If you want to make any progress in real life you will need to learn to spell correctly, write complete sentences, and form these sentences into cohesive paragraphs. This is a science board, and clear communications is an essential element of any science.

[InigoMontoya]

Learning to write clearly is not a specialty. It is an essential skill.

Nah... His language skills are perfectly acceptable for a job in the Custodial Arts.

[nec209]

Don't forget fuel. It doesn't matter if your engine weighs about half your fuel tank if it can use the fuel twice as effectively (actually better since if you add yet more fuel than the better engine wins). The majority of the weight of rockets is in the fuel, and of course also the fuel tanks to hold it. The reactor can do with very little shielding; all that is needed is to shield the astronauts from it (maybe 5% of the total area). This would mean people can't safely stand near the rocket, but then you can't do that anyways since you'll get torched. It will still be safe from a distance because the inverse square law reduces the radiation and air is also shielding.

 

So long as the engine is more efficient, then the overall efficiency can be increased by making everything bigger, bigger fuel tanks and much much bigger payload.

 

 

So you saying that fission propulsion the core and engine can be 5 times bigger ?The big engine is not the problem has it is more fuel efficient and takes less fuel.

 

The majority of the weight of rockets is in the fuel, and of course also the fuel tanks to hold it.

 

It does very little to help if the fuel is 50% less than what it is now to get into space and the engine is so big.Your bedroom will be bigger than the space capsule !!!

 

The system we have now allows for a bigger capsule than this.

majority of the weight of rockets is in the fuel, and of course also the fuel tanks to hold it.

 

And the majority of the weight here is the core the engine .

 

 

(maybe 5% of the total area).

 

What do you mean here?

[Mr Skeptic]

So you saying that fission propulsion the core and engine can be 5 times bigger ?The big engine is not the problem has it is more fuel efficient and takes less fuel.

 

OK, so if you have a rocket like the Saturn V, your payload (to low earth orbit) is 4% the weight of the rocket, payload to trans lunar injection is 1.5% of the rocket's mass. The fuel on the first stage only weighs 2.2 thousand tons, which is over 70% the mass of the rocket. Most of the rocket is fuel, and if you can use fuel more efficiently you need much much less of it. Of the fuel, the vast majority of the weight is the oxidizer, which is not needed with a nuclear powered rocket.

 

If the better, heavier engine saves you way more than its weight in fuel, is it not worthwhile despite being heavier?

 

What do you mean here?

 

Save on reactor weight by only shielding about 5% of the reactor, shielding only the parts where the shielding will protect people. Radiation is not like some gas that goes around things, it is much more like light and you only need to block a small part. Note that air and distance will block radiation nicely for the other parts.

 

Or maybe shield the whole thing, if you would rather that than save some weight.

[nec209]

OK, so if you have a rocket like the Saturn V, your payload (to low earth orbit) is 4% the weight of the rocket, payload to trans lunar injection is 1.5% of the rocket's mass. The fuel on the first stage only weighs 2.2 thousand tons, which is over 70% the mass of the rocket. Most of the rocket is fuel, and if you can use fuel more efficiently you need much much less of it. Of the fuel, the vast majority of the weight is the oxidizer, which is not needed with a nuclear powered rocket.

 

So with nuclear 8% of the weight is its payload not like 4% like now? Do to it is more fuel efficient and takes less fuel.

 

So it is 2 times more fuel efficient than what it is now?

Edited December 5, 2010 by nec209

[dragonstar57]

Nah... His language skills are perfectly acceptable for a job in the Custodial Arts.

this is a forum not a university application, no need to cut people down.

Edited December 8, 2010 by dragonstar57

[Mr Skeptic]

So with nuclear 8% of the weight is its payload not like 4% like now? Do to it is more fuel efficient and takes less fuel.

 

So it is 2 times more fuel efficient than what it is now?

 

Well, it depends on the details. But both the weight of the engine and its efficiency are important. You could compare this to ion drives, which are absurdly efficient yet can't lift something off the ground because they're so heavy for the thrust they generate.