Putting the lander in LLO with all the masscons, etc. that entails until a crew Orion can be launched on another SLS? Best case we have today is a one year turnaround for SLS. I assume the lander, being fully robotic and yet to be designed, would be able to do correction burns to maintain a stable orbit while awaiting an Orion capsule to show after a year? OTOH, if by some miracle, we could accelerate SLS builds so that we could do two within a month then we could easily launch them withing a few weeks of each other by putting one each on pad B and pad….. oops!
Griffin is retired for a reason.
Even assuming that, I suspect there will be some batteries that run down while waiting or something.
“Best case we have today is a one year turnaround for SLS.”
Maybe the idea is, that you wait until you have two SLS stacks completely ready to go at the VAB, and then just launch them in fairly short succession from LC-39B. But that assumes that NASA can get pad turnaround time down to something reasonable. That also would mean only one mission every two years (!) with the production cadence NASA is projecting.
Someone needs to awaken Dr. Griffin from his bad dream…
Another has-been failure of a parasite who misses feeding at the public trough.
Somebody really wants his Boeing bucks!
It seems possible that Blue Origin, New Glenn could get to orbit before Starship. Though New Glenn might blow up on the pad or even never try to launch.
I would like to another Starship with it’s 33 engines working at launch, but like the Falcon it might require a fourth flight. That all engines were working on flight 2 was quite amazing.
Anyways I am still not in favor of cancelling SLS, yet.
I like lots of back ups, and maybe NASA to try to more them.
So far, other than SLS, they haven’t cost anything to speak of. And there seems other potential players, if NASA repeats what it’s done twice.
The robotic lunar missions hasn’t panned out yet, my idea was to do a lot of them.
I think with Mars exploration there needs to a lot robotic mission. And other than determining whether the Moon has mineable water which might take years to determine after exploring the Moon, and NASA deems there is “in fact” has mineable lunar water.
And always regarded exploring moon as getting ready to explore Mars.
So rather than just do Moon with new robotic missions, one also do same right now, in regards to more Mars robotic missions. So both more attempts of lunar robotic mission but also include Mars robotic mission, for start ups or anyone.
How do you get to it seeming possible that New Glenn will reach orbit before Starship? BO has a non-flight article about to reach the pad for basic fit tests, and there is no sign of an actual flight article yet. They might possibly get a first launch this year, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Starship, on the other hand, will very likely make orbit on IFT 3 which could launch in as few as two weeks, but will more likely be in late February or early March given FAA paperwork. Even if IFT 3 fails, it’s hard to imagine that SpaceX won’t make it on attempt 4 or 5, both of which I expect to see before New Glen makes attempt one.
Starship could have successful launch within a few weeks and FAA could have no reason to delay the next launch of Starship. And could have a launch of Starship every month or so.
But it’s not clear to me, why the second tower apparently in going to built in Texas rather than KSC. And whether there could be governmental delays at KSC and/or Texas in terms building another launch tower.
Or for some reasons, the second is going to be built in Texas and such building will likely delay launches, unless the idea of a launch per month is not close to a reality for various reasons. Or if it takes say 3 months for Starship launch, then building a new tower, won’t do much to delay Starship launches.
And as I said, it was good sign all engines were burning on first stage, but it may not be the case on next launch. And if it is, and it gets to orbit, it seems the focus becomes how fast can launch between launches. And new tower nearby, sort of gets in the way of that, unless the way to get to one launch per month is having a second tower {and why wasn’t built at KSC?}.
It could a matter of sharing resources, or having two crew at different places, is less efficient.
In terms of New Glenn, Bezos likes to be secretive as compared Musk, or Bezos would like to move quietly and reveal things at last moment. I would say it’s more of style thing rather than a substantial difference. Bezos would want to try to do something quietly and if he fails, it’s not news, as no one knew he was trying.
It’s clear to me, whether Starship will work. As a successful launch to orbit, is a first step, or the plan is it will have recoverable stages. And plan is having refueling in orbit.
Either would change everything, but needs both of them. And it seems main problem has been related to govt policies and that will remain [apparently, a constant].
Also, got other general issues. The US is in two wars, and could get into more. Or the two can have more escalation {more wars and/or escalation are roughly the same, one say other places want to take advantage of having two wars ongoing- and more wars is other places with roughly same actors involved.
And it’s election year. And Musk is political figure apparently cause he supports freedom of speak- which shouldn’t cause anyone to be a political figure, but is, “why” this has anything to do with rocket launches.
Also, for Elon plan to fully work, he needs to launch Starships from the ocean.
It seems more launches from Texas is a political issue and a limitation of existing regulation regarding the Texas launch site.
I think we have to have ocean settlements.
I heard some argue, it’s cheaper to live on the ocean than to live on Mars.
And it seems to be silly point. But I would say to have Mars settlement, you need ocean settlements on Earth.
And Musk has said he needs ocean launch to have settlements on Mars.
And it seems to me, ocean settlement could cheap and easy to do.
My view is to have Mars settlements, you have to mine a lot water, as compare Moon where just need to mine tens thousands of tons of water per year]. So with Mars need mine say 1 million tons of water within a few years, and city needs hundreds millions ton per year. Or need lakes of water.
And with ocean settlements you also need freshwater lakes of water, btw. And could have floating solar ponds making freshwater from sea water. And probably also have solar ponds on Mars, also.
Or need to launch a lot rocket from Earth’s ocean and there is a lot activity related to rocket launches, and want people there. And people should have various entertainment opportunity options , also.
Unfortunately the FAA slow-rolls SpaceX without good reason all the time… It’s like they personally want Musk to fail
“But it’s not clear to me, why the second tower apparently in going to built in Texas rather than KSC.”
NSF had an article discussing that a couple weeks ago. There are, it seems, some regulatory hurdles to deal with at the Cape sites SpaceX wants to use.
I just skimmed it, but it seemed to be Apollo on antihistamines.
Let me FTFY: I just skimmed it, but it seemed to be Apollo on antihistamines laxatives.
Apollo on suppositories.
+10
What goes up must come down…
I refuse to believe Mike Griffin is this stupid. A mistake of this magnitude is a deliberate act of malice.
He’s got 5 PhDs. He has never had a job outside academia or government.
He also had jobs in the civilian side of the military-industrial complex:
Griffin’s early career began at APL in the 1980s, where he helped design the successful Delta 180 series of missile defense technology satellites for the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO). Griffin soon rose to Deputy for Technology where he conceived and directed the first space-to-space interception of a ballistic missile in powered flight, and the first space-borne reconnaissance of ballistic missile targets in boost phase and mid-course flight.[4]
In 1991, Griffin was the President and CTO of Orbital Sciences,[5] then a small entrepreneurial space launch company In 1995, Griffin authored a report published by The Heritage Foundation, “Ending America’s Vulnerability to Ballistic Missiles”, offering recommendations for advancing the recently cancelled Brilliant Pebbles program.[6] There he advocated for a new proliferated low Earth orbit constellation of sensors and space-based interceptor weapons to defend against ballistic missiles.
In early 2002 he met entrepreneur Elon Musk and accompanied him on a trip to Russia where they attempted to purchase ICBMs. The unsuccessful trip is credited as directly leading to the formation of SpaceX.[7] Musk offered Griffin the title of Chief Engineer at the company,[8] but Griffin instead became president and COO of In-Q-Tel, a private enterprise funded by the CIA to identify and invest in companies developing cutting-edge technologies that serve national security interests.[9]
His latest government website bio has a different list of jobs:
He has also held numerous executive positions in industry, including President and Chief Operating Officer of In-Q-Tel, CEO of Magellan Systems, and EVP/General Manager of Orbital ATK’s Space Systems Group.
Meanwhile, in the real world, a single RS-25 costs more than an entire Starship/Superheavy booster stack:
Not just the engines for said stack, the ENTIRE stack. Nuts, bolts, sheet metal, wires, welds, spars, stringers, plumbing, valves, tiles, actuators, flaps, hinges, tankage, etc…EVERYTHING!
–Rocket Report: A new estimate of Starship costs; Japan launches spy satellite
One space tug company runs into financial problems; another says go big or go home.
Stephen Clark – 1/19/2024, 4:00 AM–
But before that:
“The problem at America’s military spaceports. The Biden administration is requesting $1.3 billion over the next five years to revamp infrastructure at the Space Force’s ranges in Florida and California, Ars reports. This will help address things like roads, bridges, utilities, and airfields that, in many cases, haven’t seen an update in decades. But it’s not enough, according to the Space Force. ”
Well, they also build place where large rocket can be test ed {in the ocean} but at least, Biden doing something.
—“Taking a look at Starship’s costs. A report from the space media and research company Payload analyzes SpaceX’s costs in building and developing Starship. This is an important angle that isn’t reported often enough, as SpaceX and media outlets tend to focus on technical and schedule aspects of the Starship program. Payload calls Starship’s low-cost manufacturing a “breakthrough in rocketry,” with SpaceX on a path to eventually reduce the cost of a single flight of a fully reusable Starship rocket to less than $10 million. However, Starship is still very much a development program, and Payload estimates it currently costs around $90 million for SpaceX to build a fully stacked Starship rocket. The vast majority of this cost goes toward the rocket’s 39 Raptor engines and labor expenses.
Recouping R&D costs … The higher the Starship flight rate, the more SpaceX can reduce the cost of a single launch by spreading the program’s fixed costs across numerous missions. “On a fully reusable basis, the economics of Starship flights begin to look closer to those of an airline,” Payload reports. …—
I kind of beat you to the punch two hours ago, scroll up.
The SLS is too expensive and its flight rate is too low. If we want to get back to the moon we need to contract with Boeing, Douglas, Rockwell, Grumman, IBM, and the rest of the old team and build us some Saturn V’s, Apollo’s, and LEMs. It’s a proven vehicle that can get the job done!
If we seriously wanted a least time path to the moon for just the usual NASA flag and footprints operation to land some women of color, stick some landing legs on a Crew Dragon and send it there on an upper stage launched by a SpaceX Superheavy booster.
On a future episode of Jeopardy!
Contestant: I’ll take NASA for 800, please.
Not Alex: This NASA Administrator did incalculable damage to the nation’s space efforts during his reign.
Contestant Buzzing In: Who is Michael Griffin?
Bzzzt
Not Alex: Anyone? The answer we were looking for was Who is Dan Goldin? But upon further review the judges have decided that Michael Griffin is a correct answer!
I’d be careful with the phrase “incalculable damage.”
Oh, you have a calculation?
There’s a calculable probability that… you know.
Contestant: I’ll take NASA for 600, please.
Watson: The Daily Double! This is a photographic Daily Double. What is your wager?
Contestant: Let’s make it a true Daily Double, I’ll wager 1200.
Watson: OK. Here’s your clue: “This was intended to launch astronauts to low earth orbit to rendezvous with a moon lander, until the US Air Force’s (now US Space Force) 45th Composite Space Group from Patrick AFB pointed out it could melt the Orion capsule’s parachutes on emergency abort.”
Berger did have to get his dig at Trump in.
Why in the world would any winner of the 2024 election actually want this guy back?
You have to assume stupidity, evil or extreme carelessness about space in general for this to be realistic.
Y’all comparing SLS to Starship is a good academic exercise.
If you want a real discussion, compare Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy to nothing.
Falcon 9 to LEO; 11 tons at 62 million dollars per flight,
Falcon Heavy to LEO; 27 tons at 90 million dollars per flight.
Their competition, doesn’t exist.
Quit wasting time on a fantasy that may or may not materialize. Even if SLS does fly, it will cost 2 to 4 Billion/per launch, and be capable of one launch every two to three years. Same for Starship, just many billions of dollars less expensive with higher launch rate.
Giving Mike Griffin any ink is a complete waste of everyone’s time.
Those figures are sandbagged and long ago superseded. 9 can manage 26 tons to LEO, Heavy 63 tons. The “reusable” figures are 15-30% less, depending on recovery options taken. But I do agree about Griffin’s “plan” being a waste of phosphors (Ink? What’s that?). I’ll say nothing about the man, as I’ve learned my lesson well.
So it’s even better than listed?
Why are we not on the moon already?
I was looking at re-usable on both Falcon 9 and all three boosters on Falcon Heavy.
With 2 Billion, Spacex could put 20 or more launches of 40 to 45 tons into LEO with Falcon Heavy, and 2/3 of that if they used Falcon 9. That’s almost enough tonnage that I would try it.
Would 500 tons of payload in LEO allow you to go to the moon and back a couple of times? Asking for me.
Apollo did it with far less than 500 tonnes. With the 3rd stage and it’s remaining fuel and the rest of the stack after orbital insertion, wasn’t it around 130 tons? And everything was expended.
If you can reuse some of the hardware, things look a lot better for several productive trips.
I recall that Saturn put about 130 tonnes to LEO. It’s first stage sea level ISP was only about 265s, so a lot of the thrust at launch was lifting extra fuel that had to make up for that inefficiency. Superbooster, with already twice the thrust and aiming for three times the thrust, and a sea level ISP of 350s, could loft an Apollo architecture with ease. But Elon sees little point in flag and footprint missions that don’t lead to something permanent.
I would almost say he’s indulging NASA’s Artemis folks for open access to their support facilities and knowledge base.
It was said, we could have done it, with rockets which are being retired {Delta and Atlas- the EELV developed by US military}. But nothing changed and Falcon Heavies could do it cheaper.
Of course with higher launch rates, EELV could been cheaper and could developed variants which were planned.
But it seems the kerosene first stage is better, though not for the second stage.
But methane engine on a second stage could work pretty good.
Von Braun’s idea was, having built a space station with reusable rockets @ 10 tons a launch, one could then assemble a lunar transit and lander in earth orbit, and eventually a Mars fleet. Somewhere around here I have a children’s book with pictures (as well as an old copy of “The Mars Project” with calculations). Back about 20 years ago, I wrote an alternate history story called “Harvest Moon” about a lunar base built in 1965 using Gemini and Titan-level technology. Published in Asimov’s, Sept. 2005.
The Titan-II was an impressive rocket to orbit. As a silo based ICBM, not so great.
I was watching a YouTube excerpt of a Joe Rogan Experience pod cast where Joe made an oblique reference to a “broken arrow” nuclear weapon catastrophe touched off by a dropped wrench socket. His resourceful studio aid Jamie didn’t look it up for us, but I am sure he was thinking about the Titan II missile accident.
As to the “not-so-great” aspect to the Titan II rocket as a strategic missile, I don’t think you can blame the Titan II rocket design so much as the whole concept of storable liquid propellant. As horrible as this accident was, the Soviets had an even more horrible accident with this propellant in their Strategic Rocket Forces, the accident that killed their top guy Marshal Nedelin.
The hazards of storable liquid propellant was known to the Soviets, with Korolev hanging on to the idea of using kerosene/LOX in a strategic rocket. The kerosene was definitely storable, and the idea was “in a crisis” where the Strategic Rocket Forces needed to stand by, they would load the LOX and top it off as it evaporated. One anecdote was of a test where the liquid oxygen connector was leaking, and one resourceful guy went up to it, unzipped, and Russian peasant style sealed the leak with a blend of water and urea ice.
By the same criterion one would have to judge the Apollo CM that used the same type of propellant, where Astronaut Brand was almost done-in by fumes from a leaking thruster and an open cabin pressure relief valve after splashdown on the Apollo-Soyuz Application Test (ASAT) flight, saved by the other two crew members who “slapped an oxygen mask” on him before he almost succumbed to the fumes?
We are still considering the drawbacks of storable liquid propellants with decisions to go back to the Moon with safer cryopropellants and all of the problems their use entails? Didn’t Rand post a video by Southern Aerospace Engineer Motivational Speaker Guy talking about the current back-to-the-Moon “architecture” involving no end to the number of tanker launches for boil-off makeup on orbit?
As to the “not-so-great” aspect to the Titan II rocket as a strategic missile, I don’t think you can blame the Titan II rocket design so much as the whole concept of storable liquid propellant.
I think the limitations as designed into the Titan-II led to systemic (to use an overused word these days) issues with the entire missile as a weapon design. Issues that weren’t necessarily implicit to the Kerolox Atlas. But it too was eventually abandoned for the easier to handle solids.
One: It’s high performance arose in part to the fact that it obtained structural strength from holding its bi-propellant in its first stage tanks.
Two: those first stage tanks needed to be filled and pressurized in order for the rocket to support a fueled bi-prop 2nd stage.
Three: The rocket was fueled via trucks with lines run down into the silo. There were no fuel distribution systems inherit to the silo. To de-fuel the rocket required a truck to pull up to the silo with hoses.
Four: Either of the two bi-propellants are deadly toxic. I have been told that the suits worn by service techs would not protect them from a direct leak of propellant onto the suit or at least not for long. Breathing apparatus mandatory in such a situation.
Five: Martin-Marietta advised the USAF early on in the episode to abandon the site and keep it quarantined until either all the propellants dispersed or exploded. It was a USAF decision, up the chain of command staffed by bomber pilots that came up with the decision to activate a ventilation fan that likely triggered the explosion that killed the tech who activated it.
Six: There were no provisions to flood the silo with water at the time in case of this type of catastrophic event.
Wikipedia corrects me that one of the bi-propellants was Aerozine-50 not -60. which is a 1:1 mixture of hydrazine and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) the other propellant being di-nitrogen tetroxide. They are hypergolic fuels (ignite on contact, but 90%+ of the people who post here know that already).
So let’s cut NASA’s budget in half, hire someone to write a check to whoever gets to the moon first and stays there for a year. Say, 200 million to the first one, 175 million to the second one, and 100 million to the third.
Offer 100 million to the first on-orbit fuel depot selling H2, Lox, Methane, Kerosene, breathable air, beer and smokes(face it, some sinners are going to want to try this). 100 million to the second one, too.
Offer 150 million to the company who puts up 4 or 8 lunar cyclers to ferry people and equipment to and from the moon.
Okay, where am I; This is just under 1 billion dollars. That’s a rounding error in the national budget, and this would jump-start our exploration of the moon. And I have 19 billion left to give to the launch providers who lift all this to LEO. Oh, I may need 200,000 dollars to hire two people to write the checks. So 18,999,800,000.00 for launch services.
NASA budget might be cut in half, because “space costs less”, but it might doubled because “space cost less”.
In either case, NASA budget is currently small.
The current problem is we don’t know if the lunar polar region has mineable water.
Nor do we know if Mars has mineable water.
Mars is not habitable unless it has mineable water.
If we knew that the Moon had mineable water, we would be mining it. And it would have nothing to do with NASA mining the Moon.
You had to explore anything for it to be mineable, or one could say, exploration “makes more things mineable”. And likewise if NASA explored the Moon, it will possibly make lunar water more mineable.
If NASA explore the Moon, and then explores Mars, exploring Mars could make lunar water more mineable. And if we are mining the water on the Moon, it makes Mars water, more mineable.
And it seems possible/likely that if we are mining the water on the Moon, we could make Mercury, a habitable planet. Or if mining water on Mars, we could make Mercury a habitable planet.
And what seems more important to me, is if we have Mars settlements, it could lead to settlements in Venus orbits. Venus orbit needs to be used, if you have Mars settlements.
And you could say Venus orbit is more related to a habitable Mercury- though they are kind of competitors regarding doing things in the outer worlds of our solar system {Or Mars nor Earth, are competitors.}.
But I see, NASA exploring Moon and Mars, as related to any hope, that NASA will continue to exist
There’s a lot of talk about mining water. I’m sorry, but mining water doesn’t really get you much. Water is readily available her on Earth. In space, water is only useful if it grants additional capabilities. It really doesn’t for the foreseeable future. If I had free water that I was giving away on the moon it still wouldn’t make sense to go there to refuel. Too much investment is required between here and there.
Even if I gave you free water in LEO, it wouldn’t be used for decades. Space infrastructure moves very slowly….
Rand had a link to a podcast some time back where the interviewee claimed that if you heat lunar regolith, it gives off steam. And almost all water can be recycled with enough energy.
About 40% of the Earth’s crust is oxygen, I assume the moon is of somewhat similar makeup.
I’d say most of the raw materials are already there.
Vapor. Though if steam is at below 0 C, cause it’s vacuum, we will call it steam.
Water vapor pressure. wiki:
–Vapor pressure of water (0–100 °C)-
0 32 0.6113 4.5851 0.0060
.0060 atm, 0.0882 psia
30 86 4.2455 31.8439 0.0419
0.0419 atm, 0.61593 psia
room temperature
And going to compress O2 to make LOX, that makes heat, use the heat.
You going have problem mostly related to cooling the rocket fuel.
LOX fairly easy per kg, H2 is require a lot energy {heat] to liquefy.
so, if got CO2, and got gasous H2, make Methane.
If got frozen CO2 on Moon it lowers costs of making rocket fuel.
“There’s a lot of talk about mining water. I’m sorry, but mining water doesn’t really get you much.”
Well, I would say mining lunar water, gets you in the door. But mineable lunar water isn’t 100 tons of less per year. At best it’s trying to find it out to see if you can mine lunar water. And if there was a site on the Moon in which one could mine 1 million tons of water and thereby reach more than 10,000 tons per year at this site, it might be mineable. If nothing else, any attempt at mining anything deemed mineable, has factors determine whether it will become profitable. But at moment there isn’t mineable water on the Moon or Mars.
And after exploring the Moon, it will likely not be the case, immediately.
So, I think NASA should mostly exploring the lunar polar region, as way to get ground truth regarding the orbital exploration effort over last decade. And to prove or give some reason to think NASA might able to explore, Mars.
They say it’s testbed, I think it’s testbed of NASA ability to explore anything.
“If I had free water that I was giving away on the moon it still wouldn’t make sense to go there to refuel. ”
Some doesn’t matter much. 10 tons doesn’t matter much. a future and hundreds and then thousands of ton, then the water worth something and business which can do this, is probably worth more than year sale of water. And in mining anything, you are sorting, so, one mine water, and with a lot iron ore in a pile, mine it, also.
So, it’s getting in the door. And is not unrelated to what will be explored on Mars.
It’s been argument about Moon vs Mars, part of that argue, was if something happened on Moon or Mars, it helps the other. Or can’t have lunar mining without it effecting Mars settlements and Mars settlements would enable lunar mining.
Or question is, which is first, and the question been answered, first the Moon, and then Mars.
Don’t boggled down with the Moon. Use it as jumping off point, if you have been successful, so far, the delays, don’t look promising.
Your prizes are unrealistically low. Wouldn’t incentivize anyone that wasn’t already going to do it anyway and as such would have no effect. On the order of offering $200.00 to someone to drive from Canaveral to Vandenberg and back.
I disagree. When was it tried?
My idea is not to offer a repeat of the lunar X-prize.
I suggest a standing offer based on achievements.
Art,
I’ll give you a $1 after you have put up the first $200 million in prize money…
Bigelow Aerospace offered $50 million back in 2004. It got no takers, and eventually Bigelow went under. For a chuckle: in “Tom Swift and His Rocket Ship,” the prize for first orbital flight is $100K. Having won, Tom announced he will use the money to build a space station!
Everything was cheaper are far more doable in 1954.
Then along came the FAA…
“This raises a very important question: if ISOs have been coming to Earth for billions of years, could it be that they brought the ingredients for life with them?
In a recent paper, a team of researchers considered the implications of ISOs being responsible for panspermia – the theory that the seeds of life exist throughout the Universe and are distributed by asteroids, comets, and other celestial objects.”
One thing, is the assumption that life starts on planets close to a star, rather than starting between the stars.
In Sol, we could could have life on moons of gas giants, and such life is unrelated to having sunlight. And on Earth we have life having nothing to do with sunlight.
So on moons around gas giant floater, there could be life. Maybe life is more related to gas giants rather than burning stars.
And it seems possible Sol ejected more planets than it kept. And some systems may ejected a lot more than Sol did.
I don’t find it compelling that life has to be injected into a planet or a moon with a complex atmosphere and oceans or otherwise awash in organic chemicals in a temperate orbital zone or otherwise favorable temperature/pressure conditions but still requires a foreign, airless, irradiated asteroid to come crashing into it to fertilize life.
The Miller experiments way back when demonstrated that this isn’t necessary on a planet with the above and ample static electricity.
I think it’s inherit in many astronomic systems.
Yeah, but so far there’s no evidence at all. Other than Fermi’s Paradox.
Well Fermi raises the bar pretty high, out to beyond ~90 LY from Earth and we wouldn’t pass that test either.
Someday maybe we’ll have a follow-on to Webb that can detect amino acids in exo-planetary atmospheres or detect chemicals that can only be synthesized from amino acid based organisms.
Ignoring Andromeda Strains for the time being…
My best Frankenrocket from the 1960s (when I was a teen-ager) was what I called the Megatitan. It had 5x LR87 engines in a core, with 5x cores on the bottom and a 6th core as second stage (hypergolic, so why not?). I figured it could put around 85 metric tons in LEO, physically bigger than a Saturn V, but low Isp. In some versions, the upper stage looked like a scaled-up X-15. I used to lie in bed at night, alternately fantasizing about Megatitan, or about you-know-what. Pretty soon the power of And dawned on me, and writing soon followed. 60 years later, and I’m fantasizing about an Otto Celera 500L equipped with a hyperdrive. Neither my wife nor the cat seems interested…
If you’d gone with the LR87 / Alumazine you wouldn’t have had to worry about a tech dropping a heavy socket from a service platform for the 2nd stage down and puncturing an Aerozine-60 tank on one of the first stage cores. Maybe with only one core depressed the rocket could hold up structurally? But if not….
For that latter scenario, in terms of drama, I’d put the hands-down winner to be Frankenrocket, even when stacked up against the Antares with its twin AJ-26ers!
For those young or not-that-young-anymore guys who fantasize about unusual trains or railroad locomotives, there is a saying, “there is a prototype for everything.” Meaning whatever outlandish or unorthodox design you can think of for a railroad locomotive, some one, somewhere at some time actually built one of those things or at least had plans for one.
The real-world prototype for your imaginings, I believe was the storable-propellant Soviet Proton rocket and is clustering into a Moon rocket that the Chelomei design bureau put forward in its rivalry with Korolev’s N-1 Moon rocket.
So at least among the Soviets, your Megatitan was if not a physical article, at least a concept of one of their design bureaus.
You’re wrong, of course.
1. Proton was not a cluster vehicle, it simply had complex tankage for ease of shipment. If you look at the bottom you will see the 6 engines are attached to a ring, and the “side stages” are just tanks, which are not dropped. The Saturn 1 used an identical strategy (but to save money, it’s a Jupiter tank surrounded by Redstone tanks).
2. Side staging is an old idea. R-7, for example, has a sustainer core and 4 strap-ons.
3. I recall I first noticed the idea from Thorad (short for Thor Augmented Delta, later abbreviated to simply Delta). Also, in 1964, I noticed the Titan III prototype, which was a Titan ICBM with two Minuteman first stages.
One consequence of noticing Thorad as a kid was, I named a major metropolis on my imaginary Venusworld planet after it. It’s the capital of the continent of Karvala. The capital of Venusworld is Venus Forum (after the pencil). See “Crimson Darkness,” et seq.
The official was Arizona GOP chair Jeff DeWitt, who from 2018 to 2020 was NASA’s chief financial officer. Someone who would offer multi-million dollar bribes to Kari Lake would probably have no qualms about rigging Arizona elections. So what was he doing when he was in charge of NASA’s pile of money?
Since he’s already in deep shit, he probably won’t sue you for noticing that.
Putting the lander in LLO with all the masscons, etc. that entails until a crew Orion can be launched on another SLS? Best case we have today is a one year turnaround for SLS. I assume the lander, being fully robotic and yet to be designed, would be able to do correction burns to maintain a stable orbit while awaiting an Orion capsule to show after a year? OTOH, if by some miracle, we could accelerate SLS builds so that we could do two within a month then we could easily launch them withing a few weeks of each other by putting one each on pad B and pad….. oops!
Griffin is retired for a reason.
Even assuming that, I suspect there will be some batteries that run down while waiting or something.
“Best case we have today is a one year turnaround for SLS.”
Maybe the idea is, that you wait until you have two SLS stacks completely ready to go at the VAB, and then just launch them in fairly short succession from LC-39B. But that assumes that NASA can get pad turnaround time down to something reasonable. That also would mean only one mission every two years (!) with the production cadence NASA is projecting.
Someone needs to awaken Dr. Griffin from his bad dream…
Another has-been failure of a parasite who misses feeding at the public trough.
Somebody really wants his Boeing bucks!
It seems possible that Blue Origin, New Glenn could get to orbit before Starship. Though New Glenn might blow up on the pad or even never try to launch.
I would like to another Starship with it’s 33 engines working at launch, but like the Falcon it might require a fourth flight. That all engines were working on flight 2 was quite amazing.
Anyways I am still not in favor of cancelling SLS, yet.
I like lots of back ups, and maybe NASA to try to more them.
So far, other than SLS, they haven’t cost anything to speak of. And there seems other potential players, if NASA repeats what it’s done twice.
The robotic lunar missions hasn’t panned out yet, my idea was to do a lot of them.
I think with Mars exploration there needs to a lot robotic mission. And other than determining whether the Moon has mineable water which might take years to determine after exploring the Moon, and NASA deems there is “in fact” has mineable lunar water.
And always regarded exploring moon as getting ready to explore Mars.
So rather than just do Moon with new robotic missions, one also do same right now, in regards to more Mars robotic missions. So both more attempts of lunar robotic mission but also include Mars robotic mission, for start ups or anyone.
How do you get to it seeming possible that New Glenn will reach orbit before Starship? BO has a non-flight article about to reach the pad for basic fit tests, and there is no sign of an actual flight article yet. They might possibly get a first launch this year, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Starship, on the other hand, will very likely make orbit on IFT 3 which could launch in as few as two weeks, but will more likely be in late February or early March given FAA paperwork. Even if IFT 3 fails, it’s hard to imagine that SpaceX won’t make it on attempt 4 or 5, both of which I expect to see before New Glen makes attempt one.
Starship could have successful launch within a few weeks and FAA could have no reason to delay the next launch of Starship. And could have a launch of Starship every month or so.
But it’s not clear to me, why the second tower apparently in going to built in Texas rather than KSC. And whether there could be governmental delays at KSC and/or Texas in terms building another launch tower.
Or for some reasons, the second is going to be built in Texas and such building will likely delay launches, unless the idea of a launch per month is not close to a reality for various reasons. Or if it takes say 3 months for Starship launch, then building a new tower, won’t do much to delay Starship launches.
And as I said, it was good sign all engines were burning on first stage, but it may not be the case on next launch. And if it is, and it gets to orbit, it seems the focus becomes how fast can launch between launches. And new tower nearby, sort of gets in the way of that, unless the way to get to one launch per month is having a second tower {and why wasn’t built at KSC?}.
It could a matter of sharing resources, or having two crew at different places, is less efficient.
In terms of New Glenn, Bezos likes to be secretive as compared Musk, or Bezos would like to move quietly and reveal things at last moment. I would say it’s more of style thing rather than a substantial difference. Bezos would want to try to do something quietly and if he fails, it’s not news, as no one knew he was trying.
It’s clear to me, whether Starship will work. As a successful launch to orbit, is a first step, or the plan is it will have recoverable stages. And plan is having refueling in orbit.
Either would change everything, but needs both of them. And it seems main problem has been related to govt policies and that will remain [apparently, a constant].
Also, got other general issues. The US is in two wars, and could get into more. Or the two can have more escalation {more wars and/or escalation are roughly the same, one say other places want to take advantage of having two wars ongoing- and more wars is other places with roughly same actors involved.
And it’s election year. And Musk is political figure apparently cause he supports freedom of speak- which shouldn’t cause anyone to be a political figure, but is, “why” this has anything to do with rocket launches.
Also, for Elon plan to fully work, he needs to launch Starships from the ocean.
It seems more launches from Texas is a political issue and a limitation of existing regulation regarding the Texas launch site.
I think we have to have ocean settlements.
I heard some argue, it’s cheaper to live on the ocean than to live on Mars.
And it seems to be silly point. But I would say to have Mars settlement, you need ocean settlements on Earth.
And Musk has said he needs ocean launch to have settlements on Mars.
And it seems to me, ocean settlement could cheap and easy to do.
My view is to have Mars settlements, you have to mine a lot water, as compare Moon where just need to mine tens thousands of tons of water per year]. So with Mars need mine say 1 million tons of water within a few years, and city needs hundreds millions ton per year. Or need lakes of water.
And with ocean settlements you also need freshwater lakes of water, btw. And could have floating solar ponds making freshwater from sea water. And probably also have solar ponds on Mars, also.
Or need to launch a lot rocket from Earth’s ocean and there is a lot activity related to rocket launches, and want people there. And people should have various entertainment opportunity options , also.
Unfortunately the FAA slow-rolls SpaceX without good reason all the time… It’s like they personally want Musk to fail
“But it’s not clear to me, why the second tower apparently in going to built in Texas rather than KSC.”
NSF had an article discussing that a couple weeks ago. There are, it seems, some regulatory hurdles to deal with at the Cape sites SpaceX wants to use.
I just skimmed it, but it seemed to be Apollo on antihistamines.
Let me FTFY:
I just skimmed it, but it seemed to be Apollo on
antihistamineslaxatives.Apollo on suppositories.
+10
What goes up must come down…
I refuse to believe Mike Griffin is this stupid. A mistake of this magnitude is a deliberate act of malice.
He’s got 5 PhDs. He has never had a job outside academia or government.
He also had jobs in the civilian side of the military-industrial complex:
His latest government website bio has a different list of jobs:
Meanwhile, in the real world, a single RS-25 costs more than an entire Starship/Superheavy booster stack:
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/rocket-report-a-new-estimate-of-starship-costs-japan-launches-spy-satellite/
Which is absolutely insane.
Not just the engines for said stack, the ENTIRE stack. Nuts, bolts, sheet metal, wires, welds, spars, stringers, plumbing, valves, tiles, actuators, flaps, hinges, tankage, etc…EVERYTHING!
–Rocket Report: A new estimate of Starship costs; Japan launches spy satellite
One space tug company runs into financial problems; another says go big or go home.
Stephen Clark – 1/19/2024, 4:00 AM–
But before that:
“The problem at America’s military spaceports. The Biden administration is requesting $1.3 billion over the next five years to revamp infrastructure at the Space Force’s ranges in Florida and California, Ars reports. This will help address things like roads, bridges, utilities, and airfields that, in many cases, haven’t seen an update in decades. But it’s not enough, according to the Space Force. ”
Well, they also build place where large rocket can be test ed {in the ocean} but at least, Biden doing something.
—“Taking a look at Starship’s costs. A report from the space media and research company Payload analyzes SpaceX’s costs in building and developing Starship. This is an important angle that isn’t reported often enough, as SpaceX and media outlets tend to focus on technical and schedule aspects of the Starship program. Payload calls Starship’s low-cost manufacturing a “breakthrough in rocketry,” with SpaceX on a path to eventually reduce the cost of a single flight of a fully reusable Starship rocket to less than $10 million. However, Starship is still very much a development program, and Payload estimates it currently costs around $90 million for SpaceX to build a fully stacked Starship rocket. The vast majority of this cost goes toward the rocket’s 39 Raptor engines and labor expenses.
Recouping R&D costs … The higher the Starship flight rate, the more SpaceX can reduce the cost of a single launch by spreading the program’s fixed costs across numerous missions. “On a fully reusable basis, the economics of Starship flights begin to look closer to those of an airline,” Payload reports. …—
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/rocket-report-a-new-estimate-of-starship-costs-japan-launches-spy-satellite/
I kind of beat you to the punch two hours ago, scroll up.
The SLS is too expensive and its flight rate is too low. If we want to get back to the moon we need to contract with Boeing, Douglas, Rockwell, Grumman, IBM, and the rest of the old team and build us some Saturn V’s, Apollo’s, and LEMs. It’s a proven vehicle that can get the job done!
If we seriously wanted a least time path to the moon for just the usual NASA flag and footprints operation to land some women of color, stick some landing legs on a Crew Dragon and send it there on an upper stage launched by a SpaceX Superheavy booster.
On a future episode of Jeopardy!
Contestant: I’ll take NASA for 800, please.
Not Alex: This NASA Administrator did incalculable damage to the nation’s space efforts during his reign.
Contestant Buzzing In: Who is Michael Griffin?
Bzzzt
Not Alex: Anyone? The answer we were looking for was Who is Dan Goldin? But upon further review the judges have decided that Michael Griffin is a correct answer!
I’d be careful with the phrase “incalculable damage.”
Oh, you have a calculation?
There’s a calculable probability that… you know.
Contestant: I’ll take NASA for 600, please.
Watson: The Daily Double! This is a photographic Daily Double. What is your wager?
Contestant: Let’s make it a true Daily Double, I’ll wager 1200.
Watson: OK. Here’s your clue: “This was intended to launch astronauts to low earth orbit to rendezvous with a moon lander, until the US Air Force’s (now US Space Force) 45th Composite Space Group from Patrick AFB pointed out it could melt the Orion capsule’s parachutes on emergency abort.”
Berger did have to get his dig at Trump in.
Why in the world would any winner of the 2024 election actually want this guy back?
You have to assume stupidity, evil or extreme carelessness about space in general for this to be realistic.
Y’all comparing SLS to Starship is a good academic exercise.
If you want a real discussion, compare Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy to nothing.
Falcon 9 to LEO; 11 tons at 62 million dollars per flight,
Falcon Heavy to LEO; 27 tons at 90 million dollars per flight.
Their competition, doesn’t exist.
Quit wasting time on a fantasy that may or may not materialize. Even if SLS does fly, it will cost 2 to 4 Billion/per launch, and be capable of one launch every two to three years. Same for Starship, just many billions of dollars less expensive with higher launch rate.
Giving Mike Griffin any ink is a complete waste of everyone’s time.
Those figures are sandbagged and long ago superseded. 9 can manage 26 tons to LEO, Heavy 63 tons. The “reusable” figures are 15-30% less, depending on recovery options taken. But I do agree about Griffin’s “plan” being a waste of phosphors (Ink? What’s that?). I’ll say nothing about the man, as I’ve learned my lesson well.
So it’s even better than listed?
Why are we not on the moon already?
I was looking at re-usable on both Falcon 9 and all three boosters on Falcon Heavy.
With 2 Billion, Spacex could put 20 or more launches of 40 to 45 tons into LEO with Falcon Heavy, and 2/3 of that if they used Falcon 9. That’s almost enough tonnage that I would try it.
Would 500 tons of payload in LEO allow you to go to the moon and back a couple of times? Asking for me.
Apollo did it with far less than 500 tonnes. With the 3rd stage and it’s remaining fuel and the rest of the stack after orbital insertion, wasn’t it around 130 tons? And everything was expended.
If you can reuse some of the hardware, things look a lot better for several productive trips.
I recall that Saturn put about 130 tonnes to LEO. It’s first stage sea level ISP was only about 265s, so a lot of the thrust at launch was lifting extra fuel that had to make up for that inefficiency. Superbooster, with already twice the thrust and aiming for three times the thrust, and a sea level ISP of 350s, could loft an Apollo architecture with ease. But Elon sees little point in flag and footprint missions that don’t lead to something permanent.
I would almost say he’s indulging NASA’s Artemis folks for open access to their support facilities and knowledge base.
It was said, we could have done it, with rockets which are being retired {Delta and Atlas- the EELV developed by US military}. But nothing changed and Falcon Heavies could do it cheaper.
Of course with higher launch rates, EELV could been cheaper and could developed variants which were planned.
But it seems the kerosene first stage is better, though not for the second stage.
But methane engine on a second stage could work pretty good.
Von Braun’s idea was, having built a space station with reusable rockets @ 10 tons a launch, one could then assemble a lunar transit and lander in earth orbit, and eventually a Mars fleet. Somewhere around here I have a children’s book with pictures (as well as an old copy of “The Mars Project” with calculations). Back about 20 years ago, I wrote an alternate history story called “Harvest Moon” about a lunar base built in 1965 using Gemini and Titan-level technology. Published in Asimov’s, Sept. 2005.
The Titan-II was an impressive rocket to orbit. As a silo based ICBM, not so great.
I was watching a YouTube excerpt of a Joe Rogan Experience pod cast where Joe made an oblique reference to a “broken arrow” nuclear weapon catastrophe touched off by a dropped wrench socket. His resourceful studio aid Jamie didn’t look it up for us, but I am sure he was thinking about the Titan II missile accident.
As to the “not-so-great” aspect to the Titan II rocket as a strategic missile, I don’t think you can blame the Titan II rocket design so much as the whole concept of storable liquid propellant. As horrible as this accident was, the Soviets had an even more horrible accident with this propellant in their Strategic Rocket Forces, the accident that killed their top guy Marshal Nedelin.
The hazards of storable liquid propellant was known to the Soviets, with Korolev hanging on to the idea of using kerosene/LOX in a strategic rocket. The kerosene was definitely storable, and the idea was “in a crisis” where the Strategic Rocket Forces needed to stand by, they would load the LOX and top it off as it evaporated. One anecdote was of a test where the liquid oxygen connector was leaking, and one resourceful guy went up to it, unzipped, and Russian peasant style sealed the leak with a blend of water and urea ice.
By the same criterion one would have to judge the Apollo CM that used the same type of propellant, where Astronaut Brand was almost done-in by fumes from a leaking thruster and an open cabin pressure relief valve after splashdown on the Apollo-Soyuz Application Test (ASAT) flight, saved by the other two crew members who “slapped an oxygen mask” on him before he almost succumbed to the fumes?
We are still considering the drawbacks of storable liquid propellants with decisions to go back to the Moon with safer cryopropellants and all of the problems their use entails? Didn’t Rand post a video by Southern Aerospace Engineer Motivational Speaker Guy talking about the current back-to-the-Moon “architecture” involving no end to the number of tanker launches for boil-off makeup on orbit?
As to the “not-so-great” aspect to the Titan II rocket as a strategic missile, I don’t think you can blame the Titan II rocket design so much as the whole concept of storable liquid propellant.
I think the limitations as designed into the Titan-II led to systemic (to use an overused word these days) issues with the entire missile as a weapon design. Issues that weren’t necessarily implicit to the Kerolox Atlas. But it too was eventually abandoned for the easier to handle solids.
One: It’s high performance arose in part to the fact that it obtained structural strength from holding its bi-propellant in its first stage tanks.
Two: those first stage tanks needed to be filled and pressurized in order for the rocket to support a fueled bi-prop 2nd stage.
Three: The rocket was fueled via trucks with lines run down into the silo. There were no fuel distribution systems inherit to the silo. To de-fuel the rocket required a truck to pull up to the silo with hoses.
Four: Either of the two bi-propellants are deadly toxic. I have been told that the suits worn by service techs would not protect them from a direct leak of propellant onto the suit or at least not for long. Breathing apparatus mandatory in such a situation.
Five: Martin-Marietta advised the USAF early on in the episode to abandon the site and keep it quarantined until either all the propellants dispersed or exploded. It was a USAF decision, up the chain of command staffed by bomber pilots that came up with the decision to activate a ventilation fan that likely triggered the explosion that killed the tech who activated it.
Six: There were no provisions to flood the silo with water at the time in case of this type of catastrophic event.
Wikipedia corrects me that one of the bi-propellants was Aerozine-50 not -60. which is a 1:1 mixture of hydrazine and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) the other propellant being di-nitrogen tetroxide. They are hypergolic fuels (ignite on contact, but 90%+ of the people who post here know that already).
So let’s cut NASA’s budget in half, hire someone to write a check to whoever gets to the moon first and stays there for a year. Say, 200 million to the first one, 175 million to the second one, and 100 million to the third.
Offer 100 million to the first on-orbit fuel depot selling H2, Lox, Methane, Kerosene, breathable air, beer and smokes(face it, some sinners are going to want to try this). 100 million to the second one, too.
Offer 150 million to the company who puts up 4 or 8 lunar cyclers to ferry people and equipment to and from the moon.
Okay, where am I; This is just under 1 billion dollars. That’s a rounding error in the national budget, and this would jump-start our exploration of the moon. And I have 19 billion left to give to the launch providers who lift all this to LEO. Oh, I may need 200,000 dollars to hire two people to write the checks. So 18,999,800,000.00 for launch services.
NASA budget might be cut in half, because “space costs less”, but it might doubled because “space cost less”.
In either case, NASA budget is currently small.
The current problem is we don’t know if the lunar polar region has mineable water.
Nor do we know if Mars has mineable water.
Mars is not habitable unless it has mineable water.
If we knew that the Moon had mineable water, we would be mining it. And it would have nothing to do with NASA mining the Moon.
You had to explore anything for it to be mineable, or one could say, exploration “makes more things mineable”. And likewise if NASA explored the Moon, it will possibly make lunar water more mineable.
If NASA explore the Moon, and then explores Mars, exploring Mars could make lunar water more mineable. And if we are mining the water on the Moon, it makes Mars water, more mineable.
And it seems possible/likely that if we are mining the water on the Moon, we could make Mercury, a habitable planet. Or if mining water on Mars, we could make Mercury a habitable planet.
And what seems more important to me, is if we have Mars settlements, it could lead to settlements in Venus orbits. Venus orbit needs to be used, if you have Mars settlements.
And you could say Venus orbit is more related to a habitable Mercury- though they are kind of competitors regarding doing things in the outer worlds of our solar system {Or Mars nor Earth, are competitors.}.
But I see, NASA exploring Moon and Mars, as related to any hope, that NASA will continue to exist
There’s a lot of talk about mining water. I’m sorry, but mining water doesn’t really get you much. Water is readily available her on Earth. In space, water is only useful if it grants additional capabilities. It really doesn’t for the foreseeable future. If I had free water that I was giving away on the moon it still wouldn’t make sense to go there to refuel. Too much investment is required between here and there.
Even if I gave you free water in LEO, it wouldn’t be used for decades. Space infrastructure moves very slowly….
Rand had a link to a podcast some time back where the interviewee claimed that if you heat lunar regolith, it gives off steam. And almost all water can be recycled with enough energy.
About 40% of the Earth’s crust is oxygen, I assume the moon is of somewhat similar makeup.
I’d say most of the raw materials are already there.
Vapor. Though if steam is at below 0 C, cause it’s vacuum, we will call it steam.
Water vapor pressure. wiki:
–Vapor pressure of water (0–100 °C)-
0 32 0.6113 4.5851 0.0060
.0060 atm, 0.0882 psia
30 86 4.2455 31.8439 0.0419
0.0419 atm, 0.61593 psia
room temperature
And going to compress O2 to make LOX, that makes heat, use the heat.
You going have problem mostly related to cooling the rocket fuel.
LOX fairly easy per kg, H2 is require a lot energy {heat] to liquefy.
so, if got CO2, and got gasous H2, make Methane.
If got frozen CO2 on Moon it lowers costs of making rocket fuel.
“There’s a lot of talk about mining water. I’m sorry, but mining water doesn’t really get you much.”
Well, I would say mining lunar water, gets you in the door. But mineable lunar water isn’t 100 tons of less per year. At best it’s trying to find it out to see if you can mine lunar water. And if there was a site on the Moon in which one could mine 1 million tons of water and thereby reach more than 10,000 tons per year at this site, it might be mineable. If nothing else, any attempt at mining anything deemed mineable, has factors determine whether it will become profitable. But at moment there isn’t mineable water on the Moon or Mars.
And after exploring the Moon, it will likely not be the case, immediately.
So, I think NASA should mostly exploring the lunar polar region, as way to get ground truth regarding the orbital exploration effort over last decade. And to prove or give some reason to think NASA might able to explore, Mars.
They say it’s testbed, I think it’s testbed of NASA ability to explore anything.
“If I had free water that I was giving away on the moon it still wouldn’t make sense to go there to refuel. ”
Some doesn’t matter much. 10 tons doesn’t matter much. a future and hundreds and then thousands of ton, then the water worth something and business which can do this, is probably worth more than year sale of water. And in mining anything, you are sorting, so, one mine water, and with a lot iron ore in a pile, mine it, also.
So, it’s getting in the door. And is not unrelated to what will be explored on Mars.
It’s been argument about Moon vs Mars, part of that argue, was if something happened on Moon or Mars, it helps the other. Or can’t have lunar mining without it effecting Mars settlements and Mars settlements would enable lunar mining.
Or question is, which is first, and the question been answered, first the Moon, and then Mars.
Don’t boggled down with the Moon. Use it as jumping off point, if you have been successful, so far, the delays, don’t look promising.
Your prizes are unrealistically low. Wouldn’t incentivize anyone that wasn’t already going to do it anyway and as such would have no effect. On the order of offering $200.00 to someone to drive from Canaveral to Vandenberg and back.
I disagree. When was it tried?
My idea is not to offer a repeat of the lunar X-prize.
I suggest a standing offer based on achievements.
Art,
I’ll give you a $1 after you have put up the first $200 million in prize money…
Bigelow Aerospace offered $50 million back in 2004. It got no takers, and eventually Bigelow went under. For a chuckle: in “Tom Swift and His Rocket Ship,” the prize for first orbital flight is $100K. Having won, Tom announced he will use the money to build a space station!
Everything was cheaper are far more doable in 1954.
Then along came the FAA…
What if Life on Earth Began When Interstellar Objects Crashed Here?
https://www.sciencealert.com/what-if-life-on-earth-began-when-interstellar-objects-crashed-here
Linked from: https://instapundit.com/
“This raises a very important question: if ISOs have been coming to Earth for billions of years, could it be that they brought the ingredients for life with them?
In a recent paper, a team of researchers considered the implications of ISOs being responsible for panspermia – the theory that the seeds of life exist throughout the Universe and are distributed by asteroids, comets, and other celestial objects.”
One thing, is the assumption that life starts on planets close to a star, rather than starting between the stars.
In Sol, we could could have life on moons of gas giants, and such life is unrelated to having sunlight. And on Earth we have life having nothing to do with sunlight.
So on moons around gas giant floater, there could be life. Maybe life is more related to gas giants rather than burning stars.
And it seems possible Sol ejected more planets than it kept. And some systems may ejected a lot more than Sol did.
I don’t find it compelling that life has to be injected into a planet or a moon with a complex atmosphere and oceans or otherwise awash in organic chemicals in a temperate orbital zone or otherwise favorable temperature/pressure conditions but still requires a foreign, airless, irradiated asteroid to come crashing into it to fertilize life.
The Miller experiments way back when demonstrated that this isn’t necessary on a planet with the above and ample static electricity.
I think it’s inherit in many astronomic systems.
Yeah, but so far there’s no evidence at all. Other than Fermi’s Paradox.
Well Fermi raises the bar pretty high, out to beyond ~90 LY from Earth and we wouldn’t pass that test either.
Someday maybe we’ll have a follow-on to Webb that can detect amino acids in exo-planetary atmospheres or detect chemicals that can only be synthesized from amino acid based organisms.
Ignoring Andromeda Strains for the time being…
My best Frankenrocket from the 1960s (when I was a teen-ager) was what I called the Megatitan. It had 5x LR87 engines in a core, with 5x cores on the bottom and a 6th core as second stage (hypergolic, so why not?). I figured it could put around 85 metric tons in LEO, physically bigger than a Saturn V, but low Isp. In some versions, the upper stage looked like a scaled-up X-15. I used to lie in bed at night, alternately fantasizing about Megatitan, or about you-know-what. Pretty soon the power of And dawned on me, and writing soon followed. 60 years later, and I’m fantasizing about an Otto Celera 500L equipped with a hyperdrive. Neither my wife nor the cat seems interested…
If you’d gone with the LR87 / Alumazine you wouldn’t have had to worry about a tech dropping a heavy socket from a service platform for the 2nd stage down and puncturing an Aerozine-60 tank on one of the first stage cores. Maybe with only one core depressed the rocket could hold up structurally? But if not….
For that latter scenario, in terms of drama, I’d put the hands-down winner to be Frankenrocket, even when stacked up against the Antares with its twin AJ-26ers!
For those young or not-that-young-anymore guys who fantasize about unusual trains or railroad locomotives, there is a saying, “there is a prototype for everything.” Meaning whatever outlandish or unorthodox design you can think of for a railroad locomotive, some one, somewhere at some time actually built one of those things or at least had plans for one.
The real-world prototype for your imaginings, I believe was the storable-propellant Soviet Proton rocket and is clustering into a Moon rocket that the Chelomei design bureau put forward in its rivalry with Korolev’s N-1 Moon rocket.
So at least among the Soviets, your Megatitan was if not a physical article, at least a concept of one of their design bureaus.
You’re wrong, of course.
1. Proton was not a cluster vehicle, it simply had complex tankage for ease of shipment. If you look at the bottom you will see the 6 engines are attached to a ring, and the “side stages” are just tanks, which are not dropped. The Saturn 1 used an identical strategy (but to save money, it’s a Jupiter tank surrounded by Redstone tanks).
2. Side staging is an old idea. R-7, for example, has a sustainer core and 4 strap-ons.
3. I recall I first noticed the idea from Thorad (short for Thor Augmented Delta, later abbreviated to simply Delta). Also, in 1964, I noticed the Titan III prototype, which was a Titan ICBM with two Minuteman first stages.
One consequence of noticing Thorad as a kid was, I named a major metropolis on my imaginary Venusworld planet after it. It’s the capital of the continent of Karvala. The capital of Venusworld is Venus Forum (after the pencil). See “Crimson Darkness,” et seq.
Side note:
Daily Mail: EXCLUSIVE Audio recording reveals the moment that senior Republican figure tried to bribe Kari Lake not to run for Senate.
The official was Arizona GOP chair Jeff DeWitt, who from 2018 to 2020 was NASA’s chief financial officer. Someone who would offer multi-million dollar bribes to Kari Lake would probably have no qualms about rigging Arizona elections. So what was he doing when he was in charge of NASA’s pile of money?
Since he’s already in deep shit, he probably won’t sue you for noticing that.