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Nothing highlights the difference between the State Sector and the competitive private sector than the U.S. space program. The U.S. Government decided that it as time to return to the moon. They initially decided on the constellation program and Orion capsule. The Orion capsule would service the International space station (deliver seen astronauts at a time) using a medium launch system (Aries 1) and also take 4 astronauts to moon on large fully expendable launch system (larger than Saturn 5) called Aries 5. This was instigated by the Bush Administration and 9 billion dollars spent on the program till incoming Bush Administration cancelled it. Incoming Obama officials decided that NASA needed some sort of manned program so decided to build a rocket using existing shuttle hardware called the Space Launch System and retain the Orion capsule in order to save money. The reality today, the decision to use legacy hardware has been a disaster. More has been spent on the Orion Capsule (yet to be used) than everything SpaceX has spent to date (Falcon 1, Falcon 9. Falcon Heavy launch systems, Dragon cargo and crew capsules, Starship development to date, 900+ starlink Satellites in orbit). SLS is no better. It will use four shuttle engines (Artemis 1,2 and 3 will use existing stockpile then a new variant of engine will be manufactured). Has cost $135 million per engine to refurbish and same amount to manufacture new engines. The problem is they are old engines which do not make much use of new techniques like 3D printing. This means half a billion $ on base of each expendable SLS in addition to two solid fuel boosters. Meanwhile SpaceX’s new Starship (a larger rocket than SLS) will have 28 new methane powered raptors on lower booster. These can be manufactured for $2 million each or $56 million of engines to be recovered after each launch on the new SpaceX system. Another problem with NASA is their contracts with the private sector are on a cost plus basis. Because contractors get cost plus a percentage the incentive is for contractors to maximise their costs.

Business people must be ethical to remain in business (there are exceptions). Usually word gets around fast. Rather than taking and consuming, entrepreneurs give and risk. Selling equates to giving for an expectation of an equivalent gift, in expectation of return. The entrepreneur does not expect something for nothing. The entrepreneur risks everything when creating his gifts. Trust is an essential part of entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur cannot succeed unless his product appeals to the wants and needs of others.
The state sector, by its nature, does not have the same altruistic approach of only receiving by giving something of equal value. The state sector takes from the private sector and spends (consumes). It is a spending culture. Often this spending is not on what is wanted and needed by society, it is at the whim of politicians and bureaucrats. They are outside the control of the market, it is a take by force and spend culture.

The following seven points need to be part of a launch system in order to make space affordable, that will open up space.
-One that is simple. Starship is simple, the orbiter (cargo variant) just looks like a giant stainless-steel bullet with thermal tiles on one side and two sets of fins. Will just crash back through atmosphere in horizontal position like a traditional capsule then after terminal velocity attained will re-orientate to vertical position and propulsively land vertically. Starship is being made from a highly polished new alloy of stainless steel that is extremely heat resistant. The windward side will then be covered in a new improved ceramic tile. They will be a lot thinner than shuttle tiles and also a big improvement. These tiles were recently developed by NASA and further refined by SpaceX. They will need to be a vast improvement as shuttle tiles caused major problems.

  • Economies of scale. Two aspects, a) starship is designed to be mass produced spreading development costs and b) starship is large (entire launch system 1.5 times larger than Saturn five, orbiter about three times size of space shuttle orbiter).
  • Versatility. Can be modified for other purposes, e.g. become manned, will become re-fuel able in space, landing legs for landing on earth can also be used for landing on Mars (in future). A skirt around the engines both protects engines during re-entry and also allows for back to back docking in orbit for re-fuelling.
  • Rapid reusability. Rapid is so important, refuel and re-launch, not six months refurbishing like the Space Shuttle.
  • Re-fuel ability We could throw away our cars and aeroplanes after one use but only an idiot would do so. –
    Fuel stations in space. No good you having a re-fuel able car if there are no service stations to re-fuel it.
  • In-Situ resource utilization. When colonizing Australia, the pioneers did not bring all the timber, bricks, food with them. They hunted, grew crops, made bricks, chopped down trees. In-situ is just a nerdy term. Situ is short for situate. Situate means place. Using in place (off planet) resources. SpaceX’s plan to manufacture methane and O2 from Mars CO2 and water using energy from a large array of solar panels (set up robotically on Mars after an unmanned mission) is an attempt to set up a fuel station on Mars using Martian resources. Starship cannot get off the Surface of Mars unless it is re-fuelled with almost 1,000 tonnes of Methane and liquid oxygen (LOX).
  • I have decided to add one more point for the global warming people. Methane can be made from Earth CO2 and water. Then it burns back to CO2 and water therefore greenhouse gas neutral if used in a launch system (provided green power (my first choice would be nuclear) is used for the production of).

The reality is that Governments do not manufacture motorcars nor commercial airliners. Now that the private sector has stepped up Governments should not be manufacturing launch systems. SpaceX has already dropped launch costs by a factor of five. They have taken much of the commercial launch market off Russian and European Space Agencies. Starship should reduce costs by a similar factor again. The future looks good. NASA lost it’s way after Apollo and it has taken till now and the entry of the private sector to recreate a future we can all look forward to.

Eric123 6 Jan 18
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0

Nice set of numbers.

For the Falcon rocket, the engines are 40% of the cost. One engine is $2
million, there are 27 engines, the payload is 64 tons, and the launch cost is
$150 million. The payload cost is 2340 $/kg and the engines contribute $900/kg.

SpaceX pioneered the methane engine, which has a higher exhaust speed (3.7 km/s) than
traditional kerosene (3.3 km/s). Now others are using methane. You can't use hydrogen
for the ground state because the density of liquid hydrogen is too low. For the ground,
the options are kerosene, methane, and solid fuel (2.5 km/s).

The Stratolaunch aircraft launches a rocket from high altitude, giving it a speed boost.
A ground rocket has to plow through the atmosphere, and it has to go up before it can
go sideways. Air launch bypasses most of the atmosphere, and the rocket can go sideways
immediately. Vertical lift comes from wings.

A ground rocket has to get to orbit as fast as possible. Every second not being
at orbital speed costs you fuel. This means a ground rocket needs to accelerate
at more than 2 g, hence it needs lots of expensive engines. Air launch
allows you to take your time getting to orbit and requires fewer engines.

With air launch you can use cheap solid rockets instead of expensive methane rockets.
In km/s,

Equator speed .45
Aircraft speed .27
Orbit speed 7.8

Air launch currently uses a commercial aircraft moving at .27 km/s (Mach .9).
We should develop a ramjet air launch that moves at 1.5 km/s (Mach 5).
Ramjets are a mature and simple technology. Baffled that we haven't already done this.

Another competing launch scheme is rail launch, but the rail has to be
ludicrously long. Ramjet launch is better than rail launch.
Rail launch is perfect, however, for the moon.

A Soyuz re-entry capsule is 3 tons. That's the minimum mass for bringing people back
to Earth. There's no need for the re-entry capsule to be heavier than that.
The Space Shuttle has a mass of 93 tons, which is senseless.

The prime natural resource in space is lunar ice. Ice can be used for rocket
fuel, life support, and radiation shielding. The first move is to mine lunar
ice and bring it to low Earth orbit. You want as much fuel at LEO as possible,
for satellite station keeping, and for promoting LEO satellites to
geostationary orbit. Don't try to get to GEO right away. First get to LEO and
then refuel with lunar ice.

Another prime natural resource in space is iron, which comes from metal asteroid craters
on the moon. We should be prospecting the moon for these. Iron asteroids also contain
platinum group metals. A 100 meter sized iron asteroid has 1 billion dollars in platinum
group metals. The Earth has 2 good platinum mines and they're both metal asteroid craters.

jaymaron.com/asteroidmining.html [jaymaron.com]
jaymaron.com/astronautics.html [jaymaron.com]

China is working hard to dominate world mining. You can bet that they're already prospecting
the moon, while we're wasting our time with science missions. America needs to revive its frontier spirit and get its ass to the moon and prospect. We know there's abundant ice in the polar craters, and
that there will be metal asteroid craters. Find them and mine them. Drill baby drill!
Let's get the drilling team from the film "Armageddon" to the moon.

Sorry, I had not read your reply till now. I agree with all of this however there are several considerations. Elon keeps talking about full rapid reusability. Infact he would like to launch the same cargo starship more than once in one day, an incredible feat if achieved. The issue will become not the cost of the engine but rather the cost per Kg to orbit. Frequent launching means the cost of methane engines can be discounted over many launches making them more competitive than the slower turn around solid rockets. The rail launch system (Mass driver) is described in a book "The High Frontier" Gerald O'Neill first published back in 1977. It is appropriate on the surface of the moon due to lack of atmosphere and shallow gravity well. Air resistance would defeat the concept on earth as a high velocity needs to be attained on the rail down at sea level. Also there is a rocket system that saves weight by using atmospheric oxygen when at lower altitude (pioneered by British). China currently dominates rare earth metal mining on earth. Rare earth metals have been deposited by meteors but it is hard to find concentrated sources on earth. This is due to plate tectonics, weathering etc (there are deposits in South Australia that for some reason have not been developed). On the moon rare earth metals will be concentrated right where the meteors deposited them. The U.S. (and the rest of the West, cannot blame U.S. for everything) has procrastinated for 50 years since Apollo and has lost a fifty year lead. Currently NASA is developing the SLS, a useless expendable Saturn Five sized rocket. The only positive thing is SpaceX. I learn't recently that there are five companies in China experimenting with propulsively landing boosters. One is successfully doing so. China's launch rate has caught up with that of the U.S. China has just tested their new four crew capsule intended for the moon. This means China now has two different crewed capsules (don't know why, but being politically correct by saying crewed instead of manned). Every element currently found on this planet can be found in asteroids. In fact if O'Neil type space cylinders were built, it has been stated that there are enough resources in the asteroid belt alone to sustain a human population of 27 trillion. Space is unlimited.

re: getting lunar ice to LEO for fuel production and re-fueling spacecraft. The strategy is that it takes less energy getting off surface of moon than transporting fuel from earth. With current launch vehicles fuel is only a tiny percentage of the launch cost, the cost of the hardware is the issue. However this will change with full rapid re-usability making this option more viable. A spacecraft will become like a family car, stopping off at fuel stations (depots in LEO, on moon and eventually on Mars).

@Eric123

Platinum group metals don't form minerals and so they readily sink to the core of a planet.
Elements that form minerals don't sink to the core. The mineral is less dense than the element.

Rare Earths are in the same chemical class as thorium and uranium, and both of these
elements have negligibly low concentrations in metal asteroids. Metal asteroids are
unlikely to contain rare Earths. Numbers in [jaymaron.com]

Metal asteroids are for platinum-group elements, plus germanium. Germanium is important because it's necessary for fibreoptics, and 80% of the world's germanium comes from China.

For rare Earths, we're going to have to find new sources on Earth. One possibility is the
mud near undersea vents.

The question of endangered elements is fascinating. Politicians should be paying attention to this.

@jaymaron My knowledge is limited. An interesting book to read is "The Planet Factory" - Elizabeth Tasker. She is an astrophysicist who models the early planet formation process on computers. My understanding is that when a interstellar dust cloud collapses most spirals into the new star forming. However a small percentage of the dust attains sufficient orbital velocity to stay in orbit around the new protostar. When the star bursts into life the solar wind will push orbiting elements and molecules out to varying distances depending on their density and mass. This is why inner planets are rocky, there was only heavier elements to form from. It is believed subsequent surface water and atmosphere is a consequence of latter asteroid impacts (from asteroids that formed further out). The significance of this is that there is a great variation in the composition of asteroids depending on where they formed. I am not sure that all asteroids are low in rare earth minerals.

@Eric123

The closer to the sun, the higher the temperature. For most elements, melting point increases with density, so inner planets have more dense elements than outer planets.

A planet tried to form in the asteroid belt and failed. Collisions stripped off the outer layers, exposing the metal core, and this core is the asteroid 16-Psyche. 16-Psyche is the largest metal asteroid and all other metal asteroids come from 16-Psyche.

The Psyche spacecraft lauches in 2022 and arrives at 16-Psyche in 2026. It has a gamma spectrometer to measure element composition. It doesn't have impactors. It depends on cosmic rays to stir up gammas from the asteroid. The Psyche spacecraft is being launched by a SpaceX Falcon Heavy.

Platinum sinks to the core because it's dense and because it doesn't mineralize. Rare Earths mineralize and don't sink to the core. The mineral is less dense than the element.

We can tabulate the degree to which a core concentrates an element. Define:

R = Density of the metal in the core / Density of the metal in the crust

We can scale R relative to iron.

r = Density of iron in the core / Density of iron in the crust

Q = R/r = Enrichment quality of the metal

The value of Q for various metals is:

Ruthenium 762 (Highest Q of all elements)
Platinum 329
Rhodium 284
Osmium 263 (Densest element)
Iridium 208
Nickel 52
Palladium 44
Gold 42
Cobalt 14
Iron 1
Tungsten .51
Copper .13
Silver .03
Thorium .00046
Uranium .00027

Rare Earths are in the same chemical class as uranium and thorium, and they are enriched in the ore of uranium and thorium. This ore will be a future source of rare Earths. India has vast thorium. Thorium can also be used for nuclear
power, and so it's a guarantee that India will mine the thorium. India is already developing thorium reactors.

Uranium and thorium have negligible concentrations in metal asteroids. You
won't find rare Earths in metal asteroids.

Iron asteroids are 10% nickel and 1% cobalt, and this has as much value as the platinum. They are 90% iron, and the iron can be used as a carbon-free energy source. Bringing back a km sized asteroid can supply the world's energy demand for a year. The iron can also be used for industry, which means that the world doesn't have to burn as much coal to smelt iron.
If I were president I would use a fusion bomb to bring an asteroid to the Earth.

Earth industry hinges on steel production, and the space industry will as well. You can't launch bulk steel from Earth to space, and so the steel will have to come from metal asteroids.

Table of metal abundances in metal asteroids: [jaymaron.com]

@jaymaron Thanks for your replies. Most rare earth metals currently come from China. They were going to mine them is South Australia (aparrently there are mineable deposits there). I know the U.S. was keen for it to go ahead for strategic reasons but it has not yet happened. Re: Asteroids, I see some believe that the focus has been on the wrong (metal) asteroids to start with. If you instead target chondrites for water you will own the rocket fuel stations in low earth orbit and elsewhere (a first step).

0

NASA was at its best a reflection of Chris Kraft’s devotion to the US, to safety, and integrity. No successor has come up to half of his standards, and when he left, the accidents started and poor planning overtook every careful move he made.

Kraft was an exception in government service, and only the force of his personality could have overcome the inertia, apathy, and incompetence inherent in any job for which merit is not rewarded, and there are no consequences for failure and incompetence.

part of the issue with NASA crewed program is that the organisation is no longer relentlessly pursuing a goal. Successive Administrations keep changing the goalposts, Constellation, then cancelled. Then Asteroid re-direct, then cancelled. Then unneeded lunar gateway plus eventually lunar landing. Then landing unrealistically shortened to 2024. NASA is at the whim of politicians, i have a feeling the goalposts will shortly shift again. SpaceX is not solely a reflection of the free enterprise system. It is a reflection of one man's driving goal re: lowering the cost of access to space and making our species multiplanetary in his lifetime. There has been a lot of consistent forward planning from a blank page to achieve this goal. He came along at the right time so as a consequence is making a lot of pursuing this goal. I have seen some interesting statements made by Elon on twitter which gives an insight. Elon believes in something called the great filter. This means that he believes society and technology may not always advance (unlike last 300 years). This means we may only get one opportunity to pass what could be a filter which will stop the long term progression of humanity, becoming multiplanetary. This opportunity may be now.

@Eric123. I agree. And while I am not very much a fan of Elon Musk, I agree with him that technology does not always advance. That is among my greatest criticisms of Leftist progressivism in the US: the assumption that there WILL be better solar efficiency, better batteries.... There are no such guarantees. In fact the more repressive a regime, ie censorship, etc., the more innovation collapses, as you have described.

@TimTuolomne I agree, Elon does not appear to be the most likeable character (most people say they are not a fan of Musk). He is hopeless at public speaking (me too). Have you read the book "Elon Musk" by Ashlee Vance. He has always been different. Was a nerd at school and was bullied by other students. Would often go into a trance and be oblivious to everything around him. Was found unconscious at school one day (after being beaten up by a gang of children) and was taken to hospital. He is very focused and very eccentric. Interestingly many great figures in history have also been flawed. For example, Sir Issac Newton (300 years ago) used to enjoy attending public executions. Newton was the father of physics and calculus.

@Eric123 Musk is a classic introverted thinker, however that doesn't always guarantee productive genius. Newton suffered his own quirks, however he was more disciplined in his thinking.

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