Over at RLV News Clark Lindsey takes an uncharacteristicaly blunt swing at a particularly stupid article on SpaceDaily. I can't say it any better than Clark, so go on over there and read his take.

There's also a good item on the state of sounding rocket research (dismal). I'm a fan of sounding rockets since they offer a low cost means of doing simple space research. In science it's often the simple experiments that have the most dramatic impact (in part because it's harder to quibble about simple results, but that's another post entirely). Unfortunately simple isn't sexy, and sexy is what NASA is most interested in. Another point about sounding rockets that's not generally well understood is that there's a region of the atmosphere between about 50 km and 100 km which is too high for balloon research but to low for satellite research. There's some important processes that take place in this region, and sounding rockets are really the only way to study them directly.

Thanks a lot, Andrew. I just HAD to read it ... You should have mentioned the idiotic article was written by Jeffrey Bell. It took an hour for my eyes to uncross. That guy is down to his usual low standards.

I loved "enthused over DC-X, X-33, and Rotary Rocket"... Most folks I know who liked DC-X thought the LockMart X-33 was almost certainly doomed to failure but prayed they were wrong. And then he redefines the term "space" to exclude SpaceShipOne. Just for the record, let's say it one more time: SpaceShipOne is SUBORBITAL. This fellow acts like nobody had quite realized that yet. He's also very selective about which of Rutan's comments he heard.

There was a lot of silly stuff in the article, most of it argued to death already, but it comes down to this: Lets just see what future developments and the market says.

Aleta,

Please add "Jeffery Bell" to the "Does not fly at any price" list.

"With fewer seats and more padding, they would be equivalent to NASA's famous "Vomit Comet" and could be flown in zero-gee parabolas. Put some space images on the windows and you have most of the suborbital tourism experience for a longer time at a much lower cost. If the suborbital tourism market really exists, why isn't somebody doing this?"

Vomit Comet with fake space pix? :rolleyes:

This has to rank as one of the most assinine concepts in aerospace history. I would wager Mr. Bell is quite happy with his fake Rolex as well.

Jeff buried his lead at the end of the article. Musk seems to have a good concept that might win the day, in the end. Within 5 years, we could have a private manned program.

But what's it to him if others have different ideas? It's not like he loses anything. With several different ideas pushed by the private sector, the cheapest technology to LEO will win in the end.

Aleta,

Or maybe consider starting a "Does not fly round-trip" list...

There is an impressively large supply of surplus sounding rockets and engines for them around. It doesn't make much sense to me to get into that field without some other excuse than flying science payloads. If you can raise the money to use these surplus vehicles, you should be able to get them relatively cheap since someone is paying storage costs for them right now.

My friends have a small rocket that can fly in the 50km to 100km region too with payloads under 5kg. It's not a big deal to get there at that size.

Alfred,

There's actually many problems with the status quo of sounding rocket research, that if fixed, could lead to a much higher demand for those flights. The single biggest problem is the inherent one-shot nature of a lot of them. There are a lot of hidden costs, and the launch environment for most of them are pretty lousy. I won't go into specific detail, as I'm now working for a company that is partially targetting this market, but there are significant problems and we think we can grow the market a lot compared to its current state.

~Jon

Mr. Bell doesn't even get into the _building_. To quote Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon..."

Y'know, if the guy is going to sling insults, he might at least do some basic fact checking. But this rant just shows how dishonest he is to his readership. Mohave, for instance, is a county in Arizona. If he gets something so simple and basic wrong, what other errors does he make? Perhaps he has to lie to make his point? And I resent most strongly that he thinks my house is a "rat shack"; but of course he's never been to Mojave: can't allow reality to hinder the rant. The only rats I've ever seen around here are the two-legged pseudo-academic kind. We hired a cat to deal with them.

He's just whining because he hasn't a chance to be part of all the fun stuff. Best punishment: he stays grounded while the rest of us take off.

Jon,

If you can do anything to get money into customer's hands that would go a long way toward making things work. By that I mean the budget line item has to belong to them and not a NASA office that lists them as a PI.

I respect your effort to push this market open wider and won't ask for details you can't offer. On the other hand, though, I can say that my friends don't face the same hidden costs issues. I know of what you speak at the usual launch ranges. That's why we don't operate from the usual launch ranges. Our friends in Texas are much more cooperative. We have already flown small things at lower altitudes and have a lot of confidence that we can operate suborbital flights from there.

Aleta, if you have a VERY strong stomach, look up some of Bell's past rants. This is his typical level of accuracy.

I've figured it out: He's Art Bell's evil twin. :-)

By the way, if anyone feels like wasting any more time with this dipstick, Larry J. Gives the article a good and detailed fisking over at the Habitablezone.

Nathan, you don't seem to have provided an actual link.

Huh. That's odd. I wonder where it went. In any case, let's try that again.

And in case that href got munched too, here it is in non-link form:

http://www.habitablezone.com/space/messages/335331.html

It's really fun reading rants from all of
you trekies-who-couldnt-pass-calculus. I
dont agree w/ everything in Bell's rant,
but what (SPECIFICALLY) is wrong w/ the physics?

Does it really take less energy to reach orbit?

What's the max re-use temp of carbon composites
vs the stagnation temp of the typical non-lifting
orbital re-entry?

The truth is the PT Barnum of aviation is doing
just what Bell said: It's public relations. If
he were a lawyer, he'd be Mark Garagose (sp?) or
Gloria Allred.

So Aleta resents the rat shack comment? I HAVE
been to Mojave (but Ive rarely stopped). I havent
seen any rats, but Ive seen plenty of shacks.
Perhaps if CatBurt paid more, you could move up
to Rosamond.

And here's one more point Bell did not bring up:
Have any of you considered what a grand
DIS-SERVICE CatBurt would do the alt.space.case
community if he kills someone? He's already had
four pretty serious 'mishaps', by Random's own
account.

Take into account his previous record w/ Pondracer
and Voyager (not smart enough to put a full load
of gas on board ahead of time to avoid grinding
the wingtips off when the camaras are rolling?)
and you've got a recipe for disaster. He's
avoided blood-letting trouble so far, but let's
hope it doesnt come to that. Believe it or not,
I truely admire what they're doing, I just wish
the BS factor would decrease.

Random has spoke about the relative values of
the shuttle and it's astronauts before (in short,
saying the hardware was more valuable). This is
one of the few points I agree w/ him on, but how
would it "play in Peoria" to the guy reading the
AP article on StuntShip1 killing a few people on
the ground (even if they lived in a rat shack)?

Think it through, it's easier than calculus...