Category Archives: Space

Space

The Extraterrestrial Imperative

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Back in the early eighties, I had the privilege of taking a class from Krafft Ehricke at Cal State Northridge (arranged by sociology professor and space enthusiast B. J. Bluth). The course was called “The Extraterrestrial Imperative,” and it had a significant impact on my world view. I still have the class notes, which were extensive. For years, up to and after his death, there had been talk of publishing them in a book. Well, I just discovered, via my Amazon sales, that Apogee Books has done so. Though I haven’t read the book itself, based on my own experience with the class notes on which it is based, I heartily recommend it to all of my readers who are interested in our future in space.
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Political Commentary, Space

NASA’s Budget Options

Jeff Foust has a link to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office. It doesn’t paint a pretty picture. I have to agree with “Red” in comments:

…if you consider that the goal of the Vision for Space Exploration was contributions to science, security, and economics in the context of strong commercial and international participations, none of these options will carry that out. They all involve Constellation/Ares, which is more or less the opposite of those goals. One aspect of this opposition is that the options that don’t postpone Constellation involve reducing science and aeronautics missions that actually do contribute to science, security, and economics (eg: using similar launchers and satellites to those used by defense and intelligence agencies)…

…With Science and Aeronautics already having taken huge reductions due to Shuttle and Constellation in recent years, and Obama’s push for Earth observations, fuel-efficient planes, NASA education, etc, I doubt that the science/aeronautics cut scenarios will happen. With such huge Federal debt/deficits and many agencies enjoying tons of money and sure to want to keep it that way, I doubt NASA will get the big budget boost scenario, either.

Basically, the numbers don’t work without major commercial participation, and getting control of out-of-control NASA areas like Constellation, Shuttle, and some larger science mission plans.

Emphasis mine. Unfortunately, there’s no sign that any of that is happening. The Ares zombie continues to plod forward at the cost of billions, and commercial participation remains minimal. And it’s unlikely to happen as long as becoming spacefaring remains politically unimportant, and in an environment in which pork dominates progress.

[Evening update]

Clark has another comment:

NASA needed innovative hardware architectures and mission designs to make Constellation “sustainable and affordable” as instructed in the VSE. Instead it chose Ares I and Orion and now all the budget scenarios are bad.

Funny, that.

Business, Economics, Space, Technology and Society

How Do The Numbers Work?

40 Comments

Sorry, but I just can’t buy this:

PG&E is pledging to buy the power at an agreed-upon rate, comparable to the rate specified in other agreements for renewable-energy purchases, company spokesman Jonathan Marshall said. Neither PG&E nor Solaren would say what that rate was, due to the proprietary nature of the agreement. However, Marshall emphasized that PG&E would make no up-front investment in Solaren’s venture.

“We’ve been very careful not to bear risk in this,” Marshall told msnbc.com.

Smart move.

Solaren’s chief executive officer, Gary Spirnak, said the project would be the first real-world application of space solar power, a technology that has been talked about for decades but never turned into reality.

“While a system of this scale and exact configuration has not been built, the underlying technology is very mature and is based on communications satellite technology,” he said in a Q&A posted by PG&E. A study drawn up for the Pentagon came to a similar conclusion in 2007. However, that study also said the cost of satellite-beamed power would likely be significantly higher than market rates, at least at first.

In contrast, Spirnak said Solaren’s system would be “competitive both in terms of performance and cost with other sources of baseload power generation.”

I just can’t see how. Unless there are going to be many satellites, the system has to be in GEO to provide baseload power to any given region on earth. They talk about putting up a 200 MW system with “four or five” “heavy lift” launches (where this is apparently defined as 25 tons).

Suppose the conversion efficiency of the cells is a generous 30%, the DC-MW conversion is 90%, the transmission efficiency is 90% and the MW-AC conversion efficiency is 90% (generous numbers all, I think). That gives an overall efficiency of 22% from sunlight to the grid. The solar constant in space is 1.4kW/m2, so that means you need 650,000 square meters of panels to deliver 200 MW to the grid. Suppose you can build the cells (including necessary structure to maintain stiffness) for half a kilo per square meter. That means that just for the solar panels alone, you have a payload of 325 metric tons. Generously assuming that their payload of 25 tons is to GEO (if it’s to LEO, it’s probably less than ten tons in GEO), that would require over a dozen launches for the solar panels alone.

That doesn’t include the mass of the conversion electronics, basic satellite housekeeping systems (attitude control, etc.) and the transmitting antenna, which has to be huge to get that much power that distance at a safe power density.

So even ignoring the other issues (e.g. regulatory, safety studies, etc.) that Clark mentions, I think this is completely bogus until I see their numbers. And probably even then.

Political Commentary, Space

Getting It Half Right

2 Comments

Yes, Congress is a problem for NASA. But not because it doesn’t give it enough money. As Clark notes, NASA has plenty of money, if it wanted to, and were allowed to spend it sensibly. The problem with Congress it that it won’t let NASA do so, even if it wanted to. It will always be more important to Congress where the money is spent than how it is spent, which is why government space programs are so cost ineffective (and that was true going all the way back to Apollo). Apollo succeeded because it did have huge bales of cash thrown at it, but it certainly wasn’t politically sustainable or affordable, any more than redoing it will be.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

The Beginning Of The Myth

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I missed noting it yesterday, but it was the fiftieth anniversary of the announcement of the Mercury 7. It set the pattern for the mythology of the NASA astronaut (with two minor variations — the first in the sixties when it was no longer necessary to be a test pilot, and in the late seventies, when women were allowed into the club). I may have more thoughts later, but to me, it was one of the key events that led us off on a very wrong path that has resulted in the space quagmire we’re in to this day.