They may have come up with a way to replace platinum catalysts with doped carbon nanotubes.
Of course, this is bad news for potential space industrialists, because it will depress the market for platinum-group metals (PGM) long thought to be a potential source of extraterrestrial wealth in asteroids.
We were just missed by an asteroid this morning, with only three days warning, and well inside the orbit of the moon:
The rock, estimated to be no more than 200 feet wide, zoomed past our planet at an altitude of 40,000 miles at 1:44 p.m. universal time — or 8:44 EST.
Dubbed 2009 DD45, it was discovered only on Friday by Australian astronomers.
“…no more than 200 feet wide…”?
That’s plenty big enough to pack a hell of a wallop if it had hit off shore, likely wiping out much of the coastline of the surrounding continents. If it hit a populated area, it could have been easily mistaken for a nuke initially, perhaps setting off an international crisis, and even retaliation.
There is no excuse for how little prepared we are for these things.
Eva-Jane Lark has an interview with the interestingly named (what is he, Swiss?) Guillermo Söhnlein, on the progress with the Space Angel’s Network. I hope that he and some of his fellow angels will be at Space Access.
[Via Parabolic Arc]
I see that Brian Wang is continuing to post on the potential benefits of nuclear-explosion propulsion, here and here (where he takes on Charlie Stross), and here, where he talks about it in the context of unmanned Mars missions and a high-speed asteroid interceptor.
I do think that there’s potential for this vehicle off planet, but I remain highly skeptical that it will ever launch payloads from earth, regardless of how theoretically cheap it might be. Particularly in the Age of Obama.
And frankly, when I read things like:
Nuclear Orion can achieve launch costs of less than $1/kg and perhaps a tiny fraction of that.
…it reminds me of the old claims from the early days of nuclear power that it would be “too cheap to meter.”
Actually, he understates Shuttle costs as being “$5000 to $6000 per pound,” even if it is an “accepted figure.” At current flight rates, I would guess that (at least to ISS), the current costs are about a billion per flight for about 40,000 (or less) lbs, or more like $25,000/lb (or more, depending on the payload). Which makes Orion look even better, of course. But it also displays my long-standing claim that the single most sensitive variable with regard to launch costs is flight rate, and any vehicle design consideration is a secondary matter.
I think that Brian’s mistake is demonstrated in the false choice of the title of this post which was a response to this one of mine:
Small and Expensive Versus Big and Possibly Infrequent Space Launch
The implication is that small is intrinsically expensive. But it’s not.
Small is only expensive when a) you throw the vehicle away and b) you don’t fly it very much. I would suggest that Brian read this piece on the subject of the reasons for high launch costs, which I wrote over four years ago to allay exactly this kind of misunderstanding, and (if he can afford the time and money — it’s really a bargain at the cost if one can get to Phoenix) attend the Space Access conference a month from now, where he can get up to speed on the current state of chemical-rocket launch technology (and its economics and business prospects).
…is only a month away. I’ve been attending this conference for years, and hope and plan to do so this year as well. There’s no single way during the year to find out what’s going on in that part of the world of space transportation (largely private, though it tries to pull little nuggets of nutrition out of the waste of the big-government dinosaurs) than at this three-day meeting. Here is the official announcement::
April 2-4, Phoenix Arizona
Space Access ’09 is just over a month away – it’s time to book your flights and rooms. We see that Southwest Airlines is having a fare sale through this Monday March 2nd, so now is the time to decide to get a low airfare. Other airlines too will only get more expensive if you wait. And our reserved special-rate room block opens up to general rental by any tourist who comes along in just over another week – call the Grace Inn at 800 843-6010 and ask for the “space access conference rate” for our $99-all-inclusive discount room rate, soon, if you want to be sure of a room right at the conference.
…is up.
Given all the previous “front runners,” I’m taking this latest rumor with at least one grain, and maybe half the shaker, of salt. Some of the comments are encouraging, and Steve is undoubtedly a smart guy, but my recollection of him from OMB was that he was a pretty traditional thinker when it came to launch and didn’t think that costs could be reduced much from where they were. But if Griffin chased him out with Steidle, that’s definitely a point in his favor. And commenter “Major Tom” (who I think is “anonymous.space” under a new pseudonym) is pretty impressed, which seems like a good sign to me.
[Update a few minutes later]
“Major Tom” weighs in in comments with more info (of which I had, surprisingly, been unaware). Any negative impression I have of Steve Isakowitz is from back in the nineties, and may be based on a single (perhaps even out-of context) quote that I saw from him somewhere (perhaps Space News). So don’t take my opinion over the majority (and particularly “Major Tom”‘s) in this matter.
Joseph Friedlander discusses BFRs over at Next Big Future.
Absent a dire need (e.g., an asteroid heading right at us), I don’t see these vehicles being developed with the current market or political environment. They’re just too damned big, and they’d have too low a flight rate. I think that, barring some huge tech (probably nanotech) breakthrough, the path to space lies in small reusable chemical vehicles that grow in capability (suborbital, then on to orbit, with perhaps point-to-point in between), then size as their markets grow with them.
Whatever it is, AvWeek says that the Obama administration is going to “stick with it.”
The fiscal 2010 NASA budget outline to be released by the Obama Administration Feb. 26 adds almost $700 million to the out-year figure proposed in the fiscal 2009 budget request submitted by former President Bush, and sticks with the goal of returning humans to the moon by 2020.
Well, the story doesn’t support the headline. What they’re sticking with is the goal, not the plan (which is a description of how the goal is to be achieved). It’s hard to know whether this is good news or bad. It depends on whether or not the “plan” (i.e., Constellation/ESAS) is going to be stuck with. We still have no information about the plan.
…along with fixed-price versus cost-plus, appropriate payment milestones, and “skin in the game,” from Jon Goff.
We have to come up with much more innovative means of reducing the cost of access to orbit, something that Ares I doesn’t do at all. Charles Miller just became “Senior Advisor” on space commercialization with NASA’s Innovative Partnership Programs Office, so perhaps he will be able to help implement some of these kinds of ideas.