Category Archives: Space

Space

Rapid Propellant Transfer

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John Hare discusses a concept for dumping propellant from a launcher to a LEO depot in a single orbit.

As I note in comments there, I don’t see any need for such a requirement. Once you’re in orbit, there’s not really that big a rush to come back. The depot has to be in a high enough orbit that it doesn’t decay rapidly, so the only cost of staying longer is crew consumables (if there is a crew). Power would presumably come from the depot itself while mated.

But it’s not only an unnecessary requirement, it’s an impossible one, other than in equatorial orbits (unless you want to wait a very long time for opportunities). Any orbit with significant inclination has a narrow launch window (at least from a given launch site–an air-launched system would have more flexibility). The likelihood that, when you get into the right orbit plane, the station will be waiting for you precisely where it needs to be to rendezvous in a single orbit it exceedingly small. That’s why it takes a couple days for Soyuz or Shuttle to rendezvous with ISS. They launch into the right orbit plane, but they have to spend several orbits catching up with it. And the faster they do it, the more propellant it costs.

As I note parenthetically above, though, you can get there directly if you have an air-launched system with significant range for the aircraft (e.g., Quickreach).

Business, Political Commentary, Space

More Margin Problems

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The new littoral ship that Lockheed Martin is building for the Navy is four percent overweight:

The Navy and Lockheed already have a plan to remove nearly all the additional weight from the ship over a period of about six months once the new ship, which is named Freedom, gets to Norfolk, Virginia, in December, said the sources, who asked not to be identified.

As I said, margin, margin, margin. If you miss your weight target by that much on a launch system, it’s bye-bye payload. In this case, it simply puts the ship at risk in combat.

As the emailer who sent this to me asks, “I wonder if Lockheed will remove excess weight from Orion at no additional cost.”

Political Commentary, Space

“A Star On The Fridge”

This, coming from Jim Abrahamson, is pretty disappointing:

James A. Abrahamson, a retired Air Force lieutenant general and the chairman of the NAC’s Exploration Committee, praised the Constellation program to the Council at its quarterly meeting in Cocoa Beach, calling it the best program for the agency given its tight budget and schedule.

“The NAC is confident that the current plan is viable and represents a well-considered approach given the constraints on budget, schedule and achievable technology,” he said.

I agree with this comment (and I have a pretty good guess as to who made it):

One Washington-based space policy consultant said: “The NAC’s endorsement of Ares I reminds me of the so-called independent rating firms that kept saying that Lehman Brothers, Wachovia, and AIG were just fine.”

Yeah, I don’t think that the NAC is all that “independent.” By its nature, it tends to consist of space industry insiders drinking their own bathwater. Looking over the Exploration Committee, it doesn’t strike me that any of the members are space transportation experts (and no, you don’t become one by being an astronaut, as proven by Horowitz…). But I thought that Abrahamson was smarter than that.

Business, Economics, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Space

An End To Redundant Inefficiency

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John Jurist writes (or at least implies) that there’s just too much competition in the suborbital market:

An approach I favor is forming a university consortium analogous to those that design, build, and operate large cooperative research assets, such as telescopes and particle colliders. That consortium could develop a suborbital RLV or even a nanosat launcher to be used by consortium members for academic projects. Since the consortium would design and develop the vehicles, participating universities would be more likely to use them for student research under some type of cost-sharing arrangement with federal granting agencies.

Dr. Steve Harrington proposed something a bit different recently:

If you took all the money invested in alt.space projects in the last 20 years, and invested in one project, it could succeed. More underfunded projects are not what we need. The solution is for an investment and industry group to develop a business plan and get a consortium to build a vehicle. There is a lot of talent, and many people willing to work for reduced wages and invest some of their own company’s capital. Whether it is a sounding rocket, suborbital tourist vehicle or an orbit capable rocket, the final concept and go/no go decision should be made by accountants, not engineers or dreamers (Ref. 8).

I would concur with Dr. Harrington’s final remark except I would expand the decision making group to include management and business experts nominated by the consortium members with whatever technical input they needed.

Yes, good idea. After all, we all know that it’s a waste of resources to have (for example) two grocery stores within a few blocks of each other. They could dramatically reduce overhead and reduce costs and prices if they would just close one of the stores and combine forces. In order to assure continued premium customer service, they could just assemble a board of accountants, and finest management and business experts to ensure that the needs of the people are met.

In the case of the RLV development, the consortium could hire the best technical experts, and spend the appropriate amount of money up front, on trade studies and analyses, to make sure that they are designing just the right vehicle for the market, since it will be a significant investment, and the consortium will only have enough money to do one vehicle development. They will also have to make sure that it satisfies the requirements of all the users, since it will be the only available vehicle. This will further increase the up-front analysis and development costs, and it may possibly result in higher operational costs as well, but what can be done? It’s too inefficient to have more than one competing system. As John’s analysis points out, we simply can’t afford it.

Space

Death Of A NewSpacer

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I have heard rumors for months that Jim Benson had had a stroke. Apparently, it was a different problem, though whether a better or worse one is hard to say. In any event, he lost the battle, as will we all, ultimately.

I may have further thoughts later (de mortuis nil nisi bonum, and all that), but for now, my condolences to Susan and his children.

[Saturday morning update]

Clark Lindsey has several other links on the story.

Whatever else his legacy will be, he showed that a savvy businessman can start a successful commercial publicly traded space company from scratch (though admittedly, much of the growth was via acquisition).