Re: Re: starship-design: LEO Costs

[KellySt@aol.com]

In a message dated 11/5/98 1:59:26 AM, ajcrowlx2@ozemail.com.au wrote:

>Hi Group,
>
>KellySt@aol.com wrote:
>
>> In a message dated 11/2/98 8:19:22 AM, lparker@gnt.net wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> Actually a DC-X like craft could do costs to orbit below $200 a pound given
>> some fairly good circumstances.  A very large scale market and a few
upgrades
>> could drop it well below $100 a pound.  (I had some friends on the DC-X
>> program.)
>
>Do tell...

Hey you work at JSC and NASA HQ for a while and you meet people.


>
>>  More recent Air-turbo-ram-rockets (combined cycle) engine
>> prototypes could drop costs (in said major market) down to a couple times
air
>> frieght costs.
>
>Likewise. Tell us more. Or give us a URL.

Combined cycle-airbreathing Rocket propulsion
   http://www.lerc.nasa.gov/WWW/RT1996/2000/2740d.htm
   http://spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov/NASA.News/NASA.News.Releases/Previous.News.R
eleases/96.News.Releases/96-07.News.Releases/96-07-11.Air.Breathing.Engine.Tea
ms.Named
   http://www.flatoday.com/space/explore/releases/1996b/n96135.htm
   http://redstone.ae.gatech.edu/~olds/research/research.html


MOre interesting but not on the tip of my tonge are articals in Aviation week
on Ejector ramjet and air-turbo ram/rocket systems currently in testing.  The
former is intest on a 0 to Mach six first stage HTHL launcher being built by
Space Access inc.  Air force is very interested in it.



>>
>> However He3 mining and the rest listed couldn't provide enough market.
>> Surface to surface earth transport could (and was mentioned in passing in
the
>> report) but even with that, none of the space resource markets seemed more
>> then iffy.  (Thou they could drop costs to orbit down to $15-$40 a pound.)
>
>Would be nice to have LEO access at such costs. Like you said though it needs
a
>big market. How do we boot-strap the market? Ideas? If we want that 
>starship by 2050 we better think of something!

Surface to surface cargo and passenger service, or orbital tourism are about
all I know that could pull it off.



>
>Who's seen the article in "New Scientist" [24 Oct] about a possibly lower GUT
>energy? Previous theoretical guesstimates put it at 10^16 GeV, but new
theories
>are bringing it down to ~ 1000 GeV i.e. achievable by the next generation of
>accelerators. If we can achieve GUT unification then we might be able to
either
>cause matter annihilation or liberate some other kind of particle energy [say
a
>sustained matter/energy creation reaction.] If this could happen "soon" then
our
>2050 starship isn't so impossible as we thought. That's if GUT unification
occurs
>further down the energy scale than previously thought, which depends on the
size
>of the micro-dimension that particles extend into. If it's 10^-33 cm then its
>10^16 GeV, but if it's bigger then the energy is lower.
>
>As for the SETI thing time will tell, but a 44 year round trip time between
>messages would be painfully slow.
>
>Adam

Kelly