it will use 18 SpaceX designed and manufactured Monomethylhydrazine, Nitrogen Textroxide reaction control, orbital manoeuvring system thrusters; be lunar fly-by capable; have an outer mould design for a lifting re-entry; and be water recoverable for an ocean landing.
Rio Tinto and its associated mining companies just agreed to dump some 3.5 billion into a gold and copper mine in Mongolia in the next five years. The sort of return that asteroid mining can provide is highly profitable.Skipjack wrote:We will see about that. If you build it, they will comeI already knew Elon wanted to do exploration - it's in the name of the company, after all. I just don't think he'll be able to make money at it without a NASA contract.
This is the funniest thing I've ever read.Jccarlton wrote:lately I keep finding things that resonate with me. A couple of weeks ago I posted this on Danny Choos's site after a trip to Flushing Meadows:
http://www.figure.fm/post/en/8795/Dead+Dreams.html
Here's what I posted there:
When I was small I wanted to go into space. I wanted so hard it hurt. As I grew up I was one of the biggest space boosters around. I read science fiction mags like Galaxy and Analog. I read Heinlein, Asimov, Anderson and Pournelle. I joined the National Space Society. My wall was covered with space colony pics. I built space models. I collected books on space engineering. I designed a space habitat for the National Space society's design contest. But that dream has more or less died.
Now American thinker posts this:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201 ... space.html
Now America didn't surrender space, the Progressives did. Lots of Americans are still trying:
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/0 ... ss_10.html
But in Obama's america there will be nobody allowed to have the freedom and the drive to put people in space and no wealth to do it. That's one of the saddest parts of Progressivism.
Anyone who thinks that NASA was on a good path is destructive to America and what America stands for. NASA was festering, a jobs program of epic proportions.The old Griffin Constellation plan never made sense.
Constellation: Build ISS by 2010, don't fund actually using ISS, shut down Shuttle when ISS is done, dump ISS in the ocean in 2016 (i.e. shortly after finishing it) to fund Ares, finish Ares I/Orion capability to reach ISS in 2019 (but ISS is gone by then and Ares I/Orion can't do anything else but reach ISS), finish Ares V by 2028 but with no money for anything to put on it, and finally repeat Apollo in the mid 2030's. Meanwhile slash NASA research and development, robotic HSF precursors, Earth observations, NASA science in general, aeronautics, commercial participation, etc to fund Constellation. Constellation could never have survived until the mid 2030's to reach its first payoff, and even if it did operations would have been too expensive.
With the new plan, we get a lot more, and it's a lot sooner. Even in just the first 5 years we get:
- improved commerial cargo (2 independent systems) to the Space Station
- multiple commercial crew transportation systems to the Space Station
- Orion Lite Crew Return Vehicle
- a new line of large robotic HSF precursor missions
- a new line of “Scout-class” robotic human spaceflight precursors
- ISS (Space Station) will be kept until 2020 or later
- actual use of ISS
- added capabilities on ISS
- additional Shuttle budget to ensure ISS is completed
- modernization of KSC and the Florida launch range
- improved Earth observation budget- much greater asteroid detection budget
- U.S. plutonium-238 production (currently we rely on Russia)
- cost-effective RD-180 equivalent engine (currently we rely on Russia)
- work towards a cost-effective heavy lift rocket
- propulsion research
- exploration technology demonstrations for propellant depots, automated rendezvous and docking, inflatable habitats, landing, use of resources found in space, in-space propulsion, closed-loop life support, EVAs/servicing, radiation shielding, human-robot interactivity, space power, materials and structures, and participatory exploration
- improved Aeronautics budget
- 42% increase in human research exploration budget
- huge increase in general space technology research, development, and demonstration budget
An EDS is generally expended at the end of TLI, or at the very latest after LOI. If it's not, it counts as a really huge service module (see the ULA "master plan").Skipjack wrote:I dont get the point of a service module being required for the delta V. Wouldnt a separate earth- departure stage (two launches and docking in LEO) do the trick sufficiently?
No. According to the website, F9H is just a F9 with strapons, meaning the upperstage is the same. My calculations assumed a completely full upperstage, which means a depot is required (unless you want to daisy-chain multiple stages, which the stages probably aren't designed to support). A stretched stage might help, but it would have to be pretty big to work, since the propellant load required is much larger than the published payload for the F9H, and stretching increases the dry mass...Skipjack wrote:Could it be that that Falcon 9 heavy version would be more suitable for this?
