Re: Google Cindy Sheehan (was: Re: Peace Mom)

On Sun, 21 Aug 2005 16:13:22 -0500, "w.d.greene" <bil64@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

>
>"Josh Hill" wrote:

>> Estimated cost of building the DC-Y single stage to take off vehicle
>> -- a reusable spaceship that would slash the cost of putting stuff in
>> orbit -- $6 billion.
>
>Um, no.
>
>Single-stage to orbit (SSTO) does not work. It cannot work. Any fledgling
>aerospace engineer with just a passing knowledge of the rocket equation
>understands this. Space Shuttle is 1.5 stages and it can only pull it off
>by being the highest performing system ever built.

I'm not sure I understand why you say that. The Shuttle was
state-of-the art in the 70's, but it's hardly that now -- both engine
design and structural materials have improved, with further
improvements on the horizon.

I found a few papers that rough out SSTO proposals, including this
one:

http://www.ssdl.gatech.edu/main/ssdl_paper_archive/iaf-st-87-07.pdf

Short on details and I don't know enough to fill them in, but I don't
see any assumptions there that seem outlandish, e.g., they posit a 10%
mass reduction for the vehicle.

>Nobody at NASA that I knew at the time (I was a contractor then) believed in
>SSTO, nobody technical that is. So, why was it pursued? Because lobbiests
>convinced their congress members to petition for it (and, yes, those
>bastards are still there in congress and, yes, they still have the gall to
>badmouth the agency when it suits their needs). The authorizing and
>appropriations committees basically forced it down NASA's throat and NASA
>did what they were told, which amounted to taking a long march down a short
>pier into nowhere, because they were required to by law.
>
>I watched this whole affair with a level of absolute disgust that still
>leaves a foul taste in my mouth. I am not yet a big-wig in the agency, not
>even close, but I vowed to myself then that I would not toe the company line
>should anything so utterly stupid and disgraceful ever arise again.
>
>Very few people realized how little of what government agencies do they do
>by choice.

I can believe that.

>> Estimated cost of building the space elevator, which could slash the
>> cost of putting stuff in orbit even more -- $10 billion.
>
>Um, no.
>
>The space elevator is silliness. And yes, "silliness" is a highly technical
>term for balderdash.

On what basis do you say that? The impediments seem to me not
insignificant, but they're matters of practicality, e.g., how do we
make ribbons that are reliable enough and cheap enough. The same
questions were presumably asked about the first trans-Atlantic cable.
Which snapped, whereupon they laid another.

>> Estimated cost of developing the hardware for a Mars mission, $20
>> billion.
>>
>> Estimated cost of each mission, $1-2 billion.
>
>This we will do (though I would _not_ sign up to any cost numbers yet)
>assuming that it is a goal that remains unsullied by political manipulation.

That, as you point out, is a big assumption.

--
Josh

"You know I could run for governor but I'm basically
a media creation. I've never done anything. I've
worked for my dad. I worked in the oil business. But
that's not the kind of profile you have to have
to get elected to public office." - George W. Bush
.