Hi darkstar >Everyone here should read this [ GH Stines Halfway to Anywhere] Just a personal comment on the book. Harry Stine was a True believer about the DC-X. In my opinion, you need to take a lot of what is in the book with a grain of salt. Theres some good information in there, but some of the ways he describes some things have other explanations as well, and some of the things he describes in there are flat out wrong. The DC-X was an interesting project and it broke free around a billion dollars to be spent researching SSTOs and related technologies. But I would note that McDonnell Douglas, the company which built the DC-X was *not* a believer in the Delta Clipper (although some of the team who worked on the DC-X were). And there were some technical problems with the Delta Clipper which were quickly hidden. Its interesting to note every time McDonnell Douglas was asked to really provide a plan for the Delta Clipper (or DC-Y, or whatever to follow the DC-X), the costs kept going up and the companys commitment to the project kept going down. At first they said, they could build an orbital capable vehicle for a few hundred millions. Then it was a billion. Then it was several billions, after they built another, larger test vehicle. Then they said they wouldnt put up any of their own money until the government built an orbit-capable vehicle. And when they were asked to bid for the government-funded X-33 test vehicle to follow the DC-X they bid something that was by far the worst option of any of the other companies bidding. >[ ... ]I wanted to get info on the Delta Clipper >specifically since that seemed so promising and I wondered >why it was abandoned.[ ...] > Who was the culprit? Why no one else but NASA of >course. [ ...] Id also lay part of the blame to some of the enthusiasts who promised a lot of things to people and never delivered. While NASA did some things that I really didnt like in this debacle, Id also note there were other players in this game, including some of the enthusiasts who took the view that there is only one way of doing thing (their way!), and anyone who didnt agree with them were evil dishonorable criminals. >[ ... ] The Delta Clipper worked so well because those who >built it wanted results and a Cheap SSTO to carry >passengers and cargo into orbit. The Delta itself was a >test vehicle but it would have lead to a woring SSTO. Why >there is no DC-XA2 and why NASA sucks donkey shit is >detailed in the book. The Delta Clipper was never built. It never existed except on a few viewgraphs done by McDonnell Douglas. As a note, MD promised that if they got the DC-X contract, they would complete a preliminary design for the Delta Clipper during the DC-X program. They never did... The DC-X was an interesting and useful program. And while it did some interesting demonstrations, there were many many things it didnt demonstrate that were needed for a SSTO program. I have a copy of Halfway to Anywhere and I know personally folks on the DC-X and other SSTO teams. I've done a fair bit of work looking at SSTOs and how to structure a business case to get commercial investment for them. Harry Stines book is worth reading, but you really have to read it with a grain of salt, since it was written by a true believer in a specific way of doing it. Wales Larrison

Let the advanced features & services of MSN Internet Software maximize your online time.

Message Stine was also a true believer in 0-G materials processing, which hasn't exactly set the engineering world on fire in recent decades.

Regards,
Mike Combs

Just a personal comment on the book. Harry Stine was a "True believer" about the DC-X.

"W. Larrison" wrote: Just a personal comment on the book. Harry Stine was a True believer about the DC-X.In my opinion, you need to take a lot of what is in the book with a grain of salt.Theres some good information in there, but some of the ways he describes some things have other explanations as well, and some of the things he describes in there are flat out wrong.

The DC-X was an interesting project and it broke free around a billion dollars to be spent researching SSTOs and related technologies.But I would note that McDonnell Douglas, the company which built the DC-X was *not* a believer in the Delta Clipper (although some of the team who worked on the DC-X were).And there were some technical problems with the Delta Clipper which were quickly hidden. Its interesting to note every time McDonnell Douglas was asked to really provide a plan for the Delta Clipper (or DC-Y, or whatever to follow the DC-X), the costs kept going up and the companys commitment to the project kept going down.At first they said, they could build an orbital capable vehicle for a few hundred millions.Then it was a billion.Then it was several billions, after they built another, larger test vehicle.Then they said they wouldnt put up any of their own money until the government built an orbit-capable vehicle.And when they were asked to bid for the government-funded X-33 test vehicle to follow the DC-Xthey bid something that was by far the worst option of any of the other companies bidding. >[ ... ]I wanted to get info on the Delta Clipper >specifically since that seemed so promising and I wondered >why it was abandoned.[ ...] >Who was the culprit?Why no one else but NASA of >course.[ ...] Id also lay part of the blame to some of the enthusiasts who promised a lot of things to people and never delivered.While NASA did some things that I really didnt like in this debacle, Id also note there were other players in this game, including some of the enthusiasts who took the view that there is only one way of doing thing (their way!), and anyone who didnt agree with them were evil dishonorable criminals. >[ ... ] The Delta Clipper worked so well because those who >built it wanted results and a Cheap SSTO to carry >passengers and cargo into orbit.The Delta itself was a >test vehicle but it would have lead to a woring SSTO.Why >there is no DC-XA2 and why NASA sucks donkey shit is >detailed in the book. The Delta Clipper was never built.It never existed except on a few viewgraphs done by McDonnell Douglas.As a note, MD promised that if they got the DC-X contract, they would complete a preliminary design for the Delta Clipper during the DC-X program.They never did... The DC-X was an interesting and useful program.And while it did some interesting demonstrations, there were many many things it didnt demonstrate that were needed for a SSTO program. I have a copy of Halfway to Anywhere and I know personally folks on the DC-X and other SSTO teams. I've done a fair bit of work looking at SSTOs and how to structure a business case to get commercial investment for them.Harry Stines book is worth reading, but you really have to read it with a grain of salt, since it was written by a true believer in a specific way of doing it.
I wish you didn't use HTML or XML tags, my mail program doesn't handle non standard HTML tags well
and doesn't handle XML tags at all.
If there were things "flat out wrong" in the book I would like to know where I could find the information.
After I read the book I tried looking up other sources including aeronautics sites to check out the physics.
I didn't find anything wrong so far. If Stine made up facts then he sucks too but I would like sources.
I generally don't like to use only one book on a subject.
As far as NASA being a hindrance rather than a help I have not read anything to the contrary yet. Stine's
description of their behavior matches what I know of how beaurocracies work. If Stine was "grinding an axe"
and NASA isn't full of wasteful clowns then I appologise right now! though Freeman Dyson and others
also seem to think NASA blocks the road to space.
I seem to remember the Delta Clipper being the name for the DC-X test rocket. Was it to be the name of the final vehicle as well? I thought it was only known as the SSX.
Why would the DC-Y cost so much more than the DC-X? Sure it would be bigger but the DC-X worked so well
until it fell over and burned up. Was there something wrong with the math involving engine design and stresses?
I am often annoyed that books on technical subjects don't put the math in, even as a side note. The book
"The Starflight Handbook" puts the technical notes and math in as sidebars and boxes for those who want to check the
math and engineering.
As far as blaming enthusiasts, Anyone who promises something thay cannot deliver is to blame in any enterprise.
You should only promise what you can deliver or state that you think you might be able to. I think this is one of the
reasons investors are so wary. Too many people lie so they must assume everone lies unless proven wrong.
Oh well......
I liked the DC-X becuase it worked. It did everything it was supposed to do and cost less then some movies
do to make. The design philosopy of build a little fly a little makes a lot of sense to me also.
Designing ships on paper is great but you need to fly things to see if they work. they got the DC-X Flying very quickly
compared with the shuttle development cycles.
I hope I didn't piss you or anyone else off, that was not my intention. I had got really angry after I read that book
and saw what NASA was doing and read what technical info Stine did put in his book. I do have a background in
science and math so I checked up what I could given what resources I have avalible and the fact stine was citing
specific examples of chicanery on NASAs part lead me to believe him. I thought others on this list might want to read
this book also. I am glad you pointed out he might have been telling stories though it annoys me that people
do this. One starts to feel everyone lies about everything in their own interests and you can believe nothing.
I am interested in what you are doing though and in the people you know. I hope we can correspond. I would also
love suggestions of sources of information I might investigate to get a more balanced view.
Thank you!
Darkstar

"Combs, Mike" wrote: Stine was also a true believer in 0-G materials processing, which hasn't exactly set the engineering world on fire in recent decades.
Regards,
Mike Combs

I was interested in the possibilities of a VTVL SSTO that required no more maintenance than a jetliner with a fast
turnaround. There are lots of markets for such a craft from satelite launches to around the world in under an hour
flight service for passengers and cargo. "If it needs to be there in under an hour call sky Xpress".
As for 0G processing, I don't know how useful that would be myself but if you had cheap access to space
you could do plenty of experiments to find out.
Darkstar

>
> > Stine was also a true believer in 0-G materials processing, which
> > hasn't exactly set the engineering world on fire in recent
decades.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Mike Combs
> >
> I was interested in the possibilities of a VTVL SSTO that
required
> no more maintenance than a jetliner with a fast
> turnaround. There are lots of markets for such a craft from
satelite
> launches to around the world in under an hour
> flight service for passengers and cargo. "If it needs to be there
in
> under an hour call sky Xpress".
> As for 0G processing, I don't know how useful that would be
myself
> but if you had cheap access to space
> you could do plenty of experiments to find out.
> Darkstar

Is 0-G processing another term for space manfacturing (ie using
mircogravity to make near perfect slicon chips, for exmaple)?

Darkstar writes:

> If there were things "flat out wrong" in the book I
>would like to know where I could find the information.
>After I read the book I tried looking up other sources
>including aeronautics sites to check out the physics.
>I didn't find anything wrong so far. If Stine made up
>facts then he sucks too but I would like sources. I
>generally don't like to use only one book on a subject.

To be generous to Harry Stine, who I met multiple times at
conferences, a lot of the difference is a difference of
interpretation on circumstances and situations. Harry
would look at a situation and immediately claim "XX" was
going on, but when I looked into it, I would find there
were other less exciting, but probably more realistic
situations going on.

But for an example, get the book and look at the "business
model" he put together with the help of an 'expert' on the
business viability of a SSTO. The data is summarized as

>Spaceship purchase price: $500 million
>Ground Support Equip / ship: 20 million
>Spaceshitp life: 500 flights
>Fleet attrition rate: 1% per year
>Flights per yr per spaceship: 100
>Propellant cost, per pound $.50
>Inflation rate: 5%
>Debt / equity structure: 33% / 67%
>Tax rate: 40%
>Competitive return on equity: 16%

This results in: "The total required revenue for placing
ten tons of cargo and / or passengers into orbit using a
reusable SSTO spaceship with the given characteristics is
$1.6 million (1994 dollars)." (pp 209-210) [that is $80
per pound]

He claims they did some sensitivity analyses:
- A 500% increase in the price of the propellants from
$.50 to $2.50 per pound caused the required revenue per
flight to increase from $1.6 million to $2.2 million, a 38%
increase.

Now Harry used this analysis several times -- I've seen
it in Analog Magazine, in Journal of the Practical
Applications of Space, and in his book. Just for grins,
when it first came out I built a ROM business model to
check his results. His key determinate variables are $1.6
M per flight revenues (at 100 flights/year), with a 50
person ground crew, 1% attrition rate, and with a fuel
usage of 1.2 M lbs/flight at $0.50 /lb. These assumed
values heavily determine the economics of the system --
for example, the $1.6 M per flight and 100 flights per year
set the total revenues. The D/E ratio and the unit cost
set the initial investment, and the ROE sets the end point
value. The ground crew, attrition rate (which I used to
set an insurance cost per flight), fuel usage and price for
fuel set almost all of the recurring costs.
I set the data into a standard set of financial
statements (income statement, balance sheet, and sources
and uses statement). The model uses Stine's published
inputs and then was tweaked to yield return on equity of
16% (after taxes) with his assumptions.

Bottomline -- yeah, I think he can say given his
assumptions, you can get a 16% _annual_ return on equity
into the venture by tweaking the numbers around his
assumptions. But ... something is wrong with his analysis.
For example, take a look at his first sensitivity case
(the 5X increase in propellant costs) whose results are
echoed in all three of the published articles on Stine's
model. My problem is he claims if you increase the cost of
propellant by 5x (from $0.50/lb to $2.50/lb), the needed
revenues only go up by 38% to get back to the 16% return
level.
What's wrong? If you think about his basic assumptions
(1.2 M lbs of propellant and $1.6 M per flight in revenue,
100 flts/year as a baseline), you can quickly calculate
annual costs will go up to at least $300 M = (1.2 M lbs
propellant)(2.50/lb )(100 flight/yr) considering fuel costs
alone.
Against this he states he only had to increase prices by
38%, or which gives a maximum revenue of only $ 220.8 M (=
138% of $1.6 M/flight, with 100 flights per year).
So you have a cost of at least $300 M per year to
operate his SSTO system, yet you are only bringing in $221
M per year in revenues.
Since revenues obviously don't exceed costs, I find it
difficult to show a 16% ROE when you have a net loss of $79
M per year...

So here is a concrete example of something blatantly
wrong with his model of the SSTO and its business
viability.

And it strikes me funny that since this same result had
been published in three separate articles, and I haven't
seen any correction or modification to the results, not any
explanation of this result which does not seem to be correct.

Moreover, the hidden assumption in Stine's model seems to
be that he assumes a vehicle is bought from an existing
production line, no (or very little) new infrastructure is
needed, and that there is a large un-met, immediate demand.
These assumptions seem fairly optimistic in the immediate
near term, such as within the next 10 years.

Those assumptions might be true for a second- or third-
generation SSTO, when the markets are known, the operations
refined, and the technology well understood. But for a
nearer term case, a more realistic commercial SSTO case
might assume the initial cost of vehicle will be higher and
there will be some development cost incurred in getting it.
The development cost for the vehicle has to be recovered --
either by the developer selling multiple vehicles to
multiple operators, or by taking back an equity stake in
the operations entity, or through some other party
absorbing the development cost (such as NASA or the USAF).
If you assume some amount of investment cost has to be
recovered, then the effective price to the operational
entity goes up, and the prices have to increase comensurate
to allow the rate of return back to competitive levels.

> As far as NASA being a hindrance rather than a help I
>have not read anything to the contrary yet. Stine's
>description of their behavior matches what I know of how
>beaurocracies work. If Stine was "grinding an axe" and
>NASA isn't full of wasteful clowns then I appologise right
>now! though Freeman Dyson and others also seem to think
>NASA blocks the road to space.

NASA has problems, yes. And yes there are people there who
want to protect the programs they've spent years working on
like Space Shuttle. But NASA also has been the primary
source of funding for studying and demonstrating the
technologies for SSTOs for the last 20 years. I wouldn't
say NASA is "wasteful clowns", but that they have not been
able to galvanize public opinion to finance a replacement
to the Shuttle let alone a SSTO demonstrator. There are a
number of reasons for that -- but the DC-X program was a
real sparkplug in breaking through that barrier.

I wouldn't say NASA "blocks" the road to space, but that
NASA is one factor that has to be considered, particularly
if you want commercial investment into space activities. A
lot of enthusiasts find it really easy to blame NASA when
they don't want to do the harder work of figuring out the
more detailed things that need to be done to actually pull
it off. And sometimes folks find it easier to blame
someone than change their beliefs.

From another perspective if you look at
the success stories of the space business today (and
commercial space activities product more revenues per year
than NASA's space budget), you'll find that most of them
came out of NASA technology development. Now, they weren't
viable commercial businesses until NASA got out of the field
but many of them started with NASA contracts or NASA-developed
technology. So I'd say its more of mixed bag about NASA
involvement in commercial space activities -- not that they
are just a "block" for space development. You definitely
have to deal with them, but there are some potential pluses
as well as minuses in the equation.

> I seem to remember the Delta Clipper being the name
>for the DC-X test rocket. Was it to be the name of the
>final vehicle as well? I thought it was only known as the
>SSX.

No.. you need to look into the history of the "DC-X" or
similar programs. SSTOs have been studied for a couple of
decades -- there's a good historical chronology of the SSTO
history in one of the AAS annual publications, with a paper
which covers SSTOs being studied back from the Rhombus
program through Gary Hudson's and the Delta Clipper. What
follows is from my fallible memory, but should be
approximately correct if you go dig into the history here.

The proximate genesis of the Delta Clipper was a concept
called "SSX" for Space Ship Experimental put together by
Max Hunter when he was a consultant. His general concept
was to do VTVL, starting with a series of progressive
flight tests, starting with "bunny hops" on a runway and
leading up to a full orbital test vehicle. He proposed a
VTVL since he could "bunny hop" it more easily than a VTHL,
and proposed a concept which looked like a flat cone,
putting the two propellant tanks one on the top of the
other (with a common bulkhead) to get a space-efficient
shape, which was needed to get the structural mass/ volume
efficiency needed for a SSTO.

That concept got some support from Danny Graham (who was a
space enthusiast due to his desire to put an orbiting anti-
missile shield in place -- called the "High Frontier"
program), who worked with a group so SF authors and well
known folks in the industry through Jerry Pournelle. Danny
Graham who had good ties into the Strategic Missile Defense
Organization (SDIO -- now the Missile Defense Agency),
managed to get a short session with VP Quayle to talk about
SSX and the desire to do an experimental program to
demonstrate low cost, operationally efficient space launch.

SDIO had been running a number of studies looking at how
they could launch a constellation of a large number of
orbiting anti-satellite weapons. They looked at large
expendable launch vehicles (which became the "Advanced
Launch Systems", whose concepts developed into what is now
the Delta IV and Atlas V launch vehicles), and they also
did some preliminary SSTO conceptual and technology studies
that were bid on by a number of companies. There had been
a number of prior SSTO studies funded by NASA and DoD,
including both concept development and technology
demonstrations, but no real coordinated demonstrator
program.

The second phase of the SDIO SSTO technology demonstration
and concept development study was won by McDonnell Douglas,
who also promised they would fund a "Project Inform" which
was to galvanize public enthusiasm for SSTO and
unofficially promote additional funding for SSTO -- since
SDIO didn't have either the reason (since space based
interceptors had not been approved, and were one of a
number of options they were studying), nor the funding to
actually build a SSTO (the whole SDIO program was funded at
less than a level felt necessary to develop at SSTO
vehicle).

In McDonnell Douglas' credit, they did a very good job on
the DC-X program, putting a suborbital, very short range
vehicle together on a fast track, low cost basis. For
example, the engines the vehicle used were "loaned" by the
manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, who were hoping for
additional contracts to modify their engines and to sell
more of them. The outer skin of the structure for another
example, was just a fiberglas shell put together to cover
the parts attached to a heavy structure ordered from a
"bridge and ironworks" company.

But it had always been planned for the DC-X program to be a
very limited demonstration. The DC-X was never planned to
go supersonic (when you need to go at least 25 times the
speed of sound to get to orbit), was never planned to
demonstrate any of the thermal protection systems needed to
protect against reentry, never planned to demonstrate the
structural efficiencies or materials needed for orbital
flight, nor a number of other critical developments. It
has always been envisioned that the DC-X would be followed
by a larger, more capable DC-Y vehicle (as per Max Hunter's
original SSX approach) that might be capability of making
orbit with no payload, probably on an expendable basis.
And that next demonstrator vehicle, would be followed by an
operational vehicle, the "Delta Clipper" -- the name chosen
for its relationship to Mc Donnell Douglas's DC aircraft,
and with a lot of PR behind it.

I would note there was a substantial amount of funding by
NASA in parallel to this, in what was called the "SSRT" or
Single Stage Rocket Technology program, which did not
produce the flashy bunny hops in the desert, but was
focused upon producing light weight durable Thermal
Protection Systems that could be used on a SSTO, to
demonstrate the light weight, high thrust engines needed to
propel them, and the light weight and efficient structures
needed to build the vehicles into which you would put the
engines and tanks and on which you would put the TPS. Ivan
Bekey of NASA had done a very influential paper which laid
out the basic technologies and requirements for a SSTO, and
had been used to help focus NASA's funding of this
technology program. There had been a number of detailed
analyses and technology demonstrated funded by NASA looking
at just about every thing needed for a SSTO. I believe
(and I'd have to go dig up the numbers out of the NASA
budgets to confirm this), that NASA was spending around 2-
3x per year as much as the SDIO, but on technology
programs, not a very flashy "demonstrator". (I would note
SDIO did a lot of flashy demonstrations, most of which went
into blind alleys, but they kept the funding coming for
SDIO since you could see really cool pictures and videos of
what they were doing.)

> Why would the DC-Y cost so much more than the DC-X?
>Sure it would be bigger but the DC-X worked so well until
>it fell over and burned up. Was there something wrong
>with the math involving engine design and stresses?

Basically, the DC-Y would have to be substantially bigger
than the DC-X, involving different materials, new engines
and quite a different way of going things. It's sort of
like comparing Piper Cessna with a 747. To get into orbit
you need to go around Mach 25, or 25x the speed of sound.
From a kinetic energy standpoint, you need to put in more
than 25 squared time as much energy into the DC-Y, than the
DC-X (since kinetic energy scales as .5* mass* velocity
squared). That's more than 625 times as much fuel, plus
bigger propellant tanks, plus bigger engines to launch that
big of a vehicle, plus you have to make all the other
changes for orbital flight.

Now, it isn't the math, its that you need the time and
money to go out and actually figure out if you can build
something and put the time and effort into figuring out how
you can build something to do what the math says you want
to do. For example, to make the SSTO work as was being
promised for the Delta Clipper or Harry Stine's
hypothetical SSTO, you need a very efficient (in thrust to
weight) rocket engine that is both reusable and can be
operated at high reliability with little to no maintenance.
That's something no one has ever managed to do.. Can it be
done? I'm pretty sure it can, but its going to take a team
of people some time to figure out exactly how to do it (and
I mean down to doing the full blown detailed design) and
probably quite a bit of testing to make sure you really
know that the engine works. That's cost...

As a point of comparison, the jet engines developed for the
Boeing 777 cost over $1 B to develop. Yet we had other jet
engines that operate with the same reliability and pretty
much the same efficiency over about the same lifetime, but
you only had to scale up the engine's thrust level by
around 2x. It still cost $1 B to accomplish that.

Considering the leap needed to do that jet engine
and the cost involved, how much is it going to cost to
develop, design, manufacture, and test new rocket engines
for a SSTO which are twice as efficient in thrust/lb of
engine, produce better efficiency than the Shuttles'
engines, and do so at 100x lower cost (both production and
operational cost) and 10-100x long of a life? I can be
argued with about how much this will cost, but I think the
answer is "it's not going to be inexpensive to do".

>I am often annoyed that books on technical subjects don't
>put the math in, even as a side note. The book "The
>Starflight Handbook" puts the technical notes and math in
>as sidebars and boxes for those who want to check the math
>and engineering.

I'll agree with this -- but "Halfway to Anywhere" isn't a
technical book. It was a political call to arms, designed
to rile people up and get them enthused about SSTO. It's a
very good book on that basis -- but its not a technical
book. There aren't a lot of good technical books on this
subject since this has been a side light topic without a
lot of major funding for years and year. There are lots of
technical papers around, but they are real technical papers
and rather complex to read since they were never written
for a more general audience.

>[ ... ] As far as blaming enthusiasts, Anyone who promises
>something they cannot deliver is to blame in any
>enterprise. You should only promise what you can deliver
>or state that you think you might be able to. I think
>this is one of the reasons investors are so wary. Too
>many people lie so they must assume everone lies unless
>proven wrong. Oh well......

One of the problems (which came back to bite the McDonnell
Douglas DC-X folks) was that they had promised a bit more
than the company they worked for was willing to commit to.
The company isn't run by true believers, and even if you
are a true believer you have a legal requirement to make
the best decisions for your stockholders. But, the
enthusiasts couldn't understand why the company didn't just
go ahead and build a SSTO after being promised all these
great things the Delta Clipper would do (meanwhile the
company was struggling to stay solvent at one point). At
another point, the enthusiasts tried to re-direct the
company to put billions into SSTO (which didn't make the
company managers fans of DC-X), and at another time tried
to cancel one of the mainstays of McDonnell Douglas's space
business in favor of putting more funds into SSTO. There
was a lot of fuzzy thinking going on about SSTO and not of
lot of folks sitting back trying to rationally think
through what was necessary to pull off an SSTO, let alone
one a commercial investor would put their money into.

> I liked the DC-X becuase it worked. It did everything
>it was supposed to do and cost less then some movies do to
>make. The design philosopy of build a little fly a little
>makes a lot of sense to me also. Designing ships on paper
>is great but you need to fly things to see if they work.
>They got the DC-X Flying very quickly compared with the
>shuttle development cycles.

I fully agree. The DC-X did everything they asked for it
to do, and was a wonderful success in generating enthusiasm
for SSTO development and funding to start developing what
was necessary to do a real SSTO. But how far did it really
push the technology forwards for SSTO?

> I hope I didn't piss you or anyone else off, that was
>not my intention. I had got really angry after I read
>that book and saw what NASA was doing and read what
>technical info Stine did put in his book. I do have a
>background in science and math so I checked up what I
>could given what resources I have avalible and the fact
>stine was citing specific examples of chicanery on NASAs
>part lead me to believe him. I thought others on this
>list might want to read this book also. I am glad you
>pointed out he might have been telling stories though it
>annoys me that people do this. One starts to feel
>everyone lies about everything in their own interests and
>you can believe nothing.

Stine's book is not a technical book. To really understand
the technical issues though, you'll have to go dig up some
of the good technical papers put together from the trade
literature -- which means you'll have to dig into Journal
of Spacecraft and Rockets, AIAA journal, AAS, and others.
STAR and RECON are good data bases to start with, but
you'll have to weed out the really detailed stuff from the
higher level systems and conceptual papers. I know they
exist because I've read a bunch of them.

> I am interested in what you are doing though and in
>the people you know. I hope we can correspond. I would
>also love suggestions of sources of information I might
>investigate to get a more balanced view.

If you want to talk about this more, drop me a line.

also_larrison wrote: To be generous to Harry Stine, who I met multiple times at
conferences, a lot of the difference is a difference of
interpretation on circumstances and situations. Harry
would look at a situation and immediately claim "XX" was
going on, but when I looked into it, I would find there
were other less exciting, but probably more realistic
situations going on.

I never met the man and I didn't know who he was until I got the book
and I looked him up on the web and found he was dead. Opps!!!
Well, I guess data can lead to different theories. I don't know enough to judge.
Moreover, the hidden assumption in Stine's model seems to
be that he assumes a vehicle is bought from an existing
production line, no (or very little) new infrastructure is
needed, and that there is a large un-met, immediate demand.
These assumptions seem fairly optimistic in the immediate
near term, such as within the next 10 years.
Those assumptions might be true for a second- or third-
generation SSTO, when the markets are known, the operations
refined, and the technology well understood. But for a
nearer term case, a more realistic commercial SSTO case
might assume the initial cost of vehicle will be higher and
there will be some development cost incurred in getting it.
The development cost for the vehicle has to be recovered --
either by the developer selling multiple vehicles to
multiple operators, or by taking back an equity stake in
the operations entity, or through some other party
absorbing the development cost (such as NASA or the USAF).
If you assume some amount of investment cost has to be
recovered, then the effective price to the operational
entity goes up, and the prices have to increase comensurate
to allow the rate of return back to competitive levels.

I always assumed even before I read Stine's book was that the first 2 markets
for reusable spaceships would be satelite launches and fast passenger and cargo
transport around the world. The satelite market already exists and the second
market might be kicked off by flying a ship from New York to Tokyo in under an hour
and then back again 2 days later. I think such a stunt showing that it could be possible
might encourage investors who would then smell the money. A lot depends on how reusable
the ship is, how much it can carry, and how much maintenance it needs.
I would assume the development of SSTO transport would follow the development
of air transport. At first it would be expensive and it would go down as technology
and markets expanded. How fast it might go I have no idea.

NASA has problems, yes. And yes there are people there who
want to protect the programs they've spent years working on
like Space Shuttle. But NASA also has been the primary
source of funding for studying and demonstrating the
technologies for SSTOs for the last 20 years. I wouldn't
say NASA is "wasteful clowns", but that they have not been
able to galvanize public opinion to finance a replacement
to the Shuttle let alone a SSTO demonstrator. There are a
number of reasons for that -- but the DC-X program was a
real sparkplug in breaking through that barrier. From what I read an SSTO is something NASA doesn't want.
I am not talkinging about just Stine's book but various web pages and
interview of various people, etc. It threatens their monopoly.
Certainly not everyone in NASA is like this but if those who make the decisions
are against it then NASA is against it.
I wouldn't say NASA "blocks" the road to space, but that
NASA is one factor that has to be considered, particularly
if you want commercial investment into space activities. A
lot of enthusiasts find it really easy to blame NASA when
they don't want to do the harder work of figuring out the
more detailed things that need to be done to actually pull
it off. And sometimes folks find it easier to blame
someone than change their beliefs. Everything I have read says NASA is part of the problem and not the solution.
I will be the first to change my tune if this is not so but what evidence I have
seen supports my theory. I do agree with you that it is better to try to do something
and figure out how to do it then just wining about NASA. Complaining about a problem
never solves it.
>From another perspective if you look at
the success stories of the space business today (and
commercial space activities product more revenues per year
than NASA's space budget), you'll find that most of them
came out of NASA technology development. Now, they weren't
viable commercial businesses until NASA got out of the field
but many of them started with NASA contracts or NASA-developed
technology. So I'd say its more of mixed bag about NASA
involvement in commercial space activities -- not that they
are just a "block" for space development. You definitely
have to deal with them, but there are some potential pluses
as well as minuses in the equation. I am quite happy about the spin-offs and side effects of NASAs activities
that provide technology and other useful things and the money they generate for the
private sector. I am just annoyed with the fact NASA seems to be a bloated
Beaurocracy now.
Basically, the DC-Y would have to be substantially bigger
than the DC-X, involving different materials, new engines
and quite a different way of going things. It's sort of
like comparing Piper Cessna with a 747. To get into orbit
you need to go around Mach 25, or 25x the speed of sound.
>From a kinetic energy standpoint, you need to put in more
than 25 squared time as much energy into the DC-Y, than the
DC-X (since kinetic energy scales as .5* mass* velocity
squared). That's more than 625 times as much fuel, plus
bigger propellant tanks, plus bigger engines to launch that
big of a vehicle, plus you have to make all the other
changes for orbital flight.
Now, it isn't the math, its that you need the time and
money to go out and actually figure out if you can build
something and put the time and effort into figuring out how
you can build something to do what the math says you want
to do. For example, to make the SSTO work as was being
promised for the Delta Clipper or Harry Stine's
hypothetical SSTO, you need a very efficient (in thrust to
weight) rocket engine that is both reusable and can be
operated at high reliability with little to no maintenance.
That's something no one has ever managed to do.. Can it be
done? I'm pretty sure it can, but its going to take a team
of people some time to figure out exactly how to do it (and
I mean down to doing the full blown detailed design) and
probably quite a bit of testing to make sure you really
know that the engine works. That's cost... I know what you mean, I was playing with the rocket equation recently.
I keep wondering how the reusable ship gets down since to decelerate from orbit
is also a delta-v. To be sure you get air friction to help and gravity will pull down
but you will still need some fuel.
I did think of an idea which I am going to write up in more detail as a way of
solving the design problem. I got the idea when thinking of how Linux was developed.
thousands of hackers(not the people who break into systems but the older meaning of the term as a computer tinkerer) on the internet would design, write and debug the software.
The model depended on the fact that the source code was open and anyone could look at it.
People were invited to modify, debug, fix and improve the code. Since Linux had certain
requirements the best code was chosen to be included but it was and still is under constant development. Why cannot rocket design be done the same way? Certainly
the actual testing of engines and ships would require people with resources to build and
test them but the physics and engineering of the design could be tinkered, debugged,
Keeping the designs open source like with linux allows them to be reviewed
and tested(at least by simulation) by thousands of hobbiests, engineers, physisists,
etc all over the world. A company could access these and find that all the design work
that would cost them millions was done for free by enthusiasts and all they needed to do
was test and build. Maybe a rich enthusiast might have tested some of them already.
It worked so well for Linux. It is just a thought. Hope it catches on though.
I'll agree with this -- but "Halfway to Anywhere" isn't a
technical book. It was a political call to arms, designed
to rile people up and get them enthused about SSTO. It's a
very good book on that basis -- but its not a technical
book. There aren't a lot of good technical books on this
subject since this has been a side light topic without a
lot of major funding for years and year. There are lots of
technical papers around, but they are real technical papers
and rather complex to read since they were never written
for a more general audience. I know Halfway to Anywhere was not a technical book.
I have trouble finding books on Rocketry. I am lucky I held on to
my college physics texts! The math involved never seems that hard either.
It isn't like anyone is being asked to learn linear algebra!
Not that that is a hard subject mind you, I didn't find it that difficult.
We seem to live in a nation of math and science phobics. Bummer.
One of the problems (which came back to bite the McDonnell
Douglas DC-X folks) was that they had promised a bit more
than the company they worked for was willing to commit to.
The company isn't run by true believers, and even if you
are a true believer you have a legal requirement to make
the best decisions for your stockholders. But, the
enthusiasts couldn't understand why the company didn't just
go ahead and build a SSTO after being promised all these
great things the Delta Clipper would do (meanwhile the
company was struggling to stay solvent at one point). At
another point, the enthusiasts tried to re-direct the
company to put billions into SSTO (which didn't make the
company managers fans of DC-X), and at another time tried
to cancel one of the mainstays of McDonnell Douglas's space
business in favor of putting more funds into SSTO. There
was a lot of fuzzy thinking going on about SSTO and not of
lot of folks sitting back trying to rationally think
through what was necessary to pull off an SSTO, let alone
one a commercial investor would put their money into.

The problem I observed with people trying to get other people to
do things, especially if it is risky or visionary, is the need for salesmanship.
The case for a full SSTO delevopment program was not made to McDonnell Douglas
in such a way as to convince them of its value to the company, not even as a long term
goal. I suspect you need more than one company involved anyway.
Even if McDonnell Douglas builds a wonderfully designed SSTO that can carry 50 people
or a nice amount of cargo anywhere in the world or into space and is fully reusable,
cheap to run, etc, someone needs to buy them. You need to get shipping companies,
airlines, satelite launch customers, space tourism developers, etc interested
long before the ships roll out of the factories or there may not be a market
large enough. To do all that requires a salesman with vision and financial savy.
Someone who can get people with money excited about something that is risky
but could pay off really big! He also needs to sell it to the people of the world too
so they will want it and thus creat a market looking for a seller so large that
the risk will seem small. A salesman or a sales team would do the trick.
That any anything that lowers the cost of research such as my opensource rocket design idea.
I fully agree. The DC-X did everything they asked for it
to do, and was a wonderful success in generating enthusiasm
for SSTO development and funding to start developing what
was necessary to do a real SSTO. But how far did it really
push the technology forwards for SSTO? Well, It was the first reusable rocket. It sparked an interest in spaceflight
that died out in the late 80s in me and in several others I knew. I am sure many people
now are interested in sapce flight who gave up when the realized they were never going to go into space when the delta clipper held out the promise of cheap spaceflight again.
Publicity of an idea pushes technology forward by getting people involved in developing
it.
>
Stine's book is not a technical book. To really understand
the technical issues though, you'll have to go dig up some
of the good technical papers put together from the trade
literature -- which means you'll have to dig into Journal
of Spacecraft and Rockets, AIAA journal, AAS, and others.
STAR and RECON are good data bases to start with, but
you'll have to weed out the really detailed stuff from the
higher level systems and conceptual papers. I know they
exist because I've read a bunch of them. I know Stine's book wasn't technical. I checked up on
the SSTO designs he mentioned and his fuel/Mass ratio arguements
using the rocket equation. I keep wondering if there is a way to get
the exaust velocity higher. If you could only get it higher the fuel you would need
would go down.
If you want to talk about this more, drop me a line.

Ok.
Darkstar