TGD(ver 1.0) Waste of Time

Is BNSC Britain? In the U.S. there are three or four small start-up
companies developing launchers with private funds. In addition, Boeing
Sea Launch, Orbital Sciences, and Lockheed have all recently developed
more-or-less successful launchers. These systems have reduced costs
somewhat, but not by a huge margin. Sea Launch sees their competitive
position as primarily low-cost launch. A number of small start-up
companies have also gone bust in the last 20 years or so. This happens
in the computer business as well. Actually, most new companies go bust
in every field.

When Orbital Sciences developed their small ground launcher, they
intended to cut the cost of launch by half over the old NASA developed
system. They actually cut the cost by about 15 percent or so. When
asked about the difference in the goal and the result, the Orbital
Science's spokesman said, "we learned a lot physics," or something
similar.

I see a lot of activity, I don't see the U.S. government leaning on
them. Actually, I see the U.S. government providing some of the money
for development, at least to the aerospace giants and orbital (which is
a new company, relatively). In addition, at least one of the small
start-ups is getting Space Lunch Initiative funds last I heard. Beale
did complain about the government funding competition with the Space
Launch Initiative, and I think there was some truth to that. However,
Beale was in trouble before NASA started funding development beyond the
X33, X34, and X37 programs. He could have applied for government funds
and may even have got some, but he didn't want to. In any case, it seems
to me that the primary problem is launchers. If NASA wasn't working on
it, they wouldn't be doing their job.

andy-nimmo wrote:

> Hi Al,
>
> If anybody in this country wants to develop any kind of space launch
> vehicle they will be told by the BNSC that it is against Government
> policy to permit such vehicles to be developed. The fact that this is
> an outright lie is beside the point. It is what they will be told. You
> seem to be saying that this is not relevant as to why such vehicles
> are not being developed!
>
> Before you can develop anything you need funding. Money men are
> sensitive. As soon as they hear that kind of thing they shear off. So
> long as a government body such as BNSC gives out that line there will
> be no such development in this country no matter how good the designs
> may be. Accordingly, to imply, as you did earlier, that the reason
> there is lack of funding is because of incompetence of design is
> nonsense.
>
> Best wishes, Andy.
>
> Al Globus wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> andy-nimmo wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >
>> > You say, "Any number of people have made these kinds of claims in
>> the
>> > past. Some of them with no connection to the US. None have
>> > produced." I've just told you why those developed over here were
>> not
>> > produced.
>>
>> You provided one hypothesis as to why they have not produced. It's
>> not
>> unreasonable, but I don't think it fits the data. Several countries
>> have
>> developed launch vehicles with little or no connection to the U.S.
>> (China, India, USSR), some of these countries have been active
>> enemies
>> of the U.S. The notion that U.S. pressure prevented these folks from
>>
>> building $100/lb to LEO vehicles seems unlikely. BTW: the new
>> Indian
>> launcher just suffered a failure.
>>
>> Here's another hypothesis: I'm a programmer. When my programs fail,
>> I
>> can examine the wreckage and usually figure out what happened. If I
>>
>> designed rocket engines, when they failed there would be little
>> pieces
>> of metal over the place and some telemetry until shortly before the
>> failure. Figuring out what happened is a little more difficult.
>> Fixing
>> it requires building a whole new rocket, not just changing a few
>> characters in a file. Talk to anyone who's actually built a rocket
>> that
>> will go on a predictable trajectory.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
Al Globus
aglobus@..., (650) 604-4404
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

The dinosaurs weren't spacefaring. We are. I don't think that's an
accident.
Maybe we are life's taxi to the stars.

I think we should:

1. Devote half of NASA's budget ($7 billion) to reaching NASA's 2020
goal of
reducing launch costs to Low-Earth-Orbit to $220/kg with a 0.01% failure
rate.
This should enable space tourism. The resulting orbital hotels will need
to
develop efficient orbital life support and other necessary technologies.

2. Build orbital space colonies. The materials in the largest asteroid
are
sufficient for orbital colonies with a combined surface area about 500
times
greater than Earth's. Eros alone could make over ten thousand space
colonies,
each with about about 10 square kilometers of 1g living area.

3. After a few generations of orbital living, people won't need their
colony
to be near Sol. Then small groups of colonies with populations in the
tens-of-thousands can set out on multi-decade journeys to nearby stars.

Except the launch goals, none of this is even a little bit official.