TGD(ver 1.0) Waste of Time

Hi Al,

BNSC is the British National Space Centre - the UK's equivalent of NASA,
except that as I said, it doesn't spend a penny on either launch
vehicles or manned spaceflight.

Best wishes, Andy.

Al Globus wrote:

> 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.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> Service.
> >
> --
> 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.
>
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