[AR] Re: OT laser propulsion and power satellites
- From: Derek Clarke <derek_c@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2013 05:01:36 +0100
Boot, don't tickle.
1) build a nuclear reactor! Use it for power for the electrolysis and
liquification plant for fuel and the rocket factory for booster cases.
2) develop a really big dumb booster. I'm thinking multiple Saturn V here.
You Don't Care about GTO, just be able to get tonnes into LEO.
3) since you designed the booster, you can optimise it for the end use.
Specifically, each launch delivers a chunk of antenna, some solar cells and
a big tank you can use for infrastructure. All you really need.
4) assemble in LEO. As you point out we know better how to do that,
especially if the assembly consists of undocking and docking manoeuvres!
Make the solar cell farm from interlocking discs the diameter of the
booster. Make the antenna the same way. An active antenna won't care.
5) once your powersat is assembled, use it to power the BFO ion drive you
delivered in the last couple of launches to get it to GEO. So it takes a
year or so to get there...
6) Rinse and repeat.
The cost of access to space is people cost, not aluminium and LH and LOX.
Minimise the people cost and the rest follows. So you leverage on mass
production of stuff that works first time every time and making your own
fuel. Use the simplest possible engines. The rest is cheap electronics.
Forget fancy schemes of reusable spaceplanes with pitiful cargo
capacity and lasers of power sufficient to carve your name in glass in the
Sahara. Just build hundreds of boosters we'd already be using if NASA
hadn't got lost in dreams of bus services to LEO.
On Tuesday, October 15, 2013, Keith Henson wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 10:40 PM, Derek Clarke
> <derek_c@xxxxxxxxx<javascript:;>>
> wrote:
> > Nice try, but no cigar. That programme is far too expensive.
>
> So far, the technical people say it is to expensive and the finance
> people say it can't be done for technical reasons.
>
> Now, *I* have no idea of how to raise that scale of money, but as
> energy project go, it is about half the size of the largest and there
> are several of the same size, mostly LNG projects. If the Chinese do
> it, $60 B is twice the cost of Three Gorges Dam.
>
> > Then there are
> > the implications of large numbers of multigigawatt lasers.
>
> That I clearly state in the talk. Even one of them has huge
> implications. Someone with experiences in military studies says the US
> will attempt to destroy any Chinese propulsion laser. If the Chinese
> were doing it jointly with the Indians would we still destroy it? Is
> it in the interest of the US for the Chinese to get off coal? From the
> viewpoint of the US, how do propulsion lasers differ in kind from
> Predator drones and Hellfire missiles?
>
> > It was also not clear why you go to the expense of developing Skylon
> just to
> > launch the first satellite.
>
> The second generation Skylon, the one with the laser hydrogen heaters
> is required to get the long term transport cost down. It's just too
> much of a technological jump at one time so we need the original
> version. The cargo needed for the first microwave powered propulsion
> laser is in the ten thousand ton range. That will take ~1000 flights
> of something to get it there. At two hundred flights per vehicle,
> that will take 5-6 Skylons and about a year. I don't know any less
> expensive way to get that much into space, especially when we need the
> engineering experience of flying a couple of Skylons a day. Working
> up to 3 flights an hour is going to be an interesting task.
>
> Keith
>
> > On Tuesday, October 15, 2013, Keith Henson wrote:
> >>
> >> http://youtu.be/qCiw99yRBo8
> >>
> >> Talk I gave at Google in July.
> >>
> >> Keith
> >>
> >
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 10:40 PM, Derek Clarke
> <derek_c@xxxxxxxxx<javascript:;>>
> wrote:
> > Nice try, but no cigar. That programme is far too expensive. Then there
> are
> > the implications of large numbers of multigigawatt lasers.
> >
> > It was also not clear why you go to the expense of developing Skylon
> just to
> > launch the first satellite.
> >
> >
> > On Tuesday, October 15, 2013, Keith Henson wrote:
> >>
> >> http://youtu.be/qCiw99yRBo8
> >>
> >> Talk I gave at Google in July.
> >>
> >> Keith
> >>
> >
>
>
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