1. The human race can only go in one of two directions; space or extinction- right now we are an endangered species.
2. Impact deflection and survival colonies hold the moral high ground above all other calls on public funds.
3. Nuclear energy is to the space age as steam was to the industrial revolution; chemical propulsion is useless for interplanetary travel due to the need for massive shielding, artificial gravity, and multi-year mission life support.
4. Physical matter can barely contain chemical reactions; the only way to effectively harness nuclear energy for space propulsion is avoid containment problems completely- with bombs.
5. The Moon has water for the minimum 14 foot thick radiation shield and is a safe place to light off a bomb propulsion system; it is the starting gate.
6. There is no cheap; space travel is inherently expensive.
7. The DOD budget is proof we have the money for space travel and anyone who says different is not telling the truth.
8. Cold war toys and secret programs are easy money because they don't really have to work; spaceships are hard money and that is why we do not have any.
9. Low Earth Orbit is endless circles at very high alitude going nowhere; it is not space travel because to travel you have to go somewhere.
10. The space clowns of private space companies are a national disgrace and the Albatross ISS is a disaster for human space flight.
11. The profit motive is toxic to space exploration; vast governmental resources are required to build spaceships and construct off world colonies before commerce can even begin.
12. There is no substitute for a Heavy Lift Vehicle with hydrogen upper stages.
I became interested in Beyond Earth Orbit- Human Space Flight by way of a college paper I helped my wife research some years ago. Her project for an ethics class was nuclear weapons. I stumbled upon the book "Project Orion, the true story of the atomic spaceship" by George Dyson and was hooked. I had been a science fiction fan in my youth but like most people I came to realize space operas were to be realized only in the far future. Project Orion changed my worldview. Since then my made-up mind has been unmade several times concerning most of the "common knowledge" floating around about space flight in this 21st century. Much of what is generally believed to be true about our space program is made up of recent hearsay used to hype products that further a business plan. When I read these infomercials endlessly repeated as fact I get pretty upset, mostly exposing these "facts" as not true results in vicious attacks. Private space cult members disgust me and I will not apologize for my hard feelings about these people. They mislead and obfuscate, and insult and dogpile anyone who disagrees with their dogma.
It was a step by step process but I came to realize the path to the stars is a narrow one. I found the U.S. space effort has been on what is called "the flexible path" and this turned out to be a contradiction of almost everything I found in my research. There is no Flexible Path. The path to colonizing the solar system is narrow and straightforward due to the laws of physics and materials science. Science fiction movies seem to have conditioned the public to believe such natural laws can be violated and technology that breaks these laws is possible and immanent. This kind of ignorance of natural limitations has led to much waste and many tragedies in the past decades by pushing said limits and there is soon to come great disappointment over breakthroughs that are far easier said than done. By way of political contributions and backroom deals, the flexible path scheme came into existence as a way of making money for a small group of investors looking to cash in on public ignorance of technology and influence peddling. It is a convoluted and confusing path and perhaps the best way to make my meaning plain despite this distraction is to start at the desired end and work backwards.
If the end goal is new worlds for humankind to inhabit, the earliest practical portrayal of a possible new world was in the 1929 work, "The World, The Flesh, and The Devil", by socialist Joseph Bernal. I must say I am no socialist or capitalist, but I am someone who is sometimes very unhappy with people at either end of that spectrum. Space is not about politics- it is about survival. More than just surviving- thriving. Human beings need earth-like conditions to thrive- and a hollow moon can provide those conditions.Though the hollow artificial moon proposed by Bernal does not address artificial gravity, the hollow sphere concept does, if spun, allow for earth gravity on the inner surface at the equator. Hollow spheres in space can provide habitats for thousands, millions, billions, perhaps tens of billions of people. Space is big, with alot of sunlight and rock floating around waiting to be exploited. And tens of thousands of icy comets. Solar energy and low gravity resources in the asteroid belt mean that building on a much larger scale than we do on earth is practical. While we construct thousand foot supertankers and skyscrapers with some difficulty in earth gravity, the same masses of metal and concrete in space can form a shell many miles in diameter with many times less energy expended.
The most interesting fact of all about Bernal spheres is that building them is not much of a stretch of the imagination. It is the strongest shape and the energy to melt and refine ore and the various rocks and ices are available, and there are no engineering showstoppers. Fill a Bernal sphere with comet water and air and spin and humankind has created a new world to live "in." New worlds capable of traveling for centuries to other star systems when the time comes. While we have the technology, amazingly, to build such hollow moons right now, we lack only a single medical procedure to allow for star travel with them- revivable cryospreservation. This one key piece of technology, which also breaks no laws of physics, is all that holds the human race back from colonizing the galaxy.
This future is not the hyperspace warp drive stargate winged starship fantasy the public has in mind. Though slowboats do not lend themselves well to screenplays and formula blockbusters, they are more exciting to those of us who understand what is possible in the near future. But before these new worlds can be manufactured, probably near the end of this century, humankind must first establish an infrastructure in deep space to enable that activity.
To live in space is different than to survive. Missions based on how much radiation and zero G debilitation a human being can survive on average are certain to fail. Providing earth radiation levels and gravity is certain to succeed. Radiation is the first killer, and lack of gravity as a debilitator is the second made even worse by the first. To set up an infrastructure that will allow colonies and eventually migration requires spaceships and these radiation and hypogravity hazards cannot be avoided. The only guaranteed shield against the heavy nuclei component of cosmic radiation is mass and distance. The only practical spaceship shielding is 14 or more feet of water. The only way to propel this much mass around the solar system is with nuclear energy. Nuclear activities in earth orbit are not acceptable. Lifting thousands and eventually millions of tons of water into earth orbit are also not acceptable. This path leads to the moon where nuclear activities are permissible and there is water. The only way to get to the moon is with Heavy Lift Vehicles like the Saturn V and the future SLS. The only way to transport fissionables to the moon safely is with Heavy Lift Vehicles. And this is where the private space agenda rears it's ugly head.
HLV's and anything needing massive governmental resources, such as nuclear energy, are blasphemy to the private space cult. While their dogma preaches that cheap lift can be had with smaller kerosene rockets with a high launch rate, they go on to enable missions beyond earth orbit by way of fuel depots and transfer in space. For a scientifically ignorant public this all makes sense. But it is the kerosene-hydrogen disconnect that exposes the private space flexible path as a business plan to fool taxpayers into subsidizing a Low Earth Orbit space tourism industry for the ultra-rich.
Liquid hydrogen does not store well and is very difficult to transfer. It is difficult on the ground but in space it has never been done because it is such a nightmare. The entire transfer system and recieving tank have to be pre-cooled with liquid helium and a perfect precool is physically impossible. This generates liquid hydrogen boil-off that must be re-liquified- which generates the exo-thermic form of hydrogen- that generates more boil-off. Compounded by space radiation and zero gravity effects, this is all a real mess that no one wants to talk about. Like radiation shielding, it is a topic avoided by private space advocates to the point of hurling insults. Not only is hydrogen hard to handle on the ground and much harder to deal with in space, an engine burning it requires a turbopump ten times more powerful than one for a kerosene engine. Which is why kerosene is hyped by private space as such a wonderful propellent- because both handling hydrogen and using hydrogen engines is much more expensive and cuts into projected profit margins.
So why does the orbital fuel depot and transfer concept specify liquid hydrogen? If kerosene is so much better then why bother with liquid hydrogen in orbital fuel depots? Because there is no substitute for hydrogen Earth Departure Stages when it comes to escaping earth's gravitational field. Using other propellants multiplies the size of these stages several times. Any human missions Beyond Earth Orbit not using liquid hydrogen Earth Departure Stages look like Battlestar Galactica. Because of the Apollo program and every study done on any BEO missions, private space knows they cannot claim otherwise and get away with it. So private space advocates avoid this subject like the plague. Since it is not practical to store or transfer liquid hydrogen in space a direct launch out of orbit, like the Apollo program, is required. The laws of physics have not changed since the 1960's. Since the inferior lift vehicles advocated in the flexible path are capable of boosting a few tons at a time out of orbit, Heavy Lift Vehicles become necessary.
Thus, there is no substitute for a HLV with hydrogen upper stages. There is no cheap; space flight is inherently expensive.
The resources necessary to build an infrastructure for BEO-HSF is unavailable to private space. HLV's sending packaged fissionables to the moon are completely out of reach of "entrepreneurs" claiming the flexible path will open the solar system to colonization. In fact, private space claiming they are the future of space exploration is a lie, a deception being used to acquire taxpayer support for space tourism. Forty years of space stations going in endless circles at very high altitude is a dead end. The space tourism industry wants this truth suppressed and portrays LEO stations as the cutting edge of "exploration."
The justification and source of funding for BEO-HSF is impact defense and survival colonies. It is the DOD that is spending money on useless cold war toys that guarantee huge profits for the defense industry while neglecting the most vital mission of the U.S. space program; safeguarding the earth and the human race.
Mars is the worst place to go. A deep gravity well to climb in and out of. A case of too much gravity and no protection from radiation.
Ceres is a much better deal. A multi-year mission is a multi-year mission and if you are going to Mars it makes more sense to go farther to Ceres. No problem landing as it has very little gravity, but may have liquid oceans. Solar resources on Mars are not very good.
The Moon has ice and is the first place to go for the simple reason that any human missions outbound will require massive shielding and that shielding will require nuclear propulsion.
Building and lighting off a nuclear spaceship in earth orbit is not acceptable and bringing up all that water is problematic. The moon has water for shielding and no restrictions on nuclear activities.
The safest way to transport fissionables to lunar orbit is a direct launch of a human-rated HLV with an escape tower and the material packaged in a capsule.
If any one event doomed the space age and stranded mankind in Low Earth Orbit, it may have been a single decision concerning the much maligned Solid Rocket Booster.
In the early 1960’s Aerojet invested millions in very large monolithic solid rocket boosters built with submarine hull technology. Unfortunately, the politics involved dictated that any large Solid Rocket Boosters for the space program would be coming from Utah. The Aerojet booster shells would have come from Sun shipyards in Philadelphia by barge- while Utah production had to be transported by rail in separate segments.
So sure was Aerojet of the superiority of their new boosters that they built a factory in the everglades to pour the propellant. Aerojet was so confident because these boosters of over four million pounds of thrust would cost about one dollar per pound of thrust. These pairs of reusable boosters would have put out more thrust than the 1st stage of the Saturn V for about one fortieth the price.
The politically chosen Thiokol segmented boosters would severely limit any vehicle using them and in the case of the space transportation system also going with the space plane concept would strand the U.S. in Low Earth Orbit to this day. The Aerojet factory sits abandoned with the remains of the most powerful booster ever fired, the AJ-260, sitting in a test silo.
Along with the failure to use monolithic boosters came the second strike against space exploration; the failure to utilize wet workshops. This use of empty fuel tanks for use as spaceship compartments and for rendered alloy would have allowed for large structures to be readily available. Solar energy to melt down these stages into more massive components would have allowed the building of pusher plates for atomic bomb powered spaceships in earth orbit. The third strike was this failure to adopt the only practical interplanetary propulsion system available at the time.
A half century after atomic bomb propulsion was first evaluated the situation has not changed at all. There is still no other method of propulsion that has any chance of providing the necessary performance. Prohibiting nuclear devices by space by treaty was yet another political stumbling block in the path of human space flight. Detonating nuclear devices in earth orbit may have been feasible at the north and south poles where there were magnetosphere exclusion zones. In these areas it may have been possible to boost out of orbit without contaminating the earth’s atmosphere.
Sadly, the money being funneled into just a single troubled DOD program, the F-35 stealth fighter, would finance a Beyond Earth Orbit Human Space Flight program with these technologies that have been waiting for over half a century to be utilized. The defense industry continues to realize immense profits by producing weapons that cannot , for example, keep the straits of Hormuz open when facing anti-ship missiles.
It is a question the easy money of weapons and classified programs vs. the hard money of building spaceships that work. We can train our young people to clear buildings with automatic weapons and invest in brain trauma rehab or we can train them to build spaceships. The money will be spent either way.
As Long as it is a Jobs Program
The space clown wannabe club has worn their most often used slogan out. Now that the shuttle is retired the whipping boy that NASA became in the blogosphere is no longer a convenient sounding board. Whenever variations of the "jobs program" lie are put up anywhere it is one of two things; someone who has been misinformed by regurgitated commercial space propaganda- or a liar who knows good and well that nothing could be further from the truth. The latter type disgust me and I find it hard to put into words the hard feelings I have for the infomercial crew that has contaminated the blogosphere with their garbage for so many years.
Most of what private space wails and gnashes their teeth about plays on a hoped for public perception that NASA is a hugely inefficient and wasteful organization that screws up everything they touch.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The space clown wannabe club has worn their most often used slogan out. Now that the shuttle is retired the whipping boy that NASA became in the blogosphere is no longer a convenient sounding board. Whenever variations of the "jobs program" lie are put up anywhere it is one of two things; someone who has been misinformed by regurgitated commercial space propaganda- or a liar who knows good and well that nothing could be further from the truth. The latter type disgust me and I find it hard to put into words the hard feelings I have for the infomercial crew that has contaminated the blogosphere with their garbage for so many years.
Most of what private space wails and gnashes their teeth about plays on a hoped for public perception that NASA is a hugely inefficient and wasteful organization that screws up everything they touch.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
NASA has launched over a hundred Heavy Lift missions- the equivalent of a hundred moon shots. That their vehicle was designed to do everything and was sold as impossibly cheap while being sadly underfunded was the result of a small group of politically influenced decision makers making very bad decisions.
Because of underfunding- these decisions would never be reversed and the resulting problems solved.
From the beginning of the program to the end the option to convert the shuttle into what would have been the best Heavy Lift Vehicle in the world and vastly increase the capability of the space program was not taken due to underfunding.
Along comes private space saying they can do better. Actually what they are trying to do is use the taxpayer to subsidize a tourist business for the rich using what amounts to a hobby rocket.
If you doubt this you can add up how many of the amazing merlin engines it takes to equal the thrust of one 5 segment SRB. Resuable solid rocket boosters have fired flawlessly over 200 times in a row. The most powerful launch hardware on earth sits idle while a ridiculous and inferior scheme to use refueling depots to allow Beyond Earth Orbit spaceflight is sold as the future. It is the enron of space exploration.
The choice is whether NASA is going to go in the space clown tourist business or send humans on missions of exploration beyond earth orbit to the far reaches of the solar system.
The DOD budget is the proof we can afford a BEO space program. Indisputable proof. Saying we cannot afford to is a lie that has been told so often that the gullible and uninformed believe it.
This is the true issue- the easy money of weapons and classified programs vs. the hard money of building spaceships.
It was not a good Sunday. After learning that one of the few blogs that allow any criticism of private space and Elon Musk had been suppressed, I watched the puff piece on SpaceX on 60 minutes. A five second clip of Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan giving testimony with a sentence fragment concerning commercial crew mediocrity- and the rest was unabashed SpaceX advertising. A teary eyed Musk talked about his heroes coming to the factory and seeing for themselves how great his art. I doubt Armstrong and Cernan would have been impressed with his hobby rocket. What the astronauts cannot bring themselves to say is the profit motive is toxic to space exploration. Only vast governmental resources can build spaceships and construct off world colonies. Space tourism, suborbital joy rides, kerosene hobby rockets, inflatable space hotels, and removal of government oversight and control of the space industry is all a national humiliation and disaster. Commercial space is the worst thing that has ever happened to space flight. The SpaceX hobby rocket is indeed the epitomy of mediocrity. Worse, by decieving more and more of the public into thinking that space travel is just another flavor of commercial airlines, the avenue to any worthwhile funding closes. The very wailing and gnashing of teeth about NASA waste and too expensive rockets used to justify commercial space will ultimately end the U.S. space program. There is no cheap; space flight is inherently expensive.
In 1929 noted scientist and socialist John Desmond Bernal wrote "The World, The Flesh, and the Devil. Though he did not address the need for artificial gravity in his hypothetical artificial hollow moon, his basic concept of this strongest natural form- the sphere- as a smaller version of earth with the inhabitants living on the inside instead of the outside was sage and inspired.
World socialism did not meet the test but Bernal's concept of space migration was revived four decades later in the work of Gerard K. O'Neill. A hollow sphere several miles in diameter can be spun to provide artificial gravity on the inner surface at the equator. With collectors at the poles shining light into the interior, a Bernal sphere is not only the most practical design for a large habitat in space- it is also a ready-made spaceship. By exploding a series of plasma generating directional hydrogen bombs a short distance from the surface, a strongly constructed sphere would be kicked on its way like a soccer ball, gathering speed in steps.
Conceived by A-bomb scientist Stanislaw Ulam after the second world war, nuclear bomb propulsion remains to this day the only viable method of deep space propulsion. The evolution of the human species leads in two directions only; off the planet or to extinction. Concerning human migration into space, nuclear energy is to the space age as steam was to the industrial revolution. There is little solar energy in the outer solar system where the hundred or so bodies large enough to sustain an independent colony reside.
The material to build Bernal Spheres on a large scale is located in the asteroid belt and outer system moons. This means nuclear reactors will be the commodity of choice in space for decades to come. But the same reluctance to contaminate the earth's atmosphere with fallout will also keep the amount of fissionable material transported into orbit to the bare minimum. This points the human race to the thorium deposits on the moon as the first prime resource to be exploited off world. The lunar ice is of course more important in the sense that it will allow the thorium operations to proceed by sustaining human industrial activities, but in terms of use as a rocket fuel the hydrogen and oxygen derived will not be expended in this manner because chemical propulsion is simply not useful in interplanetary space.
Chemical propulsion is the building block that must be discarded eventually. It is wonderful for transporting payloads into orbit without causing too much damage to the environment compared to nuclear systems, but it is clear to many that it will never allow for the cheap access that is considered "the holy grail."
Beam propulsion is the only contender technology for single stage to orbit transportation and the only candidate that will likely ever prove practical. Though there are a few million dollars being spent on research by NASA, the critical test results that will allow for large scale prototypes to be built are not going to happen at the present level of funding.
Beam propulsion is the only contender technology for single stage to orbit transportation and the only candidate that will likely ever prove practical. Though there are a few million dollars being spent on research by NASA, the critical test results that will allow for large scale prototypes to be built are not going to happen at the present level of funding.
While hundreds of millions are repeatedly funneled into commercial space inferior lift vehicles, heavy lift hardware like 5 segment SRB's sit idle and needed research remains unfunded. With a vehicle able to achieve orbit using transmitted energy the fantasy of airline ticket prices to space may be realized sometime in this century- a dream never to come come true with cheap underpowered rockets. The more money spent on research instead of hobby rockets, the quicker a real future in space will be realized. In other words, the private- cheaper- smaller is better path is the worst possible course. Until beam propulsion matures, the Heavy Lift Vehicle with hydrogen upper stages is the only practical vehicle for setting up a space infrastructure.
Inferior lift vehicles promise nothing but an absurd number of launches and eventual failure. Eventually building Bernal Spheres is the best way to preserve earth's biosphere and the human race. Self defense is the only valid reason for colonizing the solar system instead of spending the resources here on improving the human condition. It is the only higher moral ground- the only penultimate reason to forgo other more immediate emergencies. It is also the perfect mission for the various militaries that control the world's nuclear arsenal.
The space industry is ipso facto a nuclear industry and to move all nuclear industry into space, where there are no contamination or disposal problems, is a goal that can also be accomplished by the end of the century.
An international space defense budget that greatly exceeds the amount spent on Apollo at its height is where the narrow path to colonizing the solar system begins. We build skyscrapers and supertankers on earth with some difficulty but in space- with no gravity and vast solar energy resources- the scale of such projects will likely become large enough to build artificial worlds and even mass produce them. The quarter or half century time frame to develop the needed infrastructure for large structures such as skyscrapers and supertankers is also applicable to space projects. While the profit motive and arms races were previous motivators, the future must needs a new driver or humanity will continue to be an endangered species.
An international space defense budget that greatly exceeds the amount spent on Apollo at its height is where the narrow path to colonizing the solar system begins. We build skyscrapers and supertankers on earth with some difficulty but in space- with no gravity and vast solar energy resources- the scale of such projects will likely become large enough to build artificial worlds and even mass produce them. The quarter or half century time frame to develop the needed infrastructure for large structures such as skyscrapers and supertankers is also applicable to space projects. While the profit motive and arms races were previous motivators, the future must needs a new driver or humanity will continue to be an endangered species.
Kevin Parkin vs. Elon Musk
It is an interesting question that when (and if) historians write the story of the first space migrations at some point in the future, what names will fill the headers and footnotes? What names will be cited in praise and what will be infamous? A recent homage to Wernher Von Braun in a prominent blog failed to mention many of the Aristocrat Nazi's most important ideas and completely left out the former SS officer's more infamous role at the Dora rocket factory in the Hartz mountains.
The greatest work of Von Braun was undoubtedly his pursuit of the "Wet Workshop." This concept was partially realized in Skylab which was a "dry workshop", but the funds to allow the entire second stage of the Saturn V to be used in orbit were lacking. Lack of funding also kept any plans for sending the External Tank of the space shuttle all the way into orbit. It was an incredible waste the American public is not even aware of. One afternoon would have put a space station in orbit with the enterior living space of the 100 billion dollar decades-to-build ISS. The idea of 100 external tanks, one for each shuttle mission launched, forming a space station is mind boggling. For want of funding and because of the politics of the ISS program, the giant space station that could have been turned out to be a useless Albatross that hobby rocket companies now rely on as their cash cow.
The era of the space station has come and gone but lack of leadership at the highest levels of the government and the military keep the moon base and spaceship programs that should have come after from happening. The ISS is worthless for any purpose except space clown exploitation; endless circles at very high altitude. It is not space travel; to travel you have to go somewhere. So what is the use of the wet workshop if not as a space station? The wet workshop is the best solution for constructing the crew section of the true spaceship. Another use for expended upper stages in earth or lunar orbit is to be melted down into high quality alloys to build other components; something that should have been one of the first space station projects but has never been entertained due to...that's right, lack of funding.
There is research being funded by NASA that will prove to be the holy grail of space advocates; cheap lift. It is unfortunately not commercial crew and in fact private space efforts are gobbling up tax dollars in the hundreds of millions that should be provided for this critical research. The public has been misinformed by years of private space propaganda and a horde of idiot sycophants endlessly chanting the glory of cheaper smaller rockets. It is also interesting to note that the only viable vehicle (SLS) to establish any kind of infrastructure in space to allow further development is demonized in the constant private space informercials that flood internet forums.
The Heavy Lift Vehicle using Solid Rocket Boosters and hydrogen upper stages is the only possible path to delivering worthwhile payloads to the lunar poles- where the ice is and where any nuclear missions to BEO must be assembled and launched.
The Heavy Lift Vehicle using Solid Rocket Boosters and hydrogen upper stages is the only possible path to delivering worthwhile payloads to the lunar poles- where the ice is and where any nuclear missions to BEO must be assembled and launched.
Dr. Kevin Parkin, using equipment developed for fusion research, is creating the previously mentioned holy grail. It is not private enterprise and cheap kerosene rockets that will open up the solar system- it is beam propulsion. By transmitting microwave energy to a vehicle and superheating propellant the rocket equation can be recalculated for cheap lift. There is no other candidate technology.
Kerosene hobby rockets will prove to be a dead end- the ISP numbers don't lie. And while hundreds of millions of tax dollars go into subsidizing Low Earth Orbit playboy clubs, beam propulsion research crawls. Again, there are curious paralells- the gyrodynes that focus microwave energy and now make beam propulsion feasible were built with fusion research dollars. Fusion research has long been a cover for advanced nuclear weapons research and it has become obvious the only two places fusion is going to work as advertised is in a star- or a bomb.
Who will go down in history as the key figure of the space age? Elon Musk promises to land back his expended stages for reuse and tickets to mars to visit him in his retirement. But the numbers do not add up. The Chinese, never the ones to play along, have said so. The ISP's for chemical propellants will not change- not for hydrogen and not for kerosene. The difficulty in storing and transferring a liquified gas only a few degrees above absolute zero will not change. Even mild cryogenic liquids like oxygen are not stored in space. The depot deception continues and the private space cult climbs to ever greater heights of public admiration.
Soon to stall.
Soon to stall.
Scientists like Kevin Parkin will be written about; failed intrepreneurs will be laughed at.
The NASA Space Launch System (SLS) being developed has little resemblance to the ficitonal starship Enterprise except for the two Solid Rocket Boosters (SRB's). These rockets vaguely resemble the engine nacelles on the good old NCC-1701. But place a large disc at the top of the vehicle and the similiarity becomes clear. Why would the SLS carry such a disc? And what would this disc have to do with the Star Trek TV series? Unknown to the public because it was classified, a few years before Star Trek aired a program to build an actual spaceship was killed and the real star trek never began.
The American public has little knowledge of the original Project Orion- the true story of the Atomic Spaceship. If not for the book written by George Dyson in 2002, even fewer people would be aware of just how possible it is to actually build a true spaceship that could explore other worlds- other worlds in this solar system anyway. Depending on one's definition of another world, the solar system should be exciting enough for most sci-fi fans. In the early 1960's physicist Freeman Dyson (father of author George Dyson) and nuclear weapons designer Ted Taylor were pitching their concept of an atomic bomb propelled spaceship to the Kennedy Administration. Though the atomic spaceship was originally meant to launch from the surface of the Earth, the era of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing was ending and resorting to alternate techniques was necessary.
In assembling and launching the spaceship from Earth orbit instead of the surface, the main engineering problem was the pusher plate the bombs reacted against. The plate had to be massive enough to be "opaque" to the broad spectrum of radiation and also withstand the directional bomb generated plasma jet for the fraction of a second the surface of the plate interacted with it. The beauty of the bomb propulsion concept was and is the plate need only be a certain mass and it will not have enough time to melt. The pusher plate effectively removed the previously impossible problem of how to efficiently contain and channel nuclear energy for space propulsion. The answer is to eliminate the containment problem entirely.
A half century later bomb propulsion is still the only practical system for interplanetary travel. Nuclear thermal rockets have efficiencies only about twice that of a chemical rocket- for a reaction one million times more powerful. The nuclear thermal rocket is not really capable of interplanetary travel. Bomb propulsion is of course several hundred times more efficient and powerful. In the same way that enthusiasts think of Mars as somehow being "just close enough", nuclear thermal propulsion is also thought of as "just good enough." Mars is far beyond the three day journey to the Moon and 6 month space station tours in a relatively benign radiation environment are not comparable. A few minutes in an escape capsule will not get you back to Earth from deep space. Mars requires spaceships capable of multi-year missions and chemical and nuclear thermal propulsion are not up to the challenge. A true ship of space would be able to safely make the crossing to Mars and return and would also be capable of traveling to the outer solar system. A few dud bombs would not doom the crew like more complicated systems- even if those systems had the necessary power.
During the early years of the Apollo program Wernher Von Braun was a supporter of atomic bomb propulsion and enthusiastic about the Saturn V as a carrier for a 33 foot pusher plate. This small diameter was based on the plate being the same diameter as the Saturn V and seriously limited the efficiency of the bomb propulsion system due to the minimum efficient yield of nuclear weapons. Eventually even this less powerful bomb propulsion system intended to light off outside the atmosphere became too hazardous to contemplate. Any detonations in the magnetosphere would draw the fallout back to earth. Highly elliptical polar orbits were hypothesized to limit this contamination but support for the concept came to an end before any testing was funded. The nuclear test ban treaty and subsequent space treaty effectively put an end to bomb propulsion schemes with the only hope being new propulsion technologies. Like the mythical fusion reactor, no such technology has ever been developed. It appears the only places fusion will ever work as advertised is in a star or a bomb. Likewise, the only viable nuclear space propulsion system appears to be the one that uses bombs.
The spaceship Enterprise would launch from Earth in sections to be assembled in lunar orbit. The payload would be the 20 or 30 ton disc at the top of the SLS. The Space Shuttle launched 9 missions in it"s best year and without the orbiter maintenance monster a launch rate of 10-12 SLS missions per year would be expected. The discs would be stacked in Lunar orbit until a pusher plate of sufficient mass is produced. Water from the Moon would be sent up to fill the radiation shield of the crew compartment that would follow the discs. The water at the Lunar poles allows the crew section to be sent from earth in a empty and lightweight condition. The 500+ tons of water in the radiation shield would only have to transported out of the much shallower gravity well of the Moon. The SLS uses human rated components and features a capsule with a powerful escape system. This makes transporting bomb material much less problematic. Trekkies may think the solar system is a poor substitute for the Federation of Planets but with close to a hundred moons capable of anchoring human colonies, there are plenty of strange new worlds to colonize- becoming strange new civilizations. For those wishing to get away from it all, the Kuiper belt has over 70,000 bodies over 100 kilometers in diameter. 70,000 opportunities to create a new world.
Nuclear energy is to the space age as steam was to the Industrial Revolution. The bombs that push spaceships to the edge of the solar system can also blast huge underground caverns out of these bodies of ice and rock.
While the nuclear industry on Earth is inherently unsafe due to earthquakes and accidents, space seems designed for fission and fusion. The space industry is ipso facto a nuclear industry; all astronauts are radiation workers. And the starting gate, the Moon, also has Thorium deposits to fuel the nuclear reactors for use by colonies in the outer solar system.
And while the space program has been underfunded for the 40 years since the Moon Landing, the amount of tax dollars spent on the cold war, including the very directional bombs used in atomic bomb propulsion, has been.....astronomical. Anyone who says the U.S. cannot afford to explore and colonize the solar system is a liar.
And while the space program has been underfunded for the 40 years since the Moon Landing, the amount of tax dollars spent on the cold war, including the very directional bombs used in atomic bomb propulsion, has been.....astronomical. Anyone who says the U.S. cannot afford to explore and colonize the solar system is a liar.
In closing, I must confess that I am not a trekkie. The only series I liked was the original and the only movie I thought worth watching was "The Wrath." However, I am committed to space exploration because of the "survival imperative." The human race has only two directions it can go in- space, or extinction. An extinction level event will occur- it is not if, it is when. We can defend ourselves are not doing so. Whether by a comet or asteroid we fail to deflect, or an engineered pathogen on the ground, humanity must have separate populations besides the one on Earth if it is to survive. Live long and prosper.
For those not familiar with project plowshare, it was an atoms for peace initiative that tried to use nuclear devices for large scale excavation. Plowshare was a gross mistake on earth– but makes sense for the moon and other bodies. Drill a hole, put an H-bomb at the bottom, seal it up and light it off. And suddenly there is a big cave. Dandridge Cole wrote about this in his book "Beyond Tomorrow" in 1965. I read, or rather looked at the pictures in this wonderful book when I was in elementary school.
All the plans for building off world bases stumble over the difficulty of constructing habitats. Anything on the surface will be hit by cosmic radiation. Covering surface habitats with twenty feet of regolith is not easy with the limited equipment that can be soft landed off-world. It would not be easy on earth. The H-bomb is a variation of that theme of enough high explosive solving any problem. It worked for the Panama Canal.
Of course after detonation the underground construction would have to wait a couple months for the rubble to cool off and then use robots to excavate the radioactive debri. H-bombs are actually fairly clean compared to large atom bombs and can be designed to be even cleaner. Well, as clean as a nuclear weapon can be. The directional type of bombs intended for Project Orion or the bunker buster designs the Orion bombs originated from would create the maximum amount of space.
Fill this spherical chamber partially with water, use a concentrating mirror to shine a beam down the shaft (and energy storage for the 14 day night) and we have a habitat for however many people a closed cycle ecosystem can support. It should be understood that bio-dome type systems would not be ideal. Using electricity (alot of it) to run plasma reformers can break down waste products, and breathing oxygen can be electrolyzed from water.
A large electrical supply can do wonders for extending resources to the maximum extent possible.
A large electrical supply can do wonders for extending resources to the maximum extent possible.
Solar power satellites could possibly relay solar energy to solar arrays on the surface during the lunar night– or nuclear reactors could be used.
Microwave gyrotrons, developed for fusion reactor research, are presently being experimented with for beam propulsion by NASA. While fusion will never work anywhere except in a star- or a bomb- beam propulsion would work quite well in the vacuum of space. Such a system could eventually be used to soft land payloads using very little fuel- or to launch ships to the outer solar system. Since one of the main products of lunar industry would eventually be thorium for spaceships and colonies in the outer system, maybe starting off with nuclear power would be best.
Transporting nuclear materials to the moon is best done with a human rated HLV, with an escape tower and material packaged to survive a launch failure or reentry, on a straight shot to the moon. That is the safest way to do it.
So I would guess, a drilling rig (get Bruce Willis!) to dig the shaft, an H-bomb, a vehicle to process water from ice, and a power system would be the minimum. And as much electricity as can be generated from whatever source.
How many 20 or 30 ton soft landed HLV payloads would that take? Could it be done robotically or would humans make all the difference?
These are questions that can be answered- there are no showstoppers. One thing is for sure– inferior lift vehicles depending on cryo depots will fail miserably. The resources to build such a base will not come from entrepreneurs looking for big profits running orbital bordellos. An international effort to provide impact defense and a separate population in case of an extinction level event on earth would be the genesis of such a project.
Interplanetary travel will require nuclear propulsion and such arrangements will not be made in earth orbit. The moon is the key to defending the earth from the impact threat and establishing a separate population. As a source of raw materials, water for radiation shielding, solar energy, and underground manufacturing spaces, there is no place else within a few days travel from earth.
The moon is the place to safeguard earth and to launch colonists to the outer solar system. Low Earth Orbit is a dead end. Given a choice of spending treasure on establishing more space stations going in endless circles or accomplishing something worthwhile like desert solar energy farms, I would choose solar energy.
There is a more important mission. A mission of the highest priority for the military, for NASA, for international concerns. The critical enabler is a moon base. There is no "Flexible Path." The only path is narrow and will require vast resources. There is no cheap.
The first decade of the 21st century ended with human space flight nowhere near to fulfilling the predictions made at the begining of the space age. Not even close. Just as the Vietnam war robbed the space exploration budget, the turn of the century found vast public funds, a truly mindboggling amount of treasure, spent on the cold war toys that have yielded guaranteed huge profits for the military industrial complex. Many of these incredibly expensive weapon systems do not work as advertised and very few of them have any application in the present war on terror. 911 did not stop the money flowing to new super fighter planes and missiles designed to shoot down other missiles. The promise of space was in truth sacrificed for the profits of the weapons industry. The expected moon bases and colonies on Mars were never funded and no human being has escaped earth orbit since the last Apollo mission. The over sold and underfunded space shuttle completely failed to provide the cheap lift and multi-mission capability that was never really possible to achieve. The showpiece International Space Station is little more than a 100 billion dollar collection of tin cans flying in endless circles.
The human race seems in large part to have accepted the end of the space age. Despite a collection of old and new inferior lift vehicles incapable of accelerating a crewed spacecraft to escape velocity, there is endless hype concerning the privatization of space and the bright future these for profit enterprises will bring about. The single point of failure in these schemes is the false miracle of fuel depots in space. These orbital gas stations will supposedly enable all the missions that previously could only be accomplished by Heavy Lift Vehicles (HLV) like the Saturn V. Cryo propellant storage and transfer is at this time a myth and has never even been attempted due to the extreme difficulties involved. It is a smoke screen to disguise defeat while subsidizing space tourism for the ultra-rich. We are not going anywhere if we stay on this path. The only hope for human space flight is the realization that deep space travel may at any time mean the difference between humankind surviving or disappearing forever. If this truth cannot unlock the vast resources required then we may very well be sealing our collective fate.
The Spaceship is the only insurance against extinction. Safeguarding the entire human race is the ultimate military mission, yet is completely ignored by our leaders and the defense industry. The inevitable asteroid or comet impact and the threat of a 100 percent lethal plague are with us right now. We as a species are playing a game of Russian roulette. We truly do not know when, but we know what is coming.
Everyone breathes a sigh of relief when it is explained that disastrous impacts only occur an average of once every several million years. The key fact never discussed is impacts are random. An impact could occur tomorrow, and again the next day, and it would just be a blip on a curved line representing the immensity of geologic time. No one would be left to exclaim, "WOW! What were the odds of that happening?" In the same way the threat of engineered pathogens is ignored, overlooked, or scoffed at in the hopes it will just go away. Just as there is little that can be done to stop seasonal flu, there is very little that could be done to stop such an airborne plague once it begins. Naturally evolved pathogens always leave a certain percentage of survivors but an engineered virus does not follow that rule. We are led to believe there is no defense, but we are being decieved and there is nothing further from the truth.
Spaceships can intercept impact threats and deflect them with nuclear devices. Spaceships can carry the people and equipment to construct permanent self-sustaining colonies in the outer solar system that will survive any plague or extinction level event on earth. The vital importance of building such craft is obvious. However, Beyond Earth Orbit Human Space Flight (BEO-HSF) cannot be accomplished with a few expendable rockets. While complex weapons systems are easy money for industry because they do not have to work as advertised, Spaceships are hard money because they must work. Human beings must adjust their worldview concerning what is expensive and what is worth the expense. To understand the difficulty in building one, we must first define what a Spaceship actually is.
The entertainment and documentary film industry has conditioned the public to think of any craft that carries human beings beyond the atmosphere as a spaceship. A more precise definition is a vehicle designed to carry human beings outside low earth orbit (LEO) while providing artificial gravity and radiation protection equal to earth. In addition, a ship makes crossings and changes course so a true ship of space would necessarily be able to travel to other bodies in the solar system. Travel to the moon does not qualify as a true crossing to another body due to the short distance compared to other destinations. Such a quick trip can be made without the artificial gravity and radiation shielding required for interplanetary flight. Another feature of lunar travel is the ability of chemical propulsion systems to accomplish these missions. Due to the mass of radiation and gravity solutions, a Spaceship designed for deep space has no propulsion option except nuclear energy. While travel in the inner solar system may use solar power for life support and other systems, nuclear propulsion is still required. Due to the lack of inner system destinations, nuclear power, as well as nuclear propulsion, must be included in defining the true Spaceship.
At this point in history the technology exists for only one form of nuclear propulsion; nuclear pulse (bomb propulsion). This fact is generally unknown to the public and is given little serious consideration in the popular press. Nuclear explosions pushing a ship through space does stretch the imagination, but no more than the idea of heavier than air flight did in the 19th century, even into the first years of the 20th. The difficulty in nuclear propulsion is not the engineering. The hundreds of billions of dollars of classified weapons research would reveal exactly how to build such a system. It is not how, it is how to build and operate the system well away from the earth. Nuclear materials are an environmental hazard without equal. For this reason transporting and assembling the fuel and components of any nuclear power and propulsion system is the first obstacle. The nuclear environmental hazard is overcome by virtue of the previously mentioned body that can be reached using just chemical propulsion; the moon.
As with the Apollo missions of the last century, the moon can be reached on a direct trajectory with a Heavy Lift Vehicle. Such a vehicle, using human rated components, an escape tower, and specially packaged fissionables able to survive a launch failure or reentry, is the only practical method. While a worst case nuclear accident in earth orbit is unacceptable, the potential risk of contamination in lunar orbit is acceptable. Thus, the first problem in building a Spaceship is solved. Nuclear power components and the fuel for nuclear propulsion can be transported by HLV to the moon for assembly and preflight testing. The heaviest parts of the Spaceship are the massive pusher plate the nuclear pulse reacts against and the crew' s massive radiation shield. The Earth Departure Stages (EDS) that boost the moon bound payloads out of earth orbit to their destinations, can be converted into the double hull of the Spaceship crew section that holds the liquid shielding, and also the structural members of the tower assembly used to absorb the shock of the pulse bomb detonations. The moon facilitates one of the two high mass necessities and can eventually supply the other.The first massive component, the cosmic radiation shield, can be supplied immediately in the form of water derived from lunar ice deposits to fill a double hull crew section. Until they are locally fabricated, the Spaceship pusher plates, or "pushers", will have to come from earth by HLV in thin sections one at a time and stacked to form each ship's heavy pusher.
The HLV at launch with a wide thin disc mounted at the nose and with side mounted SRB's will be vaguely familiar to many science fiction fans. There is some resemblance to the starship Enterprise. How many such discs will have to be launched and later stacked to build an all up pusher remains to be seen. Eventually monolithic pushers can be manufactured from lunar materials but until that time the pushers will have to come from earth in slices with multiple HLV missions. Considering the mass and energy involved, the schemes proposing human space flight by way of smaller cheaper rockets and "gas stations is space" are laughable. There is no cheap; space flight is inherently expensive.
A shock absorbing tower structure mounting a massively shielded crew section coupled to a nuclear reactor and bomb storage section, a massive pusher, and a tether system to generate artificial gravity complete the Spaceship. Using the hundreds of tons of water making up the radiation shield for growing bio-engineered organisms can sustain a closed loop life support system with an endurance of several years. A bomb propelled ship can attain velocities far above those possible with chemical propulsion and enable expeditions to the moons of the outer planets. The slug of matter that is superheated by the bomb and converted into the plasma that actually pushes the Spaceship can be obtained in situ from those distant moons in the outer system. By carrying a percentage of bombs without the mass of plasma slugs, speed and range is extended. Spaceships can transport thorium reactors, with fuel derived from lunar thorium ore, to these distant moons, establishing permanent colonies. Over 100 bodies in the outer system are large enough to anchor colonies.
During powered flight, when the reactor is shut down and both sections of the ship are joined, a tower structure would be used to decellerate the composite section during bomb pulses. Projecting far ahead of the pusher at the end of the tower, the composite ship section at the front would stroke backward like a descending elevator toward the plate. This system would lower the acceleration forces on the crew and equipment to the level of an aircraft carrier jet catapult launch. When coasting, the Spaceship would spit in half and reel out the engineering section and crew section opposite each other on long tethers to generate artificial gravity by spinning both sections around the pusher as the axis. The reactor can then be run without the need for very heavy shielding due to the several thousand feet of separation from the crew section. When the tethers are deployed for cruising, one half of the tower would fold against the pusher and reel out the tether with the crew section, and the other half of the tower would do the same in the opposite direction with the nuclear section of the ship. Seperate tethers payed out from the split tower can be adjusted in length to balance the two spinning masses. During coast the crew would look out through viewports separated by14 feet of water and view a slowly rotating star field. The minimum Spaceship design uses at least 400 tons of water to protect the crew from the heavy nuclei component of Galactic Cosmic Radiation (GCR).
Science fiction has instilled in the public the idea that Spaceships and large scale space exploration is centuries away. In fact, we are perfectly capable of colonizing the solar system with present technology and are close to going much, much farther. With a single advance in medical technology- the ability to freeze human beings and then successfully revive them, we would be capable of centuries long travel to the stars. Such a cryopreservation procedure violates no laws of physics and is already used on a smaller scale with sperm and ovum. With this in mind another existential threat to humanity must be appreciated that requires another stretch of the imagination. Physicist Stephen Hawking has warned of a possible threat from alien civilizations. Indeed, if we lack only a single technological advance to be capable of star flight, alien civilizations could have already achieved this and embarked on missions of colonization to other stars. The danger is that our world was selected for alien colonization many centuries ago. Unlike the dramatic combat found in science fiction novels and movies, the most likely attack and invasion would take the form of comets steered toward earth as a method of sterilization. Just as we are capable of diverting impact threats away from earth, this capability also bestows the ability to weaponize comets and asteroids. A series of such attacks would destroy most life on our world. An advance alien force would probably sanitize the earth of indigenious life and then plant invasive micro organisms from their native ecosystem. When the alien colonists arrive centuries in the future and are revived, they would find a world already adapted to their biology and ready for introduction of flora, fauna, and settlers. This conversion process may be common in our galaxy. The millions of planets now confirmed to exist only increase the likelihood.
In summary, the Spaceship is basically a tower mounted on a disc. The crew and engineering section descend inside this tower like an elevater as a shock absorbing feature- which is necessary with a bomb propelled design. Riding in one would be like an aircraft carrier jet catapult launch. Over and over. The artificial gravity system deploys by splitting the tower and separating the crew and engineering section with the disc in the center and two tethers radiating outward- like the face of a clock with strings going out from the 9 and 3 oclock.
From discussing building the first Spaceships and off-world base on the moon, to the subject of preparing for an alien invasion seems a fantastical and inappropriate leap. It is no more incredible than the other unbelievable features of the universe.
The one event that would radically change the human condition, that is possible in the very near future, is cryopreservation. Any day some enterprising scientist will figure out how to freeze a human being without damage, and revive that human being after short term or long term cryosuspension. The ramifications of such a procedure are difficult to comprehend. It would be, literally, the most important day in the history of humankind.
Every person on the planet with a loved one on their deathbed would give anything to save their wife, husband, child, mother, father or someone important to them. I know I would be trying to get my father, who is over 80, to the place where he could be saved from what may happen at any time. From what will happen. Terminal cancer patients and victims of degenerative diseases would be crying out to be saved. The mass movement to save human beings from death, which takes over 100,000 of us every day, would mobilize the planet. Every country, every organization and group, every individual, every voice would demand action. Not only demand, but give everything they have. Their money, their skills, their influence and position- anything and everything they can contribute to save what will suddenly become very important. Every human life would become infinitely more valuable than the day before.
The new age, singularity, whatever you wish to call it, would no longer be a possibility- it would be. Every activity we take for granted as having some risk such as travel by car or airplane will stop. There would be years of intensive activity and diversion of resources into mass construction of storage facilities. An even more strenuous effort to reverse aging and bring about the great awakening will drive the world to cooperate and work for a common triumph over the old enemy. We would all be very busy. Presently we are a cruel joke of nature; the only creatures who agonize over our individual end. Circus freaks on death row. Human beings use their minds to imagine the most survivable future and then try to realize that future. It is the way we survive. But until now it has been hard to imagine beyond a century. We the most fortunate of all our ancestors to be living at this moment.
The Safar Institute and their zombie dogs, Mr. Freeze in Japan and the tooth bank, the properties of water being explored in Helsinki- a simple google search will reveal what is so close yet no one dares to entertain seriously. The world would never be the same. For want of a few million dollars in research we are leaving millions behind. The regret over this needless loss will be hard to bear. Perhaps religion will focus on those who did not survive. The future will become a quest to retrieve those lost and escape this universe to another. Star travel would begin within a few decades. The great machines, the size of moons, super intelligent and created to solve these problems and make all things possible, will spread across the galaxy, then the universe and finally take us to another plane.
But first, we must live. We must face the old enemy and end our collective death sentence. We must be part of the great rescue.
I became interested in Beyond Earth Orbit- Human Space Flight by way of a college paper I helped my wife research some years ago. Her project for an ethics class was nuclear weapons. I stumbled upon the book "Project Orion, the true story of the atomic spaceship" by George Dyson and was hooked. I had been a science fiction fan in my youth but like most people I came to realize space operas were to be realized only in the far future. Project Orion changed my worldview. Since then my made-up mind has been unmade several times concerning most of the "common knowledge" floating around about space flight in this 21st century. Much of what is generally believed to be true about our space program is made up of recent hearsay used to hype products that further a business plan. When I read these infomercials endlessly repeated as fact I get pretty upset, mostly exposing these "facts" as not true results in vicious attacks. Private space cult members disgust me and I will not apologize for my hard feelings about these people. They mislead and obfuscate, and insult and dogpile anyone who disagrees with their dogma.
It was a step by step process but I came to realize the path to the stars is a narrow one. I found the U.S. space effort has been on what is called "the flexible path" and this turned out to be a contradiction of almost everything I found in my research. There is no Flexible Path. The path to colonizing the solar system is narrow and straightforward due to the laws of physics and materials science. Science fiction movies seem to have conditioned the public to believe such natural laws can be violated and technology that breaks these laws is possible and immanent. This kind of ignorance of natural limitations has led to much waste and many tragedies in the past decades by pushing said limits and there is soon to come great disappointment over breakthroughs that are far easier said than done. By way of political contributions and backroom deals, the flexible path scheme came into existence as a way of making money for a small group of investors looking to cash in on public ignorance of technology and influence peddling. It is a convoluted and confusing path and perhaps the best way to make my meaning plain despite this distraction is to start at the desired end and work backwards.
If the end goal is new worlds for humankind to inhabit, the earliest practical portrayal of a possible new world was in the 1929 work, "The World, The Flesh, and The Devil", by socialist Joseph Bernal. I must say I am no socialist or capitalist, but I am someone who is sometimes very unhappy with people at either end of that spectrum. Space is not about politics- it is about survival. More than just surviving- thriving. Human beings need earth-like conditions to thrive- and a hollow moon can provide those conditions.Though the hollow artificial moon proposed by Bernal does not address artificial gravity, the hollow sphere concept does, if spun, allow for earth gravity on the inner surface at the equator. Hollow spheres in space can provide habitats for thousands, millions, billions, perhaps tens of billions of people. Space is big, with alot of sunlight and rock floating around waiting to be exploited. And tens of thousands of icy comets. Solar energy and low gravity resources in the asteroid belt mean that building on a much larger scale than we do on earth is practical. While we construct thousand foot supertankers and skyscrapers with some difficulty in earth gravity, the same masses of metal and concrete in space can form a shell many miles in diameter with many times less energy expended.
The most interesting fact of all about Bernal spheres is that building them is not much of a stretch of the imagination. It is the strongest shape and the energy to melt and refine ore and the various rocks and ices are available, and there are no engineering showstoppers. Fill a Bernal sphere with comet water and air and spin and humankind has created a new world to live "in." New worlds capable of traveling for centuries to other star systems when the time comes. While we have the technology, amazingly, to build such hollow moons right now, we lack only a single medical procedure to allow for star travel with them- revivable cryospreservation. This one key piece of technology, which also breaks no laws of physics, is all that holds the human race back from colonizing the galaxy.
This future is not the hyperspace warp drive stargate winged starship fantasy the public has in mind. Though slowboats do not lend themselves well to screenplays and formula blockbusters, they are more exciting to those of us who understand what is possible in the near future. But before these new worlds can be manufactured, probably near the end of this century, humankind must first establish an infrastructure in deep space to enable that activity.
To live in space is different than to survive. Missions based on how much radiation and zero G debilitation a human being can survive on average are certain to fail. Providing earth radiation levels and gravity is certain to succeed. Radiation is the first killer, and lack of gravity as a debilitator is the second made even worse by the first. To set up an infrastructure that will allow colonies and eventually migration requires spaceships and these radiation and hypogravity hazards cannot be avoided. The only guaranteed shield against the heavy nuclei component of cosmic radiation is mass and distance. The only practical spaceship shielding is 14 or more feet of water. The only way to propel this much mass around the solar system is with nuclear energy. Nuclear activities in earth orbit are not acceptable. Lifting thousands and eventually millions of tons of water into earth orbit are also not acceptable. This path leads to the moon where nuclear activities are permissible and there is water. The only way to get to the moon is with Heavy Lift Vehicles like the Saturn V and the future SLS. The only way to transport fissionables to the moon safely is with Heavy Lift Vehicles. And this is where the private space agenda rears it's ugly head.
HLV's and anything needing massive governmental resources, such as nuclear energy, are blasphemy to the private space cult. While their dogma preaches that cheap lift can be had with smaller kerosene rockets with a high launch rate, they go on to enable missions beyond earth orbit by way of fuel depots and transfer in space. For a scientifically ignorant public this all makes sense. But it is the kerosene-hydrogen disconnect that exposes the private space flexible path as a business plan to fool taxpayers into subsidizing a Low Earth Orbit space tourism industry for the ultra-rich.
Liquid hydrogen does not store well and is very difficult to transfer. It is difficult on the ground but in space it has never been done because it is such a nightmare. The entire transfer system and recieving tank have to be pre-cooled with liquid helium and a perfect precool is physically impossible. This generates liquid hydrogen boil-off that must be re-liquified- which generates the exo-thermic form of hydrogen- that generates more boil-off. Compounded by space radiation and zero gravity effects, this is all a real mess that no one wants to talk about. Like radiation shielding, it is a topic avoided by private space advocates to the point of hurling insults. Not only is hydrogen hard to handle on the ground and much harder to deal with in space, an engine burning it requires a turbopump ten times more powerful than one for a kerosene engine. Which is why kerosene is hyped by private space as such a wonderful propellent- because both handling hydrogen and using hydrogen engines is much more expensive and cuts into projected profit margins.
So why does the orbital fuel depot and transfer concept specify liquid hydrogen? If kerosene is so much better then why bother with liquid hydrogen in orbital fuel depots? Because there is no substitute for hydrogen Earth Departure Stages when it comes to escaping earth's gravitational field. Using other propellants multiplies the size of these stages several times. Any human missions Beyond Earth Orbit not using liquid hydrogen Earth Departure Stages look like Battlestar Galactica. Because of the Apollo program and every study done on any BEO missions, private space knows they cannot claim otherwise and get away with it. So private space advocates avoid this subject like the plague. Since it is not practical to store or transfer liquid hydrogen in space a direct launch out of orbit, like the Apollo program, is required. The laws of physics have not changed since the 1960's. Since the inferior lift vehicles advocated in the flexible path are capable of boosting a few tons at a time out of orbit, Heavy Lift Vehicles become necessary.
Thus, there is no substitute for a HLV with hydrogen upper stages. There is no cheap; space flight is inherently expensive.
The resources necessary to build an infrastructure for BEO-HSF is unavailable to private space. HLV's sending packaged fissionables to the moon are completely out of reach of "entrepreneurs" claiming the flexible path will open the solar system to colonization. In fact, private space claiming they are the future of space exploration is a lie, a deception being used to acquire taxpayer support for space tourism. Forty years of space stations going in endless circles at very high altitude is a dead end. The space tourism industry wants this truth suppressed and portrays LEO stations as the cutting edge of "exploration."
The justification and source of funding for BEO-HSF is impact defense and survival colonies. It is the DOD that is spending money on useless cold war toys that guarantee huge profits for the defense industry while neglecting the most vital mission of the U.S. space program; safeguarding the earth and the human race.
Mars is the worst place to go. A deep gravity well to climb in and out of. A case of too much gravity and no protection from radiation.
Ceres is a much better deal. A multi-year mission is a multi-year mission and if you are going to Mars it makes more sense to go farther to Ceres. No problem landing as it has very little gravity, but may have liquid oceans. Solar resources on Mars are not very good.
The Moon has ice and is the first place to go for the simple reason that any human missions outbound will require massive shielding and that shielding will require nuclear propulsion.
Building and lighting off a nuclear spaceship in earth orbit is not acceptable and bringing up all that water is problematic. The moon has water for shielding and no restrictions on nuclear activities.
The safest way to transport fissionables to lunar orbit is a direct launch of a human-rated HLV with an escape tower and the material packaged in a capsule.
I do not regret voting for this President and I would and will do it again. However.......I am not happy about our space program. Not at all. One would think there would be more resistance concerning the privatization of space and the inferior launch vehicles being tested or proposed. Indeed there would be objections except for a great deception being perpetrated on a nation ignorant of the basic facts about space flight. The private space gang has dominated almost every press release with very little answering criticism of their promises and plans.
This writer is very critical of the flexible path. It is a path to nowhere.
Compared to the accomplishments of NASA's glory days, there is little to recommend the players in the commercial crew game. The most fabulous is Space X, fielding a cheap rocket promising cheap lift. There is so little transparency concerning the true cost of their launches that one space-faring nation has called the bluff and stated SpaceX launch prices are impossible. The Falcon 9, contrary to stellar advertising, is a poor design in so many ways it is difficult to know where to begin the list. The engines are too small and too many, the kerosene propellant is inferior to hydrogen in the upper stage, and promising to reuse spent hardware verges on the ridiculous. Whenever the truth about the flexible path is revealed, the sycophants begin to wail and gnash their teeth.
The latest craze is the Falcon "heavy." The space shuttle hardware lifted far more, though most of the lift was wasted on the orbiter. With 27 engines the faux heavy is a throwback to half a century ago when clusters of small engines were required due to nothing larger being available. The true heavy rocket of the last century had five engines and the number of Falcon engines it would take to match the Saturn V proves just how far the mighty have fallen.
The long, long posts, doubling as SpaceX advertisements, swamp any forum where the deception is exposed. The most popular and endlessly repeated dogma concerns fuel depots. Refueling in space is hyped as the answer to all problems. Unfortunately the chances of making it work with the selected propellant- liquid hydrogen- are not good. This kind of blasphemy is sure to bring howls of protest on any forum where it appears. The sad truth is the American people are being conned into throwing away the Heavy Lift Infrastructure that is the only path to Beyond Earth Orbit Human Space Flight.
Despite having "been there," the Moon is the next step in opening up the solar system to human exploration and colonization. Low Earth Orbit is being sold as space travel even though to travel, you have to go somewhere. The battle cry of "cheap lift" is promoting the equivalent of the "liar loans" that wrecked the housing market. Falling for this something for nothing too good to be true rip-off will leave the U.S. trapped. Decades more of nothing but more endless circles at very high altitude.
There is no substitute for a Heavy Lift Vehicle with hydrogen upper stages.
The 130 ton lift of the proposed SLS is also at this time slated to be used as a crew vehicle. This was one of the worst mistakes of the shuttle program. The crew capsules being tested and built by SpaceX and Boeing pack seven astronauts into a vehicle without a proper escape system and, in the case of SpaceX, doubling as a cargo vehicle. Both of these vehicles also have an escape-system-that-is-not-an-escape-system. These underpowered hypergolic system are not very good at saving a crew but will work great raising the orbit of tourist space stations. This is one of those worst mistakes being repeated.
The real problem with the U.S. space program is obvious to anyone looking at how much money is spent by the DOD. It is always interesting to hear sermons about how critical surveillance satellites are to fighting illiterate mountain tribesman. Any DOD contractor hearing complaints about NASA wasting money breaks down in maniacal laughter. There is a valid military mission for impact defense and establishing outposts in the outer system but this is hard money the aerospace industry wants nothing to do with. Unlike so many easy money weapon systems, spaceships have to actually work. There is no cheap; space flight is inherently expensive.
The future is not bright.
1. We must go out there.
There is a reason to go into space. The human race is threatened with extinction by way of an asteroid or comet impact, or by release of a 100 percent lethal engineered organism. Unfortunately Hollywood has made this reality a great fiction. The danger is real, not science fiction. The greatest threat of all is complacency. On the scale of the universe there is little difference between failing to prepare for an earthquake or hurricane, and failing to prepare for an impact or plague. The universe is unconcerned whether a city is destroyed, or a world. Keeping the human race from going the way of the great dragons is off the scale serious for humanity. It is the moral high ground from which to call upon public funds without reservation. Humankind must build spaceships and off-world colonies now. In the event of an impending impact or outbreak, it will be far too late.
There is a reason to go into space. The human race is threatened with extinction by way of an asteroid or comet impact, or by release of a 100 percent lethal engineered organism. Unfortunately Hollywood has made this reality a great fiction. The danger is real, not science fiction. The greatest threat of all is complacency. On the scale of the universe there is little difference between failing to prepare for an earthquake or hurricane, and failing to prepare for an impact or plague. The universe is unconcerned whether a city is destroyed, or a world. Keeping the human race from going the way of the great dragons is off the scale serious for humanity. It is the moral high ground from which to call upon public funds without reservation. Humankind must build spaceships and off-world colonies now. In the event of an impending impact or outbreak, it will be far too late.
2. It is all about politics.
If complacency brings the end of the world, much of the blame will go to politicians. The U.S. space program has throughout it's history been an underfunded political football without direction or a proper mission. NASA has been called a jobs program and constantly denounced for wasting money. The truth is not so black and white. Pledging to provide jobs while reducing spending has little to do with space travel protecting the planet. The space shuttle was actually a very powerful system but most of the lift was wasted on the reusable winged orbiter. Designed to be all things for the price of one was doomed to fail. In trying to save money the shuttle was ultimately a costly failure. There is no cheap; space flight is inherently expensive.
If complacency brings the end of the world, much of the blame will go to politicians. The U.S. space program has throughout it's history been an underfunded political football without direction or a proper mission. NASA has been called a jobs program and constantly denounced for wasting money. The truth is not so black and white. Pledging to provide jobs while reducing spending has little to do with space travel protecting the planet. The space shuttle was actually a very powerful system but most of the lift was wasted on the reusable winged orbiter. Designed to be all things for the price of one was doomed to fail. In trying to save money the shuttle was ultimately a costly failure. There is no cheap; space flight is inherently expensive.
3. Space travel is worth the money.
Building spaceships to protect Earth from impacts and to establish off-world colonies as insurance against a no survivor epidemic is worth every penny. The money spent by the Department of Defense (DOD) for cold war weapons and counter-insurgency campaigning is mind boggling. Aerospace companies are addicted to the easy money that weapons programs represent. Unlike many billion dollar weapons, spaceships are hard money because they actually have to work. A small percentage of DOD funding redirected toward impact defense would accomplish a critical mission. A random impact could happen tomorrow and there would be no one left to marvel at the improbable spike in that comforting probability curve. The public must demand protection.
Building spaceships to protect Earth from impacts and to establish off-world colonies as insurance against a no survivor epidemic is worth every penny. The money spent by the Department of Defense (DOD) for cold war weapons and counter-insurgency campaigning is mind boggling. Aerospace companies are addicted to the easy money that weapons programs represent. Unlike many billion dollar weapons, spaceships are hard money because they actually have to work. A small percentage of DOD funding redirected toward impact defense would accomplish a critical mission. A random impact could happen tomorrow and there would be no one left to marvel at the improbable spike in that comforting probability curve. The public must demand protection.
4. Going nowhere.
To travel we must go somewhere. Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is NOT space travel. It is not space flight or space exploration anymore. It is endless circles at very high altitude. After decades of space station experience, it is now understood that LEO is a dead end. Space stations are not capable of powered flight. It is not spaceflight.There is nothing to explore. It is not space exploration. The only course is to leave Earth behind and fly directly Beyond Earth Orbit (BEO). A spaceship is always the best space station.
To travel we must go somewhere. Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is NOT space travel. It is not space flight or space exploration anymore. It is endless circles at very high altitude. After decades of space station experience, it is now understood that LEO is a dead end. Space stations are not capable of powered flight. It is not spaceflight.There is nothing to explore. It is not space exploration. The only course is to leave Earth behind and fly directly Beyond Earth Orbit (BEO). A spaceship is always the best space station.
5. Going somewhere.
The first stop for the space traveler is the Moon. The Moon comes first because of an unavoidable sequence of requirements. While chemical propulsion is just sufficient to reach the Moon, nuclear energy is required to travel anywhere else in the solar system. Active nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel will not be allowed near the earth. Packaged fissionable material can be transported to the moon on a direct trajectory from earth only using heavy lift rockets. The moon also has water for radiation shielding and is where any deep space travel must begin.
The first stop for the space traveler is the Moon. The Moon comes first because of an unavoidable sequence of requirements. While chemical propulsion is just sufficient to reach the Moon, nuclear energy is required to travel anywhere else in the solar system. Active nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel will not be allowed near the earth. Packaged fissionable material can be transported to the moon on a direct trajectory from earth only using heavy lift rockets. The moon also has water for radiation shielding and is where any deep space travel must begin.
6. Space can kill you.
Solar storms periodically flood space outside LEO with deadly radiation. In addition there is a constant extremely powerful form of cosmic radiation that sprays more radiation into a spacecraft when this "heavy nuclei" hits metal. For this reason, the partial shielding used to stop solar storm radiation greatly increases radiation exposure from heavy nuclei. The only solution is a massive shield that can stop both forms of radiation. The mass and distance of such a shield equates to 14 feet of water and a minimum of 400 tons. Like nuclear power and propulsion, space radiation is a subject that is avoided when proposing new spacecraft. It is necessary to move beyond denial and accept the cost.
Solar storms periodically flood space outside LEO with deadly radiation. In addition there is a constant extremely powerful form of cosmic radiation that sprays more radiation into a spacecraft when this "heavy nuclei" hits metal. For this reason, the partial shielding used to stop solar storm radiation greatly increases radiation exposure from heavy nuclei. The only solution is a massive shield that can stop both forms of radiation. The mass and distance of such a shield equates to 14 feet of water and a minimum of 400 tons. Like nuclear power and propulsion, space radiation is a subject that is avoided when proposing new spacecraft. It is necessary to move beyond denial and accept the cost.
7. Space is unhealthy.
While floating in zero gravity looks like great fun, it is impossible to stay healthy. Months of living in zero gravity causes muscles to weaken and a permanent loss of a certain percentage of bone mass and marrow. Particles of every kind, including human waste and germs, are difficult to filter out of the air and are inhaled. The blood pools in the head causing constant congestion and discomfort. Combined with radiation exposure, immune system suppression, and mutated pathogens,"zero G" debilitation is a hazard second only to space radiation. Artificial gravity and a massive radiation shield is the solution.
While floating in zero gravity looks like great fun, it is impossible to stay healthy. Months of living in zero gravity causes muscles to weaken and a permanent loss of a certain percentage of bone mass and marrow. Particles of every kind, including human waste and germs, are difficult to filter out of the air and are inhaled. The blood pools in the head causing constant congestion and discomfort. Combined with radiation exposure, immune system suppression, and mutated pathogens,"zero G" debilitation is a hazard second only to space radiation. Artificial gravity and a massive radiation shield is the solution.
8. Spaceships are heavy.
A true ship of space capable of traveling to other planets in the solar system must be big. Since solar energy is not available in the outer system, nuclear reactors are required. Because of zero G debilitation, artificial gravity must be provided by splitting a ship in half and reeling out the two sections on a cable (tether) and then spinning them. Long voyages to the planets are only possible with artificial gravity and massive shielding. Not only electricity from reactors, but nuclear propulsion is absolutely required. Sending crews into deep space for years at a time based on how much radiation exposure and zero G debilitation they can survive will fail. Providing the basic human requirements of Earth radiation and Earth gravity will succeed.
A true ship of space capable of traveling to other planets in the solar system must be big. Since solar energy is not available in the outer system, nuclear reactors are required. Because of zero G debilitation, artificial gravity must be provided by splitting a ship in half and reeling out the two sections on a cable (tether) and then spinning them. Long voyages to the planets are only possible with artificial gravity and massive shielding. Not only electricity from reactors, but nuclear propulsion is absolutely required. Sending crews into deep space for years at a time based on how much radiation exposure and zero G debilitation they can survive will fail. Providing the basic human requirements of Earth radiation and Earth gravity will succeed.
9. Big rockets are the only way.
There is no substitute for a heavy lift vehicle with hydrogen fueled upper stages. Liquid hydrogen is the most powerful rocket propellant and is very difficult to store and handle. Advertisements showing "gas stations in space" are too good to be true. Cryogenic transfer in space to multiple small spacecraft has never been done for good reason. Private concerns endlessly promote these depots that will not work as advertised. Heavy Lift Vehicles (HLV's) launched from earth are guaranteed to succeed just as they have over one hundred times in the form of the space shuttle. Currently, the proposed "SLS" is the only way to transport nuclear materials for spaceship power and propulsion systems directly to the moon. Schemes using smaller inferior lift vehicles are only capable of reaching LEO- and that is a dead end.
There is no substitute for a heavy lift vehicle with hydrogen fueled upper stages. Liquid hydrogen is the most powerful rocket propellant and is very difficult to store and handle. Advertisements showing "gas stations in space" are too good to be true. Cryogenic transfer in space to multiple small spacecraft has never been done for good reason. Private concerns endlessly promote these depots that will not work as advertised. Heavy Lift Vehicles (HLV's) launched from earth are guaranteed to succeed just as they have over one hundred times in the form of the space shuttle. Currently, the proposed "SLS" is the only way to transport nuclear materials for spaceship power and propulsion systems directly to the moon. Schemes using smaller inferior lift vehicles are only capable of reaching LEO- and that is a dead end.
10. Private Space is deceiving the public.
The "Flexible Path" which hands over Human Space Flight (HSF) to privately operated companies has no chance of providing spaceships or off-world colonies to safeguard the human race. The main focus is on space tourism; joy rides to space stations for the ultra-wealthy subsidized with tax dollars. Private space promises yet has none of the resources necessary for actual space travel. Congress has mandated the Space Launch System (SLS) as a HLV designed for BEO-HSF. However, the NASA budget only allows for very slow development of the SLS and strict limitations on future missions. Nuclear powered and propelled spaceships launched from the moon with massive radiation shielding and artificial gravity will only become reality by raising the spaceflight budget ceiling. The DOD has the responsibility and duty to fund impact defense and off-world colonization.
The "Flexible Path" which hands over Human Space Flight (HSF) to privately operated companies has no chance of providing spaceships or off-world colonies to safeguard the human race. The main focus is on space tourism; joy rides to space stations for the ultra-wealthy subsidized with tax dollars. Private space promises yet has none of the resources necessary for actual space travel. Congress has mandated the Space Launch System (SLS) as a HLV designed for BEO-HSF. However, the NASA budget only allows for very slow development of the SLS and strict limitations on future missions. Nuclear powered and propelled spaceships launched from the moon with massive radiation shielding and artificial gravity will only become reality by raising the spaceflight budget ceiling. The DOD has the responsibility and duty to fund impact defense and off-world colonization.
