Space030412
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The document discusses several space-related topics including a proposed StarTram project that would launch spacecraft from very tall towers over 15-20 km tall to avoid weather restrictions and increase payload to orbit. It also mentions potential other uses of tall towers such as replacing local communication satellites, generating faster internet speeds than fiber optic, and creating vertical solar and wind farms. Additionally, the document briefly notes stories about a galaxy full of nomad planets, theoretical deadly warp drives, an interstellar explorer mission, oxygen on Saturn's moon Dione, and test flights by Southwest Research Institute and XCOR.
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Space030412
- 1. Space News 03 04 12
- 3. Launch from very tall towers • We know how to build 15 – 20 km towers – Launch advantages • No weather restrictions • Double the payload to orbit • Support for other types of launchers.. – Other uses • Replacement for communication satellites for local regions • Faster internet – 33% > fiber optic speeds • Vertical solar and wind farm • Astronomical observatory
- 7. Galaxy full of nomad planets
- 11. • Dione has oxygen atmosphere
- 12. SwRI / XCOR Flights
Editor's Notes
- http://www.startram.com/homeWe talked about StarTram quite some time ago in a meeting on non-rocket space launch alternatives.Startram is based on existing maglev technology and basic physics. A motivated nation could build a startram system capable of launching 300,000 tons of payload into orbit for less than $40/kg. The infrastructure for a cargo-only version would cost on the order of $20 Billion to build and could be completed within 10 years. A people-capable version could be built for $60 Billion and be completed within 20 yearsStartram is a mass driver, which means it requires neither rockets nor propellant to launch payload into space. Mass drivers are not a new concept. Early mass drivers were envisioned in fiction in the late nineteenth century, and have been a staple of speculative fiction ever since. Various engineering concepts of the mass driver have been described over the years, but no significant progress towards building a mass driver has been made due to large technical hurdles. There are two proposed configurations of Startram, Generation-1 and Generation-2. Gen-1 Startram is a cargo-only version which does not require levitated tubes (but instead is built up the flank of a tall mountain) and could be built within ten years at a cost of $20 Billion. Gen-2 Startram is a people-capable version which does require levitated tubes and could be built within twenty years at a cost of $60 Billion.Currently, maglev transport vehicles routinely run faster than 500 km/h. The main impediment to running maglev much faster is friction caused by air drag. If maglev is placed in evacuated tubes with very low air pressures, it is possible to run maglev at 1000s of km/h.MHD applications such as pumps, generators and thrusters have been used for decades. The Startram system uses a "MHD Window" which allows one end of the launch tube to be open the atmosphere, thus permitting launch of the vehicle. Normally, atmospheric gases would immediately fill up the tube and the launch vehicle would be subject to extreme heating and stresses associated with traveling 8km/sec in air. However, the MHD window allows ionized gasses to be continually expelled from the tube, thus maintaining a near-vacuum in the tube at all times..
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TE0n_5qPmRMInteresting talk from Neal Stephenson on getting big stuff done. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TE0n_5qPmRMHis premise that many people today are super conservative toward risk greatly slowing progress. Claims it may be an allergic action to pace of change.The threat today is not too much but too little automation. http://www.g2mil.com/high.htmhttp://www.etopiamedia.net/emtnn/pdfs/skytowerbriefing1.pdf
- Dragon spaceship and Falcon 9 rocket just completed assembly at Cape Canaveral on Feb. 27, 2012. Credit: SpaceX, via @SpaceX3D panorama from inside. http://www.spacex.com/panorama/index.htmlSpaceXToday SpaceX today released an image of the fully assembled Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket inside their facility at Cape Canaveral. This means the first test launch of a commercially built spacecraft to the International Space Station is just a bit closer. The exact date of the launch has not yet been announced after NASA and SpaceX agreed in early this year that the Feb. 7 date they were aiming for was not feasible. The demonstration flight – called COTS 2/3 – will be the premiere test flight in NASA’s new strategy to resupply the ISS with privately developed rockets and cargo carriers under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) initiative.In a press conference earlier this month, NASA’s Mike Suffredini said SpaceX’s launch would be no earlier than March 20. “There are no big problems being worked but a lot of little things to wrap up,” he said. “I wouldn’t hold my breath, as it is a challenging date, but I would guess we’ll fly within a couple of weeks of that date. We’ll hold that date as we work towards the launch.”
- (SpaceX) has successfully test fired SuperDraco, a powerful new engine that will play a critical role in the company’s efforts to change the future of human spaceflight. The engine will enable launch escape at any point in the launch.SuperDraco engines will provide the Dragon spacecraft with the capability to perform on target propulsive landings anywhere in the solar system.SuperDraco engines will power a revolutionary launch escape system that will make SpaceX’s Dragon the safest spacecraft in the world. Eight SuperDraco engines built into the side walls of the Dragon spacecraft will produce up to 120,000 pounds of axial thrust to carry astronauts to safety should an emergency occur during launch. Credit: SpaceXhttp://nextbigfuture.com/2012/02/spacex-successfully-tests-fires.htmlNASA’s Commercial Crew Program awarded SpaceX $75 million in April of last year to begin work developing the escape system in order to prepare the Dragon spacecraft to carry astronauts. Less than nine months later, SpaceX engineers have designed, built and tested the engine.In a series of recent tests conducted at the company’s Rocket Development Facility in McGregor, Texas, the SuperDraco sustained full duration, full thrust firing as well as a series of deep throttling demonstrations.SpaceX’s launch escape system has many advantages over past systems. It is inherently safer because it is not jettisoned like all otherescape systems. This distinction provides astronauts with the unprecedented ability to escape from danger at any point during the launch,not just in the first few minutes. The eight SuperDracos provide redundancy, so that even if one engine fails an escape can still be carriedout successfully.SuperDracos can also be restarted multiple times if necessary and the engines will have the ability to deep throttle, providing astronauts with precise control and enormous power. In addition, as a part of a recoverable Dragon spacecraft, the engines can be used repeatedly, helping to advance SpaceX’s long-term goal of making spacecraft more like airplanes, which can be flown again and again with minimal maintenance between flights.
- http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/01/raytheon-has-quantum-dot-system-that.htmlUS Patent - Raytheon has a countermeasure system for protecting a satellite from a missile attack, the system comprising:* a decoy comprising a plurality of quantum dots, * the quantum dots being selected, responsive to excitation radiation, to emit radiation having an emission profile similar to a profile of a blackbody radiation signature of the satellite in space,the emitted radiation diverting the missile attack from the satellite onto the decoy. The researchers propose that such a mixture of quantum dots, when dispersed like a cloud in space, may act as an efficient decoy, making even the advanced sensor devices unable to differentiate between the target and the decoy. The cloud of quantum dots can be created either by exploding a small pack of quantum dots suspended in an inert gas (Argon/Helium) or by just spraying them from a storage tank.
- Up to 100,000 roque planet per main sequence star in the galaxy. Tens of trillions of planets without a star in this galaxy alone. Wonder if any of them could house a super civilization with a ample energy resources? Can’t decide what to take on the interstellar journey? Take the entire planet. Our galaxy may be awash in homeless planets, wandering through space instead of orbiting a star. There may be 100,000 times more "nomad planets" in the Milky Way than stars, according to a new study by researchers at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), a joint institute of Stanford University and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.If the planets were evenly distributed over a cubic light year then there would be one Pluto or larger size planet every 2200 astronomical units or one for every cubic two light week volume.http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/02/100000-nomad-planets-per-star-would-not.htmlThis situation would not be like islands in the Pacific Ocean for Polynesian colonization. The reason is that there is almost no friction in space. If we have a colonization ship that gets up to 5 to 20% of the speed of light, then it would make no sense to spend fuel to slow down at a nomad planet and then use the same amount of fuel to speed up again. Other consumable supplies should be carried onboard and recycled as efficiently as possible.For long term colonization the nomad planets would require a civilization not wanting to be near the solar energy of a star.If they have a power source that was efficient and independent of a star, then this could be conceivable. Still for major colonization of particular nomad planets there would have to be something useful about the particular nomad planet. It is not efficient to develop a colony in space and then move resources over many light weeks or light months.The resources on Earth or at any particular location need to be worth using at that location. There are no resource limitations that need resources to be moved from a moon to a planet or from Pluto to Earth.
- Planning a little space travel to see some friends on Kepler 22b? Thinking of trying out your newly-installed FTL3000 Alcubierre Warp Drive to get you there in no time? Better not make it a surprise visit — your arrival may end up disintegrating anyone there when you show up.While many factors involving FTL travel are purely theoretical — and may remain in the realm of imagination for a very long time, if not ever — there are some concepts that play well with currently-accepted physics.The Alcubierre warp drive is one of those concepts.Proposed by Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994, the drive would propel a ship at superluminal speeds by creating a bubble of negative energy around it, expanding space (and time) behind the ship while compressing space in front of it. In much the same way that a surfer rides a wave, the bubble of space containing the ship and its passengers would be pushed at velocities not limited to the speed of light toward a destination.Researchers from the University of Sydney have done some advanced crunching of numbers regarding the effects of FTL space travel via Alcubierre drive, taking into consideration the many types of cosmic particles that would be encountered along the way. Space is not just an empty void between point A and point B… rather, it’s full of particles that have mass (as well as some that do not.) What the research team — led by Brendan McMonigal, Geraint Lewis, and Philip O’Byrne — has found is that these particles can get “swept up” into the warp bubble and focused into regions before and behind the ship, as well as within the warp bubble itself.When the Alcubierre-driven ship decelerates from superluminal speed, the particles its bubble has gathered are released in energetic outbursts. In the case of forward-facing particles the outburst can be very energetic — enough to destroy anyone at the destination directly in front of the ship.Another thing the team found is that the amount of energy released is dependent on the length of the superluminal journey, but there is potentially no limit on its intensity. http://www.universetoday.com/93882/warp-drives-may-come-with-a-killer-downside/
- Image: An early Innovative Interstellar Explorer design concept. Credit: Ralph McNutt/APL).http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=21050IIE is a 200 AU mission that is still really difficult. Hence, many of us believe that (1) the next step past Voyager needs to be taken and that scientific case can be made, (2) speed is important, and (3) one has to be realistic about what can – and cannot – be accomplished with that next step. A large launch vehicle, upper stage, Jupiter gravity assist, and REP continues – at least to me – to look like the current best bet, but I am always open to practical suggestions. To get to the “interesting” region of the sky as seen by Cassini MIMI and IBEX instruments in the last couple of years, the next window for a Jupiter gravity assist opens in ~2024 – and that could be done.It is perhaps also worth noting that nuclear electric propulsion has been looked at – and in some detail under NASA’s Project Prometheus. The problem is that the power system needs to have a specific mass no greater than ~30 kg/kW (something noted by Ernst Stuhlinger back in the 1960′s — Stuhlinger literally wrote the book on ion propulsion) to have an advantage in speed delivered by nuclear electric propulsion (NEP). But that has to include the mass of the system for dumping the waste heat of the reactor (from the second law of thermodynamics) as well as its mechanical supports. The Prometheus architecture came in at over twice that, and that is the problem. To date all NEP designs come in underpowered when engineering closure on the system as a whole is examined. Think of Hiram Maxim’s steam-powered airplane versus the gasoline-powered airplane of the Wright Brothers. This is ultimately the problem with VASIMIR as well – a more mass-efficient means of providing the wall-plug electricity is needed, if it is to ever become a real system.
- http://www.universetoday.com/92746/could-a-death-star-really-destroy-a-planet/Can a Death Star actually be built?Could a small moon-sized battle station generate enough energy to destroy an Earth-sized planet?A paper by David Boulderston (University of Leicester) sets out to answer that very question. First, for the uninitiated, just what the heck is a Death Star?According to Star Wars lore, the DS-1 Orbital Battle Station, or Death Star, is a moon-sized battle station designed to spread fear throughout the galaxy. The image above shows the Death Star as it appeared in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977). The Death Star’s main weapon is depicted as a superlaser capable of destroying planets with a single blast.Boulderston claims that it is possible to estimate how much energy the Death Star would need in order to destroy a planet with its superlaser. There are a number of assumptions made, however, in order to come up with the energy requirement.Boulderston asserts that (according to Star Wars lore) the Death Star is powered by a ‘hypermatter’ reactor, possessing the energy output of several main-sequence stars. Given that the power output of our Sun is about 3 x 1026 Joules per second, it’s a reasonable assumption the Death Star’s reactor could power the superlaser.Boulderstone’s conclusion is that the Death Star could indeed destroy Earth-like planets, given its main power source. While the Death Star could destroy an Earth-sized planet, a Jupiter-sized planet would be a tough challenge, and the Galactic Empire would need to resort to using a Suncrusher to destroy stars.
- Dione's atmosphere was detected by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which spotted an ultra-thin layer of oxygen ions so sparse that it is equivalent to conditions 300 miles (480 kilometers) above Earth. On Dione, there is just one oxygen ion one for every 0.67 cubic inches (or one ion for every 11 cubic centimeters) of space, but it's still enough to qualify as an atmosphere, Cassini mission scientists announced Friday (March 2)."We now know that Dione, in addition to Saturn's rings and the moon Rhea, is a source of oxygen molecules," Cassini team member Robert Tokar of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, who led the new study, said in a statement. "This shows that molecular oxygen is actually common in the Saturn system and reinforces that it can come from a process that doesn't involve life.”Dione is one of Saturn's smaller moons and is about 698 miles (1,123 km) wide. It orbits Saturn once every 2.7 days at a distance of about 234,000 miles (377,400 km) — roughly the same as that between Earth and its moon, according to a NASA description. [Photos: The Moons of Saturn]The oxygen on Dione may potentially be created by solar photons or high-energy particles that bombard the Saturn moon's ice-covered surface, kicking up oxygen ions in the process, Tokar explained. Another idea suggests that geologic processes on Dione could feed the moon's atmosphere, researchers added.The study is detailed in a recent issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
- http://www.xcor.com/products/vehicles/lynx_suborbital.htmlhttp://www.space-travel.com/reports/SwRI_and_XCOR_agree_to_pioneering_research_test_flight_missions_999.htmlThe Lynx is XCOR’s entry into the commercial reusable launch vehicle (RLV) market. This two-seat, piloted space transport vehicle will take humans and payloads on a half-hour suborbital flight to 100 km (330,000 feet) and then return safely to a landing at the takeoff runway.Like an aircraft, Lynx is a horizontal takeoff and horizontal landing vehicle, but instead of a jet or piston engine, Lynx uses its own fully reusable rocket propulsion system to depart a runway and return safely. This approach is unique compared to most other RLVs in development, such as conventional vertical rocket launches and air-launched winged rocket vehicles “dropped” at altitude from a jet powered mothership.SwRI and XCOR agree to pioneering research test flight missionshttp://www.space-travel.com/reports/SwRI_and_XCOR_agree_to_pioneering_research_test_flight_missions_999.htmlSouthwest Research Institute (SwRI) has reached an agreement with XCOR Aerospace, Inc. to conduct pioneering suborbital space missions with Institute payload specialist astronauts flying aboard one or two test missions in the XCOR Aerospace Lynx Mark I vehicle.The flights will test capabilities of the Lynx vehicle with actual researchers and research experiments aboard.In 2011, SwRI and XCOR Aerospace inked a deal for six SwRI suborbital flights aboard Lynx, with options for three more. This new announcement moves the first such flights ahead of XCOR's commercial services to be a part of XCOR's Lynx test flight program.