tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-288235012024-02-20T11:38:54.339+10:00QuantumG's BlogRecreational software development, space advocacy.QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.comBlogger168125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-80981444522447258442020-10-13T12:40:00.001+10:002020-10-13T12:40:40.375+10:00The Three Amigos<img />
<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Three Amigos</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Written at 3:33am)</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Three friends go to play in the Park. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Starting in The Matrix they spend most of their time talking about Red Dwarf and planning hijinks. One of the three has a way to communicate with a friend (the fourth Amigo) who works for the Park. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They run from agents, and plan to break into West World and rob a bank, until one day an Agent dies… for real.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This Agent is controlled by the mother-in-law of the female CEO. She's old and demented but she loves to jack into The Matrix, and she's good at keeping thieves out of the Park. While chasing one of the Amigos down a spiral ramp she wraps herself in a cord and spills water on herself. It's a known flaw of that old deck.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Amigos learn about the tragedy on the subway. They discuss it in a hushed conversation. Two wants to leave - the game is over, he didn't want to kill anyone for real - but Four tells The One that they'll be arrested and charged as soon as they're out - and she won't be able protect them soon.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They decide to go to West World and lay low. When they get there it becomes obvious that they can't. There's a warrant out for their arrest. They rob a train - hanging from the tracks of a bridge - Matrix style. After the robbery they split the loot and go their separate ways.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The One goes back to The Matrix.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two goes to Fast & Furious land.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Three stays in West World - he just wants to fish.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They settle down to live out their lives in the Park. The legend grows.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then the impersonators begin…</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crime within the Park is rife, but people keep coming because it's incredibly fun. The danger of robbery isn't so bad and death remains a one-off. The rules are simple: if you die, better luck next year.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The CEO still hunts the Amigos, but they know the system and she knows if they're ever caught it'll be the end of the Park. She has secret conversations with Three.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two has built an empire of crime. In a sense, he is just playing the game. He's the Mafia king.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The One has gone on a spiritual journey and connected with what he believes is a true artificial intelligence growing in The Matrix.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Four is mysterious, we don't learn her fate until the very end of the story. (She's the AI, trying to keep her beloved from going insane.)</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Best dream ever!</span></p>
QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-8405634370233169212020-01-22T10:43:00.000+10:002020-01-22T10:43:03.783+10:00Learning to weld<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ten years ago I got the welding bug.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">After doing a vocational training course I discovered my aptitude was essentially zero and on-the-job training was considered essential to improvement. Not actually having a welding job in order to be trained on, I did the best I could, assigning myself simple tasks and destructively testing my horrible creations. This involved buying my own welder, which was an education in itself. After about a month of ruining perfectly good scrap metal I got to the point where I was able to reliably produce all the welds I had learnt - without defects.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">My next purchase was a bucket pump so I could pressure test a range of creatively welded bits of steel. This a really cheap piece of kit that you can get just about anywhere, and it completely humbled me. My first attempt was two square bits of scrap welded over the ends of a very thick pipe. It was immediately obvious that all my previous welds had been of insufficient depth, spraying water everywhere at very low pressures.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The other thing about hydrostatic pressure testing metal parts is, it makes the metal wet. Not knowing any better I'd often try to grind out and repair a weld while it was still wet. This worked about 80% of the time, and seeing as I was just trying to improve my technique, that was fine for me. However I did find that "baking" the part after discovering a leak was much more reliable. For a while I was doing this just by putting the part out the sun, later I discovered the joys of hitting it with the blowtorch.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eventually I produced a nice chunk of mild steel that could hold as much pressure as I could pump into it. What could I do with this artefact of weeks of effort? Not a lot. I installed a shelf in my garage and left it there to slowly rust. Surprisingly, the rust really didn't affect the welds at all - it still held pressure a year or more later. This was a quite heavy bit of metal, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. I did five or six different prototypes of this form, and it honestly got a bit repetitive. I could whip up a pressure vessel of similar quality in about 10 minutes and it would hold pressure on the first attempt. Boring.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Around this point I got into welding aluminium sheet. I was using a low end TIG welder, and my goal was to build lightweight pressure vessels, so aluminium seemed like a must have. In retrospect, I should have investigated stainless steel, but the price and availability were horrible, so I settled for aluminium. I also should have tried reproducing my success with steel by starting with thicker aluminium, but I didn't do that either. As a result I produced mostly burn-thru and other defects. I did get a small lightweight tank to hold pressure, but I could never get my success rate up.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Later that year I traded my TIG welder for a MIG and bunch of other metalworking tools. It wasn't a great deal but I was done fiddling around with aluminium. Eventually I moved to a house without a garage and sold everything off.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I still think about welding, and I guess I'll get back into it at some point.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span>QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-42887157975803626872019-11-27T20:23:00.000+10:002019-11-27T20:23:20.891+10:00Mars on Earth: The Long Tick of Elon TimeWe've all heard the joke.<br />
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Elon says they're going to fly Commercial Crew in Q1 2020, so add Elon Time - that's mid-to-late 2020, right? 😂😬<br />
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You gotta admit, he's consistent - he always tells you the best-case situation; Subtext: if nothing goes wrong... but has that ever happened?<br />
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If you count how many nods Elon makes while he answers that question and which way his eyes are pointing you can see how sure he is... How much he isn't telling you.<br />
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How much you have no right to know, damn it. Let the man work!<br />
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That's how you make a following. Guard your playbook, and move. Never stand still, lest they believe you've fallen over.<br />
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What would have happened if 2 years ago Elon said "Look, nothing is going to happen at SpaceX until we see what the NASA Admin is going to do, so just spin your wheels and don't do anything. I'm going to work on Starlink."<br />
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Probably everything we've seen in the last 2 years. Gradual improvement and - dare we say it? - perfection of the Falcon GNC and an X-plane program to flight test the skydiver reentry mode.<br />
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When Elon says "either I'm the chief designer or it is someone else who is really really humble..." 😉 I'm like 🤔<br />
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The thing they never tell you about Thomas Edison is that most "great men of tech" are front guys for shy inventors who prefer to keep their names out of the media so they can focus on their work. Heck, you could say that's all of us who take a salary... and never publish.<br />
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Sorry Lars, but go on, take a bow. It's amazing work and we're all behind you 💯<br />
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<br />QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-6888787811267030442019-10-28T09:37:00.001+10:002019-10-28T09:37:35.567+10:00Space Colonial Life - What's It Like Living In An Offworld Industrialization Facility?<h2 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #494b52; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 1.8rem; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 1.3rem;">
In this blog we take a deep dive into the world of offworld rigs, focusing on what you can expect in the way of living conditions when taking a job in the offworld industry.</h2>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">OFFWORLD RIG FAST FACTS</strong></div>
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<li style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 20px 0px;">There are around 1,470 offworld industrialization rigs scattered all over the solar system, which means this role could take you anywhere from the Moon to Mars or even the asteroid belt or Mercury</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 20px 0px;">At any one time you will find nearly 200 people living and working on a rig</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 20px 0px;">You’ll rarely find a window inside</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 20px 0px;">Be thankful we’re not in the 1960s anymore – Before onboard wifi, engineers were restricted to just one personal phone call a week, and even that was capped to just six minutes<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1.2rem;">
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Offworld engineering jobs require travel to some of the most remote places in the solar system, including industrialization rigs in the middle of deep space. You'll work hard offworld but be well rewarded for it - for a start, there's no cooking or cleaning to be done...</strong></div>
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What job-related training will I need to work on an offworld rig?</h2>
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This isn’t your usual “stuck in rush hour" commute; a spaceship transfers you from Earth (commonly called "the well") to the rig which in itself can be an invigorating experience. Offworld engineers are given complete space survival training prior to this flight. Watch a video of an offworld engineer commuting to an industrialization rig to see for yourself.</div>
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Offworld rigs are full of space dangers and heavy machinery. As an offworld worker, you will benefit from plenty of training to ensure best practise at all times.</div>
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Before starting your offworld life, you will also undergo a medical examination to make sure you’re suitable for work on a rig. There are first aiders and medicinal personnel on-board, with spaceships on standby for quick medical evacuations to dedicated facilities if necessary.</div>
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How many hours will I work on an offworld rig?</h2>
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The usual working shift is 12 hours ‘on’ and 12 hours ‘off’, and many shift patterns are a mixture of both day and night because operations run around the clock with no rig ‘downtime’. Many offworld jobs require shift patterns of 6 or 8 months on the rig / 6-12 months back in the well, but the patterns can be longer.</div>
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What will my offworld accommodation be like?</h2>
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Offworld installations have a dedicated team of kitchen staff who prepare food around the clock, often with a self-service style canteen. Despite the offworld location, fresh food is shipped in regularly, meaning you’ll have plenty of access to fresh meat, fruit and vegetables.</div>
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Offworld rigs are close-knit communities and you can expect to share your room with several other engineers, although some rigs do offer private rooms. Showers and toilets tend to be shared among a couple of cabins, but most bedrooms do offer a washbasin, and a television.</div>
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How will I stay in touch with my family if I have a job offworld?</h2>
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Far out in space, mobile phone signal isn’t particularly reliable! However, larger rigs will have internet connections enabling Skype and other messaging services for uninterrupted communication with those back home, ensuring you’ll be on hand to help celebrate important occasions from afar. We’ve taken a look at some fantastic apps to help you stay in touch with your loved ones whilst on assignment.</div>
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Life is never boring on an offworld rig</h2>
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All offworld rigs have good recreational facilities to keep on-board staff entertained when not on shift, whether you’re in drilling, the roustabout team or a derrickhand. From small movie theatres and pool tables, to air hockey, large screen TVs and video game consoles you won’t be bored! Of course there’s also Wi-Fi so you can watch your own shows, but living in such close quarters you’ll find you quickly become a close-knit member of the team.</div>
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Keeping an industrialization rig operational for 24 hours a day means that it’s crucial for offworld personnel to be at the top of their game at all times; generally alcohol and non-prescription drugs are completed banned. Too keep everyone on board safe, smoking is allowed in designated areas with matches available as the source of ignition – these locations are far away from the most sensitive machinery.</div>
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What salary and benefits can I expect offworld?</h2>
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Offworld jobs pay differently depending on your experience and role, however rig engineers can expect to be paid well due to a combination of the specialised skills required, the risks associated with working on a rig, and the personal sacrifices made in terms of working hours and not seeing family.</div>
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The industrialization professionals that we work with love how we value our contractors on a personal level and take care of all assignment support needs, such as organising contractor travel and work permits, giving you peace of mind that you’ll be taken care of when working with us.</div>
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QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-23380251740875270032018-11-12T14:04:00.000+10:002018-11-12T14:04:43.891+10:00Why I Don't Write About Space AnymoreNo-one asked, but I know a few have wondered. It's been about 2.5 years since I wrote anything about space on this blog. Why?
Simply, I don't see anything changing. SpaceX and Boeing have full funding for commercial crew, and nothing has changed. Reusable first stages have arrived, and nothing has changed. Blue Origin has crossed the Karman line, and nothing has changed. More and more people are launching cubesats, and nothing has changed. Google invested a billion dollars in SpaceX, and nothing has changed. Suborbital tourism still doesn't exist. Nothing has changed.
I'm still interested. I'm still engaged. I just have nothing to say.
My hope goes out to those working hard to change things. Good luck.
QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-81530911622193655052015-04-29T10:30:00.000+10:002015-04-29T16:31:30.334+10:00Disabling OS-X Device Removal Warnings In Yosemite<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC6Ib3aAQVn2y1BdECMzg5FEvhiak5D-TBFPgIYSRDTOTDNpWpKNC7IHRj5hi0TaNi8hFZjpgbyI2T9CGt7DEIQ8Y-xwqtUhOKz3W6DXn2N4vMsXI_tNhG-nNnP7k9l_Si00Kz/s1600/disk-not-ejected-properly-mac.jpg" /></p>
<p>If you're anything like me you've probably seen the Disk Not Ejected Properly message so many times that you've forgotten how annoying it is.. despite the fact that you never even wrote anything to the usb drive that you're yanking out of your Mac the operating system insists that you remove it "correctly". You're <i>supposed to</i> click the eject button. Why? I dunno, Apple seems to think that if you <i>can</i> write to it then the operating system might have written to it - and being Apple, they probably have. Well ya know what? Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me.</p>
<p><b>Note:</b> this will not fix your external drive disconnecting when your Mac goes to sleep. For that problem try <a href="https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5678720">disabling "put hard drive to sleep when possible"</a> in both the Battery and Power Adapter tabs of the OS energy saver settings. What appears below is a dirty hack for deliberately removing a warning that Apple insists on showing you <i>every single time</i> you yank out a usb stick.</p>
<p><b>The short version</b>. WARNING, this may break your Mac! Be careful! Download my hacked <a href="http://quantumg.net/DiskArbitrationAgent">DiskArbitrationAgent</a>. Open a terminal and enter the following commands:</p>
<pre>
cd /System/Library/Frameworks/DiskArbitration.framework/Versions/A/Support
sudo cp DiskArbitrationAgent DiskArbitrationAgent.original
password: [Enter your password]
sudo cp ~/Downloads/DiskArbitrationAgent .
killall DiskArbitrationAgent
</pre>
<p><b>The long version</b>. What does this do? Read on.</p>
<p>In my quest to remove this annoying and pointless warning, I started with a Google search and turned up various answers of the form "don't do that" and guides on how to press the eject button. Gee, thanks! One more helpful answer suggested disabling the User Notification Center - which is akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face. Okay, so I get that Apple doesn't <i>want</i> me to turn off this warning, but I don't care what they think. I'm turning it off.</p>
<p>My next course of action was bargaining. I figured the engineers at Apple are pretty reasonable, they wouldn't throw this annoying warning in my face if I mounted the drive read-only, surely? Using <b>sudo vifs</b> I added a line to my /etc/fstab with an appropriate UUID. After inserting the usb drive I ran <b>mount</b> to ensure it was mounted read-only, it was. I then proceeded to yank out the drive without pressing Eject and <i>still got the cursed warning!</i> Apple engineers are not reasonable.</p>
<p>In fact, I actually tracked down the code that does the appropriate check. It's in <a href="http://www.publicsource.apple.com/source/DiskArbitration/DiskArbitration-265/diskarbitrationd/DARequest.c">DARequest.c in diskarbitrationd</a> and it looks like this:</p>
<pre>
if ( DADiskGetState( disk, kDADiskStateZombie ) )
{
DARequestSetState( request, kDARequestStateStagedApprove, TRUE );
if ( DADiskGetDescription( disk, kDADiskDescriptionMediaWritableKey )
== kCFBooleanTrue )
{
DADialogShowDeviceRemoval( disk );
}
}
</pre>
<p>Hey idiots, MediaWritable means the <i>media</i> is writable, not that the drive is mounted read-write. You're displaying a warning for a potential problem that is <i>impossible</i>. Way to go!</p>
<p>So where does this warning come from? It's displayed as a result of that DADialogShowDeviceRemoval() call, but that's just a message sending wrapper. I found out. The offending code is in <a href="http://www.publicsource.apple.com/source/DiskArbitration/DiskArbitration-265/DiskArbitrationAgent/DADialog.m">DADialog.m in DiskArbitrationAgent</a> and it looks like this:</p>
<pre>
static NSString * __kDADialogLocalizedStringDeviceRemovalKey =
@"Eject \"%@\" before disconnecting or turning it off.";
static NSString * __kDADialogLocalizedStringDeviceRemovalTitleKey =
@"Disk Not Ejected Properly";
...
void DADialogShowDeviceRemoval( DADiskRef disk )
{
NSUserNotificationCenter * center;
center = [ NSUserNotificationCenter _centerForIdentifier:
@_kDAAgentName type:
_NSUserNotificationCenterTypeSystem ];
if ( center )
{
NSUserNotification * notification;
notification = [ [ NSUserNotification alloc ] init ];
if ( notification )
{
NSBundle * bundle;
bundle = [ NSBundle bundleWithPath:
__kDADialogLocalizedStringBundlePath ];
if ( bundle )
{
NSDictionary * description;
description = ( __bridge_transfer id )
DADiskCopyDescription( disk );
if ( description )
{
NSString * name;
name = [ description objectForKey: ( __bridge id )
kDADiskDescriptionVolumeNameKey ];
if ( name == NULL )
{
name = __DALocalizedStringInBundle( @"Untitled",
bundle );
}
notification.hasActionButton = FALSE;
notification.informativeText = [ NSString
stringWithFormat: __DALocalizedStringInBundle(
__kDADialogLocalizedStringDeviceRemovalKey,
bundle ), name ];
notification.title = __DALocalizedStringInBundle(
__kDADialogLocalizedStringDeviceRemovalTitleKey,
bundle );
notification._imageURL = [ NSURL
fileURLWithPath:
@"/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle
/Contents/Resources/FinderIcon.icns" ];
notification._persistent = FALSE;
[ center deliverNotification: notification ];
}
}
}
}
}
</pre>
<p>You can find the DiskArbitrationAgent in /System/Library/Frameworks/DiskArbitration.framework/Versions/A/Support and on my Mac it's 22992 bytes long. Using <b>otool -tV</b> we see the offending code:</p>
<pre>
0000000100000faf pushq %rbp
0000000100000fb0 movq %rsp, %rbp
0000000100000fb3 pushq %r15
0000000100000fb5 pushq %r14
0000000100000fb7 pushq %r13
0000000100000fb9 pushq %r12
0000000100000fbb pushq %rbx
0000000100000fbc subq $0x68, %rsp
0000000100000fc0 movq %rdi, %r14
0000000100000fc3 movq 0x1556(%rip), %rdi ## Objc class ref:
_OBJC_CLASS_$_NSUserNotificationCenter
0000000100000fca movq 0x14b7(%rip), %rsi ## Objc selector ref:
_centerForIdentifier:type:
0000000100000fd1 leaq 0x13a8(%rip), %rdx ## Objc cfstring ref:
@"com.apple.DiskArbitration.DiskArbitrationAgent"
0000000100000fd8 movl $0x2, %ecx
0000000100000fdd callq *0x10b5(%rip) ## Objc message:
+[NSUserNotificationCenter _centerForIdentifier:type:]
0000000100000fe3 movq %rax, %rdi
0000000100000fe6 callq 0x1000019e6 ## symbol stub for:
_objc_retainAutoreleasedReturnValue
0000000100000feb movq %rax, %rbx
0000000100000fee testq %rbx, %rbx
...
00000001000012de leaq 0xf7b(%rip), %rdx ## Objc cfstring ref:
@"Eject "%@" before disconnecting or turning it off."
...
</pre>
<p>If we <b>hexdump -C</b> DiskArbitrationAgent we can see the actual bytes too:</p>
<pre>
00000fa0 48 83 c4 08 5b 41 5c 41 5d 41 5e 41 5f 5d c3 55 |H...[A\A]A^A_].U|
00000fb0 48 89 e5 41 57 41 56 41 55 41 54 53 48 83 ec 68 |H..AWAVAUATSH..h|
</pre>
<p>Yes, the text segment of Mach-O images nicely correspond in memory as they do on disk - at least in non-fat binaries. Okay, that's boring to just about everyone except me. How do we get rid of this warning? That's easy, all we have to do is insert a c3 at faf. You can use a hex editor, but I just wrote this tiny program:</p>
<pre>
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
FILE *f = fopen("DiskArbitrationAgent", "r+");
fseek(f, 0xfaf, SEEK_SET);
unsigned char r = 0xc3;
fwrite(&r, 1, 1, f);
fclose(f);
return 0;
}
</pre>
<p>I recommend making a backup of the original file before fiddling with it. We then need to <b>killall DiskArbitrationAgent</b> and we're done. Too hard? Here's my <a href="http://quantumg.net/DiskArbitrationAgent">hacked DiskArbitrationAgent</a>.</p>
<p>I hoped you have enjoyed this exercise and don't trash your Mac. :)</p>
QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-51388159103017004812013-11-22T13:09:00.000+10:002013-11-22T13:09:59.799+10:00Getting to Mars With The Reusable Falcon 9<p>Isn't it a bit odd that the most promising reusable launch vehicle under development today is being build by a company with a proclaimed love for heavy-lift launch vehicles?</p>
<p>As the Falcon 9 Reusable approaches the cusp of operations, with a successful demonstration of first stage reuse expected sometime next year, SpaceX is already moving on to a methane engine - Raptor - four times as big, for a rocket - MCT - with a much larger core size.</p>
<p>This, we're told, is Elon Musk's strategy for going to Mars and it's so much warmed over Bob Zubrin - Mars Direct, Mike Griffin - Apollo On Steroids, cargo cult of the Saturn V, stuck-in-the-1960s thinking.</p>
<p>If you have an operational reusable launch vehicle, as SpaceX says it is their goal to have, then there's much more <i>sensible</i> ways to get to Mars. Come on boffins, get the lead out, let's do the math on this one.</p>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_k4sExyOdEmEmfSguz7C-P5i4yGMIU40VlRht1LA58CcgIBQeH0gvXvOmufQCxzH7Rx0sBfBfq0HRRABsFJ6GGuyxfW5G08nXYao1x4ZswwmCV6uQgHqgDP0PW66XK_imUesf/s1600/3725738_orig.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_k4sExyOdEmEmfSguz7C-P5i4yGMIU40VlRht1LA58CcgIBQeH0gvXvOmufQCxzH7Rx0sBfBfq0HRRABsFJ6GGuyxfW5G08nXYao1x4ZswwmCV6uQgHqgDP0PW66XK_imUesf/s320/3725738_orig.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.spaceflight101.com/falcon-9-v11.html">the best public numbers I can find</a>, the second stage of the Falcon 9 v1.1 has a dry mass of 4,900 kg and launches with a propellant load of 70,800 kg. This is a very impressive propellant mass fraction of 93.5% and with its single Merlin 1-D engine delivering a specific impulse of 340s it can throw <b>22 tons</b> on a fast transit (just over 6 months) to Mars (a delta-v of 4.3 km/s).</p>
<p>This alone is probably sufficient to do a great Mars mission. The hitch, of course, is that the second stage gets to orbit empty (well, with some unknown ullage) and must be refueled before it can be sent off to Mars. Also the typical payload to low Earth orbit of the Falcon 9 v1.1 is only about 13 tons, leaving us 9 tons of Mars-bound payload short. As it turns out, this is about the mass I'd estimate for a minimal Dragon-based Earth return capsule, so we'll assume the crew come and dock with the 13 ton Mars transit vehicle later.</p>
<p>The expectation is that the Falcon 9 Reusable will have about 25% less payload to orbit capability as it does acting in expendable mode - that is, about 10 tons, so the crew launch vehicle will not have to be expended. This is what you'd expect, as SpaceX is designing the Falcon 9 Reusable to reduce the cost of ferrying crews to the space station.</p>
<p>Now, about that fuel. We'll need about 70 tons of it, and at 10 tons per Falcon 9 Reusable flight, that's seven flights. However, part of the fuel is cryogenic - the liquid oxygen - and some of it may boil off depending on the length of the launch campaign. So let's say eight Falcon 9 Reusable tanker flights total. Still not enough? Okay, let's say nine flights. What's that? You want more? Okay, let's say ten flights. <i>It's a fully reusable system.</i></p>
<p>There's some challenges in transferring liquid oxygen in zero-g, but they're minor compared to.. say.. liquid hydrogen. Figure it out.</p>
<p>What if a 13 ton transfer vehicle and a 9 ton crew return vehicle - 22 tons total to Mars transfer orbit - isn't enough? That's okay, just stage together two Falcon 9 v1.1 second stages. Both require 70 tons of fuel, so you're only doubling the total number of Falcon 9 Reusable flights, plus whatever you need to get the massive new payload into low Earth orbit.<p>
<p>Suppose the first stage provides 1463 m/s of delta-v before separating and falling away. The second stage ignites and provides the remaining 2838 m/s of delta-v. How much actual payload is thrown to Mars transfer orbit?</p>
<p>Would you believe, 47,850 kg? Almost 48 tons, surely that's enough!</p>
<p>The Saturn V was an amazing machine, but it was the product of a by-gone era. Fully and rapidly reusable launch vehicles combined with on-orbit refueling will make big boosters obsolete. At least, I sure hope it will.</p>
QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-17294592151983187892013-05-30T18:56:00.001+10:002013-05-30T22:21:49.866+10:00Who Would Have Guessed?<p>It was Stiennon and Hoerr's space-nerd spectacular "The Rocket Company" (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BWEEWOI/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00BWEEWOI&linkCode=as2&tag=quasblo-20">now available</a> on Kindle!) that introduced me to Kroemer's lemma:</p>
<blockquote>The last 40 years has seen a lot of futile effort by space enthusiasts to find the one magic product or market that will justify building a truly commercial space industry. Well, it hasn't been found, and we're tired of waiting for it. And if you accept Kroemer's lemma, it can't be done that way anyhow. Even if you guess correctly what it is that won't create a huge growth in demand for launch services so that costs come down, that demand won't -- and can't -- come into being until the cost does come down.</blockquote>
<p>So who is Kroemer and what is his lemma?</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Kroemer">Herbert Kroemer</a> is a Nobel Laureate in physics who wrote, in 1995, the <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2000/kroemer-lecture.pdf">Lemma of New Technology</a>:</p>
<blockquote>The principle applications of any sufficiently new and innovative technology always have been -- and will continue to be -- applications <i>created</i> by that technology.
Ultimately, progress in applications is not <i>deterministic</i>, but <i>opportunistic</i>, exploiting for new applications whatever new science and technology happen to be coming along.</blockquote>
<p>Around 1999, the Jordi Puig-Suari of California Polytechnic State University and Bob Twiggs of Stanford University decided to work together on a standard that would enable graduate students to design, build, test and operate in space their own spacecraft, with capabilities not much more advanced than the world's first spacecraft, Sputnik. It was called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CubeSat">CubeSat</a>. At the time, no-one imagined that commercial aerospace companies would ever be interested in flying such small, limited, even primitive spacecraft. A lot has changed since then, including CubeSats, which have gotten bigger, better communications, propulsion and may even <a href="http://web.vtc.edu/ELM/projects/2010-2011/Ground_Control_2011/Assembla/Vermont-CubeSat-Launch-Proposal%20%28Launch%20Opportunity%29.pdf">be landing on the Moon soon</a>.</p>
<p>Ten years later, Chen, Strickler and Adler launched <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kickstarter">Kickstarter</a>. In a perfect example of Kroemer's lemma, The New York Times called it "the people's NEA", comparing Kickstarter to The National Endowment for the Arts, an agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting "artistic excellence". Who would have thought that the most successful project, just two years later, would be "Pebble", an e-paper watch for iPhone and Android devices. Or that Tim DeBenedictis would raise $117,000 for <a href="http://www.southernstars.com/skycube/sponsor.html">SkyCube</a>, just one of the more famous CubeSats projects that have been funded through the platform.</p>
<p>Which brings us up to today. Next year, <a href="http://www.planetaryresources.com/">Planetary Resources</a> will be flying a 3U CubeSat to prove out many parts of their orbital space telescope hardware, but that's not what has gotten them thousands of backers and over $250,000 <i>on the first day</i> of <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1458134548/arkyd-a-space-telescope-for-everyone-0">their Kickstarter project</a>. Aiming for just $1,000,000 by June 30, Planetary Resources is promising to build and fly a space telescope that can be accessed in classrooms around the world, and by the general public.</p>
<p>Who would have guessed <i>that</i>?</p>
<p>Increasingly, I am more interested in people who try to make the future, than predict it.</p>QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-47203893831512280212013-04-18T12:52:00.001+10:002013-04-18T14:10:15.137+10:00In Regards To Secrets<p>Bob has a secret. His secret is not just something he finds valuable, but something lots of other people would find valuable too. Perhaps it's a new way to make energy, or to dye wool or to build yachts. Perhaps it's just his mother's maiden name. We don't know, because it is Bob's secret.</p>
<p>Does Bob have an obligation to share his secret with us? Can we go to Bob's house and demand he tell us his secret? Can we threaten Bob to get the secret out of him, or promise him payment for his secret and then renege? If not, why not?</p>
<p>Alice would like to know Bob's secret, so she offers him a significant amount of money for Bob to tell her. Bob is worried that Alice will tell others, but she promises not to tell anyone else. Having heard Bob's secret, Alice wishes she had thought of it herself and would prefer no-one else to know the secret, not even Bob. This, of course, is impossible, but Bob offers the next best thing: he'll promise to never tell anyone else the secret for a small fee each month. Alice agrees.</p>
<p>This continues for many years until one day Alice meets Claude. Alice very much wants to tell Claude the secret, but she still has an agreement with Bob promising not to tell anyone else. She talks to Bob and he agrees to let Alice out of her promise, for a small increase in his monthly fee. Alice tells Claude the secret, after swearing him to secrecy.</p>
<p>Shortly after having heard the secret, Claude loses interest in Alice. He floats around the world for a while, visiting various places and eventually meets Desmond, to whom he quickly tells the secret. Claude did not swear Desmond to secrecy. In fact, he didn't even tell Desmond that what was being told was a secret. The idea is no longer a secret. Desmond tells <i>everyone</i>.</p>
<p>The idea sweeps the world and everyone talks about Desmond, the man who told the world. Some people think Desmond actually made up the idea himself, but most people believe Desmond when he says a man named Claude told him the idea. Alice and Bob certainly believe it. Alice is upset because Claude broke her confidence. Bob is upset because Alice doesn't want to continue his monthly payments. They go looking for Claude.</p>
<p>Is Alice right or wrong to be upset with Claude? Is Alice right or wrong to stop paying Bob?</p>
<p>Should anyone be upset with Desmond?</p>
<p><i>This sort of situation seems to baffle people who don't believe ideas can be "property". They start asking other questions like what laws are applicable (copyright? patents?) and whether those laws are just. If they're honest, they start asking if they really understand the concept of property at all.</i></p>
QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-90445369306086317522013-04-13T10:08:00.001+10:002013-04-13T10:10:18.765+10:00Colonizing the asteroids starts at home!<iframe width="320" height="240" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ejIXRFzXgsg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>When I first heard of this proposal I was reminded of the recommendations of the Space Studies Institute to do ore processing experiments on orbit as the first step to building O'Neill colonies. They were talking about using Lunar regolith simulant in low Earth orbit, with the goal of developing the techniques to utilize the products of a future lunar mining operation, but as an asteroid resources advocate I'd always preferred to think about doing the same thing with a captured asteroid.</p>
<p>A few years ago I wrote about colonizing a near-Earth asteroid (without moving it), with a focus on artificial gravity issues. The reality is that we don't yet know enough about the composition of any asteroids to have a decent shot at making water, oxygen, plant nutrients, or any of the other things you'd need for a space colony. We need to learn it before the colonists are sent, and having a captured asteroid to experiment on is a great way to do it.</p>
<p>Ultimately, though, the largest asteroids you can capture won't be big enough for a colony. Designing a mission to take a few hundreds of people out to (at least) 20 lunar distances is quite a challenge if you want to get them there healthy and ready to build a new world. Most problems can be solved by throwing mass at it, but typically that means more launches. Having material that is already in orbit, especially high lunar orbit or the Lagrange points, which you can use for shielding, know how to process into consumables or even structural components, would be of great help.</p>
<p>How likely is survival of that first colony? Mostly, they'd be cut off from resupply - close approaches to Earth of the same asteroid only happen infrequently. If they are to survive and thrive they'll have to be independent and stubborn. They'll need to see what they're doing as important and have a forward looking motivation.</p>
<p>After just a generation, they may be ready to expand. If their home is an Apollo asteroid, they might have the option of hopping over to the asteroid belt. Their well-honed technology will come in handy there. Eventually they may pull apart entire asteroids to make O'Neill type colonies, or just very large spaceships.</p>
<p>Visiting Earth will be easier for the asteroid dwellers than visiting the asteroids is for the Earthicans.</p>
QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-61617816632098857022013-03-17T11:18:00.000+10:002013-03-17T11:18:19.296+10:00Jon Goff's Lunar Patent<img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYgffVPZ3eKZq40XPnMlKvLLW7JuvXW69ECd6Zozx4DwWpOhJQqG06em56DJYVXiDN0eZh79jXhMxlV7Mr82hpC3dcZuaGiI53nR79-T9031W9s-8I1vwQJqRnQO2WZm8CrNvY/s320/lunarfacility.jpg" />
<p>On a <a href="http://archived.thespaceshow.com/shows/1974-BWB-2013-03-15.mp3">recent edition of The Space Show</a>, Jon Goff discussed <a href="http://selenianboondocks.com/2013/01/random-thoughts-columbus-article-link-and-lunar-patents/">a lunar analogy</a> to the 10 year patent grant awarded to Columbus on trade with any of the lands he discovered. This follows on from the great work done by Mike Mealling at <a href="http://rocketforge.org/2013/01/10/lessons-in-exploration-from-columbus-and-the-spanish-crown.html">dispelling myths about Columbus' funding</a> which, I believe, he was inspired to do after watching <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWyh8pUhwMI">one of my videos</a>. Unfortunately, I think Jon fails to convey his analogy in a convincing way. Being somewhat libertarian, Jon is a little too concerned with where the tax revenue comes from and too specific with who will receive the incentives. This may also simply be a result of the origin of the idea - the analogy to Columbus - and the attempt to describe it as such.</p>
<p>Talking about who will be taxed to fund a government program is never popular. Even "let's tax the rich" is too specific not to leave a bad taste in the voter's mouth. Politicians have learnt that the subject is completely avoidable anyway. Talking about who will receive the bulk of government funding, even in the abstract, is rarely popular. It suggests that the purpose of the program is just to reward cronies or enrich one group over another. Politicians like to talk about having "free and open competition" to select contractors, or however they are handing out taxpayer money. Keeping these elements of modern statecraft in mind, how could the lunar patent concept be sold in today's terms?</p>
<p>I imagine something like this:</p>
<h3>
"To encourage greater commerce on the Moon, the federal government is offering to pay the majority of lunar launch costs and lunar facility leases for lunar operations. This offer will be valid for the first 10 years of lunar commercialization, which is defined as starting with the establishment of a permanent lunar base by any US non-goverment entity."</h3>
<p>More detail could be added as to what exactly the government is <i>subsidizing</i>, but the initiative is sold as a means to reduce the cost of lunar commerce.. not as rewarding first movers. The first movers are required to get the kickoff to happen but it’s up to them to ensure that the government kickbacks come to them and not some latecomer. Thankfully, that's how markets tend to work anyway.</p>
<p>Eventually, someone will inevitably ask how the government is going to pay for this lunar development.. especially if the assumption is that launch costs are going to remain high and lunar facility leases will be in high demand. Assuming you can get a politician to give you a straight answer, the truth may be that they expect <i>taxes collected on lunar commerce</i> will cover the subsidies. They'll trot out an economist who is willing to testify to such and the public will swallow it because, hey, the guy has charts and graphs and stuff.</p>
QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-36666501080685392152013-02-15T11:59:00.003+10:002013-02-15T15:41:09.484+10:00Imagining Mars Colonization<p>Recently, Ken Anthony invited me to critique his work over at <a href="http://planetplots.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Planet Plots</a>. Although I've only scratched the surface of his blog, there's not much I disagree with, and recommend the visit. The only problem, as I see it, is a lack of depth.. and a lot of hand waving. Just
about anything can be explained away with "free people will figure it out". I very much agree with that sentiment, as Ken knows, but aren't we free people? Can't we figure it out?</p>
<p>For example, take what the <a href="http://planetplots.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/mars-starter-kit.html" target="_blank">Mars Starter Kit</a> page has on it. There's many links to the
<a href="http://opensourceecology.org/wiki" target="_blank">Open Source Ecology wiki</a>, which is a fantastic resource, but ultimately it's still just geeks in front of the computer screen.. where's the
meat? Elon Musk made a comment the other day that has stuck with me:</p>
<p>"<a href="http://shitelonsays.com/transcript/computer-history-museum-presents-an-evening-with-elon-musk-2013-01-24#quote_1941368144" target="_blank">Making standard efficiency solar panels is about as hard as making dry wall. It's really easy. In fact, I'd say dry wall's probably harder.</a>"</p>
<p>The context indicates that he's talking about making solar cells
(not panels from cells). I'd love to see someone back this up in a
graphic way. Make a few hundred solar panels in a carpark somewhere.</p>
<p>Why solar cells? Why not just demonstrate that you can make glass
or bioplastic? You're probably going to want one of them for your solar panel,
anyway. Well, because solar panels still represent, to many people, a level
of technology that is mystical and impressive. Proof: if I say a kid in
Africa has a solar panel to charge his cell phone, you might
still imagine that African kid living in a grass hut, but you'll
appreciate his access to "high technology".</p>
<p>I'm also more than a little concerned with Ken's acceptance that colonizing Mars will cost billions. I don't doubt that it will - actually, I expect his estimates are low. The concern comes from the fatalistic implication that there's nothing we can do to get it started. It reminds me of the recent announcement of Planetary Resources and Golden Spike, both of whom claim to have received an outpouring of emails and other communication from members of the public asking how they can help - "send money" has been their only response.</p>
<p>What I think Ken fails to recognize in <a href="http://planetplots.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/two-false-assumptions.html" target="_blank">his pages describing how people can live on Mars</a> is that it doesn't fit into anyone's mental model of How People Live. The words "self sufficiency" conjure up in people's minds an agrarian lifestyle. We think of hippie communes, at best, and starving African villages, at worst. We <i>certainly</i> don't think about extracting aluminum from clay to cast into machine parts. Nor do we think about running our own nuclear power plant.</p>
<p>There is no word for a small self-sufficient high-technology society because none exist. As far as I'm aware, no-one has ever even tried to make one. The <i>idea</i> itself is fantastical to us - even if we're talking about right here on Earth. If we can't get people to imagine a small group of people going out into the wilderness or the desert to build a high-technology society, then how are we ever going to get them to imagine the first colonists doing it on Mars?</p>
<p>I think the best way is just to show them. Let's get started.</p>
QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-21419157456685799542012-12-10T12:56:00.001+10:002012-12-10T12:56:09.492+10:00Dragon-LP<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Sending humans in a SpaceX Dragon v2 capsule to EML-1 or 2 is a worthwhile possible step in a 100% commercial return to the Moon. The SuperDraco thrusters to be included in the sidewalls of the crew Dragon capsule are more than capable of performing the trans-lunar injection burn, as well as station keeping at the Lagrange point, rendezvous with any preemplaced assets - such as a lander - and returning the crew to Earth.<br />
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The total delta-v for such a bare bones mission to EML-2 is a mere 4835 m/s. EML-1 is similar. This is a "quick transit" 4-day trip up to EML-2, so the crew spends less time in the radiation belts. A good estimate of the dry mass of the Dragon v2 is 8000 kg. Using an isp of 320s, the initial mass in LEO is just 37344 kg, or 68% of the maximum payload mass of a Falcon Heavy.<br />
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Just going to a Lagrange point with a crew on Dragon would be a momentous achievement and could be done for a mere $150M. However, it is just the first step.<br />
<br />
If we fill the remaining Falcon Heavy payload mass with fuel, the total delta-v available to the Dragon becomes 6050 m/s. This is sufficient to go from LEO to EML-2 to low lunar orbit and back to Earth, with significant margin for maneuvering and rendezvous, if required.<br />
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What might the crew in the Dragon rendezvous with at EML-1, EML-2 or low lunar orbit? Using the same SuperDraco thrusters to take the slower 9-day transit - a delta-v of just 3470 m/s - 18.2 tons of payload can be delivered to EML-2. This payload can loiter for months waiting for the crew to arrive. Up to 14.8 tons can be deployed from EML-2 to low lunar orbit when required. Up to 6.2 tons can be landed on the surface if the lander is taken via low lunar orbit, or up to 8.1 tons if taken directly from EML-1 or 2.<br />
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This is all possible because I have avoided two pitfalls of lunar return architectures that have become very common in recent years.<br />
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Firstly, I have ignored the possibility of using the second stage of the Falcon Heavy to perform any part of the trans-lunar injection burn. A simple trade study shows that it is not advantageous when you have sufficient thrust on the payload - which you must have to do later maneuvers - so I'm baffled as to why people keep considering it.<br />
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Secondly, I have not used any high isp propulsion such as LH2/LOX or CH4/LOX. Although this may become preferable in future lunar architectures (especially if propellant made on the Moon becomes available), it is currently an additional expense which does not provide significant advantage to justify its cost.QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-20782932838785987222012-10-19T10:21:00.004+10:002012-10-19T11:29:19.593+10:00Human On The Moon CheapestAs the first flight of SpaceX's <a href="http://www.spacex.com/falcon_heavy.php" target="_blank">Falcon Heavy</a> in 2014 approaches more information is slowly becoming available. In a recently released <a href="http://www.newspacewatch.com/docs/IAC-12.D3.2.3.x15379-NASAStudy.pdf" target="_blank">NASA study</a>, Wilhite <i>et al</i> revealed an estimate for the mass of the 5.2m wide hammerhead fairing. Combined with the maximum payload to low Earth orbit, it is now apparent that payloads that don't require the fairing could have an initial mass of over 55 tons. This seems sufficient to mount a single person lunar landing (and return) mission with just the one launch.<br />
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For simplicity, I will assume a two ton single stage lunar lander with additional drop tanks. I'll use a self-pressurizing mixed monoprop, like NOFBX from Firestar (isp 320s). Starting in LEO the vehicle will perform three burns (3107m/s, 3140m/s, and 2890m/s), not stopping in lunar orbit and dropping tanks after each burn.<br />
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Hopefully, SpaceX will kick in some PICA-X for the heat shield, which will be mounted on a Mercury-sized capsule. The lander will look much like the Odyssey/SpaceX/Firestar alternative that was floated during the NASA Altair studies.<br />
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The flight will be cramped, uncomfortable and lonely. After landing on the surface, the pilot slips into his <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suitport" target="_blank">suitport</a> to explore the surface. This removes the need for an airlock, saving mass, and exposure of the cabin to vacuum, simplifying the design.<br />
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Finally, the pilot will return to Earth, braving a fiery reentry at lunar velocities to land off the coast under a single parachute.<br />
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A small boat will retrieve the pilot.<br />
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The total cost of the mission will be around $150 million.<br />
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<br />QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-68200452308381804082012-09-25T17:01:00.000+10:002012-09-28T13:25:56.989+10:00Space Advocates Need To Know When To Shut Up!<br />
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NASA recently announced their <a href="http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/24/14072181-beyond-the-moon-base-stirs-up-buzz?lite" target="_blank">Gateway station for beyond LEO exploration</a> to the wider press.<br />
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This is <a href="http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/tag/gateway/" target="_blank">not news to the space advocate community</a> with articles going back to December of last year. Even so, now is the time when this concept will be received by the politicians as "new". Soon, they will be introduced to the Gateway as either being <i>a part of their plan </i>or something which challenges it.<br />
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Many space advocates have complained that the central element of NASA's beyond exploration plan - the Space Launch System - has no payloads, or costs so much that no payloads can possibly be developed to fly on it. The obvious exception to this has been the Orion crew capsule, which is simply seen as too expensive compared to commercial crew offerings. Congress <i>could</i> see the Gateway station as the answer to this criticism.<br />
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That would be a good thing - whether you like the Space Launch System or not. The reason is simple: <i>there's nothing else.</i> Up to now, the plan has consisted of flying an Orion capsule around the Moon and coming home. After that.... maybe going to some asteroid someday, no idea which one, or when, and then going to Mars somehow.... well, they haven't thought that far ahead.<br />
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The Gateway station, should it ever be built, <i>provides a place to go</i>, and perhaps more importantly - it provides <i>a place to stay</i>. This is exactly the kind of space architecture that many advocates have been talking about for years.
Critics of the Space Launch System and even the former Constellation
program have always said that NASA should be working on building in-space
architecture like this from which to stage reusable lunar exploration. The Gateway is also ideal for launching missions to Mars.<br />
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Any space station needs supplies and with the success of the Commercial Orbital Transportation System for delivering cargo to the International Space Station, NASA will be looking to commercial providers for resupply services. <br />
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So why would politicians be against the Gateway station?<br />
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Primarily because it doesn't require a really big rocket like the Space Launch System. The individual components of the Gateway station are no bigger than the modules used on the International Space Station, which was built without the need for a "monster rocket". One plan for building Gateway involves assembly and checkout at the International Space Station with a slow boost up to the far side of the Moon using electric propulsion.<br />
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Now, please don't take this the wrong way, but it is exactly at this time that critics of the Space Launch System <i>need to shut up about it</i>. If Congress catches wind of the non-critical nature of their monster rocket in this plan, Gateway will be <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DcDzJmW6Qg" target="_blank">as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit</a>.<br />
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Do you hear what I'm saying?<br />
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<br />QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-3300402522085289092012-07-25T11:32:00.004+10:002012-07-25T11:33:59.346+10:00Where did all these suborbital space tourism companies come from??Were you absent when the suborbital tourism movement was being coined?<br /><br />Did you miss the philosophy lessons?<br /><br />Gather 'round young ones, let's sit on the grass and discuss the beliefs that make men build planes when they really want to be building rockets.<br /><br />Way back in the 70s, the realization that space would never be a frontier until launch costs had been reduced led many to pin their hopes on the Space Transportation System, and later on the only surviving component: the shuttle.<br /><br />During the 80s, it became obvious that the shuttle would never achieve a reduction in the cost of access to space and, in fact, NASA had stopped claiming that this was the goal of that program.<br /><br />During the 90s, various rag-tag efforts were made to turn LEO and MEO commsat launch into a massive market which would require the kind of launch capability that only a fully reusable vehicle could service - something like the mythical DC-X that many believed was killed for challenging the Shuttle.<br /><br />Some say they actually succeeded.. others say they only succeeded in getting funding for the development of the launch vehicles. In either case, some money started flowing into the industry and attempts were made, using the best technology and techniques of the day, to finally, sincerely, make a reusable launch vehicle.<br /><br />The boom led to the crash, as it inevitably does with capital mal-investment, and many recognized that they never had a chance of success. Although there are still some who say that simply not enough money was spent, there are cooler heads - because they are more humble - who say they simply didn't have the talent or the technology in-hand to make a good go of it.<br /><br />Depression set in for some time, but eventually leaders emerged. They suggested that perhaps there was another market that could be serviced by a reusable launch vehicle - a market which is more tolerate of risk, more price elastic, and ready to fly immediately. Perhaps there is a market in which an unskilled team could start slowly, build experience of <i>actually flying</i> and make money along the way. That market was space tourism and, like a wave, it would carry a company from the ground, to the air, above the atmosphere, into orbit and beyond - if they could hold on.<br /><br />But I go on, look at the time, we should go inside before it starts raining.QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-84542607410687792282012-06-24T12:12:00.001+10:002012-06-24T12:12:07.667+10:00Walking Eagle Nomination for the Ad Astra Rocket companyDear <a href="https://thespaceshow.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/tom-olson-dr-john-jurist-friday-6-22-12/">Dr David Livingston and the Space Cynics</a>,
<p>I would like to submit a Walking Eagle Award nomination for the Ad Astra Rocket company for their <a href="http://www.adastrarocket.com/aarc/ToMars">"Human Transportation to Mars" concept</a>.</p>
<p>The primary basis of my nomination is the size of the nuclear reactor proposed, but even if such a reactor and all the other support infrastructure to launch the mission from an Earth-Moon Lagrange point was available, and their propulsion technology actually worked, I think there is a very strong argument that such a fast transit decreases mission safety because it eliminates the free-return-trajectory abort mode.</p>
<p>The only nuclear reactor the US has ever flown in space is the SNAP-10A, which produced a mere 650 watts of electrical power, from 45 kW of heat. The SP-100 reactor program, which were never flown, was to produce 100 kW of electrical power from 2 MW of heat. The Russians flew reactors which produced 3 kW to 5 kW of electrical power, and built some 40 kW reactors that were never flown. So when Ad Astra baselines a 200 MW nuclear reactor, they're talking about a reactor <b>40,000 times as big as anything that has ever flown!</b> It's even 2000 times as big as anything anyone has ever tried to build, and 5,000 times as big as anything that has ever been actually built!</p>
<p>There are other arguments against a nuclear reactor of this size, relating to the power per kg and the size of the radiators that would be required, however as it is obvious that no such reactor will be available, they are superfluous.</p>
<p>Need I say more?</p>
<p>Okay I will. Come with me now as we enter the fantasy land where electrical power for the VASIMR thruster is free and plentiful. Perhaps we have a nuclear <i>fusion</i> reactor that works in space and doesn't require any heat radiators, etc. Also, we have superconducting magnets that work at space temperatures, and all this technology is ready. Also, there's scientifically literate politicians both in the White House and the Congress and the US has paid off their national debt with the profits they received from <a href="http://anongallery.org/img/3/0/my-little-korean-pony.jpg">selling ponies to North Korea</a>.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myYs4DCCZts">pointed out by Bob Zubrin last year</a>, hurtling towards Mars at breakneck speed means you better be successful at stopping or your crew goes cruising off into the outer solar system never to be heard from again. In a six month transit, which has already been achieved using modest chemical propulsion, the crew has the option of aborting back to an Earth returning trajectory. How is throwing away this abort mode in the name of making the trip <b>safer</b> a good idea?</p>
<p>Also, their rocket doesn't actually produce any thrust.</p>QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-64835416371115476332012-03-09T15:25:00.030+10:002012-03-10T10:33:18.985+10:00How Important Is Opening The Frontiers Of Space?I have previously written about <a href="http://quantumg.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/this-is-why-space-settlement-is.html">why space settlement is important</a>, but just how important is it?<br />
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In a <a href="http://moonandback.com/2012/03/08/moonandback-interview-with-rand-simberg-part-2-an-industry-grows-with-many-approaches/">recent interview</a> Rand Simberg comments:<br />
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<div><img style="border: none" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXUCxK9YO0p2tH2pi31O7vuF5fQXZ1Hy6jy_B1LAq3CSsNGBFaOXUkcVSlzlWlT88dY2etmXE78q0OHbcrIKHp6-ec_J6mlzVKe8nHPG4gaIqAuUhc52BkyqUsgDCMNKHOFkGC/s1600/rand.jpg" align="left" /><b>"What risk you're willing to take is a function of what it's worth to you. In World War II, we sent up squadrons of B-17s over Germany every day - sometimes half of them didn't come back. We tried to minimize the casualties, but we didn't stop flying just because we were having huge losses. What they were doing was important, and we were willing to risk lives to do it."</b><br />
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He was not just referring to the current government efforts at human spaceflight, but also to the growing concern with safety by private spaceflight providers. Just how important is commercial spaceflight? <br />
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At a <a href="http://science.house.gov/hearing/full-committee-hearing-overview-nasa-fy13-budget">recent hearing of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology</a>, Rep E.B. Johnson (D-Texas) answers:<br />
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<div><img style="border: none" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZdu0mzWhGjbjxI7NHAg10nmvBvZHuN8ib4QcxJtCde4NhmJcA6PRMt0gvTGPHoI_Kce_JhmsrbOgBl9k9kP6Xnt1wJe8jDU6Z0EGM6__B7Gy3rltbYtj7-3azKiD02Qeq5NIW/s1600/eddy.jpg" align="right" /><b>"So far the only potential non-NASA market that NASA has identified for Congress are super-wealthy space tourists, and non-US astronauts. And I can't justify to my constituents the expenditure of their tax dollars, so that the super-rich can have a joyride."</b><br />
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There is no question that "joyrides" are being offered to wealthy people to help fund the development of suborbital (and eventually, also, orbital) spacecraft.. setting aside the fallacious attempts by Rep Johnson to suggest that this is somehow <i>the government's</i> purpose for funding commercial crew efforts, is this alone an important enough purpose to risk human life? Are there pilots willing to fly such craft multiple times, knowing full well the risks they are taking, and the purpose for which they are flying and, if so, why?<br />
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The simple answer is yes and because.. well.. <i>because they get paid</i>. (I've been reminded that many pilots would fly for free if they were given the option.. so what? <i>Whatever</i> their motivation is, that is adequate compensation.) Economic activity has the unique and amazing attribute that those like Rep Johnson will never understand: it is engaged in voluntarily. How much risk to human life is acceptable? As much or as little as the market is willing to tolerate. Logically, the importance of opening the frontiers of space can be similarly determined.. but only if a free market is allowed to function.QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-13828652262234181942012-03-07T13:22:00.001+10:002012-03-07T15:01:49.533+10:00If Copyright Didn't Exist, A Free Market Would Invent ItThe philosophical basis of copyright law is a travesty that is not worth going into here. The resultant statist defense of "intellectual property" is heavy handed and infected with cronyism because the philosophical basis is of such poverty. The typical libertarian response is to disavow any right, as such, to protection of intellectual property. <br />
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I'd like to suggest this is an extreme response and describe how something akin to copyright is valid in a free market, libertarian society.<br />
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The fundamental basis of libertarianism is private property. In this theory there can be no question that the correct and proper owner of work is the creator of that work. (A possible caveat is that all the inputs to the work were already owned by the creator - if you create a sculpture out of <i>my</i> marble, not only is that sculpture mine, I may have recourse against you for using the marble without my permission.) In terms of homesteading, the creator of a work has a greater claim than any subsequent claimant as they are, from the point of view of the creator, latecomers.<br />
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The basis of private property is the self-ownership concept. I am well within my rights to offer to sing a sonnet for you, in exchange for a mutually agreed price. Our agreement is called a contract, and it is of no business of any third party what the terms of our contract are. This would appear to be an argument for intellectual property, such that sonnets are works of the mind - and some have argued exactly that - but I think we need to go deeper.<br />
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What kind of price might I demand for my performance? In a free market, the answer is clear: <i>anything the market will bare</i>. If I so desire, part of the price I demand can be secrecy. If my audience is not willing to meet my price, they have no right to hear my performance. In a sense, I have prevented reproduction of my performance, not by the skill and grace of my voice (trust me, there isn't any), but by the contractual arrangement under which it was given. <br />
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This method continues to function if the intellectual work is provided in a fixed form.. be it written on paper, painted on a canvas, etched into a sculpture, or encoded in a computer program. If I require the purchaser to maintain secrecy, or even just refrain from making copies, then I have a legal recourse if the contract is subsequently broken.<br />
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One may object on semantic grounds to the use of the word "purchase" when referring to a contract of this sort. While it is clear that the purchaser of a performance is not buying the performer, it is less clear that the purchaser of a sculpture which comes with restrictions on its use, is indeed "purchasing" the sculpture. If it helps, one may reasonably say that the sculpture isn't being purchased at all - it is only being rented, and comes with a rental agreement that includes some restrictions. This would be a fair characterization.<br />
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We can now anticipate what will happen if the contract is violated. As it is absurd for a sucker who buys a rented car to expect to be able to keep it, so too any receiver would be amiss to believe he could keep a copy of our rented sculpture. His grudge at having his copy removed from him would belong to he who sold it to him. As in all property disputes, a claim of title passed from seller to buyer is required to prove legitimacy. Any receiver wanting to keep his copy would present such a title, allowing the trace back to the original contract violation by the ultimate culprit, no matter how many copies were made.<br />
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Under such a <i>Liaise-fair copyright system</i>, the costs of enforcing a copyright belong with the owner of the original work. However, just as with all other contracts, the courts are at his disposal to enforce his correct claims.<br />
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This is not to imply that such a system would necessarily be successful. It is simply a given of free societies that contracts are voluntary. Upon reading a contract with a copyright clause such as this one, a trader may choose to seek goods from elsewhere. The success or failure of such a system as this one would be decided by the state of the market in which it is attempted. This is as it should be.QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-29272641664747016212011-12-16T10:26:00.000+10:002011-12-16T10:26:41.973+10:00A Little Ray Of SunshineWell it seems someone managed to sneak into the commercial crew office at NASA and smack them with a clue stick. Today <a href="http://www.hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=34477">they announced</a> that there will be a third round of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Act_Agreement">Space Act Agreements</a> to maximize the $406M awarded for the program in FY2012.<br />
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That's the way NASA sees it anyway. What this actually means is that the partners which are selected - and we're told they desire to select more than one - will be free to pursue their own goals without the burdensome oversight of the growing commercial crew office. It means that companies like SpaceX can design their Dragon capsule to service both NASA's needs and the needs of other companies like <a href="http://stratolaunch.com/">the recently announced Statolaunch</a> without asking <a href="http://www.gameskidsplay.net/games/mental_games/mother_may_i.html">Mother May I?</a><br />
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I can't wait to see the milestones.QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-34852790091875495902011-11-21T14:21:00.001+10:002011-11-24T13:00:52.271+10:00The Case Against SpaceXAs an advocate of commercial spaceflight I can understand why many find it difficult to write objectively about SpaceX - which is arguably the poster child of this nascent industry. As a result, the majority of negative commentary about our darling comes from a horrible "journalist" like Andy Pasztor at The Wall Street Journal or a traditional aerospace mouth-piece like Loren Thompson at Forbes. An occasional coherent comment on a blog or space forum may be accepted by the space community as containing a nugget of truth, but these are easily filed in the don't-think-too-hard-about basket and forgotten. I've taken to thinking about the criticism I have heard, and after some long and rather arduous discussion with these critics I've processed it through what I hope are reasonable and constructive filtering. Here's the finished package.<br />
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<b>The Circuitous Route To Reuse</b><br />
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Since SpaceX first announced the <a href="http://www.spacex.com/falcon9.php">Falcon 9</a> they have claimed it is designed to be reusable, but they've yet to demonstrate how. For a number of years the answer has, apparently, been parachutes. Both the successful flights of the Falcon 9 have carried them and for a while we were told they had been deployed. Gwynne Shotwell, speaking at the Space Access conference this year <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/09/falcon-rockets-to-land-on-thei.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news">was quoted</a> "We have recovered pieces of the first stages." They were breaking up during re-entry, not giving the parachutes time to deploy.<br />
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Most recently, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSF81yjVbJE">SpaceX has announced with fanfare</a> the new overall approach with pretty graphics and a funky soundtrack. Clearly, they are still a long way away from a working vehicle. I asked <a href="http://archived.thespaceshow.com/shows/1653-BWB-2011-11-14.mp3">Gary Hudson on The Space Show</a> to provide us an educated guess at how fast the Falcon 9 may be going at first stage separation, and at what altitude - the kind of trivial information required to even visualize how such a vehicle could function. He declined. <br />
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While it is certainly true that SpaceX's engineers have a lot more information and no doubt have some idea how it is supposed to work, I find it more than a little disconcerting that arguably one of the most seasoned RLV veterans around today isn't able to speculate. At the same time, a new test program dubbed <a href="http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/09/24/spacex-is-developing-a-reusable-vtvl-rocket/">Grasshopper</a> was announced to test vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) which is a critical part of the new non-parachute approach to reuse.<br />
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If that sounds familiar, it should. A subscale VTVL demonstrator has been considered the starting point for this kind of RLV ever since the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC-X">DC-X program</a> back in the early 1990s. More recently, <a href="http://armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home">Armadillo Aerospace</a> and <a href="http://masten-space.com/">Masten Space Systems</a> have been following this path, with considerably less money to play with. It's 2011 and it seems like SpaceX is starting all over again with reuse.<br />
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<b>The Funding Crunch</b><br />
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There's another pathway to reuse: put wings on it. So far, we haven't seen any indication that SpaceX is pursuing that route but, then again, we saw no indication they were pursing VTVL a year ago either. A regularly advocated way to maintain revenue while pursing this route is to woo suborbital markets such as scientific research and tourism. This approach is best exemplified by <a href="http://xcor.com/">XCOR</a> and, to a lesser extent <a href="http://www.virgingalactic.com/">Virgin Galactic</a> (as they still seem to have no orbital aspirations). So far, there is no indication that SpaceX is doing that either, but who knows what the future might bring. If the current suborbital providers are successful it may boost investor confidence so much that SpaceX begins to take an interest.<br />
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Instead, SpaceX intends to fund their RLV development by selling launch services on the expendable configuration of the Falcon 9. This is good in a number of ways, most notably that it gets into the orbital launch business early, establishing a record of success (hopefully), and has given SpaceX the rocket engine and other components necessary to even start thinking about making a reusable vehicle. <br />
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The alternative to both of these paths is to simply have enough up-front funding to buy rocket engines and components from existing providers. For example, the RL-10 from Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is considered one of the most reliable rocket engine families available with variants that have been tested rigorously for reuse. Many single-stage to orbit (SSTO) designs of the 1990s just assumed this engine, and the cost, most likely because it was used in the DC-X. SpaceX didn't have this option because their funding was meager by aerospace standards.<br />
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<b>The Mars Dream</b><br />
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Elon Musk's plans to send humans to Mars are simply not realistic. Or, at least, that's what I'd say if I had any idea of the details. From all the times I've heard the dream I've managed to garner that basically he's adherent of Bob Zubrin's vision of men braving the perils of space to explore the red planet, with families of immigrants following close behind. This is complete with the heavy lift fetish. <br />
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Despite decades of examples that heavy lift can never be cheap, SpaceX has redefined the idea by claiming their upcoming <a href="http://www.spacex.com/falcon_heavy.php">Falcon Heavy</a> launch vehicle will break the $1000/lb barrier and usher in a new age of cheap access to space. The aspirations for even bigger launch vehicles (presumably with even cheaper prices per lb) run deep. <br />
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Advocates of staging propellant in orbit, assembling and refueling deep space exploration vehicles which are launched on more modest sized rockets should not be surprised if they find heavy lift advocates counting SpaceX in their camp - but they often are. This defiles the traditional battle lines, with RLV advocates more commonly coming down on the side of propellant depot advocates, if not simply because one of the best uses for an RLV is filling propellant depots with propellants.<br />
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As such, it seems that the dream of Mars at SpaceX is essentially <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct">Mars Direct</a> with a single heavy lift launch vehicle throwing a Dragon-sized capsule, with stir-crazy explorers, directly to Mars escape velocity. <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730804576317493923993056.html">Zubrin has written</a> of such a plan, claiming a Mars landing by 2016 is possible using the Falcon Heavy. It looks good on a cocktail napkin but the same old hand waving is required to shoo away the issues with those pesky human factors like radiation protection and artificial gravity generation.<br />
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<b>NASA Assimilation</b><br />
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Practical and profitable space activities are much more effective for exciting public support than dreams of Mars exploration, but it is clear NASA is not going to industrialize space - it threatens the status quo - and today NASA remains SpaceX's greatest customer.<br />
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The goal of SpaceX is human spaceflight, and the greatest repository of knowledge about human spaceflight is NASA. As such, it would appear obvious that getting NASA to help you to fly humans safely is a good idea. The way to do that is with Space Act Agreements. This is what SpaceX did under the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Orbital_Transportation_Services">COTS</a> program, and later under the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCDev">CCDev</a> program.. and they got paid for the privilege. As a result, the Dragon spacecraft will soon be fully qualified as safe for human habitation on orbit as it will be berthed to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_StationS">ISS</a> and have astronauts inside it.<br />
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The problem is that NASA is a precocious customer. They know what they want, they think they know even better than you do how to make it, and they feel no guilt about changing their mind halfway through the project. As such, Space Act Agreements just totally grind NASA's gears. They don't have enough <i>control</i>.<br />
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NASA money is like heroin.. once they start taking it, most people find it very hard to stop. There's a dependence that has grown between NASA and SpaceX, and although it is obviously a love-hate relationship, it's going to be very hard for SpaceX to let go.. but, inevitably, they must. The current needs of NASA are very different to the long term goals of SpaceX.<br />
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<b>Promises, Promises, and Delays</b><br />
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SpaceX promises a lot more than they deliver. Over time those promises have changed, with the old promises being forgotten, and new promises being made with more showmanship. Failure is to be expected, with plans changing in response to the lessons learned, but doing so requires clear acknowledgement that there <i>was</i> a failure. <br />
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In September this year <a href="http://spacenews.com/civil/spacex-acknowledges-falcon-engine-anomaly-during-latest-launch.html">it was revealed</a> that the second flight of the Falcon 9 had experienced an engine anomaly. While it later became apparent that the issue was minor and not unexpected, the immediate response by the space media was to pounce on what could be a hot story. Quite a number of people I talk to have expressed dismay at the way SpaceX handled the situation, including the lawsuit against Joseph Fragola earlier in the year. While I certainly don't subscribe to the view that SpaceX should be anywhere near as open as NASA with their proprietary information, I do agree that it is indicative of a deeper problem with their engineering culture.<br />
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Oh, and we're still waiting for a Falcon 9 flight in 2011.. seems it isn't going to happen.<br />
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<b>The Business Case</b><br />
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Now I'd like to talk about the elephant in the room. Fundamentally, SpaceX has a shoddy business case which is best described as a house of cards.. that they're still trying to play poker with.. and there's dogs at the table, and they're smoking cigars! Yeah, metaphor. <br />
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The launch business is about volume. If you can get your launch rate up then you can charge less for each launch because the fixed costs will be spread over more launches. SpaceX hasn't done that yet, but they're already charging less than anyone else in the business. This is a common criticism of SpaceX, which most of us in the advocate community love to retort by saying something like: Elon says SpaceX has been <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20059869-52.html">profitable</a> every year since 2007!<br />
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Okay, that's great. How? There's really only two possible answers: NASA's money, or booking fees. If it is just the former then SpaceX is destined to become just another NASA lackey. So we prefer to think it is the latter - but that means they're living on their seed corn. Eventually they're going to have to <i>actually fly these payloads</i> or <a href="http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/04/20/avanti-wins-deposit-refund-spacex/">give back the deposits</a>. So the acid test will come when SpaceX is called upon to launch <i>and</i> turn a profit in the same year. At that time we will discover if SpaceX is getting the launch rate they require to amortize the fixed costs such that their revenues exceed their expenses. Only then will we know if their prices were realistic.<br />
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Suppose they're not. What options does SpaceX have then? Obviously, they can't rise their prices much - that will put them in the same market as the existing providers which have a much better track record (and much better ties to the biggest customers in the government). SpaceX is competing on price, so they will have no choice but to reduce their expenses or <i>increase their flight rate</i>. Reuse is their strategy for doing both of these approaches simultaneously.<br />
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There's only one problem: the inherent assumption that there is a market for cheap lift, and that this market can come online fast enough to provide the demand to both amortize their fixed costs and fund their reuse development. In the space community we have a name for this kind of faith: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHTsQ9qePrQ#t=5">if you build it they will come</a> [no really, watch it!]. <br />
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If you ask Elon Musk why he is building something which is totally illogical, he will give you the story about the Mars dream. While I don't fully subscribe to the space-based solar power vision, preferring the human tended maintenance of geostationary orbital satellites variety of industrializing space, at least they have some practical idea of what might be economically valuable activities to do in space.<br />
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SpaceX is, unquestionably, a bold faced shot in the dark. It is going all-in on the boat hoping that the river will give you a straight flush. It's ballsy madness, and that's why we love them.QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-40472688614785232592011-10-27T12:06:00.001+10:002011-10-27T15:30:36.593+10:00Why Commercial Crew Is DoomedNASA's Commercial Crew Development program, or "CCDev", has been a resounding success - and that's why they're not doing it anymore. <br />
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Inspired by the earlier Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, or "COTS", and funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 stimulus to the tune of $50M, CCDev came out swinging in 2010 with five US companies producing impressive results on what was essentially bonus pay to NASA. As such, it was no surprise when a further $270M was provided for the second round, or "CCDev2". This round is now coming to a close, with continuing achievement from US companies with minimal oversight from NASA. Also, a number of "unfunded" CCDev agreements have been made which receive only use of NASA facilities and expertise - they too have been successful.<br />
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With all this success, it might seem strange that NASA is dropping the CCDev program - but they are. They intend to move on to a "procurement" process where a number of companies will be required to submit designs, to be reviewed by NASA, with an eventually "down select" to one or possibly two approved providers for the next phase. The Commercial Crew Program, or "CCP", requested funding for the next five years is $850M/year or $4250M total, but at this time it appears unlikely that they will get more than $500M in the first year.<br />
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No, that's not a misprint. Here's a graph to hammer home the point.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5l1hwdAJ7v5JGNRtg8CFVqBCLoXCziFG33rgQEum70wsT2lYgcwVxTMe4njYFJrYW9Se4fLE1OvaplsK_SPsMPXHdGa1_Tgg8su2dFIHiQd3_Und76p-T4-AwZ4e8MTSclFXZ/s1600/ccfunding.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="337" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5l1hwdAJ7v5JGNRtg8CFVqBCLoXCziFG33rgQEum70wsT2lYgcwVxTMe4njYFJrYW9Se4fLE1OvaplsK_SPsMPXHdGa1_Tgg8su2dFIHiQd3_Und76p-T4-AwZ4e8MTSclFXZ/s400/ccfunding.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Why the massive jump? The simple answer is given by acting program director Phil McAlister's comments at the 2011 International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight - the commercial crew office has grown to 250 people, many of which are spending their days writing requirements and regulations and have been for "the last two years". In the near future, a number of these staff will be "embedded" into the companies doing their initial design work. This massive increase in oversight comes with a switch from Space Act Agreements - where NASA pays the partner only after agreed upon milestones have been met - to Federal Acquisition Regulation contracts. Although it is increasingly obvious that "partners" are becoming contractors, and NASA is taking control over the industry, McAlister continues to downplay the change, stating that it is "just rhetoric from people who don't want to engage in debate".<br />
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Well here's some debate. Fundamentally, the COTS and CCDev rounds were about <i>partnership</i>. NASA was not in control and this was a good thing - for the industry, for NASA and for the taxpayer. Yes, Space Act Agreements have been proven to work, but it's not just about that - it's about who has <i>control</i> in this relationship. Under the COTS/CCDev program, a partner could say no. They could say they weren't interested in pursuing a proposed milestone and NASA had to negotiate. The pay-on-performance standard encouraged partners to only take on milestones they knew they could achieve and, with good faith, NASA had clearly defined. Those milestones represented where the goals of the partner matched the goals of NASA - which many don't seem to understand are necessarily different.<br />
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During a congressional testimony today, where Elon Musk was a witness for the first time (see <a href="http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/nasa/will-congress-abandon-private-space-6530564">this summary in PopMech</a>), Congressman George Miller (D) asked two questions which insisted that eventually NASA will have just the one provider for commercial crew. Later, Congresswoman Donna Edwards (D) expressed concern that NASA is creating a US monopoly on commercial crew. Setting aside that these people are supposed to be telling NASA what to do, not meekly asking for a forecast of the future, the NASA representative - William Gerstenmaier - essentially agreed with the assessment, stating a lack of funding to support two providers. <br />
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Oh, did I not mention that? Yes, NASA thinks nearly five billion dollars isn't sufficient to get commercial crew providers to a point where they can start actually paying them for seats. How much exactly they're going to pay them for seats is anyone's guess. SpaceX will happily tell you that they can do $20M/seat, but that assumes 28 seats per year. Which could mean anything because NASA can't actually tell you how many seats they want. NASA at least wants the price of seats on US commercial crew providers to be below the price of seats on Soyuz, but they seem to have no clue anymore why that is. As such, this has encouraged a number of hilarious Congress-does-math moments where the representative will add together the cost of development, price per seat by estimated number of seats, get a number which is bigger than just continuing to buy seats from the Russians and wonder how this is going to save NASA money. Hint: <i>it's not</i>. That's not the goal. The goal is to <i>kickstart the industry</i> by having NASA as an anchor tenant. The only reason to care about the Soyuz price at all is to <i>ensure the US commercial crew providers are competitive in the international market.</i> This should be obvious but NASA/Congress are stocked with morons.<br />
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Here's a prediction.. you heard it here first.. that whole lower-than-Soyuz-price thing will go away real soon. I think this will not be the last way NASA breaks the former-partners making them uncompetitive. Ultimately, the product that NASA wants - the mythical space transportation system that will keep the precious astronauts safe on their purposeless jaunts to "occupy" the ISS, maintaining international relations and supervising ants sorting tiny screws in space - is incompatible with actual productive use of human spaceflight. When the commercial markets fail to materialize, the government can say "we told you so!" and essentially nationalize the industry, as they did with launch vehicles.<br />
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Briefly, how was it ever supposed to work? The vision, for those who can remember it, was for NASA to <i>simply buy tickets</i> on commercial crew transportation providers. It was supposed that a promise to buy some number of seats per year would have been enough to encourage private development of the vehicles. This of course was naive, as a promise from NASA is about as bankable as a promise from Congress - that is, worthless. So instead, some money was thrown over the wall with a minimum amount of whatcha-gunna-use-it-for? The hope being that private investment would come to the table. This worked! So the sensible next step is to keep doing the thing that works.<br />
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<b>Part II: The Market</b><br />
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What would happen if NASA continued to encourage the industry to develop, instead of embarking on a premature "procurement" process for their own piddling little needs? The answer is glorious: <i>multiple</i> commercial crew transportation providers <i>racing</i> to be the first available to offer seats. Actual price <i>competition</i> and ongoing <i>innovation</i>. This would open new markets and the virtuous cycle would open up the entire <i>frontier</i>.<br />
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But... so many people can't remember this vision - if they ever knew it at all. We regularly hear the proud proclamation that the government is the only "market" for human spaceflight. Ok, maybe they're willing to grant that there's a market for a few "overly rich tourists", yes, they really use that word, and maybe there's some other countries that would like to have a space program but don't have the wherewithal to slap together their own big-rocket-and-capsule program, but that's just icing on the cake. Even the commercial crew transportation providers seem to be ignorant of the actual market which is out there waiting to be tapped. <i>Even Elon Musk seems to be ignorant of the real market</i>.. there, I said it. Talk of colonizing Mars someday is great, but that's not where the money is <i>right now</i>.<br />
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I can hear the space solar power people screaming from the balcony. They know the answer! And while I appreciate their enthusiasm, I think they're wrong. Someday, space solar power will be operational and human spaceflight to maintain those massive solar arrays will be necessary, but that day is not here. We should keep them firmly in mind and think about their needs when making decisions about on-orbit capabilities, but right now they're still on the ground.<br />
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No, the market I'm talking about is the one space market that has consistently made profits since the beginning of the space age. In 2005 PanAmSat launched the Galaxy 15 telecommunications satellite, its ownership was later transferred to Intelsat. In April of 2010 control was lost and the satellite starting drifting, causing significant hazard to other satellites. More importantly, the satellite was out of commission and losing money every day. An estimate of the loss of the satellite, was required for accounting purposes and a figure of around $4194M was given, or ~$400M per year for the expected remaining lifespan.<br />
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This gives us some idea of the acceptable price for a satellite "rescue" mission out to geostationary Earth orbit. It's hard to imagine NASA screwing up commercial crew so much that such a mission could be made unaffordable by US suppliers, but if seats are available on the Russian Soyuz - as they will be when NASA finally switches to commercial crew - the inability of US human spaceflight providers to beat the Soyuz price will suddenly become important.<br />
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Much more interesting, I think, is to consider the current SpaceX pricetag of a Falcon 9 / crew Dragon flight, upgraded to the Falcon Heavy, and before any of the price reductions promised by reusability.. let's say, $200M. At this price it is not inconceivable to imagine sending a crew out annually to service a number of satellites in a constellation. When we consider that routine maintenance has never been done on communication satellites, it becomes obvious that extended lifetimes can be achieved that would more than offset the cost.<br />
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In short, NASA isn't the market for human spaceflight, it isn't even the icing, it's the free frogurt - don't eat it.QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-94666154489339112011-09-22T21:49:00.002+10:002011-09-26T14:04:37.013+10:00This Is Why Space Settlement Is Important<p>It's the end of civilization.. or so some would have us believe. If they don't get their wish, they intend to take it.. by force. Humanity going into space isn't about leaving them behind, but wouldn't it be nice?</p><br />
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vNGEK6YYCxA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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<p>With my most humble apologies to Jeff Greason.</p><br />
<p>As a follow up I posted this <a href="http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2011/9/24/2269/96539">over at kuro5hin</a>.</p>QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-19683761536534010842011-09-20T08:01:00.003+10:002011-09-20T08:02:22.290+10:00Cancelled Crew Transportation Systems<iframe width="380" height="280" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vGQPE_kyw5Y" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28823501.post-7929107968840427682011-08-30T15:10:00.000+10:002011-08-30T15:10:29.433+10:00EML1 BuildupToday's space launch market is used to place satellites - commercial, scientific and military - into orbit, with the majority going to the geostationary orbit. In all such cases, the launch vehicle does not perform the final maneuver to circularize the orbit. The satellite is dropped off and circularizes its own orbit using on-board propellant. This is a significant delta-v change of about 1.6 km/s, and the remaining fuel is used to maintain the orbit, usually for 25 years or more.<br />
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Launch to Geostationary Transfer Orbit, circularize using on-board propellant. This is the standard model for how satellites are deployed into space. It is a mature process which has served us well for decades. However, when planning an exploration architecture, it has always been treated as irrelevant.<br />
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Here is a list of some current (and one near future) launch vehicles, their listed throw mass to GTO and the calculated mass that can be placed into the first Earth-Moon Lagrange point using a 312 second specific impulse storable propellant thruster (GTO to EML1 delta-v is 1.27 km/s).<br />
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<table><tr><th>Launch vehicle</th><th>Mass to GTO</th><th>Mass to EML1</th></tr>
<tr><td>Falcon 9</td><td>4680 kg</td><td>3090 kg</td></tr>
<tr><td>H-IIB 304</td><td>8000 kg</td><td>5282 kg</td></tr>
<tr><td>Long March 3B/E</td><td>5500 kg</td><td>3632 kg</td></tr>
<tr><td>Proton</td><td>6360 kg</td><td>4199 kg</td></tr>
<tr><td>Atlas V 551</td><td>8700 kg</td><td>5745 kg</td></tr>
<tr><td>Ariane 5ECA</td><td>10050 kg</td><td>6636 kg</td></tr>
<tr><td>Delta IV-H</td><td>12980 kg</td><td>8571 kg</td></tr>
<tr><td>Falcon Heavy</td><td>19000 kg</td><td>12546 kg</td></tr>
</table><br />
What should be obvious is that there is quite a healthy international stable of launch vehicle providers, and they're all geared up for sending payloads to GTO. What is perhaps not obvious is that by going from GTO to EML1 I am seriously cheating myself. I don't mind because throwing to a lunar transfer orbit is something all of these vehicles can also do and, in all cases, the subsequent transfer to EML1 will be less than a transfer from GTO. As such, we can accept the numbers above as accurate, even if they are overly conservative.<br />
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So what does this mean? Suppose we want to land a payload on the surface of the Moon. One option is to simply pick the biggest one of these rockets and fly it directly to lunar orbit and start our descent. The total delta-v for such a mission is likely to be about 3.2 km/s, which means we can land a maximum of 6676 kg. <br />
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Suppose, instead, we fly to EML1 and pick up fuel. The table above indicates we can put a maximum of 12546 kg to EML1, and the delta-v from EML1 to the lunar surface is 2.52 km/s, so we need 16043 kg of fuel to make the trip. Because we're using storable propellants, this can be delivered over a long time using whichever provider offers the best price, or over a short time by engaging as many providers as become available.<br />
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Although this is just a rough analysis, it shows that we can land twice as big payloads by building up EML1 with propellant, without the need for any new launch vehicles, new technologies or even new ways of doing business, and we could start doing it right now.<br />
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QuantumGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336493213317053535noreply@blogger.com6