QuantumG's Blog

NASA recently announced their Gateway station for beyond LEO exploration to the wider press. This is not news to the space advocate community 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 a part of their plan or something which challenges it. 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 could see the Gateway station as the answer to this criticism. That would be a good thing - whether you like the Space Launch System or not. The reason is simple: there's nothing else. Up to now, the plan h...

Were you absent when the suborbital tourism movement was being coined? Did you miss the philosophy lessons? 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. 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. 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. 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. Some say they ...

Dear Dr David Livingston and the Space Cynics , I would like to submit a Walking Eagle Award nomination for the Ad Astra Rocket company for their "Human Transportation to Mars" concept . 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. 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 neve...

I have previously written about why space settlement is important , but just how important is it? In a recent interview Rand Simberg comments: "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." 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? At a recent hearing of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology , Rep E.B. Johnson (D-Texas) answers: "So far the only potential non-NASA market that NASA has identified for Congress are super-wealthy space tourists, and no...

The 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. 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. 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 my 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 an...

Well it seems someone managed to sneak into the commercial crew office at NASA and smack them with a clue stick. Today they announced that there will be a third round of Space Act Agreements to maximize the $406M awarded for the program in FY2012. 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 the recently announced Statolaunch without asking Mother May I? I can't wait to see the milestones.

As 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. The Circuitous Route To Reuse Since SpaceX first announced the Falcon 9 they have claimed it is designed to be reusable, bu...

NASA's Commercial Crew Development program, or "CCDev", has been a resounding success - and that's why they're not doing it anymore. 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. 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 "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? With my most humble apologies to Jeff Greason. As a follow up I posted this over at kuro5hin .

Today'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. 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. 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 3...

There's so many things packed up in this clip. For a start, the House isn't trying to cut the James Web Space Telescope (JWST) because "we don't have the money" or to save money or for any budgetary reason what-so-ever. The House is trying to cut JWST because the Government Accountability Office reported that NASA, and the contractor, have been mismanaging this program. They reported this three different times and required reports on what NASA was going to do about it - NASA didn't provide those reports. The House even said that the reason they were looking to cut JWST was to send a message that ignoring oversight will not be tolerated. Does that mean the JWST isn't important? No.. no-one is saying that. Everyone agrees that JWST is important and that it will give results of significant scientific discoveries should it ever be completed and launched.. but when will that be? Within a two week period - after the House suggested cutting the budget ...

The solution to so many space logistics problems is: use a bigger rocket. Propellant depots allow you to add another solution: use more rockets. Now, for some reason, many people who are advocates of propellant depots object to just using existing space storable propellants because that would mean you'd need to launch more mass than if you used cryogenic propellants. Well, so what? More launches - that's a good thing! We don't need technology development to make propellant depots work. They already work.. we already have one in orbit! Suppose you want to send 100 tons to Mars transfer orbit. You need either 236 tons of storable propellant or 144 tons of cryogenic propellant (and that's being overly generous to cryogenics). Instead of 5 Falcon Heavy launches you now only need 3. So what? How much is that worth? So, ya know, NASA has selected companies to study storing cryogenic propellants in space .. and that's great. Technology development, in general, is...

I've written previously about non-rotating artificial gravity in Earth orbit. After recently watching this stinker I broke out the code I use to figure out gravity gradient effects. Surprisingly, this seems pretty good: Altitude Mass Gravity LEO Station 300 km 273 tons 0.999 g GEO Station 35786 km 30 tons 0.38 g Of course, this is a much longer tether than in the film.. but hey, Danny Baldwin is in it - he doesn't make good movies. Anyway, the high station could be an ISS-style module with airlock and docking ports for satellite servicing vehicles. The low station would be a true permanently inhabited facility where people can live for years at a time without fear of bone mass deterioration or the other negative effects of zero gravity. To maximize space we may be tempted to use inflatable Bigelow modules, but we have to consider how they will behave in full gravity. The only sticking point left is radiation. On the LEO station crews have much less exposure...

Lately I've attracted a number of annoying comments. As such anonymous comments are henceforth unwelcome. I apologize to everyone who commented anonymously previously without being annoying but Blogger provides me with no other means of sending the jerks packing.

Did you hear? The MPCV is crossing the country. You can go take your children to see the *cough* future of human spaceflight. Thanks to Rand Simberg for all the help with this video.

I was asked to comment on this article . I think Greg’s replies have done a better job than I ever could have in proving the futility of such comments. According to him, the world consists of the established and successful NASA and the young and inexperienced "New Space Boys" and no-one else. Inexplicably the Boeing corporation exists in both camps. The "whisper campaign" against Constellation, which no sensible person would deny existed, is absurdly attributed to "New Space Boys" in an effort to rewrite history – it was clearly NASA civil servants, contractors and other malcontents under the DIRECT banner who led that effort, advocating a Shuttle-derived launch vehicle over Griffin's Ares launch family. If the civil war inside NASA is to be divided into two camps at all, those are the battle lines which have been firmly established. But like all bipolar characterizations, this is also too simplistic. The enormity of Greg's worldview is jus...

Over the last year the space advocate community has splintered into two major groups in answering the question "where should we go next?" Moon First or Mars First . This division was present in the Review of Human Spaceflight (aka Augustine) committee's final report in late 2009, with the surprising conclusion that there isn't the funds for either, suggesting a number of intermediate destinations first - including asteroids. However, as few people consider asteroids to be truly interesting destinations for the human utilization of space ( except me! ), the debate rages on. Many Moon First advocates are "Mars Next" advocates while most Mars First advocates are "Moon Again?" detractors. The former claim that Mars exploration will benefit from lunar exploration, particularly in experience and risk reduction, and perhaps the procurement of propellant. The latter claim that lunar exploration is just a distraction and want to avoid the risk of be...

For anyone who wonders why I still love Bob Zubrin, watch this video: It's the passion. For anyone who needs a horrific demonstration of closed world thinking, combined with a little intellectual elitism, read on .

Here in Australia we have a shameless tradition of claiming celebrities who are not quite Australian. The best example of this is probably Mel Gibson - back when anyone wanted to claim him - who wasn't actually born in Australia, he just lived here for a portion of his childhood. It is generally agreed that anyone who was born in New Zealand can never be considered an Australian ( just kidding kiwis, we love you ) but if they're famous they're automatically Australian. The common joke is that any celebrity who so much as flies over Australia will be offered citizenship. Something like the Australian celebrity phenomena happens when people start talking about NASA spinoffs, here's how it works: a speaker creates the implication that civil servant NASA scientists developed some new technology which was subsequently "spun off" to form a commercial product. The most common example of this is Velcro, but there are plenty of others. Whenever you dig into thes...