Some more Parabolic Arc comments:
1. No “commercial” human-crewed platform will ever exist in LEO as there is no ROI. Notice I did not refer to it as a “space station.” I generally only do that to mock the space station to nowhere. A true space station would have two features; first a massive cosmic ray water shield and second tether generated artificial gravity. Lunar water (lifted with around 23 times less energy than from Earth) and a wet workshop (already stressed for max Q and thus the ideal structure for artificial gravity). Until we have a future iteration of the SLS lifting a fat upper stage workshop and semi-expendable robot landers bringing water up we will not see real space stations or an end to dosing and debilitation. Half a mile long mutli-thousand ton spinning masses in Near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) or a frozen Low Lunar Orbit (LLO) make far more sense than the ISS going around in circles a couple hundred miles up at 4 billion a year. The ISS needs to end.
2. The shiny has blown up 4 times in a row and it is highly unlikely any human will ever ride in one. I predict it will be scrapped.
3. SLS is going to the Moon and Artemis is going to start landing humans. It will be with one goal in mind: a permanent human lunar presence. Whether a sometimes-inhabited human-crewed platform to replace the ISS (can’t be dropping 4 billion a year to go in circles in more than one place- not going to happen) or a Moonbase. If they find a suitable lava tube that would be ideal.
I will be a “happy soul” when the pernicious influence of NewSpace finally disappears and we start expanding into the solar system. Never going to happen with these billionaire hobbyists making it all a farce. Only a state-sponsored program is going to work.
There is always a chance Space Solar Power by way of lunar resources becomes a major part of the Green New Deal. I believe almost anything can happen after the last 4 years of crazy. Anything except NewSpace being anything but a stumbling block.
The Moon should have had dozens of robot exploration missions over the years instead of wasting money and effort on Mars. The Mars mafia has set back humankind expanding into the solar system by a couple decades at least. Bob Zubrin, Elon Musk, and all the rest of the fools promoting that rock as the next destination have done a great deal of unrealized damage.
If the Moon had been the focus we would likely have several Lava Tubes the size of small cities located and millions of tons of ice ready to be exploited. Instead we flushed billions down the drain on the stupidity that is Mars.
- Robert G. Oler Richard Seaton • why? why would we have lava tubes full of cities what would they do
- Richard Seaton Factories making things like space solar power satellites, massive alloy discs for pulse propulsion spaceships, the first miles in diameter artificial hollow spinning moon sections, etc. Launched into space using 20 to 25 times less energy than from Earth. You know, what we should have been doing a couple decades ago.
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Quantum “unconditionally” secured communications make human-crewed combat aircraft obsolete. The most expensive DOD program in history- the F-35- is a boondoggle and the ultimate expression of “pork.” The most incredibly expensive waste of taxpayer dollars is not this single weapon system though, it is the replacement of legacy systems now underway to the tune of around 2 trillion dollars (adjusted for inflation over the next decade or so).
New ICBM’s, new missile submarines, new stealth bombers, proliferation and weaponization of weapon systems in Earth orbit , new anti-ballistic weapon systems (that will not work due to simple physics) etc. etc.
The best path is to move the nuclear arsenals of the superpowers to human-crewed spaceships months away in deep space. This would also serve to protect the Earth from impact threats and also help along Space Solar Power (using lunar factories) as the solution to the climate change crisis. All part of a Green New Space Deal.
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Inflatable space stations are one of the stupidest ideas ever. It speaks volumes that the NewSpace fans are so gullible and deluded they actually believed this concept appropriate in any way. It is absolutely one of the best ways to get people killed in space. This cheap and nasty gimmick was shouted from the mountaintops as the next big thing while the wet workshop, the ultimate reusability scheme, adaptable to cosmic ray water shielding and tether generated artificial gravity, was mocked and denigrated as somehow antiquated and obsolete. Bizarre.
There is no cheap.
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“There is no scalable space travel industry without a spaceplane,” said SNC’s Chairwoman and owner Eren Ozmen.”
There is no space travel “industry.” Like so much of NewSpace, it is a build-it-and-they-will-come fantasy. The spaceplane and inflatable space station are both bad ideas.
This was the conclusion of Phil Bono in the early 1960’s; ” – a winged vehicle made no sense as a space ship. If required, a ballistic vehicle could divert laterally from the re-entry path by burning rocket fuel to change the orbital inclination. This required far less mass than dragging wings to orbit and back. Getting to the final conclusion took several design iterations – It all came together in ROMBUS, Bono’s 1964 design for a Nova-class booster. This introduced the innovative concept of using an aerospike plug-nozzle for propulsion to orbit, then using the same plug-nozzle as a heat shield for re-entry. The engine, in a low-thrust mode, created an aerodynamic sheath. Hydrogen cooled the base before being burned in the engine.” http://www.astronautix.com/…
Ice on the Moon 