Terran Space Academy has a YouTube video called “Super Launch System” that is pretty amazing. The points made in the video lead me to the conclusion, again, that a pair of the New Glenn boosters are likely the perfect replacement for the SLS SRB’s. They might even be able to make a crossfeed feature of some kind work well. The video proposes putting the core stage on top of the spacex Super Heavy but….in my view the New Glenns would work better.
If the Blue Origin boosters are adapted then mounting the RS-25’s in a returnable module that separates from the core stage would make SLS what the Space Shuttle was originally conceived as; A Saturn V class launch system that sacrifices one big tank on the altar of the rocket equation and reuses everything else. It was, and is, an excellent concept.
Considering the mass that could be landed on the lunar surface, without a tanker fleet, this is likely the best possible path.
“And together Blue Origin and Sierra Space have the Orbital Reef, which is another major project. And it has barely begun. And they may be working on this for the next 20 years. It’s a big deal.”
In my view, Dream Chaser is not happening because Space Planes are a failed concept. They sacrifice too much mass, have no effective abort systems, and it is as simple as that. The escape tower/capsule-parachuting-into-the-ocean is just too good; a nearly perfect concept. Nothing can take people into and return them from space as safely. It is sad the two LEO taxis bought with billions of taxpayer dollars have inferior hypergolic escape systems instead of towers.
As for “Orbital Reef”, the ISS required 3 billion a year to maintain and that has gone up to 4. Nobody except the government has that kind of money and the government subsidizing billionaire tourists is not going to happen. It is amazing they have gotten away with it on the ISS but actually building a tourist station based on government subsidizing ultra-rich tourists….not going to happen. LEO is a dead end and has been since 1968 when Apollo 8 escaped Earth’s gravity. Megaconstellations were a bad idea and will fail so, in my view, Space Solar Power by way of lunar resources is the only viable future project. We are going back to the Moon.
Blue Origin may find itself with nothing to do with it’s New Glenn if megaconstellations are outlawed. And make no mistake, what is happening in LEO is going to hit a critical mass soon enough and I suspect everything going on up there is going to change. The dot com bomb comes to mind. I think a pair of those New Glenn boosters would be good replacements for the SLS SRB’s. That is what I am hoping for.
Get used to the terminology being used: conjunction squalls
“When they sync up, you have the perfect storm: they’re in the same orbit plane but counter-rotating, crossing each other twice an orbit, again and again,”
This is only the beginning. The disasters will occur over and over with increasing frequency until they have to pull the plug on the entire concept of megaconstellations. And they knew if from the beginning.
“It’s not the government versus the private sector. That’s a silly way to think about it,” he said. “Where we need speed and innovation, we need to leverage the private sector.”
That is classic corruption speaking and the megaconstellation disaster unfolding.
The doubletalk is essentially about removing regulation so corporations can do whatever they want regardless of the consequences.
Incredible that after over a century of this the public is still largely stupid gullible prey for Neoliberal psychopaths.
Once it is seen SLS can put dozens of tons on the lunar surface at a time, WITHOUT a dozen tanker launches to enable that one payload, then expect the cadence to increase, and costs to go down.
“The panel highlighted a need for stronger international regulations to ensure space operations remain sustainable as the rapidly rising numbers of satellites being launched into Earth’s orbits increase the threat of potentially catastrophic in-space collisions.“
What he is talking about is “regulation” as in restricting the number of satellites and since these LEO broadband smallsats number in the tens of thousands to handle relatively small numbers of customers…this will just get uglier as time goes by. The only “debris removing technology” that can deal with clouds of pieces of exploded satellites is a “laser broom” from a higher orbit sweeping them down into the atmosphere. Nobody is talking about that because they are large and extremely expensive devices. Nobody will pay for them.
Those megaconstellations go up and we will for sure have many bad actors with launch capability sending up something that has an “anomaly” and blows up and wipes out a good portion of a constellation. They would do this for any one of a whole list of reasons.
The ISS needs to be deorbited and Human Space Flight efforts focused on a lunar return and cislunar infrastructure. For HSF LEO is a dead end. The only real solution to the rapidly multiplying issues making LEO problematic is to have large water-shielded human-crewed GEO platforms. The lower orbits should be reserved for only the most necessary satellites. The GEO stations can sweep the lower orbits clear of space junk with “laser brooms.”
What is happening right now in LEO and in other orbits with smallsats launched cheaply is a slow motion disaster unfolding.
Look for the outrage to grow as more and more organizations throw the B.S. flag on megaconstellations. At some point the money paid under that table to oversight authorities to let the horror begin is going to mean nothing.
As the reality of hundreds of thousands of satellites filling Earth orbit sinks in the brakes are going to be applied.
Until the whole lurching ugly mess comes to a screeching stop.
Smallsat constellations never should have been allowed in the first place.
“- such as Space Solar-“
I am a “green” and I absolutely support Space Solar Power as the solution to climate change. Call it “The Green New Space Deal” if you want.
I would say the reason we do not see any, or at least very little, mention of Space Solar is thanks to a certain “entrepreneur” who thinks it is “a stupid idea.”
He thinks it is stupid because he can’t own it. Only a state-sponsored public works energy project can build a Space Solar Power infrastructure. And that is blasphemy to the Ayn-Rand-in-Space Cult.
And blaming it on the Greens…..that is pretty transparent John. The first rule is always blame the victim and make yourself the real victim, right? Why don’t you try, let me see, how about the Koch brothers? Nobody talks about the billionaires who are the real life super-villains wrecking planet Earth.
Ice on the Moon 