When Peter Diamandis talks about the emergence of a ‘let’s just do it’ mentality about spaceflight, anyone interested in getting our species off-planet will listen up. Diamandis, after all, as chief executive of the X Prize Foundation, has been a major force in making commercial space ventures newsworthy. Who can forget the first flight of Scaled Composites’ SpaceShipOne? Diamandis firmly believes we are no longer content to watch government astronauts work in space. It’s time for the commercial sector to take off.
In a new article in the Wall Street Journal (thanks to Erik Anderson for the heads-up), Diamandis lays out our biggest challenge in getting a space-based infrastructure into operation: The cost. Ponder the fact that as the US space shuttle fleet is closed down, American astronauts will need to hitch rides on the Russian Soyuz at a cost of over $50 million per person. That sounds high, and it is, but compare it to shuttle costs of between $750 to $2 billion per flight, depending on the launch schedule. Why so expensive? Oddly enough, the major cost isn’t fuel or payload:
Most people don’t realize that the major cost of a launch is labor. Fuel is less than 2%, while the standing army of people and infrastructure is well over 80%. The annual expense NASA bears for the shuttle is roughly $4 billion, whatever the number of launches.
Image: Astronauts Robert L. Curbeam (USA) and Christer Fuglesang (Sweden) work to attach a new truss segment to the ISS and begin to upgrade the power grid. Will the next fifty years see such operations in the hands of private companies? Credit: STS-116 Shuttle Crew, NASA.
Without the shuttle, we move into a more redundant launch marketplace, one whose competitive nature should ultimately drive down the cost of getting into orbit. Diamandis is co-founder of Space Adventures, which brokers the process of getting private citizens into space. The eight deals it has cut so far have wound up costing roughly $50 million per person. Within five years, that price should be below $20 million, and soon after below $5 million. As prices drop, we can expect a flowering of new space activity:
Within the next several decades, privately financed research outposts will be a common sight in the night sky. The first one-way missions to Mars will be launched. Mining operations will spring up on the moon. More opportunities we have yet to even comprehend will come out of the frontier. One thing is certain: The next 50 years will be the period when we establish ourselves as a space-faring civilization.
That’s a vision that begins to square with the future in space that I used to imagine as a kid instead of the frustrating series of stops and starts we’ve seen in recent decades (though eased by triumphs like Voyager or Cassini). As private capital looks toward space in terms of investment, public/private partnerships pave the way for serious commercialization. S-type asteroids, for example, are composed of iron, magnesium silicates and, as Diamandis points out, various other metals including cobalt and platinum. A half-kilometer S-type asteroid could be worth more than $20 trillion. Diamandis again:
…companies and investors are realizing that everything we hold of value—metals, minerals, energy and real estate—are in near-infinite quantities in space. As space transportation and operations become more affordable, what was once seen as a wasteland will become the next gold rush. Alaska serves as an excellent analogy. Once thought of as “Seward’s Folly” (Secretary of State William Seward was criticized for overpaying the sum of $7.2 million to the Russians for the territory in 1867), Alaska has since become a billion-dollar economy.
It’s always been my contention that we will be forced into building a space-based infrastructure extending to the outer planets because of our need to protect our planet from Earth-crossing asteroids. But Diamandis’ essay reminds us of the key role private industry has played in converting technologies created by the government, from air mail to the Internet, and turning them into robust industries. There is, in other words, abundant opportunity to be found in space much closer to home, with government focusing more on pure science while remaining a major customer of newly energized private operators.
I’ll also buy Diamandis’ timetable of the next fifty years being the period when we either establish ourselves as a space-based civilization or fail in the attempt. Success would inevitably produce the kind of technologies that make exploring the outer fringes of our Solar System, deep into the Kuiper Belt and one day to the Oort Cloud, a workable possibility. We don’t know what propulsion systems might in the next century take us even further, but it’s surely in the process of developing our tools one step at a time — ad astra incrementis — that we’ll one day push our first probes into solar systems other than our own.
I’ve been thinking for awhile that commerce and mining in space would be the next big step…
First scientific expeditions and exploration, then commerce and mining, then colonization.
Mining will be a major industry of course, with metals from asteroids and helium-3 etc from gas giants. There will also be space tourism, and perhaps hands-on activities – I can imagine lunar sports or orbital skydiving (with a heat-shield of course) being lots of fun.
I find it interesting that the main cost of going to space isnt the launches or fuel, but rather the infrastructure and overhead. I wonder if different approaches could be much more economical – such as mass drivers or launch loops. In any case, the commercial sectors interest in space is valuable, since they will naturally find less expensive means which will make space more accessible.
A physics professor I had once made a good point – he said the most important power is brainpower. Space has huge amounts of resources and energy, and all we need is intelligence and work to tap into it. Brainpower is what turned oil from the bane of well-diggers to a major energy source. And I think human effort can turn space from a no-mans-land into an even greater resource. As long as we keep building towards that, I’m sure it will happen.
Mark here,
Ms Dyson has a new article out in of all places,FP,Foreign Policy online….note it is interesting in that a rather old school review journal is taking a bit more notice…..harbinger of good things I presume….
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/08/prepare_for_liftoff?page=0,0. I think Mr Diamandis is skipping right over the role governments will play in that powerful pressures will be brought by established players,ie ‘big space’ and the military ,all whom have agendas that are not congruent with private space ,to drive development of new industries. Little mention of the legal status of private enterprise in this new era has been made,just what are the legal structures that apply not only to LEO,but GEO,lunar ci-space and beyond…indeed has anybody given a passing thought to the legal status of Mars?. I submit it is not so clear ,consider to whom does title pass on any material brought back to Earth or even LEO? Do property rights apply and if so,which collection of property rights etc applies? To throw more on the platter does not the stuff of the solar system belong to the common heritage of mankind,if so then why should private enterprise bother with the work if the profit can be taken on a whim…..my point being to suggest that even though we may have the hardware and ability very soon from private space there be dragons lurking in the shoals and shadows of this new ocean. It does argue that space law might be where the best and brightest might be found..
Best,
Mark
I agree that it is commercial space which will really open up space development. And I think that space tourism is going to play, probably, the biggest role in that initially. Maybe mining He-3 on the moon will be a later modern gold rush.
But I would take issue with a couple of points:
– we will be forced into building a space-based infrastructure…because of our need to protect our planet from Earth-crossing asteroids.
Only if we exaggerate the risks. From the beginning of the SpaceGuard program until now, the residual risk from asteroids had diminished dramatically. And it’s probably only going to decrease more with WISE and other program. If we find one that’s going to hit us, it will likely be calculated to be a number of decades out and small enough to warrant either evacuation or deflection.
– we either establish ourselves as a space-based civilization or fail in the attempt
The only way that we’ll fail in the attempt is if we wipe ourselves out with self-replicating technology. Apart from that, we’ll only delay the time when we develop the solar system. There won’t be a permanent failure. The Apollo program is an example. Lunar development was delayed decades with its cancellation. And now there’s another delay with the apparent canceling of Constellation. But eventually the Moon will be developed — maybe by the Chinese instead. Eventually it will be done by someone.
bigdan,i just read your posting above and think that you are 100% correct! this is the way the world should go imho !! as i have said before,in about 75 years,i see the solar system “chock full” of sophisticated spacecraft performing perhaps dozens of jobs.exploration not being the least. happy if i could hear your further thoughts also.your friend george
Mr. Heinlein was right, “once in orbit you’re halfway to anywhere”. $20 trillion dollar asteroids aside, before space will pay Humanity needs to address the $ per kg cost to low Earth orbit. Maybe build a 50km long superconducting EM rail gun up the western slope of the equatorial Andes? It shouldn’t cost any more than the Large Hadron Collider and, when finished, would do far more than big science.
Though I lived long enough to see the first men on the moon, I probably won’t live to see the second. They promised me flying cars.
A regime of private property rights in space is clearly needed. There has been a lot of discussion about this. The proposals I have heard revolve around a use-based concept modeled after the U.S. homestead act from the mid 1800’s. I think this concept will have to be negociated independent of the U.N., which is nothing more than a corrupt kleptocracy of third-world looters.
The 1967 treaty does not specifically forbid private industry in space. It does forbid claims of ownership by governmental entities (but not private ones) and requires that liability of both governmental and private activities be guaranteed by the national government of the country that the activity comes from. Changing this to make it more friendly to private activities is not insurmountable.
The 1979 so-called “moon” treaty does specifically forbid private space development. This is the treaty that the L-5 Society played a role in getting the U.S. government to reject in 1980. Some of my older friends in SoCal were actively involved in (I was just a teenager at the time) stopping this treaty. Fortunately, the L-5 Society was successful in its efforts. This effort arguably represents the peak of the L-5 Society, which started to fade away in 1981.
The 1979 treaty does exist, but was ratified by only a few developing countries.
The ‘let’s just do it’ mentality is laughable. Aerospace technology is very hard to do, dangerous for astronauts and intrinsically expensive. IMHO, a main focus of our civilization should be the colonization of Mars but unfortunately funding such an enterprise is something only governments can currently do. People like to argue that all we need to do is unleash the power of the free market and outer space will magically open up much like semiconductor and computer technologies did. Funding for the International Space Station was partially justified upon the argument of “build it and they will come”. Well, they have built it and it has been ignored. I should also add that one of the hopes behind the soon-to-be-decommisioned Space Shuttle was that private enterprise would see the economic potential of Cheap Access to Space and pony up the R&D money for a second generation space shuttle. Guess what? It didn’t happen! There was no profit motive to do such a thing.
I do believe (or at least hope) that there will eventually be a thriving interplanetary economy. However there must first be a huge initial investment to create the foundations for that economy, e.g. establish a permanent, independent human settlement on Mars. Without that initial investment (hundreds of billions of dollars) there can be no interplanetary economy and we’ll continue to be stuck in Low Earth Orbit.
You didn’t mention the companion article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703382904575059263418508030.html
namely, the case against putting more weight on the private sector. Perhaps you thought as I did, that this argument wasn’t worth commenting on.
jensph, thanks for the link. I wasn’t aware there was a companion article.
A stirring vision of a future for space travel, but oddly familiar, as if I’ve read it before. Oh wait, that was in A Step Further Out, written in the mid seventies…
Thirty years later and we’re still supposed to have this glorious future happening in the next fifty years?
Ain’t going to happen. And anybody who says it will is selling some snake oil.
There is no short term profit there. The best you can get are various private contractors to build various thing for governmental customers and a few adventurous billionaires. Not enough for purely for-profit business
I don’t want to get into the guts of the government vs private debate because you’ll just never escape alive from that one!
It does however make me scream every time that ‘airline analogy’ is trotted out. Surely its not the same – no matter how ‘innovative and flexible’ private industry is the fact remains that space travel via chemical propulsion – the only method we have at the moment – is only JUST doable. The orders of magnitude improvements in cost per kilo to orbit and beyond that are necessary to really activate any Ben Bova-esque ‘high frontier’ business case I’ve heard of just aren’t physically possible with chemical propulsion. Or am I wrong?
Which leads us back to breakthrough propulsion. Is this research really going to be done by small scale startups? Isn’t it inherently political especially if it involves nuclear propulsion?
I admire the excitement that surrounds the alt-space community but really, arent we just dealing with incremental improvements here?
P
Sorry to completely repeat Martin’s comment, but space has been 10 years away from mass use since the mid seventies. It seems a bit like nuclear fusion (always 50 years away).
We function on an infrastructure that goes from farming to oil production to fishing to accountancy, garbage collection, nursing, steel workers and on and on. We rely on animals, plants, bacteria, space to grow, air, sea, the climate and countless other things.
Even with all these, we still lead a fragile existence.
If the colonisation of space were only being held back by technology, then why isn’t there already a colonisation of much much more liveable areas comparitively, like the entire sea bed, the sky, the tens of kms of earth’s crust?
The more likely scenario is surely that people aren’t going to colonise space, but that they will learn to control their population. Any small-scale work in space (such as extracting plutonium or something) would most likely be done with robots.
I find it kind of amazing that people want to go somewhere (space) where they get slowly brain damaged by radiation, they would die in a second on any hull breach, they slowly muscle waste from lack of gravity and feel nausious for most of the time. Its kind of like wanting to go and live inside a sewer.
I don’t mean to pee on bonfires, but since the dream of colonising space is so ingrained these days, I find it quite exciting to imagine what people will become in future without space having any important role.
Why not a DC-X or roton-like vehicle? The DC-X project was humming along well untill funding raised its ugly head (yes, I know, additional technological hurdels also needed to be addressed). And when it was sold to NASA…NASA broak their new little toy…and never played with it again. So why not a new and improved version? I’d invest in that. Or the Roton-style of the DC-X? With the Roton you’d get all the down-range-cross-range-coarse-correcting-action that anyone would want (even the military).
Question for anyone: Doesn’t Japan have a DC-X style prototype of their own? I saw some footage on Y**tube and the claim was that the device was Japanese.
For now everything depends on how fast we’ll develop cheaper technologies to get into orbit. I think we need, at least, a space elevator to get the economy up there, because the conventional chemical rockets are just too inconvenient, even if they got cheaper (i.e. 5 million). If we get an easy way to earth orbit, then the rest will follow.
About the time span – 50 years sounds quite realistic considering the exponential development rate of technology. We just have to hope that our current economical/financial system doesn’t break to pieces before any replacement is found, leaving a huge crises and stagnation in technological development.
Mining NEOs that are rich in metals would be profitable if the mining vehicle was propelled via an M2P2 instead of chemical rockets. And the nucleus of a mining colony could be established, then expanded with the proceeds.
The base problem is economics, and I never saw any plausible analysis of the real economic benefits of the DC-X or Roton.
True, but with the possible exception of real estate we have all these in “near-infinite” quantities on Earth, too. The Earth is made from metals and minerals, and the sun (as well as the Uranium in those minerals) provide more energy than we need. If it is real estate we want, there is lots of prime land available in the antarctic that is not yet developed. Excellent location really, compared to the moon or Mars.
And all of it is much more accessible than that in space. In my view, commerce will only become a factor once there is need for things in space. By that time, we will have had another reason to go, already.
“The more likely scenario is surely that people aren’t going to colonize space, but that they will learn to control their population.”
They already are. TFR for much of the world is now below replacement. All of the world except for a few middle-eastern countries and Sub-Saharan Africa have a TFR below 3, and I think the Muslims exaggerate their population numbers. The TFR for the world is dropping fast enough that the Christian right types are now wringing their hands over what they think is the coming “depopulation” crisis.
“A half-kilometer S-type asteroid could be worth more than $20 trillion.”
The problem with that is the issue of supply and demand. With that much supply, prices would nose dive. How much would it end up being worth? I don’t know and neither would the backers, making the whole thing more risky. On the positive side, the drop in price would probably put many of the Earth-side suppliers out of business and create uses that would previously been impractical, creating an ongoing demand for asteroid metals. This would make follow-up missions less financially risky and more profitable.
Tom: fusion power is actually worse: in the 60’s it was 20 years away, now its 50. Any guesses about what it will be in fifty years?
If fusion power doesn’t pan out, then fission power will have to carry the load. However, fissionable material is a limited resource. One solution I came across (conceived by Theodore Taylor in the 1960s) is to line a large (preferably spherical) cavern with uranium and/or thorium and then detonate a fusion bomb in the center. The neutrons (nearly all generated from fusion) would convert a large portion of the uranium & thorium to fissionable material.
It was originally proposed to dig the cavern in the arctic ice pack; the ice around it would melt and create a slurry at the bottom, which could be pumped out and the fissionables easily separated out. Obviously, this isn’t going to fly these days, but mining the uranium & thorium from an asteroid and carry it out the procedure on-site is possible.
It’s an idea that’s been rattling around in my head for some time.
//It does however make me scream every time that ‘airline analogy’ is trotted out. Surely its not the same – no matter how ‘innovative and flexible’ private industry is the fact remains that space travel via chemical propulsion – the only method we have at the moment – is only JUST doable. The orders of magnitude improvements in cost per kilo to orbit and beyond that are necessary to really activate any Ben Bova-esque ‘high frontier’ business case I’ve heard of just aren’t physically possible with chemical propulsion. Or am I wrong?//
You’re wrong. If we used a Ramjet 1st stage, and didn’t focus on the payload ratio so much, we could do it. If you use expendable upper stages made of plastic and carbon fibre, you could build up a sizeable Lunar infrastructure and go from there. The only thing you’ll be exporting from erra is humans and computers… until you have sufficient off planet capability to make computers.
//I find it kind of amazing that people want to go somewhere (space) where they get slowly brain damaged by radiation, they would die in a second on any hull breach, they slowly muscle waste from lack of gravity and feel nausious for most of the time.//
We can use shielding, hull breaches don’t result in instantaneus depressurization, and we can simulate gravity by spinning the craft. Oh, and those problems mainly disappear when you actually get to your location.
//If the colonisation of space were only being held back by technology, then why isn’t there already a colonisation of much much more liveable areas comparitively, like the entire sea bed, the sky, the tens of kms of earth’s crust?//
Because there are only a few people who want to, so not many people have turned their attentions to doing it? I for one would quite like to live in the sky – I’d do it if had the room to construct the required airship. Regarding the crust… hmmm, by a volcano that wouldn’t be all that bad, what with the abunandant geothermal energy, fertile soil, concentrated ores – oh wait, people already live near them, no reason to live inside them. Using the energy to heat the area up to nice warm temperatures… could be quite nice.. If we ever need to make use of such places – we don’t have to at the moment, since there’s plenty going around – we will. BTW, the ocean floor isn’t any more hospitable or easier to get to than space, with it’s crushing pressure, zero light, and zero energy resources (except near black smokers). I suppose coastliens could work…
Another good reason for not colonizing the oceans is the corrosive chemical environment, high pressure, low sunlight, and the fact that ROVs can be operated in real time from above. Submarine habitats in shallow, picturesque waters sell – and some are being built.
Terraformer said: “If we used a Ramjet 1st stage, and didn’t focus on the payload ratio so much, we could do it.”
I wish this were true but a Ramjet (or rather a Scramjet) 1st stage is not a ticket to Cheap Access to Space (CAtS). A scramjet won’t light up until about Mach 6 and flames out at around Mach 10. That short of an operating envelope does not justify carrying all the extra hardware and thermal protection required for a scramjet. The air breathing alternatives for a scramjet are the Liquid Air Combustion Engine (LACE) that British aeronautical engineers favor and pulse detonation propulsion. The big problems with a LACE are the requirement of accelerating a column of air to the vehicle’s frame along with the problem of air being mostly nitrogen. Pulse detonation propulsion is an unestablished technology. People have been talking about pulse detonation for decades but no one knows how to do it practically. There are no easy fix solutions for the problem of CAtS. For what it’s worth my pet idea is Two Stage to Orbit (TStO) based upon a biamese architecture, i.e. the booster and orbit vehicles have identical outer mold lines. I believe a well conceived TStO concept could reduce launch costs to $1000/kg from the current price of $10000/kg. However the magic number is $100/kg where the “high frontier” concept becomes viable. There is no near term technology that I am aware of that can reach the magic number (forget about carbon nanotube sky hooks and smiliar nonsense).
Certainly you have to take into consideration all the risks and issues involved with space. Im not a zealot preaching that we must go to space to reach a planet of milk and honey. But I do believe our future is in space, for numerous reasons.
You cant underestimate human willingness to deal with space. The ISS has not been ignored, in fact it’s been prolonged last I checked. Rich people have paid large sums of money to travel to Earth orbit – this suggests to me a big tourism potential. As infrastructure/technology improves, space safaris (as well as the extreme activities I conjured up) will become more common and profitable. The key is that it doesnt start with colonization, that is the last step. It goes from our current phase of research/exploration into commerce. People go to Alaska for resources as well as other inhospitable places, so it’s not a long reach to suppose that business will be attracted to profitable space ventures. Mining asteroids and planets will be a great economic boon.
(Im gonna try to keep this reply short) but one other big point about space is the social/political effect. Once it is possible to move off of earth, many people will. Right now, we live in a globalist situation, and you cant simply travel to new lands like in times of antiquity. Space will create distance (especially with c) between earth and space colonies.. and that is something that humanity will naturally be driven to.
I agree that getting things established is a big hurdle. It will be a long process. But there is a definite and realistic way forward.
“I’ll also buy Diamandis’ timetable of the next fifty years being the period when we either establish ourselves as a space-based civilization or fail in the attempt.”
As others have pointed out, commenters have been saying things like this since the 1970s. (Not always 50 years — Jerry Pournelle gave us a century c. 1980. Only seventy years left!)
Well, what’s imposing the time limit? Resource depletion? Economic collapse? Video game singularity? I’m sincerely curious.
Doug M.
“I wish this were true but a Ramjet (or rather a Scramjet) 1st stage is not a ticket to Cheap Access to Space (CAtS). A scramjet won’t light up until about Mach 6 and flames out at around Mach 10.”
I didn’t say Scramjet. I said Ramjet, which starts up below Mach 1 and has an operating limit of Mach 6, at which point the upper stage would take over.
Anyway, the thing is that people want to go into space. If enough people wanted to live on the seafloor, they could, since the market would respond to the demand and make it so. People already do live in the Earths crust, due to it being cheap enough to do so and the multitude of advantages it has. If enough people want to go into space, they will.
Doug is right. There is no time limit. As long as technology progresses, going to space will become easier and easier, even if we don’t really try. At some point it will be easy enough that it does not need all that much trying, and space will finally become a regular part of our world. When that will happen is a much more difficult question than whether, it might be decades or centuries.
What about lack of will, curiosity, intellect, and excess of short term thinking ?
technology progresses through mastering of new challenges. Not by procrastinating and waiting till it happens on its own. No. It does not happen unless we try.
the difference between ramjet and scramjet is only inlet and combustion chamber shape. If you adjust shape, you can go all the way from ramjet to scramjet. I would also add that you could theoretically make a nuclear powered ramjet doing away with the need to carry most of the hydrogen( some hydrogen would be still needed for curtain cooling, and then as working fluid after you fly out of the atmosphere. )
Terraformer said: “I didn’t say Scramjet. I said Ramjet, which starts up below Mach 1 and has an operating limit of Mach 6, at which point the upper stage would take over.”
Then the design is even less practical. You want to maximize your velocity before your air breathing propulsion flames out (kinetic energy goes as velocity squared). A problem with both ramjet and scramjet propulsion in an SSTO concept is you need some sort of propulsion system to get to supersonic and then past supersonic that propulsion system is simply heavy metal being hauled as useless ballast. With a ramjet, you can do this with a variable cycle engine similar to what was used for the SR-71 (peak Mach number 3.4). With a scramjet, you use a rocket motor to get to Mach 6 where the scramjet’s inlets can get started and then idle down the rocket motor until you get to Mach 10. However the concept is still no good because you need all that heavy thermal protection and plumbing for the scramjet. People have been looking at this problem for decades (Antonio Ferri first published the scramjet in the 1960s). Scramjets are a viable concept for hypersonic drones but their useless for Cheap Access to Space.
Doug M. asked: “Well, what’s imposing the time limit? Resource depletion? Economic collapse? Video game singularity? I’m sincerely curious. ”
Two words: Peak Oil
Refer to: http://www.theoildrum.com/
The concept you need to get your arms around is EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested). There’s a mountain of information about EROEI on the Internet (just google “EROEI”, “ERoEI” or “EROI”). EROEI is what will eventually stop us dead in our tracks and then knock us back to the 18th century. People saw this coming in the 1950s, e.g. Admiral Rickover. It was one of the motivations for the Space Program (Von Braun wanted us to have a Mars colony established around now).
T_U_T said: “the difference between ramjet and scramjet is only inlet and combustion chamber shape.”
That’s sort of like saying the only difference between an elephant and a platypus is their size and the shape of their noses. Ramjets and scramjets are totally different. A ramjet is based upon a normal shockwave and subsonic combustion. A ramjet is dirt easy to do (it’s basically a pipe containing a fuel injector in a flame cup). A scramjet is based upon an oblique shockwave and supersonic combustion. This is much harder to do. With a scramjet you’re always fighting against the thing going into an “unstart”, i.e. the oblique shockwave snaps into a normal shockwave resulting in most of the inlet’s flow being blocked. Getting combustion to actually occur in a scramjet is hard to do. The air gets really hot after it goes through the bow shock. At high Mach number, a hydrocarbon fuel can not be used, i.e. carbon dioxide decomposes back into atomic oxygen and carbon monoxide. Thermal protection is a huge problem. I spent several years of my life playing with scramjets. They will not get us into Low Earth Orbit.
“What about lack of will, curiosity, intellect, and excess of short term thinking ?”
I’m sorry, but that’s a non-answer.
Again: why is there a time limit? Why do we have just fifty years (or a hundred, if you like) to “either establish ourselves as a space-faring civilization, or fail in the attempt”?
Doug M.
Yes. Starting with a ramjet and trying to make it a scramjet is not possible . But what about starting with a scramjet and modifying its shape to actually work as a ramjet at lower speeds ( ramjets are just pipes with a fuel injector, as you correctly pointed out ).
For the second time, I’m talking about *Ramjets*, in a *Two* stage to orbit system. The first stage adds 1/4 of the final velocity (Mach 6), while the upper, rocket powered stage, adds 3/4 (Mach 18). Payload/GLOM ratio doesn’t matter, it’s Payload/Cost that we need to sort out. Instead of pushing for maximum efficiency (I.e. untested Scramjet over tried and tested Ramjet), we need minimum cost. As an example, imagine two systems, both massing the same (say, 500 tonnes) on the ground. One is expendable, and expensive to manufacture, but places 10 tonnes in orbit, as opposed to the other system, which only puts 1 tonne in orbit because of all the equipment which makes it reusable (and by reusable I mean in the same sense a plane is). Which one is cheaper? We’ve been having this discussion over at Newmars, with an engineer who’s worked on ramjets, and the general agreement seems to be that a TSTO with a Ramjet first stage would be best.
//Doug is right. There is no time limit. As long as technology progresses, going to space will become easier and easier, even if we don’t really try. At some point it will be easy enough that it does not need all that much trying, and space will finally become a regular part of our world. When that will happen is a much more difficult question than whether, it might be decades or centuries.//
But we have the technology now that going into space *can* be made cheap enough. Yet it isn’t, and space isn’t a regular part of our world.
I submit to you the claim that a cheap space transportation system could be manufactured for under US$50 million, using off the shelf components.
Uranium and thorium. Lots of it in the ground. And orders of magnitude more of it in the sea water.
“EROEI is what will eventually stop us dead in our tracks and then knock us back to the 18th century. ”
Because when the oil runs out, all the existing hydroelectric dams, windmills, and solar panels will magically disappear. Okay.
Now, you can make an argument along the lines of “a civilization run purely on renewables will necessarily be much poorer than we are today — so very much poorer, that it will not be able to afford the massive investments needed to jump-start expansion into space.” I would disagree with that statement, but it would at least /be/ a statement, and we could discuss it.
But “Peak Oil will stop us dead in our tracks and KNOCK US BACK TO THE 18th CENTURY” is, well, not really an argument I feel I can engage with.
I’m also unclear on how a Mars colony would be helpful here. I’m sure someone will fill in the gap.
Doug M.
Because spending centuries procrastinating at the edge of space would sufficiently demonstrate that we don’t have the balls to ever do it.
Doug M. said: “Because when the oil runs out, all the existing hydroelectric dams, windmills, and solar panels will magically disappear.”
Check out the following link (note that the link is to a Department of Energy funded national lab, i.e. it’s not bogus):
https://publicaffairs.llnl.gov/news/energy/content/energy/energy_archive/energy_flow_2008/LLNL_US_EFC_20081.png
In 2008, hydroelectric dams, windmills, and solar panels represented slightly more than 3% of our total energy supply. In terms of our total energy supply these “green” energy sources are insignificant (Truth to tell, hydroelectric is not really all that green).
So the snappy come back is: “Technology marches on, eventually solar and wind will represent 100% of energy supply”.
That represents a huge leap of faith. Back in the 1960s it was almost universally believed that nuclear fusion would save the day. The hard truth is that fossil fuel based civilization is a classic “monkey trap”. Our population has grown beyond the planet’s carrying capacity and after the fossil fuels run out, our civilization will permanently change radically.
Visionaries in the 1950-1970s saw this coming and realized that there was only a brief window of opportunity to get off planet before the whole system imploded. Unfortunately they could not make their case. People always responded that there was plenty of oil in the ground, alternatives like synthetic petroleum from shale, solar and wind, etc. The EROEI reply was then made with the near universal response being shrugs and general disbelief. Unfortunately this is Darwinian natural selection at work. We’re too stupid to inherit the stars so we’ll die with the Earth.
Terraformer said: “For the second time, I’m talking about *Ramjets*, in a *Two* stage to orbit system. The first stage adds 1/4 of the final velocity (Mach 6), while the upper, rocket powered stage, adds 3/4 (Mach 18).”
Yeah, ramjets are useless for cheap access to space. Also it’s kinetic energy not velocity that is your driving parameter. Mach number is free stream velocity divided by local speed of sound. As a rough approximation assume that velocity is directly proportional to Mach number. Orbital velocity at Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is about 7.5 km/sec which is roughly Mach 25. Mach 18 represents about 52% of the required kinetic energy to get to LEO while Mach 6 is about 6%. All the added complexity and mass of a ramjet buys less than 6% of the necessary kinetic energy to LEO.
It’s complicated and hard to do because it’s Rocket Science.
I have faith in Reaction Engine’s Skylon/ sabre engine:
http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/
Say, what? Had we listened to Admiral Rickover we would now avoid Peak Oil using a plentiful supply of oil from Mars? (scratches head)
There is no such thing as Peak Oil, and if there was, it would be much more likely to throw us (finally) into the 21st century than back to the 18th.
As far as time frames, its hard to say. Progress in general isnt just linear change, it is complex systemic change. Who could’ve guessed how much change would be brought about by the transistor? And I’d imagine that someone in the 1930’s would have difficulty envisioning the social state of america in the 1970s, just like someone in the 70s would have a hard time imagining today (im sure some people here can attest to that). The world doesn’t just go from a to b to c, it does differential equations.
Anyway, there are numerous factors that influence progress into space… Social, economic, scientific, political and so on. While we will advance forward, and I can see the possibilities of VASIMR and solar sails, it’s difficult to predict. We might slowly realize the space dream, or we might have a couple big breakthroughs, or both.
As far as lacking intellect/will/long term thinking, I don’t think that’s an issue. In 100 years, we’ve gone from horse & carriages to typing about outer space on the internet. Considering how the internet (the fifth great revolution of history) has changed things within a short time, I’m pretty sure that we haven’t lost our intellect, curiousity or will.. or wanderlust for that matter.
Eniac said: “Say, what? Had we listened to Admiral Rickover we would now avoid Peak Oil using a plentiful supply of oil from Mars? (scratches head)”
I believe Admiral Rickover would have advocated conversion from fossil fuels to nuclear power. However near the end of his life he expressed the opinion that it would have been better to be entirely rid of nuclear technology if it could remove the threat from nuclear weapons.
Eniac said: “There is no such thing as Peak Oil, and if there was, it would be much more likely to throw us (finally) into the 21st century than back to the 18th.”
We will have to agree to disagree. Peak Oil is the elephant in the room. It amazes me that intelligent people refuse to see it. I urge you to google this topic and study it further. Conversion to nuclear power in the 1970s would have been the best way to avoid the impact of Peak Oil. If we had more intelligence, we’d be using petroleum and coal only as raw material for solvents, lubricants, plastics, etc. and not as fuel.
Peter, The Skylon uses the LACE concept that I earlier described. The people behind Skylon have produced some pretty computer animations but the hard fact is that LACE is difficult to implement as a working technology for Cheap Access to Space. The good news is the people behind LACE are British aeronautical engineers who are among the best engineers on the planet. If anyone can make LACE work, they can.
“we don’t have the balls to ever do it.”
Yes, that makes perfect sense. I see now.
Doug M.
Read about another aspect of getting the private sector involved, championed by the White Label Space Team of the Google Lunar X Prize here: How many Super Bowl Ads would a Moon Mission Cost?
There are interesting numbers in the post, check it!
And something to underpin bigdan2001’s statement that we haven’t lost our intellect, curiousity or will.. or wanderlust for that matter, combined with hard marketing interests:
Red Bull helps Felix Baumgartner to jump
I would be worried about another “dark age”. My thinking goes along the lines of what happened to the knowledge of the Egyptian and Greek civilisations. Before anyone points it out, yes much was preserved by the Persains and that progress went on but what was orgnally discovered by the Greeks and Egyptians, and hence widely known by the west, was lost/forgotten/not made use of fully, for the best part of 1500-2000 years. In my opinion a similar dark age would be a bigger step backward than the aforementioned one. Of course some may argue that we are beyond the threshild that another Dark age could occur but I’m not so sure.
Regarding progress not bieng linear. Should we be adopting safe gurads that insure progress is linear, that we keep moving forwards and not risk a backwards step…
“In 2008, hydroelectric dams, windmills, and solar panels represented slightly more than 3% of our total energy supply.”
Facts and reason! Thank you, Gary Allen.
Couple of points. One, the share of renewables has been growing steadily over the last 15 years. That’s mostly due to the explosion of wind power, as technological advances have made wind cost-competitive with other sources. Windpower capacity has been growing exponentially, doubling every 2-3 years — it has increase 15 times over in the last decade.
Conservative projections have the share of renewables growing to about 6-7% by the 2020s. (Note that there are a number of First World countries that have already reached or surpassed this figure.) That’s assuming current growth rates and current technologies, with no significant advances or breakthroughs.
Two, energy intensity. That’s the amount of GDP we wring out of each unit of energy — pennies of production per joule, if you like.
The US has fairly high energy intensity; we’re not very efficient. There are a number of First World countries (Ireland, Italy, Japan) that can generate more than twice as much production as we do from the same amount of energy.
That said, energy intensity in the US has decreased steadily over time, at a long-term rate of around 2% per annum. In round numbers, we’re using about the same amount of energy per capita as we did around 1970, but we’re (again per capita) more than twice as rich.
Now. Let’s assume that GDP is exactly proportional to energy use, modified for intensity — a gross simplification, but hey, toy model.
Let’s further assume that renewables top out at 10% of current consumption per capita — about triple the current rate — and then stop. I think that’s a really ridiculously conservative assumption, but let’s go with it.
Let’s further assume that we can wring only one more doubling out of energy intensity, and that’s all we’ll ever get. Again, I think this is ridiculous — it’s only bringing us to roughly the level of energy intensity that Italy and Japan are already at today — but we’re being conservative to set a baseline.
So what does our Nightmare Future Post-Oil America look like?
Well… GDP implodes to about 20% of its current value. That’s bad. It’s very bad. It’s far worse than the Great Depression (in which GDP dropped by about 30%).
On the other hand, it’s not the frickin’ 18th century. It’s… the Truman administration. Or the USSR under Brezhnev. Or, to put it in contemporary terms, it’s roughly equivalent to 2010 South Africa or Brazil.
I note in passing that Brazil has a space program — and so, of course, did Brezhnev’s USSR. (In fact, arguably they had the /best/ space program. We’re still using their stuff.)
Again, these are ridiculously conservative assumptions, meant to define a baseline worst-case scenario. My own suspicion is that over the long term — talking a century or more — it will prove perfectly possible to run a civilization as rich or richer than the modern USA on renewables alone.
But that’s perhaps a discussion for another thread. The key point here is that, even in a worst-case scenario, a post-oil, renewables-only America would still be an industrialized, technologically advanced society perfectly capable of spaceflight.
Doug M.
“Yeah, ramjets are useless for cheap access to space. Also it’s kinetic energy not velocity that is your driving parameter. Mach number is free stream velocity divided by local speed of sound. As a rough approximation assume that velocity is directly proportional to Mach number. Orbital velocity at Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is about 7.5 km/sec which is roughly Mach 25. Mach 18 represents about 52% of the required kinetic energy to get to LEO while Mach 6 is about 6%. All the added complexity and mass of a ramjet buys less than 6% of the necessary kinetic energy to LEO.”
No, it’s the rocket equation that you need to worry about just as much. Anyway, the way you’ve written it seems to be suggesting that you’re getting to LEO with less than then required energy. I’ll repeat what I said again: the Ramjet would be the 1st stage, not the upper stage. Once you reach Mach 6, your upper stage needs to add just over half of the required knetic energy, by your own admission. The energy benefit from the Ramjet, then, is not the 1st stage velocity squared, but the final velocity (orbit) squared, minus velcity added by the upper stage squared.