Skylon Spaceplane

Doc Ruby

nokia69 wrote: »

but we don't have the tools or the tech, star tram won't get built

Again, you just aren't bothering to read the facts. Yes we do have both the tools and the tech. Its easy. It will just take a little time and money.

nokia69 wrote: »

planetary resources do have a business plan

Really, you might want to tell them that.

"I asked Lewicki specifically about how this will make money. Some asteroids may be rich in precious metals — some may hold tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars in platinum-group metals — but it will cost billions and take many years, most likely, to mine them before any samples can be returned. Why not just do it here on Earth? In other words, what’s the incentive for profit for the investors? This is probably the idea over which most people are skeptical, including several people I know active in the asteroid science community.

I have to admit, Lewicki’s answer surprised me. “The investors aren’t making decisions based on a business plan or a return on investment,” he told me. “They’re basing their decisions on our vision.”

Now unless you have something constructive to add to the discussion, I'll take it that you've counted yourself out.

Rubecula

Sorry Doc Ruby but I must disagree with you on this.

The Space Tram is a serious "cock-a-snoot" at reality plan. We can not build it, and I am pretty certain if we could we wouldn't. It is an idea but a sci-fi idea that will not see the light of day in our lifetimes. I would put it happening on a scale of 5 if 6 was a Dyson sphere.

Skylon may not happen either, but at least it has a real founding in reality.

Mind you I once said HOTOL would happen too. So I admit I can be wrong at times.

Doc Ruby

Rubecula wrote: »

Sorry Doc Ruby but I must disagree with you on this.

The Space Tram is a serious "cock-a-snoot" at reality plan. We can not build it, and I am pretty certain if we could we wouldn't. It is an idea but a sci-fi idea that will not see the light of day in our lifetimes. I would put it happening on a scale of 5 if 6 was a Dyson sphere.

Skylon may not happen either, but at least it has a real founding in reality.

Mind you I once said HOTOL would happen too. So I admit I can be wrong at times.

And not a single word grounded in reality.

Do you know what a murder board is?

Its what happens when you send the details of your idea to some seriously intelligent and well educated people who actually are rocket scientists who have built actual rockets, like those people in Sandia National Laboratories. You know, the ones run by Lockheed Martin who operate the skunk works.

These intelligent and well educated people run your idea through every imaginable test they can come up with, doing their best to "murder" it. Hence the name "murder board". If they can't murder it, your idea is good.

Guess what result they came up with for the Star Tram?

Now I could go ahead and make definitive internet statements like "the sky is purple with shades of puce", but I'd be wrong. The only difference between that and what you're saying is it doesn't take a team of certified geniuses to tell me that the sky is in fact blue. And when such a team tell me something, I don't make definitive internet statements in contradiction.

I leave it to yourself to figure out why.

BULLER

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-05/build-real-starship-enterprise-make-it-so-ambitious-engineer-says

I think we should build this. Like Doc Rubys super star train, its completely technically feesable!

shizz

BULLER wrote: »

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-05/build-real-starship-enterprise-make-it-so-ambitious-engineer-says

I think we should build this. Like Doc Rubys super star train, its completely technically feesable!

That man is incredibly deluded. So many technologies need to be created and proven before even considering many of the "ideas" he has for that.

Not to mention ridiculously unneeded. 3 days to the Moon? I'm guessing it's rate of acceleration is the reason but that's a terrible time for such an "advanced" proposal.

BULLER

shizz wrote: »

That man is incredibly deluded. So many technologies need to be created and proven before even considering many of the "ideas" he has for that.

Not to mention ridiculously unneeded. 3 days to the Moon? I'm guessing it's rate of acceleration is the reason but that's a terrible time for such an "advanced" proposal.

I know its hilarious!

shizz

He wants to construct THAT in space!? Ha!

Capt'n Midnight

Star Tram for power stations ?

solar panels are down to 80c / watt so they are very cheap at ground level.

Russians are big in to mirrors, a much cheaper technology to light up solar panels at night. Just put the panels in a cloudless desert.



Using superguns you can get mass into space with low tech lot capital cost. stuff like food, water, propellant , raw materials , stuff that can be suspended in water.

Slingatron - is another low cost launch system, it uses electricity instead of propellant.

Rubecula

Out of curiousity, I would like to ask something.

You have a small(ish) mountain, 20 miles of track along the ground before it goes up the side of the mountain.

You have electic motors to power up a vehicle at 1 g constant along the track.

Would the vehicle be travelling fast enough to go into orbit at the top of the mountain?

Capt'n Midnight

you need to be going ~ 7,8000m/s

at 9.81m/s that will take 795 seconds

d = ut + 0.5 a t^2 d is distance, u= initial velocity (0) , t is time

d = 0.5 * 9.81* 795^2

d = 3,100 Km


at 100g it's 7.95 seconds and 981m/s so 31Km

100g is OK for some fish (maybe), perhaps if you used that pink liquid from The Abyss


Rail makes a totally reusable first stage.

Rubecula

Thanks for that. 100g seems a tad OTT doesn't it?

Pilots sometime pul as much as 12g, but not often. I think for realism the max would have to be about 5g.

So to attain escape velocity by the time you reached the top of a mountain. Say one about 5,000m high, you would need a track leading up to it in excess of any feasible length?

Which is a pity really, as I was looking at the mountains this morning and just thinking how it would be a good idea.

Bah, me and maths never got along. :pac:

_Tombstone_

US Military Set to Unveil Concepts Based on Skylon Space Plane Tech

A bits away yet...

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) will reveal two-stage-to-orbit SABRE-based concepts either this September, at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' (AIAA) SPACE 2016 conference in Long Beach, California, or in March 2017, at the 21st AIAA International Space Planes and Hypersonic Systems and Technologies Conference in China, said AFRL Aerospace Systems Directorate Aerospace Engineer Barry Hellman.

AFRL officials told Space.com that it views a single-stage-to-orbit Skylon space plane as "technically very risky as a first application [of SABRE]," and this is why the lab is developing two-stage-to-orbit concepts.

SABRE burns hydrogen and oxygen. It acts like a jet engine in Earth's thick lower atmosphere, taking in oxygen to combust with onboard liquid hydrogen. When SABRE reaches an altitude of 16 miles (26 kilometers) and five times the speed of sound (Mach 5), however, it switches over to Skylon's onboard liquid-oxygen tank to reach orbit. (Hypersonic flight is generally defined as anything that reaches at least Mach 5.)

_Tombstone_

Wayhey, abit of competition to hurry Skylon on - China targets 2030 for operational hybrid hypersonic spaceplane

The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation is beginning advanced research on hybrid combined cycle engines that can takeoff from an airport's landing strip and fly straight into orbit. The hybrid space plane's combined cycle engines would use turbofan or turbojet engines to takeoff horizontally from a landing strip. Once airborne, the engine then shifts to ramjet propulsion and, as speed increases, adjusts into a scramjet engine with supersonic airflow. At the scramjet stage, the hybrid spaceplane would enter hypersonic flight in 'near space', the part of the atmosphere between 20km to 100km above sea level. Finally, the hybrid spaceplane would use its rocket motors to push out of near space and into orbit.

Zhang Yong, a CASTC engineer, claimed that China will master the spaceplane's technologies in the next three to five years, and a full-scale spaceplane would then enter service by 2030.

Capt'n Midnight

India have flight tested a scramjet recently

http://www.isro.gov.in/update/28-aug-2016/successful-flight-testing-of-isros-scramjet-engine-technology-demonstrator