Aucbvax.5670
fa.space
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!space
Wed Dec 30 03:33:20 1981
SPACE Digest V2 #74
>From OTA@S1-A Wed Dec 30 03:16:25 1981
SPACE Digest Volume 2 : Issue 74
Today's Topics:
sps skyhook
Re: Cables to an SPS
Re: Cables to an SPS
Transporting energy with space technology
Building skyhooks
Cables to an SPS / Fuel etc. for shuttle from space
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Date: 29 Dec 1981 02:54:56-PST
From: menlo70!sytek!zehntel!berry at Berkeley
To: sytek!menlo70!ucbvax!space@Berkeley
Subject: sps skyhook
Why can't we build the sps into the top of a geosynchronous
skyhook and not have to beam microwaves ANYWHERE?? Then what can they
scream about?
-berry kercheval
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Date: 29 Dec 1981 20:56:39-EST
From: p-btempl at CCA-UNIX (Brad Templeton)
To: REM at MIT-MC
Subject: Re: Cables to an SPS
Cc: SPACE at MIT-MC
In response to your message of Tue Dec 29 02:13:19 1981:
Your comment is correct - I must have been in a Christmas mood when composing.
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Date: 29 Dec 1981 21:07:57-EST
From: p-btempl at CCA-UNIX (Brad Templeton)
To: REM at MIT-MC
Subject: Re: Cables to an SPS
Cc: SPACE at MIT-MC
In response to your message of Tue Dec 29 02:42:33 1981:
The idea of a spinning catapult in a vacuum was mentionned to me by I fellow
whose name I forget at an L-5 party at the Denvention (world SF convention in
Denver) this year. I'll try and dig up the paper he gave me on it.
As far as using the STS as the only transport for people, I suppose that
is workable, but just how many people could we bring up in them? If each
STS launch costs 30 megabucks, we are still talking about a large chunk of
money per person. How many people could you launch if they were packed like
sardines? Would the number of shuttles to be built be reduced once a cheap
cargo method like a skyhook was in the works?
It still all boils down to ME not getting into space. In another 60 years
we will probably not be in shape even for the smoothest rides, if the
current funding trends continue.
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Date: 29 Dec 1981 21:17:22-EST
From: p-btempl at CCA-UNIX (Brad Templeton)
To: energy at mit-mc, space at mit-mc
Subject: Transporting energy with space technology
Although oil is not, in my opinion, the way to go, we still have to face
up to the fact that large quantities of money are going to be spent on digging
oil out of the ground in the next few decades. The Canadian government alone
expects 300 GIGABUCKS will be spent in the next decade or so on matters such
as the tar sands and arctic oil.
This is a lot of money, enough to buy a whole passle of Shuttle flights or
to put a solar power unit in orbit. Can we get some of it spent on space?
People are looking anxiously for a way to get oil out of the north down to the
consumers in Canada and the US. It's all in ice, so tankers can't reach it
unless they are submarines, pipelines are hard to build, and are very
vulnerable to very costly sabatoge by natives who don't want them.
What can space technology do to ship the power.
It can either be shipped as oil or in another form. Is it possible to build
one of the catapults talked about in the Space Digest to send oil to a touchdown
off the coast from some refinery?
What about in other forms? If we can build such a plant there, could the
oil be burned, and the power sent up to reflectors or collectors in orbit
to be beamed back down to the surface again?
This may all sound like it will perpetuate oil, but it puts lots of those
nice petrodollars into space. Or am I dreaming?
Brad Templeton (p-btempl@cca-unix or decvax!watmath!bstempleton@Berkeley)
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Date: 29 Dec 1981 20:51:33-PST
From: ihnss!karn at Berkeley
Subject: Building skyhooks
Has anyone actually thought about the strategy of building skyhooks?
Would you start at ground level, without anything at the top to pull
the line out from the earth, or would you start at geostationary
altitude and go in both directions to keep it balanced? I'm not sure
that a partially completed (unanchored) skyhook could be kept stable
long enough to be completed.
Phil
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Date: 30 December 1981 03:29-EST
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM MIT-MC AT>
Subject: Cables to an SPS / Fuel etc. for shuttle from space
To: p-btempl at CCA-UNIX
cc: SPACE at MIT-MC
It'll be trivial to send down the hydrogen and oxygen used for the
main engines of the shuttle, once we find a source of hydrogen (in water
or elsewhere) and have space industry and SPS running. It should be
reasonable to send down solid rocket fuel. The large fuel tank is
lightweight so we might make a bunch of them in space and dump them
in a bundle over the ocean where they will gently float down to
the surface (of the ocean). I'd sort of like to know where the
money goes that we claim costs so much for each shuttle flight.
I think it's mostly prorating on the original construction, so the
more we use the shuttle (up to its usable lifetime) the less it costs
per flight. If we can get fuel and construction materials cheap, maybe
we can reduce the cost of building additional orbiters, and thus bring
down the cost per launch?
What if we had 100 orbiters, running up and down commute flights on
a semi-daily basis (go up one day, come down the next, immediately
prepare for launch the next day). We're a long way from that now, but
maybe someday with passengers packed like sardines we can put about
3000 people in space (30 per orbiter, 100 orbiters in fleet) each
two or three days. With SRBs and fuel tanks prepared ahead of time,
so we just stick them on the shuttle and add the fuel and launch the
contraption with a short countdown, couldn't we do that? Let's
see, that would be half a million per year. I guess that's not
enough with 4.5 billion wanting to go up there. (If we really
did semi-mass-produce orbiters, would be the unit cost?)
------------------------------
End of SPACE Digest
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