Category: Space

Damn!

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Turns out that Star Trek is impossible.

At 99.999998% of the speed of light, the the radiation from interstellar hydrogen striking your ship will fry you like an egg:

Professor William Edelstein of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine explained to New Scientist that while interstellar space has just a couple of hydrogen atoms per cubic centimetre, as the crew of the Enterprise hit the gas pedal, a compression effect would greatly increase the number of atoms hitting the spacecraft.

As the spaceship reached 99.999998 per cent of the speed of light, “hydrogen atoms would seem to reach a staggering 7 teraelectron volts”, which for the crew “would be like standing in front of the Large Hadron Collider beam”.

This is a very bad thing, because humans in the path of this ray would receive a dose of ionising radiation of 10,000 sieverts, and as Bones McCoy would doubtless confirm, the lethal dose is 6 sieverts.

The result? Death in one second.

And I was so looking forward to green alien dancing girls.

Well, I guess that there is always recombinant DNA technology.

Net Materials Create Really Ugly Spacecraft

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This doesn’t fly, it is just so ugly that it repels the earth

In a move away from about 50 years convention in materials and aerodynamics, European aerospace firms are looking at faceted sharp edged reentry vehuicles: (paid subscription required)

Advanced thermal protection systems, to be tested in upcoming hypersonic experiments, will enable development of a reusable “sharp-edged” orbital launch vehicle with much greater flexibility than blunt-capsule or shuttle-type designs, say German researchers.

The team at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Bremen believes the move to simple, faceted geometries—away from the curved surfaces of conventional reentry vehicles— should also help cut costs while simultaneously offering improvements in aero-thermodynamic performance.

Basically, they are suggesting that the use of flat surfaces will make for more easily constructed heterogeneous materials, kind of like how Chobham armor give tanks angled surfaces, and that this can allow for sharp edged re-entry vehicles that can give more cross range performance and far lower G loads during reentry.

This is not an easy nut to crack. Not only are the temperatures higher with a weak shock wave, on the order of nearly 5,000°F as versus about 2300°F for the shuttle, but the high speed portion of reentry would take something on the order of an hour, as opposed to 10 minutes.

The technologies involved are ceramic matrix composites, basically composites where ceramics replace the conventional resin, advance ablative systems, and effusion cooling, which is basically where very small holes in the surface are used to pass a cooling fluid that carries away heat directly, as well as creating a thin film of relatively cool gas on the surface in question.

Effusion cooling has already been applied to cool combustors, but might prove more problematic in the rather less well controlled environments during reentry.

Neat Tech: Magnetic Heat Shield

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Cool!

Since air becomes ionized, and by definition charged, during re-entry, the Russians are looking at using a magnetic heat shield as an adjunct to physical heat resisting techniques.

Basically, by generating a magnetic field, it can deflect the hotter air away from the spacecraft:

The flight test would use a Russian Volna rocket, which is able to launch a 650kg (1,430lb) payload. The Volan capsule will be the payload for the flight test. It will re-enter the atmosphere at up to Mach 21, and design work is under way to fit the super conducting coil system within its internal volume.

Other issues to be tackled include the ability of the coil to withstand the launch and flight environment; trajectory modification to compensate for the increased drag caused by the atmospheric gas deflection; and telemetry data recovery, when radio signal blocking ionised gases form around the vehicle.

Pictures: Kliper Space Module

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Models at the Paris Airshow


With an associated “space tug”


Escape tower system


Orbital module separation


Full size mockup


Lifting body configuration


Configuration:
1-Reentry capsule; 2-Docking section; 3-Docking port; 4-Service module

Mat Rodina, aka Stanislav Mishin, generally posts on issues of Russian diplomacy and economics, with a generally nationalist bent.

I find it a good read, because I think that helps one understand some of the Russian concerns out there, though I frequently disagree.

Well, this Tuesday, he went looked at space technology, and posted about eh Kliper spacecraft, which has been proposed to replace the Soyuz. (see also the wiki)

Given the experience of the space shuttle, where the juxtaposition of solid boosters and a cryogenic fuel tank in parallel to the vehicle have led to disaster, the fact that the configuration sits atop, as opposed to astride, the tankage, much like the Dyna-Soar concept is probably a good thing.

On the other hand, the fact that it also has a cargo capacity of roughly 1000 kg is to my mind a mistake. The shuttle showed that mixing manned and payload functions in a single launch is uneconomical.

It’s propulsion includes a service module which is not returned from orbit, much like the current Soyuz or the Apollo capsules.

The Kliper has had a number of different concepts over the years, winged, lifting body, and something called a “hybrid version”, according to Buran-Energia.

Pictures are from the Wiki, or Buran-Energia.

We Can Have Scotch and Water on the Moon

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LCROSS


Image of Plume at +20 after impact


Near-infrared spectrometer data. Yellow areas indicate the water absorption bands


Data from the ultraviolet/visible spectrometer

And we only need to bring the Scotch, because the LCROSS impact data indicates water on moon, and not just water on the moon, but lots of water on the moon.

It appears that we are talking gallons of water in an area the size of a football field, which is by earth standards pretty f$#@ing dry, but is actually enough to be “mined” as a resource.

This is interesting not just because it makes the possibility of a habitation there more interesting, but it also raises the question as to the source of the water.

The usual suspects here are comets, the solar wind, or some hitherto unknown lunar process.

Video of discussion after break.

No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Die

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Where is the White Persian Cat?

Well, it appears that some sharp-eyed satellite imagery analysts have spotted what they think is a China’s anti-satellite laser installation in Google™ Earth™ pictures.

This conclusion is actually somewhat controversial, as there are any number of non-hostile applications, such as astronomy and precision satellite tracking (which would involve a low power laser range finder) that could explain these installation

You can find larger pictures here, which include two other similar Chinese installations.

Except for that Whole Parachute Failure Thing…..

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So, the delayed launch of the Ares I launcher was deemed a success, except, of course, for the whole recovery parachutes failing and damaging the nominally reusable shuttle solid rocket booster derived first stage.

The first stage suffered some significant damage as a result of the failure, though, for now, at least, the rest of the flight is considered to be “nominal.”

I’ll wait for the full report.

Russia Planning Nuclear Rocket

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Bimodal Nuclear Thermal Rocket

From the report, we are not talking about Orion, or direct thrust from nuclear heating, but rather some sort of electric propulsion system using electricity from a reactor for a proposed mission to Mars.

Something like ion drive, or plasma drive would likely cut transit time by at least ¾ for a manned trip to Mars, and if a ground base were established, a nuclear power supply would handle the reduced solar energy levels there.

I’d take this with a grain of salt, because the cost quoted for this is a bit over US $¾ billion, which sounds like a quote from Never Land.

NASA Looking at Inflatable Module for ISS

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It looks like NASA is looking again at using the inflatable module technology that it first proposed as “TransHab” in the 1990s. on the International Space Station. (top pic)

Bigelo Aerospace has been working with the concept, and NASA’s basic technology, to develop a tourist destination in orbit (bottom Pic), and it has successfully launched two prototypes populated with insects, and with this success, NASA is again considering adding an inflatable module to the ISS.

The concept was originally developed to provide for living quarters for a manned Mars Mission.

Vasimr Proceeds to Higher Power Tests

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30 kw first stage test


VX -200 Prior to entering Test Chamber


In vacuum chamber

The Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (Vasimr) is slated to enter higher power testing. (paid subscription required)

The first stage, a 30kw system, has been successfully tested, and they are now working on a 2nd stage, which will boost the power of the unit to around 200 kw.

The performance benefits, the ISP (basically fuel economy) is more than 10 times that of chemical rockets, would be very significant if this can be made to work.

For example, it could take the time for a transit to Mars from 180-200 days to about 40 days.

Prior posts here.

NASA Head is So Far Up It’s Ass it Resembles a Klein bottle

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Remember that permanent moonbase that NASA has been pushing for the past few years????

OOPS!! just kidding!

After four years of bold talk about focusing its return-to-the-Moon programme on a permanent international outpost at the Moon’s southern polar Shackleton crater, NASA now suggests its plans may stop at less ambitions Apollo-style sorties.

Seriously, it appears that NASA looks at its long term goals with the same seriousness as your average LOLKat on a catnip binge.

As I’ve said before, these are people who let Star Trek inform their decisions way too much.