http://vimeo.com/6382632 An old video.

The Burnelli “lifting body with wings” style transport and passenger planes might have been good. Too bad it’s pretty hard to pressurize compared to tube hulls that were just introduced when Burnelli aircraft were proposed.

I think the report has a problem typical of such short “documentaries”. They assert a lot that is not very well based. A very biased view. Where did they get their experts? Did they quote their most salient points?

There are other open questions left there. For example landing at slower speeds would probably mean more drag in cruise (because of large lifting surfaces). I’m not terribly impressed with the video report. If a lot of their other reporting is of similar quality, it’s no wonder that so many people have so weird opinions on a number of things, if they really believe what is said on TV…

The latter is an obsolete unit for energy anyway. The SI unit is Joules. 1 J = 1 N * 1 m = 1 kg * 1 m²/s² = etc etc – see that’s the whole idea of the SI system – you don’t have any coefficients.

Yet using Calories further makes it easier to construct misconceptions like the advertisement for Hydrive energy drinks: they give you lots of energy and are healthy because they have low Calories.

http://www.hydriveenergy.com/

They suck. For example the latter picture in the post below is malformed. The original before uploading is fine and well readable. I posted with Firefox as I can’t post images to blog posts at all with Opera. The editor looks horrible in Firefox with a barely readable font as I’m typing this.

I don’t know what went wrong and where but blogging has always been tediously slow with each operation always lasting a loong time (start a new post, insert a picture…), on any operating system. This of course wouldn’t need to be so for technical reasons (a 2 MB connection is enough to stream fine video so sending some text and control inputs plus some small pictures is nothing) but is probably for other reasons – inefficient libraries are used because of compatibility and lack of manpower etc etc.

This is actually the case for a huge number of things nowadays. Many things would be possible but for some little reason are not done. Lack of knowledge, motivation, small money…

Or what you are going to call it, an unrealized proposal from Aerojet around 1984. PDF Found on NTRS.

The idea was to have two turbopumps (like on SSME), but instead operate on the expander cycle. Two heat exchangers, two turbines, two pumps. One for each propellant.

Both propellants go through a heat exchanger and an expander driving a pump

This is a LOX-hydrogen engine. Also this means that since there is the same propellant on both sides of the axle, in the turbine and in the pump, no elaborate seals are needed. Original intent for these engines was for in-space reusable stuff, that needs to be operated many times and for a long time without maintenance. Size was in the RL10 class, about 70 kN. (RL10 has grown though.)

Think for example if you let a fired turbopump sit in space for a long time. Will some fuel leak to the oxidizer side through the seals? This could avoid that. (You can use helium purges too though but then you’ve got one more fluids you need to tank.)

Since the Wall fell. And the whole cascading fall of the evil empire was started. Why do humans have to do such horrible things to each other? Create such a sick society? There’s a lot to be improved nowadays too. We have to constantly strive for openness and truth.

I was in Berlin this summer, a very short visit. Last visit was in 1995. It had changed quite a lot. Had a wonderful evening with a friend I had not seen in six years. She as a local took me to all kinds of nice places. Artists working in an abandoned building (some very nice steel plate artwork for sale there by the way, if I was rich and had a huge villa to fill with artwork, I’d shop there), some river boats, the numerous bridges, the weird Potsdamer Platz, and all around architecture and nice parks. I even saw the place where allegedly Döner Kebap was invented. All in all a relaxed and boheme place. Somewhat smelly, yes, but lively.

Man, East Germany was a horrible horrible place. I recommend this movie. Das Leben den Anderen, 2006. The repressivity and hopelesness of a totalitarian state is shown.

The Man. On Space Review. [EDIT: About a month ago, but I only just read it.] This is just excellent. So many things I agree with, that go against the stupid myths of spaceflight and space policy. If you read one space policy interview this year, this should be it!

“NASA is an organization that is dominated by fixed costs. In business terms everything is in the overhead,” he said. The committee found, with some effort, that the fixed cost of NASA’s human spaceflight program is $6–7 billion a year. “The bottom line is that they can’t afford to keep the doors open with they money they’ve got, let alone do anything with it.”

…

However, he said, if you’re trying to minimize costs, it makes more sense to use a smaller launch vehicle that flies more frequently and has other users and applications. The key to making that work for exploration architectures that require large amounts of propellant—and hence have driven the planning for heavy-lift vehicles like the Ares 5—is the use of propellant depots and in-space propellant transfer. “If you use in-space propellant transfer, it’s no longer true that you have to have a really big piece,” he said.

…

He said that while he had his own opinions on the right selection of launch vehicles, he didn’t have any insights on what direction the White House and Congress would go. “It’s really up to policymakers whether we have a space program or a jobs program.”

To Armadillo, Masten Space Systems, Unreasonable Rocket, The X Prize foundation and all the people in these organization and others! I was watching the webcasts a large portion of the weekend.

A month ago, only one team, Armadillo, had ever done even a lunar lander challenge flight from one pad to another. And now there are three. Never mind multiple flights by Masten, both L1 and L2!

The future might be markedly different from present. How about something like testing space telescope instruments in 100+ km VTVL or HTHL flights? Reliable and routine access to space, even though at start for only a brief time in hops, could change everything. You would get everything back intact. Unlike with sounding rockets where recovery seems often so uncertain…

There are some aerodynamic issues still though that I’ve been expounding on for a long time.

Kirk had some thoughts when touring the Delta IV factory in Alabama.