Non US Sea Dragon?

[mlorrey]

hold on a sec, "ass" is not on the scramble list, but "$crotum" is? $crotum is a physiological term while the other is just a mule.

 

[gunsandrockets]

"here are NO Ohios carrying Tridents anymore. They've all been retired under the START treaty. Those not used for Tomahawk duty are used either as special ops mobile bases, or for oceanographic research, or are mothballed at Bangor NS. "<br /><br />You are claiming the U.S. has zero Trident SLBM is service today? That START II bans them? I beg to differ...<br /><br />"The United States has 336 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) on 14 nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). The missiles are armed with some 2,016 warheads, about 48 percent of U.S. operational strategic weapons. The U.S. Navy reduced its SSBN force by one in 2004, bringing the force to the level decided upon in the 1994 NPR. The navy has extended the service life of the subs from 30 to 44 years; the oldest sub is scheduled to retire in 2029, when a new SSBN will be introduced."<br /><br /><br />http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=jf05norris<br /><br />http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/ohio/<br /><br />http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1999/ssgn.htm<br /><br />http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/forces.htm<br /><br />...so there are 14 Ohio submarines in service as 'boomers' carring Trident nuclear armed ballistic missiles, and 4 Ohio submarines in service as SSGN non-nuclear armed attack boats.<br /><br />

 

[rubicondsrv]

"Bath Iron Works, which builds (among other things) nuclear-powered aircraft carriers"<br />bath dose not build CVN's the only shipyard that builds CVN's is newport news shipbuilding wich is owned by northrop grumman.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[ve7rkt]

Back on topic...<br /><br />We've got the chicken-and-egg scenario. Can't build payloads for a nonexistent rocket, can't afford a giant rocket without payloads.<br /><br />Can a giant Sea Dragon style lifter support itself economically through mass launches of small payloads, until large payloads are developped? Maybe a Mini Dragon (Lake Dragon?) that lifts <i>only</i> a hundred tons or so? Are there ever that many satellites headed for different orbits in the same or similar plane at once, or if there were a cheap way to get them up there, would there be?<br /><br />There'd be the extra expense for some navigation & thrusters to position the satellite individually, but if the group lift was cheap enough to cover that cost, you still win.

 

[mlorrey]

You are right, sorry, I should have checked. <br /><br />Was under the impression that the whole Trident missile arsenal had been chucked by the treaty. SSBNs are considered the biggest threat to superpower stability.<br /><br />Apparently the Trident I, C-4 missiles have been decommed, replaced by the Trident II D-5. Difference between the two is a 60% increase in range, and increase in yeild of the eight MIRVS went from 100 kt to 475 kt. Accuracy of each IRV increased from over 1200' CEP to 300' CEP.<br /><br />Apparently converting four Ohio's to cruise missile platforms is considered a means of keeping some sort of parity in capability between the C-4 vs D-5 equipped fleet.

 

[pmn1]

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/shipyard.htm <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[pmn1]

<font color="yellow">Can a giant Sea Dragon style lifter support itself economically through mass launches of small payloads, until large payloads are developped? Maybe a Mini Dragon (Lake Dragon?) that lifts only a hundred tons or so? Are there ever that many satellites headed for different orbits in the same or similar plane at once, or if there were a cheap way to get them up there, would there be? </font><br /><br />You mean Excalibur?<br /><br />Uses the same principles but can be land or sea launched.<br /><br />http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/exclibur.htm<br /><br /><br />Or some of the boosters mentioned here<br /><br />http://uplink.space.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=businesstech&Number=476335&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart= <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[mlorrey]

There could be. Look at the CubeSat program, launching little 4"x4"x4", 1 kg cubes. Current launch price is $40,000 per cube, on Russian ICBM-based launchers.<br />At this price, there are 22 CubeSats scheduled for launch this year alone, and the movement is growing. <br /><br />With launch costs around $1,000/kg or less, price-demand elasticity opens up significantly. Imagine being able to buy a Personal Satellite built in a CubeSat architecture, mass produced in China, for $2k, with a launch cost of $1k. You want data privacy? You got it, at consumer prices.<br /><br />Imagine mass producing interplanetary CubeProbes, whose only purposes are to land on asteroids, deploy a transponder or radar reflector, and do a simple assay of material at the landing site. Most probe costs are design and testing. With mass production, those overhead costs get divided up among the whole production line. If you deploy thousands at a time, with little solar powered laser diode pulse plasma thrusters, they will have a pretty good survey of a large number of NEOs within a few years, and much of the discovered asteroid population within a decade.

 

[qso1]

pmn1:<br />Are there ever that many satellites headed for different orbits in the same or similar plane at once, or if there were a cheap way to get them up there, would there be?<br /><br />Me:<br />A 100 ton payload capacity mini sea dragon would be similar in capacity to the Saturn-V. The Saturn-V went out of production at Apollos end in part because there were no 100 ton payloads after Apollo. It could probably be done technically, but its the cost that continues to be a problem with any program involving sending payloads into space. Especially heavy payloads. Sea Dragon IMO, really can only exist as a cost effective launcher if we decide to industrialize LEO and establish a large human presence and private enterprise is heavily involved.<br /><br />Put another way, the projects below have two things in common. They were all proposed as low cost boosters and none have ever flown, much less demonstrated that they really are low cost.<br /><br />Aerospace Design 3 SLV - 18,145kg to LEO $880/kg <br /><br />Chrysler MCD Booster - 45,360kg to LEO $752/kg <br /><br />MCDonnell Douglass MCD booster - 45,360kg to LEO $767/kg <br /><br />Rockwell MCD booster - 20,400kg to LEO $1,381/kg <br /><br />Martin Marietta MCD boosetr - 20,400kg to LEO $474/kg <br /><br />Boeing Double Bubble Booster - 15,420kg to LEO $936/kg <br /><br />Revised Boeing MCD booster - 45,360kg to LEO $1,427/kg <br /><br />TRW MCD booster - 60,000kg to LEO $1,235/kg <br /><br />TRW LCSSB - 29,756kg to LEO $1,989/kg <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[ve7rkt]

<font color="yellow">Look at the CubeSat program</font><br /><br />That's what I'm thinking of, but instead of launching university projects built on desktops, let's call them Commercial Cubes blown up to 1m x 1m x 1m @ 1 ton. As with CubeSat, there'd be accomodations for multi-bay projects (a 3U ComCube at 1m x 1m x 3m @ 3T). As with CubeSat, an Excalibur-type launcher (exactly the kind of beast I was thinking of) would launch with a dispenser spewing these giant cubes into orbit.<br /><br />Selling a service like that might keep a heavy launch company afloat long enough for customers to come up with a good reason to launch full size payloads. I mean, look at Ariane V. They build a 12 ton launcher, and what do they do with it? They launch two 6 ton sats at once.

 

[mlorrey]

Well, 1 ton means a launch price of $1 million at $1,000/kg. That is also heavy for a 1 meter cube. Usually sats that size range from 50 kg up to 250 kg. Your mass is really determined by what you want to do vs the available technology. Given increasing miniaturization, there is no reason not to try to make your sat as small as possible. Thanks to the CubeSat program there are actually many common sat components being produced by MEMS processes: accelerometers, reaction wheels, plasma thrusters, etc.<br /><br />As things advance, you'll essentially build an Iridium equivalent sat phone, a PDA sized personal server, then build in a fuel tank (aerosol cans or CO2 cartridges) for your laser diode plasma thruster, MEMS reaction wheels, accelerometers and star trackers. Digital web cameras on gimbal mounts, deployable solar panels, perhaps even a betavoltaic cell.<br /><br />For personal satellites, you do want to be concerned about too many in orbit. Definitely there should be defined orbital corridors for personal satellites and rules about deorbiting at end of life, or maneuver to recycling/refuelling stations.<br /><br />What is the market for personal satellites: Here is a question where I think we are at the point where IBM chairman once said he thought the world market for computers was 3, or perhaps slightly beyond that point. We know from the CubeSat movement that the numbers the established satellite industry uses are false. There are now over 100 teams building CubeSats, both at the university, high school, and private enterprise levels. With a launch price point 40 times lower than today, this number should expand significantly to a true consumer markent, just as the original PC market opened up with machines priced from $2000-3000 in 1990 dollars (about $3500-5000 in current year dollars).<br /><br />Before this, back to the 1970's, recall the Altair personal computer. It was sold as a kit you had to assemble, its only user interface was some blinking lights on the

 

[mikejz]

I would disagree strongly with your market assessment. The premise is inaccurate, because you propose no function that a privately owned satellite could perform that would represent usefulness to a single owner. owning my own personal satellite is as sort of like generating my own electricity. I COULD do it, but that does not mean its that best solution. <br /><br />There might be a market, as shown by the fact that I know armature astronomers who have probably spent several hundred thousand dollars on the hobby. <br /><br />Also, Cubesats are the providence of University students, not of hobbyists--students who want to BUILD something that flys in space, not buy it from someone else. Amsat has been flying armature satellites for 40 years, and often gets rides for free---but there has never been significant public interest in the product.<br /><br />If I want pictures from space I'll use a existing companies imaging satellite, If I want a satellite telephone, I'll use Iridium, if I want TV I'll use DirecTv. <br /><br />The market is not personal--its in companies funding new uses for satellites that operate with lower capital investments.

 

[mlorrey]

On the contrary, this is the age of secret warrantless searches, warrantless wiretaps, stolen personal videos, hacked cellphone contact lists, ubiquitous surveillance, "transparent society", and vast and broad infringements of our rights of privacy.<br /><br />Having your personal server in space is like having your own offshore data haven, your own little orbiting kingdom: it is someplace where you can keep your private data, encrypted, in your own sovereign jurisdiction.<br /><br />Cubesats WERE the providence of U students. The are becoming the province of hobbyists. There is no restriction on who can build or launch one.<br /><br />You also ignore that the present state of the nanosat market is IDENTICAL to the state of the PC market in the 1970s: first exclusively university students making breadboards in plywood boxes, giving way to kits produced by small businesses (CubeSat kits are available and on the market already, google it up) for the hobbyists, and eventually, once the killer apps are discovered (I happen to like the personal data server, but there may be others, Iridium is dying, it will be replaced by nanosat wifiphone) will create massive consumer demand for mass produced items.<br /><br />I've already illustrated a potential demand for 600,000 nanoprobes for surveying the asteroid belt.<br /><br />

 

[mikejz]

surveillance???!!!!<br /><br />Just use PGP----it's a lot cheaper!<br /><br />Of use a data warehouse in the Cayman Islands. <br /><br />And those satellite are in LEO, Right?<br /><br />In other words the average owner will have maybe a twenty minute pass every two days. So you would need a ground tracking network to talk to the space-based web server---at which point having the server in space becomes worthless.

 

[mlorrey]

"In other words the average owner will have maybe a twenty minute pass every two days. So you would need a ground tracking network to talk to the space-based web server---at which point having the server in space becomes worthless. "<br /><br />On the contrary, as the numbers increase, personal sats will act as wifi nodes for an orbiting network, for multiple networks in which you can enter into private virtual networks with people you trust, and firewall out all others. With such networks established, each network member will have 24 hour access outside of established backbones. <br /><br />PGP isn't perfect, it only delays the inevitable when your data is exposed.<br /><br />Caymans and other offshore locales are subject to MLAT treaties with whatever nation you are in and cannot be trusted to keep your data private, just as they can no longer be trusted to keep your financial info private.

 

[mikejz]

It would see a lot easier to just ware tinfoil hats than what you're proposing.

 

[mlorrey]

Aspersions about "Tinfoil hats" presupposes that secret warrantless searches and wiretaps don't happen (even though the Bush administration purposely sought the authority to do so and admits to having done thousands in the last few years), that identity theft doesn't happen, that people's cellphones don't get phreaked remotely, etc etc etc. The fact is that they happen all the time and are widely documented by non-tinfoil-hat reporters and published by non-tinfoil-hat mainstream media. <br /><br />YOU don't notice it because you don't want to notice it. Fine, all that means is that you are too obtuse to be a customer for such services, you enjoy being blissfully unaware of or uncaring about your own enslavement. There are, however many thousands, perhaps millions of people for whome such things are a real concern, for people who still think that individual liberties mean something, and that government is not inherently trustworthy to work for your best interest. Given the history of government, if anybody here is being absurdly, even insanely, unrealistic, it is you.

 

[pmn1]

<font color="yellow">Imagine mass producing interplanetary CubeProbes, whose only purposes are to land on asteroids, deploy a transponder or radar reflector, and do a simple assay of material at the landing site. Most probe costs are design and testing. With mass production, those overhead costs get divided up among the whole production line. If you deploy thousands at a time, with little solar powered laser diode pulse plasma thrusters, they will have a pretty good survey of a large number of NEOs within a few years, and much of the discovered asteroid population within a decade. </font><br /><br />There was a very intresting article in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society about 10 years or so ago describing how 64 (IIRC) mini-sats of 50kg (IIRC) each could be launched from one launcher and use gravity asist to put a series of landers, orbitters and flybys on most if not all the planets in the system. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[ve7rkt]

Let's assume that there is actually a need for personal orbital data havens. If your data isn't safe on Earth, it sure as heck isn't safe blasted on a radio link to an orbiting satellite. Also, if something like this did become popular, you can bet your government organization would develop a system for capturing and examining personal server-sats. If we have the capacity to launch personal satellites cheaply, we have the capacity to launch a simple OTV into the same orbit, with enough fuel to tug your sat over to a station for analysis. The hardest part would be identifying which personal satellite needs to be examined, but that's not too hard (the last 50 times mlorrey's radio was pointing at the sky, which personal satellites were respondng?) and if you get it wrong, well... if it's safe for your data in orbit because laws don't apply there, there are no laws stopping folks from mulching all the satellites they feel like. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

 

[mlorrey]

"If we have the capacity to launch personal satellites cheaply, we have the capacity to launch a simple OTV into the same orbit, with enough fuel to tug your sat over to a station for analysis. The hardest part would be identifying which personal satellite needs to be examined, but that's not too hard (the last 50 times mlorrey's radio was pointing at the sky, which personal satellites were respondng?) and if you get it wrong, well... if it's safe for your data in orbit because laws don't apply there, there are no laws stopping folks from mulching all the satellites they feel like."<br /><br />Given the quantities in a mass market, and the activities of packet networks, it is virtually impossible for authorities to pick out one server as that of their target without expending a LOT of delta-v.<br /><br />"Mulching" a lot of innocent persons property may not be a crime in space, but it is a crime in most places on Earth for governments to do so to private property of innocent persons. No government can claim that a personal server is a military installation, so there can be no claim that damage to others is "collateral". Weapons of mass destruction are not military weapons. Furthermore, most governments are signatories to a treaty banning the militarization of space, as well as a treaty banning the production of space garbage, which any such search and destroy missions will create.<br /><br />Given the potential global nature of the market for personal servers, any government engaging in willy nilly blasting of server sats is as likely to destroy assets of their own citizens as citizens of many other countries.<br /><br />So, yes, there are laws against mulching all the sats they feel like.<br /><br />This issue is along the lines of the taxation of the internet issue: a few bullies want to impose them, but most people see and want the benefits of a tax free environment.

 

[pmn1]

<font color="yellow">There was a very intresting article in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society about 10 years or so ago describing how 64 (IIRC) mini-sats of 50kg (IIRC) each could be launched from one launcher and use gravity asist to put a series of landers, orbitters and flybys on most if not all the planets in the system.</font><br /><br />Sorry, 100kg each on average. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[mlorrey]

"There was a very intresting article in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society about 10 years or so ago describing how 64 (IIRC) mini-sats of 50kg (IIRC) each could be launched from one launcher and use gravity asist to put a series of landers, orbitters and flybys on most if not all the planets in the system. <br /><br />Sorry, 100kg each on average. "<br /><br />Thats okay, take Moore's Law into account, in the past ten years the needed equipment has gotten 64 times smaller for the same capability. A 50 kg probe today should be about 32 times more capable than a 100 kg probe a decade ago.

 

[tomnackid]

I have to believe that there are cheaper and better ways to hide and transmit data than putting in space where it can be seen and tracked by anyone with radar and a telescope. Encryption doesn't mean squat when you can just bribe or threaten someone to give you the key. As for the government seizing "private" data or prosecuting company officers for destroying data, if the company is publicly traded then the data belongs to the stock holders not the CEO or CFO. How can stock holders protect their interests without banding together and enforcing accountability? <br /><br />Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't see this as a driving force behind space travel. I think beamed power is the next logical step up from communications (the only really profitable space industry so far.) A small scale pilot operation that can beam power from a place where electricity is generated cheaply and without too much environmental impact (still lots of hydroelectric potential in remote areas) to a place that desperately needs electricity would be the logical successor to Telstar. Or a small (relatively speaking) solar array that could beam power down to say a fleet of cargo ships or an airliner. I recall that about 20 years ago Jerry Pournelle wrote about a study for such a solar power system to power an airliner. Even with 80's era jet fuel prices the study showed that a profit could be made. With the price of oil today it should do even better.

 

[tap_sa]

<font color="yellow">"I have to believe that there are cheaper and better ways to hide and transmit data than putting in space where it can be seen and tracked by anyone with radar and a telescope."</font><br /><br />Incidentally Canada has plans to try satellite based data courier service in Cassiope mission. Uplink/downlink at 1.2gigabits/sec, up to 500Gb 'payload'.

 

[mlorrey]

So you admit to advocating that governments bribe and threaten their citizens as a legitimate means of governance?<br /><br />Stockholders band together and enforce accountability by electing new directors, if the old ones do not act responsibly in governing their corporation, in selecting the officers, and getting rid of irresponsible ones.<br /><br />Now, I'm not saying this is the only or even the primary "killer app" for space travel in general, or even for nano satellites. <br /><br />For sure, you'll never make a buck beaming power from nanosatellites, so I was attempting to illustrate how the power of the consumer market could come into play without having to worry about risk-evasive capital managers being too gun-shy for big-satellite projects.<br /><br />I happen to know a lot of people who would love having a personal satellite, or at least have server space on a satellite. You may not know any, but we travel in different social circles with different political views and goals. Just because you don't know anybody who would want a personal server satellite doesn't mean there isn't a market for it. Ask any New York Democrat how many people they know personally who voted for Bush, they likely don't know anybody who did (or admits to it), yet he got 52% of the popular vote in the last election. <br /><br />Solar power sats require huge capital investments, as do all other big satellite projects that the Conventional Wisdom says is required to justify big heavy boosters like SeaDragon. People making those objections then launch into chicken or egg arguments that only perpetuate the fact that we still don't have Sea Dragon boosters.<br /><br />I am trying to propose work arounds that don't demand huge capital investment decisions on large single projects. Making satellites small and cheap enough to create demand for tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands be launched is what is needed: to justify mass production of satellites, which brings down their per unit price a