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#26 2014-05-15 16:10:23

Excelsior
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From: Excelsior, USA
Registered: 2014-02-22
Posts: 120

Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

RobertDyck wrote:
Excelsior wrote:

if we where smart, we'd establish our own independent orbital outpost, post haste.

I diagree most strenuously. Short term, we need to end dependence on Russia for access to space. But long term, we need to re-establish cooperation. After all, we don't want a return to the cold war. US federal debt is now $17.5 trillion. Trillion! It's just a matter of time before another financial melt-down as bad as 2008. And this time no one will bail the US out. Politicians keep talking about a "fragile recovery". As long as the debt is growing this fast, it isn't a recovery at all. Military over spending, just a nudge, will push the US over the brink. After all, who do you expect to sell bonds to? After the last melt down, Congress talked about simply no repaying China. As a result of that, China has been dumping US treasury bonds. Slowly, so they don't drive the price down. They certainly won't buy more. Europe is a basket case. Canada's economy is way too small. So who? I'm sure it's part of Putin's plan to trick the US into doing that. The solution is to "make nice". To reconcile with Russia. Let's face it, America can't afford another protracted cold war. Russia can't either. It will have to be resolved quickly.

I don't see Russia coming around anytime soon. Putin has given Russians pride again, in much the same way Hitler restored German pride. Whether it leads to limited conventional conflict or not, it only ends one way, the Russian people swallow their pride and kick the Putin/Mendeleev tag team out of office in favor of someone who can act civilized. At best, that will only happen after a sustained period of painful economic isolation. In the mean time other trouble spots where we depended on the Russians to speak reason into little tyrants, like North Korea, Iran, Syria, ect, are off the table. We have to go eyeball to eyeball with them now, because the Russians have proven unreliable partners (as if they ever where). It might mean a Sino-Russian Alliance, the return to a bipolar world, and fierce competition for influence in the developing world. Either way, the so called peace dividend was a myth, and it's time to get serious again.

RobertDyck wrote:

From a more practical point of view, we certainly don't want to waste yet more money on yet another space station. We have one, so use it! Keep it, and use it. Just a few small tweaks to the life support system would make it suitable for Mars. Do that, so simple operation of the station means long term testing in space. And send a centrifuge module to test effects of 38% gravity. Everything on ISS, not some other station. Remember, we don't have a big Shuttle any more.

The whole purpose of a space station was to experiment with the life support systems to support journeys of months across interplanetary space, and years on a hostile surface. The ISS is utterly incapable of doing that, and will not gain that capability with the removal of Russian orbital segment. We need something on the scale of a Nautilus-X, designed to support a full Earth-like ecosystem, so we can achieve self-sufficiency in transit, and quickly move beyond dependence on resupply from Earth on the surface. Further investment in the ISS is just throwing good money after bad. Cancel the Orion/SLS debacle, and use the funding to get the ball rolling on a Bigelow Station, and in completing the Commercial Crew program. The existing COTS contract expires at the end of 2016. If we play our cards right, we can have a near seamless transition from the ISS to its successor, and progress from there.

RobertDyck wrote:

Most importantly, any major construction effort in space should be on the surface of Mars. Mars. Not LEO, not L2, not L1, not the surface of the Moon. I said Mars.

It all boils down to motivation. We got to the moon on pure nationalism, but it didn't keep us there. We've tried to run on pure science ever since, and it hasn't gotten us very far. The only thing that will sustain real manned space exploration is the economical/colonial motivation, and as promising as Mars is on that front on the long term, it is a minimum of a quarter of a century from the initial landing from returning anything of intrinsic economic value to Earth, probably much more. The Moon offers a return on investment far sooner than that, and enables efforts elsewhere far sooner than launching from Earth alone. Luckily, science, which was really a non-factor last time, is essential to the economic motivation, and we might just get the nationalism factor back out of this crisis. It will take all three to really move the ball down the field.

Last edited by Excelsior (2014-05-15 16:22:43)


The Former Commodore

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#27 2014-05-15 17:08:54

RobertDyck
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

Excelsior wrote:

I don't see Russia coming around anytime soon.

Coming around to what? They're supposed to have pride. They're not supposed to back down. The only way Russia is going to participate in space an any significant way, is if they do have pride. So let them. Every time you try to destroy them, you create necessity for conflict. Does the United States need to be torn down? No? Then stop trying to tear down Russia.

The only problem was Crimea. It's evident that Putin currently has no desire to take any more from Ukraine. Of course the public outrage he started is very difficult to stop. East Ukraine doesn't want to hear that they were just a pawn. But they were. The CIA tried to convince Ukraine to join NATO and EU. And it didn't take a lot, western Ukraine is still panicked over Holodomor. And they should be. But any effort to put Russian navy bases under NATO control? Not going to happen. That just begged for trouble.

Putin has given Russians pride again, in much the same way Hitler restored German pride. Whether it leads to limited conventional conflict or not, it only ends one way, the Russian people swallow their pride and kick the Putin/Mendeleev tag team out of office in favor of someone who can act civilized. At best, that will only happen after a sustained period of painful economic isolation. In the mean time other trouble spots where we depended on the Russians to speak reason into little tyrants, like North Korea, Iran, Syria, ect, are off the table. We have to go eyeball to eyeball with them now, because the Russians have proven unreliable partners (as if they ever where). It might mean a Sino-Russian Alliance, the return to a bipolar world, and fierce competition for influence in the developing world. Either way, the so called peace dividend was a myth, and it's time to get serious again.

The whole purpose of a space station was to experiment with the life support systems

ONE purpose. The station had a lot of other science objectives. And needs the centrifuge module. Duplicating all the mistakes of ISS with yet another station? Just a waste of money, distraction, delay.

We got to the moon on pure nationalism, but it didn't keep us there.

Have you read my post about Newfoundland? Robert Zubrin drew upon history as an analogy for how we can got to Mars. Newfoundland tells us about establishing the first viable settlement. Nationalism won't do it. Science won't. Only private enterprise, and they need profit. Provide free knowledge: technology, exploration/scouting, maps. Then stay out of the way. But I don't think we're there yet. We need a successful human mission to Mars first. And not the Moon; as Robert Zubrin pointed out during George W.'s Constellation, equipment designed for the Moon won't work on Mars. But equipment designed for Mars will work on the Moon. So fine, skip the Moon, go straight to Mars. Once the government funded mission is done, let private enterprise decide when location has the best profit potential.

To get this back on topic: a science mission / government funded technology demonstration, could be done a few ways. One is an international mission using Russia's Energia. Another uses Vulkan. Or Mars Direct using SLS. Or my mission architecture, using SLS. Or Falcon X Heavy. Or Falcon XX. The only question is which will be built.

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#28 2014-05-15 18:13:19

JoshNH4H
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

Guys, there's no need to have political discussions about Ukraine in two different threads.  Next time I'm deleting posts.


-Josh

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#29 2014-05-15 19:18:51

GW Johnson
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

Hi Josh:

Can't say as I know the name Joseph Katz.  Sorry.  I didn't know everybody in the business,  though. 

When I was doing it,  there were around 300-400 people working in it.  About a 100 of those were 1-or-2-specialty experts in it.  Only about a dozen or so knew everything there was to know about every aspect.

My list of that dozen back then includes myself,  and about 6 that I knew fairly well.  I recently checked,  all but myself and maybe 1 other on that list are now dead.  If Joe Bendot is still alive out in LA (and he would be about 90 years old),  then he and I are the last two left. 

Joe was the ejector-ramjet guy.  I turned out to be the plain ramjet guy.  Joe and I both worked the "jet pumping" issue with gas generator-fed ramjets,  as it applied to the foreign technology exploitation of the Russian SA-6 "Gainful" SAM system.  That was in the late 1970's. 

One of Joe's several colleagues at Marquardt was Bob Ozawa,  the baffle flameholder stability correlation expert.  I still use his work,  even today. 

There was a Tom Curran at USAF Wright-Patterson AFB,  who was the flame stability expert in coaxial sudden dump combustors.  His PhD dissertation  is still THE work in that area,  and I still  use it today.  I knew Tom somewhat,  and worked with him in the 1980's and 1990's.  I'm not sure he's still with us on this Earth anymore. 

The hypersonic/scramjet guy was Fred Billig of Johns Hopkins,  but he's gone now.  Fred had some very interesting stories,  we had a good time together swapping "war stories" in a hotel bar in LA,  back in 1987.  I took his scramjet short course at UCLA that year. 

There never was a side-dump combustor flame stability expert recognized in the literature,  so I guess I'm it. 

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#30 2014-05-16 06:40:23

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

JoshNH4H wrote:

Guys, there's no need to have political discussions about Ukraine in two different threads.  Next time I'm deleting posts.

I'm taking what was said here to the other post and replying to it there.

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#31 2014-05-16 08:54:00

JoshNH4H
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From: Pullman, WA
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

Please do.  I'm not trying to stifle discussion, just to keep politics out of threads that have merit when it comes to shave stuff.


-Josh

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#32 2014-05-16 21:37:48

JoshNH4H
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

And GW, it comes as no surprise to me but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask.  The more I learn about the dynamics of supersonic fluids the crazier this stuff gets.


-Josh

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#33 2014-05-17 07:44:57

GW Johnson
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

"The more I learn about the dynamics of supersonic fluids the crazier this stuff gets."

In all these years,  I have only run across two subjects where the Lewis Carroll quote is truly appropriate:  "Curioser and Curioser", said Alice.  Those are particle physics and supersonic fluids.  I could only understand one of the two.  It may be even "curioser",  but supersonic fluids makes more sense than particle physics to me. 

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#34 2014-05-17 08:08:27

RobertDyck
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

There's a simple fact about particle physics that even most physicists haven't come to grips with yet. Particles that travel close to the speed of light behave as an object that has 3 and a fraction dimensions in our 4 dimensional space-time universe. That means they're a fractal. And the closer they get to the speed of light, the more one dimension is collapsed. Electrons and positrons travel closest to the speed of light, so their random nature is most pronounced. If a particle could ever travel exactly the speed of light, it would have exactly 3 dimensions in our 4 dimension space-time universe. The only particle that does is a photon, and that's an electromagnetic wave. But it's a wave for which time has come to a stop inside the wave. Relativity. It's only a wave, but behaves as a hard particle because time inside the wave has stopped.

Physics according to me. I've had physicists ignore me, but no one has been able to disprove this idea.

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#35 2014-05-17 08:14:24

GW Johnson
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

I know those are English words,  Robert,  but I just don't have the same dictionary.  I guess I'd better stick to shock-boundary layer interactions,  and shock-impingement heating,  etc.  smile

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#36 2014-05-17 09:24:13

RobertDyck
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

Well, that idea is rather ambitious. I haven't worked out the math, and the concept involves flexible dimensions. During "inflation", the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang, higher dimensions would have inflated. Then as the universe expanded, energy stored in these higher dimensions was released, the higher dimensions mostly collapsed into the 4 dimensions of space-time that we know. Birth of a universe. Again, haven't worked out the math, and physicists look at me like a rank amateur. But if I'm right, this uses fractal mathematics to unify General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics. That's Unified Field Theory. However, it doesn't explain temporal mechanics, so would leave a new field of physics for others to work out. Some physicists don't want a final theory because that would leave nothing for them to work on. Have to leave something for them to do. When I was a kid, I wanted to invent warp drive. Either be an engineer for NASA, design the spacecraft for the first human mission to Mars, or be Zefram Cochrane. Does it show?

Ok. I have a big project for a ram jet engineer. Interested? I've mentioned it before, but I'm serious. Design a nuclear ram jet engine. Just the engine. A nuclear ram jet like Project Pluto. But this one would have to contain fission fragments: no radiation out the tail pipe. And shielded so it doesn't kill crew. Using Americium-242m as nuclear fuel, taken from Timberwind and MITEE. This engine would be a ram jet, air start at about mach 1. Then accelerate up to mach 17 or 20 in the upper stratosphere. Just nuclear fuel for energy, and intake air for propellant. I was thinking of using the same glaze as HRSI tiles from the Shuttle, the black tiles, as heat sink inside the engine. To quickly transfer reactor heat to air inside the engine. But will leave details like that to you.

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#37 2014-05-17 15:54:56

GW Johnson
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From: McGregor, Texas USA
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

Well,  I understand the meaning of "inflation" regarding a tire or a balloon.  But for cosmology or big-bang physics,  no.  That term has no meaning in that context that I comprehend. 

As for your nuclear ramjet,  that would take some thought.  But,  ramjet ain't rocket.  Most of the projects (like X-30 NASP) that wanted to use ramjet or scramjet,  were conceptualized by rocket folks unfamiliar with the physics of airbreathers.  "It just don't work like that".  That's what really killed X-30 NASP.  That and the technological unreadiness of scramjet. 

For ramjet,  there are two speed range regimes.  There's low-speed designs,  that have simple pitot/normal shock inlets,  and convergent-only nozzles.  These fly from high subsonic to about Mach 2,  or at most 2.5.  Doesn't matter what the fuel is,  even nuclear.   There's no hypersonics with an engine that lights up at or under Mach 1.  Period.

The high-speed range designs have inlets with external-compression features to them,  like spikes or ramps.  They also have nozzles with a little bit of supersonic expansion bell to them,  but only to about exit/throat area ratio max 1.6-ish.  These will typically have a minimum flight speed between 1.5 and 2 just to ignite and thrust,  but can operate up to about Mach 6.  No faster,  really. 

The spike or ramp obstructs the airflow below about Mach 1.5-to-2,  killing thrust entirely.  Above Mach 6,  adding fuel combustion (or nuclear) heat in the combustor raises ionization levels,  but not stagnation temperature!  Nozzles convert stagnation temperature to exit velocity,  but they do not convert recombination energy to anything.  Period.  That's why you want scramjet above Mach 6.  But,  scramjet does not work at all below about Mach 4! 

Now,  there's also a frontal thrust density issue with all airbreathers (ramjet,  scramjet,  turbine,  and all the combined cycles).  The thrust per unit engine frontal blockage area that you can produce is crudely (!!!) proportional to the outside ambient air pressure.  So also is drag.  But NOT vehicle weight! 

Your engine might have a chamber pressure 5 times ambient.  But at 150,000 feet,  5 times nothing is still nothing.  There's not much point asking for a ramjet,  scramjet,  turbine,  or combined cycle engine to give you (T-D-W*sin(a))/W > 0 above 60,000-100,000 feet.  There's no air up there!  How can an airbreather make any thrust if there's no air to breathe?  The basic concept makes no sense at all! 

That altitude cutoff is very fuzzy.  Depends on what you are trying to do.  And what you are trying to do it with.  It also depends upon the weight limits and climb rates you can stand for your vehicle design.  Somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 feet will be the limit for just about any kind of airbreather.  A tad toward the higher with turbines,  a tad lower with plain ramjet.  The ASALM-PTV flight test vehicle was a ramjet whose design cruise was Mach 4 at 80,000 feet.  The SR-71 rarely got above Mach 3.5 at 100,000 feet except in transient zoom climb,  or skip-gliding. 

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2014-05-17 16:00:11)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#38 2014-05-18 01:53:15

RobertDyck
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

Ok. So if the vehicle uses a kerosene jet for take-off from runway and acceleration to ignite the RAM jet. And rocket for the final push to orbit. But the nuclear jet engine has to do the bulk of the work. The more you ask of the kerosene jet, the more fuel the craft has to carry. The more on-board propellant, the less viable the vehicle is.

Considering the Space Shuttle re-entered the atmosphere at mach 25. That means leaving the atmosphere at the same speed will get you to orbit. Then just a small circularization burn with OMS engines. This new vehicle would use the same rocket engines for thrust to orbit, and circularization. However, using a jet engine to mach 6 is really lame considering the target speed is mach 25.

The reason I said "upper stratosphere" is many jet engineers said it's difficult to attain high speed at low altitude. It's a lot easier up where the air is thin. Less air to get in the way, less drag. But if there isn't enough for the engine to breathe, then the engine won't work. I'll let you work out optimum altitude.

A vehicle with multiple engine systems is already going to be complicated: kerosene turbine for take-off/landing, plus nuclear jet engine for most speed, plus rocket to attain orbit and circularize, plus RCS thrusters to manoeuvre while in space. Splitting the nuclear jet into multiple engines for different speeds would again make it a problem.

The J58 engine for SR71 had multiple modes. Would something like that work?

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#39 2014-05-18 09:35:46

GW Johnson
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

I've never been much of a fan of combined-cycle engine designs.  It like forcing the USAF and USN to use the same planes:  the requirements are simply incompatible. 

For example a combined rocket and ramjet usually compromises both rocket and ramjet performance terribly,  just to make them use the same hardware,  which is far from optimal for either alone.  Myself,  I'd just use a rocket and a ramjet as separate items.  I'd get full performance from both that way,  plus I can operate both at the same time ("parallel burn"). 

As for the SR-71 engines,  they were often claimed to be combined-cycle "air turbo-ramjet" engines,  but they really were not.  The J-58 was an afterburning turbojet fitted with some air bypass ducts.  There was 0-to-25% air bypass,  from about stage 3 or 4 of the compressor (I don't remember which anymore),  direct to the afterburner.  The turbine core was always "on",  which limited flight speeds to about Mach 3.5 to 3.8,  due to both turbine and compressor overheat problems.  The inlet air is very,  very hot at Mach 3.5 to 3.8. 

SR-71 cruised at up to about 100,000 feet,  give or take.  They handled afterburner ignition,  and combustor-can relights,  with TEB injection.  Without that,  there is no lightoff available for turbine at 100,000 feet,  you have to get below 40,000 feet for a relight.  Sometimes far below.  And it's very tricky,  must be done "right",  or it still won't work. 

But that kind of relight-with-TEB made possible exoatmospheric "zoom" flights,  and exoatmospheric skip-gliding,  provided that the bird was fitted with attitude control thrusters.  Only a few were. 

To use airbreathing assist for launch to LEO with a lifting vehicle (an airplane),  you have to carefully shape the trajectory to match up with the characteristics of your propulsion.  It's not a constant-q or re-entry-in-reverse trajectory.  Doesn't work. 

Ramjet offers higher speed than turbine:  Mach 5.5-to-6 vs Mach 3.5-ish.  Turbine works from a standing start, while high-speed ramjet only takes over in the Mach 1.7-to-2.5 range.  Rocket offers better acceleration of a heavy vehicle than turbine does (or military bombers and transports would never have used JATO bottles). 

Myself,  I'd forget the turbine,  and just put rocket and ramjet engines in my first stage.  Rocket TO accelerating at best gees to M2-ish,  shift to ramjet.  Climb at best rates on ramjet at about M2-2.5 to about 60,000 feet,  pull over,  and accelerate in ramjet to about Mach 5.5-or-6,  as T-D allows for your cluster vehicle's drag.

That's where you stage,  because that's your max on ramjet,  and it's also about the max for surviving shock-impingement heating with a cluster vehicle.  Light the rocket again,  and pull up to about 40 degree path angle in parallel burn (rocket+ramjet) and stage. 

Your second stage is a ballistic rocket.  Getting from 5500 ft/sec to 25,000 ft/sec is doable with chemical rocket at mass ratios you can actually stand.  Might be a single or two rocket stages,  whatever it takes.   2 stages gets you higher delivered payload mass. 

Meanwhile,  your first stage airplane cuts rocket,  turns sharply at high drag in ramjet to decelerate down to about Mach 2-ish,  and cruises back to base at 60,000 feet in ramjet.  Landing is deadstick,  except you should retain a little rocket propellant to enable a go-around. 

If you choose too high an altitude to stage,  your pullover acceleration times and distances are so long that you cannot carry enough fuel to cruise back to base.  Acceleration is much faster when the air is not so thin.  There are 3 things important at staging:  most important is speed:  the highest possible,  to relive the upper stage of as much delta-vee as possible. 

Second most important is path angle:  about 40 degrees,  so a nonlifting ballistic gravity turn trajectory can be flown with a wingless "pod" of a vehicle (otherwise it is too draggy a payload for the first stage airplane). 

The "least most important" factor at staging is altitude.  Higher is better,  assuming your propulsion works in the thin air,  but altitude is the very first thing you give up,  in order to get the best out of your airbreather.  A nuclear ramjet might help a bit,  especially with flyback range.  But a nuclear rocket upper stage would confer much greater benefit. 

And that's just the hard truth of HTO/HL to LEO. 

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#40 2014-07-01 19:33:40

RobS
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

Here's yet another announcement that Russia will build a new rocket, even bigger than Angara:

http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Rus … s_999.html

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#41 2014-07-01 20:47:57

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

Ah another space race is on perhaps. I have nothing against the Russians building bog rockets mind you, I just think they would make a lousy multinational partner, because they will hold such projects hostage if they do something dirty on Earth, such as invade another country for instance. But as a competitor in a space race, they can serve as a prod to our own efforts, as they have in the past. he Russians are way overdue for landing men on the Moon by the way!

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#42 2015-04-15 20:09:12

SpaceNut
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

Russia is developing a new generation Advanced Crew Transportation System. Its first flight to the Moon is planned for 2028. Infographics by TASS

1074989.png

The Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) intends to send a manned mission to Moon in 2028-2029, Roscosmos chief Igor Komarov said on Tuesday.

"In 2028-2029 we are planning an unmanned 'visit' to Moon. Manned [lunar] landing [is planned] for 2029-2030," Komarov said.

Russia vows to put Russian cosmonauts on Moon no later than 2030

Of course with limited government funds, they an updated programs envisaging construction of a super-heavy carrier rocket and orbital satellite groups, as well as near-Earth manned missions and Moon landing project.

Russia's Komarov also said that Roscosmos has been developing all preliminary stages for the lunar program.

While stressing that current economic slowdown would not become a drag on Russia's ambition of space exploration, Komarov vowed that Russian cosmonauts would land on the Moon no later than 2030 using super-heavy Angara rocket.

"We decided to implement the Lunar program using new Angara heavy rocket, which we hope to be launched from the Vostochny ( cosmodrome in Far East) in 2024 to 2025,"

If everything goes well, they envisages unmanned Lunar landings in 2027 to 2028 and pilot trips to the Moon in 2029 and 2030.

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#43 2015-04-16 09:41:54

Terraformer
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

Aren't they always saying stuff like this?


"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony

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#44 2015-04-16 17:13:18

SpaceNut
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

True but what I found interesting was the look alike capsule..Orion ish in appearance and stated goals simular to SLS....

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#45 2015-04-17 01:18:22

kbd512
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

This is old news.  The Russians have been talking about going to the moon and Mars for decades.  So far, apart from the one political aberration that lead America to put men on the moon, all it's been is talk.  They've run into the same problems we have.  Talking about it is a lot easier than actually doing it.  I wish them good luck and hope they're successful.

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#46 2015-04-25 06:05:56

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

Depends on whether Putin stays in office until 2028 to see the program through.

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#47 2015-04-25 11:21:05

GW Johnson
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From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

I saw a news report on NBC's internet news that space budgets in Russia have been slashed by 1/3.  Not sure about the pedigree and credibility of that report,  but it is consistent with economic troubles they are having. 

If true,  lack of resources may trump Putin's preferences for what gets done and what does not. 

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#48 2015-04-25 11:49:31

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,362

Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

We could always cooperate with each other instead of this "every man for himself" crap, but that'd probably make way too much sense.  Humans to Mars in the next ten years would be completely doable with existing budgets if every space faring nation collaborated on the task.  I was really hoping that manned Mars exploration would be the first task that we collectively undertake.

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#49 2015-04-25 15:38:52

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

The last truly significant time humanity collaborated on anything was about 40,000 years ago.  That was when we mated "cross-species" with the less-numerous but pre-existing Homo Neanderthalensis in Europe and Asia and absorbed them into our genome.  And not all of us did it! 

Does THAT give you any idea what to expect in the way of collaborative Mars missions?  History can be painful,  can it not?

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#50 2015-08-31 05:15:26

Tom Kalbfus
Banned
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: Super-heavy Space Rocket Project in Russia(Successor to Buran/Energia)

GW Johnson wrote:

I saw a news report on NBC's internet news that space budgets in Russia have been slashed by 1/3.  Not sure about the pedigree and credibility of that report,  but it is consistent with economic troubles they are having. 

If true,  lack of resources may trump Putin's preferences for what gets done and what does not. 

GW

You know, I wish Putin would spend more on conquering space and less on conquering Earth! Apparently Putin deems Crimea to be of more value than the Moon or Mars, I wish it was the other way around!

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