NASA puts out call for commercial space taxis The agency wants to be able to purchase rides on acommercial basis before the end of 2017 to fly four crewmembers to and from the station about every six months. The new solicitation asks for proposals for final design,development, test, evaluation and certification of a human spacetransportation system, including ground operations, launch,orbital operations, return to Earth and landing. via vox dot com One of these three vehicles will be NASAs spacecraft of the future Updated by Joseph Stromberg on August 23, 2014, Since 2011, when the Space Shuttle program was retired, NASA has been entirely dependent on Russia for transporting its astronauts to and from the International Space Station, and it now pays $70.7 million for each one-way ticket. NASAs plans originally called for a privately-developed American spacecraft to fill the void by 2015, but annual underfunding by congress has delayed that to 2017 at the earliest. Recent tensions with Russia have made the issue more urgent, and NASA administrators have called for more funding to ensure they hit the 2017 target date. Private Space Taxis on Track for 2017 Launch, NASA Says by Elizabeth Howell, SPACE Contributor March 22, 2014 The four private companies NASA is counting on to develop manned spaceships — Boeing, Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC) and SpaceX — are notching the many milestones set by the space agencys commercial crew program (CCP), officials said. NASA requested $848 million for commercial crew in the White Houses 2015 budget proposal. That figure is enough to keep competition going, the agency says, but historically Congress grants the agency less than it asks for. Boeing may have outfoxed Musk, but it could have bigger problems By Lawrence Lewitinn Talking Numbers Elon Musk is arguably one of the greatest entrepreneurial minds of the 21st Century, but he was outsized an old school aerospace giant. Boeing won the bulk of NASA’s contract for a space taxi. One of the other companies vying for the deal is SpaceX, the company headed by Tesla’s Musk, will get a $2.6 billion contract compared to Boeings $4.2 billion. Currently, the NASA contract depends on Russia, which charges about $70 million per person. Space Station Extension May Cost More Than NASA Expects: Report by Elizabeth Howell on September 19, 2014 NASA’s anticipated $3 billion to $4 billion annual budget for the International Space Station is “overly optimistic”, a new report from NASA’s Inspector General says. Transportation costs will likely rise when NASA uses commercial spacecraft to access the station instead of Russian Soyuzes, the report said. Also, if international partners don’t commit to extending the station four extra years to 2024, NASA will need to pick up more of the financial burden. “While ISS program officials have been seeking ways to reduce costs and consolidate resources, it is unclear whether these efforts will be sufficient to address anticipated cost increases, particularly because the program does not expect to maintain any funding reserves over the next several years,” the report reads. Space Junk Threat Demands Immediate Action, Experts Say By Mike Wall | SPACE Humanity must act now to reduce the vast amount of space junk around Earth to keep the problem from getting completely out of hand, scientists say. The huge and ever-growing cloud of debris around Earth poses a real threat to satellites and our way of life, researchers stressed this week at the 6th European Conference on Space Debris in Darmstadt, Germany. There is a wide and strong expert consensus on the pressing need to act now to begin debris removal activities, Heiner Klinkrad, head of the European Space Agencys Space Debris Office, said in a statement today (April 25). Our understanding of the growing space debris problem can be compared with our understanding of the need to address Earth’s changing climate some 20 years ago. Earths enormous debris cloud is composed primarily of spent rocket bodies, dead satellites and the fragments generated when these objects collide. NASA estimates that there are currently 500,000 pieces of space junk bigger than a marble and 22,000 as large as a softball. The number of flecks at least 1 millimeter in diameter probably runs into the hundreds of millions. Failure To Launch: How New Mexico Is Paying For Richard Branson’s Space Tourism Fantasy Joshua Wheeler BuzzFeed Contributor One of the poorest states in the nation has invested nearly a quarter of a billion dollars and 10 years in creating a hub for Richard Branson’s space tourism company, Virgin Galactic. Some see it as the crown jewel of a new space age while others call it a carnival for the 1 percent — but with persistent delays and mounting financial strain, Spaceport America is just trying to avoid becoming New Mexico’s costliest, most futuristic ghost town. July1FY12_LongList_(97 02)FINAL PRODUCT DESCRIPTION PRODUCT CODE UNIT OF ISSUE FY2012 PRICE Turbine Fuel, Low Volatility JP7 GL $7.40 A complete list of standard fuel prices may be found on the DLA Energy website: from ask dot com The space shuttle fuel cost is dependent on the price of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen used for the three main rocket engines. The storage tank contains over 500,000 gallons of these two gasses. In addition to this the booster rockets carry over one million gallons of fuel which is a solid propellant. It is estimated that the 610 tons of oxygen and 100 tons of hydrogen cost approximately $200,000 while there is no available data for price of the solid fuels. The total cost for fuel is thought to be under 2 million dollars. yahoo answers dot com someone asked how much does rocket fuel cost and a replier put down What type? LH2? I think its going at a current rate of $512.40 per gallon, what a steal! Do the math yourself. via quora dot com NASA: How much does NASA pay per kg for hydrogen and oxygen in rocket fuel? someone comments Stats for the space shuttle according to a 2001 NASA fact sheet: NASA bought hydrogen at 98 cents per gallon. A gallon of liquid hydrogen weighs 0.2679 kg, so they paid $3.66 per kg for liquid hydrogen. NASA bought oxygen at 67 cents per gallon. A gallon of liquid oxygen weighs 4.322 kg, so they paid $0.16 per kg for liquid oxygen. Total amounts for those interested: 384,071 gallons of liquid hydrogen in the external tank of the shuttle, for a cost of $376,389.58. ~141,750 gallons of liquid oxygen for a cost of $94,972.50. The total cost of all propellant for rocket fuel is $1,380,000. These numbers exclude the hydrogen and oxygen used for cooling, etc. from wikipedia JP-7 (Jet Propellant 7, MIL-DTL-38219) is a jet fuel developed by the U.S. Air Force for use in supersonic aircraft because of its high flash point and thermal stability. It is the fuel used in the Pratt & Whitney J58 engines, used in the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. The air compression of Mach 3+ cruising flight generates very high skin temperatures; therefore this special fuel was needed. The story told by Ben Rich in his book Skunk Works is that a lit match can be dropped in a bucket of JP-7 and the fuel will not ignite, and the match will be extinguished (although this is common in any low-volatility fuel including diesel). The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird was an advanced, long-range, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft.[1] It was developed as a black project from the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft in the 1960s by Lockheed and its Skunk Works division. Length: 107 ft 5 in Wingspan: 55 ft 7 in Height: 18 ft 6 in Wing area: 1,800 ft2 Loaded weight: 152,000 lb Max. takeoff weight: 172,000 lb Powerplant: 2 × Pratt & Whitney J58-1 continuous-bleed afterburning turbojets, 34,000 lbf (151 kN) each Service ceiling: 85,000 ft (25,900 m) from the museum of flight Lockheed M-21 Blackbird The Blackbird family of aircraft cruise at speeds of more than Mach 3 and fly over 85,000 feet (25,500 m) in altitude. Conceived nearly 50 years ago, Blackbirds remain the fastest and highest flying air-breathing production aircraft ever built. This M-21 is a unique variant of the A-12, the earliest Blackbird type. Built for a CIA program code-named Tagboard, the M-21 carried unpiloted vehicles for intelligence gathering. These drones were intended for launch from the M-21 mother ship for flights over hostile territories. Design features of the M-21 include the second seat for the Launch Control Officer and the launch pylon on which the drone is mounted. The Lockheed D-21 unmanned drone was launched at Mach 3 from a pylon mounting on top of the rear fuselage of an A12 Blackbird. The designation of the A12 then became an M21 with the D-21 installed. Two A12s were modified (#60-6940 and #60-6941) to carry the D-21 Drone. In June of 1963 a D-21 was mated to a mother ship for the first time. Actual first flight did not occur until December of 1964. After flying the Photo Reconnaissance mission, the D-21 flew to friendly territory and the camera was ejected from the D-21 Drone. from wikipedia The Dream Chaser is a reusable crewed suborbital and vertical-takeoff, horizontal-landing (VTHL) lifting-body spaceplane being developed by Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) Space Systems. The Dream Chaser is designed to carry up to seven people to and from low Earth orbit. The vehicle would launch vertically on an Atlas V rocket and land horizontally automatically on conventional runways. Length: 29.5 ft Wing Span: 22.9 ft Volume: 565 cu ft Mass: 25,000 lb from wikipedia Aerogel is a synthetic porous ultralight material derived from a gel, in which the liquid component of the gel has been replaced with a gas. The result is a solid with extremely low and low thermal conductivity. Nicknames include frozen smoke, solid smoke, solid air, or blue smoke owing to its translucent nature and the way light scatters in the material. It feels like fragile expanded polystyrene (Styrofoam) to the touch. Aerogels can be made from a variety of chemical compounds. from nasa dot com aerogel catching comet dust The primary objective of the Stardust mission is to capture both cometary samples and interstellar dust. Main challenges to accomplishing this successfully involve slowing down the particles from their high velocity with minimal heating or other effects that would cause their physical alteration. When the Stardust Spacecraft encounters the Comet Wild 2, the impact velocity of the particles will be up to 6 times the speed of a rifle bullet. Although the captured particles will each be smaller than a grain of sand, high-speed capture could alter their shape and chemical composition - or even vaporize them entirely. To collect particles without damaging them, Stardust uses an extraordinary substance called aerogel. This is a silicon-based solid with a porous, sponge-like structure in which 99.8 percent of the volume is empty space. By comparison, aerogel is 1,000 times less dense than glass, which is another silicon-based solid. When a particle hits the aerogel, it buries itself in the material, creating a carrot-shaped track up to 200 times its own length. This slows it down and brings the sample to a relatively gradual stop. Since aerogel is mostly transparent - with a distinctive smoky blue cast - scientists will use these tracks to find the tiny particles. tennis racket shaped collector The aerogel aboard the Stardust Spacecraft is fitted into a tennis racket shaped collector. This is unfolded from the protective Sample Return Capsule to expose it to space during flight. One side of the collector will be faced towards the particles in Comet Wild 2, while the reverse, or B side, will be turned to face the streams of interstellar dust encountered during its journey. When hypervelocity particles are captured in aerogel they produce narrow cone-shaped tracks that are hollow, and can easily be seen in the highly transparent aerogel by using a stereomicroscope. This cone is largest at the point of entry, and the particle is held intact at the point of the cone. This provides a method for determining which direction the dust came from, and is the basis of the approach of using single slabs of aerogel to collect both cometary and interstellar dust from both sides. After the encounter with Comet Wild 2, the aerogel collector will be retracted into the Sample Return Capsule (SRC) and returned to Earth for detailed analysis by scientists at the NASAs Johnson Space Center. yes i know i might have bored you to tears with news article and info snipettes but as i have mentioned before. improve the sr-71 variant m-21 to instead of d-21 carry the sierra nevada dream chaser. sr-71 can easily get to 75,000 feet with the karman line being 327,360 feet which means when air launched it already is a quarter of the way to low earth orbit and uses less rocket fuel since air is less dense up there. now onto why i put in the aerogel and collector. since it is still vogue to multitask then fine, how about while up there they use that handy dandy air force space junk tracking and rather then wait for something bad to happen they go out and get the stuff and take it out of orbit cirulation. want to know how various materials work in long term exposure to space, collect and examine all that space junk that has been up there since sputnik. so basically this boils to, use an already spaceport with long runway to air launch from sr-71 iss crew and space junk collection which will make spaceport relatively busy so the rocket people can use those rockets for the large stuff like cargo hauling which is far more suited to do
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 16:13:18 +0000
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