Global Flyer

[Jan Nademlejnsky]

Global Flyer is on its historical around the world flight, but it is
impossible to assess their site. What a shame!

Jan

[Ghost]

In news:B1UUd.532745$8l.327090@pd7tw1no,
Jan Nademlejnsky > typed:
> Global Flyer is on its historical around the world flight, but it is
> impossible to assess their site. What a shame!
>=20
> Jan

Try

http://www.virginatlanticglobalflyer.com/MissionControl/Tracking/



--=20
----------------------------------------------------------------
"Yield to temptation, it may not pass your way again."=20
- L. Long

[Aardvark]

Ghost wrote:

> In news:B1UUd.532745$8l.327090@pd7tw1no,
> Jan Nademlejnsky > typed:
>
>>Global Flyer is on its historical around the world flight, but it is
>>impossible to assess their site. What a shame!
>>
>>Jan
>
>
> Try
>
> http://www.virginatlanticglobalflyer.com/MissionControl/Tracking/
>
>
>
"Site Unavailable
We're sorry, but we've had to take the site down temporarily. It will be
back soon.

Thanks for your patience.

This page will not automatically refresh"


The plane was doing 311 knots for over 5 hours in one spot.

[Evan Carew]

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Its back up now.
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[Robert Bonomi]

In article >,
Aardvark > wrote:

[[.. munch .]]
>
>
>The plane was doing 311 knots for over 5 hours in one spot.


*sigh* And he _still_ hasn't learned not to fly _into_ the Jet Stream??

[Montblack]

("Robert Bonomi" wrote)
>>The plane was doing 311 knots for over 5 hours in one spot.
>
>
> *sigh* And he _still_ hasn't learned not to fly _into_ the Jet Stream??


I figured it was a very large spot <g>.

I hadn't considered the Jet Stream, although now I can post my
fun-link-of-the-week one more time.

http://www.weatherimages.org/data/imag192.html


Montblack

[Ghost]

In news:uwWUd.533369$Xk.213719@pd7tw3no,
Ghost > typed:
> In news:B1UUd.532745$8l.327090@pd7tw1no,
> Jan Nademlejnsky > typed:
>> Global Flyer is on its historical around the world flight, but it is
>> impossible to assess their site. What a shame!
>>=20
>> Jan
>=20
> Try
>=20
> http://www.virginatlanticglobalflyer.com/MissionControl/Tracking/

As of 3:40pm PST

Heading.............Speed......................Alt itude.............Longi=
tude............Latitude=20
87.1 degrees....329.00 Knots........50,171ft.......... =
E39.79399......... N26.30081=20

Over Saudi..
--=20
----------------------------------------------------------------
Boldly going nowhere.

[Morgans]

"Ghost" > wrote

Boldly going nowhere.

Going again!

[Mike Murdock]

Unfortunately for Steve, this flight won't count as a cross-country, since
he won't land at an airport at least 50 nm from his departure airport.

-Mike

"Morgans" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Ghost" > wrote
>
> Boldly going nowhere.
>
> Going again!
>
>

[COLIN LAMB]

"Unfortunately for Steve, this flight won't count as a cross-country, since
he won't land at an airport at least 50 nm from his departure airport".

But, he does get credit for doing an outside loop.

Colin N12HS

[RST Engineering]

Nor will he have to go through customs, unlike the Apollo moonwalkers, who
LANDED in a "foreign" country.

Jim



"Mike Murdock" > wrote in message
...
> Unfortunately for Steve, this flight won't count as a cross-country, since
> he won't land at an airport at least 50 nm from his departure airport.
>
> -Mike
>
> "Morgans" > wrote in message
> ...
>>
>> "Ghost" > wrote
>>
>> Boldly going nowhere.
>>
>> Going again!
>>
>>
>
>

[Rich S.]

"RST Engineering" > wrote in message
...
> Nor will he have to go through customs, unlike the Apollo moonwalkers, who
> LANDED in a "foreign" country.

Foreign? Uh-uh. Soon as that footpad touched down, it was U.S. soil by
historical custom. We oughta declare it the 51st. state so's it don't revert
to the "Abandoned Property" file.

Yeah, that's the ticket. Jim Weir for the first Governor of the State of
Luna! We Ilk could emigrate, become Lunatics and Jim could be our leader.

Beg pardon. It's a slow morning and it's raining.

Rich S.

[Montblack]

("RST Engineering")
> Nor will he have to go through customs, unlike the Apollo moonwalkers, who
> LANDED in a "foreign" country.


Leave only footprints, take only pictures.

"I'm sorry sir, you must leave the rocks behind - if everyone who visits our
moon takes home just one moon rock....."

<Back here on Earth>
We'll get you processed through customs in no time, now if you'll just step
into this Airstream trailer.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/ap11ann/kippsphotos/40147.jpg

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/apollo11/isomove.jpg

We'll be back in about 20 days to let you out.


Montblack

[Montblack]

("Rich S." wrote)
> Foreign? Uh-uh. Soon as that footpad touched down, it was U.S. soil by
> historical custom.


Buzz, I need either you, Neil, Pete, Jack, Eugene, or one of the other
remaining native moonwalkers. See, I think this planet is ripe for a casino
and I need to partner-up before I apply for the gaming license.

I'm thinking Jefferson Starship for the lounge.
Got any original members?
No. But I own 1/8 rights to the name.


Montbalck

[Montblack]

("Montblack" wrote)

>See, I think [the moon] is ripe for a casino...

[Rich S.]

"Montblack" > wrote in message
...
> ("Montblack" wrote)
>
>>See, I think [the moon] is ripe for a casino...

What design considerations would come into play for homebuilt aircraft in
that environment? Recycling of worn-out or abandoned equipment would reduce
the cost.

Rich S.

[Montblack]

("Rich S." wrote)
> What design considerations would come into play for homebuilt aircraft in
> that environment? Recycling of worn-out or abandoned equipment would
> reduce the cost.


Making mine out of gold foil. It's expensive, but easy to work with.

Hey, Part 103 is still 254 lbs. That's a Warrior up here :-)


Montblack

[Morgans]

"Rich S." > wrote

> Yeah, that's the ticket. Jim Weir for the first Governor of the State of
> Luna! We Ilk could emigrate, become Lunatics and Jim could be our leader.
>
> Beg pardon. It's a slow morning and it's raining.
>
> Rich S.

Right, but don't most cities require you to be a resident of said city, to
become mayor? I see a problem, commuting to the city council meetings, too.
<g>
--
Jim in NC

[Blueskies]

"COLIN LAMB" > wrote in message ink.net...
>
> But, he does get credit for doing an outside loop.
>
> Colin N12HS
>
>

A 1 G positive outside loop - that is a record in itself!

[Roger]

On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 09:23:38 GMT, "Ghost" >
wrote:

>In news:B1UUd.532745$8l.327090@pd7tw1no,
>Jan Nademlejnsky > typed:
>> Global Flyer is on its historical around the world flight, but it is
>> impossible to assess their site. What a shame!
>>
>> Jan
>
>Try
>
>http://www.virginatlanticglobalflyer.com/MissionControl/Tracking/

It's working fine for me except for the misc videos. Position is
updating fine. Just leaving India at 3:30 AM EST (08:30Z)

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

[Frank van der Hulst]

Montblack wrote:
> ("Rich S." wrote)
>
>>What design considerations would come into play for homebuilt aircraft in
>>that environment? Recycling of worn-out or abandoned equipment would
>>reduce the cost.
>
>
>
> Making mine out of gold foil. It's expensive, but easy to work with.
>
> Hey, Part 103 is still 254 lbs. That's a Warrior up here :-)

Yeah, but your Warrior wings aren't going to do you any good up there.
Nor will your prop. Or your Lycoming. You may also want consider
upgrading to a pressurised ship. :-)

[Jim Carriere]

Montblack wrote:
> ("Rich S." wrote)
>
>>What design considerations would come into play for homebuilt aircraft in
>>that environment? Recycling of worn-out or abandoned equipment would
>>reduce the cost.
>
>
>
> Making mine out of gold foil. It's expensive, but easy to work with.
>
> Hey, Part 103 is still 254 lbs. That's a Warrior up here :-)

The best part is the key word in Part 103 is "weighs." There is an
important semantic difference between weight and mass, because 254
lbs weight in lunar gravity is quite a bit more airplane than 254 lbs
weight on earth... so much for the need for sport plane/sport pilot!

[Robert Bonomi]

In article >,
Blueskies > wrote:
>
>"COLIN LAMB" > wrote in message
ink.net...
>>
>> But, he does get credit for doing an outside loop.
>>
>> Colin N12HS
>>
>>
>
>A 1 G positive outside loop - that is a record in itself!

Nope. *THAT* has been done before. Many times.

B-1B crews did it in 1997.

Rutan's "Voyager" did it, with a 2-person crew, in 1986.

B-52 crews did it in 1980.

But the _first_ "1 G positive outside loop" was flown in NINETEEN FORTY NINE.
Feb.26 - March 2, to be precise. A Strategic Air Command B-50A, the "Lucky
Lady II". Flight duration: 94 hrs, 1 min.
cite: <http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/PopTopics/chrono.htm>

As for records: not only did they execute the loop, but they did four in-flight
refuelings *during* the maneuver!

Now, how many people do you know that can brag of *that*? <grin>

[Rich S.]

"Frank van der Hulst" > wrote in message
...
>
> Yeah, but your Warrior wings aren't going to do you any good up there. Nor
> will your prop. Or your Lycoming. You may also want consider upgrading to
> a pressurised ship. :-)

So . . . What are you going to use for thrust?

Rich S.

[Dean Wilkinson]

I am an engineer, and there is definitely a distinction between weight and
mass. Weight is a force, mass is a physical property of matter.

A spring scale measures weight (force) by referencing the objects weight to
a spring that exerts a force.

A balance measures mass by referencing a known mass to to mass being
measured. You can also determine the weight if you are measuring at 1G
since you know the weight of the known mass.

On the moon, the balance will give you the same results as on earth. The
spring scale won't...

Dean

Dean
"Bryan Martin" > wrote in message
...
> In normal everyday usage, weight is not the force due to gravity, it's the
> amount of matter in the object you are referring to (aka mass). Check the
> label on any product at the grocery store, it lists the net weight of the
> product, not the mass. Only in engineering and scientific circles is there
> any distinction made between the two terms, and that's only because some
> scientist in the distant past was too lazy to come up with a new term for
> "the force due to gravity". Long before spring scales were invented,
> everything was "weighed" on a balance by comparing it to known standard
> weights. A balance does not measure force. You can be certain that any
legal
> document that refers to weight is not referring to any kind of force.
>
> in article , Jim Carriere at
> wrote on 3/3/05 2:09 AM:
>
> > Montblack wrote:
> >> ("Rich S." wrote)
> >>
> >>> What design considerations would come into play for homebuilt aircraft
in
> >>> that environment? Recycling of worn-out or abandoned equipment would
> >>> reduce the cost.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Making mine out of gold foil. It's expensive, but easy to work with.
> >>
> >> Hey, Part 103 is still 254 lbs. That's a Warrior up here :-)
> >
> > The best part is the key word in Part 103 is "weighs." There is an
> > important semantic difference between weight and mass, because 254
> > lbs weight in lunar gravity is quite a bit more airplane than 254 lbs
> > weight on earth... so much for the need for sport plane/sport pilot!
>
> --
> Bryan Martin
>

[Jim Carriere]

Bryan Martin wrote:
> In normal everyday usage, weight is not the force due to gravity, it's the
> amount of matter in the object you are referring to (aka mass). Check the
> label on any product at the grocery store, it lists the net weight of the
> product, not the mass. Only in engineering and scientific circles is there
> any distinction made between the two terms, and that's only because some
> scientist in the distant past was too lazy to come up with a new term for
> "the force due to gravity". Long before spring scales were invented,
> everything was "weighed" on a balance by comparing it to known standard
> weights. A balance does not measure force. You can be certain that any legal
> document that refers to weight is not referring to any kind of force.

We'll just have to wait and see how the lunar courts choose to
interpret Part 103! The moon will become the new home for the "fat"
ultralights :)

On second thought, do we really want lawyers on the moon? That could
be opening the door to frivolous product liability lawsuits. Will
manufacturers be held accountable when, I'm just supposing here,
their airplanes malfunction without an atmosphere?

[Morgans]

"Robert Bonomi" > wrote

> As for records: not only did they execute the loop, but they did four
in-flight
> refuelings *during* the maneuver!
>
> Now, how many people do you know that can brag of *that*? <grin>
++++++++++++++++++++++
I'm sure Zoomie has done that several times! <g>
--
Jim in NC

[Matt Whiting]

Bryan Martin wrote:

> In normal everyday usage, weight is not the force due to gravity, it's the
> amount of matter in the object you are referring to (aka mass). Check the
> label on any product at the grocery store, it lists the net weight of the
> product, not the mass. Only in engineering and scientific circles is there
> any distinction made between the two terms, and that's only because some
> scientist in the distant past was too lazy to come up with a new term for
> "the force due to gravity". Long before spring scales were invented,
> everything was "weighed" on a balance by comparing it to known standard
> weights. A balance does not measure force. You can be certain that any legal
> document that refers to weight is not referring to any kind of force.

Yes, weight is the force due to gravity. What is wrong with listing the
net weight of the grocery product? Since scales are a common method of
determining the amount of many products, what purpose would there be to
listing the mass of the products?

Weight is the force due to gravity, so why do we need another term? And
if we had another term, why would we need weight?


Matt

[Jean-Paul Roy]

Now how about if you guys quit that "my father is stronger than yours" game,
take a walk to the hangar and fly a litlle bit

Good flight

J.P.
"Matt Whiting" > wrote in message
...
> Bryan Martin wrote:
>
> > In normal everyday usage, weight is not the force due to gravity, it's
the
> > amount of matter in the object you are referring to (aka mass). Check
the
> > label on any product at the grocery store, it lists the net weight of
the
> > product, not the mass. Only in engineering and scientific circles is
there
> > any distinction made between the two terms, and that's only because some
> > scientist in the distant past was too lazy to come up with a new term
for
> > "the force due to gravity". Long before spring scales were invented,
> > everything was "weighed" on a balance by comparing it to known standard
> > weights. A balance does not measure force. You can be certain that any
legal
> > document that refers to weight is not referring to any kind of force.
>
> Yes, weight is the force due to gravity. What is wrong with listing the
> net weight of the grocery product? Since scales are a common method of
> determining the amount of many products, what purpose would there be to
> listing the mass of the products?
>
> Weight is the force due to gravity, so why do we need another term? And
> if we had another term, why would we need weight?
>
>
> Matt

[Mark Hickey]

Jim Carriere > wrote:

>We'll just have to wait and see how the lunar courts choose to
>interpret Part 103! The moon will become the new home for the "fat"
>ultralights :)

You might wanna check the service ceiling on them before shuttling
them up to the moon though - I suspect the density altitude is above
most UL's service ceiling (have to get an altimeter calibrated from
infinity down to infinity minus 10 feet).

Mark "the prop's gonna be a problem too" Hickey

[Montblack]

("Mark Hickey" wrote)
> Mark "the prop's gonna be a problem too" Hickey


All the money, and weight, saved on that BRS chute will just end up going
into oxidizers.

Hey, if I fall 1,000 ft at a speed of roughly 180 mph on earth, does that
mean I'll fall at 30 mph on the moon? That's like Olympic 100 meter
sprinters running into a wall - at 28 mph. Ouch.


Montblack

[Matt Whiting]

Jean-Paul Roy wrote:

> Now how about if you guys quit that "my father is stronger than yours" game,
> take a walk to the hangar and fly a litlle bit

Now how about you mind your own business...


Matt

[Robert Bonomi]

In article >,
Richard Riley > wrote:
>On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 12:54:11 -0000,
>(Robert Bonomi) wrote:
>
>:>> But, he does get credit for doing an outside loop.
>:>>
>:>> Colin N12HS
>:>>
>:>>
>:>
>:>A 1 G positive outside loop - that is a record in itself!
>:
>:Nope. *THAT* has been done before. Many times.
>:
>:B-1B crews did it in 1997.
>:
>:Rutan's "Voyager" did it, with a 2-person crew, in 1986.
>:
>
>He is also now the third person (after Dick and Jeanna) to go single
>stage to orbit.

He *already* did that. On the books for a "1 G positive outside loop"
*in*a*hot-air*balloon*.

"orbit" is debatable.

It is also _very_ unclear that 'single-stage" prohibits in-flight acquisition
of additional fuel for the existing on-board propulsion system.

[Robert Bonomi]

In article >,
Montblack > wrote:
>("Mark Hickey" wrote)
>> Mark "the prop's gonna be a problem too" Hickey
>
>
>All the money, and weight, saved on that BRS chute will just end up going
>into oxidizers.
>
>Hey, if I fall 1,000 ft at a speed of roughly 180 mph on earth, does that
>mean I'll fall at 30 mph on the moon? That's like Olympic 100 meter
>sprinters running into a wall - at 28 mph. Ouch.

"Not Exactly".

Assuming a stationary vertical-component starting point, a free-fall of
1000 ft, at 1 G takes a bit over 7.9 sec, and you have a final velocity of
about 172.5 mph (disregarding air friction, etc. effects.)

Same assumptions, a free-fall of 1000 ft, at 1/6 G takes somewhat over
19.36 seconds, and you have a final velocity of just over 70.41 MPH.

Note: ratio of 'final velocity' after a fall of a constant distance is
directly proportional to the _square_root_ of the ratio of the
gravitational constants

[Robert Bonomi]

In article >,
Rich S. > wrote:
>"RST Engineering" > wrote in message
...
>> Nor will he have to go through customs, unlike the Apollo moonwalkers, who
>> LANDED in a "foreign" country.
>
>Foreign? Uh-uh. Soon as that footpad touched down, it was U.S. soil by
>historical custom.

Well, *except* for the fact that the U.S. government was already a signatory
to an international treaty _disclaiming_ any such claims of territorial
ownership "in space".

[Rich S.]

"Robert Bonomi" > wrote in message
...

>>Foreign? Uh-uh. Soon as that footpad touched down, it was U.S. soil by
>>historical custom.
>
> Well, *except* for the fact that the U.S. government was already a
> signatory
> to an international treaty _disclaiming_ any such claims of territorial
> ownership "in space".

Details, details. I got the big picture when I saw the Stars and Stripes
rippling in the Solar Wind there on the Mare. Hmm.... there's a song in that
somewhere. . .

Rich "It's up to the lawyers now" S.

[Rich S.]

"Robert Bonomi" > wrote in message
...
>
> Well, *except* for the fact that the U.S. government was already a
> signatory
> to an international treaty _disclaiming_ any such claims of territorial
> ownership "in space".

But what I *really* wanted to explore was design ideas for a homebuilt
"airborne" Moon vehicle.

Here's the scene: You're living on Luna, having retired from ______ (fill in
blanks at your pleasure). It's the year ____ and low-gravity retirement has
become the "in" thing. You live longer, the old aches and pains are less,
etc. Your Social Security private trust fund has built up to the point that
you just *have* to start spending some of it! The one thing you miss since
moving out here is roaring around in your homebuilt on Saturday afternoons.
So, absent any regulation to the contrary, you decide to build a Lunar
replacement.

First thing to decide on is a name for the critter. Hmmm..... Moonraker
sounds appropriate. Wonder if anybody has used that one? Oh heck with that,
let's get on to the design parameters.

Seats - One, two???
Pressurization - (?) if not, then a big enough seat to accommodate a space
suit.
Range - There's fuel and air caches every 1,800 miles, so let's add ~10% and
say 2,000 miles.
Speed - Let's say 600 knots. (What I'm doing is multiplying typical terran
specs by 6. Why? I dunno)
Payload - (?) We can let the Mass/Weight guys duke that one out.
Visible means of support (Lift) - Wonder if NASA has an airfoil for an
airless environment? If not, we'll have to come up with something. I
wouldn't want to go ballistic - it's not as much fun as low & slow.
Thrust - Open for suggestions. . .
Primary source of power - Anybody got a design for something better than a
Chinese sparkler?

C'mon guys. There's got to be another Rutan out there. What are we going to
do when he's history?

Rich S.

[Rich S.]

"Robert Bonomi" > wrote in message
...
>
> Well, *except* for the fact that the U.S. government was already a
> signatory
> to an international treaty _disclaiming_ any such claims of territorial
> ownership "in space".

But what I *really* wanted to explore was design ideas for a homebuilt
"airborne" Moon vehicle.

Here's the scene: You're living on Luna, having retired from ______ (fill in
blanks at your pleasure). It's the year ____ and low-gravity retirement has
become the "in" thing. You live longer, the old aches and pains are less,
etc. Your Social Security private trust fund has built up to the point that
you just *have* to start spending some of it! The one thing you miss since
moving out here is roaring around in your homebuilt on Saturday afternoons.
So, absent any regulation to the contrary, you decide to build a Lunar
replacement.

First thing to decide on is a name for the critter. Hmmm..... Moonraker
sounds appropriate. Wonder if anybody has used that one? Oh heck with that,
let's get on to the design parameters.

Seats - One, two???
Pressurization - (?) if not, then a big enough seat to accommodate a space
suit.
Range - There's fuel and air caches every 1,800 miles, so let's add ~10% and
say 2,000 miles.
Speed - Let's say 600 knots. (What I'm doing is multiplying typical terran
specs by 6. Why? I dunno)
Payload - (?) We can let the Mass/Weight guys duke that one out.
Visible means of support (Lift) - Wonder if NASA has an airfoil for an
airless environment? If not, we'll have to come up with something. I
wouldn't want to go ballistic - it's not as much fun as low & slow.
Thrust - Open for suggestions. . .
Primary source of power - Anybody got a design for something better than a
Chinese sparkler?

C'mon guys. There's got to be another Rutan out there. What are we going to
do when he's history?

Rich S.

[Blueskies]

"Rich S." > wrote in message ...
>
> But what I *really* wanted to explore was design ideas for a homebuilt
> "airborne" Moon vehicle.
>>
> Rich S.
>
>



Big bouncy spring thing hopping between the craters...

[Morgans]

"Rich S." wrote
>
> But what I *really* wanted to explore was design ideas for a homebuilt
> "airborne" Moon vehicle.

First, with all that extra disposable income from Social Security (Yea, who
said you couldn't dream big) you have to think terraforming first, and
create an atmosphere.

I know! Get Zoom and Yaun up there! They are both full of hot air, and we
can worry about cooling it off, later!

Let's see, if we get it up to 1/5th density, then we could fly at the same
speeds we see here on Earth, right?
--
Jim in NC

[Robert Bonomi]

In article >,
Rich S. > wrote:
>"Robert Bonomi" > wrote in message
...
>>
>> Well, *except* for the fact that the U.S. government was already a
>> signatory
>> to an international treaty _disclaiming_ any such claims of territorial
>> ownership "in space".
>
>But what I *really* wanted to explore was design ideas for a homebuilt
>"airborne" Moon vehicle.
>
>Here's the scene: You're living on Luna, having retired from ______ (fill in
>blanks at your pleasure). It's the year ____ and low-gravity retirement has
>become the "in" thing. You live longer, the old aches and pains are less,
>etc. Your Social Security private trust fund has built up to the point that
>you just *have* to start spending some of it! The one thing you miss since
>moving out here is roaring around in your homebuilt on Saturday afternoons.
>So, absent any regulation to the contrary, you decide to build a Lunar
>replacement.
>
>First thing to decide on is a name for the critter. Hmmm..... Moonraker
>sounds appropriate. Wonder if anybody has used that one? Oh heck with that,
>let's get on to the design parameters.
>
>Seats - One, two???

Absolute requirement: one-plus.

>Pressurization - (?) if not, then a big enough seat to accommodate a space
>suit.

Pressurization introduces *lots* of complications -- seals, O2 mixture supply,
etc. Not to mention what it does to weight and balance.

>Range - There's fuel and air caches every 1,800 miles, so let's add ~10% and
>say 2,000 miles.

Optimist! "Origin to primary, divert to secondary, plus 'holding' time"
plus (at least) 10% of _that_ total. If you want to survive the 1st emergency,
that is. :) I get a requirement of about 4300mi (minimum)

>Speed - Let's say 600 knots. (What I'm doing is multiplying typical terran
>specs by 6. Why? I dunno)

Something to do with the underlying gravity of the situation?

>Payload - (?) We can let the Mass/Weight guys duke that one out.

>Visible means of support (Lift) - Wonder if NASA has an airfoil for an
>airless environment? If not, we'll have to come up with something. I
>wouldn't want to go ballistic - it's not as much fun as low & slow.

They do (see "solar sail", but it's not practical to deploy on Luna, due to
the high gravity there.

>Thrust - Open for suggestions. . .

"We can always throw rocks."

"Ballistic" glider lets you leave the engine on the ground, at the take-off
site.

>Primary source of power - Anybody got a design for something better than a
>Chinese sparkler?

There's always NASA's "Orion" design.

Scaling might pose some *serious* difficulties, however.

[Rich S.]

"Robert Bonomi" > wrote in message
...
> In article >,
>
> Pressurization introduces *lots* of complications -- seals, O2 mixture
> supply,
> etc. Not to mention what it does to weight and balance.

We'll let the spacesuit designers worry about that one, then.
"Give me one Moonsuit, Mark IV and a forty watt phased plasma rifle, please"

>>Range - There's fuel and air caches every 1,800 miles, so let's add ~10%
>>and
>>say 2,000 miles.
>
> Optimist! "Origin to primary, divert to secondary, plus 'holding' time"
> plus (at least) 10% of _that_ total. If you want to survive the 1st
> emergency,
> that is. :) I get a requirement of about 4300mi (minimum)

Uh-uh. No weather diversions necessary. Note: Sport Pilots may not fly at
night.

>>Speed - Let's say 600 knots. (What I'm doing is multiplying typical terran
>>specs by 6. Why? I dunno)
>
> Something to do with the underlying gravity of the situation?

Snicker

> "Ballistic" glider lets you leave the engine on the ground, at the
> take-off
> site.

"Glider"????

>>Primary source of power - Anybody got a design for something better than a
>>Chinese sparkler?
>
> There's always NASA's "Orion" design.
>
> Scaling might pose some *serious* difficulties, however.

My Citizen watch has a "Forever" battery and only needs an occasional burst
of sunlight - can we scale that up?

Rich S.

[Ron Wanttaja]

On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 07:29:57 -0800, "Rich S." >
wrote:

>But what I *really* wanted to explore was design ideas for a homebuilt
>"airborne" Moon vehicle.
>
>Here's the scene: You're living on Luna, having retired from ______ (fill in
>blanks at your pleasure). It's the year ____ and low-gravity retirement has
>become the "in" thing. You live longer, the old aches and pains are less,
>etc. Your Social Security private trust fund has built up to the point that
>you just *have* to start spending some of it! The one thing you miss since
>moving out here is roaring around in your homebuilt on Saturday afternoons.
>So, absent any regulation to the contrary, you decide to build a Lunar
>replacement.

"Moon Zero Two", 1969, starring James Olson.

>First thing to decide on is a name for the critter. Hmmm..... Moonraker
>sounds appropriate. Wonder if anybody has used that one?

Been there, done that:

http://www.bowersflybaby.com/stories/leoraker.JPG

>Oh heck with that,
>let's get on to the design parameters.
>
>Seats - One, two???

With a weight increase, the amount of fuel needed increases disproportionately.
Also, if you add a second seat, you're always going to have to have a body or
ballast in the spot to keep the beast in balance.

>Pressurization - (?) if not, then a big enough seat to accommodate a space
>suit.

It's tough to do precision work in a space suit. The gloves give you next to no
tactile feel...in fact, the fingertips are usually covered with hard rubber
shells.

http://www.hightechscience.org/orlan_space_glove.htm

You're not going to be able to work a keyboard, and if you have buttons and
whatnot to push, they're going to have to be well separated to ensure you don't
punch the wrong one. It's gonna be tough to fly without a pressurized cabin.

But...again, pressurization is going to add a lot of weight. You not only need
a pressure hull with windows and an openable door, but you're going to need the
typical air conditioning functions such as oxygen replacement, CO2 removal,
humidity control, etc. Since these problems are ALREADY solved with a space
suit, you might as well just go open cockpit...after all, you'll need a space
suit onboard anyway for the walk from the landing field to the cafe for that
$100,000,000 hamburger.

Hmmmm, single seat, open cockpit. The Luna Baby? :-)

>Range - There's fuel and air caches every 1,800 miles, so let's add ~10% and
>say 2,000 miles.

2000 miles is about 1/3 the way around the entire moon...2/3rds the maximum
distance you'd want to fly, anyway.

It's been years since I did any sort of lunar orbit work (and even that was only
for a week or so...damned if I can even remember what program it was). To get
some answers, I modified one of my orbit analysis tools to do Moon orbits
(changed the values for G, planetary radius, and gravitational constant). In
other words, lotsa approximations here.

For a 2000-mile ballistic trajectory on the Moon that gets at least 10 NM high,
you'll need about 5000 FPS of acceleration. And if you want to touch down with
near-zero speed, you'll need about the same for deceleration. We'll call it a
total of 10,000 FPS. Flight time less than a half hour, including accel and
decel.

Let's assume an open-cockpit single-seater. Call it 200 lbs for the pilot,
another 100 lbs for his suit, 500 pounds of airframe, 20 pounds of avionics, and
50 pounds for batteries and life support supplied. Let's assume our rocket fuel
has a specific impulse of 250 seconds. That's a dry weight of about 870 pounds.

The fuel comes out to another 2150 pounds.

Like Robert said, though, we could use a mass driver or other ground-based
system to throw the vehicle, and just rely on onboard fuel to land. This drops
the required onboard fuel to about 750 pounds. Not too bad.

>Speed - Let's say 600 knots. (What I'm doing is multiplying typical terran
>specs by 6. Why? I dunno)
>
>Visible means of support (Lift) - Wonder if NASA has an airfoil for an
>airless environment? If not, we'll have to come up with something. I
>wouldn't want to go ballistic - it's not as much fun as low & slow.

Yep, ballistic wouldn't be much fun. You want a "Hollywood" moon flight: Take
off, climb to a given altitude, cruise at that altitude through the entire
flight, then descend to land.

If we don't have antigravity, what's it going to take?

Let's look at the cruise speed first. 600 knots is about 1000 FPS, and we'll
need both acceleration and deceleration fuel. Total 2000 FPS. Give it another
500 FPS to cover the climb (coming down is free!).

To fly at the constant altitude, we'll need constant downward thrust to
counteract the force of gravity. Since we're flying 2000 NM at 600 knots, we
have to do this for about 3.3 hours. Call it four hours with VFR reserves. :-)

So...we have to burn our downward thrusters for four hours. "G" on the Moon is
about 5.6 ft/Sec^2. We'd need to burn the same to counter that. Total
acceleration required is 5.6 ft/sec^2 x 4 hours x 3600 seconds/hour... about
80,000 FPS, about sixteen times more than a ballistic S/C using a mass driver
for launch, and, as a point of interest, almost three times what a spacecraft
launch from the *Earth* needs. With the accel/decel Delta-V, our 870-pound
spacecraft requires 24.9 *million* pounds of fuel.

>C'mon guys. There's got to be another Rutan out there. What are we going to
>do when he's history?

Live far more boring lives, I reckon....

Ron Wanttaja

[Robert Bonomi]

In article >,
Rich S. > wrote:
>"Robert Bonomi" > wrote in message
...
>> In article >,
>>
>> Pressurization introduces *lots* of complications -- seals, O2 mixture
>> supply,
>> etc. Not to mention what it does to weight and balance.
>
>We'll let the spacesuit designers worry about that one, then.
>"Give me one Moonsuit, Mark IV and a forty watt phased plasma rifle, please"

Woops! You'll have to settle for the EnergyStar compliant 34 watt one.

>>>Range - There's fuel and air caches every 1,800 miles, so let's add ~10%
>>>and
>>>say 2,000 miles.
>>
>> Optimist! "Origin to primary, divert to secondary, plus 'holding' time"
>> plus (at least) 10% of _that_ total. If you want to survive the 1st
>> emergency,
>> that is. :) I get a requirement of about 4300mi (minimum)
>
>Uh-uh. No weather diversions necessary. Note: Sport Pilots may not fly at
>night.

Moon-quake, Solar flare, "Deck is fouled", I can think of a bunch of reasons
that 'divert to alternate' might be required.

>>>Speed - Let's say 600 knots. (What I'm doing is multiplying typical terran
>>>specs by 6. Why? I dunno)
>>
>> Something to do with the underlying gravity of the situation?
>
>Snicker

No, no. That's a *Mars* bar. This is Luna. And it should be *obvious*
that "Almond Joy" is the appropriate one -- "Sometimes you feel like a nut"
*DEFINITELY* describes this 'food for thought'.

(Don't blame me if you don't like the answer. It was _your_ question, after
all. :)

>
>> "Ballistic" glider lets you leave the engine on the ground, at the
>> take-off
>> site.
>
>"Glider"????

You don't really think a *PARACHUTE* will work, do you ? <grin>

But, yeah, "glider" -- for lack of a better term. At the landing site,
a *BIG* ramp -- with the _upper_ part conforming to the ballistic trajectory
you launched into. You have on-board 'maneuvering' thrusters, to tweak
you path to the _exact_ ramp trajectory -- a GCA "glide slope" with a
*vengeance*. You touch down on the ramp, and roll out, possible friction
brakes, possible aircraft-carrier type snubbing cable.

(I just realized that this is a _ground-based_ 'ballistic recovery system'! :)


Of course, this system makes "divert to alternate" a physical impossibility.
Unless you carry a *ridiculous* amount of 'delta v' on board.

>>>Primary source of power - Anybody got a design for something better than a
>>>Chinese sparkler?
>>
>> There's always NASA's "Orion" design.
>>
>> Scaling might pose some *serious* difficulties, however.
>
>My Citizen watch has a "Forever" battery and only needs an occasional burst
>of sunlight - can we scale that up?

You can *try*, but I suggest that -first- you calculate the energy-density
of that system. then contemplate the mass requirements, _just_ to power
your "forty watt plasma rifle" -- let alone any on-board flight controls,
instrumentation, life-support system, etc.

[Jim Carriere]

Rich S. wrote:
> "Robert Bonomi" > wrote in message
>>Optimist! "Origin to primary, divert to secondary, plus 'holding' time"
>>plus (at least) 10% of _that_ total. If you want to survive the 1st
>>emergency,
>>that is. :) I get a requirement of about 4300mi (minimum)
>
>
> Uh-uh. No weather diversions necessary. Note: Sport Pilots may not fly at
> night.

Wait a minute there, the lunar days are about 28 times as long as
ours. Spending all that time on the dark side of the moon may make
currency requirements difficult- say you don't log enough takeoffs or
landings for an entire lunar day, plus the prior and following lunar
nights, do the math, it's a long time and that's gonna be tough!

[Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired]

Ron Wanttaja wrote:

> On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 07:29:57 -0800, "Rich S." >
> wrote:
>
>
>>But what I *really* wanted to explore was design ideas for a homebuilt
>>"airborne" Moon vehicle.
>>
>>Here's the scene: You're living on Luna, having retired from ______ (fill in
>>blanks at your pleasure). It's the year ____ and low-gravity retirement has
>>become the "in" thing. You live longer, the old aches and pains are less,
>>etc. Your Social Security private trust fund has built up to the point that
>>you just *have* to start spending some of it! The one thing you miss since
>>moving out here is roaring around in your homebuilt on Saturday afternoons.
>>So, absent any regulation to the contrary, you decide to build a Lunar
>>replacement.
>
>
> "Moon Zero Two", 1969, starring James Olson.
>
>
>>First thing to decide on is a name for the critter. Hmmm..... Moonraker
>>sounds appropriate. Wonder if anybody has used that one?
>
>
> Been there, done that:
>
> http://www.bowersflybaby.com/stories/leoraker.JPG
>
>
>>Oh heck with that,
>>let's get on to the design parameters.
>>
>>Seats - One, two???
>
>
> With a weight increase, the amount of fuel needed increases disproportionately.
> Also, if you add a second seat, you're always going to have to have a body or
> ballast in the spot to keep the beast in balance.
>
>
>>Pressurization - (?) if not, then a big enough seat to accommodate a space
>>suit.
>
>
> It's tough to do precision work in a space suit. The gloves give you next to no
> tactile feel...in fact, the fingertips are usually covered with hard rubber
> shells.
>
> http://www.hightechscience.org/orlan_space_glove.htm
>
> You're not going to be able to work a keyboard, and if you have buttons and
> whatnot to push, they're going to have to be well separated to ensure you don't
> punch the wrong one. It's gonna be tough to fly without a pressurized cabin.
>
> But...again, pressurization is going to add a lot of weight. You not only need
> a pressure hull with windows and an openable door, but you're going to need the
> typical air conditioning functions such as oxygen replacement, CO2 removal,
> humidity control, etc. Since these problems are ALREADY solved with a space
> suit, you might as well just go open cockpit...after all, you'll need a space
> suit onboard anyway for the walk from the landing field to the cafe for that
> $100,000,000 hamburger.
>
> Hmmmm, single seat, open cockpit. The Luna Baby? :-)
>
>
>>Range - There's fuel and air caches every 1,800 miles, so let's add ~10% and
>>say 2,000 miles.
>
>
> 2000 miles is about 1/3 the way around the entire moon...2/3rds the maximum
> distance you'd want to fly, anyway.
>
> It's been years since I did any sort of lunar orbit work (and even that was only
> for a week or so...damned if I can even remember what program it was). To get
> some answers, I modified one of my orbit analysis tools to do Moon orbits
> (changed the values for G, planetary radius, and gravitational constant). In
> other words, lotsa approximations here.
>
> For a 2000-mile ballistic trajectory on the Moon that gets at least 10 NM high,
> you'll need about 5000 FPS of acceleration. And if you want to touch down with
> near-zero speed, you'll need about the same for deceleration. We'll call it a
> total of 10,000 FPS. Flight time less than a half hour, including accel and
> decel.
>
> Let's assume an open-cockpit single-seater. Call it 200 lbs for the pilot,
> another 100 lbs for his suit, 500 pounds of airframe, 20 pounds of avionics, and
> 50 pounds for batteries and life support supplied. Let's assume our rocket fuel
> has a specific impulse of 250 seconds. That's a dry weight of about 870 pounds.
>
> The fuel comes out to another 2150 pounds.
>
> Like Robert said, though, we could use a mass driver or other ground-based
> system to throw the vehicle, and just rely on onboard fuel to land. This drops
> the required onboard fuel to about 750 pounds. Not too bad.
>
>
>>Speed - Let's say 600 knots. (What I'm doing is multiplying typical terran
>>specs by 6. Why? I dunno)
>>
>>Visible means of support (Lift) - Wonder if NASA has an airfoil for an
>>airless environment? If not, we'll have to come up with something. I
>>wouldn't want to go ballistic - it's not as much fun as low & slow.
>
>
> Yep, ballistic wouldn't be much fun. You want a "Hollywood" moon flight: Take
> off, climb to a given altitude, cruise at that altitude through the entire
> flight, then descend to land.
>
> If we don't have antigravity, what's it going to take?
>
> Let's look at the cruise speed first. 600 knots is about 1000 FPS, and we'll
> need both acceleration and deceleration fuel. Total 2000 FPS. Give it another
> 500 FPS to cover the climb (coming down is free!).
>
> To fly at the constant altitude, we'll need constant downward thrust to
> counteract the force of gravity. Since we're flying 2000 NM at 600 knots, we
> have to do this for about 3.3 hours. Call it four hours with VFR reserves. :-)
>
> So...we have to burn our downward thrusters for four hours. "G" on the Moon is
> about 5.6 ft/Sec^2. We'd need to burn the same to counter that. Total
> acceleration required is 5.6 ft/sec^2 x 4 hours x 3600 seconds/hour... about
> 80,000 FPS, about sixteen times more than a ballistic S/C using a mass driver
> for launch, and, as a point of interest, almost three times what a spacecraft
> launch from the *Earth* needs. With the accel/decel Delta-V, our 870-pound
> spacecraft requires 24.9 *million* pounds of fuel.
>
>
>>C'mon guys. There's got to be another Rutan out there. What are we going to
>>do when he's history?
>
>
> Live far more boring lives, I reckon....
>
> Ron Wanttaja

Hey, they didn't do it that way in "2001 a Space Odyssey" when they
cruised across the surface ofthe moon in the moon bus.

Dan "who thinks Ron has shot down my dreams", U.S. Air Force, retired

[Stealth Pilot]

On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 19:11:22 GMT, Ron Wanttaja >
wrote:


>
>Let's assume an open-cockpit single-seater. Call it 200 lbs for the pilot,
>another 100 lbs for his suit, 500 pounds of airframe, 20 pounds of avionics, and
>50 pounds for batteries and life support supplied. Let's assume our rocket fuel
>has a specific impulse of 250 seconds. That's a dry weight of about 870 pounds.
>

forgive my iggorance.
are we talking earth pounds, moon pounds or mass?
and if we are talking mass is it roman catholic, anglican or
engineering?
you get that for ruining dreams :-)


what is actually needed is for someone to do a Wright Brothers on
gravity.
aviation would go another quantum leap forward if we could just negate
the aircraft weight without all that drag.
it is amazing that with all our progress we havent made one single
inroad into understanding or controlling gravity.

Star Wars episode 1, The phantom menace was shown on local telly last
night. I'm amazed at how correct the understanding of an antigravity
world was in that film.
Stealth (ok, antigravity liftoff, now how do we get thrust?) Pilot

[Rich S.]

"Ron Wanttaja" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Moon Zero Two", 1969, starring James Olson.

Ooh - I'll look that one up!

> With a weight increase, the amount of fuel needed increases
> disproportionately.
> Also, if you add a second seat, you're always going to have to have a body
> or
> ballast in the spot to keep the beast in balance.

We'll just make the ship expandable. When you've got a passenger, just
unlatch it in the middle and pull the ends out - like you do with the dining
table when Grandma's coming.

> You're not going to be able to work a keyboard, and if you have buttons
> and
> whatnot to push, they're going to have to be well separated to ensure you
> don't
> punch the wrong one. It's gonna be tough to fly without a pressurized
> cabin.

Who sez the spacesuit can't have a keyboard- or even a joystick? Pull your
arms inside and start typing. 'Course the chest area would look like Jayne
Mansfield's.

> 2000 miles is about 1/3 the way around the entire moon...2/3rds the
> maximum
> distance you'd want to fly, anyway.

Hmmm... I forgot about how small the circumference is. Maybe 2,000 miles is
more than we need. There's bound to be other colonies less than 2K miles
apart.

> Like Robert said, though, we could use a mass driver or other ground-based
> system to throw the vehicle, and just rely on onboard fuel to land. This
> drops
> the required onboard fuel to about 750 pounds. Not too bad.

Naw - can't go for the ground based system. What if you want to stop for a
picnic on the shore of the Mare?

> Yep, ballistic wouldn't be much fun. You want a "Hollywood" moon flight:
> Take
> off, climb to a given altitude, cruise at that altitude through the entire
> flight, then descend to land.
>
> If we don't have antigravity, what's it going to take?

Well, maybe we *do* have antigravity. After looking at your figures (not
that I understand them), did you say that 5,000 fps is orbital velocity at
10 NM MSL? If so, then what speed is orbital velocity at 1,000' MSL (Moon
Surface Level)? Cruising at that speed would obviate the need for constant
vertical thrust. Half that speed would require less constant vertical thrust
than a hover. If you could find a happy medium, perhaps a small fuel cell,
plutonium reactor, cold fusion motor, or bag of rocks and Hernadez's 98 mph
fast ball would do it.

>>C'mon guys. There's got to be another Rutan out there. What are we going
>>to
>>do when he's history?
>
> Live far more boring lives, I reckon....

"May you live in interesting times"

Rich "Call Hazel Stone" S.

[Rich S.]

"Robert Bonomi" > wrote in message
...
> Moon-quake, Solar flare, "Deck is fouled", I can think of a bunch of
> reasons
> that 'divert to alternate' might be required.

Controllers on strike, Aliens on runway, Gotcha.

> No, no. That's a *Mars* bar. This is Luna. And it should be *obvious*
> that "Almond Joy" is the appropriate one -- "Sometimes you feel like a
> nut"
> *DEFINITELY* describes this 'food for thought'.
>
> (Don't blame me if you don't like the answer. It was _your_ question,
> after
> all. :)

:O)

> But, yeah, "glider" -- for lack of a better term. At the landing site,
> a *BIG* ramp -- with the _upper_ part conforming to the ballistic
> trajectory
> you launched into. You have on-board 'maneuvering' thrusters, to tweak
> you path to the _exact_ ramp trajectory -- a GCA "glide slope" with a
> *vengeance*. You touch down on the ramp, and roll out, possible friction
> brakes, possible aircraft-carrier type snubbing cable.

You been watching old Evel Knievel tapes I'll bet.

> You can *try*, but I suggest that -first- you calculate the energy-density
> of that system. then contemplate the mass requirements, _just_ to power
> your "forty watt plasma rifle" -- let alone any on-board flight controls,
> instrumentation, life-support system, etc.

Improvements in battery design have been ramping up so quickly in the past
few years that I fully expect to see a pink, drum-beating bunny on the Moon!

Rich S.

[Rich S.]

"Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired" > wrote in message
news:rGsWd.24184$Sn6.22376@lakeread03...

> Hey, they didn't do it that way in "2001 a Space Odyssey" when they
> cruised across the surface ofthe moon in the moon bus.

Wasn't that a monorail or cable-suspended car?

Rich "running low on memory" S.

[Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired]

Rich S. wrote:
> "Robert Bonomi" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>>Moon-quake, Solar flare, "Deck is fouled", I can think of a bunch of
>>reasons
>>that 'divert to alternate' might be required.
>
>
> Controllers on strike, Aliens on runway, Gotcha.
>
>
>>No, no. That's a *Mars* bar. This is Luna. And it should be *obvious*
>>that "Almond Joy" is the appropriate one -- "Sometimes you feel like a
>>nut"
>>*DEFINITELY* describes this 'food for thought'.
>>
>>(Don't blame me if you don't like the answer. It was _your_ question,
>>after
>>all. :)
>
>
> :O)
>
>
>>But, yeah, "glider" -- for lack of a better term. At the landing site,
>>a *BIG* ramp -- with the _upper_ part conforming to the ballistic
>>trajectory
>>you launched into. You have on-board 'maneuvering' thrusters, to tweak
>>you path to the _exact_ ramp trajectory -- a GCA "glide slope" with a
>>*vengeance*. You touch down on the ramp, and roll out, possible friction
>>brakes, possible aircraft-carrier type snubbing cable.
>
>
> You been watching old Evel Knievel tapes I'll bet.
>
>
>>You can *try*, but I suggest that -first- you calculate the energy-density
>>of that system. then contemplate the mass requirements, _just_ to power
>>your "forty watt plasma rifle" -- let alone any on-board flight controls,
>>instrumentation, life-support system, etc.
>
>
> Improvements in battery design have been ramping up so quickly in the past
> few years that I fully expect to see a pink, drum-beating bunny on the Moon!
>
> Rich S.
>
>
Hey, when that happens are ya gonna share what you are drinking?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

[Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired]

Rich S. wrote:

> "Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired" > wrote in message
> news:rGsWd.24184$Sn6.22376@lakeread03...
>
>
>>Hey, they didn't do it that way in "2001 a Space Odyssey" when they
>>cruised across the surface ofthe moon in the moon bus.
>
>
> Wasn't that a monorail or cable-suspended car?
>
> Rich "running low on memory" S.
>
>
No, it had 6 (?) rocket engines aimed downwards. I had the model whan I
was in highschool.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

[Ron Wanttaja]

On Sun, 06 Mar 2005 14:03:42 +0800, Stealth Pilot > wrote:

>On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 19:11:22 GMT, Ron Wanttaja >
>wrote:
>
>
>>
>>Let's assume an open-cockpit single-seater. Call it 200 lbs for the pilot,
>>another 100 lbs for his suit, 500 pounds of airframe, 20 pounds of avionics, and
>>50 pounds for batteries and life support supplied. Let's assume our rocket fuel
>>has a specific impulse of 250 seconds. That's a dry weight of about 870 pounds.
>
>forgive my iggorance.
>are we talking earth pounds, moon pounds or mass?
>and if we are talking mass is it roman catholic, anglican or
>engineering?

Now stop that. :-)

>what is actually needed is for someone to do a Wright Brothers on
>gravity.
>aviation would go another quantum leap forward if we could just negate
>the aircraft weight without all that drag.
>it is amazing that with all our progress we havent made one single
>inroad into understanding or controlling gravity.

You've hit the nail right on the head. Right now, space travel is at the
equivalent level of the Montgolfier brothers. Chemical rockets are a dead end;
the moral equivalent of de Rozier's combination hot air/hydrogen balloon.

Heavier than air flight wasn't possible until the invention of the internal
combustion engine. Similarly, the true exploitation of space is waiting for a
system that will produce good acceleration without the need of tons of fuel.

It's sort of in our grasp, now. Chemical fueled engines have Specific Impulses
(Isp) in the range of 200-300 seconds. Modern electric propulsion units see
ISPs up to about 3000 seconds.

What does that mean? Well, I used an Isp of 250 for the thrust-hovering moon
buggy. If you recall, it needed 25 million pounds of fuel for Rich's
cross-country.

With an ISP of 3000, the fuel requirement drops from 25,000,000 pounds...to a
bit over 1,000. Yes, about four orders of magnitude. These units are
operational *now*...they're used on communications satellites.

They produce a lot of thrust for very little fuel, but the actual amount of
thrust they produce is minuscule. The commsats use them to compensate for the
north-south wobble their orbits get from the uneven distribution of mass within
the earth. They need 150 FPS of delta-V per year, and they run the electric
propulsion nearly constantly.

As you might expect, they require a lot of power. But a dozen miles from Rich's
house, a number of airtight spacecraft hulls complete with operational nuclear
power plants lie in storage. The Navy calls them, "mothballed submarines."
Back when a tsunami hit Hawaii forty or so years ago, they powered Honolulu with
the output of *one* of these subs.

Cooling them in space, where you don't have access to billions of tons of cold
sea water, is left to the good offices of your local thermal engineer.

Ron Wanttaja

[Ron Wanttaja]

On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 23:50:23 -0800, "Rich S." >
wrote:

>"Ron Wanttaja" > wrote in message
...
>>
>> "Moon Zero Two", 1969, starring James Olson.
>
>Ooh - I'll look that one up!

It's known as the first space western.... :-)

>> With a weight increase, the amount of fuel needed increases
>> disproportionately.
>> Also, if you add a second seat, you're always going to have to have a body
>> or
>> ballast in the spot to keep the beast in balance.
>
>We'll just make the ship expandable. When you've got a passenger, just
>unlatch it in the middle and pull the ends out - like you do with the dining
>table when Grandma's coming.

You might be able to do something along those lines...depending on how much
acceleration you plan on. Airplanes can tolerate CG shifts because they have
horizontal stabilizers at the end of a longish moment arm. Spacecraft don't.
However, with a fly by wire control system, you could compensate for weight
offsets so the vehicle flies about the same.

You could also handle the problem with something Heinlein referred to as "A
Space Suit Built for Two."

>> You're not going to be able to work a keyboard, and if you have buttons
>> and whatnot to push, they're going to have to be well separated to ensure you
>> don't punch the wrong one. It's gonna be tough to fly without a pressurized
>> cabin.
>
>Who sez the spacesuit can't have a keyboard- or even a joystick? Pull your
>arms inside and start typing. 'Course the chest area would look like Jayne
>Mansfield's.

Or just make the suit something like the Jim suits used for diving...

http://www.divingheritage.com/jimkern.htm

Assuming you're not fixed on a Buck Rogers style ship (or even a Space 1999
style ship...) you could make your buggy from a hard-shell space suit. You
probably won't look like Jayne, more like Robbie the Robot ("Danger, Rich
Shankland!").

>> Like Robert said, though, we could use a mass driver or other ground-based
>> system to throw the vehicle, and just rely on onboard fuel to land. This
>> drops
>> the required onboard fuel to about 750 pounds. Not too bad.
>
>Naw - can't go for the ground based system. What if you want to stop for a
>picnic on the shore of the Mare?

Ohhhh, now you want *floats*.... :-)

>Well, maybe we *do* have antigravity. After looking at your figures (not
>that I understand them), did you say that 5,000 fps is orbital velocity at
>10 NM MSL? If so, then what speed is orbital velocity at 1,000' MSL (Moon
>Surface Level)? Cruising at that speed would obviate the need for constant
>vertical thrust. Half that speed would require less constant vertical thrust
>than a hover. If you could find a happy medium, perhaps a small fuel cell,
>plutonium reactor, cold fusion motor, or bag of rocks and Hernadez's 98 mph
>fast ball would do it.

The problem is, the required orbital velocity is based on the spacecraft's
distance *from the center of the orbital body*, not its distance above the
surface. So the difference is just 30 FPS between orbits 10 NM high and 1000
feet high.

And, in fact, the orbital velocity decreases with increased altitude...but, of
course, you have to burn fuel to get to the altitude.

The 5000 FPS was for a ballistic case, not an orbit. I brute-forced this one to
determine the velocity needed...I used an orbit with a 10 nm apogee and pushed
the perigee below the surface until I had an orbit where the above-ground
portion was approximately 2,000 NM long (it really, REALLY helps to write your
own orbit analysis programs).

Ron Wanttaja

[Rich S.]

"Ron Wanttaja" > wrote in message
...
>
> The problem is, the required orbital velocity is based on the spacecraft's
> distance *from the center of the orbital body*, not its distance above the
> surface. So the difference is just 30 FPS between orbits 10 NM high and
> 1000
> feet high.
>
> And, in fact, the orbital velocity decreases with increased
> altitude...but, of
> course, you have to burn fuel to get to the altitude.
>
> The 5000 FPS was for a ballistic case, not an orbit. I brute-forced this
> one to
> determine the velocity needed...I used an orbit with a 10 nm apogee and
> pushed
> the perigee below the surface until I had an orbit where the above-ground
> portion was approximately 2,000 NM long (it really, REALLY helps to write
> your
> own orbit analysis programs).

When I took physics out at the 'Dub, orbits hadn't even been invented yet. I
can barely remember attending, much less any of the course content. I'll
leave the calculations to the specialists.

From a layman's point of view, it appears as though powered flight on our
Moon should require *less* power than on Earth. If your linen bag of termite
chow can fly in a one-G field on forty horsepower while beating aside air,
smog, clouds, bugs and rain, then our moonflitter should be able to paddle
along in one-sixth G under a lot less power. If you can carry fuel to go for
your hamburger on Earth, then what's the problem out there (other than a
scarcity of Mickey D's)? Absence of air should be an advantage in some ways.

Riddle me that, O Caped Crusader!

[Ron Wanttaja]

On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 09:17:30 -0800, "Rich S." >
wrote:

>When I took physics out at the 'Dub, orbits hadn't even been invented yet. I
>can barely remember attending, much less any of the course content.

Heck, Rich, you were playing "Rock, Rock, Rock," before paper and scissors had
been invented....

>From a layman's point of view, it appears as though powered flight on our
>Moon should require *less* power than on Earth. If your linen bag of termite
>chow can fly in a one-G field on forty horsepower while beating aside air,
>smog, clouds, bugs and rain, then our moonflitter should be able to paddle
>along in one-sixth G under a lot less power. If you can carry fuel to go for
>your hamburger on Earth, then what's the problem out there (other than a
>scarcity of Mickey D's)? Absence of air should be an advantage in some ways.

Well, vacuum DOES eliminate drag, but as far as everything else is concerned,
it, well....sucks.

Look at is this way: All aircraft engines are rocket engines. They work by
expelling mass, with the amount of thrust depending upon the amount of mass and
the speed at which its expelled. "Jet" engines use burning gasses to increase
the velocity of the flow, while us poor ol' Fly Baby jockeys have to make do
with carving out a piece of air and throwing it backwards.

Down here in the soup, the mass to expel backwards is free. On the moon,
though, you have to bring that mass with you.

So...how much air, in mass, are we talking about?

Let's take a look at my Fly Baby. It's got a prop 72 inches in diameter. The
pitch is 48 inches...in an ideal world, every turn of the prop blade would shove
a chunk of air 72 inches in diameter backwards a distance of 48 inches.

How much air is that? Almost 200,000 cubic inches. But of course, that prop
isn't 100% efficient. Let's say it's only 1% efficient...that's 2000 cubic
inches of air being pushed backwards to provide thrust.

How much does that air weigh? About 1.2 kg per cubic meter. That's about
0.000043 lbs/cu-inch. Which is about 0.1 lb of air per prop rev.

And...the prop is revolving at about 40 turns per second, so that's about 4
pounds of "propellant" used per second. An hour flight in my airplane uses over
14,000 pounds of "rocket fuel"! Geeze, maybe I better review those Sport Pilot
regs again.... :-)

Ron "Hypergolic" Wanttaja

[Rich S.]

"Ron Wanttaja" > wrote in message
...
> On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 09:17:30 -0800, "Rich S." >
> wrote:
>
>>When I took physics out at the 'Dub, orbits hadn't even been invented yet.
>>I
>>can barely remember attending, much less any of the course content.
>
> Heck, Rich, you were playing "Rock, Rock, Rock," before paper and scissors
> had
> been invented....

As a teacher's assistant, it was my job to keep the candles lit during the
lectures.

> Down here in the soup, the mass to expel backwards is free. On the moon,
> though, you have to bring that mass with you.
>
> So...how much air, in mass, are we talking about?

Lots free photons floating around, though. Do photons have mass? Even a
little bit? If they do, couldn't we collect them in the front, accelerate
them until their mass becomes ~ infinite, then toss them out the back?

Heck, come to think of it, we don't even need protons. If mass increases as
velocity closes in on C, all we need for reaction mass is a handful of
depleted uranium. If we can toss it away fast enough. I don't suppose that
..50 caliber hawgleg that Ammeter carries would do it. We need a railgun or
two.

Rich "Thinking about lighter-than-vacuum balloons next" S.

P.S. I like that idea about recycling boomers!

[Robert Bonomi]

In article >,
Rich S. > wrote:
>"Robert Bonomi" > wrote in message
...
>
>> No, no. That's a *Mars* bar. This is Luna. And it should be *obvious*
>> that "Almond Joy" is the appropriate one -- "Sometimes you feel like a
>> nut"
>> *DEFINITELY* describes this 'food for thought'.
>>
>> (Don't blame me if you don't like the answer. It was _your_ question,
>> after
>> all. :)
>
>:O)
>
[[.. sneck ..]]
>
>You been watching old Evel Knievel tapes I'll bet.

You've never been required to play "catch" with raw eggs, have you?

Seriously, a number of years ago, some engineering school did a variant
on the 'package an egg so it won't break when dropped X feet' contest,
where the contestants had to build something to _catch_ an egg, w/o breaking
it.

>> You can *try*, but I suggest that -first- you calculate the energy-density
>> of that system. then contemplate the mass requirements, _just_ to power
>> your "forty watt plasma rifle" -- let alone any on-board flight controls,
>> instrumentation, life-support system, etc.
>
>Improvements in battery design have been ramping up so quickly in the past
>few years that I fully expect to see a pink, drum-beating bunny on the Moon!

Y'know, you could probably *sell* that idea to the copper-top people for an
ad campaign.

[Dan Nafe]

In article >,
Ron Wanttaja > wrote:

[snip]
> So...we have to burn our downward thrusters for four hours. "G" on the Moon
> is
> about 5.6 ft/Sec^2. We'd need to burn the same to counter that. Total
> acceleration required is 5.6 ft/sec^2 x 4 hours x 3600 seconds/hour... about
> 80,000 FPS, about sixteen times more than a ballistic S/C using a mass driver
> for launch, and, as a point of interest, almost three times what a spacecraft
> launch from the *Earth* needs. With the accel/decel Delta-V, our 870-pound
> spacecraft requires 24.9 *million* pounds of fuel.

Doesn't the vehicle get lighter as fuel and oxidizer are consumed,
requiring less thrust, lowering the consumption rate...

Dan "and-so-on, and-so-on, and-so-on" Nafe
danATscuba-trainingDOTnet

[Ron Wanttaja]

On Sun, 06 Mar 2005 23:33:48 -0500, Dan Nafe > wrote:

>In article >,
> Ron Wanttaja > wrote:
>
>[snip]
>> So...we have to burn our downward thrusters for four hours. "G" on the Moon
>> is
>> about 5.6 ft/Sec^2. We'd need to burn the same to counter that. Total
>> acceleration required is 5.6 ft/sec^2 x 4 hours x 3600 seconds/hour... about
>> 80,000 FPS, about sixteen times more than a ballistic S/C using a mass driver
>> for launch, and, as a point of interest, almost three times what a spacecraft
>> launch from the *Earth* needs. With the accel/decel Delta-V, our 870-pound
>> spacecraft requires 24.9 *million* pounds of fuel.
>
>Doesn't the vehicle get lighter as fuel and oxidizer are consumed,
>requiring less thrust, lowering the consumption rate...

Exactly, but the basic rocket equation takes that into account:

Fuel = Initial Mass * (1 - 1/(e^(Delta-V/(ISP * g)))

Ron Wanttaja

[Dan Nafe]

In article >,
Ron Wanttaja > wrote:

> On Sun, 06 Mar 2005 23:33:48 -0500, Dan Nafe > wrote:
[snip]
> >Doesn't the vehicle get lighter as fuel and oxidizer are consumed,
> >requiring less thrust, lowering the consumption rate...
>
> Exactly, but the basic rocket equation takes that into account:
>
> Fuel = Initial Mass * (1 - 1/(e^(Delta-V/(ISP * g)))
>
> Ron Wanttaja

I guess that is why you are a rocket scientist.

Dan "Damn-it-Jim,-I'm-a-doctor" Nafe

[Darrel Toepfer]

Rich S. wrote:

> P.S. I like that idea about recycling boomers!

They were hovercrafts in "The Matrix" or very close to it...

[StellaStarr]

Ron Wanttaja wrote:
they powered Honolulu with
> the output of *one* of these subs.
>
> Cooling them in space, where you don't have access to billions of tons of cold
> sea water, is left to the good offices of your local thermal engineer.
>
> Ron Wanttaja

Help me out with this one. While all the sci-fi I sopped up as a kid
referred to the "cold of outer space," isn't vacuum a perfect insulator?
How WOULD you cool the reactors (or whatever engine) with no atmosphere
or handy heavy liquid at lower temp? Wouldn't it take a long time for
the excited molecules to settle down?

I love this thread.

[UltraJohn]

StellaStarr wrote:

> Ron Wanttaja wrote:
> they powered Honolulu with
>> the output of *one* of these subs.
>>
>> Cooling them in space, where you don't have access to billions of tons of
>> cold sea water, is left to the good offices of your local thermal
>> engineer.
>>
>> Ron Wanttaja
>
> Help me out with this one. While all the sci-fi I sopped up as a kid
> referred to the "cold of outer space," isn't vacuum a perfect insulator?
> How WOULD you cool the reactors (or whatever engine) with no atmosphere
> or handy heavy liquid at lower temp? Wouldn't it take a long time for
> the excited molecules to settle down?
>
> I love this thread.
Yea I already have my moon station built and the prefab's ready to ship,
life supports finished now all I need is to complete the rockets to get
them there! As soon as I'm finish with the KR-2 ( at current rate that will
take another 30 years!).
John
wishin and dreamin

[Ron Wanttaja]

On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 03:05:16 GMT, StellaStarr > wrote:

>Ron Wanttaja wrote:
> they powered Honolulu with
>> the output of *one* of these subs.
>>
>> Cooling them in space, where you don't have access to billions of tons of cold
>> sea water, is left to the good offices of your local thermal engineer.
>>
>
>Help me out with this one. While all the sci-fi I sopped up as a kid
>referred to the "cold of outer space," isn't vacuum a perfect insulator?
>How WOULD you cool the reactors (or whatever engine) with no atmosphere
>or handy heavy liquid at lower temp? Wouldn't it take a long time for
>the excited molecules to settle down?

Yes, it would. The vacuum of space is an excellent insulator, but there's a lot
of "nothing" to suck your heat away. Operational spacecraft usually have
problems with TOO much heat, but if stuff shuts down, things get cold. If the
Space Shuttle doesn't get the doors open soon after orbital insertion, it has to
land, fast...the spacecraft's radiators are on the inside of the doors. On the
flip side, remember the movie, with the power-conserving astronauts freezing.

You get rid of heat with, basically, radiators. Point 'em at black space and
that's about the best you can do.

Cooling a submarine reactor in space is going to be difficult, since IIRC
correctly the reactor is basically a heat source for the creation of steam,
which then turns the turbines that rotates the screws or spins the generators.

You might end up with a big external radiator, kind of like a conventional solar
array only you keep it turned FROM the sun. I don't like this solution, as a
leak is not only going to spew your precious coolant into space, but act as a
thruster upsetting your attitude.

I kind of like the thought of "rafting" three sub hulls side-by side, with the
two outer ones lacking a reactor but stringing radiator tubes on the inside of
the hulls. You might even run radiator lines all through the hulls, then fill
the whole hull with water and freeze them before launch. But like I said, I
ain't a thermal engineer.

Ron Wanttaja

[Ron Wanttaja]

On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 04:12:09 GMT, I wrote:

Yes, it would. The vacuum of space is an excellent insulator, but there's a lot
>of "nothing" to suck your heat away. Operational spacecraft usually have
>problems with TOO much heat, but if stuff shuts down, things get cold. If the
>Space Shuttle doesn't get the doors open soon after orbital insertion, it has to
>land, fast...the spacecraft's radiators are on the inside of the doors. On the
>flip side, remember the movie, with the power-conserving astronauts freezing.

Agghhh, I was a bit rushed and edited this wrong. Insert "Apollo 13" after
"...remember the movie,".

Ron Wanttaja

[Gary Thomas]

Ron Wanttaja wrote:
<snip>
I don't like this solution, as a
> leak is not only going to spew your precious coolant into space, but act as a
> thruster upsetting your attitude.
>
>
> Ron Wanttaja
<snip>

If we're going to take along precious coolant I vote for Newcastle Brown
Ale ;^) And if you lose it there will be an upset attitude <G>

[Rich S.]

"Blueskies" > wrote in message
. com...
>
> Big bouncy spring thing hopping between the craters...

At first I laughed - but now that Ron has 'splained things to me, you might
have been right after all!

Rich "If you have to have something to push against, why not the Moon?" S.

[Rich S.]

"Gary Thomas" > wrote in message
...
> If we're going to take along precious coolant I vote for Newcastle Brown
> Ale ;^) And if you lose it there will be an upset attitude <G>

Hmmm...... What would be the thrust numbers (ft/sec) for Muzzleloader, I
wonder? What would you carry as an oxidizer? Can it be synthesized from
locally available materials?

Chuck - could you run some experiments with an Earth-bound
Muzzleloader-propelled ultralight and give us some numbers?

Rich S.

[Morgans]

"Rich S." wrote

> Hmmm...... What would be the thrust numbers (ft/sec) for Muzzleloader, I
> wonder? What would you carry as an oxidizer? Can it be synthesized from
> locally available materials?

Yep, I know of the perfect oxidizer. Grind up a bit of BoB U, and combine
them, for the perfect result. From what I hear, they do burn out rather
quickly, but *can* be revived to burn again. <Bfg>
--
Jim in NC

[Rich S.]

"Morgans" > wrote in message
...
>
> Yep, I know of the perfect oxidizer. Grind up a bit of BoB U, and combine
> them, for the perfect result. From what I hear, they do burn out rather
> quickly, but *can* be revived to burn again. <Bfg>

Which "bit" would you use? I doubt there's much left - it appears as though
you've been "burning" him for ages.

Rich S.

[Morgans]

"Rich S." wrote

>
> Which "bit" would you use? I doubt there's much left - it appears as
though
> you've been "burning" him for ages.
>
> Rich S.

Dunno which part to light, but it couldn't be his hair!.

What ever there is to burn, I'm sure I have a bit of flame left to light
him, from where he is always burning my a*s. <g>
--
Jim in NC