Space topics from Dr. Plata

Doug Plata recently suggested some possible space exploration topics. All of them are very interesting.

Dr. Plata has good ideas and invests a great deal of time and effort looking at them. He's involved in two excellent websites: LunarCOTS.com and CisLunarOne.com .

July and August is a slow period for the Ajo Copper News, the weekly newspaper my sister and I publish. Most people with money and good sense leave Ajo, Arizona for the summer months. Hopefully I will have time to examine some of Plata's topics in my blog over the next few months.

Here they are:

Partial vs full reusability

Falcon 9 has nine engines on the first stage and one engine on the second stage.  So, if only the first stage is reused, it would seem to me that 9/10 engines would be recovered.  That's got to be a huge reduction in launch cost right there, yes?  Just how much?  Certainly achieving even partial reusability would make SpaceX even more competitive that it already is.  If the Falcon Heavy were to be partially reusable, reusing the lateral boosters would mean only 18 out of 28 engines would be recovered unless the central core could be reused as well.

Propulsion service options

For a cis-lunar transportation system we most often think of fuel depots in LEO.  One problem with this is the need for fuel depots in multiple LEO planes with those depots being used only occasionally.  However, if propellant were coming from ice harvesting operations at the lunar poles, then conceivably an OTV could bring propellant into any LEO inclination just prior to a launch into that orbit from Earth.  However, in this scenario, do we even need LEO depots?  Why couldn't the OTV dock with the launched satellite and then use its own engines to boost the satellite to GTO or even GEO?  Do we need fuel depots or could propulsion service be enough?

Power options for lunar mining

Say you are wanting to do ice harvesting operations in a lunar polar permanently shadowed crater with the rim of such having a peak of eternal light (PEL).  Great, but there's still potentially kilometers of distance between the source of power and the ice harvesting operations site.  How to deal with that gap?  RTGs?  Laser beaming of power?  Drive a rover laying a cable down the side of the crater?  Hop the lander from the rim to the floor while draping a (superconducting) wire?  Or forget a solar panel farm at the PEL and crack the water at a fuel depot in orbit?  An interesting trade analysis.

Aerobraking

OTVs tend to be painted as broad, turtle-shaped craft.  But how do you launch and assemble such a thing?  Can aerobraking be done about as easily with a cylindrical-shaped OTV?  How about heat flaps popping out giving more surface area and control?  Necessary?  If one skims high enough in the atmosphere does one even need a heatshield?  What about using a lifting body form?

Travel times further out into the solar system

So if we develop the ability to safely send humans to Deimos, how much longer would it take to send them to Vesta, Ceres, and a Moon of Jupiter?

 

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ROCKETRY

Heavy Lift vs Single Stage vs Reusable vs Gun

Air launch

Partial vs Full reusability

Chemical versus liquid rockets

CIS-LUNAR TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE

Propulsion service options

Power options for lunar mining

Aerobraking

ORBITAL DYNAMICS

The orbital dynamics of a Phobos vs Deimos vs surface mission

HUMAN FACTORS

Mass calculations of open-loop, vs closed chemical, vs ECLSS

How could an RP5 be provided?

How do the space radiation numbers compare between locations (i.e. LEO, free-space, lunar surface, Phobos, Mars?)

Animal studies

Partial gravity options

COLONIZATION

O'Neillian vs lunar colony - Where first?

Travel times further out into the solar system