Orbital construction and other things to do with huge launch vehicles

[tater]

Didn't want to go off topic in the SpaceX thread, and this kooky video uses Starship. While I don't have any reason to take this outfit seriously, it is interesting enough as a conversation-starter that I figured I'd drop it here.

These guys (this GUY, singular?) keep changing their name, station name, and now they memoryholed their old videos. The SpaceX link obviously generates clicks.

Forget the timelines, etc. The concept of the builder here is actually pretty interesting. This particular station idea fits more with the Bezos/BO vision of the future than Musk/SpaceX, so perhaps they should animate with Starship, and NG delivering build stock to LEO.

Regardless of the kooky aspects in the vid, in-space construction has always been intriguing. Years ago NASA worked on beam builder concepts, where rolled stock was converted into truss structures in orbit. Mass limits are always a thing, but many payloads that are interesting are in fact volume limited. The flat-stacked torus skin plates are a pretty interesting idea.

In general, the SpaceX and BO threads tend to go off into Mars vs LEO/Cislunar, visions of the future, etc, now and again, and it's all a chicken and egg thing. There is no reason for giant launch vehicles, unless they create a market for giant launch vehicles by bootstrapping a new economy.

It's been pointed out in other threads that perhaps asteroid mining is the "killer app" for space industrialization. I have said for many people in space, tourism is the obvious killer app—the trick is that travel to tourist locations needs to be airline safe—an extremely high bar.

As this is not the SpaceX or BO threads, we can go off in the weeds.

 

NASA's beam builder idea in Shuttle bay:

 

Edited May 1, 2022 by tater

[Beccab]

I'll add some designs from the early shuttle era, when people still believed it would have been a relatively cheap orbital launcher:

Spoiler

Large Deployable Reflector (LDR), a massive 20 meters infrared telescope similar to LUVOIR (but even bigger) and assembled in orbit inside a large protective shroud to shield it from contamination from the RCS during construction. Above you can see it docked to one of the many proposed space stations



As mentioned by Tater there's the Shuttle beam builder, which was planned to have a lot of uses like:


 

Spoiler

- 100 meters diameter radio telescope for scientific research;



- Multi use GEO platform, planned for a variety of observatories detailed in the scheme above;



- The similarly named but very different multi use LEO platform, which is much more similar to a space station and includes the use of Shuttle external tanks as pressurized volume



- the Soil Surface Texturometer, which I don't know much about other than it is 30 meters per side and is assembled from a single Shuttle launch
 

Spoiler

- the Solar Power Satellites, huge concentrators of sunlight that is then converted into power and beamed to the surface; Boeing made many studies about them and conceived a rather complete architecture to build and sustain them if funded composed of chemical manned space tugs, very large fully reusable rockets (both VTHL and ballistic VTVL was studied) and Space Shuttle modules that could take 80 people at a time into space. I have some of those NTRS links saved if anyone needs them

- large size, ion thruster powered electric tugs that can transport cargo to and from GEO for very little fuel; I can't find better images than this from a quick search unfortunately, but there were a few studies about them including some for use in human mars mission

[tater]

Yeah, huge origami is definitely interesting. Similar techniques can be used to create larger structures. Beam builders were thought of as a framework for solar arrays as one use-case. Or some depot ideas used them to mount external tanks (Shuttle), sunscreens for same, etc.

 

[Spacescifi]

 

The elephant in the room is how far away do you orbit the station?

Farther than LEO: You won't have to re-boost the giant thing with rockets to keep it from deorbiting due to air friction nearly as often. On the other hand if problems occur help is that much farther away unless another station is nearby.

 

LEO: Re-boosting on a regular basis is a must or you will crash back to earth. The more massive the station the more fuel will be required to reboost quickly... although it may also be possible to do it slowly over a month or months with some kind of advanced ion thrusters.

Edited May 1, 2022 by Spacescifi

[tater]

Below 1000km. Probably equatorial.

The station in that video is clearly a brief stay outpost in the grand scheme of things. Longer stays, or BLEO (Lagrange, etc) require serious shielding, then we're in O'Neill territory.

[Shpaget]

Delusion of the guy is fascinating. Two weeks to build the entire thing (13:45), or is it a month? Not like it matters in either case. No way.

At least he finally woke up and realized that worldwide lottery is never going to fly (at least he hasn't mentioned it in this video).

5 minutes ago, tater said:

Below 1000km. Probably equatorial.

He mentioned sun-synchronous orbit (12:55), so his Starship cargo numbers are not accurate.

[tater]

1 minute ago, Shpaget said:

Delusion of the guy is fascinating. Two weeks to build the entire thing (13:45), or is it a month? Not like it matters in either case. No way.

At least he finally woke up and realized that worldwide lottery is never going to fly (at least he hasn't mentioned it in this video).

He mentioned sun-synchronous orbit (12:55), so his Starship cargo numbers are not accurate.

Yeah, the details are goofy. The only part I find really interesting is the notional ring builder, which makes some real sense—assuming the welding part is a thing. This concept is nutty, but not "Mars One" level nutty at least. The thing that it shows is a need for someone to start thinking about what could be done with large launchers that are pretty cheap. Something outside the box of sending up pressure cylinders to make new stations that are just as uncomfortable as ISS (hours a day of bungeed workouts, etc to not lose all your muscle mass, no gravity for plumbing, etc).

 

[Shpaget]

7 minutes ago, tater said:

what could be done with large launchers that are pretty cheap

It would still take thousands of Starships to build and furnish the thing. He's talking a lot about the outer shell, but just glossing over the interior, and most of the work is on the inside. Sure, it would be a lot easier to work on it once the thing is pressurized and spun up, but look at the building process of any large building down here. The structure goes up quickly, but that's just a fraction of the work that needs to be done.

[Spacescifi]

4 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

It would still take thousands of Starships to build and furnish the thing. He's talking a lot about the outer shell, but just glossing over the interior, and most of the work is on the inside. Sure, it would be a lot easier to work on it once the thing is pressurized and spun up, but look at the building process of any large building down here. The structure goes up quickly, but that's just a fraction of the work that needs to be done.

 

Inflatable water filled station walls.

 

That's all I have to say.

Giant water bed station FTW!

It will be bouncy everywhere except where hard panels are needed.

[kerbiloid]

A giant soap bubble.

It's orbiting in LEO and lets the orbital dust stick on to form a layer of regolith. Add glue for better viscosity.

Then do with the hollow stone sphere what you want .

[tater]

32 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

It would still take thousands of Starships to build and furnish the thing. He's talking a lot about the outer shell, but just glossing over the interior, and most of the work is on the inside. Sure, it would be a lot easier to work on it once the thing is pressurized and spun up, but look at the building process of any large building down here. The structure goes up quickly, but that's just a fraction of the work that needs to be done.

I'd think they would move cargo containers of interior fittings to it before they closed it. The floor trusses, plates, plumbing fixtures, etc, and some of the heavier eqp (life support). These are large compared to ISS, but still pretty small at least. I'd like to see a spun up station built at some point. I think their central docking ring is also not well thought out, the only SS that might dock there would have flaps, and would not fit.

[Beccab]

The thing is, this design is not better in any way than a wet workshop - it's a big, empty shell in orbit with little to no fittings, only that on top of it requires welding and other complex operations in orbit. And wet workshops are already awful themselves

[tater]

40 minutes ago, Beccab said:

The thing is, this design is not better in any way than a wet workshop - it's a big, empty shell in orbit with little to no fittings, only that on top of it requires welding and other complex operations in orbit. And wet workshops are already awful themselves

Yes, but anything spun up is better than a ISS-style station. Microgravity for humans is worse than useless, the humans continuously decay. Microgravity for industrial/science purposes is useless if it shares space with humans, because humans bang into things, and wreck the pristine microgravity.

Any large numbers of humans in space need centrifugal habs. Bolo style (seveneves) habs are possible, but a major PITA, and you end up with 2 discrete habs, sort of barely connected (back and forth being difficult).

Nothing interesting from a space station standpoint ever happens at all unless it is constructed in space, IMO. If everything is launched in pre-made chunks from Earth, space stations are always sorta garbage.

[tater]

https://www.gravitics.space/

7.6m dia, 9.8m height, 400m³ volume.

 

Pretty interesting thing to do with a huge launch vehicle. Clearly Starship is one ride to space for this, but it would be easy to make a slightly wider fairing for New Glenn assuming that ever becomes a thing.