Suborbital Spaceplanes

[KerikBalm]

Arbitrary human behavior is actually quite hard to change.

Indeed... the politics of the world make that quite clear on so many levels (lets not get into religious, economic, and political discussions now though)

Launch sites are also not cheap to build and maintain; there's a reason SpaceX uses USAF bases for launches. Expensive infrastructure is one of those things that tends to not be outsourced unless absolutely necessary; you don't want to build up lots of infrastructure only to lose it to political developments in the country it's located in.

Which is a major advantage of air launch -> the runway infrastructure is already there throughout most of the world.

Heck, I'll bet they even have suitable airports in south sudan... and I doubt any government there is going to hassle you about manned vs unmanned reutrn vehicles.

Those floating recovery barges for reusable unmanned VTVL rockets: international waters.... very little regulation going on there.

Its actually quite easy to find places where there isn't any government to get in your way....

You may not want your engineers, scientists, etc to be there... you probably want to build your rocket/spaceplane somewhere else... but for unmanned recovery of the booster, it should work just fine.

As I mentioned earlier... space X is doing unmanned return, government regulations haven't gotten in the way of that.

This isn't like the NERVA issue... I really don't think the regulation in this instance is a significant hurdle.

[Nibb31]

Which is a major advantage of air launch -> the runway infrastructure is already there throughout most of the world.

No it isn't. Air launch requires a dedicated spaceport, which is not going to be much cheaper or easier to plan and build than a conventional launch site. You need a special runway to handle something as wide and heavy as Stratolaunch for example. You also need on-site production and storage facilities for LOX and fuel. And the abort modes associated with carrying a large load of rocket fuel are not going to mix well with ordinary airport operations.

Heck, I'll bet they even have suitable airports in south sudan... and I doubt any government there is going to hassle you about manned vs unmanned reutrn vehicles.

I really don't think you want to trust the South-Sudanese authorities (or lack of) with your unique high-tech hypersonic aircraft. Chances are you'll be highjacked by rebels with pickup trucks and RPGs and end up paying a 10 million dollar ransom to get it back.

As I mentioned earlier... space X is doing unmanned return, government regulations haven't gotten in the way of that.

Wait until they start planning propulsive Dragon landing at KSC with hypersonic reentry over the continental United States. I'm pretty sure the FAA and USAF will have a couple of requirements for them.

[KerikBalm]

No it isn't. Air launch requires a dedicated spaceport, which is not going to be much cheaper or easier to plan and build than a conventional launch site. You need a special runway to handle something as wide and heavy as Stratolaunch for example. You also need on-site production and storage facilities for LOX and fuel. And the abort modes associated with carrying a large load of rocket fuel are not going to mix well with ordinary airport operations.

I'm not talking about a stratolaunch specifically..... something like an F-15 should work (hint hint)... it doesn't have to even be a plane... we are talking about unmanned return vehicles, right?

I think white knight also can use a typical runway. Stratolaunch is pretty big... but not soo much bigger than a large airliner:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/Stratolaunch_comparison.svg/800px-Stratolaunch_comparison.svg.png

If there is airline service there, you can operate an air launch vehicle there.... for at least small payloads

I really don't think you want to trust the South-Sudanese authorities (or lack of) with your unique high-tech hypersonic aircraft. Chances are you'll be highjacked by rebels with pickup trucks and RPGs and end up paying a 10 million dollar ransom to get it back.

I think they operate more out at sea, and it doesn't take a large security force to secure ships. Anyway... who said it had to be a high tech hypersonic aircraft?

Also, I was mentioning that you could launch from one location, and recover in another (ie, like international waters)

Launch from Florida... recover in Ghana.... they will probably let you.... The recovery aspect can be avoided if you're willing to recover outside a "fisrt world" country.

Heck.. china may even allow it

Wait until they start planning propulsive Dragon landing at KSC with hypersonic reentry over the continental United States. I'm pretty sure the FAA and USAF will have a couple of requirements for them.

Yes, I'm sure they will, but they don't have to do it that way, that is their choice.

Edited February 10, 2015 by KerikBalm

[cpast]

I'm not talking about a stratolaunch specifically..... something like an F-15 should work (hint hint)... it doesn't have to even be a plane... we are talking about unmanned return vehicles, right?

I think white knight also can use a typical runway. Stratolaunch is pretty big... but not soo much bigger than a large airliner:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/Stratolaunch_comparison.svg/800px-Stratolaunch_comparison.svg.png

If there is airline service there, you can operate an air launch vehicle there.... for at least small payloads

You're just looking at wingspan. The wings of the very largest of airliners don't fit on a runway, which is OK because only their landing gear have to fit. Stratolaunch seems to have landing gear placed at about the width of a 747-8's outboard engines, which is around 45m, which is the second-biggest standard runway width (the biggest is 60m or so). However, with 45m between outer gear, you aren't able to use a 45m runway, and a 60m runway only leaves you 7.5m on either side if things aren't perfect, which is cutting it closer than I think any airport would be willing to do. The outboard engine is even further out, and is further from centerline than any other aircraft on the list; this is a major issue when trying to use a runway, because you have to make sure nothing out to engine width is going to get sucked in and damage the engine. Comparing just by wingspan misses the point: the aircraft is far wider than its wingspan would seem to indicate, because all the stuff that's normally near the middle of the aircraft is near the edges on the Stratolaunch.

White Knight 2 did operate off a 200ft (i.e. 60m) by 10,000 ft runway, which was then lengthened to 12,000 ft. That isn't abnormally large for an international airport (it's wider than a 747 takes, but it's the same size that new runways operating an A380 are supposed to be built to). A newer airport operating 747s and A380s should be able to take WK2 on its runway. Note that not all airports with airline service have runways that big; WK2's runway isn't abnormally large, but it is at the very high end of runway sizes. Most airports worldwide can't handle that.

Furthermore, the issues with an airport go well beyond runway size. For starters, you will not be able to fit Stratolaunch on just about any taxiway anywhere (they're generally at most 20-some meters wide; the width of a taxiway is driven by landing gear spacing, and Stratolaunch's is much, much wider than any other aircraft). White Knight 2 might also have taxiway problems, I'm not sure the gear spacing there. That means you'll need to either have an airfield where you don't need to go on separate taxiways to reach the runway, or build new taxiways, or have some other way of getting the craft off the runway (2 and 3 take expensive infrastructure).

And even if the plane physically fits, the airport needs to be able to deal with rocket fuel, meaning they need to train their emergency crews for a crash on takeoff with rocket fuel involved in the fire. That's the biggest concern here - air launch (especially liquid-fueled) involves a rocket fuel depot on site, and a crash is likely to be much more severe than with an airliner.

Also, I was mentioning that you could launch from one location, and recover in another (ie, like international waters)

Launch from Florida... recover in Ghana.... they will probably let you.... The recovery aspect can be avoided if you're willing to recover outside a "fisrt world" country.

Heck.. china may even allow it.

You can't really freely choose where to recover your spacecraft; you want to recover it in the place that imposes the fewest constraints on your launch trajectory. On recovery, you have to worry just as much about security, and if you want to recover airplane-style you need the really long runway (ruling out international waters completely, and also ruling out *many* airports in developing countries). You don't need the fuel depot, but if you want a runway you still need a full-size runway, infrastructure to deal with the plane after landing, and assurance that neither will be damaged or destroyed for a very long time. But I'm not really sure anyways why you're talking about recovery as the bigger issue; you also need to launch before you can consider recovery.

As a side note: Don't launch things on suborbital trajectories from the US to China. That's a really, really, really bad idea, because another thing that launches on suborbital trajectories is ICBMs.

[Iskierka]

Of special note from the above is that, of the airports which expanded to 60m width for the A380, technically many didn't - most only have a 45m load-bearing surface, and the rest is weaker tarmac only there to keep debris from being hidden in grass, and to keep small animals from being sucked in. As implied, taxiways have remained much more narrow, also, as the outboard engines are kept idling during taxi, so to enable a regular airport to handle Stratolaunch would actually be a very big expansion operation, and may not even be possible at many places (insufficient space around taxiways to create enlarged turnings and such).

Small payload systems, such as ALASA and Pegasus, are fine to use air-launch on conventional airports, but anything larger or more exotic, and the upgrades may end up costing more than it would to get something like Skylon to work, which requires the runway to be reinforced, but only the runway. Operational design has the fuelling pad at the end of the runway, so only a limited area needs the higher loading, and narrow taxiways and runways are totally fine - 45m is much more than Skylon's designed wingspan. 5.5 km of reinforced narrow runway versus many more km of very wide load-bearing runway and taxiway additions - at best, it's close.

[Kryten]

There's not a lot of public information available, but the MDA\Coleman aerospace have a family of ABM test targets that are dropped out the back of a C-130 or C-17, then launched. That would allow for something a good bit bigger than Pegasus, but won't get you into EELV class.

[Nicholander]

Sorry that I haven't read this whole thread (I sort of skimmed though it), but I have one problem with this:

Assume you have it so that a big sub-orbital space plane that brings a rocket to 125 km of altitude, with a velocity of 3 km/s. So this rocket will need 7 km/s of delta-v to get to LEO (Orbital velocity is 10 km/s), and we'll also assume it's manned, and is supposed to be completely reusable. First you'll need to have the rocket be able to have 7 km/s of DV in the first place, without dropping any stages, to allow all the parts to be reused. Engines with a high enough thrust to get into orbit during the brief time period between separation from the spaceplane and apogee do not have high efficiency. For example, if you had an exhaust velocity of 3000 m/s, a dry mass of 100 units and a full mass of 1100 units, that'd be enough delta-v. But that's 11 units of fuel for every 1 unit of payload! So that's the first problem, the mass ratio, and then there's the 2nd problem, returning home. A de-orbit burn is no problem, but the actual hitting-the-atmosphere part is the problem. Yes, there are some trajectories which have no ionization, but they require the spacecraft to generate lift, which would mean wings. And adding wings is a whole different problem to deal with, such as how fit them in the cargo bay of the main spaceplane, how to make them light enough so that the amount of fuel required (Adding more fuel creates more weight) is within the main spaceplane's lifting limits, and the list goes on and on.

So Northstar, how would you design a fully reusable manned space ferry system with this sub-orbital spaceplane system?

[Northstar1989]

An suborbital spaceplanes has some benefits, first you reuse the first stage, secondary you have an good chance of recover the payload if something goes wrong.

However its some challenges, first you need to go fast for it to make much sense, you also want to launch decent sized payloads. Now dropping something heavy from a plane in hypersonic speed is a challenge in it self.

Solution is to drop it during the ballistic phase after engine cutoff at 50-100 km attitude, this makes the deployment more like space operations and you don't need fairing on payload, you put the cargo hatches on top as you need some heat shielding on bottom.

However this require an large hypersonic plane something who is expensive to build even if you don't develop new engines, you use jets up to mach 2, then switch to rocket and go suborbital.

The cost of developing the plane is that stops this, also its not so much better than an falcon9 reusable solution who is way cheaper to develop and is more flexible.

Its has been lots of ideas around this but cost and risk has result in nothing being made.

Skylon version 1 would make a lot of sense as suborbital only, much less demanding, cheaper to develop and has an larger payload capacity to orbit than an skylon who reach orbit so for satellites who need an extra stage to go higher than LEO you would just go suborbital and add an larger upper stage.

This is *precisely* the kind of stuff I'm talking about...

I'm aware of the costs of developing such a spaceplane. As I've repeatedly stated all around these forums, the solution is to go with Microwave Beamed Power. It synergizes well with spaceplanes because you can get a MUCH heavier plane off the runway with the same thrust than rocket off the Launchpad (as I've said, you can take off with a TWR of 0.2 easily...) and because with the high ISP (infinite with Thermal Tubojets, 1000 seconds when you switch to LH2 at high altitude- which can also be used as a cold sink for precooling the atmospheric intakes earlier in the flight...) you need much less plane to get a given payload suborbital...

With a Microwave Thermal Spaceplane using Thermal Turbojets to get off the runway, you can get off the ground with maybe 1/32nd the beamed-power to get a rocket going upwards with a TWR of 1.6 using Thermal Rockets (you only need 1/8th the TWR on the runway, and Thermal Turbojets can produce easily 4 times the Thrust for the same amount of beamed-power). Since 95% of the costs are in the Microwave Transmitters with a Microwave Beamed Power launch scheme, this saves *MASSIVELY* on the total cost to a suborbital trajectory.

Also, there seems to be some confusion here. You talked about the difficulties of releasing a payload at hypersonic speeds in-atmosphere. By its very definition, a suborbital trajectory goes ABOVE the atmosphere- so you just release the upper stage during the ballistic phase of your flight like you later suggested...

Regards,

Northstar

[Rakaydos]

You're promotig microwave beamed pwer ahead of it's time. Fist we need some kind of deep space infrastructure that makes going beyond geosynch a sound investment. once you have a need (like a moon or mars base) investment in more advanced launching tech will follow.

[Northstar1989]

If they aren't actually in operation, how can you say they are cheap? Its an unsupported assertion.

Based on various cost-analyses that are already out there. The analysis could be wildly-inaccurate, of course (as is sometimes the case with aerospace).

Well, Space X has a reusable VTVL design .... suborbital though. It seems as close (or closer) to becoming a reality as these suborbital spaceplane launches.

Space-X's mission architecture makes great sense for chemical rocketry. In fact, it's my go-to launch system for my current KSP 0.90 Career Game in RSS 64K (because at a realistic relationship between part-size and Delta-V requirements, true orbital spaceplanes just aren't feasible, and suborbital designs have an INCREDIBLY low payload-capacity... See my OP: that large spaceplane was used just to put a tiny Mun lander with an unpressurized cockpit and 4 km/s Delta-V into orbit, which used almost all its fuel getting there on a scale where it's only 8 km/s Delta-V to orbit... I would expect to only be able to get about 5-6 km/s Delta-V out of the spaceplane portion in real life, where it's 10-11 km/s to orbit...)

But a Space-X architecture does NOT work well for Microwave Thermal Rocketry... (see below)

That depends... the longer you use a desing, the more manufacturing matters, the less R&D does. The USSR/ Russian kept updatin teir same old launcher and capsule... while the US did mercury, then gemini, then apollo, then STS, now SLS/orion. I tink the soviet/Russian R&D costs are pretty small compared to manufacturing costs now.

Exactly. If we design a suborbital spaceplane that we get 30-40 years use out of (with slight retrofitting, like the Shuttle), the savings on repeated manufacturing costs become significant...

The other issues are innate, physical limits. This is just a matter of arbitrary human behavior that can be changed.

If the US congress has an issue with it... a company could go somewhere else.... preferably closer to the equator.

My thoughts exactly. If governments aren't too welcoming to an unmanned suborbital spaceplane design, the company could/should just threaten to move to a country closer to the equator... (where it will of course take slightly less Delta-V to get to prograde orbit)

A suborbital spaceplane could make use of infrastructure already in place in most countries. VTVL rockets require a bit more investment to get the infrastructure ready to go in a near equatorial country.

VTVL rockets would also be unmanned, and facing these human-made problems

Exactly. Space-X faces some of the same regulatory hurdles a suborbital spaceplane would- and most countries already have far more runways than launchpads...

There are physical limits on the size you can make an aircraft before its airframe is too heavy, or too flimsy.

This is why we need Microwave Thermal Spaceplanes- to massively push up the ISP, so you need a much smaller plane for the same Delta-V...

All that having been said...

Air breathers are more efficient from an energy standpoint...

Fully reusable air breathing spaceplanes would seem to be the most ecologically friendly way of getting things to space (except for space ladders, space guns, etc).

Indeed. A Microwave Thermal Spaceplane could theoretically be powered by wind and solar on the ground... (and from water-electrolysis plants for the relatively small amount of LH2 needed for propellant compared to a rocket)

If we imagine some future effort to put massive amounts of material in orbit (colonization craft, etc) suborbital space plane first stages would seem to be the best way to do it.

A prodigious launch rate would help recoup the costs of their reusability.

I'd like to see them one day, but for now, I'm hoping for the VTVL space X boosters to work.

Look at the company Escape Dynamics. They're already working on a fully-orbital Microwave Thermal Spaceplane. I only suggested a *SUBORBITAL* version because it would require a smaller spaceplane (or offer a higher payload-capacity) and be easier to design...

http://escapedynamics.com/

Regards,

Northstar

[Northstar1989]

Those being GO, Stratolaunch, and... that's it, really. Given the existence of EV-1 and -2, you're still unaware of most such systems, and all of them that havea actually flown.

Given that you've never heard of Escape Dynamics, which is trying to do a full-orbital spaceplane, I'd say you haven't heard of all the players in the marker either.

An I *HAVE* heard of some of those (Stratolaunch in particular).

ALL your criticisms are ones that can broadly be applied against orbital spaceplanes, suborbital spaceplanes, or even VTVL reusable rockets (Space-X style) for that matter. It's a defeatist altitude, and excessive cynicism- not a realistic view of the world. I shouldn't even bother addressing most of them, however...

Falcon 9 is pretty close... and the maintenance costs for the legs and a few small control fins are going to compare extremely favourably to full plane-like aerodynamic surfaces. There's a reason all the reusable first-stagtes actually in development are either reasonably conventional rockets (BO, F9R) or rely on subsidisation through passenger flight (Lynx Mk. III). If RTLS with conventional rockets is viable, there's no need or reason to add the additional weight and complexity of a spaceplane, full stop.

You also have the additional guidance systems, the cost of checking the engines for damage, etc. You're taking a very unrealistic view of Space-X just so as to make spaceplanes look worse...

'Not at all'-because why, exactly? I've seen the quotes for Skylon, I've seen the quotes for Venturestar, for HOTOL, nobody expected/s them to make any money without much higher flight rates than are currently supportable. If you disagree, come up with some figures, don't just say 'I don't think so'.

You can't say "nobody" expects them to make money if people are currently funding some of them (and funded others in the past), and people make their careers designing them. And your analysis is blatantly-unrealistic.

VentureStar, for instance, would have been a MUCH cheaper alternative to the Shuttle according to most estimates. Not saying it would have been cost-competitive with the cheapest expendables, but those don't have any carry-back capacity to bring scientific experiments back to Earth...

But at temperatures too low to need proper heat-shielding, there's no advantage to bringing wings along. VTVL would work just fine.

No, you're dead wrong. The wing are ONLY useful for the portion of the Delta-V where you DON'T need proper heat-shielding. The Lift/Drag ratio decreases the faster you go, and the wings become basically useless once you enter the ballistic phase of a spaceplane ascent. Which is why I suggest suborbital spaceplanes- as soon as you reach the point where the wings are just weighing you down, ditch them (and the rest of the plane) and just head the rest of the way to orbit on a rocket (which does NOT necessarily have to be single-stage or reusable, by the way). The spaceplane can make it back to the ground on its own residual fuel...

Spaceplanes do have a major competitor; rockets, whether they be expendable or VTVL. Expandable beats them at sufficiently low flight rates, and I'm not sure they could hope to top a fully realised VTVL system at all.

Expendables don't beat ANYTHING right now. They cost $10,000/kg to orbit. ANY system that can offer cheaper launches than that can beat them out for market-share...

Bull. Name one manufacturer that doesn't operate it's own rockets. You can't seperate actions that are being performed by the same company, the overall business is still low-margin; payloads are where the money's at.

I can name several- but you just hedged your bets by saying that "payloads are where the money's at". Which allows you to say you were right either way, based on two alternative definitions of payloads (payloads as the money you get paid for launching things to LEO, or payloads as in components for orbital spacecraft). As it so happens, the example I was citing was from a real component we were looking at for the KSP Cubesat project, as the crazy profit-margins are the worst in orbital components...

I've also talked to numerous people in the know- space component manufacturers/subcontractors (and there are a *NUMBER* out there selling components at very high prices completely unrelated to operating their own launch vehicle- such as the manufacturers of the Space Shuttle SRB's, which didn't operate the Shuttle itself...)

There are people out there that don't understand quality control or certification. I'm talking to one of them.

What do you think the $190 labor cost was for a component that took $10 to make? I was referring to MOST of that being in quality control and certification. There's absolutely no need to insult me here. Control yourself.

Again, it's what we have to live with, and you can't just ignore it.

As another player astutely pointed out, companies can just threaten to go to other countries closer to the Equator if local regulatory agencies give them a hard time (like OTRAG did in going to Sub-Saharan Africa, originally). There *ARE* ways around this...

LM lost most of their market share long before the ULA formation, to Proton and Ariane; Boeing only retained market share by moving in with russian suppliers (they run ILS and previously had a large stake in SeaLaunch). ULA was the result of the bottom falling out of the market, and it's not in much of a position to slash anything. They're already barely at break-even, as I've said, most launcher suppliers are.

They're barely at break-even because their expenses are so high, bot because their revenues are low (in fact, they're MASSIVE). I do also have to point out "barely at break-even" is often an spoiled and overused term with these big companies- they usually have a *LOT* of fat they could afford to cut (like corporate jets and luxurious conferences at tropical resorts for their high-ranking executives). They'd just rather go bankrupt than do so (their executives will be fine if that happens, thanks to Golden Parachutes... It's only the little guys that get screwed when a big company fails...)

If you can develop a system that gets payloads to orbit much more cheaply, you can make a MUCH bigger profit- assuming that you're the only game in town that can accomplish the cheaper launch-system, and you don't have any competition (which the LONG history of flat launch costs would seem to indicate would most likely be the case- if you can get a payload to orbit for $5000/kg, nobody else will be able to match it: you can then charge $9000/kg and still drive all the $10,000/kg companies out of business...)

Regards,

Northstar

[cpast]

My thoughts exactly. If governments aren't too welcoming to an unmanned suborbital spaceplane design, the company could/should just threaten to move to a country closer to the equator... (where it will of course take slightly less Delta-V to get to prograde orbit)

.

.

.

Exactly. Space-X faces some of the same regulatory hurdles a suborbital spaceplane would- and most countries already have far more runways than launchpads...

It doesn't work like that, though. First, a company can't credibly threaten to move to many equatorial countries; anything with expensive infrastructure means you want to put it somewhere with lots of political stability, and a suborbital system requires expensive infrastructure. Runways are not all identical; there really aren't all that many runways in the world that support the largest planes. More than there are launchpads, but it's not like they're everywhere, and many of them are already being used for commercial airlines. You aren't getting away with a suborbital flight without heavy-duty infrastructure, and there's a reason the main example of heavy-duty infrastructure built in developing countries is oil field (specifically, because you can't build them elsewhere). If you do move elsewhere, you have to convince your engineers to move elsewhere (they may not be so happy having to move internationally), modify an airport to support your craft and build your launch infrastructure, and get them to give you the very large amount of time you need for a launch (big runways tend to be used often enough, and you would be taking up a big chunk of runway time).

You can't handwave away regulatory hurdles with "we'll just move to another country that doesn't have them." There are reasons why countries with heavy regulation continue to have highly-regulated things done there; countries are not perfect substitutes for each other, and there are real and significant costs to going to a low-regulation country.

[Superluminaut]

Ironically current scram jet test articles get launched from a rocket, which gets dropped from a plane.

[Nibb31]

Good luck moving to a third world country just to escape regulation. Then you have to build your own infrastructure from scratch: Roads, security, telecoms, monitoring, range services, fuel storage, weather forecasts. And then risk having it all seized or hijacked or destroyed in the next political coup or civil war.

Launch providers are happy to put up with federal regulations when it allows them to benefit from government-funded support services at government facilities.

(like OTRAG did in going to Sub-Saharan Africa, originally).

Like it worked out well for them, didn't it. After being kicked out of Zaire, they ended up in Libya.

Edited February 11, 2015 by Nibb31

[Kryten]

Given that you've never heard of Escape Dynamics, which is trying to do a full-orbital spaceplane, I'd say you haven't heard of all the players in the marker either.

They aren't a player in the market, they're some guys with a website. GO has customers, and Stratolaunch has massive financial backing.

An I *HAVE* heard of some of those (Stratolaunch in particular).

They're not a great example-even leaving aside the issues of large air-launch projects in general, they're trying to move into a very crowded market segment while using some of the most expensive engines available and a major contractor with a habit of massive cost overruns.

ALL your criticisms are ones that can broadly be applied against orbital spaceplanes, suborbital spaceplanes, or even VTVL reusable rockets (Space-X style) for that matter.

Yes? That's the subject of this thread.

It's a defeatist altitude, and excessive cynicism- not a realistic view of the world.

If you think pointing out issues is 'defeatist', you're not going to get very far in the real world. You can't make problems go away by not looking for them.

You also have the additional guidance systems, the cost of checking the engines for damage, etc.

Yes, the same as a spaceplane. You're not going to have a hypersonic anything with a simple control system, or high-performance engines that won't need to be checked after that much firing time.

You can't say "nobody" expects them to make money if people are currently funding some of them (and funded others in the past), and people make their careers designing them. And your analysis is blatantly-unrealistic.

Read what I wrote again. Nobody expected X-33 to make money at current launchrates, but it the estimates were based on very high launchrates putting up Big LEO constellations like Teledesic. When Iridium and Globalstar went bust and the Big LEO bubble burst, X-33 died an ignoble death.

No, you're dead wrong. The wing are ONLY useful for the portion of the Delta-V where you DON'T need proper heat-shielding. The Lift/Drag ratio decreases the faster you go, and the wings become basically useless once you enter the ballistic phase of a spaceplane ascent. Which is why I suggest suborbital spaceplanes- as soon as you reach the point where the wings are just weighing you down, ditch them (and the rest of the plane) and just head the rest of the way to orbit on a rocket (which does NOT necessarily have to be single-stage or reusable, by the way). The spaceplane can make it back to the ground on its own residual fuel...

I was talking about vehicles, not flight phases. If you're not going to be hitting orbital re-entry type speeds, you simply do not need wings.

Expendables don't beat ANYTHING right now. They cost $10,000/kg to orbit. ANY system that can offer cheaper launches than that can beat them out for market-share...

They beat Venturestar, Roton and Kistler, to name a few. They'll knock up a few more notches before they're gone, that's for sure.

I can name several- but you just hedged your bets by saying that "payloads are where the money's at". Which allows you to say you were right either way, based on two alternative definitions of payloads (payloads as the money you get paid for launching things to LEO, or payloads as in components for orbital spacecraft). As it so happens, the example I was citing was from a real component we were looking at for the KSP Cubesat project, as the crazy profit-margins are the worst in orbital components...

This is mostly gibberish, and certainly irrelevant to my point. There's money in buses, payloads and completed spacecraft, components... everything except the launcher. Why do you think ESA pours so much money into subsidizing Ariane? The resulting work in the rest of the aerospace industry ultimately pays for it a few times over.

I've also talked to numerous people in the know- space component manufacturers/subcontractors (and there are a *NUMBER* out there selling components at very high prices completely unrelated to operating their own launch vehicle- such as the manufacturers of the Space Shuttle SRB's, which didn't operate the Shuttle itself...)

You really can't have talked to many people 'in the know' if you don't understand the concept of a prime contractor.

What do you think the $190 labor cost was for a component that took $10 to make? I was referring to MOST of that being in quality control and certification. There's absolutely no need to insult me here. Control yourself.

I think it was mostly profit, in all honesty. The people looking to build cubesats either have the capability to produce such simple components themselves, or at least source from somewhere other than a slighly dodgy internet site-and the rest would be relatively naive uni students. You're going to get horrendously overpriced in that environment for sure, regardless of the rest of the industry.

As another player astutely pointed out, companies can just threaten to go to other countries closer to the Equator if local regulatory agencies give them a hard time (like OTRAG did in going to Sub-Saharan Africa, originally). There *ARE* ways around this...

Yes, get around the lack of marketshare in that segment by moving to an equatorial country. That makes all kind of sense. Do you actually read my posts?

If you can develop a system that gets payloads to orbit much more cheaply, you can make a MUCH bigger profit- assuming that you're the only game in town that can accomplish the cheaper launch-system, and you don't have any competition (which the LONG history of flat launch costs would seem to indicate would most likely be the case- if you can get a payload to orbit for $5000/kg, nobody else will be able to match it: you can then charge $9000/kg and still drive all the $10,000/kg companies out of business...)

Again, do you read my posts? Boeing and ULA were completely driven out of the commercial launch business by foreign suppliers. They sat and watched almost all of their potential payloads go onto Ariane or Proton. Do you seriously think they wouldn't have cut prices to stop that if they were able?

[KerikBalm]

You're just looking at wingspan. The wings of the very largest of airliners don't fit on a runway.....

Ok... I think we're not even really on the same page anymore.

Just to make things clear:

* I am not talking about any specific air launch platform. Certainly some designs will be cumbersome, and other designs could be versatile (like this F-15 launched concept)

* The question is if human regulation of UAVs is a problem for such a scheme (assuming you don't want your suborbital craft to be piloted), and if its viable to move recovery to places where regulation is looser.

* The air launch stage, being a first stage, does not have significant dry weight constraints. Sure... you could slap a cockpit on there if regulations were really such a problem.

* The air launch stage will be landing at a very light wingloading, and airplanes don't neccessarily need runways to land at all. For example, many experimental designs would land on dry lakebeds and such.

* The logistics of recovery could be highly varied. At one end of the scale, you may just envision a wide flat graded area where the unladen plane lands. There you have a fuel truck, and a small maintenence detachment, and it is readied and flies back to the launch site... (perhaps there is a small paved section for it to take off when its loading is heavier due to being refuled)

* An air launch craft should have signficant cross range capability

* The craft may even deploy para sails, or some other system to allow it to land in a very small area ie, like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/X-38_Ship_-2_Landing_on_Lakebed_EC99-45080-101-EDIT1.jpg/1024px-X-38_Ship_-2_Landing_on_Lakebed_EC99-45080-101-EDIT1.jpg

* You could have a manned mothership, launching a 2nd stage unmanned hypersonic suborbital lifting body craft, said craft would land under parasail, and just be sent home on a ship...etc

My point is that there are many many many variations that could be done, if the only constraints are "suborbital" and "unmanned"

The F-15 small payload launcher is one end of the scale (but in this case, there's no need for unmanned... but if you wanted to recover the 1st dropped stage, you could do that I suppose)... stratolaunch is another... you could imagine yet another being something like an SR-71 launching a D-21 drone, or an XB-70... or a stratolaunch dropping a rocket-plane... and so on.

I'm sure there are variations where you could make another recovery site with minimal infrastucture work.

And even if the plane physically fits, the airport needs to be able to deal with rocket fuel, meaning they need to train their emergency crews for a crash on takeoff with rocket fuel involved in the fire. That's the biggest concern here - air launch (especially liquid-fueled) involves a rocket fuel depot on site, and a crash is likely to be much more severe than with an airliner.

Which is completely unrelated to the issue of where an unmanned air launch vehicle is recovered.

you also need to launch before you can consider recovery.

That doesn't seem to be a problem with the USA... plenty of unmanned rockets are launched... people were objecting to the regulation of unmanned vehicles flying back to the launch site... so just don't.

See my 2nd point at the start of the post

Don't launch things on suborbital trajectories from the US to China. That's a really, really, really bad idea, because another thing that launches on suborbital trajectories is ICBMs.

I'm pretty sure I was talking about launchg from china, not towards China.

There are many suborbital trajectories that would fall well short of hawaii, and they trajectories (assuming you're just trying to get into orbit) should all be going south of the USA anyway. The pacific is big, and all orbits cross the equator... I'm pretty sure such launches will be going south of either country, and aren't likely to cause much concern.

Advising the other of scheduled launches would also be prudent.

Lastly... I don't think the regulations would be a problem in the US... just send your lobbyist to the local politician-store, and for the cost of a Delta IV heavy launch, you cna have enough congressmen and senators in your pocket that by the next election cycle, you'll have an exemption or a law allowing you to do your thing.

It may be cheaper than setting up off-site recovery.

Just be sure to outbid competitors ... er I mean make larger campaign contributions...

On to Northstar.....

Given that you've never heard of Escape Dynamics, which is trying to do a full-orbital spaceplane, I'd say you haven't heard of all the players in the marker either.

They are not a player.

They have a website.... but...

They have no hardware, neither the aparatus to beam power for an orbital launch, or the vehicle to receive it.

They have no blueprints/designs for the above. They have no patents for the above (there is a huge difference between having a patent and filing for it).

They have nothing of substance to make them a player. They are a website and a dream, that does not make them a market player.

You can't say "nobody" expects them to make money if people are currently funding some of them

He said nobody expects them to at current launch demand... some people may anticipate higher demand for launches.

But you can always find somebody to expect something... apparently someone expects Escape Dynamics to become a market player... for instance.

Expendables don't beat ANYTHING right now. They cost $10,000/kg to orbit. ANY system that can offer cheaper launches than that can beat them out for market-share...

They beat the space shuttle... but its gone, so I guess they don't, because they beat and eliminated everything else.

Oh wait... there is the pegasus... expendables are beating that for cost to orbit (except for very small payloads, but expendables with piggyback payloads beat that too)

And the 2nd part is just a tautology.... anything that can beat them can beat them...

No such system exists now, which is why expendables are used

[cpast]

That doesn't seem to be a problem with the USA... plenty of unmanned rockets are launched... people were objecting to the regulation of unmanned vehicles flying back to the launch site... so just don't.

See my 2nd point at the start of the post

Right...off launchpads. This thread seems to be about launching off runways. That means you need infrastructure to support to launch off a runway. There are a handful of such runways in the US, but they're rare internationally. How are you proposing to launch it? If it's vertically, then the confusion is that we aren't talking about the same thing

As for UAVs vs. piloted craft: Again, not what I was talking about. I was making a more general point: do not expect to escape regulation by going to another country with less regulation. The costs of dealing with regulation are very real, and can't be handwaved away. Uncrewed rockets are launched in the US; the regulation can be handled, and current launch providers do handle it. It's just not trivial or particularly cheap.

However, that said, there's a big difference between a vertical-launch rocket that goes through controlled airspace fairly quickly, and a spaceplane that stays in controlled airspace much longer and has to do takeoff and landing from an airport. The Shuttle had to have TFRs issued along its entire descent path; if you're not the government, it's harder to get the FAA on your side. It's not impossible, but it's an expense that has to be factored in.

[Northstar1989]

They are not a player.

They have a website.... but...

They have no hardware, neither the aparatus to beam power for an orbital launch, or the vehicle to receive it.

They have no blueprints/designs for the above. They have no patents for the above (there is a huge difference between having a patent and filing for it).

They have nothing of substance to make them a player. They are a website and a dream, that does not make them a market player.

Actually, they *DO* have equipment. And patents. And blueprints. Have you even bothered to explore around their website a little bit? They are the holders of several exclusive patents that prevent competitors from getting involved in Microwave Thermal Rockets right now. They have early blueprints for both transmitters and thrusters (and are working to refine both), and just successfully built a 100 kW Microwave Transmitter with Side Lobs Suppression (meaning it prevents any microwave power from going anywhere but towards the target- reducing costs and improving safety for ground-crews at the future transmitter-array site...

Microwave Thermal Thrusters aren't particularly hard to build either- in fact one scientist built a simple experimental unit with a gyrotron built for laser-research and surplus GARDENING supplies in his lab that nearly beat the Space Shuttle Main Engines on an ISP-basis (which isn't surprising, as the exhaust gas is pure Hydrogen, and can achieve *MUCH* higher Exhaust Velocity at the same temperature...) I'll have to get you the article for that one- because that story is particularly amusing...

The main obstacle for them is getting enough money to build a large-scale Microwave Transmitter array, rather than just a few 100 kW demonstration units... The conversion of power:thrust is better than 1 MW: 1 kN on the receiving end (using the Timberwind Nuclear Thermal engine designs as an example, which would have gotten 735.5 kN of thrust for 750 MW of Thermal Power with the 2-meter model, at *SIGNIFICANTLY* higher Exhaust Temperatures...), which means with just a couple dozen 100 kW demonstration units they might have enough power to lift a tiny demonstration-unit (that only carries its own mass- no payload) on a one-way trip to orbit (or at least a suborbital trajectory) to demonstrate the concept works... (keep in mind the ISP of a properly-built Hydrogen-propelled Microwave Thermal Thruster not made out of gardening supplies is greater than 800 seconds vacuum...)

Regards,

Northstar

Edited February 12, 2015 by Northstar1989

[Kryten]

They are the holders of several exclusive patents that prevent competitors from getting involved in Microwave Thermal Rockets right now.

BRB patenting the wheel. I'm going to be so rich.

[Van Disaster]

. A de-orbit burn is no problem, but the actual hitting-the-atmosphere part is the problem. Yes, there are some trajectories which have no ionization, but they require the spacecraft to generate lift, which would mean wings. And adding wings is a whole different problem to deal with, such as how fit them in the cargo bay of the main spaceplane, how to make them light enough so that the amount of fuel required (Adding more fuel creates more weight) is within the main spaceplane's lifting limits, and the list goes on and on.

Just to point out - as shown today and several times over the last few decades, you don't need wings to re-enter or land controllably either. I suspect designing a useful space-capable lifting body that can take off unassisted and fairly conventionally too is a bit beyond us ( but then it wouldn't have to fit in a cargo bay anyway ).

Another one to add to the "Oh, really." pile: http://bristolspaceplanes.com/

[KerikBalm]

Actually, they *DO* have equipment. And patents. And blueprints. Have you even bothered to explore around their website a little bit? They are the holders of several exclusive patents that prevent competitors from getting involved in Microwave Thermal Rockets right now.

Did you bother to read what I wrote?

Did you bother to read what you linked?

"actively filing patents"

Do they mention a single patent that they have granted?

No.

I could file a thousand patent applications tomorrow...

None would get approved, but I could make the same claim of actively filing patents.

How are you proposing to launch it? If it's vertically, then the confusion is that we aren't talking about the same thing

I'm not really making any proposals, but yea, I guess off a runway...

do not expect to escape regulation by going to another country with less regulation. The costs of dealing with regulation are very real, and can't be handwaved away.

Bribing politicians seems to work for other industries...

Uncrewed rockets are launched in the US; the regulation can be handled, and current launch providers do handle it. It's just not trivial or particularly cheap.

Any data on the cost? what % of the cost of a falcon 9 launch goes to regulation, for example?

there's a big difference between a vertical-launch rocket that goes through controlled airspace fairly quickly, and a spaceplane that stays in controlled airspace much longer and has to do takeoff and landing from an airport.

If you were launching from Florida, there isn't a whole lot of difference.

The question really is how much regulation do you need for an unladen aircraft when it is landing (no rocket fuel remaining).

The other question is how much infrastructure do you need to recover this unladen aircraft? (ie how feasible is it to do it in another country)

-That of course depends heavily on the design of the aircraft

I don't think regulation would be a signficant consideration to the operation of a future suborbital spaceplane. It may be a hurdle for the first such spaceplane, but regulations can be changed and politicians are relatively cheap to buy when we start talking about money in the magnitudes neccessary for spaceflight.

Edited February 12, 2015 by KerikBalm

[KSK]

I don't know about the fine details of microwave propulsion but I do know about patents.

TL: DR - be careful before getting too impressed by them.

There are two main strategies that Escape Dynamics could adopt. Patent everything or keep it all as trade secrets. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Keeping trade secrets is hard but if you can do it, nobody knows how you do what you do. However, if somebody does figure it out, then you have no comeback unless you can prove they stole your work. Patents are published and have a finite lifetime, so your competitors will a) have plenty of warning about what you're up to (and how you're doing it), and will eventually be able to use your tech for free (assuming it's still worth anything after the patent expires). Whilst the patent is in force though you can sue your competitors to stop them using your tech.

SpaceX have taken the trade secret approach. This makes sense - there's not a great deal in their technology that's innovative. Their main advantages are in clever engineering (know-how), a lean business, and a business model that relies on extensive vertical integration. It's debatable how much of that can be patented anyway, a lot of it depends on their whole corporate culture (which isn't so easy to copy) and all the clever engineering is done in house, so its easier to keep as a trade secret.

For Escape Dynamics, the technology is far less proven and much more diverse (everything from microwave emitters to spaceplanes). Vertical integration seems less likely and substantial investment will be required. Therefore I would fully expect them to take the 'patent everything' approach. Much of the value of the company will lie in its IP, at least in the early days. Thus, I'm not at all surprised (and neither would any competent investor) to see that kind of statement on their website.

However, without seeing details of their patents (applied for or in-licensed), it's almost impossible to tell how useful or relevant they are. The patent databases are full of great ideas and great technologies that just never made it to market. Not necessarily because they didn't work, but because they didn't work well enough to displace existing technology, or didn't offer anything compelling enough to create a market, or just failed through good old fashioned business bad luck. Also early patents around a technology aren't necessarily very helpful.

Personal example - a company I worked for had a granted patent for their next generation product. The product worked, the patent was valid - no problems there. The problem was that the first version of their product (as protected by their patent) simply wasn't good enough to compete with their existing product. Fifteen years later, after much R&D and a couple more patents (to protect the bits of new technology they developed that did finally make their 'next generation' product worth buying), it was all good. But by then, the original patent was almost at the end of its 20 year lifetime.

[Northstar1989]

Did you bother to read what I wrote?

Did you bother to read what you linked?

"actively filing patents"

Do they mention a single patent that they have granted?

No.

I could file a thousand patent applications tomorrow...

None would get approved, but I could make the same claim of actively filing patents.

There seems to be some confusion here. They are currently holders of one or two key patents related to early work on Microwave Thermal Thrusters (I know this from other websites/published interviews with the CTO- but as pointed out early patents are of questionable value...) and are actively filing for a number of additional patents. The website is a bit confusing about that...

Most of their intellectual property will eventually relate to the gyotrons (the main component of the Microwave Transmitters), however, as they are planning on manufacturing their own transmitters in-house, and they have identified the cost of gryrotrons as one of the key obstacles to bringing down the cost of their proposal (using current gryroton technology on ROCKETS at a launch volume of about 300 metric tons/ year would lead to a market price of about $6000/kg according to one study, which is not terribly cheaper than chemical disposables- and one of the reasons they are going with spaceplanes in the first place- as it *GREATLY* reduces the number of microwave transmitter units needed for the same payload to orbit...)

For Escape Dynamics, the technology is far less proven and much more diverse (everything from microwave emitters to spaceplanes). Vertical integration seems less likely and substantial investment will be required. Therefore I would fully expect them to take the 'patent everything' approach. Much of the value of the company will lie in its IP, at least in the early days. Thus, I'm not at all surprised (and neither would any competent investor) to see that kind of statement on their website.

Actually, they ARE attempting vertical-integration. They plan to manufacture their own Microwave Transmitters in-house, and much of their most valuable intellectual property pertains to *THAT* rather than to the actual Microwave Thermal Thrusters (patenting which, as pointed out, would indeed be a bit like patenting the wheel...)

They are taking a patent-everything approach, to my understanding, because they are also planning on selling the gyrotrons (the key component of a Microwave Transmitter) to *OTHER* industries- such as metallurgical firms (gyrotrons, the basis for a Microwave Transmitter, are already used in some metallurgy operations) and there is significant danger of somebody reverse-engineering one of the gyrotrons they sell on the marker otherwise...

Another one to add to the "Oh, really." pile: http://bristolspaceplanes.com/

That's another cool spaceplane company, by the way. Their fundamental insight seems to be to take a "Russian Doll" approach, where they ride up a smaller spaceplane on the back of a larger (suborbital) spaceplane. I *DO* hope it works, although I don't see why at that point they don't just use a rocket for the circularization (I guess it would make re-entry harder, but if they can manage the heat-loads, Space-X is already proving it's possibly to vertically precision-land a rocket...)

Regards,

Northstar

Edited February 16, 2015 by Northstar1989

[cpast]

There seems to be some confusion here. They are currently holders of one or two key patents related to early work on Microwave Thermal Thrusters (I know this from other websites/published interviews with the CTO- but as pointed out early patents are of questionable value...) and are actively filing for a number of additional patents. The website is a bit confusing about that...

They are not. It doesn't matter what the CTO says in interviews when the patents database is public record. There are no patents assigned to "Escape Dynamics" in the US, nor in any country included in Espacenet's database (Espacenet is run by the European Patent Office, and includes many countries' patent databases and published applications, including the US's). There are 3 results in Espacenet for "Escape Dynamics," all of which are US patent applications (not patent grants, and something isn't patented until you have a patent grant).

Edited February 16, 2015 by cpast

[Northstar1989]

They are not. It doesn't matter what the CTO says in interviews when the patents database is public record. There are no patents assigned to "Escape Dynamics" in the US, nor in any country included in Espacenet's database (Espacenet is run by the European Patent Office, and includes many countries' patent databases and published applications, including the US's). There are 3 results in Espacenet for "Escape Dynamics," all of which are US patent applications (not patent grants, and something isn't patented until you have a patent grant).

The patents aren't all under the company-name, they're under the name of the CTO himself, Dmitriy Tseliakhovich (who was one of the scientists who worked on Microwave Thermal Thrusters in academia before deciding to go off and try and put in into practice into industry).

Technically the company would lose the patents if they fired the CTO or something... (that's not an uncommon situation- one of my recent bosses had actually been kept on when his factory was bought a while back for precisely the same reason- he owned the patents, not the company...)

Anyways, I'm getting conflicting information from different sites- some say that the patents are still pending, other say that all three were accepted last Thursday (12.2.2015) which, admittedly, is VERY recently. My guess is they were recently accepted, and not all of the sites have updated their info yet...

Regards,

Northstar

Edited February 17, 2015 by Northstar1989