Introduction:
The impending “Grand Opening” of the Google Lunar X Prize (Feb. 21, 2008 Press Conference and Team Introduction) is both exciting and daunting. Linking two Giants in technology WILL provide the critical mass to shatter a half century of complacency and eroding expectations for Spaceflight! The X prize Foundation shattered expectations when its original competition duplicated and topped 23 years of X-Plane work (X-1, 1945 to X-15, 1968) in a 11 month series of SpaceShipOne successes. This was achieved through a modest cost effort which validated new technologies and paved the way for commercial, suborbital spaceflight. When the “Hottest Brand on the Planet”, Google, joined forces with X Prize for the current effort, this progress took a quantum leap forward.
Google, by joining Virgin Galactic, Northrup Grumman, Bigelow Aerospace and SpaceX, flags entrepreneurial Spaceflight as a Very HOT technological Frontier. This is already being recognized by the media. Google intends, and knows how to maximize visibility. By fanning the smoldering Dream of Personal Spaceflight into Flame, these events will attract the attention of sponsors who need recognition as leaders and will build the economic foundation this embryonic industry needs.
Background:
I will survey subjects in this introductory BLOG which I may never mention again. These may help readers understand the complex challenges which face all competing teams. Bear with me for this digression. Normally I will focus on our team's efforts.
Obstacles:
Teams like ours involved in experimental rocketry have long avoided publicity, both by preference and of necessity. Rocket enthusiasts know that SOME cautious bureaucrats are more than willing to snuff out all trace of entrepreneurial space efforts in this country in order to avoid even hypothetical dangers. (We already import a great deal of our space launch equipment and services, and could survive the addition of these technologies to the growing list of those NOT made in USA.) A war of attrition continues with Federally funded regulators ignoring Federal Court orders and extending heavy handed control where they were never congressionally authorized to act.
“Plaintiffs explained how ATFE failed to comply with the Court of Appeals' mandate to establish a concrete burn rate standard ...”(necessary to allow rocket propellant to be LEGALLY regulated as an EXPLOSIVE.) (An excerpt from page 4 of a 4/10/07 court document, See summary at: http://www.tripoli.org/documents/batfe/20070131JointStatement.shtml [1] )
NOTE: All the propellants in question have been proven in DOT tests to be nonexplosive and without dangerous, high speed combustion characteristics. (An efficient rocket motor must create a high temperature and high pressure internal environment and this radically increases the propellant burning rate. Smooth combustion over many seconds is required even under these extreme conditions and this is achieved with today's slow burning rocket propellants.) By capriciously defining these slow burning materials as “EXPLOSIVES”, ATFE hopes to impose heavy handed regulation. This distortion substantially INCREASES public risk and fire loss, since firefighters are warned to let fires involving “EXPLOSIVES” (even materials mislabeled as such) “burn out” without suppression efforts. This deliberate misrepresentation also creates serious insurance and public relations problems.
I support and am involved in this battle in several ways, but it is hopefully peripheral to GLXP efforts. The type of rocket motors ATFE is focusing on are those used to LEARN rocket principles and practical realities. Yet many space systems use similar “solid propellant” motors for retro rockets, “Ullage Motors” (to settle fuel in tanks) and other uses. University programs, intended to allow students to experience and develop competency with complex rocket systems in this country, have already been destroyed. By linking with embattled amateurs, this kind of expertise can – for the time being – still be acquired.
Other Federal Agencies, including DOT, FCC and particularly FAA have been cooperative and helpful. Their requirements, while complex and time consuming, are both rational and effective. They have made safe and significant private rocket research possible over the last five decades and in fact have allowed the US to become the envy of the world for entrepreneurial rocketry!
By necessity, rocket experimenters have operated in remote and lonely places where their efforts would endanger few. For a sport, amateur rocketry has an amazing record for safety. No serious injury or death has occurred in organized activities in the 50 year history of TRA and NAR!
Micro-Space History:
Returning to the Micro-Space and its GLXP effort, I myself am a “Charter Member” (#74) of the “National Association of Rocketry” (NAR) having signed up at its organizational meeting in Denver, Colorado, just months after launch of Sputnik 1. I served on the “Future Directions Committee” of “Tripoli Rocketry Association” TRA,
The companies I founded and led have concentrated on High Tech “Niche” markets, delivering world class products for 31 years. Starting with State of the Art “Camera Testers”, we were world leaders, serving Agfa to Zeiss. We produced customized Camera test products in quantity for Kodak, Polaroid, Honeywell, Hasselblad and Leitz (Leica) as well as the US Air Force and Navy. Expanding into “Fast (optical) Spectral Scanners” and “Non-Contact (optical) gaging, we served NASA's remote sensing efforts, Gulf and Western, Phillips Petroleum and numerous universities. We added “in vacuum process monitors” for SouthWall, GE, Motorola, Tegal and Machine Technology and licensed technologies to “Photo Research / Kollmorgen Group”.(Much of this work was done under our 1977 incorporation name, “Spectron Instrument Corporation”.) We expanded our technologies further and provided Automatic (aircraft) Display Test Equipment for Allied Signal, Kaiser Electronics, Rockwell Collins, Lockheed Martin, BAE, Loral and Northrup Grumman as well as the Army, Navy and Air Force. These products are active under a Spectron spin off.
In 1991 we shifted our developmental focus to spaceflight systems. As a small company, we concentrate on small, low mass space systems. But radically reduced mass, in both robotic and manned spacecraft, brings proportional mass reduction in each preceding stage and radical reduction of the total mission cost. In 1998 we changed our corporate name to Micro-Space, Inc. to reflect this focus.
We have made excellent progress with our space systems. Results include flight of 17 innovative, bipropellant liquid fuel rockets, 3 near hover rockets with vectored thrust guidance, scores of flights with telemetry and radio tracking and several innovative life support systems. Designed for clustering, our rocket modules are in stock, ready for heavier payloads.
We have already accomplished so much more than we originally expected that we call it a miracle! We now take those accomplishments and go forward – to the Moon and Mars! MARS is within reach for Google Prize winners. Experts know that it is easier to reach Mars than to reach Geosynchronous orbit or Lunar Orbit! (See Moon, Mars and More section below.)
Our Google Lunar Lander is an adaptation of our “Human Transport System”. With full fuel load this system will land an astronaut on the Moon, but has only 50 pounds empty weight. Rovers, communications and control systems we have already built.
While this Google Lunar effort is challenging, success will again reflect the truth that the difficulties, dangers and necessary cost of space flight have been systematically exaggerated. The Micro-Space “Ultralight” system permits a HUMAN mission on the Moon at less than 1/10 the cost of traditional methods. A metal box, used for transport to the Moon's surface, protects against No Known Hazard!
Moon, Mars and More:
In 2004 I began graduate studies in Space Technology. (Now completed, this added a ME in “Space Operations” (and technologies), to my graduate Physics, Chemistry, Electrical Engineering and Mathematics studies.) But early in these studies I was astonished to discover that it is EASY to REACH MARS! It is easier to reach Mars than to reach either Geosynchronous orbit or Lunar Orbit! The difficulty with Mars missions does not lie with rockets and propulsion (unless one insists on completing the round trip rapidly.) For human Mars missions, long term Life Support (discussed below) is the biggest problem. For unmanned systems, the problem is that robots are still are very limited, as proven in the first DARPA “Grand Challenge”. (The best performer in that desert race, which would have been a “fun day for a teenage driver”, crashed and burned after traveling 12 of the 120 miles planned.)
I was astonished to compute that a spacecraft would need only 393 meters per second additional Delta V (added at the optimum time) to stretch its flight from just beyond the Moon to reach Mars! Only 12% of its mass as medium performance rocket fuel would be needed to add this velocity. It took months of research to confirm that this fact was well known to experts but well hidden from the public. (The actual numbers depend on exactly where Mars and Earth are in their orbits and are typically 50% higher.) All 8 of the Apollo spacecraft which reached the Moon could have passed by Mars instead (but the crews would have died from lack of food and Oxygen first). Having discovered the secret that Mars can be reached with little or no increase in rocket performance, I added this destination to my plans and upgraded our efforts to develop the required life support hardware.
Life Support:
Initially, MANNED spaceflight figured only in our dreams for the future. But the original X Prize forced us to consider this possibility seriously. It soon became apparent that our modular, ultralight approach could meet the 100 km, suborbital objectives, and Micro-Space became an official team in that competition. (We also knew from long association with the EAA and experimental aviation how far ahead Burt Rutan was, so his success came as no surprise.)
It was immediately obvious that in addition to ongoing development of our “Propulsion Modules” and associated systems, we would need to develop similarly lightweight “Life Support Systems” to keep our astronauts alive. This would have to accommodate prelaunch delays, normal flight, water immersion on landing plus water and CO2 flood fire suppression in case of accidents. It was also clear that success with these could open up more uses for our equipment: human uses in “Deep Space”.
Life support for orbital flight, on the way to a space station, would require no more Oxygen duration than our suborbital plan with its added contingencies. Human expeditions to the Moon would need only moderate additions: ½ liter per day of Liquid Oxygen, or 6 liters for 12 days! The Carbon Dioxide would, of course, need to be absorbed and respiratory humidity, temperature and Oxygen level all need to be managed. These are not trivial requirements, but my years doing research in Pulmonary Physiology, including experimental respirators and gas analyzers, equipped me for this effort.
Success with these efforts included the adaptation of SCUBA hardware and its Rebreather techniques for this purpose. It also brought with it unique, failsafe systems with redundant dual or triple Oxygen supplies. A research review revealed that humans have experienced near vacuum conditions (20 millimeters of mercury, about the highest atmospheric pressure on Mars), without ill effects using no pressure suit! This required Positive Pressure Breathing, a technique used in the F-22 and other aircraft and medically in CPAP treatment. In combination, these techniques allow greatly improved safety in space with radically reduced systems mass.
Our continuing efforts in this area have led to operational, lightweight water reprocessing equipment (including “Zero G” distillation), Oxygen generators and CO2 capture systems. These engineering prototypes pave the way for the lightweight interplanetary missions we discuss.
Challenges:
Every GLXP team will need to perfect and validate their systems in space before risking $10 Million or more required to launch their competition system to Earth Orbit, and begin its journey to the Moon. However, the opportunities to conduct these tests are steadily eroding, and the ones that remain are growing in cost.
Arianespace has a very encouraging guide to “Auxiliary Payload Services” on their website. However, Mr. Wiener Kernisan (head of Arianespace Inc., the US Subsidiary) told me early this month that “Ariane no longer offers that service.” While he requested an email outline of our plans, for consideration by headquarters, my email to him was neither acknowledged nor answered.
Russia has lost its ability to achieve Earth Orbit with its lowest cost “vehicles” (actually converted submarine launched missiles) like the “Volna”. One failed effort was the “Planetary Society” “Cosmos 1” Solar Sail demonstration spacecraft.
The once attractive Russian Dnepr (used for Bigelow Aerospace demonstration habitat) has more than doubled in cost (putting it into the Falcon 5 price range, with smaller payload, ITAR restrictions and an undesirable orbit.) Too bad! It was a good use for surplus missiles which otherwise go into the trash heap.
At present no launch opportunities are listed for CubeSat projects (nominally offering 1 to 3 kg orbital access opportunities for as little as $40,000).
The launch market for lightweight satellites has always been small. Exactly in tune with “The Innovator's Dilemma” (Clayton M. Christensen, Harvard Business School Press), established launch providers show little or no interest in accommodating a new class of customer and dismiss as fantasy talk of “New Markets” for Space Launch.
Business Model:
The Micro-Space business model leaps back a century. In that time frame, private donations and sponsorship supported exploration. As “outfitter” for lightweight lunar and interplanetary expeditions, Micro-Space seeks to team with charismatic adventurers who can raise such support. These expeditions need cost no more than “Ocean Racing Sailboats” or multi year funding for an auto racing team. Yet they have the potential to exceed the “Half Billion” viewers claimed for the Apollo 11 landing and yield valuable attention for sponsors.
This is a self liquidating business model, as only the “First Hundred” adventurers in Deep Space can expect generous sponsorship. Mars landings will eventually become old news, and even successful adventurers – like today's mountaineers - will struggle to raise support and will need to push for more daring accomplishments. The theory that early pioneers can expect to dominate a long term market has no basis in fact.
The minimum cost exploration emphasized by Micro-Space avoids unnecessary investment, and makes it possible for sponsorship and souvenirs to cover costs and produce a profit. At present Micro-Space is offering transferable Options, guaranteeing first delivery of Micro-Space hardware for specific missions. This funding will support the development and demonstration of the space hardware, build credibility for an adventurer's plan and begin integration of the mission components. The adventurer's funding must ramp up to cover production and assembly, plus launch into space. “Freight” service to LEO will typically consume 70% of the expedition funding.
Empowered by Ultralight spaceflight systems, which make expedition costs manageable, tomorrow's adventurers will succeed, funded by personal and commercial sponsorship as yesterday's were. Such support was sufficient for Robert Edwin Peary's explorations in the extreme North, and Ernest Henry Shackleton's in the antarctic. Similar personal efforts and sponsorship will enable adventures to blaze trails into space!
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