Commercial Spaceflight Federation, Alex Saltman, Executive DirectorChamber of Commerce for space companies. Mike Lopez-Alegria is the recently-hired President of CSF. Mix of small and large companies. Goal is make launches boringly common, but it's what you're doing that's interesting. Suborbital is really important to that making that happen. About 75% on winning people on the Hill over to commercial spaceflight.
Simon, what did Alex Saltman mean by 75%. Does he mean that 75% of Congressmen are pro-commercial crew? That seems higher than I would have expected.
Quote from: yg1968 on 04/13/2012 12:08 amSimon, what did Alex Saltman mean by 75%. Does he mean that 75% of Congressmen are pro-commercial crew? That seems higher than I would have expected. I interpreted it more as 75% of what they need...
John GarveyBuilding to a nanolauncher, 24 flights on 29 vehicles. Two to four years to orbital. 20 kg to 450 km clustered goal. Flew P-18 three times last year. Also flew an orbitec vortex rocket for AFRL. Big new 4.5 klb lox propylene engine.
Modified density Isp: Performance = Isp * (density)^(1/6). LOX/LH2 only slightly better than LOX/CH4. LOX/CH4 and NTO/MMH almost the same.
...Material selection for storables is horrible; no polymers, limited number of metals. Makes CH4 more attractive.
50/50 split between presentations of pie in the sky and actual, real near development.
Storable compact RMS for Dragon, etc.
Got MSR sticky boom to TRL5, then MSR killed.
That was why they've got paid to test on a low pressure chamber! I asked him why low pressure, 50C temperature and not vacuum and -120C and he obviously said he couldn't comment. Silly me! Low pressure, low temp->Mars, normal pressure, cryogenic temp -> Titan, vacuum, +400C -> -120C-> the Moon, 600bar-800C -> Venus.