Author Topic: HLV - Oversize Aircraft Discussion  (Read 13863 times)

Offline Jim

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Re: HLV - Oversize Aircraft Discussion
« Reply #40 on: 08/06/2010 11:22 am »
No, the ocean is space, the port is LEO.   The launches to LEO are the trucks bringing the containers to port.  The ship is an intra orbit vehicle.  A large vessel like the ISS.
« Last Edit: 08/06/2010 11:25 am by Jim »

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: HLV - Oversize Aircraft Discussion
« Reply #41 on: 08/06/2010 01:41 pm »
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...less dangerous splitting of groups over multiple planes...
I think that's the flaw in your argument.  When one of the four planes go down in an accident, you only lose one quarter of the kilograms of passengers, so I'm not so sure that it's less dangerous....

Then I saw the happy face....

As to "metrics that really count", I did like the metric: kg of passengers....

Always late to the party.

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So if there is anything to be learned from the heavy aircraft scenario, it may be that a heavy rocket needs to be an incremental step beyond existing systems, and only exist to do a better job of something already done.
 

My bold.  Isn't that the fundamental description of evolution?  And since we're conscious and [cough]intelligent[cough], that this is what we should be doing?  And that since we've not really been doing this for the last forty years, that there must be some force working in the opposite direction?

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The driver of everything in the oversize aircraft discussion is COST.  They built them to save COST moving things around.

It seems rather that they needed an ability to move certain things around in a certain short time frame that is rather the driver in this particular case.

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Some day in the future the Circus might get the budget to travel by plane, better build a plane that can carry the elephants now.

Pet peeve alert: Let's throw away that now rusting, unused tower, and build another one before the plane even.  Someday, we'll be sending elephants in space.

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Four Mile Circus from The Stars My Destination?

First posts don't get much better than this, I'd say.

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Not fair.

They always tell me to do my homework....the first answer this morning on the googol quoted term "Gully Foyle is my name" is...  well, never mind.

As to the container ship that Ross posted:  I think size is the stumbling block.  We don't need the biggest ship just yet.  How about a smaller one?  Which we already have.  And DIRECT can segue into this evolutionary path quite well.

Both of these are from the fifties, which may be where we are in the market demand for space cargo.  A pretty fair amount of cargo for the markets at the time.  Build 'em bigger as the market grows.  But don't build the mother of all ships first!
« Last Edit: 08/06/2010 05:04 pm by JohnFornaro »
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline chrisking0997

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Re: HLV - Oversize Aircraft Discussion
« Reply #42 on: 08/06/2010 04:45 pm »
And that since we've not really been doing this for the last forty years, that there must be some force working in the opposite direction?

how about lack of political backbone from our elected officials to actually write the checks to pay for the grand visions they claim to support, combined with the incessant need to reboot those visions every 4-8 years?  It also doesnt help that it seems to take an eternity these days for any project to see fruition...some days it seems like Apollo wouldnt have made it off the back of the napkin if it had been proposed today.
Tried to tell you, we did.  Listen, you did not.  Now, screwed we all are.

Offline jimgagnon

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Re: HLV - Oversize Aircraft Discussion
« Reply #43 on: 08/06/2010 06:25 pm »
And that since we've not really been doing this for the last forty years, that there must be some force working in the opposite direction?
how about lack of political backbone from our elected officials to actually write the checks to pay for the grand visions they claim to support, combined with the incessant need to reboot those visions every 4-8 years?  It also doesnt help that it seems to take an eternity these days for any project to see fruition...some days it seems like Apollo wouldnt have made it off the back of the napkin if it had been proposed today.

Nope. The core problem is that as things stand today there are very few economically compelling reasons to travel into space. The only areas space has been able to turn a profit are technologies like weather and communications satellites that are impossible without it.

Bootstrapping a robust space economy has not and will not be easy. Their are many social and legal roadblocks that no one seems to be in a hurry to remove. Barring a space invasion or a SpaceX colonization of Mars, it will be a long time before any HLV is as full as our container ships are today.

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