Q&A: Richard P. Speck of Micro-Space Inc

[sandrot]

Is what I see at http://www.micro-space.com/ the X-Prize contender?

It looks a lot like a 4xGoddard's rocket.

[rpspeck]

As indicated by the prior posting, we welcome funding from those who want publicity (sponsors) or for those who have personal ambitions in space (adventurer customers).  

There is in fact no better way to enhance the prospects for attracting the multimillion dollar funding necessary to get a personal adventure into LEO than to invest seed money with the teams who are demonstrating that  human ventures into deep space – far beyond LEO - are feasible and affordable NOW!

SpaceShipOne started resurrection of the dream of personal spaceflight and exciting forays into the final frontier.  More steps are necessary before a large audience wakes up to today’s realities (particularly with nay saying “experts”) and exciting possibilities.  


At present, other LLC teams are both modestly funded and technically in fair shape.  The advantages we offer have more to do with future possibilities than this competition itself.  Our life support systems are irrelevant. Our fuel tanks can not be used with cryogenic liquid Oxygen, and the higher performance of that fuel (compared to our present low grade Peroxide) makes up for a worse mass ratio.  Much heavier vehicles of course make up for a small payload fraction, if one is not hauling the greater mass to LEO.  The benefit of our fuel tank technology can only be used with storable propellants.  

Thus I think that cooperation with other LLC teams is unlikely.

[rpspeck]

sandrot - 10/4/2007  10:05 AM

Is what I see at http://www.micro-space.com/ the X-Prize contender?

It looks a lot like a 4xGoddard's rocket.

Other than the gimbaled motors, guidance system and thrust control, it does look like that.  

Our normal launches are over dusty ground, not concrete pads, and we anticipated the problem of landing in a big cloud of dust, and actually blasting out a big hole with the motors close to the surface.  

The LLC competition avoids this expected problem with concrete pads, but a similar problem does occur on the Moon.  

Elevated motors never enhance stability (contrary to expectation), but they get the motors up out of the dirt.  A penalty, with the offset clusters, is major pitch moment resulting from mismatched thrust.  Our motors have been well enough behaved to make this tolerable.  

[sandrot]

Ok, but you need to move away from that scheme. Or your Adventurer Customer's adventure will start right away, through the rocket exhaust plume.

[rpspeck]

sandrot - 10/4/2007  10:54 AM

Ok, but you need to move away from that scheme. Or your Adventurer Customer's adventure will start right away, through the rocket exhaust plume.

A close look will show that the motors are laterally displaced and angled out, away from the core.  The prototype of the manned system we are working with splits the tanks ito two groups, with a place for the user to stand (or hang in parachute harness) between the tank groups.  (This works well in 0.16 to 0.4 g environments, but is not adequate for high "g" Earth launch to orbit, and is not intended for that purpose).  

In this version, the motor groups are outside of the tank clusters, and still angled outward.

[rpspeck]

Micro-Space is preparing for new tethered tests in a confined test space.  I am not sure I would call this a “Launch”.  The actual date is dependent on upgrading some subsystems, extracting test data for our FAA application and unrelated activities associated with maintaining “Cash Flow”.    

[meiza]

Pictures, videos, pictures, videos. That will gather the attention and make you 100000% more known in the x-prize / lunar lander challenge things.

[rpspeck]

meiza - 17/4/2007  6:53 PM

Pictures, videos, pictures, videos. That will gather the attention and make you 100000% more known in the x-prize / lunar lander challenge things.

You are of course correct.  We have perhaps “wasted” a great deal of time and money over the years developing life support systems for deep space missions.  Engineering prototypes and proof of concept breadboards produce very unimpressive photographs!

Our successful “proof of concept” lash up to verify the attainable performance for our short range “Tractor Beam” was spectacularly unimpressive.  It did prove that magnetic fields could be used to produce safe and gentle ARD (Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking), but the agency which requested proposals on this topic proclaimed that the idea was “Unworkable”.   It of course would take hours to accomplish docking, and take over from gas thrusters only at ranges of a few times the spacecraft dimensions.  But, of course, STS docking with the ISS also takes hours.  A safe method for accomplishing such docking for unmanned spacecraft and satellites should have some uses.  

No, I am not good at producing video of our tests for online distribution.  And, no we have not achieved the performance Armadillo has demonstrated with Pixel.  We have successfully flown both thrust vectored, near hover vehicles, and 17 flights with the same liquid fuel motors used in our “Crusader LL” lunar lander entry.

It is also true that we presently have less financial resources than we once did.  This slows down our progress.  

More important is a truth proclaimed by experts on this forum:  THERE IS NO MARKET!  No independently developed spaceflight technology can expect to find customers, and programs purporting to provide such access have all the attributes of a FRAUD!  

It takes either prophetic insight or UNBOUNDED STUPIDITY to envision a market for such developments.  Investors are not attracted to either.

The “Lunar Lander Competition” is attractive as a hobby effort and we are still in the running.  However it is clearly defined as having NO FOLLOW ON opportunity!  There is no upside potential beyond the listed prizes.  Yet, we push on (slowly).

[sandrot]

What is the distance at which you envision the tractor beam would be activated?

I have the feeling that, by the time the magnetic fields kick-in it would take minutes to dock, so there is no advantage to switch to a different approach method with a different control loop, to obtain just the same result as using thrusters.

[rpspeck]

sandrot - 24/4/2007  9:42 AM

What is the distance at which you envision the tractor beam would be activated?

I have the feeling that, by the time the magnetic fields kick-in it would take minutes to dock, so there is no advantage to switch to a different approach method with a different control loop, to obtain just the same result as using thrusters.

Re Tractor Beam:

This development was stimulated by an SBIR topic for “Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking (ARD)”.  The DOT component decided that they had an important problem: I didn’t.

The electromagnetic system is known to me and others as offering precision 6 DOF (Six Degree Of Freedom) relative position data with resolutions to < one millimeter.  Ranges to more than a kilometer (for position information) would be usable with this system, making it a nice bridge from radar and GPS data to fine motion docking.

If it were judged that existing thrusters were either too unreliable or too coarse in action to provide slow, safe unsupervised docking, then “milli g” electromagnetic accelerations could be used for the final adjustments – even if these took more than an hour.

The advantage of microsecond electronic control, embedded verification, and light weight multiply redundant hardware is well known.

If ARD is a “done deal”, and we only pay the Russians to haul supplies to the ISS as a politically motivated deal, then I understand why the DOT might ask for something they don’t actually need.      

[sandrot]

And this tractor beam will not have any electromagnetic interference downside, right?

[rpspeck]

ARD (Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking):

I have never suggested that these techniques (which I will soon explain in more detail) are trivial to employ or have no side effects.  The presumption remains that ARD (Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking) is challenging, but worth doing.  The context is of course docking of a potentially fragile payload with a very expensive and fragile spacecraft.  Think of the ISS, where a runaway interceptor could do tens or hundreds of $$ Billions of damage.  

The solicitation was in the SBIR program, with its hypothetical focus on INNOVATIVE.  New ideas always bring their own engineering problems, but may provide workable solutions to existing challenges.  One sure way (apparently well known to this program’s personnel) to guarantee meager results is to reject unexpected ideas out of hand.  

The proposed work would have validated in detail this electromagnetic system for providing infinitely gentile 6 degree of freedom accelerations, combined with accurate monitoring of the results and having a pronounced advantage (with much higher short range acceleration) for terminating a poorly controlled approach (“wave off”).  Combined with affordable, high level redundancy, these seem like attractive attributes for autonomous rendezvous in high risk situations.  

If it were possible, I would have appealed this rejection to Dr. Ronald M. Sega (Under Secretary of the Air Force.  Previously, “Director of Defense Research and Engineering”, Office of the Secretary of Defense).  

Dr. Sega spoke highly of my work and accomplishments when I worked with him, and Dr. John Jackson, on an interesting project in 1989.  At the time I was doing business as “Spectron Instrument Corp.”.

I do not think Dr. Sega would be pleased by the fact that many successful, innovative small businesses consider the SBIR program to have all the attributes of a fraud.

Yet the SBIR program has no appeal process, and a man as successful as Dr. Sega understandably moves beyond casual communication.  

Beyond this, I also understand the “special” attributes of this industry.  Innovative ideas are screened for “adding complications”, “conflicting with established procedures”, “being old (and rejected) technology”, “being new and unproven”, “using unproven parts”, “being expensive” and “being unbelievably low in estimated cost”.  The null set which remains is of course embraced with open arms!

Accurately judging the financial prospects of my patentable technology (dating from 1998), I will soon place this technology in the public domain by publication in this forum.     Richard P. Speck  4/24/2007

[rpspeck]

I confess to being in a bad mood yesterday.  

Work on our “lunchbox” size drive, automatic test and calibration box for the JHMCS HMD (Helmet Mounted Display) wasn’t going well.  The coordinate transform rotator and keystone correction image remapper had developed erratic performance.  This was not the section we were even working on!  We were updating the command authentication and UUT protection modes.  With our Navy customers from PAX due in today to verify the performance of their HMD Test System upgrades, and those to the Night Vision MTF and OTF analysis system, stress levels are high!

I do understand the space industry. I understand its “One strike and you’re out!” law: out of work, out of business, out of a career.  One risky decision by the lead engineers on a multimillion dollar projects sets them up to be the scapegoats who will pay for failure.

This industry lacks an “experimental” component, where failure is affordable.  (This was actually spelled out in one DOD SBIR solicitation.)  This dooms the industry to slow technological growth.  And it doesn’t look like this is going to change.  R.P.S.  

[rpspeck]

Tractor Beam: Technology Disclosure: Part 1   (By Richard P. Speck, Micro-Space, Inc.)

I reiterate my appeal to Dr. Ronald M. Sega, for I believe that some reader of this forum can forward a message to him.  Other of our technologies, disclosed in proposals to DOD components (and similarly rejected) deserve attention but will not be publicly released.  

(Dr. Ronald M. Sega, Under Secretary of the Air Force.  Previously, “Director of Defense Research and Engineering”, Office of the Secretary of Defense).  

Dr. Sega spoke highly of my work and accomplishments when I worked with him, and Dr. John Jackson (professor at UCCS), on an interesting project in 1989.  At the time I was doing business as “Spectron Instrument Corp.” (since renamed Micro-Space, Inc.).

 
Tractor Beam: Technology Disclosure: Part 1   (By Richard P. Speck, Micro-Space, Inc.)

This DISCLOSURE addresses the use of electromagnets to generate fields which will allow deliberate manipulation of an object in space by a system in space at moderate distance.  The focus will be on active, coordinated systems, using wireless communication to synchronize electromagnet activation on both objects.  A subset of the listed forces can be produced using passive coupling, but this mode will not be discussed further.  This discussion will envision manipulation of a small “Payload Delivery Unit” (PDU) by a larger and relatively static “Station”, although in fact all interactions are symmetrical and reciprocal.  Nothing in this technology is presumed to violate any law of known physics, and energy, momentum and angular momentum will be conserved when appropriately calculated.  

Magnetic “Torque Rods” are commonly used in spacecraft for attitude control through their interaction with the Earth’s magnetic field.  Instantaneous control is limited to two axes, with no torque producible around the axis of the local magnetic field.  (Cyclic variation of this vector in common orbits often allows cumulative 3 Degree of freedom attitude control.)   The disclosed technology is related to these procedures.

This technology was disclosed in “proprietary” proposals to a DOD component in 1999.  It is here PUBLICLY disclosed and thereby PLACED IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN by Richard P. Speck, and Micro-Space, Inc. (a Colorado Corporation) April 27, 2007.  This terminates our ability to obtain patent protection, forecloses such an effort by others and flags our 1998, 1999 record of invention date for those claiming prior invention in existing applications.  

RESULTS:  This technology, as will be discussed in subsequent sections:

1.  Multiplies the torques which can be produced to orient a PDU (Payload Delivery Unit) by factors of 100 to 10,000 – when compared to “Magnetic Torque Rods” – and produces instantaneous 3 Degree of Freedom torque control. (The listed multiple is available only at short range, with a “docking gap” comparable to the PDU diameter.)

2.  Provides high resolution 6 Degree of freedom data quantifying the relative position and orientation of the PDU and Station.  (This mode will be usable to at least 1 km distance.) This data allows intelligent planning and monitoring of Rendezvous and Docking including autonomous procedures (ARD).

3.  Produces linear forces, both lateral and radial, to guide the PDU through its correct docking procedure.  Thus full, 6 Degree Of Freedom (6 DOF) control is produced with infinite resolution to produce infinitely gentile ARD of fragile payloads.  

4.  The radial, linear force in particular can become quite large at short range (docking gap < the PDU diameter) and thus terminate or “Wave Off” a poorly executed docking attempt with significant inward velocity whether produced by this magnetic system, by gas thrusters or from other cause.  At maximum usable range, typically 100 meters, the forces become quite small and may require an hour to achieve the desired effects.  

BASIS FOR INVENTION:

A key component of this invention is recognition that if synchronized excitation of the coil sets on the PDU and Station occurs with temporally “Orthogonal” waveforms, each such temporal pattern will produce time averaged magnetic interaction effects AS IF THE OTHER COMPONENTS DIDN’T EXIST.  (The sine wave harmonics provide the “Orthonormal” set used in the Fourier transform.)  The zero order, static term in the orthogonal waveform set is reserved for interaction with the Earth’s magnetic field.

Although magnetic fields form a linear, additive vector system in space, the interaction forces result from the product of the Station and PDU fields and coil magnetic moments and this squares matching waveform components.  This strong nonlinearity makes the time average of the products VERY DIFFERENT from the product of the time averaged, vector sum fields.  

The existence of controlled, independent interactions allows undesired side effects of a required interaction to be neutralized.  For example, linear magnetic forces usually have a radial component and often have undesired torques.  This independence allows cancellation of the radial forces and the torques to leave a desired lateral force.  A prerequisite is that the waveforms cycle much faster than the resulting motions, so that the time average effect is meaningful, and that any vibration produced by the cyclic interactions be tolerable.  

THEORY:

To begin the discussion of this technology it is necessary to recognize that electromagnetic coils produce a dipole type magnetic field.  (Magnetic monopoles don’t seem to exist and can’t be generated).  These fields drop in strength with the third power of distance, rather than the second power as expected for monopoles.  As a result, interaction forces drop by a factor of 1000 when the distance is increased by a factor of 10, and the time required to achieve a desired motion increases by a factor of 32.  “Higher Order” field components are also produced by real magnets, but these fields drop faster with distance until the dipole component dominates.  The existence of these “high order” components complicates terrestrial experiments: when magnets are close enough to produce obvious forces, the high order components have substantial effect.  At maximum range in sustained freefall, the pure dipole effects will be seen.  

An interesting property of the dipole field (whether created by a current carrying coil of wire or by a permanent magnet), is that it exists everywhere around the source: there is no “Null” axis or space.  There is only a 2:1 variation of the magnetic field strength on a spherical surface around a compact dipole.  Both radiated electromagnetic fields and the higher order “Quadrapole field” have a null, zero field axis in their field patterns.  

The interaction of an energized PDU coil (producing a magnetic dipole moment) with the magnetic field produced by the Station may produce both torque moments (the cross product of the dipole moment vector and the background magnetic field vector) and a scalar interaction energy (the dot product of the dipole vector and the background field).  (With oscillating excitation, only the synchronized Station field qualifies as a relevant “Background”.  The time averaged interaction with the Earth’s static field is zero.) The gradient of this scalar interaction energy appears as a linear force vector on the PDU.  Both magnetic components can be adjusted in milliseconds to maintain a desired configuration, torque or force.  

For example, an optimum repulsive radial force places the PDU in unstable equilibrium with the torques produced by imperfect alignment accelerating misalignment.  This is handled as with any stability augmentation: detection of the error leads to correction of the alignment with temporary overcorrection to reverse the accumulated error and damp out any cyclic tendency.

For another example, optimum torque, with no radial force, is obtained when the dipole moment is normal to the local field.  Rotation of the PDU will reduce this torque and produce an undesired radial attraction.  Detection of this motion can trigger modification of drive to the PDU coil cluster to sustain the orthogonal alignment and zero the radial force.  In terrestrial use this is called “brushless commutation”.  This will allow the PDU to be accelerated to a high rotational rate, with independently controlled radial position.  (IMPORTANT NOTE: as stated in the beginning, momentum, angular and linear, is conserved.  The sustained PDU rotational acceleration pictured here will produce a matching torque and proportional acceleration of the station, unless magnetic torque rods or other mechanisms are used to “unload” this angular momentum.)  

This part maps out the unlimited torques which can be produced for rotational alignment of the PDU, and introduces radial attractive and repulsive forces.  Four of the Six degrees of freedom are thus covered.      Richard P. Speck   4/27/2007

[rpspeck]

Tractor Beam Part 1 Addendum,

I am not intentionally trying to make this difficult, and am quite willing to answer questions.  My posting is in response to a DOD SBIR appraisal:

“This won’t work.”  (And by implication, “You don’t know what you are talking about!”)

It actually is working, and I have some interesting demonstrations running.  I do actually know what I am talking about.  If I were to oversimplify at the outset, the weaknesses in the simplified explanation might be seized upon as “Proof” that this is a “Hoax”.  I welcome input from professors and other experts if my attempt to explain this is still flawed.  (Even that can’t remove the fact that these systems are working.)  

It has been some time since I worked on this technology, and I am reviewing the math in the subsequent sections before posting them to keep down the number of errors.  Also I sometimes try to squeeze in work I get paid for!

One point I must clarify:  This is not a “Beam” in any physical sense of the word, for the fields extend in all directions around the source.  It only “acts like a beam”, in that strong interaction can be initiated between pairs of objects without affecting anything else in the neighborhood.  (Simultaneous independent interaction between the “Station” and several “Payload Delivery Units” is also possible).

This is a challenging “Thesis Project”, and I have outlined the work, disclosed the core of the technology and listed the results.  I will not post the entirety of a Thesis presentation (which I have not actually written) in this forum.  

Please note that modest magnetic fields are involved to produce the performance I mention (rendezvous and docking much faster than currently done when the STS meets the ISS.)  Peak fields in this case are about 30 to 50 Gauss (old standard units) and can be produced by Copper, Aluminum or metallic Sodium coils (the later has 39% lower mass than Aluminum for equal conductivity).  These I could use in an “economy”, Ultralight spacecraft.  

It is also possible to do all this with Superconducting coils.  These can reduce the input power to near zero while increasing the magnetic fields by a factor of 8000.  The field interaction forces increase by a factor of 64,000,000 and the usable range increases by a factor of 400 (40 km. instead of 100 meters).

“Wave Off” rejection of a flawed rendezvous can then accommodate many meters per second of velocity BUT the short range forces in this case become very large. Pulsed magnets in this field range regularly show plastic flow of solid copper, and high strength superconducting magnets need to be very strong.  Still the reality of high force, long range options exists.  (High temperature superconductors, if shielded from sunlight, may not need active cooling in interplanetary space.)     Richard. P. Speck,  Micro-Space, Inc.

[sandrot]

Now that the technology is disclosed, let's see the videos of the interesting demonstrations running.

[rpspeck]

sandrot - 10/5/2007  3:38 PM

Now that the technology is disclosed, let's see the videos of the interesting demonstrations running.

Your suggestion is relevant, so I am working on it.  

Keep in mind that the proposed work was never funded, so the existing demonstrations only scratch the surface of this technologie’s potential.  

[rpspeck]

In related news, Micro-Space is presently pushing to reach 4.5 to 5 hr duration (3 full orbits) for our lightweight “Rebreather” Oxygen system.  Less that half this has been accomplished to date, with minor systems problems cropping up and being fixed.  

The nearly five hour demonstration, suitable for a “John Glenn” style 3 orbit adventure, or attempted rendezvous with a space station with abort to Earth, will consume only 130 grams of Oxygen, and a matching 160 grams of Lithium Hydroxide CO2 scrubber.  Doubling these quantities (for a 290 gram mass penalty) will provide an operational safety margin for delayed reentry, or an overexcited astronaut.  Note that a rebreather suffers no penalty for hyperventilation of an excited user, but uses Oxygen only to supply metabolic demands, resting or with exertion.  A number of problems, important to aerospace use, but not present in diving applications, have been documented and addressed in our systems.  

We have already used the “Third Port” of our Oxygen mask to sip water and liquid nutrients.

Note that our “Zero G” centrifugal distillation evaporator is still spinning, after 644 days (about 2/3 of a Mars round trip).  Its speed is still 14 times the required rotational rate.  

[jimvela]

I just read here:
http://www.livescience.com/blogs/author/leonarddavid

the following:

Another team — Micro-Space of Denver, Colorado has missed a required milestone — a Team Summit — making them ineligible to win prize money in 2007. The team will continue their development, however, and have a presence at this year’s Wirefly X Prize Cup.

It's been a while since we've had an update here, perhaps Mr. Speck can give some insight into the state of the team, the non-attendance at the team summit, and what various things they've been up to...

[tnphysics]

For the Mars missions, how much space will the astronaut have?

How many men could be landed on Mars using your techniques and a Falcon 9 as the LV? If you are
allowed a Falcon 9 Heavy?

Assume that both Mars surface EVA and Mars sample return are requirements.