GNP Increasing Products Road Map

GNP (Gross National Product) is the value of all finished goods and services produced by a country's citizens, both domestically and abroad. Short lifetime non serviceable products reduce GNP of nations. The consumers keep spending money on the products but the GNP stays the same because total number of products active stays the same as the short lifetime non serviceable products fills landfills and drop from the GNP of the nation. I recommend nations to come together and develop and mandate standards for longer lifetime and serviceable products within their countries, especially EU. The operating systems and firmware deployments could be centralized. Companies intellectual property rights could be protected with pre defined standards for software deployment. These standards would fix most product failures due to software issues, else these products turn to bricks. For critical failure parts more reliable parts should be used, ex: stainless steel screws instead of easy rusting cheap metal screws, some critical parts can be replaced by metal parts. Avoiding propriety standards by companies, ex: old iPhone jack. Developing reliable and durable connections for communication and power transfer, at the moment all standards use cheap technologies for electro mechanical contact including all USB and HDMI technologies. The inflated cost due to increased standards can be overcome by direct sales of these products eliminating the intermediary resellers, making them modular and splitting the outlook from the technology, ex: change the color of a speaker via colored shell not by producing each colored product individually.

Radium Rocket Engine

For traveling longer ranges in space chemical reaction based propulsion is not feasible. Here I propose a nuclear propulsion system using Ra₂₂₄ (Radium 224 isotope). The idea is to fission Radium to emit alpha radiation and Radon 220 which is a noble gas. The basic mechanism of all rocket engine is to emit high gas from a nozzle. In this rocket design the gas is Radon 220 and heat source is the fission reaction of Radium 224. Radon is a heavy atom which would increase the efficiency of the rocket engine. The fuel is solid therefore the volumetric efficiency of the fuel is also high. 

Thorium 232 is quiet abundant on Earth and is not radioactive like Uranium.   Turning Thorium 232 into Thorium 228 is not easy but can be achieved. Later Thorium 228 can be turned into Radium 224 which is much easier. Here is the Thorium decay cycle.

This rocket engine can even be used on earth. Rocket emission Radon 220 decays to stable Pb 208 (Lead) with a half life of last than 12 hours. Lead is not environmentally good but dispersion on a large area would be less problematic compared to other Nuclear rocket engine emissions that have much longer half lives and pollute the land for centuries. 

The Sustainability

A sustainable roadmap that is financially viable roadmap that relies less on the tax payers. The first Spaceship can be constructed in small size (~20m wingspan) and can be used for military and meteorological surveillance purposes. With minimum investment the idea can be checked. If successful a bigger version would be built that can deploy low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites like Starlink (550km from Earth). The velocity of the LEO satellites to stay in orbit is around 28,000 km/h. The Spaceship does not need to reach that speed. Once it reaches the required altitude, slightly above the target orbit, Spaceship releases a small rocket that carries the satellite and Spaceship returns to earth like a plane. The small rocket will be one time used simple rocket utilizing the same thrusters of the Spaceship. It will only operate in space so no need to have features required for atmosphere passage. Once the satellite reaches the required speed the small rocket will release itself and burn in the atmosphere. With this approach the satellites do not need to withstand high G and can be send to space in the final form and do not need to have complicated folding mechanisms that open up in space. Once this version of Spaceship succeed it would generate revenue for LEO satellite deployment. The next phase would be a bigger Spaceship that can deploy satellites to geosynchronous orbit (GSO) with similar design that include a smaller rocket for satellite deployment. Once this is successful and generate revenue by satellite deployment the final Spaceship can be build. For the location of Lunar Base, I propose somewhere near Apollo 11 landing site. Lunar landing sites are historic places and need to be preserved therefore there should be a no construction zone. Why I chose Apollo 11 site?

- It is the most famous of all the Lunar sites

- It has the smallest are that need to be preserved later missions covered and left marks in more area.

In the initial missions to Moon, construction robots and Spidercam (cable-suspended camera system) setup material would be deployed. A Spidercam setup would be mounted around the Apollo 11 site which would record the are in close detail without disturbing the footsteps. Things that can fund the project while building the base:

- The broadcast of the footages from Apollo 11 site

- Lunar tourists visiting Apollo 11 site

- Late Night Shows live from the Moon

Much comfortable travel (low acceleration) would allow more people to be a space tourist.

Space Construction

Space construction know how starts on earth. We should be able to utilize fully autonomous and swarm operating construction robotics on earth first. I propose a robot design as follows:

- It should fit within a half container for easy transportation.

- It should be modular and each part should be self-containing. The removable legs should have its actuators build in. Mecanum wheels should have hub motors build in.  The removable arms should have removable extenders to be used for different purposes. Robot runs on batteries that are removable.

- The robot should be able to replace all these removable parts by itself. Therefore, each removable part should have mounting mechanism that is easily controllable by robot’s arm extenders.

- The robot moves on train using its legs that have paws to grasp the ground firmly. Legs are replaced with Mecanum wheels on the road.

- The robot digs the ground using drill bits like in a CNC machine. They will not be like excavators that have buckets.

- Some of the arm extenders: spindle motor for attaching drill and carving bits, modular part mounting mechanism, sensors to examine the ground (Sonar, X-Ray…)

The Fuel Consumption of The Spaceship

Here are some points regarding the amount of LNG (liquid natural gas) and LOX (liquid oxygen) required for Earth to Moon cargo transfer using the Spaceship I propose. High aspect ratio wing design of the Spaceship will ensure high lift-to-drag ratio and increase the efficiency. With less fuel more weight will be lifted. Also, lower take off speed and shorter take off distance. Therefore, the thrusters do not need to be very powerful. LNG and LOX can flow into the combustion chamber with gravity, conservation of inertia and gas pressure. No complicated pumps and mechanical parts required, improving the reliability. The Spaceship will climb up the sky in a helical pattern and increase its ground speed slowly so that the outside of the plane does not get hot. Stainless steels low heat conductance will be beneficial. After the Spaceship leaves the atmosphere, it can climb vertically while the wings do not have an effect anymore. The Spaceship will keep accelerating even with the same thrust because as the distance from earth increase earths gravitational slowing force decrease and the Spaceship gets lighter while consuming LNG and LOX. The acceleration will continue up to a precalculated velocity. At that point the thrusters will stop and the Spaceship will decelerate due to earths lessening gravity until the Lagrange point (point where Moons gravity cancels Earths gravity, neutral point). The Spaceship will reach the Lagrange point with almost zero velocity. After that point Moons gravity will accelerate the Spaceship with thrusters off. It is a freefall to the Moon. Close to the point where the Spaceship will orbit the Moon the thrusters will fire and increase the velocity of the Spaceship to maintain its orbit around the Moon. Once in orbit the thrusters can be turned off.  The unloading of cargo to the Lunar Transporter will happen in this orbit. After cargo transfer, the Spaceship will fire the thrusters for the translunar injection. It will be a short burst. It will be just enough for the Spaceship to reach the Lagrange point. After that point Earths gravity will accelerate the Spaceship with thrusters turned off. Here comes the point where the Spaceship will consume LNG and LOX to decelerate before entering the earths atmosphere. Apollo programs didn’t consume fuel for deceleration and burned the command module to hell and splash on the ocean. The Spaceship don’t use expensive heat shield that requires complex maintenance procedures instead uses its thrusters and its aerodynamic design to lower its speed so that the outside of the plane do not get too hot. Overall, you don’t need to burn LNG and LOX continuously throughout the whole journey. 

Lunar Transporter

The Spaceship will not land on the moon to transfer its cargo. Instead, there will be a Lunar Transporter.  The Lunar Transporter will be a much bigger version of the Lunar Descent module used on Apollo program. It will be able to descent on and ascent from the Moon. The Spaceship after reaching the Moon will circle on an orbit like Apollo’s Service Module. In the first mission the Lunar Transporter carrying the construction robots will be deployed. The second time the Spaceship brings cargo from Earth Lunar Transporter will ascent from the Moon service with no load. The Lunar Transporter will than reach the orbit where Spaceship circles and land on the Spaceship where a hatch will be opened like in a ship and after Lunar Transporter lands it will close. Inside the Spaceship the Lunar Transporter will be refueled and the cargo from Earth will be placed on the Lunar Transporter. The Lunar Transporter will utilize a similar rocket engine used in the Spaceship. The fuel will be LNG and oxidizer will be LOX. After refueling and cargo loading the hatch will open and the Lunar Transporter will be released which will ascent on the Moon. The Spaceship later will return to Earth. The Spaceship will land on the airfield it took off from. It will have to consume fuel during landing to reduce its speed. The surface of the Spaceship should not heat much which improves reliability.

Road To A Lunar Base

The Lunar Base requires several critical problems to be solved and a clear sustainable pathway.

1. Spaceships to transport construction materials and machinery. 

2. The construction technology to utilize materials available.

3. The swarm working construction robotics.

4. The Sustainability (Less burden on tax payers)

1. The Spaceship

As a Spaceship I propose a flying wing design but with no extending stabilizers. It will be a giant thick wing. The advantage of this design is high lifting efficiency so less fuel consumed to lift off and lower take off speed. Complicated stability control will be solved by thrust vectoring of the thrusters. I propose no flaps, ailerons, elevators, slats, rudders or stabilizers. Reaction control system (RCS) thrusters will accomplish the stabilization on earth’s atmosphere as well as on space. Spoilers can be used the reduce the ground speed of the Spaceship during landing. The main thruster engine and RCS will be LNG powered rockets. The main difference from a conventional rocket engine is the thrust will be lower; the fuel and oxygen will be pumped slowly. It is actually a flying super LNG tanker. The goal is to use Natural Gas as fuel and Liquid Oxygen as oxidizer. LNG is the ideal fuel due to its abundance and mature liquification technology. It has the best Energy Density based on volume, and cost. The outer shape of the Spaceship will be a giant plane but inside would be like a ship and shell like an armored vehicle. The Spaceship needs protective shell as well as sections like a ship. The multi hull design will minimize the impact of space dust or similar small particles hitting the spaceship. The hulls can be made of Stainless Steel while it is tougher and have much lower thermal conductivity than Aerospace-grade aluminum. The hulls can be packed with small SiC plates for light armament. Stainless steel hulls will allow flexibility for structural stresses, SiC plates the armament. The spaceship will be divided by bulkheads to form hatches. Hatch design will also minimize the impact of a space debris.   The Spaceship will not travel at the Escape Velocity. The goal is to propel the Spaceship slowly for a much longer time like a conventional plane. Therefore, the Spaceship does not need to withstand high G stress and high temperatures. It will be as close to a traditional plane construction technology as possible. This will reduce the cost of building and required engineering know how as well hard to source high engineering material. The nozzle of the engine does not need to reach extreme temperatures due to reasons above. The Spaceship will be like a cargo ship that will work for many years therefore it needs to be simple and reliable. It does need to stay in one piece like a sea ship which differentiates it from conventional multi stage space rockets. Low maintenance cost and low R&D cost will pay off for the large fuel consumption.

Why design a Spaceship like a big plane and ship combo not like a space rocket? The reasons are as follows:

- Simplify the engineer complexity. The famous saying “It’s not rocket science” referring the rocket design as very complex. Finding experts to develop traditional space rockets is difficult and expensive. When you simplify the problem, sourcing the experts will be much easier and it will be cheaper. In my belief sourcing qualified people will get harder and harder every year because of every new generations lack of concentration on a topic and increasing number of alternatives for the genius minds.  Therefore, decreasing the complexity makes the roadmap more feasible and sustainable.