Be More Creative !!!

The competition on space exploration is heating up everyday. The countries planning intensely to catch up with the leaders. However, all the investment is on mature old designs. You cannot catch up the leaders by copying them. They would keep widening the gap. You have to come up with radical ideas to catch up and even pass them.

If Apple had copied the designs of Nokia and Blackberry, it would have never succeeded over them. Same is true for space and other sectors.

I keep on developing innovative ideas to inspire people to think out of the box.  Couple of months ago, I saw a space rover design by a university from Australia. They even photographed the rover besides a kangaroo. I would be happy to see Australia designed space robot that could jump to avoid obstacles on its way. Inspire from the nature you live in.

Please stop sending landers that can topple, robots with wheels to the space. BE MORE CREATIVE !!!

Yurt Rocket

I named my multi stage rocket design after it's resemblance to Mongolian tent "Yurt". The main objective of this design is to be able to deploy large volume and fragile payloads to the space with slow acceleration.

Yurt rocket is made of propellent tanks and engines attached around cylindrical belts. Unlike traditional rockets, the stages are side by side. The fuel and oxidizer tanks are next to each other and directly feed the engine beneath them. Traditional rockets have tanks one above the other and require long pipes to reach the engine. The engines will be throttleable but do not require gimbling because the thrust is distributed around a large area. Smooth acceleration is achieved by independently throttling the engines. Yurt rocket will have much more number of smaller engines compared to traditional rockets. Small engine parts can easily be 3d printed and mass produced. 

The payload will be placed in the hollow part of the rocket and covered by cascaded light weight aerodynamic shields. Therefore large space telescopes can be deployed unfolded so as the satellites can be designed unibody. As a result the telescopes and satellites can be designed lighter and cheaper (folding mechanisms add weight and complexity). Additionally, much larger Space Station sections can be deployed in one piece. Slow acceleration allows fragile instruments to be deployed as well. Finally, space tourists can be send to space much more comfortably (no high G acceleration to bear).

The first stage of the rocket will lift the rocket to 100km or above the ground without lateral speed. Just before it's fuel finishes the second stage will disengage from the first stage. After the separation, the second stage will rotate sideways and fire its engines to accelerate the remaining rocket and the payload to orbital velocity. All second stage engines will be vacuum optimized.

The first stage will free fall to earth. It's cascaded payload dome (allowing trapped air to escape, but still slowing down the fall) and parachutes will allow the stage to land close to the launch side safely. Much larger base area compared to traditional rockets will allow much stable fall without needing complex re-entry maneuvers.

The propellent tanks will be painted in black to increase the propellent pressures without external Helium pressure tanks. Longer time to orbit allows the sun rays to heat up the tanks. The tanks will be heat shielded during fueling and the shield will be removed just before the launch.

Yurt rocket design allows more stages to be added easily, just add more cylindrical belts. Finally, rockets with different diameters can easily be designed. The most critical part, the engines will be the same.

Bob Sinclar vs The Space Cartels

The polarizations in the world effected the countries' polarizations in the space exploration as well. International collaborations are declining and nationalism in space race is rising. Catching up with the space race requires many improvements to be done in parallel.

Morale and Motivation is one of the key factors and there Super Hero's come to play. USA is overcrowded with super heroes, British has the Bond and Europe ??

I propose Bob Sinclar - Le Magnifique as the European Super Hero fighting against the global Space Cartel's and their tyrant leaders.

(The spaceship photo is from the Bond movie Moonraker)

 

Sliding Rocket Second Stage with Dry Ice

Cannon assisted Dry Ice Rocket design can be applied to the second stage of the rocket as well. In the first stage, the external heat source to evaporate the dry ice comes from the initial cannon blast and the supersonic air drag. With this design, the second stage of the rocket would be released at a much higher altitude and speed. The high inertial momentum would heat up the dry ice within the second stage. This would provide the initial thrust to the second stage. Then it would unfold its black heat absorbing panels. In atmosphere free environment the black panels would heat up effectively from the sun rays that would allow the second stage to maintain high pressure carbon dioxide for the thrust. Additionally, the sliding payload bay's high inertial momentum would help the pressurized gas production as well.

This approach requires the rocket to be launched at specific times of the day to utilize the sun. The simple and low cost of the design reduces the cost of high energy launches while the second stages are never recovered in such missions. Additionally, the simplicity improves the reliability of the rocket.

Cannon Assisted Dry Ice Sliding Rocket

In Jules Verne's "De la Terre à la Lune", the lunar capsule is send to the moon using a giant cannon. This approach can be turned into reality for some of the space missions.

The geostationary satellite launches, lunar and planetary missions require maximum payload to orbit. Therefore, in most of them even the first stage of the rocket is not recovered. For such missions my idea can be utilized.

Carbon dioxide has the highest vapor pressure among gasses, making it an ideal monopropellant in case of an external heat source. I propose an aluminum shell (good heat conductor and light weight) rocket first stage that has dry ice inside. This rocket will be fired from a giant cannon buried underground. Due to aluminum's low melting temperature, the cannon should have limited explosion power, not to heat the shell of the rocket too much. Once the cannon is fired, the heat generated on the walls of the rocket heats up the dry ice and generates high pressure carbon dioxide gas which is exhausted from the aerospike engines. After the rocket leaves the barrel of the cannon it would cool down. However the thrust of the engines keep the outer shell of the rocket hot due to supersonic air drag. Coupled with the pressure of the upper stages on the dry ice, the high pressure carbon dioxide generation is maintained through out the flight. With this approach, high pressure gas is generated at a lower temperature, negating the need to cool down the aerospike engine. The rocket would have multiple engines which can be throttled independently and precisely using valves to allow thrust vectoring without the use of gimbled nozzles. Making the rocket simpler and lighter.

This approach allows a simple and low cost first stage. After the stage runs out of fuel it would free fall to earth with parachute attached. Then it can be recycled (most of the stage will be aluminum with no complicated rocket engines and exotic materials). Dry Ice Sliding Rocket transfers much more kinetic energy to the upper stages compared to a reusable rocket, due to very high take off speed (zero for the classical rockets) and higher specific impulse. One final advantage of the rocket is that, it can be launched at bad weather as well. The use of cannon, minimizes the effect of the wind on the rocket at lower altitudes. High muzzle velocity and the rifling (helical grooves machined into the internal surface of the barrel) gyroscopically stabilizes the rocket at launch. Classical rockets' slow take-off speed make them more susceptible to ground winds.

Another Perspective To The Solar System

When the solar system was forming, it was essentially a big ball of dust and gas that was spinning. Then, it began to flatten out due to this spin and settled into a disk structure. I propose a scientific satellite to observe our solar system perpendicular to it's orbital plane.

A satellite with solar sail would be accelerated towards the sun. As the satellite approach to the sun, it would adjust its solar sail to gain perpendicular momentum to the orbital plane. Due to sun's strong gravity, it shouldn't approach too near and use its sail to repel itself away from the sun. Finally, it should spiral out from the perpendicular axis of the orbital plane.

The satellite should be small in weight but large in solar sail area, in order to accelerate itself away from the sun, perpendicularly. As a result, we can observe the outside of our solar system, without needing to go beyond Pluto.

Mission Venus

I had previously stated that we should go to Venus then Mars. Going towards the Sun allows effective use of solar sails to reduce propellent requirement and reduce the voyage time. Here is the roadmap for Venus exploration.

Optimal time for flyby Venus varies from 3.45 to 3.6 km/s from LEO for the optimal time every 19 months (Does it take more energy to get to Venus or to Mars?). The first mission would be the Sun Synchronous Orbiting satellite that serves as a communications relay for the Venus explorer robots. Sun synchronous orbit allows continuous solar power generation reducing the need for high capacity batteries. Additionally the satellite would continuously monitor the solar activities for scientific research.

The second mission will be the Venus Explorer. The dense atmosphere of Venus allows aerocapture (Aerocapture). Therefore Venus explorers do not need heavy shields or extra propulsion to slow down in the descent phase. The dense atmosphere also allows flying above the surface to explore larger areas. The design of the Venus Explorer will be the combination of a balloon and a glider. This will allow the explorer to stay aloft for longer durations without a propellent requirement. The explorer will also be able to descent just above the surface and lower detectors and grabbers to retrieve samples from the surface, then ascent again to explore more regions.

Venus explorer will generate electricity from multiple sources. The first one would be the sun, even though the clouds obscure most of the rays. Venus day lasts 243 Earth days which allows longer mission times. Additionally, strong winds and high temperature differences allow alternative electric generation methods.

Venus mission would be followed by Mercury and then the Sun. The mysteries of the universe lies within the Stars. Therefore we should research towards the Sun not away from it.