of Mars and Men

In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes of mice and men
Go oft awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!
        ('To a Mouse' by Robert Burns)

I had written so much about space exploration and the human involvement in them. There are laws of physics and exploring the space is not like exploring the Earth in 16ᵗʰ century. Carrying a human being on a mission could only complicate and reduce the probability of success. In the age of advanced robotics and AI, we shall let the robots explore the universe as our delegates.

A Mars human settlement would go awry and leave us nothing but grief and pain. For promised joy.

I am not George by the way who killed Lennie’s dream. Lennie’s dream was an impossible one in the first place.

Economical Robot Only Space Station (EROSS)

Creating a robot only space station eliminates most of the requirements from a space station. Robot only space station could be built by cascading the payload fairings of a rocket as a hole. Therefore, the payload of a rocket is fully utilized in terms of volume and mass.

I chose Falcon 9’s payload fairing as an example. It has an inner diameter of 4.6 meters and 11.4 meters of straight height. Curved nose section would house the docking port, the sat dishes and the folded solar panels. The center section of the tubular form would be reserved for the transport elevator. It would have multipurpose arms attached on its sides. These arms would mount the research modules to the special docking sections on the inner wall of the station. The arms would also move the research samples between the modules.

There would be two main types of research modules. One would house a self-sufficient robotic research environment (It would have its own robotic arm, lighting, camera, gas and liquid consumables. The wastes would be removed by the central elevator.), and the test equipment. There would be no air inside the space station. If research requires air, it would be contained inside the module. Only the modules would be air sealed. The space station would only provide cosmic ray shield.

When research requires detailed analysis, the sample would be moved to an advanced test equipment such as an atomic microscope or an X-Ray machine.

The last of the cascaded space station modules would have a hemispherical window to let the solar rays in. Any research requiring the sun would be placed there.

This easy setup allows multiple space stations to be built for different purposes and orbits. The ones deployed to a sun synchronous orbit would have continuous solar energy and would not have bulky batteries for backup.

Space Architecture

Internet is full of space structures that compete with earth architecture. With the help of AI these images inflated more. Construction in space has many limitations. As a result, the reality is way different than the computer-generated images. For example, the ISS looks like a shanty house made of expensive materials. There is no unity in the architecture, the pieces added at different times are quite different in style and form.

The architecture of space structures is determined by functionality and feasibility rather than esthetics which is the case on Earth. Due to limitations of the rockets, the launch frequencies and different countries involvement; the space structures are formed over a long duration with quite different modules. During the construction process, new technologies are tested and space verified which alter the architecture considerably over time. As a result, even the solar panels mounted are not in harmony.

On my next article, I will propose a feasible robotic only space station architecture that can be deployed using existing Falcon 9 rockets.

Partially Recoverable Second Stage

Even though, I am not a fan of recovering the second stage of a rocket. For some LEO missions this approach is feasible. The main objective of my idea is to recover the essential parts of a rocket stage, the engines. In order to achieve this goal, I propose a rocket second stage with two separate propellant tank groups (fuel and the oxidizer tanks form a group). The one, close to the engines would be small and consumed during recovery. The much bigger second group of tanks would be used to put the payload into orbit.

Once the payload is deployed to the orbit, the second stage would separate into two. The heavy propellant tanks at the top would be discarded to crash on an ocean. The section containing the engines and a small propellant tank group would slow down and land on a recovery platform offshore. Much reduced weight would require less fuel for recovery. Additionally, much smaller size would be easier to control during landing compared to a tall and thin structure. At the end, most valuable parts of a rocket, the engines are recovered and the discarded tank could be easily replaced with minimal cost.

Unmanned Supersonic Fighter (USF)

I would like to expand the Super Heavy Cargo Plane idea to an unmanned supersonic fighter. Like the cargo plane, the fighter would also rely on an LNG powered rocket engine for thrust. The engine will be a long tubular structure with a rocket engine on its front. The long tube will allow the unburned fuel to be combusted completely before being exhausted at the rear. This would also reduce the exhaust temperature (heat signature) of the fighter compared to engines with after burners.

The propellant (LNG & LOX) tanks would be placed on each side of the engine. Fuel rich burning of the engine would require almost 1 to 1 ratio for the fuel and the oxidizer. The payload bays of the fighter would be placed on each side of the propellant tanks. The payload bays would carry the ammunitions as well as the necessary sensors and the controllers to operate the plane.

The plane would utilize a ring wing for beneficial interference effects obtained with ring wings at supersonic speeds (https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/3.43714). The wing would also help the launch tower to hold the fighter during VTOL. The plane would have no sharp edges for better supersonic performance. The side-by-side tubular design allows the plane to be modified to better suit a mission.

Super Heavy Cargo Plane

I would like to improve on my idea of “Very High Bypass Aircraft Engine”. I presume there is no need for a propeller in front of the engine. The bypass air can pass though freely like in a ramjet engine. Additionally, the engine would have a small nozzle. This nozzle would preheat the bypass air before it mixes with the exhaust of the rocket engine. Additionally, the nozzle would serve as a compressor for the air intake. The rocket engine would be placed in front of the engine. It would have a shield to protect it from birds. Unlike the traditional rocket engines, the modified engine would burn fuel rich. The mass flows of a Raptor3 engine are ~510 kg/s O₂ and ~140 kg/s CH₄. If ambient oxygen is not used to burn the methane, the engine would require so much propellant that it would carry no useful payload. As a result, the duct of the engine would extend backwards to give time for the bypass air to burn the unburned fuel. The temperature of the fuel would be above the auto ignition temperature and would require no spark plug to initiate ignition. The accumulated heated gas would then be exhausted from the nozzle of the engine to generate immense thrust. This setup would be much simpler and lighter than an equivalent turbofan equivalent. Raptor3 engine has a maximum thrust of 2750 kN. With two engines it totals to 5500 kN. Whereas Antonov An-225 had 6 engines with a maximum thrust of 230 kN x 6 = 1380 kN.

In order to allow short takeoff and landing, the super heavy cargo plane would have circular wing around the two engines and the fuselage. It would give the plane a kind of Toyota logo look but, it would have acceptable drag for increased lift. I also propose the vertical stabilizer to be placed inside the circular wing to remove any extension from the rear of the plane.

The rocket engine of the plane would be modified to use natural gas instead of pure methane. This would reduce the additional infrastructure cost for the existing airports that already have natural gas infrastructure build in.

The cryogenic propellent of the plane would require special tanks that cannot be placed on the wings. I propose the LNG and LOX tanks to be placed in the center of the plane where the engines and the wings extend. IT would balance the plane perfectly. The payload would be loaded and unloaded from the nose and the rear of the plane which reduce the servicing time.

Aerospace industry is critical for every developed nation. Like the engines of the aerospace vehicles that consume fuel fast, the R&D costs would also consume the resources fast. Merging the critical technologies between air and space would allow advantage for the nation that implements this strategy. 

Space Station with Gravity 😊

After Russia patented space station designed to generate artificial gravity, I received a question about the feasibility of the idea.

Generating gravity does not require magic and is not impossible like cold fusion. However, generating a LEO space station with gravity does not make sense. Most of the research conducted on ISS is related to microgravity. If you have gravity on your research center than it is much cheaper and easier to conduct the experiment on Earth. Other than microgravity a sealed and air-filled ISS does not provide much over a research facility on the ground.

With the availability of frequent launches to ISS, the people working in microgravity environment can be replaced frequently. During their stay they can have rotating beds to experience gravity for several hours. Rotating a bed is much simpler than rotating the hole space station. People are dreaming and even willing to pay money to experience microgravity so as the scientists who are willing to conduct an experiment there. Then, you spend billions of dollars to evaporate the dream and bring back gravity to LEO which is available for free a couple of hundred km below.

From my article on February 21, 2025

I propose we build an International Extraterrestrial Space Station at LEO like the old ISS but for robots only. It would be modular but the main difference would be an asteroid like rock formation with lunar regolith on its surface. This formation would be held in a transparent shell guided by the control modules. The shell containing the asteroid can be rotated on its axis to create artificial gravity on its surface to mimic the gravity of the Moon, Mars or an Asteroid. The closed shell can also be filled with appropriate gases to simulate the atmosphere and the pressure. The transparent walls would allow Sun rays to penetrate inside.

A Lunar or Mars rover would then be tested on this setup.