Mars Lab Station

Mars rovers have limited payload. Therefore, they cannot conduct all kinds of analysis on the samples. That is why, Mars sample retrieval missions are planned. However, bringing samples to Earth requires big rockets with multiple stages. Such rockets do not exist at the moment. More importantly it takes months for a sample to reach Earth. During this time some of the samples may degrade even with proper preservation.

I propose a Mars Lab Station for robots only. It would orbit the planet like ISS orbiting the Earth. This lab would turn any sample retrieval mission to an LMO (Low Mars Orbit) mission compared to a mission from Mars to Earth. This would require much simpler retrieval rockets. Additionally, the samples would be processed much faster with minimal degradation. Finally, moving advanced lab equipment to the lab from the surface rovers would make the rovers simpler and more agile.

Mars has stronger gravitational anomalies than Earth. As a result, any orbiting object requires more maneuver and more fuel to stay in orbit. NASA had thought of missions to deploy satellites to Mars, but abandoned them all. However, establishing an orbital lab is more beneficial for the future compared to single shot missions to retrieve samples to be analyzed on Earth.

This idea can be generalized to other planets such as Venus and Mercury Lab Stations.

Mars Mission 1

I thought of a series of Mars missions which allow the humanity to gather much more information compared to the total of previous missions. The key to achieving this goal is to plan a bigger mission composed of smaller missions to achieve it. The key to explore more of Mars depends on the energy source of the surface explorers. Unfortunately, solar energy beyond Earth is very limited and creates a bottle neck for the missions. Like Earth, Mars also has day and night and seasons which dramatically affect the already low solar energy capacity.

I had previously proposed Plutonium 238 as the critical energy source for space missions. Previous space missions (to the moon) that utilized this isotope tried to generate electricity directly. This resulted in very poor energy conversion rates. However, Mars has atmosphere where Moon lacks. It is mainly carbon dioxide which has the highest vapor pressure of any gas. Heating the cold carbon dioxide gas with Pu₂₃₈ to generate pressure is very feasible. The generated pressure would be used to operate the pneumatic actuators and generate electricity. This method has way higher energy conversion efficiency compared to other methods and the solar energy. A proper planetary robot which has legs instead of wheels would be able to explore large areas on the surface of Mars. The additional explorations can be conducted on the shadows and at night. Even underground caves can be checked briefly. This method of electric generation would not be affected by the ambient temperature while it requires no chemical batteries. The consumable carbon dioxide gas is available all around the planet which pose no travel restriction. More energy means more distances can be travelled, drilling can be deeper and other energy intense tasks can be conducted.

On my next article I will explain how is it possible to analyze the Mars samples in detail.

Life on Planets

The formation of life is a complex and long process. In summary, life forms where there is water or similar liquid that is solvent and transporter of molecules. The temperature should be adequate for chemical reactions to happen and stable enough for sustained chemical cycles. This last one is my addition, the medium where the organic materials converge and form a living cell should be relatively still like the puddles. Once an organism is formed and it starts reproducing itself, it can spread to harsh environments and stay alive there as well.

When we look at the planets in our solar system, there is no planet that satisfies all these criteria other than the Earth. The planets and their moons beyond Earth are cold and wouldn't allow complex organisms to form. There may be primitive organisms that adapted to their extreme surroundings. Jupiter and Saturn moons that have geysers have the highest potential for life. Planets closer to the sun are too hot for life forms to form. The clouds of Venus may contain traces of organic material. However, the turbulent atmosphere of the planet is not still enough for such molecules to combine and form life.

I am not an expert on the topic. I derived my conclusions, based on the scientific materials I read and my observations. There would definitely be life on exoplanets similar to Earth. However, due to laws of physics, these life forms cannot interact with each other because of the immense distance between them.

Mars STOL Aircraft

I had previously proposed a flying aircraft for Mars. Daniel Riley’s YouTube video on “Blown Wing STOL Plane” inspired me for a new design. Daniel had proposed hidden air blowers inside the wings to increase Coandă effect and enable STOL (short takeoff and landing). In my design, air entering from the intakes below the wing will be accelerated by the heat of Plutonium 238. Mars atmosphere is mainly carbon dioxide that has the highest vapor pressure of any gas. This improves the efficiency of the system. The forward thrust will be achieved by Plutonium 238 powered Carnot engines that drive the duct fans. Air blown on the wings reduces the takeoff and stall speed for the plane. Therefore, the heat generated by the Plutonium 238 isotope would be enough the fly the plane.

The aircraft will have bicycle like spoked wheels. These will enable the plane to accelerate on the ground and protect the wings in case of crash. The wheels should be elastic enough to return to their original shape after impact. The central wheels will have the spokes covered. They will double as vertical stabilizers during flight. The wheels will have larger diameter than the wings to protect them against the surface rocks. Plutonium will produce continuous thrust which will keep the wings in the horizontal orientation even on the ground. The plane will navigate on the ground using this thrust. The maneuvering will be achieved using differential thrust.

The small fuselage of the plane will contain the central control unit and the scientific research bay which is powered by Plutonium 238.

Mars STOL aircraft will be deployed to Mars inside a cylindrical capsule, an ideal shape for a space payload. The capsule will have four engines to slow down the capsule after entering the Mars atmosphere. The propellant tanks will be placed inside the empty spaces between the wings and the wheels. Once the propellant is depleted, the aircraft will be released from the capsule to let it fly by itself. The empty capsule will than crash on Mars.

On the Healthcare Industry

My recent negative experience on healthcare system, led me to write this article. In recent decades, healthcare industry started to be treated as a profit center for countries like tourism. This led to building of charming architectural buildings, named modern hospitals that are poorly designed in terms of functionality (complex layout for the patients who need to move between services). Additionally, too much focus on profitability led to inflated treatment costs and subpar service quality.

As a result, public healthcare deficit increased dramatically. This is a problem I couldn’t find a proper solution to. The key part of the solution is not to treat healthcare system as a profit center for the country which inflates the costs. Actions should be taken to reduce the treatment costs which includes the time and money.

Another topic regarding healthcare is the lack of multidisciplinary thinking. Human biology is too complex for any individual to master it perfectly. Additionally, a solution that works in most cases doesn’t mean that it would work in all cases. I have a very bad experience with that. My dad had ALS disease. A month ago, he started to choke while eating. The choking didn’t stop for a while and we called for ambulance. The healthcare personal injected medicines to improve his respiration. However, due to his ALS disease the medicines had the opposite effect and he needed to be intubated which led to his death. I am not a fan of applying AI to everything. However, in my case if the doctors have consulted AI, a different medication could have been used.

My proposition is that we need multidisciplinary doctors who can see the big picture. They would be able consult and coordinate with the specialists and AI during their treatment. New generation of doctors should be thought to work in coordination with AI. Critical point on this approach is to develop the coordination process such that the doctors should not turn into dummy users who just repeat what AI had told them. This is also a security problem for a country. Too much reliance on AI may be taken advantage by the enemy hackers and manipulated AI results would result big healthcare problems.

How To Protect Your Rocket?

The satellites are critical for a country’s military defense and offence. However, their launch is very susceptible to interception by a ballistic missile. During launch and at lower altitudes, the rockets are protected by the fighter jets. However, compared to the journey of a rocket, this protection is very limited.

During World War 2, the vulnerable bomber planes were escorted by fighter planes against the enemy attacks. This was the norm until the introduction of B17 Flying Fortress. B17 could defend itself and didn’t require fighter escort. This idea can be implemented on the space rockets as well. Not all rockets need to be in this configuration. However, during time of dispute and war, such self-defending rockets would be very beneficial.

A self-defending rocket can be implemented using the synergy rocket formation I proposed earlier. In short, it is a rocket formed by strapping at least three similar rockets together in a closed loop formation. With such a configuration, the rocket can carry different payloads in each of the independent payload bays and one can have anti-ballistic missiles.

Trafalgar in Space

The satellite clusters orbit the earth like a railway train pointing at the same direction. I imagined a satellite outside of this cluster at a higher orbit perpendicular to this formation. It reminded me of the Battle of Trafalgar. Then, I thought of an offensive tactic to annihilate the enemy satellite cluster.

The offensive satellite would orbit at a higher altitude than the targeted satellites. It would not have protruding solar panels to minimize damage from space debris. It would be mainly a flying propellent tank with liquid hydrogen and oxygen. The liquid hydrogen and oxygen would be used to maneuver the satellite during attack and power the electronics on board with hydrogen fuel cells. Carbon nanotube bullets would be used to shot down the enemy satellites. The bullets would be accelerated using the hydrogen and oxygen on board.

The offensive tactic would be simple dive into the targeted satellites orbit with the use of liquid propellent thrusters. During this dive the satellite would retain its orbital speed. It’s like a floating submarine dive underwater using its propellers. Once the propeller stops, the submarine would slowly surface again. In case of satellite, high orbital speed (centrifugal force overcoming the gravity) would push it back to its higher orbit slowly. Due to attacking satellite’s higher speed compared to the other satellites in that orbit, the attacker would pass over them. As it passes by it would shoot back at the satellite in target like a Mongol Archer shooting back while riding his horse. This would allow the debris to be left behind and opposite momentum generated by the bullet fire to add to the satellite's forward momentum.

Once the attacking satellite’s fuel is depleted, it would Kamikaze dive on an enemy military satellite.

The Sounds of The Universe

We have been sending explorers throughout the solar system for many years. Those explorers contained many sensors onboard. Unfortunately, microphone was not one of them (Martian Perseverance rover carries two microphones). I would like to propose a series of small solar and planetary explorers that carry multiple microphones on board. There would be different types of microphones to capture different wavelengths. Even though, the space is vacuum and sound waves cannot travel in vacuum; the electromechanical sound sensors would pick up noise. The noise would be induced by the cosmic rays, gravity fields, and many more.

People are fascinated by the highly computer enhanced images captured by Hubble and James Webb space telescopes. This fascination can be extended by the surround sound of the universe. The microphones are more durable and can operate at more extreme conditions compared to video cameras. Additionally, it is much easier to capture surround sound and play it. Almost all sound systems are stereo and there are more surround sound systems on earth than 3D TVs.

Venus and Mars have atmosphere. Martian Perseverance rover has recorded the sound of Mars. However, it is in mono and microphone’s sensitivity is limited. Flying small planetary explorers can be built to explore Venus and Mars which would record the sounds of the planets as they explore them on air. Venus’ extreme temperatures and dust storms make it difficult for a camera to operate. However, the conditions are acceptable for surround high bandwidth sound recording. Additionally, sound recording would require less electrical and processing power compared to video capture. Allowing smaller and lighter flying explorers.

Synergy Rocket Formation

I had previously proposed a synergy rocket design on April 21, 2025 and would like to improve on that design. The idea is to create synergy by combining at least three rockets in a closed formation in order to create additional thrust via air flowing between the rockets and reducing the complexity of recovering the first stage of the rocket.

In synergy rocket formation, the rockets of same type are strapped together in a closed formation. The objective is to enclose the air passing between the rockets. At the bottom of the rockets, there will be additional enclosures connecting the nozzles and directing the air flow. These enclosures will not protrude from the rocket walls not to induce additional drag. These enclosures will direct the air in line with the rockets’ direction of movement. The air passing by will be heated by the rocket nozzles to generate additional thrust like in high bypass turbofan engines. Unlike those engines, there will be no duct fan. Therefore, the thrust gain will be limited.

Strapped rockets would induce too much stress on the connection points due to differences on thrust of each rocket. In order to overcome this problem, each rocket nozzle will have controlled ventilation window that release some of the exhausted gas into the enclosed air bypass canal. As a result, thrust lost on ventilated exhaust gas on the engine nozzle will be recovered by the thrust generated by the bypassed air. This will change the direction of the thrust vector to minimize stress and improve maneuverability. Also increase the thrust generated by the bypassed air.

Only first stages of the rockets will be strapped. The upper stages will move independently after stage separation. The strapped rockets will have much higher base area compared to a single rocket. Therefore, recovering the first stage will be a much simpler problem.

Requiem

Babam 12 Aralık 1941’de Denizli’nin Tavas ilçesine bağlı Kızılcabölük kasabasında dünyaya geldi. Doğum günü sorulduğunda ses tonu hafif değişir gururlanarak oniki oniki bin dokuzyüz kırk bir derdi. Ne kadar da kolay akılda kalıcak bir doğum tarihim var der gibi söylerdi bunu. Nüfusa kayıtlı adı Mehmet Talât’tır. Ancak hayatı boyunca iki isimli olmanın çok sorun yarattığını fark edip herkese çocuklarına tek isim vermelerini tavsiye ederdi. Kızına Nevra ve oğluna da İbrahim ismini verdi. Torunun da tek ismi vardır Defne.

2016 yılı sonunda doktor muayenesinden eve geldiğinde hastalığının teşhis edildiğini ve ünlü profesörünki (Stephen Hawking) gibi ALS olduğunu sanki grip teşhisi konmuş gibi gülümseyerek söylediğini unutmuyorum. Çocukluğumda zatüre olduğumu öğrendiğimde annemlerin yatağına gidip ağladığımmı hatırlıyorum. Çok güçlü bir kişiliği vardı babamın.

Doğup büyüdüğü çevrenin çok ötesinde bir bakış açısına sahipti. Bu bakış açısı ona hem işinde hem de ailesinde başarı ve mutluluğu getirdi. Yabancı dil öğrenmenin önemini erken yaşta farkedip iki çocuğunu da Amerikan kolejinde okuttu. Babamın geniş bakış açısına layık olarak onu farklı dillerde anlatmak istedim. Kitabını da tüm dünyada satış yapan bir firma üzerinden yayınlıyorum.

Baba seni çok seviyorum, ve özlüyorum.

30 Ekim 2025, İstanbul, Türkiye

İbrahim Kocaalioğlu

Hybrid Turbofan Engine

Turbofan engines are the critical bottle neck of the aircraft designs. Lack of high thrust turbofan engines limit the payload capacity of the planes. Adding more engines is not the ideal solution. I would like to propose a hybrid high bypass turbofan engine especially for high thrust applications. The idea is to generate high thrust using already availably rocket engines and power the turbofan using the exhaust of the turbopumps of the rocket engine.

The design requires compacted rocket engines to be split into sections and modified to be adapted as a high bypass engine. Unlike air breathing turbofan engines, the hybrid engine I propose will consume liquid oxygen instead of relying on ambient air. However, large turbofan section will suck large volumes of air and increase the amount of accelerated exhaust gas. This will increase the ISP of the engine compared to a rocket engine. The turbofan will be driven by the exhaust gas of the rocket turbopumps.

Main drawback of the engine is its reduced fuel efficiency compared to traditional engines. However, designing and manufacturing very high thrust turbofans are prohibitively expensive and complex.

On the other hand, the advantages of the hybrid engine I propose are:

- They rely on already mass-produced high thrust rocket engines.

- They don’t require ambient oxygen to operate. Which increases their service ceiling.

- They can operate with liquified methane. Which is much greener than jet fuels.

If the future of aviation is hydrogen, liquid methane consuming hybrid turbofan engine would be the next step.

Hybrid Staged Rocket

Aerospace refers to the technology and industry involved with the atmosphere and outer space collectively. However, the collaboration between the aircraft and spacecraft design is below par. I would like to propose a hybrid staged rocket design. Where each stage can be reconfigured for different projects on demand.

The aircraft section of the hybrid rocket will be composed of two stages. The first stage will be powered by highly efficient high bypass turbofan engines. The delta wings will generate lift and are structurally sturdy. This is important while the wings need to lift heavy weight of the upper stages. Due to lift generated by the wings, the turbofans do not need to generate the thrust of a classical rocket’s first stage. The objective of this stage is to ascent the upper stages to the commercial aviation altitudes and speeds. Once the objective is reached and most of the fuel is consumed, the upper stages are separated. The first stage than flies back to the launch airport. This is a much simpler engineering problem compared to returning a rocket’s first stage to the launch site.

The second stage of the hybrid rocket will be a smaller delta wing with convertible ramjet engines. The engines will be fired close to Mach one during stage separation. The engines will operate in ramjet mode until Mach 4 and then they will transition to a scramjet above that speed. Unlike traditional rocket first stages, this stage will reach high speeds at lower altitudes due to air breathing nature of the engines. Once, most of the stage fuel is consumed, it will separate from the upper stages. Like the first stage, the second stage will also fly back to the launch site. Due to engines inefficiency at lower speeds, this will require more fuel. The delta wings will allow passive deceleration with improved stability.

The remaining upper stages of the rocket will have classical rocket design. They will be called high-altitude, high-speed rockets unlike the traditional ones that are launched from the ground with zero initial speed.

The first two stages of the hybrid rocket will also be used at high-speed, high-altitude testing of rockets (civil and military) and aircrafts. At the moment aircrafts with classical framing are used for this task and they are not optimal for the task.

Gotham Orbit

I would like to call the Low Earth Orbit as Gotham Orbit. As more companies deploy more and more satellites into this orbit, the crime rate in the orbit will inevitably increase like in Gotham City. Space junk poses high risks to the citizens of the orbit, cube sats earth observation and communication sats… like the air pollution of a metropolitan city. Even though there is no officially declared crime committing satellites in the orbit, most probably there are ones already. Once they are recognized I would like to call them the Joker satellites. Like the fictional Joker character, these satellites would paralyze their victim satellites by many ingenuous ways.

The question is will we have super hero satellites to protect our vulnerable space infrastructure from the crimes of space and what SuperSat abilities these satellites will have?

The article was written in Adana after my father.

My Thoughts For A Military Strategy

The wars are so complex systems that there is no magical winning strategy. When I propose a strategy, I address the root first and come up with ideas to strengthen it. It can be seen on my latest fighter jet idea.

I personally thought of some performance criteria to measure the effectiveness of a military strategy. It is the effective presence on the battlefield. Let me explain it on an example:

There is a fighter plane on the battlefield that carries 10 missiles. The plane has a combat radius of 1000 km and is a conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) plane. The military airport is 200 km from the battlefield. This plane has to travel at least 400km for every sortie.

On the other hand, there is another plane that carries 12 missiles with a combat radius of 1200 km and is a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) type. Because of plane’s VTOL capability the plane has to travel at least 50km for every sortie.

The later plane can stay longer at the battlefield than the first one for every sortie. Therefore, would be more effective.

For example, if you want to achieve a military goal, you may calculate the minimum presence requirement at a certain location.

With these measures, more mobile units are more advantageous while they can be relocated fast. In that sense, aerial units are superior to the land units. The biggest weakness of most aerial units is their requirement of a large airport. Stationary locations are the weakest points of an army. The more flexible the army is the more difficult to offend against it.

By looking at these criteria, I concluded that fuel-efficient low-cost VTOL bombers would play a key role on a modern army. VTOL’s would carry short range missiles to the close proximity of the target, negating the need for more expensive long-range missiles. In order to increase the VTOL count, it is best to use consumer products which are relatively cheaper and have lower operational cost.

Fighter Jet Concept Explained Further

My article on a new fighter jet concept received the highest impression among all my articles. Unfortunately, it is not well understood. I just proposed a dual-purpose fighter jet to be among the arsenal of an army. It is not a replacement of an F35. Don't forget that chess boards are composed of different type of pieces. All my military propositions are based on cost effective solutions to keep the economy stronger. Military gadgets and arsenal have no meaning without a strong economy.

The decisive military actions are achieved by missiles. The jets or drones are just the carriers of these missiles. In the age of supersonic intelligent missiles, there is less need for dog fighting jet planes. The strategy I propose is to deploy as much defensive and offensive missile as possible to the battlefield. Increasing the point of attack or defend would increase the success rate. When you outnumber an advanced fighter jet with more missile carrying planes, the advanced plane has almost no chance. During World War 2, German battleship Bismarck lost the battle against the outnumbering less capable battleships. Given all planes carry the same type of missile, more planes with more line of fire and more missile would eventually win the war.

Stealth planes are only invisible to radar waves, but they are visible to sound detectors, light sensors, thermal sensors and the satellites. When you form a virtual wall made of fuel-efficient patrolling planes that carry considerable amount of missile, the very expensive stealth planes have limited effect. Additionally, the planes are propose are more capable than all the military drones available at the moment. Their dual purpose capability is a big bonus as well.

Importantly, commercial engine-based fighter jet would have less burden on military R&D which strengthens the economy.

As a conclusion, the dual-purpose fighter jet I propose has considerable advantages over many fighter jets and drones.

New Intensive Care Proposal

My recent experience with intensive care room of a hospital was very disappointing. I can understand the priorities in an intensive care room. However, not all patients are in deep coma while staying in those rooms. In my case, my father could open his eyes and react to what he hears by his eyes and tears.

The intensive care room contains monitoring systems that frequently beeps. Think you are a patient and you have consciousness to a degree which includes hearing. A cold room with a continues beep tone do not increase one's desire to live. I have some propositions for the intensive care room.

First, the beeping system should be removed to an external monitor outside the room. There should be no periodic noise in the room. There should be small speakers on the head section of the bed. From these speakers depending on the time of the day, special sounds will be played. Humans have biological clock which cannot work properly inside these rooms. Keeping this clock tick properly, I believe is important for the healing of the patient. For example, in the morning just before the patient receives his/her first medication of the day. A soft morning sound can be played. For example, another type of sound in the middle of the day and at night. The doctors ask patients previous health record. This questionnaire can also include the patient’s favorite music and songs. An AI system would choose an appropriate music based on the information. The patient’s reactions would be monitored by the AI computer which effects the music play. Depending on the reactions, the music can be stopped or another type of music would be played. These sound and music playbacks would be conducted briefly but frequently depending on the patience' medication. When I used to travel with bus, the internal audio system would start playing a soft tune a couple of minutes before a stop. I got my inspiration from this past experience. As a result, the patient would understand that it is morning, night or time for medication. AI system should also speak with the patient like SIRI. It shouldn't be for a long time as well. All these sound interrupts would be patient specific and patient's current health.

Finally, there should be a wired video conference system attached to the side of the bed. This is to allow patient's close relatives which cannot make it to the limited meeting time or live far away. Speaking and saying nice motivating words have considerable impact on the human metabolism to overcome the illness. A patient feeling alone in a cold beeping room can hardly hold on the life. Medications should be supported with proper moral. Solely medication-based cure would have high fatality rate.

12.12.1941

Babam

Five Thumbs Don’t Make a Hand

Modern digital backed audio systems are composed of several key parts. The speakers and their acoustics, digital amplifier with DSP equalizer, electronics to select the audio source which includes the wireless connectivity like Bluetooth, computer to playback the digital content either streaming or stored audio, embedded software, internet software and mobile app. And of course, there is the business and marketing side of it (modern - selling directly online or the old way - through resellers).

With the accelerated trend of mergers and acquisitions of consumer brands, high end audio companies are now part of giant holdings. Buying companies and collecting them inside a shopping cart like in a supermarket is not that profitable. Unless, you buy brands so that they create synergy among them. Five thumbs don’t make a hand. A hand needs index finger, middle finger, ring finger and pinky finger besides the thumb.

I am a Klipsch fan. Reading bad reviews of their failed high end active speakers, made me write this article. Speakers are not perfect due to laws of physics. Therefore, combining them with any external amplifier would not yield perfect flat sound reproduction. On the other hand, coupling the speakers with onboard digital amplifiers that perfect the sound output using specially programmed DSP equalizers would give perfect flat response. This also reduces the overall cost of the hi-fi system and increases the convenience of the product which is important for many non-audiophile listeners like me.

Klipsch’s high-end Heritage active speakers are designed for this purpose. However, their electronics fail after a year or two which is unacceptable for a high-end product. Klipsch has know-how on speakers and acoustics, and not so much on the other things I stated at the beginning of my article. Ideally, the holding which bought Klipsch should have bought other companies to fill this gap to create perfect products. That is one of the reasons I keep emphasizing the importance of vertical and horizontal integration on product design. Modern technology requires more know-how for a perfect product. Unfortunately, the current trend is just the make sales without designing anything. Companies just place a badge of a brand from their portfolio on a Chinese product and sell the product as if it was designed by that brand.

With so much junk on the market, there are opportunities for the companies which develop their products properly; market and service them accordingly.

The last article I told to my father.

Lunar Exploration

I recently read that the latest lunar space suits would be designed to allow days of sustained exploration. I thought of another alternative to achieve the same goal. The explorers on earth utilize mules on their expeditions. The extraterrestrial explorers can utilize rovers and handcarts.

Extraterrestrial rover would have a pressurized cabin for the astronauts to rest and fulfill their humanitarian needs. It would have large extended solar panels to charge itself and provide power to the astronauts. It would carry the food, water and additional oxygen supply. Additionally, it would have a section for quick emergency first aid.

In addition to the rover, the astronauts would drag a handcart which would carry spare batteries and life support systems. The handcart would also house some test equipment as well as power tools to extract samples. Additionally, it would have quick repair kits for the damaged space suits.

From the specifications I defined, it is better to have a lunar lander that can move instead of a need to carry an additional rover. Lunar lander rover does not need to move fast, but should be able to give life support to the astronauts in close proximity.

The Wall Grill

In the morning in my dream, I saw my mother cooking small fish fillet on an iron. She was holding the fillet from the extending skin of the fish and pushing the fillet on the iron with her thumb.  With this method she lightly cooked both sides of the small fillet that could be placed on a sushi. Then I woke up and thought about my dream and turned it into a product, The Wall Grill.

Lately, houses are becoming smaller in big cities. As a result, the kitchens are diminishing. How about using the wall of the kitchen as a cooking surface. A slightly angled stainless steel grill surface attached to the wall. The food to be cooked would be attached to the pegs on top of the grill. It would have separate heater sections controlled by thermostatic knobs. At the bottom of the grill there would be fat collection tray that can be removed and cleaned in a dish washer. A section of the grill would house holes for steam release like in a classic iron. This would allow steam, grilled cooking.

There would also be an external grilling iron. It would be a modified iron optimized for cooking food. You would press it on the food to cook it and steam it on demand.

Underwater Pipe Organ

While listening to Xaver Varnus playing Bach’s Toccata & Fugue in The Berliner Dom, I dreamed of an underwater pipe organ fed by the gas from an underwater chimney. I got my inspiration from Captain Nemo’s organ inside the Nautilus.

Pipe organ would be played by an underwater robot. How would it sound or would it sound at all I don’t know. The whales and the dolphins would most likely hear it. Imagine them gathering around the pipe organ like inside a giant cathedral.

Here is the Music played on surface 😊

Xaver Varnus plays Toccata and Fugue in D minor (edited by Mendelssohn) on the great Sauer Organ of the Berliner Dom.

Snooker League

I like watching snooker, but seeing so many problems in the organization made me think of new ideas. Organizing open tournaments with so many players is not something I support. This is a problem of Tennis as well. I am in favor of grouping players into leagues. I propose three leagues for Snooker. The top 32 players in the 2 years list will play in a Premier League, like in Football, for a year. The next 64 will play in League 1 and the remaining will play in the Amateur League.

Premier League will have tournaments with high frame count. The players will earn points according to the frames they win. As a result, a player loosing at the decider will get much more points than the one white washed. The games won on quarter finals and beyond will award extra points. All games will be played out of 15 red balls. There will be no Shoot-Out. Each frame won will award 15 points to the player. The tournament price money will be independently determined from the points. Every tournament will award points unlike the current Masters.

League 1 will have tournaments with lower frame count. The players will earn points according to the frames they win. In addition to the classical snooker, there will be 6-10 red ball tournaments as well as multiple Shoot-Outs. Frames won on 6-10 red ball and Shoot-Out will award 10 points. Amateur League will also have similar tournaments.

The objective is to make all leagues attractive to the audience and award the players fairly.

Missile Concept

I thought of a type of missile to be used on stealth fighter planes. These planes have enclosed bomber bays. Therefore, the protrusions would limit the number of missiles that can be deployed for each mission. The missile concept I propose would utilize a ramjet instead of the most common solid rocket engines. There will be no protruding air intake, instead the air will enter the engine by Coandă effect. The missile will have gimbled nozzle for thrust vectoring. As a result, there will be no fins or wings for flight stabilization, but thrust vectoring.

The missile will consume the same fuel as the fighter jet to simplify the logistics. Higher efficiency of the ramjet compared to solid fuel rockets will increase its range for the same mass or reduce its weight for the same range.

Fighter Jet Concept

I would like to propose a family of dual-purpose (piloted and drone) fighter jet. It will be based around commercial turbofan engines. The bigger variant will be designed around a Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 engine and the smaller variant will be based around CFM International LEAP. The fuselage of the plane will not exceed the diameter of the engine. High bypass turbofan engines have a large fan in the front and narrow cross section at the back. Therefore, a tubular fuselage will allow space for fuel tank and bomb bays. Both engines I propose generate enough thrust to allow Vertical Takeoff and Landing. Much better fuel economy of a commercial engine allows longer range with less fuel.

The rear of the plane will house an afterburner for thrust boost on demand and gimbled nozzle for thrust vectoring. There will be an optional pilot bay as well. The pilot will lay down inside the bay. During takeoff and landing pilot would be in vertical position. In case of emergency, the bay will be released from the plane to save pilot’s life. Laying down position will be advantageous on high G maneuvers due to better blood circulation and less strain on the spine. The plane will also be operatable in drone mode without a pilot bay.

The plane will takeoff and land on three anchor points, one on its vertical stabilizer and the rest on each wing. VTOL operation will allow almost any ship to be an aircraft carrier and increase the launch sites outside the airports. Use of commercial engines will lower the cost of the planes and their operational cost, as well as improve their reliability.

Top-Down Rocket Design

Space exploration requires mission optimized rocket designs. A design approach that was successful for LEO missions would not necessarily be successful on high energy missions. I am referring to the two staged reusable rockets of SpaceX and similar companies. Ariane 6 has a much better approach especially for high energy missions. I would like to propose a new approach. It is a top-down designed rocket. A rocket design that would allow five or more stages. Depending on the mission, the number of stages would be chosen. For LEO satellite missions, two stages would be enough. For ISS module deployment like LEO missions three or even more stages would be utilized. For the moon four stages and for Mars, six or even more. Instead of strapping boosters around the main rocket like in Ariane design, the additional stages would be attached to the bottom of the previous one depending on the mission requirements.

This design approach would require unified propellent on all stages of the rocket. Additionally, the engines should have modular nozzles to allow easy swapping of them for optimal ambient pressure. The large rocket engine design I proposed earlier would allow this.

Ambitious space dreams require larger single use rockets. Reusability is only practical to the very first stage of any rocket and not for the upper stages.

A Large Rocket Engine

I had previously proposed rocket engines, this one is a scalable engine optimized for cryogenic propellant, liquid methane and oxygen. These propellants require pre heating for a sustainable combustion. Like in SpaceX Raptor engine, the propellant would be pe burned in order to heat them before combustion. My design puts the pre burner inside the combustion chamber. The objective is to transfer the heat inside the chamber more effectively to the propellent. This design negates the regenerative cooling channels outside the combustion chamber and the rocket nozzle. Allowing much larger combustion chambers than the current rocket engines. The problem with large combustion chambers is that the combustion efficiency decreases with the increase volume. I solve this problem with heat exchanger fins around the pre-burner. When the propellant is heated to auto ignition temperature they burn on contact. Therefore, increased heated surface inside the chamber increases the heat transfer between the gas molecules and the hot metal surface.

The pre burner, the combustion chamber and the nozzle of the engine will be made of Tungsten which has a very high melting point and still a good conductor of heat. There will be no regenerative cooling on the combustion chamber. Therefore, the internal temperature will be kept considerably below the melting point of Tungsten by pumping adequate propellant inside the chamber.

Removal of propellant pipes around the combustion chamber lowers the cost of manufacturing large combustion chambers and reduces the heat stress on the shell of the chamber. Removal of propellant pipes around the nozzle lowers the cost of manufacturing the rocket nozzle and simplifies the gimble mechanism.

Four Stage Rocket

The first stage of a rocket generates a lot of thrust which becomes too much as the fuel is depleted and the rocket gets lighter. The engines are turned off to keep the acceleration to an acceptable level. Adding more stages can be another alternative. Generate just enough thrust in each stage so that no engine needs to be turned off.

I thought of a four-stage rocket. First two stages would accelerate the rocket in earth’s atmosphere. The remaining two would mainly operate in vacuum. First two stages would have wings attached to them which would be optimized for their cruising altitude and speed. Once, one of these stages deplete their fuel, the successive stage would fire and push back the previous stage behind. This would also melt away the stage separation section. The depleted section would glide towards the sea with the help of its wings. In the meanwhile, the engine openings towards the nozzle would be sealed by polyurethane foam like material, to prevent the sea water entering the engine. The light weight empty stage would float on water once it lands on it. Then, it would be recovered by ships and refurbished for reuse. Unlike, current reusable rockets which can only be recovered on LEO missions. The rocket I propose do not require fuel to land and can be utilized on all missions, like the space shuttle.

The wings on the rocket will also allow it to take off from the ground with an angle like the planes. This also reduces the takeoff thrust requirement for the rocket.

At the moment, the rockets mainly have two stages, which I guess is not enough for deep space exploration.

Fusion Space Cuisine

Fusion cuisine is defined as "a style of cookery which blends ingredients and methods of preparation from different countries, regions, or ethnic groups; food cooked in this style". In the case of space, it is mainly space optimized cooking based on concentrated ingredients.

3D printed food produced by the TNO research center in the Netherlands, a member of the URBAN consortium investigating 3D printing in support of a lunar base. A food printer creates diversity in looks, tastes and textures from a limited set of ingredients.

The objective of 3d printed fusion cuisine is to provide space travelers with healthy, delicious and nice-looking food with minimum cargo requirement. I personally do not find feeding space travelers with freshly harvested vegetables and fruits. This method would be too bulky and cumbersome for weight conscious rocketry. It is best to send the dry extracts as nutrition and hydrate them with recycled water. The scent and food colorant wood also be included in concentrated forms to keep the moral and physiological wellbeing of the travelers by influencing them visually and olfactory (sense of smell).

Lunar Solar Corona Explorer

The solar eclipse is an ideal time to study sun’s corona. It is the moon’s shadow blocking the strong solar rays to allow the instruments to detect subtle changes without saturation. A lunar orbiting satellite can also achieve this even better. As the satellite orbits the moon, it would experience solar eclipse many times.  It would be a much better observation while there would be no obstruction like the earth’s atmosphere. The farthest the satellite is from the moon, the slower it would orbit and make much better observations. The satellite would also double as a communication relay for the surface instruments as well.

A simpler version of this idea was implemented by two satellites orbiting in formation. The one in front casting shadow like solar eclipse on the following satellite. Proba-3’s first artificial solar eclipse 

Sightseeing Plane

I got my inspiration from the airships attached to the top of the skyscrapers. The sightseeing plane would be a multi-wing plane to allow very low stall speeds like an airship. The passengers unlike a traditional plane would be seated in front of the plane. All seats would be front seats. The seats will rotate around. Therefore, there will be no need for aisles between the seats. The design is based on high aspect ratio wings. The passenger cabin of the plane will also follow the design of the wings. This would induce a high drag like in airships. However, utilizing multiple wings and lowering the cruise speed would reduce the drag to allow the plane to be airborne. The wings of the plane would accommodate low profile lithium batteries. The plane would be propelled by brushless motors with large propellers. This would lower the noise of the propellers and the motors compared to high-speed small propellers used on drones.

The sightseeing plane would be launched from a suspension bridge supported by vertical wind turbine towers. Once the plane’s motors reach the cruising speed, the plane would be released from the suspension bridge. As the plane descents down the ground, it would generate lift and fly higher. After the plane is released, the cranes on top of the suspension bridge would lower hooks on the ground. Then, grasp another plane on the ground and raise it to the top for a new launch.

Once the flight is complete, the plane will approach the bridge and let the hooks grasp it. Low cruising speed of the plane will allow this. Once the plane is grasped, the motors will be shot down and the plane will be lowered to the ground. The passengers will board and disembark from the plane on the ground.

The vertical wind turbine towers will generate electricity for the planes and to the city. In very windy days, there would be no flight, but a lot of electricity generated by the towers.

Nuclear Energy Strategy

After reading the article and the comments on “Westinghouse shifts eVinci microreactor focus away from commercial applications.” I decided to write this article. It seems small nuclear power plants distributed around the country is not feasible. Instead, the nuclear plants should be build larger and concentrated on few strategic locations. However, building nuclear plants in small sections is still a valid argument. At the moment nuclear power is mainly used by developed nations which have an average government lifetime less than four years. An energy project with first outcomes appearing after four years is not very attractive by the politicians.  Therefore, the next generation nuclear power plants should be able to produce some electricity within first few years of the project start. They may reach their full capacity much later, no problem.

It is important for a nation’s sovereignty to depend less on exported energy and raw materials. Producing excess energy using nuclear power is critical in my point of view. If it is not possible to produce nuclear energy in distributed locations, then the centralized high energy centers should be distributing the excess energy around the country. Aluminum power cables would be ideal in creating such network. Aluminum is abundant on earth's crust and its cost is mainly electricity. I recommend the nuclear plants to be built in close proximity to aluminum production locations. Excess energy would be stored as processed aluminum. Energy intense industries should also be nearby. In the old times such industries would be located close to the coal mining sites. Therefore, the new nuclear plants should be located close to the coal mining sites. One additional benefit of this is excess nuclear energy can be used to gasify the coal which can be fed into the existing natural gas pipelines.

Developed nations export natural gas which enter the country from a handful of locations. As a result, high energy nuclear plants can also distribute their immense energy to the whole country from few locations.

Future is Unmanned :)

After seeing “The Future is Unmanned” on a person’s profile in LinkedIn, I decided to write this article. AI with limited intelligence could have interpreted this phrase as “There would be no men in the future”. In reality, men are going nowhere, it’s just their location is changing. From the cockpit of an airplane to a chair inside a control room on the ground. They even have the same title, Pilot. More interestingly, autonomous technologies require more men. Such robots are complex compared to cockpit-ted ones and require more men hour in the development. Of course, once they are designed, they require much less men during manufacturing.

If the future is unmanned, then what will happen to all these men continuing to be born. What will happen to all those billions? Will robots work instead of men to keep men alive? Is the time coming for humanity to reduce its population voluntarily?

The nature finds its equilibrium at the end. The nature does not require humans to survive not the opposite. If we keep increasing our numbers, the nature will reduce it for us at the end and the Future will be really unmanned.

Universal Power Supply for Electronics

This one was an old idea. I wanted to record it as well. With so many different AC plugs globally, there is a need for standardized power plug for low power electronics. At the moment USB is used for this purpose and it is a mass. The plug I propose is only for power transfer not for data communication. It is a classic barrel type plug. They can be plugged in any orientation with grounded outside for safety. The major difference is the insulator layer which is not a black plastic but a light transparent insulator. The purpose of it is low bandwidth optical communication. When there is no load on the plug, the output voltage defaults to 3.3V. Once the plug is inserted into a socket, the socket send signal over the optical section to adjust the voltage. The current limit as well as voltage can be set by the receiving end. As a result, the power adaptor utilizing this plug can provide up to 50 volts to an electronics device. It is a more versatile and future proof system compared to resistively set chaotic standards of USB. It is best to send power and data separately over dedicated cables. There can be special combo cables that have both cables attached side by side for convenience. For data communication I opt for optical instead of copper cables.

Sustainable Hi-Fi Platform

If you are interest in Hi-Fi, I recommend you watch XrayTonyB YouTube channel. Especially his video on damping factor is very informative. When you watch the video, you learn that no speaker is perfect and amplifiers don’t match perfectly with every speaker. As a result, I believe that a true hi-fi of today should be a modular active speaker. We don’t need the clutter of old hi-fi components. Today, the audio and video are digital and don’t require physical medium to reproduce them.

The sustainable hi-fi platform I propose will be based on standardized modules attached inside hi-fi speakers. Each speaker will be driven with a dedicated amplifier. This dedication will be based on the characteristic of the speaker, not just it's ohm value.

Digital music will be streamed into the hi-fi via USB, HDMI (ARC), optical, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. The DAC, digital stream processors and the wireless transceivers will be removable modules. As a result, changes in technology will not make the system obsolete. The consumers will be able to upgrade their system more economically over time.

The speakers will have removable casing to meet consumer esthetics. As a result, the manufacturers will not need to stock expensive powered speakers based on their color. The casings would be stocked which will be much cheaper than the electronic parts.

Placing everything inside the large speaker case negates the need for expensive audio cables and connectors, as well as external amplifiers, streamers and their cable clutter. Only one of the speakers within a system will house DAC, digital stream processor and the wireless transceivers. The rest of the speakers will be connected to the main speaker via special cable which carries electricity as well as the digital audio signal for the specific speaker.

Each speaker case will house detailed schematics of electronics and mechanics of the speaker to assist future servicing of the products. I got my inspiration from old radios where such schematics would be sticked inside the casing. Unlike the old ones, the schematics will be printed on long lasting coated papers.

Once the standards are properly defined, the result would an upgradable Hi-Fi system like the upgradable desktop PCs.

The Apple Way

My experience with Apple had many ups and downs from the first day. In 2009, I decided to develop iPhone app and bought my first iPhone and iMac. In order to register as a developer, I had to fill a form and fax it to USA in the year 2009. At least they didn’t request me to send the registration via post 😊. Additionally, the support and the way things operated behind the doors shaped my thoughts about the company. A luxury restaurant with an out-of-date kitchen. In 2011, I bought an iPad for my sister from an Apple store in Big Apple, NYC. I provided my credit card as a payment method and had to sign the virtual payment slip on an iPad with my fingers. The finger drawn figures on the screen by no means resembled my signatures but they accepted it. A month ago, I bought an external hard disk drive from Apple Turkey’s website. The online shopping page was leagues behind the mainstream. More importantly, even after a month of purchasing the product, I still do not have a receipt. I tried to contact the online and phone help. However, the person who answered me on the phone was very rudely hang up the phone and I couldn’t resolve my problem. The company only provides technical support nothing else. I tried to contact the retail shops and they divert me to the online help. Within the warranty period, if my product malfunctions I don’t have an official receipt to request for a warranty. I am glad that I didn’t bought an expensive Apple product online. At least I can throw away the disk if it fails. Green Apple with prehistoric operations, I have nothing to say more…

Auto Union

I would like to broaden my proposition for elderly care to automotive industry as well. If Europe wants to reduce the waste on their land and reduce carbon footprint of their manufacturing facilities, they need to define and mandate standards on parts that make up a car.

At the moment almost all car manufacturers own several brands and these brands share a lot of parts between them. I propose this point of view to be broadened. Not all parts need to be standardized, but the ones that are defined would have several quality levels which are also standardized. As a result, the manufacturers and the consumers would be free to select the quality themselves. The car modules would be defined by their percentage compliance with the standards, e.g. This car is manufactured using 20% Auto Union parts. This standard would cover the software of the cars as well. At the moment Europe heavily depends on exported operating systems and computer architecture and processors. For example, the car computer and entertainment systems, all depend on exported hardware and software.

The definition of green manufacturing should not be limited to proprietary parts produced out of recycled plastic or less material. A proper green manufacturing must rely on the life of a product. Fast degrading or depreciating products are by no means green. Additionally, wasting resources (raw material, employee time and energy) on manufacturing non-standard products is by no means green.

Sustainable Elderly Care

Anyone who is supporting elderly people knows that they require special equipment (wheelchair, patient bed, oxygen generator…) on their final days. The usable days of such equipment is unknown. Therefore, people usually do not want to buy very expensive models and opt for cheap ones. Most of these cheap products are not serviceable and cannot be used by more than one person due to their poor quality. This leads to more landfill.

My proposition for developed nations, especially for Europe, is to design and standardized such devices. The objective is to make these equipment 100% serviceable and modular with standardized dimensions and connections. Once such products are produced, they would be rented to individuals. The users would make payments as long as they keep using them. Some or all of this rent cost can be compensated by the social system of the country or the insurance firms. When the user stops using the equipment, it would be renovated at a servicing center. In order to reduce the waste generated during the renovation, appropriate materials should be selected in the design.

Once such system is formed, the people who requires such equipment would benefit the most while they would be using higher quality products at a reasonable cost and don’t need to consider the aftermath when they no longer require them. Additionally, much less waste would be generated over the years which also lowers the energy requirement to manufacture them.

Footprint of Tournaments

Today I was watching Snooker Xi'an Grand Prix and the commentor mentioned that the player had to pay a large amount of money to alter his flight date because he had wined his previous game and progressed on the tournament. Snooker is an individual sports where the income is based on one's success on the tournaments. Most of these tournaments are organized in England and China. These two countries have quite distance between them. As a result, any flight from one country to the other costs really high. Most players don't earn that much money to compensate these travel cost. My proposition for World Snooker Tour is to form a tournament calendar to minimize the travel costs. At the moment, an Asian tournament is followed by a British one. At some extremes, like the one this week, a tournament at the heart of China is followed by Northern Ireland. Which requires at least three connecting flights to reach from one destination to the other.

My recommendation is to organize all Chinese tournaments one after the other followed by the ones at Thailand and then the ones at Arabic peninsula then England and its surroundings. As a result, a player can travel from one destination to the other with a single flight and at a lower cost. Funny thing at the moment, depending on the tournament stage, an unexpected win for a player would cost money because a flight change and extra stay at the hotel surpasses the amount earned.

My proposition is valid for other sports events as well. Unfortunately, latest sports events require more and more travelling. This contradicts with the latest global warming movement especially in Europe. All these sports federations are filled with European executives and they make such decisions.

Hybrid Bi-Amping

People like tube amplifiers because of their softer tones at higher frequencies. At lower frequencies this effect is less pronounced. More importantly, due to audio transformers used on tube amps, the lower frequencies are less amplified. The high-end Hi-Fi speakers usually support bi-amping. Therefore, high frequency section of the speaker can be driven independent of the mid to lower frequency section of the speaker. I would like to propose a hybrid bi-amp to create the lovely soft tones of a tube amp with a much efficient and economical way.

My design solves three major problems. First, the low frequencies would be better amplified using transistor amplifiers compared to tube counterparts which are less affected by the tube’s tonality. Second, high frequencies do not need high power amplifiers. Therefore, the tube amplifier can be designed with much less power output which reduces the cost. Third, output audio transformers of the tube amplifier can be optimized for a narrower frequency range to lower cost and improve tonality.

The input signal would be pre-amplified using tube amplifiers. Then the amplified signal would be split into high and low frequencies using a cross-over network. The lower frequencies would be power amplified by efficient push pull amplifiers without coupling capacitors or transformers to output even the lowest frequencies, 20 Hz. The highs would be power amplified using a single ended tube amplifier, e.g. by KT-88, to create the beautiful tones of a single ended amplifier. Coupled with highly efficient horn speakers, e.g. Klipsch horns, they would produce really powerful highs with minimal input.

Hybrid Media Player

After the Millennium, technological advancements virtualized many things. However, humans still have five senses. We need to touch, feel and see. That’s why in the age of digitalization the sales of vinyl have increased. At the moment only CD and Vinyl have new releases. I would like to propose a hybrid media player to satisfy contemporary users’ demand. It would be an all-in-one product. Bringing back the advancements of turntable of 80s, CD players of 90s and streaming music of the Millennium.

People buy vinyl to see the physical media while listening to their favorite music. That’s why I propose a vertical turntable. I got my inspiration from Sony PS-F9. This allows the specially designed vinyl surface to be visible by the listener. Additionally, the turntable will have dual needle to be able to play both sides of the vinyl without the need for user flipping them over. Additionally, high end linear turntables of 70s and 80s could identify the tracks on a vinyl. However, their old detection mechanism doesn’t work on clear vinyl. I propose the advanced optical mouse technology to be adapted for this task. Some optical mouses can even work on glass surfaces, so they can also identify the tracks of a clear vinyl. As a result, the turntable would work in a similar fashion like a CD player.

For the CD player section of the media player, I propose a DVD writer mechanism. This allows all audio disc formats to be read including DVD Audio. The choice of a writer allows much longer laser life and ability to read rewritable discs with a high success rate.

The front section of the player will have two rotatable RGB spot lights. This would expose the effects overlayed on the latest LP records. There would optional accessories such as big analog VU meters attached in front of the player.

The media player will have on board amplifiers. The vinyl section will utilize an analog amplifier and the digital section a digital amplifier. Most importantly, the player will have a proper computer on board to play all audio formats developed so far. Once you read all the content on a compact disk, decoding the content is just software. It is sad to see latest CD players that cannot read many advanced audio disk formats and even CD text. If there is a license for a format, that cost can be charged to the end user.

The player will have dual Bluetooth (one for remote controlling the player, one for Bluetooth Audio connection) and Wi-Fi connectivity (for streamed audio).

Short Range Electric Boat

I would like to propose an electric passenger boat that operates at short distances like the ones in Bosphorus. Since the Titanic tragedy, the passenger ships have double hull. My proposed ship will have its inner hull made of aluminum capacitors. I had previously proposed such a structure for the wind turbines. Aluminum plates separated by aluminum oxide insulator layers. This plywood-like structure is very strong and comparably easy to manufacture. The oxide layer would be adjusted to allow optimum voltage difference between the plates. These capacitor plates would be connected to one another via insulated frames and fuse-able connectors. Therefore, if one section shorts, the fuse would protect the remainder sections.

As a result, large structure of the boat is used as an energy storage medium which has a much longer life than chemical batteries. This setup would only provide limited power which would only work for short ranges. The boat would be charged at every dock. The capacitor storage would allow rapid charging and can be charged many times without degradation.

This idea can be extended to other vehicles as well which would operate at short distances and can be frequently recharged.

Details of International Underwater Station

A submarine hull has two major components, the superstructure and the pressure hull. The superstructure of a submarine is the outer non-watertight hull which provides a hydrodynamically efficient shape. The pressure hull is the inner hull of a submarine that resists sea pressure and maintains the submarine’s structural integrity at operating depth. I propose a double pressure hull design for the International Underwater Station (IUS) while it doesn't need to travel at high speeds. In order to increase the usable space and maintain buoyance, the hulls of the submarine will be made of concrete filled steel structures. Manufacturing big steel structures is a mature technology for ship building. This will allow low-cost building of a big submarine that can operate at considerably high depths. Concrete has a high compressive strength and can be easily used to fill the void between the steel double hull. A special composition of concrete should be used for this purpose. The concrete would also seal the leaks that may occur on the superstructure. With special composition, they would resist the corrosive sea water better than most metals. The additional weight of the concrete would also allow more hollow space inside. Heavy weight and larger dimensions would also increase the stability of the underwater research station.

IUS would have hatches to allow additional submarines to be attached to each other like in ISS. Each IUS section would have emergency rescue spheres that would take the occupants to the surface in case of an emergency. Additionally, any damaged section would be released from the rest to maintain the operation of the IUS.

IUS would accommodate small submarines for humans as well as tethered robots. This would allow detailed inspection of tight spaces. Samples gathered by these inspections would be analyzed at the onboard laboratories.