Lagrangian Stereo Space Telescopes

After seeing Dr. Brian May's Cosmic Clouds 3D Book, I thought about stereo space telescopes. How fascinating it would be to deploy two space telescopes on the fourth and fifth Lagrange points. Initially on the Earth-Moon and then on the Sun-Earth.

"Lagrangian points L4 and L5 lie at 60° ahead of and behind the Moon in its orbit with respect to the Earth. These Lagrangian points are stable for the Earth-Moon mass ratio. As so, these Lagrangian points represent remarkable positions to host astronomical observatories or space stations." (Alternative transfer to the Earth-Moon Lagrangian points L4 and L5 using lunar gravity assist)

I propose my Yurt Rocket design to deploy these telescopes.

Defragmented vs Standardized Approach to Space

Independent approaches to Earth observations and scientific researches fill the LEO with chaotic mass, like the interiors of an old tube radio. If we want to generate less space debris and pollute Earth less with frequent rocket launches, we should be more organized, like the interiors of a qaulity amplifier.

Too much defragmentation...

The Space Hypes

The Space encourages our imagination and on the other hand we live in reality. Dreaming is something, putting tax payers money and valuable human resources on dreams is something else.

I keep reading more on more on space mining. It is an infeasible dream. Earth has all the minerals we need. Earth is full of abandoned mines and millions of tons of landfill waiting to be recycled.

The movies are full of fantastic spaceship designs. The spaceship reality in the past seven decades is shown below. At the end of the day, for almost a century the spaceships are giant gas tanks with couple of instruments attached on them. Additionally, they leave big junks behind on their journey.

If we want to see radical changes in Space, we need vertically integrated big organizations that keep experimenting new ideas. Startups are driven by venture capitalists who want maximum return on their investment in minimum time with minimum risk. As a result seeing radical designs from them is almost impossible. They wouldn't get funded and have enough resources to innovate multiple new components that make up a radical change.

The Space Portal and The Sea

I want to take my Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) idea one step further.

A space portal situated on a shore would generate the required fuel for a space flight except for the mini Nukes. Offshore wind turbines would be used to generate hydrogen and oxygen from the sea water to be used in the first stage of the rocket. Later stages would utilize the NTP and liquified air as the mono propellent. Liquified air would also be generated by the offshore wind turbines.

This space portal would only launch high energy missions such as Geostationary Satellite deployment, lunar and planetary missions. The second and later stages of the rocket are not recovered in those missions. Therefore, no risk of radioactive space debris to fall on Earth.

The first stage of the rocket would directly lift it to the ionosphere with no lateral speed. Then, the second stage would be fired and the first stage would free fall to Earth with parachutes attached. Due to vertical only displacement, the stage would fall close to the launch site where it would be recovered for reuse.

Emitting radioactive gas from the second stage above the ionosphere is not a big risk for the Earth. The ionosphere is bombarded with Sun's radiation and is already full of high energy particles. As the rocket increases it's distance from the Earth, the risk would be reduced considerably. The magazines containing the mini Nukes can be made of fire proof materials that can be safely recovered in case of an accident.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

I want to further detail my Nuke based space exploration idea. You can simply think of it as dropping Mentos inside a cola bottle. Instead of Mentos, a tiny Nuke is dropped. The end result is the same, pressurized carbon dioxide. Mentos rocket would not generate enough thrust but a Nuke can. Most probably during the Cold War area such miniature Nukes have been developed just to scare and panic people. Generating pulses of burst energy reliably for long durations, open up the door for human planetary missions. The most important part is that, the technology to achieve it is already available. Some of the stock piled Nukes can be converted into tiny Space Nukes reducing the Nuclear threat on Earth and increasing the success of the Space Exploration.

Pressurized carbon dioxide based thrust allows aerospike nozzles to be used instead of bulky vacuum optimized bell shaped nozzles. Bulky bell shaped nozzles can easily be damaged during landing which would end the mission. The aerospike nozzles protrude very little from the rocket bottom. The lack of combustion (compared to traditional rockets) near the nozzle, allow simpler aerospikes that do not require complex cooling schemes. Finally, the removal of bulky bell shaped nozzles, free up space in the payload area to be utilized for something useful. 

Additionally, the pressurized carbon dioxide gas can be used to turn turbines to generate high power electricity. An alternative to Peltier based nuclear batteries.

Mars Sample Retrieval

The distance between Mars and Earth varies between 55 to 401 million km. Mars is closest to Earth every 780 days. If we want to explore Mars further, planning missions every 2 years is not an option. We should be able to launch missions more frequently. In the worst case 400 million km is not that much if we want to explore the solar system further. Saturn's moon Titan is more than a billion km away from Earth.

I propose a four stage rocket for Mars missions. The first two stages would be classical rockets that launch geostationary satellites. The third and the fourth stages will have Nuclear-Thermal-Propulsion (NTP). Unlike the NTP's developed earlier (see image below), I propose a much simpler and reliable design.

NTP I propose uses tiny gun-type fission bombs that are activated by explosives. These bombs are simple in design and do not require complex timing circuitry of plutonium implosion type. The idea is to heat liquid carbon dioxide to generate high pressure gas using nuclear fission. The Nukes are more efficient, reliable, simpler, smaller and lighter in generating heat from fission compared to much complex nuclear reactors.

The mono propellent, solid carbon dioxide (dry ice) will be partially liquified and poured inside the pressure chamber. Then from a magazine, a pill sized Nuke will be dropped inside. After a chemically delayed explosion, the fission reaction will pressurize the carbon dioxide gas. Which will then be exhausted from the aerospike engines to generate thrust. In order to generate continuous thrust, two pressure chambers will be used in succession. Interplanetary missions require engines that can be fired multiple times. My design allows that.

The third stage of the rocket will put the rocket into Earth to Mars trajectory. The fourth stage will slow down the rocket for landing on Mars. After the landing, a robot will gather the samples. In the meanwhile the rocket's dry ice maker (powered by nuclear batteries) will refuel the dry ice tank from the Martian atmosphere which is mostly carbon dioxide. Partially filled tank can lift the rocket from ground and let it fly over distant terrain to collect more samples before returning to Earth. Once the sample collection ends, the dry ice tank can be fully loaded. Then the rocket can lift off and start it's return journey.

Monks for Space Colonization

As Charles Darwin had stated, those who survive are the ones who most accurately perceive their environment and successfully adapt to it. The resources of space colonies will be much limited compared to resources on Earth. The modern humans require so many things to keep them motivated and happy. With limited resources and confined spaces, the probability that the modern humans will be depressed in the long run is high.

On the other hand, the monks discipline their souls over the years. They adapt themselves to live with minimum resources. They require very little to stay motivated and happy. They also have strong relation with the nature and the plants which is important for space colonials as well.

There are astronaut training facilities in the wild. Living in such environments for several months can be enough for ISS, but not for Mars and beyond.

I propose Space Monasteries to raise future space colonials. This would take time so as the technology to establish the colonies.

Leslie Speaker in ISS

I was watching a video on Leslie Speakers and I thought. How a Leslie Speaker would sound in ISS. Creating a concert room effect in confined space. Floating around as it rotates.

Micro² Gravity Space Station and Production Facility

In the movie Men In Black, The Arquilian Galaxy fits inside a necklace. That inspired me. Does everything related with space has to be big? We have CubeSats for example.

Why don't we build a space station to make micro gravity researches that can fit inside a space capsule. We have Lab-on-a-Chip technology and advanced MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems). Instead of making research in grams we can make the micro gravity research in micro grams scale. Reduced scale would require less power that can be supplied from nuclear batteries. 

The objective of this idea is to decrease the size of the space station so that it can be deployed with smaller rockets. Additionally smaller size (lack of large solar panels) reduces the probability of a space debris impact. The capsule design (including the heat shields) allows the station to be safely recovered after its useful lifetime with no space and earth debris. Additionally, micro gravity manufacturing and recovery would be possible at a lower cost.

Holographic Humans for Space

Sending humans to space is a very challenging task. Why don't we send holographic humans instead?

Like Arnold Rimmer of Red Dwarf

Sliding Sectioned Solid Rocket (SSSR)

Solid Rockets have many cons and pros. I thought about an idea to overcome one of its cons. As the solid propellent burns, the interior volume increases due to void of the consumed propellent. This decreases the interior pressure and the thrust. If the combustion can be kept within a confined space like the combustion chamber of a liquid rocket engine, the specific impulse of the rocket which is it's efficiency can be increased.

My idea is to divide the solid propellent into sections. Like shown on the diagram. For aluminum based  solid propellants, aluminum separators can be used. These separators keep the combustion on the lowest section of the rocket only.  As the lowest section is consumed the weight of the upper stages keeps the combustion area small. With the intense heat generated by the combustion, the separator vaporizes and ignites the immediate upper solid propellent. The thickness of the separator determines the timing of each sections burn time.

The solid rocket boosters have very thick walls because of high pressure inside. With the Sliding Sectioned Solid Rocket design, only the lowest section of the rocket needs thick walls. The rest of the stage can be much thinner while the solid unburned propellent can keep its form unlike the liquid propellants. As a result, the overall weight of the rocket would be reduced and the efficiency is increased.

During stage separation, the outer walls of the first stage would act like a barrel of a cannon which would repel the first stage (slowing it down) and transfer more forward momentum on the second stage compared to traditional rocket designs. The consumed stage would then free fall to earth with parachute attached for recovery and reuse. 

Magnesium can be used instead of aluminum as the section separator. Magnesium is lighter, stronger and has lower boiling point than aluminum.

İbrahim's Way Of Solving Problems

I want to summarize how do I come up with feasible solutions that can be rapidly implemented.

I think iteratively. I start from the origin (current position) and think toward the main objective. As I face obstacles, I search for alternative ways and even return back to the origin. I don't restrict myself with current solutions. I propose extraordinary solutions and look for strength and weaknesses of them. When I spot a strength, I search other things that have the same strength, but lack the weakness. Also, I try to overcome the weaknesses by adding some other things to the solution without overcomplicating too much. This going forward and backward form the iterations. The key is to take the extraordinary paths.

I try to eliminate complicated parts in a solution and break them into smaller less complex parts. Also try to come up with solutions that allow parallel paths to implementation. Eliminating complex problems and enhancing the parallelism, speed up the implementation of the solution.

If we analyze my Yurt Rocket design. It just requires propellent tanks which is a mature technology and can be mass produced. The rocket operates with less powerful and less complex engines that can be 3d printed allowing fast iterations. The payload section can almost independently be developed again by using mature manufacturing technologies and don't require exotic raw materials. The design allows easy scalability of the rocket by adding more sections around a larger belt. This is impossible with classical rockets. You have to design every one of them from ground up.

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. 

Doomsday Electronics For Space

Modern society heavily rely on electronics that have sophisticated manufacturing processes. It is almost impossible to manufacture electronics on the Moon or Mars where humanity is planning to colonize.

I propose the development of vacuum tube based electronics in space, on a robotic space station. These tubes are still used in microwave ovens and x-ray devices. With vacuum tubes you can make almost everything; high energy devices (x-ray, microwave), radio transceivers, cameras, displays and guitar amplifiers :).

The space is vacuum, therefore the tubes can be designed without a glass shield and most probably smaller. These devices are more resistant to space radiation compared to delicate nanometric electronics. They can be used in some space missions as well. 

On the packaging it would write: Made In Space, Use Only In Space

Scientific Space Strategy?

The latest scientific missions to the Moon made me think. What is the strategy of scientific research in Space? The goals are very ambitious, but the road to achieve them are not that great.

At the moment most of the research is conducted by individual satellites and explorer landers or rovers. The investment on infrastructure has the least priority. Billions of dollars and thousands of hours of human effort are spend for years to conduct several days of research. Obtaining those information a couple years earlier and waiting again for several years to obtain more is an inefficient way of making research in my point of view. In internet I haven't seen any discussion on the efficiency of the scientific space strategy.

I propose an alternative approach for space exploration. Establishing the infrastructure should be the top priority. The scientific experiments can wait a couple of years. After a proper infrastructure is established, the experiments would be conducted more frequently and effectively. The lunar polar communication relay system and satellite sun reflectors to power robots at lunar nights could have been developed by now. Then a climbing robotic lunar explorer could have been send on the south pole to verify the existence of ice.

Space agencies find it more logical and feasible to send humans for space exploration such as Artemis project, then developing a space exploration robot that would outperform humans in every aspect. Agencies keep developing wheeled rovers for surface exploration. The situation is like the pre-iPhone era. Telecom companies kept adding buttons on mobile phones until iPhone. Now the phones have no buttons. I am waiting for that Space Apple to come up with a proper space robot. The sad part of the story is, we don't even have such robots to be used on Earth explorations. With the money and effort spend on the development of toppled lunar landers, a proper extraterrestrial landing technology could have been developed to increase the success rate of future missions.

Is the strategy, every commercial firm should invent the wheel over and over again.

Does It Worth Recovering The Rocket Upper Stages?

The answer is no! If you analyzes the successful rockets such as Saturn V and Falcon 9, you would find that their upper stages' dry mass are way lighter than the payload they carry. Optimizing an upper stage for recovery decreases the payload capacity considerably. Therefore the gain of recovering is highly offset by the payload penalty. Additionally, the reliability becomes a big problem as seen on the exploding Starships.

Also, note that the recovery is only possible for LEO deployments. GTO missions and beyond do not allow upper stage recovery. Designing a rocket is a long process and heading for the wrong direction has major implications.

Polar Orbiting Earth Observation Planes (POEOP)

Earth observation satellites are critical for many reasons which is another topic. My proposition is an alternative to those satellites, using hydrogen powered VTOL planes that can fly at higher altitudes.

There are fully solar powered planes, but they are very fragile and cannot carry advance sensors due to weight limitation.  An efficient hydrogen powered plane with solar panels on the other hand can carry more weight. These planes will refuel on offshore floating wind farms. These wind farms will use the electricity generated to electrolyze the sea water and store the resulting hydrogen to refuel the observation planes. VTOL capability will allow the planes to land on the offshore refueling stations safely.

As the number of observation planes increase, they can be used as communication relays as well. The polar route allows less number of planes to cover the whole world. Unlike satellites that have limited propellent, the planes route and altitude can be altered to conduct more advanced research.

Space-Based Solar Power for the Moon

After reading the article on Astrostrom's Space Option Star in Equatorial Low Earth Orbit. I thought about using this know-how on the Moon.

At the moment main energy source on the Moon is sunlight. Lunar nights are two weeks long and getting sunlight at the poles is quite difficult. Astrostrom's satellite technology can be used on the Moon to direct the sunlight to the poles of the Moon. These Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP) satellites would increase the operability of the Moon explorers even at Lunar nights.

Astrostrom at Soleil-s – the 2nd Solar Biennale

Satellite Space Sharing

In the last decade house sharing, car sharing and other means of sharing have increased with positive return for the society. How about space sharing within a satellite?

For example, governments may come up with satellite designs that have some build in infrastructures which would be shared among the extended modules. The institutions such as universities would build modules that would be a part of this satellite. Therefore, they wouldn't need to deal with complicated task to orbit and maintain a satellite. As a result more institutions can reach space and more research can be conducted at a much lower cost. Renting a room versus renting the whole house. Don't forget maintaining a satellite on orbit is not an easy task. Which would be delegated to the main satellite operator.

How Green are the Green Rocket Engines?

After reading an article about the Multi Purpose Green Engine (MPGE), I suddenly realized one thing. What is a green rocket fuel? Is it a propellant combination with no carbon emission like hydrogen and oxygen? It is actually no. A true green rocket fuel has the minimum overall carbon footprint. You cannot ignore the carbon production during the manufacturing of those propellants.

Around 12 kilograms of CO₂ are emitted into the atmosphere for every kilogram of hydrogen produced. “Blue” hydrogen, which combines this process with carbon capture, emits three to five kilograms of CO₂ per kilogram of hydrogen. The blue hydrogen is also misleading. The carbon capturing processes have also a carbon footprint. Nothing is free in life. Actually, the more you complicate the process, the more carbon you emit.

Therefore a fuel with minimum processing is the ideal fuel. In this case natural gas and methane are the ideal rocket fuels.

Standardized Satellites For Efficient Space Deployment

Deploying satellites to space is not cheap and there is a long que on the launch schedules. There are quite many satellite designing companies with different objectives. I propose the standardization of some satellite designs such that they can be stacked more dense. Look at the images below. They are both from the SpaceX payload bay. The one on the left is the mix satellites on a rideshare launch, the one on the right is a Starlink launch.

LEGO like standardized dimensions and attachment points can be defined. So that on a rideshare launch more satellites can be deployed. In logistics the cost is calculated based on the weight and volume. The standardization would lower the deployment costs and standardized parts can be manufactured cheaper, lowering the satellite development cost.

 

Sustainable Mobile Space Portal

Space portals are built close to the shores where the East direction is open sea and the nearby population is low. West Europe is unlucky in that sense. French Guiana is quite far away for logistics. Europe may build sustainable mobile space portals using specially build aircraft carriers. Initially smaller, LEO deploying rockets can be launched from the mobile portal. As the technology matures much bigger versions can be build. This idea requires special rocket and aircraft carrier design.

The rocket would be three staged. The first stage would be a rocket powered plane that would be launched from the carrier. Horizontal take off requires approximately ten percent of the thrust compared to a vertical one like the classical rockets do (Lifting power of air do most of the work). Utilizing multi-wing design increases the lift capability and reduces the runway distance. Coupled with the catapults of the carrier, the rocket can be launched from a special aircraft carrier. The first stage would lift the rocket to 30-40 km altitude and release the second stage there. The second and third stages of the rocket would have classical rocket design. The first stage would than glide back and land on the carrier. The second and third stages would be recovered using The Catcher In The Fly, I had proposed earlier. All the rocket stages will utilize hydrogen as fuel and oxygen as the oxidizer.

The aircraft carrier will also utilize hydrogen as its fuel. Its catapult will work using hydrogen oxygen reaction. The carrier will supply its hydrogen fuel and supplementary oxygen from the offshore wind farms that generate and store hydrogen and oxygen. Floating wind farms can be deployed anywhere because they will only generate and store hydrogen and oxygen. Therefore, they don't need to be connected to land electric grid.

The rocket parts will be transported to the Mobile Space Portal using the first stage, heavy lift plane, of the rocket. The rocket parts transportation, launch facility and the rocket itself will only use hydrogen and oxygen which would be generated from the offshore floating wind farms. 

As a result, End-To-End Space Launch process would have much less Carbon footprint.

Wind Farms For Natural Gas To Hydrogen Transition

Europe has invested billions of Euros for their extensive natural gas pipeline network. Consuming natural gas became problematic in the recent years due to its origin.  On the other hand Europe is heavily investing on the offshore wind farms.  I propose the building of new generation of wind farms that generate hydrogen and oxygen. The offshore pipelines carrying these gases would than be connected to the existing natural gas pipelines. There are already some ports that have natural gas pipelines connected to the main network. These ports receive Liquified Natural Gas from big tankers. These ports can be used to pump hydrogen to the main natural gas network. The natural gas pipelines can be used to transport hydrogen as stated on an article. "Just like natural gas, hydrogen can be safely transported to the end user by pipeline. The HyWay 27 study shows that the existing natural gas network can be used for the transport of hydrogen, and that this is a necessity in the energy transition." (Hydrogen through natural gas pipelines: safe and sustainable)

During transitioning phase some regions may use hydrogen and natural gas mixture. The HyBlend initiative aims to address technical barriers to blending hydrogen in natural gas pipelines. (Opportunities for Hydrogen Blending in Natural Gas Pipelines)

The wind farms would also generate oxygen which is a raw material used by many industries including healthcare.

Electric Generation from Heat

(I came up with this idea on the early days of October 2024)

A new method of generating electricity using thermionic emission is proposed. The idea is collecting potentially elevated electrons using thermionic emission, quantum tunneling and controlled electric field. The system composes of 6 layers and a special electronic circuitry.

Overall Design: The heat source is thermally insulated on the sides and on the top by the electric generating system. The main source of heat dissipation for the system should be through the emission of electrons.

Layer 1: The purpose of this layer is to form the mechanical base of the electric generating system. It should be good conductor of heat and electricity. Copper or Aluminum can be used for this layer. The ground potential of the system is connected to this layer.

Layer 2: The purpose of this layer is to emit electrons that will determine the electric generation capacity of the system. A low work function metal should be used. Sodium or Potassium can be used. This layer should be as thin as possible. This allows higher emission. These metals are not good at heat transfer so a thicker layer would be less effective.

Layer 3: The purpose of this layer is to form a barrier between the electron emission layer and the electron collecting layer. The thickness of this layer should allow a quantum tunneling of electrons. This reduces the barrier for the electrons to reach the electric collecting layer. Oxide of the electric collecting layer can be used. Aluminum would be a better candidate than copper due to its oxide properties.

Layer 4: The purpose of this layer is to collect the electrons emitted by the emission layer. This layer generates the electricity. This layer is connected to the electric output via a transistor to allow controlled one-way flow of electrons. Due to its oxide properties Aluminum can be used instead of copper.

Layer 5: The purpose of this layer is to form a barrier between the electron collecting layer and the electric field generating layer. This layer can be several nanometers thick. Its thickness would determine the required electric field for electron acceleration. Due to its oxide properties Aluminum can be used instead of copper.

Layer 6: The purpose of this layer is to form an electric field to accelerate the electrons emitted to the collecting layer. The electric field will not be generated using a constant positive voltage but a sinusoidal waveform which fluctuates between positive and negative voltages compared to the ground potential of the system. During the positive cycle of the waveform the electrons are accelerated toward the collecting layer and the output transistor stays open and lets no output current. During zero crossover the output transistor closes and lets electrons flow outside of the collecting layer. The negative cycle of the waveform enhances the electron flow from the electron collecting layer. During the second zero crossover the output transistor opens and the cycle repeats.

A New Approach To Lunar Landers

The latest lunar landers are a small copy of the Apollo lunar lander. I thought about improving their design.

My lunar lander design is composed of two parts. At the bottom there will be the collapsible propellent tank and at the top there will be the lunar explorer. The lander will use acetylene as fuel and nitrous oxide as oxidizer because they are self-pressurizing due to their relatively high vapor pressures. The engine will have aerospike nozzle which is more compact than a vacuum optimized bell-shaped nozzle. There will be at least four fixed engines for braking and maneuvering instead of a single gimbled engine. This adds redundancy. The weight of the explorer and the engine thrust will crush the tank walls to pressurize the propellent.  This eliminates the need of turbopumps and pressurizing helium tanks. Additionally, their collapsible structure cushions the landing impact.

The lunar explorer will have springy legs which function like spiral wheels. During descent they will be curled inside using the wire tensioners. After landing the wire will be loosened to expand the springy spiral legs. (As seen on the image). Some of the benefits of the springy legs: They can be used to lessen the landing impact. If the lander lands in an awkward position, the legs would push the explorer away from the lander and frees it. When the legs extend, they act like a high radius wheel that help to go over obstacles. They can be used to jump over obstacles. They can be used to climb over the crater walls.

As a result, the lunar explorer will explore the lunar surface with all the necessary scientific sensors and machinery onboard. As long as the sun charges its batteries, it can keep exploring larger areas including the basis of the craters.