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.