Scalability

I would like to summarize my previous statements and would like to point out why humanity stuck with the space race. During 1960’s companies with open checks from government developed powerful rocket engines. More than a half century later, a private company developed a much efficient but less powerful engine with a limited budget. Private and public institutes have different priorities. Expecting revolutionary designs from public sector is a dream. Space industry when it comes to deep space exploration is a money losing business which requires heavy government support like in 1960s.

Today, I thought of, how small a rocket that can deploy a tiny satellite to LEO can be. Liquid propulsion rockets are very efficient. However, they have pressurized tanks and heavy engines. These overhead weights restrict their minimum dimension. Then I thought about my carbon dioxide rocket with Pu 238 heater. That design can be scaled down considerable. If launched at cold temperature, the rocket shell can be made of thin plastic like in cola bottles. The majority of dry weight of the rocket would come from the propellant pump and Plutonium itself. The rocket would have a high propellant mass to dry weight ratio. Additionally, this design can be scaled up almost indefinitely.

I would like to make some comparisons here. The very first rocket V2 had only 15.5 bar of combustion pressure. It also used less efficient ethanol water mixture as fuel. However, it attaining an apogee of 176 kilometers with a single stage. On the other hand, todays much complex and efficient rockets can achieve more with less fuel. The problem with them is that they cannot be scaled down or up beyond certain limits due to cost and complexity. Within those limits, they are the best. However, huge distances of space require scalable solutions.

I would like to defend my stage zero design as well. Most objections come from the drag induced by multiple wings. Even AI things that way. The reason is that when they thing of a wing they thing of the wings used on current consumer planes. They are thick and have considerable drag. Therefore, multiplying their number would increase the drag further. However, my proposition is very thin flat profiles that generate lift by the angle of attack. It is the same principle with paper planes. Their wings are just thin and flat. However, the angle of attack during their launch generate lift with very minimal drag. Additionally, they can be quite strong for their thickness. Almost all the engineers working on aerospace industry had seen the planes as they are built now. Current established aviation firms take no risk and continue developing on the same design over and over again. Any new startup with such idea would receive minimal funding because the planes would not look fancy. As a result, humanity is spiraling on such designs. We need a propulsive maneuver like a trans-lunar injection to free our minds from the orbiting old designs in our heads.