Nuclear Powered Surveillance Plane

The nuclear-powered engine I proposed earlier would need to operate continuously once it is started. The nuclear core inside is air cooled which requires certain air flow. Therefore, the engine would be started on air at certain altitude and speed. The surveillance plane and the engine should be light to reduce thrust requirement to stay airborne. Lower energy requirement equates to lower radioactive material which reduces the environmental risk. The plane would patrol over the oceans away from human population. In case of failure the plane would be directed to the nearest deep sea to be buried under hundreds of meters of seawater. The planes continuous movement would negate the need for heavy shielding of the core. Any high energy particle escaping from the plane’s engine would disperse over a large area which pose minimal environmental hazard. As I stated earlier, a heavier shielding would require more radioactive material to keep the plane airborne. Aluminum is very resistant to radiation damage and is light weight. The aluminum block with high thermal mass covering the core would create moderate shielding against the radiation as well. There would be a thin layer of copper between the core and the aluminum to increase the thermal surface area and prevent aluminum from melting.

The engine would be on the center of the plane and high aspect ratio wings would be attached on it. The surveillance equipment would be attached on either side of the engine. High aspect ratio wings would generate high lift at high altitudes. The planes would be deployed as clusters like the satellite constellations. They may even stay airborne longer than some satellites. They would not be serviceable. If they fail, they need to be discarded on a dead spot on the ocean.

The plane would utilize thermoelectric generator I proposed last year to convert heat energy directly to electricity coupled with a backup battery to be used during launch.

The planes would be deployed on air behind a high-altitude drone plane. The planes would be attached one after the other on a strong light weight tether.  They would look like the tails of a kite. Onboard battery would be used to control the flight controllers which would stabilize the plane on air like a glider. Once deployment criteria are met, they would be released one after the other behind the drone plane. The release from the attached cord would pull the safety pin which releases the lead shield covering the neutron emitting isotopes. The neutron bombarding the nuclear core would start the engine. This is the critical part that needs to be perfected.

Nuclear Aircraft Engine

Designing an aircraft engine which has a nuclear core inside may not seem feasible. However, with careful calculations solutions can be found. In this article I will only focus on the design of the engine. Some of the safety measures related with the engine will be discussed on my next article.

The summary of the idea is to use the heat generated by the nuclear core to drive a fan to suck and heat air to accelerate it to generate thrust. The engine would be started on air with a certain amount of initial ground speed. The nuclear core would be started by natural neutron emitting isotopes. Once the chain reaction starts, the engine would be released together with the plane it is attached to. Initially, this engine would be used on a high endurance surveillance plane. Such autonomous plane would stay aloft for months without refueling. They would only be deployed over the oceans for extra safety.

The engine would work as follows. The nuclear core would only have a single fuel pallet and no control rod or moderator. This simplifies the design and reduces the weight. The nuclear pallet would be surrounded by good heat conducting material such as aluminum alloy. There is no need for a control rod while there would be only a single fuel pallet. The fuel pallet would not be sealed inside a Zirconium casing but housed on a big aluminum casing. This casing also negates the need for the moderator. Part of this casing will have spiraling pipes with a cooling gas inside. This gas would be used to drive a gas turbine which drives the fan of the engine. The gas turbine and the fan would also be made of aluminum alloy for good heat conductivity. This setup would cool the gas inside the spiraling pipe in expense of the reduced efficiency of the gas turbine. The rest of the nuclear core would be surrounded by heat radiating fins. The air sucked by the fan would be heated by the rest of the core which generates the thrust of the engine. In summary, the core would be air cooled. Thermodynamic calculations of the design can be made and minimum air speed and ambient temperature to keep the core temperature under control can be found. The critical part of the design is the closed loop gas turbine. Therefore, it would be made of two independent systems to ensure failsafe operation.

Once started, this engine should keep working to prevent a core melt down. If designed properly, a self-stabilized system can be formed. If the core gets hotter, the fan would spin faster and more air would be sucked. The aft section of the engine would heat the air more to generate more thrust. The higher air speed increases the air-cooling effect on the core. The autonomous plane would adjust its route and altitude to maintain certain air speed and ambient air temperature.

The Diary

My acquaintance with diary dates back to my childhood. When I was in primary school, our teacher would mandate the students write a diary during summer holiday. In the first day of the school, we would show it to our teacher and sometimes read couple paragraphs from it to the whole class. During my high school study, we read ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’. A couple of years after I read the book, I had a chance to see her house as well. By coincidence she was born in Frankfurt am Main, which I value it as my second hometown after Adana.

More than two decades later, I started writing blog articles like a kind of diary and published them as books. I always associated writing a diary with Anglo-Saxons culture. The reasoning behind every diary may differ, but they have one thing in common is that they last. So many suffered during wars. However, it is hard to imagine it by just looking at the pictures or the films. Writing with one’s own words during hard times has something deeper compared to still images. Looking at the pictures of the war is something, reading Anne’s diary is something else.

I also take pictures and videos, to document events and places since I owned a digital camera in 2001. Now I am writing as well to add one more dimension.

My books are not like classical diaries. However, they are like the paintings of a painter or compositions of a composer. I develop ideas like painting or songs and realize them with my own words and images. I try to be as natural as possible with my own grammatical errors and poorly drawn images. Those imperfections are like my fingerprints which make my work unique. That’s why I avoid the trends like usage of AI.

Finally, I recommend everyone to keep a diary. It’s a kind of self-therapy to write.

Hydrogen Powered Plane

Density of jet fuel is 840 g/L, approximate energy density per weight is 43 MJ/kg and per volume is 36 MJ/L. Density of hydrogen is 70.85 g/L, approximate energy density per weight is 142 MJ/kg and per volume is 10 MJ/L. In addition to these values, the cryogenic tank of hydrogen weights several orders more than a typical jet fuel tank. The result, much higher volume of hydrogen is required compared to jet fuel to establish the same task.

A successful hydrogen powered plane requires completely new approach in the plane design philosophy. On a hydrogen plane, the fuel tank would be at the center of the design. Whereas with traditional planes, the airframe is in the center of the design. You may see the cryogenic tank like the chassis of a truck. On a truck, everything is mounted on and around the chassis which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. The cryogenic tank is way stronger than an airframe. Therefore, the remaining airframe housing the passenger cabin can be built with less structural strength. The wings would also be attached to the hydrogen tank so as the landing gears. However, I have a VTOL proposition for the hydrogen plane using the VTOL assistor. Ariane 6 rocket which also uses liquified hydrogen as propellant has solid booster for takeoff. Like the Ariane rocket the hydrogen powered plane can also use assistance during takeoff and landing via the VTOL assistor. This negates the need for landing gears, but requires safety parachutes for the emergencies. Placing the very strong hydrogen tank on the bottom of the plane protects the airframe above during emergency landing using parachutes. Like the LNG plane I proposed earlier, the liquid hydrogen can be released before emergency landing which would also generate passive thrust.

The hydrogen tank would take up the space of baggage compartments. Therefore, the baggage would be stored at the back of the cabin like in passenger railroad cars. This would make the plane longer compared to its similar capacity counterparts.

Due to so many technical challenges and higher cost of manufacturing, the hydrogen planes can never be a mainstream choice. However, LNG powered planes may find some potential among the aviation industry.

What You Can Do For AI

Snowmobile for Extremes

After watching so many videos on winter camping which utilized snowmobile for transportation, I decided to come up with my own design to address some of the issues with current models. Snowmobiles are small vehicles that allow so many modifications based on the model. My proposed features would be provided by the manufacturer and the design would be optimized to accommodate these features seamlessly compared to an aftermarket modification.

The main objective of my design is to improve the operability of the snowmobile in extreme weather.

To address the cold start problem of the engine I propose the use of super capacitors instead of classical car batteries. The batteries are only used for startup. Once the engine starts, the dynamo supplies the necessary electrical power to the rest of the vehicle. A specially designed super capacitor would have better low temperature rating and can be charged very fast in case of depletion. There will be a pull rope emergency electric generator to fast charge the capacitors in extreme colds.

There will be an internal Webasto heater that can be started by a piezo igniter to warm the engine block and the super capacitor in extreme cold. Once the engine starts it would be shot down.

Some of the air cooling the engine block would directed to the dash of the snowmobile to warm the drivers face. This would also defrost the frozen windshield to improve visibility. The handlebar grips would be electrically heated to prevent the fingertips from freezing in extreme cold. The seats will be heated by a heatsink attached to the exhaust pipe.

There will be a winch in front of the snowmobile that is powered by the engine. It would allow the snowmobile to tow itself in case of emergency.

The dashboard of the snowmobile will only have LED indicators which keep operating even at extreme cold compared LCD screens. There will be a GPS receiver on board which would only show distance information in X-Y coordinates between the selected prerecorded points and the current position. This simple design would be more reliable in extreme conditions compared to GPS systems with complex software and LCD screens. In case of getting lost in snowstorm, the home location, last turn on location or pre-recorded location would be recalled by pressing large memory buttons that can operate with large glows.

Finally, the headlights would have high illumination LEDs with multiple focusing options.

LNG VTOL Plane

The VTOL assistor I proposed earlier would be used to takeoff and land the LNG powered plane I proposed earlier. Some features of the LNG powered plane allow this assistance to work. The plane has no engines below its wings. This allows a larger obstacle free area for the assistor to grip the plane. The placement of a thrust vectoring single engine helps the VTOL assistor during takeoff by generating vertical lift and during landing by reducing stall speed. Lower stall speed allows the assistor to catch and engage with the plane more easily.

The operation of VTOL assistor was explained on my previous article. Once the assistor engages with the plane, it would be in control of the pilot of the plane. The pilot with the assistance of computers would control the assistor together with the main engine of the plane.

The LNG plane would also have safety features for emergency landing without an assistor. First, it would deploy strong parachutes to reduce the landing speed. The wings would have improved flaps to increase lift and drag. The lack of engines under the wings eliminates the risk of engines catching fire in case of impact and the shrapnel from the smashed engine injuring people in the cabin. The LNG expands approximately 600 times when turning into gas from liquid. This becomes useful during emergency landing. During emergency landing, the excess fuel would be released to reduce weight and avoid fuel leakage on landing site. On an LNG powered plane, the liquid natural gas would be released via special nozzles on the bottom of the plane to generate additional lift. It is how the cold gas thrusters work on satellites. This is a passive thrust to reduce the falling speed of the plane in case of engine failure.

During emergency landing, the parachutes and the wings with special flaps would reduce the speed of impact. The plane would hit the ground aft first. The super strong LNG tanks at the back of the plane would absorb the initial impact of crash. It would withstand impact much better than a typical plane fuselage. Once most of the kinetic energy of landing is dissipated by the aft section, the front section of the plane would hit the ground with much lower potential energy. The lack of engines under the wings would reduce the impact of crash on the wings dramatically and they may remain in one piece.

As a result, an LNG powered plane can takeoff and land vertically with assistance. More importantly would survive an emergency landing without landing gears.

VTOL Assistor

If you look at an airplane engine spec, you would see considerable difference between the maximum thrust at takeoff and cruising thrust. The difference increases even further for VTOL. Generating enough thrust for takeoff requires considerable amount of additional weight which would have no use during cruise. Therefore, I thought of a VTOL assistor that would support the plane during takeoff and landing like the boosters of a rocket.

VTOL assistor would have four independent LNG powered vertical turbofan engines. Each engine would have thrust vectoring nozzles. The engines would be connected with each other via semi rigid carbon fiber plates. This design would reduce the stress formed due to inequalities of the independent engines and provide a better gripping base for the plane. The griping surface of the VTOL assistor would be like the feet of a Gecko. Additionally, the surface would have opposite charge compared to the body of the plane. Van der Waals and electrostatic forces would allow grip between the VTOL assistor and the plane. If designed properly these two forces would create enough grip to keep the plane attached to the assistor and during detachment would create no damage on the fuselage of the plane. The heavy-duty cryogenic tanks would provide extra strength to the bottom of the VTOL assistor in case of crash.

During takeoff, VTOL assistor would lift the plane from ground and the engine of the plane would thrust it forward to reach the cruising speed. As the wings of the plane generate more thrust, the assistor would reduce its support until the plane can fly by itself. Then the assistor releases itself from the plane and return to the launch site.

During landing, VTOL assistor would takeoff from ground and catch the descending plane and grip it. Then it would provide vertical thrust to keep the plane airborne while the plane’s horizontal thrust is lowered. The controls on the wings assist the landing phase together with the thrust vectoring on the VTOL assistor.

Britain vs France

This idea is old. It dates back when all four actors were still alive. A series of movies starring 

Sean Connery (August 25, 1930) - Michael Caine (March 14, 1933)

Vs

Jean Paul Belmondo (April 9, 1933) - Alain Delon (November 8, 1935).

These actors became stars in 1960s where I love the period most. These actors would be gentleman thieves and master of disguise like Arsen Lupen. The movies would start in 1960s like the James Bond series. The competition between these duos will be gentlemanly without no clear winner. The French side will represent the continental Europe; the Britain will represent the Commonwealth countries and partially U.S.A.

There would be guest stars in each movie. I know French and Italian cinema better, therefore will mostly make suggestions for the continental Europe.

Belmondo and Delon would be accompanied by

Actresses: Isabelle Adjani, Nathalie Baye, Jane Birkin, Marie-France Pisier, Catherine Deneuve, Carla Gravina, Marlène Jobert, Anna Karina, Marie Laforêt, Romy Schneider, Mireille Darc, Marina Vlady, Claudia Cardinale, Marie Dubois, Mylène Demongeot, Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Stéphane Audran, Anouk Aimée, Monica Vitti, Annie Girardot, Jeanne Moreau, Simone Signoret, Giulietta Masina, Michèle Morgan, Danielle Darrieux, Marlene Dietrich and Arletty (ordered by age)

Actors: Gian Maria Volontè, Jean-Claude Brialy, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Claude Rich, Robert Hossein, Maurice Ronet, Michel Piccoli, Pierre Mondy, Michel Constantin, Marcello Mastroianni, Vittorio Gassman, Yves Montand, Lino Ventura, Bourvil, Bernard Blier, Louis de Funès, Jean Marais, Jean Gabin, Fernandel and Totò (ordered by age)

Connery and Cane would be accompanied by

Actresses: Jacqueline Bisset, Vanessa Redgrave, Shirley MacLaine and Ingrid Bergman (ordered by age)

Actors: Omar Sharif, Clint Eastwood, Richard Burton, Peter Sellers, Eli Wallach, Anthony Quinn, Burt Lancaster, David Niven, Cary Grant and Charles Chaplin (ordered by age)

The soundtracks would be mostly composed by Ennio Morricone and partly by François de Roubaix and Nino Rota.

and finally directed by Henri Verneuil and Jean-Pierre Melville.

LNG Powered Plane

LNG powered plane requires considerable design changes to a traditional plane such as placement of the fuel tank at the back of the plane and removal of engines under the wings. These changes require structural redesign of the plane.

The lack of fuel and heavy engines on a wing would make them lighter while they wouldn’t need to support those weights. Removal of previous design restrictions on the wings would allow aerodynamically more efficient wings to be designed. The shift of the center of gravity of the plane would also shift the position of the wings. The removal of the engines under the wings would enable them to be placed closer to ground. This also reduces the height of the landing gears.

The passenger cabin of the plane would be limited to the front of the plane. The emergency exits should be placed accordingly. The placement of the engine at the back of the plane would make the cabin much more silent even at its back. The engine would be separated from the cabin by a cryogenic tank and the exhaust gasses would be emitted at the very end of the plane. Considerable amount of reduction in noise would negate the need for noise reduction materials inside the fuselage.

The plane would utilize the vertical turbofan engine I proposed earlier. This design allows independent centrifugal compressors for redundancy which would be powered by the expansion of the liquified LNG. LNG expands almost 600 times when gasified from liquid. This would result in fuel efficiency while classical turbofans consume fuel to compress the air. The expansion pressure of the LNG also negates the need for complex fuel pumps used for jet fuels. The high-pressure fuel injectors would also be replaced with much simpler injectors while the fuel is already in the high-pressure gas form. The plane would have a single large engine generating thrust in line with the direction of motion. The compressors and the combustion units would be multiple for redundancy. A single thrust source allows easy control of the plane even when some of the units fail. On the other hand, classical planes with multiple engines are harder to control in case of engine failure.

Finally, vertical engine I propose requires no gas turbines to power the compressors which require cooler exhaust gasses to operate. As a result, my engine can have a much hotter exhaust gas with higher velocity and therefore better fuel efficiency. Additionally, LNG has much less carbon emission compared to jet fuel. There are a lot of design changes required for an LNG plane. However, once the design is established it wouldn't be more expensive to build an LNG plane compared to the classical ones.

Road to Hydrogen

There is an inevitable trend towards hydrogen replacing the fossil fuels. However, there is a huge gap in between. An obvious step is the use of liquified methane or LNG before moving on to hydrogen.

Approximate energy density of liquid methane is 55 MJ/kg and the density of the liquid is 657g/L. Approximate energy density of jet fuel is 43 MJ/kg and the density of the liquid is 840 g/L. For the same volume, both fuels have similar energy capacity. The main disadvantage of liquid methane is the weight of the tank. For small volumes the weight of the tank compared to the total weight exceeds 70 percent. Even for a 50-ton tank, more than 30 percent of the total weight belongs to the cryogenic tank.

The road to hydrogen requires economical low weight cryogenic tanks for sure. Even with technological advancements the weight cannot be reduced dramatically. This brings design restrictions on liquid methane powered vehicles. Either, fuel storage tanks should be enlarged for the same range to compensate for the additional weight or smaller range should be accepted. Another problem with the storage is cryogenic tanks cannot be formed in any shape. The wings of a plane can store jet fuel. However, liquid methane could only be stored inside the fuselage of a plane. This design restriction allows lighter hollow wings, but longer fuselage to accommodate the liquid methane tank.

On the other hand, the thick steel hull of a ship can be modified to store liquid methane with less weight penalty. The trucks would have special chassis where part of it doubles as a storage tank to reduce the effect of heavy tanks. Double purposing would be a solution in many of the vehicle designs to overcome the weight penalty.

The handling of liquid methane also requires heavier and more expensive hardware on the servicing stations and on the vehicle itself. As the use of liquid methane or LNG expends the prices would go down and parts may get lighter. On my next article, I would like to propose a commercial plane utilizing liquid methane or LNG as fuel.

Next Generation Navy Carrier

Amphibious military aircrafts open up new opportunities such as a twin-hull navy carrier. Two parallel hulls provide stability and buoyancy. This design offers several advantages, including reduced rolling motion, increased deck space, and shallower draft, making them suitable for various water environments. More importantly the openings between the hulls create a protected waterway. This waterway would be used to launch and recover amphibious planes safely during bad weathers compared to a classical aircraft carrier.

Unlike the restrictions of an aircraft carrier on which planes it can handle. The twin-hull carrier can accommodate amphibious turboprops, cargo and tanker aircrafts. This design flexibility adds aerial superiority to the next generation of navy carriers compared to the existing designs.

The protected waterway also doubles as a kind of ‘well deck’ to supply and conduct maintenance work on small navy ships including the submarines.

Military Planes with Hydrofoil

The LISA Akoya is a French amphibious aircraft capable of landing on land, water or snow without adaptation. It has permanent hydrofoils attached to its bottom called ‘Seafoils’. Though designed for the water, the ‘Seafoils’ shaped like wings produce almost no drag during flight. The motion of the aerodynamic fuselage is not constrained by any equipment or “hydro” shape. The aircraft’s performance is therefore considerably improved, both in terms of speed and range.

This plane shows the possibilities of hydrofoil on aircrafts. Either permanent or retractable like a landing gear, hydrofoils allow a plane to take off and land on water with minimal design change to its aerodynamics. Combined with the vertical turbofan engine I proposed earlier, an amphibious military plane can be built with air intake on its top. The ability to utilize water as a runway opens up new possibilities.

The airfields where a military plane can take off and land are permanent structures with well-known coordinates. This makes them easy targets for the enemy during disputes. On the other hand, an amphibious plane can land on water with a shorter distance. As a result, a piece of straight waterway would be a potential runway. Straight riverbeds, lakes and shores become potential mobile airfields. This flexibility complicates the enemy to suppress the air superiority of the defending country.

One final advantage of amphibious planes is that they allow a new generation of navy carriers. I will explain it further on my next article.

Vertical Turbofan Engine

Turbofan engines operate by compressing the ambient air and feeding it to the combustion section. The air is compressed via an axial turbopump. The turbopump is driven by a gas turbine directly connected to the same shaft. There is another type of turbopump that can compress the air, the centrifugal turbopump.

My proposition is to separate the combustion area and the compressing stage for a turbofan engine. The resulting engine would inhale air from vertically above and exhaust the burned gasses horizontally behind. The idea is to reduce the air drag induced by the high cross section of a turbofan engine. The centrifugal turbopump embedded on top of a fuselage of a plane would induce no extra drag. Moreover, air intake above the plane would result in a low-pressure zone at the top which contributes positive to the lift of the plane.

Unlike a traditional turbofan which powers its turbopump via the output of itself, my proposed design powers the centrifugal turbopump separately. Long tubular frame of the plane allows more turbopumps to be added in succession to increase the amount of air compressed without adding no additional air drag.

The compressed air would then be used to combust the fuel and generate high velocity exhaust gas. The lack of gas turbine after the combustion zone would yield higher efficiencies. The fuel pump would be driven by the exhaust gasses generated by powering the turbopumps.

Typical jet fighters utilize very low bypass ratio (Pratt & Whitney F135 => 0.57:1) compared to passenger jet engines (CFM International LEAP-1A => 11:1). This results in much less fuel efficiency. My proposal increases the bypass ratio by adding more turbopumps one after the other which improves the fuel efficiency without inducing additional air drag.

One final advantage of my design is the reduction of overall complexity of a typical turbofan engine. Breaking the design into smaller and manageable sections decreases design and manufacturing times.

Regenerative Thrust on Electric Planes

I would like to propose a battery powered plane for unmanned missions. The design I propose would have slightly more range for the given battery capacity. The key is to put the heat generated during flight into good use.

The plane will not have a classical tubular fuselage. Instead, the tubular form would be open on both ends. In the front there will be a propeller that generates the main thrust of the plane. The duct shape of the fuselage will increase the efficiency of the air propelled by guiding it.

The main motor of the plane will have tubular form to have minimal drag behind the propeller. The electronics and the battery of the plane will be mounted behind it in tubular form as well. These parts will be aerodynamically covered with heatsinks. As a result, the air flowing inside the tube would be slightly heated by the inefficiencies of the motor, its driver and the batteries. It’s like a turbofan engine. Instead of heat generated by combustion, the energy lost and turned into heat is partially recovered as additional thrust.

This design leaves almost no room for a payload, therefore it can only be used on surveillance planes which require minimal payload.

Seaplane with Hydrofoil

Classical seaplanes have a lot of drag while speeding up on the sea. Additionally, the floats have a lot of drag and weight once the plane is on the air.  Adding hydrofoil at the bottom of the plane solves all these problems. This is not a new idea and was utilized in the early days of aviation (Piaggio P.7, 1929). However, the idea remained on paper in the upcoming decades.

David B. Thurston on his book ‘Design for Flying’ proposes hydrofoil for seaplanes. Water is about 800 times the density of air, so a hydrofoil of very small size could lift an amphibious hull out of the water early in the takeoff run and significantly reduce overall drag. It also helps in handling higher waves, as the hydrofoil was on strut some distance under the hull, and the strut and foil could slice through waves with less impact than a hull. A retracting hydrofoil that is faired in flight should have less drag.

I also propose the hydrofoil to double as vertical and horizontal stabilizer for the plane once it’s on the air. This would reduce the air drag and weight induced by the main stabilizer at the tail.

This design in a way is tested on hobbyist level RC planes. However, it would make more sense to see it on autonomous seaplanes at a bigger scale. Sea allows almost infinite runway and requires minimal infrastructure compared to a runway on land. Deploying more planes on the sea would be strategically beneficial for the implementing country while the country can launch planes almost anywhere from the sea compared to stationary airfields.

Liquid Air Powered Boat

I had previously wrote many articles regarding the use of liquid air. I would like to extend my idea further for the sea. The main advantage of liquified air is its availability anywhere. Liquid air when gasified expends 700 times its liquid volume. This can be used to do the energy intense mechanical work. My proposition is to generate liquid air on specially build offshore wind turbines. These turbines would be designed to directly liquify air from the kinetic energy of the wind. There would be no electric conversion in the process. Air is liquified using high power heat pumps utilizing Helium gas. During the cooling process, the humidity of the air would be removed. The remaining nitrogen and oxygen would form the liquid air. Building the liquifying plant offshore allows sustained wind energy and infinite cooling reservoir, the water for the heat pump. The end product would then be stored in underwater tanks.

The boats utilizing liquid air would have cryogenic storage tanks. The propulsion would be achieved by gasifying the liquid air by the infinite heat capacity of the sea. The expending gas would push the boat forward like a waterjet. There would be no turbines or propellers. As a result, the boat would be able to operate at shallow waters and there would be no problem of propellers stuck with see weeds. The boat would have a battery on board to power the electronics, but it would be of low capacity. The boat would be refueled at the pontoons attached to the wind turbine. The internal battery of the boat would also be charged during refueling.

Additional wind turbines would expend the coverage of the boats. This allows sustainable patrolling of the shores of a country. The sustainability covers negating the need for imported rare earth elements, lithium and high-power electronics to establish an autonomous patrolling boat fleet.

Ouroboros

When I thought writing this article, I made a preliminary search on LinkedIn for the posts that contained word 'Ouroboros'. Most of the results were related to AI.

The advancement of AI kind of obsoleted entry level jobs. An expert software developer can write a code using AI. This approach can also be applied to translation services as well. However, there are critical issues with this. How a novice becomes an expert? There is no quantum tunneling from state zero to one for the humans. When entry positions are eliminated, the future experts would also disappear in the future. Like the fading of Marty McFly in the movie 'Back to the Future' due to a change in the past. It's like building a pyramid by removing the foundation stones and putting them on top. Eventually, the structure would collapse.

AI can be could as its source of knowledge. Over many centuries humanity developed knowledge putting one piece above the other. Too much dependance on technology to do the thinking would reduce the knowledge we should have been putting today. This big gap would result in problems in the upcoming decades.

Humanity can only evolve as long as they keep using their gray cells.

Interplanetary Soul

The sole has no mass and it matters the most for a living creature. The thought came to my mind while I was thinking about death. I know the idea is not new and there are lots of text on the subject. I wanted to look at the subject from an engineering point of view.

The problem with an interplanetary journey is the transfer of mass between long distances. What if we could transfer the soul and the body separately. I like to develop feasible ideas based on science. This one is just a sci-fi brainstorming for my mind that I wanted to share.

Scientists study what makes an organic material turn into a living organism. If there is a promising development on the subject, then it would be a different story to transport humans between the planets. Of course, it would be initially tested on micro-organisms and small living creatures such as insects first. Transporting nonliving organic material over a long duration is not difficult. Keeping something alive over a long journey causes all the problems. Some may propose hibernation, however even that is not easy. Some animals can hibernate up to three years. Quite enough time for most of the space odyssey.

Before sending a human or a chimpanzee to Mars, sending a hibernating Garden Snail or Australian Eastern Pygmy Possum may make more sense.

Tent with Built-in Stove

Watching so many videos on RBM outdoor tents that expands like an umbrella triggered my inspiration. I thought of a variant of the tent with built in fabric wood stove.

Inside the tent, there is a section for wood stove. That part is covered with a fireproof material (in gray). I thought that material can be extended inward like the rest of the tent mechanism to form a stove. The flexible frame inside the fireproof fabric should be made of metal to withstand fire. The knitting on the fabric should also be made of fireproof material. The fabric forming the stove will have heat conducting metal woven on it to better transfer heat.

There would be two sections expanding out of the tent wall to form the wood stove. The one at the bottom would form the stove, the one on the side would form the fluepipe which has an opening outside the tent.

The wood would be loaded to the fabric stove from its side. There would be a fabric latch to control the draft to the stove. The latch would seal to the rest of the stove with a steel Velcro. Just next to the stove latch, there would be an air vent to supply fresh air to the stove. This design reduces the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning inside the tent. The ground placement of the stove ensures warmer floor compared to stoves elevated from ground.

Having a built-in stove inside a tent would be a lifesaving feature. Imagine you got wet during camping and because the weather was mild you didn’t bother carrying a stove. With a built-in stove you can lit a fire inside the tent and dry your clothes as well as yourself.

Low Cost Rocket

Current trend for rocketry is towards reusability which makes sense in most cases. However, if a country is only planning to make several launches a year. It would be quite expensive to develop and operate reusable rockets. I thought of alternatives for a low cost rocket. Not all bottles are made of glass that can last for centuries. We also have plastic ones for single use.

After making some research on the subject I found out that single use materials actually would not be that cheap for a rocket. For example, the cascaded cryogenic propellent tanks of the rocket can be made of PTFE. However, PTFE is not that cheap. On the other hand, cheap polyethylene is brittle at low temperatures. At least I came up with some design changes to the engine of the rocket which would reduce the costs a little.

Powerful rocket engine requires bigger combustion chamber. However, larger inner volume would reduce combustion efficiency and the fuel would not be fully burned. To overcome this problem, I thought of a big combustion chamber that is divided into four quadrants by relatively thin separators. The pressure difference between the quadrants would be minimal and this allows thinner and lighter separators. Combining four combustion chambers into one would reduce the weight and cost of the engines. This design also allows the output of these combustion sections to be combined into a single nozzle. The pre-burners and the turbopumps can also be combined for these four engines. As a result, high efficiency, high thrust engines can be utilized on the rocket. Controlling one combo engine would be simpler compared to four independent engines.

In order to simplify the design, I also removed the regenerative cooling from the engine nozzle. Instead, pre-burners would heat up the propellant in a close loop system. The cooling of the nozzle would be achieved by directed bypass air. A duct surrounding the nozzle would guide the ambient air to cool the nozzle. The heated bypass air would than generate additional thrust by the ducted design.

Ice Explorer

Icy moons are a class of natural satellites with surfaces composed mostly of ice. Most known large icy moons belong to giant planets, whose orbits lie beyond the Solar System's frost line. Scientists are eager to explore them, but how?

The new map of Antarctica ‘beneath the ice’ triggered my inspiration. An exploration robot below the ice. At the moment all celestial body explorers are optimized for surface exploration on a rocky terrain. There is no water or ice explorer robot for space. My proposition is to develop one on Earth first and use it to explore Antarctica before sending it to space.

Digging beneath the ice requires nuclear energy source. Solar panels and similar systems would not work. As tradition with most of my designs, I propose Pu-238 as the energy source. A spherical robot with two hemispherical digger wheels powered by the heat of Pu-238. Ice is an ideal heatsink. As a result, good heat conducting digger wheels would form the cold reservoir for the heat engine. I propose Helium as the pressurizing gas while it has a very low condensation temperature and it is inert. Ideally, the explorer robot should have slightly positive buoyancy in water. This is critical if the robot reaches sub surface ocean while digging beneath the ice. A negative buoyancy would sink it and end the mission.

The spherical robot would have sensor windows on its sides. These windows would allow the robot to conduct beneath the ice research. Due to limited penetration of radio waves underwater, the robot would operate mostly autonomous. As a result, the robot would execute missions that requires it to surface after a certain amount of time. Once surfaced, the data acquired from autonomous ice exploration would be uploaded to the control center and new mission data would be downloaded on to the robot.

Sustainable Organic Intelligence

I couldn’t stand much longer seeing billions being poured on AI while the millions of non-artificial ones are way under-utilized.

AI has uses I accept that. However, for most of the countries operating AI is just another foreign trade deficit. The very expensive chips and related hardware are imported so as the energy to run them.

A country has to feed its people. For developed nations there is no problem of hunger. Once you feed people, they are potential intelligence source. Utilizing this intelligence properly is the problem needed to be solved. Education and value adding jobs are the keys to the solution. Even though many people complain about these problems they receive less and less attention compared to rising trends such as AI. A decade later it would be something else. At the end such trends make a handful of companies rich when people act irrationally.

Look at the problem like renewable energy generation. The energy is available out there if you know how to harvest it. Else you burn imported energy sources to generate electricity. The human capital of a nation is its renewable energy source; AI chips are the imported gas or petrol.

Hybrid Military Drone Unit

After reading about the FPV fiber optic drones, I thought of a hybrid military drone unit. Ideally, a drone with adequate AI should be able to cross the enemy line, find its target and destroy it. However, such AI chips do not exist for small, economical drones.

My proposition is, initially deploy fiber optic drones with only cameras and sensors to the target location. These would feed real-time data to the control center. Then these data would be processed quickly with AI chips and optimized codes would be installed to the autonomous drones with ammunition on board. These optimized codes would be mission-based guide map to limited processing powered drones. Just by utilizing the onboard cameras and sensors, the drones would find their targets and hit them. For this process to succeed, the time difference between the fiber optic info processed and the attack drone arriving at the location should be low. Even jammers would allow the autonomous drones to find their path.

The system I propose is just an adaption of the automatic terrain recognition and guidance system. Very compact data would be generated for each mission with low latency data from the field. Fiberoptic drones would be used to gather real-time data as stealth drones. Then, autonomous drones would be used to complete the mission based on these data. Within short time frame, any moving vehicle could not have displaced that much. As a result, simple vehicle recognition software would detect the moving target based on the projected location. For stationary targets the auto guidance would be much simpler.

VTOL with High Bypass Axial Rocket Engine

I keep thinking on high bypass rocket engine powered VTOL design and making changes on it. My latest proposal is to use an axial rocket engine inside the engine duct. This approach would reduce the air drag and give more time for the bypass air to heat up.

In order to reduce the cross section of the turbopumps, axial pumps would be used. Axial pumps would be cascaded to increase the pressure output. This comes handy while the engine would produce the maximum thrust at takeoff and the cruising thrust would be much lower. When the plane is cruising, some of the cascaded pumps would be bypassed to lower pressure. Lower fuel pressure results lower output pressure which gives more time for the bypass air to burn the unburned fuel and heat up.

The combustion chamber and the nozzle would also be cylindrical in shape to align with aerodynamics of the rocket engine. The combustion chamber and the nozzle would have aerodynamic heat exchanger fins to transfer heat to the bypass air. There would be no regenerative cooling for the propellant.

Very long tubular design of the ducted engine requires it to be placed much forward from the wing. This allows clearance on the ground when the engine and the attached wing are rotated during VTOL. In order to reduce weight on the wings, most of the flight control parts will be removed. The wing rotates as a hole with the engine, therefore there is no need for most of these controls.

The plane would use liquid methane as fuel and LOX. The pressure of these tanks would be used to rotate the wings and the engine. This reduces the need for heavy motors and their controllers.

Stabilizer Interstage Ring

Airplanes have passive stabilizers. On the other hand, passive stabilizers on rockets have limited effect while they are descending for recovery. I thought of a passive stabilizer which would double as the interstage ring.

Interstage rings are usually discarded after stage separation to save weight. My proposition is to utilize interstage rings on the first stage while the stage is being recovered. The interstage ring would have a springy design. After stage separation and the first stage approaches the atmosphere, the springy mechanism would be released. As the air hits the interstage it would expend like an inverted umbrella. This would have a parachute-like effect on the falling rocket. Additionally, large conical structure would double as passive stabilizer for the rocket. The down side would be the wind would have more effect on the rocket. However, compared to the weight and size of the rocket the negative effect wouldn’t be that much.

The expended interstage might also have controlled vents to control the descent direction reducing the gimble angle requirement on the descent engine.

Overall, this design change would slightly reduce the fuel needed to recover the stage and decrease the failure rate on recovery. Passive stabilizers are ideal self-correcting mechanisms assisting the complex and error prone software driven control mechanisms.

Citizen Science

In 2016 I had participated in a citizen science project with a narrow focus on the marine life in Black Sea. It was funded by EU. As you can expect, nothing came out of it. I keep on seeing such narrow-focused projects, especially from Europe. Wasting resources shouldn’t be that easy.

Even in the day of the project, I had proposed a more general citizen science infrastructure that would last for decades, but couldn't get any support because I was told that EU wouldn't fund it. Europe’s major failure point is, they want to satisfy as much people as possible and end up satisfying none. However, in the age of harsh global competition, Europe is losing ground. They have to invest more on bigger infrastructures and unite their effort.

My proposition to Europe is to establish a unified infrastructure such as the Global Data Bank I proposed so long ago. As a result, any data input by scientists and citizens can be aggregated into one. We have one Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and many more. However, Europe still do not have such a global social media platform. Create one for the science. Instead of supporting tiny niche projects, establish a proper infrastructure and the niches would fill in the gaps inside.

The same scattering applies to Space, Computer technologies and many more.

Underwater Military Base

After proposing a space military base, I thought of an underwater military base. It would be mobile like the space counterpart. Water is a good cover and shield for a mobile base.

A typical military base would be composed buildings and underground structures distributed over a large area. With a mobile underwater base, the buildings would be substituted with spherical structures to withstand pressure. They would be towed by nuclear tug submarines. The spheres would contain the ammunition, missiles and fuel. The personal would be accommodated inside nuclear submarines.

Depending on the mission, the base would be towed to an appropriate location in advance. All elements of the convoy would be covered by radar and sonar absorbing material to minimize detection. Distributing the resources among smaller units would reduce loses in case of detection.

Once in location and depending on the need, only necessary units would surface above water.

Unlike a base on land, a mobile base would only be able to service VTOL planes. However, its mobility underwater makes it a harder target for the enemy.

Space Hedgehog

A military base on Earth orbit would look like ISS. It would be made of stacked cylinders, attached one after the other. However, a military base should be much more active compared to a research facility. It should be able deploy and retrieve satellites and more importantly able to launch missiles.

Unlike a land-based counterpart, hiding the ammunition and secretive equipment underground or inside a hangar is not possible. Every additional weight would make the military base hard to keep in orbit. Instead, a space camouflage would be utilized to coverup the exposed missiles and the satellites. The camouflage would be light weight and confuse the enemy satellites imaging and radar systems. The rockets and missiles sticking out of the cylindrical structure would make it look like a hedgehog.

There would be two types of propellant on board the military space base. Liquid methane & LOX and ion thruster gas. Liquid methane and LOX would be used to fuel the ballistic missiles on demand. They would also be used on the rocket engines attached to the base in order to change its orbit in case of attack. The small maneuvers would be carried by the ion thrusters. Ion thruster gases would also be used to fuel the satellites launched from the base. The base would be able to deploy, retrieve, reconfigure and refuel satellites.

In case of emergency the base would have escape capsules like the escape pods in a submarine. As a result, a military space base would be more like an aircraft carrier than a stationary ground base. Unlike a carrier it has the potential to expand.

Military Base in Space

Countries ambition on opening military bases on the extremes of the world made me thing of other alternatives such as mobile replenishment ships. However, land has so many advantages over ships. Then I thought of space, a military base in space. Unlike Earth, a mobile base made more sense compared to a base on land such as the Moon. The reasoning was simple. It required much more energy to deploy something on land compared to something on orbit.

The payloads reach very high speeds in space. Orbit insertions also require high speeds. Therefore, the speed gained can be conserved. On the other hand, payload to be deployed on the Moon requires the speed to drop to zero. This deceleration requires so much energy therefore a lot of propellant. This leaves much less room for the payload.

Bases on land make more sense if the resources on land can be utilized. However, rocket propellant cannot be produced on the Moon. The setup would require so much energy that it would make more sense to deploy propellant externally like in the case of bases on Earth. However, they can source water at least where the Moon also lack.

Bases on land would have better protection with underground structures. However, excavating on the Moon requires a lot of energy and equipment. Also keep in mind that Moon has no protective atmosphere against the asteroids. Protecting a base against such constant threads requires more weight and energy. On the other hand, an orbiting base can avoid asteroids with its propulsion system. 

How would a military base in orbit would look like? A hedgehog.

Reusable Booster Configuration

The novel rocket design I proposed earlier required boosters to takeoff and reach certain speed so that the rocket’s first stage could generate enough thrust to maintain its own flight. The boosters would operate only for a limited amount of time and the flight trajectory would be mainly vertical. I thought of a reusable booster configuration that satisfy these requirements.

In order to simplify the design, I thought of storing the fuel and the oxidizer in pressurized form. This removes the need for turbopumps and pre-burners to heat the cryogenic fluids. There would be a combustion chamber to increase the burning efficiency of the fuel. There would be a small nozzle after the combustion chamber without regenerative cooling. The nozzle would be surrounded by a ducted nozzle to allow bypass air. This would increase the specific impulse of the rocket while the booster would only operate at denser part of the atmosphere where bypass air would be more effective. The duct would be behind the fuselage of the rocket and would pose almost no drag. This approach would also be used on the first stage rocket I proposed earlier where the duct would protrude behind the rocket, which would induce drag.

The pressure tanks of the rocket would be separated into two or three sections to maintain high pressure. A small amount of propellant would be saved as reserve to be used during landing back on the launch platform. Boosters would be strapped to the rocket in a configuration of four. This would generate enough thrust for takeoff. Additionally, this form would help the boosters land safely and more easily on the launch platform without wings and similar extensions.

A Novel Rocket First Stage

A rocket engine generates high thrust by burning high amounts of fuel with oxidizer. This is achieved by pumping the propellant into the combustion chamber at a very high rate. I propose a large drainage for the propellant tanks to allow large mass flow. Therefore, negating the need for turbopumps and combustion chambers. Using liquid methane as fuel allows the tanks to be placed inside one another. LOX and liquid methane have similar liquifying temperatures negating the need for heavy shielding between the tanks. This approach also increases the tanks height and therefore the bottom pressure.

My proposal would only work for the first stage of a rocket. It also requires solid boosters for takeoff.

The design is as follows: The large drainage from the fuel and the oxidizer would be mixed inside a helical pipe before they are ejected from atomizer nozzles. In order to increase the surface area for efficient burning, the nozzles would be mounted on a curved form. As a result, high amounts of propellant would be ejected and burned efficiently. The ignition will be achieved by heated copper alloy mesh placed close to the nozzle exit. Just before the launch, this mesh would be heated on the ground and the propellant valves would be opened slightly to initiate the burn as a pilot light.

There would be a duct around the bottom of the rocket used as an air intake and double as a propelling nozzle like in a fighter jet. The air intake provides bypass air to contribute to the thrust to improve the efficiency of the rocket. More importantly, the flowing air guides the burned gases. There would be thrust vectoring nozzle at the end of the duct. This nozzle opening would be adjusted depending on the ambient pressure to improve efficiency. Additionally, thrust vectoring would allow the maneuvering of the rocket.

This rocket stage would only generate thrust after reaching a certain speed which would be attained by strapped solid boosters. As the rocket accelerates the propellant drainage would be opened to contribute to the thrust. When the solid boosters are ejected, the first stage should be able to generate enough thrust to continue accelerating the rocket.

Depending on the size of the duct, it would also generate lift like a ring wing. This would be handy when the stage separates from the upper one. The stage separation would also reveal an aerodynamic nose for the first stage. Coupled with the ring wing and parachutes, the stage would decelerate to water with lower speed. The duct section of the rocket would absorb the impact on water and break. As a result, the stage would be refurbished with minimal damage to the main fuselage.

Collaboration with Developing Nations

I would like to propose some suggestions to industrialized countries that would like to collaborate with developing nations. In order to make my proposals easy to follow I will use two countries as examples, Korea and Algeria.

Bilateral relations start and develop by communication. Both countries should know each other well. In our example, Kore should broadcast at least one TV channel over Algeria which would be accessible with the common satellite used in the country. This channel should show different aspects of life in Korea. The channel would be broadcast in Arabic and Korean. Famous voice over people should be selected for the dubbing to maximize the effect. Some of the programs would be presented by Algerian people living in Korea. They would present Korea from their own cultural perspective which would be more effective on Algerian people compared to a Korean dubbed in Arabic. Similar channel doing the opposite would be established in Korea as well.

For the language part, Korea should teach more of its people Arabic. Given the potential of Arabic speaking countries, it is an effort with high returns. Teaching the analysts Arabic would be the initial step. The analysts communicate with the clients. They listen and convince them. Korea should also open language courses, online teaching platforms and free mobile apps to teach Arabic speaking people Korean.

In order to speed up the bilateral relations, Korea should provide customized services to Algeria. Such as E-Government to automize, trade, logistics and import & export. Solutions should be developed and presented to Algeria to speed up its bureaucracy.

Algeria is rich with natural resources. However raw resources have no use unless they are processed. It’s better for Korea to establish some energy intense material processing plants in energy rich Algeria. It is better to buy sheet steel instead of raw iron. Else you need to import energy besides the iron ore to convert it to sheet steel.

Culture and language penetration determines a nation's collaboration effectiveness. In that regard U.S.A. is way ahead of the other nations including China. Look how they did it and come up with alternative solutions to best suit your country.

Faster Planetary Exploration

BepiColombo is a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to the planet Mercury. The mission was launched on an Ariane 5 rocket on 20 October 2018, with Mercury orbit insertion planned for November 2026, after a flyby of Earth, two flybys of Venus, and six flybys of Mercury. The total cost of the mission was estimated in 2017 as US$2 billion. When I read this, I was really disappointed. It takes almost a decade to send two small satellites to Mercury and cost more than two billion.

I had previously proposed a LEO assembled planetary rocket. Developing such a system would dramatically reduce the cost and the duration to reach the planets. Development only requires modified payload section for Falcon family of rockets. These payload stages would serve as the stages of an interplanetary rocket. Only two launches would be enough to form a rocket to deploy BepiColombo to Mercury with a direct trajectory.

Once the rocket stages are connected in LEO, the interplanetary rocket's first stage would be fired to accelerate the spaceship. The rocket would utilize highly efficient ion thrusters. These thrusters would continuously accelerate the rocket until it reaches the escape velocity. A rocket orbiting the earth would experience no gravity, therefore even the small thrust generated by the ion thruster would allow it to reach the escape velocity over time. This time would be several days not a decade like in the above example.

The objective of the interplanetary rocket’s first stage is to put the upper stages into the trans planetary trajectory. Once this objective is reached, first stage would be ejected. The second stage of the rocket which also utilize an ion thruster would maneuver the rocket on its path to the target planet. As the rocket approaches the target planet, the second stage would be used to slow down the rocket. For an inner planet mission, the sun rays would be used to generate more electric power and heat the ionized gas which lead to higher thrust. The problem with BepiColombo was that it didn’t have a stage to decelerate the satellites to allow orbital injection. Instead, gravity assist was utilized which took almost a decade to achieve the required slowing down.

As a conclusion, the planetary missions that have decelerating stage do not require giant rockets. Current Falcon rockets allow LEO assembling a rocket. Just invent a LEO assembled interplanetary rocket for a much faster Solar exploration.

Mercury Sun Chaser

I had previously proposed a similar idea regarding the moon, “Around the Moon in 30 Days”. Planet Mercury has also a long solar day equivalent to 176 Earth days. Circumference of Mercury is 15,329 km. This number gets smaller towards the poles. An average travel speed of 3 km/h would cover 12,672 km in one Mercury solar day. If you travel at this speed, you maintain your position relative to the Sun.

The solar rays are very strong and generate very high surface temperatures on Mercury. However, the ray strength changes depending on the altitude of the Sun. As a result, it is possible to select a starting point for the Mercury surface explorer where it would never experience strong solar rays and surface temperatures. If the surface explorer travels at an average speed of 3 km/h, it would experience similar solar rays and similar surface temperatures. The surface of Mercury is not a good thermal conductor and the air is so thin that the heat from kilometers away would not be conducted to where the explorer is. Continuous sun rays allow continuous energy supply. Much higher energy can be generated compared to a rover on Mars. The lack of dense air and winds reduce the dust accumulation on the solar panels.

Continuous communication with the explorer requires Mercury orbiting relays. The close proximity to the Sun, allows the relays to study the Sun while they are orbiting the planet. Multi-purposing increases the value gained from the project and justifies its cost.

Studying Mercury is way easier than exploring Mars or Venus if you plan the mission right. Mercury is closest to Earth more often than any other planet, being Earth's nearest neighbor about 46-50% of the time, despite Venus having closer individual approaches because Mercury's smaller, faster orbit keeps it generally closer overall, never venturing as far away as Venus or Mars do. This allows more frequent Mercury missions compared to other planetary missions.

Exploring the surface and air of Mercury would also reveal some mysteries of the Sun and the fusion.

The Butcher & The Greengrocer

In the age of time is money. Most people have limited time to cook food at home. For them, pre-prepared vegetables and meats are valuable solutions to speed up cooking. The vegetable and meats are pre-prepared by workers in food processing plants. Properly cleaning and cutting vegetables and meats is not an easy task. They should be done precisely and fast.

That’s an ideal job to develop and train the robotic operator doctors. The precision use of knives and other equipment on vegetables and meats have large room for errors with minimal cost. Don’t forget that the processing in factories is not perfect either. The mistakes wouldn’t kill a carrot or already dead chicken. Unlike human counterparts, the robots do not need to have hands with four fingers on one side and a thumb on the other and don’t need to have only two hands. Therefore, their movement would be less restricted than a human. Also, they cannot cut their fingers.

The biggest advantage of a robot is that they can utilize mini-MR machines and X-rays to detect the bones, veins and the nerves under a tissue or skin. It would be easy to establish a rapid iteration cycle to achieve the ultimate goal of fully robotic emergency room.

Space Ambulance

I thought of an emergency spaceship for the humans who would work on a lunar base. In case of emergency, the spaceship would transport the humans from the moon to the earth as soon as possible.  It took more than eight days for Apollo 11 to return back to earth. This pace would be quite slow for an emergency vehicle. When you do the math, quite big rocket would be necessary for the job. A much feasible alternative would be to deploy an emergency room module with autonomous robotic personal. Then, health intervention would be much faster and deploying the module on the moon would be more feasible than a giant rocket.

The biggest problem with this solution is that there is no such robotic emergency room exist. As I keep repeating, the success on space depends on improvements on earth. Many technologies required for a successful solar expansion for humans rely on systems that would be utilized on earth first. Proper health personal is difficult to source in many rural areas. Robotic health solutions would bring better health service to remote locations on earth. Even the military would benefit from that. The progress on such a goal is very slow. Big goals cannot be attained with slow pace. Like a rocket that requires high thrust to free itself from the gravity, big goals require high momentum to achieve their goals.

On my next article, I will propose a path for such a goal.

Falcon 9 & Heavy Third Stage

Exploration missions beyond the moon takes very long time to reach their target destinations. Yet their launches are quite rare. I believe, developing a third stage to the most frequently launched rocket in the world would enable us to explore the solar system faster.

Only in 2018 a SHERPA Space Tug was added to Falcon 9 to convert it to a three staged rocket. The Space Tug is just a commercial satellite dispenser. A high energy third stage on the other hand can deploy a small planetary satellite such as a lunar telecom relay. As a result, the spacecrafts orbiting the moon would experience minimum or no blackout. I also had proposed a solar relay network that enables connectivity between the Earth and the satellites orbiting a planet on the other side of the sun. The connectivity between Earth and Mars cannot be maintained a yearlong at the moment. However, solar relay network would allow almost continuous connectivity between Earth and the inner and outer planets.