Space Update 04.24.11

SpaceX Falcon Heavy

SpaceX Falcon Heavy

• Competive with Saturn V but much cheaper lift cost– Approx $1000/kg to LEO

• Aimed at lunar and mars mission• Lift capacity is twice that of any other (rocket based)

launch vehicle– 53 metric tons – picture fully loaded Boeing 737 to orbit,

passengers, luggage and all.• Propellant cross-feed from side boosters leaving

central core with more propellant for next boost phase– Only needed for missions over 100,000 lbs.

Falcon Heavy..

• Higher structural margins than any other rocket– Yet better mass ratio than an vehicle to date

• Falcon 9 launch mission cost is $50-60m• Falcon Heavy is $80-125m– Both prices include all non-recurring missing cost

and on-orbit delivery– Even the Falcon Heavy cost is less than ¼ of the

budgeted per launch cost the Air Force employees• Free Enterprise rules!

Falcon Heavy Vehicle Overview• Mass to orbit (200 km, 28.5 deg)

– 53 metric tons (117,000 lbs)• Length

– 69.2 meters • Max Stage Width

– 5.2 meters• Total Width

– 11.5 meters• Liftoff weight

– 1400 metric tons• Thrust on liftoff

– 1700 metric tons

Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer

• WISE space telescope (launched 2009)– 57% of all its surveys are publicly available– To date as discovered• 20 new comets• 33000 new asteroids (between Mars and Jupiter)• 133 NEOs• 94 cool stars (brown dwarfs)• Altogether more than 350 million objects including

155000 in the solar system

Anti-Gravity as cause of universe expansion?

• Although normal matter attracts normal matter and antimatter attracts antimatter..– Does matter attract antimatter or repeal it?

• According to General Relativity– It looks like they may repeal each other

• If correct it obviates the need for Dark Energy to explain cosmic expansion

• It would also offer some explanation for little antimatter seeming to be around

• But can you use it for an anti-gravity device or space drive?– Hmmm…

Titan may have subsurface ocean

• On basis of gravity and radar– Moments of inertia are off for a solid body– Likely more liquid core• Unknown what that liquid is. • But a liquid water ocean under an ice surface is

suspected

– A model with these assumptions matches the data obtained much better.

Inflatable antennaes

• Emergency Satellite comms for earth and space– Can be quickly deployed for remote hard to reach

places– Can provide internet, VOIP, email, etc– Complete system sets up in 45 minutes, 15 to take

down– Fits in two suitcases.

A boom in sending people to space

• SpaceX Falcon Heavy flies in 2012/2013• Bigelow Aerospace makes inflatable space station

and is expanding by 1100%– Together means that stations bigger than ISS are single

launch• Russia is developing a megawatt nuclear power

system for space• Vasimir plasma 200 kw rockets will be flown shortly• Solar electric sail prototype flies next year– May be used to shepherd asteroids

Shepherding asteroids

• Very low thrust engines may be used to move asteroids slow– Consider conglomeration of asteroids with living

space within them.• AsterAnts proposal for moving large number

of < 1 m dia. Asteroids• When an asteroid is in place it would locked in• Easier to move a lot of small asteroids slowly

than hollow out a large one

Electric Solar Sail

Electric Solar Sail

• 50 – 100 20 km conducting wires – Interact with charged solar flux– The electric field of each wire extends 10s of

meters– So solar wind ions act as if this is a large solid sail– Can theorectically achieve thousands of newtons

of propulsion.

Vasimr Rocket

Spacex wins $3 billion Iridium satellite network contract

Life inside a black hole?