Spacefaring America: Recent Comments

Comment on 23 - AstroPolitics essay - "Spacefaring Logistics Infrastructure: The Foundation of a Spacefaring America" by Mike Snead

2009-07-24T13:36:39Z

I fully agree with the argument although i believe that it would be useful to give a bit of more gepolitical argument here too - i tried to put it in a bit ordered matter in my blog...

http://www.viralne.cz/2009/07/moonmani/

Comment on 24 - Space solar power and America's energy future (Part 5)

2009-05-13T13:01:17Z

hmm... a little bit sophisticated for me to understand. But this sounds like a wonderful idea, but I can’t exactly work out from the project page what it is. By the way I found your website advertised on an australian forum…

Comment on 17 - Space solar power and America's energy future (Part 2)

2009-04-15T15:30:48Z

All of this sounds so impressive, but for I-don't-know-which reason it's somehow irrealisic... I'm not sure that the Sates will turn to the usage of solar power so soon, though it would be really pretty!

Comment on 25 - Space Solar Power and America's Energy Future (Part 6)

2009-03-27T00:40:27Z

I'm an attorney, not a scientist, but after reading a lot about solar energy, I asked myself, "why can't we harvest it in space." I Googled the concept, and here I am. I want to form a company to bring together the foremost experts in this area and extremely wealthy investors to commercialize this concept.

Comment on 25 - Space Solar Power and America's Energy Future (Part 6)

2008-12-21T22:54:23Z

Mike:

You need to find a publisher and put the whole package out there as a book. People need to read it.
Hu

Comment on 25 - Space Solar Power and America's Energy Future (Part 6)

2008-12-15T08:39:58Z

Sorry, but, the "Space Solar Power" is TOO expensive (HUNDREDS TIMES MORE than just deploy the same solar panels on Earth!) and VERY vulnerable (a few space weapons or an Earth based Laser could SHUT DOWN your country in minutes!) as explained (with detailed evaluations) in this ghostNASA article: http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts/038sspdebunked.html

Comment on 25 - Space Solar Power and America's Energy Future (Part 6)

2008-12-15T00:29:22Z

Developing a sound long-term strategic objective for achieving sustainable energy and then buttressing this with good near-term and mid-term implementation plans will provide a significant boost to the nation's economy. Will it happen overnight? No, as most people understand. Will we start to gain positive benefits from such an approach? Yes, as the nation begins to gain renewed confidence in its ability to control its energy destiny while at the same time ensuring that our children and grandchildren will not be living in an energy-starved future. As I said in the preface, time is precious and is not to be wasted.

If you have not read the full paper, I suggest you take some time to scan through it as this may provide additional information that could help you in better understanding what energy course-of-action American should now take.

I also encourage you to e-mail you friends to view this blog entry.

Mike Snead

Comment on 25 - Space Solar Power and America's Energy Future (Part 6)

2008-12-14T21:18:55Z

Of the money we have seen thrown around thus far let me ask you this, that 168 billion that our country borrowed to give away to us in the form of an "economic stimulus package" ...did it do a darn thing to create jobs or stimulate our economy. NO, nothing. And we borrowed the money from China. This past year the high cost of gas nearly destroyed our economy and society. More people lost jobs and homes as a direct result of that than any other factor in our history. Fannie and Freddie continue to get all the blame. Of all the homes I have seen lost in my area SW FL and believe me I have seen many, none were due to an adjustable mortgage. They were due to lack of work. Families went broke at the pump alone. Then added to that most saw record rate hikes at their utility companies. The high cost of fuel resulted in higher production and shipping costs that were passed on to the consumer, in most cases higher prices for smaller packaging. Consumers tightened their belts, cut back, went out to eat less or stopped totally. Drove around on tires that needed replacing longer, some even quit buying medicines they really need. Unfortunately cutting back and spending less results in even more layoffs. A real economical catch-22. And, as we are doing the happy dance around the lower prices at the pumps OPEC is planning to cut production to raise prices. They are even getting Russia in on the cutbacks. Oil is finite. We have used up the easy to get to reserves already. It will run out one day. We have so much available to us. Solar and Wind are free sources of energy. Of course to get the harnessing process set up is somewhat costly it is still free energy. It would cost the equivalent of 60 cents per gallon to charge and drive an electric car. The electricity to charge the car could be generated by solar or wind at least in part and in most cases totally. If all gasoline cars, trucks, and suv’s instead had plug-in electric drive trains, the amount of electricity needed to replace gasoline is about equal to the estimated wind energy potential of the state of North Dakota. What a powerful resources we have neglected. Jeff Wilson has a profound new book out called The Manhattan Project of 2009 Energy Independence Now. www.themanhattanprojectof2009.com Powerful, powerful book! Also, if you think electric cars are way out there in some futuristic lala land please check out the web site for a company Better Place. http://www.betterplace.com/ they are setting up infrastructures in San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland as well as the state of Hawaii to accommodate electric car use. I think we need to rethink all these bailouts and stimulus packages. We need to use some of these billions to bail America out of it's dependence on foreign oil. Create clean cheap energy, create millions of badly needed new green collar jobs and get out from under the grip foreign oil has on us. What a win -win situation that would be for America at large!

Comment on 18 - Aerospaceplanes and Space Solar Power

2008-06-27T09:51:39Z

I appreciate the time you are endulging in explanation of the full Space topic. It encourages more participation.

Comment on 22 - Assessing the Practicality of Scramjet-Powered, Single-Stage Aerospaceplanes

2008-06-04T18:28:27Z

To me your excellent article confirms that, while Scramjets constitute a fascinating technological challenge, in practical terms of "the Holy Grail" they really don't cut it. Primarily because they require a substantial boost to reach operating speed - which incidentally is equally applicable to the basic Ramjet design to begin with. This implies that in order to reach orbital speed, a vehicle thus equipped, becomes a "triple Hybrid"system incorporating turbojets in the 1st phase,Scramjets in the second, and good old Rockets in the third & orbital insertion phase. Now currently, the Shuttle's SRBs accelerate it to a mere Mach 4 and not quite clear of the atmosphere. Using updated J58(SR71) turbo-ramjet type engines in jettisonable/ recoverable pods, a smaller more practical vehicle could be built. It would use mixed propellant rocket engines that could use RP1 for clearing the atmosphere and LH2 for the post-atmosphere phase/orbital insertion - the Soviets/Russians produced and flew just such engines - either in a SSTO or TSTO configuration would work just as well in technical and economic terms. The basic criteria(excess weight) are still in effect and I consider the Atlas 1-1/2 stage design to be the most efficient launcher thus far. By incorporating Annular and/or jettisonable tanks for both fuels(a'la the Soviet R7) in the design and perhaps accepting the risks and performance losses of using N2O4 oxidizer, the mass fraction could be kept in the 80-90% range throughout all stages of the flightpath through 2 differing mediums. Which of course, is the basic problem for Space launchers...
For SSTO, mass has to be got rid of/ reduced somehow,because our power plants are just not up to the job...unless we go to nuclear-thermal engines...!