Conference 7.286::space

    There is even a serious proposal for the Great Alantic Shoot OFF
    yup, in order to verify that the missiles were distroyed, they 
    could be all disarmed and fired downrange into the Alantic Ocean
              
    
    I argree this seems to be a big waste of money, but then again
    I want to make sure they are not being keep for military use.
    But - it would be reasonable to think that some of them could
    be used for peaceful satllites such as the joint SAR (Search
    and rescue satellites) weather satellies and simular peaceful
    use of space, but even our NAV satellites will be used in 
    SDI so what is peaceful is a very open question.  The answear
    may be so political it may be best to destroy them, plus there
    would be the need for some design modification to make them a
    useful launch vehical.
    
    dammed if you do and dammed if you dont
    but in this case the distruction may be good, it will focus
    the attention on the waste of money that could have gone elsewhere.
    
    jb
        
    
    
    
    

    Pete,
    	Your ranting, raving and foaming at the mouth reflects a complete
    and utter lack of understanding of how the arms control process
    works and how difficult it is to get the USSR and the USA to agree
    on a method that insures that neither side can "cheat" in removing
    this class of missiles.  It reminds me of the old Hollywood joke
    where the hero gets into the boat and starts to row it across the
    lake.  He concentrates so much on the task at hand (rowing) that
    he fails to notice that the boat is sinking.  In a similar manner
    you are concentrating so much on the single issue of space exploration
    that you fail to see the world about armed to the teeth. 
                                                             
    	This is a good move, for the first time the arms race has taken
    a step backwards instead of forward.  If it would help make the world 
    a little bit safer and reverse a 40 year trend of arms build up, I'd 
    torch the suckers myself.  That way the engineering student in 2087
    would be able to run experiments too.
                                         
    	                              
    Rich

    	Could you please rewrite your Topic title so it can be a bit
    more understandible for those looking for such a subject in the
    directory? 
    
    	If you wish to do it yourself, you can change the title by writing
    at Note 375.0  SET NOTE/TITLE="Using Old Boosters" or something
    similar.  Only the Moderators and yourself can change the title
    of Note you write.  Thanks.
                               
    	Larry
    

    One of the corner stones of the treaty is that neither side shall
    build nor test a new class of INF missiles. As someone pointed out,
    in order to build a launch vehicle for small payloads out of these
    missile launchers, some modifications may have to be made. I bet
    the Soviets would consider that a violation of the "no build-no
    test" clause.
    	Even if the Soviets concede this point (say as a PR gesture)
    and stipulate that only "educational institutes" may be allowed
    to use these to-be-scrapped missiles, there is a catch. They (USSR)
    will demand the same right, which the US cannot refuse. But what
    guarantees does one have that all of a sudden the admissions to
    MIT, Stanford and Moscow University (or whatever schools specialise
    in this sort of research) don't include an inordinate number of
    military specialists.
    	I understand and sympathize with the feelings in .0; I was
    aghast at first too that so much resources are being just blown
    up (not to talk of the valuable industrial explosives being
    wasted and the consequent pollution). But for once, wasting something
    may be the safest and least explosive (politically!!!) way to achieve
    things.
    
    -parthi

    re to 2
    first i want to point out that i'm for this treaty, but i really
    believe something more constructive can be done with these
    boosters, i don't see that great problem of verifcation if a workable
    design can be done maybe the un could be responible for the launching
    and payloads (it would give the third world a chance for comsats
    and land resoarse sats.) plus the advantage of this would be you
    created institutions that could handle more disarmment it would
    not be excuse the pun "a one shot deal"
    verifcation would be as simple as bringing us and ussr techs.
    to a neutral launch site, they count the components and watch the
    launch, really how much different is this to the same tech watching
    this components being exploded, chrushed, cut in 2, plus the whole
    world would benifit.

    For one thing, you'd have to remove the guidance system first. 
    You don't want that to fall into "someone else's" hands.
    
    Also, if you gave the boosters to Northeastern University in Boston,
    you run a risk of changing (once again) the Democratic presidential
    race, if you get my drift ;-)
    
    Tom

    I thought I heard a report on the INF treaty saying that there was
    indeed a clause, requested by the Soviets, that up to 100 of the
    newly outlawed missiles could be "destroyed" by launching them into
    space.  It said the Soviets intend to do this but it did not say
    what, if anything, would be put into orbit.  Anyone hear more details?
    

    You all seem to assume that INF missles can actually reach orbit.
    This is not clear to me.  After all, they were only designed to
    have a suborbital range of a few Ks of miles.
    
    Burns

    
    Re: .8
    
    	Individually, I doubt they could reach a full orbit.  It would
    be interesting, though, to calculate how many of them clustered
    together could launch a satellite.  Of course, with all the
    synchronization problems that a "home brew" clustered booster would
    have, it might be easier and cheaper to blow them up and use new
    boosters.  (Especially considering the added cost of replacing the
    probably_removed_due_to_being_classified guidance system.)
    
    							-c

    The Pershing is the only missile of interest. It may just be able
    to orbit a small payload but the motors could be used for high altitude
    sounding rockets or maybe in a Scout class launcher with one or
    two upper stages.
    
    A lot of useful work has been done in the past with Army-surplus
    rocket motors (e.g. the seemingly endless series of Nike boosted
    sounding rockets) and it would be a pity to waste these.
    
    By way of precedent, the USAF was busy burning Minuteman-1 stages
    until someone realised that they might be useful for something (Aries
    sounding rockets).
    
    gary

    I know some people in the Goddard Society (Model Rocketry Club)
    who would find some use for them :-)
    
    Is the "need" to destroy the boosters linked to the verification
    process?  I suppose they could track the boosters to whatever peaceful
    task to which they get assigned instead of trashing them to make
    sure they never get used by the military again.
    
    I agree with Gary.  There are plenty on non-exotic uses for these
    boosters as sounding rockets or as upper stages for small satellite
    launchers.
    
    						Mike

    Re: .7
    
    I would think that the Soviets would want to use them for space
    based defensive systems testing.  Launch it and then try to shoot
    it down, if they miss, it would theoretically burn up given it was
    launched with the right trajectory.

From: [email protected] (Dave Newkirk)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Cost Optimized Launch Vehicles, circa 1965
Date: 5 Nov 87 19:33:39 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
 
[ This is an extract from U.S. Civilian Space Programs, 1958-1981,
  Vol. 1, published by the Congressional Research Service of the
  Library of Congress, Jan. 1981.  It seemed appropriate now that
  there are so many designs for new boosters around - dcn. ]
 
	Proposals for Large, Economical Rockets
	---------------------------------------
 
    While much of the research attention has focused on attempts to
squeeze extra percentages of efficiency out of propellants or out of
engines, and then, out of reusability of very expensive vehicles,
there was another design trend that showed up in proposals which would
have relaxed some of the design constraints and instead aimed at
economy so that while engineering abstract efficiency was not
attained, overall program costs were to be cut.  One kind of label
which was used in the mid-60s was `Big Dumb Booster.'  The goal was to
come up with a rocket which could be built in a shipyard of ordinary
steel, towed out to sea, filled with a pair of cheap propellants and
sent on its way.  In a sense, the OTRAG effort to launch clustered
simple rockets to orbit from Zaire has elements of the same philosophy
although the design approach was different. (1) 

    There were many different plans offered by either established
aerospace companies or by newcomers who one way or another were
seeking a path to more nearly commercial applications of space flight
though cutting the costs of launching to Earth orbit.  It is not
possible to catalog all of these here, but a few quite different
vehicles have been described in brochures which are still available
for study. 
 
			Roost

    Roost was a 1962 offering of Douglas Aircraft Co.  It called for
lifting  145,000 kg (320,000 lbs), or more, to a 555 km (345 mile)
orbit using a single stage.  It would have used a 15.2 meter (50 ft)
diameter tank 83 m (273 ft) long, and powered by 12 hydrogen-oxygen
engines of 4,448,455 Newtons (1,000,000 lbs) thrust each, possibly a
variant of the M-1 motor [would have been developed for the Nova
second stage - dcn].  Recovery was to include deployment of a balloon
cone-shaped element inflated with leftover hydrogen pro- pellant or
helium.  This was to be able to return a 13,600 kg (30, 000 lb) manned
payload from orbit.  Obviously such a single-stage- to-orbit rocket
does not meet the definition of a `Big Dumb Booster,' but through
simplicity of design and reusability, the hope was to bring the
payload cost down to under $660 a kilogram ($300/lb) for modest
payloads, compared with $1,543 a kg ($700/lb) for the Atlas Agena, and
for large payloads to bring the cost down to $100 a kg ($45.50/lb),
compared with $330 a kg ($150/lb) for the Saturn V. (2) 
 
			Sea Dragon
 
    The Sea Dragon proposal of 1965 from the Aerojet Company was
intended to outclass Nova in size in the same way that Nova out-
classed the Saturn V.  As far as weights were concerned, the Saturn V
had a liftoff weight of about 2,268,000 kg (5,000,000 lbs); the Nova
would have been about 4,536,000 kg (10,000,000 lbs); while the Sea
Dragon would have been in the 43,360,000 kg (100,000,000 lb) class. 
The promoters pointed out that the cost of liquid oxygen and kerosene
for putting a kg of payload in orbit is on the order of $4.40 ($2.00
per lb).  But for some solid propellants the pro- pellant cost for
putting a kg of payload in orbit is more than $220 ($100 per lb). 
With some vehicles, the total cost of propellant and airframe runs to
total over $2,205 a kg ($1000 per lb).  But if the vehicle could be
used a 100 times, the airframe portion of cost would drop from perhaps
$2200 a kg ($998 per lb) to only $22 a kg ($9.98/lb), because the
vehicle itself is so expensive compared with the propellants. 

    The goal of Sea Dragon was to spread those costs of construction
through reuse.  Sea Dragon was to be a two-stage vehicle, treated like
a ship, by being assembled in a dry dock, towed to an ocean launch
site, and fueled from tankers.  Tilted on end, without the expense of
gantry or other structure, the rocket would rise toward orbit directly
out of the water. The rocket was also made simple by using
pressure-fed motors. The intention was to recover both stages without
parachutes, wings or retro-rockets, simply by hydrodynamic
deceleration. (3) 
 
    Cost Optimized Launch Vehicle (COLV - Big Dumb Booster)
 
    The COLV Big Dumb Booster of Boeing, also called Project Scrimp,
was developed as a concept in the years of 1967-1969. The approach was
to have a family of launch vehicles with cost rather than performance
the deciding design factor.  These were in the lifting range of 450 kg
(1000 lbs) to 45,360 kg (100,000 lbs).  Engines were pressure-fed with
no moving parts other than valves.  Tanks were steel, and the
pressurizing gas was steam.  TRW and possibly other major liquid
rocket motor companies ran design studies and preliminary tests on the
propulsion required.  Funding at Boeing was mostly corporate, although
some Air Force money also was used.  While the goal was to bring the
cost of delivered payload down to $132 a kg ($60/lb), that attained in
the design study was $190 a kg ($86/lb), still way below the
prevailing costs of launching on conventional rockets of the same period. 
 
    In the end, the national decision was to go to reusable vehicles
rather than `Big Dumb Boosters.'  Initially, the reusables have a
higher cost per kilogram than these economical expendable vehicles
have shown in the paper studies.  But the advantage of the reusable
vehicles was seen to be a potential for later generations to cut costs
while the expendables would reach a floor on cost savings sooner. (4) 
 
(1) Space World, August-September 1978, pp 4-14.
 
(2) Douglas Report SM-41719.  A Conceptual Design for a Reusable
    One-Stage Orbital Space Truck.
 
(3) Aerojet General.  Sea Dragon, 9200-65.
 
(4) Aviation Week & Space Technology, May 27, 1968, p. 30;
    July 29, 1968, p.13.
-- 
				Dave Newkirk, ihnp4!ihlpm!dcn

Article: 49792
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Von Braun 
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 19:09:22 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
Here's a quick rundown on the A series.  There is some disagreement
among publications about punctuation, but both Ley's book and von
Braun&Ordway (History of Rocketry and Space Travel), which I'm
inclined to consider authoritative, make it "A-4", not A4 or A.4 or
anything else.  The "V" designations, incidentally, were coined by the
Propaganda Ministry, not the military. 
 
A-1	150kg test rocket; engine fired but design never completed

A-2	larger test rocket; two flown as proofs of principle

A-3	750kg test rocket; three flown; guidance system inadequate

A-4	operational ballistic missile, aka V-2

A-4b	A-4 crudely modified to add wings; attempt to extend range of
	production A-4 design as near-Channel launch sites were lost
	after Normandy; two flown in 1945, one successfully (believed the
	first winged craft to go supersonic)

A-5	subscale A-4; 25 flown to test guidance systems (note that this
	was *before* the first A-4 flights); size similar to A-3

A-6	A-4 redesigned for storable fuels; design complete but never built

A-7	more or less a winged A-5; test model for A-8/9; some flown

A-8	improved A-6 with wings for extended range; never built

A-9	improved A-4 with wings for extended range (much more polished
	design than the later A-4b); never built; manned version sketched

A-10	scaled-up A-4 meant to carry A-9 as second stage for transatlantic
	range; never built

[A-11]	(designation never formally assigned) still bigger scaleup meant
	to carry A-10/A-9 combination for three stages total; intended
	for manned orbital flight; design sketch only

[A-12]	(designation never formally assigned) yet another scaleup, meant
	to carry A-11 and winged A-10 to place 25-30T in orbit; concept only
 
Incidentally, the reason why the A-4b wasn't called something like
A-11 was the same reason why von Braun's later orbital launcher was
called "Jupiter C" even though it was a souped-up Redstone and not a
Jupiter: the A-4 had much higher priority for resources than any other
A-project, so calling the winged variant A-4b got results much more 
quickly. 
-- 
There is nothing wrong with making      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim|  [email protected]  utzoo!henry