The topicupward bound discuses about the different and innovative ways to get into spacecheaply.
We have always used rocketsto go to space but they are rubbish, very much expensive, always wasted afterone shot, polluting, takes a lot of fuel to get into space and more fuel to getthat fuel into space which is really inefficient.For more efficient spacetravels we had some ways which we would use:- 1.7.1. SKYLON It is vast thunderbird jetplane which is a rocket jet hybrid.
It takes off like a normal plane, fliesinto space, delivers cargo up to 11tons to the ISS or other space stations thenflies back home, refuel and take off again. The secret to Skylon is theSABRE engine. Most planes have big heavy engines which operates limited powerto control their temperature. Skylon doesn’t. Innovative cooling system in thenose freezes air from a 1000oC to 150oC where it’s burnedwith onboard hydrogen fuel allowing the engines to be lighter and run up forhigher loads. It accelerates 5.4 times the speed ofsound which goes 60 miles high.
Once there, it shuts off due to very thin airsupply and uses onboard oxygen to rocket into the orbit. It is very reliant anduses 1/5 the fuel of a rocket. 1.
7.2. LIGHTCRAFTTo get into space you needthrust but what if we had a beam of thrust from the ground rather than fuelcarried on board and therefore becoming lighter and efficient ship. Lightcraft has a specialmirror beneath the craft which focuses laser light beamed from the groundpointing directly beneath the aircraft. The air is heated to 50,000oCwhich is 10 times hotter than the surface of the sun and then explodes. The shockwave pushes the shipup. It’s estimated that if we use 100megawatt laser and 1.4 m mirror we candeploy satellite payloads to up to 100kg could be sent rapidly and more cheaplyto the ISS and other platforms.
1.7.3. SPACE ELEVATORSpaceexploration can be done more efficiently and effectively but the thing thatlies’ being a hurdle is a dirty four little word COST. For taking just akilogram of anything into space requires $20,000 and would be 8 million for anaverage person and billions for an international space station. So we decided of a way whichwould lower the $20,000 to as low as $200. And the way is building a spaceelevator.Thefuel required for a rocket to go to like we can say to mars is consumed half ofthe way down for just escape earth’s gravity.
Space elevator would make this assimple as clicking the up button.Spaceelevator involves a counter weight, tether, anchor and the climber. Anchorsticks to the ground, counter weight acts as a weight which must be on thegeostationary orbit which is 36,000 km from the surface of the earth, thetether which is a cable connecting the anchor and counterweight, and theclimber which climbs up the tether.CarbonNano tubes, graphene and diamond Nano threads can be used to make the tetherwhich needs to be strong, light and flexible. For creating a space elevator onearth we would require these materials in a huge quantity which is notpractical as these materials have the longest created size of 2-3cm. We couldmake a space elevator on moon or mars with present technology and materialslike Zylon and Kevlar.
Building a space elevator on moon or mars is morebeneficial as these bodies have very low gravity letting us build the spaceelevator easily with strong materials like Kevlar which are weaker than CNTs orcarbon nano tubes but can be mass produced. Space elevators can have multipletethers to stabilize the force generated when the climber moves up or down.These multiple tethers could have their own climbers or a single climber whichwould go from one counterweight to another.1.
7.4. SPACE TOWER A space tower is basically a tower butquite high and has a docking station and launch pad from which we can land,refuel and launch our different space crafts. For our case we would be buildinga ThothX tower which would act as both space elevator and space tower combined.But it is not a full space elevator. The tower would bebuilt out of stacked Kevlar cells inflated to extreme pressures with hydrogen or helium gas. Flywheels wouldbe used to stabilize the structure, as the structure is much too tall for guywires to work.
The tower is designed to be able tosurvive Category 5 hurricanes. It is a 20km tall tower butwe would make an approximately 200km tall tower. This tower will also be usedas a communication tower, a replacement for low altitude satellites and highaltitude wing electricity generator. So inconclusion we will be building a ThothX tower on earth with an altitude of200km. For transporting materials for the initial stages of NOVUS TERRA wewould use Skylon and Lightcraft for the purpose. NOVUS TERRA in its initial stages will alsoget materials from the moon base.
The Kalpana station and Gagarin station wouldbe constructed on moon (discussed further). Mars would have its base with aspace elevator equipped with multiple tethers (discussed further).
