Thoughts on alt.space

[Sarevok]

This is tangentially related to opinions I have expressed in recent threads mentioning VSS Enterprise, Spaceshipone etc. Alt.space refers to the fresh crop of young companies like Scaled Composites, Bigelow etc that claim to have cracked the problem with space today.

As everyone is no doubt aware these new designs are primarily for suborbital hops. They have not even tenth of the energy required escape Earths gravity and enter a low Earth orbit. The argument in their favor I am gathering from here is that they will bolster suborbital tourism. The money will then be reinvested into true reusable spaceplanes. I am seeing several problems with this line of thinking.

- The first is that I cant find any official statements from Rutan or Branson that they have a realistic plan for orbital spacecraft. They are firmly in the suborbital tourism market.

- Orbital spaceplanes are like nuclear fusion based powerplants. They have always been twenty years away. The Americans, the Russians, the Europeans all have tried various designs and have failed. How are we supposed to believe that young startups will succeed where governments and the military industrial complex with their obscene budget and resources have failed ?

- The question whether spaceplanes are feasible with present day technology is an open one. If they could be built no one would be bothering with rockets today. The advantage cheap, reusable launch brings compared to expensive rockets that malfunction once every few flights can not be understated. Yet no one has managed to do so yet. There is ample evidence to suggest that the spaceplane itself is a flawed idea to begin. Through brute force and technological finesse future engineers may make the concept work but it will not be cheaper per kilo than rockets.

- SpaceX has gone with rockets. They spent their own money developing the Falcon series of launchers. Their goal is to launch cargo at lowest possible rates. If spaceplanes were feasible would not the only successful private space company so far have developed them instead ?

Please dont get my attitude wrong. I am all for space becoming more accesible. But at same time we must all realize that naive optimism about some upstart companies is as bad as adamant insistence that money spent on space is better used to solve hunger, unemployment etc.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

This is tangentially related to opinions I have expressed in recent threads mentioning VSS Enterprise, Spaceshipone etc. Alt.space refers to the fresh crop of young companies like Scaled Composites, Bigelow etc that claim to have cracked the problem with space today.

As everyone is no doubt aware these new designs are primarily for suborbital hops. They have not even tenth of the energy required escape Earths gravity and enter a low Earth orbit. The argument in their favor I am gathering from here is that they will bolster suborbital tourism. The money will then be reinvested into true reusable spaceplanes. I am seeing several problems with this line of thinking.

- The first is that I cant find any official statements from Rutan or Branson that they have a realistic plan for orbital spacecraft. They are firmly in the suborbital tourism market.

Your point? With private industry, there has to be a market for manned orbital spacecraft. Which there isn't, since everything a tourist can do in orbit (float around, look out the windows, and lose their lunches,) they can do in a sub-orbital hop for a tenth of the cost. Sure, they won't be able to do it for as long, but (at the moment) there's nowhere to go in orbit. The only orbital markets are satellite launches and resupply of the ISS, and ISS is liable to be dumped into the ocean in ten years anyway. And besides, why should Scaled Composites build a spaceplane when it hasn't yet been demonstrated that the sub-orbital tourism market, or the sub-orbital transcontinental flight market (which is the collaboration's next stated target,) is profitable?

Though Bigelow is working on the "where to go" end of the market. Both of their inflatable module prototypes were completely successful, and are presently on-orbit. They're also working on a capsule, and collaborating with one of the big players in the private market (Boeing.)

- Orbital spaceplanes are like nuclear fusion based powerplants. They have always been twenty years away. The Americans, the Russians, the Europeans all have tried various designs and have failed. How are we supposed to believe that young startups will succeed where governments and the military industrial complex with their obscene budget and resources have failed ?

Wow, I must've been doing some really goddamned good acid when I read about all those Space Shuttle launches. And I must've been eating psychoactive mushrooms when reading about the Soviet Buran. And snorting some primo coke when reading about the X-37 that's currently on-orbit. In short, you're a fucking idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about.

- The question whether spaceplanes are feasible with present day technology is an open one. If they could be built no one would be bothering with rockets today. The advantage cheap, reusable launch brings compared to expensive rockets that malfunction once every few flights can not be understated. Yet no one has managed to do so yet. There is ample evidence to suggest that the spaceplane itself is a flawed idea to begin. Through brute force and technological finesse future engineers may make the concept work but it will not be cheaper per kilo than rockets.

Again, Space Shuttle. That's a spaceplane. It's not very cheap, because it fell victim to the government phenomena known as "requirements creep," and was designed by committee to boot. You could build one for much cheaper if you limited its mission scope (I believe the X-37B that's on-orbit is much cheaper than a Space Shuttle. One cost $1.7 billion, the other probably cost about a third of that, and has already far-exceeded the Shuttle's on-orbit loiter time) . . . but if you're going to build a cheap people carrier, then you'd might as well build a capsule. You can reuse those just as easily as you can reuse a spaceplane.

- SpaceX has gone with rockets. They spent their own money developing the Falcon series of launchers. Their goal is to launch cargo at lowest possible rates. If spaceplanes were feasible would not the only successful private space company so far have developed them instead ?

Because a spaceplane is a poor cargo carrier. For example, the lightweight X-37 has a 227 kg payload capacity. But the vehicle itself weighs close to 5000 kg. Yes, the vehicle itself does come back, but you have to pay more to put it all into orbit to begin with. SpaceX wants to break into the business currently dominated by Lockheed Martin and Boeing. They also want a piece of the ISS resupply market, so they're developing a capsule. The capsule will be reusable.

[PeZook]

There's a lot to be done with reuseable rockets, too. There were plans to make the Energia 100% reuseable - it would've needed new engines designed for several launches, but the cost savings would be immense.

Anyway, it's useless to harp on the private space guys developing one technology or another: it's not like they take taxpayer money, so if the venture proves unprofitable, no harm done, and the aerospace industry will get new experience and data. And even if it turns out spaceplanes will only ever work as silly tourist traps, so what? We build cruise liners bigger than most freighters. They have their niche and are doing just fine without being some sort of revolutionary concept.

Really, I doubt anybody is really qualified to say if spaceplanes will ever be profitable or not: space industry is very much in its infancy right now.

[Bottlestein]

- Orbital spaceplanes are like nuclear fusion based powerplants.
...
There is ample evidence to suggest that the spaceplane itself is a flawed idea to begin.
...
Through brute force and technological finesse future engineers may make the concept work but it will not be cheaper per kilo than rockets.

Asking you to cite your sources is always sort of a fool's errand, but dare I ask whose ass you pulled these statements out of?

[Broomstick]

- The first is that I cant find any official statements from Rutan or Branson that they have a realistic plan for orbital spacecraft. They are firmly in the suborbital tourism market.

I can't find anything on line in text, however, I have seen Rutan and Branson speak of Tier 2 and Tier 3 plans. First time was just after the first successful sub-orbital hop of SS1, the second time after the official Ansari X-prize win, and I recall another subsequent mention. I saw this video only on TV. You might look on YouTube and have more success at finding something on the Tiers past 1.

Rutan has never had a habit of publishing his plans - as I've said before, he tends to just do stuff, not talk about it. Think I've heard Branson talk more about it than Rutan. In any case, Rutan has made it very clear that success for either Tier 2 (orbital) or Tier 3 (beyond orbit) is not certain, and, since each Tier builds on the prior one, no, he does not have blueprints or designs beyond the most preliminary ideas. I don't see what the issue with that is. He does have an outline, and he progressing through it methodically.

- Orbital spaceplanes are like nuclear fusion based powerplants. They have always been twenty years away. The Americans, the Russians, the Europeans all have tried various designs and have failed. How are we supposed to believe that young startups will succeed where governments and the military industrial complex with their obscene budget and resources have failed ?

How about... because the military didn't bring us the modern airliner? That was a civilian development, funded by private industry, and it didn't require "obscene budget and resources"

How about... the modern personal computer was not created by the military or government, it was whipped up by guys working in a garage, and did not require "obscene budget and resources."

I could probably go on, but really, the military has zero interest in civilian space travel, either people or goods. In many ways, it is more in the military's interest to NOT have civilian space flight. The government has an interest in space for a variety of reasons, but transporting Joe Public is not one of them.

I will also point out that Scaled Composites is NOT a start up company - it was founded in 1982, so it's 28 years old. It has produced dozens of successful designs, including the Beechcraft Starship, a production aircraft, and worked with the USAF on the GlobalHawk which, involving military hardware, is pretty damn hard to get details on. Characterizing Scaled Composites as a "young startup" is, in my opinion, inaccurate.

- The question whether spaceplanes are feasible with present day technology is an open one. If they could be built no one would be bothering with rockets today. The advantage cheap, reusable launch brings compared to expensive rockets that malfunction once every few flights can not be understated. Yet no one has managed to do so yet. There is ample evidence to suggest that the spaceplane itself is a flawed idea to begin. Through brute force and technological finesse future engineers may make the concept work but it will not be cheaper per kilo than rockets.

I think you misunderstand something. Although the WhiteKnights utilize jet technology, SS1 and SS2 are both rocket propelled. Like the current fleet of space shuttles, they glide back to the ground after atmospheric re-entry. Really, what Rutan did was make the equivalent to the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo first stage self-propelled. Not having to carry the oxidizer for the first stage of the ground-to-space vehicle significantly reduces the overall weight. The WhiteKnights lift the SS#'s above the bulk of the atmosphere, so the required size of the on-board rocket is much smaller. The Rutan solution to sub-orbital flight is more accurately an airplane ferrying a rocket closer to the edge of space than it is a self-contained "spaceplane".

Interesting trivia: SS1 is actually registered with the FAA as a glider, not an airplane or "spaceplane" - see here

- SpaceX has gone with rockets. They spent their own money developing the Falcon series of launchers. Their goal is to launch cargo at lowest possible rates. If spaceplanes were feasible would not the only successful private space company so far have developed them instead ?

Is there anyone who is using something other than rockets to get to space? Seriously? If so, please name this company or individual.

[MKSheppard]

How about... because the military didn't bring us the modern airliner? That was a civilian development, funded by private industry, and it didn't require "obscene budget and resources"

From the end of WWI to about the 1940s, world militaries and governments were involved peripherally with airliners, because due to their inherent requirements -- payload capacity, long range, high altitude and high speeds...made the technology developed for them applicable for bombardment aircraft.

Hence the He-111 and the Douglas DC-2/B-18 Bolo.

And of course the USAAF's XB-15 and XB-19 programmes, which gave Boeing and Douglas experience in designing and building (for the time) gargantugan aircraft.

And of course, we can't forget little NACA, which did R&D research for the aircraft companies that they didn't want to pay for. I won't elaborate what NACA developed.

Let's not get into how private industry developed the turbojet on it's own, and then built a huge fuel network capable of delivering JET-A nationwide....here's a hint, it was the military's own need for turbojet aircraft which drove JET-A refining and distribution, not the civilian market.

Or how private industry developed and debugged swept wing aircraft as a private endeavour.

Oh wait, that was the military first with the F-86 Sabre and others; they discovered all the little dangerous quirks in swept wing aircraft -- you had to build each wing exactly like the other wing, or else spanwise drift would lead to stalls pretty fast.

Building large swept wing aircraft with podded engines?

Oh right, that was the Military and the 2,032 B-47 Stratojets that were built. Oh by the way, Boeing had to develop a whole clutch of technologies for the B-47 that tamed the weird characteristics of swept wings, like the yaw damper.

How about... the modern personal computer was not created by the military or government, it was whipped up by guys working in a garage, and did not require "obscene budget and resources."

Wrong.

PC's use integrated circuits.

No ICs, no miniframes and then personal computers.

What drove integrated circuit development?

Why, nothing other than the Minuteman ICBM program and Project Apollo.

Those two programs were consuming the overwhelming majority (90%+) of all ICs made during their respective program runs, and when the MM and Apollo programs wound down, the electronics industry had a huge surplus of plants built to make increasingly large quantities of ICs; and they had to find a new market.

Also if you look even further, you'll see that a lot of the groundwork for the computer revolution in the 1970s was laid by the huge government outlays of the past few decades; first with SAGE in the 1950s, then Apollo in the 1960s which were the first truly *big* things done with computers.

I could probably go on, but really, the military has zero interest in civilian space travel, either people or goods.

It has an interest in putting it's own people into orbit, and delivering payloads to orbit. From there it's a hop skip and jump to civilianized versions building off the sunk cost of the military version.

[Broomstick]

How about... because the military didn't bring us the modern airliner? That was a civilian development, funded by private industry, and it didn't require "obscene budget and resources"

From the end of WWI to about the 1940s, world militaries and governments were involved peripherally with airliners...

Yes, peripherally, not centrally. And of course the military was happy to adapt civilian aviation items to their own needs. Same reason they use civilian contractors for various things - it's easier for the military to do it that way.

And of course, we can't forget little NACA, which did R&D research for the aircraft companies that they didn't want to pay for. I won't elaborate what NACA developed.

Yes, one of the purposes of NACA was to do research. It's successor, NASA, still does research. So what?

Oh right, that was the Military and the 2,032 B-47 Stratojets that were built. Oh by the way, Boeing had to develop a whole clutch of technologies for the B-47 that tamed the weird characteristics of swept wings, like the yaw damper.

I never said the civilian, military, and government efforts didn't communicate with each other, they weren't living in separate silos. However, until private industry decided to haul passengers for profit neither the military nor the government were going to develop the airlines, the businesses that carry people and cargo for profit and which term encompasses more than just the hardware involved. It's not just a matter of having an airplane, there are other things that have to be considered. For example, airliners do not fly at their maximum possible speed, they fly at the most efficient speed, which is considerably slower. They optimize fuel burn to optimize profit. Unlike the military, which often (and rightly so) has priorities other than saving money

How about... the modern personal computer was not created by the military or government, it was whipped up by guys working in a garage, and did not require "obscene budget and resources."

Wrong.

PC's use integrated circuits.

No ICs, no miniframes and then personal computers.

What drove integrated circuit development?

Why, nothing other than the Minuteman ICBM program and Project Apollo.

Those two programs were consuming the overwhelming majority (90%+) of all ICs made during their respective program runs, and when the MM and Apollo programs wound down, the electronics industry had a huge surplus of plants built to make increasingly large quantities of ICs; and they had to find a new market.

That is all true, however, government or the military had ZERO interest in putting small, powerful computers in the hands of the public. That took the Altair kit computer, Wozniak and Wayne of Apple putting together computers by hand and selling them, and the rest of the small computer crowd of the mid-1970's. That, and the piece of software called "VisiCalc" which gave businesses a reason to buy small computers. It's not just the hardware.

Meanwhile, the military and the government happily chugged along with mainframes.

Yes, yes, the military now uses laptops. So what? Is there a rule they can't adapt civilian items to military use?

Also if you look even further, you'll see that a lot of the groundwork for the computer revolution in the 1970s was laid by the huge government outlays of the past few decades; first with SAGE in the 1950s, then Apollo in the 1960s which were the first truly *big* things done with computers.

Right, the government did BIG things with computers, and that's how they were thought of. No one in government thought of doing little things with little computers in the hands of little people. That took civilian entrepreneurs. Did they build on research done by NASA and the military? Sure. You know what? Government doesn't run its own pencil factories, it buys the civilian models. Nothing wrong with the government, the military, and the civilian world exchanging stuff. It happens all the time.

I could probably go on, but really, the military has zero interest in civilian space travel, either people or goods.

It has an interest in putting it's own people into orbit, and delivering payloads to orbit. From there it's a hop skip and jump to civilianized versions building off the sunk cost of the military version.

Yes, the military wants to put its own people in orbit, and doesn't give a fuck about civilians. It takes a civilian entrepreneur to adapt surplus military tech to civilian needs. The military was never going to get into the business of shipping civilians and their crap around because that's not something the military does. Nor could military aircraft be used for civilian needs without some adaptation that the military was never going to do.

I've been in WWII era military airplanes. I've even flown a trainer from that era. There are definite differences from civilian aircraft of that era. But beyond that, let's look at a few differences between military troops and civilian tourists.

- The military is mostly fit, young people. The general public is much more diverse. Military airplanes are built for fit people who can reach, climb, grab, and in no way require assistance to get in or out of an airplane. Getting in and out of a B-17, for example, requires one to be thin and flexible and of adult height - the very young, the elderly, and the disabled are going to have a hell of a time doing it and need lots of assistance if they can do it at all. A civilian airliner, though, must be accessible to all customers, whether 2 feet tall or arthritic or using a cane or missing a limb.

- Even comparing cockpits between military and civilian airplanes is instructive - the military ones have little in the way of creature comfort, they are strictly utilitarian. Civilian ones of any era are much easier to get in and out of, have more comfortable seating, and for most people (I expect you're an exception to this, Shep) much more aesthetically appealing.

- Let's consider the difference between high altitude military and civilian flight. The military will happily cram their guys (and gals) into was is essentially a lightweight spacesuit (though not always) and make them wear bulky masks from the ground up. Civilian high altitude (there are private aircraft that go to 50,000 feet, in addition to the operating altitude of the now-defunct Concorde) is a little different - the pilots don't wear the bulky suits, and aren't required to put on those damn masks until they're above a certain altitude. For damn sure the Concord's customers weren't going to wear pressure suits or masks, and neither do those riding in the higher altitude jets of today. That imposes different requirements on aircraft systems. Civilian spaceflight is going to involve a lot fewer spacesuits, I can assure you, which will impact other aspects of the operation, including emergency procedures in the event of pressure loss. The Mercury-Gemini-Apollo series used the spacesuit as a backup to cabin integrity. SS1 was instead double-hulled and the pilot didn't have a pressure suit. Granted, NASA has made progress in the area of shirt-sleeve environments in space because people work so much better without a pressure suit, and you can be sure the private entrepreneurs are making full use of that research.

So what if they building off the "sunk cost" of the military? You think the military doesn't build off the "sunk cost" when it adapts something civilian to its needs? What about government offices now buying computer equipment from private companies - OMG! The government wouldn't have copiers if it weren't for private industry! Oh, woe!

The military is never going to develop civilian space travel - although they will happily make use of any civilian tech they find useful. NASA is adamantly opposed to flying civilians, especially since the one time they did it ended in disaster (which was unrelated to the civilian being present). They refuse space tourists, despite the fact they can charge tens of millions a launch for one (the Russians, oddly enough, are much more capitalistic in this regard).

Bottom line, the only way you or I are going into to space is if some civilian group develops commercial space travel.

[Broomstick]

Enough about hardware, though - let's talk about some other aspects of life in zero g that might prove an obstacle to space tourism.

You see, one advantage of a sub-orbital flight that imposes zero-g for only a few minutes (at most) is just that - limited time in microgravity. If you think airplane lavatories suck, wait until you see the free-fall version! How are you going to get the general public to adapt to a toilet that requires you to position yourself carefully, either hold yourself in place or strap in, and which is prone to clogging if mis-used? The current zero-g toilets require training to use properly, training by presumably coordinated people who are sober. What's going to happen when some drunken asshole needs to unload? And the backup version? Yeah - the tourists will be real happy to shit into plastic baggies... Not to mention the human turd production apparatus evolved with gravity in mind - astronauts frequently have to snap off the "sausage links" because there's no gravity assist. Imagine having to explain this to grandma... and the drunk asshole tourist. Nope, the baggies are not going to happen... But really, airplane toilets are close enough to the standard models to be intuitive to the average idiot. Zero-g toilets are not. When we get to the point that people are staying in space for more than half a day this will become an issue. A space tourist is unlikely to just hold it for a week.

Eating in space. Civilians are, at this point, familiar with frozen meals that are reheated in the microwave, resulting in some foodstuffs of different texture that might be obtained from fresh. And some considerable work has been down by astronauts to determine what is and isn't a good idea (I recall the Skylab guys telling NASA the chili that was sent up with them was bad news. In fact, it was such bad news that not only were they not going to eat it anymore, they were trying to figure out how to space the stuff) But you know some granny is going to smuggle up her special crumb cake in her carry-on and then it will be crumbs all over. And you just know that, sooner or later, someone is going to have a food fight up there. The thing is, on Earth thrown/dropped food falls to the floor and we have developed all sorts of ways to pick it up easily. Meanwhile, it's not flying around getting into every nook and cranny and fucking up the machinery. Not so in no g! The general public are slobs. In space, this is a problem. Civilian accommodations are going to have to figure out how to deal with this, instead of using NASA's method of retraining people in how they behave from how/what they eat to how they sit down to take a shit.

Spacesickness. This one the various space agencies have done a very good job of hiding. After all, your top gun right stuff fighter jock doesn't look very brave or heroic vomiting all the way to the Moon and back, does he? It has happened. Bad enough on an airliner if the tourist fumbles the barf bag and it splats all over the floor - in space EVERYONE gets to "enjoy" the puke floating around the cabin. Even people who normally do not experience motion sickness have been known to puke often in microgravity. Unfortunately, the most effective anti-nausea medications also tend to knock people out. This doesn't mesh well with tourism. On top of that, some people experience truly incapacitating levels of nausea and vomiting - you'll have to have some sort of medical facilities to keep these people hydrated and full of drugs until they can be returned to gravity.

Space habitats stink. Be glad video feeds from our current space stations aren't scratch n sniff. It's a truly enclosed environment, so all the farts and body odors and food stinks hang around. The aroma of Mir was once described as a cross between locker room sweat socks and old cooking with some mold thrown in. For a quick sub-orbital hop the odors aren't going to build up, and the thing can be cleaned back on the ground, but if you're up there a few days... whew!

Taking a shower in space is different. NASA has been working on this since Skylab (the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo guys just had to suffer in their own stink - this stops being funny when you're stuck in a lunar lander with a guy with an attack of the farts. Yes, it happened. Then they got to fly home with that stench). I think most tourists could accommodate to a shower being a tube to confine the water (think circular shower curtain) and using a vacuum to suck up water, but the reality is taking a shower isn't that easy. Then there's the matter of hair - it tends to hold on to water in zero g. Like, several liters worth. It was an issue with female astronauts with longer hair, most of whom probably don't bother to wash their hair if they're only up there a week or two. Anyhow, space folks needs to be sure to dry their hair thoroughly, because otherwise, yes, it will evaporate but it will evaporate into the general air supply and raise the humidity. In any case, at least at first, tourists are not likely to shower every day just due to logistics and water supplies, and they'll have to be told how to wash and dry properly in the environment. And you know some of them aren't going to follow directions. This will require someone to deal with the resulting mess.

Now, the 1960's spaceflights the guys were told to just suck it up, shit in a baggie, eat what we give you (some of which was so awful, apparently, the guys just didn't eat. Which also had the benefit of producing fewer turds to shit into baggies), and just deal with not showering and breathing each other's farts for a week. Tourists aren't going to tolerate that, not in great enough numbers to make a profit. Laugh if you will, these are all things beyond the hardware that will need to be dealt with before civilian space travel can break even, much less turn a profit.

Who is working on these problems? Anyone?

[Skylon]

Enough about hardware, though - let's talk about some other aspects of life in zero g that might prove an obstacle to space tourism.

Eating in space.

NASA's answer to dealing with the blandness of space food has been to supply crews with hot sauce. Zero-g apparently messes with our tastebuds so food tends to taste a bit blander. I can see people getting by this, but yeah, the crumbs are going to be a problem (Homer Simpson has also taught us the dangers of ruffled potato chips in space). The Gemini 3 crew smuggled a corned beef sandwich into space, then promptly stowed it after a couple bites led to crumbs starting to float.

Spacesickness.

Yeah, this is indeed bad. Its estimated about 50% of people who go up into space suffer from what NASA calls "Space Adaptation Syndrome" (SAS). To be safe NASA does not schedule spacewalks for the first day or two of missions to allow the crew time to adapt to weightlessness. Vomiting in a space suit could be lethal. Astronauts try and train for this...its the reason they have a fleet of jet aircraft. They whip themselves around in aerial acrobatics to the point of nausea, but still, some veteran test pilots can't avoid SAS. That is hardly a tempting selling point for would be space tourists to be told "at least half of you will want to barf your guts out".

Space habitats stink.

I heard a shuttle astronaut say they take sponge baths essentially. But thus far, space is no place for a neat freak. Apparently some of the frogmen who recovered Apollo crews were taken aback by the stench when they opened the hatch.

You also missed the wonders of going to the bathroom. When taking a crap, stripping naked is the suggested routine as it is easier to clean fecal matter from your body than your clothes.

[MKSheppard]

Yes, peripherally, not centrally. And of course the military was happy to adapt civilian aviation items to their own needs. Same reason they use civilian contractors for various things - it's easier for the military to do it that way.

And this was back when ALL the costs involved for the DC-1 R&D ended up totalling a mere $325,000, and the DC-1 itself was a massive improvement over the earlier single engined Northrop transports; which themselves cost about $290,000 in R&D.

It's also instructive to note two periods of flight:

1903-1914: Little if any attention is paid to the Aeroplane by the US Government. Despite inventing airplane, US lags behind in aerospace compared to them dirty Europeans.

1915-1940: US creates NACA, and begins to fund military R&D centers. NACA itself cost $25 million ($390 to $540.7 million in 2010) between 1915 and 1940. US is as a result, a world leader in aviation.

Yes, one of the purposes of NACA was to do research. It's successor, NASA, still does research. So what?

The first digital fly-by-wire aircraft in the world was a NASA-modified F-8 Crusader using a surplused Apollo Guidance Computer.

Likewise the supercritical wing was invented by NASA and then tested by NASA in a modified F-8 Crusader. If you've ever flown on a 777, you have flown on a supercritical wing.

I sure don't see the FREE MARKET pushing that kind of fucking research on their own fucking dime.

God-Damned Libertopians. Are you a Libertopian? You sound like one.

I never said the civilian, military, and government efforts didn't communicate with each other

No, you silly woman, you said:

How about... because the military didn't bring us the modern airliner? That was a civilian development, funded by private industry, and it didn't require "obscene budget and resources"

The modern swept-wing, podded engine airliner is a direct result of the two thousand B-47s that we built.

It proved that you could mass produce high tech (for the time), large (for the time) swept wing aircraft with podded engines.

And the military directly funded the R&D that made swept wings/podded engines a viable technological solution; allowing Boeing to save quite a bit on teh monies.

However, until private industry decided to haul passengers for profit neither the military nor the government were going to develop the airlines, the businesses that carry people and cargo for profit and which term encompasses more than just the hardware involved.

I seem to recall something about the government running airmail under FDR, you silly woman.

I also seem to recall that a very large amount of the operating practices, technologies, and air routes that we use now were not developed as a result of private research but when FDR said:

"Hey guyz, it's a big world war now, we need to send shit all over the world; and so lets nationalize all the airlines and impress them into USAAF service."

*creates Air Corps Ferrying Command*

You might know it under a different name:

ATC -- Air Transport Command

These guys took intercontinental transport aviation from a few small routes flown by specialist aircraft like the Boeing Clippers to a routine, well oiled machine that meant you could deliver just about anything around the world in a few days and safely.

Unlike the military, which often (and rightly so) has priorities other than saving money

The Military has to deal with limited budgets as well, you silly woman. Jet fuel is also not a magical thing that pours out of the ground when you stick a stick in the ground. It has to be shipped worldwide, a major logistical limitation to airlifts.

I have SACs for a whole shitload of military transport aircraft, and they cruise at optimum speeds for those reasons.

That is all true, however, government or the military had ZERO interest in putting small, powerful computers in the hands of the public.

Wrong. The Government complex had a very strong interest in increasingly smaller and cheaper computers for a whole clutch of reasons.

Here, let me compare for you:

AN/FSQ-7 SAGE: 75 KIPS; 287 kb of memory.
Used for SAGE; weighed 113 TONS, and took up 10,450 cubic feet, with another 8,500 cubic feet for air conditioning alone.

AP-1: 450 KIPS, unknown memory.
Used on the F-15A Eagle. Is a single LRU weighing 40 lbs and consuming only 0.9 cubic feet of space. This was developed into the AP-101 used on Skylab and the Space Shuttle.

Means you can have more powerful aircraft; the F-15E's computer was 24~ MIPS by 1989, enabling it to do very sharp (for the time) radar mapping, which let it pick up on radar the chain link fences surrounding SCUD launchers during the Gulf War.

Likewise, it means you can have a more distributed air defense network that isn't easily knocked out, since you could now theoretically fit a sector IADS into a semi-trailer or two.

Finally, it means that for the MIC, you can have increasingly smaller computers that can be placed in more places, and due to their lower cost, means you can buy more of them, meaning more stuff can be done by scientists and engineers on their own schedules, rather than having everything all tightly scheduled.

That took the Altair kit computer, Wozniak and Wayne of Apple putting together computers by hand and selling them, and the rest of the small computer crowd of the mid-1970's.

No, you silly woman. Jobs/Woz weren't what drove businesses to buy computers.

It was a little thing called the IBM Model 5150. Or as we call it, the IBM PC.

IBM going into the business in a big way convinced many businesses that this "personal computer" business was for real, if a 'big' solid company like IBM was backing it.

Who the fuck was going to convince the beancounters to buy an Altair 8800, when it was assembled by hand from parts kits and had no real support network like IBM offered?

If the 5150 broke, businesses could just call IBM and get support for it.

Meanwhile, the military and the government happily chugged along with mainframes.

No you silly woman, ever hear of something called the PDP-8?

Introduced 1965, sold a shitload of machines, and it was small enough to fit into a fairly large closet with a performance of 20,000 FLOPS. Oh, and it only cost $20 grand, and sold over 50,000 units.

It took until the late 1970s before continued R&D got the price of a reasonably equipped 140-200,000 FLOP computer down to about $1500-$3000; something that could actually be afforded by a hobbyist.

Right, the government did BIG things with computers, and that's how they were thought of. No one in government thought of doing little things with little computers in the hands of little people. That took civilian entrepreneurs.

Heh. No, what it took was massive corporate and government R&D funding to get the god damn things down to a level affordable by the common man, which occured in the late 1970s with a whole clutch of various chips that made cheap computers possible.

But what made the post 1990~ explosion in computing power possible was a little thing called VLSI, which was funded heavily by both DARPA and NSF (DARPA in 1982 gave $93 million to VLSI efforts) to support various military programs which needed extremely high density computers...they were projecting like 400 MIPS for the F-22 in the 1980s, as well as to support SDI.

The basis of every modern high density CPU is in that long ago DARPA program, which funded a shitload of things like automated chip design software and CAD tools.

Yes, the military wants to put its own people in orbit, and doesn't give a fuck about civilians. It takes a civilian entrepreneur to adapt surplus military tech to civilian needs.

And once again silly woman, you miss my fucking point.

There can't be a civilian entrepreneur providing cheap access to space on surplused military equipment if there's no god-damn surplused military equipment available.

Bottom line, the only way you or I are going into to space is if some civilian group develops commercial space travel.

No, bottom line, the only way you or I are going into space is after the military spends $50-70 billion on a TSTO orbital bomber that can bomb any point in the world in 30 minutes or less.

For fuck's sake, Boeing was so upset over the estimated cost of the 787 that they split the cost and liability for the 787 with a load of other people. And that was only $16 billion.

But in your magic god-damn libertopian world, Boeing somehow found it in itself to spend the last $290 million to complete the 2707 prototype, since it already had firm commitments from airlines for 109 aircraft.

Oh wait, they didn't once the Democrats killed funding for the SST program.

What makes you think that private industry would fund the billions upon billions required to make a viable orbital passenger system if they weren't even fucking willing to continue the 2707 program onwards, after the US Government fucking paid for 75% of all the R&D costs for the 2707 to that point?

And a wide-body SST is a much less technically demanding program than a fully reusable TSTO system.

[Broomstick]

1915-1940: US creates NACA, and begins to fund military R&D centers. NACA itself cost $25 million ($390 to $540.7 million in 2010) between 1915 and 1940. US is as a result, a world leader in aviation.

Quite debatable. While the US was arguably the world leader in aviation in 1950, saying the US was a leader in 1940 is nothing but mindless patriot cheerleading. Between 1940 and 1945 the US churned out a lot of airplanes, sure, and made some progress with endurance and heavy bombers, but the Germans were inventing the first practical and useful jet engine (the first impractical prototype was developed in the UK, not the US) and the world's first rocket plane. The US got jet technology because we stole it from the Germans after winning WWII and appropriating not only hardware but a few warm bodies like Von Braun. We might have lead in production during the war years, but we sure as hell weren't the cutting edge, the Germans were.

Likewise the supercritical wing was invented by NASA and then tested by NASA in a modified F-8 Crusader. If you've ever flown on a 777, you have flown on a supercritical wing.

No, actually, I've never flown on a B-777.

You DO realize that NASA is a civilian arm of government, yes? And part of its mission is to do research and make is available to private industry. NASA does NOT develop the technology for either private industry or the military, they do the research then turn it over. In other words, it sinks some of the R&D cost, but whether or not private industry adopts anything of NASA's is not up to NASA, it's up to private industry to chose whether or not to use it.

I sure don't see the FREE MARKET pushing that kind of fucking research on their own fucking dime.

So? I have never denied NASA does research. It does not, however, make shit to sell. You know what? The government also funds medical research - that doesn't mean the government develops the results for market. Yeah, government research results are turned over to others - military and civilian - for use by all. Are you now going to insist all medicine is of military origin?

God-Damned Libertopians. Are you a Libertopian? You sound like one.

Blah, blah, blah - Shep, you'd claim that the military came up with childbirth and that you mother squeezing you out of her crotch was merely the civilian dregs of military and government reserach.

The modern swept-wing, podded engine airliner is a direct result of the two thousand B-47s that we built.

You do know that the airlines were started BEFORE the invention of the swept wing, yes?

It proved that you could mass produce high tech (for the time), large (for the time) swept wing aircraft with podded engines.

Yeah, but it wasn't the military that built the civilian airline fleets, was it? No, it wasn't. Airliners are not military surplus with a new coat of paint. Civilian airliners are produced in civilian factories. Yes, a few such aircraft are modified for the military - key word modified from the civilian models.

And the military directly funded the R&D that made swept wings/podded engines a viable technological solution; allowing Boeing to save quite a bit on teh monies.

Yeah, but it was the military that built the civilian swept-wing airliners, nor did the military pay for all those airplanes. The military is happy to order the few they need, but what makes the airlines the billion dollar business they are is the CIVILIAN money involved.

However, until private industry decided to haul passengers for profit neither the military nor the government were going to develop the airlines, the businesses that carry people and cargo for profit and which term encompasses more than just the hardware involved.

I seem to recall something about the government running airmail under FDR, you silly woman.

Yes, and it was a terrible, awful thing.

Roosevelt didn't like the way the air mail contracts had been awarded to several large airlines, which had been chosen as having experience, up to date equipment, and the most experienced pilots. No, he wanted to re-open it to the lowest bidder. He summarially dissolved the current contracts (which should not have been legal), then turned the airmail over the Army Air Corps. Eddie Rickenbocker, on hearing this, said turning this over to relatively inexperienced Army Air Corps pilots would be "legalized murder". The very first day the Army Air Corps took over there were TWO fatal crashes. By the end of the week there were 6 dead pilots, 5 more severely injured, and 8 airplanes destroyed (along with the mail they were carrying). Lindbergh, who had started his career as an air mail pilot, protested. Others protested. FDR was finally contacted on March 8, 1933 by the superintendent of the Aerial Mail Service and the superintendent pleaded with FDR to limit flights in bad weather. The very next day FOUR army pilots were killed on mail routes. OK, in 1918 using fucking Jennies the air mail service was only averaging one death a month, by the 1930's the civilian mail service had improved safety rates considerably - and now the Army Air Corps was fucking killing pilots almost every day and on some days killing more than one. Oh, yeah, fucking fantastic, Shep. The death rate went back down as soon as the air mail was returned to the civilians. You know what? If the airplane crashes the mail doesn't get delivered.

Not that YOU care, Shep, but I'll explain to other folks why that spike in deaths happened. You see, civilian pilots were given the option not to fly - you see, the civilian carriers figured out that the pilots actually knew something about flying, and that when the pilots said the weather was shit or there was something wrong with the airplane and it wasn't flight worthy they were usually right. So let them cancel flights that were unsafe and, OK, the mail might be late but it would get there in the end and meanwhile you don't have men hurt or dead and a lot fewer wrecked airplanes. The Army, however, ordered their pilots to fly and like good soldiers they obeyed orders - and died. Frequently. Because the people ordering them to fly weren't pilots and weren't competent to judge risk. It's an instance where the military "CAN DO!" attitude crashed headlong into physics, with the usual dismal results.

Of course, NOW, thank goodness, both the military and civilian worlds have a MUCH better understanding of weather limitations and thus a lot fewer people die all around.

I also seem to recall that a very large amount of the operating practices, technologies, and air routes that we use now were not developed as a result of private research but when FDR said:

Bullshit. The major air mail routes of 1933 were ALL of civilian origin.

The "Jeppesen Charts", THE major air navigation charts, were created by one Elrey Borge Jeppesen, a civilian pilot, who essentially spent the rest of his life updating and improving them. As of 1946 Jeppesen collaborated with the FAA to develop and produce the standardized instrument approaches and techniques still in use today. Again, strictly civilian all the way.

By the way - during WWII the US Navy adopted Jeppesen's charts and flight manuals wholesale. In other words, they imported a civilian developed navigational charting system and flight training techniques wholesale, a case of the military acquiring civilian technology for its own use.

After WWII Jeppesen wound up supplying navigational charts to airlines all over the world. In 1957 an office was opened in Germany specifically to service customers in the Eastern Hemisphere, with the Denver headquarters continuing to supply the Western Hemisphere. They are STILL used today, every day.

Yes, they are owned by Boeing - but Boeing didn't buy them until 2000. So don't even try to say that it's somehow military data channeled via Boeing to the civilian world. Completely backward. The standard navigational charts used today by BOTH civilians and military, was invented and developed by civilians.

Call me a "silly woman" all you want - on this you are wrong. Calling me "silly woman" won't change facts.

That is all true, however, government or the military had ZERO interest in putting small, powerful computers in the hands of the public.

Wrong. The Government complex had a very strong interest in increasingly smaller and cheaper computers for a whole clutch of reasons.

Do you have a reading comprehension problem?

Yes, the government & military had uses for small computers - the important thing here is that the military doesn't give a flying fuck about putting small computers in the hands of civilians! Just because the military has something is no guarantee it will trickle down to civilian life. If a civilian company isn't interested in developing the item then it doesn't get made for the civilian market. Civilians MIGHT obtain it as military surplus... but there's no guarantee of that and the supply will be sharply limited.

The only thing in aviation that is unquestionably wholly, entirely, and completely owned and operated by the US military is the Global Positioning Satellite system. Yes, absolutely that navigation system, which is now used worldwide by just about everyone, not just aviation, is entirely the child of the USAF. Something like jets engines were originally military but since the 1940's BOTH the military and civilian companies have made improvements in the technology, so really it's a joint effort. The standardized instrument approaches used all over the fucking world are of civilian origin. Prop planes - still common as dirt - were a civilian invention that, since 1903, have been expanded upon by BOTH military and civilian agencies. Military and civilian aviation trade information on training and accident investigations back and forth, so that's another joint enterprise. Radio navigation beacons across the US are BOTH military and civilian, and BOTH military and civilian aviators will use either variety freely while navigating.

Sorry to crush your fantasies of military omnipotence, but it just ain't so.

Shep - do yourself a favor. Get some fucking real flight training. Yes, I realize you have a sensory deficit that prevents you from being a military jet jocky but you can still fucking take some lessons and actually get educated. In fact, the FAA is quite happy to license deaf pilots. I mean, fuck, there are commercial pilots in the US who are deaf (though granted they aren't flying for the airlines). Holy fuck, one of my own mentors during my training was fucking deaf as a rock, completely deaf, since infancy and did a lot to help me get my license. Get some real flying time under your belt, it would do you good. Goddamn, the one military trainer I flew YOU could fly just as legally as I could 'cause the damn thing didn't even have a radio. In fact, if you just want a damn ride in some vintage military aircraft PM me and I'll put you in touch with someone entirely qualified to take people up in warbirds, AND give flight training. You will have to get your ass to Morris, Illinois but if you really want to do that it IS possible. Sure, it takes money and effort, but so does everything in aviation. Just be sure to wipe the jizz off the joystick after you orgasm, m'kay? It's only polite.

Try Deaf Pilots Association to start. Or check out the FAA information on deaf pilots

The basis of every modern high density CPU is in that long ago DARPA program, which funded a shitload of things like automated chip design software and CAD tools.

Yes, and the Internet was a DARPA invention - I never said the military contributed nothing, YOU are the one who has come up with this bizarre either/or thing.

Yes, the military wants to put its own people in orbit, and doesn't give a fuck about civilians. It takes a civilian entrepreneur to adapt surplus military tech to civilian needs.

And once again silly woman, you miss my fucking point.

There can't be a civilian entrepreneur providing cheap access to space on surplused military equipment if there's no god-damn surplused military equipment available.

Yes. Which is why we now see some civilian companies trying to come up with their own solutions, precisely because there is NOT surplus military equipment available. Because it's obvious that the military isn't going to develop manned launch equipment any time soon, as they've been relying on NASA for that, and even if they can be arsed to do it they aren't going to being giving any "surplus" to the civilian world until some time after that. So why wait for the military? Why NOT try to come up with a civilian solution? Believe it or not, Shep, civilians are capable of creative and independent thought and engineering.

Bottom line, the only way you or I are going into to space is if some civilian group develops commercial space travel.

No, bottom line, the only way you or I are going into space is after the military spends $50-70 billion on a TSTO orbital bomber that can bomb any point in the world in 30 minutes or less.

But does the military need that? Seriously, the US military can fire a fucking missile that can do that job, why bother developing a manned "bomber" to do it? They don't need it, and they aren't going to make it. If you rely on the military for that you are never going into space. Period.

For fuck's sake, Boeing was so upset over the estimated cost of the 787 that they split the cost and liability for the 787 with a load of other people. And that was only $16 billion.

So?

Oh wait, they didn't once the Democrats killed funding for the SST program.

Fuck if I know. I do remember at the time that SST's were crippled because almost no one wanted to let them fly overhead because they were so fucking noisy, thereby sharply limiting the number of airports they could use. Pity, really, because an LA to NYC route might have been made quite profitable. But with almost no places they were permitted to land they just weren't going to get a lot of customers. NYC to London and Paris to NYC and the like were the only routes ever put into play, when really, if they had been permitted to fly anywhere with a long enough runway we would have seen a LOT more potential routes opened up.

What makes you think that private industry would fund the billions upon billions required to make a viable orbital passenger system if they weren't even fucking willing to continue the 2707 program onwards, after the US Government fucking paid for 75% of all the R&D costs for the 2707 to that point?

There are several companies interested in trying alternatives to Boeing. Boeing still exists - one of the very few long-term aviation companies, founded in 1916 - because it has not tried to be all things to everyone but sold off or discontinued many lines of business that other companies went on to profit from. For example, Boeing used to run it's own airline (Boeing Air Transport, founded 1925, later sold off to become United Airlines... which is still in business by the way, even if no longer Boeing) but later got out of the business. By your reasoning, if Boeing couldn't make a go of it in the airlines no one else should either, yet there are many other airlines in the world, and some even turn a profit some years! Boeing used to fly airmail - it got out of that business, but others do quite well in delivering mail and cargo via air. Boeing used to build piston aircraft, but they don't anymore - yet Cessna still happily sells such, and indeed, there are more Cessna brand small piston aircraft than all other brands in that category combined. It's hard to find a pilot who hasn't flown a piston Cessna at some point. (Cessna, by the way, is even older than Boeing - it traces its roots back to 1911 when Clyde Cessna built and flew his first airplane). In fact, Cessna has built and delivered more aircraft than anyone else, including Boeing. So really, Boeing is not the be-all, end-all of aviation. They're smart enough not to even try to be all things, but have a nearly century long history of shedding some things while retaining others.

And a wide-body SST is a much less technically demanding program than a fully reusable TSTO system.

But apparently no one is interested in funding such a thing. On the other hand, Richard Branson and Paul Allen ARE willing to fund Rutan's efforts... and other entrepreneurs fund other people like SpaceX or Bigelow or whomever. If you do not think these people are spending their money wisely perhaps you should write them and correct them.

[MKSheppard]

Toilets? We trained thousands of people a year in the old days on how to use submarine toilets properly; and those were just as crazily complex as a space toilet with extra dangers of flooding the people tank in the early models.

Food in space? Not a problem; because you know, the hardware up there -- the really important stuff anyway -- is sealed for precisely these reasons (whoops, someone tore open a bag of water in zero gee!).

Spacesickness? SAS goes away after about a week for even the worst cases; so it's only a problem if you're paying for a two day visit, and you're sick for the entire period.

Smell? Not a problem with Skylab. Because:

1.) The astronauts constantly were cleaning and wiping down surfaces with anti-bacterial stuff.

2.) In between each mission, they vented 90% of the atmosphere to space, and then refilled the station with fresh, cold crisp LOX provided atmosphere.

I highly suggest reading this:

Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story

Being clean? Not a problem. The astros on SKEYLAB found that the shower system was cumbersome to set up and it chewed up about an hour's time in set up and then clean up -- you had to towel up all the water left in the shower.

So what they did was they basically used washcloths to wipe down and get clean; which was a hell of a lot easier in SKEYLAB, since it was you know, actually of reasonable size.

And someone actually got lost on Skylab.

It was like "Hey, where's [X]?"

*search for several minutes*

*guy gets up from where he was working on some storage bins*

"What? Why are you looking for me?"

You can see just how awesome SKEYLAB was by this footage of it.

Flip ahead to 0:30 and see PETE CONRAD taking a little jog.

PETE!!!!

They had to stop this by SKEYLAB III due to the gyros which controlled the attitude crapping out; yes, someone running loop the loops can move a 100 ton station

If all else fails, we can do what Wernher wanted: SPIN GRAVITY.

[Broomstick]

Toilets? We trained thousands of people a year in the old days on how to use submarine toilets properly; and those were just as crazily complex as a space toilet with extra dangers of flooding the people tank in the early models.

Funny thing about submarines - there's still gravity when you're on them. Unlike space where, without the aid of gravity, your turds curl upward instead of down or straight out. Then there's the problem of getting the turds to go through the tube. The damn plumbing is prone to clogging. Plus, as noted, in microgravity you don't really sit on anything. You can be in close proximity to something, but you're not really ON it. Happy aiming, nevermind your ass end has no eyeballs. When it comes to pissing it's another tube affair, but with the added problem that your bladder's signaling system is evolved for gravity. Instead of pooling in the bottom of your bladder, where nerves gives you a sense of how full it is, the urine just sort of floats without exerting pressure. Thus, you don't realize you need to go until you REALLY need to go, until your bladder is nearly at maximum capacity and you're damn close to a reflexive void. Or, worse yet, full enough that you've gone past that, pressure is now holding the plumbing closed, and you now need to have a catheter shoved up your urethra in order to piss. Adult diapers are standard issue in space - isn't that special?

So yes, submarine toilets can be "crazy complex" but space toilets deal with conditions that do not exist on Earth. Not anywhere, whether on land or under the sea. Granted, progress has been made but apparently everyone would like an even better system than we have currently. As Skylon noted, there is much to be said for shitting naked in space, as it makes cleaning fecal matter off oneself easier.

Food in space? Not a problem; because you know, the hardware up there -- the really important stuff anyway -- is sealed for precisely these reasons (whoops, someone tore open a bag of water in zero gee!).

Yeah, because inhaling someone else's orange juice Tang is so damn healthy. And having bits of rotting food drifting around smells so good. Nothing like smeary squishes of old food and crumbs on the walls, getting on you, etc. How about some of that getting in your helmet before an EVA? Crumbs getting in your eyes, perhaps? Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Spacesickness? SAS goes away after about a week for even the worst cases; so it's only a problem if you're paying for a two day visit, and you're sick for the entire period.

It's a problem if you vomit so continuously you get dangerously dehydrated. As I noted before, you'll need some sort of medical facilities for the worst cases.

Again, progress has been made, better combinations of drugs to minimize side effects, and so forth, but we really have no good way to predict who is going to be a puker and who isn't, and it will be a severe problem for some. NASA and the Russians both put their astronauts through screening to eliminate the worst cases as best they could, but the general public likely isn't going to get multiple rides in the Vomit Comet prior to their space tourist trip. Clearly, anyone prone to motion sickness should either reconsider or take prophylactic medications but that still leaves a certain number who will be upchucking while floating about.

Smell? Not a problem with Skylab. Because:
1.) The astronauts constantly were cleaning and wiping down surfaces with anti-bacterial stuff.

Which does diddly-squat for the fungal problems.

2.) In between each mission, they vented 90% of the atmosphere to space, and then refilled the station with fresh, cold crisp LOX provided atmosphere.

Well, that's just dandy if you can vent the space habitat between groups of visitors, but that might not be practical - it wasn't on Mir and it's not on the current ISS.

Being clean? Not a problem. The astros on SKEYLAB found that the shower system was cumbersome to set up and it chewed up about an hour's time in set up and then clean up -- you had to towel up all the water left in the shower.

So what they did was they basically used washcloths to wipe down and get clean; which was a hell of a lot easier in SKEYLAB, since it was you know, actually of reasonable size.

VERY few people find taking spongebaths or using wipes to be a satisfying way to get clean. It may work as far as odor and health are concerned but you damn well better tell the public that BEFORE they launch. Tourists WILL want showers. If showers can be provided they will be, even at an hour for a "quickie". Maybe you'll have Space Hotel Housekeeping wipe down your shower cylinder for you after you're done with it - it might, in fact, be more practical to have designated employees to clean up after the tourists than to attempt to train them all and trust them all to behave. The current crop of space tourists can be told pre-flight training is part of the deal and they have to obey *this list of rules*, but that will only work in small numbers. Once the tourists outnumber the employees the dynamic changes.

See, the current astronauts are getting paid to use the cranky toilets and/or turd baggies and/or adult diapers, and they're getting paid to put up with spongebaths instead of real showers for a week, and so forth. If you don't like it you don't fly. But once people start plonking down six figures for a ticket the dynamic is going to change. The more comfortable the space tourists are the more likely you are to get repeat business or word of mouth advertising - it's in the interests of whoever is doing this to make the tourist more comfy. You are, after all, selling an experience and it's in your interest to make it as pleasant as possible.

You can see just how awesome SKEYLAB was by this footage of it.

Yeah, I know - I watched live when it was being filmed.

They had to stop this by SKEYLAB III due to the gyros which controlled the attitude crapping out; yes, someone running loop the loops can move a 100 ton station

Doesn't surprise me a bit.

If all else fails, we can do what Wernher wanted: SPIN GRAVITY.

Long term that may well be the best solution. Folks can have their zero-g from sub-orbital to a space habitat, whereupon they get to experience spin forces in all their glory, which may still make for some upset tummies due to coriolis forces but at least the toilet workings will be familiar and you'll be able to take a shower with the water behaving as you're accustomed to it doing.

[Broomstick]

NASA's answer to dealing with the blandness of space food has been to supply crews with hot sauce. Zero-g apparently messes with our tastebuds so food tends to taste a bit blander.

I think one theory is that because there's no gravity it affects how the food interacts with our tastebuds, but who really knows?

I can see people getting by this, but yeah, the crumbs are going to be a problem (Homer Simpson has also taught us the dangers of ruffled potato chips in space). The Gemini 3 crew smuggled a corned beef sandwich into space, then promptly stowed it after a couple bites led to crumbs starting to float.

Perhaps there will be a dedicated room strictly for serving food with a good venting system and filtration to deal with spilled food? And you know, if people know ahead of time their sense of taste will change perhaps you can make experiencing the difference part of the experience? Anyhow, while hot sauce has it's attractions long term, if we're really living and working in space I think we'll have to develop new ways of putting together food to make it interesting for people. Maybe textures will become more important - during the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo missions, and followed by Skylab, it became apparent that people want to have some crunch/texture other than puree, and that being able to see one's food also was important. Sure, you can suck mush out of an opaque tube, but you won't like it.

Spacesickness.

Yeah, this is indeed bad. Its estimated about 50% of people who go up into space suffer from what NASA calls "Space Adaptation Syndrome" (SAS). To be safe NASA does not schedule spacewalks for the first day or two of missions to allow the crew time to adapt to weightlessness. Vomiting in a space suit could be lethal. Astronauts try and train for this...its the reason they have a fleet of jet aircraft. They whip themselves around in aerial acrobatics to the point of nausea, but still, some veteran test pilots can't avoid SAS. That is hardly a tempting selling point for would be space tourists to be told "at least half of you will want to barf your guts out".

On the other hand, warning people that it does happen and suggesting prophylactic medications might be a good thing. After all, advice and suggestions on avoiding airsickness in airplanes is readily available and those known to be prone to motion sickness are strongly encourage to take something beforehand. Clearly, on any flight with zero-g lasting more than a few minutes having medications on board is advisable, along with ample barf bags. Again, this is an instance where having a dedicated employee to assist tourists might be advisable, both to help them properly position the barf bag and to clean up stray vomit. I mean, a chain puke in space... :::shudder:::

Space habitats stink.

I heard a shuttle astronaut say they take sponge baths essentially. But thus far, space is no place for a neat freak. Apparently some of the frogmen who recovered Apollo crews were taken aback by the stench when they opened the hatch.

You also missed the wonders of going to the bathroom. When taking a crap, stripping naked is the suggested routine as it is easier to clean fecal matter from your body than your clothes.

Actually, I did mention it, first paragraph, just didn't have the bolding in front of the paragraph.

Anyhow, there are these little messy details that will, eventually, need to be dealt with for long-term space tourism. At least with the current proposed sub-orbital hops you won't need to worry about bathroom accommodations, meals can be provided before or, perhaps better, after the flight. and the time in zero g is limited. Bummer if you're one of the lucky ones who like zero g, but a great relief if you're one of the unlucky ones.*



* During my time flying airplanes I actually did get to experience a few episodes of perceived zero g. These weren't nearly as long as NASA's infamous Vomit Comet's free fall, but just about any airplane can fly in a manner such that the cabin occupants are briefly in free fall. Although I never got nauseous (which may be a matter of not being in that state long enough to get nauseous) I did not, in fact, really enjoy it that much. Of course, one factor is that I was expected to fly the damn airplane during this unusual sensory experience, which usually included loose crap in the cabin whacking me in the head as it drifted around, or dropped after resuming normal flight. But, also, I found it alarming. The sensation was very odd, yes, somewhat like what you'd experience during some carnival rides, but this wasn't a ride firmly attached to tracks or whatever, this was an aluminum box apparently falling through empty air (we were not, of course, falling in the sense of "uncontrolled descent"). It did provoke some anxious feelings in me. It wasn't entirely unpleasant, but it wasn't a transcendent state of joy, either. I suspect, assuming I'm not that remarkable, that many other people may find zero g unsettling, whether space sick or not, just because it's such a different sort of sensation. This may provoke anxiety in some, even as others are going WHEEE!

[TimothyC]

The US got jet technology because we stole it from the Germans after winning WWII and appropriating not only hardware but a few warm bodies like Von Braun. We might have lead in production during the war years, but we sure as hell weren't the cutting edge, the Germans were.

Uhm No.

While The American jet engine programs owes some to the British Programs, the P-80 and it's engine have nothing derived from the Germans, even a cursory look at service dates would tell you that.

[Shroom Man 777]

Man, if space becomes the sole purview of the government, what is stopping them from regulating it and getting funding for space by sapping away our tax payer monies? Would Shep be okay with raising taxes to get his space-breathing turboramscramfanjets? Also, putting space in the sole purview of the government leaves it vulnerable to the liberals who want to cut it and emasculate armchair astronauts of their engorged space-going members! Turning them into eunuchs!

That sounds suspiciously like socialist commie poppycock. Capitalism is what America god's most beautiful creation. Thanks to capitalism, our country is the most powerful nation in the universe. Does anyone here have anything against capitalism? Are any of you against capitalism and for socialism?!

Not to mention, if the government has to pay more money for spaceships, this means less money for F-22s and they might end up canning the F-22 with just barely 200 of the jets and switching over to the Joint Strike Fighter which doesn't have supercruise or superior stealth! And the XBOX-70!

[xt828]

I was under the impression that prior to WW2, civilian air travel was fairly rare and quite expensive, but after that conflict the enormous surplus of transport aircraft were dumped onto the market, and the various militaries had built good quality airfields damn near everywhere, which combined gave a massive jump-start to the air industry.

[Broomstick]

Man, if space becomes the sole purview of the government, what is stopping them from regulating it....

At least in the US, the government already regulates it. Procedures for the shuttle flights have been in the official reg book for decades, and recently the civilian space regs were drafted and added to the Federal Aviation Regulations.

Of course, not everyone does things like the US.

I was under the impression that prior to WW2, civilian air travel was fairly rare and quite expensive, but after that conflict the enormous surplus of transport aircraft were dumped onto the market, and the various militaries had built good quality airfields damn near everywhere, which combined gave a massive jump-start to the air industry.

That will vary from country to country. Hey, even after WWII civilian air travel was uncommon and quite expensive, especially compared with today.

In the US, the majority of airfields have been civilian in origin. During WWII some shut down as fuel rationing and reserving avgas for the military, among other things, pretty much brought civilian flight to a near standstill. As soon as the war was over, though, it all cranked up again.

Certainly, there were some surplus military airplanes sold to the public, but in the US quite a few were scrapped. They weren't selling bombers to be converted into passenger-carrying airplanes.

In other countries the circumstances were probably considerably different.

Probably the most common airplane converted from civilian to military use was the C-47, the military version of the DC-3, 400 of which are reputedly still in active service around the world. However, the DC-3 was first rolled out in 1935, so the C-47 is a military adaption of a civilian transport/cargo plane. A C-47 converted to civilian service is a civilian design purchased by the military then later converted to civilian use.

[PeZook]

Wait, wait...what's the problem here between Broomstick and Shep?

Shep is arguing the gubmint is essential to developing many base technologies and much of the infrastructure necessary to roll out some products onto the civilian market ; Broomstick is arguing that the military sometimes uses off-the-shelf civilian stuff and the civilian market often appropriates the tech developed for government use.

Why exactly do you guys disagree?

Because from where I'm standing, all the private space companies are essentially trying to see if they can develop commercial space stuff (stations and spacecraft) to fill a niche, and are using knowledge and technology coming from all sources: government research, government contractors, infrastructural work and finally their own corporate knowledge.

It's like IBM rolling out their PC on an unproven market nobody was sure was profittable at all. Who cares about the minutae of who did what work to make the IBM PC at all possible? Oh, the first compact computers flew on Apollo, therefore private contractors wouldn't be able to do anything without that government program!

Probably, yeah. So what? Does Rutan say he's gonna colonize Mars or something?

[Broomstick]

Wait, wait...what's the problem here between Broomstick and Shep?

Shep says that if the military doesn't develop space hardware the civilian world will never, ever be able to do so. (Near as I can figure) In fact, Shep says it will require the military developing a particular sort of bomber in order for there to be hardware that the civilian world can adapt to its own use, because he doesn't believe private industry is capable of doing it.

Broomstick is arguing that the military sometimes uses off-the-shelf civilian stuff and the civilian market often appropriates the tech developed for government use.

I would say that's an accurate summation of my position.

Why exactly do you guys disagree?

He thinks private industry is incapable of developing space technology, that only militaries and governments can do that. I say if the civilian world doesn't develop private/commercial space tech it will never happen because governments aren't doing it and the military has an interest in not doing it.

Because from where I'm standing, all the private space companies are essentially trying to see if they can develop commercial space stuff (stations and spacecraft) to fill a niche, and are using knowledge and technology coming from all sources: government research, government contractors, infrastructural work and finally their own corporate knowledge.

Same here.

Probably, yeah. So what? Does Rutan say he's gonna colonize Mars or something?

Never heard him say that - maybe that's Tier 4?

Actually, other people are working on the Mars problem.