[ExI] structural scale dependence, was: RE: IQ and beauty

[spike]

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2015 9:38 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] structural scale dependence, was: RE: IQ and beauty

 

On Oct 21, 2558 BE, at 8:59 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

 

>>…It appears our future in space is dependent upon getting launch costs down because the old LOX/kerosene and LOX/H2 stages will not advance much.  They were fairly mature fifty years ago.  

 

>…But inefficiently implemented, no?

 

Well so goes the story.  Certainly there were examples of astonishing inefficiency.  But after all these years, in spite of having access to an inexhaustible supply of highly trained rocket builders trained by the military and NASA, no one has yet found a much cheaper way of doing it.

 

 

>… I still believe convention rockets can be done much cheaper… Dan

 

 

OK cool, good luck to you.  I honestly hope you succeed.  We all do.  The problem I see is that this kind of work has the engineers always designing waaay close to the failure points, crazy thin margins everywhere, little if any structural redundancy, always on the ragged edge of a RUDE.  That means inherently expensive materials, processes, inspections, testing, all of it costing money money money, with a discouraging scarcity of opportunities for savings.

 

spike

 

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