In JEP's CoDominium universe, humans develop the model that predicts
Alderson tramlines between 2004 and 2008. In 2008, the first starships
leave the systems.

I can't recall how far out the nearest tramline was but I
think it was beyond Saturn.

In reality, if someone dumped an FTL drive like that in our
laps, one that offers no quick solution to getting around in stellar
systems, where the jump point isn't conveniently located, how long do
you think it would take before someone got around to sending a probe
out to the jump point?
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)

James Nicoll wrote:
> In JEP's CoDominium universe, humans develop the model that predicts
> Alderson tramlines between 2004 and 2008. In 2008, the first starships
> leave the systems.
>
> I can't recall how far out the nearest tramline was but I
> think it was beyond Saturn.
>
> In reality, if someone dumped an FTL drive like that in our
> laps, one that offers no quick solution to getting around in stellar
> systems, where the jump point isn't conveniently located, how long do
> you think it would take before someone got around to sending a probe
> out to the jump point?

If the information was really credible, a decade, give or take.

Even with thermal isotope nuclear power and maybe sacrificial solar
panels (for a Venus or Mercury swing), even the best ion engines we know
how to build would take several years to get there. Add on a few years
for development and production of the (multiple copies of) spacecraft,
and a few more years for funding debates, and you're at a decade.

Regards,
Jack Tingle

James Nicoll wrote:

> In JEP's CoDominium universe, humans develop the model that predicts
> Alderson tramlines between 2004 and 2008. In 2008, the first starships
> leave the systems.
>
> I can't recall how far out the nearest tramline was but I
> think it was beyond Saturn.
>
> In reality, if someone dumped an FTL drive like that in our
> laps, one that offers no quick solution to getting around in stellar
> systems, where the jump point isn't conveniently located, how long do
> you think it would take before someone got around to sending a probe
> out to the jump point?

I suspect it would happen pretty quickly, easily within a decade.

--
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
Don't ever get discouraged / There's always / A better day
-- TLC

On Sat, 02 Feb 2008 18:44:04 -0800, Erik Max Francis <max@alcyone.com>
wrote:

>James Nicoll wrote:

>> In JEP's CoDominium universe, humans develop the model that predicts
>> Alderson tramlines between 2004 and 2008. In 2008, the first starships
>> leave the systems.

>> I can't recall how far out the nearest tramline was but I
>> think it was beyond Saturn.

>> In reality, if someone dumped an FTL drive like that in our
>> laps, one that offers no quick solution to getting around in stellar
>> systems, where the jump point isn't conveniently located, how long do
>> you think it would take before someone got around to sending a probe
>> out to the jump point?

>I suspect it would happen pretty quickly, easily within a decade.

Who do you imagine is capable of sending spacecraft to Saturn within a
decade? NASA couldn't do it, not even with unlimited funding and the
certain knowledge that every NASA employee would be tortured to death
if they failed. Nor ESA, nor the Russians, nor the plucky unstoppable
Chinese what are going to rule the world within a decade. The United
States Air Force would be a long shot, and who else is there?


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*John.Schillin@alumni.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-718-0955 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

In article <2b1cq3570r4m4afgcnpbu1icuii6t2u33j@4ax.com>,
John Schilling <schillin@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
>On Sat, 02 Feb 2008 18:44:04 -0800, Erik Max Francis <max@alcyone.com>
>wrote:
>
>>James Nicoll wrote:
>
>>> In JEP's CoDominium universe, humans develop the model that predicts
>>> Alderson tramlines between 2004 and 2008. In 2008, the first starships
>>> leave the systems.
>
>>> I can't recall how far out the nearest tramline was but I
>>> think it was beyond Saturn.
>
>>> In reality, if someone dumped an FTL drive like that in our
>>> laps, one that offers no quick solution to getting around in stellar
>>> systems, where the jump point isn't conveniently located, how long do
>>> you think it would take before someone got around to sending a probe
>>> out to the jump point?
>
>>I suspect it would happen pretty quickly, easily within a decade.
>
>Who do you imagine is capable of sending spacecraft to Saturn within a
>decade? NASA couldn't do it, not even with unlimited funding and the
>certain knowledge that every NASA employee would be tortured to death
>if they failed.

On the plus side, the odds that they'd develop some method
of transporting themselves somewhere outside the reach of their would-
be executioners might not be too bad.


--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)

John Schilling wrote:

> Who do you imagine is capable of sending spacecraft to Saturn within a
> decade? NASA couldn't do it, not even with unlimited funding and the
> certain knowledge that every NASA employee would be tortured to death
> if they failed. Nor ESA, nor the Russians, nor the plucky unstoppable
> Chinese what are going to rule the world within a decade. The United
> States Air Force would be a long shot, and who else is there?

You'll have to be clear about exactly what you think is impossible,
since we've done it before. Neither the planning or the actual trip (if
one were to use simple chemical drives, possibly with gravity assists)
takes longer than a decade, as _Apollo_ and the _Voyager_ programs show,
respectively (and _Apollo_ is vastly more complicated than what we're
talking about here -- we're talking about a simple probe that will test
the FTL drive).

--
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
The little I know, I owe to my ignorance.
-- Sacha Guitry

On Sun, 3 Feb 2008 18:28:04 +0000 (UTC), jdnicoll@panix.com (James
Nicoll) wrote:

:>Who do you imagine is capable of sending spacecraft to Saturn within a
:>decade? NASA couldn't do it, not even with unlimited funding and the
:>certain knowledge that every NASA employee would be tortured to death
:>if they failed.
:
: On the plus side, the odds that they'd develop some method
:of transporting themselves somewhere outside the reach of their would-
:be executioners might not be too bad.
:
Yeah, but we already know how to get to Brazil.
--
/buddha@nirvana.net/h:k

George W. Harris For actual email address, replace each 'u' with an 'i'

Erik Max Francis schrieb:

> You'll have to be clear about exactly what you think is impossible,
> since we've done it before. Neither the planning or the actual trip (if
> one were to use simple chemical drives, possibly with gravity assists)
> takes longer than a decade, as _Apollo_ and the _Voyager_ programs show,

The sum of challenges is the problem.
At first you have to build the probe, and then take the trip.
Voyager had the luck of good planetary constellations for gravity
assists and at least as important no need to slow down.
Cassini-Huygens travelled 8 years, leaving you with 2 years from "lets
do it" to "ready to launch", assuming the launch windows play along.
Doing this back then took 6 years.
To go much faster you'd need something that surpasses Saturn V, adding
to the construction and testing time requirements.

On Feb 3, 6:22 pm, John Schilling <schil...@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
> NASA couldn't do it, not even with unlimited funding and the
> certain knowledge that every NASA employee would be tortured to death
> if they failed.

I doubt the torture would matter. With unlimited funding anything is
possible.

NASA currently represents <1% of the budget of the US government and
that covers various other projects.

If they were allocated 5% of the total budget and told to concentrate
on this one mission, that would represent almost $300 billion a year.

In fact, a $60 billion prize for the first 5 companies to make it to
the test point, as long as they reach the point by 2018, would
probably do it and if they let the fund build up over a few years,
they could have prizes in the $300 billion range per winner.

However, it seems to me that there isn't much benefit to an FTL drive
at the moment. Especially if it is based on a jump point out near
Saturn. We need a cheap way to get into orbit before any of that
matters.

Presumably, the mission is to send the probe and have it jump out,
take someone astro measurements and then jump back ? This would yield
some scientific data, but wouldn't be very useful in and of itself,
unless it leads to unrelated advances elsewhere (perhaps it helps us
zero in on an improved unified physics theory).

The only benefit would be to increase the value of space travel by
massively expanding the potienial resource horizon. This has the
potential to increase funding for space research (and could cause
conflicts over control of the jump point).

On Mon, 4 Feb 2008 04:34:30 -0800 (PST), raphfrk <raphfrk@netscape.net>
wrote:

>On Feb 3, 6:22 pm, John Schilling <schil...@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
>> NASA couldn't do it, not even with unlimited funding and the
>> certain knowledge that every NASA employee would be tortured to death
>> if they failed.

>I doubt the torture would matter. With unlimited funding anything is
>possible.

Hardly. For starters, with unlimited funding, speed is *not* possible.
You might want to check out the movie, "Brewster's Millions". While
exaggerating the point for comic effect, the basic premise was right
on: it takes *time* to spend money, especially if you're trying to
spend it in a non-wasteful manner, especially if you don't already
have a staff of people trained and organized to spend money at the
desired rate.

More importantly, with unlimited funding, corruption is inevitable.
Fraud, waste, and abuse will follow the money wherever it goes, and
consume most of it.

Will, in the case of money that's suddenly being spent at a vastly
accelerated rate by people not experienced in such, consume *all*
of it and then some.

For any project, there is a point beyond which adding money will
*reduce* the probability of success, and delay any success which
does occur.


>NASA currently represents <1% of the budget of the US government and
>that covers various other projects.

>If they were allocated 5% of the total budget and told to concentrate
>on this one mission, that would represent almost $300 billion a year.

Of which almost $300 billion a year would be utterly wasted.

Really, what do you imagine NASA would be able to *spend* all that
money on? Hiring a couple million currently-unemployed rocket
scientists? Buying warehouses full of rocket parts that have
been left unsold for lack of NASA funding in the past? Sorry,
but those things *don't exist*. They cannot be bought at any
price.

Nor can they be created in anything less than a decade, no matter
how much money is spent on the project.

And if they did, they still couldn't put a spacecraft in orbit
around Saturn in a decade, because the process simply takes too
long. There are too many steps that can't be started until the
step before is finished, and even if each step is done as fast
as possible by as many people will fit around the workbench, it
won't get done in time.

"Give NASA $300 billion a year; that will get the job done", is
akin to demanding that a new baby be made from scratch in a month,
on account of you're offering up enough cash to hire nine surrogate
mothers. On an island that has only two women of childbearing age.


>In fact, a $60 billion prize for the first 5 companies to make it to
>the test point, as long as they reach the point by 2018, would
>probably do it and if they let the fund build up over a few years,
>they could have prizes in the $300 billion range per winner.

And if we offer a $60 billion prize for the first five atheletes
to run a two-minute mile, would you expect success in that area as
well?

There are probably no companies capable of putting a spacecraft in
orbit about Saturn in under ten years. Offering people arbitrary
sums of money to do a thing, does not magically imbue them with the
ability to do that thing. If they can't do it, they can't do it.

And if they can do it, it's going to be expensive. Problem with
prizes is, they don't pay off until *after* you succeed, whereas
the people selling the stuff you need to pull it off, want to get
paid in advance.

And no, bankers will not advance a $60 billion loan on the basis of
a business plan that starts with, "When I win the prize ten years
from now..."

For prizes to work, they have to be for results that can reasonably
be achieved by wealthy visionaries or venture capitalists using their
own, expendable, money. And there's basically nobody on Earth rich
enough for this one.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*John.Schilling@alumni.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

John Schilling wrote:

> On Sun, 03 Feb 2008 13:27:29 -0800, Erik Max Francis <max@alcyone.com>
> wrote:
>
>> John Schilling wrote:
>
>>> Who do you imagine is capable of sending spacecraft to Saturn within a
>>> decade? NASA couldn't do it, not even with unlimited funding and the
>>> certain knowledge that every NASA employee would be tortured to death
>>> if they failed. Nor ESA, nor the Russians, nor the plucky unstoppable
>>> Chinese what are going to rule the world within a decade. The United
>>> States Air Force would be a long shot, and who else is there?
>
>> You'll have to be clear about exactly what you think is impossible,
>> since we've done it before. Neither the planning or the actual trip (if
>> one were to use simple chemical drives, possibly with gravity assists)
>> takes longer than a decade, as _Apollo_ and the _Voyager_ programs show,
>> respectively (and _Apollo_ is vastly more complicated than what we're
>> talking about here -- we're talking about a simple probe that will test
>> the FTL drive).
>
> "We" have done this before?
>
> I don't recall being involved in the Apollo project. Were you?

I was referring to the collective "we," which would be pretty obvious if
you weren't on a pointless nitpicking hunt.

> A bunch of people who are now dead, or close enough as makes no
> difference, did it before. They can't do it again. That a bunch
> of completely different people are now doing business under the
> same name, doesn't mean they can do what the dead guys once did.
>
> You might as well ask Xerox to develop the information technologies
> that will dominate the coming decades, or the Tennessee Valley
> Authority to built a first-rate hydroelectric power network, or
> the Rolling Stones to make a decent album.

This is a pretty pointless response, quite frankly. I didn't say that
we would redo _Apollo_. I said that _Apollo_ and _Voyager_ are
existence proofs that it's quite doable. With significantly inferior
technology, no less.

Unless you really think that a manned mission to the Moon was only
possible in the 1960s and would be _completely impossible today_ because
those people are dead or have moved on, which in case, that's just
stupid. (And, like I said, I wasn't even talking about actually doing
that.)

--
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
Time is a storm in which we are all lost.
-- George Bernard Shaw

On Feb 5, 4:18 am, Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
> John Schilling wrote:
>
>> A bunch of people who are now dead, or close enough as makes no
>> difference, did it before.  They can't do it again.  That a bunch
>> of completely different people are now doing business under the
>> same name, doesn't mean they can do what the dead guys once did.

Hmm. So stuff like Apollo only happened in about ten years, because of
a specific group of, what, several 10's of thousands of people, who
were unique in ways that we can't duplicate today? Somehow I'd have to
agree with Erik, that seems an unrealistic objection. And as I recall,
Apollo wasn't even motivated by anything financial - it was
essentially a political goal that was completed in a short period of
time because (at least in part) it harnessed the economic machine of
the time (there was a lot of money to be made by getting the contract,
if you could do it *fast*).

>> You might as well ask Xerox to develop the information
>> technologies that will dominate the coming decades... [etc.]

Or, you might as well use that money to create an economic leverage -
the X prize being a very poor, underfunded example compared to Apollo,
for instance. Remember, this is rasfs. To work here, I just need to
have a reasonable suspension of disbelief. And given that Apollo was
done, technically, in less time, is a very good start on that
disbelief.

As far as the "launch window" constraint goes, well, again, putting
together a fortuitous arrangement of planets isn't a big hurdle,
especially as a Voyager-like launch window to Saturn opens about once
every decade, not once a century. And Voyager was done using a Titan
IIIE Centaur combination - was does a Titan heavy w/ Centaur get you
now? Clearly a probe to Jupiter in a decade or two is possible, and
I'd guess to Jupiter in under a decade. Tight, but not as far out as
you would seem to put it.

--
Brian Davis

John Schilling wrote:
> There are probably no companies capable of putting a spacecraft in
> orbit about Saturn in under ten years.

Why not? Didn't Cassini take something like 7 years in flight? That
leaves three years to build a small, simple robot spacecraft - not
develop from scratch, not invent new technology, but build using
existing technology. Far more ambitious things have been done in less
than three years.

Russell Wallace schrieb:
> John Schilling wrote:
>> There are probably no companies capable of putting a spacecraft in
>> orbit about Saturn in under ten years.
>
> Why not? Didn't Cassini take something like 7 years in flight? That
> leaves three years to build a small, simple robot spacecraft - not
> develop from scratch, not invent new technology, but build using
> existing technology.

Cassini needed Venus, Earth Jupiter and Saturn to be in the right
positions, you don't get that every day.

Recycling existing tech to be used as testbed for a new kind of engine
sounds shaky at best. Powerplant, sensors, software thats much more
autonomous then the one of current probes, each a challenge on its own,
not to talk about the mass constraints - available carriers can launch
only so much.

Robert Martinu wrote:
> Cassini needed Venus, Earth Jupiter and Saturn to be in the right
> positions, you don't get that every day.

Fair enough.

> Recycling existing tech to be used as testbed for a new kind of engine
> sounds shaky at best. Powerplant, sensors, software thats much more
> autonomous then the one of current probes, each a challenge on its own,
> not to talk about the mass constraints - available carriers can launch
> only so much.

Well it depends; if the prototype Alderson Drive masses 100 tons and
needs a megawatt of AC at 5 kV and 400 Hz, then you've certainly got a
bigger challenge than the simple "get a spacecraft to Saturn [like we've
done before]".

On Feb 5, 12:43 pm, Robert Martinu <inva...@invlid.invalid> wrote:
> Russell Wallace schrieb:

> > John Schilling wrote:
> >> There are probably no companies capable of putting a spacecraft in
> >> orbit about Saturn in under ten years.

> > Why not? Didn't Cassini take something like 7 years in flight? That
> > leaves three years to build a small, simple robot spacecraft - not
> > develop from scratch, not invent new technology, but build using
> > existing technology.

> Cassini needed Venus, Earth Jupiter and Saturn to be in the right
> positions, you don't get that every day.

Did it really need it? If your objective is a science mission
on a planet which has already been visited several times,
then you'll be willing to wait some years and play cosmic
billiards to boost your payload. But if you're testing a
revolutionary FTL drive, then maybe you just want to get
the thing out there quickly with a direct route.

Nevertheless, I'd expect this probe would be built using ion
propulsion rather than pure chemical rocket propulsion. Ion
propulsion has reached sufficient maturity.

Isaac Kuo

IsaacKuo schrieb:
> On Feb 5, 12:43 pm, Robert Martinu <inva...@invlid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Cassini needed Venus, Earth Jupiter and Saturn to be in the right
>> positions, you don't get that every day.
>
> Did it really need it? If your objective is a science mission
> on a planet which has already been visited several times,
> then you'll be willing to wait some years and play cosmic
> billiards to boost your payload. But if you're testing a
> revolutionary FTL drive, then maybe you just want to get
> the thing out there quickly with a direct route.

That would require a probe thats lighter then Cassini while supporting
the drive and all the stuff needed to get the probe back into radio
distance to tell us if the experiment was a success.

To use an ion drive you'd need primarily a adequate power source and
cooling vanes while making any impulsive manoeuvres impractical.
I'm not sure if thats really faster then visiting some planets, not as
long as Jupiter and Saturn are in a useable constellation.

Robert

On Feb 5, 2:31 pm, Robert Martinu <inva...@invlid.invalid> wrote:
> IsaacKuo schrieb:

> > On Feb 5, 12:43 pm, Robert Martinu <inva...@invlid.invalid> wrote:

> >> Cassini needed Venus, Earth Jupiter and Saturn to be in the right
> >> positions, you don't get that every day.

> > Did it really need it?  If your objective is a science mission
> > on a planet which has already been visited several times,
> > then you'll be willing to wait some years and play cosmic
> > billiards to boost your payload.  But if you're testing a
> > revolutionary FTL drive, then maybe you just want to get
> > the thing out there quickly with a direct route.

> That would require a probe thats lighter then Cassini while supporting
> the drive and all the stuff needed to get the probe back into radio
> distance to tell us if the experiment was a success.

You can send more than one probe; one with the drive and
another with the sensors and long range comms suite.
Another option is to use a bigger rocket, of course, if
available.

> To use an ion drive you'd need primarily a adequate power source and
> cooling vanes while making any impulsive manoeuvres impractical.

Sticking with mature technology, we're looking at solar-electric.
Current solar panels provide power levels appropriate for current
ion rockets.

> I'm not sure if thats really faster then visiting some planets, not as
> long as Jupiter and Saturn are in a useable constellation.

Isaac Kuo

IsaacKuo schrieb:

> You can send more than one probe; one with the drive and
> another with the sensors and long range comms suite.

You'd only see a flash of light or something, without knowing if you
just travelled to the next star or only used a fancy kind of self
destruction. Having the test vehicle return and report should be part of
any serious mission description.

> Another option is to use a bigger rocket, of course, if
> available.

That collides with the "within a decade"-statement as Cassini already
used the biggest laucher available.

>> To use an ion drive you'd need primarily a adequate power source and
>> cooling vanes while making any impulsive manoeuvres impractical.
>
> Sticking with mature technology, we're looking at solar-electric.
> Current solar panels provide power levels appropriate for current
> ion rockets.

That would work maybe up to the mars orbit, but at the distance of
jupiter there is in (comparison to earth) only about 3% of the solar
irradiation per area left.

Robert

On Feb 5, 3:59 pm, Robert Martinu <inva...@invlid.invalid> wrote:
> IsaacKuo schrieb:

> > You can send more than one probe; one with the drive and
> > another with the sensors and long range comms suite.

> You'd only see a flash of light or something, without knowing if you
> just travelled to the next star or only used a fancy kind of self
> destruction. Having the test vehicle return and report should be part of
> any serious mission description.

Well, if everything goes well, then the FTL probe can return
and report recorded data to the main probe via short range
communications. The FTL probe only needs a crude camera
to record images of the nearest stars to confirm its location
during the journey.

But if something went wrong upon activating the FTL drive,
then you want all of your best sensors on the main probe,
so you can get a good look at what happened.

> > Another option is to use a bigger rocket, of course, if
> > available.

> That collides with the "within a decade"-statement as Cassini already
> used the biggest laucher available.

This depends on the time this decade starts.

> >> To use an ion drive you'd need primarily a adequate power source and
> >> cooling vanes while making any impulsive manoeuvres impractical.

> > Sticking with mature technology, we're looking at solar-electric.
> > Current solar panels provide power levels appropriate for current
> > ion rockets.

> That would work maybe up to the mars orbit, but at the distance of
> jupiter there is in (comparison to earth) only about 3% of the solar
> irradiation per area left.

That's still enough sunlight to power a Jupiter exploration probe
(Juno).
But at any rate, you'll want to use the thrusters at the start of the
mission, while within the inner solar system, to get up to the desired
speed.

Isaac Kuo

Robert Martinu <invalid@invlid.invalid> wrote:
>> Another option is to use a bigger rocket, of course, if
>> available.
>
> That collides with the "within a decade"-statement as Cassini already
> used the biggest laucher available.

A quick trawl through wikipedia reveals that this is not entirely true,
although it was quite big. I found three launch systems with greater
payloads than Cassini's Titan IV, the Delta IV, the Proton, and the
Shuttle. Of these three, the Proton is barely any higher, and the Delta IV
has about 20% greater payload to LEO. I believe you could also increase
the payload further by the simple expedient of launching from a more
equatorial launch site (Cassinia was launched from Florida). Adapting the
launcher and the facilities in Guiana is probably non-trivial, but this
can be carried out in parallel with the probe development, and I would
hope would not take many years.

I have no real idea how much an equatorial launch would help or how much
the extra payload capacity would reduce the travel time, but it must make
some difference.

The question of just how massive this probe needs to be should also be
considered. Cassini was about 5600kg and it's possible that a lot of this
could be cut down, both by reducing capabilities and by using more
advanced miniaturization techniques. Certainly it doesn't need the 350kg
of atmospheric probe that Cassini carried, and I imagine a great deal of
other mass could be eliminated as well. All of this can be replaced with
more fuel to get it there even faster.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software

On Sun, 03 Feb 2008 10:22:27 -0800, John Schilling <schillin@spock.usc.edu> wrote:

>>> In JEP's CoDominium universe, humans develop the model that predicts
>>> Alderson tramlines between 2004 and 2008. In 2008, the first starships
>>> leave the systems.
>
>>> I can't recall how far out the nearest tramline was but I
>>> think it was beyond Saturn.
>
>>> In reality, if someone dumped an FTL drive like that in our
>>> laps, one that offers no quick solution to getting around in stellar
>>> systems, where the jump point isn't conveniently located, how long do
>>> you think it would take before someone got around to sending a probe
>>> out to the jump point?
>
>>I suspect it would happen pretty quickly, easily within a decade.
>
>Who do you imagine is capable of sending spacecraft to Saturn within a
>decade? NASA couldn't do it, not even with unlimited funding and the
>certain knowledge that every NASA employee would be tortured to death
>if they failed. Nor ESA, nor the Russians, nor the plucky unstoppable
>Chinese what are going to rule the world within a decade. The United
>States Air Force would be a long shot, and who else is there?

There's a lot of assumptions being unsaid, isn't there?

First, what's the probe going to do? Is it there to confirm the jump point is present, or
jump? What does it need to do either (or both) of those? If it's supposed to jump, is it
supposed to take some kind of readings on the other side, or just take some pictures and
jump back?

I can see everything from a small, cheap, simple probe that could be done fast with mostly
off the shelf (well, at least already existing plans) tech to others that required a lot
of infrastructure before you could even think about it.

Assume a simple case: how fast could one send a small probe (assume a nuclear power
source, which is fairly off-the-shelf), equipped with a basic camera, the required data
storage and transmitting gear, and required software, on a flyby recon mission to a jump
point at Saturn's distance?

For reference, New Horizons only took a year to make Earth-Jupiter, and that's with pure
conventional propulsion and power. So, if you allow some decent geometry at the start,
the main delay in getting out to Saturn distance isn't the flight time, it's in building
the probe.

Keith Morrison wrote:
> On Sun, 03 Feb 2008 10:22:27 -0800, John Schilling <schillin@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
>
>>>> In JEP's CoDominium universe, humans develop the model that predicts
>>>> Alderson tramlines between 2004 and 2008. In 2008, the first starships
>>>> leave the systems.
>>>> I can't recall how far out the nearest tramline was but I
>>>> think it was beyond Saturn.
>>>> In reality, if someone dumped an FTL drive like that in our
>>>> laps, one that offers no quick solution to getting around in stellar
>>>> systems, where the jump point isn't conveniently located, how long do
>>>> you think it would take before someone got around to sending a probe
>>>> out to the jump point?
>>> I suspect it would happen pretty quickly, easily within a decade.
>> Who do you imagine is capable of sending spacecraft to Saturn within a
>> decade? NASA couldn't do it, not even with unlimited funding and the
>> certain knowledge that every NASA employee would be tortured to death
>> if they failed. Nor ESA, nor the Russians, nor the plucky unstoppable
>> Chinese what are going to rule the world within a decade. The United
>> States Air Force would be a long shot, and who else is there?
>
> There's a lot of assumptions being unsaid, isn't there?
>
> First, what's the probe going to do? Is it there to confirm the jump point is present, or
> jump? What does it need to do either (or both) of those? If it's supposed to jump, is it
> supposed to take some kind of readings on the other side, or just take some pictures and
> jump back?
>
> I can see everything from a small, cheap, simple probe that could be done fast with mostly
> off the shelf (well, at least already existing plans) tech to others that required a lot
> of infrastructure before you could even think about it.
>
> Assume a simple case: how fast could one send a small probe (assume a nuclear power
> source, which is fairly off-the-shelf), equipped with a basic camera, the required data
> storage and transmitting gear, and required software, on a flyby recon mission to a jump
> point at Saturn's distance?
>
> For reference, New Horizons only took a year to make Earth-Jupiter, and that's with pure
> conventional propulsion and power. So, if you allow some decent geometry at the start,
> the main delay in getting out to Saturn distance isn't the flight time, it's in building
> the probe.

My assumption when I answered 'about a decade' earlier in the thread was
that you needed to send a probe to confirm the existence of the jump
point with instruments. You did not need to send an Alderson drive
vessel through. Since I have no idea how massive or power-hungry an
Alderson drive is, that might preclude using existing components and
technology.

Regards,
Jack Tingle

On Tue, 5 Feb 2008 04:53:28 -0800 (PST), Brian Davis <brdavis@iusb.edu>
wrote:

>On Feb 5, 4:18 am, Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
>> John Schilling wrote:
>>
>>> A bunch of people who are now dead, or close enough as makes no
>>> difference, did it before.  They can't do it again.  That a bunch
>>> of completely different people are now doing business under the
>>> same name, doesn't mean they can do what the dead guys once did.
>
>Hmm. So stuff like Apollo only happened in about ten years, because of
>a specific group of, what, several 10's of thousands of people, who
>were unique in ways that we can't duplicate today?

No, because of a specific *organization* that we can't duplicate today.

A group of ten thousand individual people, no matter how individually
talented, who are rounded up in a stadium where some guy with a megaphone
shouts at them to Complete Incredibly Difficult Project X, will not be
accomplishing much of anything in a hurry. Nor will having the blimp
overhead shower gigabucks on the crowd, help.

Organization, *matters*. And if you get the organization wrong, you
fail no matter how many brilliant and talented people you have and
how much resources you have. See, e.g., the economy of the former
Soviet Union. Now see NASA. But I repeat myself...

Getting the organization *right*, is as difficult and time-consuming
as getting the design of the spaceship right. And you really can't
start on the latter, until you're done with the former.


>And as I recall, Apollo wasn't even motivated by anything financial -
>it was essentially a political goal that was completed in a short
>period of time because (at least in part) it harnessed the economic
>machine of the time (there was a lot of money to be made by getting
>the contract, if you could do it *fast*).

The "economic machine of the time" included a couple dozen aerospace
primes capable of building serious spaceships and organized for the
goal of building spaceships faster, better, and cheaper than the other
guy on account of the contracts would go to one of the other guys if
they didn't.

The economic machine of today, consists of *two* aerospace primes
capable of building serious spaceships, organized for the goal of
wasting as much money as possible in the process on account of the
profit awarded is proportional to the money spent and they are each
guaranteed half the contracts no matter what.

That's the wrong organization. No matter how talented the people,
and how much money is offered, that organization will fail at this
task. And building a new or greatly improved organization, will take
too long.


>>> You might as well ask Xerox to develop the information
>>> technologies that will dominate the coming decades... [etc.]

>Or, you might as well use that money to create an economic leverage -
>the X prize being a very poor, underfunded example compared to Apollo,
>for instance.

I've explained why prizes are not a plausible model for this scenario.


>As far as the "launch window" constraint goes, well, again, putting
>together a fortuitous arrangement of planets isn't a big hurdle,
>especially as a Voyager-like launch window to Saturn opens about once
>every decade, not once a century.

I never mentioned a launch window constraint, because it isn't terribly
relevant. But, insofar as the *total* time limit is one decade, saying
that there's a launch window about once a decade, isn't helping your
case.


>And Voyager was done using a Titan IIIE Centaur combination - was does
>a Titan heavy w/ Centaur get you now?

A trip to the museum to look at pictures of that big rocket they don't
make any more, on account of the organization which built it was wasting
too much time and money even by the standards of modern DoD contracting?


>Clearly a probe to Jupiter in a decade or two is possible, and I'd guess
>to Jupiter in under a decade. Tight, but not as far out as you would seem
>to put it.

I agree. A probe to Jupiter in a decade or two is possible, if tight on
the short end.

But we were talking about a probe to *Saturn*, in a decade or *less*.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*John.Schilling@alumni.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

On Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:27:07 -0600, Michael Ash <mike@mikeash.com> wrote:

>The question of just how massive this probe needs to be should also be
>considered. Cassini was about 5600kg and it's possible that a lot of this
>could be cut down, both by reducing capabilities and by using more
>advanced miniaturization techniques. Certainly it doesn't need the 350kg
>of atmospheric probe that Cassini carried, and I imagine a great deal of
>other mass could be eliminated as well. All of this can be replaced with
>more fuel to get it there even faster.

Again, New Horizons is a useful benchmark. Mass of 478 kilograms, made it to Jupiter in
just over a year without a gravity assist. So reaching Saturns orbital distance in just
over two years is entirely reasonable.

On Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:34:41 -0700, Keith Morrison <keithm@qiniq.com>
wrote:

>On Sun, 03 Feb 2008 10:22:27 -0800, John Schilling <schillin@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
>
>>>> In JEP's CoDominium universe, humans develop the model that predicts
>>>> Alderson tramlines between 2004 and 2008. In 2008, the first starships
>>>> leave the systems.

>>>> I can't recall how far out the nearest tramline was but I
>>>> think it was beyond Saturn.

>>>> In reality, if someone dumped an FTL drive like that in our
>>>> laps, one that offers no quick solution to getting around in stellar
>>>> systems, where the jump point isn't conveniently located, how long do
>>>> you think it would take before someone got around to sending a probe
>>>> out to the jump point?

>>>I suspect it would happen pretty quickly, easily within a decade.

>>Who do you imagine is capable of sending spacecraft to Saturn within a
>>decade? NASA couldn't do it, not even with unlimited funding and the
>>certain knowledge that every NASA employee would be tortured to death
>>if they failed. Nor ESA, nor the Russians, nor the plucky unstoppable
>>Chinese what are going to rule the world within a decade. The United
>>States Air Force would be a long shot, and who else is there?

>There's a lot of assumptions being unsaid, isn't there?

>First, what's the probe going to do? Is it there to confirm the jump point is present, or
>jump? What does it need to do either (or both) of those? If it's supposed to jump, is it
>supposed to take some kind of readings on the other side, or just take some pictures and
>jump back?

>I can see everything from a small, cheap, simple probe that could be done fast with mostly
>off the shelf (well, at least already existing plans) tech to others that required a lot
>of infrastructure before you could even think about it.

>Assume a simple case: how fast could one send a small probe (assume a nuclear power
>source, which is fairly off-the-shelf), equipped with a basic camera, the required data
>storage and transmitting gear, and required software, on a flyby recon mission to a jump
>point at Saturn's distance?

>For reference, New Horizons only took a year to make Earth-Jupiter, and that's with pure
>conventional propulsion and power. So, if you allow some decent geometry at the start,
>the main delay in getting out to Saturn distance isn't the flight time, it's in building
>the probe.

New Horizons, of course, didn't stop at Jupiter. And a fast flyby of an
invisible target is almost certainly not what we are looking for here.
Too high a probability of a null result for reasons other than the simple
absence of a jump point, and no way to distinguish between the various
sorts of null results without waiting for a new probe.

If you're absolutely certain of exactly what you're going to find, you
don't really need a probe at all and aren't going to be rushing to build
one. Otherwise, you need an orbiter.

Getting an orbiter to Saturn, takes about six years of flight time with
existing propulsion systems, and with a wait of up to a year for a launch
window. And it requires a probe somewhat larger and more complicated than
New Horizons, even if the payload is no more ambitious.

New Horizons took three years to plan and three more to build, and it
took our heaviest reliably-available launcher to send on its way. So,
baseline >3 (planning) + >3 (building) + 0-1 (launch window) + 0-1
(launcher unreliability) + ~6 (flight time) years for a Saturn orbiter
built by any of the Usual Suspects. With significant uncertainty, so
call it 15+/-5 years overall.

Substantially more ambitious missions, would require only slightly more
time, though much more money and risk. If we really, really wanted to,
we could probably put a manned outpost on a Saturnian moon in 20+/-5
years.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*John.Schilling@alumni.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

On Feb 6, 7:26 pm, John Schilling <schil...@spock.usc.edu> wrote:

> Since a Hohmann transfer to Saturn takes about six years, that gives you
> two and a half years to assemble your team and design your spacecraft.

Of course, no one uses a pure Hohmann transfer since the start and
end "corners" are very slow and just beg to be cut. For a trip to
Saturn, I suppose the Earth end would be pretty close to Hohmann
but the Saturn end could be cut a lot.

And no, I don't know how much a "lot" would be. I'm guessing a
savings between one and two years wouldn't cost much more
delta-v, but I'm not good at calculating this stuff.

Isaac Kuo

On 2 Feb 2008, jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
> In reality, if someone dumped an FTL drive like that in our
>laps, one that offers no quick solution to getting around in stellar
>systems, where the jump point isn't conveniently located, how long do
>you think it would take before someone got around to sending a probe
>out to the jump point?

I'm replying here because I've got some new points, and the rest of
the discussion has diverged into heated animosity.

1. ISTM that space probes take years to develop because of the
necessity they be low-mass: there's little margin for structural
redundancy, so most everything has to be custom-made. With a bigger
mass budget, you could dispense with a lot of the optimization and
testing.

2. Can you solve this problem by throwing more money at it? Maybe.

The SpaceX (www.spacex.com) Falcon 9 is rated for 5,000 kg payload to
LEO when launched from Kwajalein Atoll (9°N), at a cost of $55M. The
Falcon 9 Heavy can do 11,500 kg, at $90M.

Of course, the Falcon 9 hasn't been flight-tested yet (it won't before
2008Q4), and neither of the Falcon 1's reached space, but its rapid
development (since ~2005) bodes well. For this hypothetical scenario,
anyway.

For comparison, the Cassini-Huygens Saturn probe massed 5,820 kg, of
which 3,100 kg was propellant.

3. And why do we have to fit the entire probe and its upper rocket
stage in a single launch vehicle? If it's really important to verify
jump point, why not assemble the craft in orbit, from several
launches? The development of automated rendezvous systems in the ESA
_Jules Verne_ craft (to resupply the ISS), and fuel transfer with the
USAF's recent automated orbital resupply test, demonstrate that
capability.

4. As for practical orbits to the vicinity of Saturn -- I'm sure
someone with an orbital simulation program and experience using it
could enumerate the direct-flight options in a few minutes. Something
like STK/Astrogator, from Analytical Graphics:

<http://www.agi.com/solutions/specializedAreas/spaceOps/>

Looking for suitable gravity-assists probably takes exponentially
longer.

(I'm sure there must be "toy" orbit-planning software out there,
something for a first-cut approximation, but my Google-fu has proved
unequal to the task.)

Mission planning gets easier (so I presume) if you have enough delta-v
to overcome the confounding effects of third bodies on your transfer
orbit.

IsaacKuo wrote:

> On Feb 6, 7:26 pm, John Schilling <schil...@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
>
>> Since a Hohmann transfer to Saturn takes about six years, that gives you
>> two and a half years to assemble your team and design your spacecraft.
>
> Of course, no one uses a pure Hohmann transfer since the start and
> end "corners" are very slow and just beg to be cut.

And also, it should be said, because Hohmann transfers assume circular
orbits for the departure and arrival orbits, of which there are none in
the real world. So all "Hohmann transfers" are not true Hohmann transfers.

--
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself.
-- Axel Munthe

Phillip Thorne wrote:

> (I'm sure there must be "toy" orbit-planning software out there,
> something for a first-cut approximation, but my Google-fu has proved
> unequal to the task.)

My BOTEC is one:

http://www.alcyone.com/software/botec/

.... though it likely won't help you in this case. Presently it's more
toy than "toy" -- though I'm currently considering options to make it
more useful.

--
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself.
-- Axel Munthe

On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:42:16 -0500, Phillip Thorne <pethorne@comcast.net>
wrote:

>On 2 Feb 2008, jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>> In reality, if someone dumped an FTL drive like that in our
>>laps, one that offers no quick solution to getting around in stellar
>>systems, where the jump point isn't conveniently located, how long do
>>you think it would take before someone got around to sending a probe
>>out to the jump point?

>I'm replying here because I've got some new points, and the rest of
>the discussion has diverged into heated animosity.

>1. ISTM that space probes take years to develop because of the
>necessity they be low-mass: there's little margin for structural
>redundancy, so most everything has to be custom-made. With a bigger
>mass budget, you could dispense with a lot of the optimization and
>testing.

Except that nobody has any experience actually doing things that
way. Which means the first group to try, will make lots of mistakes,
which will slow them down.

In the long run, this is something we will want to know how to do.
But it's not the way to get your *first* bird up, fast. Well, not
if you also want it to actually work.

For that, you really do want to do things about the way we do them
now. Not just because it is what we know best, but because the way
we do things now is a relic of the Space Race - where the one and
only goal was to get the first working bird up, fast. That's caused
us no end of problems when the goals changed and the techniques didn't,
but here we're imagining a scenario right out of the old Space Race.


>2. Can you solve this problem by throwing more money at it? Maybe.

>The SpaceX (www.spacex.com) Falcon 9 is rated for 5,000 kg payload to
>LEO when launched from Kwajalein Atoll (9°N), at a cost of $55M. The
>Falcon 9 Heavy can do 11,500 kg, at $90M.

>Of course, the Falcon 9 hasn't been flight-tested yet (it won't before
>2008Q4), and neither of the Falcon 1's reached space, but its rapid
>development (since ~2005) bodes well. For this hypothetical scenario,
>anyway.

Actually, the whole Falcon program is a perfect example of people
trying to do things in a new and better way and suffering years of
delay due to the inevitable mistakes, er, learning experiences. In
the long run, this will be worth doing.

But here and now, even a Falcon 9 won't do anything an Atlas V won't
do just as well. Except cost less and take longer. If you're in a
hurry and you're throwing money at the project, you want the Atlas.


>For comparison, the Cassini-Huygens Saturn probe massed 5,820 kg, of
>which 3,100 kg was propellant.

Bear in mind, that was 5,820 kg launched to Earth escape with roughly
5.5 km/s of hyperbolic excess velocity, whereas the payloads you are
quoting for the Falcon are for low Earth orbit.

To get from LEO to 5.5 km/s past escape, you need a rather substantial
propulsion module - a classic Centaur, roughly 18 tons and 10 meters
long, would about do it.

To get 5,820 kg plus a Centaur into LEO, you need a Delta IV Heavy,
or maybe a Proton or an Ariane 5, or one of the viewgraph launchers
that doesn't actually exist.


>3. And why do we have to fit the entire probe and its upper rocket
>stage in a single launch vehicle? If it's really important to verify
>jump point, why not assemble the craft in orbit, from several
>launches? The development of automated rendezvous systems in the ESA
>_Jules Verne_ craft (to resupply the ISS), and fuel transfer with the
>USAF's recent automated orbital resupply test, demonstrate that
>capability.

Because _Jules Verne_ is years behind schedule, and while _Orbital
Express_ was reasonably successful in the end, DART was a complete
failure. This is another one of those things that, while it will
certainly be useful in the long run, we don't really know how to
do yet and so don't want to tie a crash program to.

Nor do we need to; a single heavy launcher will suffice for a basic
Saturn orbiter. There are problems with that approach, but we know
what those problems are, which makes it almost certainly faster than
dealing with the unknown problems of a new approach.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*John.Schilling@alumni.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *