A couple of months ago, I began writing a (cough) novel.
It was science fiction.
As with most of my enterprises, it died a premature death after spending a couple of weeks in a life support chamber known as TomorrowLand.
Things happened, and for a time after that, kept happening.
Then, I came across this article-
www.nasa.gov/pdf/396763main_mf18_connolly.pdf
It was lunar lander proposal from the now defunct Constellation program. A sort of cursory analysis of how it was technology limitations, and not wishful rainbow thinking that dictated the shape and size of whatever we want to put in orbit, one line in that article stuck in my head like that week old piece of apple skin that has taken permanent residence in your molars.
It was one of the objection that space enthusiasts had raised, and went something like this:-
''It doesn't look like the Millennium Falcon."
Which is certainly a valid grievance- if you have never bothered to read up on propulsion systems, materials, mass calculations..you know, the kind of stuff that real engineers have to do to get anything to work in the real world.
The Altair Lunar Lander looks like this:-
The lander is the blocky thing on the left with four legs sticking out.
The Millenium Falcon- The iconic spacecraft from Star Wars looked like this:-
For almost forty years fanboy and spacenik alike have salivated at the possibility of seeing a real honest-to-god spaceship that looked like the one shown above.
Regrettably, the answer to the question had to be delivered without a shred of conciliation, in the real
world, solutions can't be simply handwaved into existence.
"A lunar lander is a “physics machine”. Unless a large technology
change comes about, don’t expect it look like the Millennium Falcon(emphasis added)"
There, right there, is a symptom of everything that is wrong with the space program.
It is perhaps ironic that over half a century after Gagarin reached orbit, the one aspect of space technology that has seen the least amount of real advancement is the one that is most critical-Propulsion.
Even with all the headway made in electronics, systems' reliability, power sources and life support, we are still reliant on chemical rockets that are little different in principle than chemical rockets built by the Chinese over 5 millennia ago. Unless this fundamental inadequacy is addressed, even the less grandiose schemes to explore our neighborhood will remain pipe dreams.Just as they have for almost half a century after Apollo-11.
It was science fiction.
As with most of my enterprises, it died a premature death after spending a couple of weeks in a life support chamber known as TomorrowLand.
Things happened, and for a time after that, kept happening.
Then, I came across this article-
www.nasa.gov/pdf/396763main_mf18_connolly.pdf
It was lunar lander proposal from the now defunct Constellation program. A sort of cursory analysis of how it was technology limitations, and not wishful rainbow thinking that dictated the shape and size of whatever we want to put in orbit, one line in that article stuck in my head like that week old piece of apple skin that has taken permanent residence in your molars.
It was one of the objection that space enthusiasts had raised, and went something like this:-
''It doesn't look like the Millennium Falcon."
Which is certainly a valid grievance- if you have never bothered to read up on propulsion systems, materials, mass calculations..you know, the kind of stuff that real engineers have to do to get anything to work in the real world.
The Altair Lunar Lander looks like this:-
The Millenium Falcon- The iconic spacecraft from Star Wars looked like this:-
Regrettably, the answer to the question had to be delivered without a shred of conciliation, in the real
world, solutions can't be simply handwaved into existence.
"A lunar lander is a “physics machine”. Unless a large technology
change comes about, don’t expect it look like the Millennium Falcon(emphasis added)"
There, right there, is a symptom of everything that is wrong with the space program.
It is perhaps ironic that over half a century after Gagarin reached orbit, the one aspect of space technology that has seen the least amount of real advancement is the one that is most critical-Propulsion.
Even with all the headway made in electronics, systems' reliability, power sources and life support, we are still reliant on chemical rockets that are little different in principle than chemical rockets built by the Chinese over 5 millennia ago. Unless this fundamental inadequacy is addressed, even the less grandiose schemes to explore our neighborhood will remain pipe dreams.Just as they have for almost half a century after Apollo-11.
