India Planning Reusable 2-Stage-to-Orbit Vehicle 167
WoodenKnight writes "India's ISRO Chairman, G Madhavan Nair recently gave a brief description of a fully-reusable 2-stage satellite launch vehicle that is being planned at ISRO. From the article: 'This is in its initial stages of vehicle configuration and the first stage is configured as a winged body configuration, which will attain an altitude of around 100 km and deliver nearly half the orbital velocity. This stage after burnout will re-enter and will be made to land horizontally on the runway, like an aircraft. The second stage after delivering the payload in the orbit will be made to re-enter the atmosphere and will be recovered using airbags either in the sea or land. This is only in its conceptual stage.'"
Space Shuttle, Again (Score:1)
Doesn't this sound like a Space Shuttle?
Re:Space Shuttle, Again (Score:3, Informative)
The part of it that launches the space craft flies back to earth, while the space craft comes back like it would a regular rocket via chutes.
Think of it as a rocket that piggy backs a jet airliner and launching from 100km up.
The Rocket Company? (Score:2)
Re:Space Shuttle, Again (Score:5, Interesting)
The whole concept had to be scrapped because Congress wanted to kill the whole program after Apollo. To survive, NASA shopped the Shuttle to the Air Force. The Air Force had no use for the two-stage, small payload shuttle which was designed for mostly passengers, not freight.
The Air Force wanted something to lift the Keyhole spy satellites, which were pretty damned big -- the Hubble Space Telescope is essentially a Keyhole, just pointing away instead of at the license plates of evil Russians -- so NASA redesigned the Shuttle into a heavy lifter by getting rid of the flyback first stage, adding a disposable external fuel tank, and tacking on two solid rocket boosters to get the whole mess into orbit.
The Air Force signed on to add their weight to lobby for the new system, and lo! the idiot Shuttle, good for nothing but lifting Keyhole telescopes into orbit. NASA engineers probably cried themselves to sleep for years.
The Air Force later stopped using the Shuttle for spysats, leaving NASA with the flying boxcar that no one wanted to use.
Most of the above is from the book Enterprise, by Jerry Grey.
And remember this: it was the solid rocket boosters, and later the external tank, that destroyed two shuttles. Air Force: our thanks...
We never got an actual cheap shuttle, because Congress (the american people) didn't care about it, and the Air Force barely got a bastardized version built. They've been underfunded and unused by an American public who doesn't understand about what could have been done -- read The High Frontier by Gerard K. O'Neill to get an idea of what we've lost -- and the funds to build a successor went into an insanely expensive scramjet program in the nineties that merely made aerospace companies richer by a few billion bucks. There have been shoestring programs, like the Delta Clipper DC-X single-stage to orbit prototype that never was developed, as well as rotor-landing concepts that never got past the testing stage, because Congress (that's us, in toto) constantly whittles NASA down to a state where only ONE development program can proceed at one time. It's a fake zero-sum game, where decades go by while NASA is chastised for it's "waste" while the military and new off-shoots like Halliburton drain trillions withut stay or let. NASA would love to have multiple programs testing different systems, like railguns supplanting the first stage, or winged dual stages like India's concept, or Pournelle's Delta Clipper one-stage vertical launch and land, or laser assisted takeoffs, or an advanced spaceplane, or just dirty old Saturn V's to get jobs done... but the US does not have a citizenry that has the education, the imagination, or the spirit necessary to fund even one program thru final operations, let alone multiple concepts.
The US is just not the country to do this. We did Apollo because we hated the Russkies so much that price was no object. After Apollo reached 17 (there were supposed to be 20, then the Selene permanent lab on the moon along with the Zeus Mars missions -- atomic powered, that one) there simply was no political pressure to keep going. Even today, NASA tries to get one-off Mars manned landers because they think that that is all the public will buy -- and they're right. Americans won't finance space colonization or L5/L2/L4 space industry. They don't even know what an ORBIT is, much less what all the rest means. And "sci-fi" in movies and TV sure as hell didn't help. Without the science, it's just WW II in space. Space has advantages for industry and solar energy transmission to ground, but you have to have a special kind of education and imagination to understand what the ideas mean -- and we don't have it
Re:Space Shuttle, Again (Score:2)
Perhaps a different disaster would have befallen a two-stage flyback shuttle. A jet engine might have fallen off, or the heat sink on the belly might have failed. Something ALWAYS goes wrong.
But, the NASA engineers did not like the external tank and unthrottleable SRB's, and they were
Hrm... (Score:2)
Maybe its better than firing rockets straight up.
Re:Hrm... (Score:4, Informative)
Here. Check out this link. [skyramp.org] Imagine the possibilities: long inclined launch ramp = low launch costs = pervasive human presence in space. Nuclear propulsion would be nice, too.
And I seriously wonder if the Indian aerospace industry is up to the task of building this thing. But if they are, then bully for them.
Ugh (Score:2)
Re:Ugh (Score:1)
Defeating the Rocket Equation (Score:2)
Liek Pegasus (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe its better than firing rockets straight up.
Indeed. The Pegasus [orbital.com] launch vehicle has been proving this for years. Being hauled to 40,000 ft by a carrier aircraft and having wings to provide lift in the lower atmosphere atmosphere dramatically shrink the size of the launch vehicle. Only program is the idea doesn't scale very well. Pegasus can only carry about 1000 lbs to LEO. There aren't any jets that can carry a much larger vehicle.
I am a little suprised at the naivete of the Mr. Nair's comments.
Re:Hrm... (Score:1)
In much the same way that flying from the south of Spain to north of Marrocco is an intercontinatal flight, but it did get into space.
So, we'll be offshoring... (Score:4, Funny)
Yes. (Score:4, Informative)
You're not kidding.. (Score:1)
AND why the US supports it: India considers its missile, space and nuclear programs to be closely interlinked, with nuclear deterrence against Pakistan and China and benefits to the people through satellite technology and nuclear energy being critical factors.
Oh, fuck, does this mean there's another Cold War starting? If so, I agree with my sig.
Re:You're not kidding.. (Score:2, Offtopic)
India just has their few nukes for deterence, and they really have pushes for a comprehensive, enforcable ban on nukes. Not that that is likely, but hey, they seem to be doing all of this in
Re:You're not kidding.. (Score:2)
Like any sensible predator. Check out the way lions hunt sometime. (Not the way TV pretends they do.) Generally they drive some other predator away from his dinner, because they can, and because it's easier and less dangerous than hunting themselves. (Once a pride of lions shows up, the hyenas that made the kill slink away, to wait until they've finished. Similarly for leopards, except that leopards try to carry
Re:So, we'll be offshoring... (Score:1, Funny)
How about getting clean water to rural areas? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas? (Score:5, Insightful)
Lastly, India uses the space program to do a lot of very real good. Weather satellites save lives. Earth observation satellites can help see how crops are doing, and make it easier to get better yields. They can help find where water is, and help make maps to figure out how to get it where it needs to go.
Jerk.
Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas? (Score:3, Interesting)
a mind is a terrible thing to waste (Score:2, Insightful)
But hey, since charity begins at home, why not start with yourself, and ask your own president to send more bucks to urban ghettoes where the murder rate is higher than in any 3rd world country, rather than sending poor youth to die over in Baghdad.
Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a problem mirrored from Malaysia to Africa to South America. The arguments are always about "social
Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste (Score:2)
Hell, people keep complaining about population, world population even....you could fit the entire world population into Texas, with a population density about the same as that of Manhattan...which isn't exactly an unpleasant place to live last I heard. The Earth isn't exactly overcrowded yet. Some places have a hell of a lot more people than others, but they aren't overcrowded.
I'd say India's main problems have been matters of economics, and politics...not population. Fact is...India's space program saves
Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste (Score:2)
And when we overfish and overfarm and drive an increasing number of other species to extinction, then Yes, we ARE overcrowded.
I'll agree that the overcrowding isn't inherent, but is rather an artifact of the way we structure our societies, but unles
Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste (Score:2)
Cities may be built on the best farmland...but hardly a vast amount of it. And there's plenty of other "best farmland" around just as good as we put cities on...and we farm it. And, at least here in the US, agricultural technology has been advancin
Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste (Score:2)
Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste (Score:2)
I wouldn't really agree here. In the US it is not unusual for a single farmer, perhaps with one or two helpers at most with modern equipment to be farming many hundreds or thousands of acres of land, with fairly high crop yields, without backbreaking labor. Food animals like pigs, chickens, turkeys, and other animals are also raised by the tens of thousands per facility in what can onl
Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas? (Score:2)
Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas? (Score:2)
Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas? (Score:1)
Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas? (Score:2)
Have you ever been on the wrong side of the tracks in a US city?
Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas? (Score:2)
It's metaphor drawn in real life. The fact that legislators won't fund the rehab of the neighborhood two blocks from their office -- that they work every day in a slum -- pretty much illustrates what is wrong with America, government and citizenry alike.
Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas? (Score:3, Insightful)
It is very easy to point at a problem. It is often very difficult to suggest a solution. Yes, clean drinking water, toilets (mind you, I said toilets, not 'clean' toilets - that'd be the next phase!), electricity, transport, assured employment are the issues that need to be tackled more or less in that order in India. But as it often happens with difficult problems, the solution lies at an altogether different level. A couple of NGOs can probably pool up enough money to ferry water in tankers to some remote
Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas? (Score:2)
Private financing? (Score:2, Interesting)
My question is -- why do all these innovations come from governments? Are there regulations or requirements that prevent private investment into the new inventions?
Space tourism will be a huge business. Just from discussing it with customers of mine (who pay $150,000 for a week in Vegas for 2 people, what's $150,000 to hit space?), I bet there are at least 100,000 people in the world w
Re:Private financing? (Score:2)
Re:Private financing? (Score:5, Informative)
Spaceship One didn't go into orbit. It had enough oomph to get about 100km of altitude. That's only a few percent of what's needed to get into space, and the cost increases exponentially as the delta-g needed increases, with a doubling constant of about 2km/sec or so, the exact figure depending on the reduction and oxidizing agents used with hydrogen and oxygen giving the largest constant.
Additionally, for-profit businesses have virtually no incentive to invest in long term research. Their discount rates tend to be around 10% (even in this era of uber-low interest rates) and that's for a sure bet investment. Risky multi-decade investments that might or might have a huge payoff in 30 years are not what they like. Governments and non-profits (like the Mars Society) are the only groups that have the necessary long-term thinking to develop this field, and even then they miss more often than hit. There are plenty space shuttle-type boondoggles for one Sputnik or Soyuz or Apollo victory.
As far as I know, private space research is either lightly encouraged, or treated neutrally. It's more that few people are so foolhardy to invest in it at this point. Rutan might make money because of publicity and there being a limited tourist potential for sub-orbital flights, but his research is a dead-end that will not bring us any closer to routine orbital space flight.
Re:Private financing? (Score:1)
Yet we spend billions (trillions?) on going to war and there are tons of defense contractors licking their chops every day. Doesn't it amaze you that these are the same companies that develop all the weapons to kill one another?
I'd love to see a day when the populations of the world arm themselves and say no to the elite warmongering imperialists. This is nothing directed solely at Bush, Clinton and every other president, PM and world leader in 60 years has had war ambitions (war is the healt
Re:Private financing? (Score:1)
What message do you think the Soviets got when we hit the Sea of Tranquility with a rocket? "We can hit the moon, we can for damn sure hit Moscow."
Re:Private financing? (Score:2)
You're saying that we (the untrained, out of shape, great unwashed)
should via force of personal arms (i.e. me and my AR-15)
defianance (to which I assume you mean prevent our tax dollars from being used to finance)
the defense industry (i.e. the folks that make all of said personal arms, AND the REALLY BIG and wizbang toys our military uses)?
Umm. So, does anyone else view this as a losing proposition on three fronts?
1) Even if we get rid of our defense industry, all those other countries
Re:Private financing? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not an expert by any means, but I'd summarize the reasons as:
1) Launches should take place somewhat near the equator, and not over populated areas, limiting the number of launch sites. Maybe not a huge concern since the use of already established launch sites could be negotiated.
2) Private space programs need to be organized in countr
Re:Private financing? (Score:2)
The catch is that $5B isn't nearly enough to design an orbital space craft and launch it 10k times (10 people per trip).
Re:Private financing? (Score:2)
The cost and complexity starts to go up as you add re-entry mechanisms, life support and so on. Probably millions per person if not much more, yhe Russians I believe charge 20 million for a week on the ISS. That is not counting the billions probably needed to b
Re:Private financing? (Score:3, Informative)
My question is -- why do all these innovations come from governments?
Simple. The time discounted value of future, excludable rewards exceeds the cost of doing space exploration. Up to now at least. It follows there is no entrepreneurial incentive to invest in new space technologies without public support.
Consider the significance of Spaceship One. The chief innovation of this system was financing. Scaled recreated the capabilties of the X-15 from fifty years ago with private money, which is a milestone
Re:Private financing? (Score:1)
What we need to do is take the money from these people that have so much of it to frivilously throw away and redirect it to more worthy causes like educating our children or feeding the hungry.
Lots of private ventures... (Score:3, Interesting)
xcor [xcor.com]
blue origin [blueorigin.com] (Jeff Bezos, Amazon)
spaceX [spacex.com]
Armadillo Aerospace [armadilloaerospace.com] (John Carmack)
(Not mentioning the obvious: Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites.)
And don't forget about America's Space Prize [astronautix.com] a $50 million dollar prize for the development of a reusable vehicle to service http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/ [slashdot.org]">Bigelow Aerospace's inflatable space hotel. (Robert Bigelow owns the "Budget Suites of America" hoetl chain). Several contendors for the prize at the mom
New slogan. (Score:1)
The Space Shuttle: Promises left unkept (Score:1)
Steve
The Russians had Spiral (Score:2)
But before going down that path, the folks in India should listen to this guy http://www.dunnspace.com/home.html#Columns [dunnspace.com]. Getting into orbit is fundamentally different than flying an aircraft, and this Arthur Schnitt fellow argues that the max performance route used in aircraft is too costl
India "planning?" (Score:2, Insightful)
Huh. No offense to India (really!) but, there are high school nerds in New Jersey who are also at this stage of work on their own personal space programs.
Re:India "planning?" (Score:2, Insightful)
This is a hell of a lot more likely to happen than, say, Chinese moon landings.
Re:India "planning?" (Score:2)
Re:India "planning?" (Score:2)
That said, speaking as an Indian, the positive spin over ISRO is nauseating at times; the Indian press, in particular, loves to fawn over those guys for no apparent reason. I suppose every country needs its heroes and positive-news-generators.
Re:India "planning?" (Score:2)
That said, speaking as an Indian, the positive spin over ISRO is nauseating at times; the Indian press, in particular, loves to fawn over those guys for no apparent reason. I suppose every country needs its heroes and positive-news-generators.
You are right on all counts. I think my comment needs a little more context than I thought it did. My larger point was that reporting on a conceptual-stage idea about a possible plan for a program isn't really news, in that such con
Re:India "planning?" (Score:2)
Attempts at levity apart, point taken, but all I can say is, welcome to Slashdot and Rediff! :-D
Re:India "planning?" (Score:2)
Leaving aside, for the moment, any sense of humor that you may or may not actually have, try to see my comment in some context. It's not a question of whether or not India has a space program (they do) or the capacity to build a shuttle (they do), but whether or not the conceptualizing mentioned in the summary (and the way it was mentioned) is news, per se. The point is that if every t
India's Pace of Change (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, India has a long way to go. But the country has some of the world's best scientists and has become a significant center for global technological innovation. Why shouldn't they put their skills to work in space?
Of course, it all may be about ego, about promoting national pride. Americans, though, are hardly in a position to judge others about that. After all, our entire space program was built on beating the Soviets to the moon!
Re:India's Pace of Change (Score:2)
India has the potential to become one of the world's next great economic powers, if they play their cards right. They have two huge things going for them: firstly, they've got a massive workforce with a strong work ethic (unlike most western countries), and secondly, they have a leadership who
Re:only if.... (Score:2)
making money, right? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that's really neat. I can imagine the Chinese govt. has something to prove. I can also imagine the Indians are too poor (and not despotic enough) to irresponsibly waste the money. In China, even if it is a waste, if the big men say do it, you do it.
My only thought is that the inherent dishonesty of Indian organizations will lead to the rockets not working and lots of fingerpointing and ass-covering. And no real accountability.
Re:making money, right? (Score:1)
Indians will use this to make money, right? This isn't some ego-building thing like the Chinese space program, right?
It's more than likely a bit of that, combined with good, old fashioned geopolitical paranoia. India has been leery of the the People's Republic of China (PRC) ever since that little war [wikipedia.org] the two of them had, and that India lost.
And, there's also the issue of the PRC's counter-balancing of Indian's growing power in the region through military support to Pakistan and Burma. And the support
Re:making money, right? (Score:1)
Re:making money, right? (Score:2)
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=643 [spaceref.com]
Also, the US got tighter on technology transfer after the Loral case. Hasn't that made it difficult for them, as now they have to do it without the USA's help?
Re:making money, right? (Score:2)
I'd love to hear more about this inherent "dishonesty" of Indian organisations and how they le
Love the babelfish translation (Score:2)
The second stage after delivering the payload in the orbit will be made to re-enter the atmosphere and will be recovered using airbags either in the sea or land, he said adding, "This is only in its conceptual stage."
Reminds of that recovery mission by the nasa (the one before this weekend) where it ended up halfway to china.
India rocket science. Oh yeah there is an image that doesn't have a tiny bit of a mismatch. Offcourse by now they probably turning out more rocket scientist then the rest of the worl
Re:Love the babelfish translation (Score:2)
The impression I have is that Indian culture places a great premium on education and intellectual achievement. I'm certainly not surprised they can build rockets and develop a space programme.
Meanwhile American culture places a great premium on beauty
Re: (Score:1)
Half velocity is only quarter energy (Score:2)
Failure guaranteed. (Score:1)
The only thing that will lower launch costs, other than the threat of loss of something like the cold war is incentives for private enterprise [geocities.com].
$12,000 to $15,000 per kg. (Score:2)
If it's a NASA article, the cost is mainly from retaining the permanent staff between launches. If it's an ISRO article, the only explanation besides Indians being independantly wealthy is the hardware costing 10 times more.
Another Avatar (Score:1)
The only thing I can see that might have prompted this announcement, is due to India's successful testing of a scramjet on the ground -- in a wind tunnel. The US had done that nearly a half-century ago.
One scramjet windtunnel test, and already people are conjuring
I'm planning to have Catherine Zeta Jones... (Score:5, Funny)
Airbags? (Score:2)
Sovsem ohueli. (Score:2)
What's next? Rhodesia (*cough* Zimbabwe) building a Mars colony?
Re:Sovsem ohueli. (Score:2)
It's a country of a billion people, more than three times the size of the USA's three hundred million. India is sensibly using the expertese they have to do all of the above and much, much more.
Investment in a space program now will give them long term dividends, both now and into the future. As just one example now weather and resources satellites give them a big per capita payoff. Other posts here list more.
---
Are you a creator or a consumer?
Re:Sovsem ohueli. (Score:2)
Wait, you didn't think making satellites was all that we were doing, did you?
Mudak. (Score:2)
Re:Mudak. (Score:2)
NASAThink (Score:2)
This attitude is exactly what makes NASA stuff so ex
I suppose this is more feasible than... (Score:2)
Re:I don't get it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2)
Also, 'fallout' from technological innovations
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2)
We all know that the investment in space has done nothing to enable silly little technologies like weather satellites, telecommunications, etc... things that certainly don't improve the lives of people.
And Tang... Don't forget the Tang
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2)
If you want improvemets in weather satellite technology, make investements in weather satellite technology. If you want improvements in telecommunications, make investments in telecommunications research.
I'm not saying that we have gotten *no* benefit from the space program, but that *it's very little*,
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2)
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2)
Logical contradictions in the first two sentences will get you far in slashdot.
But I'll take your bait. The US has a large population of insane homeless people -- they get messages from outer space, they work for the CIA, etc. etc. In the rest of the civilized world, they put them in hospitals. We used to do that here, but then Reagan came in and de-funded all of these huge wasteful government programs, so now we have
Re:I don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2, Insightful)
That's short term. Long-term, it inspires kids to one day enter science, engineering, and other activities that will hopefully better the human race.
I've grown up watching Star Trek: can't you tell?
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2)
Re:I don't get it. (Score:1)
Re:I don't get it. (Score:5, Informative)
Unlike other societies that do have a lot of money to throw at such problems, ours does not (as you've noted). The difference is the way in which scientists in India go about designing these stages. All stage designs are done as efficiently as possible to allow reuse in multiple tasks---for instance between stages of missiles and rockets. The individual projects are not large scale, and built by using small addons to previously existing technology. This is not as expensive as you might imagine.
[1] This is stuff I cite from a couple of books I read by the Indian president, (really) a rocket scientist.
Re:I don't get it. (Score:1, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Kalam [wikipedia.org]
Re:I don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong! (Score:3, Informative)
Annual Population Growth rate: 1.44%
GDP Growth rate: 8.3%
The figure for # below poverty line are correct, though falling.
Re:I don't get it. (Score:1)
An Indian economist, IIRC, wrote an article explaining why the population in his home country is increasing like it is. In a nutshell, it's because there's no provision for retirement, or for that matter, taking care of people in their old age. So, folks rely on their kids to take care of them in their old age. The more kids you have, the better off you are in your old age. Of course, in the meantime, taking care of all of those kids is a stra
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2, Insightful)
The influx of western medicine and in particular the adoption of mass vaccinations reduced the child death rate by about 80%, however a society used to having many many children to compensate for a high mortality rate has taken much longer to adapt.
In the west it took a long period of time for western medicine to develop to such a level, and much of our society changed in pace with it.
However in many ot
Re:Waste! (Score:2)
Can't stick around here. Got to go out and feed the cows.
Re:NASA? Hah! I can make it at home for nothing! (Score:2)