Space 98 viewgraphs

raw notes   placed at neofuel.com 6 nov 98 zuppero
 
 
title page  W are going to take water off the moon 
and put it into orbit. 
     - drammatic increase in amount of propellant or
           rocket fuel, in the space around earth itself
    -   will show how, in your carrer lifetime
        why factor of 1000 seems to persist
           - mass is free
           - simplicity
           - use only thermal processes
           - no electrolysis
           - tanks
           -  simplicity
     - use moon ice to fuel a steam rocket
     - Lunar Prospector
     - use a nuclear reactor to energize a steam rocket
     - depends entirely on abundantly accessible lunar  ice
           might not be so, with only 1% in regolith

One question that should totally change your view of

space transportation.

Question: if you have all the mass in space
        for propellant
that you want,

     UNLIMITED MASS,

but you have only

     LIMITED ENERGY,

     (such as the maximum power the solar or nuclear
     heater will supply for the allowed duration of the
     maneuver)

then
should you put the energy into

     ? smallest possible mass?
     ? medium?
     ? largest possible mass?

I will answer the question at the end of the
presentation.
 
 
VG #1 architecture: 

Reaon #1: mass is free: water ice 

moon ice, melt ice, condense it, put into tank 

     2.4 Mwatt thermal nuke electric generator 
     21 kilotons per year melted 
     200 KW electric to dump 

 
 
VG#2 around the moon, Ice Station 

Reason #2: thermal processes only, melt, boil 
  - take off from lunar surface, into low lunar orbit 
  - decant payload 
  - return to do it again. 

  - 6 tons water per ton to Lunar Escape, 4 to LLO 

key elements: 
   - lift off from the lunar surface. 

necessary element: 
   - melt ice 

 
 
VG#3 steam rocket 

steam rocket with water tank like any engine, diesel, car: once on, it's 
on: hot steam runs turbo-pump compressor to feed water in 

Reason 3: Tank: 

200 tons per ton completely reasonable 

PBO polybenzoxazole, 700 Kpsi Yield 

JPL, Lewis, Cal Tech 

 
 
VG #4 Zuppmobile 

     20 tons to orbit. People, water, space ship parts. 
     Supercritical presure desired, not needed we think. Ludewig says 
     now unclassified that PBR demonstrated 3 MW/l at 1 atm. 

 
 
VG #5 plot Power vs Isp 

lift off: sufficient thrust 

     nuclear heated steam rocket can just barely do it well 
     temperature of steam == specific impulse == specific velocity 
     power of rocket 
     must be minimum performance, or can't do it. 

too low a specific impulse and launch mass 

=== too large, 

huge power required. 

too high a specific impulse and 

=== thrust is too low, scales inverse with Isp, Vsp 

huge power required. 

just right and power is minimum 

fortunate coincdence of nature: 

steam works. 

Power Per Mass 

     reactor must develop 150 gto 200 megawatts per ton of reactor. 
     3 megawatts per liter, 65 times that of a race car. 
     1/5 that of an RL-10 chemical rocket 
     Ludewig can 2 X confidently, 10 X claim 

 
 
VG#6 Exceptional Simplicity 

Reason #3: simplicity 

electric generators, kitaldo kitell data 

massive 
 

 
 
VG #7 Medium Mass is answer   see http:/'/infoshare.inel.gov/zuppero/public_html/Optimum_Rocket/