Orbital Pond Hopping A Vision for the Evolution of Point to Point Travel ASTE 527: Space Exploration Architectures Concept Synthesis Studio Seth A. McKeen 10/16/2012

Potential Implications of Point to Point Travel  World wide network of Ultrafast Point to Point Travel.  Huge networks of global hubs, all reachable within an hour or so.  Goal of the architecture: get ~ 50 essentially anywhere in the world in less than an hour. *Transit times are back of the envelope Seth A. McKeen | Orbital Pond Hopping: A Vision for the Evolution of Point-to-Point Travel

Seth A. McKeen | Orbital Pond Hopping: A Vision for the Evolution of Point-to-Point Travel  Los Angeles Air & Space Port One of many potential evolved airports that could be upgraded with P-P / Space Tourism Concourses once the market is booming. Custom Lightweight, Reclining Seats  Global Jumper: 48 Passenger Orbital Jumpcraft; Used for commercial travel from city to fuel depot to city. Vertical Take off, vertical landing (VTVL), fully and rapidly reusable. Top view of a typical passenger Deck on a Global Jumper Passenger deck

Seth A. McKeen | Orbital Pond Hopping: A Vision for the Evolution of Point-to-Point Travel Out of the dense part of the atmosphere. Liquid Boosters Separate and Boost Back to Los Angeles for refueling and reuse. Alt: 40 KM (130,000 FT.) First Stage Separates and Boosts Back to Los Angeles for refueling and reuse. Alt: 50 KM (160,000 FT.) Ascent – All 3 Liquid First Stage Boosters are Firing, using a cross- feed propellant scheme. Take Off Fueled Weight is roughly 2,992,207 lbm Alt: 1 KM (3,280 FT.) In Low Earth Orbit, ΔV ~ 9200 m/s complete. Rendezvous with Orbital Propellant Depot Alt: 150 KM (500,000 FT.)  The boosters are easily able to take the heating descending from just 130,000 ft, and the Reinforced Carbon-Carbon (RCC) Plug Nozzle dissipates the heat without any issue.  Simplified landing model shows only ~3.5% of the touchdown weight of the Booster’s worth of propellant is needed for soft landing for full reusability. Wait, which way to First Class?  A typical view from any of the 48 seats on the Global Jumper. Time of Departure: 7:57 AM Pacific Time

 On Orbit-Refueling  Take on ~3000 lbm of propellant for propulsive landing  Commercial business to resupply depots  Integration of Orbital Hotels Seth A. McKeen | Orbital Pond Hopping: A Vision for the Evolution of Point-to-Point Travel Concept sketch by NASAS

Seth A. McKeen | Orbital Pond Hopping: A Vision for the Evolution of Point-to-Point Travel Perigee Lowering Burn Reentering the Upper Atmosphere Atmospheric Reentry: The Plug Nozzle Takes the bulk of the Heating Terminal Velocity Reached: Retro- Burn to Slow Jumpcraft’s Descent Begins at 50% Throttle Retro-Firing Throttled Down to 30% Throttle Precision Landing at 5% Throttle Alt: 200 KM Alt: 100 KM Alt: 40 KM (130,000 FT.) Alt: 10 KM (33,000 FT.) Alt: 6 KM (19,000 FT.) Alt: 0 KM (5 FT.)  Atmospheric Reentry (Frictional Heating) Takes away almost all of the Orbital Energy  A simplified model for reentry was created to check different configurations for propulsive landing. ΔV ~ 490 m/s is required for a 48 person Jump Craft.  Touchdown at Spaceport Paris. Local time is 5:45 PM, total time of transit: 48 minutes. Time for a fresh C roissant.

Seth A. McKeen | Orbital Pond Hopping: A Vision for the Evolution of Point-to-Point Travel The Fundamental Architecture  Fully Reusable  VTVL (No Wings)  Modular (Scalable)  Upgrade to Aerospike Nozzle  Upgrade to Refuel on-orbit Suborbital “Lobs” Orbital Travel Atmospheric Hypersonic Flight Class of Vehicle for P-P Travel “Wings simply add too much weight to a rocket that don't do a thing through most of the flight. And there are plenty of other ways to land safely than forcing your rocket to have so much dead weight and drag for so much of its flight.” – John Carmack of Armadillo Aerospace “Wings simply add too much weight to a rocket that don't do a thing through most of the flight. And there are plenty of other ways to land safely than forcing your rocket to have so much dead weight and drag for so much of its flight.” – John Carmack of Armadillo Aerospace Where Are the Wings?  Heavy; useless for most of the flight  Using VTVL is also a great opportunity for maturing landing systems for future interplanetary missions

Seth A. McKeen | Orbital Pond Hopping: A Vision for the Evolution of Point-to-Point Travel How do we get there from here? VTVL R&D Cargo Flights Aerospike Nozzles Military P-P Transport Orbital Propellant Depots Global Jumper Key technology developments  Reinforced Carbon-Carbon (RCC) Aerospike Nozzle  Orbital Propellant Depots Photo - Blue Origin Photo - SpaceX  Increase in ISP = More Payload to Orbit  Decrease in Weight; Shorter then Bell Nozzle and use as Heat Shield Drive Cost Down  By using a highly scalable architecture with incremental technological developments, development cost is heavily reduced.  The better performance we get, the more payload we can carry for a given ΔV  Technology NASA might use for Interplanetary missions, used for P-P Travel  VTVL Reusable Launch Vehicles Are Already Under Way NOW< 5 Years < 10 Years < 20 Years

Seth A. McKeen | Orbital Pond Hopping: A Vision for the Evolution of Point-to-Point Travel Cargo Transports VTVL R&D Cargo Flights Aerospike Nozzles Military P-P Transport Orbital Propellant Depots Global Jumper Return on Investment  Again, by using a highly scalable architecture, we could immediately start performing “flea hops” carrying cargo city-to-city, this is earning capital to cover investment costs but at the same time is maturing the system before its used for Humans.  As soon as VTVL is fully developed, could begin sending high-priority cargo across country – package door to door in an hour.  Sub-Orbital (low Delta V, good starting point).  Start Regional and move to Coast to Coast

Seth A. McKeen | Orbital Pond Hopping: A Vision for the Evolution of Point-to-Point Travel Aerospike Nozzles VTVL R&D Cargo Flights Aerospike Nozzles Military P-P Transport Orbital Propellant Depots Global Jumper NASA “Pulled the Plug”  Though there have been years of static testing, notably by Rocketdyne, on both annular and linear aerospike nozzles, NASA canceled all research before flight time was ever achieved.  Altitude Compensating Nozzles were originally developed in the 1960’s.  By automatically correcting plume expansion to ambient temperature, a net increase in mission average ISP allows more useful payload to be carried. Lighter, more efficient  A truncated plug nozzle is also shorter than a bell nozzle, making it lighter.  A Carbon-Carbon nozzle could be actively cooled with propellant running through a channel and utilizing bleed holes – it could then be used as a primary heat shield on reentry, grossly reducing weight Courtesy Pratt & Whitney

Seth A. McKeen | Orbital Pond Hopping: A Vision for the Evolution of Point-to-Point Travel Military P-P VTVL R&D Cargo Flights Aerospike Nozzles Military P-P Transport Orbital Propellant Depots Global Jumper  Programs such as SUSTAIN and Hot EAGLE could use initial manned Jumpers to carry 16 passengers anywhere in the world in under an hour  1 passenger deck, integrated life support (easily scales up).  Orbital trajectories using Aerospike cluster for reentry  Ideal for emergency relief (hurricanes, etc.)

Seth A. McKeen | Orbital Pond Hopping: A Vision for the Evolution of Point-to-Point Travel Global Jumpers VTVL R&D Cargo Flights Aerospike Nozzles Military P-P Transport Orbital Propellant Depots Global Jumper  Building off of its younger brother, the military transport model and incorporating on-orbit refueling, 48 passengers can now travel anywhere in the world in under an hour.

Seth A. McKeen | Orbital Pond Hopping: A Vision for the Evolution of Point-to-Point Travel Merits & Limitations Merits  Doesn’t use any exotic propulsion  Opens up commercial market for propellant depot refueling  Matures technologies for Interplanetary Space Travel o Propulsive Landing o On-Orbit Refueling  Highly Scalable  Could Start Now  Potential usage: Military, Business, Space Tourism, Time Sensitive Packages Limitations  Potentially launching rockets over urban areas  High delta V for orbital flight  On demand flight vs. scheduled?  How many propellant depots in orbit, how spaced? (Rendezvous problem).

Seth A. McKeen | Orbital Pond Hopping: A Vision for the Evolution of Point-to-Point Travel Future Work  Hard #’s on Price per Ticket  Trajectory Optimization  Preliminary Layout and Design  200 person vehicle using Rocket-Based Combined-Cycle Propulsion (Mission Average ISP ~ 1500s)

Seth A. McKeen | Orbital Pond Hopping: A Vision for the Evolution of Point-to-Point Travel Many, many references… ng_concept_technology_challenges.shtml pdf with-expansion-deflection-nozzle#!prettyPhoto[patent_figures]/4/ erformance_Analysis_of_a_Rocket_Based_Combined_Cycle_RBCC_ Propulsion_System_for_Single-Stage-To-Orbit_Vehicle_Applications

Seth A. McKeen | Orbital Pond Hopping: A Vision for the Evolution of Point-to-Point Travel rismMarketStudy.pdf ned_suborbital_reusable_launch_vehicles_with_recommendatio ns_for_launch_and_recovery.shtml s_A_10_Year_Forecast_of_Market_Demand.pdf s/JBIS_v57_22-32.pdf ads/The%20SKYLON%20Spaceplane-Progress%20to%20Realisation,%20JBIS,% pdf ads/JBIS_v56_ pdf ds/JBIS_v54_ pdf