Being the former (now retired) CEO of a global corporation… the business side of me asks “what is ESA thinking?” In retrospect… if the military has a need for tech… it will become. We as civilians may have no idea about what is really out there… but ESA does not seem to drink the forward thinking kool aid of the private sector. Thank you for revisiting the Space Plane… it may be safe to say it’s time is now or on the brink of passing forever. The launch demand will tell
Perceptions of projected economies of scale are luring in the shoals of eager engineers and circling capital. When/if SpaceX heavy lift capacity reduces $/kilo to orbit by a couple orders of magnitude much becomes possible that was not before and if you build it they will come thinking becomes practical projections of actual profits. Or so the story goes, and only time will tell. As far as I can see only two outstanding technical hurdles remain to be demonstrated before it's full steam ahead; heat shield stability at reentry velocities and the chopstick catch maneuver. I'll put off unreasonable optimism till then, but when they nail those items it will truly be the dawn of a new era. Let's hope Peter keeps his proverbial Principles in his no doubt neatly pressed pants until the pudding is realistically and practically proved. ... Ahem!
@@larrybuzbee7344 Starship is a excellent project. Simple getting to orbit cheaply is insufficient. Higher velocity plus effective handling/storage of cryogenic fuel & oxygen is needed. Higher safety standards than is possible on multi stage rockets is also needed for radioactive payloads or bulk personal transport. Starship isn't the endgame simply a start.
Hypersonic passenger jets are a bad idea, full stop. I don't think that all boosters are climate-change deniers, they're just suffering from some weird incapacity to connect the dots -- increasing the carbon cost of air travel to facilitate the super-rich getting about is a perfect example of what we should not be doing.
9:39 I always find it astonishing just how much better Saturn V was than Space Shuttle and many other rockets that came decades after it, NASA had this fantastic rocket and they just threw it away for the crude mockery of a spaceplane.
The problem with Hypersonic Transportation is that you can't Practically Transport large Number of people. Look all Hypersonic Concept its limited to 10 Passenger of 1-2 are pilots.
It should be noted that Ariane 6 cost reductions are not as originally advertised. Speaking in June 2023 at the Paris Air Show, the European Space Agency's Toni Tolker-Nielsen said the Ariane 6 is projected to come in at a higher cost per launch than first predicted. The Ariane 6's cost per flight will be about 40 percent lower than that of the now-retired Ariane 5, short of the previous 50% goal. ArianeGroup is asking for a substantial increase to its subsidies, to 350 million euros a year to try to maintain competitiveness with SpaceX.
350 million... a year. NASA's regular operating budget is 2.1 billion... a month. SpaceX has already burned an estimated 9 billion on Starship so far. ESA seems woefully underfunded, despite having an entire geological region of countries funding it. 350 million is not even close to being competitive. That's not even enough money to put glass windows in a typical office building around here. Sheese.
That's what they want to us believe. The truth is that all of the bleeding edge aerospace innovation went dark back in the 1970's, and is actively-and illegally-being withheld from the public under a mountain of unconstitutional secrecy.
No... they don't. They just say they do. It's sad really. I was wondering how they couldn't even get a lander TO the Moon after all the Soviet accomplishments but then I remembered... Korolev was from Odessa... Ukraine. Glushko was also Ukranian. It's possible that Russia does not foster the creativity necessary for spaceflight anymore in their universities. This is a tragedy. Even though they were resource starved at one time they had some of the greatest theoretical physicists in the world. But, if you can't voice your thoughts you can't innovate.
Great video content about the first concept of the European Spacecrafts. Only Germany is capable of bringing back to live this forgotten technology. Many thanks to highlight the history of it. Greetings from Europe BE.
While I like the idea of space planes, their usefulness is restricted to earth orbiting vehicles. The moon has no useful atmosphere, mars would need a different design of space plane, and we only have runways on earth. Propulsive landing will always be a required option, starship fills the gap that a space plane can not.
While I do think there's an advantage to having humans in LEO for the purposes of assessing and controlling experiments, simple artificial gravity experiments have never been run, if you don't examine the important questions about safe space exploration then all you have is the immediate return you get from simple 0g experiments. Yes I am biased.
I love this space plane design of Polaris. I think at the end when landing it , it was going too slow and they had difficulty being close to it's stall speed. I will include this in my new drawings of the space port I am designing as it is a means of housing over 20 space planes and I only have about 10 designs including Dream Chaser, I wonder if Titanium can survive re-entry speeds of 14,000 miles per hour? We could retroburn to slow the plane down to a safer speed that the metal can withstand, perhaps cooling it with water between layers. We need a better engine, better metal, higher pressure, higher temperatures and a better fuel. I think then , if we could manage 700 seconds of impulse we could have single stage to orbit ships and 700 tons to low earth orbit with two stage ships.
What is this "Bomber-Abfang-Jaeger" made of plywood (!) and with a rocket engine? One pilot top stage deltawing flyer with a single cannon; designed to shoot the American bomber planes. The engineur died on first testflight in 1944/45. Also missing: V2b (b = bastard ;•), is a winged V2 for extended range that absolved test flights in 1944/45. It was noted for piloted version as spy plane. The first official space plane? The V2b was from Peenemuende, while the small deltawing came from somewhere in Bavaria. 🚀🏴☠️🎸
Ha, nice shot across the bow…er…nose of the CIA. Hey Doc, I’m very disappointed in the Ariane 6 and ESA’s lack of reusability but showing young fresh faced first principles thinkers is a real shot in the arm. I’m encouraged they are taking on the bear of SSTO horizontal launch and landing because Skylon doesn’t have it. Get Polaris up and running with the dual propulsion system, have it generate revenue then tackle the hybrid single propulsion engine. Skylon is just wasting VC money on pipedreams they themselves cannot and will not ever see through.
If Polaris turns into a viable prototype in 10 years, i think we are good in time. If the market for space transport is big enough then, maybe in 20 yearsit becomes what SpaceX is today.
while space planes do look cool. there are inherent performance limitations with design, the mass fraction to orbit will always be much lower than a staged rocket of comparable size. Additionally the manufacturing cost are much higher, wings and airframes are complex assemblies and have deal with crazy dynamic loads. Regular rockets are for the most part pressurized tubes, far cheaper to manufacture. The combined forces of higher cost and lower performance and likely only marginal safety improvements will limit spaceplane use until there is sizable human presence in orbit to justify the increased safety margin.
As cool as spaceplanes are, the orbital speed of about 25 mach simply makes wings and air breathing engines impractical for getting to orbit compared to something like Starship. If we had a skyhook in orbit to give them final push into orbit it would be a different story but as things are the mass of wings and airbreathing engines just doesn't pay for itself with mass of fuel saved.
Good presentation. I learned a lot! The Germans seem to have always had a knack for engineering. Looking forward to seeing if Deutschland can become competitive in the orbital space launch economy. Hopefully, the R&D behind Polaris leads to an economically viable development with their MIRA project which would allow for the transport of cargo, and crewed passengers, into LEO at price levels that can compete with SpaceX.
@@terranspaceacademy Instead of pretending that improvements in rocket technology are about to open up limitless opportunities in space, I'd like to see hard-nosed assessment of the risk of Kessler Syndrome. From the summary of "BRUTE FORCE MODELING OF THE KESSLER SYNDROME": "For the worst-case scenario (BAU), the number of these very close,100m conjunctions per day can reach 50 by the year 2100".
@@terranspaceacademy Two words don't constitute a solution to the problem of space debris; just as Musk has failed to do most of what he's promised so far, "Starship Scoop" (which I take to be some notional scheme to remove space debris) may never come to fruition.
I remember seeing some of the first concept art work of the space shuttle, by the time Government committees got finished with it, you could barely recognise it as the Space Shuttle, the most shocking for me was when I found out that the side boosters where going to be two giant Roman candles.
Thats true. For those who don't know: solid boosters can not be turned off, once ignited, and were therefor prohibited for manned flights. But congress again: developement of liquid boosters is too expensive. Who cares for security anyway. 🚀🏴☠️🎸
Why is it that when you want to make a post on this or about space or of UFO's and you can't or they don't want you to because your opinion doesn't have a bearing on the subject at hand why because of you have an idea they want you to let them know then they say we already have that when in fact they don't or at least they didn't till you gave it to them , a lot of times they don't want or care about your opinion do to the fact if you make it and put it out they can shut you down and take it due to the fact that they say for national security reasons for it and if you pursue it you will be silenced and use that to whatever you think and with that I yield back
Who are "they" my friend? I've commented about UFOs since my Strategic Air Command days... Mostly to the tune of "we aren't sure what they are" but that is were the evidence has left us at this point. So far no silencing...
Would it be possible to make turbo jet style rocket engine that has an air breathing mode, then switches to using gaseous oxygen to flow through the blades?
@@terranspaceacademy i was thinking turbojet burning jp8, having a variable intake that seals as it goes up to vacuum. While on the back of the intake are heated injection nozzles for LOX and LIN. Essentially replacing the atmosphere as you gain altitude to keep the turbine spinning.
Much less mass. We did a lesson called "Rail to the Stars" about it. The main thing is that Starship cannot go horizontal in Earth gravity without destroying itself.@@richardknapp570
I remember the ill fated Dyna-soar project when I was a boy. Since then, I have always believed in "fly it back". It's disappointing to be still relying on parachutes for the return trip. I'm looking forward to Dream Chaser's success. I've never heard of Polaris until this video! Flying it there AND back will truly seal the deal!
If we can get the materials alloy's thermally correct for the rotating detonation engine then nothing is impossible for solar system work. With the instruments and algorithms we have it should be possible to solve the materials thermal issues.
@@terranspaceacademy Yes, I cant wait until AI figures out other thermal materials element spectrums for thermal algorithmic functions. Try plasma coating alloys onto a stronger annulus or 3d print.. Make your annulus the cooling core for thermal heat exchanger. You need to turn up the heat with 3d printer lasers by adding graphene into your fiber optic polymers.
@@terranspaceacademy I really don't care what it consist of, I want increased thermal tolerances. Maybe combine a small Sabre cooler to bring down the temp of the engine housing for longer ISP duration?
We don't need hypersonic transportation for the super-rich and neither does Europe! What we do need is safe and ultra-efficient subsonic air transportation for the masses, perforce very slightly slower than present-day passenger jets, like that Boeing isn't building. Air travel now has a very high carbon cost -- have you heard? We don't need to further increase it, albeit only for the relative few who could afford hypersonic travel.
@@terranspaceacademy Sure there is -- energy considerations alone mean that more fuel will be required and the engines required aren't going to require lower tolerances or be easier to maintain than turbojets -- quite the opposite. The next generation supersonic aircraft now being designed are all smaller than Concorde and tickets are likely to be more expensive. Hypersonic passenger service, if it ever happens, is bound to cost much more than subsonic jet flights.
Gerry Anderson made the best rail launch system. Ever see an old British tv show called Fireball XL5? Gerry was the guy who invented the show. Damn, but I loved that show as a kid!
@@terranspaceacademy There’s episodes of it, and Gerry’s greatest work (imho) Thunderbirds on RU-vid. The visuals are astounding for the early Sixties.
I always enjoy your unique and informative videos. Would be awesome to see a video regarding the 150 meter varient of Starship that Elon proposed as well as how that would impact payload capacity.
@@terranspaceacademy Yes, why don't you switch from talking about real engineering to covering every daft idea which comes out of Elon's mouth? With two Starships exploding before reaching orbit, it's clearly time to move on to the 150 meter variant.
