Michael Lorrey wrote:
> Spike Jones wrote:
> > > Spike Jones wrote:
> > > > In the next few weeks we could suggest visions of what we want
> > > > to do with a team-effort expandable web-accessible extropian
> > > > space exploration model. ...
> > >
> > > Adrian Tymes wrote: This past weekend, I
> > > managed to collate together what appear to be the equations necessary
> > > for a simple plasma engine.
> >
> > Coooool! This is EXACTLY what I had in mind, and Adrian you
> > need not wait until you have a complete work. If you have an
> > HTML sketch with equations, thats a goooood start. Sometime we
> > need to define and limit the scope of the project.
>
> You know, with enough features like this, this could become something
> like a space version of x-plane....
Actually, the set of equations I have are for ground-to-LEO, not
LEO-and-higher. Though they could probably be reused: the only major
factor differentiating the two seems to be the delta V and structural
mass percent, and I was already planning on making both into
parameters. (9000 m/s for ground-to-LEO, including allowance for drag;
figure out your delta V for anything else and plug it in. Modern
composites seem able to get down to 9-10% structural mass including
crew and life support, plus 3-5% for landing gear, wings, and other
only-need-for-HTOL stuff, though I'm not very confident about the
latter figure.) This also allows it to be used for throwaway prototype
designs - for instance, what's the effective delta V for a rocket
created specifically to win the X Prize?
> BTW: The USAF's Phillips Lab has a great application they developed for
> simulating all sorts of electric propelled orbital transfer vehicles:
> plasma, ion, etc. I'll try to load it up somewhere for download.
Coolness, thanks!
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:59:42 MDT