I was debating on a blog some of the logic of how history could have lead to the reality in space as seen in the movie, huge stations, bases etc. Then I started to wonder about that big moonbase we see them land on. Ok, the Moonbase is officially nuts!!Given the Areis shuttles (the ball shaped ones) are supposed to be abut 40 in diameter, I thumbnail measure this landing bay as at least 150 feet from outer roof, to foundation for that wacky elevator. [One can assume this elevator indicates something a lot bigger then Aries come to visit?] and the elevator platforms 60(ish) feet across)iamyouasheisme.files.wordpress/2008/12/12-entering.png  Assuming the white square under the dome is the edge of the elevator platform, my thumbnail gives a doom diameter at the base of 240thespacereview/archive/766a.jpg  So if this is to scalemodelermagic/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Clavius-Base-4-500x271.jpg  blogs.airspacemag/moon/files/2010/04/Clavius-Base.jpg  Would have a ring about a thousand feet in diameter, with a quarter ring beyond this a couple hundred feet bigger in diameter. So ignoring the idea that (other then the landing bays) the base extends underground very far - your talking a building volume equiv. to something like both the old World Trade center towers. Say half a million tons for said towers. Ill assume the heavy mass for shielding, and some of the rest is fused soil or concrete made of lunar soil, or something. But adding in the heaver gear for the landing bay, presumably some heavy equipment to service the spaceships, crawlers, dig up and process soil for shielding for the base, etc. Ild say a million tons worth of stuff would need to be delivered to the moon to build that base? Given the Orion III shuttles size and cargo area looks about like that of the NASA shuttles designed for a 25-30 ton capacity, Ill assume 25 tons for conservatism and simple math. starshipmodeler/2001/sp_orion-sts-side.jpg  So it would take 40,000 launches of a Orion III shuttle (in unpressurized and pressurized cargo bag configs) to get the fittings and framework for that base into orbit. To fly it from orbit to Lunar surface would take a similar number of flights if the aries (or whatever) shuttles capacities are about the same. Then you need to lift the fuel for the lunar shuttles - depending on chemical, nuclear, ion, whatever engines.. Assuming that base was the cumulation of 20 years work (maybe a bit tight given the timeline to field the shuttles) thats 2,000 launches a year. or a touch under 40 a week. Now the idea was in the book the Orions were launched from a long track. Accelerating until they could lift off, and boost up. So you dont have a pad to rebuild after each launch. A single ship like aStar-Raker might be able to land and take off 2-3 times a day (maybe) by for a TSTO, with or without drop tank, stacking it up and checking it out would have to take at least a day (2? 3?). So to average 6 flights a day, and have some down for servicing, yould need a fleet of something over 10 craft sets (Ild say likely 20 - 40 ) assuming a heavy focus at building them for rapid turn around. Plus a big enough fleet to lift everything else they seem to be doing in space. Good news I guess is with rates like this you get economies of scale to eat all the fixed overhead costs. So your cost to orbit could well be down to the low tens of dollars a pound. So a million tons, 2 billion pounds, $40 billion to lift to LEO? Yould certainly have a strong political argument to spend enough to get the per flight costs down.
Posted on: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 17:40:56 +0000
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