Path: utzoo!censor!jeff
From: jeff@censor.UUCP (Jeff Hunter)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Solid State Fusion for Launchers
Summary: fusion to the stars
Message-ID: <472@censor.UUCP>
Date: 5 Apr 89 00:35:49 GMT
References: <1989Apr2.133451.27254@cs.rochester.edu> <13667@jumbo.dec.com>
Organization: Bell Canada, Business Development, Toronto
Lines: 30

In article <13667@jumbo.dec.com>, stolfi@jumbo.dec.com (Jorge Stolfi) writes:
> Most postings to this newsgroup seem to assume that the discovery of
> cold fusion is a great boon to the exploration and colonization of
> space.  This does not seems obvious to me.  From what I have read
> so far, cold fusion may help space exploration only a litle,
> and hamper space colonization quite a lot.
> ... 
>   Note that energy is only a small fraction of
> the cost of a launch, so cheap energy on the ground will not make space
> launches much cheaper.   

	Some rocket designer who's name escapes me noticed the same thing
and proposed the Big Dumb Booster (BDB). The theory is that if the cost
of the rocket structure is much greater than the fuel, then making the 
structure cheaper (and therefore heavier) will easily offset the 
additional cost in fuel to lift it.
	Using fuel costs of two years ago he figured that it would be 
much cheaper to make huge boosters out of sheet steel (?) with last
generation rockets than the current practice of using ultra-thin aluminum
shells with every-last-drop-performance motors.
	Anything that drops the cost of LOx and liquid hydrogen just makes
this approach more attractive.

	I realize that there's more cost than just the rocket & fuel,
but the BDB should have it's uses.
-- 
      ___   __   __   {utzoo,lsuc}!censor!jeff  (416-595-2705)
      /    / /) /  )     -- my opinions --
    -/ _ -/-   /-     No one born with a mouth and a need is innocent. 
 (__/ (/_/   _/_                                   Greg Bear