The First Spaceship: A Cost-Effective & Modular Multi-Purpose Craft

[Who Am I]

The First "Spaceship"

This should maybe be NASA's first goal, money saver and way to get to Mars. It is less than the title makes it look like.

It would be similar in scale to the International Space Station, it would have ion or plasma thrusters, it would be modular and would be versatile in that you could put various landers on it. Basically, it's an all-in-one vehicle that eliminates the need for refueling stations because of the engines that would be the offspring of something like the VASIMR rocket engine.

The only thing that one would need to make for each mission following the construction of such a craft is different landers. Because the landers themselves would simply reattach to the craft after returning from the surface of a planet, astronauts could return to the Earth on whatever we end up replacing the space shuttle with.

A reasonable size might be around 8 separate capsules, plus supplies and resupplies. So, at 500 million per capsule launch, plus 50 million for the capsule that gives a price somewhere in the vicinity of 3 billion dollars in just construction and launching. Development could cost many more billions, but so would any other alternative so it's a constant factor and therefore not a factor to consider against other projects. A major factor in reducing price is the long lasting engines which could be computer controlled to keep the craft unmanned for periods of time without exploration so that constant resupply isn't needed, unlike the space station, which will cost many billions of dollars in resupply.

Obama proposed going to an asteroid and then Mars orbit and then a more loose goal of someday landing on it. What a craft like this could do is go to the moon, an asteroid and Mars more cheaply than going to an asteroid and then Mars with two separate spacecraft .

This is another developmental idea that I've had and would like some ideas and constructive feedback.

 

[Borek]

I love it how you pull these numbers from an empty top hat. Can you teach me this trick?

 

[Who Am I]

I love it how you pull these numbers from an empty top hat. Can you teach me this trick?

It's not an estimate. It's a guess to size up whether or not its worth considering that I based of the price of an average space shuttle launch: 500 million dollars and kept it constant because of the reduction in cost of new technology plus the cost of having to send a whole capsule up there. Second of all, I didn't attempt to reason out any numbers for the rest of the project that I know nothing about, such as the cost of development and all the various new technology that is needed.

Second, must you invent criticisms that aren't there? Honestly, the vagueness of the cost is pretty obvious. If you want to be at all relevant to the discussion, maybe you could try to make a realistic point for the price.

Third, you should actually put in some input to the rest of the idea! That's what forums are for, though I do know from years of forum going that people love to try to dominate one another in how they look intellectually. How easy it is to make a trite meaningless comment that holds no water and look like an expert.

Honestly...

And to satisfy you and protect the post from redundant criticisms like this, I'll ammend it with a much more vague price range, but only after you or someone helps me come up with a better price range. Or maybe I'm just tired and it's 3 AM and I made a booboo and you have to make a big deal about it.

 

[Borek]

You should really start reading forum rules. Your post is a pure speculation.

 

[Cyrus]

Who_am_I, this is not the "imagineering forums."

 

[berkeman]

Who_am_I, this is not the "imagineering forums."

Agreed. This is an engineering form. Thread closed pending moderation.