Space For Sale

by Jeff Pollard

  Upon arrival at the Launch Control Facility, Kingsley oversees the final preparations for launch. Eagle 1-3 would have to work or there wouldn't be an Eagle 1-4. To the lay person, a rocket might seem simple enough, turn it on and it goes, right? In reality, a rocket is a very complicated and delicate system. For example, rocket fuel isn't like gasoline, some fuels have to be kept extremely cold.

  If the tanks aren't kept at the proper temperature, the liquids will vaporize and cause the pressure in the tank to go up astronomically. If not vented immediately, the huge metal pressure vessels could easily explode. You don't need an equation to know why a sudden explosion of metal and thousands of pounds of rocket fuel would be bad. The tanks have to be kept cold, but not too cold or the metals will become brittle and lose strength. To keep them cool you need a mixture of coolers and insulation to reduce the heat flow. But of course, adding lots of coolers and heavy insulation would make the rocket itself heavier and reduce the payload.

  It's not all that easy to keep something cryogenically cold in the hot Florida sun. One effect of cryogenic fuel is the formation of ice on the outside of the rocket. At launch, the ice is supposed to fall off, if it doesn't, then the rocket will be overweight. You can see ice shedding upon launch of the Saturn V.

  The shuttle had the same issue with ice forming on the external fuel tank which housed the cryogenically cold LOX (liquid-oxygen) and LH2 (liquid-hydrogen), but on the shuttle, the external tank is next to the massive and delicate heat shield of the orbiter. Falling ice could easily damage that heat shield, so they covered the external tank with tons of foam insulation to prevent ice formation and thus prevent ice from hitting the exposed heat shield. This then led to the problem of losing pieces of that foam insulation, which NASA knew about, but thought was not a danger to the heat shield. The Space Shuttle Columbia was doomed by a piece of foam insulation hitting the leading edge of the left wing. Upon re-entry, the compromised heat shielding allowed ionized gasses in the upper atmosphere to enter the wing and weaken the aluminum structure, causing the shuttle to lose control and burn up. The Columbia and her seven crew were lost because of insulation meant to keep the rocket fuel cold.

  The Eagle 1-3 has been on the pad for several days, preparing for launch. However the fuel won't be pumped into the tanks until she is almost ready to launch. This is one reason why launch pads are expensive propositions. They not only have to be able to pump in cryogenic rocket fuel, they then have to withstand the launch of the rocket on top of them without damaging any of the important infrastructure. Once the fuel is added, they have a limited window to launch, otherwise they may lose control of the temperature or allow too much ice to build up.

  Liquid-fuel rockets are driven by massive fuel pumps. These turbopumps have to feed both fuels into the engine at the correct proportions. A gasoline engine only supplies the fuel, the oxygen comes from the atmosphere. For a rocket, the oxidizer and the fuel are both provided in exact proportion. In the wrong proportion, the rocket might just under-perform, or it might cause the chamber to lose pressure and the delicate reaction may be stifled. In other words, it might “flame out.” The turbopumps have to provide a very precise amount, but these amounts are not only precise, but huge, we're talking about thousands of gallons per second. You try building a pump that supplies precisely 350 thousand gallons per second, no more no less.

  Remember that these liquid-fuel rockets are also throttled. At launch it'll be throttled all the way up, but will throttle down early in the flight to limit the aerodynamic pressure caused by going fast in the dense atmosphere. These rockets could destroy themselves by going too fast in the dense air at low altitudes. Once above the heavy air, they'll throttle back up, accelerating through the thinning air. Later in the flight the engine will throttle down again since the rocket has lost most of its mass, as fuel makes up most of the weight of the rocket at launch. So near the end of the launch, the rocket will be producing just as much thrust, but be pushing a rocket that weighs significantly less, so if the engine weren't throttled down, the rocket might experience five or more G's of acceleration. Imagine the rocket on the pad with a block of lead on top that weighs four times as much as the rocket, that's what 5g's would be like on that structure. Long story short, not only do these pumps have to provide a massive and precise amount of fuel, they also have to be able to do so at differing amounts that change during the flight. These pumps are expensive and complicated and have to be working perfectly to be launched.

  All this and we haven't even gotten to the actual rocket engine yet. There is a reason rocket launches are often delayed or postponed. They have to be done with good conditions, not just weather, but for every part in the huge machine. You might go to launch and discover that the batteries supplying power to the computers is low, or that a turbopump isn't spinning up correctly, or a computer glitch, or a malfunctioning cooler allowing the liquid fuel to boil. These things are made of millions of parts that have to all be working at the same time. The last test before launch occurs when they start up the rocket without releasing it. Only once they get a good ignition in the engines, proving that the pumps are working, and that combustion has started and is stable, do they then release the rocket. If they detect an imbalance in the combustion chamber, a slight variance in fuel flow, combustion instability, any of a number of anomalies, they can shut the rocket down and try again later.

  As you might imagine, it's difficult to get every single one of the hundreds of components working at the same time, and once you do get them all working, it seems like quite a waste to just discard the whole system to fall into the sea and be destroyed.

  Kingsley, Dexter, and Travis oversee the procedures leading up to launch from the Launch Control Room. Brittany Hammersmith entertains Charles Harding, a fat, old, English billionaire investment banker on the roof of the LCF, the observation deck. The Eagle 1-3 is visible ten miles away on the pad. There is a hold in the countdown at T-minus 10 minutes, a moment to make sure everything is perfect before proceeding with the countdown. They can hold at this point, but not for long before fuel starts to warm, batteries lose charge, or any of a number of problems crop up, like a change in the winds. Hammersmith repeatedly sends Hannah to get Kingsley and have him come to the observation deck to speak to Charles Harding. Kingsley ignores Hannah until finally at that t-minus 10-minute mark. Everything is a go, but he reluctantly heads to the elevator.

  “Come get me in three minutes. Make something up, something urgent,” K says to Hannah before getting in the elevator.

  “Kingsley,” Hammersmith says with an excited voice, trying to cover her frustration. “This is Charles Harding.”

  “Pleasure,” Harding says as the men shake hands.

  “The pleasure is all mine. We're ready to launch,” Kingsley says.

  “Mr. Harding had a few questions,” Hammersmith says. Kingsley wants to rush back downstairs and light the rocket while he can.

  “Of course,” Kingsley says with a fake smile.

  “Have a seat,” Brittany says, pushing a chair out for him.

  “This rocket is tiny, how are you ever going to put people in that?” Charles Harding asks.

  “Ah, you see this is a demonstration vehicle. It has just one Arthur engine, and it's much smaller: less than 2 meter diameter, 20 meters tall. Once we can prove the Arthur engine works, as well as all the turbopumps, the avionics, computers, guidance, etc., then we'll scale up. We'll make an Eagle 5 with five Arthur engines, that'll be big enough to deliver satellites. The Eagle 9, with nine Arthurs, will be the rocket to put people in space. That thing will be 60 meters tall and have a 4 meter diameter. So we're talking about something three times as tall and twice as thick.”

  “Why mess around with this small rocket? Build the big one. I'm not going to invest in some tiny rocket.”

  “Well sir, we're still perfecting the Arthur as well as the design of a number of other components. By testing a small one with just one engine, we can do more tests at mu
ch less expense. We could test one Eagle 9, or we could test nine Eagle 1s, trust me, it's not only cheaper, but we get a lot more data and experience from doing it this way. In addition, the Eagle 5 and Eagle 9 will use a second stage, which will be basically an Eagle 1. So we're not only testing the architecture that will make the Eagle 5 and 9 work, we're also testing the full second stage,” K says, looking to Hammersmith for permission to go back to the control room, getting ready to stand up. She stares him back into his seat.

  “I was just telling Mr. Harding all about the wonders of space tourism, would you mind Kingsley, elucidating on the wonders of traveling through space,” Hammersmith says.

  “Well first off, it's not tourism,” K replies. “I'm not selling you a vacation to space, this isn't a sight-seeing visit. Christopher Columbus wasn't a tourist on a cruise, he was an explorer. And that's what you'll be.”

  “An explorer?” Harding asks. “I'd be an explorer,” he muses sarcastically while sipping tea. “Mr. Pretorius, there might be a lot of billionaires interested in being an explorer, but I'm not one of them. I'm looking to invest in a worthy enterprise, not to stroke my ego. So what's the business plan, how is this going to make me profit on my investment?”

  “Well,” K says, wanting to leave, “once we get the Eagle 5 working, we'll get contracts for satellites. Then we'll get the Eagle 9 going and we'll get the NASA contract to supply cargo to the International Space Station.”

  “For sure you will get that contract?” Harding asks.

  “We aren't the only company trying to do it, but if we succeed we will have the lowest price,” K says confidently. “Did you fly here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they throw the plane away after the flight, or will they reuse it?” K asks.

  “So you're going to tell me your rockets will be reusable?” Harding asks sarcastically. “Where have I heard that before?”

  “We're different,” K replies. “NASA and companies that have tried reusability have all done it wrong. They've been parachuting their rockets down into the ocean. Seawater is extremely corrosive. It ends up being such a pain to refurbish the rocket that they might as well just spend the time and money building a new one each time.”

  “So what are you doing differently?” Harding asks.

  “The Eagle 9 will decouple with some fuel left. The second stage will ignite and take the payload to orbit. Meanwhile the first stage, will turn around, fly back to the launch pad, and land vertically on landing gear. We'll check it out, then refuel and launch her again.”

  “And you think you'll be able to just use the engines again? It won't be damaged by launch?” Harding asks suspiciously.

  “We test these things on the ground. The rocket right there on the pad, we've run three static tests. That's where we hold it down, burn the engine for the full amount of time it would burn on a real flight. Then we look it over, and a few weeks later we do the test again. These things are meant to take that kind of wear and tear. This will be the fourth launch this rocket has done, just the first where it was actually flying.”

  “I find it a little hard to believe that a huge rocket will come back and land vertically on the launch pad. Won't it require a lot of fuel to land like that?” Harding asks. Hannah emerges from the elevator.

  “Kingsley, they need you,” Hannah says.

  “Hold on,” K says, wanting to defend his ideas, “You have to remember that most of the weight of a rocket is the fuel. So at launch, the rocket is very heavy, but when that first stage separates, with no fuel in it, it doesn't weigh much at all. So all we're doing is leaving a little bit of fuel, just enough to control the weight of this big empty fuel container, bring it in for a landing. It's actually not as hard as it might sound.” Hannah stands there awkwardly, not knowing what to do.

  “Well, I don't know how you're going to sell people on flying up on recycled rockets,” Harding says.

  “It's urgent,” Hannah says.

  Kingsley ignores Hannah, “Safety is our number one concern. This is a business where one failure means you don't have customers anymore, and we understand that. We have what's called an engine-out capability. The Eagle 9 has nine engines. Let's say one of those engines fails. The computer will sense that something is wrong with it and shut it down, hopefully before it damages anything. So the rocket will lose an engine and be running on eight instead of nine. That's fine. We can actually lose an engine on the pad on an Eagle 9, and it will still make it to orbit. Remember, all those engines are fed fuel and oxidizer from the same two tanks, so losing an engine doesn't mean you have less fuel. So we can just burn those engines a little longer and still make orbit. In fact, if we're already a ways into the launch, we can lose two or more engines and still make orbit, depending on when we lose them. If something were to go seriously wrong, we have a launch abort system that can rip the capsule right off the top of the rocket and send it to safety. They had that on Apollo and the Russians have that on Soyuz. The Space Shuttle didn't have an engine-out capability or an abort system. For example, if they lost one of the main engines right after launch, they couldn't turn off the solid rocket boosters, so they had to keep the orbiter attached to the SRBs and wait two minutes into the flight, then detach, then turn the thing around and try to come back to the launch site to land. Thankfully that never happened, because I have doubts that they could have pulled that off. Then, if something explodes, they had no way of safely getting the crew away from the explosion, as we saw with Challenger. A launch abort system takes the capsule right off the top of the rocket at a moments notice and can save the crew at any point from launch until orbit. We set off from the beginning with both engine-out capability and launch-abort-systems in mind.”

  “She tells me the Eagle Heavy will be six-times as cost effective as the Delta IV Heavy? How will you make it that inexpensive?”

  “Well, the Eagle Heavy is just three Eagle 9s put together. So you have an Eagle 9 in the center, with an Eagle 9 on each side. At launch, all three Eagle 9s are burning. But most of the fuel for the center Eagle 9 comes from the outer 9s. So a few minutes into the flight, those outer Eagle 9s are almost empty, they detach, and both make a controlled landing, meanwhile that center Eagle 9 is still fully fueled and on it's way. When it runs out of fuel, then it'll turn on the same upper-stage as the regular Eagle 9. So the Eagle Heavy is essentially an Eagle 9 that takes off from 300,000 feet and going Mach four, having been put there by two Eagle 9s. So there's really no added cost, no need for a different assembly line, no need to machine larger diameter tanks, no need for a second engine program. That's what commonality does for you.”

  “K. It's urgent, we need you,” Hannah says again, unsure.

  “Do you need to go, it sounds...urgent,” Harding says

  “I suppose,” Kingsley sighs, getting up. “So are you investing, what's going on?”

  “I think I'm going to take my money and go with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic,” Harding replies. “I've known Richard for years, and that business plan is so much more...realistic.”

  “You know what, I'll tell you all about Virgin Galactic. They're smart, Burt Rutan is an aircraft designing genius, and that's their flaw. A mother-plane carrying a rocket plane up high, then letting it go, it's brilliant, it's simple, it's elegant. But you can't get to orbit like that, other than with really small payloads. The mass-fractions don't work out. You can do these short little sub-orbital trips, you know, twenty minutes into space, but you can't make orbit, you can't go to the station. So sure, they'll have adventurous millionaires paying a few hundred thousand for a day-trip. But they have nowhere to go from there. It'll stop being cool within a few years, especially when I start a space hotel where you can stay for months on end if you've got the money. In five years they'll run out of adventurous millionaires and that'll be it.”

  “That may be, but they actually have customers lined out the door,” Harding replies. “How many passengers do you have signed up?”

 
“They'll come once we show our technology works,” Kingsley replies as he walks towards the elevator. “Enjoy the show,” he says, walking past Hannah.

  “I'm gonna go,” Hannah says awkwardly and follows.

  At the pad, the 21 meter tall rocket waits to be launched.

  The thrust produced by a rocket is based on the simple principle that all actions have an equal and opposite reaction. A rocket is a machine which throws material out the back very quickly in order to push the rest of the machine the other way. So you can see, the faster you throw material out the back, the more thrust you get. You can make a simple rocket at home with compressed air, but to really get that exhaust velocity up you need to do something like burn your propellants. The combustion causes the gases to heat up and expand and that expansion, properly contained and directed, translates into thrust. Liquid-hydrogen is the best rocket fuel you can get in terms of providing the highest exhaust velocity. The Space Shuttle and its replacement, the Space Launch System, both use liquid-hydrogen fuel.

  Atop the single Arthur engine are two tanks, one containing liquid-oxygen at cryogenically cold temperatures, and the other containing RP-1, a form of kerosene, not liquid-hydrogen. For all its benefits of providing the best exhaust velocity, at least in an ordinary chemical rocket, liquid-hydrogen has some serious drawbacks. Liquid-hydrogen is not dense at all, which means it takes enormous tanks to contain it. This is why the Space Shuttle External Tank is so large. Liquid-hydrogen also has to be kept extremely cold. It boils off at just over 20 Kelvin, barely above absolute zero (for comparison, water boils at 373 Kelvin), which makes it difficult to insulate and keep from boiling. At such low temperatures, hydrogen is also quite good at causing embrittlement in metals, especially titanium. Hydrogen is the smallest element, thus its molecules are tiny and very good at finding cracks and escaping from pressure vessels.