[Eclipse Now]

Hi all,
what do you make of this "Airships to Space" program?

http://www.jpaerospace.com/

PDF summary here
http://www.jpaerospa.../atohandout.pdf

[arKane]

Eclipse Now, on 30 July 2011 - 03:24 PM, said:

Hi all,
what do you make of this "Airships to Space" program?

http://www.jpaerospace.com/

PDF summary here
http://www.jpaerospa.../atohandout.pdf

I have to say it might be okay as a high priced tourist get-a-way spot or high atmosphere study, maybe a little spying. But I can't say I'd be very comfortable spending any real time on one myself. If anything went wrong you couldn't exactly step out with just a parachute. You would need some kind of pressure suit with oxygen supply and protection from cold and the parachute. Not exactly something you could do quickly. I guess pressurized escape pods of some kind might work.

I just want to see a real spaceship that can navigate the atmosphere pick a landing site and set it down and then be able to take off again fly a couple of thousand miles stop to pick up a friend and then take a quick trip to Mars for a fun weekend. Is that asking to much?

[Eclipse Now]

Had a engineering friend shoot this idea down in flames. It's the sheer size of the 3rd stage craft required to get to escape velocities. He thinks it would tear itself apart! And there I was thinking it was in near vacuum, but apparently escape velocity is FAST!

[CraigD]

Eclipse Now, on 30 July 2011 - 03:24 PM, said:

Hi all,
what do you make of this "Airships to Space" program?

http://www.jpaerospace.com/

I like it.

We’ve discussed JP Aerospace’s “Ascender” to “Dark Sky Station” to “Orbital Ascender” scheme as a couple of times some years ago – see this 6 May 2010 post and this 24 Jan 2006 one.

My thought on are about what they were a year ago:

• rough estimations doesn’t find any show-stoppers with the idea;
• these guys are serious, hard-working, and, as wild idea space companies go, well-funded;
• they’ve got a reasonably sustaining spin-off business on line in flying high-altitude cameras (this 2009 TV commercial is wonderful!);
• but the devil is in the details, and a supersonic blimp (the Orbital Ascender stage of the scheme) will likely reveal major hard-to-foresee complications (such as the tear-it-apart ones EN's engineer friend notes), the kind that can kill, or at least seriously set back a small, adventurous company like JPA.

On the upside, the potential value of the scheme –

• effectively pollution-free,
• large payload,
• practically unlimited vehicle reusability,
• easily man-capable and in principle much safer than present-day rockets.

– are so up, I think it deserves much more attention and support than it’s getting.

If I had stray US$ millions to spend, I’d fund JPA enthusiastically.

That jpaerospace.com isn’t answering ping request, makes me fear for its fortunes, though their facebook page suggests that they’re still at least still flying their “tool, truck, backhoe and crane” Tandem Airship prototype.

This post has been edited by CraigD: 31 July 2011 - 06:28 AM
Reason for edit: Added additional comments