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Rocket-Setting: An architecture for point-to-point travel

Seth A. McKeen

12/18/2012

University of Southern California

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COSMIC SYNERGY

Commercial Concept:

Regional Rocket Riding

Seth A. McKeen

Seth.mckeen@gmail.com

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COSMIC SYNERGY

Commercial Concept:

Regional Rocket Riding

Seth A. McKeen

Seth.mckeen@gmail.com

Historic Route – from days by horse and ship
With the Channel Tunnel, created in 1994, 2 hours 15 minutes with Eurostar high speed train
6 Hour Drive (no traffic)
On average 1 – 1.5 Hour Flight

Paris to London

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COSMIC SYNERGY

Commercial Concept:

Regional Rocket Riding

Seth A. McKeen

Seth.mckeen@gmail.com

Falcon 9 Separation

63,000 ft

Falcon 9 Burnout

56,000 ft

Falcon 9 Liftoff

Falcon 9 Boost-Back & Powered Landing

A 64 person rocket riding vehicle, launched into a ballistic orbit by a reusable Falcon 9 V1.1

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COSMIC SYNERGY

Commercial Concept:

Regional Rocket Riding

Seth A. McKeen

Seth.mckeen@gmail.com

16 minutes.

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Founded in 2000
CEO John Carmack
Lunar Lander Competitions
Suborbital Research and Tourism
Tested Super Mod Rocket to 4,000 ft + precision landing
Reached >140,000 ft with STIG-A

Founded in 2000
CEO Jeff Bezos
Suborbital/Orbital
New Shepard hit 45,000 ft
Have performed many “Hops”

Founded in 2004
CTO Dave Masten
Lunar Lander Competitions
Suborbital Research
Xaero Reached 1500 ft w/ Precision Landing
Xombie Reached 1600 ft and horizontally moved 2500 ft

Founded in 2002
CEO Elon Musk
Orbital Cargo & Crew
Grasshopper VTVL Testbed
Looking at Fully and Rapidly Reusable Launch Vehicle (Falcon 9 V1.1) for orbital launches.

The Vertical Take off Vertical Landing (VTVL) Commercial Scene

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COSMIC SYNERGY

Commercial Concept:

Regional Rocket Riding

Seth A. McKeen

Seth.mckeen@gmail.com

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Leveraging SpaceX’s fully and rapidly reusable Falcon 9 VTVL rocket technology, a private company could create a standalone passenger vehicle and partner with SpaceX for commercial launches all over the globe

The RLV would send the passenger vehicle on a ballistic trajectory and return to the launch site for refueling; the vehicle would continue on its arc, aero-brake and propulsively land.

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COSMIC SYNERGY

Commercial Concept:

Regional Rocket Riding

Seth A. McKeen

Seth.mckeen@gmail.com

A fully and rapidly reusable rocket means the cost of the rocket is divided up by the number of launches, and the only recurring cost is fuel.

Falcon 9 V1.1 can send ~30,000 lbm to LEO from Cape Canaveral

SPACEX – VTVL REUSABLE FALCON 9

With less ∆V for suborbital, the payload that can be lofted by F9 V1.1 increases and large scale passenger travel is viable

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COSMIC SYNERGY

Commercial Concept:

Regional Rocket Riding

Seth A. McKeen

Seth.mckeen@gmail.com

The Business of “Hopping Around”

SpaceX Parts, UPS, Medical

R+D w/ Propulsion Modules

Cargo

Military/Space Tourism

Executive Point-to-Point Travel

32 person vehicle

64 person vehicle

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COSMIC SYNERGY

Commercial Concept:

Regional Rocket Riding

Seth A. McKeen

Seth.mckeen@gmail.com

Immediate Cargo Delivery

Organ Transplants

The ability to save lives that otherwise may have been lost
Get to small towns from large cities with better hospitals

Rapid Delivery

UPS?/FedEx 2 Hour Delivery?
SpaceX Parts to McGregor from Hawthorne?

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COSMIC SYNERGY

Commercial Concept:

Regional Rocket Riding

Seth A. McKeen

Seth.mckeen@gmail.com

Intercontinental routes are out of the question, as the trajectory will either have an ~ 1200 km apogee, or it will require > 90% of Orbital Velocity
Choosing trajectories with smaller ∆V’s than LEO, will mean significantly greater payload
Weight of passenger vehicle is the payload for F9 V1.1 – for a given trip, there is the ∆V of getting the vehicle on the trajectory, and ∆V of boost-back/landing for F9.

Performance and structural mass on F9 are fixed, therefore, payload (i.e. passenger vehicle’s fuel, structure, and cargo/passengers) will vary with range. Want to maximize # of passengers you can take for each range.

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To make this a flourishing business, want to minimize ticket cost so that people can afford it.
To minimize ticket cost, want to maximize passenger capacity (main cost for a launch is fuel).
Baseline passenger vehicle ∆V is that required for control, landing, and potential abort. To get this ∆V, and make tickets cheap, want to maximize engine performance (specific impulse), and maximize payload by minimizing structural weight.

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COSMIC SYNERGY

Commercial Concept:

Regional Rocket Riding

Seth A. McKeen

Seth.mckeen@gmail.com

Highly scalable vehicle architecture allows for interchangeable decks

No vehicle redesign for different ranges (use more decks/passengers for lower range flights – minimize wasted structural mass)
Easily upgrade passenger # for more capable launcher

32 Person Vehicle

64 Person Vehicle

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Propulsion Module Composed of 4x Carbon fiber-reinforced Carbon (C/C) Truncated Aerospike Nozzles

Higher ISP at all mission conditions (abort, control, landing)
Can be used as primary heat shield (TPS)
Used for abort and landing (a separate abort system is dead weight that can’t be used for payload)
No auxiliary thrust vector control needed (gimbals + actuators)
Overall a huge mass savings which leads to a significantly improved mass ratio

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COSMIC SYNERGY

Commercial Concept:

Regional Rocket Riding

Seth A. McKeen

Seth.mckeen@gmail.com

Courtesy Rocketdyne

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COSMIC SYNERGY

Commercial Concept:

Regional Rocket Riding

Seth A. McKeen

Seth.mckeen@gmail.com

Wait, which way to first class?

Every seat is a window seat – 8 person decks
Ultra streamlined chairs start vertically and come to flight position right before takeoff; fully utilizing volume of the vehicle

Passenger cargo is stored under the nosecone
Life support and environmental control systems are in the ID of each deck
All propulsion systems and avionics are in the floor of the propulsion module

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COSMIC SYNERGY

Commercial Concept:

Regional Rocket Riding

Seth A. McKeen

Seth.mckeen@gmail.com

Passenger Vehicle Comparison

12 ft wide

100 ft long

18 ft Diameter

17.1 ft Diameter

Boeing 737 Fuselage

136 Passengers

85 ft long

Rocket Riding Passenger Module

64 Passengers

Falcon 9 Version 1.1 w/ 5.2 Meter Fairing for GEO/GTO

Falcon 9 Version 1.1 w/ Rocket Riding Passenger Vehicle

226 ft long

224 ft long

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COSMIC SYNERGY

Commercial Concept:

Regional Rocket Riding

Seth A. McKeen

Seth.mckeen@gmail.com

Potential Coverage Regions – Europe

Europe could be fully connected – reach any other city in mere minutes.
Almost every major city is within 1200 miles of each other

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COSMIC SYNERGY

Commercial Concept:

Regional Rocket Riding

Seth A. McKeen

Seth.mckeen@gmail.com

Potential Coverage Regions – CONUS

Starting with Southwest / Northeast
Los Angeles to NY/Boston is feasible once technology is matured

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COSMIC SYNERGY

Commercial Concept:

Regional Rocket Riding

Seth A. McKeen

Seth.mckeen@gmail.com

Potential Coverage Regions

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COSMIC SYNERGY

Commercial Concept:

Regional Rocket Riding

Seth A. McKeen

Seth.mckeen@gmail.com

Potentially a private market, but definitely a need for a government presence. Need a regulatory body to monitor and route traffic, to make sure every launch is allowed and accounted for, and to make sure these vehicles are fully mature, reliable, and safe for operation.

Autonomous GPS driven vehicles, but routing and monitoring can be covered by the FAA and similar governing bodies around the world.

What is that, a commercial vehicle or Missile Attack?!

Private / Government Relationship

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Merits

Opens up a new, potentially unparalleled market
Incremental – allows for early capital and developmental growth
Using VTVL matures the technologies we’ll use for multi-planetary missions
Use existing airports with added launch pads – keep it simple for the FAA, keep costs down

Limitations

Trading G-Loading vs. Payload (throttle profiles)
The Concord Dilema
FAA Nightmare
GNC Difficulties
Safety/Reliability

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COSMIC SYNERGY

Commercial Concept:

Regional Rocket Riding

Seth A. McKeen

Seth.mckeen@gmail.com

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I’m eager for your questions and comments!

Seth A. McKeen

Propulsion Development Engineer

Space Exploration Technologies

Greater Los Angeles Area

Aviation & Aerospace

LinkedIn (Social Networking)

Seth.McKeen@gmail.com

Email:

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http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/falcon9.html

http://freshome.com/2012/04/18/interesting-alternative-to-residential-chairs-by-martz-edition/

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/11/space-seat-shaping-has-begun/

http://ftp.rta.nato.int/public//PubFullText/RTO/TR/RTO-TR-AVT-007-V1///TR-AVT-007-V1-Report.pdf

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/rockets/elon-musk-on-spacexs-reusable-rocket-plans-6653023

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/09/02/blue-origin-confirms-crash-releases-first-photos-of-vehicle-in-flight/

http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/a_cost_engineered_launch_vehicle_for_space_tourism.shtml/

http://02varvara.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/01-ria-novosti-infographics-design-of-the-css-08-11.jpg

http://www.spudislunarresources.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/future-space.jpg

Sources – Engineering, Architecture and inspiring Design

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737