Where Is The Spaceplane?

I started this blog with writing in mind, but I have so much more to say than that, especially on technology and modern space travel. So, today begins the series with my favorite subject, the spaceplane.

The Space Shuttle was great, but it wasn't a spaceplane. The X-37 is neat, but again, more rocket than plane. Ah, but what about Spaceship One and Spaceship Two. They are a nice hybrid, but they can't make it to orbit. What I'm talking about is a real, surface to orbit, spaceplane. Where is it? Why don't we have one and is it even possible to build one? I've spend a lot of time looking into this and doing the research and here is what I have come up with.

There are a lot of proposals out there, but they all are flawed in some way. Plus a lot of people say it can't be done. One of the things I learned a long time ago about aircraft design is that you can't just make it bigger and expect it to fly. So size of the airframe is as of as much concern as weight. One of the fatal flaws so many design have is the reliance on both rocket to orbit and using hydrogen as the primary fuel. Rockets are inefficient and take more fuel and hydrogen, even in liquid form, takes several times the volume as liquid oxygen. Both of these are found in most spaceplane concepts and both increase the needed size of the airframe. For a design to work, these two ideas need to come off the table. Hydrogen may be light and the most powerful fuel, but for a spaceplane the sheer volume it takes becomes an issue. Not to mention the increased strength and engineering the fuel tank requires.

But if it isn't hydrogen, what do you use? Quite simple, if you are ditching the idea of rocket to orbit, and replacing it with a staged vehicle, the first stage is a specially designed jet engine. You use a petroleum based fuel that will work for the jet and the later rocket stage. Same fuel, one main fuel tank, plus the liquid oxygen tank for the rocket stage. We have used it before. The Saturn V first stage used petroleum based rocket fuel with liquid oxygen to get off the ground. So the most powerful rocket ever used did not use hydrogen. Using hydrogen for a spaceplane is a mistake and it's all in the volume.

I have toyed with several configurations that would work for a jet/rocket staged ascent. Unlike the previously mentioned Saturn V or the Space Shuttle, my concept does not involve dropping away any piece of the vehicle. One intact vehicle, surface to orbit and back. The specifics of how the engines would be placed and designed I leave to the engineers, but I've taken my concepts from proven technology. To start with, I based my concept on the SR-71. It is the fastest and highest flying jet aircraft ever built and it is likely that its true operational parameters are still classified and exceed the officially released data. Still, I'm just going off of the official data. It has two very powerful jet engines in a unique and duplicateable configuration. Add to the a well placed rocket or two and you have sufficient thrust from surface to orbit.

To make a workable payload, I have expanded the design by 1 meter in width, which should have negligible impact on the aerodynamics while still giving a passenger cabin approximately the size of a large SUV. It also enlarges the fuel tanks to hold the volume of fuel needed. The additional weight should be offset by improvements in materials, aerodynamics, and engine performance to yield a vehicle with much the same operating parameters, at least as a jet. From the fuel consumption rates of the SR-71, and from the known formulas for rocket launches, using jet power up to a minimum of 80,000 feet at mach 3.5 leaves more than sufficient fuel to reach most any normal orbit, such as the International Space Station.

What is also important to any efficient spaceplane design is to make sure it a hardy vehicle with a very short (as in minutes or hours) turn around after each mission before it flies again. It needs to be built on commercial and military aviation principles and efficiency. Only a vehicle like this is going to make space tourism practical and affordable.

So, back to the answer I originally posed, where is the spaceplane? It is lost in misguided efforts that have not made substantial progress because the engineering needed to achieve them is too great. We need to be looking at what works. Fuel efficiency does not mean you are using the right fuel. There are other considerations. Size is also an issue. The reason I'm proposing this idea to start with is because the size is manageable and it can be used to perfect the technology and gradually scale up the concept into something that can hold as much cargo as the Space Shuttle. But you have to start somewhere. We could have had this design flying more than a decade ago. Instead we have design after design using hydrogen, often concepts for larger vehicles, that run into the issue with fuel volume.

I see this time and again in all manner of engineering projects, though sometimes they eventually hit on what works. But all too often the concept starts with a flaw and never goes anywhere because of the flaw in the concept, not because of any later problem during development. An ideal case was the Venture Star and its X-33 scaled test bed. The program was scrapped because of a failure to meet the design requirements for its hydrogen tank. The design was sound but when the strict goals were not met, it was cancelled. Even that design could benefit from replacing hydrogen with a petroleum based rocket fuel. It would either allow a sleeker design or more cargo/passenger volume.

Engineers need to keep their minds open to all possibilities. Sometimes taking a look at alternate avenues can provide a solution. Sometimes an abandoned technology may be the solution to a modern problem. In this case, I have highlighted a couple of areas where a 21st century spaceplane can be built using virtually abandoned mid 20th century technology.

2013's SF Movie Offerings

Not every year brings with it SF movies that I want to see, but 2013 looks to be different. What long-time Star Trek fan wouldn't been looking closely at J.J. Abrams second film in the franchise. Right down to Robot & Frank, which is far more earthbound, all the offerings this year seem interesting and many of them are not as simple as they first appear.

Oblivion is a good example. The more I watch the trailer the more depth I think the story may have. Pacific Rim is interesting if you are into Mechas. Cloud Atlas is the one I am most looking forward to. Don't know if I'll get to the book or not, but the film looks incredible. And lets not forget Ender's Game. Having read the book and loving to see Harrison Ford in SF roles, it is at the top of my list. I think it may be more topical now than when it was written. We didn't have remote controlled military drone back in 1985, but they are common today and this story is an extension of that.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, just a sample of things I'll be watching for and looking forward to. I'll report back on any I see. Stay tuned for the reviews.

When Things Don't Work...

Sometimes you just have to put an end to things that don't work. I found myself in that position today with Sony. Of all the retailers that Smashwords distributes to, they have been the most flakey. They seemingly ignored several updates, then they had two accounts for me. The latest was that they removed 4 of my 5 books. All the problems with the others retailers have been quickly and easily fixed with an email to Smashwords, but Sony hasn't been easy in any respect. Baker-Taylor's Blio is snails pace slow, but they have yet to mess anything up. Kobo lost two covers, but that was quickly fixed. Sony has just had far to many issues and it hasn't been a money maker so there is no reason to continue.

As a company, Sony makes some good products. I'm on my third Sony TV (because I've upgraded, not because I have had any problems). I've had good luck with most everything of theirs I've tried, but distributing to them as a retailer has been rough and I don't need to be worrying about what will happen next. So, it is time to part ways. If anyone reading this has a Sony ereader, please use Smashwords from now on. If you ask nicely, I may even give you a coupon for a free ebook.

Best of luck to the rest of you using Sony.

Dreams of Asimov

Today I stumbled upon the text of Paul Krugman's introduction to a new collectors edition of Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. He has remarkable insight on the inner workings of these stories. Asimov's own view was rather simplistic - that they were a galactic retelling of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. It's also a far cry from what we SF fan boys/girls love about the series. The best thing of all is how well Krugman nailed it. I read what he had to say and lights went on. Not only do I now understand Asimov just a bit better, but I understand my own writing better as well.

All writers can point to things they did in their formative years that shaped how they write. Asimov did that himself. He was a pulp fiction and science junkie. I have to admit that my SF addiction started at the age of 7 (or was it 8... hard to say when it caught me) with Star Wars. I have the Brian Daley Han Solo books that I bought at school from one of those book catalogs. I have a stash of the Marvel comics, yellowed with age and dogeared and torn from frequent reading. But I really have to point to that Science Fiction Book Club hard cover compilation of the trilogy (back when it was just those three books) as when my world exploded. Star Wars was great, but Foundation, Dune, and so many other worlds opened to me from that one well read, now water damaged, volume.

Asimov was sparse. He stuck to the story and didn't get distracted by too many descriptions or too much back story. He was a scientist with a fertile imagination and it shows. But he did concentrate on the characters, however flat they may seem to some. His stories are all about people. Even the Foundation Trilogy, with it's epic saga of a dying galactic empire and the two foundations that will save civilization, is told in vignettes of what people do to make it happen. I'd like to think I have come away from reading his stories with that same urge, to tell stories about people. I hope I learned from him better then I did from some of my classes in school.

One of the wonderful things about Asimov and modern technology was finding a treasure trove of old interviews with him on YouTube. I compiled a playlist of 17 of those videos that I would urge everyone to watch. They explain a lot about his characters. He was warm and personable and funny - most of which comes through in his characters. I've never seen them as flat, but his writing is sparse in character details, he only told just enough for what the story needed. His characters certainly came alive in my mind as I read, and evidently for Krugman as well. The man was a genius and it shows, both in his writings and in interviews with him. I don't consider Asimov one of the greats, I consider him THE Greatest, the Master of the genre.

What The Hell Are You Writing About?

Sometimes I have to ask myself this question and I'm sure others do, too. I know I've sometimes wondered this about some of my favorite writers. I mean, is it just a good story, or is there something more to it?

First off, writing science fiction, my setting conveys a lot of what I think and hope we will do as a species. We have made great strides in our acceptance of the various segments of the human population so I'm assuming, after some initial rough patches, that we would get along with other species. Please note, I do not use the term 'race' as it is inaccurate. When we encounter another sentient life-form, it will be a different species. Race is for superficial distinctions within a species.

I think that as we go forward as a species, we are likely to maintain most of our traits. I don't foresee us changing all that much, not in the course of time I am covering. I think that will get us in trouble a time or two. I haven't revealed much in what has been printed so far, but there are a couple of major wars in the past including one that led to a severe dark age. I see old animosities dying off in our modern world and I've applied that to how we will end up forging a galaxy wide society.

We will have people who abide by the law, people who skirt it, and people who ignore it. I like to concentrate on those who skirt it. Let's just say I was far too enamored with the smugglers of Star Wars and the traders of Asimov's Robot/Foundation. Oddly enough as Firefly celebrates its 10th anniversary, it had no influence in the world I've created. I didn't discover it until after I'd written Pirates of I'ab. Still, Malcolm Reynolds belongs to that same surly bunch of renegades. Ven Zaran strives to keep up the illusion of having a legal business.

When it comes to the stories, I firmly believe that the characters should take center stage. Regardless of the story, it is the characters we remember long after we finish reading. And characters, like real people, should never be simple. Ven Zaran is anything but simple. For one thing, that isn't even his real name. It's an alias he adopted when he left home to travel among the stars. I thrown hints here and there, but he took the name from his childhood best friend, Zaran, and a legendary vid drama hero, Vendarka. He took a last name and made it his first name and a first name and made it his last name. So he doesn't hesitate to adopt more alias's to broaden his ability to smuggle goods.

But what good is a character without flaws. It is those flaws that make us relateable. While Ven is a consummate smuggler, he has ghosts from his past that led to a drug addiction. He meets a women who gives him the strength to break that addiction, only to fall back to it when she is lost temporarily in Well of Dreams and then in Interlude of Pain. Each time it rears up it is harder to escape. The harder it is to escape the more danger it poses to his career.

One thing I often get frustrated with in science fiction is character development. All too often characters develop by gaining new positions. A trader becomes a prince or mayor. That isn't very realistic. Most people work for years on end at the same job, working up to the pinnacle of their field. For the real traders out there, the freighter captains and truck drivers, that pinnacle is often owning their own vehicle and making their business a success. That is where Ven is headed. He's a trader and that's all he's ever wanted to be. Like Kirk promoted to Admiral, Ven just wouldn't do well as a corporate executive. It isn't him, though I do have something fun planned. I've been planting the seeds in each of the books and there are hints in one of the short stories in Edge of Hyperspace.

I have other stories in mind. I have another series in early development that will explore inter-species communication and be a bit more violent. I have another that is a good epic space opera yarn about someone in the right place at the right time who becomes a hero. With a twist, there isn't a single human character in it. It takes place on the far side of the galaxy. That one is more developed, I just need to find my materials (not easy for a pack rat like me).

People and Places, that is what I write about. People that we can relate to in settings that are incredible, but at the same time, just ordinary for these characters. While I won't claim to be the next master of science fiction, I am out tell a good story and paint a picture of the tapestry of our future as I see it.

The Holiday Season Is Near

There is always lots of excitement this time of year. Here in the US we have the standard holidays of Thanksgiving, Chanukah, Christmas, and New Years. For writers we also have National Novel Writing Month (and I still would love to go back in time and tell the founders that November is not a good month). But with the coming holiday season we also have the biggest sales period of the year. Like it or not, Christmas is THE major gift giving holiday.

For those of us who have self-published, it is a season filled with opportunities. Many of us are preparing new titles for release, some are scouring their existing work to make sure they are perfect. Oddly, for ebooks, I've heard that the big sales period isn't leading up to Christmas, it is Christmas day and the following days as people with new ereaders search out titles to fill up the empty space so they have something to read.

In the current landscape of self-published ebooks, it takes some planning to time things just right. You don't want a title out for too long or it won't show up as prominently. But with companies like Smashwords distributing to other retailers, you also want to be early enough so your title is in all the retailers by Christmas day. That takes some doing. I was no where near ready last year so I took my time and didn't put out my first book until the end of January. Now, after 10 months of experience, I think I am ready for the challenge. I'm probably deluding myself, but we'll see.

My offering this season is the third volume of the Zaran Journals. We pick up with Ven a few years after Pirates of I'ab and things don't start out well for him. I've dealt him a pretty severe blow and now he has to come to terms with it. Actually, if you've picked up Edge of Hyperspace, you've read part of the story. Seeking Justice, featuring Wally, is an excerpt of sorts. You'll have to look for Interlude of Pain and pick it up if you want to know what Ven and the rest of his crew are up to.

A Long Road

Now that the news media have moved on to other things, most people will probably let Malala Yousafzai slide off their radar. I have no intention of doing that. She is smart and courageous and definitely worth continuing to follow as she starts down the long road to recovery. For those who share my interest, I'm putting up a video from last week of Malala and her family. There's no sound (just so you don't turn the volume way up because you can't hear anything). Her father seems very pleased but Malala herself looks much better, but you can see that the left side of her face lack much movement. I don't know if that is damage from the bullet or pain killers, but is does show that her injuries are still pretty serious.

I wish her continued improvement and health. I'll post more when I find out more.