Graham Sutherland / PolynomialFeb 28

drove for nine hours today.

now sat in a hotel room in Aberdeen, watching old BPS Space videos.

Show threadAndrew ZonenbergFeb 28

@gsuberland enjoy the bepis

I wonder what his next project after the karman line program will be.

There's two obvious options: cubesat or a full orbital launch vehicle program. But both are likely beyond YouTube channel budget

Show threadGraham Sutherland / PolynomialFeb 28
@azonenberg moon landing
Show threadAndrew ZonenbergFeb 28
@gsuberland LEO first, baby steps
Show threadGraham Sutherland / PolynomialFeb 28
@azonenberg YOLO (yeet only to lunar orbit)
Show threadAndrew ZonenbergFeb 28
@gsuberland me and a friend a while back did some rough calculations. With reasonable state of the art liquid propellants (RP-1 and LOX or so) and engine Isp values and a two stage design, if you just wanted to put a cubesat in LEO and didn't care about being commercially viable wrt payload capacity, IIRC you could build a launch vehicle roughly the volume of a 40ft shipping container (but slightly taller and skinnier)
Show threadGraham Sutherland / PolynomialFeb 28
@azonenberg then, if you have all the time in the world, you use a homebrew ion drive to veeeerrry slowly slip out to the Lagrange point.
Show threadAndrew ZonenbergFeb 28
@gsuberland https://appliedionsystems.com/ has you covered
Home - Applied Ion Systems

Applied Ion Systems is a self-funded R&D initiative for low cost open-source development of high vacuum, particle beam, and electric space propulsion.

Applied Ion Systems
Show threadGraham Sutherland / Polynomial
@azonenberg yupyup! are they on here? I definitely followed them back on the bad site
Feb 28 at 2:58amWeb