Plausible ideas for Edwardian space travel ...

[ventanamist]

More thoughts:

A vertical shaft would be better and the launch chamber could be as far beneath the mountain as the height of the mountain itself. Lots of room for acceleration then.

It would be essential to exit the tunnel faster than sound - no trouble with sonic booms de-stabilising you then. Possibly much faster than sound. I can't do the sums.

The launch would be about as silent as you could hope for.

The mining enterprise to conceal the launch should be a real coal mine. Lots of energy to compress all that air then.

I thought this was a crazy idea when I first read it. But now, well, it wouldn't surprise me if it had actually happened. If you don't write this story, I will. Dammit I think the Victorians could have done this. What if Prince Albert hadn't died. He was so into science and technology. There were so many great engineers around. Empress of Luna. Hey how about that for a title?

Someone hurry up and point out all the flaws in my idea or my head is going to explode

 

[Ursa major]

So that's why the Albert Memorial looks the way it does....

 

[ventanamist]

Now that's what I call a rocket. What style! It makes the others look like tin cans. How about the space suit - some sort of nano-thin, intelligent, reflective membrane. No need for a pressurised cabin.

 

[skeptical]

Rockets are not the problem. Control is.

If you want an Edwardian space ship, you need a combination of immensity, high risk, and manual controls.

1. Immensity. Imagine a rocket system that is substantially larger than a space shuttle. Since everything will be made out of 'inferior' materials (compared to our space age), the rocket system has to lift a life support pod that is extremely heavy. In fact, everything will be heavy compared to the equivalent today. This means the total system has to be enormous.

It may be necessary to have a large number of smaller rockets strapped on, with manually triggered electrical controls to cause them to fall off as their fuel is used up.

2. Manual controls. There are no computers, or sophisticated controls. So you need a pilot or pilots who are incredibly skilled - the Biggles of space. They will need to adjust the attitude of the rocket by manually firing small sideways pointing rockets.

3. High risk. There will also be a terrible risk, due to the inferior technology and the reliance on human skills. The percentage of flights that result in fatalities will be quite high. Big losses in your supply of biggleses.

I trust your story requires this rocket to be enormously important - a case of life or death for the human species, in order to justify the risk and (probably) the fatalities.

 

[Ursa major]

Good points.

It reminds me of something Neil Armstrong said**, possibly in jest, about the quality of the equipment on which he had to rely: "just remember that all the mechanical parts in the Saturn V were made by the lowest bidder.”





** - I found this version of the words in a Daily Telegraph article about Armstrong, although he also made this comment on a TV documentary I saw in the last few months.

 

[ventanamist]

Don't assume that steel is the only material that could be used. They had the technology to make ceramics. It has only recently been realised how incredibly strong that ceramic materials can be made. It is a question of using pure materials and accurate mixing and firing. It might require some exotic stuff, rare earths etc. but it could have been done with a bit of r&d.

Huge kilns could be used to fire whole sections of the rocket in one go.

 

[Ursa major]

If I were an astronaut in a ship fired in a kiln, I'd be bricking it....


* cough *


Seriously, though, I think you'd probably need a good deal more than "a bit" of R&D.

 

[assasin]

i dont have any formal knowledge of any of this but from what i do know here are a few questions.

1. did they have the tech for a safe reentry.
2. g forces, what would they be like.

and just something for you to think about. you said the first tewnty years. thats barely after the first world war. before icbm,s. before jet engines. part of it before the first heavier than air flight. they wouldnt be3 able to comminicate and their computers would have been as effective as an advanced abicus. unless they were a secret society that had access to tech before public or even moswt5 government knowledge, this would be completetly and utterly imposible.

i could be wrong but i doubt it.

 

[Vladd67]

So that's why the Albert Memorial looks the way it does....

There was an episode of The Goon Show where they went into space in the Albert Memorial, maybe Spike Milligan knew something?

 

[Gearhead_Shem_Tov]

Rockets are not the problem. Control is.

If you want an Edwardian space ship, you need a combination of immensity, high risk, and manual controls.

1. Immensity. Imagine a rocket system that is substantially larger than a space shuttle. Since everything will be made out of 'inferior' materials (compared to our space age), the rocket system has to lift a life support pod that is extremely heavy. In fact, everything will be heavy compared to the equivalent today. This means the total system has to be enormous.

It may be necessary to have a large number of smaller rockets strapped on, with manually triggered electrical controls to cause them to fall off as their fuel is used up.

I reckon simple electromechanical timers & relay logic would suffice to jettison strap-on boosters

2. Manual controls. There are no computers, or sophisticated controls. So you need a pilot or pilots who are incredibly skilled - the Biggles of space. They will need to adjust the attitude of the rocket by manually firing small sideways pointing rockets.

They wouldn't have electronic digital computers, but they would certainly have electromechanical analogue computers. Think Norden bombsights.

Also, torpedoes of the era had quite sophisticated guidance systems with a gyroscope, pressure sensor, and pitch pendulum forming a mechanical analogue computer that maintained heading and depth. Some torpedoes could even be programmed to follow a zig-zag path (the better to hit targets in convoy). A revolution counter attached to a little propellor (on the torpedo nose, typically) controlled a special dive program to cause the torpedo to head for deep water after a specified range was exceeded. Nothing worse than your torpedo missing its target -- then coming back around to hit you!

3. High risk. There will also be a terrible risk, due to the inferior technology and the reliance on human skills. The percentage of flights that result in fatalities will be quite high. Big losses in your supply of biggleses.

Maybe. On the other hand, they won't have complicated rockets, so they can potentially be very reliable. Russian boosters have always been simpler than their American equivalents, but they ultimately became much more reliable.

I trust your story requires this rocket to be enormously important - a case of life or death for the human species, in order to justify the risk and (probably) the fatalities.

I expect fatalities early on.

-B

 

[Gearhead_Shem_Tov]

i dont have any formal knowledge of any of this but from what i do know here are a few questions.

1. did they have the tech for a safe reentry.

The Germans did it with their V2 by making it out of cold-rolled steel, and they used a tonne of Amatol for the warhead instead of something more potent because Amatol tolerated the high temperatures.

Still, you're right to mention reentry. The Russians and the Americans independently developed the same technique: blunt-body ablative heat shields. The need was recognised early on (the German V2 experience), and it took just a few years of experimentation. I understand Werner von Braun had some hoped that a glider with light wing loading might reenter without too much heating, but that required multiple skips in and out of the upper atmosphere, with the craft cooling off a bit between skips. This wasn't a desirable approach for reentering nuclear warheads because it would've slowed everything down and greatly complicated the terminal guidance system.

2. g forces, what would they be like.

They would've been aware of the problem (it's simple physics), and they would've come up with seat-of-the-pants solutions as they expanded the envelope while testing their first rockets.

and just something for you to think about. you said the first twenty years. thats barely after the first world war. before icbm,s. before jet engines. part of it before the first heavier than air flight. they wouldnt be able to comminicate and their computers would have been as effective as an advanced abicus. unless they were a secret society that had access to tech before public or even most government knowledge, this would be completetly and utterly imposible.

i could be wrong but i doubt it.

The genesis of the notion would occur around 1905. Serious practical work wouldn't begin until about 1915, and a working "baby" unmanned test rocket wouldn't fly until about 1918. First atmospheric manned flight about 1923, first orbital shot 1925.

-B

 

[assasin]

more to think about. how will tests be done. chimps are to dumb to manually fire off rockets. this means manned flights which means kaboom. without communications and computers it would be extremely difficult. no unmanned tests. the entire project would have to be entirely mechanical.

i really dont see this working. ww2 was pretty much a technological revolution. everything from early computers, to jet, to radar and communications. pre ww2 would never have the tech to pull this off.

and how would they tell what to fix for future missions if they didnt know wht happened. how could they tell if the oxygen composition is too high. no way to communicate that. i guess itll take a sh*tload of trial and genocide to figure it out.

 

[Gearhead_Shem_Tov]

more to think about. how will tests be done. chimps are too dumb to manually fire off rockets. this means manned flights which means kaboom. without communications and computers it would be extremely difficult. no unmanned tests. the entire project would have to be entirely mechanical.

You don't need digital computers to control rockets; the V2 had no digital computers, only timers and analogue feedback control systems. In fact, the V2 control system didn't even use radio valves, it used magnetic amplifiers, a technology that had been in use for thirty years by the time WWII started. Shucks, Tesla demonstrated a radio controlled boat in 1898! (And, no, I'm not a Tesla nut; this work of Tesla was eventually used as evidence of prior art to invalidate some of Marconi's wireless patents.)

Then, too, Elmer Sperry (of Sperry gyroscope fame) and Peter Hewitt designed an entire aircraft autopilot system in 1916. It included a gyroscopic stabilizer, a heading gyroscope, an aneroid barometer to regulate altitude, servo-motors to control the rudders and ailerons, and a travel distance sensor. These were installed in an airplane which could climb to a predetermined altitude, fly a pre-set course, and after traveling a pre-set distance (say 50 miles), drop bombs or dive into the ground. Sperry added radio control to the system the next year. It wasn't accurate enough to hit a target ship, say, but it worked.

i really dont see this working. ww2 was pretty much a technological revolution. everything from early computers, to jet, to radar and communications. pre ww2 would never have the tech to pull this off.

Radar as we know it -- giving both range and direction -- was developed in secrecy in several countries between 1934 and 1939, but demonstrations of detecting ships in fog using radio waves were made in 1904 by Christian Huelsmeyer. Sir Edward Victor Appleton used radio in 1924 to calculate the altitude of the ionosphere, and in 1930 Lawrence A. Hyland detected passing airplanes with radio.

And plain radio communications were old hat by the time we're talking about. It takes just one radio valve to make a useable telemetry transmitter using Edwin Armstrong's regenerative circuit, and he patented that in 1914! Voice communications would not have been much more difficult, especially after better radio valves were developed in the 1920s.

and how would they tell what to fix for future missions if they didnt know wht happened. how could they tell if the oxygen composition is too high. no way to communicate that. i guess itll take a sh*tload of trial and genocide to figure it out.

Wired telemetry systems developed in the second half of the 19th century, and at least two different wireless systems, one based on pulse repetition rate and one based on Morse code were in use by 1930. This wasn't sophisticated equipment, true, but it worked. And you don't even need telemetry for everything. Up through the 1950s it was common to simply place movie cameras aboard rockets to photograph instrument dials during flight. And Goddard flew a recording barometer aboard at least one of his rockets in the 1930s. The issues with these sorts of systems was recovering the cameras or chart recorders after the flight -- tricky, but definitely doable.

I could go on, but I've made my poiint: it's not as hard as you are supposing to instrument and control an unmanned rocket using early 20th century technology. WWII advances only made it easier to do.

-B

 

[Gearhead_Shem_Tov]

i dont have any formal knowledge of any of this but from what i do know here are a few questions.

1. did they have the tech for a safe reentry. ...

Poking around the web a bit more I've found Robert Goddard had worked out the basic principles of inertial control and reentry in a Smithonsian report submitted in 1920! Here's an extended quote where he describes control and reentry of a lunar photographic probe:

...
Guiding of Apparatus.

The variables which are present are the direction and magnitude
of the resultant force of gravitation, and the direction and
magnitude of various sources of radiation, as the sun, moon and
stars. All of these variables will be functions of the time of transit.
If the initial velocity and direction of the apparatus be known, the
value and direction of the force of gravitation at any subsequent
time can be predicted, and it should be possible to employ a
correcting device which depends upon the difference between the
predicted and the actual value of the above variables, at particular
times; a reference axis being maintained by gyroscopes.

Side jets on the multiple charge principle, in line with the center
of gravity of the apparatus, could be operated automatically,
depending upon the discrepancy between the actual and the
predicted value of the variables chosen. The jet need not be
powerful, for the reason that a small sidewise velocity will
produce a large sidewise deviation, if given at the start of a
long path.

Precautions on Landing.

Although a sufficient excess of propellant might be taken to
check the velocity, on landing, it is very likely that this would
not be necessary, providing the apparatus were made to
traverse the atmosphere tangentially.

In the case of meteors, which enter the atmosphere with speeds
as high as 30 miles per second, the interior of the meteors
remains cold, and the erosion is due, to a large extent, to
chipping or cracking of the suddenly heated surface. For this
reason, if the outer surface of the apparatus were to consist of
layers of a very infusible hard substance with layers of a poor
heat conductor between, the surface would not be eroded to any
considerable extent, especially as the velocity of the apparatus
would not be nearly so great as that of the average meteor.
...

I knew Goddard had been far ahead of his time, but I had forgotten just how far ahead he had been. In this same paper he goes on to talk about aerobraking, parachute recovery, using hydrogen/oxygen propellants, using solar energy, and even using ion propulsion in space.

It's worthwhile mentioning that between 1917 and 1940 Goddard designed, built, tested, and flew nearly every element present in a modern liquid fuel space launch vehicle, including gyrostabilisers, thrust vector control, pressure-fed rockets, turbopump-fed rockets, regeneratively cooled combustion chambers, clustered combustion chambers, and he did this all with less than $2 million in 2010 dollars.

I'm supposing that my guys start very small in 1905, but that funding steadily increases over the next twenty years so they wind up spending about $2.5 million total ($50 million in today's dollars). Since they are explicitly working toward manned spaceflight from the get-go, not ballistic missiles, they would have a lot more freedom in their design choices. They wouldn't need miniaturised equipment because they would be designing large boosters from the start, and that alone would reduce costs tremendously.

Everything they build would be, say, 5-10% heavier than equivalent systems in boosters derived from ICBM technology, but that means the equipment will cost a fraction of the gold-plated mil-spec gear and it will be more reliable since it will have larger safety factors built in.

No, the more I look at this, the more I see the technology isn't the problem; the real show-stopper is keeping the whole shebang absolutely secret.

-Bobby

 

[ColdBurn]

I know it's a bit of a cliche, but I suppose the Freemasons could pull the whole thing off without anyone getting wise. They're supposed to be pretty good at keeping secrets, even from their own membership. You could even call the vehicle The Craft.

 

[Steve Jordan]

Leaving aside for a minute the discussions about the rocket itself (ingenious solutions... I don't for a minute expect that they would work!), I have a simple idea for concealing the rocket: Weather.

If you wait until the significant area around the launch site is very cloudy, you can launch your ship... people might hear the rocket noise and assume it's thunder, but clouds will prevent them from seeing the rocket or exhaust plume.

Your boffins might be experienced enough with cloud-seeding to allow them to create their own cloud-cover, a day or two before the launch. And public dis-information could convince the public that the noise they hear is caused by thunder or some geo-thermal process that is dangerous (hence limiting public exposure) and being studied by elite scientists.

Okay, back to launching the thing: How about a curved track that allowed the ship to use gravity-assist to build momentum, ala When Worlds Collide. The track could be a concealed underground tunnel, limiting its exposure to the public until it launched at the end.