Frontier Tech: Reusable Rocketry and Connecting Another Dot
Philip Fletcher | Director & Co-Founder
In almost all human made objects, there is a critical component which underpins it. One example I like to refer to is the main rotor retaining nut on a helicopter, commonly referred to as the ‘Jesus Nut’. Without this little pin which can fit in the palm of your hand, a helicopter will not fly. All the engine power in the world cannot make the rotor spin without this component.
Human survivability has been trending upwards for millennia. We have terraformed the planet over the last millennium to cater for our every need, and that has produced one of the most successful environments from which human population has flourished to 7.7 billion. This, however, has many horrific consequences. I won’t go into those in this article but will in the future.
The issues we ALL face are now requiring responses across the board from the basic individual level in how we live day to day to companies offering environmentally sensitive products, from governments reshaping their entire energy harvesting methods to science providing entirely new energy systems. One very interesting approach being taken by some radical companies is taking a leaf out of the likes of Star Trek and Star Wars in dramatically improving our capabilities in Space. Why? Firstly, the technology has many different uses. The application of rocketry and the surrounding technological support systems can often provide solutions to a variety of issues. More importantly, a reusable super heavy orbital class rocket can become what Elon Musk himself has dubbed the ‘Southwest Airlines’ of Space. This opens the door to a potentially unlimited future which could see humans becomes interplanetary. So, a little introduction.
You’ll no doubt have seen or heard about what the new era space companies are doing currently. There are several incredibly ambitious and entrepreneurial people working in unbelievable factories around the world who are hoping to fuel the next level of human exploration. I want to just run through a couple of their ingenious developments before making the main point.
Two key companies are SpaceX and Blue Origin
Starting with the current market leaders, SpaceX.
Founded by Elon Musk, SpaceX have pioneered the reusable orbital class booster engines. They have developed a few different rockets over the last decade which have mapped out their gradual progression towards their current fleet. Their technological developments have allowed for the cost of launch to be reduced considerably making them the preferred company for satellite launches — most recently Arab Sat being launched using Falcon Heavy (Shown below).
Why was that impressive? This rocket is launched with the first stage using three cores, producing thrust of 22,819kN carrying 63,800kg to Low Earth Orbit. After launch, the side boosters detach from the main body of the rocket and return to land on their landing pads. The core boosters then landed shortly after on their drone ship in the ocean (talk about engineering genius!).
These boosters are then outfitted for the next launch.
A good explanation of why this is important, often used by Elon Musk himself; Imagine when you flew on an airplane that when you land, the company throws the planes away and buys a new one to fly you home… Can you imagine how expensive tickets would be?
Well, that’s exactly how the space industry has been operating throughout its history.
Falcon Heavy is nothing short of a remarkable achievement by this scrappy team. The workhorse of their fleet however is the Falcon 9. This rocket produces 7,607kN of thrust through its nine Merlin engines, carrying 22,800kg to Low Earth Orbit. In a similar fashion to the Falcon Heavy, the booster will land to be re-flown later for another mission. For some idea of how much this workhorse can carry, the NASA Space Shuttle could carry 24,000kg.
The reason for Spacex being the first on the list is simply because they have the best record for reusable rockets to date. They have developed, built and launched their space crafts with incredible consistency and are quickly becoming the number 1 choice for government departments and satellite companies alike.
Blue Origin — Jeff Bezos’ response to SpaceX.
Blue Origin come in from a slightly different angle to SpaceX. Whilst they are both ‘startup’ rocket companies, the backing of Jeff Bezos brings a unique start point for them. That start point is an initial investment of $2bn. So, let’s take a look at what they have accomplished so far.
First off, they are focused on a slightly different market than SpaceX. Blue Origin are focused on sub-orbital space flight which will allow space tourism to flourish. New Shepard, their current craft, isn’t designed as an orbital class system. Compared to the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, it’s is a very different market. The Blue Origin engine is also a different beast to those produced by SpaceX. Their ‘BE-3’ generates 490kN of thrust which allows it to achieve its suborbital target.
New Glenn is Blue Origin’s more advanced orbital spacecraft, which represents a very real competitor to SpaceX’s Falcons. It’s size and power make it the biggest launch system currently available (In theory). The 7 BE-4 engines can produce 17,100kN of thrust and are fully reusable, operating the impressive landing sequence we’ve become used to with the Falcons.
The work by SpaceX and Blue Origin has reignited a new type of space race, which is leading us comfortably towards a return to the Moon and onwards to Mars. This has, in turn, reignited for debate among many, who believe that the technological developments need to be focused firmly within our atmosphere in response to climate change, and the survival of our host planet, but many believe in a preparation for a plan B.
The jury is out on whether these developments for the future of humanity will ultimately lead to our species flourishing across the solar system. But you can be sure that neither of these leaders are stopping their ground-breaking R&D any time soon.
Understanding where we’re as a species compared to a theoretical future is important. To do this, we need to use the Kardsahev Scale. In 1963, Nikolai Kardashev developed the Kardashev Classification Scheme. As a gifted astrophysicist, Kardashev worked on the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, or SETI. While doing this, he developed a system which would categorise civilization into 5 key categories depending on their ability to harness energy and grow.
The classifications roughly conform to the following parameters:
Type I — The species can harness all the energy that is available from a neighbouring star, gathering and storing it to meet the energy demands of a growing population.
Type II — The species can do everything a Type I species can, but it can harness the power of their entire star, not just absorb its energy.
Type III — This species can do all of the previous two but can also travel on an intergalactic basis. They will be much more advanced, able to assume pretty much everything they encountered under their control.
Type IV & Type V+ — These two are so incredibly advanced that you begin to guesstimate as to what this type of civilisation can do. Let’s not venture this far just now.
As a civilisation, we are currently at 0.72 on this scale. Not even Type I. However, once we move to become multiplanetary and begin to effectively harness the power of the Sun, then we move to Type I.
So, lots to do then…
This is an extremely brief introduction to how technology is both important and individual pieces of technology can act as the ‘Jesus Nut’ to the development and security of our collective futures. For more on this, the next article will be looking at how we move forward past reusable space rockets towards the application of a ‘Dyson Sphere’…. Super exciting.
Why have I written this seemingly random piece?
You’ll no doubt have read the articles put out by my colleagues here at Pynk. They have been producing some awesome content from their own perspectives of how doing good, and helping the world is a worthy cause. They are right. But, when I put my articles out there, I prefer a directionless approach, which seeks to question or understand further many different pieces of information. This can be extremely broad, or extremely narrow, but when I begin writing I rarely know where the next line is leading. I do the supporting research so the facts are not incorrect, but I have done and will always prefer a pure approach to reflect exactly how I think and how I feel. I believe we’re at a crucial point in our civilisation and at are serious risk of it falling beyond repair (read Immoderate Greatness: Why civilisations fail, for more information). I like to try and connect dots that otherwise might be ignored, and many are indeed ignoring, in order to provide a slightly different perspective on some of the developments happening currently. The connection between reusable boosters and the Dyson Sphere will become clear in the next article… and that’s where my main point will land (so definitely come back to read it, unless you think this sucked).
These dots can be connected everywhere. As Steve Jobs said, you can always connect the dots going backwards. We can do it right now, together. A fundamental and soul crushing reason for Pynk’s existence is that the connection between progress and wealth is clear and obvious… but only for privileged parts of the world. I am unbelievably fortunate to have been born when I did and where I did. I now sit with all of these technological, societal, political and cultural developments at my disposal. I could easily sit back and enjoy the next 30 years living in the most advanced time in our civilisations history, protected by layer upon layer of structural supports. You could too. We all could.
So, what do I want? What do we at Pynk want? We want to connect another dot. And fix the unacceptable flaws built into the system.
How can we move from the current ridiculous levels of financial inequality? That’s a question we’re dedicating our company and ourselves to answer.
At Pynk, it’s not simply progress for the sake of progress. We aren’t applying new technologies like Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence for the sake of investment. We quite simply aren’t willing to sit back and join the side that is absolutely crushing the poor and the beaten. We’re switching teams, and we’re going to flip the script.
We are serious about our goal and committing everything to it. We’re all in. Want to join us?
Hopefully you enjoyed this piece. I’ve got a couple more in the pipeline looking at Dyson Spheres (and a particular an awesome Star called KIC 8462852), a couple about the Trade War between America and China, and some other stuff. Annoyingly, Jeff has released his Blue Moon project looking to provide NASA with a Moon lander but I’d already finished this. Maybe I’ll write about it a bit later.
If you think you can help us in anyway and would like to get involved then we would love to hear from you. Investment experts, techies, entrepreneurs, social and growth marketeers or most importantly want to join our first Crowd of predictors — then get in touch.
Get in the Pynk today or slide into our Telegram group.
PF
Disclaimer: Please bear in mind that this information does not constitute any form of advice or recommendation by Pynk One Ltd. and is not intended to be relied upon by users in making (or refraining from making) any investment decisions. Appropriate independent advice should be obtained before making any such decision. When investing, your capital is at risk and you may recover less than the initial investment.
