New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[AlexanderHowl]

Kites predated unmanned rockets by centuries, but no one really cares. The first man capable rockets invented that could reach orbit were much more complex than the first man capable airplanes. The Wright Brothers were bicycle mechanics that built an airplane in their workshop. It would be impossible for anyone to make a man capable of reaching orbit with anything less than a full aerospace factory assembly.

[awarnock]

Kites are more akin to sails and parachutes than airfoils. I also wouldn't say that you need a full aerospace factory, but you do need a fairly significant industrial base. As for complexity, yes liquid fueled rockets are complex, but so are internal combustion engines. In fact, I'd say that the your average liquid fueled rocket is less complex than your average internal combustion engine. You only need one moving part in a rocket engine, a shaft that has the pump and drive turbines. An internal combustion engine needs three, the crankshaft, the piston arm and the piston head. A liquid fueled motor tends to look more complex because of the plumbing involved.

But that's for liquid fueled engines. Solid rocket motors are completely different. They've been around since the 1100's and were only supplanted by liquid engines because of the better safety and controllability you have with liquid fueled engines. As for launching a manned capsule using one, I think something on the scale of the shuttle's SRBs would be able to get a Mercury-sized capsule into orbit. Solid rockets aren't as efficient as liquid fueled rockets, but that doesn't mean they can't reach orbit. I think it'd be possible for someone to be able to make a rocket that can carry a man before a manned flight, but it'd be both dangerous and take some extraordinary circumstances.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by awarnock

Kites are more akin to sails and parachutes than airfoils. I also wouldn't say that you need a full aerospace factory, but you do need a fairly significant industrial base. As for complexity, yes liquid fueled rockets are complex, but so are internal combustion engines. In fact, I'd say that the your average liquid fueled rocket is less complex than your average internal combustion engine. You only need one moving part in a rocket engine, a shaft that has the pump and drive turbines. An internal combustion engine needs three, the crankshaft, the piston arm and the piston head. A liquid fueled motor tends to look more complex because of the plumbing involved.

But that's for liquid fueled engines. Solid rocket motors are completely different. They've been around since the 1100's and were only supplanted by liquid engines because of the better safety and controllability you have with liquid fueled engines. As for launching a manned capsule using one, I think something on the scale of the shuttle's SRBs would be able to get a Mercury-sized capsule into orbit. Solid rockets aren't as efficient as liquid fueled rockets, but that doesn't mean they can't reach orbit. I think it'd be possible for someone to be able to make a rocket that can carry a man before a manned flight, but it'd be both dangerous and take some extraordinary circumstances.

In a science fiction context and that is after all what the thread is about, the "extraordinary circumstance" could be nothing more than not having any large flying animals so nobody ever has a reason to think of the Bernouilli Principle and all the flying they do has to be the hard way.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by awarnock

I think it'd be possible for someone to be able to make a rocket that can carry a man before a manned flight, but it'd be both dangerous and take some extraordinary circumstances.

*All* rockets are pretty dangerous. Fewer than 550 people have been to orbit. About the same number of people have been killed by space vehicles or their engines. Maybe more, 90% of those deaths are from a handful of particularly bad accidents in Russia or China for which casualty figures aren't considered very complete or reliable.

This isn't a particularly bad record as either exploration voyages or experimental vehicles testing go, but there's only a 5% per trip risk the vehicle will kill you isn't anything close to anything you can call safe.

[AlexanderHowl]

The first manned airplanes were much simpler than the first manned rockets, and they were much, much safer. The patents for both are online, and the airplanes are much simpler than the rockets and are much easier to make. I imagine that the majority of the people of the forum could make a replica of the first manned airplanes and fly it without that much trouble. I doubt that anyone on the forums could do the same with a replica of the first manned rockets.

[AlexanderHowl]

The first manned airplanes were much simpler than the first manned orbital rockets, and they were much, much safer. The designs for both are online, and the airplanes are much simpler than the rockets and are much easier to make. I imagine that the majority of the people of the forum could make a replica of the first manned airplanes and fly it without that much trouble. I doubt that anyone on the forums could do the same with a replica of the first manned orbital rockets.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The first manned airplanes were much simpler than the first manned rockets, and they were much, much safer. .

Only because so much less was being demanded of them.

[Prince Charon]

Incidentally, Arthur C. Clarke and an interesting club he was part of did design a solid-fuel moon rocket, in the 1930s. There were some flaws (I wouldn't want to be anywhere near the thing if it were built with the tech of the time and someone tried to launch it - though seeing an unmanned test vehicle from a safe distance could be fun), but the science as it was understood at the time was correct, and in a Dieselpunk or Steampunk worldline, could have worked due to the nature of the world being different.

EDIT: 66 years before 1903 is 1837, when black powder rockets were already well-known, and mathematics is reasonably advanced. If you're willing to fudge the probabilities, you could have serious experimentation begin before or during the Napoleonic Wars, and have a man on the moon by the late 1830s, it's just that that's really a hell of a lot of probability to fudge.

[AlexanderHowl]

In a realistic setting, you would not have had a manned rocket reach orbit with a black powder rocket (the delta-v is too low) and the assumptions of the time would have meant that any rocket that did reach orbit, assuming a better type of chemical rocket, would have been lost with all hands due to the horrific effects of vacuum on the human body. Without radio communicatios, no one would really know why the mission failed, as the bodies would be in no condition to be examined with 1830s technology when they crashed back to the Earth. I am also not sure that the aeronautics or orbital mechanics would have worked without the advances in scientific and technical knowledge from 1830-1960.

[PTTG]

Well this is a time war situation. When Apollo brought the star-chariot to the French (which they used to exile Napoleon on Mars, but he came back somehow), nobody knew how to actually fly.

It wasn't until much later that Ben Franklin emerged from stasis and shared the ancient Egyptian crystal power systems that allowed for true powered flight. That was world war 19, of course....