Hill_2002abstr

 

 

HALF WAY TO ANYWHERE: ON-ORBIT ELECTROLYSIS TO CUT THE COST OF TRAVELING TO LOW EARTH ORBIT AND BEYOND

 

Tom Hill

The Aerospace Corporation

hillkid@earthlink.net

 

 

Robert Heinlein was quoted as saying “Once you’re in low Earth orbit (LEO), you’re halfway to anywhere.” This is due to the mechanics of space launch, where accelerating into LEO is a large portion of your journey. As a corollary, storing mass in LEO is a way to make trips beyond LEO easier. This paper discusses a project that, for on the order of $1B, creates a flexible cache of rocket propellants (hydrogen and oxygen) and human consumption supplies (oxygen and water) in low Earth orbit. Part of the project involves increasing launch vehicle flight rates through open competition, which will lower the per-kilogram cost of launching payloads into LEO. Exploiting this cache will cut the launch weights of interplanetary spacecraft by up to 2/3. This material, stored on orbit for years, would serve any space mission. The plan is modeled after historical cases that jump-started the airline industry, and calls for the best of governmental and/or commercial efforts to get us half way to anywhere.