Headline Jan 31, 2018/ ''' ROCKETS TAUNT ROMANCE '''

''' ROCKETS TAUNT ROMANCE '''

GLOBAL POVERTY is on the rise, and will continue to rise, no matter what mankind does to control it, there are just no easy solutions, nowhere.

In the decades ahead, most and many countries, could most easily break up into chaos and even get consumed by utter poverty.

In the days ahead, very few countries in the world, would truly know, what to do for a living.

ONE possible solution, in the years ahead, would be to leave Mother Earth for other planets, and begin anew. To begin afresh. It is to these great efforts that this research publishing and this writing is dedicated.

IF in doubt,..... *Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a wise man*,... If in doubt, just go ask him, how much he truly fears poverty, - for now and for the future.

So, the world must succeed with Rocket Science, to have an outside chance for a getaway. The World Students Society honors, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and all the great pioneers, looking the right way.

IN 2011, Mr. Musk said he expected the Heavy to have its first flight in 2014. Now he admits that putting together the falcon Heavy proved more daunting than he initially expected.

''We were pretty naive about that,'' Mr. Musk said in July at a press conference in Washington.

''At first, it sounds really easy. Just stick two first stages on as strap-on boosters. How hard can that be? But then everything changes. All the loads change. Aerodynamics totally change. You've tripled the vibrations and acoustics.''

The central core was redesigned and reinforced to handle the stresses, one of the key reasons that the  Heavy is more than three years behind schedule.

While the two side boosters are reused from earlier Falcon 9 launchings, the core is all new, as is the  second stage.

Another tricky aspect is the large number of rocket engines. A Falcon 9 booster has nine of  SpaceX's Merlin engines, each putting out 190,000 pounds of thrust.

The Heavy triples that to 27 engines and a total of more than five millions pound of thrust.

All of the parts of the Heavy finally arrived in Florida late last year. Since then, SpaceX has been modifying the launchpad to handle the larger rocket. In the coming days, the company is expected to conduct a critical test that would light all 27 engines at once with the rocket anchored to the pad.

IF the test flight succeeds, SpaceX has four additional Heavy launchings on its manifest, including one for the United States Air Force.

SpaceX also announced last year that a Heavy would be used to sling two space tourists on a weeklong trip around the moon, although it has offered no further information in almost a year.

GOING BIG, THEN. . 

Some wonder how much business exists for a rocket as big as the heavy. ''I've always scratched my head : ''Why would you do this?'' said Jim Cantrell, who was part of the  founding team of SpaceX in 2002 but soon left.

He is now chief executive of Vector, which is building rockets much smaller than SpaceX's.

With advances in electronics and  miniaturization, satellites have been getting smaller and, and the trend among rocket start-ups has been smaller and smaller rockets. [Jeffry P. Bezos Blue Origin is a notable exception].

FOR $1.5 million, Vector will launch a 140-pound payload, with flights beginning this year. Other new companies aiming at small payloads include Rocket Lab, which over the weekend had its first successful orbital test flight and Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit.

''There's pretty good financial and technical reasons for going smaller,'' Mr. Cantrell said.

Some suggest that NASA could take advantage of the Falcon Heavy as a cheaper alternative to the  Space Launch System it is developing to launch robotic probes and astronauts out into the solar system.

Although the NASA rocket would be larger and more powerful than the Heavy - in fact it would rival the Saturn 5 -it is also much more expensive and would fly only once every few years at a cost likely to exceed $1 billion at launching.

The Trump administration has declared that sending astronauts back to the moon is a priority and has advocated a greater role in the space program for private companies.

Its budget proposal for 2019, which can be released next month, should include more details what it plans to do.

Charles Miller, a former NASA official who served in the trump administration's transition team, thinks the agency should consider turning to cheaper, commercial alternatives like the Falcon Heavy.

''It's a core around which I would build a near-term return-to-the-moon strategy,'' Mr. Miller said.

So far, support for the Space Launch System has remained strong in Congress, and Jim Bridenstine, an Oklahoma congressman who has been nominated to be NASA's next administrator, has stated he favors the program.

But the first launching of the much-delayed NASA rocket, without any astronauts aboard, most likely will not occur until 2019, and the first crewed flight would follow several years later.

Beyond the uncertain commercial prospects, Mr. Musk may be driven more by his long-term dreams of colonizing the solar system.

He has already described plans of an even larger rocket that could be used for sending people to Mars.

THIS YEAR, will be a busy one for SpaceX, which is aiming for more than 30 flights.

It has already started in a cloud of mystery, with launching a highly classified payload code named Zuma, which was built by the defense contractor Northrop Grumman.

Soon after the launching, rumors swirled that Zuma was a failure and and had already fallen out of  orbit. SpaceX strongly stated that the rocket that had taken Zuma to space had performed without issue.

SpaceX has also scheduled test flights of the Crew Dragon, the capsule it is building to carry NASA  astronauts to the International Space Station, although that date may slip again into 2019.

For the first flight of the Heavy, Mr. Musk has tampered down expectations.

There is ''a real good chance that vehicle does not make it to the orbit,'' Mr. Musk said in his July remarks.

''I hope it makes it far enough from the pad that it does not cause pad damage. I would consider that a win, to be honest.''

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Scientists, Space Pioneers, Inventors, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all on !WOW! -the World Students Society and Twitter-!E-WOW! -the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Davos & Drums '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless