On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 23:50:23 -0800, "Rich S."
wrote:

"Ron Wanttaja" wrote in message
.. .

"Moon Zero Two", 1969, starring James Olson.

Ooh - I'll look that one up!

It's known as the first space western.... :-)

With a weight increase, the amount of fuel needed increases
disproportionately.
Also, if you add a second seat, you're always going to have to have a body
or
ballast in the spot to keep the beast in balance.

We'll just make the ship expandable. When you've got a passenger, just
unlatch it in the middle and pull the ends out - like you do with the dining
table when Grandma's coming.

You might be able to do something along those lines...depending on how much
acceleration you plan on. Airplanes can tolerate CG shifts because they have
horizontal stabilizers at the end of a longish moment arm. Spacecraft don't.
However, with a fly by wire control system, you could compensate for weight
offsets so the vehicle flies about the same.

You could also handle the problem with something Heinlein referred to as "A
Space Suit Built for Two."

You're not going to be able to work a keyboard, and if you have buttons
and whatnot to push, they're going to have to be well separated to ensure you
don't punch the wrong one. It's gonna be tough to fly without a pressurized
cabin.

Who sez the spacesuit can't have a keyboard- or even a joystick? Pull your
arms inside and start typing. 'Course the chest area would look like Jayne
Mansfield's.

Or just make the suit something like the Jim suits used for diving...

http://www.divingheritage.com/jimkern.htm

Assuming you're not fixed on a Buck Rogers style ship (or even a Space 1999
style ship...) you could make your buggy from a hard-shell space suit. You
probably won't look like Jayne, more like Robbie the Robot ("Danger, Rich
Shankland!").

Like Robert said, though, we could use a mass driver or other ground-based
system to throw the vehicle, and just rely on onboard fuel to land. This
drops
the required onboard fuel to about 750 pounds. Not too bad.

Naw - can't go for the ground based system. What if you want to stop for a
picnic on the shore of the Mare?

Ohhhh, now you want *floats*.... :-)

Well, maybe we *do* have antigravity. After looking at your figures (not
that I understand them), did you say that 5,000 fps is orbital velocity at
10 NM MSL? If so, then what speed is orbital velocity at 1,000' MSL (Moon
Surface Level)? Cruising at that speed would obviate the need for constant
vertical thrust. Half that speed would require less constant vertical thrust
than a hover. If you could find a happy medium, perhaps a small fuel cell,
plutonium reactor, cold fusion motor, or bag of rocks and Hernadez's 98 mph
fast ball would do it.

The problem is, the required orbital velocity is based on the spacecraft's
distance *from the center of the orbital body*, not its distance above the
surface. So the difference is just 30 FPS between orbits 10 NM high and 1000
feet high.

And, in fact, the orbital velocity decreases with increased altitude...but, of
course, you have to burn fuel to get to the altitude.

The 5000 FPS was for a ballistic case, not an orbit. I brute-forced this one to
determine the velocity needed...I used an orbit with a 10 nm apogee and pushed
the perigee below the surface until I had an orbit where the above-ground
portion was approximately 2,000 NM long (it really, REALLY helps to write your
own orbit analysis programs).

Ron Wanttaja