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I think Europa is the place to be this time of year, but oh well, we can go to the moon I suppose.

Yes, indeed, a future in the stairs, and then an elevator.... oh snizzles.

Stuff the ISS, get cracking on redesigning the shuttle so that it is not a piece of junk and costs an absolute fortune to launch and keep in service, then we can really get on with exploring space when it is a) easier and b) cheaper to get into orbit in the first place.

They have designs in progress for long distance- low powered engines. So you pop a shuttle into orbit, or from a station for that matter, and just put-put into a relatively high speed. Combine that with stasis/hibernation technology, and it is most definitely shake and bake time.

Yeah, they have all sorts of rather cool designs for pretty much everything you need to make long distance trips, cheap orbital ships, etc.

Just a shame they are not willing to scrap the shuttle for some god unknown reason. Probably to do with who gets the biggest bribes going under the table to the right government officials or something...

Not that I am cynical at all.

A lot of funding has been stripped from NASA, so now we are stuck with better and cheaper designs . No more rocket fuel... wait, does that mean I can't say "This isn't rocket science" anymore? Maybe rocket scientists can start saying that to each other .

Before we can start spending any serious time in space away from orbit, two things need to be invented.
#1: A shield that will give the crew protection from radiation equal to what they get from Earth's atmosphere and magnetosphere.
#2: Artificial gravity. We have evolved to fight against gravity, and without it the body breaks down. It has been proven that no amount of time on an exercise machine is an adequate substitute.

warpcrafter wrote:#1: A shield that will give the crew protection from radiation equal to what they get from Earth's atmosphere and magnetosphere.

http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/~Simon_G_Shepherd/research/Shielding/index.html

Whole list of potential and historic shields for use in radiation protection in space.

#2: Artificial gravity. We have evolved to fight against gravity, and without it the body breaks down. It has been proven that no amount of time on an exercise machine is an adequate substitute.

Spinning the ship should solve that.

There are already hundreds of designs for in-system style space ships and habitats featuring adequate shielding and artificial methods of inducing the effects of gravity.

Or we could just mess with earth more and use the money we would be giving to study outer space dust towards the national defecit or towards something to replace oil.

I don't know that space-living will ever be practical, so why should we even bother honestly? Maybe I'm just being a cynic :/

See if it was oil, not water they found. I imagine there'd be colonies up there by tomorrow.

And if they found Earl Grey and Scones WhatWhat would already be on it.

whatwhat wrote:See if it was oil, not water they found. I imagine there'd be colonies up there by tomorrow.

lol That is a possibility

KingCracker wrote:

whatwhat wrote:See if it was oil, not water they found. I imagine there'd be colonies up there by tomorrow.

lol That is a possibility

And it's quite possible that it would start WW3 as the possibility of life on celestial bodies other than Earth becomes a fact.

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:
I don't know that space-living will ever be practical, so why should we even bother honestly? Maybe I'm just being a cynic :/

1. Resource limitations planetside hamper future population growth.

2. The need to "disaster-proof" the species. If you live on a single planet, one errant comet/asteroid/whatever can wipe out your whole civilization. Or if you live in a single solar system, a single *really* nasty solar event could set us back hundreds or thousands of years. Best to spread out, just in case.

I might be with Cannerus on this one.

I can't think of any major resources we're liable to run out of that we can more easily get on the moon, or Mars.

Enough underground bunkers on Earth would probably be better than any sort of extra-terrestrial colonies in the case of a meteor.

Maybe in the distant, distant future we'll have reason to expand, but that's getting to the point where it can't really be predicted.

Shunting asteroids into orbit should provide us with:
a) Lots of relatively cheap resources once the infrastructure is set up.

b) Ready made habitats once the ore has been mined.

A greater space presence will provide us with:
c) Greater survivability in terms of global problems

d) Greater ability to produce specialist components and materials which are best produced in low to zero gravity

e) Floaty boobs.

SilverMK2 wrote:Shunting asteroids into orbit should provide us with:
a) Lots of relatively cheap resources once the infrastructure is set up.

How is finding a metallic asteroid, dragging that asteroid back to Earth, and then mining it while it floats around in orbit cheaper than mining metal from the ground? (Or recycling waste metal into something usable?)

b) Ready made habitats once the ore has been mined.

With no air, water, food, significant gravity, or protection from radiation. You might as well build a city under water.

A greater space presence will provide us with:
c) Greater survivability in terms of global problems

Fortified bunkers are better against most things. I'm not sure what kind of "global problems" we're talking about.

d) Greater ability to produce specialist components and materials which are best produced in low to zero gravity

Which requires barely any space presence.

e) Floaty boobs.

Medical science will develop those in a few years anyways.

Orkeosaurus wrote:How is finding a metallic asteroid, dragging that asteroid back to Earth, and then mining it while it floats around in orbit cheaper than mining metal from the ground? (Or recycling waste metal into something usable?)

Well, for one there are greater concentrations of rare materials in space, or so it is suggested, than in the Earth. And whilst you may have to mine 1,000's of tonnes of rock to get a few tonnes of it on Earth, you might have to mine a lot less to get far more in a metalic asteriod.

And it is relatively cheap to shunt asteroids, you don't even need to send a manned ship. Send an ion rocket out there, dock it to the asteroid and motor on home.

With no air, water, food, significant gravity, or protection from radiation. You might as well build a city under water.

The rock itself tends to protect from radiation. I think 1m of packed earth reduces radation exposure by around 50%, with each subsequent metre further reducing exposure by an 50%. So by leaving a couple of metres of rock between you and the outside world, as well as coating any habitation inside the asteroid with additional protective layers should provide all the radiation screen you require.

Gravity can be simulated by spinning up the rock.

Air, water and food can be a problem but with advances in hydroponics, water recycling, etc you can certainly mitigate the problem. The ISS does pretty well for itself, and with potentially a mile or so diameter rock to play with, you have plenty of space to grow plants, create lakes, etc...

Fortified bunkers are better against most things. I'm not sure what kind of "global problems" we're talking about.

Well, bunkers will not prepare us for when the sun goes into its final stages and wipes out all life in the solar system. By learning to live and work in space on a larger scale, we are more prepared to leave when that time comes. As well as seeding humanity on other worlds in other systems.

The survical of the species is far more assured if we spread out to the stars than stay grubbing in the mud.

Which requires barely any space presence.

Who knows what things further research could produce in zero-g?

And with the way things are going, we will need more and more of these specialist materials, leading to an increased requirement for space stations etc. Plus, with an increase in production capacity, there will be a decrease in price, leading to more people being able to use the material, so an increase in demand... the circle of capitalism.

Medical science will develop those in a few years anyways.

We need them now damn it!

I think I remember watching a scientist on the tv saying that the most important aspect of finding water would be the ability to use it for fuel once science is able to unleash the stored potential energy in the h2o.

H2O is the basis of rocket fuel... you break it down into hydrogen (rocket fuel) and oxygen (what you need to combine hydrogen with to combust it); stick it all in a rocket and you then get space travel.

You can also use hydrogen as fuel in fusion reactors, which will be great when we work that one out

We do it for the same reason we climb Mount Everest.

SilverMK2 wrote:Stuff the ISS, get cracking on redesigning the shuttle so that it is not a piece of junk and costs an absolute fortune to launch and keep in service, then we can really get on with exploring space when it is a) easier and b) cheaper to get into orbit in the first place.

How do you plan to do that?

The reason it cost so much to launch the shuttle is because every part of the shuttle that returns from space must be inspected and refurbished if necessary. The engines are made to last 100 flights. If we made disposable components like the Apollo then the quality doesn't have to be so high. There is no way it was going to be cheaper to get into orbit.



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SilverMK2 wrote:Yeah, they have all sorts of rather cool designs for pretty much everything you need to make long distance trips, cheap orbital ships, etc.

Just a shame they are not willing to scrap the shuttle for some god unknown reason. Probably to do with who gets the biggest bribes going under the table to the right government officials or something...

Not that I am cynical at all.

It's because NASA is saftety conscious after losing 2 shuttles and 1 Apollo capsule. Everything that goes up must be "flight certified".

Ok, take a look at the X-prize entrants. They are making it into "space" for a fraction of the cost of conventional shuttle launches. Their tech is not stuck in the 70's and 80's, and they don't need to totaly strip and rebuild their craft every time it comes back to land.

There are a lot of ways and technologies for getting into space for a fraction of the price of conventional shuttles. Ways which are probably far safer too.

Everything that goes up already had to be "flight certified". Having 2 of your rather small fleet of shuttles explode is probably a rather good reason to go "hmmm... what are we doing using these shuttles still".

It went up once barely to the edge. Big whup.

The cost of getting payload into orbit is literally astronomical, much less out of orbit and back again.

The problem with science fiction is its really fiction. We're dealing with the most terrible barrier of all, not physics, not invention, but economics. Until someone finds a way to warp tech or something on the extreme cheap it ain't gonna happen.

I believe it went up twice within a short space of time, it was one of the conditions of the x-prize.

The point here is that if small private enterprises are able to do something like that, just think what NASA could do with the billions it is throwing into every shuttle launch.

It is not like NASA doesn't have the knowledge, connections, and know how to do it either. They have developed and collected together such a huge wealth of technologies which they could easily use to build (significantly) cheaper shuttle craft. They have even gone so far as to design a couple of them.

Just a shame that they are so stuck in the mud and slow to change and adapt.

And as you point out in the last line of your reply, we need to overcome the budget rather than anything else.

Private industry is coming close. They need to do it cheaply to make their business viable. And so far what they have been doing is mostly working. They are not afraid to take on board new ideas either, nor are they constantly under threat of politicians getting involved.

"Do it better for less".

Frazzled wrote:It went up once barely to the edge. Big whup.

The cost of getting payload into orbit is literally astronomical, much less out of orbit and back again.

The problem with science fiction is its really fiction. We're dealing with the most terrible barrier of all, not physics, not invention, but economics. Until someone finds a way to warp tech or something on the extreme cheap it ain't gonna happen.

Frazzled wins yet, another thread.


GG

SilverMK2 wrote:I believe it went up twice within a short space of time, it was one of the conditions of the x-prize.

The point here is that if small private enterprises are able to do something like that, just think what NASA could do with the billions it is throwing into every shuttle launch.

It went up to a height of around 87 miles. The shuttle goes up to nearly 186 miles above the earth. There's a big difference. The shuttle also carries up to 7 people and many different types of equipment. It also has to know it's position in relation to the earth. The X-prize spacecraft does not even come close to that.

SilverMK2 wrote:
It is not like NASA doesn't have the knowledge, connections, and know how to do it either. They have developed and collected together such a huge wealth of technologies which they could easily use to build (significantly) cheaper shuttle craft. They have even gone so far as to design a couple of them.

Development and testing is not cheap.

SilverMK2 wrote:
Just a shame that they are so stuck in the mud and slow to change and adapt.

Agree with you on that point...

We already have something which deals with the same forces a space shutle does at a much cheaper cost on a day to day basis. Their called lifts (elevators). Just find a way of getting a lift (elevator) up to space and your sorted. As travel once you're outside of the earths gravitational pull/air resistance is piss cheap.

edit: forgot you lot called them elevators.

Its getting the thing into orbit thats the cost burn. Remember we're not just talking orbit here.

You get a space station into orbit, then like...run a wire. Simples.