Space Travel

[Humodour]

http://www.airspacemag.com/space-explorati...?c=y&page=1

 

I love you SpaceX.

[Walsingham]

very interesting article, actually. Covers a llt of bases. Not sure I buy all their pitch points. But I can see where they're coming in from.

[Humodour]

They don't necessarily need to be the company that succeeds at their goals, just the one that starts a revolution in space travel. They may well fail as a business 20 years from now but leave a permanent positive impact on humanity with their methods.

 

I think the world is definitely just a little bit of a better place because they exist.

[Cantousent]

You know, I don't think that we could build a single spaceship, let alone a fleet of spaceships, that we could send out with any degree of real certainty to reach an inhabitable planet (that we have hitherto not found), but I do think this is a good thing. There was a time and place for government involvement in the space program. Even a free market guy like myself sees that sometimes the government can do things the private sector cannot, such as accomplishing our first landings on the moon or defeating nazi Germany. ...But I know that making it so that space travel becomes a way for private investors to make money while engaging the public is a huge step to developing substantial possibilities for longer travel distances and larger projects.

 

You know, I dream of space also. I can be a pragmatist, and sometimes that makes it seem like I don't want the same thing, but I want to see humanity spread to other planets in our solar system and beyond. It is not preordained, but it can happen, and what a wonderful thing it would be, a Christian on Mars fighting with an Atheist on some remote planet lightyears away. One would be closer to God and one would be closer to science and both would be closer to each other than a caveman in Europe and one in Asia could have ever imagined.

[Gorth]

Even a free market guy like myself sees that sometimes the government can do things the private sector cannot, such as accomplishing our first landings on the moon or defeating nazi Germany. ...But I know that making it so that space travel becomes a way for private investors to make money while engaging the public is a huge step to developing substantial possibilities for longer travel distances and larger projects.

It took Isabella of Spain (i.e. "the state") to finance Columbus' journey across the Atlantic with nothing but the *potential* of riches as incentive. Today people travel across the Atlantic as if it was just a minor inconvenience, relying on commercial carriers. Different scales, similar mechanisms

[Walsingham]

Really what space travel needs is some fierce competition. First habitable colony on Mars gets the continent sized land round it. That sort of thing.

 

As in so many situations, claiming the fruits have to be shared by all means no bastard wants to go to the trouble of picking them.

[Gfted1]

What space travel really needs is a quantum leap in engine technology. Otherwise everything is too far and too expensive. Sure, go build a dome on Mars. WooHoo, then what?

[Gorgon]

Or something able to survive the journey and the solar radiation exposure. I'm thinking robots., that's going to be viable before Ion drive engines.

[Walsingham]

What space travel really needs is a quantum leap in engine technology. Otherwise everything is too far and too expensive. Sure, go build a dome on Mars. WooHoo, then what?

 

I follow your reasoning. However I'd suggest three alternatives:

 

1) If the transition can be made less arduous, so maybe a larger space ship to do the journey in. Now I think about it, surely it could be really helpful to have a space station in orbit?

2) If we could deliver some locally necessary effects from earth or Earth orbit, that might lighten the load.

3) Some means of braking quicker. My understanding is that a lot of travel time is due to the necessity of slowing down over a long period.

[Raithe]

The key expense at the moment, is boosting out of the gravity well.

 

If/when we get a station in orbit and potentially a moonbase, once some minding/manufacturing in place it becomes a lot simpler to establish further solar system exploration and travels.

[Gorgon]

Probes cn travel almost indefinitely under their own momentum if they are programmed to slingshot around the orbits of planets. Now imagine thousands of self contained explorer probe-bots able to traverse the atmosphere of planets. Using any nearby probes to relay data back to earth. We need somewhere really interesting to go before attempting a manned mission.

[Rosbjerg]

Elevator to a orbiting station and then solarpowered slingshots in space.. Saves on fuel.

[Walsingham]

Probes cn travel almost indefinitely under their own momentum if they are programmed to slingshot around the orbits of planets. Now imagine thousands of self contained explorer probe-bots able to traverse the atmosphere of planets. Using any nearby probes to relay data back to earth. We need somewhere really interesting to go before attempting a manned mission.

 

But we can learn in the mean time. Personally I'd rather settle an empty planet than be fending off all the greenish xenophiles who would object if we tried to settle somewhere bearing life.

[Bos_hybrid]

It will only happen if there was money in it. Like that diamond world.

[Flouride]

It will only happen if there was money in it. Like that diamond world.

 

Or a couple of asteroids filled with minerals.

 

Anyways great article.

[Walsingham]

They'd have to be bloody special minerals to be worth the effort.

[Flouride]

They'd have to be bloody special minerals to be worth the effort.

 

I would imagine that by the time we actually have the technology to actually accomplish that, the prices for various resources would actually make it economically viable.

[Humodour]

Speaking of SpaceX and commercialisation... how about supplying the International Space Station?

 

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-nasa-o...vate-space.html

[Walsingham]

They'd have to be bloody special minerals to be worth the effort.

 

I would imagine that by the time we actually have the technology to actually accomplish that, the prices for various resources would actually make it economically viable.

 

Hangover fuzzed thought: Will commercial appetite exist for all the electronic trinkets we currenty enjoy? If so, might such demand not be met by adapting biological organisms?

[Humodour]

They'd have to be bloody special minerals to be worth the effort.

 

I would imagine that by the time we actually have the technology to actually accomplish that, the prices for various resources would actually make it economically viable.

 

Hangover fuzzed thought: Will commercial appetite exist for all the electronic trinkets we currenty enjoy? If so, might such demand not be met by adapting biological organisms?

 

I'm not sure where you're going with that, but personally speaking, biomimetics has been a personal obsession of mine since I was a teenager, and it has a very special place in materials science, so I would say yes.

 

I mean, we're only just now discovering that photosynthesis involves quantum effects. Nature has a lot to teach us.

 

Can't see biological spaceships in the near future, though... save non-biological computers based off biological circuits and network.