Getting into space

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-06-24 10:34pm

How do you think we will colonize space? What launch mechanisms, what in-space engines, and where will we go? Or more importantly, WHY will we go ther?!

Me I say..

Launch: Orbital elevators using carbon nanotube cable

Engines: NTRs, solar sails or STRs, or fusion rockets

Where: Luna, maybe Mars, Asteroids for sure

Why: Incentive. When we get orbital elvators, launch costs will be far cheaper. Ground to geostationary is predicted to cost as little as a few hundred dollars per person. This would make building anything in space relatively cheap, because it removes launch cost restrictions. I think we'll see tourist destinations on the moon and in geostationary orbit relatively early. We'll also see asteroid mining thanks to the massive quantities of things like precious metals. Belt colonies might open up as a result. Fusion power generation will make mining He-3 from gas-giants very profitable (10 tonnes, say, enough to power north america for 1 month, and worth 200 billion dollars as fuel / 16 million per KG as material).

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-06-24 11:47pm

cmon, are you people completely uninterested????

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2003-06-25 12:40am

I dont think there will be any colonies anytime soon. And even at that it might be scientific outposts in orbit or on the moon. I dont see people giving up a life on Earth to live in the hostile environment of space.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2003-06-25 01:57am

TrailerParkJawa wrote:I dont think there will be any colonies anytime soon. And even at that it might be scientific outposts in orbit or on the moon. I dont see people giving up a life on Earth to live in the hostile environment of space.

I would, where do I sign up.

Orbital engines will probably stay chemical. Low orbit runs by SCRAM jets that release cargo pods with rocket assist will get most equipment and shit into orbit while other one way rockets will get people up. The shuttle was novel, but the time for it to go away is here.

Earth to Moon type trips will be common with plasma rockets (NERVA) and will be undertaken to resupply the international science station or the deep space observatory on the dark side.

Earth to Mars will take an M2P2 system with the NERVA engine. Experimentation with artificial gravity will take place on these flights and the purpose behind them is to further study Mars and its fossilized microbes. With the discovery of massive natural resources, a rush of people and companies try to set up mining operations by the growing science stations.

Eventually, the asteroid belt will be charted and various independent prospectors will comb through it in an attemp to strike it rich. Science missions to Jupiter and her moons will push back the frontier even more. A couple ten years after that, Saturn and Neptune gets some manned flights. Interest in exploration peaks and interest in the growing colonies of Luna and Mars expands.

Earth politicians start to get nervous at the independent grumbelings of the Mars colonies and..........oh wait, I went too far.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-06-25 02:01am

What about Bull's SPACE GUN?

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2003-06-25 02:27am

Space planes and maybe a particle fountain if we're feeling REALLY adventurous.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2003-06-25 03:50am

Knife wrote:Earth to Moon type trips will be common with plasma rockets (NERVA) and will be undertaken to resupply the international science station or the deep space observatory on the dark side.

Earth to Mars will take an M2P2 system with the NERVA engine. Experimentation with artificial gravity will take place on these flights and the purpose behind them is to further study Mars and its fossilized microbes. With the discovery of massive natural resources, a rush of people and companies try to set up mining operations by the growing science stations.

I wouldn't want to be the astronaut sitting on the front end of that rocket when you turn NERVA on. Not without some serious anti-g cushioning going on.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2003-06-25 03:59am

Gil Hamilton wrote:
Knife wrote:Earth to Moon type trips will be common with plasma rockets (NERVA) and will be undertaken to resupply the international science station or the deep space observatory on the dark side.

Earth to Mars will take an M2P2 system with the NERVA engine. Experimentation with artificial gravity will take place on these flights and the purpose behind them is to further study Mars and its fossilized microbes. With the discovery of massive natural resources, a rush of people and companies try to set up mining operations by the growing science stations.
I wouldn't want to be the astronaut sitting on the front end of that rocket when you turn NERVA on. Not without some serious anti-g cushioning going on.

Meh, can't work the kinks out if you don't try it. There is some interesting research going on on plasma engines and NERVA is just a known one so I used it as an example.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-06-25 06:38am

Vympel wrote:What about Bull's SPACE GUN?

Fire!

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-06-25 07:01am

Well whatever was in that spacegun is not a creamy paste inside that capsule.

I want a space elevator though. Imagine planes accidentally flying past the wire, whoops! There goes the right wing, folks.[/img]

Sobbastchianno · Post by **Sobbastchianno** » 2003-06-25 07:17am

I think that both Kojikun and Knife are right. I also like their shared enthusiasm.

With the way we have created green house gasses here on Earth, I think it might take a couple hundred years, but the same could be done to give Mars a habitable atmosphere, should we find ourselves there, which I think we will. I also agree with Knife that this will only lead to further exploration and colonization. Remember, technology advances exponentially, not sequentially. Given that, I could see these advances coming rather rapidly after we land humans on Mars. The lunar landings of the late 60s and early 70s provided great advances here on Earth. Not that we got much from the moon itself, but we learned a lot on the journey to get there.

The same will happen with a voyage to Mars, and that, as well as the human need for exploration, are two reasons we MUST at least try. And being humans, once we try hard enough, we succeed.

Kojikun, Knife, please don't ever give up on going to space. We NEED young people like you to carry on that ambition (no longer a dream, because it is not a matter of IF, but of HOW and WHEN).

Kenny_10_Bellys · Post by **Kenny_10_Bellys** » 2003-06-25 07:18am

Space elevators are the dream, the ideal cheap way to get to orbit without all that mucking about sitting on explosives and having your face pushed through your arse by G-forces. The reality is that administrators and short sighted political types will continue to hamper mans best efforts until such time someone discovers an asteroid filled with votes. We'll be restricted to sending up small numbers of highly trained civil servants on various types of aging chemical rockets for maybe another 100 years.

There are only 2 things i can see that would give space the boost we'd all give our right bollock to see, the development of real non-military, non government controlled commercial space systems by people like Burt Rutan and the other X-Prize loonies, or the discovery of intelligent life on another world. My vote goes to the aliens, imagine how quickly the military would ask for (and get) massive additional sums to create orbital platforms, early warning systems, in system craft, lasers, etc....

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2003-06-25 12:05pm

Kojikun, Knife, please don't ever give up on going to space. We NEED young people like you to carry on that ambition (no longer a dream, because it is not a matter of IF, but of HOW and WHEN).

While flattering, I wouldn't exactly call me young.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-06-25 12:49pm

Knife wrote:
Kojikun, Knife, please don't ever give up on going to space. We NEED young people like you to carry on that ambition (no longer a dream, because it is not a matter of IF, but of HOW and WHEN).
While flattering, I wouldn't exactly call me young.

It has been suggest that old men and women would be better for a mission to Mars, the extra radiation dosage would be less of an issue for them

Sobbastchianno · Post by **Sobbastchianno** » 2003-06-25 10:07pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:
Knife wrote:
Kojikun, Knife, please don't ever give up on going to space. We NEED young people like you to carry on that ambition (no longer a dream, because it is not a matter of IF, but of HOW and WHEN).
While flattering, I wouldn't exactly call me young.
It has been suggest that old men and women would be better for a mission to Mars, the extra radiation dosage would be less of an issue for them

I don't know knife's age, but that kind of ambition is young no matter the chronicological age. Either way, I wouldn't mind going myself, but I am a smoker, and going THAT LONG without a cigarette may prove more fatal to me than the radiation. LOL

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-06-25 11:08pm

you know what we need? cheap nanotube cable. seriously, thats the big hold back. we have some, but not in the quantities needed.

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2003-06-26 01:17am

I've heard as of late they've started using waxlike rocket fuel, talk about riding a torch, that burns VERY clean in rockets and is cheap to manufacture. So we can expect a decrease in the cost of space operations. It's mostly the extreme people conditions that keep the operation complicated.
Once they get the operations cheap enough they will want to launch more comercial operations into space. With companies already buying up asteroids, mining operations may start within the next 50-75 years baring a gross market loss.

Hobot · Post by **Hobot** » 2003-06-26 01:23am

Kenny_10_Bellys wrote: There are only 2 things i can see that would give space the boost we'd all give our right bollock to see, the development of real non-military, non government controlled commercial space systems by people like Burt Rutan and the other X-Prize loonies, or the discovery of intelligent life on another world. My vote goes to the aliens, imagine how quickly the military would ask for (and get) massive additional sums to create orbital platforms, early warning systems, in system craft, lasers, etc....

That's why we have to make a secret organization made up of very talented people, a league of extraordinary gentlemen if you will, who will secretly convince SETI that they have found intelligent life. A huge space revolution will then follow!

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2003-06-26 01:58am

kojikun wrote:you know what we need? cheap nanotube cable. seriously, thats the big hold back. we have some, but not in the quantities needed.

Orbital lifts are too impractical and costly to be effective. Also since an orbital lift can lift only so much payload at a time they are pretty uneconomic.

Scramjet shuttles are probobly the best way to get to space. A scramjet engine will take the shuttle to very high altitudes where the rocket motors will fire taking the shuttle to low orbit.

For earth to moon transports orbital transport craft may be built. They can be fusion powered and equipped with ion drives. Once near the moon the transport will dock with a space station and small shuttles will carry the cargo to the surface.

For longer travels to mars and beyond large ship exceeding 100 meters in length will be required. They would be powered by nuclear fusion and be equipped with ion drives. Due to the length of interplanetary voyges centrifugal artificial gravity would be present. However only the bridge and crew quarters would be capable of generating artificial gravity to save space, mass and power.

Shuttle craft would be common for transporting cargo from ships to planets and other ships. Many space station would also have to be built across the solar system for resupply needs.

Asteriods would be mined on site rather than towing them to earth orbit as towing an asteriod is a slow, energy intensive dangerous process.

UltraViolence83 · Post by **UltraViolence83** » 2003-06-26 02:44am

I wish I were born 100-200 years from now...I could be a REAL freelancer, instead of having to play the game! The closest to that I can get now is independant trucking, which I may get into one day.

Shipping ore from Ceres to Deep Space 4 just to argue the price with a bargainbot...Getting robbed by astro-pirates...Greys hellbent on anal probing moreso than usual...

Seriously, though, I've got an adventurous drive, I'd take the chance regardless of the danger.

Fuck man, just imagine swinging by Jupiter, the sights you'd see would be worth it all.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2003-06-26 04:00am

Fuck man, just imagine swinging by Jupiter, the sights you'd see would be worth it all.

The sight of Jupiter with all its moons and the gas giant itself would be astounding to see from a first person view. For now all we have is canned space probe data.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2003-06-26 08:41am

How about a skyhook?

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2003-06-26 08:52am

evilcat4000 wrote:Orbital lifts are too impractical and costly to be effective. Also since an orbital lift can lift only so much payload at a time they are pretty uneconomic.

Not necessarily. It depends on how you arrange the lift. If you have an equal or larger mass coming down from the station you can use that to lift a mass up by way of a large pulley system. Granted you'd have to keep correcting the orbit of the station in orbit, since you'd get a slight downward force from the pulley, but that's fine.

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2003-06-26 09:15am

American Astromen, using advanced technology such as Radar and Atomic Energy, will travel to the Moon to defeat the terrible Moon Men and take their women.

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2003-06-26 11:46am

ROTFLMAO
Well at any rate eventually we may have a largescale orbital facility that would be used to launch mining ships and other vehicles instead of relying on parts made on earth.