Chinese Crew Blasts Off for Space Mission

[Darkstar]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Listen, the fact is that without something like a space elevator the current model of building everything on the ground and putting it into space is never going to be economical for large-scale industry. You can't burn off 95% of your mass just getting to where you're going and expect things to pay off.

Building **** where the delta-v costs are lower is the obvious way to go.

It's only small-minded thinking that's prevented us from doing this so far...

Actually... that isn't true.

If you go with low tonnage (small) launchers, then you can launch people and modular payloads for a serious fraction of the cost of these big lifters. Small launchers can more easily be made reusable, which really cuts down on the development and manufacturing costs.

Also, we don't need a space ribbon. We could use large mirrored unmanned cargo ships that are just big spinning, hollow tops. Bounce a laser on them to super heat the air, producing an out rush that channeled by the body shape, turns into useful thrust. Very cheap launch system to LEO. Just requires some money to macro scale develop. Oh, and you need a small launcher for humans (you don't want to stick them into something that is spinning at a fast rate to gyro-stabilize). This never got much traction previously in the US Space Program, because NASA was funding its shuttle. Now that the Shuttle is dead (just a matter of what year), this sort of launch actually has an outside chance.

We have options now for low cost, "reasonable" launching. There are companies in the US targeting that capability, and hope that NASA really means it when they say they'd outsource the whole launching/servicing matter. We will see if that really happens...

[Darkstar]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
c) A mining operation requires much heavier equipment than a simple tug. You're putting us in a catch 22; we can't afford to mine the asteroids out there until we have a large infrastructure already in place, and we can't afford to put that infrastructure in place until we have asteroids to mine.

Not really. Most asteriods really aren't very "solid", according to our best data. So you don't need the kind of heavy equipment we'd need here on earth. It would need to be ruggedly tough, but it doesn't have to be heavy.

[Darkstar]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
As long as it can maintain its own propulsion, it could get closer to the sun. But with the current technology this is hardly possible, you would have to carry too much fuel. As soon as the engines burn out, it would remain at the resulting trajectory, which would likely be an ellipse around the sun.

Solar Sail. It would just take you a long time to get your package.

Although Ion Propulsion can go for a very long time, for very very cheap in fuel. Again, it takes a very long time.

[Darkstar]

Originally posted by DanS
So it may make sense to truck everything from Earth for a while.

The lone obvious exception is water.

Dude, local space is full of water. Turns out Cerebus is a mass of fresh water that is twice what Earth possesses (FRESH WATER!). It's just the size of Texas. Stick a few solar sails on it, and have it deliver itself in about 20 years.

Or, just stick on small pack of robots that scoop up the ice and toss it into a nuclear powered steam rocket. You could use the excess heat to power generators and keep your local robots charged up without need to worry about solar polar collection or such.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Darkstar is right on thath point. It's just a matter of creating a self-sustaining enviroment in space.Which with a few aseroids flung into Earth high orbit shouldn't be too dificult to do ( at least for robots ). And no, robots can respond to unforseen curciomstances just as well as humans, that is if they are controled by humans, wich shouldn be too dificult in Earth orbit, I mean the Russian Lunahod veicle on the Moon was remote controled and with today's technology perfectly capabel of cunstructing robotic hands as dexterus as human hands it should't be too dificult to construct a few duzen "Robonavtes" (remote controled androids that can use human controles and tools in case that repairs, upgrades or even new construction work is needed), and far more specialised machines for mining, smelting and constructing satelites, ships and so on. The AI would be the hardest thing to do (but since it would be remote controled... ),specialised euipment could be shiped from Earth (you wouldn't have to manufacture it a 100% in space, even a few duzen % would reduce the cost of a project since significantly, since less would be shiped from Earth, the greatest saves could be on fule wich consists a large amount of mass of any deep-space probe or ship launche-well unless it's nuclear powered )
And water recovery is pretty high on space stations very little is wasted.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Darkstar
You mean, other then the Chinese Government's own statements?

Cite?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Patroklos
Soviet Science , where would the human space exploration effort be without a now defunked mass murdering state's emblem on Mars.

George Clinton dropped the bomb on them?

[DinoDoc]

No but he did set them up the bong.

[Dr Strangelove]

Wouldn't crashing Cerebus into the Earth end all life?

[DanS]

The new NASA replacement is just the SRBs with modified shuttle propulsion on the second and upper stages.

Yes, that's the plan. But NASA's not where the new action is at, as its seedcorn is eaten by the legacy shuttle infrastructure. And besides, when NASA says it's going to do something, it has been a hit or miss whether it comes to pass (e.g., X-33 replacement for shuttle).

I don't think NASA will be able to continue with their shuttle-derived launcher plan if low-cost private alternatives -- that have been nurtured by Air Force fee-for-service contracts -- are readily available. One of the advantages of a stretched out timeline for back-to-the-moon is that if alternatives become available, you can take advantage of them. That's also its bane, if your job is tied to the legacy shuttle infrastructure.

[DanS]

Dude, local space is full of water.

Yes, it doesn't seem to make sense to truck all of that water from Earth.

[Velociryx]

Personally, I think DanS's panties are just in a twist cos he's all hot and bothered to find another few billion bucks to give to Dubya to blow on another misadventure abroad.

-=Vel=-

[SlowwHand]

I'm trying to figure out why something smart now is termed dumb when discussing it's origins in the 80's.
Why dumb, and not forward-thinking? Because it was a Republican?

[Eli]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
I'm trying to figure out why something smart now is termed dumb when discussing it's origins in the 80's.
Why dumb, and not forward-thinking? Because it was a Republican?

I'm no stinkin' Bush-of-the-gaps leftie.

It was mainly because the enemy in the 80s was one who could bypass all those fancy systems with sheer numbers while the enemies of today and of the future have only limited amounts of nukes.
Also, the technology of the 80s was probably not up to the challenge(but I admit that this is a very hindsighty reason).

[Odin]

Originally posted by Eli
How about killing the Outer Space Treaty to get some real incentives to do space exploration?

I agree, although places, like Mars, that can support large-scale, self-suffcient settlements should become independent states one they become populated enough. I don't want a situation like in Red Mars, where multinational corporations have defacto totalitarian rule over settlers.