Manned Space Flight Just Doesn't Seem To Be Worth The Cost.

[Shibumi]

Originally Posted by crazyma

IMHO Space exploration in general should cease...unless it directly relates to our national defense & security. They spend way too much money on it when we have other pressing needs here at home!

Our very existence does depend on it, crazyma. Imagine if we now discover a 20 kilometre asteroid or comet calculated to be on an absolute collision course with us in it's next pass this way. Situation: twenty years warning before total global annihilation.

We have two choices: a really big party, with lots of folks overspending on their Amex cards, or figuring out how to get a few thousand off the planet and on their way to some other location to set up housekeeping again.

Which do you choose?

[sponger42]

Originally Posted by Shibumi

We're drifting off trajectory, but to me, space exploration, manned or robotic and then later manned, is the pinnacle of human exploration. I also suspect the fiscal and psychological costs of such exploration to the US, compared to that of our current wars, is small. The results however are gigantic. At least to the curiously minded.

Sad to hear about the prognosis for horizontal takeoffs. Perhaps some magnetically contained ion-blast fusion reactor engine will enable us in the distant future?

I'll buy that. And I'm by no means the authority on RBCC or what-have-you. A lot of people believe in it.

Google "Orbiter Download" and you can get a neat program for free which runs a simulation of famous launch vehicles as well as a horizontal-launch spaceplane can fly to the moon and back (and does in one tutorial mission). You can also take control and fly, but it is VERY difficult as the designers strove for realism. It's a fun way to kill an hour or many hours depending on how into it you get. You can even download the sound patch and input your own mp3's to listen to on the way to Saturn. It's Newtonian physics, so there are downloadable spacecraft which exceed the speed of light should you care to jaunt off to Altair.

Magnetically-confined fusion is as promising as anything, but the real current answer is nuclear fission engines. We built them in the 70's during NERVA, and we could certainly build them today. In 100 years people will look back at he current era and wonder at why their ancestors were so irrationally terrified of nuclear rockets.

[Shibumi]

Agreed. We could also apply your last comment to theist's arguments against space travel and research. Like that guy in "Contact" who just had to sabotage the project. Last thing they want is inescapable proof that we'd probably find when we go looking about out there.

I have, on my wall, my own plans for a gigantic spaceship that would, in theory, get us out of this solar system permanently. A set of about 300 people set up in a sustainable platform with massive redundancy, would embark on a permanent exit strategy.

One logical problem is that, given the need for constant acceleration to get us up to some sort of half-a$$'d reasonable velocity conducive to a productive travel agenda, we'd utilize gravitational slingshots, plus solar wind "sails" plus a small but constant ion pulsejet or similar thruster. After a while, (let's say 50 years of acceleration at, let's say 1 g: quick, engineers out there: how fast WOULD we be traveling then?) we'd be going so fast that to slow down and take a look at planet Glorgon, or to stop and resource-mine a particularly mineral or water-rich asteroid or comet of "body" would be functionally impossible. We'd have to abandon any ideas of a fanciful and leisurely vacation trip. We'd sort of have to have a destination in mind. Or just assume that humanity consisted of only that one lonely ship, but just maybe we'd eventually find a re-formable planet.

My plans are for a massively huge ship that would likely take about 50 - 75 years (or 200? We have the time right now...) to construct, alongside a major lunar station and spacelab to allow constant testing of any new technical ideas. Plus, we'd have to perfect either DNA storage and cloning, or long-term cryo-hibernation.

It'd also be tough if there existed a non-DNA, silicon-or phosphorous-based life form already there. DNA/silicon hybrids, anyone? Good reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothe...n_biochemistry

Still, since that's the only choice, we should be re-doing that experiment out in the Arizona desert to maintain a self-contained environment. Then do it on the moon, and then on Mars. ASAP! Perhaps it might prove that we just can't do it? Or perhaps the fact the first team in that project knew they could always just open the door and leave jinxed that entire experiment.

Too bad.

[GregW]

IMHO - Government, taxpayer, money is better spent on space exploration than on out continuous imperial attempts to continue domination of the oil industry for the benefit of the few controlling families. Space exploration does not waste money but fighting countless invisible "terrorists" certainly does.