Venturing in to space useless?

Muzic · Post by **Muzic** » 08 Jul 2007, 22:27

He was lucky though that the natives didn't run their boi

BlackLiger · Post by **BlackLiger** » 08 Jul 2007, 22:56

Caydr wrote:You're on my list.

Und ven ve get to Germany, ve vill be checkink it tvice.

Guessmyname · Post by **Guessmyname** » 08 Jul 2007, 23:59

You vill also go on ze list. Vat iz your name?

AF · Post by AF » 09 Jul 2007, 01:11

If we got a man on the moon, do you think the bill for his stay untill we got the agridomes up would be small? Look how long its taking to build the international space station, that wont be self sufficient either.

And zoombie, what about getting to mars and back? It'd take quite a long time to generate all that fuel on mars to get back, during which you need to sustain yourself, and then there's the initil cost of getting there to begin with.

However we are aware of numerous resources in space thatre worth going after. Industry in space would cost a lot less once infrastructure is in place, numerous methdos such as crystal growing become thousands of times more effective, chinese research shows space grown plants have far greater nutritional value than those grown here aswell as greater sizes.

However I doubt mars will be on the agenda in 2040. I beleive we're stuck in our small subsolar system, and our expeditions to mars will be a reminder of what happened when we first went to the moon, expensive, short lived, and full of fanfare and political showmanship.

Post by **jcnossen** » 09 Jul 2007, 01:19

i vote for first getting a space elevator up.

Neuralize · Post by **Neuralize** » 09 Jul 2007, 03:15

I really enjoy going to http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ everyone once and a while and checking on the rovers, it just blows my mind that we got some robots out there on an empty planet. Fuck sending a lifeform that needs a bunch of expensive shit to stay alive, send some god damn rovers to the moon.

Comp1337 · Post by **Comp1337** » 09 Jul 2007, 13:02

jcnossen wrote:i vote for first getting a space elevator up.

Ive read up alot about that
The idea is ownage, and would revolutionize spacefaring. The tech needed isnt too far away either, but the money is. Far away.

(that is, for a hanging elevator. A fixed one is just improbable)

pintle · Post by **pintle** » 09 Jul 2007, 13:20

As i understood it, we couldnt get a man to mars with conventional propulsion, as the time spent in zero g would weaken the skeletal structure to the point that it couldnt survive the gravitational field of Mars (or Earth for that matter)

I have no sources for this "fact" and have no idea where it popped into my head from, anybody know anything about this?

Comp1337 · Post by **Comp1337** » 09 Jul 2007, 13:26

pintle wrote:As i understood it, we couldnt get a man to mars with conventional propulsion, as the time spent in zero g would weaken the skeletal structure to the point that it couldnt survive the gravitational field of Mars (or Earth for that matter)

I have no sources for this "fact" and have no idea where it popped into my head from, anybody know anything about this?

From what i know its not entirely true. The body would weaken because of the eased weight, but not to that degree. Also, if you spin the rocket or whatever, the centrifugal force will create artificial gravity. (with the coriolis force as a dizzying sideeffect of course)

AF · Post by AF » 09 Jul 2007, 13:36

I think space elevators are probably going to be machinary only for quite a while after they're first built due to the effects cited from the van allen belt.

However an elevator would allow cheap movement of industrial equipment to space allowing an explosion in the capacity up there and a drastic reduction in the price of entering orbit.

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 09 Jul 2007, 17:12

Didn't we have a dozen discussions on this before? A space elevator isn't in the realm of feasible given current technology, resources, and functional physics. Even if one is erected, there is virtually no possibility of resource payoff for waste given the understood limits of space travel and energy/mass conservation.

Felix the Cat · Post by **Felix the Cat** » 09 Jul 2007, 17:21

neddiedrow wrote:Didn't we have a dozen discussions on this before? A space elevator isn't in the realm of feasible given current technology, resources, and functional physics. Even if one is erected, there is virtually no possibility of resource payoff for waste given the understood limits of space travel and energy/mass conservation.

You may have reached that conclusion, but that doesn't mean that everyone else did.

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 09 Jul 2007, 17:24

Well, a pity. Then again, we all simplify our worlds in some way.

BlackLiger · Post by **BlackLiger** » 09 Jul 2007, 20:57

Guessmyname wrote:You vill also go on ze list. Vat iz your name?

Arthur Robert Samuel Englebert.

manored · Post by **manored** » 09 Jul 2007, 21:47

Wouldnt something like a big cannon/catapult work better than a elevator? We would just need some sort of bullet-shaped ship to resist the forces... :)

Zpock · Post by **Zpock** » 09 Jul 2007, 22:13

I think the cannon idea would be good for launching stuff from the moon, or asteroids. Much lower escape velocity.

If you look at it economically long term, the space industry when setup would be much more cost efficient once it's established like this. Since launching stuff from low gravity places is much easier, and also the general cost savings that always kick in once stuff get more mass produced etc.

Would be interesting indeed if something could be setup so robots/ships mine stuff (roids) and build more robots, could grow endlessly and then we have huge big ships and stations everywhere. Then we can have cool space wars and everything.

AF · Post by AF » 09 Jul 2007, 22:41

A catapult involving circular spinning on a tether and a release would indeed be a very cheap method of movement through space, but for ti to work on earth would be unfeasable.

A space elevator should be feasable but I'd expect it wont be till 2020 or later for the technology to have advanced far enough for cosntruction to be feasable at any rate.

Currently the construction of a space elevator today is estimated at $20billion.

BrainDamage · Post by **BrainDamage** » 09 Jul 2007, 23:08

manored wrote:Wouldnt something like a big cannon/catapult work better than a elevator? We would just need some sort of bullet-shaped ship to resist the forces... :)

the runaway speed on earth (it doesn't consider air viscosity) is 11Km/sec

now imagine the amount of power needed to impress such force momentum to a fairly decent mass (i'm too lazy to do the calcs atm)

now imagine that force applied, not just to the projectile, but to all it's content for the 1st dynamic principle

everything will arrive in space like broken eggs

speading the applied force over a protracted amount of time prevents to apply too much force in a particular moment

Zpock · Post by **Zpock** » 09 Jul 2007, 23:19

AF wrote:Currently the construction of a space elevator today is estimated at $20billion.

You must mean 10^12 $?? Not american billions?

20*10^9 $ is nothing, thats like a dozen fighter jets.

rattle · Post by **rattle** » 09 Jul 2007, 23:31

I think AF actually means trillions.

US: million, billion, trillion, ...
UK: million, milliard, billion, ...

BlackLiger wrote:
Caydr wrote:You're on my list.
Und ven ve get to Germany, ve vill be checkink it tvice.

"MAYDAY! MAYDAY! WE'RE SINKING! MAYDAY!"
"Hello, sis is se shermen coastguart."
"MAYDAY! Are you hearing us? We're sinking! We're sinking! MAYDAY! WE'RE SINKING!"
"Hello... vat are you...sinking about?"

Spring RTS Engine

Venturing in to space useless?