Recent content by Rothauserc

The extremely weak surface gravity of an asteroid(like Mar's "moons") is almost microgravity and makes it very difficult to separate materials there without specialized equipment, again adding mass, power, complexity and cost to the processing chain. Much of the "dirty work" of resource...

Historically survival and wealth creation are stronger drivers of exploration and settlement than curiosity. Traditionally, science(knowledge gathering) was a tool in the long process of exploration, which included surveys, mining, infrastructure creation and settlement(all advanced and...

The Lagrange point between the Earth and Moon is a convenient and practical location to store supplies for space faring. We need an incremental, cumulative program that could be paid for as we established these incremental capabilities. The Moon is a destination, but more importantly, it is...

My favorite is Contact with Jodi Foster, et al, for a realistic portrayal of First Contact.

Not playing, historically survival and wealth creation are stronger drivers of exploration and settlement than curiosity. Traditionally, science(knowledge gathering) was a tool in the long process of exploration, which included surveys, mining, infrastructure creation and settlement(all...

Sending robots to the moon to build permanent base/s there is not new(circa 1980's I was part of a project looking into this), what is new is 3D printing and self replicating mining/building robots, the tools needed to build a space faring system. It takes 3 seconds for a radio signal...

Nothing funny about his death - the Soviets cut corners in order to have their BIG 50th anniversary and so sent Vladimir Komarov to his death. After all, everybody wants to rule space.

Robotic exploration of Mars is important groundwork for future generations of human visitors to the red planet. However, humans have to prove that they can live and work on the Moon . There, they can develop the skills needed for humans to build a space faring system including a permanent...

Mars robotic exploration of Mars is important groundwork for future generations of human visitors to the red planet. However, humans have to prove that they can live and work on the moon . There, they can further develop the skills needed for humans to build a space faring system including a...