Humanity has yet to build a true Spaceship

[Floridian]

When people envision and get excited about space travel, what they envision is pretty much always relegated to the field of science fiction. Which is very sad, as human space exploration should be the ultimate achievement of man. Nothing we have sent into space in the last 60 years inspires me. In fact, the Apollo program, while a monumental achievement was a symbolic and not an actual accomplishment, as it accomplished little. It was simply planting a flag.

There is a disconnect between the reality of our pathetic space program and the technological possibilities of today's technology. If we were to set our minds to it, there is a lot we could accomplish, but I dare say nothing NASA has tried, aside from the first ships sent out, has been the ultimate realization of our technological capabilities.

Are the ships we see in Star Trek really that far-fetched?.... Ok, yes they are, but the basic ideas behind them are not.

It is well within our current technological ability to assemble a "mothership" in space. One that would be manned, would never enter or leave the atmosphere of a planet. Are we really going to let cost be the barrier? Cost is always going to be the barrier. It is going to be expensive no matter what. Why not come up with the idea and see if it could get public support. I think it would be a much better goal than just burning money and accomplishing nothing.

Obviously, it is open to the imagination but the ship I am describing would consist of the following:
- Nuclear Fission reactors
- Crew compartments
- Ion thrusters (constant thrust)
- cargo hold
- perhaps artificial gravity generated by spin
- rations for a 2 year journey for the crew, as well as state of the art recycling
- Radiation protection for the crew

Artificial gravity is not a necessity. I fail to see which of those things we could not accomplish with today's technology. The only thing we may not have figured out would be radiation protection for the crew. Or complete protection. But, the importance and benefits outweigh the cost, and the crew would be volunteers aware of the risks.

So, the real problem would be lifting all the cargo needed to assemble the craft into LEO, then constructing the craft.

So whats stopping us from even proposing this idea? Cost?

Lets say it would cost $150 billion. If you spread that out over 15 years of construction, that is only $15 billion a year. A very minute fraction of federal spending.

I guarantee you that our current pursuits are going to accomplish little to nothing in our life time, unless something changes. There is barely public support for NASA because it shows nothing in return, it doesn't do anything that special anymore.

A plan like this would generate at first criticism, but I believe would be embraced the the average American. As this is the culmination of the American spirit.

I'd much rather see the money attributed to NASA just saved up so we could accomplish something like this, even if it meant shutting down the organization almost entirely.

Obviously our first destination would be Mars. And sending a lander down would be pretty simple with the decreased gravity.

 

[James_Bull]

No warp drive, no?

Good idea in theory.
1. I think powerful vasimr ion engines would provide a great deal of protection against radiation.
2. Centifugal AG is a must on trips longer than a year.
3. Landing on mars is actually incredibly difficult as it has an atmosphere too thin for parashoot only and too thick for moon lander style. Its gravity is also 3 times that of the moon...
4. Currently we dont have any power space capable nuclear reactors so research is required there.
5. Here's my plan:

6. You're mad!

 

[Gravity_Ray]

Your argument actually took place back in the mid 50’s by NACA. The rational at that time was that we need a “reusable” space plane that can be launched and land horizontally (harkens back to the X-15 and the HL-10. HL stand for Horizontal Landing).

This idea was later pushed along by Von Braun because in his vision we would be building very large rotating space stations and uses them to build and launch space ships that would be used for the exploration of our solar system and Mars.

The idea basically broke down to; do you build a space ship or a space station first? At that time most people figured you will HAVE to have a reusable space cargo ship to build the space stations in orbit, to build the deep space spaceships.

That led to the development of the Space Shuttle in the 70s. Of course politics got involved and the Shuttle went from a very specific design (cargo carrier to build a space station) to a general ship for launching satellites as well as building the space station and then to save money it was also designed to launch military satellites. At that time those things were huge so the ship kept getting bigger and bigger until it settled into its final form as we see it today.

Now looking back at things I see the logic behind what they were trying to do as engineers but they just didn’t figure this was going to turn into a political cluster ****.

We did eventually start building the station but as we see now, that has very little to do with the original design (rotating round structure with a bay for building space ships).

Space travel is generally like this… 2 steps forward, 1 step back.

Many of the technologies that are needed for a true deep space spaceship are only now becoming realized and some are still not realized.

I think the VASIMR engines are a must which will create the need for an RTG’ or similar nuclear electric power to power them. Then you need to figure out either an electro magnetic shield or a better designed structure with H2O surrounding the living quarters to protect people from the horrendous space environment. Then you need to develop a better closed loop system for food and water. Even with all that you still need to figure out what you are going to do with a lack of gravity (humans just don’t do well in the absence of gravity). Spinning ships are proposed all the time, but in reality no real science is done on a spinning space ship (what radius to use, how fast to spin, etc…).

Finally I do agree that it is time to build a true deep space spaceship and I did make a post about a VASIMR space ship which I think is the way to go right now.

 

[Valcan]

Your argument actually took place back in the mid 50’s by NACA. The rational at that time was that we need a “reusable” space plane that can be launched and land horizontally (harkens back to the X-15 and the HL-10. HL stand for Horizontal Landing).

This idea was later pushed along by Von Braun because in his vision we would be building very large rotating space stations and uses them to build and launch space ships that would be used for the exploration of our solar system and Mars.

The idea basically broke down to; do you build a space ship or a space station first? At that time most people figured you will HAVE to have a reusable space cargo ship to build the space stations in orbit, to build the deep space spaceships.

That led to the development of the Space Shuttle in the 70s. Of course politics got involved and the Shuttle went from a very specific design (cargo carrier to build a space station) to a general ship for launching satellites as well as building the space station and then to save money it was also designed to launch military satellites. At that time those things were huge so the ship kept getting bigger and bigger until it settled into its final form as we see it today.

Now looking back at things I see the logic behind what they were trying to do as engineers but they just didn’t figure this was going to turn into a political cluster ****.

We did eventually start building the station but as we see now, that has very little to do with the original design (rotating round structure with a bay for building space ships).

Space travel is generally like this… 2 steps forward, 1 step back.

Many of the technologies that are needed for a true deep space spaceship are only now becoming realized and some are still not realized.

I think the VASIMR engines are a must which will create the need for an RTG’ or similar nuclear electric power to power them. Then you need to figure out either an electro magnetic shield or a better designed structure with H2O surrounding the living quarters to protect people from the horrendous space environment. Then you need to develop a better closed loop system for food and water. Even with all that you still need to figure out what you are going to do with a lack of gravity (humans just don’t do well in the absence of gravity). Spinning ships are proposed all the time, but in reality no real science is done on a spinning space ship (what radius to use, how fast to spin, etc…).

Finally I do agree that it is time to build a true deep space spaceship and I did make a post about a VASIMR space ship which I think is the way to go right now.

Couldnt agree more. You should see some of the ideas they had for the Saturn V and the space stations they ment to build. Had one for 500 people.

 

[sftommy]

To bad we as a group don't have the means to build a virtual construct based upon the best technologies we as "educated amateurs" can conceive.

I cringed when thinking of Constellation going to the moon and having only one lander...

 

[EarthlingX]

To bad we as a group don't have the means to build a virtual construct based upon the best technologies we as "educated amateurs" can conceive.

Thread with some starting points and attempt at perspective :
Virtual space tech

 

[Gravity_Ray]

My goodness EarthlingX that is a load of stuff and no denying it. I will check them all (well as many as I can this weekend).

THANKS!

 

[EarthlingX]

My goodness EarthlingX that is a load of stuff and no denying it. I will check them all (well as many as I can this weekend).

THANKS!

I was 'hamstering' it together for a while, and i welcome you to drop in something too, if you see something that fits.

Have fun over the weekend, and good luck

 

[mj1]

You can blame the Cold War, the military industrial complex, and the trillions of dollars that have been pissed away on crap like the so-called Star Wars program and many, many other ripoff projects for us not being any further along towards constructing a decent spaceship. You guys might not be old enough, but when I was a young kid (like 10 years old), the movie "2001 A Space Odyssey" came out. At that time, it seemed completely feasible that by the time the year 2001 actually came, we would be well on the way to manned exploration of the Solar System. It did not happen. We put ALL our eggs in the military basket and all we got were a lot of planes, subs, nuke bombs, spy satellites, etc. that serve no real space exploration purpose today. The money spent on NASA over these years was a pittance compared to what the military got and still gets. Also, I truly believe that if the government had had the foresight to seed private companies like SpaceX 50 years ago, perhaps we would have real space ships by now.

The only thing that all of us in the current generation can do now is to plant the seed for future generations. The kind of thing you are talking about in this thread will not happen in most of our lifetimes. What we need to do is make sure that we give the gift of space exploration to our children, grandchildren, and so on. Let's insure that companies like SpaceX get a fighting chance. Let's do what we can to put a stop to all of the needless defense spending that is STILL going on. Let's make sure that NASA is free to do long term planning for things like colonizing Mars, or mining asteroids. It is up to us.

 

[Valcan]

We put ALL our eggs in the military basket and all we got were a lot of planes, subs, nuke bombs, spy satellites, etc. that serve no real space exploration purpose today.

Yes thats called defense spending its there so men like you can dream nice dreams of exploration at night.

Security comes from strength. Not being nice, not love, not dreams or good intentions. In real life the good guys will die. Unless there protected by the strong.

Oh yes and dont kid yourself if that money hadnt gone to starwars (which btw can be traced as the thing that burried the soviet union when it tried to copy it...it wasnt really a real project in the governments mind.) it would have gone to some stupid social welfare project if not into some BS pork one.

Also you do realize many advances have been made threw military research right?

 

[Valcan]

A real spaceship would cost alot of money. So unless Congress decides to spend less on things like a few billion to pali terrorist or a few hundred to bail out there buddies companies and cities.....

 

[mj1]

We put ALL our eggs in the military basket and all we got were a lot of planes, subs, nuke bombs, spy satellites, etc. that serve no real space exploration purpose today.

Yes thats called defense spending its there so men like you can dream nice dreams of exploration at night.

Security comes from strength. Not being nice, not love, not dreams or good intentions. In real life the good guys will die. Unless there protected by the strong.

Oh yes and dont kid yourself if that money hadnt gone to starwars (which btw can be traced as the thing that burried the soviet union when it tried to copy it...it wasnt really a real project in the governments mind.) it would have gone to some stupid social welfare project if not into some BS pork one.

Also you do realize many advances have been made threw military research right?

C'mon dude I'm not saying that we don't need military spending, but you KNOW a lot of that spending was wasted on $3000 toilets and such. Even today we are spending 58 PERCENT of discretionary spending on the military just to fight a bunch of rag tag terrorists. We all agree that communism sucks, but that is neither here nor there. And yes, Starwars was a COMPLETE waste of money as far as space science was concerned. Name ONE thing that came from that that helped today's space program? That is all I am concerned with here. I could give a damn about the Soviet Union and what happened to them. This is not a political forum, so please don't bring that warmongering right-wing drivel in here. Go to the Drudge Report with the rest of your reichty buddies and have a ball. Were talking space travel/science here.

 

[Valcan]

We put ALL our eggs in the military basket and all we got were a lot of planes, subs, nuke bombs, spy satellites, etc. that serve no real space exploration purpose today.

Yes thats called defense spending its there so men like you can dream nice dreams of exploration at night.

Security comes from strength. Not being nice, not love, not dreams or good intentions. In real life the good guys will die. Unless there protected by the strong.

Oh yes and dont kid yourself if that money hadnt gone to starwars (which btw can be traced as the thing that burried the soviet union when it tried to copy it...it wasnt really a real project in the governments mind.) it would have gone to some stupid social welfare project if not into some BS pork one.

Also you do realize many advances have been made threw military research right?

C'mon dude I'm not saying that we don't need military spending, but you KNOW a lot of that spending was wasted on $3000 toilets and such. Even today we are spending 58 PERCENT of discretionary spending on the military just to fight a bunch of rag tag terrorists. We all agree that communism sucks, but that is neither here nor there. And yes, Starwars was a COMPLETE waste of money as far as space science was concerned. Name ONE thing that came from that that helped today's space program? That is all I am concerned with here. I could give a damn about the Soviet Union and what happened to them. This is not a political forum, so please don't bring that warmongering right-wing drivel in here. Go to the Drudge Report with the rest of your reichty buddies and have a ball. Were talking space travel/science here.

Ok first i dont know what drudge report is. Second im pretty sure reichty isnt a word.

Also to immediatly decide the best way to fix our money problems is to basicaly destroy the last real power we have left in the world and a major employer is pretty much the oldest left wing thing in the world..........

Also railing against the Right wing military complex while having a avatar that is the master cheif which is a fictional soldier.......created by a military industrial complex to fight Rag tag terrorist is kinda ironic...
Ok no more politics................................
-----------------------------------
The amount of money spent on the space program in this country is quite trivial considering were what 12 trillion in debt?

A real spaceship requires a real infestructure to build it which means stations and a drydock. This cost money.

Who knows maybe we can convince the military that its time for alot of space weapons. Wonder how many launchesa few dozen rods from god sats would take up?

 

[docm]

Sub in the RV and power module of your choice, but IMO for anything past the Moon VASIMR is the future.

 

[neutrino78x]

I don't think we really need a starship like that yet. What would be the mission? Discovery of science data? That can be done with robots.

In 1969, computer technology was not nearly as advanced. No one could have anticipated that all the computer power existing in the world at the time could be carried in the palm of your hand 50 years later.

We need humans in ships in LEO, to build hotels, industrial shops, etc. Same thing on Mars. But these people are not doing science, just engaging in commerce, conquering nature and/or advancing technology.

If all you want to do is go to Jupiter, take some pictures, take some field measurements, dip a probe into the waters of Europa, all that can be done with remote probes. No need for the USS Enterprise for that.

Once there are human colonies out there, advanced ones, you will probably need a greater military presence to keep law and order, etc., that's where the US Navy comes in. But that's in the far future, we don't need anything like that right now.

--Brian

 

[EarthlingX]

I wouldn't mind living in a city, space island, which could potentially change vistas, or sources it depends on.

Imagine : one year in a Lunar orbit, a year, maybe more, transit to the Venus or Mars, stay there for couple of years, check Ceres, explore asteroid belt with robotic - human flotilla, leave some dummies behind to play with the robots, climb over Jupiter Trojans to Ganymede, Europa, Io, ...
There is also Saturn, and it only starts there .. What exactly are we waiting for ? Invitation ? Kick in the arghm ? A prophet ? Sign ?
To be in a real trouble ?

 

[Valcan]

I wouldn't mind living in a city, space island, which could potentially change vistas, or sources it depends on.

Imagine : one year in a Lunar orbit, a year, maybe more, transit to the Venus or Mars, stay there for couple of years, check Ceres, explore asteroid belt with robotic - human flotilla, leave some dummies behind to play with the robots, climb over Jupiter Trojans to Ganymede, Europa, Io, ...
There is also Saturn, and it only starts there .. What exactly are we waiting for ? Invitation ? Kick in the arghm ? A prophet ? Sign ?
To be in a real trouble ?

I like the way you think.......onward.

Any ways i figure your average society will run to very communal at first. Its gonna take cooperation to survive.

 

[bdewoody]

Of course we haven't built a true space ship. So far we haven't needed one. We sent our astronauts to the moon in what in the future will be considered a lifeboat. To me a true spaceship would be one at least assembled in space and that would stay in space. It would have auxillary craft to take crew off to either land on earth or one of the other solid bodies in the solar system, or transfer to a space station or other spaceship. Engines will need to be of the plasma type as chemical rockets require too much of the overall mass to be fuel.

Such a "ship" is probably decades away but when the need arises it will be built!

 

[EarthlingX]

Not really. 2xBA330 on Delta, Atlas, propulsion a couple of upper stage modules, like Fregat, Breez-M, with Soyuz, Dragon, etc as taxi service, some not yet existent expandable fuel tank module or two, and off you go.

It should be far less than 100 000 000 000 $ (100 G$).

 

[Valcan]

Not really. 2xBA330 on Delta, Atlas, propulsion a couple of upper stage modules, like Fregat, Breez-M, with Soyuz, Dragon, etc as taxi service, some not yet existent expandable fuel tank module or two, and off you go.

It should be far less than 100 000 000 000 $ (100 G$).

Really the only real limitation for a long range manned mission currently isn't tech so much as funding and a concreate destination i pick a NEO atleast to start.

i figure tech wise...

5-10 yrs out:

Nuclear powerplant-4 to 7 yrs out
Vasimr 2 to 4 yrs out

8-15 yrs at most
Em sheilding against radiation.

Though we seem to find new materials for that lately that we didnt consider before.

A note: This is for a shorter deration mission 3 to 6 months. some type of AG would be needed after a year in zero g.

 

[EarthlingX]

I would start with 3 - 6 month excursions from LEO to Lagrangian points, to see in how much trouble you can get in that time away from regular supplies and support; rotate the same ship, just check and refuel it in orbit. If propulsion is modular, you can change that later when something better gets available, and still use the same habitat and command module.

Checking for more Earth co-orbitals at Sun-Earth L3 and L4 might bring some food on the table.

Starting with satellite repair/refuel missions also sounds interesting, and not really a new idea.

 

[docm]

For long duration spaceflight some kind of artificial geomagnetic field is necessary for shielding from charged particles. Superconducting magnets have been tried in the lab, but strong permanent magnets might make more sense as they'd be lighter than superconducting windings and their cooling hardware.

MIT's Technology Review has an article announcing a D-cell sized permanent magnet with a field intensity of .7 tesla, and a real possibility of 1.5+ tesla after a bit more development. Now consider that a medical MRI scanners field runs about 3 tesla.

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/25527/?a=f

These magnets are based on an improved Halbach array, which allows a magnets flux to be directed to one side of the arrays structure while leaving a very low flux on the opposite side. In this example the strong side of the field was towards a center cavity for testing samples, but IMO there is no reason these principles couldn't be used to surround a structure, if only a hot room, with a magnetic barrier.

Halbach Array

 

[EarthlingX]

For long duration spaceflight some kind of artificial magnetic field is necessary for starters, and the genie may have just come out of the bottle;

MIT's Technology Review has an article announcing a D-cell sized permanent magnet with a field intensity of .7 tesla, and a real possibility of 1.5 to 2.0 tesla after a bit more development. No superconductive windings or the power they consume necessary. Now consider that a medical MRI scanners field runs about 3 tesla.

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/25527/?a=f

Looks like something that could improve VASIMR too, perhaps even fusion .. ?

Sci-fi like this, from nextbigfuture.com : Dense Plasma Focus (DPF) Fusion Systems for Space Propulsion

There were a studies published in 2006 and 2008 that looked at making a fusion rocket using dense plasma focus and air-breathing MHD propulsion. These system proposals would work even if Lawrenceville Plasma physics does not succeed with dense plasma focus fusion and does not include the weight improvements of better ultracapacitors that appears to be likely in the next five years.

from adl.serveftp.org : Advancements in Dense Plasma Focus (DPF) for Space Propulsion (pdf)

The required pulse power, energy, and voltage are 800 MW, 80 MJ, and 400 kV. The estimated DPF mass is 16 tons. An increase in Isp will heighten the payload capacity of a mission, making an increase in Isp desirable. For instance, to increase the specific impulse to 2000 s, the mass propellant mass flow rate would need to be decreased by 55% and the bank energy increased to 120 MJ. The corresponding DPF mass is approximated to be 24 tons. Similarly, for a 1000 kN thrust level, with an Isp of 2000 s, the DPF mass would be 48 tons. Lower thrust levels and higher specific impulses can be obtained by varying.

from presentation in the article :


2000s Isp is not so impressive, though.

 

[SteveCNC]

For long duration spaceflight some kind of artificial magnetic field is necessary for starters, and the genie may have just come out of the bottle;

MIT's Technology Review has an article announcing a D-cell sized permanent magnet with a field intensity of .7 tesla, and a real possibility of 1.5 to 2.0 tesla after a bit more development. No superconductive windings or the power they consume necessary. Now consider that a medical MRI scanners field runs about 3 tesla.

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/25527/?a=f

You know that's probably yet another thing that will benifit from LEO belonging to Private enterprise , Having a manufacturing facility in microgravity will make things like that a lot easier to make and better . From what I have heard drug manufacturing can benifit a lot from microgravity as well . Many things will benifit from LEO getting populated , including the development of long range ships . Modular systems will make that possible and easy , I think something like what Bigelow is doing would work for a good modular model , 4 per level , maybe 4 levels tall giving 16 human moduals all together with 4 propulsion units bringing up the rear . Each modual can be sealed with interconections at either end , some being life support/storage/etc . If we can develop a stronger plasma drive that can run for weeks or even months at a time , we have a weak gravity which would make life aboard much more tollerable .

 

[bdewoody]

90% of what has been posted on this thread has nothing to do with the OP's original statement. What constitutes a true spaceship?