if you had money what would you do for space in general

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defiant101

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ok if you had one hundred thousand dollars, where would you start, what would you start, what would you invest in or what would you fund when it comes to space exploration, space technologies, just space in general?

keep in mind, this has to be within one hundred thousand dollars.
 
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Boris_Badenov

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defiant101":1a9i614y said:
keep in mind, this has to be within one hundred thousand dollars.
Buy a really nice telescope & build a little home observatory. For a hundred grand that as close as you're gonna get to space.
 
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Booban

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I would make a prototype of the biggest balloon I could get, the biggest rocket that it could carry and attach an iphone with a parachute and see how far up it could go.
 
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DarkenedOne

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Good question.

I personally have been thinking about the a space refueling business. My logic is that if space really is our future than we will need propellant just like we need gas here on Earth. Just like here on Earth we need huge quantities of relatively cheap propellant in space. I know from history how profitable the oil industry has been, therefore by getting into the business early I will position myself to provide propellant for the future space economy.

Essentially what I would do is that I would design an orbital fuel depot and a refueling system based on a reusable spacecraft like the Dragon. Space craft would use automated docking that will allow for interfacing between both manned and unmanned spacecraft. The whole thing will be essentially an unmanned gas station.

Personally I really think that there is so much potential for in-space refueling. Just imagine all of the things that would not be possible here on Earth if we were not able to refuel our vehicles. There would be no airplanes, cars, and trains. Refueling capability is what allows for these vehicles to perform thousands of trips and many, many missions.
 
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MeteorWayne

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defiant101":egyu85ci said:
ok if you had one hundred thousand dollars, where would you start, what would you start, what would you invest in or what would you fund when it comes to space exploration, space technologies, just space in general?

keep in mind, this has to be within one hundred thousand dollars.

When it comes to space, $100K is chump change....
 
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oldAtlas_Eguy

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It is possible to do an avionics or comm subsystem prototype for less than 100K. I would propose developing a standard and prototype hardware for a new 802.11s standard for a space only digital wireless 54+Mbit speed at long distances ~200km at the frequency band of 62GHZ which is absorbed by the atmosphere and is unregulated in space. It would include prototype smart antennas and software controlled electronic source tracking to optimize power usage to output in only the directions that there are transmitting sources. Occasionally sweeps would be made of the complete coverage to identify new sources to connect to. This would be a more sophisticated system than current wireless 802.11 but would use existing hardware with frequency up and down converters from the 802.11g 2.45GHZ 100milliwatt hardware. Hardware to be developed would be the frequency converters and antenna system with electronic steering controls via a USB or other similar computer port. Also an integrated software hardware driver would be developed that did both the original 802.11g driver and the additional electronic steering.
 
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scottb50

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oldAtlas_Eguy":2qq44v82 said:
It is possible to do an avionics or comm subsystem prototype for less than 100K. I would propose developing a standard and prototype hardware for a new 802.11s standard for a space only digital wireless 54+Mbit speed at long distances ~200km at the frequency band of 62GHZ which is absorbed by the atmosphere and is unregulated in space. It would include prototype smart antennas and software controlled electronic source tracking to optimize power usage to output in only the directions that there are transmitting sources. Occasionally sweeps would be made of the complete coverage to identify new sources to connect to. This would be a more sophisticated system than current wireless 802.11 but would use existing hardware with frequency up and down converters from the 802.11g 2.45GHZ 100milliwatt hardware. Hardware to be developed would be the frequency converters and antenna system with electronic steering controls via a USB or other similar computer port. Also an integrated software hardware driver would be developed that did both the original 802.11g driver and the additional electronic steering.

Very nice but who would you talk to?
 
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SteveCNC

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Back when I looked into the moon rover project I did a rough estimate of $350,000.00 to build what NASA wanted so $100k isn't enough to do a whole lot with , although I suppose if you had a good idea for a battery you could get a few prototypes made .
 
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Skyskimmer

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MeteorWayne":mr0hr3ng said:
defiant101":mr0hr3ng said:
ok if you had one hundred thousand dollars, where would you start, what would you start, what would you invest in or what would you fund when it comes to space exploration, space technologies, just space in general?

keep in mind, this has to be within one hundred thousand dollars.

When it comes to space, $100K is chump change....

Typical myopic view of space. If you wanna get a return back on it call up spacex, or another start up see if you could make a minor investment, I'm sure if your not picky on your rate of return, they'd be more than happy to take your funds.

Seriously though, if you mean for progressing spaceflight in general, I say use it as a promotional tool for investment, I'm sure if you searched around and cared you could get more than a few people to match your investment. Either use it as a scholarship program for bussiness students, or just developing a promotional, package for some idea like building nuclear tugs in space.
 
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defiant101

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i was thinking maybe you can find other people willing to help to fund like a smaller competition than x-prize. and if you can not find other investors, just make smaller but important goals that people can work on, so you 100k would be a nice prize.

of course the guy has to be very generous to put 100k on the line lol.

you don't have to invest or fund hardcore projects you can always think outside the box and do little things here and there that would help people get motivated.
 
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Skyskimmer

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defiant101":sq4c8ing said:
i was thinking maybe you can find other people willing to help to fund like a smaller competition than x-prize. and if you can not find other investors, just make smaller but important goals that people can work on, so you 100k would be a nice prize.

of course the guy has to be very generous to put 100k on the line lol.

you don't have to invest or fund hardcore projects you can always think outside the box and do little things here and there that would help people get motivated.
Agreed completely.

Keep in mind Spacex is planning to do multiple satelite launches from a single launch within the next few years. If you can somehow figure out hot to get a seat as a sub contract a mini satelite could easily be launch.

It would be Ideal if you could get a 100k prize to the school that can build a 50 pound (24kg) 100 k launch cost satelite.
 
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defiant101

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ok' lets get to work everyone, lets work to get 100k by the end of this year........lol if thing were only that easy lol.

100k might be chump change if you are making your own company or investing.....but maybe one day there will be a generous person or few generous people who would be willing to donate that money to students and teams that need it, or maybe like i said start a competition of some kind it seems very efficient.....i will be honest though chances of that happening are not high lol. lots of greed, most people absolutely want direct profits in the form of dollar signs lol.
 
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Skyskimmer

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defiant101":1xrrje6p said:
ok' lets get to work everyone, lets work to get 100k by the end of this year........lol if thing were only that easy lol.

100k might be chump change if you are making your own company or investing.....but maybe one day there will be a generous person or few generous people who would be willing to donate that money to students and teams that need it, or maybe like i said start a competition of some kind it seems very efficient.....i will be honest though chances of that happening are not high lol. lots of greed, most people absolutely want direct profits in the form of dollar signs lol.

100 k is not alot of money to someone that is retired, my next door neighbhour had 800 k in the bank just sitting their, (him and his wife didn't retire until after 65 welder/nurse) multiple pensions and benefits were of the depression generation so they didn't spend a cent, and had losts of compound interest. Now of course that is extreme, but of course the average american when he dies will have a 300k home up for grabs so it wouldn't take long to find funds. Obviously this won't be something your average person does, but if you know about churchs recieve this kind of money from the wills of teachers, nurses, etc.
 
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dryson

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ok if you had one hundred thousand dollars, where would you start, what would you start, what would you invest in or what would you fund when it comes to space exploration, space technologies, just space in general?

keep in mind, this has to be within one hundred thousand dollars.

For $100k I would be able to hire one project designer at $60k, One cad operator for $23k and one temporary cad operator to fix changes for $12k.

Now what do I do? I am out of money without anything to show for my $100k.

If I had a 20 billion dollar a year budget I would employ my design team to first build a construction station in space similar in design to the I.S.S. The next stage would be to develop ships using the I.S.S. and other modules to create ships that would be assembled at the construction station. Once built at the construction station their next goal would be to ferry the same modules used to create the first I.S.S to the Asteroid Beltbetween Mars and Jupiter to build a habitat station for mining operations. The next goal would be to ferry the same type of modules used to create the first construction station to the mining operation's control station so that a repair and construction yard could be built in close proximity to the mining operation for further construction of vessels. Along the way back to Earth I would build smaller station's similar to the I.S.S. that would be used as layover station's as well as emergency rescue stations.

The mined ore would then be returned to Earth to be refined and sold as well as being used to build facilities on the Moon that would be able to refine the ore as well as creating products from the refined ore that would then be sent back to the asteroid belt so that facilities could be built on a large asteroid to reduce the time of mining the ore and refining the ore into useable product's to further build facilities in the asteroid belt.

For $100k you might get to say "This is the project I have in mind."
The response might be "Atta Boy."
 
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Skyskimmer

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dryson":217oi3u8 said:
For $100k I would be able to hire one project designer at $60k, One cad operator for $23k and one temporary cad operator to fix changes for $12k.

Now what do I do? I am out of money without anything to show for my $100k.


For $100k you might get to say "This is the project I have in mind."
I think you not quite seeing the big picture. 100k to just throw at an engineering firm is quite useful. You are mistaken if you think for every idea floating around there's 10 billion worth of funding. For every megaproject there are 10000 ideas. That being said these Ideas become plausible when someone is willing to put down even the smallest amount of cash to back it up.
Of course this 100k would have to be directed at more social capital than industrial capita, exciting coporations like mcdonalds to get the first resturant in space, or developing a marketing plan for the first oribital sports competition. You gotta realize the way private enterprise is getting involved in space, there not throwing away money on ideas like nasa does it can't function like that, it's dependant on pioneers who are willing to takes risks with their money on crazy ideas.
 
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defiant101

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yeah just a matter of finding people, but most if not all just wants to spend money on other things or wants direct profits. which is understandable i guess lol.
 
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rcsplinters

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With a hundred grand, you can do almost nothing. Forced to spend it on space, I'd put it into public awareness in hopes of generating some sense of value to the taxpayer and if anything was left over, science and math education for kids.

With a 100 billion a year, we can talk about going some places. Small reactors, ion propulsion, inter-orbit transfer systems, inter planetary habitats grids of radio telescops in solar orbits and on and on. A minimum of 10% would be earmarked for technologies we have not developed yet.

What can I say, space is astronomical, even down to the financing. :geek:
 
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defiant101

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yeah those are hardcore projects what i was saying why not just start a competition where students hobbyists and amateur people and just regular people in general can compete for something. i mean look at x-prize honestly it came out of nowhere. lets say that scaled composites never went to orbit, it still got people motivated and talking and listening. and those innovations can still be implemented today too. basically its a win-win but its how you see it though. that 100k might not mean much at all in the present but through competition it might mean a lot in the future. not x-prize was 100 million, but maybe just lower the difficulty of the goals to fit 100k.......or maybe none of this will work and i just wasted my time lol :)

but yeah of course doing hardcore projects like interplanetary habitats, and new propulsion yeah with 100k that can never happen. but that is obvious. but there could be other ways 100k might help, either ways its at least good to try than just be sitting around and not trying anything and being disappointed by the space program and its current status.
 
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Ruri

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For just 100K I really could not do much maybe a small satellite that rides up with Dragon or build a prototype device that can extract O2 from volcanic ash.

But if I had as much money as one of the Microsoft's founders I'd fund a project like Skylon or Delta Clipper as the most important piece of the puzzle right now is lower cost access to space.

Reduce the cost of getting to LEO by a factor of ten all the other stuff will get cheaper.
 
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a_lost_packet_

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defiant101":3rh7bhz8 said:
ok if you had one hundred thousand dollars, where would you start, what would you start, what would you invest in or what would you fund when it comes to space exploration, space technologies, just space in general?

keep in mind, this has to be within one hundred thousand dollars.

An outreach program for Elementary and High School students to encourage them to study the Sciences, Math, Physics, etc..

Use part of the money to fund the initial program startup and the rest to help get donations and corporate involvement from local/regional technology companies as well as seeking grants. Then, when there was significant involvement, I'd work at getting NASA's outreach program involved regularly and host science fairs, competitions, speaking engagements, as well as seeking involvement from national companies and government agencies.

Eventually, if the program was stable and had good sponsorship and involvement, I'd add scholarship opportunities and summer internships/retreats for High School students as well as a summer Science Camp for Elementary School students.
 
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defiant101

Guest
thank you old atlas guy lol, i am sure 100k can be useful, even though a lot of people here would disagree.....money is money lol :)
 
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rocketman5000

Guest
Well, The solid rocket guys are almost going suborbital and I am sure one of their flights doesn't cost 100k. If given the right motivation you could work on system designs like RBCC (rocket based combined cycle) engines. Yes you would probably have to stick to hybrid rockets and ramjet engines but if you have a proven concept you could probably get further funding from somewhere to build something that might be more flight ready. (thinking something like a scaled down GTX)

Along with the LACE engine from the mentioned Skylon, RBCC is a good hope for SSTO or a TSTO with a flyback booster. Think of a WK3 where the mother ship could run to Mach 2 or 3. Mach 3+ is listed at the max speed of SS2.

Imagine the possibilities...
 
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MeteorWayne

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a_lost_packet_":3t35m9nj said:
defiant101":3t35m9nj said:
ok if you had one hundred thousand dollars, where would you start, what would you start, what would you invest in or what would you fund when it comes to space exploration, space technologies, just space in general?

keep in mind, this has to be within one hundred thousand dollars.

An outreach program for Elementary and High School students to encourage them to study the Sciences, Math, Physics, etc..

Use part of the money to fund the initial program startup and the rest to help get donations and corporate involvement from local/regional technology companies as well as seeking grants. Then, when there was significant involvement, I'd work at getting NASA's outreach program involved regularly and host science fairs, competitions, speaking engagements, as well as seeking involvement from national companies and government agencies.

Eventually, if the program was stable and had good sponsorship and involvement, I'd add scholarship opportunities and summer internships/retreats for High School students as well as a summer Science Camp for Elementary School students.

That's an excellent use of 100K, thanx alp!
 
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