Why space?

a_lost_packet_ · Jul 5, 2005

We've all participated in various discussions regarding going to space, what we'll learn and what we'll do there. However, most threads don't cover alot of details regarding people's ideas about what we can do in space once we get there. There have been a few good threads regarding all sorts of objectives and ideas, but very few actually list how to really go about exploiting space. The quest for knowledge is a powerful motivator. However, this yearning alone is not going to lead to man's leap to the stars. Exploration, by itself, is just not enough. Assuredly, we can marvel at the new wonders of the Universe. However, if we are going to advance into a spacefaring species, we're going to have to figure out what to do with space.. once we get it. There was, a long time ago, a fanciful thread concerning the making of a movie about a colony on the moon. The thread began to take on a life of it's own and people began offering alot of details regarding poster's ideas and dreams for a moon colony. It wasn't just goals that they listed, but people began exploring just how they would achieve those goals. Quite frankly, they not only developed a moon colony, but all of the support infrastructure along with it! This is much different than saying "We'll invent new alloys in space!" or "The opportunities for new medicines and technology are limitless!" Sure, it's wonderful to have a goal, but just how do you get to it? For example, new alloy research and production would require all sorts of specialized equipment and, quite possibly, the invention of new means of production. We'd still have to figure out where the raw materials would come from, how we'd get them to the production facility and what we'd do with them afterword. There's also the consideration of cost in mind. Would the new alloy be economical enough to produce? What would we have to make available so that the gathering of the raw materials, the processing, the initial st <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> I put on my robe and wizard hat... </div>

nexium · Jul 5, 2005

I've posted several ideas along those lines. Deep impact suggests that we can do very prescise asteroid maneuvering with present technology. Perhaps a manned mission can start from the international space station and land on a small asteroid that passes close to Earth. The humans live below the surface of the asteroid for radiation protection. Supplies are delivered by unmanned rocket. In about 18 years children born in the asteroid habitat can launch from the home asteroid to another asteroid that passes close. By this means, we can have hundreds of asteroid colonies in our solar system in about one century, sooner if technology improves. A return to Earth is too hazzardous with present technology but will likely be practical in a decade or two. The colonies can be equiped with powerful laser arrays which can change the orbit of nearby asteroids (minutely) to protect Earth from future asteroid hits. When there is nothing more important to do with the laser it can be used like a search light to spot nearby asteroids as small as one millmeter. We need to chart trillions of these tiny asteroids to reduce the hazards of living in space. This assumes each habitat is equipped with a good remote operated telescope. Neil

formulaterp · Jul 8, 2005

Well there's always space tourism. Right now a 1-week vacation in space aboard the ISS, via Soyuz, costs about $20 million. This is way beyond the means of the common man to enjoy. You need the disposable income of a Tiger Woods to afford it. But if we wait a few years, Robert Bigelow will have his orbiting hotel modules in place. This will dramatically reduce the price of a week long vacation to about $7 million. That way regular folks like uhm ... ah ... Phil Mickelson will be able to afford it!

rogers_buck · Jul 8, 2005

I'd like to support your position of space being relevent to our survival by throwing in a little cosmological consideration. We as creatures of this universe are emersed in its entropy field that defines our reality. We make our decisions and we experience its decay and rarely give thought to exactly what it is. We have a science (thermodynamics) that describes it, but the foundations are no more solid in physics than Murphy's laws. What physics does tell us about this field is that it is a consequence of a differing of order in the initil and final states of the universe when viewed in imaginary time. As intelligent beings we know that this field fights us as we assemble our knowlege and build our monuments. We rise above the field by anticipating the future with our intelect better than lower forms of organized matter can achieve. This much has a sound basis in fact, what I am about to say requires imagination. But to set the stage I'll simply point out that our knowledge doubles now every 5 years. Now I ask that you imagine where our ingenuity might take us. Perhaps in our distant future, mankind might master technologies that will allow him to impart his own order onto the fabric of the cosmos. In his forward to 3010 ACClarke tells of the monolith builders mastering technology to store their information on the vacuum of space. Great promise, but also great danger. This technology will effectively alter the entropy field, and thereby the reality of every creature in the universe. If mankind or some other creature of our lineage is not to become the ultimate master and retroactive architects of reality, then we stand the risk of being irrelevant. Just like the most highly evolved of creatures in a pond is cast aside when the pond is drained to build a golf course, we can easilly be removed from history, the present, and the future. To understand this consider those quantum states existing in imaginary

a_lost_packet_ · Jul 9, 2005

Thanks for the posts all. However, while the suggestions are certainly valid, I'll try to express a little bit of what I was really looking for. On Nexium's asteroid colonies - How do we get there? What do we need to bring with us? Where do we get the spaceship to take us there? Is the ISS capable of building it or do we need specialized facilities? How would humans survive inside asteroids? How do we counter the effects of low-gravity on humans living in asteroids? How do they construct a habitat on an asteroid? How does the composition of the asteroid effect this? Would there be enough raw materials for humans to construct those things they couldn't bring with them? On Formulaterp's space tourism - How do we make tourism affordable? What incentives can we offer to people so they would want to go? Should there be a "space-hotel"? If so, how do we build it? How would we supply it? What would it need? What would be the best type of spacecraft to use for space tourism - Expendable or Reuseable? Could tourism alone provide the funds necessary or would we need to offer other services? On Rogers_buck species saving ultimatum - How do we begin? Would we construct ships in orbit? How? Where would we go and how would we get there? If we decided that we needed to leave the solar system, what type of drive should we use? What would we probably need to take with us? (In regards to entropy/technology/humanity I agree. In 100 years we will probably not recognize many of the common, everyday technologies available to man. In 500 years who knows what we may become or, more importantly, if we are able to handle what we have become.) On Knowledge-is-power's coolness of space - So, how do we go about making these things possible? What materials/ships/bases/technologies would we need and why? How would such a solar-system-spanning population interact with each other? Would there be some form of centralized exploration/popu <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> I put on my robe and wizard hat... </div>

rogers_buck · Jul 9, 2005

We are creatures of our information. In our case the information is genetic, cultural, and sceintific. To create a viable outpost of ourselves we would require all of our information to go with us. That requires a massive effort as evidenced by the history of colonizations. The effort of colonizing another world would be more akin to the diaspora than to a commercial colony of the 18th and 19th centuries. Unlike previous human migrations there would be no indigenous economies, shelters, or food stuffs upon which to rely. In that respect, a colonization of Mars is more akin to the colonization of the ocean floor. At the time of this post there are no human civilizations on the sea bed even though the sea bed in many ways is more economically compelling. The problem with the equation of colonization is that a good portion of our information is of no value and is even a burden to another world. So I think we have to look in upon ourselves and edit our information to suit the destination. This can be a much more rapid means of coming to terms than to attempt to terraform another world. In practical terms, this would involve developing an econsystem with humanoid creatures at the top of the food chain and then transporting it to the target world. With this paradigm in mind it is easy to imagine space and the near worlds to be far more welcoming to our precious information. In practical terms, what I am saying is that GM or purely synthetic organisms should be create specifically to live on the idverse environments that can be modeled to sustain them. In some cases there may not be any biological aspects to the colonists other than their knowlege of their creators and the culture and tools they have been given to survive. You might say that this isn't the same as spreading humanity accross the cosmos, but I would argue that it is. So long as our information travels intact we are part of the lineage of what will be. What makes us who

a_lost_packet_ · Jul 10, 2005

An interesting observation and I would tend to agree with you. Modified humans would still be human. You point about a shared history and culture is pertinent. Even though they may not be phenotypically/genotypically human, depending on the modifications, the shared history, knowledge and culture would definitely be enough to classify them as "human." Of course, depending on time, this could possibly change. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> I put on my robe and wizard hat... </div>

vogon13 · Jul 10, 2005

When earth is full, men will walk on Mars. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!So many people, so few recipes !!Let's clean up this stinkhole !! </div>

spacester · Jul 10, 2005

a_lost_packet started a really cool thread and among other nifty things said: It's a thread for "full cycle" ideas. That's your idea, from start to finish, about something we can do in space, how we can do it and how it can benefit us. One answer is here. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

rogers_buck · Jul 10, 2005

It is kind of funny that the remaining reason the ISS has to justify itself is the study of humans living in space, and yet we still here "Damn, we gotta get a Progress up there before they starve..." Something seems to be seeping out the cracks and it isn't air...

rpmath · Jul 11, 2005

What I'm really looking for is the "How" and "Why" specifics of "Why Space?" Why Space? Because we need to grow... Why NOW? Because it will take much time and we are running out of that. We are near the limit of what Earth can produce... we have 2 options: 1- Sustainable Development: don't grow beyond what Earth can support, have only 1 or 2 children, replace the cars with bicycles, reduce the CO2 emissions, start closing factories, use products with less processing... close the space programs, because they are not affordable in this new smaller economy, and slowly move to a new middle age, your grand grandchildren will laugh about the myths of space age... there is already people that thinks the Apollo program was a hoax. 2- Use outer space resources. Imagine the world with half Chinese and Indian people living like North American, and using the same amount of energy. There would be not enough oil to fuel that. There is enough coal to replace oil for some decades, may be even a few centuries, but the ecologic effect would be much worst. Nuclear may be the best solution (even if it is still fission), but it is easy to build nuclear weapons once somebody has a nuclear reactor. Israel, India and Pakistan have done that... After many countries do that it wouldn't take too much time for somebody to make true the dream of all terrorist, ship a nuke to NY, and explode it. Solar energy from space will be a good solution, but it will be hard to ship to Earth in a safe way. Put the energy needed for some city in a small area and you have a death ray... how to control its use? A space station will not have that problem, it can be a place where you can have a huge supply of energy per person, and make whatever you want from raw materials. How?

rpmath · Jul 12, 2005

A scientist has create a machine that can self replicate. Right now, it can only do small things, but if we adapted the technology to be produced on a larger scale that would radically help out. Here is a link: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7815160/ It is a step forward... it goes in the two-level self replication direction: the robots can self replicate, but they need a factory to build the pieces. That's the way we are doing on Earth: we build factories to build machines to build factories. The difference is we are using human workers that cannot be built on factories, but we can replace humans with robots everywhere no intelligence is required. We don't do that right now just because robots are more expensive than human for many works... but for space it will be the other way: in the beginning humans will be cheaper than robots only as remote controllers, that you don't need to move to the moon or asteroid. As RPMath said, energy in space will be easy to create. That is not a problem. NASA and other technology firms are developing more advanced robots that may allow us to operate them as if we were there. The advantage to start in the moon is that we can tele-operate the robots in almost real time: we can start a task and see after less than 3 seconds how it goes... for asteroids the robots must work without human feedback, an answer can need a whole hour to get back to the robot... Affordable spacecraft are being developed now that will allow for small payloads to enter space. People won't mind if we use nuclear power in space, as long as we don't launch it from earth. The problem is we have no uranium mines on space... we need to launch it from Earth. I think it is not too much dangerous to send uranium 238 to space with the reactor

grooble · Jul 12, 2005

"As RPMath said, energy in space will be easy to create. That is not a problem. NASA and other technology firms are developing more advanced robots that may allow us to operate them as if we were there. " "The advantage to start in the moon is that we can tele-operate the robots in almost real time: we can start a task and see after less than 3 seconds how it goes... for asteroids the robots must work without human feedback, an answer can need a whole hour to get back to the robot... " I've come across this idea a lot, i even thought of it myself once a long time ago. What will it take to mass produce small, human controlled robots and put them on the moon? They could be small, weigh no more than a few kilo's. Humans on earth would wear special sensory headsets or just use a computer and you would see as if you were the robot and you could just explore, do experiments, work with other robots to build things. There could be 100s of "classes" of bot, mining, repair, earth movers, science, energy generators, and many more. This is the only way that millions of people could get on the moon in a personal way. Imagine sitting at your pc at night, and logging into your own personal moon bot, and just having fun and building infrastructure, hell, you might even get paid by private companies to do certain work. Paid to play! It'd be a sufficient activity to bring space to the gaming masses until the day we have huge SSTO cheap space liners, but they are probably a century away!

rpmath · Jul 13, 2005

"The advantage to start in the moon is that we can tele-operate the robots in almost real time: we can start a task and see after less than 3 seconds how it goes... for asteroids the robots must work without human feedback, an answer can need a whole hour to get back to the robot... " I've come across this idea a lot, i even thought of it myself once a long time ago. What will it take to mass produce small, human controlled robots and put them on the moon? They could be small, weigh no more than a few kilo's. I thought about a bootstrap colonization mission: - Design a general purpose robot with the little amount of different parts and materials you can. - Design a small factory for such parts using lunar materials. - Launch several robots and the factory parts to the moon, some spare parts difficult to build there (like electronics), and some minerals that need to be used in small amounts (like those added in very small amount to silicon in order to build solar cells and other gross electronic circuits). - Let start the process of building factories and robots. Humans on earth would wear special sensory headsets or just use a computer and you would see as if you were the robot and you could just explore, do experiments, work with other robots to build things. There could be 100s of "classes" of bot, mining, repair, earth movers, science, energy generators, and many more. I think the special sensory headset wont work as expected. You will see as if you were the robot, but when you do something you will feel the 3 sec delay of the robot. To trip around, it will look very good, but to move things will be a little difficult. Controlling the robots with mouse, keyboard and recording some sequences will be easy than using virtual reality stuff. This is the only way that millio

chriscdc · Jul 13, 2005

If they were serious, they would probably just send up can style space stations and test out different life support systems. Think of a small skylab with a life span of 2-3 years. You could fill it with different things, spin it, test out oxygen generators with a small community of rodents supplying the CO2. If all goes wrong you can just send up a new can with a different type of oxygen generator. I think that this is the sort of thing they will be doing with Bogelows space stations. Contrary to popular opinion they will not be space hotels. Any tourists up there will have to justify their stay by performing experiments. Imagine being a lowly research scientist giving orders to a multi-millionaire, playing the role of a half trained lab asistant.

le3119 · Jul 14, 2005

One thing I'd love to see is the building of biospheres on the Moon, vast gardens with birds, lakes stocked with fish, butterflies and other exotic creatures. Take a crater such as Tycho, cover it with a dome (a revolutionary material), and build a garden world in low gravity. Human tourists could fly attached to gliders, swim in the lakes or just hop around! These biospheres would draw tourists and inspire a whole new culture too. I'd also like to see large-scale deep space interferometers placed in the outer solar system, to scan the sky for terrestrial planets, this may be our best hope of finding signs of ET. We can develop new energy systems, too hazardous to play around with on Earth, such as fusion and antimatter systems. Three things to occupy ourselves with when we get out there.....

nexium · Jul 19, 2005

I agree. This is an excellent thread. Solar power in space is about 1360 watts per square meter. That is 1360 megawatts per square kilometer. Some large smelting processes require about that much energy, so we need to think fission nuclear reactor until a better energy source is available. Some asteroids are likely as rich in uranium as the better uranium mines of Earth. Perhaps mining Uranium in asteroids is a top priority for getting human technology into space. This would bypass the hazard of launching uranium and plutonium from Earth's surface. Neil

grooble · Jul 20, 2005

We need mass produced, versatile, strong, fast, SSTO, work horse ships. So you can get out of bed in the morning, take a shower, have breakfast, drive to the spaceport / runway, suit up, get in your ship with a few other hard working joes, and just take off to orbit, then go to the moon or an asteroid and do a days work, then go home. A ship that a guy and a few friends can save up for for a couple of years and then start their own space mining / haulage operation and sell the material to either earth, moon or mars colonies. Thats my dream for space, making it normal. Oh and the ships shall be referred to in the masculine and not feminine. Rugged, powerful.

ortemus74 · Jul 20, 2005

ENGINEERING QUESTS: The following is a list of quests that would bring us closer to inheriting our stellar neighborhood. First off, lets say this idea works and within 'a decade' due to the 'overgrowing' number of wealthy Americans wanting to venture into space. We could bring a fleet of 747 spacecraft into orbit. Here are a list of missions we could partake: 1) Train fleets of pilots in business type astronaut schools. 2) Deliver equipment to the shuttle Atlantis providing large modules and supplies for the ISS. 3) Send manned missions to Mars, set up habitats. Conduct research on Mars. 4) Send manned habitats to the moon setup up solar power plants for Earth. 5) Capture asteroid Flora, using the asteroid as a geosyncronous shipyard. that will double as a space tether for a ISE - International Space Elevator. 6) Colonize Mars with green algae using nuclear power to induce terraforming. Mars is covered with iron used by green algae to massively reproduce. 7) Explore Europa by building a research station that orbits it. 8) Televise all the quests and send them back to Earth broadband. (We are discussing this already with a name called 'Mars Exploration TV' MXTV for short.) Here a some facts on asteroids for a space elevator: Asteroid Element Value Uncertainty Units 1 Ceres mean distance 2.767837929 2 + 10-9 AU eccentricity 0.07741187 2 + 10-8 inclination 27.143874 2 + 10-6 degrees ascending node 23.390569 4 + 10-6 degrees argument of perihelion 132.77714 1 + 10-5 degrees mean anomaly 207.08208 1 + 10-5 degrees 2 Pallas mean distance 2.773856953 2 + 10-9 AU eccentricit

ehs40 · Jul 20, 2005

ortemus74 that is some great stuff but it will take more then a decadeor 2 for ALL of this to happen but it will start soon

grooble · Jul 21, 2005

What sort of technology needs to be developed for this idea to work?

ortemus74 · Jul 21, 2005

A rocket engine powered by pure steam... The space shuttle combines two liquid gases that make steam and make thrust. A good place to start would be modifying the NASA shuttles' exhaust system.

rpmath · Jul 22, 2005

grooble: What sort of technology needs to be developed for this idea to work? Ortemus74: A rocket engine powered by pure steam... The space shuttle combines two liquid gases that make steam and make thrust. A good place to start would be modifying the NASA shuttles' exhaust system. The space shuttle combines the two liquid gases to make steam just because they store that way a huge amount of energy to make steam very hot. If you store the steam just as water you need a powerful energy source to heat it and make a hot enough steam. If you store part of the steam as water, you will have less energy, so you will get a colder steam. Using fuel cells to gather energy wont get more energy to heat the steam that just combining the same LH2+LOX and use all the heat. The shuttle engines are even better than that: They have a little more hydrogen than the needed to burn all LOX. The extra LH2 cools a little the steam produced, but with the same kinetic energy it moves much faster than water, so it gives a higher Isp. That exhaust system it so close to the theoretical limit of what you can reach with chemical rockets that I think any improvement that can be achieved is almost irrelevant. I think only the extreme toxic hydrogen + fluorine reaction can give you a better performance, but there is no place on earth you will be allowed to use that thing. The problem here is with the way rockets work: You need to give a huge amount of kinetic energy to your fuel in one direction to move in the other. With airplanes, you can get the same momentum moving slowly a big amount of air, (what needs less energy). If you can find a way to slowly move a big amount of air around your plane with the same energy, you will be able to to reach orbital speeds with little fuel (compared to rockets). Once you have the speed you can continue climbing above the atmosp

spacester · Sep 11, 2005

The moral imperitive to become a space-faring society is this: To not develop space is to risk starting down a road of inevitable decline of our civilization. If we, as the first generation of humans in position to fulfill the dreams of the ages, decline to pursue those dreams, we fail to advance our civilization at a critical juncture. It is entirely possible that such a decision will turn out to be the turning point beyond which the USA went into irreversible decline. That logic may peg your doom and gloom meter, but we're talking about moral imperitives and prudently protecting our future, so that's to be expected. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> Happily, the same actions that can ensure we don't go down the road of decline can also assure that the USA and its allies are the world leaders in advanced technology for the next century or so. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

nexium · Sep 12, 2005

I just added some details to my post on page one. Here is a related paste from another thread: How about a space craft for two (mother and daughter) docked at a modified ISS. The ladies will catch the next slow asteroid that passes Earth closer than the Moon. Three days in space? The ladies dig as deep into the asteroid as practical and excavate a tiny habitat. Inflate something like an above ground swimming pool liner with 3psi of 98% oxygen = a sphere with an airlock. They live inside, until technology improvements make return to Earth practical. The ladies have a sperm bank and an embryo bank, so they can make babies, if they wish. Unmanned supply rockets bring them food and other essentuals to last a century, thus removing one reason for these colonists to be stressed. They can post on www.space.com if they get bored. My guess is lots of volunteers, even though it is sort of like being in prison, until we figure a way to make life more varried for these colonists in a tiny habitat touring the inner solar system. We can do two of these by 2012 if we make a major effort? Surely by 2025 if modern civilization lasts that long. We can launch 100 supply craft (carrying a room addition for the habitat) in random directions (if we don't mind being extravagent) before we identify the first asteroid that might make a successful habitat. That way, supplies can be delvered 200 million kilometers from Earth, if closer deliveries failed. Neil

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