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Rocket City Space Pioneers
The Rocket City Space Pioneers are working on a concept to develop a lunar lander and rover for the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize competition. The X Prize race to the moon is just one of the space ventures promising a rich payoff for rocketeers.
New business ventures could find a profitable place in space — in Earth orbit, on the moon and beyond. Suddenly, private-sector spaceflight is becoming one of the biggest things in the solar system. I'll be chatting about these developments during an online event this weekend, and I hope you'll join the conversation.
Sunday marks the premiere of "Virtually Speaking Science" on BlogTalkRadio and in Second Life, at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT/SLT). My co-host is Robin Snelson of the Space Studies Institute, and our first guest is Tim Pickens, the team leader for the Rocket City Space Pioneers, one of the teams entered in the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize.
We'll be talking about the Space Pioneers' bid to put a lander and a rover on the moon. Tim provides an overview of the competition in this YouTube video:
The competition sets aside millions of dollars for the first private-sector team to land a probe on the moon and meet all of the X Prize's mission objectives, as long as the deed is done before the end of 2015. The action is already heating up: Just this week, another GLXP team, Astrobotic, announced that it's reserved a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch for a moon mission to take place as early as 2013. Pickens' team, meanwhile, is well into its design phase as well as its educational outreach effort.
We'll also talk about the general state of private spaceflight. Suborbital space ventures such as Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo could be ready to take on paying passengers in "this coming year," the company's president and CEO told me recently. And on the orbital side of things, lots of companies are going after NASA's money for the development of crew transport vehicles capable of reaching the International Space Station. The program — known as Commercial Crew Development Phase 2, or CCDev 2 — could award as much as $200 million next month.
This month, word emerged that United Space Alliance, the venture that currently operates the shuttle fleet on NASA's behalf, was proposing to continue flying space shuttles as commercial spaceships. This week, ATK, the company that builds the shuttle's solid-rocket boosters, said it was partnering with Europe's Astrium aerospace company to offer a rocket called Liberty for NASA's use. And today, t/Space's Gary Hudson confirmed that he and his colleagues have submitted a proposal for CCDev 2 funding as well. Here's the design concept:
T/Space's concept for a crew transfer vehicle is aimed at sending up to eight crew members to the International Space Station. The craft would offer "launch-vehicle-independent crew capability," t/Space's Gary Hudson says.
In an e-mail, Hudson said the proposal calls for the development of a spaceship that could be sent into space on a variety of launch vehicles. For the rocket fans among you, here are some of the details, straight from Hudson's e-mail:
"Up to eight crew, Soyuz-like architecture (recoverable reusable crew element, expendable orbital/cargo module). Incorporates HMX's patented integral abort system (uses OMS/RCS propellant in separate abort engines). Can fly on Atlas 401 [a configuration for the Atlas 5 rocket], F9 [SpaceX's Falcon 9] or Taurus II (enhanced) but with a reduced cargo and crew capability on the latter vehicle. Goal is to be the lowest-price provider on a per-seat basis. Nominal land recovery with water backup (not revealing the technique until after CCDev 2 awards)."
T/Space is the latest CCDev 2 competitor to come to light, joining United Space Alliance and the ATK/Astrium venture as well as Boeing, Orbital Sciences, Sierra Nevada Corp., SpaceX and United Launch Alliance.
No matter who wins out in the CCDev 2 contest, it's clear that commercial spaceflight is the wave of the future (or, to paraphrase President Barack Obama, the way to "win the future"). The first mission to Mars may well turn out to be a privately funded affair, if a novel plan drawn up by a team of experts becomes a reality.
All this public-private enterprise should give us plenty to talk about over the weekend. If you can't tune in, please feel free to leave your comments and questions below — and I'll try to get to them while we're on the air.
Click here for the "Virtually Speaking Science" show at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT/SLT) on Sunday.
On Saturday, I gave a talk in Second Life about this month's findings from NASA's Kepler planet-finding probe. The event was sponsored by the Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics. The audio podcast is being archived with other MICA talks (including my discussion of "The Case for Pluto" last May).
Join the Cosmic Log community by clicking the "like" button on our Facebook page or by following msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle as b0yle on Twitter. To learn more about Alan Boyle's book on Pluto and the search for planets, check out the website for "The Case for Pluto."
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Does not matter how many potential colony planets are found if you can't reach them.
The only near-term possibility would be to conduct further analysis and find out more about the atmospheres and the potential for life. In the long term, I suppose there could be a list of potential worlds to explore when we develop warp drive or some sort of multigenerational spaceship (or an intelligent robotic probe). Yes, I'm a dreamer.
Correct Jack, But that is where engineering comes into play at developing new more effecient engines that can provide higher thrust ratio's versus the cost of fuel. Fuel is the largest cost involved with any type of space mission. Once the factor of the cost of fuel has been lowered to an affordable rate then more and more space mission's will be able to take place.
Check out the Ion Engine and the VASIMR. These two types of engines are fast replacing the chemically powdered engines of the old Apollo missions.
I am in favor of terraforming Mars. That's the easy one. Venus will be the hard world to tame. By the time we have those two figured out, we should be ready to leave the solar system and expand into the galaxy. Now, if someone would please invent immortality so that I can be around to see it all happen... thanks.
well said Jack.. it does mean "jackall" right so what we need is the ssame as the old idea " steping stones" and the Moon...needs to be one of those right? so then any nuclear powered craft should be banned, because any nuclear accident..would create more problems then we know how to deal with right?
and to those that might say " nuclear radiation is natural in space" lol..well sure it is but particles from helium of hydrogen as not the dame as " heacy particles gtom plutonium" there is a Lot of diffrence... both KILL over time but the one that are from " heavy particles" Kill in hours or days.. the ones from " light particles" kill in years or decades.
That is one reason, why i think that in all " space colonies" underground habitation makes more sense
www.unnecessaryquotes.com
A simple layer of hydrogen gas encapsulating the crew container will prevent most UV radiation from ever effecting the human's on the interior of the ship.
they are talking more like "water curtain" then hydrogen gas as the water can be used at the end of the trip, yes solution can seem many but are they feasible, UV is the least of the problems.
. Cosmic Particles are the real problem, and you might know that metallic hulls act like shrapnel generators so one particle crashing into the hull generates multitude of shrapnels, same is true on any " surface habitation modules" hence why i always talk about " Lava Tunes as habitation zones"
Is that to say we shouldn't have nuclear reactors powering our aircraft carriers, submarines, and even many satellites. Fortunately we do know how to deal with such problems. Nuclear power may not even be used directly for any space-based propulsion systems but would be ideal for power generation of atmosphere-oxygen production, waste reclamation, electronics and lighting. It would take a tremendous amount of fuel for a nuclear propulsion based system but to be conservative it wont take Hiroshima sized explosions to achieve a decent nuclear propulsion system, but it might solve the problem of nuclear waste on earth by increasing current fuel cycle recycling of nuclear materials, and making it a fuel grade source for space propulsion. Otherwise there are other alternatives, such as laser-microwave burst propulsion and ion propulsion systems, or a mix of the technologies. I wouldn't count on any time-space warping warp drives for a few hundred years, unless we're visited by the gods.
Space Commerce has along way to go and I can't imagine space belonging exclusively to the wealthy, it might satisfy the thrill-seekers among the rich or celebrity elite to give the rest of us the illusion that things are really rockin and rollin. But the party starts when earth based mining companies stake their claims in the overall picture of space development. When we learn how liquid metals solidify in weightless environments and what properties might enhance metallurgy by developing new alloys in the weightlessness of space. Certainly there are challenges to manufacturing processes and it may take centrifuges specially designed for creating molds and simulated gravity. The party gets going when we have roadmaps for mining the moon and Mars and establishing much larger commerce based space stations, but we have to develop the mining equipment that will function on the moon as well as Mars, get it there, put it into production, and see wether there is any value of returning finished products to earth or wether those finished products would be more useful in further developments of martian colony expansion and moon facility expansion. Supply shipments for colonists and space station inhabitans will underlay the economy for our mining activities. Eventually Commerce will develop around space-mining, its the grass root of increasing technology and our presence in space, where would we have been without the gold rush?
The Nuclear reactors on Navy ships today are nothing more than water boilers. Those ships are steam powered.
The problem that you are relating to may be best dealt with by looking at the two gravitational factor's involved with life on the Earth.
First off we know that gravity is a force that constantly pulls towards the center of a planet. We have the Moon that orbits the Earth that is effecting a gravitational pull towards the Moon. Then there is the Earth that is constantly effecting a gravitational pull towards it's center.
If a way could be found to use Larry Fullerton's Programmable Magnets to create a magnetic field inside of a centrifugal vessel where one field would mimick the pull of the Moon and the other field would mimick the pull of the Earth on the human who was wearing a special suit designed to allow for attraction's to both fields while making the human wearer use shoes that were also magenticall attracted to the deck plating. Then similar forces of gravitational resistance would occur between the human and the environment thus simulating the natural gravitational forces and interaction's on Earth.
Basically put if you build a centrifugal vessel similar to how the gravity of the Moon and Earth effects of pull on the Human then the problem of gravity artificial gravity would be solved.
space the final frontier. Yes it sounds exciting and it won't really be like star trek until we solve the fuel and speed we can travel will any of this really ever happen. The fuel is still unknown and the fuel to keep this planet running needs to be discovered. There are worm holes, speed of light travel, bending space to go from a - b. Lots of theory and knowledge that,s is still waiting to emerge. Who knows many be just maybe the UFO's that visit us.( yes some don't believe , but if you thing were the only species out there so be it.) we might get a kick start of a new way of seeing and thinking. I personally would love a ride into way out into space. But if you want to not do any space travel even to the moon then go back and see all the incredible anvances this world has gotten to help our lives to be better. Oh one thing I would bet on, humans would find a way as always how to use this new tech to kill better.
Eric-420884
"get it there, put it into production, and see whether there is any value of returning finished products to earth or whether those finished products would be more useful in further developments of martian colony expansion and moon facility expansion. Supply shipments for colonists and space station inhabitants will underlay the economy for our mining activities. Eventually Commerce will develop around space-mining, its the grass root of increasing technology and our presence in space, where would we have been without the gold rush?"
Well said Eric, have you read anything about linear electromagnetic accelerators otherwise talked by me as MagLev Launch assist and then Maglev Space Based redirection catapults?
If you take the time s220.photobucket.com/albums/dd189/Eagle_Averro/Maglev/ then you will see that using PV power and this system for space accelerators and redirectors there is no need for extremely costly and Dangerous Plutonium powered systems in space or here on earth.
This system would Cut the cost of launches by more then 80% you might be aware then most of the Fuel on a launch is to lift the Fuel and the fuel tanks so the cost of 450 million $s reduced by .66 think what the money can be used for.
Now as to speed in space Sifi makes anything possible..but momentum is a Killer and in space with micro-particles it is more so, so thinking from this point of view speed is not a solution at this time till we come up with better material and possible with spherical space ships with a self-repair ability/
Vasimir propulsion in space was a great sifi ideal and it remains so..for the following reasons an Explosion on earth no mater the source develops "power" from the expansion if the Air and the Frequency generated in the medium, in near Zero density in space such an explosion will generate Near ZERO force.
First off, VASIMIR doesn't rely on "explosions", it is a plasma magnetohydrodynamic type of thruster. Second, the thrust of rockets doesn't rely at all on "air", the thrust is simply the result of the mass and velocity of the exhaust, from the formula F=M(V squared). F is the force of the thrust, M is mass, and V is the velocity. For a given mass of propellant, the higher the exhaust velocity the more thrust is obtained, and since VASIMIR can obtain much higher exhaust velocities than conventional rockets, it gets more thrust with less propellant, meaning smaller lighter rockets that can go faster.
space the final frontier. Yes it sounds exciting and it won't really be like star trek until we solve the fuel and speed we can travel will any of this really ever happen. The fuel is still unknown and the fuel to keep this planet running needs to be discovered. There are worm holes, speed of light travel, bending space to go from a - b. Lots of theory and knowledge that,s is still waiting to emerge. Who knows many be just maybe the UFO's that visit us.( yes some don't believe , but if you thing were the only species out there so be it.) we might get a kick start of a new way of seeing and thinking. I personally would love a ride into way out into space. But if you want to not do any space travel even to the moon then go back and see all the incredible anvances this world has gotten to help our lives to be better. Oh one thing I would bet on, humans would find a way as always how to use this new tech to kill better.
The biggest problem for deep space travel is that nobody can afford it. We have the technology. Until there is a worldwide effort to control the cost we will NOT be going anywhere. We are capable of deep space NOW.
Cost is a point of view. It is a fiction we invented to create an economy. Over the really long term, the cost of NOT going is extinction, so I submit that in the long run, it will be very cheap in comparison. That being said, I doubt the cost of waiting will become lower than the cost of going for a very long time.
Cost is hardly a "point of view", it is the expenditure of materials and effort required for something, expressed in monetary terms.
Since Earth is the most hospitable planet known, and any outer space colonies would depend on re-supply from Mother Earth for their survival, manned space exploration will not change our risk of extinction. What would reduce that extinction risk is improving conditions here on Earth and protecting the planet.
Over the longer term, it means protecting the planet from the sun, as it dies. See? Point of view. I am thinking a very long time into the future. In the near term, which is all we will ever really see, it is much more cost effective to stay put, and fix home. But if we pass this thinking on for future generations, when will it end? At what point do we say, this IS a priority, we MUST expand beyond this solar system to survive?
National prestige requires that the U.S. continue to be a leader in space, and that includes human exploration. History tells us that great civilizations dare not abandon exploration. It is these arguments that are the most compelling to me. It is challenging to make the case that humans are necessary to the type of scientific exploration that may bring evidence of life on another world. There are strong arguments on both sides. Personally, I think humans will be better at unstructured environment exploration than any existing robot for a very long time.
Our National Debt requires that we eliminate government spending that is neither necessary or provides an economic benefit, and unfortunately, manned space exploration is neither. Great civilizations have collapsed when they went too deeply into debt.
The only areas of space that is providing an economic benefit have been with communication satellites, and the spinoffs from basic research. Manned space flights just costs huge sums, with no financial return other than the entertainment value of seeing astronauts cavorting in zero gee.
If private groups want to fund their own manned space efforts, that's fine, but they should be aware that they'll never turn a profit from it unless they can dramatically reduce the costs. We haven't seen that yet.
There are those who say that exploration with humans is simply too expensive for the return we receive. However, I cannot imagine any U.S. President announcing that we are abandoning space exploration with humans and leaving it to the Chinese, Russians, Indians, Japanese or any other group. I can imagine the U.S. engaging in much more expansive international cooperation.
Humans will be exploring space. The challenge is to be sure that they accomplish meaningful exploration.
Why not? The only reason the Russians are still sending manned spacecraft is that we are paying them to do so, without our support it would have collapsed long ago. India and Japan and Europe are concentrating on profitable satellite launches, not manned space flight. As for the Chinese, they are showing off a bit and boosting their national pride, but eventually they, too, will realize that there is no profit in manned spaceflight and quietly drop it when it puts too much strain on their economy.
True. And just how is this a good thing? We should have fully funded Constellation. Bush was right!
Space exploration is not a drain on the economy; it generates infinitely more than wealth than it spends. Royalties on NASA patents and licenses currently go directly to the U.S. Treasury, not back to NASA. I firmly believe that the Life Sciences Research Program would be self-supporting if permitted to receive the return on its investment. NASA has done so much with so little that it has generally been assumed to have had a huge budget. In fact, the 2007 NASA budget of $16.3 billion is a minute fraction of the $13 trillion total G.D.P.
Those "spinoffs" came from basic research, not the manned spaceflights themselves. We could have received the same benefits for a fraction of the cost had we financed the research without the manned spaceflights. The only area of space exploration that brings a financial return is the launch and use of communication satellites.
Is manned space exploration worth the cost? If we Americans do not think so, then why is it that nations such as China and India — nations with far greater social welfare issues to address with their limited budgets — are speeding up their space exploration programs? What is it about human space exploration that they see? Could it be what we once saw, and have now forgotten?
As such, my response is another question: for the U.S. in the twenty-first century, is not sending humans into space worth the cost?
India's program is concentrating on the potentially profitable satellite launch market, not manned spaceflight.
China has a dictatorial government where the leaders whims are indulged, regardless of whether or not it makes any economic sense, and their leaders want to brag of landing a man on the moon, regardless of the costs.
Or the chinese military leaders have studied their ballistics, and have realized how easy it will be to win from up there.
The final frontier is self understanding.
It is not gadgets and gizmos.
I personally don't understand the concept of exploring the surface of other planets with designs on some day settling them with human inhabitants. Neither do I understand why so much money is being spent on the quest to find life on other planets. Weather or not there is life on other planets has not effected us to this point. Why would anyone think that that would change? I am of the opinion that the funds being spent on such endeavors would be of much better use here on earth.
Good news! A lot of the technology NASA has developed has been adapted for use here on Earth. This site http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/ is the NASA spinoff site.
I lament the state of education that leads people to opine on the relative value of long-term goals like space settlement when they haven't even learned to spell "whether" or "affected." I also suspect that you have a very distorted view of how much we spend on the government space program compared to, say, invading countries that never attacked us.
But the whole point of this article is that it's not just about government space programs anymore -- private industry is starting to get into the act in a big way. This is very good news no matter how you look at it.
Have you seen Nasa's budget? A lot of Money is not being spent, our govt wastes far more money on pathetic endevors here on earth then they spend on the space programs.
Earths history of extinction events is proof enough that we need to get our butts out there ASAP, How long have we as man been on this planet? Harly a second on geological terms. The more we find out about space and living on other planets the better our survival as a species. All it takes is one big rock, a gamma ray burst or some other cosmic event to wipe us out.
Progress is not supposed to be easy, What is historical events in history didnt happen because it cost too much?
Only a fool keeps all his eggs in one basket.
Low cost, and I mean lower on an order of magnitude, access to orbit is the key to every. with it all things are possible, without it, it's the same slow grinding progress that we have now.
Jp
www.jpaerospace.com
Right on, John ... thanks for keeping folks informed on the high-altitude balloon missions.
Space is the place to find and process natural resources, hydrocarbons and metals both;
Go there, and in 50 years the environment and the living standards will be improved in
much the same way that cities did after they stopped using horses for transportation
and soft coal for fuel.
Eric-420884
"get it there, put it into production, and see whether there is any value of returning finished products to earth or whether those finished products would be more useful in further developments of martian colony expansion and moon facility expansion. Supply shipments for colonists and space station inhabitants will underlay the economy for our mining activities. Eventually Commerce will develop around space-mining, its the grass root of increasing technology and our presence in space, where would we have been without the gold rush?"
Well said Eric, have you read anything about linear electromagnetic accelerators otherwise talked by me as MagLev Launch assist and then Maglev Space Based redirection catapults?
If you take the time s220.photobucket.com/albums/dd189/Eagle_Averro/Maglev/ then you will see that using PV power and this system for space accelerators and redirectors there is no need for extremely costly and Dangerous Plutonium powered systems in space or here on earth.
This system would Cut the cost of launches by more then 80% you might be aware then most of the Fuel on a launch is to lift the Fuel and the fuel tanks so the cost of 450 million $s reduced by .66 think what the money can be used for.
Now as to speed in space Sifi makes anything possible..but momentum is a Killer and in space with micro-particles it is more so, so thinking from this point of view speed is not a solution at this time till we come up with better material and possible with spherical space ships with a self-repair ability/
Vasimir propulsion in space was a great sifi ideal and it remains so..for the following reasons an Explosion on earth no mater the source develops "power" from the expansion if the Air and the Frequency generated in the medium, in near Zero density in space such an explosion will generate Near ZERO force.
well Said Ray no " money in space exploration is SHIPPED into space" and Money are paid ON earth as wages and procurements :) Plus all lessons learned are Used ON Earth before It can be used anywhere else, so NO Space funding can be attributed as " waste" Like no early days fishing Boat construction can be put down as Historical waste.. it contributed to better Boats that we have today and many earth wide discoveries attributed to that trade, just imagine if all boat building was halted because it was deemed to be a waste!!
I cannot be concerned about the extreme cost of any commercial venture as long as tax dollars are not at excessive risk doing it.
I am concerned about the growing cloud of space junk up there that is more likely to fall on us or be a collision able object when there are other vital missions to complete that are not about tourism or exploratory knowledge.
Trying new ways are important for the soul and the spirit of mankind. We should not discourage it but embrace its value in our lives. Make the quantum leap!
I applaude thier efforts. There is money to be made in space. I often wonder how many new minerals are there to be discovered on mars...hundreds I can just bet..and more on the outer planets where different mechanisms are at work, for instance the hexagons on saturn and pluto, I keep wondering if they are not the result of a telleruim and bismuth mineral that just could not form on the warmer earth clime...I am sure it is the result of something else but we do not know...out there is something we just can't imagine enough to make in our great and majestic labs, what? that is why it is there and we are here...maybe a sulfer nanotube with superconducting properties, maybe a triple helix life form (yes I know silly) maybe a monster, though not as scary as our own fears and self doubts. This is another great day as yet another endeavour sets upon the great trail of exploration...not quite the gold rush yet....in the meantime back on the ranch....surely we would be fools not power some of our deep space craft with fissonable material....it is serving two purposes really, provide electricity and heat...the rovers were well engineered, using aerogel insulation was a wise move, but note the next gen is going thermo AND pv...I like fusion, been working on the thory for a while...really trying hard to find a secondary purpose for all those nuetrons though...the whole concept really does seem to be right around the next corner...ad infinitum. Shintu, correct..the saturn five was built to go to saturn as a design concept....but if you would of suggested to von bruan that you were going to launch it from the moon he would of REALLY got excited. One step at a time. If you want to leapfrog technology than you really have to be exceptional....ly lucky....the real factor. As an american industry we must be wise and prudent in our choices...we are, as a nation of entrepenours a handful of powerfull eagles competing in a forest full of hawks and sparrows and parrots and well you get the idea....if we are not going to have the first moonbase..then let's at least have the best...if we set boots on mars then we bring em back alive, if we gather samples from planet pluto, it's for a worthwhile reason. We are at the point where a small university could make a robot, have an astronaut hand launch it form the iss observation deck, manuever it too the moon, and share in the operating expenses as it raced from crater to crater...I said that almost 10 years ago on the bad astronomy forum...where are we today?...well ok, step by step, so how about hand launching some of those nano sats from the iss external observation deck?? Prudence. Wisdom. and a yearning for exploration...there a zillions of galaxies out there and we have barely stepped off the planet....crawled right back to it in fact.......now others are starting to understand the price is cheap compared to what the returns on the investment will be....lets get on with it USA!!
wichasha,
Thanks for jumping in. You and people with the same opinion are the people that need to be asking questions. The rest of us need to somehow convince you that the opposite is the case.
I've been on this Earth for 6 decades. I sold gas at my grandfathers store for 26-cents per gallon. The Sun was our primary energy source. It was hot summers and cold winters in Maryland for me. There were families in my 128 person town whose grandparents had been slaves. Some slaves had full bellies and others did not. The government spent our tax money more conservatively than they do today. Everyone laughed about the stupid drill in elementary school. With our heads down in the hallway we joked we were practicing kissing our ass goodbye because if an atom bomb actually dropped there was no way our little drill in the hallway was going to save us.
Kennedy came along and after a learning experience, he realized a few things. I am skipping over lots of details here . . . we needed to focus on math and science education (for real) because we needed to beat our enemies in control of space. (Similarly, we need that focus today to defeat our enemy of healthcare costs, but instead we got Obamacare which simply moves money around and has zero effect on fixing medical issues to lower costs. But that is another story.)
Reagan came along and once the wall came down, the world was a far nicer place until "al qaeda" came along.
What has not been observed by those on the left is that far less of the 6 billion people on Earth live at a subsistence level as they once did. All you have to do is look at old pictures in each country from 60 years ago and compare them to today. Anyone that is not happy about the progress is not human.
Even African countries are making significant progress. As Wall Street makes investments around the globe and makes billions in the process, the world gets a little better for everyone. Sure, we want them all to get better faster but we have wasted so much money in charity giving people fish rather than teaching them to fish that no wonder the folks in the charities are upset. The reality is that most of the charity money is dead money. You give it away and those folks have no opportunity. It would be far better to give them an iPhone. (An iPhone would not be here today if the space program had not pushed micro-technology.) With an iPhone anyone, I mean ANYONE, can make money with advertising (in both directions).
Realize that human intelligence is a miracle and a terrible thing to waste.
I am a nobody in this country. I prefer it that way. But if I were running the country I would shut down the education department (saving $60 billion a year temporarily) and ask businesses two questions. First, what do you need our children to know when they graduate to take your business to the next level? Second, what kind of basic research and development would be great to have but is beyond your budget?
In answer to the second question, the federal government then should take some of that $60 billion and fund basic R&D like the Apollo program and like the Minerva Medica project I have seen described elsewhere. We still need intensity in space while the commercial activities find their wings. And, we desperately need basic R&D in the medical area since the existing powerful commercial interests have little interest in lowering costs. (The $375,000 computer I once bought is less powerful than an iPhone4 that only costs $600 today.) With the right breakthroughs for the collective good it should be easy to cut medical costs in half. Indirectly you could say the space program cut computing costs by orders of magnitude! (In my example by 600 times.)
Look what just happened in Egypt! The Internet was used as a tool and the result was a revolution in 18 days with relatively few deaths and at relatively low cost. Life will get better for the people of Egypt, especially for those that now know the power of computing devices (indirectly, again, thanks to the space program.)
Do I think I convinced you? NO, I doubt it. But, you can yell and scream at me and millions of others like me to give you more money so you can give fish to people. I won't do it. The more you tax me, the less I will work for you. Instead I want you to consider taxing me on what I buy each day and not taxing me at all according to the money I get for my labor. Then, I would work like crazy!!!
It is very difficult in this country today to break out of the middle class unless you come up with a great idea and somehow get it funded and built. My approach is to build out my website over years and little by little the revenue grows. If I need to work on the side I will do just enough to stay funded. One day my website will get big, I will cash in and pay as few taxes as I can because the accountants, lawyers and tax men I can then afford will figure out how to legally do that. There is so many loopholes in 74,000 pages of tax code, it should be easy.
Did anything I write here make sense to you?
Sorry, I support President Bush's stance that the E.D. should be the agency implementing No Child Left Behind. And I don't see how putting another 5,000 people on unemployement and shifting that money from the schools to research is going to help anything.
Want to save money? Kill the nukes. Too expensive, and not serving their deterrent purpose anymore.
This discussion has nothing to do with space exploration so either stay on topic or find some other front to launch your anti-space exploration agenda in.
dwighthuth,
You obviously did not read what I wrote. I am 100% for space exploration. Try again.
Dennis-816242,
Personally, I am not political. But is sounds like you are a Republican but not a Tea Party Republican. As far as education goes, it is beyond me how we can teach to the lowest common denominator - that is what No Child Left Behind does. Instead we need to teach to the individual student and maximize each students potential. Now, with the Internet we have that capability. However, the quality of teachers has become the major problem.
Dennis, those 5,000 people you refer to are government workers paid for by tax-payers. They were supposed to improve education in this country and have utterly failed. If they were a business they would be bankrupt and out of business. Instead we keep paying them and they keep failing. It makes no sense.
Dennis, as did dwighthuth, you failed to stay in context of what was written. Not all of the $60 billion would need to go to some kind of new "basic research" program. The rest of the money would just not be spent and the deficit would be cut by that amount. The part that would be spent on new "basic research" would be a similar kind of money that went, for example, into Kennedy's big space push. If you believe any of Boeing, Martin Marietta, General Dynamics, or numerous other large companies would have funded "basic research" for space activities you are quite insane. I hate to say it but the government has to do "basic research" when companies believe such research would be useful but they are not willing to fund it as a proprietary effort.
Dennis and dwighthuth, that means we need to ask questions of businesses. We need to find out what they need. We need to determine what they expect of students that will graduate at the various levels - high school, college, graduate school. We also need to ask businesses, particularly businesses in areas that are costing the taxpayer lots of money, "what kind of research might lead to substantial breakthroughs that you collectively are unwilling or unable to fund"?
That should lead to a bump in spending on "basic research" for space activities. And, that would also lead to significant "basic research" spending in reducing healthcare costs. The Obamacare bill just moved money around. Health care costs will keep going up since Obamacare does nothing to fix medical problems in the future.
I was a Republican. used to be. Past tense. Now, I prefer conservative Independant, currently siding with the democrats until the Republicans come back to the table with ideas.
And I think we should have stuck with Constellation. We should have increased spending and been there to welcome the Chinese when they got there with open arms, and plenty of cameras.
Dennis, I'm pretty much "right" there with you, word for word.
I still call myself a Republican, but I wear that label with a fair amount of shame.
I am a working scientist. The Republican Party has chosen theology over science, prefers myth over reason.
Constellation is a fine plan, never funded adequately, and allowed to suffer a slow lingering death. It's shameful, and not the way a Great Nation should show leadership.
Out of curiosity, have you ever read Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein?
Yes, about a million years ago. One of the truly great books. (I need to go blow the dust off the dustcover and re-read it.) I thought it funny that Heinlein kept dropping rocks on Colorado Springs, his home town.
Yeah, and it keeps popping into my mind ever since we gave up on going back... and the Chinese are going there... The Ultimate High Ground.
Human's have always been explorer's. Human's are alway's looking for something. The basic notion of always looking for something makes every human a basic level explorer. Without exploration human's would sit at home all day long and die of starvation and thirst. Even the animal kingdom are explorer's as they have to explore their environment for their food, water and mates as well as shelter from the environment. The species on Earth cannot get around being explorer's. Even the microbial's on Earth are exploring their surrounding's as they feel with silica and flagellum for food.
The question is though what set's human's apart from the rest of the species on Earth? The question is drive and the ability to create in order to accomplish the drive of exploration. Human's have the ability to create starships and space stations that can ferry and house humans in the final frontier which is space.
Although humans do not understand the animal kingdom and their thought processes other than from a exterior point of view the animal kingdom will none the less also look up and ask of theirself..."What if?"
So what factor seperates humans from the animals? It's humanities ability to create and leap beyond the logic of simply being an animal. Space exploration is the next great leap for humanity to endeavour upon, why? Because space is there and humans are explorer's and space is meant to be explored...or humans can simply sit around like the animals do only eating, drinking and surviving.
Which are you?
An animal?
or
A Human?
Space exploration is a necessary must for the continued survival of the humans species. The Ancient Mayan's, Egpytian's, Aztec's Anassaki and many other's that came before us knew that space exploration was a must for the continued existance of humanity.
dwighthuth said:
"Correct Jack, But that is where engineering comes into play at developing new more effecient engines that can provide higher thrust ratio's versus the cost of fuel. Fuel is the largest cost involved with any type of space mission. Once the factor of the cost of fuel has been lowered to an affordable rate then more and more space mission's will be able to take place."
Actually, with liquid propellant rockets, propellants themselves are a miniscule percentage of the costs. The costs are in the tankage, the engines, the guidance, in all of these being integrated in a system that does not damage either itself or its payload in getting into Space and back. They also need to not require so many people to launch a vehicle that their paychecks eat the mission budgets alive.
The old idea, that some new high energy propellant is all that will save us from high costs that block access to Space is simply bunkum. What is need is engineering, that is true. Not some great change, but grinding out steady improvements in propellant tank strength, in engine reliability, in general reusability, and most important, in cutting the number of people needed to work on the vehicle before launch. For example, XCOR concentrated at first not on new engines entire, but on non-toxic highly reliable *igniters* for liquid rocket engines, which were lacking before their efforts produced such. Those types of things are where the improvements are needed. Those are the areas where spaceflight programs have bled money till they were anemic, and could only launch a few times each year, because of the high costs.
"Check out the Ion Engine and the VASIMR. These two types of engines are fast replacing the chemically powdered engines of the old Apollo missions."
Once you are in Low Earth Orbit(LEO), this is correct for Ion engines, and we hope it will be correct for VASIMR soon. Getting to LEO will still require chemical rockets. New Space companies know this, and are concentrating their efforts there.
Regards,
Sine Arrow
Thanks for increasing the signal/noise ratio of this comment thread!
The biggest problem with the government launch program is that, due to the political nature of its funding, its primary purpose is to employ large numbers of people. And because it employs large numbers of people, it is hideously expensive and always will be.
The commercial launch companies, on the other hand, are driven to stay as lean as possible, and drive costs down so that profits go up. This will result in rapid improvements in cost, not through any radical new technology, but just through lots of incremental improvements,
Consider: your car is probably more complex at the Space Shuttle, yet it costs far less and runs more reliably. Why?
>>Jack-2015672 wrote:-
>>Does not matter how many potential colony planets are found if you can't reach them.
We can't reach those planets today...but who's to say we can't in a few million years or maybe more? Else we can go the way of the dinosaurs.
In a few million years? I would say in a 500-1k years, Look at how much technology has developed just in the last 50 years. I myself would be very adverse to putting a time frame because if technology keeps on the pace it has been we could be out there sooner rather then later.
Just imagine where we would be if more focus was centered on space exploration. There are vast resources out there in our own solar systems just waiting to be tapped. All it is going to take are a few enterprising people that will take the chance to grab them and then WHAM, we will be living in space.
The planets within our solar system is certainly within our reach with current technology. I think Jack-2015672 was referring to planets light years away. I agree with him that those planets cannot be reached anytime soon but that's not to say never.
There are inherent complexities in manipulating matter/energy on a large scale. For example, 50 years ago we thought we can master fusion energy but we're still no where near. And until we've figured out what energy will propel spaceships to near the speed of light, we're not going to planets beyond the solar system.
I agree that we will need to go faster. In general, though, we need to get our butts off this one world and colonize where we can. Each new world we settle on will teach us more and more. Unlike our ancestors, we are really good at passing on all our knowledge and making it available. A lesson learned on Mars could be taught in a cloud city on Venus the next day. We need to settle on the moon, and begin using it's resources.