Quote from: Krevsin on 09/17/2015 12:52 pmYOu can't get rid of all the noise because that'd mean the fans would be off which'd mean there was no air circulation which'd mean everyone suffocates in their sleep.Speaking as an MBA, that would greatly reduce the mass needed for life support and reduce the frequency & cost of re-supply missions.
YOu can't get rid of all the noise because that'd mean the fans would be off which'd mean there was no air circulation which'd mean everyone suffocates in their sleep.
I don't want "better" atomic bombs: but this article is less appalling because it reveals antimatter production inmass quantities is just around the corner. and the amounts mentioned is more than enough to rum Antimatter initiated micro fusion and fission drives like the AIMSTAR and ICAN II.http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/09/details-on-antimatter-triggered-fusion.htmlNow we can have star ships to go with that star base.
If you had gigawatts of power requiring a power station,small nuclear reactor or small fusion reactor or nano battery that produce gigawatts of power would have very very high thrust using very little if at all propellant.
Until such time as Fuel is less than 50 percent of the total mass needed for a craft, until long term life support systems, including production of food, is developed and in use, until fully reusable craft are in place and until politicians are willing to spend the amounts needed, hundreds of billions instead of tens of billions of dollars, then, no, the Human race will never be a space-faring civilization.
Any place we go out there we will need to bring along or build a full environment to live in. But that's not insurmountable if we can get the transportation cost down or wealth up enough. And counting on government to do it will push neither cost nor wealth in the right direction.
The relative technical and economical cost and risk of colonizing Mars / Asteroids now are comparable to colonizing America in the Middle Ages.
Quote from: Katana on 11/08/2015 03:04 pmThe relative technical and economical cost and risk of colonizing Mars / Asteroids now are comparable to colonizing America in the Middle Ages.A) By that stage, humans had been living in the Americas for around 15 thousand years.B) We need to get away from the European colonisation model, a la Columbus and Plymouth Rock. We are stone age almost-humans climbing out of our first valley. We need to learn how to find food and water from unfamiliar local sources, how to make fire and canoes, how to nap flint, how to make clothing/protection out of skins of local animals. We haven't even started yet.