Author Topic: Exploration concepts and principles?  (Read 99916 times)

Offline RigelFive

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #40 on: 05/20/2013 08:20 am »
Ok.  Lets roll troll with it.

Fixed that for ya.

This seems like a non problem to me. Use LOX/LH2.
Love it!!!! Very funny actually! 

Whatcha gonna use to make hydrogen?  And while your at it, what you going to use to make LOX?  Just trolling to to see if you have a plan for a nuclear powered rocket fuel plant...

Perhaps you can pressurize the propellants without depleting the helium reserves.  Plus your going to need some added energy to make aluminum alloys.

Think energy conservation using wind mills will last up to five-to-ten years before the turbine breaks down.

Can a wind turbine supply enough power to make the materials for more wind turbines? 


Offline spectre9

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #41 on: 05/20/2013 08:35 am »
You make synthetic hydrocarbons using solar power and you pressurize with nitrogen.

Harvest the carbon right out of the air if you need to. You're cleaning up the planet at the same time.

There's always wave and geothermal power if you need to tap it.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #42 on: 05/20/2013 12:45 pm »
Real estate. That's what connects Earth to these other objects. There's no reason to look any further than what's obvious.

You shall not pass!

[Say it like Gandalf]

Point being, SMD will fight you tooth and nail about keeping that real estate solely for the use of rovers and drones.

Talk of terraforming is sooooo cart before horse, that it's hard to come up with the analogy.  But I'll try.  Talking about terraforming as some sort of priority is like building the cart before the horse has even evolved.

« Last Edit: 05/20/2013 12:45 pm by JohnFornaro »
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #43 on: 05/20/2013 12:46 pm »
Ok.  Lets roll troll with it.

Fixed that for ya.

This seems like a non problem to me. Use LOX/LH2.
Love it!!!! Very funny actually! 

Two points for Gryffindor.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #44 on: 05/20/2013 12:47 pm »
Also, consider it stolen.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #45 on: 05/20/2013 01:11 pm »
Naturally, colonization is a good idea.  But you have to start with step one.

As Bob points out, Earth is headed for a Malthusian solution to population, despite the arguments of the logistical trolls to the contrary.

Mr. Musk might very well transfer his wealth "off shore" so to speak, along with his chosen cadre of carefully vetted individuals and their no doubt sensibly designed equipment.

At great personal expense, the planet's population will have been reduced by about one hundred people.  Two hundred max, by my guess.  With the last few hanging off the rocket like they did that last helicopter out of Saigon, just the other day.

[I'd prefer if he'd offer me a seat.  Just puttin' the idea out there.]

Remember, once he moves his "household", his passport will be framed as a curiosity, over his new mantle.

Thimk.

SMD and the PTB don't want there to be even a base. You've got what, ten minutes?  Ten years?  To change that?

Quit jerkin' off about colonization and focus on a base/hotel.

As to the carbon footprint of 200 launches a day, not a problem.  Even with this launch rate, Malthus still wins.  Dig thru these threads for a bit.  Even in 1969, such a launch rate, with kerolox, would not have impacted the global petrodollar market significantly.  By extrapolation, it would not have affected the carbon in the atmo all that much either.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=16092.msg372800#msg372800

Quote from: JF
William Barton points out that Von Braun suggested 900 launches in about a year.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=15838.msg373443#msg373443

Quote from: JF
I speculate that the rate of launches ends up creating an equatorial band of rocket exhaust in the stratosphere, so I have a notion of the results of this grand effort.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=17264.msg415604#msg415604

Quote from: JF
Darwinists may not like it, but there is nothing in evolution which requires HSF on the basis of survival.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=18503.msg467792#msg467792

Quote from: JF
My copy of The Moon: Resources, Future Development and Settlement, by Shrunk, Sharpe, Cooper, & Thangavelu arrived yesterday, and I blasted thru the first nine chapters.  What warmed the cockles of my heart was some confirmation of, or perhaps more accurately, agreement with, my previous speculations about lunar colonization, maybe in the "What do ya do on a colony?" thread.

I claim nothing more than an honorary degree from Wile E. Coyote's School of Super Geniuses.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline BobCarver

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #46 on: 05/20/2013 08:32 pm »
Naturally, colonization is a good idea.  But you have to start with step one.

As Bob points out, Earth is headed for a Malthusian solution to population, despite the arguments of the logistical trolls to the contrary.


As I mentioned before, you would start with a base, building infrastructure toward the end goal of complete terraformation. But, you have to know the goal in order to build the steps in between, starting with exploration to find that best starting point. Initially, public-private partnerships would deliver us the exploration data we need to make decisions on where to start building bases.

I'm assuming that will be Mars. And, we have the asteroid belt as a potential source of resources. Moving them to Mars and landing them in an unoccupied area should be much easier than moving them all the way to Earth. The thin atmosphere is an advantage on Mars whereas Earth's atmosphere is a big disadvantage.

Alternatively, we could setup factories on Phobos and/or Deimos for processing raw asteroidal resources and then delivering them to the ground.

So, what do we need for step one? Sources of CO₂ and water. From what we know, Mars has an abundance of CO₂, so that should not be a big problem. And, water is likely to have abundant reservoirs under the surface (although not proven, much evidence points toward that conclusion).

Once the infrastructure is constructed for bases and domed cities, we can start pumping CO₂ and water into the atmosphere to start the process of terraformation.

All this requires a lot of energy, which we can obtain from solar power. Even though Mars has less than Earth has available, it's still a lot of energy.

(BTW, I'm working on a project which will provide clean and very cheap energy in abundance here on Earth. I don't foresee any kind of energy problems as long as this project succeeds---it's looking very good so far. It will not only provide cheap energy, that energy will undercut fossil fuel-based energy in price, which will drive fossil fuels out of the market and solve the Global Warming problem in a very economic way---no government intervention such as a carbon tax will be needed. In addition to the energy project, we have developed a storage system for electricity which doesn't use chemical batteries which will likely hit the market this year and will make solar energy the preferred method of obtaining electricity.)

Offline RigelFive

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #47 on: 05/21/2013 07:39 am »
Ok.  So the chicken crosses the road to get some corn (as well as having its motives questioned).  But before the chicken crosses the road, we need to terraform across the road.  But in order to terraform we need to bring the cart over with some corn.  But the horse cannot push the cart (it would eat all the corn, rather than pushing).  So we need to get the horse in front of the cart, to pull it.

How do we get the horse (or to be fair, perhaps a fat mule) to want pull the cart across the road?

1).  Pretty girl horse
2).  Lots of chickens
3).  A jockey with a nasty whip
4).  One of those airport conveyor belt things
5).  Science (microbes, geology, scant interstitial traces of moisture in rocks)
6).  Twin solid rocket boosters.  Its just for an added touch because the performance of the horse and cart alone is so poor to begin with.
« Last Edit: 05/21/2013 07:42 am by RigelFive »

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #48 on: 05/21/2013 01:08 pm »
Ok.  So the chicken crosses the road to get some corn ...  But before the chicken crosses the road, ... etc.

How do we get the horse ... to want pull the cart across the road?

1).  Pretty girl horse
2).  Lots of chickens
3).  A jockey with a nasty whip
4).  One of those airport conveyor belt things
5).  Science (microbes, geology, scant interstitial traces of moisture in rocks)
6).  Twin solid rocket boosters.  Its just for an added touch because the performance of the horse and cart alone is so poor to begin with.

Pretty good analogy there.

0).  The chicken wants to cross the road because this side of the road is pretty crowded; the roosters are running an oppressive regime; the chicken thinks the corn might be yellower on the other side of the road.  Oh.  It would be "cool".

Are there other purposes?  As an intellectual and as a pragmatic exercise, consider the four causes:



Aristotle held that there were four kinds of causes:

A change or movement's material cause is the aspect of the change or movement which is determined by the material which the moving or changing things are made of. For a table, that might be wood; for a statue, that might be bronze or marble.

A change or movement's formal cause is a change or movement caused by the arrangement, shape or appearance of the thing changing or moving. Aristotle says for example that the ratio 2:1, and number in general, is the cause of the octave.

A change or movement's efficient or moving cause refers to things apart from the thing being changed or moved, which interact so as to be an agency of the change or movement. For example, the efficient cause of a table is a carpenter, or a person working as one, and according to Aristotle the efficient cause of a boy is a father.

An event's final cause is the aim or purpose being served by it. That for the sake of which a thing is what it is. For a seed, it might be an adult plant. For a sailboat, it might be sailing. For a ball at the top of a ramp, it might be coming to rest at the bottom.


What's the purpose of all this effort?

Moving on, remember the scene in "2001", where one of your ancestors throws a bone at the Moon?  In some important ways, we're throwing a bone at Mars.  It is well beyond our reach by virtue of the governments which have come to power, and which refuse to countenance even the necessary first steps to the expansion of humanity beyond this planetary surface.

Technically, we're "free enough" to go anywhere we want; after all, launch permits are as easy to come by as driving permits, per one of the pundits around here.  Pragmatically, we're not.  The tribe has been pretty consistently educated over a long term to resist supporting any off-planet exploration by the "masses", and only the elites get to play in this sandbox with tribal approval. 

The famous australopithecine, WvB, suggested a colonisation plan, but his thing about 900 launches requires tribal approval, and that ain't happening soon, and doesn't look to be happening at all.  There is some hope tho.

Today's australopithecine, over there on the left coast, is on the verge of throwing a bone to the Moon, with the help of his several thousand elves, and limited tribal approval.  (Presumably, you're following the analogy here.)  That work is proceeding more quickly and seemingly at a lower cost than the traditional efforts of the tribal government.  So we shall see.

Sorry about switching from chickens to australopithecines.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #49 on: 05/21/2013 01:27 pm »
Naturally, colonization is a good idea.  But you have to start with step one. ...

1) As I mentioned before, you would start with a base, building infrastructure toward the end goal of complete terraformation.

2) But, you have to know the goal in order to build the steps in between, starting with exploration to find that best starting point. Initially, public-private partnerships would deliver us the exploration data we need to make decisions on where to start building bases.

3) I'm assuming that will be Mars. And, we have the asteroid belt as a potential source of resources. Moving them to Mars and landing them in an unoccupied area should be much easier than moving them all the way to Earth. The thin atmosphere is an advantage on Mars whereas Earth's atmosphere is a big disadvantage.

3) Alternatively, we could setup factories on Phobos and/or Deimos for processing raw asteroidal resources and then delivering them to the ground.

1) So, what do we need for step one? Sources of CO2 and water. From what we know, Mars has an abundance of CO2, so that should not be a big problem. And, water is likely to have abundant reservoirs under the surface (although not proven, much evidence points toward that conclusion).

3) Once the infrastructure is constructed for bases and domed cities, we can start pumping CO₂ and water into the atmosphere to start the process of terraformation.

3) All this requires a lot of energy, which we can obtain from solar power. Even though Mars has less than Earth has available, it's still a lot of energy.

4) (BTW, I'm working on a project which will provide clean and very cheap energy in abundance here on Earth. ...

1)  Yeah, start small.  This step is really all that should be focused on at the moment.

2)  The goal is surface colonization, medical issues permitting.  It will have to be determined empirically.

3)  A hundred years from now.  You can talk about the sizzle of the end game all you want.  If you choose to spend your efforts on the end game, you will not work on step one.  None of that stuff needs to be planned out in advance.  It will be determined by the facts on the ground.

4)  PM me on that to the extent that you choose.  I'm a harsh critic.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline RigelFive

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #50 on: 05/22/2013 02:52 am »
Excellent thread!   ;D

When a human recites thought and reason from Aristhrottle, it really does bring the concept that the chicken must have a reason to want to cross the road. Let us consider the ways of the chicken...

If there are chickens who are nihilistic and believe that the chief end of all chickens is nothingness (or perhaps a brief transition state as a #4 KFC boneless meal), then that chicken really has no hope/or even purpose to want to leave the chicken coup.

Imagine a chicken who flies the coup and comes back to the coup and thinks... hmm, there are microbes out there on those rocks.  That is probably how we chickens must have evolved and came to be in this chicken coup.  And the explorer chicken tells all chickens there that they have to sacrifice part of their meal to study the origin of microbes.  The other chickens elect one as their wisest, to determine how much feed needs to be sacrificed.  Ultimately, before the grain is gathered - the chickens lose interest.  Then the elected wisest chicken determines that, "we will not see another chicken outside of this coup during my lifetime."  The reason given is, that failure is not an option.  It will simply cost too much corn. (if it were me, I'd ask for my corn back)

On the first orbit of astronauts around the moon on Apollo 8, the astronauts emerged from behind the moon to see the first Earth rise over the Lunar horizon.   

I was not born yet, but I'd have to bet there was not a single viewer on Earth who was probably thinking, this is a just a random moment without any purpose or meaning for mankind.  Nobody was out saying that surely all of this happend by chance... I'd like to know more about the hypothetical evolution of microbes in a highly irradiated environment on the surface of Mars.  If they did, I'd blame it on the 60s tainting their corn.

If you have a purpose - then there is a purpose.
« Last Edit: 05/22/2013 03:12 am by RigelFive »

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #51 on: 05/22/2013 02:43 pm »
Bertrand Russell, "Impact of Science on Society" (Hardcover)

Cost, of course, is no object.  Think of the science!

Excellent thread!

The power of the parable, fer shure.

Oh. "Coop", BTW.

Quote from: Rigel
On the first orbit of astronauts around the moon on Apollo 8, the astronauts emerged from behind the moon to see the first Earth rise over the Lunar horizon.   

I was not born yet, but I'd have to bet there was not a single viewer on Earth who was probably thinking, this is a just a random moment without any purpose or meaning for mankind.  Nobody was out saying that surely all of this happend by chance... I'd like to know more about the hypothetical evolution of microbes in a highly irradiated environment on the surface of Mars.  If they did, I'd blame it on the 60s tainting their corn.

If you have a purpose - then there is a purpose.

Ipso fatso, Bertrand Russell:

"Although it is still open to the philosopher or theologian to hold that everything has a 'purpose', it has been found that 'purpose' is not a useful concept when we are in search of scientific laws."

I am hoping that we are reaching an important tipping point regarding the scientificist enforcement of confirmation bias amongst its believers and proponents.  A tenured scientificist is only allowed to discover efficient causes; should she attempt to create a final cause, she will lose tenure.  That tenure could be as a government bureacrat or a member of the accredited educational community. 
Again, from the minds of the tenured scholars at FAU:

"Ideas represent the end product of the intellectual process. Before they can be publicly espoused, ideas must be subjected to rigorous and intensive examination."

The rock heist is our current case in point.  Behind closed doors, the idea of the heist has been already subjected to "rigorous and intensive examination".  What this effectively means is that there can indeed be manufactured, as a human artifact, a piece of machinery which will provide the efficient cause to bring back the rock and put it in a safe DRO around Luna.

They cannot fully answer any question about why we should attempt to do this.  Invariably, they fall back on the authority of Mr. Obama, who has directed the investigation into the creation of this efficient cause.  Back to Russell:

"Aristotle maintained that women had fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him
to verify his statement by examining his wives' mouths."

One of the biggest benefits to humanity has been the discovery by scientists of the autonomy of the physical world.  In pre-scientific times, the word of the authorities was taken as the last word.  That is still the case when it comes to the creation of final purposes, which are then used to justify the expense of creating the efficient purposes which get funded by Congress, in the case of the heist.

Why the heist?  Because the authority so ordained.  No other reason permitted.  There is no path to Mars based on this authority alone.

"Earthrise" was not a random moment which evolved from the primordial ooze without a final purpose.  We were promised a lunar base with the express expectation that we would go forward from there.  We are being kept on planet by the government which is in thrall to scientific trollsters who will not admit to any purpose in their endeavors whatsoever.

Like I said, waking up is hard to do.  Science is a tool, not an authority.  Humans can create their purpose ex nihilo, completely outside of the artificial limitations of scientificism.

OTOH, just think of the children and how inspired they will be to watch television of a spinning rock.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline RigelFive

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #52 on: 05/23/2013 08:26 am »
Like the gold of Solomon:

Quote
One of the biggest benefits to humanity has been the discovery by scientists of the autonomy of the physical world. In pre-scientific times, the word of the authorities was taken as the last word. That is still the case when it comes to the creation of final purposes, which are then used to justify the expense of creating the efficient purposes which get funded by Congress, in the case of the heist.

Why the heist? Because the authority so ordained. No other reason permitted. There is no path to Mars based on this authority alone.
So the concept here might be that when an authority synthesises a purpose, that may be defined as a mission.  And when there is a mission without a purpose, there really was no authority.

It seems as if we have imagined missions that were never dictated by authorities (search of scientific laws, going to the planet Mars to find the origin of life).  These are not the charter of NASA. 

Yet when in equivalent manner if there is a mission with an aspect of 'our greater purpose', you get the valves opened fully toward criticism.  The machinery wants missions of banal menutia to somehow inspire children who are expected to just simply understand that the origin of life is a pool of goo.  In a museum in Cleveland, kids voted 75% AGAINST wanting to go to Mars after seeing an simulated Mars Station exhibit with algae in it.  The exhibit even had a legit full scale rover next to it.

The only experiment that has succeeded on the International Space Station 100% of the time is that every astronaut comes back with at least an understanding of a greater purpose (as well as a multimillion dollar travel reimbursement form). 

So many say that the administration isn't showing leadership. But when they formulate any mission, typically it is seen as without any purpose (a mission to nowhere).  Then they pull the plug and just give up any hope and still want the same annual budget.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #53 on: 05/23/2013 01:57 pm »
Like the gold of Solomon:

Don't applaud.  Uhhh, send gold?

Quote from: JF
Why the heist? Because the authority so ordained. No other reason permitted. There is no path to Mars based on this authority alone.

Quote from: Rigel
So the concept here might be that when an authority synthesises a purpose, that may be defined as a mission.  And when there is a mission without a purpose, there really was no authority.

We are witnessing a scientific false flag in real time. 

got proof?

Gerst has already authoritatively announced that even if they don't actually grab a rock, that the mission will still be a success.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline RigelFive

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #54 on: 05/23/2013 03:33 pm »
Yep.  This brings to mind the sage old saying... You can bring a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.  (Adding to our previous chain of analogies).

Now we have a situation where we might not be able to even bring the horse to water.  Hmmm.  (I thought this was why we invented the car.)

Going to have to pull out the Concepts and Principles Thread Psychotherapy sofa for my next proverb.

Offline RanulfC

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #55 on: 05/23/2013 07:31 pm »
Quote from: CNYMike
I think the US government faces a very fundamental problem, and that is mixed feelings by the US public.  We don't want to stop doing it, but we don't want to make it a priority either.
Probably the main thing to keep in mind about this is the majority of people "prioritize" according to how things effect their daily lives. Specifically "Human Space Flight" does NOT significantly impact the dailly lives of the majority of the population of the Planet Earth let alone the United States. It is a "nice-to-have" but "not-essential" subject. It is LESS than that for the majority of the rest of the world.

Quote
Never mind how many households have little dish antennas aimed at satellites or use GPS regualarly.  Making HSF a priority has a giggle factor that it hasn't lost after 50 years.  That's why when you go to whitehouse.gov and click on "issues," "space" is not on the list.
Mike, you made a fundamental, but very, very common mistake here: The "dish" antenna for TV and the GPS have NO relationship in the minds of most people with HUMAN Space Flight. Go back to the part above about impact on "daily lives" and you'll see clearly that this would have a "disconnecting" effect on how people view space flight.

Human Space Flight is NOT an "issue" simply because we have yet to find a way  it is applicable to people outside a very small segment of Humanity. (We all know who we are) On a very visceral level there is not connection between manned space flight and the "services" we have come to depend on that are connected to space. They appear (and are treated) as two seperate entities.

I'm pretty much at a lose myself on how to change that mindset.

Quote from: JohnFornaro
Let me stop you right there, if I may.  That is all that we can or will do, probably for the lifetime of everyone who posts on the forum today, including the newbies.  This exploration can be robotic and manned.
Not sure here John, did you mean this with "sarcasm" on or "/sarcasm" off? :)

(By the way, who or what is "SMD" from your later post?)

Quote
The key thing that is missing is the intention to work towards a permanent human presence off planet..
The major problem is there is no incentive for anyone to be working towards a permanent human presence off planet. Finding a reason would go a long way towards changing the overall mindset of people, but currently we got nothing...

Quote from: BobCarver
Real estate. That's what connects Earth to these other objects. There's no reason to look any further than what's obvious.
Sorry Bob but there are several very basic reasons why this is NOT obvious and not viable as an incentive. First of all in order to HAVE "real-estate" a government has to lay "claim" and "own" the "real-estate" first. Secondly there is nothing "out-there" worth the price of going out there to GET let alone pay for the price of trying to "terraform" it to make it more "attractive" than Earth. In addition, 99% of the people ON Earth do not want to even leave the city or town they were BORN in let alone this planet no matter what the conditions are like. In a huge majority of cases the actual "concept" or Real-Estate is not understood because a vast majority of people do not actually "own" the land they live on in the first place.

Anyone going into space to live (in space itself or on a planetary body) is going to have to BRING everything they need to intially survive with them and then exploit local resources to continue the process. Once the resources are GONE the "land" is going to be worthless.
(The only way around that WILL be some kind of terraforming to make the actual "land" worth something but in most cases even terraforming will not be enough to ensure this because without constant maintenance the "land" will revert and again be worthless)

Earth "reasonings" have and will continue to "fail" to be practical for motivating people to change their minds about the priority of space colonization (giggle factor) as they have done before because they simply do not apply well, if at all to the conditions and circumstances in space. As long as people keep trying to apply Earth based analogies and "reasoning" to an other-worldly situation they will fail to overcome that "giggle" factor.

Find a sensible and understandable "reason" the average person can "get-behind" and find applicable to themselves and their daily life and you have found the key to changing that perception.

Quote
If you think I was talking about Global Warming, you are sadly mistaken. I am talking about the current population of this planet, which is now using 1.5 Earths in terms of resources and heading for 2 Earths' worth of resources within the next few decades. Those are facts which cannot be denied. We have overpopulated Earth with people and it will become increasingly clear in the near future.
Sorry Bob, the "Population Bomb" fizzled and will never explode as predicted. Malthus was wrong because he had no way of knowing about the "Green Revolution" and his various disicples such as the Club of Rome have missed the profound effects of standard-of-living and technology on population growth.

The "facts" are not denied as much as proven over-blown and based on invalid assumptions. Are we using enough resources for 1.5 "Earths"? Why yes we are. What most people fail to realize is we're PRODUCING resources at well above 2.5 Earths by the "definition" being used by, for example, the study you cite. We are much better at extracting, refining, and production than anyone seems to be taking account of. It is why we rarely have "real" shortages of basic resources.

As the standard of living and technology increase around the world the birth rate drops. We have managed to "miss" every predicted population "crisis" because of this simple fact. Along with production and distribution of resources becoming simpler, cheaper, and more wide spread the lack of population growth over the long term makes any argument about Humans needing "space" to provide for the future fall flat.

Colonization of space is a good idea, as is exploiting space resources to make it more affordable and sustainable. We still face the problem of general motivation in the mind of the general public. So far we have yet to find a compelling reason to take the concept seriously.

Randy
From The Amazing Catstronaut on the Black Arrow LV:
British physics, old chap. It's undignified to belch flames and effluvia all over the pad, what. A true gentlemen's orbital conveyance lifts itself into the air unostentatiously, with the minimum of spectacle and a modicum of grace. Not like our American cousins' launch vehicles, eh?

Offline RanulfC

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #56 on: 05/23/2013 08:24 pm »
Naturally, colonization is a good idea.  But you have to start with step one.

Well "Step 1" has always supposed to have been routine, inexpensive access to Low Earth Orbit. That's still a wee bit of an issue :)

Quote
As to the carbon footprint of 200 launches a day, not a problem.  Even with this launch rate, Malthus still wins.  Dig thru these threads for a bit.  Even in 1969, such a launch rate, with kerolox, would not have impacted the global petrodollar market significantly.  By extrapolation, it would not have affected the carbon in the atmo all that much either.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=16092.msg372800#msg372800

Quote from: JF
William Barton points out that Von Braun suggested 900 launches in about a year.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=15838.msg373443#msg373443

Uh, just a minor nit but WVB didn't USE kerolox for his shuttles :) It was three stages burning nitric acid/hydrazine propellants! So the "effect" is going to be a little bit different. (You probably don't want to neglect the several hundered flights proir to the ones for the Mars mission that assembled the two space stations in orbit and the previous Lunar expedition and ships as well as the weekly supply runs to those stations. Probably call it over 1000flights.)

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/vonn1952.htm

Randy
From The Amazing Catstronaut on the Black Arrow LV:
British physics, old chap. It's undignified to belch flames and effluvia all over the pad, what. A true gentlemen's orbital conveyance lifts itself into the air unostentatiously, with the minimum of spectacle and a modicum of grace. Not like our American cousins' launch vehicles, eh?

Offline RigelFive

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #57 on: 05/24/2013 01:46 am »
Quote
we using enough resources for 1.5 "Earths"? Why yes we are. What most people fail to realize is we're PRODUCING resources at well above 2.5 Earths by the "definition" being used by, for example, the study you cite. We are much better at extracting, refining, and production than anyone seems to be taking account of.
No that is not true.  We have stated on this thread that with the chicken coup analogy, the roosters are running an oppressive regime. 

No doubt we are producing (reproducing) at a rate of 2.5 Earths.  The "too many chickens in the coup" argument does not have enough urgency to start a new exploration space race. 

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #58 on: 05/24/2013 01:31 pm »
Uh, just a minor nit but WVB didn't USE kerolox for his shuttles...

True, that is a minor nit for historians.  The major nit would be in the pointless use today of such toxic propellants.   

The point still holds that with kerolox launches, at the rate of 900 or so in a year, would not affect the global carbon footprint all that much.  The common wisdom holds that launch costs would reduce in line with the mass production of so many nearly identical rockets.

It has never been the case that the US simply has not had the money or the industrial capacity or the workforce talent to engage in such an endeavor.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Exploration concepts and principles?
« Reply #59 on: 05/24/2013 02:48 pm »

Quote from: JF
Why the heist? Because the authority so ordained. No other reason permitted. There is no path to Mars based on this authority alone.

So the concept here might be that when an authority synthesises a purpose, that may be defined as a mission.  And when there is a mission without a purpose, there really was no authority.

It seems as if we have imagined missions that were never dictated by authorities (search of scientific laws, going to the planet Mars to find the origin of life).  These are not the charter of NASA. 

Yet when in equivalent manner if there is a mission with an aspect of 'our greater purpose', you get the valves opened fully toward criticism.  The machinery wants missions of banal minutia to somehow inspire children who are expected to just simply understand that the origin of life is a pool of goo.  In a museum in Cleveland, kids voted 75% AGAINST wanting to go to Mars after seeing an simulated Mars Station exhibit with algae in it.  The exhibit even had a legit full scale rover next to it.

The only experiment that has succeeded on the International Space Station 100% of the time is that every astronaut comes back with at least an understanding of a greater purpose (as well as a multimillion dollar travel reimbursement form). 

So many say that the administration isn't showing leadership. But when they formulate any mission, typically it is seen as without any purpose (a mission to nowhere).  Then they pull the plug and just give up any hope and still want the same annual budget.

24 hours of reflection later:

The various presidential adminstrations since JFK have been allowed by the "invisible hand" to promote certain things and certain things only.  This would be the extent of their leadership.  I say "invisible hand", since if the economic markets can be agreed upon to be driven by this motive, so can the political markets.  It is a different "hand" in some respects, even tho some of the people in leadership have multiple roles in the economic future and the political future of america.  The other term is "political constituencies".

The political constituencies over the last forty years have put HSF in the half penny range of funding.  They literally, by their consistent historical actions, do not care if NASA's missions are successful or not.  The constituencies are happy to take credit for the successes when they occur.  When failures occur, they say things like KBH did recently:  "We learned a painful lesson when the space shuttle retired without a follow-on capability to take U.S. astronaut researchers to the space station."

Rocket science is hard, children.  Keep taking your meds; someday some of you will understand.  In the meantime, check out the laser rover vaporizing rocks in this latest hi-def tube.

A complete and willful abandonment of responsibility for meaningful accomplishment, even within the confines of their stated goals to stay in LEO.

The apologists' knees will jerk and they will talk about the ballot box as a means of improving the system, but it is hollow talk.  Most people don't care about HSF, and that issue is not likely to change, largely because the education budget will not change.  The electorate will be kept fat, happy, doped and dumb.  The reality TV of "astronaut selection" and "rock climbing" can be sufficiently enhanced with proper video resolution and an emo sound track, with nuanced voice over, to satisfy most of the electorate into support of the status quo on HSF.

There are some glimmers of hope in the latest hearing with Friedman, Spudis, Squyres, and Cooke.  Having focused on hearings like this since 2009, I do not see rationality taking the upper hand.  The various committee members asking the questions never really follow up on a line of reasoning; the theatrical requirements of the hearings enforce their shallow analysis.  I think the glimmers of hope might fade again, however.

But anyhow, you said, "When there is a mission without a purpose, there really was no authority".  I'd mess with your wording.  there certainly is legal authority for the prez to suggest heisting a rock.  Like it or not, that's his legal perogative, along with keeping Guantanamo open, supporting Solyndra, and doing all that really hard decision making that Mr. Bush made such a big deal about just a few short years ago.  When we still had time to replace or extend shuttle.  But I digress.

My epiphany was that when there is a mission with no final purpose, then we are faced with a scientific false flag.  The true scientific flag's colors should represent a final purpose, going to Mars.  Instead, the flag presents the false colors of the expedient purpose:  Supporting the job requirements of those political constituents who claim to know how to heist a rock.  Its falseness is two fold:  Even if they don't achieve the ostensible immediate purpose of the mission, they have already announced that the mission will be deemed a success.  Secondly, they have not costed it accurately.  Using the only current metric that we have for falsely costed missions, JWST, the mission and all of its constituent parts is more likely to cost $26B to $46B over twenty to thirty years.

A drowning man will reach for any silver lining, as the mangled proverb goes.  That silver lining is that SpaceX, Astrobotics, and others will have twenty to thirty years to establish a privately owned lunar base, complete with hotel, and may actually send something or somebody to orbit Mars.

Maybe.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

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