Quote from: kkattulaThe reasons people want to do anything eventually boils down to an emotion-based value they put on it.Quote from: gospacexWhy do you think people can't act on purely logical ground?Kkattula is correct without question.
The reasons people want to do anything eventually boils down to an emotion-based value they put on it.
Why do you think people can't act on purely logical ground?
Gospacex's question, if not rhetorical, is shallow, since the answer is simply that people are not machines. People have craniums, and Crays, for example, do not.
Quote from: Lee Jay on 01/01/2011 10:27 pmHere is my main thought on that topic: Earth is better suited to supporting us than any other other planetary body in our solar system, even after almost any realistic extinction level event occurs. I'd rather spend money and resources on technological development (including HSF), scientific understanding (including HSF), and emergency preparedness (including finding and diverting NEOs) than on establishing a "just in case" colony using today's technology, which would require a planetary-level effort to install and sustain.I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting establishing a 40,000+ person colony using today's technology.
Here is my main thought on that topic: Earth is better suited to supporting us than any other other planetary body in our solar system, even after almost any realistic extinction level event occurs. I'd rather spend money and resources on technological development (including HSF), scientific understanding (including HSF), and emergency preparedness (including finding and diverting NEOs) than on establishing a "just in case" colony using today's technology, which would require a planetary-level effort to install and sustain.
Why not? We do have necessary technology. What we currently miss is a working organizational paradigm. Govt-led HSF ended up stagnating. Business-based HSF is still searching for working business model(s).
They need industries waiting to employ them
2-3% of GLOW isn't the problem. Heck, even a 747-400 only achieves 11.25% and it doesn't have nearly as difficult a job to do as an orbital rocket.The key is low cost operations.Every airliner does this by being very low maintenance between flights, quick turn-around and 100% re-usable (almost). The primary cost of operations is actually fuel costs.But those are all much harder nuts to crack in the launch industry. Shuttle was supposed to do it, but missed its targets by a wide margin. Elon wants to recover his first stages to get part-way there. Skylon is relying upon funding from UK.gov, which is in as deep a mess as the US Fed.The only thing that looks "close" right now is White Knight and SpaceShip from Scaled -- but they aren't actually near to going orbital yet.Ross.
2-3% of GLOW isn't the problem. Heck, even a 747-400 only achieves 11.25% and it doesn't have nearly as difficult a job to do as an orbital rocket.The key is low cost operations.Every airliner does this by being very low maintenance between flights, quick turn-around and 100% re-usable (almost). The primary cost of operations is actually fuel costs.
The amazingly clean nature of Atlantis’s STS-132 launch campaign led Russian Space Agency official Alexey Krasnov to state in the STS-132 Post-Launch News Conference that this entire launch flow was Atlantis’s way of screaming “use me again!”
Why it has to be emotional?
the answer is simply ...
I agree with John here ... that [a comprehensive plan towards creating a new economy and a new community] should be the long-term objective, and all intermediate steps along the path should "generally" be headed in the same direction.
Crays cannot invent quantum mechanics, but it doesn't make quantum mechanics emotional by one iota.
Emotions are a great tool to make one feel good and right. They aren't the best tool to make optimal decisions.
Quote from: kraisee on 01/02/2011 03:16 pmThey need industries waiting to employ them...There's plenty to do on Mars...
They need industries waiting to employ them...
It's fine with me if people think space is our destiny, and they're free to invest their money and time to work towards that goal, just don't ask the rest of us to keep throwing $9B a year down the rathole of NASA-led HSF that will never get anyone anywhere.
Quote from: gospacex on 01/02/2011 03:39 pmWhy not? We do have necessary technology. What we currently miss is a working organizational paradigm. Govt-led HSF ended up stagnating. Business-based HSF is still searching for working business model(s).HSF will always end up stagnating and business-based HSF will continue to search fruitlessly for working business models as long as only 2-3% of GLOW ends up in LEO and far less than that ends up on the surface of another planetary body.
2-3% of GLOW isn't the problem. Heck, even a 747-400 only achieves 11.25% and it doesn't have nearly as difficult a job to do as an orbital rocket.The key is low cost operations.Every airliner does this by being very low maintenance between flights, quick turn-around and 100% re-usable (almost). The primary cost of operations is actually fuel costs.But those are all much harder nuts to crack in the launch industry. Shuttle was supposed to do it, but missed its targets by a wide margin. Elon wants to recover his first stages to get part-way there.
Big steps = similarly big risk of making a step in wrong direction.
Quote from: kraisee on 01/02/2011 04:08 pm2-3% of GLOW isn't the problem. Heck, even a 747-400 only achieves 11.25% and it doesn't have nearly as difficult a job to do as an orbital rocket.The key is low cost operations.Every airliner does this by being very low maintenance between flights, quick turn-around and 100% re-usable (almost). The primary cost of operations is actually fuel costs.28.4% - 248,300/875,000 - http://www.boeing.com/commercial/747family/pf/pf_400f_prod.htmlAnd, yes, that's with a nearly fully reusable vehicle. Even if 11.25% were correct, the LV business would kill for that plus full reusability with little or no maintenance between flights, especially with multiple flights per vehicle per day. The point is that we aren't there and we aren't going to get there with chemical rockets. Bussard knew this.
If I were emperor of America, and given that the goal of HSF is in fact a permanence presence beyond earth orbit, I would split it into two missions
Quote from: scienceguy on 12/30/2010 09:48 pmWhy go into space? There are almost 7 billion people on this planet. As societies advance, they need more resources. Most countries are advancing, so they will need more resources. There are more resources in space.You'll never move a meaningful fraction off planet. This is a canard.
Why go into space? There are almost 7 billion people on this planet. As societies advance, they need more resources. Most countries are advancing, so they will need more resources. There are more resources in space.
This technology also happens to be the fastest way to protect ourselves against the sort of threats that could possibly make us extinct, even before actually making it to other worlds: disease (natural or engineered), nuclear winter (or caused by asteroid strike), runaway greenhouse effects, wars over dwindling resources. The latter one is actually the most dangerous, because it is (a) likely and (b) limited only by our own ingenuity.
Name one resource valuable enough to travel off planet to recover it. I've asked this question many times and no one ever gives me a good answer.
I have my eye skyward, but I don't see grand adventure or alien encounters. I see wealth beyond any persons wildest dreams.
While from our exact position, no space resources may be fully economic, there are intermediate markets that could move us to a position where things like PGMs from the Moon or NEOs could be economically exploitable. There was a time where most of the resources of America were subeconomic too. Economic reality is not a stasis, but is dynamic. The key is finding what can be made economic right now that enables more resources to be brought into our economic sphere.
Recycling our drinking waterRecycling our airGrowing food from our own waste.ISRU techniques.Workshops that can manufacture all their own parts, and all the parts in the technologies above.
I agree that "Space is our Destiny" but I don't actually believe in destiny. It is a shorthand way of saying that we should act exactly as if it were so. The word "teleology" captures this approach but unfortunately the word has been appropriated by the intelligent design nutjobs. Teleology, in philosophy, is the idea that in a world where everything that happens is a matter of cause and effect, that there are future causes to present events. In our normal experience of the world as a linear progression of time, it's a rather crazy idea. How can a future event make something happen today?
I'm not sure how possible it will be to have a true, permanent colony in a place which requires living inside a pressure vessel at all times with really no exceptions (at least, not yet). I am optimistic, however.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 12/31/2010 06:46 pmI'm not sure how possible it will be to have a true, permanent colony in a place which requires living inside a pressure vessel at all times with really no exceptions (at least, not yet). I am optimistic, however.Did you ever visit large shopping center? One of those which are so big that pedestrians basically walk past boutiques and smaller shops while they are inside one really big building? Now imagine it enlarged even more.That's how people will eventually live on Mars: their "outside" will be insides of a sprawling underground city.And regarding "is it possible?". If you mean psychologically possible, I would like to remind you that some people here on Earth were living in far worse conditions: they spent *decades* in solitary confinement (Nelson Mandela) and survived.