Author Topic: Expectations for a 100 years time  (Read 19923 times)

Offline edkyle99

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #20 on: 04/19/2006 10:05 pm »
Consider the state of things 100 years ago.

http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/i/Wrights/WrightUSPatent/WrightPatent.html

Since then, flight has advanced in all areas, but especially in propulsion.
Will someone invent the technological-leap equivalent of a turbo-jet engine for
space launchers within the next 100 years?  Will techniques have advanced
enough to allow single-stage reusable launchers that really work, opening
up spaceflight for commercial exploitation?  Will space have offered an energy
and/or pollution solution (i.e. solar power satellites)?  What about all of the
space junk?  Will old satellites (maybe a Surveyor or a Luna or an old Apollo
or LSAM module) be available on EBay?  Wait, why should I expect that EBay
would exist then?  Sears & Roebuck catalog was the big thing in 1906!

 - Ed Kyle

Offline SpaceCat

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #21 on: 04/19/2006 11:15 pm »
I'm afraid age has taught me to be pessimistic-- it's the 'grumpy old man syndrome.'
I had great expectations for the past 50 years, and have seen very few pan out.  50 is only half of 100- really not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things.  
I would hope that in 100 years, we might be only half as mediocre as we now are...... but if the last 50 are any indication, I fear that in 100 we may end up being twice as average as we are now.

Offline realtime

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #22 on: 04/20/2006 02:32 am »
I would hope that in 100 years, we might be only half as mediocre as we now are...... but if the last 50 are any indication, I fear that in 100 we may end up being twice as average as we are now.

That is HILARIOUS!   :)   A Zeno's paradox of paltry prospects ...

I took the liberty of adding it to the random quotes, as it bears a remarkable resemblance to something Mr. Clemens might utter after brandy and a good cigar.  I shall leave it there if you do not object.


Offline Avron

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #23 on: 04/20/2006 03:35 am »
Well for the last 25 years of that 50 years of the past 100 years...

I know it sounds silly but the "greatest and most expensive, manned space vehicle" has been built with STRUCTURAL elements, elements that are subjected to dynamic loads, having been made out of .... Foam.. yes... its true, and guess what, the foam elements fail and have been doing so for the last 25 years, causing damage, some of it serious and even taking the lives of seven very brave people.

Now, three years later,(after risking more lives) with a whole ton of money, time, resources, put against the problem... very big surprise, the foam structural elements, that failed before, still fail... again, a whole lot of scratching of heads...


After all that effort and scratching of heads we still see foam used for aerodynamic ramps.. I know its sounds crazy.... but now the current thinking is to make the amount of foam smaller... hell, even reduce the loads (lower Q profile) on this most current of structural material...  maybe in 6 years, the dynamic loads on foam will be zero.. lets hope its not because of the lack of flights.

I am hoping that in less that 100 years time, that a new material can be found to build man-rated space vehicles.



Offline spacefire

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #24 on: 04/20/2006 12:31 pm »
if sometime in the next hundred years we discover proof of other advanced civilizations, there will be great motivation for expanding our space capabilities...there will be more money...and advances in technology.

Offline wannamoonbase

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #25 on: 04/28/2006 06:39 pm »
Quote
spacefire - 20/4/2006  7:31 AM

if sometime in the next hundred years we discover proof of other advanced civilizations, there will be great motivation for expanding our space capabilities...there will be more money...and advances in technology.

I expect that we will have proof of advanced civilizations in the next 50 years, hopefully a lot sooner.  I hope that it does have the effect of galvanizing societies worldwide into a great meaning and higher understanding.  But it may not.

I expect that in 100 years there will a small permanent settlement on Mars and maybe a few people working on the moon to do science and He3 mining (I know He3 seems it may never happen but we are talking 100 years)  

Mars is going to be far easier to settle and develop once on the surface than the moon.  So it will develop quicker there.  Perhaps transit times of 60-90 days to Mars

What we need for any of this too happen is a better world in General.  All countries need to be tolerant of all religions.  Allow all people (men and women) to have equal rights.  Respect differences and other peoples right to exist.  Then the ingredients for societies to work, rule of law, no tolerance for corruption, good quality education for all.  

If this happens then perhaps a truly international approach can take place.  Integrated space programs from all over the planet.  Imagine how much stuff could be hoisted to Mars if 150 countries could effectively pool resources (Applying lessons learned from the ISS)

Oh, on the fantasy list, I would like to see space elevators work, then the cost to orbit would mostly be the cost of electricity.  then the Moon, Mars and the rest of the solar system could really get explored.
Wildly optimistic prediction, Superheavy recovery on IFT-4 or IFT-5

Offline publiusr

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #26 on: 04/28/2006 10:46 pm »
I'd settle for one HLLV program.

Offline Avron

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #27 on: 04/29/2006 12:11 am »
Quote
publiusr - 28/4/2006  6:46 PM

I'd settle for one HLLV program.


Second you on that...

Offline Star-Drive

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #28 on: 04/29/2006 04:25 am »
Folks:

Your imaginations need supercharging.  The rate of science and technology advancements is leaping ahead on all fronts on an exponentially decreasing time scale and NOT on a linear one.  If you want a sampler of what’s in store for all of us over the next thirty some years, try out the following KurzweilAI.net web page: http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1, and I’ll quote Ray’s first paragraph in this 2001 article below:

“The Law of Accelerating Returns”
by Ray Kurzweil

“An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense "intuitive linear" view.  So we won't experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century -- it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today's rate).  The "returns," such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially.  There's even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth.  Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to, The Singularity -- technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history.  The implications include the merger of biological and non-biological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light.”


But NASA Spaceflight is suppose to be about spaceflight and to show you what appears to be coming down the pike in the next five-to-ten years or so, I’ll show you some work by just one researcher by the name of Dr. James F. Woodward that has been going on now for the last twenty years that could blow the top off our current limited space transportation paradigm based on conventional rockets.  Some of these “gravinertial” ideas, work AND supporting experimental results on the existence and uses of transient mass fluctuations which are generated by energy variations in capacitor dielectrics can be found in the following web pages.  See http://www.woodwardeffect.org/ and http://chaos.fullerton.edu/Woodward.html for details.

So what do transient mass fluctuations in a local mass buy one?  It buys a small fixed amount of on-board propellant that doesn't have to be tossed overboard to generate continuous thrust, i.e., “recycled propellant propulsion" that is based on Einstein's 1915 General Relativity Theory (GRT)’s "gravinertial" based field interactions with the rest of the mass in the universe, via Wheeler/Feynman radiation reaction forces, or if you prefer, interactions with the primordial and universal gravinertial field that gives rise to inertia per Mach’s Principle.

In a nutshell, if you have a ball that can change its mass on demand via the already noted transient gravinertial field interactions, and you have two people throwing that ball back and forth to each other while anchored to the floor plates of a spaceship along its longitudinal axis, there would be NO net force on the ship during this game if the ball's mass remained constant during this conventional catch-ball exercise.  BUT, if we allow the ball's mass to change as it is being thrown between players, so it's less massive when thrown by person-A and then more massive when caught by person-B, there will be a net reaction force produced on the spaceship that's proportional to the ball's mass differential during each throwing cycle.  To produce a net time averaged thrust, all you have to do is to repeat this mass fluctuation process every time the ball is thrown between players.  If you want to reverse the direction of this thrust vector, just change the sign of the mass fluctuation as it is being thrown from person-A to person-B.  If you want to increase magnitude of the thrust, just increase how hard the ball is thrown and/or increase the number of times the ball is thrown each second.

Estimated NASA Technology Readiness Level (TRL) for this budding gravinertial propulsion technology is approximately 1-2.  Peer reviewed papers by Dr. Woodward and yours truly on the supporting GRT based theory and experimental verifications have been accepted, published and presented in publications like "Foundations of Physics" and the "American Institute of Physics" (AIP) and the STAIF Conferences which it is associated with.  The latest related "Flux Capacitor" and verification presentations were given at STAIF-2006 last February in Albuquerque, NM.

Oh yes one other thing.  With the ability to create large amplitude mass fluctuations in hand, creating traversable wormholes that will allow near instantaneous transport of our spaceship, and us, to distant parts of the universe becomes a real engineering possibility.  Star Gates anyone?  Or would you prefer warp-bubbles?  Heck, you can even have your hover cars!   All of these innovations and more becomes a definite possibility with the reality of on-demand mass fluctuations in hand.  And these mass fluctuation ideas with their supporting DATA provides another example of Ray Kurzweil’s coming information and technology revolution.  Are you ready to surf this ever growing wave of innovation?  Surf's UP!!
Star-Drive

Offline publiusr

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #29 on: 04/29/2006 08:33 pm »
Quote
Star-Drive - 28/4/2006  11:25 PM

Folks:

Your imaginations need supercharging.  !

No--you just need to be more realistic. Rockets are here to stay.

Offline realtime

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #30 on: 04/30/2006 04:58 am »
As long as we don't convert the inner planets into computronium I'm all for the Singularity.   ;)

Ahh, the bandwidth is good here...


Offline Star-Drive

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #31 on: 04/30/2006 05:39 am »
If rockets are all that you can contemplate even if given 100 years of synertigistic world wide R&D efforts, I now know why the USA isn't going to be building a starship in a thousand years, let alone building one by the middle of the twenty third century!  A sad oultook really...
Star-Drive

Offline hop

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #32 on: 04/30/2006 05:55 am »
It will be exactly as predicted here http://www.davidszondy.com/future/futurepast.htm ;)

Offline modavis

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #33 on: 05/01/2006 12:55 pm »
Quote
hop - 30/4/2006  1:55 AMIt will be exactly as predicted here http://www.davidszondy.com/future/futurepast.htm ;)

That's been a favorite of mine since he opened it -- the love shows through the sardonic detachment, and vice versa.

Offline mong'

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #34 on: 05/01/2006 01:08 pm »
yes Thanks for the link man, that's awesome !

albeit a little depressing when you see the reality...  :(

Offline David AF

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #35 on: 05/01/2006 07:35 pm »
Miltary will change. We'll see the Air Force becoming fly by wire from remote stations. I think we'll soon hear about the last fighter pilot to be lost over the battleground soon.
F-22 Raptor instructor

Offline spacefire

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #36 on: 05/04/2006 05:31 pm »
what bugs me is that we can use nuclear energy safely without contamination and yet we're not putting it to use to launch rockets and drive spaceships because of what 'might' happen if a launch fails.
like it could be worse than all the discarded stages of Russian rockets filled with toxic waste that keep falling over Kazakstan.
With nuclear rocket engines we could lift a super-redundant reusable SSTO and do away with expendable launchers forever.

Offline publiusr

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #37 on: 05/04/2006 05:33 pm »
One concept I find interesting is the NSWR (Nuclear Salt Water Rocket)

This would be quite dirty, but would be a smoother ride than Orion with 1g thrust for hours:

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3c.html
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3q.html
http://www.npl.washington.edu/av/altvw56.html

An NSWR would need a very sturdy nozzle, and you would get high thrust and high Specific Impulse both!

It could be a massive, simply made craft, and I think would be a perfect payload for Sea Dragon. Sea Dragon requires a lot of water to be broken down for its conventional propellant, and the NSWR also needs water (perhaps urea--which was opaque enough for Orion usage). So the large rocket would just need to be towed out to sea with kerosene for the Sea Dragon first stage, and the salt in the payload.

Instant starship--just add water.

Offline Jim

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #38 on: 05/04/2006 05:51 pm »
Quote
spacefire - 4/5/2006  1:31 PMwhat bugs me is that we can use nuclear energy safely without contamination and yet we're not putting it to use to launch rockets and drive spaceships because of what 'might' happen if a launch fails.like it could be worse than all the discarded stages of Russian rockets filled with toxic waste that keep falling over Kazakstan.With nuclear rocket engines we could lift a super-redundant reusable SSTO and do away with expendable launchers forever.

1.  The russian cans change their propellants or clean up the areas.  But they choose not to.
2.  Nuclear engines are for upperstages.  they have low thrust.  Can't be use on lower stages
3.   Exhaust is radioactive
4.  The success rate for LV's, any type, is no better than  96%

"Super redundancy" would eliminate all problems because:
1. It will make the vehicle too heavy
2.  SSTO is very sensitive to weight.  Extra weight reduces payload one to one.
3.  Launch to orbit is all about controlling a lot of energy.  There are risks associated with this.


Offline spacefire

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RE: Expectations for a 100 years time
« Reply #39 on: 05/05/2006 01:26 pm »
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA
http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/propul/SSME.html

All I have to compare is the full Nerva upper stage to the SSME itself. I think the nuclear engines, when factoring fuel -and oxydizer weight for a chemical too, would have a higher thrust/weight ratio.
Indeed the thrust is lower but the ISP is much higher, of course this upper stage is optimized for vacuum. With a nozzle compromising for lower altitudes, or an aerospike nozzle, it could beat the SSME in terms of overall performance easily.

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