.:`=-~rANdOm~`-=:. Game Servers (Read Only) > Discussion
Space Flight
Captain Communism:
--- Quote from: Tomcat on July 09, 2011, 06:38:11 PM ---it would probably be easy to see and bring down
--- End quote ---
I'm just bringing into light the possibilty of orbital bombing.
That particular craft got cancelled ages ago, but the concept of said craft has been in consideration of several militaries for a while now.
Xrain:
Alrighty, you guys have some interesting ideas, and I'm glad to see people are still interested in space exploration, as if you weren't I'd worry about my job outlook...
--- Quote from: cogsadndspigots ---Well, for all of you who want to progress in space exploration (that includes me), too bad. Obama and Congress cut off almost all funding to NASA and a huge portion of NASA's employees will be laid off.
I guess there are still the cosmonauts, maybe...
--- End quote ---
I've been heavily involved with the Rocket launching business, and I've also had a chance to talk with some NASA administrators as well. Your right, quite a few employees will be laid off now that the shuttle program ended, the exact same thing happened at the end of the Apollo program. However this is a bit different because they new they were going to do the shuttles before they ended Apollo.
However, Obama hasn't slashed NASA's funding he cancelled the constellation program, and demanded they start on a new program.
Speaking of NASA budget, most people are under the impression that NASA takes a HUGE portion of the federal budget.
It's quite the opposite, in NASA's entire 53 year history, they have spent $471.23 billion dollars. Sounds like alot, but lets put this in perspective.
The bank bailout in 2008 so far have spent $297 billion dollars.
The War in Iraq has cost $786 billion dollars
The War in Afghanistan has cost $432 Billion dollars
The economic Recovery act of 2009 has spent $787 billion dollars
NASA's budget averages around $9 billion a year.
The Federal Budget last year was $3.8 Trillion dollars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget
Imagine what would happen if instead of spending that $1.0 Trillion on the economic recovery act, and the bank bailout. We spent it all on NASA. I bet you we would be on scedual for going to Jupiter!
--- Quote from: Seb ---Actually, they're giving private companies the green-light to go do space exploration themselves because private companies are much for efficient than government institutions.
Don't worry, people, there is no end to space exploration. There's just an end to government-funded space exploration. Good riddance, too, NASA's been basically scratching their balls and sending the occasional rover or space telescope for the past 42 years.
--- End quote ---
NASA is Contracting Orbital Sciences, and SpaceX to provide resupply missions for the ISS. SpaceX is testing their Dragon capsule as a way of ferrying people to the ISS. Neither is working towards space exploration, just filling niches that form in the Launch Service community.
Your quite right though, Private companies are seriously more efficient than a Government agency.
But there is a down side to privatization. The fact they have to pull a return.
This reduces the scope of what they are willing to attempt, as if it doesn't project a significant economic return, they flat out aren't willing to attempt it.
I've heard several people say things like "If all space exploration was privatized we would be on Jupiter by now!"
This simply isn't the case. There just isn't a large enough foreseeable economic benefit to space exploration.
Think of Columbus, no merchant in his right mind would even *touch* his idea. He had to go to the Queen of Spain (Spain's Government) to get funding as no private company would back him.
However as soon as he did find America and displayed the large economic benefit from it. Commercial companies were all over it.
Government space agencies have a purpose in this world. They do things that aren't profitable, like firefighting, or policing. Same thing with space exploration, there certainly is an economic benefit to space exploration, however someone has to find it first for people to be interested in doing it.
So NASA does things like, trail-blaze the way to other planets, do pure science investigations, develop new technologies. Basically lay the framework for other entities to follow in its foot steps.
Look at low earth orbit for example. It started out with just NASA and the Soviets launching satellites, they did all the base research, all the base technology development. Then private companies took their lessons learned, and turned it into a multi-billion dollar industry.
K my fingers hurt, I'll put more ideas in later.
Ἆxule:
I'm just going to point out the obvious since I have nothing else really to say thats comparable to everything thats been said.
IMO, we should be worring about Earth itself a little more than Space exlporation. We can't be entirely sure we'll find another habitable planet any time soon, and if we just slack off and put all the money into space exploration, we'll be screwed on day.
Anyways, I'm not a genius when it comes to this, just felt I had to put this in here.
I'm up for some critisizm.
Xrain:
--- Quote from: Axule on July 10, 2011, 02:59:27 AM ---I'm just going to point out the obvious since I have nothing else really to say thats comparable to everything thats been said.
IMO, we should be worring about Earth itself a little more than Space exlporation. We can't be entirely sure we'll find another habitable planet any time soon, and if we just slack off and put all the money into space exploration, we'll be screwed on day.
Anyways, I'm not a genius when it comes to this, just felt I had to put this in here.
I'm up for some critisizm.
--- End quote ---
You would be right, if we actually did put all our money into space exploration.
Stuff like this needs a balanced approach, we could have the most awesome spaceships ever, but it wouldn't mean much if they didn't have a healthy humanity to back them.
But, the amount of money and research going into earth studies, cant even be compared to how little is going into space exploration.
Think about this, if we didn't have an extreme case of global warming to compare yourself to (Venus) It's entirely possible our detection of it could have been delayed several decades past the point where we have a chance to do anything about it.
Space exploration also tends to spin off technologies that benefit a lot of people, without the Apollo and the shuttle program, we flat out wouldn't have any sort of computer processor even close to the capabilities that we have today.
The moon also has the potential to solve the world energy problems, for the next 1 million years. On top of that, it would be one of the most clean and efficient energy sources even known.
It would do this with fusion power. The main problem with fusion power today, is the two sources main sources of fusible materials (deuterium and tritium) are inefficient in their energy production.
The problem is the generation of high energy neutrons, these are extremely damaging to the reactor, create the most amount of residual radioactivity, as well as you cant really harness the energy they produce very efficiently.
The Deuterium + Deuterium reaction produces no neutrons, but it doesn't make much energy either, so it's tough to get a net-gain out of it.
The Deuterium + Tritium reaction creates lots of energy, but most of that energy is in the form of high energy neutrons.
The Tritium + Tritium reaction produces double the amount of high energy neutrons, tritium is also significantly more scares than deuterium.
The butter zone is Helium-3. It's an isotope of regular helium, and it produces significant amounts of energy, and no neutrons. The issue arises in the fact the only source of it we have is decaying neuclear weapons. So we have only produced around 155kg since 1955.
This is where the moon comes in.
The sun produces a significant helium-3 component in the solar wind. The earth doesn't benefit as the atmosphere deflects the particles. The moon on the other hand doesn't have an atmosphere. so its free to collect in the top 6 feet of the lunar soil.
So eventually we go through the top layer of the lunar soil. Collect the helium-3, and ship it back. This should give us plenty of time to devise the means of harvesting it from the gas giants instead, giving a much larger and more efficient source of helium-3.
So I could possibly extrapolate that space exploration could potentially go a long way towards solving the worlds climate problems...
Deacon:
xrain, i absolutely love reading your posts.
thats all.
also on topic, the scientist in me says we need to go to mars, just to say we have been there.
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