NationStates Jolt Archive

Working off the assumption that humanity is not drastically forced to its knees within the next twenty years, we can begin to realistically speculate on what course of action should be taken with regard to space.

How should we approach the vast and dangerous vacum?
Should we set up permanent bases on the moon?
What about tourism and the potential for massive space hotels?
Should humans explore, colonise and even terraform Mars?
What about the Gas Giants?
Europa?
Titan?
How will space be divided up between nations?
What role will the huge multinational corporations play?
How will any of this help the more disenfranchised of our species?
Will it not?
What will our advanced destiny be?
Will we spread life throughout the galaxy?
How will we do it?

What are your thoughts on the matter?

Please don't feel the need to directly answer those questions as if they were a list. These are merely my own questions, feel free to post your own queries, ideas or speculations.

If God had wanted us to go into space, he would have given us more gas :cool:

Ahhhh I just answered your other thread!

permanent bases on the moon? yes

What about tourism and the potential for massive space hotels? Prisions would be better

Should humans explore, colonise and even terraform Mars? Sure why not?


What about the Gas Giants? Make mudgets out of em!

How will space be divided up between nations? Ah now this could turn into a 'land' grab and is potentially very dangerous. Space should not be 'controlled' by any one country instead their should be some kind of Star Trek Federation which moniters space. Of course we don't know who else is up there so it all depends on how willing they are to share.

What role will the huge multinational corporations play?
Probably too much as governments won't have that much money..which is why all countries should share.

How will any of this help the more disenfranchised of our species?
It won't it'll just make em bitch more.

What will our advanced destiny be?
To bodly go where no man has gone before!


Will we spread life throughout the galaxy?
Narrow minded fool!


How will we do it?

Too much tequeilla and a split condom

If God had wanted us to go into space, he would have given us more gas :cool:

Speak for yourself!
Did God give the first ppl on earth a car and a lightbulb? Or health insurance...or George Bush?

If God had wanted us to go into space, he would have given us more gas The very least He could have done would be to leave us with a warp drive that actually worked instead of one which breaks down even in theory! :p

Considering the fact that we (humans) haven't been able to make peace among ourselves here on earth...I don't think we need to start fighting over who gets to colonize the moon first. The last thing we need is WW3.

The one useful thing the UN could do is to assume control of all extra-orbital activities. That would hopefully cut down on the possibility of any one nation achieving space dominance and therefore control of mankinds post-earth destiny.

Think about it... do you really want to see a mcdonalds on every planet between here and Sigma Draconis?

Considering the fact that we (humans) haven't been able to make peace among ourselves here on earth...I don't think we need to start fighting over who gets to colonize the moon first. The last thing we need is WW3.

Ah lets face it, the question over territorial rights to the moon won't cause WWIII. We'll all have to move there cos the earth won't be habitable.
One day the earth will be reasonably peaceful, I think a bit more democracy (not Bush style) needs to be spread, and questions regarding religion need to be settled...did I say that this won't happen for several generations?

The one useful thing the UN could do is to assume control of all extra-orbital activities. That would hopefully cut down on the possibility of any one nation achieving space dominance and therefore control of mankinds post-earth destiny.

Think about it... do you really want to see a mcdonalds on every planet between here and Sigma Draconis?


True, how about Starbuck's? :D

The one useful thing the UN could do is to assume control of all extra-orbital activities. That would hopefully cut down on the possibility of any one nation achieving space dominance and therefore control of mankinds post-earth destiny.

Think about it... do you really want to see a mcdonalds on every planet between here and Sigma Draconis?

They have resolutions regarding control over outer space. Its been signed by most of the major spacefaring countries.

True, how about Starbuck's? :D

Hmmmmm coffee!!!

Well maybe every second planet?

It'll be weird when there are UN mandated drafts to populate the off world collonies like in the Phillip K Dick story "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich". I'm kind of looking foreward to Dick's Sci-Fi comming true.

Ahhhh I just answered your other thread!

permanent bases on the moon? yes

What about tourism and the potential for massive space hotels? Prisions would be better

Should humans explore, colonise and even terraform Mars? Sure why not?


What about the Gas Giants? Make mudgets out of em!

How will space be divided up between nations? Ah now this could turn into a 'land' grab and is potentially very dangerous. Space should not be 'controlled' by any one country instead their should be some kind of Star Trek Federation which moniters space. Of course we don't know who else is up there so it all depends on how willing they are to share.

What role will the huge multinational corporations play?
Probably too much as governments won't have that much money..which is why all countries should share.

How will any of this help the more disenfranchised of our species?
It won't it'll just make em bitch more.

What will our advanced destiny be?
To bodly go where no man has gone before!


Will we spread life throughout the galaxy?
Narrow minded fool!


How will we do it?

Too much tequeilla and a split condom

We need to find an economical way to get large icebergs and the large frozen methane reserves from the ocean into space. Then we can send them to Mars and get a little greenhouse action going there and prevent the flooding from global warming here :D

It's win-win.

Working off the assumption that humanity is not drastically forced to its knees within the next twenty years, we can begin to realistically speculate on what course of action should be taken with regard to space.

How should we approach the vast and dangerous vacum?
Should we set up permanent bases on the moon?
What about tourism and the potential for massive space hotels?
Should humans explore, colonise and even terraform Mars?
What about the Gas Giants?
Europa?
Titan?
How will space be divided up between nations?
What role will the huge multinational corporations play?
How will any of this help the more disenfranchised of our species?
Will it not?
What will our advanced destiny be?
Will we spread life throughout the galaxy?
How will we do it?

What are your thoughts on the matter?

Please don't feel the need to directly answer those questions as if they were a list. These are merely my own questions, feel free to post your own queries, ideas or speculations.

1) not
2) no, unless if it can be justified for scientific experimenting.
3) certainly not
4) no
5) from this on, no to everything that says we'll live in space someday.

It's just not going to happen ...
-Enormous energy costs per kg you send into space.

This is an economic, ecologic and moral contra. (moral as people are still living in terrible conditions here on earth and some would just waste a lot of energy these people then can't use).

-Traveltime.

Even a trip to mars will take a lot of time (years at the moment). Going beyond the borders of our solar system is simply going to take lifetimes. Furthermore, the speed is limited by the speed of light, giving an absolute minimum traveltime that is high for planets beyond our solar system. The acceleration is also limited as you want to survive it. This makes travel in our solar system timeconsuming. Again, this is an economic disadvantage, if we forget that you are basicly wasting years trapped inside a spaceship.

-No economic rewards.

Sailing around the world used to cost a lot (allthough less than travelling space) and a trip to the other side of the world could last a few months, but at least it was profitable. Europeans took gold and silver from latin america, expensive spices from the east, slaves from africa (along with the diamonds; but i'm not sure that is the same age) ... All things that were in demand in europe and you couldn't find in europe.
Other planets contain nothing of value that we can't get on earth ...

How should we approach the vast and dangerous vacum?
In giant space biodomes. You get the oxygen from plant photosynthesis. Of course, you'd need lights powered by the hugely environmentally unfriendly fission reactor, but we'd be good for power for some time.
Should we set up permanent bases on the moon?
Yes, but not ones people permanently live in. The effects of low grav environments on the human body have barely been tested, and even on medium length space flights or spacestation visits, osteoperosis and muscle disorders have been a problem. Just think what a prolonged stay on the Moon might do.
What about tourism and the potential for massive space hotels?
Yeah, cool. But it'd be disastrous if one had a tiny leak in it, or something. And don't say it could never happen...*cough*SpaceTitanic*cough*
Should humans explore, colonise and even terraform Mars?
Yeah, sure, why not? It isn't as if we'd be destroying a possible ecosystem.
What about the Gas Giants?
OK, I'll just go plummet through the gaseous exterior to the...gaseous interior. And get crushed along the way.
Europa?
Yeah, but it'd be very dark - more reactors there
Titan?
Ditto.
How will space be divided up between nations?
Create an international community - like a Space EU - with no 'border' controls or anything. How would you police 3D space anyway?
What role will the huge multinational corporations play?
They would be the lovely fellers stripping entire planetoids of resources. Of course, with no life there it wouldn't matter...
How will any of this help the more disenfranchised of our species?
Medical benefits of space flight? I don't really know.
Will it not?
As above.
What will our advanced destiny be?
Probably terraform everything we find until one day a horde of mindless killer robots destroy mankind
Will we spread life throughout the galaxy?
It would take one hell of a long time, and the costs would be astronomical (excuse the pun) but I suppose eventually, yeah.
How will we do it?
With great difficulty. And maybe wormholes...

How should we approach the vast and dangerous vacum? -- In a space ship :D.

Should we set up permanent bases on the moon? -- Setting up permanent bases on the moon would be sensible, as it could then be used as a staging point for missions further away from the Earth. The low gravity of the moon would save a lot of fuel in lift off, allowing further travel. Think of it as an interplanetary airport terminal.

What about tourism and the potential for massive space hotels? -- There are already companies working on commercial space flight. I imagine hotels would be soon to follow...

Should humans explore, colonise and even terraform Mars? -- Terraforming Mars might not be very easy. It seems to lack the gravity to hold a particularly thick atmosphere, which is probably what happened to it in the first place to kill it off. The atmosphere is very thin. Thus, you might not be able to get it to hold on to enough oxygen to breathe and enough carbon dioxide to establish a greenhouse effect -- and as the surface of Mars is very, very cold, that would be a problem. Because you have to bear in mind how much further away from the sun Mars is, so you would need a much thicker atmosphere than Earth's to hold in enough heat for it to be habitable. But self-contained colonies would certainly be possible, and there're plenty of raw materials on Mars to warrant such a venture, as well as tourism possibilities.

What about the Gas Giants? -- What about them?

Europa? -- Colonising Europa? Well, it probably has water if nothing else, but its atmosphere is very very thin. Plus there are some radiation and gravitational hazards from the nearby Jupiter which might put a stop to that.

Titan? -- We know little about Titan, but what we do know suggests that it is not a particularly habitable or valuable place. I'm sure scientists will have a field day on both Titan and Europa, though.

How will space be divided up between nations? -- I think it would be pretty much how it is now. Nations claim territory on a world, they get to claim the space directly above their land claims, and the rest of space is no-man's land. It would be very hard to establish territorial borders actually in space, as all the planets are constantly moving at different paces.

What role will the huge multinational corporations play? -- Mining, tourism, and ship construction, most likely. Research may also be a key industry.

How will any of this help the more disenfranchised of our species? -- Erm, it probably won't. It'll be like airplanes. They start off far too expensive, and then gradually the prices will lower until space flight becomes common.

Will we spread life throughout the galaxy? -- I very much doubt we will ever get much further away from our homeland than 100-200 lightyears.

Please don't feel the need to directly answer those questions as if they were a list. These are merely my own questions, feel free to post your own queries, ideas or speculations. -- I know, I just wanted to :D.

Growing up in the time that I did my fairy tales were those of the Science Fiction flavor. It gives me great hope every time I see a shuttle go up or a picture from hubble to come back. I think somehow the 2000's arrived & we all realized we have not come close to the dream we hoped space exploration would be.
we humans have so much to learn still & by sticking close to home & not expolring the things outside of the big rock we live on we are doing ourselves a great disservice.

How will space be divided up between nations?

I think that humanity won't reach space as long as it keeps itself divided between nations.

Settling the moon will be nice, but the real first step to a wide exploration and settlement of space will have to be the construction of a space elevator.
http://www.spaceelevator.com/

Settling the moon will be nice, but the real first step to a wide exploration and settlement of space will have to be the construction of a space elevator.
http://www.spaceelevator.com/

I've seen that idea before, I am unbelievably sceptical that such a project is feasible from a practical or financial point of view.

I've seen that idea before, I am unbelievably sceptical that such a project is feasible from a practical or financial point of view.
Most of the obstacles that remain are technical. Financially, the whole thing would pay itself of in a few short years by making access to orbit so easy.

Most of the obstacles that remain are technical. Financially, the whole thing would pay itself of in a few short years by making access to orbit so easy.

It's not just construction costs you'd have to worry about. Maintenance costs for something that huge and potentially dangerous would be phenomenal. And terrorists and other assorted enemies would have a field day with the thing...

we won't go into space... no colonies, no large spaceStations... nothing...

why...

because, it's not cost effective. On the Government's standpoint, its a giant waste of resources. on the private sector's standpoint. the Tax Dollars can be better used in Education, Social Security, Reducing the Deficit...ect.

so in 20 yrs... I don't expect any changes... 200 years I really don't expect changes that drastic.

Most of the obstacles that remain are technical.
You mean the problem that most materials would be crushed under the weight of a 25km tall lift? Not to mention the fact that it would be affected by the weather, being prone to wind especially. Also, how do you raise the lift? Cables are off the table, and most mechanical ways of lift would be far too slow. So do you rocket power it? And if so, why is it any better than a rocket?

Considering the fact that we (humans) haven't been able to make peace among ourselves here on earth...I don't think we need to start fighting over who gets to colonize the moon first. The last thing we need is WW3.Not "World War 3", maybe "Worlds War 3" (or, rather, 1?), but "Solar War n" would be the likely title if it involved the Martian settlements as well...


The future in space... We need to have the same sort of adventuring spirit in space as we did have here on Earth. Columbus and Magellan and all kinds of people went beyond the realms of civilisation just a couple of hundred years ago. Look at Shackletons abortive expidition or, if you prefer glorious failure rather than glorious escape, Scott will do as nicely. The North-West passage claimed several ships and many men, yet the young Amundsen (I think it was) set out on his own voyage and showed that it was technically possible, as well as increasing our knowledge of the idiginous populations of that area in a socialogical way...

We have a problem, these days, with the space shuttles. So we ground them and prevent anyone from using them (despite many of the problems being avoidable, now that we learn what went wrong) yet when the Titanic (from a civilised era and carrying people not willingly volounteering to do a dangerous job and knowing all the risks) hits an iceberg and sank, how long did the nations of the world stop ocean-liners from travelling?


I'm not saying I'm one of those adventerous sorts, but there are plenty of them out there (you all know their names, lestways those lauded by your own nation, trekking to the poles or running marathons on every continent or sailing single-handed around the world...) and there are always some out there with that kind of ambition. Match them up to the astronaut programs and give them the means to expand our horizons... And there will be deaths. I don't want to send people to deaths (as if it's my choice) but there are as many activities here on Earth where these brave souls manage to kill themselves. And gladly pay the price?



The one thing stopping us is the ease of getting out of our gravity-well. Anyone (for certain values of 'anyone') could get hold of an ocean-going ship, equip it for a long voyage and attempt to circumnavigate the world, but it's a lot mroe restrictive getting up to orbit and beyond. For this reason, I think that the Next Big Thing would be the development from elementary space-tether technology towards space-elevators themselves. We're maybe no more than 20 years (say 40 at the most) from the technology we need (and this is a conservative estimate, building upon the disapointments of the 60s visions that indicvate we'd have permanent bases on the moon by the 80s) and there is nothing ultimately difficult with the concept, beyond the materials. The physics has been worked out and everything.

Terra-tethered space elevators with 'outer' release points letting us 'drop' things towards the moon system with a minimum of fuel expenditure (essentially braking only) to dock with Lunacentric stations that are part of the moon-elevator that allow us to journey down to the surface, return, be flung back from the appropriate 'anti-lunar' node of that system and rejoin the Earth's geostaionary-height station before trundling back down the wire having accomplished a moon-shot with little more fuel than required to retard the transorbital velocities (all the wire-trundling being electrically accomplished)...

Ok, so that picture isn't quite complete (there are other things needing discussing) but it is the basis of a possible system and could work as well with Mars, such that "Mars Express" could be a regularly scheduled tourist junket rather than a single robotic mission... All I'm saying is that breaking away from the gravity-well allows the adventurous to explore beyond the bounds of the service and if that's accomplished by Bert Rutan's company (or a rival) or another route I'm really not bothered.

Imagine all the amateurs who could bash space-habitat modules in their spare time, get them past an 'spaceworthiness'-style test that doesn't require all the vibration-handling that rocket-launched satelits currently need, then hoisted up on the elevator for the final hard-vacuum testing and then deployment... A couple of thousand dollars at most for a pretty decent enterprise... And when you check the cost/mile/weight of a space elevator and compare it to what the effective cost is on my local bus service it's so cheap to go to space it makes you want to cry that your regular commute is just into town...a

You mean the problem that most materials would be crushed under the weight of a 25km tall lift? Not to mention the fact that it would be affected by the weather, being prone to wind especially. Also, how do you raise the lift? Cables are off the table, and most mechanical ways of lift would be far too slow. So do you rocket power it? And if so, why is it any better than a rocket?

It's not a 25km tall lift, it's a cable slung 35,000 to 36,000 kilometers...

(Dunno where you got your 25km figure from, but you need to be about 100km high to be in 'space', and even then you're not really in position to be in 'orbit'.)

And I'm perhaps one of the optomists mentioned in this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator) link... I think we're not far off, and the problem now is essentially working out how to create and make into a cable decent lengths of nanotube-carbon (which can then be coated with protective layers and the entire thing equipped with whatever means there are to provide grips to the 'cars' traveling up and down...)

The weights of suspension are not outside the physical limits of materials that now exist (we just need to make it in practical quantities), the weather may be a problem, but being suspended ('hanging' from Earth or geostationary satelite, your choice) means you can move it around a bit with forward planning and designed in ability, Wind merely 'bowing' the structure (unlike a tower, which is in unstable equilibreium). The raising of the lift will be a self-contained drive mechanism (probably powered from solar energy piped in at the top and run down power conduits in the cable), it doesn't matter that it might take... a day or two... to rise to the top, if necessary. The slower the better, some might say.

I'm not saying it will be done, but we are within sight of the possibility... If/how it gets applied is another question.

It's not a 25km tall lift, it's a cable slung 35,000 to 36,000 kilometers...

(Dunno where you got your 25km figure from, but you need to be about 100km high to be in 'space', and even then you're not really in position to be in 'orbit'.)

<big league snippage>
Whoops about the 25km thing. To think I did whole sections of my physics A-level on geosynchronous orbits... :eek:

EDIT: Also, do you know how big the counterweight would have to be? I could use that value to consider the feasibility of the whole operation.