The future of space flight

[Guest]

Where does everyone think space flight is going, and who do you think is the future of space flight is gona be? Btw, feel free to comment more company's to add to the poll.

Edited April 3, 2017 by Guest

[Deddly]

Can I recommend that you include at least some other space agencies? Or are you certain that the future of Space flight exists only between those two?

[Guest]

Nope, I'm sure that plenty of others could do it too, those just seemed like the ones in the lead. 

[tater]

Pretty weak poll for a number of reasons. As @Deddly said, there are other agencies (Roscosmos, ESA, CNSA, JAXA, ISRO, etc), other "new space" companies like Blue Origin, etc. On top of that commercial vs national is not a clean break. SpaceX would not exist without NASA as a customer.

 

1 minute ago, Leftykap said:

Nope, I'm sure that plenty of others could do it too, those just seemed like the ones in the lead. 

CNSA could change people's minds about that at some point, assuming you are concentrating on human spaceflight. 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, tater said:

Pretty weak poll for a number of reasons. As @Deddly said, there are other agencies (Roscosmos, ESA, CNSA, JAXA, ISRO, etc), other "new space" companies like Blue Origin, etc. On top of that commercial vs national is not a clean break. SpaceX would not exist without NASA as a customer.

 

CNSA could change people's minds about that at some point, assuming you are concentrating on human spaceflight. 

Yes, am focusing on human space flight. Am adding more now

i think I am gona start a new thread for this...

[Deddly]

@Leftykap, you don't need to start a new thread, just add in more options like you said you wanted to.

[Guest]

how do I do that?

 

[Deddly]

@Leftykap Edit the OP in this thread, and at the top you should see a tab marked "Poll" where you can edit and add entries.

[tater]

Add an "all of the above" option to the end.

[HebaruSan]

Roscosmos.

[tater]

CNSA.

Honestly, OP's point seems to make a primary distinction between "New Space" and "Old Space."

Perhaps a better poll would be:

New Space

Old Space

A combination.

 

New space would be primarily commercial developments. Old space would be national programs driving missions (built mostly by the commercial firms, but to national program specs (i.e.: everything NASA has ever done). A combination would be what it suggests, national programs doing some of the work in pushing "the future," and commercial partnerships being important as well.

 

[Nibb31]

A mix of all that. There is no 'single future'. The question is pointless. 

[Guest]

yes, but if there is a single future then who would be the leader in it?

[tater]

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

A mix of all that. There is no 'single future'. The question is pointless. 

That's why I wanted "all of the above."

 

[Nibb31]

25 minutes ago, Leftykap said:

yes, but if there is a single future then who would be the leader in it?

What is the future of food? Apples, oranges, or pineapple? 

 

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

What is the future of food? Apples, oranges, or pineapple? 

 

Grilled pineapple is the destiny  of the world 

[tater]

I would agree with the pineapple, but wine pairing with it is nearly impossible.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

I would agree with the pineapple, but wine pairing with it is nearly impossible.

That is the exact reason there should be reasearch into a gmo modified pinnacle that pairs with wine 

[sevenperforce]

18 minutes ago, Leftykap said:

That is the exact reason there should be reasearch into a gmo modified pinnacle that pairs with wine 

No! Don't touch my precious pineapple!

That sounded awkward...

Clearly the solution is a gmo modified wine that pairs with pineapple.

[sevenperforce]

In all seriousness, a potentially more interesting poll/topic would have been topical, rather than based around just the names of a few companies.

Like, what's the future of spaceflight: higher-efficiency lower-cost expendable multistage rockets? Partially-reusable multistage rockets? Expendable SSTOs? Reusable airbreathing spaceplanes? Fully-reusable multistage rockets? And is the answer different for manned vs unmanned flight?

That's a topic worth discussing.

[Gaarst]

I'd say CNSA first, then ISRO (don't underestimate them, they are doing really good so far, give them time) are the future of manned spaceflight.

As much as I love ESA, they don't have a manned spaceflight program, and EU's current situation means that they probably won't get enough funding to develop one any time soon.
Roscosmos' Soyuz is getting seriously outdated without any replacement available thanks to great budget cuts (Angara A5 flew once and is nowhere to be seen, Soyuz-5 and Federation are still hypothetical). Russia's future in space is grim*.
JAXA is the same as ESA, they lack the resources for a manned program and it is clearly not in their priorities.
I don't have much hopes about NASA's SLS. If they are lucky they can do a couple Moon orbit missions but if a market doesn't magically appear for super-heavy payloads, it won't fly more than a few times. I'd even bet Block II will never fly.
Private companies depend on how well they can sell space tourism. They are not going to spend resources there if there's no profit to be made: Boeing, ULA, SNC and BO are doing it because NASA is funding the CCDev but are not interested in going any further.
SpaceX is kinda on its own. They are overly ambitious and like to promise things but have trouble delivering**. Dragon v2 will fly, I doubt ITS will ever be built. They do a lot of PR stunts to gain public interest but as long as there is no economic interest in going to Mars (there is none) they won't do anything. FH getting the Moon flyby mission is probably as far as they will go in the near future.

China's space program is growing really quickly. They have clear objectives, essentially unlimited funding, and the technological and human resources to go where they want. The only thing that could prevent them from achieving their goals is, paradoxically, too fast economic development causing losses of industries and eventually turning them into USA#2 with the same issues.

India is basically China a few years behind. They need to sort things out with their GSLV Mk.III to finally kick off their manned program but I trust them.

 

* Things could go a bit better if they associate with ESA, which they are doing for ExoMars. I believe that a cooperation between the two agencies would represent the best hopes in manned spaceflight for both, but the current political situation is going against this.

** SES-10 was an amazing achievement but the true economic benefit is yet to be proven. And FH is still several years off-schedule.

 

EDIT: this poll is more about "the future of US spaceflight" really. The US are no longer leading spaceflight, get used to it.

Edited April 3, 2017 by Gaarst

[KSK]

Much as I wish it wasn't, the future of spaceflight is essentially the status quo with some of the companies shuffled around a bit.

Unless transport to orbit really does become close to airliner levels of routine then space tourism will be the thing to do for a while, then we run out of billionaires and the market subsides. And I haven't seen any other sensible commercial model for space flight.

I love what SpaceX are doing and I love the fact that somebody is trying to break the current chicken-and-egg (aka market size and launch costs) loop, but outside of the same old geopolitical point scoring, I'm still skeptical about their future beyond LEO.

[YNM]

Future of spaceflight shall be communications and/or weather/environmental/positioning satellites. The exiciting bits will stay sparse. (they won't be exciting the other way, which is why scarcity will still be the fortune.)

[The Raging Sandwich]

Since NASA has gotten more funding, they're pretty much gonna blow everyone out of the water again with Orion and the new space telescope. SpaceX is going to end up killing somebody with that Moon mission.

[Hypercosmic]

I have absolutely no idea about this. Sometimes it's because I just have no information, sometimes it's just my laziness, overall it's my normal habit not to try to predict it.

But if I really have to choose, it's probably China, India, or startups and companies. SpaceX is doing well, even if it's going to be late.

Failure is imminent, but if we give up, we'll never go anywhere.

Spoiler

If you said 'the leader of the green energy' then it's certainly China!