Thor Wotansen

There was a company that was dropping a little rocket from a modified 737 a while back, not sure if they're still around. I would still consider an air launched spaceplane that was fully reusable to be a viable SSTO although it would not be strictly a "SSTO". Getting your fully fueled spaceplane to 45,000 ft elevation is nothing to snort at delta V wise and we already have big honking cargo planes figured out. Even if the SSTO in question is only hauling people to orbit that is still a win, the more we do in space, the more peeps we need up there.

How hard would it be to put extendable control surfaces around the tail and smaller ones around the nose that extend in reentry to provide drag, control, and heat shielding? Something that would approximate the shape of the "clog" nose and provide heat shielding when fully deployed, but also bee flush with the aerodynamic lines for launch and conventional runway landing. The rear ones would also provide aerodynamic control for low atmosphere maneuvering.

I think the most feasible long range spaceship will be a hollowed out asteroid, unless we develop force fields for the purpose of casting complex structures. As has been previously stated, asteroids provide some of the best shielding and have the added benefit of already being in space. Sure they're heavy and all but by the time we actually get around to it we will probably have better high ISP engines for dedicated space travel.

What are you doing for aerodynamic control on those? There's not much space for control surfaces so you might need some pretty hefty reaction wheels in there, and with that very pointy shape, slowing down on reentry might be a challenge.

I like tricks like that.

Dude, this looks great. If you run the numbers as tight as you can, maybe you could pitch it to somebody as a crew transport. (yes I know that's a big huge and morbidly obese maybe) If all this cool stuff that's in the works like Biggelo hotels and interplanetary vehicles happens then they'll need a cheap way to get folks to space.

I just skipped here from page 2 to comment on the farming thing. "Using up" farmland is the result of the current paradigm of factory monocrop farm methods that rely on chemical fertilizers to maintain the bare necessities of fertility. You could basically grow corn in sand with that system, but that's not the point. The main crop that is grown by these huge factory farms is corn, which is used to feed literally everything from livestock to cars (ethanol) to us. Just try finding a processed food product that doesn't contain some form of corn in it, its hard. Food costs in this case are determined by transportation costs and spoilage rates, but a small, diversified, family sized farm of about 100 acres can sustain not only the family that owns it, but be their sole source of income from selling direct to the end consumer. With this intensive level of farming, it is easily possible to provide the entire planet with healthy, natural food from local sources. Vertical farming is quite frankly, a silly idea made by people who have very little experience farming and no experience in sustainable farming practices.

I would treat the issue as the American government did with westward expansion in the early to mid 1800s (of course I realize that this image is not ideal due to the tendency of settlers to displace native americans). The first guy there stakes a claim and subsequently has the rights to the area, in the case of asteroids he (or she) gets the whole thing and in the case of planets perhaps an area around his base. I wouldn't expect large Martian cities to be too close to each other to begin with due to potential competition for resources. And yes, I do believe that once a Martian or even moon colony becomes self sufficient they will most likely declare independence of government from Earth countries/organizations.

Mars will actually be very important to further exploitation of the solar system for resources. As has been mentioned, fuel will be a large export, but I think life support supplies and food will be just as big as export to support asteroid mining and further exploration. All the elements of food and fuel production are present on Mars an with the 24 hour (ish) day and stable gravity it would be perfect for growing plants and livestock for food. One can hardly expect an asteroid mining vessel to grow all its own food while its out doing its thing. Products like coffee and sugar will likely be Mars's most valuable exports once full scale mining of the asteroid belt starts.

I just read a chunk of the first chapter of "The Case for Mars" by Robert Zubrin, and I have to say he makes a lot of sense. We have the tech, and an average of one heavy launch per year (heavy being around 100 tones) it really isn't that huge and overwhelming of project cost wise. The biggest obstacle to a Mars mission is public perception.