Vaebn

I didnt know about the possibility of metastable metallic hydrogen, cool! Keep in mind that just because you make the fuel more dense doesnt mean you reduce its weight. 200tns of hydrogen will always weight 200tns no matter how much you compress it. Also unlike what the kerbal-industrial complex would have you believe, the weight of the tank in modern rockets is often not -that- big a problem (something like 1% or so). Fuel weight as well as engines that dont explode when they try to utilize more of it are equally to more important.

^ What he said.

*thinks about it* *head hurts* Many immediate thoughts: The main problem is that gravity is a pathetic, and I mean pathetic, and I mean, pathetic force. As evident by the fact that you awesome, glistering and electrochemically driven muscles have no problem fighting a planet's mass worth of one. And the universe is huge, way beyond such a topology begins to matter. As in very huge. Huger than you think. In fact, by reading this sentence you probably thought of something huge so I'd like to stop you and tell you are wrong. It's even huger than that. Such a gravity effect would be way, way, way smaller than being affected by the gravity of a paperclip in alpha centauri. Or a dandelion in andromeda, all of which are relatively "close by" compared to the distances you describe. Now. Were the universe infinite in detail, I suppose you could have infinitely small effects, however another problem is that the universe isn't. There is a "distance", under which details smaller than it are "meaningless" called plank length or so the even science-industrial complex says. Things now get super complicated regarding quantum gravity but, intuitively talking, I am rather sure that at some point any such "space curvature" or whatever you describe gravity in, at so far a distance, would need to be described in detal smaller than a plank lenght's worth. And so become "meaningless". It would be like trying to talk about an energy state lower than vaccum energy (which is also defined by the plank constant). Plank lenght, is basically like a hard coded limit where the simulation's detail ends Another problem is that there is a difference between the observable universe, and the "universe". The observable universe is only the one which light speed interactions had a time to reach us (and in turn ours effect it), but I am rather sure that the universe is assumed to be much larger than that and because of space's expansion, parts of it will never become observable because light cannot catch up from point A to point B, due to all that expanding space inbetween. Since I am also rather sure than gravitational effects propagate at the speed of light (otherwise merely waving a rock around, would mean FTL communication with a sensitive enough detector somewhere else), this mean's sun's gravity hasn't had the time to reach the "edge" of the universe in order to "loop around", neither it ever will. To sum up: No

That. The "mainsail" engine for example is an obvious reference to the F-1 Saturn engine, made distinct by that wrap-around tubing. The orange tank and solid boosters are obvious references to space shuttle parts. Even the parachutes had no particular reason to be "orange", but the apollo return parachutes were precisely that. Myself the one I found quite touching is the NERVA engine. Which of course is the LV-N! What I found particularly cute is that although at first sight the part might appear a bit broken with that delicious 800 specific impulse, in reality this is precisely the specific impulse the engine had. So that's actually a pretty "fair" part, only seemingly not so because humanity has abandoned such awesome technology :[

Anyone who doesnt answer "time on the moon" on this has no soul.

I have probably been sniped by Dr. Ernst, but to copy paste an answer from a different thread: Because it is cool. This sort of coolness serves to inspire tons of scientists and engineers, that in turn end up going in all kinds of other fields, which in turn might end up helping with those problems. There's also a wildcard excuse in the form of asteroid defence. Sure, we might have gotten used to the idea that extinction events don't happen, BUT, if it is the sort of thing that if it does happen all the starvation, all the war, all the poverty, all the HIV, all the nuclear proliferation, all the deforestation are suddenly going to look pretty insignificant.

Team Fortress 2?

Yes, but. It was cool. That buck rogers feeling and everything it implied about the brave new future, inspired tons of scientists and engineers who went into other fields and did all sorts of things. For someone to judge the scientific merit of Apollo then, he would have to somehow be able to judge that indirect benefit.

Basically you don't want to go there. It's a hellish place. And I haven't checked the other thread but I bet its full of people saying it's a hellish place. Anything you could do, in pre sexy postscarcity times Is not worth doing versus plain making orbiting habitats in vacuum. You could do floating cities, because something filled with normal earth atmosphere ends up floating at some point but you'd probably have to bring all that matter from someplace else. And only then even begin to attempt something silly like using cranes with 50km long cables to lower and control remotely controlled automated miners down below. All of which would be triple and quad the size and complexity of a machine on earth because of the shielding they would need. (and we haven't bothered to do something like "automated miners" on earth either). If Venus is also something like earth, and it looks a lot like it, it's surface is going to be mostly cheapo rocks, just like earth's is, because when planets are at their molten phase all the heavier and valuable stuff sinks in. So it would basically be just like mining earth, only in a much much more difficult way. Meanwhile, the orbital habitats will be chasing metallic asteroids and laughing all the way to the bank.