What do you think the medium term future of space exploration will be like?

[Ultimate Steve]

Exactly what the title says, what do you think we will be doing from 2030 to 2100 (provided society survives intact until then)?

My personal ideas are that the BFR will work but will be a few years late and by 2030 we will have had crews on Mars. By that time, other space agencies will either have changed focus to building other hardware or will have worked on developing their own reusable rockets. Somewhere in there (knock on wood) congress will give NASA the go-ahead to construct a spaceship in orbit powered by a nuclear thermal rocket (like Discovery in 2001: A Space Odyssey) which will be targeted at either a Venus flyby (as a test flight of sorts) or a mission to Jupiter. The modules will be launched on whatever big rocket is available at the time.

Soon after, reusable rockets like the BFR (maybe 12m or 15m variants) will make jaunts out to Jupiter as well after refueling on Mars, but these will find their limits and for serious exploration of the outer planets. Discovery style ships will eventually make their way to Saturn and (longer term) Uranus or Neptune.

By 2100 (optimistically) I think we will have landed people on some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and have sent at least manned flybys of Venus and Mercury. We will also have bases/cities/whatever you want to call them on Mars and the Moon. Somewhere at the end of the time period multiple countries will be seriously be considering (knocks on wood) a space elevator (which in my mind wouldn't actually get built for a hundred years, but by 2100 it will have gone from "impossible" to "possible with enough money.").

 

So what do you all think?

[G'th]

A lot of future (manned) spaceflight is going to be defined by how, when, and who lands humans on Mars.

If BFS is successful (and in particular successful to the degree SpaceX hopes its going to be) then big spaceship-like vehicles are going to dominate manned spaceflight going forward, and whether we send them or use them to construct dedicated vehicles for further exploration would be up in the air. Not sure how far BFS could be sent out on its own. 

If NASA gets there first using more classical hardware, then thats likely going to remain the dominant scheme, just scaled to meet whatever goals are next.  Titan or Europa would be the next step out into the frontier after Mars, but at the rate we're committing to space exploration within this century would be pushing it to reach the surface of either of those moons.

If some other entity like China or Russia gets there first, as unlikely as it is, its very possible we could see another space race spurred on by the massive PR problem whatever the current administration at the time would be dealing with if that happened to ensure American dominance.  Likely by dumping money on NASA and/or SpaceX to get flying. 

Beyond that, re-usability is going to be further refined at least on the American side of things. At the rate we're going and presuming payloads see a ramp up, by the 2030's/2040's we're likely going to see cost of space access not be much more than the cost of what you want to put in space. When that becomes a thing, it would behoove NASA and other entities interested in space exploration to put more of their budgets (whatever they may be) into payloads, which in turn means more exploration. 

And we also have to remember that 2100 isn't -that- far away.  Things like space elevators or manned exploration of the outer planets isn't likely to happen unless we also see a HUGE increase in exploration funding. This could happen as a result of the re-usability bit, but even then. The more ambitious the idea is the more costly and long winded its going to be even if you're dedicated to actually doing it. 

[Bill Phil]

What do I think? Well, optimistically, space manufacturing takes off and lets us build ships in space. Then we can build a mini-mag Orion (doesn't use nukes) and go to Mars or whatever. Maybe some research bases around the Solar System and, if we're lucky, a few million people living and working in orbit. 

[cubinator]

The trip to Mars will probably be a joint effort with lots of organizations pitching in to make it happen. A certain Martian will spur the World Cube Association into becoming the Interplanetary Cube Association by hosting a competition during an early mission in the 2020s (optimistically) or 2030s. He will also have brought a Jeb Kerman plushie with him. 

During the early missions, some things that will have to be built on Mars: 

-A habitable enclosure, probably inflatable and packed in boxes sent one alignment in advance. Later habitats will probably be made of a brick or clay-like substance manufactured from the regolith and be partially or entirely underground.

-Food and oxygen production, through conventional methods at first with modular greenhouses eventually providing most of the inhabitants chemical and biological needs.

-Infrastructure for landing, launching, and maintaining visiting spaceships. Landing on rocks isn't the best for engine bells, so it would be helpful to construct a landing pad so that future rockets are in better health.

[Ultimate Steve]

18 minutes ago, cubinator said:

A certain Martian will spur the World Cube Association into becoming the Interplanetary Cube Association by hosting a competition during an early mission in the 2020s (optimistically) or 2030s.

During that same timeframe, another Martian will push for the instatement of a Martian Olympics and then proceed to win many medals because of the lack of participants...

[cubinator]

24 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

During that same timeframe, another Martian will push for the instatement of a Martian Olympics and then proceed to win many medals because of the lack of participants...

Make sure that that that happens in 2084 as well, because I wrote a song with that title.

[DDE]

I am very skeptical about the BFR, it has a higher probability of failure than the SLS, failure being vaguely defined. I think we'll see a flag-and-footprints mission to Mars in about three decades, if NASA stops inventing problems to spend money on. However, I also suspect that in the post-ISS era, a lot of countries will follow Rogozin's advice and give a serious thought whether manned spaceflight itself is worth it.

It is also fairly unlikely that the current biggest obstacle to manned, BEO space utilization will be erased - the absolute lack of gain. Which is why I think it's reasonable to assume that 2100 will be all the same, just with lower costs to LEO.

[magnemoe]

50 minutes ago, DDE said:

I am very skeptical about the BFR, it has a higher probability of failure than the SLS, failure being vaguely defined. I think we'll see a flag-and-footprints mission to Mars in about three decades, if NASA stops inventing problems to spend money on. However, I also suspect that in the post-ISS era, a lot of countries will follow Rogozin's advice and give a serious thought whether manned spaceflight itself is worth it.

It is also fairly unlikely that the current biggest obstacle to manned, BEO space utilization will be erased - the absolute lack of gain. Which is why I think it's reasonable to assume that 2100 will be all the same, just with lower costs to LEO.

BFR might not work out but the general idea makes sense, first stage reuse start to become standard. Blue origin and an Chinese company is also working on it. 
New Glen with its 40 ton to LEO should be able to reuse upper stage with an smaller payload. 

In short at least launch cost will go down a lot, how much heavy lift capacity will increase is another issue. 
 

[DDE]

29 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

and an Chinese company

I am immediately suspicious of claims by that lot. They're the same ones who've jumped on the EmDrive hype train with a version that is OVER NINE THOUSAND, erm, a hundred times more efficient.

[YNM]

1 hour ago, DDE said:

I am immediately suspicious of claims by that lot. They're the same ones who've jumped on the EmDrive hype train with a version that is OVER NINE THOUSAND, erm, a hundred times more efficient.

Don't be soo pessimistic. They're not exactly that dirt cheap stuffs. Very remote from being a hot gas of crazy idea-dreams either. Still not the best lookout there is though.

 

@OP : I could only imagine we'd actually send some "hero" to Mars in 50 years. Not because it's impossible, but it's impractical until it goes otherwise.

Over that ? Well I don't even know what we'll be living in !

Edited October 21, 2017 by YNM

[Zeiss Ikon]

I think the BFR/BFS has a good chance to provide the first "flag and footprints" on Mars, as well as starting a permanent occupation there -- if only because SpaceX has a pretty good record for delivering, albeit a bit late.  Hence, I think a BFS will visit Mars around 2050, more likely than 2030, and we'll have a base on the Moon first (technology demonstrator, reduced delta-V fuel source).

Beyond that time frame, I don't see manned missions to Jupiter or Saturn by 2100, just because the orbit time to get there (even one way) will greatly exceed the time an astronaut can spend outside the Van Allen belts and stay anywhere close to lifetime radiation exposure limits -- and I don't see a likely breakthrough in shielding before 2100.  What we might well see, instead, are crewed asteroid missions.  With a good transfer window and a cometary orbit, a mission to Ceres (perhaps to test ice extraction technology or even establish a long term presence) needn't be any longer than a Hohmann transfer to Mars, and once in place, there are resources available on site to refuel the ship and provide long term shelter (i.e. mass shielding, as with underground Lunar bases).

[kerbiloid]

58 minutes ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

I don't see manned missions to Jupiter or Saturn by 2100, just because the orbit time to get there (even one way) will greatly exceed the time an astronaut can spend outside the Van Allen belts and stay anywhere close to lifetime radiation exposure limits

When all jobs have been taken by robots...
When all entertainments have been enjoyed...
When any boundaries between the real life and MMORPG have been scrubbed out...

Welcome to Jupiter-2070 championship!

Spoiler

Noone lives forever!

(Not from real game or movie, just to illustrate the idea).

Edited October 21, 2017 by kerbiloid

[KSK]

Whilst political whims are almost as reliable as UK weather, the Moon is currently in favour, so I'm going with the Deep Space Gateway being completed reasonably early in that 2030-2100 timeframe, possibly followed by one or more state sponsored lunar landings, depending how China's lunar program goes. Throw in some free-return tourist flights around the Moon, and that's my pessimistic prediction, which assumes that LFR, New Glenn and the rest either fail to materialise or fail to deliver as hoped.

Assuming that LFR etc do fly and fly reasonably economically, I think crewed spaceflight is still going to depend quite heavily on state sponsored programs in the short to medium term. In a rational world the state programs would be leveraging all that lovely cheap(ish) lift capacity developed by the private sector. However, we do not live in a rational world and getting national space agencies (and governments) to a) realign their roles in spaceflight and b) eat the required quantities of humble pie, is going to be challenging. I think the political hurdles to continued crewed spaceflight are are going to be far more problematic than the technical or probably even the economic hurdles

But lets set that aside and go for some optimism!  I'm going for a lunar outpost, flags and footprints on Mars, possibly a small and growing outpost that's inhabited beyond the timeline of those flags and footprints missions, and at least two privately owned stations in LEO (probably servicing a growing space tourism industry), plus ISS2. Also, a heavy focus on asteroid missions and mining. If Bezos is serious about his 'millions of people in space' plans then I think resource gathering is going to form a substantial part of those plans, and I think that means asteroids. Especially since other companies (with varying degrees of credibility) are also making noises about asteroid mining.

As my completely out-in-the-weeds suggestion, I'm going to go for flags-and-footprints on Mercury, possibly taking advantage of its deposits of water ice for crew consumables and ISRU.

 

Edited October 21, 2017 by KSK

[wumpus]

35 minutes ago, KSK said:

Whilst political whims are almost as reliable as UK weather,

US political whims tend to have certain timeframes: a president can typically expect to provide a plan for four years and will typically plan for 8 (Kennedy's "within the decade" managed to break this, largely by being nearly done when Nixon took over.  Spending was already down and missions were being canceled before Apollo 11 landed).  One of the reasons the Moon looks like a more attractive target is that it sounds easier to get a [crewed] mission there than Mars in four years.

Florida (and I expect Texas soon enough) is a contested state, so expect either party to lavish it with pork.  Alabama might depend on the current situation for high levels of pork, but I suspect that Houston and the Cape will remain funded (of course right now they are funding SLS).

US political whims are typically reliable enough for specific missions, just not crewed missions beyond Earth (although the Moon is becoming more a possibility).  I have no idea about Chinese politics, and the EU doesn't appear interested in such things.  A lot of people make careers out of making such things work out (and since it is so common around Washington DC, NASA Goddard [and contractors] have an easier time hiring such people [they won't require relocation]).

[DDE]

2 hours ago, wumpus said:

I have no idea about Chinese politics, and the EU doesn't appear interested in such things.  A lot of people make careers out of making such things work out (and since it is so common around Washington DC, NASA Goddard [and contractors] have an easier time hiring such people [they won't require relocation]).

You forgot another up-and-coming contender on the cusp of manned spaceflight.

And... well, someone should honour the walking dead, too.

[kerbiloid]

They should build a heavy orbital shipyard, maybe in the Lagrangian point.

It should receive and collect modules of heavy interplanetary spaceships to join them together.

Instead of (I'm sure, absolutely sick) idea of running BFS there and back to fuel them, huge single-use tanks of hydrocarbons and hydrazine should be sent from the Earth to the shipyard and docked to the shipyard.
When it's enough of them, and the interplanetary crew is on board of the shipyard, the shipyard's chemical facility should recycle both hydrocarbons and hydrazine into LH2 and fuel the ship.
This will minimize loss of hydrogen, because it will be stored in stable and non-cryogenic form and will be existing as LH2 only for several days, being cooled by the shipyard cooling system.

This also means that the shipyard will get huge amounts of carbon and nitrogen. It should recycle them in hydrogen cyanide and send to the Moon.
Anyway they will have to send C and N, why not make them simultaneously to interplanetary ship fueling.
Of course, this means that some of those spent fuel tanks should be filled by this HCN and softly landed on the Moon by a lunar nuclear-powered shuttle.

Empty tanks should be being launched and dropped onto the Moon into some crater.
The lunar planetary base will gather them and recycle into aluminium (I disbelieve lunar ISRU metallurgy, especially for alumina, it requires as much energy, as you need to deliver the same amount of alumina from the Earth).

The shipyard should be equipped with a car tank crusher.
It should cut and crush empty tanks, discarded satellites, etc, and send this trash to the Moon, as metals.

Instead of competing in building of small modern rockets and BFSes, they should use 1 _{let it be} 2-stage heavy launch vehicle.
First stage - Nexus-like, methane/LO2, fully reusable.
Second stage - cylindrical, with single-use cylindrical fuel tank and mini-Nexus-shaped reusable propulsion module (preferably, nuclear) attached/inserted from below.
The second stage gets into orbit, propulsion module decouples, makes 1-2 turns, and lands at the space center.
A long-lived low-thrust high-ISP nuclear-powered interorbital tug docks to the second stage and moves it to the shipyard to recycle and send to the Moon.
(Anyway they will be sending to the Moon raw materials, what's wrong with alumina tanks?).

No SSTO spaceplanes or BFSes.
Spaceplane should be used only to deliver passengers (tens at once) to and from the Earth, and to return depleted radioactive materials and reactors back to the Earth from the orbit.

The spaceplane should be a payload of that 2-stage heavy rocket, just as one of its payloads.
No launch engines inside, no SSME or Raptors. Only OMS (kerosene / HTP or LO2) and probably turbo-jets. Just for orbital maneuvers and landing.

Any single-use cargo (i.e. any except the spaceplane cargo at all) - in single-use containers or tanks. It is one-way ticket. What has left the gravity well, should not return.
Containers, cargo tanks, 2nd stage tanks - all this should be gathered by the mentioned inter-tug and delivered to the Langrangian shipyard, then dropped on the Moon and be gathered by the lunar junkmen.

Also this means that humans should be delivered not by 3 or by 6, but by tens at once, a whole bus.
Which in turn means that the next to the nowadays phase of orbital expansion not allows, but requires a huge station, a moonbase and Martian expeditions at once.

Edited October 21, 2017 by kerbiloid

[DDE]

17 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

No launch engines inside, no SSME or Raptors. Only OMS (kerosene / HTP or LO2) and probably turbo-jets. Just for orbital maneuvers and landing.

Hm... this sounds intensely familiar.

I have plans for a similar infrastructure once I get back into KSP.

[NSEP]

There are 4 possibilities in my eyes:

1. The BFR will fly and be succesfull. And we will have at least a base on Mars and touristed destinations on the Moon before 2100.

2. SpaceX will fail and Classical spaceflight will go on, with a few scientific bases on other planets and maybe a few unmanned missions to other stars.

3. We will stay in LEO or even worse, never go to space ever again.

4. Some unexpected discovery leads to our biggest dreams coming true, like when the W-Bros invented heavir than air flight.

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, DDE said:

Hm... this sounds intensely familiar.

This would if Energy were a reusable rocket.

[SaturnianBlue]

I would think that by 2100, we would have a fairly self-sufficient space industry around Earth. I could see this happening if governments help create the initial infrastructure, such as a refueling station on the moon, which might enable rockets to conduct circuits from LEO to cis-Lunar space, for a more reasonable fee. With that, cargo only has to be hauled into space, increasing the payload mass lifted. Eventually, mining operations on the moon and the asteroid could be a somewhat low-risk endeavor, opening up the capability for spacecraft manufacturing. 

As for Mars, there could be anywhere from a few hundred to maybe tens of thousands of people. If SpaceX succeeds with their rockets, we could see the latter. 

Permanent outposts would probably exist on Venus and perhaps in the asteroid belt. 

At this point there might be a few skyhooks orbiting the Earth, which would go a long way towards making space travel easier—a large, rotating version might be reached with only a supersonic aircraft.

Probes will probably be orbiting every planet at this point. 

[DDE]

3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

This would if Energy were a reusable rocket.

Well, Falcon 9 was expandable only a few years ago.

[DAL59]

On 10/21/2017 at 7:17 AM, Zeiss Ikon said:

Beyond that time frame, I don't see manned missions to Jupiter or Saturn by 2100, just because the orbit time to get ther

NASA did a study that found that a mission to Callisto by 2050 is very possible and fits well with their current budget

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/10254128/revolutionary-concepts-for-human-outer-planet-exploration-hope-/3

[Kerbal7]

On 10/20/2017 at 7:47 PM, Ultimate Steve said:

So what do you all think?

I think If anyone goes back to the moon and on to Mars it will be China. It will be around mid-century or before and mainly for political reasons. A symbolic move to display the falling of one great civilization and the rise of another to top dog. I don't see giant spinning space stations, colonies and space mining panning out. Too difficult and too expensive to be profitable or practical.

[SaturnianBlue]

2 hours ago, DAL59 said:

NASA did a study that found that a mission to Callisto by 2050 is very possible and fits well with their current budget

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/10254128/revolutionary-concepts-for-human-outer-planet-exploration-hope-/3

That was back in 2003 though. Surely the timelines would be shifted back a decade or two by this point.

[kerbiloid]

9 hours ago, DDE said:

Well, Falcon 9 was expandable only a few years ago.

Both of them are too small to let reusability have any sense.
500...1000 t payload rocket would have it.

Edited October 23, 2017 by kerbiloid