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tater

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  1. tater
    While dv requirements are similar between Earth -> Moon and Earth ->Mars, the distances are vastly greater, with commensurately longer travel times. As a result, what you have to give this similar dv is vastly different, so the total energy budget is no where near the same. If we were only talking about a 1000kg probe, then yeah, about the same rocket will do the job. A craft capable of taking 10 people to the lunar surface from LEO, OTOH, would be substantially less complicated and lighter, as a few days of life support is not as logistically complicated as a few years of life support.
  2. tater
    People working night shifts have health issues that are possibly worse than low gravity, actually. A normal sleep cycle is impossible for all jobs, but for a colony, the vast majority of people should be on the same schedule (Mars, anyway). I know on the Moon people could all have a normal schedule unconcerned with the day/night outside, and have different people on different 24 hours schedules, but I think that might be odd for a sense of community. There would be huge numbers of people you'd simply never see Regardless, 24 hour uses only adds 8 people per day per centrifuge (24/day assuming 1 hour). Also, inflatable doesn't matter unless you have more than you need, as they will be used 24/7/365, the time to deflate and stow them would be wasted, and something the order of 20m^3 per occupant (regardless of capacity) would not be surprising to me. So you'll need (Xm^3)/24 volume per crew member regardless. It's not huge, the volume I used above means 1m^3 per person dedicated to centrifuge. Still, non-trivial.
  3. tater
    Yeah I saw that. I will give that a look and hopefully not break anything. I'll make a copy of the save to open first, in case I bork something
  4. tater
    For other hab mods (planetary bases, for example, which already supports the older USILS version) what would I need to add to the cfg to use them, or does LSModule.cfg already do this? I have a few bases already established that have crew aboard, and I don't want to bump anyone off.
  5. tater
    It becomes an issue with enough people there. What's the minimal size for such a device? Maybe a 4m diameter, a meter or two wide? Assume the hardware occupies a space that includes the circumscribed square cross-section box our wheel is within. 4x4x1.5m? 24m^3 needed just for centrifuges for every ~24 people. If you keep a normal 24 hour schedule, then you maybe only get to use this 16 hours else people have to get up at night to use it, so really every 16 people. That could totally work for a small base, but a colony?
  6. tater
    Like science missions to Mars, Martian Pet Rocks would be vastly more cost effective if collected by robots. I don't imagine martian tourism (other than perhaps the odd multibillionaire without a care in the world) will be a thing even within the lifespan of my small children.
  7. tater
    I'd love to go to Mars. So would many people reading this. So would many people not reading this as well. So what? I'd like to take a couple years off and live on a private island in the South Pacific as well. Guess what, renting the island is vastly more likely, and it's still not going to happen. The number of people willing to throw a couple hundred grand at suborbital, or orbital spaceflight is likely pretty reasonable once it is shown to be safe. The number willing to go to the Moon would be lower---and the cost higher---but might be worth it. Who has several hundred days to spend on a dangerous vacation? It makes the time/monetary investment of climbing Everest seem pretty trivial in comparison. Even if you can get ridiculously short travel times so that it's not the utterly absurd notion it is in the foreseeable future, you need to demonstrate that it would be the driving force of the economy. Hawaii can have tourism as the principle industry. I don't see this being plausible for Mars (and saying that because THIS has a positive economic impact vs everything else having a negative one doesn't cut it. It needs to be enough to sustain the place.
  8. tater
    Tourism to Mars? As a primary economic driver? That's not even remotely plausible in the middle distant future, if at all.
  9. tater
    Yeah, the moon is far more troublesome. None the less, the idea that 1/3 is OK is just a guestimate. We need to determine if this is true experimentally. He has A motive, and some means. He doesn't have pockets nearly as deep as Bezos, he cannot fund Mars colonization out of pocket. Not even close. That's the reason SpaceX and Blue Origin are so different in style. SpaceX needs to sell stuff to push forward.
  10. tater
    BTW, anyone serious about colonizing Mars should start off by buying a couple Bigelow BA 330s, tethering them, and spinning hem up to martian equivalent gravity, then putting people there for ISS long duration mission timespans. We have basically zero data on the long term consequences of living anywhere between 1g and ~0g. It's not certain people could live on the Moon for long periods without health consequences. If deterioration is extremely slow, it might not be a huge problem for people born on Earth, but people who were never on Earth in the first place, this could be a real issue. So until we characterize a range of acceptable gravitational acceleration for human wellbeing, we cannot even accurately list candidate worlds. It might turn out that the best choice is in fact to fix Venus for such a venture (if 1/3g turns out to be profoundly bad for people). Meanwhile, space habs can be spun to provide what we know is sufficient for people to live.
  11. tater
    Mars would require literally everything to be imported for a very long time. As 3D printing matures, this could obviously change as long as you have a robust capability to produce printing stock. As I said above a ways, the idea of an "off site backup" of humanity is not absurd, but the definition is a wholly self-sufficient colony with appropriate population for genetic diversity. If it requires any contact with earth at all, it's by definition not a backup.
  12. tater
    This is the question the thread is about: What would a Mars colony have to offer in the way of goods and services? The answer is "nothing." No goods, and no services that could not also be offered outside of a gravity well. This doesn't mean humans cannot colonize space, it just means that Mars as a target is not viable from an economic/trade standpoint. Perhaps at some point terraforming Mars might become a possibility, which would make it far more attractive, obviously. Resources? More, and cheaper resources in space. Power? Endless solar in space. Human factors? This largely leans to space as you could make 1g spun habs, but there is something certainly to being on a planet. Of course people on an L5 station can simply visit earth for a real planetside experience. One transformative technology mentioned above is space elevators, though.
  13. tater
    I'd like to know ahead because I could actually drive down there, lol.
  14. tater
    The stuff doesn't actually appear in the stock tree. The tanks do, but none of the engines at all. They are set to experimental rocketry.
  15. tater
    It's been a space race for a while now...
  16. tater
    Back in the 70s/80s when I was doing that, many ended up in the trees of CT (perhaps that's why Goddard left New England to come here to NM, lol).
  17. tater
    There is a certain point at which access to space might become cheap enough to alter the demand, but I don't think we are near that point yet. The economics require something that needs doing, as nibb31 said, or something that is not yet done, but can actually make money. 1970s spitballing imagined solar power production as a driver for the economics of orbital spaceflight (beamed to earth using microwaves). I think that this is an entirely reasonable notion, but industrial-scale space applications will require substantially reduced costs, so maybe that could be a new set of customers if the price was right. I have no idea where that price point might be.
  18. tater
    That would explain why it's not on the launch schedule for this year I could see them doing internal, suborbital testing though. VTVL has always been interesting to me, since I was a kid. Boeing concept from the 70s: http://www.pmview.com/spaceodysseytwo/spacelvs/sld043.htm ^^ 228t to LEO.
  19. tater
    True. Is there a date set? I have to wonder if they might test the first stage in TX, though. Fly a New Shepard flight profile, only with an orbital-sized booster. It's nice to see launch videos that look like they could be taken out my living room window (course the mountains behind me have snow on them ).
  20. tater
    Bezos talked about this being their smallest rocket, and soon they'd introduce their smallest orbital rocket... I have a feeling the first time we see it fly will be after the fact. I wish they had a better graphic designer, I find their branding/logo to be pretty ugly, frankly, and I get the feeling we'll be seeing more and more of it as the years pass. Interesting times.
  21. tater
    Pretty cool. I'll reserve "spaceship" for something at least orbital. Wish I knew long enough in advance to drive down and watch.
  22. tater
    Notice to airmen. Blue Origin is gonna launch something. That or they already did and haven't posted vid yet. And yeah, I'm in New Mexico
  23. tater
    Not much to add other than the airspace of TX just south of the NM border has a 2 day hole in it... if I had a decent time frame, I'd drive down there, it's only ~4.5 hours.
  24. tater
    True, but even then, there are 2 separate questions. Wecould all think it's 1950-60, but the majority might think it should eb for some other date.
  25. tater
    The poll is also useless, as you ask what it is, OR what it should be. How do you tell what vote is for which question?
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