Spaceception

Sounds almost like that moss project from a few years back. When the KSP community wanted to build a cubesat to grow plants. It was actually the thing I first posted about I think

I don't have anything to your questions that would be within the rules of this thread or forum. But NASA receives more money than the next ~7 or so countries combined. It could do a lot. So instead of moving its problems under a different roof, we should "fix" what we have. What that entails is based on yours and my opinions, and breaks the rules though. NASA could focus more of their resources on R&D, and exploration, and leave the launch vehicles - and in extreme scenarios, crewed spaceflight as well - to private companies instead. I can see how that's attractive. The public space sector is great at developing new technology, and a wealth of scientific data. And the private space sector is great at making it cheaper. And with upcoming rockets like the BFR, Vulcan, and New Glenn, and current vehicles like the Falcon 9/Heavy, among others, those payloads would be in good hands. If NASA did that, you could probably look forward to more "out there" projects to remain in the public eye. Such as, advanced propulsion - NTR - Ion - Fusion(?) - improved chemical engines - etc, centrifuges for artificial gravity, more telescopes, Europa - Enceladus - Titan - etc explorers, life support technology for the purpose of colonization, the list goes on (Not all at once of course, but in due time). Basically expanding, and accelerating what we have. And instead of contracting specific launch vehicles - like the SLS - they would give contracts to companies for their upcoming launch vehicles - like when they gave SpaceX money to develop the Falcon 9. Which I believe is a lot less in the long run. We could also see an increase in planetary probes overall. Including ones to Mercury, Venus, Uranus, and Neptune. Planets that don't get a whole lot of attention compared to Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

Us with the martians

It's inevitable. But yes, probably in the next few decades or less, I can see us really getting back out there. And if we haven't by the 2100's, that's probably not good.

I don't know how this doesn't have a topic yet, but the PLATO mission is now under construction (Or has been for a couple weeks). http://sci.esa.int/plato/ http://sci.esa.int/plato/60708-construction-of-europe-s-exoplanet-hunter-plato-begins/ PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) is a 4-year mission that will search for exoplanets with an emphasis on Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone around Sun-like stars. But unlike Kepler and TESS, it will be able to detect both the sizes and masses of these planets. And will be assisted by ground-based telescopes for better measurements on their masses. Quote from the 2nd article It will launch around 2026, and should be followed up later by the ARIEL telescope a couple years later, which will be specifically designed to look at the atmospheres of exoplanets. https://ariel-spacemission.eu/ (Separate mission that probably deserves its own topic) Really exciting stuff from the ESA, lets hope they accomplish their goals.

Yeah, true. But at first, I think oxygen could be handled by recycling systems, and the only things that grow are food, right? Then once the population reaches a particular size, they can use more "natural" means to handle air - probably assisted by a CELSS - by building a massive habitat (Either above or below ground) that can handle a miniature ecosystem. By that point, we likely would've done more biosphere-esque experiment here.

According to the front page of the forums, there are over 190,000 members Assuming everyone got a 3 by 3 ft whiteboard, x 190,000 people, that's 1710000 square feet for just the whiteboards. Or 0.15 sq km. We're gonna need a big room.

Yep NASA is important to have, because they do a lot of R&D, and exploration that private companies don't have much interest in, and that other countries are comparatively lagging behind in. Militarizing space won't do much peaceful exploration or discovery. The space force and NASA have very different goals, so it doesn't make sense to merge them. And a lot (Or even all) of what they would develop would have to have some military application to be made in the first place. After skimming the article, I don't think we need another arms race. Especially one in space. The space force right now won't have much more to do than its already done with things like the Air force space command. And meanwhile, NASA should stick to scientific discovery. There's enough room for the both of them, but we need to err on the side of caution when it comes to stuff like the space force. (I hope I didn't get too political)

Just checked for myself, it is.

I think this is a question I, and a lot of others are wondering. So, on a basic scale, how far along is our life support technology? Just with waste, air, water, and food, as a basis. We have stuff like Hydroponics already, which could be used on Mars without much issue aside from power; but aquaponics might be better, since you can have fish as well (And they may fare better in microgravity, unlike land animals). And the recycling tech on the ISS, for example, seems alright. But how much does it need to be improved? Can we scale it up (relatively) easily, or is that another set of problems?

Yep. These 3 in particular seem to get the job done And of course, tell us how it goes

Are there any telescopes, upcoming or otherwise planned, having the capability of detecting moderate technosignatures? Such as a Clarke Exobelt?

1/10 I think this is the first time I've seen you.

How do you sort pinned posts? Could you rearrange them whenever you feel like it? Or is it based on when it was first added?

You know (I don't know if you're being serious), but I don't know actually Chemicals are bad! Both in my food, and rocket fuel. I like thermal expansion drive, personally. "Exhaust-cooled decay engine" sounds like an RTG powered engine.

Ah, but you see, it has the word nuclear in it. Which means it won't happen. If only NERVA flew back in the day, maybe we wouldn't be so stingy. But then again, the military uses a bunch of reactors already, so we really shouldn't be stingy... ugh. Uh, I'm behind on creating character arcs (Which reading some of the posts here, is a pretty mild complaint), and I can't figure out good arcs for some of the side characters.

It should be under "edit profile" on your account. The second bar is contact info, and the link should be there so you can change it there. EDIT: Unless someone removed the twitter bar for it... then I have no idea.

Probably too small, maybe the cargo ships though. I just realized Paradox predicted the future

It's how he'll convince people to go. You wanna control a giant robot on a space colony?? Well now you can! For the low, low, price of everything you own

Iffy. The radiation situation doesn't look good. And since there doesn't seem to be any transits, we can't get a better look to see what's going on. And I'm assuming this is related to the other questions you've been posting. So assuming you really want to colonize it, it's nothing we couldn't get around with technology. The tech proposed for potentially giving Mars a magnetic field could also be boosted for Proxima b. Then it's just a matter of giving it an atmosphere, and water over time, using a similar process that we'd do for Mars. Except, we may want large orbital mirrors to light up the dark side, and eventually work something out to give it a faux day/night cycle. Considering it's larger than Earth, and receives more light than Mars, it's a better terraforming candidate. Strictly speaking. We just have to, y'know, get there.

This And while it'd be nice for SpaceX to get some dough for the BFR, it might be better to stay mostly private (I say mostly, since the Air-force did partially fund some Raptor development) But we're getting off topic I'd really like to see more of their plans for New Glenn, I know Blue Moon is a part of it, but it could do a lot. Is there any news on plans to get it man-rated? I don't know if they plan to take part in ISS resupply or anything, but they would be in a good position to help with the DSG. Favorite part of the article As the capsule comes off the ground, someone spots a remarkable thing: a living creature underneath the capsule. A horned lizard, frozen in confusion, has its mouth agape as if to say, “What the love?!” The reptile had been minding its own business, thinking whatever thoughts a sunbather might have on a hot July day, when an object from outer space landed on it. Bezos’ laugh booms from here to the Diablos.

I know you guys are knee deep in cryonics, but I missed this. You don't want your Orion ship to be lightweight. You want it to be heavy (To a point), akin to a sub. A lighter ship could be torn apart by the numerous nuclear blasts. And a heavier ship would smooth out the blast. And while a bigger bomb is better, you will hit a cap eventually, where it'd likely just tear your ship apart. There's probably a reason the charges detailed on Atomic rockets never seemed to exceed 30 kilotons, and were usually half that. But again, you'd eventually get diminishing returns. I don't think you could get past a 0.05 c coasting velocity.

Like the soda company? I read somewhere they were asked by General Atomic at some point for a bomb delivery system for the ship. Do you have a link to it? I don't know the book, but I found this https://www.patrickstomlinson.com/2013/10/08/coca-cola-and-nuclear-bombs/ Coke Engineer (being held in a basement in Area 51): “So, you want us to build a vending machine that can throw out several thousand, 300lb, 6 inch diameter ‘Soda cans’ once a second?” Air Force General: “Yes, my airmen are very thirsty.” CE: “You’re building a nuclear bomb machine gun, aren’t you?” AFG: “No!” CE: “AREN’T YOU?” AFG: “…yes.”

An 800-year journey would definitely need you to think about the wait calculation. I'd say we're less than a century away from fusion now. And if we don't get it by then, there must be something ridiculous in the way preventing us from getting it. But since we could have fusion this century, that could be the one thing @Diche Bach makes an exception for, sci-fi wise. It can still be hard sci-fi if you have fusion. You just need to stick within what we know about fusion so far, and use a reactor design we have today. Given the fact it would take decades (at the least) to build a large, crewed starship (And that's only if you have much cheaper spaceflight, and some sort of space economy), fusion energy would likely crop up in the middle of construction anyway, so you may as well plan for it. They could be constructing an Orion-esque ship, and you could detail it; but about halfway through construction, fusion energy is cracked, and they halt construction for about a decade to build a fusion drive/reactor to cut the travel time in half (or more). Or you could go for a fission powered ship regardless, and have the story be around them trudging along interstellar space to look forward to a nice colony on the other end. Okay, so 200 years or less. The wait calculation is still relevant. That gives us about 8 known planets to work from (3 if you only count ones with <1.5 Earth radii), 2 of them would take a couple hundred years or more at 0.05 c. So you could imagine the engineers in your story building a faster ship in that time that can wave past the first one.