B787_300

It has to do with the cost of spaceflight coming down because of the free market. also the market has a dearth of heavy lifters, sls and Falcon Heavy should help to rectify that problem

and yet we have a couple of companies that have developed rockets without too much government funding (SpaceX and Orbital), now i know that they both received some money from the US gov, but they had their rocket pretty well in the final stages of design. Also dont forget about Falcon 1, completely in house design and funded.

Ah but there are destinations that people will want to go to, the moon, mars, Other star systems eventually

and where were the first rockets built? In a shed by Robert Goddard and others...

lol i did not notice that she was missing a leg

No i expect, and will be learning, about ways to get to orbit that are cheaper and more reliable. Look at Heavier than Air Flight. 1903, we get off the ground for the first time, from then to the first world war, who flew? (The rich and the experimenters) After the war(s) (interwar only really rich people flew, big slump in the enconomy), it was still something special and expensive, and then all the sudden, flying is cheap and everyone does it with out a second thought. The same thing will happen to space travel, we are in the war periods right now, only the rich and experimenters can go into space, but soon every will be able to go.

Costs will come down, they have to

Tourism.... It will be huge once Bigelow gets their space hotel and the cost of spaceflight comes down, I mean we will have the Boeing CST 100, Blue Origin, SpaceX Dragon, and i think that Orbital will be making a crew rocket, plus the russians, and maybe the europeans iff they get their act together. with so many ways to get up there, costs will come down, with a base in LEO, it should be simple enough to get from LEO to the Moon and to a base there for vacations.

Lets face it, the first base on the moon is going to be private, no government will spend the money to put a base there

great looking pack, would love to hear about what is next.

the thing is that if they made all tanks historical, they would have to completely redo the teirs that they are assigned too, and some tanks would not be as fun because of the reduced armament, like the Hetzer with out the 105... Also i had a great game in my kv1 with the 122

glad you are back up chobit

Thats because we are not funding the space agencies as we should... the US Military budget is much larger than all the space budgets combined... we can afford it, politicians choose not to, Its a sad world

Whos to say that? and the expense of both going to mars and crossing the oceans is comparable, yes it is a lot easier to cross oceans than it is to cross space, but most of them went to stay, not to go for a year and then return. Also there is no ETHICAL problem, we dont force people to go to space, we ask them and they say yes. It would be the same for a Mars Mission with the implication that they would not be able to return until the could produce the fuel for it.

Now the question as stated in the title refers to a exoearth mission, not to the moon, but to mars. With the cost of shipping fuel to orbit and other places in the solar system, to YOU does it make sense to send people on a one way trip, which would cost less, or send them in such a way that they could return after a half year or so on the surface? One Way = there to stay pretty much indefinitely until they can produce their own fuel (at the least) or own rocket (at the extreme) to get back to earth. This plan would be similar to the MarsOne plan. Return = the perfect mission, you send the people with a return craft, they stay on the surface for about half a year, and then travel back. This plan would be similar to most governments plans. Poll up top and Debate below.

the thing is, NASA doesnt get money from the agencies for launching satelites, they go to the ULA fro rockets, NASA is dependent on Gov funding and with the current clowns in both houses and up top, we are not likely to get anywhere soon. As people have stated, NASA needs a goal that transcendens politics and is stable for more than 4 or even eight years, look what we accomplished during the moon RACE... superfast development that could put more stuff in or bit than we can now. We need a firm deadline for Mars and we need it NOW. A date in a decade would do perfectly, seeing as we have no rocket that is capable of putting men in to LEO much less on a TLO or a TMO (trans-Lunar/Martian-Orbit). With a few years and dedicated funding we should be able to do it.

SCIENCE kryten... and both plans have their ups and downs, I sorta prefer the Direct 3.0 Juipter rocket that some people were throwing around earlier

yes you did, and you have an unbalanced bracket. This is how i feel about unbalanced brackets and parenthensis. http://xkcd.com/859/

it is interesting to see how far this mod has come since october

until he posts a link the website is here http://ribbons.cgagnier.ca/

well this looks like an interesting app, supprisingly complete for a first release.

Hey mods can this be locked, i dont fell like having people telling me that the links are broken...

thank you odin

Since the forums have been backdated to Oct 2012, does it still technically count as necroposting if we accidentally post on a thread that has been dead for a while but we don't realize it? I'm asking because it is in the rules not to necropost.

wow its weird seeing all the old posts, also 2.0.6, what is the change from 2.0.5