AngelLestat

There were 12 lazarus missions, Gargantua system had 3 potential worlds.. so they went to that place. I agree with the rest of your explanation.. If the future of all mankind was in play.. then you should take any risk. In the movie dr mann said that survival instinct is something that machines "could not learn", that is why they sent astronauts, also it is clear looking in their robot designs that there were things that those machines would not be able to do in the same way as a human does. But well, is part of the plot of the movie.

This up here.. plus redundancy.. you can have some engines fails that it will reach orbit anyway.

Just use a tether+counter weight to get artificial gravity.. But if we use artificial gravity (any kind) we are giving up having a better radioactive passive shielding against sun particles.

This site explain that and it also confirm the date for 24 feb. https://spaceflightnow.com/2016/02/09/ses-says-spacex-will-launch-its-satellite-in-late-february/

haha, only 99997 to go.. You need a full marketing help.. First you need at least 10000, so other voters take this more seriously. Maybe if you search the most popular US KSP channels. Maybe with that you get 5000... If you managed to reach 10000, then it is possible that these popular sources will convince other popular sources (no related) to support this quest.

It seems that we might have another barge landing try for later this month. http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/spacex-sets-launch-date-for-later-this-month-sea-landing-likely/ Gwynne Shotwell also said they will start to improve production speed and hopes to make launches every few weeks for the end of this year. We have also the falcon heavy test. They did some changes to the falcon9 to avoid the recent issues with the reusable stage on one of their engines. They will shown the mars rocket design with their other plans on ISRU. They also plan to reuse a stage for the end of the year. http://www.clickorlando.com/news/spacex-updates-falcon-heavy-in-2016-astronauts-in-2017 There are more sources that explain other things that I said. But I dont have the links at hand.

Not me.. Spacex is making them look like idiots Try to think a bit better your next answer, you are fighting against reality here. You already did that koolaid joke.. where is your innovation? I am systems engineer, you should remember that after you try to explain me guides of project managements. Also, after so many times that I prove you wrong with direct evidence (in case you don't want to count all the others), I should receive a bit more of love from you.. in the case you like to get rid of wrong concepts of course. You want to said if nasa was not around.. then another agency or company will get that money and made a better use of that money. Dont get me wrong.. I dont hate those guys.. I love them. I love what they represent.. That scientific aspect.. But sorry, with the pass of the years.. they lose the structure and the efficient management to make a good use of that budget. So lately and sadly.. now they are becoming in an obstacle for their same objective. I dont..?? tell me what is the cost of working with old software and hardware.. I am listening... The first thing that I am telling since I comment in this topic. Trying to help to DBowman to understand that technology is not the enemy, but you started to said the opposite and getting off topic :S Also.. You said that I don't understand politics or economics? -Remember the skylon discussion about if it has economic sense to have those launch cost? Well ESA did a big economic study and it was proved that it has economic sense. -Remember when I predict a big increase in launch demand with cheap satts made with modern production lines with new business cases, and you said that was impossible because I did not knew nothing on how those projects are managed.. Half year later.. constellations boom news over all the place. -Remember when I predict Airships and quadrotors transporting cargo and you said that quadrotors never will get FAA approval and that airships (if they appear) they will have a very small niche? Well many drones already have faa approval for those works and airship production start in 4 or 5 different companies and europe is already creating the logistic for this kind of vehicles. -When I said that venus was easier and a better case, and almost one year after NASA made the concept mission and said that it will be easier than a trip to mars.. You now that I can continue with examples.. but you get what I mean.. No I am not. Real data from the curiosity over its transit time. http://www.space.com/24731-mars-radiation-curiosity-rover.html 180 days = 300msv, this mean that your 500 days transit trip will be equal to 833msv, if we divide by the max dose than a nuclear worker can be exposed by year /50 --> then is equal to 16,7 times more than a nuclear worker. But I round the number in 15 because 500 days is higher than 1 year. Read the above answer.. you should check any info provided for me.. I dont mistake often.. and If I do.. I will apology in no time. Also that does not include solar flares occurrences, it may happen. I guess we should wait and see what would be the spacex cost for a trip to mars with spacex launcher, capsule and other things designed for them to make fuel and resources in mars. The design will be shown this year.. we will need to wait at least some years more to have a cost estimation. Or you are betting that we will use SLS and Orion to go to mars? It might work for moon, asteroids or even Venus.. But I cant imagine they will use SLS and Orion for mars.

Like the last guy who died this last month crossing the antarctic at foot and he died like 20 km before reach its destiny :S One of the old books I have is from Bernard Moitessier. 180 days transit to mars is equivalent to 300msv, a nuclear worker only has allow it 50msv by year, so your 500 days is close to 15 times the nuclear worker limit (that is already high), then you need to add the risk for solar flares.. that in a 500 day period.. is not so weird to happen.. That case is equal to a fatal dose. All that and you dont let the astronaut to put a foot in mars (where is more protected than in space due planet rotation) or venus cloud which dose is zero. If someone will put his life or health in risk.. at least let them make history. It does not matter if it will cost 4 times more (if you were cost efficient in the first place) It should not if it is properly handled in the media. You need to be success to make people understand that this is a huge achievement that only comes under huge risks, that is in human nature to accept those risk in order to go where nobody were before. We understood that just 45 years back and over the whole human history.. People in history made trips on odds so low that it does not have even comparison with any space travel. You need to apply redundancy in things as electronics because radiation can convert a bit between 1 or 0, this give you errors and possible crash. But there is no chance that your spaceship will break on half or something similar to need another one.. You look redundancy in those possible errors that might happen and there are cheap to solve with redundancy. But in case a ISRU ship that it will land before a identical manned ship arrive.. in that case redundancy has a lot of sense. Because the most of the cost is in development, once you have a design you can made 3 without adding much to the cost. It also gives you the chance to test that design in transit, landing and as ISRU before you sent the astronauts. If you think about trillons, is because you dont have much idea of all the things you can buy with just a million (if you take care of your money). The planned building "Changsha" from china, will be tall as burj khalifa but much bigger, it will have close to 20000 residents and it will cost 1.4billions, before you said that this is a easy task or does not have its risk.. Try to imagine the engineers working in the structure to make it aerodynamics, earthquake, fire, terrorism proof in addiction with many other issues that are related to accomodate and serve 20000 vertical residents and guarantee its safety. You are speaking of 1000 billions to develop some ships and props needed for a mars mission who is not using any new tech (literally speaking) http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-patents-2012-11 All big companies buy any kind of patent just to store them and suing other companies who try something similar. Again.. you are trying to said that spacex is not a innovative company.. I dont think to waste more time in this.. is all on you... Who are you trying to convince? We had this discussion many times and I prove you wrong.. with argument, logic, predictions (who many was already confirmed and the rest all are in good track) and with reality. All the things you said and you still cannot answer how spacex does it? You always had the same posture against everything, the rule is: "if is new and nobody is using that already, it must be because is not good.. so that will be my opinion the 100% of the time" It will kill you to think on your own for once, analysing a single case base on your knowledge and possibilities? If I said that NASA is totally cost-inefficient in everything they do, and I prove it with logic and other examples of companies doing the same thing. Then you go out and said that is how is done because I was in a similar position and that is what it cost.. No sure what you want to accomplish with that argument. Any good company can make those "15 year projects" -hello james webb telescope.. in 4 years at 1/10 of the cost. So there is no need for that. Source? so if one fail.. then you need to wait until the other makes the same operation from the begining? So the computer that is measuring the landing thrust power gets a 0-1 swap episode which give you error and then other computer needs to start that program and continue from there.. that is when the software crash... literally due surface. When I said you need to duplicate everything? The electrolysis machine is something that needs redundancy.. In the ISS they have 3, if it will be better designed from the begining they would be using 3 PEM devices that weights 4 times less (each one), they work at better efficiency and with less issues, they need less chemical reposition.

No, it is all about the atmosphere.. the planet distance is secondary.. Greenhouse gases can change the temperature but a huge amount. Also the planet albedo can reflect a huge % of the light before it reach the surface. You can have a very close planet to its star with high reflectivity at cloud level and no greenhouses gases and the temperature will be perfect. You can have a planet very far, with a lot of water vapour and other greenhouses gases with an atmosphere of 10 Bar and you will have temperatures as earth in the surface. Venus reflect the 72% of the light that it gets.. is light that does not contribute to the planet temperature. But due its huge greenhouse case, it has 470c in its surface.. These are some of the effect that I can think off that influence in the planet temperature. Atmosphere mass, atmosphere composition, tidal lock planet's (these may have a range of locations where the temperature is perfect), oceans to regulate the heat, your location on the planet (poles, equator, terrain that generates micro weather, etc), radioactive heavy elements and geology, tidal heat due another body, magnetic fields, distance to the star, etc.

Habitable zone as they called.. is pointless to have a minimun idea on the planet temperature. The most important to know the planet's temperature is its atmosphere, which we know nothing. It can be far as jupiter or almost as close like mercury and have very similar human conditions. 2 earth mass means extra gravity.. extra force to to trap gases. This might trigger a greenhouse effect without end.

I am the book guy.. and I also sail. My dad and mom love those stories, they have 3 books of solo trips around the world in sail boats. And we saw 5 movies at least. It has no point in comparison.. I am not saying that the astronaut can not handle that.. but all that effort for nothing.. or 1 day of window.. All that money invested and you can show only 2 days to the people on earth. All those health problem related to zero-g and the high doses of radiation... We can plan these missions, but I guess we will never see one like this.

Fly by to the moon may have sense.. but fly by to mars or venus or both.. sounds like a sick joke on the astronauts, all that dose of radiation, months and months of travel with psychological issues, just to see mars 1 day through the windows and stay in that can all the way back.. if the astronaut reach earth again.. can be a nice guy as dr mann in interstellar. Havoc mission lasted 440 days, 1 month in orbit, 1 month in the clouds. In case you want to reduce the radiation doses you need to spent a lot more time in venus 1.2 years. Transit: 112 days go, 96 days back. Calling spacex: "a no innovative company.." is like calling Tesla: "a no innovative inventor". why spacex is in the top of the space industry then? Sorry, but I never said that you should no test your things... I just said that you should use the top of the technology every time you can. Because when you not do that, all cost skyrockets. Those test cost nothing, the test that cost money is things you test in space, crash test, or anything that requires launch things to high altitude. The software development is the most expensive in everything related to electronics. They are just normal laptops with normal components.. the only important there was the vibration test that depends on the quality of the manufacture company. They use win7, so they are new compared to all the things that NASA use. One of those problems is because when they start a project, they already start using old tech, then after 10 or 15 years of delay in turtle development speed, their tech has 15 or 20 years old, which increase a lot the cost because nobody remember how that thing work and you dont have support because that thing is no in the market anymore. Also.. many other techs appear in that time which make your whole design totally outdated and pointless vs new approaches. Why orion does then? This topic is being derail, and for one weird reason according to one moderator.. is always my fault.. I explain this already.. the only thing that matters is deterioration (that can be tested and even find some shielding chosen its location), and Single event upsets that are solved with software or connecting devices in parallel. How much money and software development will need? You can not run any modern app in case you found that some may be usefull. You can design anything you want.. but if it cost more than the people is welling to pay.. then you stay in home. That is reality.

I don't care how old style aerospace engineering works (which already show how inefficient it is and it can not take us anywhere unless they waste 100 billions. I am only concern on how physics and probability works. sorry, but.. we can not do thermal tests? or vibrational tests? or even some radiation tests? We can do all of them, the radiation test with a proton beam used for medicine.. it does not cover the full radioactivity range from space but it gives you a good idea on the amount of Single event upsets (0-1) that you will be dealing and how much devices in parallel you need. Then if you want to study degeneration of materials, any scientific accelerator facility would be enough to simulate years of exposure in hours. In the ISS they use all the time 68 IBM and 32 Lenovo laptops using windows 7 or linux, all in lan or wifi, with servers and other phones. With no redundancy. The IT guy said they found a very similar amount of errors that a computer in ground will have. http://www.cnet.com/news/interview-the-space-stations-it-guys/ Also not sure why you said that I will add 3 times the necessary weight?? what? The orion computers are 3 or 5 very old (energy intensive and big mass), and they work in parallel. Not sure how my method will add more weight? All the money you save in software development and operation can go to solve other issues. What is the problem? they lose a rocket.. but now they fix the issue and they continue ruling.. They need to lose like 5 rockets a year to equal the same cost that NASA would spent trying to do the same thing.. heh, they boil regardless of its conditions? XD I guess tanks follow physics, they need to be over certain temperature and at certain pressure to boil off. If you keep those temperatures low, there is no need to concern. heh, that is why it is a lot cheaper try venus first. But when you focus in a tech problem and you study the old methods vs the new ones.. You will realize that in many of those can be highly improved without adding risk. I can not tell you what is the best for each case.. But I study the electrolysis case with the electron from the ISS, and its terrible the decision they took even in the year they were designing the ISS. It was clearly evidence that the new PEM devices will work better, but they choose the MIR solution just because was used before. Now is the thing that more problems generate in the ISS.

When someone talk about simplicity, it means try to avoid sci-fi solutions or very complex systems or mechanism when they are no needed. Example.. magnetic shielding or a new type of propulsion that requires development, money and time. But you will not send an old computer that weighs 100 kg and use super old OS that requires 5 times more money in software development, just with the excuse that it worked in a 1990 spacecraft. Use the last tech that we use commercially and just add redundancy in case the other 2 or 3 fails. Forget to use something from the ISS life support, is old as hell (1960), weights a lot and function really bad. A modern PEM electrolysis device will weigh 20 times less and you can have extra redundancy, it will work much better and consume less energy. I guess that a modern life support using modern devices could save you a lot of weight, it will make the trip more safe. One thing to have into account.. that each kg you save, it makes the whole mission much cheaper and safe.. Because the real inconvenients are deltav and how to land heavy payloads in mars, that is the most hard to do in which all effort should be focus. If you place your oxygen tank in a key place of your ship, it will not heat and it would not require cooling.. and even if it does, it does not add any complexity.. those things does not add difficulties, Instead have a huge tank at big pressures might add.

kinda it is.. Mercury "atmosphere" is 1x10exp-14 bar That is much higher vacuum that the one we can achieve with normal vacuum pumps, to go higher than that it would require specialize vacuums machines that are multistage.. In fact if you accomplish that, the few molecules around that "vacuum zone" will take a long time before realize they can expand a bit more to that place..

harvesting hydrogen from mercury "atmosphere" will be pointless. There is no way to suck.. because is not possible to low the pressure even more, even if you go fast enough with a scoop you will not accomplish much. Someone needs hydrogen in space? asteroids... those things made of ice... there is no need to collect atom by atom.

you should be very close to the sun´s corona to harvester a "descent" amount, then you need to waste a lot of energy to transport that h2 to higher orbits. If you dont want to spent propellent, then just use solar sails.

zero evidence? The same words that I use was mentioned by McCain in a public debate. In fact all the strikes against Russia and ULA starts at 0:00. Then at 26:28 there is another big hit that ULA politicians can not answer. This is different because spacex is on the news in lot of media worldwide. Spacex has a lot of followers and this issue is related to their success, so the media aspect is completely different. By the way.. I am not claiming nothing.. is just my opinion (or prediction if you prefer) . But well, If I don't have evidence.. then show me your evidence that ULA will continue operations with normally by many many years. Because there is no argument of choice that all lead to a bad future for ULA.

We can have 1000 isp with NTR. But why you want that? it has a lot of drawbacks vs my alternative... Imagine you want to move an asteroid of 22m of diameter (mostly water), that is around 10000 tons, now you can calculate how much fuel you need to bring with you to push that asteroid with a certain deltav (100t of fuel only is enough to achieve 100m/s) But first you need to launch that from earth and reach the asteroid, which takes precious time and extra fuel, plus difficult maneuvers with high delay in communications in a very unstable asteroid due its size). with my way: you have all the time in the world to choose the perfect asteroid to capture. Once you reach it (the same 22m asteroid) you paint it with a reflective layer, surface=2000m2 which is 45x45 (200 kg of paint as much). You push it in the best moment to achieve an earth encounter (it might take 4 years, it does not matter), once there you use gravity assist from the moon and then earth to capture the asteroid in a very highly elliptic orbit (it takes less deltav to capture and less deltav to reach escape velocity using oberth effect) Once in orbit.. you can study it, then you drill it to the center, and use a nuclear reactor to melt its core filtering the water, the same heat can be used to split the water and produce lh2-lox. A long retractable cable can be used to catapult probes to reach escape velocity even before achieve circularization, this reduce a little bit the apo from the asteroid. The day that the asteroid menace arrive, you have hundreds of tones of propellant in orbit and you can use the same reactor as NTR engine. Lets imagine that after minging and exploit the asteroid you have a mass of 6000t, you can use 2000t of the asteroid as proppelent to achieve 4000m/s and hit the menace with a mass of 4000t. The time you save with the extra deltav increase by a lot the divert angle you can achieve.

Ok. change a tiny bit by enough.. About the russian meteorite, was relative small, we have higher chances to find big ones.. but yeah.. nothing is certain. In the case of nukes we might need some testing to find what method is the most effective (depth, depending asteroid class). About hitting the asteroid with another asteroid.. you dont need much testing.. you just do it. Because you dont have to choice the moment or depth of detonation. What it needs testing is install a nuclear reactor in an asteroid that will be able to produce water (splitted in hydrogen and oxygen) and in case it needs, it will use that water as propellant in a NTR configuration to move the asteroid.

Evolution happens from the gene perspective.. no species.. in that case is really difficult to find what could be the benefic for the gene in have an autodestruction mechanism.. Help to their gene copies that "might" be exactly like him? when in fact he is for sure that if he saves himself (gene) it has more chances to save that particular gene. But this strategic might have more sense in animals with higher number of childs which does not need the parent to take care of them, and maybe its death can provide them more resources (because there is more chances to have that specific copy of that self destructive gene in their child's and these to survive). To see if one evolution trait has sense or not.. we just need to follow the chances that each individual gene traits has to spread or live.

no, there is no perfection because we live in an environment that is always changing.. if you can not deal with the changes fast enough you get extinct. If you live a lot of years, it means that you evolve very slow, for example a mosquito or a bacterium can evolve in weeks or months. Also the evolution does not happen around the individual or species. It happens around the gene. So the only subject who wants to survive is the gene here. You can also ask why our body does not have any defence against cancer.. Because we reproduce at younger age than average cancer age. If you try to push the reproduction age higher each generation, evolution will deal with the cancer problem allowing you to live longer. By the way.. there is an species of jellyfish that if it needs, it can be inmortal.

there are many ways to solve this problem, but all that I think about takes a little amount of friction which needs to be cancelled using extra energy from solar. One as Frybert said is making the spinning section inside the pressure vessel, but this also has friction with the air. There are others methods that use special bearings in the joints that also work as air tight, but again.. you have some friction. In the ISS none of these habitat sections will be installed for human experiments, they can have small ones for other organism. The best way today we have to study artificial gravity is using tethers with a counter weight. About Nautilus X design, I guess they just deal with the friction using extra energy from the panels.

Is just a technical problem that I think anybody can solve just thinking some hours or days. Ok, after thinking this for some minutes, it may have its difficulties. Not sure how to achieve zero friction. The main thing about designing a spinning habitat, it is if the whole thing rotates.

I am not pulling them out just right away.. I said that my previous prediction was 5 to 7 years before they close.. But this news makes the 5 years for granted than I give them kinda uncertain. It does not matter if boeing and lockheed keeps going with other projects or if they decide to create another space company.. what it matters is that ULA may be closed (we are speaking of ULA) Again, it does not matter the destiny of their parents companies.. it matters ULA destiny. They can have all the senators they want.. but one thing is sure in the world.. everyone will do the best for himself. This mean that if the company can not compete by a big margin, and its vulcan project seems to follow that trend (when you include the develop cost and lifetime of the business) then it will be too risky for the same ULA (because they need to make some investments without guarantee that will keep in the business for much longer and that level of failure can impact in the reputation of their parents companies) and for the senators who will put them in a bad spot to protect a company who did not have any chance from the beginning which steal money from the taxpayers and voters.