AngelLestat

I just make an example of how the final mission would look if it is ISRU and what are the benefics. Why I need to get my microsoft project and write and design all steps with its details and procedures to explain a concept example that if it has more than 5 sentences nobody will understand or read? Yeah.. because I notice a great lack of logic from the other side. OF course (Duhh!) you will need to develope all that. But in my version I will change some procedures, politics, risk limits, etc. First you analize all possibilities not matter if they are high tech or low tech, if some new tech seems very promising, you anallize the time required to look into and decide if it worth it or not. I will encourage for the first steps better dynamic procedures without so much documentation, certifications so the project will not choke from the begining. I will encourage redundancy over high safety limits in the cases where mass is not a high penalty. Everything that is not cost efficient, is remove it from the mission design. It needs procedures more related to small test without choke with so much theory (spacex style), not waste time trying to find the ultimate device in quality and efficiency, for example: if you have a water extractor device with an efficiency of 50% and it match the requiremets for the mission, dont waste time until you get a 70% efficiency device, you move on. When you have enoght of the plan figure out, you go to the congress and said.. this is our plan.. it can be done with such X billions, but we need to hurry because the time windows for the optimun launch date is not so far. About testing ISRU in mars before deploy it, there are things that can be tested in earth with enoght accuracy of mars conditions. There are several rovers who already discover ice in top layers of soil, soil compositions, etc. SOmething that will be needed is to decide the best location for the mission, then sent another rover there to test everything that it should be tested (with one rover), then you just launch the mission, you can measure all the ISRU activities with sensors, if something goes wrong, you dont launch the crew and you go back to the design stage. But the benefic, that there is a high chance that it will work, and if it does, you dint waste 10 years of development just to be a bit more sure.

No, only your comprehension skills... I am detecting a pattern here, whereas less logic, evidence and good argument I find in your replies, more bad words try to fill those gaps. The water example of 1000 liters vs 990 + 10 kg Isru device, wast just a mental exercise to prove than even if something has low chance to work, it will add more safety to the mission in case a contingency. When I talk about ISRU I mention the fuel case, and I explain all the beneficts that are many more than just "not carry the fuel". But now I will clarify how much benefic we can extract from a good ISRU mission. 1- You transfer a ship to mars that will be equal to the one that will carry humans 2 years later. a) You can test the design and its EDL (Entry, Descent, and Landing) before try it with humans. You start to harvester Methane using few kg of hydrogen you carry from earth. c) It may transport also a mars vehicle. 2- You transfer a special rover that will extract water from the soil using microwaves, this rover transfer the water to the main ship which has an electrolysis device. (this rover is less than half than curiosity) 3- You transfer the ship with the crew 2 years layer (is a copy from the first main ship) a) The same as the main ship, it does not use complex mechanism to slow down or a lot of fuel in retro propulsion, because it just need the fuel to land. In other words less mass because you dont need to land with the fuel needed to launch from mars, neither the fuel for retro propulsion (that is a lot). In case you land far from the first ship, you have the transport vehicle that will come for you to take you to the main ship with all the harvested resources, the water rover also comes to your meet. c) You leave the second main ship in ISRU mode, harvesting fuel. 4-After your mission completes, you go back with the fuel harvested. a) In case of problems, you transfer the fuel using the vehicles to your second ship. If your launch find fails, you land again in mars and still you can use the other ship. c) In case any other contingency, you can produce oxygen, water, hydrogen and methane, so you will be able to survive for a while. In a NASA kind of mission, you will have to deal with real complex aerobraking manuvers and waste a lot of fuel in retropopulsion, in case something goes wrong, you have more chances to fail because you dont have redundancy and you are not able to produce resources.

Frozen hart and Bill: I was saying that Spacex can design a better SLS and Orion, when I said heavy launcher I was talking of a similar rocket than the SLS, and when I said a better capsule, I was saying a better capsule to go mars. And taking into account their accomplishes in rockets and capsules plus new technology... I will said is totally possible without question.

Is not reckless, nobody is saying launch something without the minimun tests, but NASA goes way beyond that until the point that is complete pointless and more risky. First, you can never be 100% sure that something will work, to be 95% sure is super cheap, 98% --> more expensive --> 99%--> a lot more expensive --> 99.9% you dont have enoght money. You reach a point, that all the extra money you need to spent to be a bit more sure, it can be spent it to develope new redundant mechanism or technologies that increase the safety even further. Take a look to dragonv2, its escape abort system is more safe and efficient than the old one that use orion. At the same time gain redundancy as a landing method (and you can choose where to land which add safety). It can be also used as extra deltaV needed in a emergency. And they did all that with even less money, so they have extra money to spent in other safety measures if they want. The heat shield is also better, it can in theory also resist an earth rentry from mars, which right now I hear that the Orion heatshield needs modifications to be able to resist that.. And that taking into account that the shape of Orion is better for aerobrake than dragonv2. Not to do ISRU, increase the danger of the mission by many reasons that I already mention. There is something called logic.. that you seems to complete skip in your answer. I already explain this 3 times.. how hard it can be? Example: You have the NASA mission that carries 1000 liters of water for said.. then you have my mission that carries 990 liters of water and the 10kg device that is designed to extract water. Lets imagine that the astronauts needs only 600 liters to accomplish the mission as is expected. What happen if you have a contingency with your water supply? Those extra 10 liters than Nasa has will help more than a device that was designed to extract 5 to 10 liters by day if it works? No.. so even if this device was not test it in mars, you still have a lot more chances to survive with it than without it. That is basic logic. And nasa policies works against all those benefics. SpaceX for example, can design a better heavy launcher, an interplanetary capsule with higher safety, and still it would spent at least 5 times less money. With that extra money, you can launch a lot of vehicles to gain redundancy if "safety is so important". But as I said, it should not be the most important.. To explore you should take risk.. saying this is not equal to said "no test", what it means is leave the fail policies from nasa who does not increase safety and waste a lot of money, time and resources.

Because it will be the worst case of incest that we can imagine, also egwww... There are defects in everybody chromosomes, that are notice in the pair selection, so if needs to choose one of you and one from your partner, if the one that belongs to you shows defects, then it choose the one in your partner, but if now are two of you, then both pairs in the same secuence have flaws, so it can not be solve. My explanation is kinda bad, search for Inbreeding and Zygosity.

Being self aware of you, is a require step for consciousness. So even if there is someone that is exactly the same than you, is not you. If he dies.. you dont die.. if you die.. you dont survive. Maybe this example with robots helps to explain this. https://youtu.be/JTOMNkZJRao?t=1m9s But well is still in discussion if when our consciousness is shut down but few moments, that count as if we are alive (or if we are there) or not. You can make a copy, for the copy is you. But there is not 1 single consciousness, you have 2, and they can not share the same "you".

Increible, so many errors in only one paragraph. You know that the average prediction from all experts working in the AI field is 2040 (this is the date when learning machines will surpass the human in all task) Second, if you take a look to my huge post, I never mention Kurzwiel, in fact I never read much about him, neither the 20 or 40 min video that is in youtube, the only thing I know about him is that he uses a different definition of singularity from the one I use. The evidence of exponential advancement is pure logical, and can not be false. And there is not point of diminishing return able to put a stop to it. If you want to keep your idea to sleep better on nights, be my guest, but if you really want to know how deep is the rabbit hole, then read the link I gave you with all their links, and if you still are not convince, then tell us the part where we are wrong. Or you can drop any excuse with bad words against us, and leave the discussion before we show you how few things you know. Ok, make a quote of me calling them "stupids", Let me reflect your advice: Read More. Comment less. Saying than NASA not always has the best solutions is very different than calling them stupids. More when those decisions are taken into account by silly internal policies and management. Why you include me in your ignorance? Here there is a lot of different mechanism to analyze chemicals: 1- electrochemical sensors (detect signal changes caused by an electrical current being passed through electrodes that interact with chemicals) 2- optical sensors (changes in visible light or other electromagnetic waves in the interaction.) 3- chromatography and spectrometry (separation of complex mixtures by percolation through a selectively adsorbing medium and subsequent detection of compounds of interest) 4- mass sensors (disturbances and changes to the mass of the surface of the sensor during interaction) Then you have very simple sensors that work just for one compound, measuring the amount (porcentage-purity) of a single compound in a mix. That is enoght for fuels, because you can assure that you will have combustion with certain grade of purity not matter what other compund you may have (is not for drinking). Here is one of many: http://www.bluesens.com/english/products/allgassensors/bcp-ch4-sensor.html You can use 2 or 3 different types of sensors to be sure, even a mass spectometer is a "must have" in any manned mission. Sorry.. but your "too risky" last excuse totally fail. I already explain this in the last post... all this is just nonsense for space exploration. And it does not add safety, because the process of depuration of tech is so time consuming and expensive that you come out with a worst and limited technology (which add risk for being inneficient) than the one you will get without so many pointless certifications. What??? if you want to compare, make a good comparison!!! One thing has nothing to do with the other. Tell me how a single vehicle with fuel is more safe than 2 (1 with already fuel in the tanks, and another able to produce that fuel, with the benefic they land with a lot less density which is more safe and easy to do, plus 2 in case one fails, you can even exchange components from one to the other). Come on.. use your logic.. is not hard. The insulting is that you dont know to read or understand the most basic logic rules. They play with the live of people even if they dont wanted, with their silly policies that stop them to use the best solution for each case. Also an exploration agency needs to take risks.. You dont go anywhere without taken risk. Astronauts needs to understand those risk, and balance their own decision (take the risk with the possibility to become the person with the biggest achievement in our age, or stay in home?) All days die thousands of people due wars, and better for you if we dont analize the causes of many of those wars.. haha, sorry if I can think by my own and you cant. Again focus into criticize other people ideas without even pointing a flaw. I come out with that idea just thinking 1 min about it, if I have a full day to think I will come out with a much better idea. Also why they will die? Is an extra... an option that you will not even have in a normal NASA mission. And the best you can do in the first mars mission, is to test ISRU methods to reduce the cost of next mission and make them more safe. Because you can not call to earth for more resources. It is, I always said that is easier to extract water from venus than from mars, because you do it from the atmosphere it self. But you can come out with an idea that might work, being light enoght to not represent any disadvantage in the payload. If does not work, you learn that it does not work and find a better way to improve it for the next mission. And if it works and you are in a position that you needed to survive.. then better to have it before nothing.

I guess this is what PakledHostage one time mention about the try to break the altitude record in the patagonia with a glider.

The key here is to understand what is "you", no matter how perfect is a copy from you, is easy to know is not you, because you are here, and that thing is there. So it can not be you.

If I provide wrong info, then point me where and explain why. About the singularity, read all this topic with its links +spoiler sections: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/132357-Everything-wrong-with-our-predictions-(The-Singularity-is-coming) Then take a look to the critics that I receive and my answers. Then you can point any critic you want.. as I said, the only thing about the singularity that is in doubt, is the exact date we would accomplish a HardAI. At that point the tech "can" increase super exponential, of course it will be not our call, it will depend on the AI, but after that point, is impossible to make any prediction and the world as we know it will change, and that is a fact. So if there is a possibility that we are close to our final step, then lets leave the "live as we know it" with a hell of accomplish visiting another world.

The only thing you will need to be sure, is that sensors that measure the amount and composition in the fuel be working properly. Those kind of sensors are very lightweight and you can have redundancy. I guess just with the sensors I answer your main concern. If something goes wrong and you can not take off, you still have the second ship, the one which you arrive, you just make the fuel transfer. And if you still said that "something" may happen with the engine.. Ok.. but is not related to the fuel, so nothing change with you carrying your own fuel from earth. What flaws? You can measure the fuel harvested and its quality in mars before the crew leaves the earth. Use your head.. not think "ah if nasa does not do it, it may be for a good reason behind it", is what I am telling you, that reason does not exist. Your golden organization not always take the best decisions the same as goverment not always choose the best politics. You mean there is not way to achieve that in time with all the NASA burocracy and silly methods who needs hundred of certifications as if they were making a capsule for profit with turists?What is weird about those basic chemical reactions that are used in earth or in the ISS all the time that will need decades of development to include them on the mars vehicle? If does not work, then you have a command module with its tank in mars without fuel in it. Dont sent the crew and problem solve. If you land on mars with your tank almost empty (just enoght to land), then the density of your vehicle decrease a lot, so you need less retro burn to land --> less fuel --> less risk in the re-entry. Also they dont need to be included in the Orion. so there is not delay there. You dont need to make something that for sure will save them, because it will not be needed if the mission goes well, is something you carry in case you are out of possibilities. Is an extra! Something that for sure NASA will not include, so if their resources are lost by some reasons, they dont even have an alternative. About the design, it may be a long stick of titanium with holes and a resistence in the bottom that will go 1 or 2 meters into the ground, it will heat the bottom of the stick melting any trace of ice, at that depth you will have pressure (maybe close to 1 bar) So the vapor or liquid water can be harvested by end of the stick (which working pressure will be lower than the bottom allowing to suck without pump), then you filter the remain and tadaaa!!! water.. If does not work.. well, they will be screw it in anyway. (comparing against a normal NASA plan) Not, but we can convince 2 or 3, those would convince others, people start to comment and point NASA fails, then those comment are readed by a journalist that decide to look into the criticism searching for evidence to see if are well funded. Then some politics and Nasa people may read those reviews, which may be an extra push to change the way they do things. In the case this does not happen, then we have learned something anyway from this discussion. I always do. Ok, that was all I wanna hear... Then I am not sure why you bother to comment? If we already know what it will be your opinion, as a simple program that always chooses the position that comes from the most popular source. You do not question, or think by your own. That is why even if you get flooded by counter evidence, you keep your posture. And would be fine by me if it were not for the fact you walk through the forum systematically criticizing each original idea or new technology we discussed. Sometimes you made good info contributions and analysis which I give you rep for it. But if that is the rule of your logic and you can not change in opinion unless your high ground source change its opinion, then not sure what is the value to discuss with you. Ok I dint knew that, Everytime that I read about the ISS life support system, they always mentioned that the hydrogen was vented. But I look into this, and I find that it was an external company who come out with the savatier design to be installed in the ISS, NASA did not encourage this or pay for it, they just said.. well if it works, we will paid for the water saved. And they are doing just that, a lot of millons just because they dint wanted to try it first. But I hear (and I guess everybody in this forum hear) that NASA does not want to use (or avoid always they can) ISRU in any manned mission.

Wow... "several iterations of hardware" that sounds too complicated.. XD ISRU is not only a lot more cost efficient, is also more safe. In the zubrin idea they launch the first vehicle without crew that is able to make its own fuel, then you launch an equal vehicle but with crew. Of course you check from earth first if the vehicle in mars has full fuel or not and its composition, with redundancy in the sensors (too easy). Then when you arrive, any issue you find, your vehicle is also capable to produce fuel, and in case 1 of the two ships gets damage or you need to abort launch, you still have the other. Tools to extract water or other resources does not require much extra mass, and they can save you in case any contingency. If I am the ignorant why I get tired to correct you all the time? Then you make your disapear act or just denied the true. Besides, all those words and not evidence to support your case. No mission that has been targeting the atmosphere of Venus failed. We can not said the same with mars and its 50% / 50% chance to land. And its know that landing 100 Tons is not the same than 1 T in mars, is a question of volume and density, parachutes does not help in those cases, you need something more. Also I am not saying we dont have advances... I am saying that NASA does not want to use them. Why I should get one? You dint have one of those? How has it helped you? :SThe only thing you do is to criticize all new tech and ideas, and defending all the things just as they are. I have a theory that you are incapable to judge an idea or tech by its own merit, so you take the position that if something is not used in the normal life... then there is a higher chance that it will be a good reason behind it, or apply the inverse logic with all the things already in use. Really, try to point me wrong in this.. Show me one time where you have defended something new without a lot of support or evidence behind it.

no, there are not.. NASA doesn´t want to use ISRU, that increase a lot the cost, they want to sent at least 6 astronauts. They dont know how to land heavy payloads without waste a lot of fuel in supersonic retro propulsion (which is also a risk). THe inflatable heat shield is not enoght. Radiation and safe life support habitat + space suits + psicology + muscle deterioration. All those issues can be easily solve if just NASA accept to use new technology instead those crap of 1980. They need to use the brain too to decide what is the most cost efficient strategy and admit some risk.. We will be still all in Africa if old explorers would be so carefull in each stone they step. But NASA is the antithesis of these requirements, until this not change, we would need to look in other place if we want to find inpiration and hope.

Venus and the Singularity were discussed already in their respective topics. Nothing is for sure, but I did a lot of research in those topics, I dont really like to make claims when I am not pretty sure about something. However this does not seems to be the case. It was their design mistake from the begining. No even one single serious study from nasa about how to go to mars. Yeah they can. About that 50 years does not matter... I am not sure even how to anwer that.

I think if we are lucky enoght to survive the change, we will be able to see how an AI reach the GOD status (this mean know everything that can be know).

Then the requirements are wrong, make things cost effective is the most important factor to measure how much it can do and the time in will be around. Your classic statement always is: "the cost is fine.. that is the way to do the things done", defending NASA position and politics. But maybe is like you said, my english is bad and I dint understand you.. You seems more concern about how much money the people make with these projects instead the main point, space exploration. You are a syndicalist now? XD Is not about the workers, you can use the same money to make 3 times more of what NASA does if you have good politics. But maybe somebody is always choosing old tech to keep it safe at the same time they keep all the money that instead will be needed for new tech developments, I really doubt it that if somebody analize all the budget with all the employes, for sure it will be still a lot of money missing. You get much more effect in the economy if you do the things right.. If you really do something that works efficient and can be used. As I said hundred of times, inspiring people doing big things is what attract more investment to the country. Of course this happens because is not about the general benefic, is about the benefic of those few that makes the rules. I read about Orion life support system, still super simple, and its navigarion and communication system... is just that. Not sure where those billions are.. Is cheaper, you can use the atmosphere to aerobrake, shorted mission time and travel, which decrease considerable the radiation to 1/4 and the food needed. Only 2 astronauts. You dont need to land. The same NASA said it is easier, but that it will take a big change in politics to do venus before mars.

You need radiators.. the thermal efficiency will be low, you can not work at such big temperatures with so many ISS components around, if is not very well designed you will radiate that heat and it will hit the other PV, which you will decrease the efficience of those PV. PV are cheap and they dont need maintenance.

From what I know, at earth-sun distance, any PV solution will provide more energy density than RTG, and is cheaper. At that height you dont even need lot of batteries, because your day is 90min. So you just use the amount of batteries that almost any system will have in case of problems.

As I point before, the amount of funding is questionable as zubrin said in the link I show in my previous post. But yeah, many of those thing are true. At our time it will be silly to have long term goals, something is coming that might change everything. So my posture: "lets do it before we make that step" A manned mission to venus atmosphere it does not need so much payload, it can be launched with 1 SLS and 5 falcon heavy, using orion. So they might try that before find a way to accomplish a mars mission. Again, all that will be true if they find enoght excuses to launch the SLS and if SpaceX fails with its new heavy launcher design. If they use Orion for a mars mission, it will be just as a capsule to reentry earth in the return. It does not land on mars, it will be attached to the transfer vehicle that orbit mars.

You need to read the full document to understand. I read it 6 month back and I checked with other sources, and the values are ok, in fact today that final cost seems it will increase for the last news.About the cost comparison with falcon heavy, is measure in cost by kg to LEO. So in this comparison does not matter if it carry 130 tons or 30 tons. If you make a design spending billions of dolars and then you realize that it would not work' date=' so you need to start again.. The first fail needs to be included in the development cost.. Because there are not 2 very different things, is the same orion program, and I cant imagine different requirements for the capsule. Is not like that, here Zubrin said that the cost is similar and explain why... https://youtu.be/3UChuIqIKF4?t=4m12s It is, and you notice when you compare development and launch cost from SpaceX vs NASA. Or when you make the comparison with different engineering accomplish. There is no comparison with 1960, when they needed to develope all from zero with tech of that time.. Now you have a lot of different engines and rocket designs to compare and base your design, you have super computers that can save you years in development using simulations. Special software to assist engineers. New, cheap and better materials to chose. +50 years on technology (which equal to magic in many fields) I know that compared with the defense budget is nothing, which I always complain, but is not the point.Not because you may have a lot of money, it means you can waste the one you have. The goverment is looking for a epic manned mission, because that is what everyone wants. It also attracts investment and many other benefics for the country. But until now NASA answer was... too risky, we still do not know how.. etc. That is the NASA lie. We did the Moon in 1969!!! Why we would have problems now? Give that amount of money to spacex, and they will reach mars in 7 years. It needs a lot of extras that are not included in the development. If fact, the movie (Man on Mars: Mission to the Red Planet) it said something related to this, as the goal is missing and is not real designed to go mars. It will be also politacally suicidal if by that time, Spacex or other agencies had better alternatives to SLS, which is not hard to believe. Because I was focus in their missions and designs, I know that everytime they can do something better or cheap, they always choose the worst option. So I lost my faith in them.They can not also see the super fast change in technology that we will experience the next 10 to 15 years. And how all long term missions are all pointless due this factor.

hahaha, it must be hard to be in your position and trying to find words to defend something that is indefensible, regardless of the angle you look at it there is no way to make sense of all this. It doesn't need to be cheap? You know that there is a high chance that SLS and Orion would not be launched more than 4 times.. dont you? At that launch count, we would have something a lot less efficient than the shuttle in cost by kg. It will become know as the higher design failure on the space history. Which in your head... is a good design and all the cost is justified haha Ok.. that kind of logic, explain a lot of our previous discussions. I guess multiple computers and cores would be enoght for any radiation problem, but if the magnetic shield is really needed, it would not be hard to keep that portion of the ship (just the computer) insolated and cool enoght for superconductors, which they will require very low energy to mantain the field. If Orion is not more capable than apollo 50 years after, then... Houston, we have a problem... Also in my first post I said that the robotic missions was "ok", kinda disappointed, but ok. About the shuttle.. everybody know that was a failure, but in kg to LEO, the SLS would be more expensive than the Shuttle if it does not have at least 2 launchs by year in a long time frame. http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2330/1 That is the cost of the 130 tons version, if you use the 75 tons version it will be 85% higher cost, if the program gets cancelled after 4 or 6 launchs, no matter how many launchs by year you have, it will be much expensive than the shuttle. The cost of the SLS if its launched 1 by year (in many years time frame), it will be 15 times more expensive than falcon heavy in expenderable mode and without crossfeed.

How a Land Rover that costs billions per trip, is useful in any way? yeah there are different capsules for different functions. But if you have a capsule that is too expensive to be used, then is completely useless. Something well designed needs to be efficient in its use. I am still waiting if you are able to point me the new tech used in Orion. Or at least something to justified the cost. Yeah I know, maybe they will be able to design an extention habitat for Orion to be used in the Venus HAVOC mission, which has shorted time periods in space.

yeah, it's a relatively simple spacecraft that has a simple purpose with a development cost that does not correspond at all to what we have been saying. It would not cost as much, even if it were made of pure gold. Is clearly than some people is using the program as an excuse to divert funds, Maybe Charles Bolden knows who might be What are you saying? that they forget how to made one? XD I mention Dragon V2 just to compare development cost and achievements in new tech. Not to compare task and roles. Why is not their fault? Sorry, but nobody can be so naive to think they can waste all the money they want to produce something that is not cost efficient at all (even removing the development cost) and believe it will last for decades with a prohibitive launch cost is retarded; lucky if they use the Orion more than 4 times, plus at the time it will be ready, it will be total outdated at the speed tech grow lately. mmm you might be right here, but I still believe this is more NASA fault than anything else. Congress is waiting for a good planned project to Mars at a reasonable cost. But NASA no even want to try or take any risk. Orion is not designed for a mars mission, I really doubt if the capsule can be included in some way in the final Mars mission design. Heh, the fact that you really need to point that, not sure if it works as a pro Orion´s argument.The only thing they are proud to claim is that Orion use 4 independent slow computers to deal with radiation. But that choice cost them a lot of resources, because is a pain in the ass to deal with old technology (because nobody can give you support), that way is more difficult to find errors and test issues, you are all by your own, meanwhile if you use new technology, everybody is in the same page, you have plenty of tools to make your software and test it. You can install new computers using each core independent, all working in parallel to compare results, each one has their own cache, now you have fast 3d solid nand memories that would be much robust and fast than normal RAM. You can have many of those computers each one with plenty of cores to give you redundancy. You can even shield the defaut computer with a small magnetic field to avoid part of the radiation just in that small area.

Yeah I am agree with the topics about space wars but I just think (as many here) that it will be better to have an unique megathread to deal with news that are not very related to space exploration or enoght popular for a long discussion. The same as the thread "for questions than dont deserved a new thread".

This superconductor needs extreme pressures, it is a lot easier to reach almost absolute zero than those pressures. So not sure about the utility of this finding (besides as extra evidence to create a new theory of superconductivity)