AngelLestat

But what about the profits they generate? A huge technologic advancement, how many products was possible due technology develope over the apollo program? How many was encourage to study due those missions? How many scientist choose to live in USA just due that evidence of "the science edge is here". Also dont forget that inside that huge cost, was tons of new methods that did not exist back then, including the biggest rocket ever build. Right now to an interplanetary mission we dont need much new technology as back then.

The current Nasa budget it will be enoght for a manned mission to Venus if its very focus and cost efficient organized, but to do that they will need to cut a big part of their thoudsand of different research and operations they do at the same time. Of course that is not the way.. something that a manned mission can achieve is people and goverment suport. But you need to present a solid and complete plan of how to do it.. not just.. "this may work", you need to show them confidence. The falcon heavy 1st stage reusability will need to be mature for that time. A coperative mission between countries may help for the mars case because you need at least 4 or 5 astronauts there.. In the venus case where you can sent just 2 astronauts it will not help much.. because each country would want to sent their own astronauts. Right now countries needs to stop making new weapons or keep putting money in army research, because is completely pointless today. I know that war is a business and they get some profits with that, but that is ending due globalization, media and public opinion, it generates big country loses against few profits that only receive some people in power. So they will need to cut with all that sooner or later, and the only way to show superiority after that is with big achievements. And how countries can not get gain new lands or resources out of their limits.. the only way is to get those in space. Nobody can "conquer" other planets.. but anyone who arrives will be able to exploit them. Exploit a planet is not just extract resources... There is development and new science.. you put some infrastructure that can be used for other countries later, etc. Also being in the edge of exploration and knowledge, that country becomes a magnet for the people more capable and intelligent from earth, which they will generate more profits.

what is next? dragonv2 pod escape test? Is already confirm the date?

They are becoming much more experience with each launch, now they really transmit trust to their customers.

Yeah... take off!!

Congrats Squad, it was a long journey until this day. You did it. It will be possible after now made it easily for mods to fix compatibilities with upcomming versions?

Yeah I know.. it was an english sentence problem, not one related to understanding.. Thanks for the correction anyway.

In few hours SpaceX with the falcon9 will launch the Thales Alenia Space (Turkmenistan communications satellite into GTO). http://livestream.com/spacex/events/3995038 Not recovery attempt for this mission.

Sorry but your little green guys conspiracy has not base or evidence to support it. In fact all the evidence point 100% to the contrary from any angle. One more things, scientist compete between them all the time.. the best achievement that a scientist can do is prove everybody else wrong. But in this case there is a 98.5% of agreement and that % is rising... The same as the sea levels. Ok.. to those who wanna keep talking of global warming conspiracies they can make a new thread or use those already made it for that. Because the relation with Venus is due the potential that it has to improve our climate models, and it will do it even if there is not global warming.

Try to not derail the topic.. global warming and climate models are kinda related to this mission so is not problem.. Nuclear talks not so much. You may find pattern in weather with that, not on climate. I pointed this in this topic, but is more related on the reflective effect than clouds had. You research for weather or climate? To study global warming you need to take the average world temperatures, the co2, methane and different global values parameters depending its location on the globe and compare it with previous world average data. Is not about weather.. is about climate. I was in a seminar last year, it was a geologist talking about earth history and he also talk about global warming. He did not believe in global warming, then after the seminar I exchange mails with him to discuss about that.What was super clear, that all its hypothesis were based on inaccurate data, some times just picking evidences and ignoring the ones that point in opposite way. His bigger error was to claim that the CO2 emitted by volcanos was much more higher than the caused by human activity.. When in fact is all the opossite, the co2 emitted by us is 100 times greater than by natural causes. He also claim that the heat wasted of all our machines was the cause of the higher temperatures. But if you do the math, even converting all the energy used in the world as waste heat, that amount of heat is nothing in comparison with the needed to rise the world temperature. But if you use the actual co2 and other gases values to calculate the increase in temperature, then all numbers match. Here there is a good resume: So you are saying that the 2% of the energy players who just barely enter in play few years ago with huge waste of money in development to try to compete with a world already ruled by fossil fuels.. You are saying that these 2% of people had the money to buy the 98.5% of the climate scientist? Meanwhile all the fossil players (90% of the energy sources) who won money all these years and they keep doing it, are "victims" of the injustice propaganda that came from the other 2%????? Please.. use your common sense.. That was true.. but it was all around.. The first scientist blamming the fossil fuels were persecuted.. But the true always win.. The overwhelming evidence can not be stopped.. that is why global warming is a fact supported by 99% of scientist that study this phenomenon.

Ok Sorry, I must knew that you could not said such thing. In my defence the sentence seems to said that if we ignore the "period": But people like AngelLestat aren't talking about a time 5000 years from now. Much like many of us here The key factor why many of you make such long time predictions is because you trace a line from 1970 to 2010 and see how little we accomplish in that time (on space) and the few changes that was applied to vehicles or methods from that year. But you cannot do that if you want an accurate prediction.. You need to understand the causes, the will and all technologies involves with their respective hatch times. I always follow how technologies grow up since 25 years back, and I keep doing it almost all days, I become pretty acurate to predict the time of hatch due the amount of funds and attention which they receive and also trying to understand how they works in conjunction with the world needs. In fact applications as Cortana make great predictions just checking twitter trends. Understand economics and business helps a lot, about politics is hard to make predictions because some times doesn´t depend on the country needs. You can have 40 years of the same thing, but it reach a time where all pieces come together and a new technology arise bringing a new revolution. Cellphones for example grow up slow, until they reach a place where they had enoght processing and utility to change the user life, that is the smartphone revolution. The space revolution will come when the launch cost and the space needs reach certain level. Then it will grow up exponential as the smartphones. And remember that when something is used more frequenty, it grows much more faster. About your question.. what is my prediction on asteroid mining? 2040-2045 first attemps, it will not be profitable from the day 1 as everything new, but the first profits will help to reduce the investment and improve the methods. The most hard about asteroid mining is the energy require it. My rough numbers based in my opinion: If skylon happens, 5 years later you can launch 30 kg spacecraft with 10000 U$S to LEO. With Falcon Heavy 5 years later you can launch 7 kg spacecraft with 10000 U$S to LEO. Forget about mass produced, none rocket in the word can be applied to cost reduction due mass production. The only one who approach to "mass production techniques" was the falcon9. Also there is not such thing as cheap rockets that can be used one time.. because you need to be sure they work that first time.. due this, is almost sure that materials will work 20 times more. This is not as plastic utensils vs metalic. But another way to think in reusability more close to your view, is to think that you need a 30% bigger rocket if you want to make it reusable for a fixed payload. So the rocket will cost a 30% more aprox, but you can use it 15 or 20 times. Which reduce the cost by a lot due production, but also due the test cost that each new rocket needs. Yeah.. still in neverland with the assumption that demand will not increase, google already agree with spacex to launch 4000 sats for their internet project, it already invest 1 billion and gain a 10% of the company.That is only the tip of iceberg for possible business in space. It can go from pharmaceutical ruble, to exploration or any other space exploit business. Also even if spacex does not need to drop the prices due low demand.. they will do it anyway to encourage the industry to low the cost of spacecraft components. Is not crazy to think that they self will fund a company to provide cheap and generic spacecraft components even at manufacture cost. They will do this because at that time they will be the only cheap choice, and they need to increase their launch rate to increase even more its launch technology, so other companies would not be able to reach them. Airbus and Safran, are joining forces to create a new family of price-competitive launch vehicles to fight SpaceX, then you already know The United Launch Alliance new plans to face spacex, Arianespace, Lockheed, Khrunichev and Energia plus the japanese and chinese. There are huge companies who increased its activity a lot lately, with new designs and fusions, all to fight for a piece of a non existing pie (in your opinion). Because... what can you do in space?? Of course it will start with the basic steps, but if skylon study confirms feasibility.. They will not wait much time, they can not allow spacex to control the space business.

Then kids will said: --When I grow up I want to be like that robot, but the robot will answer --stay in home, do nothing with your life.. I handle it.. Yeah... that is not the way to inspire people or to live. Also robots had problem with comunication delay, not so much for the ARM or Moon mission concepts. They also had a problem sharing info.. they can only transmit few kbytes for second (in case are not close to home). A manned mission needs to return, so they can bring with them terabytes of data and SuperHD videos. A human can do what 20 or 30 robots do in the same time. Manned missions had the public and goverment support, they obtain huge budgets... good luck trying to get big funds for your R2D2. Life is about take risks, is not life without that.. what is this new surrogates ideology as the Bruce Willis movie.. That way to face thing is pathetic. There was not so big breakthrough with rockets. But the breakthrough is comming more in the way of "not drop that 747 to the trash after you used it" We are in the edge of big breackthoghts on light materials using graphene or carbon nanotube composites, just 7 years more, they are already using it to shield some sats from electromagnetic radiation. The Us AirForce Research Laboratory already confirm (9 days ago) that the Sable engine is feasible. The first applications that it can have is for 2 stages to orbit vehicle, energy production and water desalination. Once the new skylon study show potential and the engine is tested with the first applications, going to 1 stage to orbit may be the next step. http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/press_release/AFRL-REL_CRADA_Press_Release_15April2015.pdf Maybe this will take 15 or 20 years if is possible.. but when it happens launch prices will be 1/100 the Ariane cost. Once you reach that point, the space is open to everybody. Add solar sails and other propulsion methods to the equation and inter-planetary business is a sure thing that can be develope with the time. First technology growth exponential, it took us only 50 years to build many of the biggest cities of today. The population increase from 2.5 Billions to 8 billions in that time. Second, not sure what time estimation that I made are you referring, search and quote me then we can discuss that. But dont try to distort my words. Your estimation is 5000 years to start exploit resources from other planets? Just try to find anyone who think like this.. That is the worst time estimation that I hear in my life. Yeah but some people live in the Neverland, where things never change and remains the same for always.

Great Job Neil! Congratulation.. It will be much to ask to have a look on that abstract? Although the hide name points to a "not", in that case just few details on your research? I wish you the best.

But scientists are trained to be skeptics. I know James Randi, he did a good job revealing the homeopathy.

Good compilation.. but it seems that the things that Tyson said has not logic for some people.. And in fact.. space exploration is very profitable.. Intellectual commodity is the biggest assets that a country can have.. there are some places like sweden or nordics which has very few resources but with huge capital due this. How to improve this asset? You can improve all the education system, but in some countries this is very hard to accomplish. Another choice? Yes.. do things to inspire the world, this way many people get encourage to study, also intelligent people over all the world will feel tempted to work in that country. So yes.. that is the best thing a country may do to win more money. Technology increase exponential, there is not much difference between the technology from -1000 and 1000, But there is a huge difference between the technology from 1970 and now. Just compare the apollo memory was only few kbytes and weight/cost a lot, vs some penies that a 128gb super light and small sd cost now. -Right now countries manage much more money than back then -The launch cost was much higher back then, and now may be reduce it by a lot in the next 10 years. -We have a great advance in materials, thousands to choose for different applications. -The ISS gave us a lot of experience in space living. -the technology growth a lot in all its branches, we can do almost magic compared to back then. -back then we dint have any software to help us with simulations/calculations or design. Right now we can model aerodynamics, see heat flows and all kind of hard physsics calculation. In those times we had only the pencil and some paper. Is like compare a disable man vs one completely heath, but it refuce to run or do anything. The only thing that block us to solve problems right now is the end of dreams, where the people believe what politician told us altogether with the burocracy that agencies leaders promote. We forgot that we can do anything we want, we just need to stop to believe those lies. We dont have wars now.. so why some countries still spent so much in that?No country in the world can invade other at least there is a huge excuse (which it will cost a lot extra money) and the rest of the world needs to allow it. The ages of wars end.. now the wars are fight with economics. And all those weapons they made needs maintainence. In the cold war time countries use army as way of pressure or to gain status.. Right now weapons is waste money. You can not use nukes because everybody lose, neither the other weapons due public opinion. All countries makes business with other countries. You think countries as Canada or sweden are in danger? Not, in any case the few countries who has guns are in danger. So how do you gain status right now? the only way is with great accomplish. Also the space will be the next economic ground to win battles. Never will happen if we keep that way of thinking. Some things that you said are true.. but I already answer this to PakledHostage. If all those procedures brake us so much, then there is something wrong with them. We need to encourage efficiency.. not other way around. Agree with nasa, nobody is saying that nasa needs to colonize.. But they are the explorers.. they open the world to others which will come after. Colombus was not a colonizer, he was an explorer. But he open the oportunity to colonization. Travels at that time took as much as planetary travels now, with storms. The whole history of human race is colonization, is in our ADN. After exploration, its the desicion of entrepreneurs to know if some business can be exploited or not. We discuss this in many other topics, I show tons of arguments, you did your part, not agreement there. So lets not waste time. About independence.. that is not a problem.. But I will need a lot of time to explain that in details, which also sound like a waste of time. Already happen many times, all in reality. Such simple true, and so hard to spread it.

of course not 100% but all the things that was done even for the apollo program was tested before.. So that is not an excuse. And it work in 1969. Not everyone use their heads to understand the huge difference in technology from that time to now. So.. please... Is the same than try to do the pyramids again and being afraid to fail. If you start this journey being honest, to accomplish something big, saying that is a huge step and it will require take many risks. Then the courage team chosen will know the risk. The same as the rest of the world. But that is the way you get breakthroughs. So the risk is that some people may die? people die all days by the most stupid causes. But there are already many articles estimating how severe low gravity can be over big periods of time. We can not be sure yet.. but I dont expect a very different result. Ok.. Then lets mention the apollo program.. is that a bad analogy too? Why? because if not, it sinks your argument? You are lawyer now trying to find any loophole in semantics just to ignore the real context in where was used? A colony may be a tool used for "human exploration", in fact we see Elon Musk talking all day of colonization. sorry.. but everything you can not buy in the shopping close to your house is science fiction from your perspective. I never see someone so closed to any new thing. That is a way of seeing things for those without vision.

not sure the effect of the earth magnetic field over the magnets.. but earth magnetic field will be 2 or 3 orders of magnitud lower. About as launch pad.. yeah.. if the ring is located over the ecliptic plane instead equator, then you can use the same superconductor rail to launch any spacecraft to different planets on the solar system. Also can be used as Cern 3.0 There is also another way to avoid the ring to fall if you dont wanna use superconductor or magnets.. Now imagine each of those magnets now are just mass, you attach a very strong cable from the external ring to each of those "block mass" but now these blocks are far away (beyond geo orbit) from the ring, the ring, earth and the blocks rotate at the same angular velocity. Of course that second way to do it is not so good as the first. In both cases solar sails at the side of the ring are needed to keep the ring centered in the earth at all time.

Lol... this is just sad.. now like last resource to not give the reason, you stand that as the specific word "colony" is not mentioned (only "human exploration!!") then does not qualify... really??? Our most valueable resource right now that we can extract from asteroids is water, which give us fuel (Hydrogen + oxygen), oxygen to breath and water to drink. An asteroid in LEO will be our free ticket to the solar system. Orion, costelation, the moon base.. all are excuses to not make the real step that we need to take 50!!! years after the moon.In 8 years, starting in 1961!!, they acomplish ande develope the saturn 5, the biggest rocket even made, new electronics and all the technology needed. That is equal to try right now with only 8 years of develoment a manned travel to europa with a submarine. But not.. we are talking about moon in 2025-2040. Thats it.. elon musk is our only savior.

Now you will hide behind technicalities? In that case all these missions that we are talking now are also under study and none was approved yet.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_(rover)#Goals_and_objectives http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission/science/goals/ (curiosity) http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/science/goals.html (oportunity and spirit) http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/IAC-14-A5_1_1-Gates.pdf (ARM mission) I can also quote many nasa scientisc saying the same thing, like the last mars documentary in netflix. What you will do now?? Hide behind words saying that objective is not the same than goal? Than me, a non english speaker, I need to choose the perfect word just to point the difference between a long term objective? Also the objective will not be called "analize the amount of water in the region for future human settlement", because you dont know if you will choose that place for that purpose, so is always called "analize the amount of water".

Havoc Venus mission (fifth step, permanent colony). Then almost all mars mission are to smooth the way for a manned mission. We can have a big spinning habitat in the ISS (without windows to not vomit all) to experience different types of gravity effect, like moon at 0.1g or mars 0.3g. One ring to rule them all. All those are valid points, but if we take this route.. its mean that before go somewhere else.. we need to spent 10 or 20 years with a colony in moon, why we dont skip the boring tutorial and we jump into the adventure. If that level of safety is needed to do anything from now.. then why ever bother to find qualify people to do the missions.. just choice me.. The edge will be always risky.. If we dont take risks we go nowhere. Take as example the past.. There is already a lot of evidence than points that the Easter Island were originating colonize from some islands from the Polynesia. This without knowing how much your travel it will took before reach a place.. and using stars to navigate before colombus times. Now NASA or other agencies needs 100% of sucess before move a finger. You know how much money, launchs, and factories you need in the moon to manufacture each component of a rocket? And the moon is not close either.. To sent something there you need almost a similar deltav than mars.Also if you want a permanent habitat in the moon, you will need extra gravity.. I dont need to know the results how harm is moon gravity for us.. 99% sure it will be also bad at long term. You will need something like this: http://s20.postimg.org/jdf1f7a7x/Moon_Artificial_Gravity.jpg If we manage to build skylon, which for sure it will come faster than a full rocket factory in the moon, then our launch cost problem will be solve or it will be at pair to the moon. This is a good point also.. I guess you can find almost everything you need in the moon it self. An asteroid have more use in LEO. The only problem is that we can not use the earth atmosphere to capture asteroids because it will be too risky.. Maybe with small ones..

I made a picture so is more easy to see. Of course I still dont know what is the point to have a ring around a planet.. But in case is needed, maybe this would work: About the power of each magnet, it really does not matter. How big needs to be a common magnet to levitate a train? It has to do more with size than power. Is the same concept of this video with 2 main differences: 1) is not a mobius shape 2) the rail in this case it will be the superconductor and the "structure support vehicles" the magnets. https://youtu.be/hbuxWQ80EPM?t=49s It will need also expansion joints over the whole ring once a while to absorb the vibes of the moving magnets. We can accelerate each magnet individually to fine adjustments. Then it will need also solar sails to keep the ring in place. If I missing something please comment.

But look how mars or venus missions are presented to us, all include in their objectives: "smooth the way for a future colony". If your objective is: I want to go the moon just to see what can I find under that rock.. and I guess I would not find nothing interesting. That is not the way to call people attention.. SpaceX has much more attention than any nasa mission right now because it has a practical purpose. Another practical purpose can be "there is a chance to find life" Greenfire: You read my answer?

The only way to discuss what has more science value is to look in the long term also. If we can not do that, then there is nothing to discuss. We already take that baby step, this will be like support the apollo moon conspiracy, is like said.. we was there.. but we forget how to accomplish that. I need to hear a good objective before support this. mmm I dont know.. is a valid point, at least for mars as the next step. But why we can not sent a robot missions direct to mars and experiment the best way to do ISRU directly in mars conditions. Of course this does not provide manned or colony experience.. But the colony experience in the moon is similar than in the ISS, without the mining possibilities or the dust issue. Why? we need to build the spacecraft, reach LEO, go to the moon and land (which require deltav), just to fill our tanks and gain a little extra deltav? Plus the time lost and the risk added? We can capture a 50m asteroid (70% water), redirect that using the same water as propellent plus gravity assists. Locate it in LEO (which may take several years of propulsion), that is equal to 65000m3, 70% --> 45000 tons of water. We need to do 1000 falcon heavy launchs to carry that amount of fuel to LEO. Doing this we have our fuel station right in our doors. I know.. but we need to set priorities, the moon will not go anywhere.

You are right.. but behind each mission there is one objective.. How do you design your spacecraft if you dont know the objective.. What instruments carry? What do you want to find and how this will help us?

ARM.. Learn to mine asteroids is more valueble.. At the same time you understand much more about its constitution in case we need to redirect one to survive. What secrets hide the moon that can help us as civilization?