Neil1993

Personally, I think it would be best if we humans held off on interstellar probes for now. The previous users got it right. By the time a probe with our current technology reaches another star, we may already have the technology to travel there in the blink of an eye (Maximum Warp, Engage!). I think it would be better if we only travelled within the abilities of our current propulsion systems. That's not to say that we should confine ourselves. We should still be tirelessly researching and innovating so as to get the best possible propulsion system for interstellar travel.

Is that from SAE Formula?

Sounds like the future of human space exploration. As someone who has worked with 3D printing, I can say that the technology holds great promise and it's use it space is almost a must.

It's the kind of thing that would happen in KSP!

FRC is always appropriate. - S/O from a fellow FRC student on team 296 <- now mentor

A mission like this is hardly a hobby. Finding life, or the beginnings of life, on another planet/moon would prove that life is not simply a one-time fluke that ocurred only on earth. As well, the knowledge gained by studying extraterrestrial life would help us better understand how life evolved on earth and it would help us to find life elsewhere in the universe.

I found a lot of information here: http://pepl.engin.umich.edu/thrusters/CAT.html However, they do not provide an Isp. They do say that it can produce 2 mN of thrust on 10 W of power. They also had details, such as the fact that the operational life exceeded 20,000 hours, the amount of fuel was less than 2.5 Kg and the exhaust velocity was 20,000 m/s. From this, I calculated an Isp of around 5800 s. While this is considerably lower that other thrusters, the upside is that this type of engine is relatively light and it provides relatively high thrust for how little power it consumes. For instance, the NEXT system requires 7.7 kW for a maximum of 236 mN of thrust while this engine only requires 100 W for 200 mN of thrust.

That's an accurate yet sad comment on the current state of affairs.

Creating a container that can insulate water from the effects of outer space can be done and has been done. Rest assured, I'm sure these scientists have already thought about that.

Recently, a friend of mine showed me a kickstarter for a new kind of satellite project. This one proposes launching a small cubesat with a water-propelled electric motor. Their goal is to use this new kind of propulsion to put small, student-built satellites into deep space. Should this technology prove feasible, it would make many space based applications much cheaper, such as meteorology, mapping, space weather monitoring and asteroid inspection, to name a few. they have, at this time, met their funding goal, but there are still a few days left. here's the link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/longmier/cat-launch-a-water-propelled-satellite-into-deep-s?ref=search

That's very true (both previous posts). However, it would still be nice to have governments more focused on long term strategies. I know that in Canada most politicians never seem to see any further than the next election, while space related to projects can stretch from a decade long, like to Apollo moon landing (ok, that was 7 years) to a century (the 100 year starship). It's unlikely that we'll get many big groundbreaking and frontier pushing projects with that mentality.

The post about how the non-democratic nature of China's government is particularily interesting. It is true, that in the democratic systems in north america (I'm living in Canada right now) politicians will avoid long term projects or strategies, often for the petty reason that the next guy will get to take credit for it. How could we possibly change our own democratic systems to encourage long term strategies and yet still maintain the democratic ideals?

The first application they mentionned for it seemed really cool (creating a starshade to help with the detection of exoplanets). I wonder if this could be used to assemble large interplanetary or interstellar vehicles in space using stronger and more heavy duty materials.

I found that video thoroughly entertaining. I am, in fact, involved in a competition where the main goal is to launch a large rocket to 10,000 feet with a scientific payload (an anti-matter detector, in my team's case). I do wonder, though, what kind of simulation and analysis they did before launch. On my team, we need to perform CFD analysis, thermal analysis, vibration analysis, structural FEA and at least 3-DOF trajectory analysis before we can start manufacturing. Also, why didn't they use all composite design? It would have been far more efficient in terms of weight.

Great article! well thought out and well researched. It's great to see that humanity's future in space isn't as far away as we once thought.

I don't think there is any current-day tech that can mess with physics like that. However, a craft using the warp drive proposed by Miguel Alcubierre would not feel any acceleration, because it is not (technically) accelerating. If you're interested in learning more on this, you can consult his original paper: http://iopscience.iop.org/0264-9381/11/5/001

Hello, My name is Neil. I've already played KSP before joining the forum, but I was always busy with school and special projects. Now that I'm out doing an internship, I finally have the time (and the computing power) to dive into this game for real! I'm probably going to try out a lot of mods. Any advice for a n00b like me? thanks!

I agree. However, if you do want more realism, you could add TAC life support ( http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/tac-life-support/ ). Also, it would be interesting if there were a random failures mechanic that would require your Kerbals to perform EVAs to make repairs.