What do you think the medium term future of space exploration will be like?

[ment18]

8 minutes ago, Kerbal7 said:

There will be no colonies, for a myriad of reasons. One being, humans evolved to live at earth's gravity. Humans living in low G and weightless environments is very, very, very bad, for human health. 

We have no experience with long term human health at low G enviroments.  There is probably a very large difference between human operation in 0.2g and 0g, as one has a significant acceleration to help settle fluids and do stuff, while the other had none.  Most things vary off % difference, not absolute.

 

We, as a species need something to do with our resources, besides blow each other up, a goal.  The only goal I can think of is expansion through the universe (has evolutionary backing!!!), so maybe cost won't be an issue since it is the ultimate goal, it is why we generate resources.

[Kerbal7]

Just now, tater said:

There is likely a spot someplace between ) and 1g where humans would do just fine, but we have no idea where that point is. If it is above 0.38g, then any human colonies would be orbital, and spun to a healthy level of effective gravity (~1g).

 

Every time I see the people floating around in the ISS, I ask myself, why on earth don't they create a spinning section so these people don't have to suffer the I'll health effects of weightlessness!

I read it was because of money. Creating artificial gravity by rotation, 2001 style, would cost too much.

Well hell's bells. People are talking about setting up colonies and interplanetary trade routes, when there isn't even enough money to make a spinning artificial gravity module on the ISS!

Some folks got the wagon a few light years in front of the horse!

[ment18]

39 minutes ago, Kerbal7 said:

Every time I see the people floating around in the ISS, I ask myself, why on earth don't they create a spinning section so these people don't have to suffer the I'll health effects of weightlessness!

I read it was because of money. Creating artificial gravity by rotation, 2001 style, would cost too much.

Well hell's bells. People are talking about setting up colonies and interplanetary trade routes, when there isn't even enough money to make a spinning artificial gravity module on the ISS!

Some folks got the wagon a few light years in front of the horse!

NASA is a organization with budgets assigned by congress, for the purpose of (1st) jobs and (2nd, by a lot) research.  In order to get any significant space travel, we need to go private, or have a near dictatorial space travel thing.  Luckily, we are going in this direction with Musk and Bezos.

And like what, it takes a few weeks or months to recover from a year of 0g?  

Edited November 3, 2017 by ment18

[tater]

It was proposed:

 

[Kerbal7]

1 hour ago, tater said:

It was proposed:

 

So there is money for building colonies on Mars, but no money for a tiny, spinning, artificial gravity module, on the ISS. Tsk...Tsk. (rolls eyes)  Pipe dreams.

[tater]

2 minutes ago, Kerbal7 said:

So there is money for building colonies on Mars, but no money for a tiny, spinning, artificial gravity module, on the ISS. Tsk...Tsk. (rolls eyes)  Pipe dreams.

There is no NASA money (which would be what is needed for anything at ISS) for Mars or spinning habs right now.

[Bill Phil]

1 hour ago, Kerbal7 said:

Every time I see the people floating around in the ISS, I ask myself, why on earth don't they create a spinning section so these people don't have to suffer the I'll health effects of weightlessness!

I read it was because of money. Creating artificial gravity by rotation, 2001 style, would cost too much.

Well hell's bells. People are talking about setting up colonies and interplanetary trade routes, when there isn't even enough money to make a spinning artificial gravity module on the ISS!

Some folks got the wagon a few light years in front of the horse!

If I recall, it was originally a demonstrator for Nautilus-X. After that fell through, why build a demonstrator for something that won't be built? And so it wasn't built.

But there is plenty of cash, the government just doesn't want to uselessly spend it. Thus NASA has only around 20 billion bucks a year, that they have to spend that very specifically.

[tater]

[PB666]

32 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

If I recall, it was originally a demonstrator for Nautilus-X. After that fell through, why build a demonstrator for something that won't be built? And so it wasn't built.

But there is plenty of cash, the government just doesn't want to uselessly spend it. Thus NASA has only around 20 billion bucks a year, that they have to spend that very specifically.

The major reason for ISS is to study the effects of space on humans. As Einstien pointed out, at the microscopic scale you can not distinquish gravitation from centripedal acceleration. A body in orbit (inertial reference frame) may be seen to be defining gravitation, but from relativistic approach is a body whose direction of motion is following an isoquant in space-time (just as if it was traveling along a strait line in deep space). Centripedal acceleration or a person standing on the earth both represent deviations from the isoquant and thus create observed accelerations. In the case of relativistic gravity, it is the earth pushing up on your feet, that would otherwise be on a eccentric (nearly 1 orbital path) or in the case of a centrifuge the outside metal of the centrifuge which is pushing up on your feet wanting to travel along a strait path. Theoretically centrifugation and gravitation produce the same on the microscopic scale. What is the point of studying what you can study on Earth.

Which is, by he way, the twins study did. One twin stayed on earth and the other spent almost a year in space.

The only real reason for have a human centrifuge on the ISS is to test the mechanics and engineering for the device. Even if you were going to test humans in it you would have to have one twin stay in the device and one stay out of the device.

 

[Bill Phil]

11 minutes ago, PB666 said:

The major reason for ISS is to study the effects of space on humans. As Einstien pointed out, at the microscopic scale you can not distinquish gravitation from centripedal acceleration. A body in orbit (inertial reference frame) may be seen to be defining gravitation, but from relativistic approach is a body whose direction of motion is following an isoquant in space-time (just as if it was traveling along a strait line in deep space). Centripedal acceleration or a person standing on the earth both represent deviations from the isoquant and thus create observed accelerations. In the case of relativistic gravity, it is the earth pushing up on your feet, that would otherwise be on a eccentric (nearly 1 orbital path) or in the case of a centrifuge the outside metal of the centrifuge which is pushing up on your feet wanting to travel along a strait path. Theoretically centrifugation and gravitation produce the same on the microscopic scale. What is the point of studying what you can study on Earth.

Which is, by he way, the twins study did. One twin stayed on earth and the other spent almost a year in space.

The only real reason for have a human centrifuge on the ISS is to test the mechanics and engineering for the device. Even if you were going to test humans in it you would have to have one twin stay in the device and one stay out of the device.

 

The point would be to reduce the problems associated with free fall, not study centripetal acceleration, which could be done, but there'd be little use. If you can alleviate some issues that afflict the body in free fall, then the health risk of staying in space for long periods is somewhat reduced.

[NSEP]

2 hours ago, Kerbal7 said:

Every time I see the people floating around in the ISS, I ask myself, why on earth don't they create a spinning section so these people don't have to suffer the I'll health effects of weightlessness!

I read it was because of money. Creating artificial gravity by rotation, 2001 style, would cost too much.

Well hell's bells. People are talking about setting up colonies and interplanetary trade routes, when there isn't even enough money to make a spinning artificial gravity module on the ISS!

Some folks got the wagon a few light years in front of the horse!

Would gravity rings not need to be huge in order to support astronauts without getting sick, because of the differences in forces and the angulair velocity?

 

[tater]

There are a couple reasons to spin some habitats that I see.

1. Because we know for a fact that long term microgravity is harmful, so any human presence in space for long time frames needs artificial gravity. 

2. Because we can test effective g levels below 1, and above 0, including experiments on animals that include reproduction. Doing so in Equatorial LEO would mitigate the confounding issues with radiation exposure (which could also be reduced with less shielding than required for other orbits).

Number 2 would answer once and for all (if there was perhaps a coaxial 0.38g section) if Mars is someplace people can live long term. If it turns out that the magic number of human wellbeing is 0.62g (pulled out of thin air), then Mars is a not an option for long term habitation.

 

2 minutes ago, NSEP said:

Would gravity rings not need to be huge in order to support astronauts without getting sick, because of the differences in forces and the angulair velocity?

 

They can be smaller than originally thought, but bigger is better. There is no reason for it to be a torus or cylinder for early attempts, it could be 2 cans tethered together the appropriate distance apart, spun to the right RPMs.

[NSEP]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

They can be smaller than originally thought, but bigger is better. There is no reason for it to be a torus or cylinder for early attempts, it could be 2 cans tethered together the appropriate distance apart, spun to the right RPMs.

Cool! Like this?

[Kerbal7]

43 minutes ago, PB666 said:

The major reason for ISS is to study the effects of space on humans.

That's about the only good it's doing. Everything else up there could be done much cheaper without people. They are lab rats. I don't understand the necessity of such experiments. Subjecting crews to long distance space flights in health compromising zero G to save $$ doesn't seem ethical to me. So why the extended experiment? It's bad for humans, we already know this. Every long distance, deep space, craft, should be required to have a gravity wheel. 

But I think the primary reason for the ISS is political. It was born out of the fall of the Soviet Union. 

10 minutes ago, NSEP said:

Would gravity rings not need to be huge in order to support astronauts without getting sick, because of the differences in forces and the angulair velocity?

No idea. I've never looked at the necessay details of such a machine. 

[DAL59]

4 hours ago, tater said:

There is likely a spot someplace between ) and 1g where humans would do just fine

Venus Airships

9 minutes ago, Kerbal7 said:

Every long distance, deep space, craft, should be required to have a gravity wheel.

Not really.  The ITS takes a maximum of 4 months to get to Mars.  Especially considering that Mars only has 40% gravity, they'll be fine.    

1 hour ago, tater said:

this didn't have a link attached

2 hours ago, tater said:

There is no NASA money (which would be what is needed for anything at ISS) for Mars or spinning habs right now.

NASA has more than enough money to do a 10 year Mars program.  marssociety.org

 

4 hours ago, Kerbal7 said:

Well hell's bells. People are talking about setting up colonies and interplanetary trade routes, when there isn't even enough money to make a spinning artificial gravity module on the ISS!

Some folks got the wagon a few light years in front of the horse!

SpaceX could easily do this for 100 million by launching two BEAMs tethered together.  NASA is known for being very money inefficient.  The JWST cost 18 times more than expected.

6 hours ago, Urses said:

need a full envelopped infrastructure. You don't only need the primary and secondary sectors to survive and establish selfsustainability, but tertiar and quartary sectors as well to provide luxury

I'm sure there are plenty of rich people who would go to Mars just for the adventure.    

[tater]

http://www.nss.org/settlement/space/GlobusEasierSettlement.pdf

[DAL59]

 

[Diche Bach]

2 hours ago, Kerbal7 said:

So there is money for building colonies on Mars, but no money for a tiny, spinning, artificial gravity module, on the ISS. Tsk...Tsk. (rolls eyes)  Pipe dreams.

Elon would be okay with dying on Mars. He didn't say ANYTHING about dying in a tiny spinny thing in orbit . . .

[tater]

13 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Venus Airships

 

This idea is profoundly goofy for colonization, and I see no reason for people at Venus, ever, where even probes have almost no lifespan.

13 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Not really.  The ITS takes a maximum of 4 months to get to Mars.  Especially considering that Mars only has 40% gravity, they'll be fine.    

I think that for a flags and footprints mission with a short flight time, the lack of a centrifuge is not terrible, but I think that it's superior for basic human reasons if at all possible. Plumbing, for example. Having to train to use the 0g toilet, vs just using a toilet with any apparent gravity at all. There are many reasons why a centrifuge would be a good idea.

13 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

this didn't have a link attached

Oops, it auto embedded it as a pic. My bad.

13 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

NASA has more than enough money to do a 10 year Mars program.  marssociety.org

No, they don't.

NASA has claimed Mars as a goal for more than 10 years now, no Mars, not even close, so clearly the Mars Society has no clue what they are talking about.

NASA doesn't have 19 B$ to spend as they please, they spend it the way they are told. This will NEVER change. If you keep doing the same thing over and over and expect different results, you need a psych consult.  This is the way it is, sorry.

 

13 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

SpaceX could easily do this for 100 million by launching two BEAMs tethered together.  NASA is known for being very money inefficient.  The JWST cost 18 times more than expected.

Why would they do this? Who is paying them to do it? Without a revenue stream, they won't do it. NASA is not inefficient with money, you are under the mistaken idea that NASA has a space exploration/travel goal, and the money exists to pay for that. NASA exists to provide jobs to the tech sector, specifically the aerospace industry. Spending a lot of money, in as many parts of the country as possible, for the longest time period is the goal. It's not more complicated than that, that's how the sausage is made.

13 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

I'm sure there are plenty of rich people who would go to Mars just for the adventure.    

To be abandoned to die, or as a really long adventure travel vacation?

[DAL59]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

no reason for people at Venus, ever, where even probes have almost no lifespan.

In the upper atmosphere.  The pressure, tempurature, and gravity are earthlike.  

4 minutes ago, tater said:

NASA doesn't have 19 B$ to spend as they please, they spend it the way they are told

I know.  However, I think the mars society is right that any competant space organization with 19 billion dollars(not controlled by the government) could go to Mars.  Spacex curently has 15 billion dollars, plus Musk has 19 billion of his own money to spend.  

[tater]

1 minute ago, DAL59 said:

In the upper atmosphere.  The pressure, tempurature, and gravity are earthlike.  

For what purpose?

In return for additional radiation exposure (no mag field) they get to live in a can a long way from home with nothing to see out the window of much interest.

The same can could be spun to 1g in Earth orbit, and they are still at 1g, but they are minutes from home.

[DAL59]

Just now, tater said:

3 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

In the upper atmosphere.  The pressure, tempurature, and gravity are earthlike.  

For what purpose?

In return for additional radiation exposure (no mag field) they get to live in a can a long way from home with nothing to see out the window of much interest.

The same can could be spun to 1g in Earth orbit, an

Less radiation than Mars, actually.  Plenty of solar power and fertilizer in air for agriculture.  

[tater]

Just now, DAL59 said:

Less radiation than Mars, actually.  Plenty of solar power and fertilizer in air for agriculture.  

More than LEO.

Plenty of solar in LEO, too. Any life support is recycling nearly everything, so fertilizer should not be a problem, plus you can bring stuff from Earth---with BFS at something like coach airline prices.

Why Venus? What is useful there? What requires humans?

[DAL59]

Less than LEO in Venus atmosphere.  Half the sky is blocked out, plus the air blocks out more radiation.  If you are talking about solar storms and not GCRs, there is plenty of solar power for a magnetic shield.   

This is now a hot topic!

Edited November 3, 2017 by DAL59

[tater]

I had O'Nell's book (The High Frontier), and this:

since I was a kid.

I fully expected this to be a thing back then (meaning we should have them now, which is 30 years after I read the book):

I'm negative about these things not because I dislike them, but because I now realize that the basic ideas behind them were wrong. There is no economic driver. While possible to build someplace people would want to live, it's a chicken and egg thing---someone will have to blow the entire cost with no hope of RoI, honestly. Even then, any inhabitants need to be able to pay for supplies. I honestly think that if something like BFS could be as safe as Musk imagines (air travel safe), then space tourism would explode, and might provide a driver for LEO habitats (more like the solid torus/short cylinder designs with 0g in the middle, because tourists want 0g, but also want real plumbing).

 

9 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Less than LEO in Venus atmosphere.  Half the sky is blocked out, plus the air blocks out more radiation.  If you are talking about solar storms and not GCRs, there is plenty of solar power for a magnetic shield.   

Again why Venus? What's the point? Can you make a station that holds a city or even a reasonable town sized population in an environment where they would want to spend their lives?

If the goal is as a station, what exactly is being studied, and why must people be there, exactly?

Edited November 3, 2017 by tater