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

[DAL59]

20 hours ago, SaturnianBlue said:

shifted back a decade

Why?  Nowadays there are more private space companies, and cost per pound to orbit has dropped significantly.

14 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

500...1000 t

rockets this big have actually been studied

Aldeberan Nuclear Spaceplane- 30,000 tons to orbit

also

http://www.jhuapl.edu/techdigest/TD/td2703/mcNutt.pdf

page 270

[SaturnianBlue]

1 hour ago, DAL59 said:

Why?  Nowadays there are more private space companies, and cost per pound to orbit has dropped significantly.

 

While there's been a ton of concepts utilizing different rocket engines and sorts on the HOPE mission, it doesn't seem like there's any real commitment to such a plan. While the private space companies might make launch costs cheaper, they wouldn't exactly be the ones carrying out such a plan.

[adsii1970]

As a race, we are still in our infancy of space flight. I've read this thread and it seems the old debate between "commercial spaceflight" and "government agency spaceflight" is beginning to reappear. If anything, I think spaceflight must and probably will develop within the close relationship of private corporate investment AND government backing, much the way the New World was discovered and colonized by the European powers from the end of the fifteenth century through the eighteenth century.

It was the government which provided the capital and it is the vision of the entrepreneur that led to the improvements in seafaring, shipbuilding, and navigation. I expect that as space exploration truly begins to develop, we'll see it become more commonplace.

[G'th]

7 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

As a race, we are still in our infancy of space flight. I've read this thread and it seems the old debate between "commercial spaceflight" and "government agency spaceflight" is beginning to reappear. If anything, I think spaceflight must and probably will develop within the close relationship of private corporate investment AND government backing, much the way the New World was discovered and colonized by the European powers from the end of the fifteenth century through the eighteenth century.

It was the government which provided the capital and it is the vision of the entrepreneur that led to the improvements in seafaring, shipbuilding, and navigation. I expect that as space exploration truly begins to develop, we'll see it become more commonplace.

Human spaceflight isn't going to be really developed until we are able to reasonably accommodate bringing our pets with us. 

[kerbiloid]

9 hours ago, DAL59 said:

rockets this big have actually been studied

Indeed, they were.

1 hour ago, G'th said:

Human spaceflight isn't going to be really developed until we are able to reasonably accommodate bringing our pets with us. 

Space are for cats.

Spoiler

 

 

[ChrisSpace]

On ‎21‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 9:47 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

My personal ideas are that the BFR will work but will be a few years late and by 2030 we will have had crews on Mars.

I'd say the mid-30s at the earliest.

On ‎21‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 9:47 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

Somewhere in there (knock on wood) congress will give NASA the go-ahead to construct a spaceship in orbit powered by a nuclear thermal rocket (like Discovery in 2001: A Space Odyssey) which will be targeted at either a Venus flyby (as a test flight of sorts) or a mission to Jupiter.

Why would they want to do that?

On ‎21‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 10:09 AM, G'th said:

If BFS is successful (and in particular successful to the degree SpaceX hopes its going to be) then big spaceship-like vehicles are going to dominate manned spaceflight going forward, and whether we send them or use them to construct dedicated vehicles for further exploration would be up in the air. Not sure how far BFS could be sent out on its own. 

If it can be refilled at the edge of Earth's gravity well (perhaps at a lagrange point), it could go pretty much anywhere. Of course, Venus would still be inaccessible (unless that futuristic hindenburg idea works), as would anything past Saturn due to the outrageous travel time.

On ‎21‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 10:09 AM, G'th said:

If some other entity like China or Russia gets there first, as unlikely as it is, its very possible we could see another space race spurred on by the massive PR problem whatever the current administration at the time would be dealing with if that happened to ensure American dominance.

I find it unlikely that a new space race could start this way, but I can't say about about it because forum rules.

On ‎21‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 10:37 AM, Bill Phil said:

Maybe some research bases around the Solar System and, if we're lucky, a few million people living and working in orbit.

"A few million"? Not in this century. 1 million maximum.

On ‎21‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 7:16 PM, DDE said:

I am very skeptical about the BFR, it has a higher probability of failure than the SLS, failure being vaguely defined.

To me, asking "which has a lower chance of failiure, BFR or SLS?" sounds a bit like "what's more likely to win the 100m dash in the next olympics? A tortise or a snail?"

 

On ‎21‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 10:17 PM, Zeiss Ikon said:

I think the BFR/BFS has a good chance to provide the first "flag and footprints" on Mars, as well as starting a permanent occupation there -- if only because SpaceX has a pretty good record for delivering, albeit a bit late.

On ‎21‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 11:47 PM, KSK said:

Whilst political whims are almost as reliable as UK weather, the Moon is currently in favour, so I'm going with the Deep Space Gateway being completed reasonably early in that 2030-2100 timeframe, possibly followed by one or more state sponsored lunar landings, depending how China's lunar program goes. Throw in some free-return tourist flights around the Moon, and that's my pessimistic prediction, which assumes that LFR, New Glenn and the rest either fail to materialise or fail to deliver as hoped.

DSG becoming a thing and lunar flyby tourism being practical? You call that pessimistic?

 

On ‎21‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 11:47 PM, KSK said:

As my completely out-in-the-weeds suggestion, I'm going to go for flags-and-footprints on Mercury, possibly taking advantage of its deposits of water ice for crew consumables and ISRU.

Flags and footprints on Mercury? ...wat?

 

On ‎23‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 6:31 AM, SaturnianBlue said:

Probes will probably be orbiting every planet at this point. 

What's the point of that?

 

On ‎23‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 7:03 AM, DAL59 said:

NASA did a study that found that a mission to Callisto by 2050 is very possible and fits well with their current budget

That study was made in 2003 IIRC. As you'd expect, things have gotten worse since then.

11 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

As a race, we are still in our infancy of space flight. I've read this thread and it seems the old debate between "commercial spaceflight" and "government agency spaceflight" is beginning to reappear. If anything, I think spaceflight must and probably will develop within the close relationship of private corporate investment AND government backing, much the way the New World was discovered and colonized by the European powers from the end of the fifteenth century through the eighteenth century.

It was the government which provided the capital and it is the vision of the entrepreneur that led to the improvements in seafaring, shipbuilding, and navigation. I expect that as space exploration truly begins to develop, we'll see it become more commonplace.

Historical analogies don't really work here.

 

 

[KSK]

2 hours ago, ChrisSpace said:

DSG becoming a thing and lunar flyby tourism being practical? You call that pessimistic?

Flags and footprints on Mercury? ...wat?

Yup, because both are proposals currently in progress (for varying definitions of progress).

SpaceX apparently have plans to put paying customers around the Moon and the necessary hardware (Falcon Heavy and Dragon 2) are being built as part of their short to medium term plans anyway. Even allowing for a generous dash of Elon time, I think that's feasible before 2100. Once the concept has been proved, I can certainly see it happening again.

As somebody else has already pointed out on these forums (apologies - I forget who), DSG is a made-for-SLS project, that involves moving lots of mass to orbit but doesn't require committing to the technical, logistical and human challenge of new lunar landings. Cis-munar journeys are also well within the projected capabilities for Orion. SLS has rather a lot of political backing, so DSG gives everyone a nice face-saving reason to keep SLS running and keeping the funds flowing where they're needed.

So yeah, I'd be disappointed if those didn't happen by 2100. I'm hoping they'd be pretty much a baseline level of spaceflight achievements by then, therefore my pessimistic scenario was baseline achievements and not much more.

As for flags and footprints on Mercury... there's a reason that was my 'out in the weeds', optimistic suggestion.  There's good evidence for ice at Mercury's poles and from a planetary science perspective, getting hold of some of it would be enormously interesting. And if water ice can survive at the poles then astronauts should be able to as well. Getting there is another matter (and I'm sure there would be the usual arguments in favour of robotic exploration) but hey - we were already in a scenario where lunar outposts, Martian outposts and asteroid mining were all things, so why not go for broke and posit crewed flights to Mercury!

Edited October 24, 2017 by KSK

[Ultimate Steve]

4 hours ago, ChrisSpace said:

Why would they want to do that?

To explore, to heighten public interest, to actually do something cool. Basically what NASA tries to do.

4 hours ago, ChrisSpace said:

To me, asking "which has a lower chance of failiure, BFR or SLS?" sounds a bit like "what's more likely to win the 100m dash in the next olympics? A tortise or a snail?"

When there are no other serious competitors in the race? I'd go with the one with the better recent track record.

 

4 hours ago, ChrisSpace said:

To be fair, the rocket is literally in the hangar waiting for the pad to be ready at this point. Yes, Falcon Heavy was supposed to fly years ago, but it was pushed back for understandable reasons (constant upgrades of Falcon 9 cores). The delay the Heavy experienced may very well be non-typical.

I'd say 2030's at best is a little on the pessimistic side. Yes, I believe there is very little chance that we'll land on Mars in 2024 (I probably wouldn't even bet on 2026) but SpaceX is planning on shutting down Falcon in favor of BFR after stockpiling cores for a bit. Once BFR is flying there's no reason why they can't send one to Mars straight away, and I don't see a future in which BFR is not flying until 2026. As far as point to point, it probably won't happen at the scale shown for quite some time if ever.

4 hours ago, ChrisSpace said:

What's the point of that?

What's the point of any orbiter probe? To study the planet.

 

[regex]

By 2100? That's a tall order but I'm going with the pessimistic here.

The Earth might have a moon base of some sort, probably Chinese since I don't see Russia funding one. We likely will have landed on Mars (joint effort or BFR, my money is NOT on Space-X) but there's no reason to stay there. We might start seeing robotic mining of NEOs. Blue Origin's gimmicky phallus will garner slight attention at most. China and India will be the big players with the U.S. and Russia dreaming of days of old while their endless cold war continues, although Space-X might end up cornering the satellite launch market if they're not bankrupt from BFR. The EU will likely be big players in the scientific launch arena if they remain a coherent whole.

Who knows though? Space-X and BFR could change everything. I'd love to believe that.

[DAL59]

5 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

better recent track record.

SpaceX has been doing very well recently.  

5 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

As far as point to point, it probably won't happen at the scale shown for quite some time if ever.

Elon Musk says that he is personally intent on this though.  He also has 19 billion dollars of his own money to spend.  

[Codraroll]

From 2030 to 2100, you say? As a layman uneducated in the matters, I have some wild guesses that I try to keep sensible-sounding...

We're going to land stuff on Mars. Not people quite yet, but stuff. I expect at least a sealed habitat, a container sent to test landing methods, and to see for how long/how successfully a potential habitat can be maintained without human presence. After all, a continuously manned human outpost on Mars would still be a bit away, but it would be nice if every new crew arriving there wouldn't have to start from scratch with the base building. At first there would be test habitats, then eventually a more permanent base resembling the Antarctic research bases. Or maybe more like the Antarctic whaling huts of yore, which were seasonally manned if not more sporadically, abandoned every winter, yet used by different crews for many years.

Speaking of Mars, I also predict a few new communications satellites, maybe even a GPS, and further high-resolution mapping of the surface. Google Mars only has the highest-resolution imagery for a few tiny regions, like specks of dust on a basket ball, but overall it's rather blurry. Or at least, that's the case for the publically released imagery. Maybe NASA has it all mapped already, what do I know. Anyway, better mapping of other celestial objects (both the orbits of asteroids and the surfaces of planets) would be pretty safe bets too.

Rover missions to other bodies would probably also happen in our lifetimes. I could see something like Curiosity landing on Mercury or the Jovian moons. And of course, more rovers to Mars too. One would possibly be used to dig into the surface, or possibly to erect a little structure. I believe any Mars base would be mostly constructed and up-and-running by robots before human explorers arrive there, but one has to take baby steps first and see where that leads.

Not leaving Mars quite yet: Sooner or later, somebody will succeed with those Phobos missions that keep popping up from time to time. The Russians even launched one... then lost control of it in LEO and it burned up in the atmosphere a year later.

Back closer to home, the ISS will get a successor one day. Hopefully it will be used to test artificial gravity.

Another moon landing is also pretty much inevitable, to the extent that things can be in space exploration. I presume a private company would be a major sponsor of the event, which will be streamed live for the world to see in one of the biggest media happenings ever.

Oh, and new/bigger/better space telescopes. I don't think we'll stop making those any time soon.

If I may be allowed to entertain a little bit of politics here too... I think there will come some international space projects where nationality doesn't matter and the list of contributing nations reads like a phone directory. Either some space company will go multinational, or governments pool their money to get more out of a mission/to mend whatever diplomatic sores are open that day. It makes sense to cooperate for complex tasks, and space exploration is pretty darn complex.

Lastly, I hope to see an African spaceport open by the end of the century. East Africa is pretty well positioned for equatorial launches, KSC-style. Right on the equator and plenty of water in the sensible directions of launch. Mogadishu, Mombasa or Dar es Salaam would be good candidate cities for Africa's space center, provided that a few politics mess-ups are sorted out.

[ChrisSpace]

14 hours ago, KSK said:

As somebody else has already pointed out on these forums (apologies - I forget who), DSG is a made-for-SLS project, that involves moving lots of mass to orbit but doesn't require committing to the technical, logistical and human challenge of new lunar landings. Cis-munar journeys are also well within the projected capabilities for Orion. SLS has rather a lot of political backing, so DSG gives everyone a nice face-saving reason to keep SLS running and keeping the funds flowing where they're needed.

You talk as though SLS and Orion are likely to actually happen.

14 hours ago, KSK said:

As for flags and footprints on Mercury... there's a reason that was my 'out in the weeds', optimistic suggestion.  There's good evidence for ice at Mercury's poles and from a planetary science perspective, getting hold of some of it would be enormously interesting. And if water ice can survive at the poles then astronauts should be able to as well. Getting there is another matter (and I'm sure there would be the usual arguments in favour of robotic exploration) but hey - we were already in a scenario where lunar outposts, Martian outposts and asteroid mining were all things, so why not go for broke and posit crewed flights to Mercury!

But what would be the point of that? The only strategic value I see in Mercury is it's abundant solar energy, which could be beamed to Earth. In theory, at least.

12 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

To explore, to heighten public interest, to actually do something cool. Basically what NASA tries to do.

 

12 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

What's the point of any orbiter probe? To study the planet.

When I asked this I wasn't asking from a scientific/research/exploration perspective, I was talking from the perspective of the people who would actually be the ones funding this. Of course there's tons of exciting reasons to do it, but none of those reasons matter to those whose support is needed.

12 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

When there are no other serious competitors in the race? I'd go with the one with the better recent track record.

So how does a tortoise's track record in the 100m dash compare to a snail's?

12 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

To be fair, the rocket is literally in the hangar waiting for the pad to be ready at this point.

They've said "it's going to happen really soon" for years now. Until that thing's on the pad I'm not convinced it will be.

12 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I'd say 2030's at best is a little on the pessimistic side. Yes, I believe there is very little chance that we'll land on Mars in 2024 (I probably wouldn't even bet on 2026) but SpaceX is planning on shutting down Falcon in favor of BFR after stockpiling cores for a bit. Once BFR is flying there's no reason why they can't send one to Mars straight away, and I don't see a future in which BFR is not flying until 2026.

Well, if everything goes perfectly right they certainly could get the BFR flying by '26 or even '24, but everything will not go perfectly right.

9 hours ago, regex said:

Who knows though? Space-X and BFR could change everything. I'd love to believe that.

As my sister sometimes says, "Hope for the best, expect the worst". Although I wouldn't call my own predictions "the worst", things could get a lot worse.

4 hours ago, Codraroll said:

I could see something like Curiosity landing on Mercury or the Jovian moons.

Again, why and how?

4 hours ago, Codraroll said:

Sooner or later, somebody will succeed with those Phobos missions that keep popping up from time to time. The Russians even launched one... then lost control of it in LEO and it burned up in the atmosphere a year later.

3 Phobos lander probes have been launched so far, all failed. Hopefully this is just a string of random bad luck. If not...

4 hours ago, Codraroll said:

I think there will come some international space projects where nationality doesn't matter and the list of contributing nations reads like a phone directory.

 

4 hours ago, Codraroll said:

Lastly, I hope to see an African spaceport open by the end of the century. East Africa is pretty well positioned for equatorial launches, KSC-style. Right on the equator and plenty of water in the sensible directions of launch. Mogadishu, Mombasa or Dar es Salaam would be good candidate cities for Africa's space center, provided that a few politics mess-ups are sorted out.

If it weren't for the forum rules I'd have a lot to say about this.

Edited October 25, 2017 by ChrisSpace

[KSK]

6 hours ago, ChrisSpace said:

You talk as though SLS and Orion are likely to actually happen.

I think they will for the reasons I mentioned.

6 hours ago, ChrisSpace said:

When I asked this I wasn't asking from a scientific/research/exploration perspective, I was talking from the perspective of the people who would actually be the ones funding this. Of course there's tons of exciting reasons to do it, but none of those reasons matter to those whose support is needed.

(This was referring to @SaturnianBlue's suggestion of probes orbiting every planet). Replying to @ChrisSpaceSo how and why do you imagine current planetary science missions are supported and funded? Why would that change over the next 50 or so years? Probes in orbit around every planet seems like a perfectly reasonable suggestion to me, especially as our record is already pretty good on that front, given that various space agencies have already put probes in orbit around Mercury (Messenger), Venus (Venera), Earth (need I say more), Mars (Viking for example), Ceres (Dawn), Jupiter, (Galileo, Juno) and Saturn (Cassini). I'm sure you can think of many other interplanetary probes that I haven't listed.

6 hours ago, ChrisSpace said:

But what would be the point of that? The only strategic value I see in Mercury is it's abundant solar energy, which could be beamed to Earth. In theory, at least.

If we're relying on strategic value to drive crewed space exploration then it's not going to happen. If there was strategic value to crewed space exploration, Apollo would have been just the beginning and this thread would be very different.

In my view, there are exactly  three reasons for crewed space endeavours: 

• Because enough people want to
• Because enough people can
• Because once enough people are in space they will need to be supplied with goods and services.

That last point obviously depends entirely on the first two. Over the timeframe suggested for this thread (out to 2100), thinking of space as a strategic asset for Earth is a dead end. If my Mercury mission ever happens (and I've already made it abundantly clear that I regard it as an extremely long shot), it will most likely happen because some private individual has an 'Everest' moment and decides to go to Mercury because it's there. And that will probably only happen if space travel to other destinations becomes sufficiently routine that a) crewed travel to Mercury looks feasible and b) because that  sufficiently routine travel has lowered the costs of space travel to the point where 'Everest' style private expeditions become affordable. At least to the Musks and Bezos of the world.

Edited October 25, 2017 by KSK

[Urses]

I think the mid term timeline will include many "we run from problems"-solutions. The rich and moghty will provide money to build long term orbital habitats to evade pollution and enviromental poisoning. As planetary based exospheres are more stable to maintance there would be some dome based colony projects for Moon and Mars. But i personaly think the Moon colonistaion projects will go more in manufacture way. 

This would go in spliting of the human race in actualy rich who flew away from problems and the crowd who will survive on the trash mountain. 

I will be pessimistic but as i see we will have orbital habitats for controlling and expluatating of remains of Earth. Moon based hightech and buisness habitats for the lucky ones and Mars Domes for the richest ones.

[DDE]

2 hours ago, Urses said:

The rich and moghty will provide money to build long term orbital habitats to evade pollution and enviromental poisoning.

The same requisite technology can be used to do the same on Earth, much more cheaply, with free gravity and air. The “the rich are fleeing Earth” narrative is nuttery with a dash of Marxism.

[tater]

I'm honestly cautiously optimistic at this point about the future of space. I had my interest---formerly incredibly high---beaten out of me over the years. 

Blue Origin isn't going away, because Amazon is not going away any time soon. They will accomplish things in the private sector that would normally be assigned to State actors simply because Bezos wants to. I'm near his age, so now I think I'll see some of it.

SpaceX is similarly motivated, and I see it continuing to be successful. BFR/BFS is an entirely rational plan for a reusable launch system that can turn around quickly, and the decision to look forward was sensible, IMHO. 

Both companies see rockets operating like aircraft. This is a game changer. Should BFS work as advertised, I think that there is the possibility of a lot of change in a relatively short period of time.

I don't see colonization as a thing, however, as I see no reason for it, and no possible way to pay for it.

[Urses]

2 hours ago, DDE said:

The same requisite technology can be used to do the same on Earth, much more cheaply, with free gravity and air. The “the rich are fleeing Earth” narrative is nuttery with a dash of Marxism.

Not realy marxism, more lived capitalism....

Why i have to invest money in whatever for free if i can build something for privileged and sell it?

[DDE]

3 hours ago, Urses said:

Not realy marxism, more lived capitalism....

Why i have to invest money in whatever for free if i can build something for privileged and sell it?

But would the rich buy it?

[Codraroll]

18 hours ago, ChrisSpace said:

But what would be the point of that? The only strategic value I see in Mercury is it's abundant solar energy, which could be beamed to Earth. In theory, at least.

Abundant solar energy and extremely abundant metals. Mercury is roughly 60 % iron by volume, and experienced a late heavy bombardment similar to Earth's, which means the metal should be relatively plentiful in the crust. Its short year also means short intervals between transfer windows to every planetary body in the solar system. At 0.4 g, its surface gravity is between that of Earth's and Mars'. Mercury could be a very plentiful source of raw materials, and has the energy available to refine them too.

18 hours ago, ChrisSpace said:

Again, why and how?

Why? Same reason we have rovers on Mars. To take a closer look at what's there. Maybe do some prospecting. Overall, to provide surface data from those very interesting bodies.

And how? A Mars-style landing would be out of the picture (too little atmosphere), so the landing would be rather like the moon landings. Retrorockets and all that stuff. Getting there in the first place would be a matter of rocketry utilizing techniques that are fairly well-known at this point. Getting rovers to Mercury and the Jovian moons is not an impossible engineering challenge.

18 hours ago, ChrisSpace said:

3 Phobos lander probes have been launched so far, all failed. Hopefully this is just a string of random bad luck. If not...

If not, it would be a really interesting discovery. Until then, we'll probably keep trying.

[Urses]

4 hours ago, DDE said:

But would the rich buy it?

Stay on earth and die slowly or buy a cupolla on mars with all-in service?

[ChrisSpace]

13 hours ago, KSK said:

So how and why do you imagine current planetary science missions are supported and funded? Why would that change over the next 50 or so years? Probes in orbit around every planet seems like a perfectly reasonable suggestion to me, especially as our record is already pretty good on that front, given that various space agencies have already put probes in orbit around Mercury (Messenger), Venus (Venera), Earth (need I say more), Mars (Viking for example), Ceres (Dawn), Jupiter, (Galileo, Juno) and Saturn (Cassini). I'm sure you can think of many other interplanetary probes that I haven't listed.

Yeah, but doing the stuff specified would require more money and resources than any of those. As the low-hanging fruit of early planetary science dries up, new missions gradually become more expensive (Just look at the progression between the three types of Mars rovers, for example).

12 hours ago, Urses said:

The rich and moghty will provide money to build long term orbital habitats to evade pollution and enviromental poisoning. As planetary based exospheres are more stable to maintance there would be some dome based colony projects for Moon and Mars. But i personaly think the Moon colonistaion projects will go more in manufacture way. 

This would go in spliting of the human race in actualy rich who flew away from problems and the crowd who will survive on the trash mountain. 

I will be pessimistic but as i see we will have orbital habitats for controlling and expluatating of remains of Earth. Moon based hightech and buisness habitats for the lucky ones and Mars Domes for the richest ones.

So, Elysium? This idea is completely ridiculous, but I'll admit it's very interesting.

8 hours ago, tater said:

I don't see colonization as a thing, however, as I see no reason for it, and no possible way to pay for it.

I can certainly see ways colonies could become profitable.

52 minutes ago, Codraroll said:

Abundant solar energy and extremely abundant metals. Mercury is roughly 60 % iron by volume, and experienced a late heavy bombardment similar to Earth's, which means the metal should be relatively plentiful in the crust. Its short year also means short intervals between transfer windows to every planetary body in the solar system. At 0.4 g, its surface gravity is between that of Earth's and Mars'. Mercury could be a very plentiful source of raw materials, and has the energy available to refine them too.

Aside from sunlight, Mercury doesn't have anything the Belt doesn't.

5 minutes ago, Urses said:

Stay on earth and die slowly or buy a cupolla on mars with all-in service?

Or just build an isolated colony in the ocean or Antarctica.

[tater]

24 minutes ago, ChrisSpace said:

I can certainly see ways colonies could become profitable.

No you can't. Don't worry, because no one else can, either, lol.

Colonies means people living permanently someplace. No credible economic driver in space requires people, and increasing capabilities in robotics, teleoperation, and intelligent systems will only make this more true in the future.

[Urses]

44 minutes ago, ChrisSpace said:

So, Elysium? This idea is completely ridiculous, but I'll admit it's very interesting.

More "Buck Rogers"

[G'th]

1 hour ago, tater said:

No you can't. Don't worry, because no one else can, either, lol.

Colonies means people living permanently someplace. No credible economic driver in space requires people, and increasing capabilities in robotics, teleoperation, and intelligent systems will only make this more true in the future.

And pretty soon people won't even be required anyway, going by this logic. 

People need to do something and need to live somewhere. This isn't always going to be a possible to accommodate on Earth unless we put a hard cap on the global population.

[Urses]

1 minute ago, G'th said:

And pretty soon people won't even be required anyway, going by this logic. 

People need to do something and need to live somewhere. This isn't always going to be a possible to accommodate on Earth unless we put a hard cap on the global population.

If i may insist a realy good book. "The first martian" sorry i read it for  some years back (20 maybe?) and the autor is not realy present. But the idea is a altered human supported through kybernetical implantants and operational adaptions to be able to live on Mars without a habitat. The only "human part" to be supported was the brain, the body was a combination of a robot and basic support artfical organics to provide brain with sugar water and oxygen.

The "colonisation" would be maintained through adaption of the colonists to the new enviroment and not through terraforming.