Future Surface to Orbit travel?

[YNM]

36 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Only utilization is not just expensive, but also profitable.

Well if your colonial outpost is costing you an arm and a leg, and then a liver but still asks for your heart, why even keep it.

Colonization is always profitable - unprofitable colonies means no colony no more.

Edited July 9, 2018 by YNM

[kerbiloid]

20 minutes ago, YNM said:

Colonization is always profitable - unprofitable colonies means no colony no more.

Roulette gambling is always profitable - unprofitable gambling stops when the gambler gets out of money.

Colonial outpost - is a somewhat strange construction. Will they trade with Native Martians?

***

Colonization will get possible when it costs nothing.
Because rich people prefer to stay at home.

Edited July 9, 2018 by kerbiloid

[YNM]

6 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Roulette gambling is always profitable...

... to the casino owners.

7 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Colonial outpost - is a somewhat strange construction.

They need goods to sell back.

[K^2]

If we're going to make it work, NTR. I'm really hoping for a breakthrough in nuclear isomers for that, though. It's the only way for us to have clean launches on true orbital commerce scale, with millions of people going up and down every year.

The only other way to break out of the well on civilization scale is the h+ route of not bringing the meat sacks along. All else ends in ruin. We can't sustain necessary scale of launches on chem rockets.

[Nibb31]

13 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

No space elevator?

Space Elevator would be slow, expensive, and not scalable. I don't see how it could be competitive against BFR-type chemical rockets.

[FireKerb]

Glass elevator.

[kerbiloid]

As all this starts looking like a brainstorming, let me suggest another environment-friendly option - a mooncano launch system.

Let's take an oceanic island with a high volcano, old and disabled. Of course, the higher - the better.
It should have a deep underwater trench next to it. The deeper - the better.
The closer to equator - the better, that's obvious.

Make a dam around the trench, with gates to let the tidal wave in. 
It's good to shape the oceanic shelf near it to form tsunamies.
Drain the trench.

Make a narrow vertical shaft in the volcano. Let it be your launch shaft.
Put your crafts inside the shaft to launch.

Twice per day Moon pulls the tidal wave.
You open the gates.
Tsunami fills the trench with enormous speed.
Water column pushes the craft from the shaft like a cork from a champagne bottle.
The craft reaches stratosphere and engages hydrolox engine.
You close the gates and have 12h to drain the trench till the next tide.
(Hydrolox you produce right in situ. You use a powerplant for pumps and electrolizer).

I can't suggest exact place, but probably there is such combination somewhere. Maybe Mariana or so, I don't know.

(Afaik, a whole half of Netherlands was made in similar way, so why not).

Edited July 10, 2018 by kerbiloid

[p1t1o]

Could the Fulton Recovery System be scaled up to reach orbit?

[kerbiloid]

2 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Could the Fulton Recovery System be scaled up to reach orbit?

Maybe you mean a rotovator.

Spoiler

 

Unlikely on Earth.

[p1t1o]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Maybe you mean a rotovator.

Unlikely on Earth.

Not quite. I mean a vertical suspended cable attached to cargo, and a mass moving horizontally in relation to the cable impacts it and sweeps the cargo upwards and sideways.

Definitely an easier intercept at least, since the suspended cable is stationary and there is vertical latitude in the impact point.

I mean, I doubt its practical compared to chemical rockets, but im just spitballin'

[wumpus]

19 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Roulette gambling is always profitable - unprofitable gambling stops when the gambler gets out of money.

Colonial outpost - is a somewhat strange construction. Will they trade with Native Martians?

***

Colonization will get possible when it costs nothing.
Because rich people prefer to stay at home.

The asteroid belt is almost certainly profitable to send materials back to Earth.  One critical element is that it likely requires nuclear power (I still suspect that large mylar reflectors might work as well).  No idea if a human makes more economic sense to be present or only robots (which would have to deal with distance lag worse than Mars).

Martian colonies are likely to exist to have Martian colonies, and last until they can either become profitable or people get tired of them.

[kerbiloid]

1 minute ago, wumpus said:

The asteroid belt is almost certainly profitable to send materials back to Earth

We have a lack of iron and aluminium here, and like to watch fallings stars.

Spoiler

 

[wumpus]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

We have a lack of iron and aluminium here, and like to watch fallings stars.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Iron is the 3rd most common element in the Earth's crust and aluminum is the fourth (and aluminum is way further down as far as the Milky Way is concerned, don't know about the asteroid belt).  The main point with aluminum is prying off the oxygen atoms that are inevitably attached.  Even if they are attached on the belt, you could presumably send bauxite to high Earth orbit (or possibly much closer to the Sun) for removing the oxygen and producing "frozen electricity".

Of course, if we are using nukes to get to the belt, I suspect that we won't care as much about the electricity needed to produce aluminum.

[kerbiloid]

11 minutes ago, wumpus said:

Iron is the 3rd most common element in the Earth's crust and aluminum is the fourth (and aluminum is way further down as far as the Milky Way is concerned, don't know about the asteroid belt). 

That's exactly what I'm saying.

12 minutes ago, wumpus said:

Even if they are attached on the belt,

Would be strange if not. Alumina is one of the toughest compounds in the Universe. 
And aluminium is not siderophile, it's lithophile.
Unlikely you can ever find a pure iron together with a non-oxidized aluminium.
If the asteroid is made of iron (i.e. a protoplanet core), then the only aluminium there is remains of mantle, so it's at least oxidized.
And once being oxidized, it won't reduce without humans' help.
A pure aluminium asteroid means a melted alien spaceship.

Also you can calculate total delta-V to deliver 1 kg of aluminium from belt to the Earth orbit.
And compare it with the energy required to reduce alumina irl.

18 minutes ago, wumpus said:

Of course, if we are using nukes to get to the belt, I suspect that we won't care as much about the electricity needed to produce aluminum.

We will. Because we can spend these nukes in a powerplant and produce aluminium right from clay.

[Xd the great]

But the aluminium on earth will run out.

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, Xd the great said:

But the aluminium on earth will run out.

When we totally scratch off the crust and the mantle.
Though, then we will get a lot of iron core.

[Xd the great]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

When we totally scratch off the crust and the mantle.
Though, then we will get a lot of iron core.

Dude, where are we goona live? On the core?

[kerbiloid]

7 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

where are we goona live? On the core?

Crust and mantle are made of alumina, silica, magnesia and other stuff in various combinations.
It's physically impossible to spend all aluminium.

And Moon is not a pure bauxite deposit, it's also an almost similar rocky trash.
Just on Earth we are already mining bauxites because they are better than lunar-like stone rubbish from the next mountain.
But almost any piece of clay or stone is an aluminium compound.

Edited July 14, 2018 by kerbiloid

[Xd the great]

16 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Crust and mantle are made of alumina, silica, magnesia and other stuff in various combinations.
It's physically impossible to spend all aluminium.

And Moon is not a pure bauxite deposit, it's also an almost similar rocky trash.
Just on Earth we are already mining bauxites because they are better than lunar-like stone rubbish from the next mountain.
But almost any piece of clay or stone is an aluminium compound.

Well, the big mines are getting exploited, so we are left with the moon like trash.