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A Reason to go

KASASpace

By KASASpace
in Science & Spaceflight

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NASAFanboy

NASAFanboy

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Because that shows the entire world that Russia has ICBM capabilities. And by 1957, the military circles on both sides of the curtain had realised that a nuclear arsenal was of purely defensive use.

Everyone is forgetting the Bumper Rocket.

But yet again, it might not be considered large scale, so it's back to the drawing board. The probelm is with "curious", is that it's all wow and awesome for five seconds, and then you figure out that you really spent millions on something that didn't really do much besides science.

Now, that might be good for you KSP players, but from an profit/political standpoint, that's called budget cuts and cancellations. Don't get me wrong, I fully support space exploration with whatever I can get, but "science" isn't an compelling reason for the House Science Subcommittee to invest and fund your space dreams. You have to add something like "Will establish USA leadership in space", "Will give us edge in cislunar politics", and whatnot.

Edited by NASAFanboy
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Themohawkninja

Themohawkninja

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Because that shows the entire world that Russia has ICBM capabilities. And by 1957, the military circles on both sides of the curtain had realised that a nuclear arsenal was of purely defensive use.

Why put a thermometer on it though? Was that really just to make sure it's overheating (if so, why just worry about heat)?

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G'th

G'th

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No, I have fun playing KSP. I also enjoy science fiction movies. But there's a difference between fiction, games, or wishful thinking; and the hard cold facts of reality. Just because you can land a Kerbal on Duna doesn't mean you're an expert in space policy or engineering.

Personally, I'm pro-space exploration, but I would like to see NASA or other space agencies concentrate on achieving smaller goals in order to actually accomplish things for a change, rather than seeing them spend resources on shiny new rockets with nothing to put on top of them and yet more PowerPoint concepts for Mars bases that they can't afford.

Thing is though is that they've already accomplished a lot of things. The problem is that they didn't go anywhere with it, partly because the US government decided it wasn't worth it anymore despite all the technology that was gleaned off of NASA's endeavours, partly because of the decision to switch to something that was overly complicated for the task set to it (Shuttle).

ISS proved we can more or less keep people in Space for longer than a week. A base on the Moon wouldn't be that far of a jump, and the work required to make such a base sustainable (by harvesting the Moon's resources, mostly) would be nothing BUT beneficial for us back on Earth. And just as Gemini lead up to Apollo, a base on the Moon will lead to the first man on Mars. NASA's method of working towards a goal back then does work, and with doing it with modern technology will probably go even better than Gemini/Apollo did in regards to safety, efficiency, and the like.

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Themohawkninja

Themohawkninja

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A base on the Moon wouldn't be that far of a jump' date='[/quote']

Orbital construction is a lot easier than launching things not just in Lunar orbit (which is far more delta-V at that), but actually landing it, and landing it quite close to other parts. You would need heavy launch platforms for every launch, no matter how small, just due to the delta-V requirements.

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Nibb31

Nibb31

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ISS proved we can more or less keep people in Space for longer than a week. A base on the Moon wouldn't be that far of a jump' date=' and the work required to make such a base sustainable (by harvesting the Moon's resources, mostly) would be nothing BUT beneficial for us back on Earth. And just as Gemini lead up to Apollo, a base on the Moon will lead to the first man on Mars. NASA's method of working towards a goal back then does work, and with doing it with modern technology will probably go even better than Gemini/Apollo did in regards to safety, efficiency, and the like.[/quote']

I agree with you here. The next step after the ISS should be a semi-permanent lunar surface outpost for extended stays.

- Experiment with closed loop life support, greenhouses, ISRU, etc...

- Learn about cosmic radiation mitigation and biological effects.

- Learn about partial gravity and biological effects.

- Develop technology for living on an off-world surface (EVA, mobility, dust mitigation, etc...)

- Develop a moon-transit infrastructure with reusable landers and fuel depots.

These are technologies that will have to be at TRL 8 or 9 for a successful Mars mission. I don't think it would be wise to go on a multi-year Mars without developing them first on a smaller scale on the Moon. Yes, that pushes Mars back another 10 or 20 years, but there is no rush. We've been around for 200 000 years, what's a decade or two? These are achievable goals that will put Mars or other planets in our reach. If we keep on aiming for Mars without developing those intermediate technologies first, we will never go.

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Klingon Admiral

Klingon Admiral

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Why put a thermometer on it though? Was that really just to make sure it's overheating (if so, why just worry about heat)?

The scientists aren't the ones with the money, and if your superiors want to launch something into orbit, you may as well put some scientific instruments on it.

I have never said that humans aren't explorers. We most definitely are very good at it. Christoph Columbus was an explorer, without doubt. Queen Isabella of Spain most certainly wasn't.

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NASAFanboy

NASAFanboy

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I agree with you here. The next step after the ISS should be a semi-permanent lunar surface outpost for extended stays.

- Experiment with closed loop life support, greenhouses, ISRU, etc...

- Learn about cosmic radiation mitigation and biological effects.

- Learn about partial gravity and biological effects.

- Develop technology for living on an off-world surface (EVA, mobility, dust mitigation, etc...)

- Develop a moon-transit infrastructure with reusable landers and fuel depots.

These are technologies that will have to be at TRL 8 or 9 for a successful Mars mission. I don't think it would be wise to go on a multi-year Mars without developing them first on a smaller scale on the Moon. Yes, that pushes Mars back another 10 or 20 years, but there is no rush. We've been around for 200 000 years, what's a decade or two? These are achievable goals that will put Mars or other planets in our reach. If we keep on aiming for Mars without developing those intermediate technologies first, we will never go.

Right now, NASA is like an construction company trying to build a skyscraper on a single beam.

While we *theoretically* have the capability today to send manned crews to Mars, we need to test the technology. An lunar station, surface or space, will work fine for this purpose.

NASA is hinting at an lunar spacestation around 2025 or so, so I'll keep my fingers crossed. But an lunar surface outpost would work fine.

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Klingon Admiral

Klingon Admiral

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Left Africa.

Africa became crowded. Sub-saharan Africa could maybe sustain a few tenthousand humans. Once the evolutionary powerhouse that h. sapiens is emerged, it shouldn't have been too hard for humanity to exceed these numbers. It is a well established fact of population biology that a too high density. A deserfication of northern Africa might have played a part as well. Although the modern Sahara probably came into existence as late as the end of the last ice age, there are 7 million years old dune deposits, suggesting that the north African deserts might expand and regress over large periods of time. Humanity then probably travelled north along the nile (which may have been formed only 100,000 - 120,000 years ago, the same timeframe when h. sapiens left Africa) and then spread into Eurasia. This increased the habitat of h. sapiens and lead to the population density of the species falling, decreasing the risk of serious intra-species competition.

"I don't want to die." ("Even more." The mortality of pre-historic humans was probably quite high)

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