Rapid space exploration development scenarios

[kiwiak]

Few i can think of:

1) Founding evidence for alien civilization artifact on soe moon/planet - studying these artifacts coudl allow us to take uurechnology to new level, but thee artifacts need to be recovered first... not something you coudl just leave for clumsy probe

2) Discovering extra terestial life on mars/europa/elsewhere - but woudl this be enoght to encourage us to apolo level effort and creating mnned mission to study these lifeforms without relying for robots?

3) Bruce willis scenario - asteroid on colision cource with earth. But after taking care of this danger, woudl space exploraton slow peace again, like in days after apollo program?

4) New space race - well i hear from time to time that it already started, (china - usa), but right now its nowhere as spectacular as in '60

5) New technology - like skylon, that woudl make spacetravel cheaper by order of magnitude. This woudl allow to commercial space exploration and taken most effort from national agecies shoulders

6) Mentality change - after KSP become number one selling game in world, everybody wants to try these things in real life

[Stargate525]

The one most likely to lead to a massive expansion like that would be some combination of 2 and 5, I'd say. Getting off Earth needs to become much cheaper (space elevator, anyone?), and we need the tech and drive to do major exploration. Aliens would definitely provide that.

[sgtscuba]

The one most likely to lead to a massive expansion like that would be some combination of 2 and 5, I'd say. Getting off Earth needs to become much cheaper (space elevator, anyone?), and we need the tech and drive to do major exploration. Aliens would definitely provide that.

^this, although I think something like 5 would be more likely.

[Nuke]

5 is going to be the default if nothing else happens. eventually we are going to crack the problem fusion, that could happen in 5 years or 50, and that will lead to new propulsion technologies. we wont get the same amount of political fear mongering as with fission based engine tech (it will still be there but just at the extreme fringes).

[architeuthis]

There are a lot of things which, though technically feasible, do not happen for economic reasons. All else being equal I don't think cold-warsqe space races will ever lead to sustained long-term space development, the political return on investment is not high enough to justify the costs. I think this also goes for political returns from international cooperation.

In the long term I think technological advances, by lowering costs and risk, will continue to lower the 'activation energy' for space activities to the point at which space development will take off with a life of its own. I think we're already seeing the start of that now with the contemporary boom in private space companies. I'm not sure the market really exists right at this moment, but I think many of these companies have a 'build it and they will come' type of philosophy.

[NGTOne]

There are a lot of things which, though technically feasible, do not happen for economic reasons. All else being equal I don't think cold-warsqe space races will ever lead to sustained long-term space development, the political return on investment is not high enough to justify the costs. I think this also goes for political returns from international cooperation.

In the long term I think technological advances, by lowering costs and risk, will continue to lower the 'activation energy' for space activities to the point at which space development will take off with a life of its own. I think we're already seeing the start of that now with the contemporary boom in private space companies. I'm not sure the market really exists right at this moment, but I think many of these companies have a 'build it and they will come' type of philosophy.

And that's exactly the right philosophy to have - "build it and they will come" has been the credo of every new field and endeavour since ever, from the exploration of the Americas to the Gold Rush to Las Vegas.

[Seret]

Nothing much is going to change without a step change in propulsion.

[Streetwind]

Not really. We already have very powerful propulsion systems that can take us anywhere in the solar system with ease.

The issue is that these propulsion systems need fuel, and that fuel needs to be lifted out of earth's gravity well, and that is prohibitively expensive. With cheap trips to orbit, large orbitally built and fueled exploration craft advance from "are you insane" to "we might actually have a budget for this".

Just think of how much further away Minmus is from the Mun than the Mun is from Kerbin. Yet the delta-V required for a Mun transfer is 5360, and the delta-V required for a Minmus transfer is about 5420. The difference is utterly negligible next to Kerbin's massive gravity well. And the same is true in real life - as soon as you break free of the Earth, relatively tiny amounts of fuel used in small engines can get you almost anywhere. The fuel cost difference between a Moon rocket and a Mars rocket is a few percent on the launchpad. The reason we haven't sent humans to Mars is not propulsion technology, it's money, time and health concerns.

Sure, one could argument that with a new kind of propulsion system, you could use a much faster transfer on the same small amount of fuel. But it's not a hard requirement. Lower the cost to orbit, and you can simply lift that much more fuel up there and use conventional engines on the same faster transfer. In my opinion, space exploration stands and falls with our ability to conquer Earth's gravity well in a consistent and efficient fashion.

Edited January 23, 2014 by Streetwind

[cziken20]

I would want 6 to happen

[NASAFanboy]

Right now, we are on track for 4 and 5.

The Chinese moon landing was enough to push Congress to allocate more money to the NASA budget for 2014 (And thus, save Curosity and Cassini) and for an bill to be proposed that would force NASA to return to the moon and establish itself by 2022, bascially an all-out revival of Project Constellation. This also sparked talk of an lunar farside base by 2028 within the top levels of the NASA adminsitration, though this is still rather unconfirmed. If a single probe landing could pressure Congress to do this, then what will an manned mission do?

Anyways, 5 is the "safe" path, and the path we've been going ever since the Apollo-Soyuz test project.

4 is the path we followed during the space race, and is more risky.

[nhnifong]

Electrolyzing water in orbit from the ice collected from a local comet might be a suitable way to provide fuel to spacecraft. If the capturing/mining/electrolyzing system can get to the comet, it can go ahead and start making it's own fuel. Then, it can bring it back to LEO and sell whatever is left. If it turns out to be a cheaper way to get fuel or water in orbit than flying it up from earth then it will eventually be used.

[jwenting]

only thing that would maybe do it is some dictator getting their hands on both ICBM technology AND thermonuclear weapons and starting to take potshots at US or Russian satellite networks.

That'd maybe trigger those countries into development of active space based defenses.

[jwenting]

only thing that would maybe do it is some dictator getting their hands on both ICBM technology AND thermonuclear weapons and starting to take potshots at US or Russian satellite networks.

That'd maybe trigger those countries into development of active space based defenses.

[Top8]

I think you fellows might enjoy putting together a few realistic desgins for my volunteer project:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/67002-Visions-of-2070

We are university students working on educational resources distributed free across the globe... but we need you to design ships for us in KSP (or blender).

[meve12]

7. is 3. with a neutron star or hypernova. Crash-development of Alcubierre drives, anyone?