More good news

Scott Lowther wrote:

(snip) my repeated statements that development would be
needed?


Technology yet to be developed != Existing technology.

Why does this escape you?

--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html

Scott Lowther:
Vincent Cate wrote:
You think we can have space settlements with ELVs?

Most of the transportation for the settlement setup is one-way.

Most of the trasportation by FedEx, UPS, U-haul, etc is one-way.
That does not mean the transportation vehicles can be expendables.

But you
would say we already have the launch technology needed for space
settlement today?

Back when we had the Saturn V, sure.

So then we don't have the technology needed for space settlements
today. But I don't agree that the Saturn V is good enough for space
settlements.

There's sometimes a big-ass gulf between doing somethign, and doing
it very, very expensively.

If the price is higher than settlers are willing to pay, then I
don't think we can have true space settlements. Maybe some
government subsidized project with a limited number of astronauts,
but not real space settlements. So I think we need to get launch
prices down much further before space settlements can happen.

This will take new technology in the sense of new designs and new
systems for getting to orbit. It could be reusable rockets, space
tethers, or a rocket design that an assembly line of robots can build
cheaply, etc. It is hard to say which approach will be the one
to make it happen. However, I don't think any existing, or past,
hardware will do it.

-- Vince

Obviously this debate comes down to one of definition. I would tend to
define new technology as requiring fundamentally new research and
development which goes well beyond the scope of the current state of the
art. To me this goes beyond the adaptation of existing technologies to
a new application, hence I would tend to agree with Scott. I do not see
that initial space settlement necessarily requires the invention of
fundamentally new materials and designs, I think our current level of
technology is sufficient, though less than optimal for space settlement,
as inferred by some of our activities in space to date.

Having said that, I think this whole argument against the use of new
technologies is fundamentally flawed and is a prejudice derived from a
few very public projects that went bad due to reasons that had nothing
to do with the use of new technologies and everything to do with
cumulative incompetence. Space settlement will require good management
combined with sensible low cost development approaches. New
technologies might be developed when and where it makes economic sense
to do so, but assuming reasonable application, I expect this will have a
very minor bearing on overall success.

As everyone here already knows, it is not the embracing, or non
embracing of new technologies that is currently preventing space
settlement from happening, this argument is moot.

Pete.

"Vincent Cate" wrote ...
Scott Lowther:
Vincent Cate wrote:
You think we can have space settlements with ELVs?

Most of the transportation for the settlement setup is one-way.

Most of the trasportation by FedEx, UPS, U-haul, etc is one-way.
That does not mean the transportation vehicles can be expendables.

The currently demonstrated ratios of
1 Flight (partially reusable vehicle)
to
1 Vehicle-of-comparable-size (expendable)
+ 1 Flight (expendable)

Is rather different between aircraft and launchers

Or, to put it another way, if it took me £1,000 to drive to Bristol in a
car I get to keep and which cost £20,000 then the alternative of a £1,200
pound car I get to use for 100 miles then throw away wouldn't be quite
so stupid.

It certainly would be good to have launch costs brought down.
I am not so certain that reusable vehicles will be the best way of doing that
- at least in the near term

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..
On Sun, 04 Jan 2004 02:43:33 -0600, in a place far, far away, "Paul F.
Dietz" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

The car analogy is bogus. Plenty of companies have built cars from
scratch, and had them work in their intended operating environment. Noone
has ever operated industrial processing machinery in space.

Because access has been so expensive that no one has been able to
afford to even attempt it.

Well, kind of. As they say.

Many of the things we're talking about here are non-trivial high cost
to do on Earth. Large civil engineering projects or marine
engineering projects which strikes me as closest to a space colony in
analogy terms are mind-numbingly expensive and *hard* even in the
relatively benign environment of the Earth.

Relatively, because I know people who've been to North Sea Oil Rigs
and that's a hellish environment to assemble and maintain stuff in.
It's still probably better than space.

Dave

Scott Lowther wrote in message ...
Paul F. Dietz wrote:

Scott Lowther wrote:

You have built prototypes.

...that worked. Thus demonstrating that the technology is there.

Just as the technology is there for a startup company to build a car
from scratch.

As I said, the only thing missing is the infrastructure.

You have built bench-scale prototypes. For building sustainable
settlements, you need industrial-scale technology.

How many times have I said that we lack the infrastructure? Sheesh.


For that matter, you need a settlement that can build replacements
for all its vital equipment. You haven't built that on your benchtop,
I am sure.

You're right. We bought it off the shelf. Things like drill presses and
lathes and arc welders are Technology We Already Have.

Arc welders are an interesting one right there, last time I checked we
didn't have any that work well in a vacuum.

The car analogy is bogus. Plenty of companies have built cars from
scratch, and had them work in their intended operating environment.

First time out, perfectly, and with no tweaking or redesigns? Seems
unlikely.

Noone has ever operated industrial processing machinery in space.

Non sequitur.

Nope, its a very sensible point to make. My first post grad job was
as a project engineer for a paper machine company. Relatively low
tech, but even building a simple recycled paper mill on an existing
site with all the resources on tap cost over $110 in 1990 terms. And,
for something we knew exactly how to do still took months of
commissioning to get working properly.

Large scale engineering like you see in the Marine sector and civil
engineer is actually quite hard, even assuming the infrastructure. I
am assuming its hard because its bloody hard on Earth.

Do we even have the technology for long-term operation on the moon
or mars at outposts? For example, do we have spacesuits and airlock
doors that can last on the moon past a few weeks (in the face of
damage from lunar regolith fragments)?

If "lunar regolith fragments" are a problem... then operate your doors
in such a fashion that this damage does not occur.

Rather than focus on that specific. Do we have technology that
involves moving parts that can operate in a fine dust enviroment and
continue to function for a protracted period? I'm thinking airlock
doors and spacesuits too.

How about heat dissipation?

They're called "radiators."

There's a number of responses to this. When you say radiators what
are you thinking of? A large materials processing facility is going
to need pretty significant heat disapation which is going to need to
keep up with the growth of the facility. It isn't quite a chicken and
egg, but if you are planning on building stuff in space, you're going
to have to deal with this and "radiators" might not be enough in the
early stages.

Radiation susceptibility?

It's called "dirt."

Not necessarily.

Compatibility
of the fluids and fluid handling systems with the vacuum and temperature
extremes of space?

Don't expose your fluids to vacuum. Keep your temperatures fairly
constant.

How?

Compatibility of the moving components with lunar dust?

Design 'em like AK-47s. You don;t need advacned technology, but loose
tolerances.

That then presents a problem for seals and other things which will be
essential on the moon.

Simple things, like *cleaning* this equipment, become
problematic if there's not an ample supply of liquid water (and an operating
environment where the water is liquid.)

So provide ample water.

How? BTW - where are you thinking of doing this?

Controls that do not require
someone in shirtsleeves to be sitting in an non-pressure-tight cab.

What, like RC cars? We have those.

But we don't have RC production plant, at least not for large scale
materials processing.

And showing that the new machines work
is not something that can be done beforehand.

So build a test site on the moon.

I think that's what he's saying.

On Sat, 03 Jan 2004 03:37:23 GMT, lid
(John Savard) wrote:

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzsnrkhangrkwhat?

On Fri, 02 Jan 2004 03:05:02 -0600, "Paul F. Dietz"
wrote, in part:

..... with any luck at all, we might have another 60,000 years to go.

???? Doesn't 800,000 - 640,000 = 160,000?


Back to sleep, everyone.



Ok ....

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ....

On Sat, 03 Jan 2004 02:37:10 -0600, "Paul F. Dietz"
wrote:

John Savard wrote:

But if it isn't going to blow up for 10,000 years, that may still not
be a good idea.

Oh, I don't know. If blowing things up now causes a smaller eruption
(read the FAQ -- small eruptions are much more common than the big
ones), then maybe by careful lancing the larger eruptions can be
avoided entirely.

Paul

It's been a long time since I saw the TV special , but IIRC, it's a
small pressure release that sets the thing off. They were trying to
figure out what was really happening and the theory was that the
pressure allowed something to stay in solution and the small pressure
release caused it to separate, resulting in the huge explosion.

I'm not sure I described that very well, but maybe someone here who
has more scientific knowledge than me has seen the special on
"Supervolcanoes" and can elaborate.

-- David

"Paul F. Dietz" wrote:

Scott Lowther wrote:

In broad terms, it is. Changing components or even materials does not
necessarily change fundamental technologies. There is very little in,
say, an F-1 rocket engine that Werner von Braun ca. 1946 would have been
stumped by. The technology was essentially the same... just considerably
more developed.

This is the core of our disagreement. I do *not* consider these technologies
to be the same. In the same sense, I do not consider the space analogues
of terrestrial production processes to be 'the same' as those terrestrial
counterparts -- the differences in operating environment are too great,
which will lead to the considerable redesign.

Technology: The knowledge of materials and processes required to design
and build useful things.

The pilot plant hardware to use extraterrestial resources do not exist
because there is no approved program that requires them (and there will
not be such a program until we have a rather dramatic reduction in
launch costs, IMHO). But the fact that the hardware has not been
developed does not in itself mean that the technology does not exist.
Different environments do of course require different designs, but that
is largely a matter of selecting the appropriate technologies and
plugging the proper numbers into the equations.

Problems will, of course, occur during development: Nothing ever works
right the first time. Design changes are always required, even into the
flight test phase, but resolving test problems seldom requires new
inventions. We could begin the development of the hardware required to
exploit extraterestrial resources now, with existing technologies, if
someone were to put up the money. The final test of that hardware will
occur in its actual operating environment: on the Moon or Mars. Design
changes could well be required at that point to make the hardware work
better, but it is unlikely that new technologies will need to be
developed.

Paul

Dave O'Neill wrote:
You're right. We bought it off the shelf. Things like drill presses and
lathes and arc welders are Technology We Already Have.

Arc welders are an interesting one right there, last time I checked we
didn't have any that work well in a vacuum.

Oh, they work perfectly fine in a vacuum;
just not for welding two solid pieces of
metal together.

There is a vaccum chamber on the UC Berkeley campus
with aluminum spatters and deposition all over the
inside from when someone anted up the money to
actually test that...

The generic process... vaporizing metal in an arc...
is used (in a more smooth and controlled fashion)
in various semiconductor processing operations,
in a vaccum. It works fine if you're trying to
plate the metal all over something.


-george william herbert