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"The Future of Human Spaceflight"



 
 
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  #11  
Old January 10th 09, 06:09 PM posted to sci.space.policy
jacob navia[_2_]
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Default "The Future of Human Spaceflight"

Martha Adams wrote:
"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 10 Jan 2009 11:00:42 +0100, in a place far, far away, jacob
navia made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:


The technology for human space travel is just not there. Look at the
best humans can manage now: The ISS. It is a few hundred Km away, and
it is still plagued by a lot of problems, it has no closed system
it needs supplies from earth. etc.


It's quite stupid to infer that the ISS is the best humans can manage
now.


I think the above thread illustrates my comments well enough. All that
stuff, no direction. "HARD," Navia says. *Of course* it's hard, if you
don't have a direction, if you don't know where you're going. Look at
the development of the nuclear bomb, for example (not my favorite kind
of thing but it's a good illustration). At the time the work was
undertaken to develop the thing, what resources existed to do it? Whole
new technologies had to be worked out, tested, used or discarded. But
they had an objective and they got there.


An atomic bomb is two pieces of refined U235 that are pressed together
to form a single piece 10 cm wide with the help of explosives.

It required a lot of development but nothing new had to be discovered.

To live in space there are a lot of completely new technologies that
need to be CREATED.

Technologies like space suits, that seem common place and boring but
when you look at the failure rates, longevity, life expectancy of
the stuff you see that we are FAR away from mastering them.

A few years ago all U.S. space suits in the ISS were down, and
Americans needed to use their Prussian colleagues ones. Space
suits that can be used day-in day-out for say, 2 years, do not
exist at all.

Technologies like closed ecological systems able to provide oxygen
and food for years do not exist. To develop that, even if we were to
use a lot of resources would take 15-20 years. We are speaking of
developing new plants, testing them, etc.

Obviously, we can travel short distances (to the moon for instance)
and we can establish a base shielded underground in the moon.

But that is a far cry from colonizing space and make it habitable.

What I have in mind, are farms of plants of dozens of Km that
would provide food for thousands of people. They need to be done
in vacuum to avoid pressurized space that is too expensive.

Using those new plants, able to grow from photosynthesis in
vacuum, we could make parts of the moon green, and establish
colonies of thousands of individuals.

Obviously making a colony of 5 people in the moon is feasible
(and could give us the testing bed for developing all those new
technologies) but it is a far cry from going to space!

Going to space means that we have a food spply that can feed
hundreds of thousands of people, and that can be done only
with specially developed plants.


Look again at the Apollo program. It was directed to a specific
objective. The technologies to do it did not exist, only small
indications that they might be developed if someone set out to do it. We
all know, they did it. (Decades ago. Then something went terribly wrong).


Apollo was a trip of a few people at a time for time length of a few
days, for a very short distance.

That was difficult to achieve but it is absolutely NOTHING compared
to the scaling problems we would have to solve for moving 100 000
people around to space, establishing colonies etc.

Now look at space. It's not a science-fiction kind of thing that you
cannot do space small. Space is different from he to live anywhere
in space requires an industrial triad of of a lifespace, an industrial
base to build and maintain it, and an ongoing commercial/business base
to give it reason to exist and to support it.


This is essentially what I said, excepting the "business" part of it.

Space is not "profitable", and going to the moon is not an
undertaking that would bring any kind of financial reward
to the people doing it.

That is why Americans never returned to the moon. The objectives
of American society (and Europeans and most of our societies)
are centered in short term profit, and lack any kind of motivation
beyond profits.

Egypt could concentrate thousands and thousand of people building
pyramids because the people were engaged by the sheer beauty of the
concept:

"Lets make a work that will last forever"

And they did it, and it has laster for thousands of years.

The same motivation can be traced to many of our monuments like
the stones of Carnac in France, the cathedrals of Middle Age,
and many others.

Nobody earned any money with a pyramid, it had absolutely no
economical purpose.

It is this kind of motivation that we lack.

Which means, settlement
in space must be an ongoing effort of sending out one and then another
and then another settlement, one after another, until the commercial
ecologies and networks to exist there are built there. I can't see
anything novel at all in this thinking. It's just a repeat, different
in detail and environment from what we've seen here on Terra.


What is new is the *motivation* to spend all that effort in
something that will never be seen in the bottom line.

As for "HARD" and all that, of course it's hard. Our remote ancestors,
finding out by trial and error and thru evolution how to live on dry
land, will tell you what's HARD. Uncounted millions of them must have
died, over hundreds of centuries. But natural selection is the slow and
difficult way to accomplish something. Today, we have the industrial
capacity, enough of the knowhow, and the resources to do it. The HARD
problem seems to be to win enough money away from wars and political
corruption and economic inefficiencies to do it.


Space needs another kind of motivation. A motivation that is not
alien to us, but it has been forgotten: the pleasure of doing things
for themselves, for their intrinsic beauty.


--
jacob navia
jacob at jacob point remcomp point fr
logiciels/informatique
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32
  #12  
Old January 10th 09, 08:00 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Ian Parker
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Posts: 2,554
Default "The Future of Human Spaceflight"

On 10 Jan, 17:07, (Rand Simberg) wrote:
On Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:46:16 +0100, in a place far, far away, jacob
navia made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

Rand Simberg wrote:
On Sat, 10 Jan 2009 11:00:42 +0100, in a place far, far away, jacob
navia made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:


The technology for human space travel is just not there. Look at the
best humans can manage now: The ISS. It is a few hundred Km away, and
it is still plagued by a lot of problems, it has no closed system
it needs supplies from earth. etc.


It's quite stupid to infer that the ISS is the best humans can manage
now.


It is the best humans can do now because it exists.


No, it's the best NASA *has* done now, given all its institutional
constraints. *It tells us nothing about the best that humans in
general *can* do now.

What are the contraints NASA is under other than cash? There is not an
infinite supply of cash.

Other things can
be maybe better but they have a big problem... they do not exist.


That doesn't mean that they cannot.


Of course not, but if they have not been developed there is a reason.
Are you claiming that that reason is bureaucracy pure and simple. If
it is it is really quite a staggering claim.


- Ian Parker

  #13  
Old January 10th 09, 11:39 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Posts: 10,018
Default "The Future of Human Spaceflight"

jacob navia wrote:
:
:An atomic bomb is two pieces of refined U235 that are pressed together
:to form a single piece 10 cm wide with the help of explosives.
:
:It required a lot of development but nothing new had to be discovered.
:

Technologies to 'refine U235' did not exist. Sufficiently fast
switches to trigger the explosives did not exist. Neutron tampers did
not exist. The required explosive (probably) did not exist.

And that's just to begin with.

much about how space technologies don't exist and that makes it
different from the Manhattan Project elided


--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson
  #14  
Old January 11th 09, 12:23 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Posts: 10,018
Default "The Future of Human Spaceflight"

Ian Parker wrote:
:
:Of course not, but if they have not been developed there is a reason.
:Are you claiming that that reason is bureaucracy pure and simple. If
:it is it is really quite a staggering claim.
:

Bureaucracy and politics. ISS would have been a much better station
without those two (which requires dropping the 'I').

For example, it probably would have been a much better station if they
had ****canned the original design when the price kept going up and
the capabilities kept going down and had listened to Lowell Wood's
ideas.


--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney
  #15  
Old January 11th 09, 02:00 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Derek Lyons
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Default "The Future of Human Spaceflight"

Fred J. McCall wrote:

jacob navia wrote:
:
:An atomic bomb is two pieces of refined U235 that are pressed together
:to form a single piece 10 cm wide with the help of explosives.
:
:It required a lot of development but nothing new had to be discovered.
:

Technologies to 'refine U235' did not exist. Sufficiently fast
switches to trigger the explosives did not exist. Neutron tampers did
not exist. The required explosive (probably) did not exist.


Actually, for the gun bomb, the only thing needed was technologies to
refine the Oralloy. The propellant was ordinary cordite ignited with
a stock igniter.

The implosion weapon was a whole different kettle of fish...

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
  #16  
Old January 11th 09, 09:24 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Ian Parker
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Posts: 2,554
Default "The Future of Human Spaceflight"

On 10 Jan, 23:23, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Ian Parker wrote:

:
:Of course not, but if they have not been developed there is a reason.
:Are you claiming that that reason is bureaucracy pure and simple. If
:it is it is really quite a staggering claim.
:

Bureaucracy and politics. *ISS would have been a much better station
without those two (which requires dropping the 'I').


The letter "I" depends on how you do it. If each nation gets a little
bit of each program then I would agree. If on the other hand
companies, possibly international, were awarded contracts with each
country getting roughly the proportion of work indicated by
contributions on a long term basis the "I" would be a great success.

Let us take Google. Google in International with a capital; "I". There
are servers in America, Europe and the Far East. Programs are written
in a large number of ****ries.

Google is one of the more successfult companies.

For example, it probably would have been a much better station if they
had ****canned the original design when the price kept going up and
the capabilities kept going down and had listened to Lowell Wood's
ideas.

I googled him and his ideas. I think you are doing a certain amount of
special pleading here. How do you know that his ideas for (say) Mars
would not also go up and up in price.


- Ian Parker
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *-- Charles Pinckney


  #17  
Old January 11th 09, 09:36 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Ian Parker
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Posts: 2,554
Default "The Future of Human Spaceflight"

On 10 Jan, 17:09, jacob navia wrote:
Technologies like space suits, that seem common place and boring but
when you look at the failure rates, longevity, life expectancy of
the stuff you see that we are FAR away from mastering them.

A few years ago all U.S. space suits in the ISS were down, and
Americans needed to use their Prussian colleagues ones. Space
suits that can be used day-in day-out for say, 2 years, do not
exist at all.

There is one interesting point about nanotechnology and space suits.
Nano constructions are envisaged as having inteligent components that
hook together rather like a zip. A nanotech spacesuit would be put on
like any other garment, and would zip up and tighten once you had put
it on. A tear would be automatically repaired. You would need headgear
and breathing apparatus, but thatr yould be the only obvious
difference from everyday clothing. When you were in space the suit
would tighten and press against you with normal atmospheric pressure.

I think everyone should realize though that nanotech is extremly
advanced technology. It will not come tomorraw, it will taks a long
time to reach that stage. However it is fascinating to contemplate
what might be done.

The main incentive might not be space at all. Some bright spark has
sugested that as porn was the driving force of the Internet so
weightless sex might be a driving force. Certainly the driving force
will not be spacesuits but fashion, and possibly even augmented
movement in an exoskeleton. Fasinating, even though far in the future.


- Ian Parker
  #18  
Old January 11th 09, 09:52 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Posts: 10,018
Default "The Future of Human Spaceflight"

Ian Parker wrote:

:On 10 Jan, 23:23, Fred J. McCall wrote:
: Ian Parker wrote:
:
: :
: :Of course not, but if they have not been developed there is a reason.
: :Are you claiming that that reason is bureaucracy pure and simple. If
: :it is it is really quite a staggering claim.
: :
:
: Bureaucracy and politics. *ISS would have been a much better station
: without those two (which requires dropping the 'I').
:
:The letter "I" depends on how you do it. If each nation gets a little
:bit of each program then I would agree. If on the other hand
:companies, possibly international, were awarded contracts with each
:country getting roughly the proportion of work indicated by
:contributions on a long term basis the "I" would be a great success.
:

Preposterous ignorance of the real world.

:
:Let us take Google. Google in International with a capital; "I". There
:are servers in America, Europe and the Far East. Programs are written
:in a large number of ****ries.
:
:Google is one of the more successfult companies.
:

Note that Google is run by ONE board of directors.

:
: For example, it probably would have been a much better station if they
: had ****canned the original design when the price kept going up and
: the capabilities kept going down and had listened to Lowell Wood's
: ideas.
:
:I googled him and his ideas. I think you are doing a certain amount of
:special pleading here. How do you know that his ideas for (say) Mars
:would not also go up and up in price.
:

I was referring specifically to his ideas about how to 'fix' the ISS
program back before they bent the first piece of metal.


--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson
  #19  
Old January 12th 09, 03:50 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Quadibloc
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Default "The Future of Human Spaceflight"

On Jan 9, 9:05*pm, "jonathan" wrote:

There's a huge logical flaw with the assumption humanity is destined to
colinize space. If humanity were truly civilized and intelligent, we'd
understand nature enough to be able to find a sustainable equilibruim
with our environment. So, if we were 'civilized' we wouldn't ...need...
to colonize.


If we need to colonize, then we're not civilized enough to...successfully....
colonize space. Any colony would be a weak microcosm of what
we already *have on earth. So what's the point then?


No.

This argument is fallacious.

Why is it that America was so much more peaceful and prosperous than
Europe?

Americans are civilized; they live in a democratic nation and enjoy
freedom. But they can't limit their energy use, and become in harmony
with their environment, because if they did, they wouldn't be able to
maintain the enormous military strength that protects America from
being overrun by Russia, China, or the Islamic world.

A few people who get away from Earth and start a colony, with access
to the abundant resources of the Solar System, will be able to live
better than people on Earth, who have to deal with foreign enemies and
overcrowding. They can also learn the lessons of Earth's history, and
avoid allowing themselves to become divided.

After all, in over 200 years of history, the U.S. had only *one* civil
war; look how many wars they had in Europe in that time! Don't blame
Americans for the fact that Communists and terrorists are uncivilized!

John Savard
  #20  
Old January 12th 09, 03:54 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Quadibloc
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Posts: 7,018
Default "The Future of Human Spaceflight"

On Jan 10, 3:00*am, jacob navia wrote:

The technology for living in space is not here yet. We need


o To be able to resist to mutations and DNA damage much better than
* *now. Space is full of radiation that is lethal to our bodies as
* *they are now.


* *This can be solved by mdifying and enhancing our genetic repair
* *mechanism to be more efficient. As a byproduct of this research
* *we would have a cure for cancer, since many cancers are just
* *genetic repair mechanism problems.


o To develop a closed ecological system that can sustain itself
* *with solar energy in space. We need to develop photosynthesis
* *in vacuum, i.e. plants that can resist and thrive in vacuum.


* *This needs (again) some genetical know how. We need a skin that
* *is able to resist vacuum AND be transparent for our plants.


We don't need either of those things.

http://www.quadibloc.com/science/spaint.htm

Earth exists in space just fine without those technologies - and so
all we need to do, even if it's less efficient, is to duplicate Earth
in space.

We can't live in vacuum ourselves, and if we need air for ourselves,
why can't we also put our plants within the air?

As for radiation, we can get rock from the Moon or the asteroids until
we have as much shielding around us in space as the Earth's atmosphere
provides us on Earth.

John Savard

 




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