71–80 of 330 posts
I hope JB Weld and Shoe Goo work in space, or our hopes of interstellar travel are dashed.
I'm betting on something closer to "slime" the stuff they put in tubeless mountain bikes. Or at least I don't know why the thing isn't built with an inner self sealant. If nothing else if its made with a bit of florescent die locating leaks becomes as simple as looking for the glowing spot on the outside.
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Is there any reason to park in at a Lagrange point instead of just a high orbit? There aren't that many Lagrange points, so we should probably avoid cluttering them with objects that don't need to be there.
from what I've read Lagrange point isn't exactly a point, but a region where it's cheap (in terms of fuel) to stay. They are quite large.
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I think we need a "Space New Deal", I'm honestly saddened by the lack of progress in space in my lifetime. I mean we've done some great work, but we haven't made any giant leaps since getting to the moon 51.5 years ago. Thankfully, we do have SpaceX et. al. who really are making some big strides -- but how do we multiply & speed up that effort? ... sorry, I'm being selfish, but I really want to go to Mars.
There has to be some revenue stream beyond just satellite launches and government research. Right now there's only so many reasons to go to space and a lot of those are pretty small markets or able to be served by one or very few provider(s) pretty well.
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Largely because it's a fantastically expensive undertaking, and hasn't quite borne out the fruits that were speculated about over the years. USA provides a huge bulk of the funding, expertise, and personnel required to keep the program running. That's not to say that Russia, Canada, Japan, etc. don't do their part, but it's really not as much of a truly global joint effort as you might be led to believe. Then there's…
>Then there's a genuine question of what this enormous expenditure truly buys us. It helps to answer the question of whether or not humans can even survive long term away from Earth. Sure, if you judge it purely by the price tag, it's not doing very well. If you judge it by the scientific, societal and philosophical implications, we're not spending nearly enough.
How will it answer that question that we already don't know of? I don't think that was the aim of ISS anyways and will definitely won't be the aim of second ISS. Humans can survive in space for year without significant physical damage but with lot of training.
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Nope - there'll be not much difference. It's not just the getting things into space that's the hard and costly part. Modules take years to design, build, and test. That's why the current trend moves towards ever smaller and thus cheaper satellites and big launchers like Delta IV Heavy, Ariane 5, and Falcon Heavy barely see any action at all. Starship would enable single-launch space stations, yes. But there are no si…
>> It's not just the getting things into space that's the hard and costly part. Modules take years to design, build, and test. Using the traditional approach, yes. But SpaceX is proving that there are other approaches that yield fruit far faster and also for drastically less money.
Not a big space person, but this makes me wonder: why have we not planned for a new ISS? We must have better tech nowadays from all the working countries/groups currently involved, plus SpaceX and other space companies' backing that would not have existed as it does now back when this ISS was first designed/created.
The ISS mostly happened because it was a way to keep ex-Soviet aerospace scientists and engineers doing aerospace things rather than, say, go build ICBMs for third world countries. Same as Arecibo happened because the USAF wanted a big radar and the Hubble happened because (I forgot which spy agency it was) had a spare satellite. Sad when you think about it...
Materials aging in space is a pretty deep subject. That it is the Russian Zvevda module that is leaking/cracking is likely related to the fact that it is also the oldest module in the ISS. The ISS is/was scheduled to be retired in 2024 (aka 3 years from now) but there are calls to keep it going. My fantasy would be to have SpaceX move it into the Lunar L1 Lagrange point which would keep it in use but it would have to…
Is there any reason to park in at a Lagrange point instead of just a high orbit? There aren't that many Lagrange points, so we should probably avoid cluttering them with objects that don't need to be there.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think we need a "Space New Deal", I'm honestly saddened by the lack of progress in space in my lifetime. I mean we've done some great work, but we haven't made any giant leaps since getting to the moon 51.5 years ago. Thankfully, we do have SpaceX et. al. who really are making some big strides -- but how do we multiply & speed up that effort? ... sorry, I'm being selfish, but I really want to go to Mars.
What does "new deal" mean in this context? Large amount of public funding?
See: FDR New Deal / The Green New Deal
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Nope - there'll be not much difference. It's not just the getting things into space that's the hard and costly part. Modules take years to design, build, and test. That's why the current trend moves towards ever smaller and thus cheaper satellites and big launchers like Delta IV Heavy, Ariane 5, and Falcon Heavy barely see any action at all. Starship would enable single-launch space stations, yes. But there are no si…
>> It's not just the getting things into space that's the hard and costly part. Modules take years to design, build, and test. Using the traditional approach, yes. But SpaceX is proving that there are other approaches that yield fruit far faster and also for drastically less money.
And what, pray tell, is the "traditional approach" in designing space stations compared to magical "approaches that yield results faster"? Are you aware that Skylab was designed, built, and launched in under 4 years and consisted of a converted Saturn-IVB rocket stage?
The total program cost was $275M per year over 8 years (including design, 4 stations, 4 Skylab- and 3 Apollo launches, as well as operations), which translates to $1.6Bn/yr in 2021 dollars.
Today, Bigelow Aerospace would have - maybe (they're currently defunct due to the pandemic - the B330 more or less ready to fly, but that is launched on an Atlas V.
It took two demonstration models, launched in 2005 and 2007 to get them ready for prime time. In 2013 they developed the BEAM module under a 16 month NASA contract, which was launched and attached to the ISS in 2016.
So BA built and deployed two prototypes in 2 years and a crewed fully functional module in 16 months with just $17.8M. Yet you assume that SpaceX, who never built a space station before, can somehow do it even faster and cheaper? Why? On what factual basis and on which historical examples do you base this assumption on?
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I think we need a "Space New Deal", I'm honestly saddened by the lack of progress in space in my lifetime. I mean we've done some great work, but we haven't made any giant leaps since getting to the moon 51.5 years ago. Thankfully, we do have SpaceX et. al. who really are making some big strides -- but how do we multiply & speed up that effort? ... sorry, I'm being selfish, but I really want to go to Mars.
> but how do we multiply & speed up that effort? I think it's pretty much politically impossible. The first big space push was mostly a political pissing match (i.e. not really driven by doing it for its own sake). It's pretty easy to come up with other major challenges that most people will consider more important that also aren't getting funding ... so private industry looks more likely to get some traction. States…
Chinese paper on plant-based life support systems for extended crew stays. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.12.426282v1