Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We need a better way to get to space

theconversation.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 70 posts

Re: We need a better way to get to space

#61

Post by anon8764 »

iamcurious wrote: post #60
anon8764 wrote: post #7

www.et3.com gradually leading up to the top of everest, jettisoning the capsule (6,500 km/h (4,000 mph)) to break out of the atmosphere. I have not done the math, physics, etc on this, but it's an interesting idea worth exploring. But that said, do we really belong in space when we cannot care for our own? Wouldn't that be akin to giving sugar to ants? only multiplying suffering and cruelty exponentially in space? Pe…

Interesting, let's say it should be our first priority, how does that translate into action? Please remember that mobilizing large amounts of people towards a goal is hard problem, specially when the goal involves copious amounts of research and experiment.

I personally believe people do not deserve to go to space yet.

They haven't mastered the ability to house, clothe, and feed the human family yet, despite having the technical ability to do so. As a result of this, you see the derivatives that exist today. Walk among Miami at night and you see homeless crackheads muttering to themselves while sipping on beer. The conditions that cause a person to do this would be probabilistically lower with a society that cares about one another more [designed-in] instead of fighting amongst each-other for paper slips.

If we absolutely need to go to space, we require research to determine the amount of materials needed to build this track length, and the renewability of those materials in reference to the earth. If this request for the materials meets a certain threshold, it will be dispensed, otherwise, the remaining materials can be reserved for further research to create synthetic alternatives. It helps to have a global database of known resources and their reserves, in fact, it might be a crucial requirement.

Imagine culling redis for this information, it sends a request to the global cybernetic hub, and it permits or denies the request, along with the terminal node you requested it to be sent to...

example: I request 13 Ounces of Gold (AU) at terminal #324-214-495-2341 to perform an experiment. (Since gold is currently in enough abundance for my request it is sent to my terminal as soon as technically possible, and any of the resource I do not use or can scrap back to the global hub, is done so)

Re: We need a better way to get to space

#62

Post by anon8764 »

iamcurious wrote: post #60
anon8764 wrote: post #7

www.et3.com gradually leading up to the top of everest, jettisoning the capsule (6,500 km/h (4,000 mph)) to break out of the atmosphere. I have not done the math, physics, etc on this, but it's an interesting idea worth exploring. But that said, do we really belong in space when we cannot care for our own? Wouldn't that be akin to giving sugar to ants? only multiplying suffering and cruelty exponentially in space? Pe…

Interesting, let's say it should be our first priority, how does that translate into action? Please remember that mobilizing large amounts of people towards a goal is hard problem, specially when the goal involves copious amounts of research and experiment.

Also keep in mind that Elon Musk is trying this, but as a bastardization of its potential. What do I mean by this? The shortest distance between two points is a straight line (currently). Look at a map. The cities that were cultivated where they are geographically located are influenced by (Water + Politics + Monetary incentives to build roads closer to smaller cities to draw business (corruption) ) So if this hyperloop does pick up, it will be a horrible expenditure of resources.

Re: We need a better way to get to space

#63

Post by iamcurious »

anon8764 wrote: post #61
iamcurious wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, let's say it should be our first priority, how does that translate into action? Please remember that mobilizing large amounts of people towards a goal is hard problem, specially when the goal involves copious amounts of research and experiment.

I personally believe people do not deserve to go to space yet. They haven't mastered the ability to house, clothe, and feed the human family yet, despite having the technical ability to do so. As a result of this, you see the derivatives that exist today. Walk among Miami at night and you see homeless crackheads muttering to themselves while sipping on beer. The conditions that cause a person to do this would be prob…

So all resources are to be distributed from a central organization. Pray, who will be decide this? How will disputes will be solved when, inevitably, an armed group decides to use resources some other way?

Also, the whole point of leaving earth is leaving scarcity. There are meteorites with gold, we can and we should mine them as we see fit.

Re: We need a better way to get to space

#64

Post by iamcurious »

anon8764 wrote: post #62
iamcurious wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, let's say it should be our first priority, how does that translate into action? Please remember that mobilizing large amounts of people towards a goal is hard problem, specially when the goal involves copious amounts of research and experiment.

Also keep in mind that Elon Musk is trying this, but as a bastardization of its potential. What do I mean by this? The shortest distance between two points is a straight line (currently). Look at a map. The cities that were cultivated where they are geographically located are influenced by (Water + Politics + Monetary incentives to build roads closer to smaller cities to draw business (corruption) ) So if this hyperl…

I didn't follow this. How is the hyperloop related to space? Also what exactly would it be a horrible expenditure of resources?

Re: We need a better way to get to space

#65

Post by chris_va »

rakoo wrote: post #29
chris_va wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprisingly, I actually did a fair bit of research into this field. Both rail guns and light gas guns cap out at around 6km/s, and you really want 8km/s (more actually, for hypersonic drag loss) for this to be economical. Otherwise you need to launch a large enough rocket to make up the 2km/s difference, and you stuck solving the rocket equation again. Except you've subjected your rocket to 1000g, and the odds of it…

> and you stuck solving the rocket equation again Yes, but only for 2km/s, so there's that. Also this system can be used on other bodies such as Mars and the Moon. But yeah, I'm more worried about the 1000g than anything.

2km/s means you are limited to about 20% payload. 20% is 10x better than a normal rocket, but there are actually easier ways to get 20%.

The beamed power method gets about 20%, and works for humans (no g load). Escape Dynamics is trying it: http://escapedynamics.com/edispacelaunch/.

The difficulty here is more technical/scientific than engineering. Synchronizing microwave beams is hard, and if you don't you get destructive interference. I don't know if they have solved that problem yet (there have been a few proposed solutions, we'll see if any work).

Edit: Yes, rail would work great on the moon/mars. Actually there was a movie (Moon, with Sam Rockwell) where fuel is harvested on the moon and shot into orbit. Fun, crazy movie.

Re: We need a better way to get to space

#66

Post by dredmorbius »

charlesdenault wrote: post #38
dredmorbius wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX have landed their rockets. Just not ... in one piece.

They've landed their rockets in one piece, which proceeded to tip over and explode. An important distinction.

A most excellent and nuanced distinction, sir! Capital!

Re: We need a better way to get to space

#67

Post by aggieben »

chris_va wrote: post #20
iwwr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Light-gas guns may be a good contender while railguns are sorted out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-gas_gun

Surprisingly, I actually did a fair bit of research into this field. Both rail guns and light gas guns cap out at around 6km/s, and you really want 8km/s (more actually, for hypersonic drag loss) for this to be economical. Otherwise you need to launch a large enough rocket to make up the 2km/s difference, and you stuck solving the rocket equation again. Except you've subjected your rocket to 1000g, and the odds of it…

+1 for that. I didn't know railguns were limited thusly.

Re: We need a better way to get to space

#68

Post by dTal »

david-given wrote: post #55
dTal wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You solve the counterweight problem by also extending a cable outwards from your launch vehicle, so keeping the centre of gravity still I don't follow. If you didn't do this, wouldn't your centre of gravity still remain still? Just start at geostationary and make sure you have enough mass to act as a counterweight already on-ship (doesn't have to be in the shape of a cable). The center of gravity will remain in geos…

No, it wouldn't. As you extend the not inconsiderable mass of the cable towards the earth, your centre of gravity will move inward with it. Assuming your ship massed nothing compared to the cable, then the centre of gravity will be at the midpoint of the cable. For the space elevator to work, the centre of gravity must be precisely in geostationary orbit (otherwise the entire elevator will drift relative to the groun…

> As you extend the not inconsiderable mass of the cable towards the earth, your centre of gravity will move inward with it

What I'm saying is that without firing rockets, there's nothing you can do to change the trajectory of your centre of mass. When you "extend" the cable towards earth, presumably you are pushing on it in some way, and there will be an equal and opposite reaction. You don't have to "carefully move the ship outwards" - the ship (which is inherently "massy", as it has the rest of the cable as cargo) will move outwards by itself, exactly the right amount for the centre of gravity of the ship-cable system to remain in geostationary.

So I still don't see what two cables gets you apart from keeping the ship itself exactly at geostationary, which strikes me as unimportant.

Re: We need a better way to get to space

#69

Post by anon8764 »

iamcurious wrote: post #63
anon8764 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally believe people do not deserve to go to space yet. They haven't mastered the ability to house, clothe, and feed the human family yet, despite having the technical ability to do so. As a result of this, you see the derivatives that exist today. Walk among Miami at night and you see homeless crackheads muttering to themselves while sipping on beer. The conditions that cause a person to do this would be prob…

So all resources are to be distributed from a central organization. Pray, who will be decide this? How will disputes will be solved when, inevitably, an armed group decides to use resources some other way? Also, the whole point of leaving earth is leaving scarcity. There are meteorites with gold, we can and we should mine them as we see fit.

By creating abundance, it lessens the need and purpose for armies to take resources from others. There are no armies I am aware of that invade and conquer for Oranges, but they do for Oil.

To complete your second statement, why do you believe we should mine them for gold when we cannot efficiently manage them here on Earth to begin with?

Re: We need a better way to get to space

#70

Post by anon8764 »

iamcurious wrote: post #64
anon8764 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also keep in mind that Elon Musk is trying this, but as a bastardization of its potential. What do I mean by this? The shortest distance between two points is a straight line (currently). Look at a map. The cities that were cultivated where they are geographically located are influenced by (Water + Politics + Monetary incentives to build roads closer to smaller cities to draw business (corruption) ) So if this hyperl…

I didn't follow this. How is the hyperloop related to space? Also what exactly would it be a horrible expenditure of resources?

The hyperloop could be related to space if they decide to experiment with slightly altering the trajectory to lead into space, giving it an edge energy-wise to break out of the atmosphere.

It would be a horrible expenditure of resources because when you look at a map of where humans designed and placed their cities, they are inefficient for travel and resource distribution.

Example: Manufacturing parts are created in Tennessee, shipped to Michigan, Manufactured in Michigan, and shipped to Florida to sell/distribute.

Instead, why not ship the raw materials to a equidistant manufacturing node/plant, create the material there, then distribute it. It's not done this way (most efficient) because money/corruption incentivizes backwards thinking of keeping "jobs" in sectors that are a waste of energy to complete and continue. Interesting times we live in.

Here is an example of an efficient and effective city design: http://i.imgur.com/shnIgHn.jpg

Post reply on HN