I don't know, but it will be a big deal either way.
Virgin Galactica is launching at 10:30 a.m. this morning.
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I laugh at the hubris that would make folks who wouldn't last 3 weeks in the wild, suddenly think they can survive on a rock that doesn't support life.
The distance to these "rocks" are way too far away to ever make this possible. We can send bots instead to gather samples and shit....but sooner or later that will seem like a futile exercise.
I am very confident that none of you will ever see man colonizing any other planet or moon.
I saw "Virgin" in the thread title so was a bit disappointed that it was about space travel.
Cot damn it.
Cot damn it.
If we leave it to NASA and the contractor cartel they will work to go back to the moon and then Mars. The Artemis program and the SLS is moving glacially forward as we speak.
But, with the challenges they already have (way behind and way over budget….Boeing can’t program their capsule to work right) I feel like basic “flags and footsteps” landing missions will be the top end of what they can/will do. The plans to go further don’t feel possible…..unless they start to ape efficiencies that SpaceX has brought forth.
SpaceX is all about Mars at this point. They will go moon first to prove lots of things out. But after that it’s Mars or bust, and the goal is to colonize.
These are tremendously challenging things to do. Can Elon and crew do it? I don’t know, but I’m watching and seeing because of the track record they have so far. Granted, that was easy low earth orbit stuff. Doing what hasn’t been done before is a huge challenge.
TL;DR: Government based efforts are so broken at this point they can’t possibly work on this challenge. But, if SpaceX can make these things reality they government will either ape them or use them to add a National, or some flavor or military component to interplanetary colonization.
It is denial of the nature of humans to think that governments or militaries will not try to co-opt or use private company successes for their own aims.
I will agree with you….these companies have done nothing that hasn’t been on an engineers white board somewhere to do.
That’s not discrediting to what they did. Yes, the technology to bring a booster back wasn’t there until recently. So NASA couldn’t do it with very old systems. Solid rocket boosters from the shuttle wouldn’t work well at landing. The shuttles giant tank might not land easy with today’s technology.
But here is the thing…NASA and the contractor cartel they’ve always use could have put reusability in the latest SLS iteration. They didn’t because the process NASA uses to ideate and innovate doesn’t support such technology development. SpaceX does it a different way.
I forget the terms, but NASA does a long, detailed conceptualization of systems and before building and testing. This is laborious, long winded and expensive, and it naturally suppresses innovations that could, say, greatly reduce the cost of access to space.
SpaceX builds lots of versions and tests the shit out of them. This process promotes development of new technology and procedures that actually reduce the cost of access.
Until NASA and the cartel move to this process they never be doing anything but copying SpaceX’s work.
I'm not what this is all about. I have enough outdoor skills to survive in the wild for 3 weeks and yet I don't want to live on a space colony which would obviously have some type of artificial human friendly atmosphere before it would be populated.
The moon is close enough to be our first space colony. Just sayin.
I doubt any of us are expecting to see it happen because we are generally an older crowd, but it may not be so far fetched for the children today. My grandmother was born in the time of the horse and buggy (1893) and lived til 1978. From being a child wondering what the hell those noisy horseless carriages were to the wonder of man's first flight to virtually every family having a car to routine cross country flights to rocket powered ships to space and man landing on the moon to dying just a few short years shy of a reusable spacecraft all while airline travel was so routine and relatively cheap that millions flew each year.
Think about the technological innovation that will occur in the next 80 years as AI becomes more prevalent. If it doesn't wipe out the human race it should be a pretty freakin wild ride for our grandchildren.
That wasn't my intention. I was just pointing out that the hype was not matched by the accomplishments.
That’s a fair opinion.
I’ve been very hyped to see what SpaceX has done as a space geek, but I’ve also stayed somewhat clear of the media hype…..or maybe I just put a strong filter on anything media generated anymore.
I can say I read a book recently about the early days of SpaceX and found it amazing.
That can do spirit that we love as Americans and NASA used to show is on display now at SpaceX. All media is overhyped now, so I get it. But they are the ones showing the right stuff now. NASA just needs to eventually step aside and function as the FAA of space.
I have a brother who is an engineer at NASA. He has two teen boys and needs work/life balance, so he wouldn’t even consider working there now. But he would tell me if he was in his before family phase of life he would kill to be part of actually getting things done.
Love the point you illustrated with your grandmother. I think many have become disillusioned after a few generations of ridiculously expensive and ultimately uninspiring space exploration.
But, with this realm taken out of monopoly status for ridiculously expensive government driven exploration the advancements will be amazing the next 50-75 years.
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A horseless buggy?!?!? really?!?!?
I just knew some dumbass would be along to say it's all possible and then give some analogy of something accomplished here on Earth as an example.
Hey dummy....try doing your analogy on Mars and then get back to me because until then you are missing my point.
You can't survive on Mars by yourself. Quite a bit different than here on Earth. On Earth there is food to sustain you and the god damn horse. You can't grow oats on the Moon! You and the horse would not survive for long......
Learn how to read and get back to me Captain Ladder Climber.
JFC, you can be such an idiot sometimes
You’re…..missing his point.
You’re right on one aspect though, kind of. It’s not been proven that food can or can’t be grown on Mars (and no, Matt Damon doesn’t count).
But you can be assured once they can start getting people there specialized in answering this question they will. They won’t just start shoving people there. The very genesis of SpaceX was based on this question. Elon wanted to get a delivery there and set up a biosphere to see. He couldn’t find anyone that even had plans on this. So he started a company to do it.
Maybe the answer is yes and colonization will be possible.
Maybe the answer is no and they won’t do more. Won’t that be a great day for you?
Apparently @Bayou Tiger has it in his head the we are going to send the Nina, The Pinta and the Santa Maria up there with 100 or so pilgrims to set up their own biosphere and conquer the uninhabited lunar/martian landscape.
We (the U.S. and Russia) have been sending astronauts and cosmonauts to live on floating space stations for 50 years Why can't we or why shouldn't we expectto be able to send them up to live in static space stations on the moon or Mars?
“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.” Had JFK uttered those words today he would be ridiculed
“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.” Had JFK uttered those words today he would be ridiculed
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That's a space station in near Earth orbit retard. Using a scale of the the Earth and Moon wherein the Earth is a basketball and the Moon then the size of a tennis ball......the distance between the two being 30 Earth diameters or 30'-0"
At that scale the Moon is about 30'-0" from the surface of the Earth and the space station is half an inch. Thanks for playing bird brain. Stay in your lane, er...birdhouse!
Is that what passes for clever and funny in the fetid swamp you live in?
You’re right. It is a much more complex operation to run such a station around the moon, in your example. Right now the ISS gets resupplied quite a few times a year.
But here’s the thing…..almost all of the power needed to resupply a station revolving around the moon is what is current needed to reach ISS. That half inch is almost all of the cost. The other 29.5 feet is cheap.
Likewise for Mars, though distance and time, impact on human beings, etc needs to be determined yet.
And SpaceX has dropped the cost of covering the half inch by 3x. It’s nice to see innovation in exploration again.