Reuseable spacecraft

[EastEnder]

I think we are still a couple of technological breakthroughs short of routine space travel.

High power ion drives + compact fusion reactors. The former is being actively developed, the latter.... may be here, some day, don't hold your breath...

Still, when those two puppies come to fruition we'll all be going to summer festivals on Mars.

 

[Cid]

There's nothing there that's worth enough to make it worthwhile. Even if the asteroids were made of platinum, it'd still be more sensible to mine it on earth.

If you needed platinum on the moon, or in earth orbit, however, then it makes economic sense.

The gravity well and atmosphere really is a barrier to economic development. It is so hard and expensive to cross (in either direction). If an independent space-faring civilization could be created, then it would make good economic sense to mine the asteroids. But not for use on Earth.

Well yeah, the basic major barrier is getting from earth to space... I don't think we'll get much further with current tech, potential for more scientific exploration (manned and unmanned) of course, but colonisation, mining etc would just require ludicrous amounts of investment.

The best hope seems to be in something like the space elevator, ie a cheap means of getting large loads up there combined with the potential of craft constructed in space. That seems a long way off, but technological breakthroughs have a habit of sneaking up when you least expect them, so who knows.

Mining distant asteroids and other objects for water would have a massively lower delta V than even going to the moon. Robotic mining would require very long flight times but once the water is coming back into earth orbit you basicaly have massively reduced all your costs as it is rocket fuel (from solar panels) and a massively important part of keeping human life up their.

Robots are both extremely expensive and extremely fallible though... Again it would cost an absolute fortune to do all the R&D, and even then you wouldn't be guaranteed a return on the investment.

 

[Idaho]

Not to mention that the asteroid belt is not the rock strewn conglomeration it's portrayed as in sci-fi. It's exceedingly diffuse, you could fly through it for many years and never come close to, let alone hit, an actual asteroid. So even looking for asteroids worth exploiting would be a very long, very expensive task.

You mean it isn't like this:

Perhaps if we do get a a way of producing lots of energy easily in space, then humanity will diverge. Energy rich spacers with their own personal asteroids. And poor planet bound people who can't afford the ticket off planet.

(goes off to write novel)

 

[Cid]

All it would take is fusion and a space elevator...

 

[Crispy]

Polywell fusion rockets would revolutionise space access. Single stage to the moon and back with powered descent, so no hot re-entry. Yes please

 

[kyser_soze]

I think everyone on this thread should read this book:

Gradisil

 

[Idaho]

I think everyone on this thread should read this book:

Gradisil

Not on the back of those reviews!

 

[david dissadent]

Could be launched on a Delta or Atlas quite comfortably. But those launchers aren't cheap.

The largest comercial launchers go up for about $120-$150 million, each shuttle alone is priced at about $750 million. The two US EELV launchers and Ariane are specificaly designed for higher tempos of launch than current so the cost would come down as tempos increased. The other thing is that they use very tried and tested technologies that have been built in an evolutionary manner for over 30 years (actualy I think even Arianes lineage goes back 40 years) while the cost of design for the new NASA rockets would normaly have to be recouped from launch costs (they will not be).

 

[Crispy]

That's another big mark against Ares 1 - it duplicates the lifting power of delta4 heavy. Why make a new rocket when there's already a perfectly good one

 

[Crispy]

IMO, the smartest plan is called Direct. It's been designed by NASA engineers in their spare time, as a continuation of 1980's plans to convert the Shuttle stack into an in-line rocket. The whole idea started on the nasaspaceflight.com forums by a Brit living in america. Him and a handful of other enthusiasts have become the voices for the whole team, as the actual engineers remain anonymous for fear of their jobs (NASA employees who've been vocal about Ares' shortcomings have been quietly demoted or fired).

If the committee recommends Direct, and Obama tells NASA to implement it, it will be a fantastic underdog story - internet forum geeks take on NASA and win

Here's an interview with Ross Tierney, the amateur space enthusiast who's organised the whole thing. It's a good overview: http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/07/interview-with-ross-tierney-of-direct.html