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Proposed Next-Generation Space Station
WallytheWalrus writes "This NewScientist.com article discusses the proposed next generation of telescopes and space stations. The concept presented with little fanfare by the NASA Exploration Team (NEXT) consists of placing a space station about 5/6ths of the way to the moon at one of a handful of local Lagrangian Points. This station would act as a springboard for constructing new telescopic mirrors, maintaining the telescopes that use them, and as a haven for future manned exploration missions. If only NEXT's budget was more than $4 million a year...."
Unfortunately you can't take all of NASA's plans at face value. They also have a plan filed to start populating mars in 2018.
The only website I read is Slashdot and its links, so when I see a visited NewScientist.com link I know that something is wrong
I'm in as soon as they tell us what the frill the first one is doing of importance.
I went and hunted down that very link to find you'd beaten me to it.
meh, I guess I should have checked first!
OK this is the same story as a couple days ago but I just remembered that in the movie Space Cowboys, a character wants to take the russian satelite with the nukes to the moon. Somebody says that that is a long way but someone else says that he only has to get half way and then the gravity from the moon will take him the rest of the way. Well now I know thatyou would have to get 5/6s of the distance before the moon's weaker gravity would capture you. Oh well, if you can suspend disbelief long enough to beleive they would send Clint Eastwood and James Gardner into space, I guess you can overlook the physics too.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
WTF is this? The misleading Star Trek topic titles day?
You're making me earn my karma today, you bastards.
Okay, on topic: Am I the only person who really wants us to go back to the moon? If this space station gets built, I sure hope that they use it to act as a halfway point between the earth and the moon, and not as just a platform for Orbital Mind Control Lasers.
Hm. Can we moderate stories as Redundant? :-)
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
NASA should invent a time machine for the sole purpose of preventing slashdot duplications.
Looks like we need to teach some people how to use that new fangled botton in the upper right corner of the screen (the one labled SEARCH).
In other words: raise taxes.
---
Bush's Argument: Raise children, not taxes
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
If only NEXT's budget was more than $4 million a year... :)
Maybe Apple will buy them too
These are points where the gravitational pull of two bodies, such as the Earth and the Moon, cancel each other out, providing a stable location to position spacecraft.
I am very surprised The New Scientist makes such a mistake. These points are stable mainly because of rotation. In a nonrotating system, there is only one equilibrium point, and that is unstable.
ato
Well, at least this year the toilets on the space station will be ready and paid for.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
If only NEXT's budget was more than $4 million a year....
If only NASA could stay within their proposed budgets...
Seriously though, Congress wouldn't be so iffy about giving NASA money if they actually stayed within their budget. Now no matter how little they say a project will cost, everyone will always roll their eyes and assume it'll cost like 10 times that.
For already-moderated-discussion and insight, go here
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
This is offtopic to moderate accordingly, but I wanted to point out that the game "Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos" used Lagrangian extensively as an important part of the game, as well as many other concepts in "real physics" that so many games ignore, either because the developers don't care or don't know. This was a point of respect to the game, but that it is huge, well designed, has a great plot and well-written character development helped too. It is, however, one that requires patience (Very LARGE area to explore.) and Windows (Unfortunately, it does not run in WineX at all.)
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
Can somebody check to see if Timothy has Alzheimer's?
Holy crap, a split second before I posted that bad joke, it had already become redundant!!
Voodoo Girl is the bomb!
....Deja Vous!
While the concept of placing a space station at a libration (or Lagrange) point seems nice on the surface, it's a very tough proposition in reality.
The problem is that the myth of a libration point as simply some kind of nifty stable point in space where gravity balances has been propagated for a while now. I've seen this mistake turn up in countless places, including some otherwise reputable textbooks. The reality is far more complex, and difficult to analyze.
For starters, the L1, L2, and L3 are unstable. That means that anything put there will tend to drift away over time. Not only that, but the L points don't even exist in reality - they are an artifact of a simplified gravitiational model (three bodies only). Once you incorporate the eccentricity of the primaries, and the effects of the other planets, you find that the L points are not so much points as variable regions of space with rather messy dynamical properties that we still don't fully understand. Oh, sure, you can mess around with numerical explorations and experiments, and there are a couple of series approximations that give reasonable first guesses at some particular solutions, but we are still a long way from being able to characterize and predict the full dynamics in one of these regions.
So, placing some thing actually at a libration point is out. But, as it turns out, you can establish periodic or near-periodic orbits around the approximate region of the libration "point" (so-called halo or lissajous orbits). We still don't really undertsand these orbits that well either, but we know enough to be able to have successfully put some unmanned probes out at the Sun-Earth L1 point (e.g. ISEE-3, SOHO, and most recently Genesis). Note that these are all Sun-Earth L1 missions, not Earth-Moon which would add another layer of complexity due to the influence of the Sun's gravity of the Earth-Moon system.
At present, the process of designing a new trajectory for a libration point mission consists of a fair amount of trial and error, and iteration. Techniques have improved some in the last decade (check out the work by Martin Lo at JPL and Kathleen Howell at Purdue on using dynamical systems theory to find transfers to/from halos), but it's still a lot of work to generate a finished trajectory that meets all of the necessary constraints. Trying to do this kind of thing with a manned, maneuvering spacecraft is going to be extremely difficult. In particular, any kind of rendezvous between two or more spacecraft will be difficult, since it's tough to predict where your spacecraft is going to go (very non-linear dynamics). Planning L point trajectories in real time really isn't that feasible until techniques improve a lot more.
This is a very active field of research, but there's still a long way to go before we're likely to be really ready for manned missions that do anything other than hang around on their own at L1 for a while.
What we need now is a plan to mine asteroids.
Without this process/technology in place everything we do in space is extremely expensive because we have to carry all of our mass into orbit.
If we ARE mining the asteroids, or the moon, or whatever else is handy (and hey, how about not throwing away space shuttle tanks, that would be a start at least) then at the very least we can use the mass for shielding from both radiation and impact, but one hopes that we will also be refining steel in orbit so we can use it for the heavy structure of our various constructions. We all love aluminum and titanium, but steel is more useful, especially when you don't have to worry about building things from it which are strong enough not to collapse under their own weight. We just have to figure out how to make it so we can move them, or make it so we don't have to move them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
4 million a year? My company spent more on that just implementing one database last year, which isnt even all that business critical. I think that NASA should do more of those pay for flight things and become more cosumer driven if it wants to succeed. If people want to pay lots of money to go into outer space, then it is worth spending that money to make it happen!
The time between when Columbus "discovered" the new world and Magellen circumnavigated the globe was 30 years. It has now been 30 years since Apollo 17, the last time man visited the moon, the last time man left low earth orbit. I think it's a great failure of our race that we've dragged our feet such.
To think that technological advance is blazingly fast in this day in age is misleading. We're not doing too well at hitting the important targets. NASA might just now be waking up to this, but it's yet to be seen if their budget wakes up to it. (Nasa funding was 4% of the national budget at the height of the Apollo program, it's less than 1% now)
So I applaud their very recent efforts to finally mention some vague goals away from Low Earth Orbit. L1 is a fine stepping stone, but Mars is where the public eye is. Nasa administrator Daniel Goldin had some brave words about the possibility of sending men to Mars in this decade or the next, but Bush put a bean counter in charge of Nasa pretty quickly to throttle cost overruns from the ISS.
What we really need is a president giving NASA a kick in the pants, and the funding to follow, as Kennedy did. Either that or wait around for private space exploration to become worthwhile, and we're going to be waiting quite a while in that case. Another space race? maybe China? I hope so. Because the current NASA schedule is anything but ambitious.
In an era where government seems to be doing everything in it's power to render itself meaningless, a project like this will never happen. Our government has has lost any reason to pretend to have an interest in further the future of humanity now that we have no cold war competition. So, NASA will slowly shrivel away into insignificance. Until private companies develop an interest in space, there will be no going forward for us.
The sad thing is that with this development, the short term financial return will be what all space exploration is measured by. A private corporation isn't going to put the risk into a decade or longer effort to develop a space station or any sort of space travel because the risk involved in such a venture isn't worth it.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I can't find it anywhere, but there was a story about the construction of a Russian module for the International Space Station that was being made out of wood to cut costs. Their budget was about 4 dollars, but some homeless guy pissed inside it, and they had to resand the floorboards.
"It took ages to get the smell out"
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
So, this'll be like the NEXT Step in space colonization, right?
---- I'll take you in a Hunt deathmatch any day.
Does anyone think this looks a little like the (early) history of the Gundam series? Sure people only conjecturing about building space stations at the Lagrange points now, but in 43 years, when the Universal Century began in the series (by the building of the first colony), we could definitely be building colonies at the Lagrange points. Also, the plans for the colonies used in the Gundam series were based on plans developed in the 1800s, so the ideas seem sound. In addition, the Earth's population might definitely be at 20 billion like it was when the UC began. If I am is correct, perhaps we could (possibly) be living in space colonies in about half a century (to supplant the earth's population woes). Also if it proves true, it would not be too far of a leap to suggest one of the colonies might demand independence from the Earth. Note: The UN seems an awful lot like an Earth Federation inasmuch as (con)Federation means a league of independent states. If it shows anything, it just goes to show that Anime writers do their homework before writing SciFi! Just my $0.02.
Though this makes for some cool Gee-whiz science and experience working in low/no gravaity environments, I don't foresee any nobel-prize winning science coming out of the International Space Station.
I'll have to agree with you there. I doubt the people who gave Yasser Arrafat a Nobel prize would find much use for the research being done on the space station.
If NASA intends on building something useful, it should consider building a large space ship for touring the solar system for conducting long term research with a crew of about 100 people.
Where are you going to build your large space ship, doofus? On Earth and launch it? No? Perhaps at a SPACE STATION? Whatever you're smoking, send me some - it's good stuff.
Is any of this online that I could have a look at? future proposed NASA missions? (and does anybody have links to other countries bluesky missions?). Cheers.
But the astronauts might get carried away, build cool mechs and attack the earth! We better start developing gundamium now! I hear it can only be made in space however, so we will finally have a use for the ISS...
I think this would be just another short sighted adventure and waste of money (ie providing very little in return). What I would like my tax dollars spent on in this area is to like a previous poster suggested, was to mine asteroids. Or my true desire to see the Orion space craft built. With this kind of space ship we could expand a human presence throught the solar system fairly quickly and relatively cheaply. Just a thought ;)
Having figuratively seen Skylab and Mir tumble and burn while the Apollo gantries rusted in the sun, I now know their game. The $8 billion spent before 1 kilogram of the ISS made it into orbit more than illustrates the game. The game is to remain well employed and supplied with cool aerospace toys. As for the return of value to the taxpayer
The article talks critically and comparatively about "politically motivated Apollo missions of the 1970s, or the aimless, cash-guzzling International Space Station". This reminds me of the push for Network Computers some years ago, in which the very providers of software and hardware used their own high cost-of-ownership as a marketing reason for changing the installed plant over to NCs. If Apollo, the ISS, and the (implied and obvious) Space Shuttle were such fiascos, then of what good is NASA's next project? Irony abounds from this; irrelevant politics and outrageous expenses are the invisible bywords written into NASA's mission statement.
"This time the science will come first, promises Gary Martin, NASA's Future Technology Architect and head of NEXT." Oh, god! That's the very problem about the American space program: Science comes 1st; politics comes 2nd; and economics is in a very distant 378th place. The average Kuiper Belt object is nearer to NASA than considerations of economics and ROI.
Don't you think that we should put an end to this "jobs program for PhDs"? Don't you think that we should get manufacturing and energy returns from the public investment in a space program? Why do we continue to explore space without making real plans to go there to exploit the resources we find?
I have an idea. NASA should stop being some sort of "research agency on crack". It should be trimmed down to be a rocket agency, devoted to tranportation only, and more cheaply than what we have now. Its mission will be to lift cargo off the Earth, into 5 standard deliveries in increasing order of expense:
- Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is for temporary satellites.
- HEO is for long-term sats.
- Geosynchronous is for sats that require such a position.
- Cislunar is for reaching the Lagrange positions and Luna herself.
- Escape is simply a push beyond about 7 miles per second, in order to escape the Earth and reach all other points beyond (although to escape Sol requires about 618 km/s).
Once NASA is there to transport stuff according to rate sheets and schedules, then we'll see what private industry can do to make a buck off of manufacturing and energy.- how much money can I steal this quarter?
- how many poor people can I put into jail?
Reducing NASA to a cheap launcher has nothing to do with promoting white-collar crime and blue-collar imprisonment. The future of Humankind in space is Chinese. They will probably get it done before their empire surrenders to the inevitable self-immolation.[also misbehaves on Kuro5hin as Peahippo]
Escape is simply a push beyond about 7 miles per second, in order to escape the Earth and reach all other points beyond (although to escape Sol requires about 618 km/s).
Solar escape velocity from Earth's vicinity (1 AU) is about 42 km/s. Perhaps 618 km/s is the escape velocity from the Sun's surface -- something that isn't likely to be of much direct concern to us for the foreseeable future.
.... before we start making ny more plans.
Methinks if not because of the announcement by the "Chinese Space Agency" that they are going to the moon by 2010 (perhaps as early as 2008) and establish a moonbase there, with a longer-term plan of having a base on Mars by 2040, perhaps we won't even hear any "new ideas" from NASA.
Competition is indeed good !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Or at least, why Mars as first/second choice ?
much easier and cheaper to build colonies in space. Either mine the asteroids exclusively or create a lunar mining base, but once you have a stream of resources from either, real-estate and energy is MUCH cheaper in orbit.
Also transportation is cheaper (just one gravity well instead of 2)
(this is the third time I ask the question in
Working for necessity's mother.
regardless of the ISS subject, this kind of thinking is counter-productive.
One should try to choose the best path at all times. Resources spent are not important, only resources you will spend, as oposed to your projected return and probability of success.
as for plans, one should always make other plans and think ahead, so that decision making will be more effective.
Working for necessity's mother.
Ya until we run out of hydrocarbon to fuel all those toys. More likely it is "Perscute other countries to sell us all their oil, until no one has any fuel left"
/.................../ \\
I once had a woman tell me that we should revoke NASA's budget because "It doesn't benefit anyone". I reminded her that if she truly wanted that to be true she would have to discontinue watching network television, cable television, and satellite television. Then she would have to stop making long distance calls, set up all her bank accounts at local banks only, and get her prescription drugs from someone other than Walgreens. She would have to stop using plastics, lightweight metal alloys, and microwave ovens. She next would have to discontinue using prepackaged irradiated foods, and throw out her car's expensive computers. Anything in her home that has transistors or integrated circuits would have to be discarded. All of these products and businesses would not yet be realized without the American and Soviet fascination with space. Satellites have provided us with a less expensive means of moving data around the world. Just think if we had to have cables laid between every town in the US, and multiple cables across oceans, etc., and you start to see how costly our current civilization would be without the hardware above us. I am not suggesting that transistors would NEVER be invented, but without the extremely expensive cost/weight ratio of spacecraft, we might never have needed to fund miniaturization research the way we have. Sure, manned missions are expensive, but consider the benefits gained, and the fact that someday we might never have to do open pit mining again. Someday we might be mining asteroids in high earth orbit without destroying our ecosystem. The best compromise between industrialists and environmentalists might be to get our minerals somewhere other than the earth. As far as we know, Earth is the only planet in the system that has an ecosystem as fragile as ours. If we must have minerals to support our technology, wouldn't it benefit us all if they were made somewhere other than our backyards? This might allow us to someday stop mining third-world countries for their ores. Maybe someday third world economies won't need to sell us the land under their feet to survive. I can hope.
Timothy should commit suicide on-line with a Bushmaster rifle and a webcam. He can make it his final story.
And it will be his first story that isn't a repost!
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
Probably something related tot he tech industry.
You know, those useless tidbits of information!
No one cares about anything in that field, do they?
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!