Benford on Space Exploration

gid-goo writes "Gregory Benford looks at what we should do in the aftermath of the Columbia accident. Is the shuttle, or the International Space Station for that matter, useful? Or just payola to aerospace interests and a means for keeping Russian rocket scientists employed?" Benford's comments about the necessity of a closed biosphere and of some way for astronauts to stop muscle and bone loss are far more insightful than the usual discussions about where our space exploration priorities should lie.

Comments

Last time I checked.

[Chris_Stankowitz]

From the article:

"the [current space] station recycles only urine... it is camping in space, not truly living there".

Last time I checked, my crap got recycled in the great outdoors.

Re:Last time I checked.

[dbrutus]

Where does the crap go? Why don't they just put it in a big crap sack and offer it as a prize to the first practical solution to the problem of space farming. Stick it outside, it's not like it will smell up the joint. As time goes on, it would be an increasing prize.

Let's face it at $10k/kg lift costs, a ton (metric) of already orbiting feces has a value of $10,000,000. Assuming 1.5kg of crap produced daily (3 man crews, sounds sensible) we're talking about $15k down the spout per day the ISS is occupied (double that during changeovers when there are six people on board). A metric ton would be accumulated every year and nine months give or take.

Heck, throw the competition wide open to other uses. How thick a layer of crap is required to make a good meteor shield? If the space elevator needs a counterweight, would several tons of crap suffice to shorten the amount of cable necessary? How about military uses? stick a JAM guidance pack on it and drop it on Kim Jong Il. Not only would it provide a fatality but it would make any former dictator so dispatched the object of endless jokes.

Am I joking? In some parts, yes. But the idea of storing very expensive material (including the most expensive crap there is) in some sort of storage space and running contests for creative use of the stuff would certainly create an increased level of interest. You could do it as a green contest, as a guy thing (it's the world's equivalent of those jars and cans every guy has in the garage to store washers and other random stuff he might have a use for in the future), or a farmer thing (we're back to feces fertilizer) but everything there is horribly expensive. Let's get our money's worth.

A very fine article

[podperson]

I only disagree with the bit about Bush being good at disasters. He may prove good at causing them...

Re:Americans can do whatever they want

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be cheering anyone on who launches humans and / or robots into space for the purposes of exploring the more efficient recycling of urine.

There's a Moon up in the sky, it's called the Moon

[Tumbleweed]

You know, another great thing about the Moon over Mars is the decorating possibilities. No, seriously, it's all grey, so you can match that with any colours you want in your habitat. But Mars, all that orangey-red, you know _that's_ gotta reduce your available colour choices something awful!

Plus, check out the view from the Moon versus the one from Mars. The Sun is a spec in the sky from Mars, but the Moon not only has the same view of the Sun as from Earth, it's also got the Earth in the sky - how fantastic is *that*?!

And for the "This Old Habitat" crowd - all that Moon dust should make for some schweet mooncrete mix for making places to live. I dunno about the Mars dirt...

And that's not even _talking_ about all the free green cheese...

Re:This is not off-topic, mods.

[Rinikusu]

"Hey Jim, looks like you had too much coffee, might want to put that down.."

"Aw heck, Joe, it's just the damn suit again..."

"Oh.. Don't let Sally see that.."

Re:Space elevator? no thanks.

[zulux]

- It would be The Definitive Terrorist Target

- And it would be a catastrophe waiting to happen, when (not if) it snaps and rains megatons of carbon cable down upon the ground below.

Then we'll just put the earth attachment point right next to Mecca. Two birds, one stone, or somthing.

Re:Not space station, not Moon, Eros!

[isorox]

That's no moon.. Its a space station!