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On Orbital Fuel Stations

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the complete-with-nukable-burritos dept.

dylanduck writes "Being able to fill up your spacecraft from a fuel depot in orbit round the Earth or Moon is key to the long-term prospects of astronauts exploring the solar system, according to NASA engineers. Trouble is NASA doesn't want to build it themselves. So there's $5 million for any enterprising groups who can develop a simple version themselves."

2 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmm by hyfe · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Erm, you still have to get the fuel up there right? .. and the cost of putting something up there is still reasonably proportional to weight?

    So sure, once you get liquid hydrogen from the moon / some other energy source it'd be usefull.. which pretty much means we need a moonbase first.

    --
    "" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
  2. Zero Gee problems? by Cicero382 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Has anyone else noticed that zero G is a constant PITA for nearly all space applications?

    A short list includes:

    Human health (bones, muscles, fluid accumulation etc)
    Environment (air flow, hygeine)
    Fluids in general (measuring, pumping)
    Going to the toilet (or john)

    And lots of others.

    I have a question: Why aren't we putting some effort into artificial gravity? I mean centrifuge effects - not Star Trek. After all, we're expending all this effort into individual engineering solutions for each problem. If we had AG of some sort, wouldn't that remove the need for that?

    Just my 2 pennies worth.