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NASA's Deep Space Habitat Could Support the Journey To Mars and a Lunar Return (spaceflightinsider.com)
MarkWhittington writes: Back in 2012, when NASA first proposed building a deep space habitat (DSH) beyond the moon, the Obama administration took a dim view of the idea. However, fast forward over three years, and the idea has become part of the Journey to Mars program. According to a story in Spaceflight Insider, the deep space habitat will be deployed in cis-lunar space in the 2020s to test various technologies related to sending humans to Mars. The DSH could also be part of an infrastructure that would support a return to the moon should the next administration decide to go that route.
As long as we can reserve place for all of them on the 'B' ark ...
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I'd rather that they spend tax money on US Congressional Districts than hand it to a corporation that passes it to the Chinese.
At least government pork is local, benefits Americans and keeps American jobs alive.
I strongly believe that from the POV of this simple earthling outer space belongs to us all and it would at this point be foolish to leave exploration to individual states or even corporations (persons right?)
So my dream is to start building an ISS2 in a cislunar orbit, also orbiting the earth and moon.
As a side exercise, how much energy would be needed to propel the present ISS (+400 tons) to such an orbit, would it be feasible over say a 5 year period?
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Years ago I read an article somewhere about protection from Cosmic Rays. It made an impression, and what's also made an impression is that I don't think I've ever come across anything else about it in the discussions about plans to send people to Mars. I gather though, that cumulative damage from Cosmic Rays are a serious enough issue that it would be criminally negligent of the powers to be if they didn't offer protection. So, what to do about Cosmic Rays? This is from memory about what the article said and may not be quite right but:
1. 3 feet of water offers as much protection from Cosmic Rays as the earth's atmosphere (maybe it was the atmosphere as it is in Denver, Colo.) So a ship going to Mars could be sheathed in a water jacket. That's a lot of mass, but, the bigger the ship, the less the total percentage of mass would be dedicated to the water jacket. Also, the water could be used for drinking, then purified and recycled. (Also, since the article came out, I've read about water being found on the Moon. Getting water from the Moon for the water jacket might be more practical as it has less of a gravity well to be hauled up from.)
2. Alternatively, a very strong magnetic field around the ship would deflect the cosmic rays. This would be less massive. Methinks it would have to be a very powerful field and I'm wondering a bit at the technology to do it.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
...who noticed that the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) looks like a giant Jiffy Pop?
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
With the BEAM idea, we could relatively easily build this and include electromagnetic shielding to guard against cosmic rays. Inflatable modules could be built en-mass, there is no reason we couldn't use them to make several Deep Space Habitats. All that's lacking is the political will power and vision.
You *do* realise that all the Golgafrinchans who *weren't* on the B ark, died, right? Wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone...
I'd rather that they spend tax money on US Congressional Districts than hand it to a corporation that passes it to the Chinese.
At least government pork is local, benefits Americans and keeps American jobs alive.
You're gonna love this one then.
"Congress has officially mandated the creation of such a module."
Really - this needs to stop. Congress should mandate broad projects with goals that support the nation as a whole (e.g., the Interstate Highway system). They should stay away from legislating where overpasses go.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
But that was before everyone had their own individual phones, so nobody needs a phone sanitizer nowadays. That's why they still go on the B Ark :-)
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
By compelling, I mean, demonstrating some objective benefit that we mostly agree on.
What's the objective benefit of Spirit and Opportunity? Sure, a bit of knowledge that's mostly useless outside Mars but has it produced any tangible benefits for mankind? Robots do it cheaper, but you don't get a return on investment, at least not measured in dollars. Not that space exploration is alone, what's the ROI on CERN? National parks? Protecting endangered species? Preserving historic artifacts and buildings? Supporting art and culture? Sure, some people only care about what directly impacts their lifestyle and wallet. But I'm glad that some look longer than the tip of their nose.
Pushing our science and knowledge is the way we create capabilities and very often the tangible benefit is the culmination of a long series of not so obviously beneficial advances. We know that doing a manned Mars mission requires solving many technological challenges, that I would argue by themselves have value. For example, maybe we have to find a way to fix radiation damage to the cells, that could have far-reaching applications. Sure we could just not go and not have the problem, but often it's our desire to go faster and higher for less time and resources that trickle down to commodities.
As for preservation our culture is in constant change, I can't be my parents. My children - if I get around to having any - can't be me. Mars couldn't be a museum of human culture, nor should it. But it's the carrying on of human culture, that we as a people don't disappear. From the chanting it sounds like a lot of Americans feel the same about their country. If you can feel that strongly about 300 million people, why not about 7 billion people? In any case, Mars will be nothing like that for ages. For the foreseeable future it'll be a research outpost like Antarctica, just more inhospitable.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
My reason is making money by expanding civilization into the Solar System. There are huge amounts of untapped energy and material resources out there. For a description of how the "mining and manufacturing based space program" would work, see:
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/... (part 1), and
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/... (part 2)
There are huge amounts of untapped energy and material resources out there.
In the pilbara region of Western Australia the mining operation is almost completely automated. Trains run for 1000 km - no driver. Trucks drive around the mines by themselves.
If we don't need humans in the pilbara to tap resources, we don't need them in space either - space is much further away than Western Australia (strange as that may seem).
What's the objective benefit of Spirit and Opportunity?
We're interested in the Solar System, and so we send probes into it. I see what you are getting at though, that this activity doesn't necessarily qualify as 'objectively beneficial' and that's a good point. But if we agree that learning more about the Solar System and indeed the world around us is an 'agreed benefit' then how does sending humans to Mars actually benefit that outcome?
What outcome does sending humans serve that sending robots doesn't do better?
What if we had said: "Let's not build [the giant machine called] CERN , because humans can do a better job of energising atoms to ridiculous levels and seeing what happens" would we have learned as much as we did? Is that idea actually any more ridiculous than sending a human to space instead of a 10 or 100 robots?
Pushing our science and knowledge is the way we create capabilities and very often the tangible benefit is the culmination of a long series of not so obviously beneficial advances.
But if we make those advances (e.g. in AI for self navigation, in solar cell technology, in material science) and then ignore those advances for a mere ideological reason "we want humans to go space" because we can't cope with the idea that robots do a better job in space than humans do then the material benefit of those discoveries is greatly lessened.
We know that doing a manned Mars mission requires solving many technological challenges, that I would argue by themselves have value. For example, maybe we have to find a way to fix radiation damage to the cells, that could have far-reaching applications.
If we are not motivated by the millions (billions?) of people who suffer radiation damage and cell degeneration NOW, why would we be motivated for the benefit of the 5 or 6 people who go to Mars? Maybe, what we ought to do is: (a) send a robot with a tissue sample to Mars, if there is something special about the deadly radiation there that we wouldn't see in a lab (b) spend the rest on finding a cure for cancer.
we need the resources that are abundant and the space from a terraformed planet if we are to eventually survive being overpopulated and the ever dwindling resources on this planet.
Mars is too far away for it's resources to make any difference to a shortage on Earth and Mars is too small to make a dent in the Earth's population - even if fully populated it could house a fraction of what the Earth can house. Plus it's cold and airless and bombarded with deadly radiation, even 100 000 years would not be sufficient to terraform it and without terraforming nobody would want to live there.