Except you needed to lift the 1 ton of fuel to the gas station previously, plus extra to account for boil-off, plus the gas station itself, plus extra fuel to account for docking, undocking, and any discrepancy between the required orbit and the gas station's orbit.
Lifting extra tanks just before the mission, into the same orbit, and assembling the ship in space is much more efficient. Gas stations make sense when you've got so much traffic you can use a few large refill boosts to fill up many interplanetary ships. But we're really really far from that point.
A few G's for a few hours are impossible. Let's say 2G for 2 hours, that's a delta-V of 212 km/s. With a rocket Isp of 400 s, the rocketry equation yields that 100% of the vehicle is fuel, while the remaining 0% comprise structure, engines, tankage, and cargo.
The only difficulty is launching the massive structures needed, getting the to the surface of the moon, installing the panels, maintaining them, storing the energy overnight, and converting it to a useful form (like chemical fuel).
Did you try to calculate how much it would cost to cover a few hundred square kilometers in panels?
Let's see
10 kg/m^2 * 100 km^2 * $3000/kg = $3t (just for the launch; self-installation)
what would it yield?
1000 W/m^2 * 100 km^2 = 100 GW
like a few dozen power stations on earth, to be had for a few billion each.
What's so glorious about an 8 month trip in a tin can, followed by a putting your boots and uttering the required one-liner, followed by a couple of years of collecting rocks in a featureless desert?
ildon may be self sufficient, but the United States Government is not. It needs money to get people to do things for it, and it needs people to believe the money they get will get other people to do things for them.
Money stands for human effort. When you borrow money, you take the product of someone's effort in exchange for a promise to repay that effort. You'll either have to work real hard in the future, or piss someone off by defaulting on your promise of devaluing your money (in which case no one will take it any more again).
The timescales involved are so different it is mind boggling. By starting to defend now against an event that will not happen for millions of years, you're diverting huge amounts of resources into it that could be used to position us better to do the same thing in a few years.
A telescope needs to be protected from light pollution, at a high altitude, and have a reasonable mirror diameter. It's not something that can easily be mass deployed.
Not sure it's a win. The weight of a launch escape system doesn't impact total system weight much since it is jettisoned shortly after launch. Thrusters and their fuel would be carried all the way to orbit, so their mass would come out of the payload.
You also want the launch escape system to carry you far out of the exploding fireball that may be a failed launch.
Fully powered descent (without relying on aerobraking at all) is impossible. You need to double your delta-V to around 16 km/sec, which is impossible with chemical engines.
Partial aerobrake with retro-rockets for the final touchdown are possible, but then you don't save anything.
My argument is that no one sane would do it. During the age of sail people went on voyages that would last years of hardship from which few returned. But those that returned became wealthy (until they spent it all on alcohol).
In the age of space, you're asking people who are already comfortable to leave on a voyage from which they are sure never to return, sure never to see anything but the blackness of space, sure never to see a soul other than the ones they departed with, sure never to see anything other the walls of their ship. It's not very different from volunteering for a life sentence in prison.
Would you volunteer for a simulation of such a mission? shut down in a cave, communication time lag measured in years, with a few companions, and no way out. There's no real difference compared to the real thing, since the ship would not reach its destination anyway. And you can't leave.
And we know which group you and your descendants are in (well we'd know if the option was available, it's easy to make the brave decision if it's all make believe).
A 256 byte bubble sort requires about 33,000 operations. At 1 MHz, that means every operation (compare + possible swap) took 30 cycles. While somewhat slow, this is definitely much faster than what basic could have achieved.
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Except you needed to lift the 1 ton of fuel to the gas station previously, plus extra to account for boil-off, plus the gas station itself, plus extra fuel to account for docking, undocking, and any discrepancy between the required orbit and the gas station's orbit.
Lifting extra tanks just before the mission, into the same orbit, and assembling the ship in space is much more efficient. Gas stations make sense when you've got so much traffic you can use a few large refill boosts to fill up many interplanetary ships. But we're really really far from that point.
A few G's for a few hours are impossible. Let's say 2G for 2 hours, that's a delta-V of 212 km/s. With a rocket Isp of 400 s, the rocketry equation yields that 100% of the vehicle is fuel, while the remaining 0% comprise structure, engines, tankage, and cargo.
Okay then, how much does a solar panel factory weigh? How about its supply chain?
The only difficulty is launching the massive structures needed, getting the to the surface of the moon, installing the panels, maintaining them, storing the energy overnight, and converting it to a useful form (like chemical fuel).
Did you try to calculate how much it would cost to cover a few hundred square kilometers in panels?
Let's see
10 kg/m^2 * 100 km^2 * $3000/kg = $3t (just for the launch; self-installation)
what would it yield?
1000 W/m^2 * 100 km^2 = 100 GW
like a few dozen power stations on earth, to be had for a few billion each.
There's no abundant source of energy like we have on earth (oil).
What's so glorious about an 8 month trip in a tin can, followed by a putting your boots and uttering the required one-liner, followed by a couple of years of collecting rocks in a featureless desert?
Cause of death is likely to be boredom.
ildon may be self sufficient, but the United States Government is not. It needs money to get people to do things for it, and it needs people to believe the money they get will get other people to do things for them.
Going to the moon or other planets does nothing to prevent it.
Money stands for human effort. When you borrow money, you take the product of someone's effort in exchange for a promise to repay that effort. You'll either have to work real hard in the future, or piss someone off by defaulting on your promise of devaluing your money (in which case no one will take it any more again).
The timescales involved are so different it is mind boggling. By starting to defend now against an event that will not happen for millions of years, you're diverting huge amounts of resources into it that could be used to position us better to do the same thing in a few years.
5. "a bit beyond" is a gross understatement, not just for us, but for all other life forms.
6. "mere one million years" is a fantastically long voyage for us. Beings with million-year life spans are unlikely to evolve very rapidly.
It's actually 50 m/s (5G), from a*x = v^2/2
Gasoline takes its oxidant from the air, so it has a much higher energy density.
A telescope needs to be protected from light pollution, at a high altitude, and have a reasonable mirror diameter. It's not something that can easily be mass deployed.
For internal atomic motors, there is also weight.
As for the "lets drop atomic bombs out of the exhaust" motor, this is going way too far.
Moore's law doesn't apply here regardless of funding. And it won't in microelectronics for much longer.
Rocketry reached something very close to current peak efficiency a few years after WWII, and there's no physical process in sight for improving it.
The S-V launch escape system was jettisoned 30 seconds into second stage ignition; the second stage burned for 367 seconds.
Not sure it's a win. The weight of a launch escape system doesn't impact total system weight much since it is jettisoned shortly after launch. Thrusters and their fuel would be carried all the way to orbit, so their mass would come out of the payload.
You also want the launch escape system to carry you far out of the exploding fireball that may be a failed launch.
Every time they reinvent the wheel, it turns out round. Sheesh!
Fully powered descent (without relying on aerobraking at all) is impossible. You need to double your delta-V to around 16 km/sec, which is impossible with chemical engines.
Partial aerobrake with retro-rockets for the final touchdown are possible, but then you don't save anything.
My argument is that no one sane would do it. During the age of sail people went on voyages that would last years of hardship from which few returned. But those that returned became wealthy (until they spent it all on alcohol).
In the age of space, you're asking people who are already comfortable to leave on a voyage from which they are sure never to return, sure never to see anything but the blackness of space, sure never to see a soul other than the ones they departed with, sure never to see anything other the walls of their ship. It's not very different from volunteering for a life sentence in prison.
Would you volunteer for a simulation of such a mission? shut down in a cave, communication time lag measured in years, with a few companions, and no way out. There's no real difference compared to the real thing, since the ship would not reach its destination anyway. And you can't leave.
Would you go for it? Or go to the beach instead?
And we know which group you and your descendants are in (well we'd know if the option was available, it's easy to make the brave decision if it's all make believe).
A 256 byte bubble sort requires about 33,000 operations. At 1 MHz, that means every operation (compare + possible swap) took 30 cycles. While somewhat slow, this is definitely much faster than what basic could have achieved.
Longevity treatments. Whats 100 years when you live for 1000?
10% of your life span. What's 8 years when you live to be 80? Not to mention you need a lot more than 100 years for interstellar travel.
"Cryo sleep" or suspended animation. No reason why it can't work.
It could work, if you trust machines to work flawlessly for hundreds or thousands of years.
"Generation ships". No reason why a big arse space ship wouldn't be a pleasure to be part of. Even if you don't care about the destination.
Perhaps people aren't ready to doom themselves and their descendants to live and die in a ship.
robotic overloads. You don't need AI here.
What's the point in sending a probe that won't return any data for thousands of years? No one could get elected like that.
I stand corrected. Well, maybe they will find something.