NASA and the Private Sector - Page 150

Keep debates civil.

ShoCkeyy

7815 Posts

January 23 2018 15:42 GMT

#2981

I highly doubt Space tourism will be part of the near future, but after 20years, I can see it being more stable. Look at airplanes, once they found solutions to their problems, commercial airlines easily took off, and only has gotten better since.

As for the moon, I definitely think it's a waste of time and resource, if it wasn't I think the US would have gone back. The US just didn't see the ROI.

This shutdown however, has been aa hamper on my mood. Being a consultant for the government in times like this suck

LegalLord

United States13779 Posts

January 23 2018 16:16 GMT

#2982

The funny thing is that rockets are about as old as airplanes, but one is decidedly more reliable than the other. The “in 20 years it will be safe” thinking isn’t new either. The fact that most of the business plans for space tourism or transporting humans via spaceflight are utter bullshit doesn’t help either.

ShoCkeyy

7815 Posts

January 23 2018 16:53 GMT

#2983

1903 to 1926 is a huge difference. But it's within the 20 year mark. Now if you're talking about commercial airline, and rockets, then it's comparing oranges to apples. Imagine, the first person to be launched in a rocket was 1961. Forty years after commercial airlines took off.

CuddlyCuteKitten

Sweden2649 Posts

January 23 2018 17:39 GMT

#2984

I think of the Moon vs Mars things like this:

How many heavy lift trips to the moon would it take to make a moon base start producing a net positive of fuel/air/water/food compared to just sending those things straight to Mars and could a colony be self sustaining with those extra shipments before the lunar base starts making a return?

I think the sensible answer would be to go to the moon. Making a Mars colony more or less self sustaining would probably take a really long time. I also think the moon would be a sensible "dry run" before attempting to go to Mars. It's much easier to land/liftoff. A Mars ascent vehicle (MAV) would still need heat shields and aerodynamics. A lunar ascent vehicle could more or less be a flatbed with rockets that you strapped the cargo onto. Also transmission times are quicker so you could run a lot of robots from earth early on.

One thing that I personally think is forgotten when it comes to space expansion is that it's not only how cheap you can get the launches from earth but also the quality of what you actually send.

To make a lunar (or mars) base useful it needs to produce resources like fuel, air, water, food and other useful things. To do that you need energy, mining operations, refining and manufacturing.
I think there would be as much to gain in developing robotics, refining, mining tech such as high end 3D printers, easy solar panel production and miniature automated ore processing plants as developing more efficient rockets.

If we could get to a point where we could reliably produce solar panels on the moon after just launching a couple of SLS equivalents that would be just as big as making a rocket twice as cost effective. And that goes for all tech. The faster you can start producing less advanced bulk parts of equipment through local materials and 3D printing the faster you can exponentially reduce what you have to send from earth.

LegalLord

United States13779 Posts

January 23 2018 19:12 GMT

#2985

On January 24 2018 01:53 ShoCkeyy wrote:
1903 to 1926 is a huge difference. But it's within the 20 year mark. Now if you're talking about commercial airline, and rockets, then it's comparing oranges to apples. Imagine, the first person to be launched in a rocket was 1961. Forty years after commercial airlines took off.

Although it's sort of hard to delineate exactly what would be meant, I'd go with "the technological foundation of each device." And in both cases, the foundations were set in about the late 19th/early 20th century, shown to be technically feasible in the early-mid 20th, saw their modern iterations take off shortly after WWII (carrier rockets and jet aircraft), and developed as they did since. Of course, "give it 20 years" is the equivalent of saying "I bet science will take care of it" which does a pretty piss-poor job of addressing the more fundamental reality that we are a long, long way off from the point where spaceflight will be even comparable to commercial aircraft in safety and reliability.

Of course, commercial hypesters will always be able to convince people that somehow they will genius their way through it "with the magic of capitalism" or something. Again, the fact that all these "space tourism" and other "commercial spaceliner" services have business plans that are pretty clearly full of BS does not inspire confidence that they're on the verge of a breakthrough.

On January 24 2018 02:39 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:
I think the sensible answer would be to go to the moon. Making a Mars colony more or less self sustaining would probably take a really long time. I also think the moon would be a sensible "dry run" before attempting to go to Mars. It's much easier to land/liftoff. A Mars ascent vehicle (MAV) would still need heat shields and aerodynamics. A lunar ascent vehicle could more or less be a flatbed with rockets that you strapped the cargo onto. Also transmission times are quicker so you could run a lot of robots from earth early on.

Pretty much every technology you might want on Mars, you could develop more cheaply and more reliably by starting with a lunar base. A project like the Deep Space Gateway also provides a means towards a much-improved approach towards Mars, reducing the need for bullshitting up a rocket so big and finicky that it will never have any hope of flying. The moon has water and valuable ores, which are enough to be able to set up a working colony if there is enough desire to do so. A three-day flight is also much more feasible than a nine-month flight in one direction. In short, going Mars first is a really dumb idea favored mostly out of the idea that "the moon isn't interesting." Russia, China, Europe, and a significant part of NASA disagree and are willing to put up significant resources to show it to be so.

{CC}StealthBlue

United States41117 Posts

January 23 2018 19:35 GMT

#2986

The little company that could.

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – The successful launch of Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket Jan. 20 also tested a kick stage designed to circularize the orbits of its satellite payloads.

The company said Jan. 23 that the Electron carried a kick stage for the two Lemur-2 cubesats it launched for Spire. The kick stage separated from the Electron’s upper stage and, after a 40-minute coast phase, fired an engine called Curie to circularize its orbits before releasing the cubesats.

The Electron’s upper stage placed the kick stage, as well as a Dove cubesat from Planet, into orbits of approximately 300 by 500 kilometers. Data from the U.S. Strategic Command’s Space Track website shows that three of the objects, not identified but believed to be the two Lemur-2 cubesats and the kick stage, are in orbits with perigees of 490 to 500 kilometers and apogees of 530 to 535 kilometers, far more circular than the other objects tracked from the launch.

Rocket Lab, which had not previously disclosed the development of the kick stage, said it pursued the system to provide its customers more flexibility in the orbits it could achieve with its vehicle and how it could deploy those satellites.

“We saw the need to be able to deploy satellites in different orbits,” said Rocket Lab Chief Executive Peter Beck in an interview. He cited as one use of the kick stage spacing out deployments of cubesats in different orbits. “We see that as being a real operational advantage for our customers.”

Beck said the kick stage performed as planned on the launch. “It was 100 percent mission success,” he said.

The heart of the kick stage is Curie, an engine developed by Rocket Lab. Beck described the engine, capable of performing multiple burns, as 3D-printed and using an unspecified “green” monopropellant. The name follows a trend by the company to name its engines after famous physicists: its Electron rocket is powered by engines named Rutherford.

Beck said the stage could perform a number of applications to change orbits of its payloads, but didn’t disclose technical specifications like the stage’s total delta-v. The stage could also lower its orbit after satellite deployments to minimize its time in orbit before reentry. “We can be much more conscious and deliberate about ensuring we don’t leave stuff behind,” he said.

On the Electron launch itself, which was the first successful flight of the small launch vehicle. Beck said the company was just starting an intensive review of the data collected during the test flight. “Everything is looking very good at this stage,” he said. “We’ll be accelerating into commercial operations since everything looks pretty nominal.”

Source

Sermokala

United States14047 Posts

January 23 2018 22:30 GMT

#2987

Ideally I would say the space station is still our best bet as it has been from the last time we went to the moon.

A much larger facility capable of managing traffic from the space station to the moon and the asteroid belt. Then you have everything you need much closer to earth.

Simberto

Germany11629 Posts

January 23 2018 22:50 GMT

#2988

A big problem with the space station is that it doesn't actually do anything. You still have to launch everything from earth. The basic idea of moon stuff is that you can produce some stuff in a much smaller gravity well, and thus in the long run don't have to launch as much stuff from earth.

Gorsameth

Netherlands21952 Posts

January 23 2018 22:55 GMT

#2989

On January 24 2018 07:50 Simberto wrote:
A big problem with the space station is that it doesn't actually do anything. You still have to launch everything from earth. The basic idea of moon stuff is that you can produce some stuff in a much smaller gravity well, and thus in the long run don't have to launch as much stuff from earth.

Unless we have all the steps for mining, processing and production set up on the moon, how are we saving on launching stuff from earth?
Not to mention professional workers who would have to live long term on the moon to do the work.

lestye

United States4186 Posts

January 23 2018 23:15 GMT

#2990

Legalord, I don't get what you're so critical of space tourism. It's not like it hasn't done before. There's been like a dozen space tourists already. I think in the next decade once we have a handful of certified spaceflight craft, and perhaps a space station (Like Bigelow Commercial Space Station), I could see like, space station hotels in the next 2 decades, a lunar hotel in like 3.

Sermokala

United States14047 Posts

January 23 2018 23:26 GMT

#2991

I don't see what the difference between having a moon base and having a space station base.

heres a list of benefits a space station in earths orbit would be better then a moon base that I have no idea if is real or not in science.

1, closer to the US means easier to ship things to the space station.
2. not being on moon means more up time on solar panels.
3. travel to asteroids and other bodies would be better beacuse slingshots around the planets gravity is easier when you're already in orbit.

LegalLord

United States13779 Posts

January 23 2018 23:35 GMT

#2992

There have been a grand total of ~~seven~~ eight space tourists. All on board a Soyuz craft. If you think that's a joy ride suitable for the masses, then you simply have no idea what you're talking about. Though it is definitely an authentic experience containing all of the joys of spaceflight. And involving a pretty significant amount of astronaut training to boot.

And at least Soyuz is an actual real man-rated craft that has a worthy string of successes under its belt. Everything else is just an impractical idea and an even worse business venture justified with a variation of the old "we'll get a bunch of rich people to spend a lot of money on our luxury product" excuse that any fool can come up with. The business model, and the technical side of actually getting a craft that can do the job? Oops, that's actually kind of hard! And I'm sure plenty of people would be glad to take up the private task of maintenance for an orbital space station just for that rare tourist who wants to come see space or something.

The cries of space tourism being just over the horizon, I've heard for decades. Results, or even progress towards results, not so much. Just promises and hype. Plenty of people willing to eat up a good bullshit promise, though.

LegalLord

United States13779 Posts

January 23 2018 23:44 GMT

#2993

On January 24 2018 08:26 Sermokala wrote:

Show nested quote +

The moon has water (a source of fuel, oxygen, and... water), ores, and a much weaker gravity field than Earth, making it fairly viable to support a "space-based" production facility. Lifting off of Earth is basically the worst possible option for putting anything into space and you do it because you have to. A lunar space station (DSG) would serve as a useful staging ground to ship supplies out towards an Earth orbit or toward Mars or wherever else.

On a bit of a tangential note: one time I was listening to a lecture by a fairly famous scientist (Freeman Dyson) and he was talking about the ISS and the justification for building it. He remembers arguing for that all the science experiments it was good for, they could all be done more cheaply and effectively using something that wasn't a giant expensive space station. The one exception was that a space station would indeed be good for studying the effects on humans of living in a space station.

The sad thing is, he's pretty much right. That's kind of exactly what they're best for. All in preparation for establishing a station in a more interesting location, of course.

cLutZ

United States19574 Posts

January 24 2018 00:13 GMT

#2994

Its all kind of moot imo. None of the options will provide commercial value until we get away from chemical rockets as the primary option for transit. They are too expensive and too heavy to be worthwhile. Even if there was a bunch of pure gold and platinum on the moon that required no purification (think initial California gold Rush) mining it would still be a losing proposition. Just getting one caterpillar excavator to the Moon would probably cost $100 billion and that doesn't even account for the fact it can't run on diesel so you need to design a whole new price of equipment.

lestye

United States4186 Posts

January 24 2018 01:58 GMT

#2995

On January 24 2018 08:35 LegalLord wrote:
There have been a grand total of seven space tourists. All on board a Soyuz craft. If you think that's a joy ride suitable for the masses, then you simply have no idea what you're talking about. Though it is definitely an authentic experience containing all of the joys of spaceflight. And involving a pretty significant amount of astronaut training to boot.

And at least Soyuz is an actual real man-rated craft that has a worthy string of successes under its belt. Everything else is just an impractical idea and an even worse business venture justified with a variation of the old "we'll get a bunch of rich people to spend a lot of money on our luxury product" excuse that any fool can come up with. The business model, and the technical side of actually getting a craft that can do the job? Oops, that's actually kind of hard! And I'm sure plenty of people would be glad to take up the private task of maintenance for an orbital space station just for that rare tourist who wants to come see space or something.

The cries of space tourism being just over the horizon, I've heard for decades. Results, or even progress towards results, not so much. Just promises and hype. Plenty of people willing to eat up a good bullshit promise, though.

There's more than that, those are just the 7 self-funded ones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_flight_participant#List_of_spaceflight_participants

I don't think it's suitable for the "masses", just the very rich. It's not an easy thing to do, but neither is a lot of the adventurous things rich people do. And no matter how uncomfortable it is initially, its still going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience that most people only dream of.

How is the Dragon2 and Starliner impractical ideas? It's happening. They're expected to be certified in next year or two.

Up until now, the Soyuz and the Space Shuttle were the only spacecraft capable of the idea of space tourist, but obviously NASA had no reason to get into the tourism industry. And after the space shuttle's retirement, they needed every single seat on the Soyuz.

Ultimately the concept was bottle necked by the lack of non-government spacecraft that's man-rated. That should all change unless you dont have hope for Starliner or Dragon2.

LegalLord

United States13779 Posts

January 24 2018 02:44 GMT

#2996

You want to include NASA's Teacher in Space program or programs for helping smaller nations get a man into space? Ok, that's kind of stretching the definition, but we can do that. Of course that includes a great counterexample (McAuliffe) as to why sending civilians into space is an irresponsible affair, but your call.

Commercial Crew has a goal of a loss of crew of 1 in 270. In reality that won't happen because any such estimate is by necessity optimistic and not the result of having the flights to prove it. But I suppose you could squeeze an extra meatbag onto one of those craft, if they're really wealthy and willing to go through astronaut training and take astronaut risks of dying throughout the process. If you think there's going to be an overabundance of rich people to die for that "once in a lifetime opportunity" then I really think you're beyond convincing, though. The only way you're going to get more than just a handful is if you delude people into thinking it's a 1 in 100,000 LOC rate (like NASA did with the Shuttle), which is quickly going to go out the window the moment one of those space tourist craft go up in flames or even have a close call. Otherwise? A risky side business at best, and something to shut the fuck up about in terms of trying to justify a stupid spacecraft design "because space tourism will pay for it." And about making space hotels for that matter.

"NASA had no reason to get into the tourism industry" perhaps you mean that after Challenger, they had to come to terms with the reality that these craft aren't actually safe for civilians, so sending tourists would be a liability? Because that's more along the lines of what actually happened. The Shuttle definitely did have those kinds of goals before reality hit them in the face.

The biggest bottleneck is death. Always has been.

lestye

United States4186 Posts

January 24 2018 04:19 GMT

#2997

I wouldnt use NASA's teacher in space program, or like, when other nations pay to send up their astronauts. But I do count when a television station pays to send one of its own up, as well as a private fundraiser to get someone from a country into space.

And I understand your point of it being dangerous, but rich people do dangerous stuff all the time. Even post-Challenger post Coloumbia.

And what are you talking about? These spacecraft are already in development, they're going to be sending NASA astronauts to space. If they're good enough to wean the U.S. completely off Soyuz, the Russians will probably sell seats to tourists again

I don't think NASA was aiming to sell tickets to tourists if the Teacher in Space program was a success.

I think the bottleneck is more the spacecraft than death atm. Let's say you're rich, and you don't mind the risk of death. That is completely irrelevant because there's only 1 agency with human-rated spacecraft and they're super booked.

LegalLord

United States13779 Posts

January 24 2018 04:37 GMT

#2998

SAN MATEO, Calif. — The foundation running the Google Lunar X Prize announced Jan. 23 that the $20 million grand prize for a commercial lunar lander will expire at the end of March without a winner.

The X Prize Foundation said none of its five finalist teams would be able to launch a mission before the current deadline of March 31. That deadline has been extended several times in the past, but foundation officials previously said there would be no further extensions of the competition.

“This literal ‘moonshot’ is hard, and while we did expect a winner by now, due to the difficulties of fundraising, technical and regulatory challenges, the grand prize of the $30M Google Lunar XPRIZE will go unclaimed,” said a statement by Peter Diamadis, founder and executive chairman of the X Prize Founation, and Marcus Shingles, chief executive of the foundation. The $30 million refers to both the grand prize as well as a $5 million second prize and several ancillary prizes.

“A collective decision was made last year that there would be no more extensions and we have been very open with the public and with our teams that the end date for the competition would be March 31, 2018,” said Chanda Gonzales Mowrer, senior director of prize development and execution at the X Prize Foundation, said in response to SpaceNews questions about the deadline. “This being said, we appreciate Google’s commitment and respect their decision to have the prize purse expire on March 31, 2018, regardless of the progress we are seeing across the teams.”

spacenews.com

Slightly unfortunate but the writing was on the wall for this whole thing.