On April 12 2016 20:52 Incognoto wrote: So what exactly is the incentive to go to space, precisely? Just for tourism or ?
Pretty cool what's being done here, I guess.
As in real incentive?
Nothing. There's talks about resource gathering etc, but that's decades away. The only actual reason is satellites, and ISS (for now, since 2024 it'll be decommissioned and something else built).
COLORADO SPRINGS – More private companies are finding their way to the International Space Station (ISS), looking for profits and unique test opportunities on the orbiting outpost.
Orbital ATK and SpaceX are delivering new commercial hardware to the ISS on their Cygnus and Dragon cargo vehicles, which are berthed at the station simultaneously for the first time as the companies resume normal operations following earlier launch failures.
The Orbital ATK Cygnus that reached the station last month carried a commercial 3D-printing system that already has attracted a six-month backlog of orders. The next SpaceX Dragon is planned to deliver a new experiment-accommodation facility this summer that will offer onboard competition to NanoRacks, which pioneered commercial operations on the station.
The new hardware marks more movement toward NASA’s goal of handing off low Earth orbit (LEO) to the private sector in the post-station era. The Dragon that reached the ISS on April 10 carried an expandable-habitat prototype developed by Bigelow Aerospace, which already has two unmanned habitat prototypes in orbit as it works toward commercial free-flying space stations.
Bigelow has scheduled a press conference at the annual Space Symposium here later today to announce a new “partnership” with United Launch Alliance that could mark another step toward a private LEO economy. Meanwhile, the Made In Space startup is waiting to begin commercial operations on the station with its Additive Manufacturing Facility (AMF) – a follow on to the NASA-backed demonstration – as soon as the station crew has time to install it.
“The new printer is express-rack sized,” said President and CEO Andrew Rush, in an interview at the Symposium. “It’s got its own environmental control. It’s got its own computing environment, and so it can really operate almost completely autonomously or commanded from the ground.”
Made In Space has booked the first six months of that capability, counting among its customers aerospace companies that want to use the 3D printing technology it offers to build subscale satellite structures optimized for microgravity, as well as tools and other objects that may be used in space. Engineering schools have also bought time on the device, and Made In Space plans to use it for its own experiments under a $20 million NASA technology development award.
Rush said a typical run in the AMF will cost a customer $10,000-$20,000, with the selling point being a capability to manufacture structures and other objects that don’t need to be rugged enough to survive the g-forces and other loads associated with space launch. That could enable “gossamer” spacecraft components that could not be built on the ground.
On April 12 2016 20:52 Incognoto wrote: So what exactly is the incentive to go to space, precisely? Just for tourism or ?
Pretty cool what's being done here, I guess.
As in real incentive?
Nothing. There's talks about resource gathering etc, but that's decades away. The only actual reason is satellites, and ISS (for now, since 2024 it'll be decommissioned and something else built).
I mean what was the incentive to flying when the wright brothers first got their plane going It wasn't like you could sell airline tickets or bomb people back then
NEW YORK CITY—The top of the new World Trade Center building was buried inside the clouds, but everyone's focus was on the stars. Yuri Milner, the man whose investments have helped fund the Breakthrough Prizes and Breakthrough Initiatives, was here to announce his newest venture: Breakthrough Starshot, an effort to send hardware to the nearest stars quickly enough for many of us to live to see their arrival.
Present to back the project was physicist Stephen Hawking. "I believe what makes us unique is transcending our limits," Hawking told the audience. "Gravity pins us to the ground, but I just flew to America."
He went on to ask, "How do we transcend these limits? With our minds and our machines. The limit that confronts us now is the great void between us and the stars. But now we can transcend it."
On hand for the announcement was a group that any geeks would consider an all-star cast: physicist Freeman Dyson, Ann Druyan, the woman behind COSMOS, Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, astronaut Mae Jemison, and former NASA researcher Pete Worden, who will lead the project.
Milner announced the program on the anniversary of Yuri Gargarin's trip to space, noting he was named after him. He chose the location based on the fact that the top of the World Trade Center was "closer to the stars than any other rooftop in America." Milner said that the effort was driven by a single question: "Can we literally reach the stars, and can we do it in our lifetime?"
Milner is backing the $100 million R&D program necessary to get this to work. Existing technology won't do; New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft we've ever launched, and it would take 78,000 years to get to any of the stars in Alpha Centauri, a nearby three-star system. The plutonium in its power systems alone weighs 11kg and would require staggering amounts of energy to accelerate to the necessary speeds.
Instead, Breakthrough Starshot plans to build what's essentially a spacecraft on a chip, which Milner called a nanocraft. A gram-scale wafer will include "cameras, photon thrusters, power supply, navigation and communication equipment." The technology behind the power supply wasn't mentioned; communications at these distances will require something with pretty considerable power, even when using the optical communication that Breakthrough Starshot plans to rely on.
NEW YORK CITY—The top of the new World Trade Center building was buried inside the clouds, but everyone's focus was on the stars. Yuri Milner, the man whose investments have helped fund the Breakthrough Prizes and Breakthrough Initiatives, was here to announce his newest venture: Breakthrough Starshot, an effort to send hardware to the nearest stars quickly enough for many of us to live to see their arrival.
Present to back the project was physicist Stephen Hawking. "I believe what makes us unique is transcending our limits," Hawking told the audience. "Gravity pins us to the ground, but I just flew to America."
He went on to ask, "How do we transcend these limits? With our minds and our machines. The limit that confronts us now is the great void between us and the stars. But now we can transcend it."
On hand for the announcement was a group that any geeks would consider an all-star cast: physicist Freeman Dyson, Ann Druyan, the woman behind COSMOS, Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, astronaut Mae Jemison, and former NASA researcher Pete Worden, who will lead the project.
Milner announced the program on the anniversary of Yuri Gargarin's trip to space, noting he was named after him. He chose the location based on the fact that the top of the World Trade Center was "closer to the stars than any other rooftop in America." Milner said that the effort was driven by a single question: "Can we literally reach the stars, and can we do it in our lifetime?"
Milner is backing the $100 million R&D program necessary to get this to work. Existing technology won't do; New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft we've ever launched, and it would take 78,000 years to get to any of the stars in Alpha Centauri, a nearby three-star system. The plutonium in its power systems alone weighs 11kg and would require staggering amounts of energy to accelerate to the necessary speeds.
Instead, Breakthrough Starshot plans to build what's essentially a spacecraft on a chip, which Milner called a nanocraft. A gram-scale wafer will include "cameras, photon thrusters, power supply, navigation and communication equipment." The technology behind the power supply wasn't mentioned; communications at these distances will require something with pretty considerable power, even when using the optical communication that Breakthrough Starshot plans to rely on.
NEW YORK CITY—The top of the new World Trade Center building was buried inside the clouds, but everyone's focus was on the stars. Yuri Milner, the man whose investments have helped fund the Breakthrough Prizes and Breakthrough Initiatives, was here to announce his newest venture: Breakthrough Starshot, an effort to send hardware to the nearest stars quickly enough for many of us to live to see their arrival.
Present to back the project was physicist Stephen Hawking. "I believe what makes us unique is transcending our limits," Hawking told the audience. "Gravity pins us to the ground, but I just flew to America."
He went on to ask, "How do we transcend these limits? With our minds and our machines. The limit that confronts us now is the great void between us and the stars. But now we can transcend it."
On hand for the announcement was a group that any geeks would consider an all-star cast: physicist Freeman Dyson, Ann Druyan, the woman behind COSMOS, Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, astronaut Mae Jemison, and former NASA researcher Pete Worden, who will lead the project.
Milner announced the program on the anniversary of Yuri Gargarin's trip to space, noting he was named after him. He chose the location based on the fact that the top of the World Trade Center was "closer to the stars than any other rooftop in America." Milner said that the effort was driven by a single question: "Can we literally reach the stars, and can we do it in our lifetime?"
Milner is backing the $100 million R&D program necessary to get this to work. Existing technology won't do; New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft we've ever launched, and it would take 78,000 years to get to any of the stars in Alpha Centauri, a nearby three-star system. The plutonium in its power systems alone weighs 11kg and would require staggering amounts of energy to accelerate to the necessary speeds.
Instead, Breakthrough Starshot plans to build what's essentially a spacecraft on a chip, which Milner called a nanocraft. A gram-scale wafer will include "cameras, photon thrusters, power supply, navigation and communication equipment." The technology behind the power supply wasn't mentioned; communications at these distances will require something with pretty considerable power, even when using the optical communication that Breakthrough Starshot plans to rely on.
NEW YORK CITY—The top of the new World Trade Center building was buried inside the clouds, but everyone's focus was on the stars. Yuri Milner, the man whose investments have helped fund the Breakthrough Prizes and Breakthrough Initiatives, was here to announce his newest venture: Breakthrough Starshot, an effort to send hardware to the nearest stars quickly enough for many of us to live to see their arrival.
Present to back the project was physicist Stephen Hawking. "I believe what makes us unique is transcending our limits," Hawking told the audience. "Gravity pins us to the ground, but I just flew to America."
He went on to ask, "How do we transcend these limits? With our minds and our machines. The limit that confronts us now is the great void between us and the stars. But now we can transcend it."
On hand for the announcement was a group that any geeks would consider an all-star cast: physicist Freeman Dyson, Ann Druyan, the woman behind COSMOS, Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, astronaut Mae Jemison, and former NASA researcher Pete Worden, who will lead the project.
Milner announced the program on the anniversary of Yuri Gargarin's trip to space, noting he was named after him. He chose the location based on the fact that the top of the World Trade Center was "closer to the stars than any other rooftop in America." Milner said that the effort was driven by a single question: "Can we literally reach the stars, and can we do it in our lifetime?"
Milner is backing the $100 million R&D program necessary to get this to work. Existing technology won't do; New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft we've ever launched, and it would take 78,000 years to get to any of the stars in Alpha Centauri, a nearby three-star system. The plutonium in its power systems alone weighs 11kg and would require staggering amounts of energy to accelerate to the necessary speeds.
Instead, Breakthrough Starshot plans to build what's essentially a spacecraft on a chip, which Milner called a nanocraft. A gram-scale wafer will include "cameras, photon thrusters, power supply, navigation and communication equipment." The technology behind the power supply wasn't mentioned; communications at these distances will require something with pretty considerable power, even when using the optical communication that Breakthrough Starshot plans to rely on.
As far as I know nobody has tested it in space or even said they would fund it. If it works it would be very suitable.
If it works we have a very big problem in regards to pretty much everything science. Note, i'm not saying it doesn't work: i'm saying i'm 100% certain it doesn't work the way the device is described.
The plan is to eventually launch Falcon 9 once every week. This is what needs to happen for the economics of reusability to work.
Currently, there's roughly 25 launches per year. There's no demand for more.
edit: sidenote, i love space, science and all things rockets. But don't kid yourself: if it were "surprisingly lucrative", considerably more companies would try and get in. You simply can't create demand artificially for rockets. Spaceholidays will be for millionaires.
The one thing that would need to change (and i believe it won't, ever), would be the international space treaty.
NEW YORK CITY—The top of the new World Trade Center building was buried inside the clouds, but everyone's focus was on the stars. Yuri Milner, the man whose investments have helped fund the Breakthrough Prizes and Breakthrough Initiatives, was here to announce his newest venture: Breakthrough Starshot, an effort to send hardware to the nearest stars quickly enough for many of us to live to see their arrival.
Present to back the project was physicist Stephen Hawking. "I believe what makes us unique is transcending our limits," Hawking told the audience. "Gravity pins us to the ground, but I just flew to America."
He went on to ask, "How do we transcend these limits? With our minds and our machines. The limit that confronts us now is the great void between us and the stars. But now we can transcend it."
On hand for the announcement was a group that any geeks would consider an all-star cast: physicist Freeman Dyson, Ann Druyan, the woman behind COSMOS, Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, astronaut Mae Jemison, and former NASA researcher Pete Worden, who will lead the project.
Milner announced the program on the anniversary of Yuri Gargarin's trip to space, noting he was named after him. He chose the location based on the fact that the top of the World Trade Center was "closer to the stars than any other rooftop in America." Milner said that the effort was driven by a single question: "Can we literally reach the stars, and can we do it in our lifetime?"
Milner is backing the $100 million R&D program necessary to get this to work. Existing technology won't do; New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft we've ever launched, and it would take 78,000 years to get to any of the stars in Alpha Centauri, a nearby three-star system. The plutonium in its power systems alone weighs 11kg and would require staggering amounts of energy to accelerate to the necessary speeds.
Instead, Breakthrough Starshot plans to build what's essentially a spacecraft on a chip, which Milner called a nanocraft. A gram-scale wafer will include "cameras, photon thrusters, power supply, navigation and communication equipment." The technology behind the power supply wasn't mentioned; communications at these distances will require something with pretty considerable power, even when using the optical communication that Breakthrough Starshot plans to rely on.
On April 13 2016 08:22 oBlade wrote: Yes, I'm implying accelerating a one gram spacecraft with a laser to the 20% the speed of light in minutes to visit other stars is on the same level.
no it is not the same level.... one thing is physics, one thing is magic (or extremly bad highschool level experimenting and ambient variable control trying to pass as physics)
we know light has an impulse, we know it can be used as a thruster
saying you want to build a reactionless drive that violates conservation of momentum on the other hand... well nope!
On April 13 2016 08:22 oBlade wrote: Yes, I'm implying accelerating a one gram spacecraft with a laser to the 20% the speed of light in minutes to visit other stars is on the same level.
no it is not the same level.... one thing is physics, one thing is magic (or extremly bad highschool level experimenting and ambient variable control trying to pass as physics)
we know light has an impulse, we know it can be used as a thruster
saying you want to build a reactionless drive that violates conservation of momentum on the other hand... well nope!
No..one requires engineering breakthroughs, the other requires physics breakthroughs. (both of which may or may not be possible.)
Remember, almost certainly current physics is wrong....its approximately right, but it is almost certainly wrong (always has been it just gets less wrong)
So there is a tiny possibility that the Way that current physics is wrong is a way that makes us think the EM drive is just experimental error. (no way of knowing without more tests, but the existing tests aren't promising)
For the other one, it works great as a highschool physics problem, but reality isn't made up of frictionless, massless pulleys. Space is not empty and sending a signal from a 1 gram object over multiple light years would make it practically impossible to detect. (again it might be doable, but further testing might show that to be impossible as well)
On April 13 2016 08:22 oBlade wrote: Yes, I'm implying accelerating a one gram spacecraft with a laser to the 20% the speed of light in minutes to visit other stars is on the same level.
no it is not the same level.... one thing is physics, one thing is magic (or extremly bad highschool level experimenting and ambient variable control trying to pass as physics)
we know light has an impulse, we know it can be used as a thruster
saying you want to build a reactionless drive that violates conservation of momentum on the other hand... well nope!
No..one requires engineering breakthroughs, the other requires physics breakthroughs. (both of which may or may not be possible.)
Remember, almost certainly current physics is wrong....its approximately right, but it is almost certainly wrong (always has been it just gets less wrong)
So there is a tiny possibility that the Way that current physics is wrong is a way that makes us think the EM drive is just experimental error. (no way of knowing without more tests, but the existing tests aren't promising)
For the other one, it works great as a highschool physics problem, but reality isn't made up of frictionless, massless pulleys. Space is not empty and sending a signal from a 1 gram object over multiple light years would make it practically impossible to detect. (again it might be doable, but further testing might show that to be impossible as well)
Why do you say the current tests aren't promising? Reading the wiki article it seems very promising.
EPT
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