On September 21 2023 17:36 Harris1st wrote:
A. Good point, so maybe not space suits but increased cabin pressure. So as you rightly point out, that is one of the smaller problems that I have no doubt will be solved.
B. I don't think Vit D is a problem. You can supplement that artificially already. So basically your ship hull has to have a lead isolation layer or something like that with very few windows to keep radiation at a minimum. It's the only thing I can come up with right now. Maybe smarter people have smarter ideas
C. No not really. You can launch from earth without having the (big) engine on board but planetside actually. I'm thinking like magnetic levitation train just bigger, faster and with upward trajectory. You could also start the lauch horizontally and then curve upwards. Give the space ship engine at least a running start.
Yeah I'm not thinking we'll be living in space in the next 100 years. Just theorizing what are the next steps and what are the big problems that need solving. I mean if we can build Elon's habitable (for scientists. Not gen pop obviously) Mars station in my lifetime, that would be something already
A. Good point, so maybe not space suits but increased cabin pressure. So as you rightly point out, that is one of the smaller problems that I have no doubt will be solved.
B. I don't think Vit D is a problem. You can supplement that artificially already. So basically your ship hull has to have a lead isolation layer or something like that with very few windows to keep radiation at a minimum. It's the only thing I can come up with right now. Maybe smarter people have smarter ideas
C. No not really. You can launch from earth without having the (big) engine on board but planetside actually. I'm thinking like magnetic levitation train just bigger, faster and with upward trajectory. You could also start the lauch horizontally and then curve upwards. Give the space ship engine at least a running start.
Yeah I'm not thinking we'll be living in space in the next 100 years. Just theorizing what are the next steps and what are the big problems that need solving. I mean if we can build Elon's habitable (for scientists. Not gen pop obviously) Mars station in my lifetime, that would be something already
A. Increased cabin pressure doesn’t do anything.
B. The problem is that a long journey will inevitably result in the ship being hit by high energy cosmic particles and being hit by radiation from solar storms etc…
C. That’s very wishful thinking. You’re talking about a jump in material science magnitude that’s greater than the jump from the wooden wheel to a modern jet engine.
You absolutely cannot start the launch horizontally. The pressure on the vehicle from the air is directly proportional to the density of the air and the square of the speed of the vehicle. I don’t want to start a math lesson but I promise you can rest assured that you would rip the vehicle apart by trying to launch it horizontally.
Yeah I don’t think we ever move past being a solar system fairing species. Not in 100 years, not in 10000 years. The physics of the problem are totally insurmountable at a certain point and the biology of human beings would need to be entirely resolved to the point of absolute immortality for human beings to ever meaningfully leave our solar system.
And yeah I’m not very confident in Elon’s ability to do that. I obviously hope I’m wrong, but I just don’t believe SpaceX is even remotely prepared to address the biological and chemistry issues that will occur by trying to live on Mars.