Space-traveling and fusion power, a love-story?

[Urge]

My knowledge about these things are kind of superficial, but I came to think about something interesting, Some things I have learned that together forms some interesting oportunities.

1) Fusion power puts hydrogen under pressure until it bursts. The bi-product of this reaction is helium, and a lot of energy that can be used to produce electricity.

2) The universe is made out of mostly hydrogen. A lot of gas-giants contains mostly hydrogen, and many stars throws a lot of it into space.

3) If you have electricity and enough space, you have pretty much what you need in a spaceship. All kinds of things can ve recycled, so Im certain that a spaceship can be made almost, or very independent as long as it has a good energy source.

4) Hydrogen can be used for propulsion as well. Isnt it possible to make hydrogen-plasma rockets that are more efficient than our hydrogen-oxygen burners? It will take fusion power to heat up off course - that also runs on hydrogen.

5) A lot of other stars around us have gas giants who contain lots and lots of hydrogen as well (not only Jupiter).

Conclusion:
If we evolve fusion power we should concider putting a big space-ship/station in orbit around Jupiter. The ship must have a few shuttles (minimum two, one on duty, one reserve) that dives into the atmosphere of Jupiter every now and then and takes with it hydrogen up to the station/ship in orbit. We should test out the system for fifty years or so, see if we can cut the string to Earth, so that they manage to live on their own. If it works this ship can set into space with a huge hydrogen tank. When it gets to the next system, it can find another gas giant with hydrogen in it, fill the tanks and move on, or stay if there are any nice rocky planets hanging around.

One problem is that babies born onboard will grow long and thin (Or so I have heard, if so we might want to concider creating a gene that represses this so that the standard human shape is remained) unless they have gravity, something that will make colonization of anything with a earth-style gravitational pull difficult. It might also be that we end up producing a kind of space-faring race that have little interest in planets as anything but places to harvest resources that is then used up in the space-craft, a spacecraft that they never intend to leave, except if some of them build another one and splits up off course.

But to create a pure space-faring race will also be interesting because it would greatly boost the prospect of human survival into the distant future.

Thats my thoughts on this anyway.

 

[sojourner]

Or, instead of worrying about developing technology to scoop Hydrogen from Jupiter's atmosphere, you could land on Jupiter's moon Europa and mine all the water ice (water being 2/3's hydrogen) you need. Or go to Saturn and mine the rings for water ice.

As for your health concerns, using centripetal force to simulate gravity (all those spinning spacestations you see in movies/tv) solves the problem quite well.

You have some good ideas, not new ideas though. I suggest more reading/research. Your about 20 years behind the curve.

 

[FordSVT]

Or, instead of worrying about developing technology to scoop Hydrogen from Jupiter's atmosphere, you could land on Jupiter's moon Europa and mine all the water ice (water being 2/3's hydrogen) you need. Or go to Saturn and mine the rings for water ice.

As for your health concerns, using centripetal force to simulate gravity (all those spinning spacestations you see in movies/tv) solves the problem quite well.

You have some good ideas, not new ideas though. I suggest more reading/research. Your about 20 years behind the curve.

Twenty would be exceedingly generous, this sounds like Clarke and Asimov's stuff from the 50s.

 

[Urge]

As for your health concerns, using centripetal force to simulate gravity (all those spinning spacestations you see in movies/tv) solves the problem quite well.

If (by the time such a project is launched) the only gravity-producing technology is a centrifuge, we should consider trying to alter the way lack of gravity makes bones and muscle grow weak instead - at least if we are trying to make a space-based self-sustaining ship or station. The absolutely best thing would be a kind of gene that maintains the standard human shape and muscular & bone strenght even without gravity (so that the people on board dont have to worry about producing some kind of complex medicine, we cant make their lives too difficult) and then this gene will have to be of the dominant kind, so that the offspring also gets it.

It would be bad if people who are going to spend the next hundreds of years in space are depending on huge rotating parts who are put under continous strain throughtout the whole journey. It sounds like a recipe for disaster if you ask me.

Absence of such a centrifuge on the other hand, will make everything simpler. A base can foreaxample be expanded in all kinds of directions, become big ugly and boxy - like cities are. This will also be more compatible with the dig-into-an-asteroide idea.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

"huge rotating parts"

No need to have 'huge rotating parts' - with failure-prone mechanics - for centrifugal force.

You only need to rotate the entire ship/space station/O'Neill colony/etc along a central axis. Much simpler, equally effective.

 

[sojourner]

Yea, mucking around with the human genome will be sooo much simpler.

I suggest further reading.

 

[RobertVA]

I'm thinking any genetic manipulation to adapt muscles or bones in a manner to avoid degradation during long periods of microgravity would involve modifications so fundamental to the biochemistry that allows them to develop and/or function that they would be fundamentally different in form and function. The main problem from the degradation a normal human would experience would be disability when returning to a normal gravity environment (or centrifugal substitution). There might eventually develop a schism between the existing planet based species and a new space dwelling species that would, to our viewpoint, be severely handicapped when it comes to moving around on a planet's surface without aids like wheelchairs or flotation tanks.

Spinning a space habitat might be convenient for the transit phase of a long voyage, but not for lander/shuttle docking procedures beyond a pair of docking ports, each at one end of the main habitat's rotational axis. Perhaps shuttles/landers could rendezvous with the end of the habitat's axis and be moved to/from a storage rack elsewhere on the habitat's end by a remote operated manipulator.

 

[T'Girl]

the only gravity-producing technology is a centrifuge, we should consider trying to alter the way lack of gravity makes bones and muscle grow weak instead - at least if we are trying to make a space-based self-sustaining ship or station.

Strictly speaking centrifuges do not produce "gravity." There are chemicals/medicines that can prevent calcium loss in bones, omitting sugar from an astronaut's diet would definitely help, combined with a limited amount of daily hard exercise.

 

[Urge]

Strictly speaking centrifuges do not produce "gravity." There are chemicals/medicines that can prevent calcium loss in bones, omitting sugar from an astronaut's diet would definitely help, combined with a limited amount of daily hard exercise.

Those people up on ISS are training for hour after hour, every day, still growing weak. Im not saying that improvements are impossible within todays way of dealing with microgravity, but life in space should be simpler and more chill. If one can turn of a gene or two, bone and muscle density can remain, and everything will be simpler. - Perhaps. To go into space with a one or two year limit before your body turns 90 years old is... very limiting.

 

[sojourner]

^You have an overly simplistic view of genetics.

 

[FordSVT]

With enough time and knowledge and technology, we'll probably be able to engineer a human being that is better adapted to zero-g. It will, however, involve a heck of a lot more than "turning off a gene or two".

 

[ProtoAvatar]

"heck of a lot more than "turning off a gene or two"" is a severe understatement.

We may know the letters of the human genetic code but we don't understand them - we're not even close.

'Turn off a gene or two' and we'll end up with failed genetic experiments.
Making a structure rotate, thus generating centrifugal gravity is FAR easier (we can actually do that) than messing around with the genetic code and actually knowing what we're doing.

 

[Urge]

"heck of a lot more than "turning off a gene or two"" is a severe understatement.

We may know the letters of the human genetic code but we don't understand them - we're not even close.

'Turn off a gene or two' and we'll end up with failed genetic experiments.
Making a structure rotate, thus generating centrifugal gravity is FAR easier (we can actually do that) than messing around with the genetic code and actually knowing what we're doing.

Well yeah. For my idea to become tempting it requires us to have excelent know-how on genes and how to sucessfully manipulate them without unwanted side-effects by the time we invent a better way to bring more kiloes into space cheaper.

Centrifugal gravity/down-pull puts materials under pressure, and it will also consume energy - Wont it?

Anyway, there is a lot of water-ice and usable metal out there. A space-ship without centrifugal gravity will have a easier time expanding their ship if they procreate and become more people.

It can be a big floating city that digs up and store everything it needs before setting into deep space:-)

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Centrifugal gravity/down-pull puts materials under pressure, and it will also consume energy - Wont it?

No, it' won't. Angular momentum (aka rotation), like momentum, is conserved, you don't need energy to keep the ship/colony rotating at the same speed.

And known materials can easily support said pressures - we're talking about structures of, at most, the size of O'Neill colonies.
NOT Culture Orbitals or Ringworlds,to have to deal with enormous tension in the materials.

Anyway, there is a lot of water-ice and usable metal out there. A space-ship without centrifugal gravity will have a easier time expanding their ship if they procreate and become more people.

It can be a big floating city that digs up and store everything it needs before setting into deep space:-)

A rotating ship/colony can exploit asteroid/etc resources with the same ease as a non-rotating ship.
At most, it will need more accurate docking procedures - something we can do easily, even now.

 

[KJbushway]

Strictly speaking centrifuges do not produce "gravity." There are chemicals/medicines that can prevent calcium loss in bones, omitting sugar from an astronaut's diet would definitely help, combined with a limited amount of daily hard exercise.

Those people up on ISS are training for hour after hour, every day, still growing weak. Im not saying that improvements are impossible within todays way of dealing with microgravity, but life in space should be simpler and more chill. If one can turn of a gene or two, bone and muscle density can remain, and everything will be simpler. - Perhaps. To go into space with a one or two year limit before your body turns 90 years old is... very limiting.

Your not the first person to propose the idea of genetic manipulation to solve the problem of health risks during zero-gravity.
heres articles where you can read up on some things.
1.Fusion generator-what we are doing now.
2.Ideas to protect astronauts from the many dangers of space flight.(Radiation on surface of mars and the moon. Bone and muscle loss in zero-gravity

1. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/4251982
2. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100817212011.htm

with the last article is shows other links at the bottom to answer any of your questions on counter measures NASA is trying to make to combat the problems above.

 

[KJbushway]

"heck of a lot more than "turning off a gene or two"" is a severe understatement.

We may know the letters of the human genetic code but we don't understand them - we're not even close.

'Turn off a gene or two' and we'll end up with failed genetic experiments.
Making a structure rotate, thus generating centrifugal gravity is FAR easier (we can actually do that) than messing around with the genetic code and actually knowing what we're doing.

Well yeah. For my idea to become tempting it requires us to have excelent know-how on genes and how to sucessfully manipulate them without unwanted side-effects by the time we invent a better way to bring more kiloes into space cheaper.

Centrifugal gravity/down-pull puts materials under pressure, and it will also consume energy - Wont it?

Anyway, there is a lot of water-ice and usable metal out there. A space-ship without centrifugal gravity will have a easier time expanding their ship if they procreate and become more people.

It can be a big floating city that digs up and store everything it needs before setting into deep space:-)

Its not easy to procreate in zero-gravity.
For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction.
you push against someone is zero-G they along with you go flying in the other direction.

 

[SilentP]

^ Didn't the Russians do some research into zero-G procreation?

 

[KJbushway]

don't know. Saw it on NAT-GEO

 

[RobertVA]

Its not easy to procreate in zero-gravity.
For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction.
you push against someone is zero-G they along with you go flying in the other direction.

With four arms and four legs in play I think people might be able to hold on to each other.

 

[KJbushway]

Its not easy to procreate in zero-gravity.
For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction.
you push against someone is zero-G they along with you go flying in the other direction.

With four arms and four legs in play I think people might be able to hold on to each other.

Yeah, well you go ahead with that theory.