Which is only a small part of the job. anything involving tools is a bitch compared to doing it on earth. Heck, we haven't even reached the point of welding in space construction.
Anything non-modular in design is a long way off.
China launches new space station module.
- Thread starter Yminale
- Start date
Which is only a small part of the job. anything involving tools is a bitch compared to doing it on earth. Heck, we haven't even reached the point of welding in space construction.
Anything non-modular in design is a long way off.
O'Neil type colonies are macro-engineering projects that are beyond our current technology and international budgets to do. It's a pipedream at this stage to think that they are doable in this century...or the next..
If we could get 2001's Space Station V, I'd do handsprings from Sacramento to Los Angeles..
We will be lucky to establish Lunar and Martian bases in this century, unless nations make warfare much less of a priority than they do currently..
If we could get 2001's Space Station V, I'd do handsprings from Sacramento to Los Angeles..
We will be lucky to establish Lunar and Martian bases in this century, unless nations make warfare much less of a priority than they do currently..
Structures like the Stanford Torus or O'Neill cylinders come from an era when it was thought we could tolerate no more than 1 rpm and needed 1 earth gravity to stay healthy.
It is now thought we can grow comfortable with 4 rpm given gradual acclimation. Much as a sailor gets used to motion from the sea. A 4 fold increase in angular velocity would cut your needed hab radius by a factor of 16 (So called centrifugal force is w^2 * r, where w is angular velocity in radians, r is hab radius.)
Further, it remains unknown how much gravity we need to stay healthy. If lunar gravity suffices, that would cut needed hab radius by a factor of 1/6.
And the first spin habs will probably be batons or bolos rather than a torus or cylinder.
It's my opinion that spin habs of much more plausible size would suffice to keep occupants healthy.
Then mining asteroids remains out of the question until existing paradigms have shifted.
It's a question here exactly what the paradigm will shift TO: if we start widespread use of telerobots for mining operations on Earth (in which case we will finally know how to do it in space) or if the expense of human spaceflight significantly drops. One of those things has to happen first before we can even make the attempt.
And a few tens/hundreds of people have no specific need for an O'Neill colony. In the first place, unless you're planning on moving the asteroid into Earth orbit, your first expedition is only going to be there for two or three months--at most--before their return window for Earth closes and they're stranded there for a couple of years. If you're bringing materials with you to try and build an O'Neill colony you'll be just about finished building it by the time it's time to leave. On the other hand, if you bring some sort of industrial equipment with you capable of processing some of that ore, you can take a couple dozen tons of useful material (platinum, for example) and the mission pays for itself.
You won't need an O'Neill colony or anything like that unless you're planning to move the asteroid into Earth orbit and unless the asteroid is large enough (3 to 5km wide) to justify a permanent presence there. The smaller NEOs, 300 to 600 meters wide, are probably easier to move, though, and those can be mined with rotating crews in conventional habitats.
This is a good bet, in my opinion. Industrial giants like British Petroleum and Rio Tinto are already investing in improving telerobotics. They could enjoy application in any workplace that is hard to reach and/or dangerous. There are also military applications like disarming explosive devices.
The state of art for motion capture suits is very likely to improve. The movie industry already uses motion capture. Mike Meyers used motion capture to operate the virtual puppet known as Shrek, for example. It has entered the computer gaming market, Wii and Kinect are early players.
Once developed, it is common for specialized devices to move into more general use. Once CCDs were used just for spy sats. Now you find them in cameras you can buy at K-Mart. I believe in a few decades it will be typical for a plumber to send a telerobot down a sewer pipe.
Light lag and bandwidth are two obstacles to using telerobots. In both those respects, the moon is considerably better than places like near earth asteroids or Mars.
ONLY if you don't have a cheap LEO transport system - as I said, in this case, you'll have to wait a long time before you make a profit.
Once you do, setting up an asteroid mining operation in a decade should be feasible.
A mining business would mean transporting heavy ore all the way to earth. Any propulsion system that uses chemical energy would be inadequate for this task (beyond, perhaps, transporting the first machines and the personnel to the mining site), if you want a profit - regardless of fuel being mined from the moon, etc.
You must send the ore using either mass drivers (solar or nuclear powered) or using nuclear propulsion.
Indeed, chemical reactions simply don't generate enough energy. The craft so powered are too expensive to build and maintain, use FAR too much fuel, are too slow, too heavy, have too many failure modes.
A true interplanetary society must use nuclear power (fission or fusion); nothing less suffices for easy (more or less) interplanetary transport.
Last edited:
Welding? You name this as a serious problem?
Welding is quite feasible in vacuum. Ah, yes, the current welding machines will need to be modified somewhat, but that's it - any reasonably competent engineer should be up to the task. No theoretical difficulties, no new materials needed, etc.
As for manoeuvrability - of course NASA's current suits are unfit for the task.
The problem of making a better suit is somewhat more difficult than making a welding machine - but not even close to insurmountable.
I heard some time ago of a proposed space suit that doesn't use gas to maintain the human body at an adequate pressure, but rather an elastic undersuit, which would push against the skin of the astronaut.
If such problems are insurmountable (and more than once, I heard similar problems referred to as impassable obstacles), then the truth is we, as a species, are technological retards that don't have the brain power necessary in order to escape our home planet.
Naming conventions again, eh?
Read my previous posts regarding the size of my proposed O'Neill colony and how little I care/it matters whether one names it O'Neill colony/space station/whatever.
Also, read about the mission architecture I sketched above - you go to an asteroid to stay, for years (at least until the next launch window, when you'll be replaced by another crew), in order to mine it. You bring industrial equipment, etc, and your first task is to become self-sufficient (as in you won't need expensive shipments from earth merely to survive) aka build the O'Neill colony/space station/whatever with the initially mined ore. Only afterwards, will you start to send the ore to earth. The investment will amortize itself in decades, if necessary (not in a mere few years).
Last edited:
http://chamberland.blogspot.com/2006/07/dangers-of-artificial-gravity.html
http://www.graybiel.brandeis.edu/history/walthamnews.html
http://www.graybiel.brandeis.edu/history/finalfrontier.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14501105
http://jn.physiology.org/cgi/reprint/80/2/546.pdf
I got those cites from this thread
Used to mean adjusting to a climate. Now a more general use is gradually getting used to something.
For the mining to be feasible, it should be cheaper or comparable in price to:
1. Mining it on Earth.
2. Manufacturing it on Earth.
3. Simply using something else or not using it at all.
And even then, it would be more profitable than being done by unmanned robots. We already have a profitable space endeavour – satellites. Not surprisingly, none of them have personnel up there supporting them, all of them are unmanned, and if they break – we simply send another one. While mining is more difficult than what satellites do, advancement in robotics happen fast enough, so I don't see why mining missions would be any different.
The only hope is that the mining equipment will be massive enough to make the price of life support and human personnel negligible in comparison. But even that doesn't translate into a colony, let alone a happy one.
Oh acclimatisation.
They say adaptation to higher rotatation is possible but nobody has done any research into the long-term effects of living under those conditions. We know humans can't live for long in zero gravity without serious skeletal degradation. We do know that they can live and work in zero gravity for months. It just isn't good for them and they require a lot of rehab when they get home.
They say adaptation to higher rotatation is possible but nobody has done any research into the long-term effects of living under those conditions. We know humans can't live for long in zero gravity without serious skeletal degradation. We do know that they can live and work in zero gravity for months. It just isn't good for them and they require a lot of rehab when they get home.
1) A cheap LEO transport system doesn't exist and likely won't exist in the near future.
2) There are many other obstacles to establishing an asteroid mine. I've already mentioned rare launch windows and long trip times. There is also the fact that humanity's mining experience comes from an environment with liquid water, air, and gravity. Mining and civil engineering in microgravity and vacuum is something we have virtually zero experience in. Acquiring this experience would be time consuming and expensive.
If you were moving between the asteroid and earth's surface, this would be so.
If you are moving between a near earth asteroid and EML1, round trip could be as low as 2 km/s. Chemical is more than adequate for this delta V budget.
Mass drivers are a potential game changer. And the airless moon is amenable to mass drivers. Developing and gaining experience with mass drivers on our close neighbor Luna is more doable than developing this technology on a remote asteroid.
This is a common misconception. Given orbital propellant depots, chemical is more than adequate. EML1 and EML2 are two key locations. Having propellant, water and air at these locations would change the game.
But, how would you get those there..except from Earth..or the Moon.. noting that for each Kg of matter brought up from the Earth you pay $20,000 to get it to geosynchronous orbit.
for the Moon, one has the added costs of facilities and operation as well as huge start-up costs..
One has to have an infrastructure built up to do anything one proposes, and it's simply not there yet..and wont be with current expendentures..
This isn't the 21st century of "The Thunderbirds" no matter how much I'd like it to be...
Chemical rockets are simply impractical for long term space colonization.. period.
And, after the initial investment (which will, indeed, be considerable) mining aka cutting up an asteroid will be far cheaper than digging massive holes on Earth for bounties meager by comparison.
Satellites need only perform repetitive tasks - and very little in the way of manipulating one's environment - present computers are sufficient for the task.
Mining something is a task FAR beyond present day AIs or current robotic bodies.
Indeed, it requires theoretical breakthroughs we do no possess yet - which, for all we know, may not come for hundreds of years.
On the other hand, building tools\life support systems\etc is well within our technological capability.
Building on site, with all the raw materials and energy you need - you can make the space station\O'Neill colony massive enough for a very comfortable life.
Further - if we look at historical examples - the so-called sailing age of discovery - we see that humans don't go insane - or become suicidal/etc - after years living on uncomfortable, cramped ships, risking death every day by a random storm.
Last edited:
Wouldn't launch loops serve as “mass drivers” on Earth? They have the potential to decrease the cost for launching people and equipment from Earth too.
I never said "insurmountable", of course it's surmountable, but right now its very difficult to the point that NASA hasn't even considered it when assembling things on orbit, and I am guessing they have more than a few "competent engineers".
And it's not just about the spacesuit being inflexible. 0G makes even the simplest tasks difficult compared to doing it on earth. It's going to be a long time before we are ready to build a large spacestation (on the order of 100 occupants) with simulated gravity never mind an O'Neil colony.
The things you seem to think are 20 years off are actually 50 years off and the things you think are 50 years off are closer to 100 years down the line.
They will be built in my opinion, just not as soon as you think.
Likely?
Well, NASA won't make one, that's for sure.
But, as said, there are convincing proposals. For example Skylon; and here's an old one - G O'Neill mentioned it in "the high frontier" - mass drivers 'floating' via balloons at a high altitude above Earth (if you read the full details from the book, it will sound a lot less silly).
I find your discussed objections regarding delta v and launch windows to Nereus not much of an impediment at all - as long as you travel to Nereus (or another NEO) to stay.
About 'mining experience' - this belongs to the category of eminently solvable obstacles that are considered game-stoppers (much like developing new space suits).
Even from Earth, we can theoretically deduce many of the adjustments we need to make to our machines and techniques for mining in 0g. There will be unforseen surprises, which will slow us down at the beginning, yes - but it won't take us long to solve them.
In any new field, experience is gained rapidly - as the recent history proved.
Unlike building AIs capable of autonomous mining or robot bodies versatile enough - which, for all we know, is not even possible until we reach a degree of nanotechnology comparable to living tissue.
I disagree.
Unless we are talking about astronomical amounts of chemical fuel (as per the rocket equation) situated at EML1 or EML2 or anywhere else (which, of course, require money to be put there), the launch windows towards Mars or an NEO or another human colony will be few and far between.
The ships' speed will be low - meaning VERY LONG travel time.
The ship will have to be VERY LIGHT - meaning little commerce.
Etc.
As said - there's not enough energy in chemical fuels to create anything resembling easy interplanetary transport, anything resembling interplanetary trade.
Chemical propulsion is yesterday's news.
During the last 80 years, it proved it's not capable of getting us efficiently out of our gravity well.
Simple calculations prove it necessitates VERY long travel times and is capable of carrying VERY little mass at the interplanetary level.
Plus, mass drivers are another technology fully within our capabilities to build.
You are joking of course. Digging relatively small holes on Earth produces fabulous wealth. That isn't going to go away any time soon.
Yes, but a lot of them weren't very happy and a lot of them did die. A lot of them didn't volunteer and a lot of them had long term illnesses that shortened their lives. For every jolly jack tar you had ten miserable bastards.
Such advances may be made in only in 50-100 years, but they can be made now - at our technological level, we have the ability to make them with few advances in the relevant fields - and not of the major variety.
We don't have the willingness to invest into making them now - that's a completely different matter from objectively not being able to make them.
About NASA having more than a few competent engineers - show, don't tell.
During the last 30 years, their main accomplishment was to keep the shuttle operational - with a few disasters along the road, and by spending HUGE sums of money.
Nowadays, they're having trouble building a slightly better/larger Apollo (using shuttle parts/etc).
The fact that, after so many years worth of delays, they barely made progress - and the fact that they don't reach after Apollo's plans (which they should have) and just rebuild the thing - actually manages to lend credence to the conspiracy theories that said the moon landings were faked and the whole moon program, a sham.
HIGHLY UNIMPRESSIVE.
Contrast this with SpaceX.
Nowadays, everything seems to be difficult for Nasa.
Nasa says a problem is very difficult? I look for a second opinion.
