My quick plan for the near future of space exploration

[jverne]

what i think should happen to space exploration in the next 30-70 years.

1. without a doubt we need to form an international space agency that would deal with all civilian projects concerning space

*2. the space elevator needs funding since it's probably the only viable concept to actually enable us an efficient transport to space (if you think it is science fiction...start reading, you'll be surprised)

3. we should dump the idea of manned missions, except maybe the establishment of a moon outpost. but mars is out of the question for now

4. put huge investment into observatory devices, telescopes, like the James Webb telescope, or even better the ATLAS

5. continue projects like the ISS

6. ion propulsion needs huge support, since it's the only reasonable means of interplanetary travel, but i'm hoping solar sails gets a chance too

7. robotic exploration needs to be the only way of exploration for now, with the support of the whole international community we could be sending real badass robots out there, not some budget ones.


*the space elevator is probably the only really huge challenge but it is quickly becoming reality http://www.spaceelevator.com/, http://www.liftport.com/


so thats my rough plan what we should be doing in the near future, manned missions are cool but currently way to expensive

 

[Shakermaker]

/Looks at username and chuckles

 

[Eejit]

Space Elevator needs to be built. Once we have that everything else becomes a whole lot easier.

 

[Polaris]

Definitely agree with your plan. Space elevator should be priority number one.
We also should develop and fabricate small, unmaned, self-replicating, autonomous space droids that could really help us with exploration.

 

[Eejit]

Hellllll no! They'll turn into Berzerkers!

 

[Polaris]

Hellllll no! They'll turn into Berzerkers!

What is that?

 

[jverne]

What is that?

crazy ass raping robots


but joke aside, i don't think drones actually have any role in the near future of space exploration.
some day they might come useful for space mining, but that's another story.

 

[French Ninja]

I disagree with #1.

Competition = good for space tech

 

[Shift]

Im reading that properly? An elevator going to the moon? Or is not as it sounds?

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Not to the moon, just out into space.

 

[Jintor]

See it makes it easy to get shit out into orbit and free from earth's gravity, once we get it working anyway.

 

[jverne]

I disagree with #1.

Competition = good for space tech

not really because it's not an open market. we need as a whole to establish some goals and pursue them. the challenge of succeeding is enough. no point in racing who goes to mars first, since they'll probably end up with the same type of technology and thus going trough the trouble of researching it twice.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

IMO we need to privatise space travel, which will speed up development. Unfortunatly, currently its to expensive for even the wealthiest of coroporations. But nanotechnology and other emerging tech will make space travel a lot cheaper and shit.

 

[VirusType2]

IMO we need to privatise space travel, which will speed up development.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...sult&cd=1&q=virgin+galactic+privatize&spell=1

Thousands of people are signing up to take a ride on Virgin Galactic's first commercial space flights. This week, Star Trek's Captain James T. Kirk, William Shatner, added his to name to the list.

According to Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic, more than 7,000 people have already registered to take the $210,000 flight that will send passengers 70 miles above the earth.

The first flights are expected to take off by 2008. Lasting about 3 1/2 hours, the historic space flights will offer about 6 minutes off weightlessness, and allow passengers to look down on Earth from space.

http://www.soultek.com/space_privatization/Virgin_Galactic_Captain_Kirk_and_spaceshipone.htm

 

[Hazar]

I'm eagerly following the development of the commercial Spaceport America right here in New Mexico.

 

[<RJMC>]

my plan is

1-conquer switzerland

2-take all the chocolate

3-???

4-profit?

 

[Eejit]

What is that?

Evil Von Neumann probes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft#Berserkers

 

[lefty]

Space escalator sounds interesting.

 

[Eejit]

A space escalator would be pretty wierd tbh.

 

[nurizeko]

Lol noobs, moon landings were fake, so are all other space missions, you can't go to space, you'd die even in a spaceship, theres nothing in space for rocket thrust to push against, radiation would kill everything because its so powerful, micro-meteorites are everywhere just waiting and shit and its all science fiction.




Lets just concentrate on extracting oil and shit and thanking god for letting us live on this Earth he provided. We need to solve our problems down here anyway before we can even begin to think about putting anything up in space.





Space elevator would make things so much easier, it could probably revolutionize human presence in space, give it a kick start.

 

[Smoke]

Definitely agree with your plan. Space elevator should be priority number one.
We also should develop and fabricate small, unmaned, self-replicating, autonomous space droids that could really help us with exploration.

D:!

 

[Jintor]

GREY GOO SCENARIO

Holy shit

 

[theotherguy]

what i think should happen to space exploration in the next 30-70 years.

1. without a doubt we need to form an international space agency that would deal with all civilian projects concerning space

Yes, countries need to pool resources to work on big projects like ISS. We also need more privitization.

*2. the space elevator needs funding since it's probably the only viable concept to actually enable us an efficient transport to space (if you think it is science fiction...start reading, you'll be surprised)

The space elevator is out of the picture for now. We don't have the materials or manufacturing ability to make one.

3. we should dump the idea of manned missions, except maybe the establishment of a moon outpost. but mars is out of the question for now

No. No. No. NO!

Manned missions represent the greatest, most noble, most important part of space exploration. We MUST establish a colony on Mars sometime in the future, and we MUST begin terraforming as soon as possible. We should skip the moon and go straight to Mars, pool all of our resources into it. If there isn't enough money, the budget should be raised rather than cutting other programs.

4. put huge investment into observatory devices, telescopes, like the James Webb telescope, or even better the ATLAS

Agreed, but do NOT cut manned missions for this, increase funding across the board.

5. continue projects like the ISS

Agreed, but again, don't cut the manned missions.

6. ion propulsion needs huge support, since it's the only reasonable means of interplanetary travel, but i'm hoping solar sails gets a chance too

Ion propulsion is terrible for human space travel, because it is very very slow. Its okay for certain probes that can travel for years at a time. Solar sails are expensive and very theoretical. Instead, we should focus on plasma propulsion and nuclear propulsion. These are the future of spaceflight, not ion engines or solar sails.

7. robotic exploration needs to be the only way of exploration for now, with the support of the whole international community we could be sending real badass robots out there, not some budget ones.

Robotic exploration has serious limits. As a roboticist, I am really enthusiastic about robotic space exploration, but sending a robot to mars does not equal sending a team of humans. There are so many limitations to robotics in the areas of power, AI, locomotion, etc. which could be solved by a manned mission.

"Budget?" Are you ****ing serious? The current Mars Phoenix lander cost us $366 million.

*the space elevator is probably the only really huge challenge but it is quickly becoming reality http://www.spaceelevator.com/, http://www.liftport.com/

I seriously doubt we will see space elevators before 2050.

We could easily see a manned Mars mission by 2030.

 

[The Monkey]

What's the point of sending ****ing robots to Mars? We gotta send real people, otherwise we might as well not go at all.

 

[mrman234]

Space elevators would screw up life when passing through the Van allen belt.

 

[Phobie]

Mmmm chocolate.

I'd love to go into space. I really would. I think I'd be very scared though.