Other nations know SpaceX has won but the USA could build a lead in space sustainable to 2100

[MadSquabbles500]

The Chinese had the tech to colonize North America before anyone but didn't. Politics/economics/desperation decide these things more than technology in my opinion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_treasure_voyages

Yeh, I have made this statement before on here and another forum. If you look at the north Pacific, there is a chain of islands that lead all the way from China to NA. If be much easier to island hop to the new world, than what the vikings or Columbus did. There is no way the Chinese did not discover NA first, but just did not bother to settle.

 

[2arctanx]

Im sad that i wont live long enough to see human settlements and cities on other planets

you will be the grandpa of those settlements.

 

[superpunch]

Atomic bomb explosions arent going to make trips around the Star System that much shorter. It may be more efficient at pushing any really big space ships we decide to make, but still be slow as heck.

Project Orion was theoretically capable of reaching 10% of the speed of light in 1 month of acceleration. It could have made the trip to Alpha Centauri in 44 years.

More importantly, new technology is created from enhancements to old technologies. There would be no microprocessor if there were never vacuum tube processors. No one would have come up with the idea for a gun powder launched projectile if there had never been a bow and arrow, and no one would have thought of that had there never been a spear. This is why technology is increasing at a relatively quadratic rate; as the base of technology expands, there's more technology to advance off of, and as there's more advancements the base of technology gets bigger... resulting in more technology being discovered in a few decades than the preceding centuries, and soon more every few years than the prior millennium.

Whatever the technology is that ultimately takes us to the stars and beyond is developed by doing things like Project Orion and discovering new physics and new engineering from it. Building nuclear propulsion rockets in the 1960s could have led to unexpected discoveries that resulted in a warp drive or something by now.

 

[MadSquabbles500]

Project Orion was theoretically capable of reaching 10% of the speed of light in 1 month of acceleration. It could have made the trip to Alpha Centauri in 44 years.

More importantly, new technology is created from enhancements to old technologies. There would be no microprocessor if there were never vacuum tube processors. No one would have come up with the idea for a gun powder launched projectile if there had never been a bow and arrow, and no one would have thought of that had there never been a spear. This is why technology is increasing at a relatively quadratic rate; as the base of technology expands, there's more technology to advance off of, and as there's more advancements the base of technology gets bigger... resulting in more technology being discovered in a few decades than the preceding centuries, and soon more every few years than the prior millennium.

Whatever the technology is that ultimately takes us to the stars and beyond is developed by doing things like Project Orion and discovering new physics and new engineering from it. Building nuclear propulsion rockets in the 1960s could have led to unexpected discoveries that resulted in a warp drive or something by now.

I get the enhancements to old tech, but I still think project orion is not moving ahead, but rather side stepping. Its really just another form of chemical propellant. We been dicking around with that for a while, and already know all its limitations.

 

[Andy Capp]

Right. Umm...

I appreciate being tagged to this thread, but I don't understand its significance in the post. Was it sort of a parenthetical?

 

[Andy Capp]

Blows my mind that we have the technology to make interstellar capable rockets, would have had manned missions to Mars in the mid 1970s and manned missions to the outer solar system like Jupiter in the early 1980s. And who knows to where by 2018? Yet we struggle to send a man into fucking space, let alone even the moon.

Space technology is such a joke <_< The most important and coolest thing we can be doing now, and we failed it. Our society functioned to make advancements to bullshit like 4K TVs and 3d porn but failed on exploring the universe. There's something fundamentally sick about that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

This part is (probably) not true, "would have had manned missions to Mars in the mid 1970s and manned missions to the outer solar system like Jupiter in the early 1980s."

There are a lot of things that have yet to be worked out regarding ensuring the astronauts survive the journey.

 

[Tiny]

unless war funds this machine...this isnt going to happen.

why the fuck would you want to live in outter space?

 

[Andy Capp]

why the fuck would you want to live in outter space?

The main reason I think heavy investment in creating colonies of humans elsewhere than on Earth is a good idea is that there are a number of different things that could wipe out most or all life on Earth. Not only that, but it's really only a matter of time before any one or all of them happen; it's just that it could be tomorrow or a million years from now. We literally have all our eggs in one large basket right now. It doesn't make sense to not care about all of humanity getting wiped out in one fell swoop so, as I've said before, we need to get off this rock.

The NASA budget is a pittance. It's pathetic. It's also nonsensical. The technological spinoffs alone make it a worthwhile endeavour.

 

[JonesBones]

The main reason I think heavy investment in creating colonies of humans elsewhere than on Earth is a good idea is that there are a number of different things that could wipe out most or all life on Earth. Not only that, but it's really only a matter of time before any one or all of them happen; it's just that it could be tomorrow or a million years from now. We literally have all our eggs in one large basket right now. It doesn't make sense to not care about all of humanity getting wiped out in one fell swoop so, as I've said before, we need to get off this rock.

The NASA budget is a pittance. It's pathetic. It's also nonsensical. The technological spinoffs alone make it a worthwhile endeavour.

And Jeff Bezos thinks that is a ridiculous reason to explore space. The solar system is not gonna save us. I'm with him over morons like Musk. Move to Mount Everest for a year before trying Mars.



And your entire point is so feminine and maternal. Where are we gonna have babies? Where can we put our hatch lings? You sound like a mother who is worried about her daughter giving her a grandchild. Why do you care? Why is it so important to you that your kind keeps going after you are gone? Is your biological clock ticking?

 

[Tiny]

The main reason I think heavy investment in creating colonies of humans elsewhere than on Earth is a good idea is that there are a number of different things that could wipe out most or all life on Earth. Not only that, but it's really only a matter of time before any one or all of them happen; it's just that it could be tomorrow or a million years from now. We literally have all our eggs in one large basket right now. It doesn't make sense to not care about all of humanity getting wiped out in one fell swoop so, as I've said before, we need to get off this rock.

The NASA budget is a pittance. It's pathetic. It's also nonsensical. The technological spinoffs alone make it a worthwhile endeavour.

We wont survive long term in space unless you find technology that can closely match the living conditions here on earth.

If we attempt to live out in space, life spans will be greatly decreased, and physically we would drastically be weakened and over generations altered and changed.

Currently its a dead issue. Im ok with further reasearch and improvment but right now loving in space long term isnt viable with current tech

 

[JonesBones]

We wont survive long term in space unless you find technology that can closely match the living conditions here on earth.

If we attempt to live out in space, life spans will be greatly decreased, and physically we would drastically be weakened and over generations altered and changed.

Currently its a dead issue. Im ok with further reasearch and improvment but right now loving in space long term isnt viable with current tech

But Elon Musk wants to be the first human to be buried on Mars and we MUST make that happen. Just like putting a car into fuckin space. Another vanity project. As with all things Musk is involved with, everything begins and ends with him.

 

[GhostZ06]

Project Orion was theoretically capable of reaching 10% of the speed of light in 1 month of acceleration. It could have made the trip to Alpha Centauri in 44 years.

More importantly, new technology is created from enhancements to old technologies. There would be no microprocessor if there were never vacuum tube processors. No one would have come up with the idea for a gun powder launched projectile if there had never been a bow and arrow, and no one would have thought of that had there never been a spear. This is why technology is increasing at a relatively quadratic rate; as the base of technology expands, there's more technology to advance off of, and as there's more advancements the base of technology gets bigger... resulting in more technology being discovered in a few decades than the preceding centuries, and soon more every few years than the prior millennium.

Whatever the technology is that ultimately takes us to the stars and beyond is developed by doing things like Project Orion and discovering new physics and new engineering from it. Building nuclear propulsion rockets in the 1960s could have led to unexpected discoveries that resulted in a warp drive or something by now.

we have a lot of new tech coming for goring threw space. Right now its the problem of funds. Mach effect, iron thrusters, nuclear power engines...fuck we need to give them more money

 

[Quasar44]

US is set to build a new space base that rotatates around the Moon in the 2020's.When completed this will lead to the first man mission to Mars in the 2030s'

The future of space travel is 100 percent tied into the future of AI.
Humans are not designed to survive the rigors of space and you need super smart Robots to do the heavy stuff: like building the cities, mining for minerals, and producing the food.

you wont see any sizable colonies on Mars until next century.
Mars is a dead planet and just the starting point

 

[Quasar44]

The future of Space Travel will not be by spaceship but by Micro nanoships .
you would simply launch armies of nanobots to nearby Star Systems that have similar Earths. These nanobots would construct the colonies, food storage, mining.

Humans would be beamed digitally by lasers and downloaded into super computers and their bodies would be recloned by super smart nanobots.
Maybe they could even download BJJ into my brain so I would not be so bad lol

Dont ask me the details because I dont work for NASA lol. I just repeat what I read like a parrot

 

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

We can't even get earth right

 

[Andy Capp]

And Jeff Bezos thinks that is a ridiculous reason to explore space. The solar system is not gonna save us. I'm with him over morons like Musk. Move to Mount Everest for a year before trying Mars.



And your entire point is so feminine and maternal. Where are we gonna have babies? Where can we put our hatch lings? You sound like a mother who is worried about her daughter giving her a grandchild. Why do you care? Why is it so important to you that your kind keeps going after you are gone? Is your biological clock ticking?

Why shouldn't I care?

It is a 100% certainty that a disaster bad enough to threaten the entire species will strike the Earth eventually, that's why. If you have trouble understanding why that's a valid concern, I almost feel sorry for you but you sound like such a whiner in this post any such temptation was immediately squashed.

 

[Andy Capp]

We wont survive long term in space unless you find technology that can closely match the living conditions here on earth.

If we attempt to live out in space, life spans will be greatly decreased, and physically we would drastically be weakened and over generations altered and changed.

Currently its a dead issue. Im ok with further reasearch and improvment but right now loving in space long term isnt viable with current tech

If we don't put money into it we're not going to get to where it's viable. Sorta my point from the start. We have to try to succeed.

 

[GhostZ06]

US is set to build a new space base that rotatates around the Moon in the 2020's.When completed this will lead to the first man mission to Mars in the 2030s'

The future of space travel is 100 percent tied into the future of AI.
Humans are not designed to survive the rigors of space and you need super smart Robots to do the heavy stuff: like building the cities, mining for minerals, and producing the food.

you wont see any sizable colonies on Mars until next century.
Mars is a dead planet and just the starting point

Ai development has going pretty rabidly. Also they know of way to terraform mars, which i think they plan on doing that in the next 10 years.

 

[GhostZ06]

We can't even get earth right

yeah but if want to take pressure off our homeworld, we might as well move half the population up into the stars.

 

[JonesBones]

Why shouldn't I care?

It is a 100% certainty that a disaster bad enough to threaten the entire species will strike the Earth eventually, that's why. If you have trouble understanding why that's a valid concern, I almost feel sorry for you but you sound like such a whiner in this post any such temptation was immediately squashed.

Because you won't be around. Why do you care that humanity survives? Why do you have this strange maternal instinct?