Discussion The next 100 years..

[richfororbit]

Ever since Constellation was cancelled by Obama, I doubt that America's space program will ever go to Mars or even back to the Moon. I hope Russia's and China's space programs progress enough so at least someone would finally go to the outer planets.

Yes I think that is true, people like Mr Cernan, the last commander on the moon are quite disappointed. Ofcourse a guy like him is living in the past, as he realises the former adversary takes the Astronauts up in their craft.

As for Russia, according to their space agancy there isn't any plans. As for the Chinese well they say they want too but realistically they have quite a long way to go.

But Mr Heinberg made some good points. I was only fifteen when he was interviewed in that clip. When I was at that age, I actually thought personnel based spacecraft would be exploring somewhere by this particular year. How optimistic for a teen, I thought the world would move away from the self driven beast mentality that almost all of us have, I even thought the chicken and chip shop would be consigned to history by 2010.:lol:

I enjoy that myself, though only selective takeaways. h:

I guess Commander Cernan's mission may have been the beginning of the end, along with that "peace and hope for all mankind".

 

[C3PO]

I don't think we need a heavy launch vehicle for that. It is a dinosaur. We only need it, if we would never expect to master on-orbit assembly - and with the ISS project, we have come a long way ahead in that field of astronautics.

That's one of the main reason I'm excited about the Dream Chaser. Add a tug that can be refueled on-orbit, and you could have the beginning of a totally different way of doing business in space.

 

[Kyle]

What I'd like to see in the next 100 years (based on current track of the space program). This would be the absolute best case scenario for us without anything going wrong and the right amount of political motivation. Public support exists, just buried deep within the American subconscious.

2013: Chang'e 3 lands on the moon, pictures are taken of the Chinese flag being portrayed on the vehicle back-dropped by the Earth (China facing). This reinvigorates a new urgency for space flight not seen since the Apollo era.
2014: EFT-1 launches.
2015: SpaceX launches first manned flight, 3 orbits and returns.
2017: SpaceX and Sierra Nevada begin commercial crew to ISS.
2018: SLS launches with second Orion flight.
2020: SLS launches with a large probe to land on Europa, life is discovered in microbial stages near fissures at the very bottom of the Europa ocean.
2022: SLS launches on two flights, one with a lunar module and one with an Orion. The two meet up in lunar orbit and the LM lands. Continued manned lunar missions through 2028.
2025: China lands on the moon, unlike the Soviet Union promises to continue to venture on to Mars and challenges the United States.
2030: Confirmed discovery of an exoplanet with water and life. This discovery is confirmed by the amount of methane detected in an otherwise oxygen-nitrogen ritch atmosphere. Life exists in other solar systems.
2031: First manned orbital insertion into Martian orbit via SpaceX/NASA/ESA/RSA/ combined efforts.
2033: First manned landing on Mars with SpaceX/ESA/RSA/NASA.
2033 - 2045: Martian operations, base is built on Mars and Phobos.
2050: Manned mission to Europa.
2050 - 2070: Continued human operations in the solar system, manned missions to Ganymede, Callisto, Titan and Enceladus.

 

[kamaz]

RICHARD HEINBERG on OUR POST-CARBON FUTURE - YouTube

The interview mentions Hugo Chavez coming recently to power, so I guess it's from 2000 or so. Well, it is now 2013 and:

- the main concern is not lack of carbon, but rather that we have to start phasing out carbon FAST due to global warming;

- human population is projected to peak at 9 billion versus current 7 billion;

- the main concern in developed countries is not that they have too much people -- it's that they will enter a downward population spiral;

- [url="http://gigaom.com/2013/08/26/a-decade-later-tesla-now-officially-a-threat-to-the-auto-industry/']someone has managed to build an economically viable electric car[/url]. So much for the claim that liquid fuels are indispensable;

- the same guy has managed to build a launch vehicle that is one order of magnitude cheaper than competition;

- we (humanity) have built a totally awesome space station, which gets no love because it was a cooperative effort and not a race

Yes, the 21st century is going to be a bumpy ride but we're at least making some progress.

And, we'll probably have a permanently manned Moon/Mars facility in the 2040 time frame. Just give it time.

 

[Urwumpe]

- someone has managed to build an economically viable electric car. So much for the claim that liquid fuels are indispensable;

- the same guy has managed to build a launch vehicle that is one order of magnitude cheaper than competition;

And turned water into whine.... :facepalm: [Citation needed]

Facts:

The car costs 71000 Euro in its cheapest version. And is outperformed technically and ecologically (battery production!) by a 14000 Euro car. For the 85,000 Euro model, you can buy two Porsches or three Golf GTI. What Tesla only really does, is showing how it could be done. But they still fail being really better.

(Source: http://www.teslamotors.com/de_DE/models/options)

And the launch vehicle costs are currently the same or even higher than comparable launch vehicles. What is cheaper is only promised for the future... and only needs to be sold once for that price, since it is no consumer product.

I put more hope into the new direct conversion of water into hydrogen by sunlight, which can also be used for powering existing cars by making it react with CO2 from the air into LPG. Making batteries cheaper, safer, better and more ecologic will likely take a few decades more at the current speed of research, despite being ultimatively the better solution... if it could really perform as good as in theory possible.

 

[Tychonaut]

2020: SLS launches with a large probe to land on Europa, life is discovered in microbial stages near fissures at the very bottom of the Europa ocean.

So, in seven years, not only will SLS be flight-ready, but someone will pony up the billions of dollars necessary to launch one. In the meantime, billions more will be found someplace to fund development and construction of a largely-autonomous submarine for Europa exploration. Presumably along with a time machine to send the development team a decade or two into the past so they have time to do the engineering work to make a minimally-functional probe. But then I guess they could just Star Trek it and steal the tech from the future, so it never gets invented...
This magical probe must:
-survive the atrocious radiation environment at Europa's orbit;
-successfully land on Europa;
-tunnel through kilometers of rock-hard ice to reach the probable ocean underneath;
-cruise through this ocean to locate and reach a putative vent;
-find a possible biosample, bring it aboard and subject it to some form of test that provides compelling evidence it is, or was, alive.
indeed.
Compare all this to MSL, which had seven years from instrument proposals to launch for a much less demanding mission in a much less brutal environment, based on successful prior missions.
I apologize if this is harsh, but here we have left the best-case scenarios behind and entered the realm of pure fantasy.

In 100 years, future Orbinauts will enter a full-immersion shared virtual reality Brighton Beach to debate whether the space agency du jour will get their funding request to launch an astro/taiko/cosmonaut on a sub-orbital hop for their million-child singalong.
Human space exploration will have red-shifted beyond the visible as it recedes ever farther into the future.
Oh, and get off my space lawn.

 

[N_Molson]

I'm confident that SLS is now on the track. Now, it will certainly take time to send human to Mars. Now that the 150(*2)-days trip maximum has been set as a criteria (because of radiations exposure), there is a lot of work required to develop and test in space a NTR or VASMIR upper stage that can provide the Delta-V. That will cost a lot of money in R&D and take a lot of time. Technologies used for the SLS itself are almost mature : most parts come from precedent programs, and the design is not new. Now it's time to develop that upper stage, and the asteroid capture mission is going to be a testbed for those technologies. Really doesn't seem nonsense to me. It is just going to take a lot of time. And anyway that's all what we have, so...

I bet for a manned Mars landing for 2040. I'll be 57 y.o., so I "just" have to avoid stupid deaths, chemical wars, and reasonably take care of my health & fitness to be sure to see that. Easy. :hmm:

 

[Artlav]

As i said earlier in this 2011-ish thread, the question is whether we would go anywhere in space manned before "manned" becomes obsolete.

There are so many ways humans can cease to exist, through extinction or obsolescence.
What kind of space exploration we will have is direct consequence of how the world would turn out.
And good luck predicting that - where is my flying car?

 

[Kyle]

So, in seven years, not only will SLS be flight-ready, but someone will pony up the billions of dollars necessary to launch one. In the meantime, billions more will be found someplace to fund development and construction of a largely-autonomous submarine for Europa exploration. Presumably along with a time machine to send the development team a decade or two into the past so they have time to do the engineering work to make a minimally-functional probe. But then I guess they could just Star Trek it and steal the tech from the future, so it never gets invented...
This magical probe must:
-survive the atrocious radiation environment at Europa's orbit;
-successfully land on Europa;
-tunnel through kilometers of rock-hard ice to reach the probable ocean underneath;
-cruise through this ocean to locate and reach a putative vent;
-find a possible biosample, bring it aboard and subject it to some form of test that provides compelling evidence it is, or was, alive.
indeed.
Compare all this to MSL, which had seven years from instrument proposals to launch for a much less demanding mission in a much less brutal environment, based on successful prior missions.
I apologize if this is harsh, but here we have left the best-case scenarios behind and entered the realm of pure fantasy.

In 100 years, future Orbinauts will enter a full-immersion shared virtual reality Brighton Beach to debate whether the space agency du jour will get their funding request to launch an astro/taiko/cosmonaut on a sub-orbital hop for their million-child singalong.
Human space exploration will have red-shifted beyond the visible as it recedes ever farther into the future.
Oh, and get off my space lawn.

Did the instructions for the thread not say "Make your predicted/fantasy space chronology, 2011-2111?"

Not allowed a bit of fun am I?

Also, have a read at this, so the idea has been thrown around: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012...pa-lander-capability-enceladus-sample-return/

 

[C3PO]

And good luck predicting that - where is my flying car?

I got pretty close once :lol:

Still it was only suborbital.

 

[richfororbit]

The interview mentions Hugo Chavez coming recently to power, so I guess it's from 2000 or so. Well, it is now 2013 and:

- the main concern is not lack of carbon, but rather that we have to start phasing out carbon FAST due to global warming;

- human population is projected to peak at 9 billion versus current 7 billion;

- the main concern in developed countries is not that they have too much people -- it's that they will enter a downward population spiral;

- [url="http://gigaom.com/2013/08/26/a-decade-later-tesla-now-officially-a-threat-to-the-auto-industry/']someone has managed to build an economically viable electric car[/url]. So much for the claim that liquid fuels are indispensable;

- the same guy has managed to build a launch vehicle that is one order of magnitude cheaper than competition;

- we (humanity) have built a totally awesome space station, which gets no love because it was a cooperative effort and not a race

Yes, the 21st century is going to be a bumpy ride but we're at least making some progress.

And, we'll probably have a permanently manned Moon/Mars facility in the 2040 time frame. Just give it time.

Be careful with those so called people who state that.

Heinberg was interviewed in 2004. It's about a year after the blackout in America in 2003 or was it Canada.

 

[Tychonaut]

Did the instructions for the thread not say "Make your predicted/fantasy space chronology, 2011-2111?"

Not allowed a bit of fun am I?

Also, have a read at this, so the idea has been thrown around: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012...pa-lander-capability-enceladus-sample-return/

Fun? What is this fun? There's no budget for fun in space, unless it's silly media stunts.
I'm not surprised someone has proposed such a launch. There's probably even a pretty .ppt for the "mission." But all you can explore with Powerpoint is the depths of human madness.
I didn't take issue with the idea of a Europa lander, eventually. What I took issue with is your timeline, which is so fantastic the mission may as well involve staged dragons in place of SLS, and a crew of hobbits.

 

[Ghostrider]

the mission may as well involve staged dragons in place of SLS, and a crew of hobbits.

Mission proposal accepted.

I mean, they managed to VTOL a whole ship (Vingilot) once.

 

[Kyle]

Fun? What is this fun? There's no budget for fun in space, unless it's silly media stunts.
I'm not surprised someone has proposed such a launch. There's probably even a pretty .ppt for the "mission." But all you can explore with Powerpoint is the depths of human madness.
I didn't take issue with the idea of a Europa lander, eventually. What I took issue with is your timeline, which is so fantastic the mission may as well involve staged dragons in place of SLS, and a crew of hobbits.

Why can't I have a crew of hobbits? This is a forum, I'm not establishing space policy as fact nor am I setting a precedent for what I think "will" happen with absolute certainty. Not entirely sure what your beef is. That's just what I'd like to see in my little own fantasy world.

Since you seem absolved on me being "realistic" on a forum that holds no consequence, then I present you with a far more realistic "fantasy" world that I've concluded and I'm more willing to believe. Fair warned, there may be no dancing hobbits involved in this flying aboard Dragon's (expect ones by SpaceX).

2013 - NASA down-selects to SpaceX.
2014 - EFT-1 launches in September.
2015 - Falcon Heavy flies.
2016 - SpaceX launches first manned crew.
2018 - SpaceX sends first expedition to the ISS.
2018 - SLS launches with EM-1 to high altitude unmanned mission,
2021 - SLS launches with EM-2 to lunar orbital mission, Asteroid mission abandoned.
early-2020s - SLS cancelled due to lack of vision, massive budgets, and delays.
2025 - ISS deorbited, China begins to construct own space station (delayed from completion in 2020).
mid-2020s - SpaceX undertakes a manned circumlunar flight with the SpaceX Dragon and Falcon Heavy.

Based on that time period, I have no idea at all what will become of human spaceflight. SpaceX might eventually undertake a manned mission to Mars in the 2030s, with a landing in the 2040s.

 

[Ghostrider]

Why can't I have a crew of hobbits?

You can have it, but while Hobbits take up less space than, say, Men or Elves, they eat a lot more - up to 6 meals a day. You're going to have to pack far more supplies and then have a special room in which they can smoke pipeweed.

Having an all-Elven crew might be better: you can stock up the ship with lembas and they can live on crumbs of it, like, forever. They can also work while sleeping and, being immortal, you can plan longer-duration missions than you could with Men, even of Númenorean descent. If you're serious about colonizing airless worlds or any planet with a hostile environment, I'd pick Dwarves: they're resilient, they like it underground and there are no better builders anywhere, period.

But a Hobbit crew is certainly feasible, if challenging.

 

[Artlav]

If you can fantasise, why not imagine that anti-gravity will be invented and proliferated by 2015?

Seriously, it would take just one invention on the scale of a transistor to throw any predictions off completely.

 

[Urwumpe]

Seriously, it would take just one invention on the scale of a transistor to throw any predictions off completely.

And that despite transistors being not even a complete freak accident, the capabilities and chances with semiconductors had been known for decades before that invention, and the behavior of transistors being still similar enough to tubes to understand the implications quickly....

Some predictors simply didn't do their homework back then.

We also expected that Moores Law will fail some years ago. And then multicore CPUs fixed it, despite the difference that now the software is the limiting factor.

 

[Tychonaut]

Why can't I have a crew of hobbits? This is a forum, I'm not establishing space policy as fact nor am I setting a precedent for what I think "will" happen with absolute certainty. Not entirely sure what your beef is. That's just what I'd like to see in my little own fantasy world.

Certainly you're entitled to whatever fantasies you like. Equally, once you share them anyone else is free to offer criticism.
I apologize if it seems I have a personal beef. I don't. The proposal stuck in my craw because of my personal interest in Europa, and personal loathing of SLS.

On the other hand, I look forward to Hobbitnauts in Orbiter. :thumbup:

 

[Kyle]

Certainly you're entitled to whatever fantasies you like. Equally, once you share them anyone else is free to offer criticism.
I apologize if it seems I have a personal beef. I don't. The proposal stuck in my craw because of my personal interest in Europa, and personal loathing of SLS.

On the other hand, I look forward to Hobbitnauts in Orbiter. :thumbup:

Oh it's no problem at all! I was simply wondering what type of beef you prefer. :thumbup: :tiphat:

 

[Tychonaut]

Oh it's no problem at all! I was simply wondering what type of beef you prefer. :thumbup: :tiphat:

Filet mignon, please. In a squeeze tube. On the way to Mars. :thumbup: