[Pants-of-dog]

People who think we should ho build space colonies can go and do that.

The rest of us will stay here and try to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

[ingliz]

@Igor Antunov

When you are on Mars, where are you going to get the lead, cadmium, tempered glass, and aluminium, or the precious and scarce metals such as silver, gallium, indium, and germanium needed to make silicon photovoltaic panels?

And the energy?

The energy requirement for the production of a standard 1m x 0.5m, 32 cell photovoltaic module from scratch is 1,374 kWh. Just processing the raw regolith alone uses 11–13 kWh of electrical energy per kilogram of silicon produced.

[ckaihatsu]

People who think w should ho build space colonies can go and do that.

The rest of us will stay here and try to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Who gets the microwave energy beamed down from the moon?

[late]

Late you have lost it.

@BeesKnee5 didn't ask for NASA to be cancelled. He suggested that making sure that the Earth remains habitable is better than colonising space.

I love it when people project.

Reactionaries have been whining like that since the 1970s. The problem is that it works, NASA funding went down 90%.

The reality is NASA is a superb instrument for getting things done, and that very much includes climate science, which it has been doing for decades.

I was talking about the Big Stuff, which will have to wait until the world can cooperate a little. If it ever happens..

[late]

Who gets the microwave energy beamed down from the moon?

That's an old idea, and I can't say I am enthusiastic about it. It's certainly possible, as are mirrors in orbit to shine light on power generating stations designed for that. The problem is, whether by accident or foul play, it's one mistake from being a weapon.

[ckaihatsu]

That's an old idea, and I can't say I am enthusiastic about it. It's certainly possible, as are mirrors in orbit to shine light on power generating stations designed for that. The problem is, whether by accident or foul play, it's one mistake from being a weapon.

Okay, understandable, considering Reagan's 'Star Wars' (SDI), but, really, if this thing went as planned, would it be a private venture for a private space beam of energy, and if so for what, or would it be for the good of everyone (yeah right) so that we could all have free air conditioning, or something -- ?

[BeesKnee5]

I love it when people project.

Reactionaries have been whining like that since the 1970s. The problem is that it works, NASA funding went down 90%.

The reality is NASA is a superb instrument for getting things done, and that very much includes climate science, which it has been doing for decades.

I was talking about the Big Stuff, which will have to wait until the world can cooperate a little. If it ever happens..

This is you projecting.

Lets put some facts on the table.

NASA are in the process of making spacesuits suitable for the moon. They involved 27 contractors and spent $1bn for it to be ready for 2024.
https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-21-025.pdf
Guess what, they've just announced they wont be ready in time so any launch of humans to the moon is delayed.

This is NASAs problem in recent years. NASA don't need more funding, they need better accountability of the companies that have been screwing them over for years, companies know that if they fail, NASA will chuck more money at them and swallow the delay.

Another example

NASAs SLS launch system, main contractor Boeing. It's been 'ready' for two years but everytime they try to launch it there is a failure that results in more delay. Development costs to date $20Bn, cost per launch $2Bn, they've been building it for a decade
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03 ... rdability/


https://spacenews.com/supply-chain-arte ... -missions/

they are now having to contract Spacex to launch satelites that the SLS was meant to launch.
https://www.firstpost.com/tech/science/ ... 36601.html

SpaceX spent less than $1bn designing and building a whole reusable Falcon rocket system and charge $62m per launch

At the moment Spacex are developing the 100% reusable Starship, bigger than SLS and it looks like it will launch into space before SLS at a fraction of the cost ($430m per launch), which is frankly amazing.

The reason is simple, iterative development. Don't try to build it to be 100% perfect first time, instead build and launch prototypes to learn and improve until you have the finished product.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_St ... nt_history

NASA have become a superb instrument for the likes of Boeing to cream off taxpayers money and now they've been found out.

We really can't put NASA on a pedestal when it comes to recent human spaceflight, they spent the best part of a decade with no ability to put humans into space and the Shuttle was hurrendously expensive and unsafe.

[Igor Antunov]

Although all you have written is understatement, solar panels are rubbish at generating energy anyway on a large scale. You might as well just use fission for sustainability. And yes, radiation, another human limitation. You still haven't addressed biological limitations and keep repeating your pipe dream.

As for mining, how easy do you think that is in a spacesuit? And who are the miners. Barry from the jobcentre who isn't fit enough for space? Not to mention the investment just to mine is perhaps more resources and energy than the worth of the silicone (which would be in rock form) you are digging. This is sci-fi. It is great on paper and not in reality. You remind me of an astronaut discussing the film Gravity once. He was annoyed on how unrealistic it was and yet it is regarded as one of the more realistic space movies made.

Radiation shielding would only be necessary intermittently in space/orbit (when solar flares are flaring and in direction of people) and on the surface it would be laughably easy-eg. 1m of moon regolith would provide all the radiation shielding you need. So just dig in a little.

As for industry in space, so much easier to mine in zero G than on earth. No need to worry about collapse or supporting structures, no need for gigantic machines to haul just a few tons of raw materials. SOooo much easier.

[B0ycey]

Radiation shielding would only be necessary intermittently in space/orbit (when solar flares are flaring and in direction of people) and on the surface it would be laughably easy-eg. 1m of moon regolith would provide all the radiation shielding you need. So just dig in a little.

As for industry in space, so much easier to mine in zero G than on earth. No need to worry about collapse or supporting structures, no need for gigantic machines to haul just a few tons of raw materials. SOooo much easier.

Radiation on a planet is an issue when there is no atmosphere actually @Igor Antunov. I don't know how much you know about the Earths magnetic shield and its importance to us but let's just say long term those radiation shields need to be pretty thick 9f you are talking about relocation.

Also, I don't think zero G would make things easier given force and weight are two different things. Weight has to do with gravity, force effort. Under zero G your body would just lose muscle mass but the effort you require to work remains the same. Did you think Armstrong turned in Arnie on the Moon BTW and could just break rocks into two with his little finger due to gravity?

[B0ycey]

I love it when people project.

Reactionaries have been whining like that since the 1970s. The problem is that it works, NASA funding went down 90%.

The reality is NASA is a superb instrument for getting things done, and that very much includes climate science, which it has been doing for decades.

I was talking about the Big Stuff, which will have to wait until the world can cooperate a little. If it ever happens..

Well you were the guy who projected given @BeesKnee5 gave two scenarios, neither of which asked for NASA to be defunded actually. Has anyone said that NASA doesn't have a roll in providing data on Climate Change? Nope.

[Godstud]

NASA actually does a lot of work on climate science. I met a NASA employee in Thailand a few years ago. He was checking sensors that they had placed across Thailand, measuring temperature change.

[Patrickov]

It's a sad sorry state of affairs when Musk, Branson and Bezos care more about getting back to the moon than NASA does.

If NASA has a free hand and takes part in more advanced or important projects than going to the Moon because of this, it is totally OK to have willing and able individuals like Musk, Branson and Bezos take over the lesser task.

[ingliz]

@Igor Antunov

Only about 40 percent of the missions ever sent to Mars – by any space agency - have been successful.

Odds are you're fucked just getting there before you start polluting Mars.

[colliric]

@Igor Antunov

Only about 40 percent of the missions ever sent to Mars – by any space agency - have been successful.

Odds are you're fucked just getting there before you start polluting Mars.

The odds have gotten better over time. That % includes the early failures, but if you look at post 2001 missions, almost every single one has been successful.

[BeesKnee5]

" so much easier to mine in zero G than on earth"

This is actually pretty funny, hit a rock in zero G and you don't break the rock, you just float away from it. To get any kind of force you would need tethers to hold machinery down so the direction of force is towards the rock and not propulsion of you.

[BeesKnee5]

If NASA has a free hand and takes part in more advanced or important projects than going to the Moon because of this, it is totally OK to have willing and able individuals like Musk, Branson and Bezos take over the lesser task.

Branson isn't in the game, he's built a plane that can go really high and barely skims the official line for being declared as space. He also doesn't have the cash to go beyond that
Bezos isn't much further, a rocket that cannot reach low earth orbit yet. Lots of promises and legal action every time he doesn't win a contract.
SpaceX is a different animal, not only do they have proven systems, they are also developing their next generation of rockets specifically designed to go to Mars and the Moon. The likelihood at the moment is that NASA will ditch SLS, writing off $20-30bn as a waste of money and go with SpaceX being the provider of the rockets and ships that get humans back to the moon.

[late]

We really can't put NASA on a pedestal

when it comes to recent human spaceflight, they spent the best part of a decade with no ability to put humans into space and the Shuttle was horrendously expensive and unsafe.

NASA hasn't been on a pedestal since the Sixties.

Oh my, oh well, what can one expect.

The Shuttle was Nixon, which means it was a bad idea. While it wasn't unsafe, it did cost too much, and Reagan proved the safety margin was narrow.

We had a bunch of really good, experienced rocket builders. We didn't use them after Apollo, they retired, and what we've been doing is regaining what we lost. That's politics and funding, which NASA has no control over. As I pointed out, NASA funding went down 90%, WTF did you expect?

One last item, funding enables, ya get what ya pay for.

[late]

Okay, understandable, considering Reagan's 'Star Wars' (SDI), but, really, if this thing went as planned, would it be a private venture for a private space beam of energy, and if so for what, or would it be for the good of everyone (yeah right) so that we could all have free air conditioning, or something -- ?

The idea is that it would be a carbon free energy source. My guess is it's a non-starter.

[ckaihatsu]

The idea is that it would be a carbon free energy source. My guess is it's a non-starter.

Knowing how convoluted capitalism can be, it'll probably happen. I guess Space-X would then be everyone's provider of cheap electricity, or something.

[BeesKnee5]

The Shuttle was Nixon, which means it was a bad idea. While it wasn't unsafe, it did cost too much, and Reagan proved the safety margin was narrow.

I didn't say shuttle was a bad idea and I couldn't give a damn whether it was Nixon.
The promise didn't live up to the reality, each shuttle was supposed to be capable of launching once a month with minimal repairs but the reality was you were lucky to get one a year from each orbiter. The safety record was dreadful, for half it's life it was restricted to solely visiting the ISS and they needed a second shuttle on standby because they couldn't guarantee the heat tiles would stay on the leading edges during launch.

The shuttle literally ate NASAs budget, costing $1.5bn per launch. In hindsight this huge cost prevented development of something that could get us out of low earth orbit.

As I pointed out, NASA funding went down 90%, WTF did you expect?

One last item, funding enables, ya get what ya pay for.

I've just shown you this isnt the case.
NASA spent $8bn on constellation which was cancelled because it was going nowhere, now it's in the process of spending $27Bn on SLS which will be obsolete before it gets off the ground. If you add up all the money spent on launch systems to enable human exploration beyond LEO it's $50Bn plus in todays money, for zero return. Almost exclusively to companies involved in shuttle. NASA became a cash cow for these companies.

There is a better way. Backend the contracts so that the contractor doesn't receive the money without delivering the product, NASA has rewarded failure.

I'll give you another example.
NASA have been developing the Orion Space capsule since 2006. They've paid out $21Bn to contractors, so far it's taken zero people into space.

Spacex designed and built Crew dragon for $1.75Bn, they now have three successful crewed launches into space.

How can you possibly say money is the issue when NASA is spending 10-15 times more money than a commercial operator and still do not have an operating product?