Jeff7
Lifer
- Jan 4, 2001
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America spends billions of dollars more per year on DVDs than NASA's entire budget. Cigarette sales - if I remember right, the spending on them is over 4x NASA's budget. Now what's this about priorities?
I see another (possible) benefit of space elevators: an easy way to lift nuclear waste into orbit, where it could more easily be launched into the sun.
Then of course, as DrPizza mentioned, are the numerous spinoff technologies that come out of NASA. It doesn't just serve as a means of getting humans and electronics into space, NASA is also a technology breeder.
I agree that we need more focus on robotics. Advances in robotics clearly can have a tremendous benefit to everyone here on earth in addition to getting more work done in space.
I do believe that going back to the moon is a good idea, there is a lot to learn from doing that in the area of building a settlement on another planet. As far as mars goes though, I think sending a lot of advanced semi-autonomous robots to explore rather than a few humans is a much better idea.
DrPizza
Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
Great point. Research and progress toward a space elevator would have tons of spin-off benefits for the rest of us. Sending men to the moon? I'm skeptical that we'd have as many payoffs, except to brag to the rest of the world that we did it and they didn't. Incidentally, re: concerns about cities: Space elevator would (necessarily?) have to be built along the equator. Whoever builds the first one would essentially own space - the first elevator could be used to build more elevators at a greatly reduced cost. Plus, it'd be the cheapest way to release payloads into orbit or to send them elsewhere.
sandorski
No Lifer
- Oct 10, 1999
- 70,789
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Everman has a good point: The Moon would be a great place to hone our skills of constructing on another Planet. Plus there are potential valuable resources there such as He3(IIRC).
Mars would be great for Terra forming experiments, although our understanding of that process is probably too limited to start experimenting on such a scale, as we'd certainly want to succeed at it. Terra formed, Mars would be a great Planet to live on. Plenty of area, close by(relatively speaking) to Earth.
Mars would be great for Terra forming experiments, although our understanding of that process is probably too limited to start experimenting on such a scale, as we'd certainly want to succeed at it. Terra formed, Mars would be a great Planet to live on. Plenty of area, close by(relatively speaking) to Earth.
My point was earlier why do we need to find somewhere else to live. Our planet has everything we need and more, buy we cannot even get off using oil. Thats what my statement earlier was trying to make
DangerAardvark
Diamond Member
- Oct 22, 2004
- 7,559
- 0
- 0
Originally posted by: Safeway
Originally posted by: swtethan
I wouldnt worry too much, it would just fall at terminal velocity
Two things:
1) That is pretty damn fast for a cylindrical tether.
2) That was a decent game way back when. Kinda like Descent. 85
I don't think it would be that fast considering the part that wouldn't disintegrate would be pretty light weight and be fairly wide relative to its depth. Even then Dr. Edwards' (the guy who literally wrote the book on the subject) proposed site for it is a few hundred miles off the cost of Ecuador. The reason for this is because it is away from any flight routes and away from storms. I'm not sure how much of it wouldn't disintegrate because I haven't seen that figure yet but the damage to any land structures would likely be minimal.
Ruptga
Lifer
- Aug 3, 2006
- 10,246
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NIMBYs won't have it, meanwhile I believe there's companies taking the waste, mixing it with the old waste rock, and sticking it back in the mines it was taken from at the same radioactive density as it was when we found it. Also, 90% of spent fuel rods is perfectly good for fuel once it's reprocessed, though we in the US won't do it because we're pansies or something, I don't know why, Germany has been doing it for years without incident.
Anyway, yes a space elevator would be sweet, and will probably be done within fifty to a hundred years, though like others have said, carbon nanotube tech needs to go a long way so don't expect one within a decade.
We don't reprocess fuel because we signed a treaty saying we wouldn't to prevent others from building breeder reactors.
I'm not saying that I agree with that (I don't) but the reason we don't is more than "we're pansies."
Jeff7
Lifer
- Jan 4, 2001
- 41,596
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Sadly, given the level of science knowledge here, there'd be complaints about "radioactive sunlight" or "government plots to destroy the sun."
Plummet the entire planet into the sun. Guess how much the sun would care.
The farther away, the better. Once it's in the sun, it won't be a problem for anyone, ever.
I think we don't do it because of concerns about weapons proliferation, as I believe breeder reactors are a source of plutonium. My take: if the government wants to make weapons, it won't let something "minor" like a ban on breeder reactors get in its way. Reprocessing is just a way of really "getting your money's worth" out of a given quantity of uranium.
DrPizza
Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
It's not really a solution to that problem. We won't be able to move any more than an extremely insignificant portion of the population off this planet. Even with the space elevator, it would still take quite a bit of energy and some resources just to get one person off this rock.
sandorski
No Lifer
- Oct 10, 1999
- 70,789
- 6,349
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Don't need to move a significant portion of the population anywhere. Just enough to get the process started.
This is kinda like if we were a small tribe living on one island amongst many islands. Someone suggests going to the next island. Someone else asks "Why? We have everything we need here." Unknown to those wanting to stay put, there's something unique on the next island that they'd benefit from.
Then there are other benefits, such as Economies of scale which creates everything from increased Wealth to increased Scientific output.
By having other Planets/Moons settled, Goods can be Exported back to Earth.
Jeff7
Lifer
- Jan 4, 2001
- 41,596
- 20
- 81
This would be many decades or centuries in the future. Most of what is elsewhere in the solar system would likely be of minimal use to us by the time it could be mined. For example, Saturn's moon Titan. Loads of hydrocarbons there. Ethane, methane, all kinds of fuels which are useful to us now. By the time we'd be technologically capable enough to send mining ships there, we wouldn't need them. Fusion power generators would likely be the norm, so why mine methane for primitive combustion engines? Hell, by that time we might have energy->matter convertors, running on the abundant fusion or possibly even solar power.
The other issue is, once we set up a colony elsewhere, it wouldn't really solve the problem of population on this planet, or the limited resources. Eventually, the colony would also grow, and exploit the resources on that planet. They may also need supplies from Earth, further depleting them here. First we should work on stabilizing things on this planet, then we'll worry about going elsewhere.
I heard a quote from a nasa scientist that was something to the idea of "what we have spent on the Iraq war, we could have traveled back and forth to Mars 6 times.
Have you been listening to Al Gore like you are supposed to and have you seen waterworld. Do you know how much it is going to suck when we have to live on sucky Atolls and there are smokers everywhere. To the moon1
On a serious note... there are many reasons for expansion to another planet. Our population isn't getting smaller and land isn't magically popping out of the ocean. Even if Global Warming is really made up by Al Gore and the Liberal super secret bible burners club band, the United States could potentially experience a significant natural disaster. The San Andreas Fault is aching to pop again and Yellowstone is still a massive active volcano. I don't know how much of this was 7th grade Earth Science class and how much of it was an over active comic book feed teenage mind... but I kind of remember learning if Yellowstone ever popped we'd have a jagged uninhabitable wasteland that we used to call the Great Plains.
Estimates for a Mars trip I've heard have been around 50-75 billion. That number seems about right.
To CatKillaZ: There is already a bunch of money being spent on "saving our planet," more money spent would have vastly decreasing marginal returns. Also, saving our planet is a very vague goal, we spend lots of money that may point toward that goal but really, vague goals are essentially useless. Even then we are spending tons of money on research on green energy and saving the rain forest and things of that nature but our space budget and our budget for exploring other planets is extremely limited. NASA spends roughly $17 billion per year which is largely spent on manned research in Earth's low atmosphere on the ISS.
Missions to Mars could actually be done cheaper than the original Apollo missions (adjusting for inflation). Really all we need is the will, the money, and the focus to do it. We need to stop using NASA as a political tool and give it a direct goal. Only then will it move toward a goal and stop pussy footing around with minor objectives that don't add up to much.
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