Space Thread

[Trippy]

Yes but if the Moon has water that we can get at in sufficient quantities we can split it into Hydrogen and Oxygen for rocket fuel.

[MahrinSkel]

Yes but if the Moon has water that we can get at in sufficient quantities we can split it into Hydrogen and Oxygen for rocket fuel.

There is *some* water, in a handful of craters near the poles. Every indication is, it's very small in absolute terms, like a large pond to small lake worth of water. Can you build, launch, land, and operate the recovery plant, then launch that material for less than it costs to launch it from Earth? I really doubt it, since polar launches/landings are really expensive in delta-V.

--Dave

Edit: In other news, SN15 finally managed to not blow up.

[Khaldun]

Guys, hello, magical thinking, really. Even with magical asteroid thinking, nobody in their right mind with access to a living planet would want to *live* in space. Even if we fuck the planet up, it's still a vastly more forgiving target for every imaginable remediation unless we blow past our current situation so far that we're in Venus territory, at which point neither space nor Mars are gonna save us. The only thing you can say for asteroid mining is that it might provide a late-postindustrial civilization with that last dose of minerals and shit to move on in some yet-unimagined way.

We either make this planet work for a better future or we die. Any thinking about what out there can do to get us out of that challenge is at best a distraction.

[MahrinSkel]

People live in all kinds of unpleasant places because that's where they happen to be, or because it makes them a lot of money. This is a difference of degree, not kind.

--Dave

[Samwise]

Okay, but... nobody happens to be in space or have an opportunity to make a lot of money by moving there.  If there's money to be made in asteroid mining, which is already a stretch, that work will most likely be done by robots.

If we ever get to the point of living in space, it'll be because we've achieved post-scarcity on Earth, got bored, and decided to use our infinite resources to construct elaborate habitats on the moon just because we could.

[Khaldun]

Pretty much. We'll do it for fun and novelty when we get to the point where it's easy to do. We won't do it for necessity--by the time it would be absolutely necessary because of exhaustion of terrestrial resources, we won't be able to waste the terrestrial resources to make liveable habitats for people in space--there's nothing people will be able to do in terms of resource extraction that actually absolutely requires people.

[MahrinSkel]

There are things that can be made in space that will be valuable on Earth. They aren't worth making at a raw materials cost of thousands of dollars per pound (plus overhead), but Starship, with a cost per pound in hundreds, will make some of them viable. Capitalism being what it is, cutting the costs by another order of magnitude by capturing asteroids is inevitable. With a persistent manufacturing complex in orbit, other things of value that can only be made in space will be found. Some of those will be congenial to automation and telework, others will require human presence.

Humans being human, drama will ensue

--Dave

[MournelitheCalix]

Okay, but... nobody happens to be in space or have an opportunity to make a lot of money by moving there.  If there's money to be made in asteroid mining, which is already a stretch, that work will most likely be done by robots.

If we ever get to the point of living in space, it'll be because we've achieved post-scarcity on Earth, got bored, and decided to use our infinite resources to construct elaborate habitats on the moon just because we could.

Hate to be a cynic here but until we find a reliable way of maneuvering instead of short bursts I just don’t see how mining will ever be viable in space.  This doesn’t even consider the logistics of keeping the human body in shape to survive a rentry after months long round trips, providing them with food,water, pressure, and air for such trips, refining the ore (assuming we aren’t expecting them to bring back the dregs), having suits capable of doing work in the hostile environment of space, building hulls to repell extreme radiation for long periods of time, and rentry with larger masses due to payload.  

[Count Nerfedalot]

Oh mining will be done. By robot spacecraft. As will (and has) almost all exploration and exploitation beyond the van Allen belts.

[Sir T]

You guys can relax. Chinese rocket has crashed into the Indian Ocean, near the Maldives.

https://people.com/human-interest/chinese-space-rocket-crashes-back-to-earth/

[Khaldun]

What are the things that in current contexts can only be made in space? I've grown up hearing Gerald O'Neill et al endless preach about zero-g or low-grav manufacturing and oh man there is so much demand for those things we have to have them now and they totally justify the expense of making them. But you know, the O'Neill version is about 50 years out of date, so what now? What's the shit we have to have that justifies the insane fucking overhead costs of making zero-g manufacturing environments?

[MahrinSkel]

The two broad areas that stand out are ultra-pure, defect free crystals (think chip substrates or fiber optic cables that are able to carry more data, farther distances, with fewer repeaters), and exotic alloys, especially between metals that are of radically different density (like magnesium and iron), or "foamed" metals with gaseous inclusions.

--Dave

[Khaldun]

And what happens when we make those at scale, if anything? Because we're not talking "wow it turns out mice have trouble having sex in space on the ISS" here. If those were things that would really have enormous value right here right now in the production lines we already have that justifies the cost of making them, we'd be doing it already. "Fiber optic cables, only better, except at a price about 10,000 times what it takes to make them now, but they're really great" is likely not going to cut it.

[MahrinSkel]

And what happens when we make those at scale, if anything? Because we're not talking "wow it turns out mice have trouble having sex in space on the ISS" here. If those were things that would really have enormous value right here right now in the production lines we already have that justifies the cost of making them, we'd be doing it already. "Fiber optic cables, only better, except at a price about 10,000 times what it takes to make them now, but they're really great" is likely not going to cut it.

Starship isn't operating yet. Yes, at thousands per pound to orbit, those things don't work. At hundreds, they would.

--Dave

[Teleku]

And what happens when we make those at scale, if anything? Because we're not talking "wow it turns out mice have trouble having sex in space on the ISS" here. If those were things that would really have enormous value right here right now in the production lines we already have that justifies the cost of making them, we'd be doing it already. "Fiber optic cables, only better, except at a price about 10,000 times what it takes to make them now, but they're really great" is likely not going to cut it.

Not saying you are necessarily wrong about it always being too cost prohibitive, but I think this can also be a case of people not realizing how good it is till they have it.  There may be all sorts of wonder materials that look great on paper, but just like you, every corporate/government entity see's the cost as way to much for a hypothetical.  But then somebody finally does it (say for a fantasy example, somebody figures out a way using zero-g to make a working Quantum Processor/Computer that suddenly lets them break all encryption on the planet instantly) and everybody see's how awesome it is in practice, then they all scramble to build their own capabilities.  People are short sighted.

[Sir T]

I think an economy based on launching is always going to be prohibitively expensive, as Gravity is a really strong bitch. You really need something like a space elevator to get real traffic to and from space. But no-one is going to do that as the countries on the equator are "shithole" countries which means the elevators are going to be constantly attacked,  and the first one to have an elevator is going to have enormous wealth flowing into it, leaving the Euro-amer countries in the dust.

[Khaldun]

Space elevators require a manufacturing process that can make huge amounts of materials that we can barely make in miniscule amounts in laboratories. Every industrial process that might make enough is basically hypothetical, has to overcome enormous practical and conceptual challenges, and would likely make a space elevator the most expensive structure by far in human history even if we can get to that point. By the time we can possibly make one, most of the equator will likely be nearly uninhabitable due to climate change, so the geopolitical problem of finding a host nation is the least of the concerns.

[Cyrrex]

I feel we are approximately a million years away from something like a space elevator anyway.  I think it becomes more an more obvious that mankind is not going to making any amazing leap forward during our lifetimes when it comes to space travel.  Neither the tech nor the will are remotely where they need to be.  We will ruin this planet well before we find a way off of it.

[01101010]

I feel we are approximately a million years away from something like a space elevator anyway.  I think it becomes more an more obvious that mankind is not going to making any amazing leap forward during our lifetimes when it comes to space travel.  Neither the tech nor the will are remotely where they need to be.  We will ruin this planet well before we find a way off of it.

I dunno. The shuttle program started and ended in my lifetime and was a pretty big step forward in creating reusable space craft. SpaceX went a step further to reusable rockets. That's a fairly large leap - it's not warp tech or near light speed travel, not it is not insignificant. Just depends how much we want to throw at the space programs.

[Khaldun]

Even if we threw everything at conventional launch programs, gravity seriously caps the amount of materiel we can move into orbit to create manufacturing platforms or facilities. Until we have something like actual Von Neumann robots where we can launch a small number of them at a body like the moon or large asteroids and leave them to build facilities from the raw materials around them, it's not happening.

[01101010]

Even if we threw everything at conventional launch programs, gravity seriously caps the amount of materiel we can move into orbit to create manufacturing platforms or facilities. Until we have something like actual Von Neumann robots where we can launch a small number of them at a body like the moon or large asteroids and leave them to build facilities from the raw materials around them, it's not happening.

That is fair. I agree that we need a major leap forward, but I think that will come from new discoveries in physics that would alter how we can approach space travel, including how we get off the ground. It also might mean having to move laterally first before we can move forward as well.

[Cyrrex]

Even if we threw everything at conventional launch programs, gravity seriously caps the amount of materiel we can move into orbit to create manufacturing platforms or facilities. Until we have something like actual Von Neumann robots where we can launch a small number of them at a body like the moon or large asteroids and leave them to build facilities from the raw materials around them, it's not happening.

That is fair. I agree that we need a major leap forward, but I think that will come from new discoveries in physics that would alter how we can approach space travel, including how we get off the ground. It also might mean having to move laterally first before we can move forward as well.

I guess that was what I meant as well.  While the advances of SpaceX are cool, it amounts to the same thing we have been seeing for, what...the last 50 years?  None of it has really changed the paradigm of space travel.  Might have made it cheaper in relative terms, but still expensive as balls.  Either we crack the gravity equation, or we stay pretty much right where we are.  Just with prettier visuals and cooler spacesuits.

[Trippy]

I don't like the Space X spacesuits. They look like mid-80s low budget Sci-Fi movie spacesuits.

[Cyrrex]

I don't like the Space X spacesuits. They look like mid-80s low budget Sci-Fi movie spacesuits.

Haha, I know, I was wondering if anyone would zero in on that.  Looks like they were inspired by Spaceballs.

[Chimpy]

I don't like the Space X spacesuits. They look like mid-80s low budget Sci-Fi movie spacesuits.

That's because everything SpaceX is "low budget sci-fi flick" stuff.

[Mandella]

Folks at ESA having some great musical fun.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_LFsnK7LDg

[Mandella]

And in the "low budget sci-fi flick" vein, here is a great speeded up version of the latest Dragon docking at the ISS. Makes it all in 45 seconds, instead of 45 hours (it seems like).


https://twitter.com/Thom_astro/status/1392425701731717122

[Mandella]

Talking about the SpaceX "Space Suits" (crap, have I already posted this? well if I have have some more), here is Soichi Noguchi first going over and explaining how the thing works, and then putting it on. It's in Japanese, and the auto translate is a hoot but not very informative, but in the first vid somebody in the comments has been good enough to put in a good translation.

I'd like to note that although just about everybody calls these things "Space Suits" (including the astronauts), they aren't really space suits, at least not what you'd want to wear outside. They are for emergency use only, and in a full pressure loss situation they would become difficult, but not impossible, to move in. They are flight suits, suitable to provide an air seal and vehicle life support hookup in case of pressure loss or air contamination, or fire.

But here is Soichi showing it all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKJPhomawRo


And here he is donning one by himself in less than five minutes. He's not in a hurry, and I think with assistance and in a hurry you can get the necessary pressure seals zipped up in under two minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCbqYFwIBEQ

And this last is Soichi making sushi in space. Honestly, Noguchi makes me wish I had more than a smattering of Japanese, because he has made a load of great vids during his latest ISS stay (and if you didn't know, he has flown to space in the Shuttle, the Soyuz, and now the Dragon) and he seems like just a great guy. He's extremely engaging, and well worth the watch even if you can't understand much of what he's saying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfwqLSHvu3E

[MahrinSkel]

Being able to put them on unassisted was a major design point for those suits. It's essentially a human shaped emergency bubble, they'd have minimal flexibility but they'd be able to move around in zero-g. The NASA and Russian versions would have been more functional in a vacuum, but it took a minimum of one assistant just to put them on, it was impossible to seal them on your own.

--Dave

[Mandella]

Doing a lot of space posts lately, but this tweet from Chris Hadfield hit me in the feels.

Sound on.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1394104883318493185

[Morat20]

And what happens when we make those at scale, if anything? Because we're not talking "wow it turns out mice have trouble having sex in space on the ISS" here. If those were things that would really have enormous value right here right now in the production lines we already have that justifies the cost of making them, we'd be doing it already. "Fiber optic cables, only better, except at a price about 10,000 times what it takes to make them now, but they're really great" is likely not going to cut it.

Not saying you are necessarily wrong about it always being too cost prohibitive, but I think this can also be a case of people not realizing how good it is till they have it.  There may be all sorts of wonder materials that look great on paper, but just like you, every corporate/government entity see's the cost as way to much for a hypothetical.  But then somebody finally does it (say for a fantasy example, somebody figures out a way using zero-g to make a working Quantum Processor/Computer that suddenly lets them break all encryption on the planet instantly) and everybody see's how awesome it is in practice, then they all scramble to build their own capabilities.  People are short sighted.

I have been told AES-256 is quantum resistant, so breaking that with quantum computers is merely millions of years and not "multiple lifetimes of the universe" so there's that at least.

[Khaldun]

Same software, different case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXZngNmIwlA

[Chimpy]

New branding opportunity for Roscosmos:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40811/graffiti-artists-defaced-soviet-era-buran-space-shuttle-at-russian-space-center

[Mandella]

Hasn't been any good and flamey rocket porn here for a while, so here ya go:



Photo credit Roscosmos via NASASpaceflight

[Sir T]

Marshmellows, anyone?