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ESA has more or less captured the commercial satelite launching buisness this is not the work of a goverment department it takes a bit of buisness sense.
Actually ESA is independent from europe officially, but like everything only so far. ESA is trying to do what NASA does with a lot less budget and it seems to be suceeding as it is still doing general space research and having a decent rate of launches too.
Frankly there will be a wide variety of styles of building on mars. But what I hope to do is to make the first base as easy as we can in fact the first few bases. If we can do this it will allow expansion.
Why do i want to use Sandbags to reduce radiation inside the domes, The first colonists will be idealists who wont mind the risk themselves but when the children come. Views they wont mind if there kids will be fine
We are not only leaking from the ISS now, It seems the american space suits are having real air retention problems too. So we have an aborted space walk.
If ESA was employed to make an improved means to boost cargo's to the ISS it would do it. This is a certainty as ESA has a real respect for the value of the Euro.
Well something happened today i really thought would not.
The Galileo system of Gps satelites the planned european version will be usable in conjunction with the USA's version. This was agreed at the conference today.
What does this mean, well politically it means that something that was a bone of contention between the USA and NASA and Europe and Esa has resulted in union to get it to work better actually delivering benefits to people.
I really thought that with the recent tensions there would have ended up two competing versions of the gps system.
My usual optimistic self had thought no chance of agreement there, but i was pleasantly found wrong.
What does this mean well it could result in real improved relations between the space authorities and it may bring the idea of better space access?
You can use internal or external bracing ie metal supports to form a rib cage type of system of supports.
These would give a measure of protection from catastrophic deflation, useful too for hanging lights on and allowing access to the dome for the periodic checks of the domes integrity.
These ribs would allow the dome to have sanbags filled with regolith installed, It may also be possible to use the sanbags themselves as a structural support if you could fuse the regolith together forming structural strength items.
The russians did have a plane similar the so called Concordski but it was an attempt to make a direct copy.
The information to do this was well was stolen by spies, its just they did not get all the information and a couple of really important bits where missing, resulting in a plane that was seriously flawed.
I did not forget Italy, but ESA is a space organisation of different states and if two of the three main partners are not willing to invest Italy cannot go on its own.
But saying that it may be with the other problems Europe has at the moment it will go looking for prestige and a means to improve European feeling in its member states. This could be accomplished by a Mars/Moon programme. It will be seen as a way for all member states to contribute and a way to advance european science. Will there be cooperation with NASA this I cannot be sure of with the recent cooling of Europe/Usa relations.
At the moment the two main countries in ESA, France and Germany are in an economic doldrum.
Also with the fallout with the European constitution there is little or no time left for politicians to consider advancing space technology or to put money into it. I really wish there was.
Britain has NO space policy though there has been an increase in pressure to change this. Britain has more or less ignored Esa since its creation.
The US has gambling laws but it does allow lotteries and if you can get people interested ie decent payouts would it not be possible to fund a mars program that way especially if it could be made international
Oh a further note these gambling laws dont apply to reservations hmmm interesting that
A Blue, Me at the moment seeing how little advancment in solar system exploration is going.
India has a society which is becoming more and more technically literate and it sees itself as becoming a world superpower in the future. These dreams though need resources and with Indias high population and resource shortfalls it is looking at space as a way to expand economically and to increase its countries stature. With the low wages costs and the rapid learning curve it is going through it may well be that India will be that major force in the future. People of the west seem to think of India as a third world nation this is very wrong it is a country which trains more computer engineers each year than the amount of graduates from Britains universities in total.
And for those who are interested I am scottish and I am from the highlands.
It has never been about Financial concerns in the case of europes space plans.
It has to do with political will. Europe will not give Esa the amount of money needed at the moment to allow the construction of SuperHeavy Arianes.
Europe may do it if it was in competition with another "country" but at the moment this seems unlikely as there is reasonable cooperation at the moment.
Esa is a satellite and robotic mission launcher and at this it is brilliant but it will need a major change in goals for Esa to become a major human exploration force. Im sorry to say it will be a while for this to occur.
Have you considered instead of making the top half of a dome transparent with the reduced Radiation and heat insulating properties just have the one window this being at the top.
This way you could using sandbags or similar of martian Regolith and insulate and protect the majority of your dome.
Getting natural light into the dome would be accomplished by the use of mirrors that circle your dome and reflect the light towards the top and this light is then focused and reflected inside through your one open window.
Other windows to the outside could easily put on the side of the dome but these would routinely be closed and have a form of storm cover.
The advantage to this system is less digging into the ground is needed. The regolith sandbags provide decent radiation and puncture cover whilst providing weight to the structure. The light coming into the dome can be controlled allowing improved yields of crops grown. And the domes as they do not require large quantities of Hi Tech radiation proof transparent material can be made by the martian bases.
The premise behind the shuttle is wrong it is not the Orbiter we need to reuse but the launch systems. But that can be fixed.
Could extensions to that initial inflatable base be made on mars using insitu materials like martian fibreglass.
Certainly using the metals furniture etc could be made and structural supports.
The reason that Airbus is doing so well and seems to be taking business of Boeing is it is not really subject to the cost plus system so its ability to sell its products are a prime motivator for the company. They dont design what wont sell.
Boeing it seems has begun to learn that lesson with the recent dropping of the sonic cruiser and plans to improve its fleet of planes for sale.
The shuttle is not cursed, Its designed wrong, and is very very inefficient and been the subject of make work programs. The ISS being prime example.
But i dont want to throw the baby out with the bath water, The shuttle can be made better. A brand new heavy lift like the Ariane 5M would be perfect we just are not going to get it any time soon.
There is not the political pressure in Europe for a manned space program. Many countries have little or no interest in the future space program, they may well launch satelites and develop them but it would take a major shift in public pressure for there to be that drastic a change.
Frankly i think its me just not getting the codes right and it is still not coming up even with me having removed the typo.
Anyway as stated the Concorde was supposed to be flying in a lot of different colors and liveries but these orders where all cancelled one after another in the 60's leaving the AirFrance and British Airways to be the only users.
When concorde was being made there where a lot of companies interested in it. It would have flown under a lot of different liveries but it was in the main cancelled by all except AirFrance and BA.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/260235.stm]Concorde chicken tests
This shows how concerned that the sonic boom of the concorde would be a real problem. As a further note the british goverment did pay out i believe for most of these structural complaints....mostly cracked or broken windows, The Concorde as a plane had a very noisy sonic boom.
Of course Airbus has military contracts but it did not start with such.
These came later.
And the individual companies at the time that Airbus was being formed probably all had military contracts. But so few if any reasonable sized aircraft manufacturer did not use military contracts to gain an income. It makes sense for them to spread there buisness around.
One thing that has happened though is that in the last decade these companies have begun to merge to form real giants.
Something like Airbus being formed by small single country based companies to create a desired product will likely never happen again. These Major aircraft companies have far too many fingers in far too many pies.
But the SRB as originally planned would not have failed as did Challengers! It was of single piece design and as it would have been made in florida it would have been cheaper to use.
We need a cheap heavy lift option the ESA Ariane 5 m has the problem that it is a lot more likely to fail, It carries less cargo to orbit and none of it is reusable and at 1.2 Billion Euros it and its development cost mean that the Shuttle C seems to be winning at the moment.
Politics of course.
They needed a low cost operational aeroplane and they did not go for the individual Companies that forms Europes aero industries as no goverment wanted something that they could not claim as partly OURS
So Airbus was formed but it seems to be operating effectively at the moment, Which is a hopeful sign. Oh and throwing money at a project seriously do you not think Boeing did not get enough cash for its Military aircraft, B52 etc.
And it was that experience that allowed Boeing to get involved in COMMERCIAL planes.
So the Airbus corporation is going the way that Boeing did but with their start being commercial rather than military.
It seems that it can be done but it needs the conjunction of something else, A reuseable space plane servicing the heavy launcher maybe?
You do know that when the shuttle srb's where first proposed there where cheaper safer options on the table.
But the then president (Nixon) went with thiokol as it was based in Utah and the then senator........
But as it proves they can be created cheaper the central tank is reasonably cheap and it would be easy to turn the shuttle C into a reasonably cheap option certainly real savings can be created and with those savings a realistic mature space infrastructure can be created.
Oh and i agree with GCNRevenger (much as it pains) if you add more goverments than 1 or 2 into a deal it becomes harder and harder to get consensus and we have those horrible cost overuns.
But, if we create a contract to deliver a product by a group of goverments with set agendas it can be done.
But if you allow too much interference and cost checking you get like what has happened to the Euro fighter typhoon over budget, over delayed, under equipped, over priced, goverments withdrawing from the project. It would be easier to set a contract and allow the bidding.
Esa and airbus are a large conglomeration of countries and bureaucratic institutions, but they work because well there competition is worse or they simply have a product that will sell. And they are making a profit and have streamlined themselves. And they are competitive!
They started off as a nightmare, but the pressure of buisness has forced them to adapt.
Why am i interested well what goverment lead disaster can do so can NASA.
The shuttle srbs are not a cheap option i really wish they where.
To make real economic sense would it be possible to create a launcher that cost quite a bit of cash in development but was cheap to use regularily. Or something we could build quickly but still costs the 500 to 600 million$ for each use.
I think the shuttle c is a decent design but it Can be improved and it really if private enterprise was given free reign a good chance to be a lot lot cheaper.
By this we mass produce items we loose the cost plus system, and it is allowed to be sold to private concerns