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The two flight routes concorde did use where the London/Paris to New york and Paris to Rio.
These flights went across the Atlantic and did not have to worry about scaring the whales so supersonic speed was used. But when it reached land it was reguired to slow to standard commercial speeds.
This was may have been due to national interest (Boeing/ lockheed had attempted to create its own supersonic plane but failed(far too expensive ). But the knowledge we have how sonic booms are created was at a limited degree in the 1960's and the concorde could and did smash windows miles from its course.
I agree with GCNRevenger the problem with the ISS is its bits and pieces construction. Lego bricks are great but then again they fit together easily. Construction technigues that use that idea of design work well.
The problem with the iss is its in orbit, it has been changed and changed and people are using different systems of making there bricks.
Oh, its also a way to keep a really really expensive piece of equipment flying, so costs soar.
With the money that had been spent on it (close to 100Billion $us) (confirmed but probably more) what could have been done is design and use a really heavy lift which would have lobbed the whole lot up in 4 or 5 trips.
There where a couple of other means I had looked at to burrow into the ground on mars and the moon.
If as we think we have found that mars has a strong permafrost level under the soil simple digging in reduced gravity would be a lot more difficult.
1) It may be possible to burrow a series of pipes into the ground and using super heated gas or steam, these could be pumped into the area to be excavated. The ground would be broken up and allow more traditional ways of excavation without the needs of explosives. The water that is released could be pumped out. Of course heating the element to be pumped in could be done by using some of the waste heat from the mars direct chemical reactions.
2) On the moon/mars the gravity is reduced and the material is of a threat to automation this is fines that will form a corrosive dust cloud. It may be that as a vehicle will be unable to use weight to take the materials up it could, Using brushes like a street sweeper, sweep the material in for collection.
Concorde failed because it was not realised when designed that the effect of sonic booms would not be acceptable to the countries that its market was to cover.
The concordes where never empty when they flew, They where not an economic success as they did not sell enough planes. They where a niche plane that was only allowed to operate in a few areas. The Boeing 747 did open the plane market commercially though even if airports had to increase the length of their runways as they used a different commercial idea and they SOLD.
Spaceplanes taking passengers would not suffer the noise pollution laws as they will be operating OUT of the atmosphere. So it is possible the buisness class flights from london to australia in 90 minutes will come.
With more and more media attention to deep vein thrombosis and the horror stories a reasonably non expensive alternative which meats the buisness class needs will be looked at a lot favourably.
It is not just necessary to make one mission to mars affordable to keep a program running it is necessary to make the whole program affordable.
There are some golden rules it seems
Well here are mine
1) Use off the shelf components, try to reduce devolopment time as it seems to be a financial black hole
2) You need a middle and lower management empowered to improve the program as it goes along and with a workforce with a lot more indians than chiefs. With a clear objective.
3) Have clear mission goals that are flexible if necessary but which inspire the crews in there actions.
4) Use your resources wisely dont send a man to do what a machine can do easily but vice versa dont try designing a machine to do a difficult job that a man could do in seconds.
frankly there will be more but as a rule it suits me, the best way to sum up is simplicity is golden.
QUOTE(Smurf975 June 23 2004, 13:31
I agree with what you say and it was not my plan to do so.
I envision something like a power/nuclear plant, were almost everything works by itself and you have guys in a control roomchecking the data and making corrections. If something goes wrong a guy will suit up walk to the machine and give it a kick to get it working again.
Yeah that will happen but to save costs i think the flights up will be pure cargo's of robots and machines to make more facilities. The actual control center is more likely to be one or more Call center type offices on Earth. Well if we design these drones right if they break down send out another drone to kick it or get it working.
So now we have a begining, A footstep on the moon, Initial costs are expensive but running costs are comparitively small. But we have now a fully functional facility for visitors too as it will have made reasonably spacious facilities suitable for humans.
With the fully functional Lunar base other operations can be supported like the Orbital tug or extremely dangerous Bio Experiments. These resources can be charged for and some profit brought in.
More money will be brought in by supplying vehicles in earth orbit with pre-made parts and oxygen at much reduced prices compared to earth launches. Will orbital industries start i dont know but only a lunar base will give it a chance.
Set up a bank acccount, EASY
All you have to do is set up the account with a passcode or more than one, a specific account number bank supplied you dont even need to leave the earth.
It might have branches in every capital city with a secure set of booths which have an encrypted channel back to the main bank on mars.
Other protections is that you could have a card or similar that will allow you to protect the account
you could even go super security in that the computer you use in the booth is destroyed so ensuring only you know the transaction.
thanks for the correction
quilty as charged but in my defence my 3 year old was not allowing me my usual methodical pace.
For those who are interested professor koelles website is here it is slow to download but rather full of information
The paper you are looking for is
Advanced Automation for Space Missions
N83-15348 Nasa conference publication Pub 1982
also try
nano.xerox.com/nanotech/selfRep.html]Self replicating
Self replicating and robot started bases has been a major study by Professor E Koelle of Berlin University.
The NASA report stated that the 100 ton seed would be all that was needed to create a fully functional base. Also it allowed an Extraordinary large amounts of mass in space and to set up and perform various ambitious future missions can be greatly shortened.
The advantage is that if the system so planned would be very flexible and if something had to be changed it could be downloaded from earth.
A cheap option or as close to as you get.
Self replicating robots would be a benefit to any space civilisation.
But we cant do that yet.
BUT, we can do sort of. We can make machines that can adapt. If we send robots that are under control from earth we dont need the hardest bit, a high intelligence.
So we send these drones to the moon control them from earth they do the work creating shelters and the basis for industry and resource harvesting. We send to them more machinery etc that allows construction of increased industry etc. And we now have a foothold for mans first base.
It will be possible soon after to create more drones at the base this will rapidly allow expansion. And we can experiment to find drones that work better in the hard terrain of the moon. Eventually we will completely automate the drones but we dont need to at the start.
it will be a long time before any settlement will be independent. They will be dependent on the home planet if not for material needs, definitly for biological.
It will be a long time for any settlement to develop enough of a population to be able to have a wide enough gene pool.
Certainly in this HiTech age they will find it a lot harder than the americans did to succeed in declaring independence. And any country that created that settlement will certainly have a vested interest in ensuring that they did not succeed.
That is something that an organisation could do if they did have the funds is to create an independent settlement. This has been touched on in other threads and certainly a rich religous group or similar could do it.
Cobra commander is correct science does advance mankind but for most people they dont understand or realise it.
But the applications of science they do understand when they get a smaller phone with more gadgets etc, And one of the greatest applications of science is the lunar landings.
People need a goal they need to feel that they and there country is heading somewhere. I dont think that we have that at the moment. So what do we do, stay on earth and im sure eventually stagnate or let another future culture do what we said was too expensive, too hard. Or do we take the step that allows us to break the bonds of being a single planet civilisation.
quess what has my vote.
GCNRevenger your right the moon is worthless, but this is where we disagree too.
The moon is worthless, Why, we are doing nothing with it, It will only have value when it means something rather than that large white thing that dominates our sky at night.
It will take going there and working on it to make it worth something. It can be whatever we want it to be, It has that much potential.
So lets go realise that potential, It will take work, it will take a change in our laws, it will take us willing to risk. But it can be done.
I have the belief that to start on the right course, both agriculture and industry have to be given the same priority.
Any martian population that can make most items themselves and live without what they cant are independent in all but name.
This also allows a facility to be cheaper to operate and able to replicate itself. But a purely mining type exploitation start, no it is not going to happen.
The problem that the shuttle as it stands is it is a very poor cargo carrier.
The shuttles poor launch rate means it is not accrue any advantage from machine line endeavours. It has from an engineering standpoint a very bad design ethic, Why send so much mass to orbit to have it come back down again?
Frankly it also suffers from the cost plus methodology of the current Nasa way of operating. The shuttles maximum delivery to orbit of cargo is 24400 kg, this can be compared to other launch systems and is found wanting.
The shuttle c though has the potential to be a true heavy lift option, It benefits from the amount of research that has been done on the previous shuttle and can use the same facilities. It uses the SRB's which after the challenger explosion have become the most investigated item of rocket technology since the V2. The Shuttle c only returns to earth the expensive reusable engines and lends itself to being pilotless saving more cargo room.
Saying that the shuttle c is not the same as a new saturn 5
The shuttle c does face some hurdles, Unless the cost plus system is removed the devolopment time will be long and increased fees accrued. It will to be most efficient need another means to deliver People to orbit(maybe one of the x prize contestants). But these can be hurdled and costs to orbit could be reduced something the original shuttle was supposed to do and failed
How much would it cost to develop something from the current shuttle
ie how much for shuttles c-z and the Ares
Nasa has just spent billions to get the Shuttle safer, Why waste it.
Yes, a space tug will be a commercial possibility.
At the moment there is a fierce competition for the prized geo and leo orbits. Space also has a lot of excess junk from orbit operations just floating. A space tug that can deorbit the used switched off satelites and frees there slots as well as reducing space junk is a necessity.
Space junk is a problem now it damages the solar panels of satelites and stations in space and in one case nearly caused the shuttle to suffer a window destroyed with the possibility of explosive decompression. It is taking too long for this stuff to deorbit itself, naturally.
A space tug can be a commercial success as space insurers ie Lloyds will make the satelite using companies, pay for its services and reward with reduced insurance costs. But a space tug that is supplied from resources other than the earths will be at a reduced cost.
When we set up the first lunar base it will not be for profit but science, we cannot get around that, but the applications that the base discovers. Will allow us to find a profit. It will allow us to support other operations ie asteroid mining, orbital manufacturing, Space tug operations.
We need that first footstep or else we will never get off this planet, in any meaningful way.
People do not necessarily think with there wallets all the time. In an american city how many SUV's do you see. Well these are not for going into the wilds of that country, No its just "cool" to be seen in one.
for those not in the know SUV= Sports Utility Vehicles (4x4's)
And when fuel prices go up these are some of the people who scream the loudest as this vehicle type tend to be one of the biggest gas guzzlers.
Frankly Nuclear powerplants really are hard to start and to switch off producing electricity, If we could make another fuel ie cracking hydrogen out of the sea cheaply when the need for electricity elsewhere in the grid is not. It would be better for these electrical giants. Hydrogen will likely replace petroleoum as the next fuel for cars.
But the waste of a nuclear reactor is a problem, Fusion plants when made will produce a lot less radioactive waste. But if Lunar helium 3 is thrown into the mix this becomes a lot lot less. Also the reaction is not so damaging to the plants structure and this makes them last longer. When we can make fusion plants Nuclear plants will quickly be priced out of the market. And even using Lunar Helium 3, 2nd generation will have a competitive edge over the Deutrium plants.
Japan realizes this and they are one of the strongest bidders to house the next stage in mans attempt to create sustained fusion reactions. This is not alterism but research that Japan realizes is essential for it as a country, economic edge.
And Lunar helium 3 will be pound for pound the most expensive item that man makes or refines. It will not pay for Lunar bases on its own but will certainly pay for a good amount of it. There is also an incentive to go further out. Helium 3 is a very rare element on the moon as it is delivered through the solar wind and is absorbed by the regolith. This is not the case with the gas giants these monsters may well be the persian gulf of the fusion age.
One way to get to these giants will be to build great orbiters which go in big ellipses from the earth to the gas giants. Built of lunar material in the lagrange points these Arks will pick up crew and passengers when they get near the earth travel outwards drop colonists on mars, Pickup supplies. Carry on to the gas giants rotate mine crews drop off supplies and head back to earth where they deliver there cargo's of fusion fuel. Not too far fetched, certainly would solve all our problems for going to mars
GCNRevenger said
If stupid people hate GM crops or not, they will have them, or suffer for their pseudoscientific paranoia
Im sorry to say that people are stupid, who are they going to believe a man in a suit saying how great this genetically modified corn is, Or the large group of protestors shouting Frankenstien food, doom and gloom.
Well im sorry to say most people dont know enough about the subject to give informed opinion. Thats just the way it is, look what happened to the Nuclear Industry. It has been almost completely stopped from expansion by these type of protestors.
As for global warming it is the single biggest threat to mankind and that was a quote from the United Nations, Kofi Annan. As for Britain being able to grow grapes and wine, great, just means that most of southern france is a desert, I wonder where these people will go.
As for getting back a bit on topic, GM foods great we can develop crops that are more resistant to the harshness of the luna and martian frontiers. May even make money on it as all these protestors will know there is no chance for crops there to enter the earth biosphere. So now we have something else we can sell to earth, Knowledge of advanced farming technigues and crops that thrive on reduced amounts of water.
Apparently Burt Rutan and his company plan to start there attempt on winning the X prize on monday 21st of june using there Spaceship1
I wish him and his company well and godspeed
Off the rant for a bit
What the resources of space do allow is for us to grow. Civilisations that remain static things die. We need to keep expanding, We need to have new ideas, New frontiers. Lets hope we get the chance.
We are at a crossroads we can stay on Earth and remain as we are
Or we can grow.
In the end it is up to us the enthusiast to decide.
This beggars the question, why will the population of the earth plateau at 10 billion. It might but a lot of starvation and social disasters will come of it first.
We are in a planet which is in flux, Many scientists say and evidence does indicate that we are suffering global warming. What does it mean. It means that the life supporting capacity of this planet will reduce.
Do we let it or do we do something about it. As much as i would like it there is no chance for the richer western states can afford physically or diplomatically to bankrupt themselves to sort the ills of the poorer part of the world. If as we well suspect the weather gets worse and water levels rise this could mean billions starving.
Improvements in food like gm crops are not a definite. Some states like the united states have little or no problem with these. But in Europe GM crops are hated worse than Nuclear energy. Also coal is the dirtiest fuel about it is one of the prime contributors to Global warming and acid rain. It is actively being stopped.
Water now that is the problem. It is water that will be or a prime contributor to most wars that will happen in the future. It is a finite resource is pure drinking water and it is easily damaged. Ground water in most african and middle eastern states is either at a low amount or polluted.
Recently you may have noticed that fuel prices have gone up. Well some of it was due to global security issues but the main reason was China. China is becoming a major power, its people want the luxuries they see westerners have. Well they are getting them car ownership has increased in shanghai by a 1000% in one year. Soon 300 million chinese farmers in the hinterland will have satelite television.
Do we have enough resources to provide 10 billion people to have two cars each family, incredibly cheap fast food on each corner the answer is NO
thats also that i think, that is that at this moment there is no commercial need for space, moon and mars bases,
Using history there was no commercial need for England to create colonies in the americas. But they did. It was only when they discovered tobbacco could be grown that these colonies really took off. It will need the bases to be made first so that research will be done and, only then will products be discovered that make financial returns. At the moment space makes very little money. Research makes little money. But the results of that research do.
What space does offer is unlimited resources to a world that is beginning to starve for them. We need those resources to allow our civilisation to go on. We need those resources so we can tackle our planets problems.
In the end it is a matter of will, it is will that allows mankind to make the step as they say a journey starts with a single footstep.