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So we are going to have problem trying to upgrading ISS because of design flaws. But, if we go with any other modular building, we could have the same problem. Even those big inflatable habitation may not be big enough for our purposes. Because, once you have to tack two or three of them together, your going to start getting into the same problem that we have with our current ISS space station. Another possible choice would be to go with a bag idea. That were you would go out there with a carbon fabric bag to the size that you will be needing and blow it up with a rocket engine turned inward and once blown up to full size start we could start gluing carbon fiber rope with polymers and poxes. It would have several times the tensile strength of steel or Aluminum and would not have the metal fatigue problem either. Of course you would have much more than an empty bag of spent rocket fuel for a few year while your upgrading it into a living habituate for humans. But, it has one advantage of being big without having to tack something on the out side to expand it size for some other project that we want to do. But, this too would be a big project and would probably take 5 to 10 years to get it to the point that it would be useable to us.
Larry,
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We need, 20+ Personnel transporter from earth to LEO; We need one way cargo vehicles from earth to LEO; and We need cargo transporters from LEO to Lunar surface go to surface then unpack based equipment and supplies and return to LEO platform for resupply, just to start with. And why do you want to put people into LEO for extended periods? Even with artifical gravity, the mind can only tollerate that for so long.
We design the one way vehicle to be modular for recycling when they are in orbit and be reused into space platforms, transfer vehicles. One of the first long term platforms in orbit will be a supply base to manage surplus engines and other modules from all one-way crafts.
Just think about those things
Much too ambitious... the question begs, why do you need to put 20 people into orbit per-flight? Ultimatly, no, we need reuseable Earth/LEO vehicles if we intend to do more than science, but those days have yet to come. At the moment, expendable rockets are the clear choice.
A fully reuseable LEO/Luna cargo shuttle will also require a great deal of fuel, even cryogenic fuel, to deliver modest masses. A good way to minimize the fuel bill would be to deliver payloads into Lunar orbit by a Solar/Ion tug fueled by Krypton or Cesium or perhaps a NTR nuclear tug fueled by Hydrogen. Base reuseable landers in Lunar orbit, initially fueled from Earth but later by Lunar fuel, to shuttle cargo or people to and from the surface.
We are far, far, far away from making "recyclable rockets" that can be converted to anything useful in space, so I would get that idea out of my head right away. And, for the time being, its looking like the best route to deliver payloads to the Moon is with a more traditional fully expendable lander, built to minimize cost and dry mass per mission.
Unfortunately, your correct about your assumption that those tanks and rocket motors are not going to be recycled any time soon. There just won't be enough money in it and nor is it currently predictable that those tanks and rocket motors are going to be there to be recycled. Nobody would deliberately get into a long shot that may not happen and even if it did happen will have no possibly way to recover there investment for twenty year or longer.
The only way to change that would be to have the U.S. Government step in and back the operation with tax credit, loan guarantees, etc. But, I don't see that happening, so yes, your right.
Larry,
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At first cargoes sent to the Moon and Mars will be sent directly to there respective destinations. But when we manage to get a lot more efficient means to LEO then it becomes cheaper to have a shuttle service between a station and the Moon etc. The required technology to be developed is a reusable space plane, with a lot more reduced costs then the current shuttle. This LEO to Moon shuttle service can use indigenous lunar fuel to reduce costs.
Of course the space dock in LEO will not be the ISS its in the wrong orbit and designed wrong. A replacement built in a better orbit could use inflatable structures and be made large enough to provide a modicum of gravity by spinning.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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For beyond-science development on the Moon, then yes either a spaceplane or a very advanced "big brother" to the DC-I would be nessesarry.
I don't really see a huge bennefit in building a space station with artifical gravity just yet. The space station must be very very large to mitigate the coriolis force, and as long as you keep crew rotations short, around four months perhaps (easy with an RLV) then zero-G exposure isn't a big problem.
Keep in mind we still aren't 100% sure that there is much Lunar water available and accessable, and extracting Lunar oxygen from mineral oxides in large quantities needed to serve as the oxidizer for Earth-supplied Hydrogen, will be a very energy intensive process.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Martian Republic, that's incorrect, we can develop telerobotic units to take spacecrafts apart in orbit. Once the engines and other modulars are dis-assembled they are stored until transferred to the moon for re-assemble into lunar transfer vehicles or larger spacecrafts. That reduces the long term costs on space hardware, increasing the life of spacecraft hardware.
The first transfer would happen after the initial lunar construction equipment has landed on the moon. With each transfer to the moon some of the stored components would be moved as well, providing a stockpile of components ready for spacecraft manufacturing in the spacedock facilities.
When the spacedock becomes operational the resources of engines, fuel tanks and other components are stockpiled and ready to begin assembly, thus expanding the space cargo fleet to double or triple the existing vessels, and also providing the means to expand Mars rapaidly.
( more details given, look at these developments in 3D not 2D )
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Martian Republic, that's incorrect, we can develop telerobotic units to take spacecrafts apart in orbit. Once the engines and other modulars are dis-assembled they are stored until transferred to the moon for re-assemble into lunar transfer vehicles or larger spacecrafts. That reduces the long term costs on space hardware, increasing the life of spacecraft hardware.
Along the same line of thought, maybe a robotic station could be built in a high enough orbit that it didn’t halve to be reboots. When a satellite or a space station dies the parts could be hauled over with some kind of tug and then stored as spare parts for future repair or construction missions. Maybe the international space station is too big to haul by a solar tug but at the end of its life it could be moved module by module or piece by piece.
Dig into the [url=http://child-civilization.blogspot.com/2006/12/political-grab-bag.html]political grab bag[/url] at [url=http://child-civilization.blogspot.com/]Child Civilization[/url]
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Martian Republic, that's incorrect, we can develop telerobotic units to take spacecrafts apart in orbit. Once the engines and other modulars are dis-assembled they are stored until transferred to the moon for re-assemble into lunar transfer vehicles or larger spacecrafts. That reduces the long term costs on space hardware, increasing the life of spacecraft hardware.
The first transfer would happen after the initial lunar construction equipment has landed on the moon. With each transfer to the moon some of the stored components would be moved as well, providing a stockpile of components ready for spacecraft manufacturing in the spacedock facilities.
When the spacedock becomes operational the resources of engines, fuel tanks and other components are stockpiled and ready to begin assembly, thus expanding the space cargo fleet to double or triple the existing vessels, and also providing the means to expand Mars rapaidly.
( more details given, look at these developments in 3D not 2D )
I have pushed ideas of taking up the Shuttle external tanks in the past. If we had taken up every external tank for the Space Shuttle Orbitor we would have over 100 external tanks by now. But, then come the problem of vacating the fuel from the external tanks so when you cut open or try to modify those tanks that they won't blow up on you. You would also have to take those tanks into a higher orbit and be able to corral those tanks like tying them together or something. So beside being able to get up there, you also need automated space tugs, bailing wire or some kind of net to hold all your junk together.
If the Federal Government is going to go to all that trouble and expense, they may as well hand it off to Space Island and let them mess with it. At lease we might get something out of that mess.
But, you were also pushing the idea of manufacturing in space too, but any significant manufacturing is not going happen for a while. You might get a few space parts, but that about it. Or possibly build something that has dual use and with only minor modification once in space. But, anything much past that, you can forget it, because we won’t have the capability.
Larry,
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Martian Republic, that's incorrect, we can develop telerobotic units to take spacecrafts apart in orbit. Once the engines and other modulars are dis-assembled they are stored until transferred to the moon for re-assemble into lunar transfer vehicles or larger spacecrafts. That reduces the long term costs on space hardware, increasing the life of spacecraft hardware.
Along the same line of thought, maybe a robotic station could be built in a high enough orbit that it didn’t halve to be reboots. When a satellite or a space station dies the parts could be hauled over with some kind of tug and then stored as spare parts for future repair or construction missions. Maybe the international space station is too big to haul by a solar tug but at the end of its life it could be moved module by module or piece by piece.
I'm sure some of that may be done, but we are going to have to develop new technologies, because we don't do most of the stuff your talking about doing down here.
I also support putting an Ion driver on the International Space Station too. Because, the ISS has to be pushed up every so often, because of the upper atmosphere drag on it. So when the Space Shuttle was flying, it would use it engines to push the ISS every so often. Also another reason for putting an Ion driver on the ISS beside it to push it, you could work on a larger Ion drivers for larger ships or other uses. After all, ISS is suppose to be a research and development lab in space and having Ion driver on it, would be a good addition to the ISS
Larry,
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Wouldn't that be a better use of smaller private enterprise corporations than the existing large private enterprise contractors to build small devices for LEO.
Space Island group should work on the capture of external fuel tanks and the redevelopment of them. They should design first a tug capable of handling the dead weight of the fuel tank in low orbit ( make sure that the tug has a similar airplane refueling system like military aircrafts do throughout the world ) and while capturing and placing in orbit all the fuel tanks you work on a tethered disassembly (using telerobotics) spider-like droid for work on the fuel tanks thus altering them to suit their needs.
Again, lower cost, and could start within next 12 months and could capture all the last external tanks before decommissioning of the space shuttle. That should be sufficient to meet the needs of Space Island. It wouldn't take that much time to get the CAD/CAE information and drawings from the external tank manufacturing and design a disassembly program for the spider-like droid/s. Also combustion could only happen if both oxygen and fuel are available ( you make sure both are not present together we working on disassembly.
Martian Republic, We need to move rapidly to expand space and the best method is to use telerobotic vehicles, that could be mass produced on an assembly line with modular components and addon customised modules for particular tasks.
You design the use of telerobotics for the next quarter century, and keep innovating the products ( example when ATMs came out the where 500K each, now 25K each the same can be for the robotic units in space - expensive to start then cheaper and cheaper as new series come out )
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"...that's incorrect, we can develop telerobotic units to take spacecrafts apart in orbit. Once the engines and other modulars are dis-assembled they are stored until transferred to the moon for re-assemble into lunar transfer vehicles or larger spacecrafts. That reduces the long term costs on space hardware..."
Again, this is a far-off capability. We are no where near this level of capability in space by any means, by hand or by telerobotics, nor will we be for a long time. Making a robot perform a set program to do a preplanned operation of great complexity is a bad idea, there are too many things that can go wrong. Building robots of such extreme capability and complexity in large numbers is also a non-starter, these things cost many millions of dollars because they are complicated and very difficult to build. For the forseeable future, expendable landers are preferred, at least until local sources of rocket fuel become developed. At this time, then reuseable vehicles may become the superior choice...
The case for the recycling of rockets doesn't make much sense, since most of the weight of rocket stages is just fuel... the RL-10 rocket engine that powers the Centaur weighs a mere 300lbs in fact and only cost a few million dollars. It is a much much better idea to simply launch an additional new rocket stage than the go through the trouble of recycling old ones, particularly ones that are not built for the task (launcher upper stage into Lunar lander, for example). Just go from using expendable stages to reuseable ones, no recycling nessesarry. Again, on-orbit operations of any kind like this will be impossible for the forseeable future and be extremely expensive.
Putting ion engines on the ISS for reboost isn't a great idea because of the electrical requirements involved. The amount of power needed to operate an ion engine that big would be enormous, and it simply wouldn't be easy to mount it anywhere on the station. Plus, there is an electrostatic concern, that the station might take on an electric charge (bad). The ESA ATV and RSA Progress-Bwill bring up plenty of fuel to do the reboost itself when Shuttle is gone.
The Space Island Group are... well... crackpots to large extent. There is no good reason nor easy way to reuse the STS main tanks, as they simply aren't built to be used as a space station. There is just no way you can build anything out of them without modifications done to them before launch, and that is not going to happen. Besides, you can make a space station of similar volume but MUCH more resistant to micrometeoroid (which kills the STS-ET station idea) damage using inflatable modules.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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GCNRevenger,
The costs are less than one space shuttle orbiter, example use a company that has expertise in robotics, like industrial robots, and then build a prototype including a robotic assembly line process for assembly of orbital droids. Use partner with the Canadian's that build the shuttle arm and get technical information about the orbital environmental specifications.
The company still providing industrial robotics on earth producing income, and the future research will bring future income. It wouldn't be hard to have these droids operation in 12-36 months. By the time you are ready to launch the disassemble droids into orbit you have collected the fuel tanks.
I find GCNRevenger, you think it is not possible to use this telerobotic technology, in this timeframe, well you are wrong. It depends on your facilities and training of personnel, and other factors not building the droids because they are extensions of the operators. Also you need to compact the droids for launch and a complete work team of 8-12 droids and parent vehicle.
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Wouldn't that be a better use of smaller private enterprise corporations than the existing large private enterprise contractors to build small devices for LEO.
Space Island group should work on the capture of external fuel tanks and the redevelopment of them. They should design first a tug capable of handling the dead weight of the fuel tank in low orbit ( make sure that the tug has a similar airplane refueling system like military aircrafts do throughout the world ) and while capturing and placing in orbit all the fuel tanks you work on a tethered disassembly (using telerobotics) spider-like droid for work on the fuel tanks thus altering them to suit their needs.
Again, lower cost, and could start within next 12 months and could capture all the last external tanks before decommissioning of the space shuttle. That should be sufficient to meet the needs of Space Island. It wouldn't take that much time to get the CAD/CAE information and drawings from the external tank manufacturing and design a disassembly program for the spider-like droid/s. Also combustion could only happen if both oxygen and fuel are available ( you make sure both are not present together we working on disassembly.
Martian Republic, We need to move rapidly to expand space and the best method is to use telerobotic vehicles, that could be mass produced on an assembly line with modular components and addon customised modules for particular tasks.
You design the use of telerobotics for the next quarter century, and keep innovating the products ( example when ATMs came out the where 500K each, now 25K each the same can be for the robotic units in space - expensive to start then cheaper and cheaper as new series come out )
You seem to have mist the point. For NASA to take there external tank into space, it will either take more fuel and/or decrease the pay load they can take into space in the space shuttle orbitor by maybe 5,000 to 10,000 pounds or so. To make those tanks useable for Space Island so they can connect them in a ring so they can rotate it, you would have to put on docking clamps on the ends. The best place to do that is down here before it launched into space. But, to guarantee that you neither sacrifice the safety of the astronauts and make those tanks useable for Space Island would probably double the price of those NASA launches. That is one reason that NASA dropped the idea and retreated from that idea.
The space tug that you refer to, would have to stay in space and would not be coming back to earth. As far as refueling it, you would either have to launch another rocket with fuel for your tug or maybe there still might be some fuel left over in those external tanks. Also the development and deployment of one or more space tugs would probably be in excess of one billion dollars.
In which case it is not a good plan for NASA, because it further exaggerates the launch price that NASA has to pay and there having a problem with the budget they got right now. So they don’t have the money to do that.
In which case Space Island doesn't have the money to develop the space tug, launch it and modify those external tanks to be used as a space station. Even if NASA would take part of the load off them, which they can't and won't be doing.
I'm not against using telerobotics or any other technology for that matter. I'm not against going for aggressive programs either. You remember me, I'm the guy that is pushing for building a city on Mars in a forty to fifty year time frame.
What your proposing that we do within the frame work of free enterprise for making space profitable by private enterprise is not going happen and nor can it work.
To transform those external tanks so you can use them for a space station would be in excess of 10 billion dollars to rebuild in space beside any modification here on earth to help make it possible. Even with the shuttle and the Russian and Chinese space craft you still could not get enough people to there space station even if it could be built. Even space ship one could not reach either the current ISS or the Space Island space station if it existed.
I get into arguments over whether we could build that city on Mars in a forty to fifty year time frame. On another space forum there were two guys that argued that developing a self-sustaining colony on Mars was impossible from what they knew about economics.
On guy used the manufacture of a pencil to show why it would be impossible to have a space colony. Find out what it would take to make just the pencil like the lead that goes in it, the wood that covers it, rubber for the eraser, the metal band around the end, the pant, etc. Now duplicate that problem for paper, ink pens, etc., etc. and you will see that it can’t be done.
The other guy was working with other people to figure out where the break even point should be with building infrastructure that our Martian Colony should become self-sufficient or self-staining and he could not find that point. He was bound to the same monetary policies that you base your ideas on. I open admitted that if I were bound by the same philosophy of banking and concept of wealth that he and most of the people on that forum and I might say this forum too, then he is absolutly correct, it can't be done. I reminded him of the Kennedy Space Program. He said he remembered and said, thing were really cooking then. Then I explained why thing took off under John F. Kennedy and why things came to a screeching halt under Nixon. An economic policies, banking system, concept of what wealth is, can single handily launch a space program into high gear or can bring it to a screeching halt over night. He could see that after I explained it to him.
Unless you change the veritable of what going on between your ears, what your talking about doing is "IMPOSIBLE"!
And that a fact!
If we were in an Empire that had interstellar fight from one star to another and that Empire falls, we would still lose our ability to maintain our space flight or interstellar space flight.
Some of the other people that were protesting against my views said, well once the Empire gone, then we can do what we want to do.
No, that not so!
Although the Empire was on the out side is gone, they trained you and a residue of that Empire is on the inside of you and directs the way you think. The same thing that cause that Empire to collapse because of there own rottenness, will also cause you to fall backward too if you don't root out that rottenness out of your own thinking. That kind of rottenness is in thought patterns of most people in the United States and even in the rest of the world and is our biggest hindrance when it comes to getting into space. Matter of fact, it a bigger hindrance than not having either the technology or the infrastructure in place. Because, we can develop the technology we didn’t have and we can build the infrastructure we didn’t have, but, some one who does not see that rottenness from within and refuses to entertain that idea it exist will impose those limitation on himself and stop a progressive space program and colonization and he will not know that he did that from within himself.
Larry,
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Martain Republic,
Then you come to the conclusion that the US can do it alone principle !!!. Well, I think, If we go down that track of one countries or small group of countries and not the world, then I think all bets are off, and if a private enterprise get there. They have rights over the planet, create the management like a corporation and manage the planet resources, If other prospectors try to land they should be encouraged to leave or find themselves in front of the planetary legal system for your illegal entry and landing on planet.
That would start something wouldn't it with other countries of earth, ha ha ha. Do you think it can't be done , It can !!!!. The properganda that would start to the public would be fantastic to watch, One corporation or Consortium own a planet work start something , because corporations don't believe in the Outer Space treaty.
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If we were in an Empire that had interstellar fight from one star to another and that Empire falls, we would still lose our ability to maintain our space flight or interstellar space flight.
Some of the other people that were protesting against my views said, well once the Empire gone, then we can do what we want to do.
No, that not so!
Although the Empire was on the out side is gone, they trained you and a residue of that Empire is on the inside of you and directs the way you think. The same thing that cause that Empire to collapse because of there own rottenness, will also cause you to fall backward too if you don't root out that rottenness out of your own thinking. That kind of rottenness is in thought patterns of most people in the United States and even in the rest of the world and is our biggest hindrance when it comes to getting into space. Matter of fact, it a bigger hindrance than not having either the technology or the infrastructure in place. Because, we can develop the technology we didn’t have and we can build the infrastructure we didn’t have, but, some one who does not see that rottenness from within and refuses to entertain that idea it exist will impose those limitation on himself and stop a progressive space program and colonization and he will not know that he did that from within himself.
Larry,
What you seem to be saying is that at the beginning when Your empire was young it had little resources and it was a challenge to do anything and people who where motivated went for it and solved those challenges. Now your Empire has aged and though it has more resources it does not have the motivation to do what was once possible, people now look at these challenges and say too hard why risk my comfortable life to try.
This seems to happen to all empires they stop expanding not wanting to risk the trouble and cost. It happened to the greeks, the Romans and to the British. So will it happen to or is it happening to the USA, probably. When an empire decides that it will not keep expanding it will eventually fail, through internal troubles or due to the incapability to deal with other external factors.
But sometimes when it seems things are going to go dark there is that last gasp of expansion and that could be enough to get a breath of fresh air into the Empire as there is that new generation of people in the frontiers with so much to do that they become your new class of motivated people. Of course then these frontier provinces become independent and even with the original Empire collapsing they will push the Empires ideals forward but with the slant of local conditions.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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Martain Republic,
Then you come to the conclusion that the US can do it alone principle !!!. Well, I think, If we go down that track of one countries or small group of countries and not the world, then I think all bets are off, and if a private enterprise get there. They have rights over the planet, create the management like a corporation and manage the planet resources, If other prospectors try to land they should be encouraged to leave or find themselves in front of the planetary legal system for your illegal entry and landing on planet.
That would start something wouldn't it with other countries of earth, ha ha ha. Do you think it can't be done , It can !!!!. The properganda that would start to the public would be fantastic to watch, One corporation or Consortium own a planet work start something , because corporations don't believe in the Outer Space treaty.
Although I believe that the United States should show leadership when it comes to going into space and even make proposal to colonize the Moon and Mars. I also believe that the United States should make an open invitation to the rest of the world to come along with us when we go back to the Moon to colonize it and go to Mars to colonize it.
Private enterprise won't do it because there no money in it and it a financial loser and it always will be. Let take Space Island plan as an example. The external tanks are useless to them in there present form and even with robotics, they are still useless to them. To make any future tanks useful for Space Island, it would blow out NASA budget. Unless something changes, that is the end of the argument as far as using those external tanks to build a space station. Just about every other space venture by any other private individual or corporation will suffer that same fait, because current concept of what wealth is, the banking system and even profit won't allow it to happen and will even impede any effort to make it happen. Trying to get one or more cooperation to make space venture profitable or even with NASA help, it will be like having two drunks trying to hold each other up by leaning up against each other. Under the present system of economic, banking and people with there concept of wealth, the more people you put into space, the more expensive it become to maintain that space colony. I don't care if you use robotics or what ever other new technology that you can find to use, it will change that fact.
For your idea to have legs to walk on, the U.S. Government has to rethink it economic and banking policies. They would have to reorganize the Federal Reserve System reorganize debt or cancel some of it and then investing in new infrastructure and developing new technology. The reason the U.S. Government will build infrastructure and finance developing new technologies is for the purpose of creating job and servicing the general needs of the American people. In there drive to build new infrastructure, if you can get the U.S. Government to do a backward glance at the present day shuttle and convince them to reengineer those external tanks for dual use, then your plan might have legs to walk on. The U.S. Government would basically have to eat the cost for Space Island to build there space station. But, otherwise, these plans will never see the light day and you will never see it happen. It was the U.S., State, county, city Governments that built the rail roads, road system, city air ports, city water and sewer system, etc. down here. So why are you having a problem thinking that we can do it without a government in space or something organized like a government in space.
Now much of what you would like to do might work within this frame work, but out side this frame work, it will not work.
Larry,
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The costs are less than one space shuttle orbiter, example use a company that has expertise in robotics, like industrial robots, and then build a prototype including a robotic assembly line process for assembly of orbital droids. Use partner with the Canadian's that build the shuttle arm and get technical information about the orbital environmental specifications.
I find GCNRevenger, you think it is not possible to use this telerobotic technology, in this timeframe, well you are wrong.
Really? Why do you think that a team of robots with such capability would be so inexpensive? It is looking like the robot slated to fix Hubble will cost several hundred million dollars, and it is far, far too primitive to do what you propose. Removing rocket engines from spent stages? Cutting? Welding? Major rewiring? No... you might do these things if the stage were built to be taken apart on orbit, but that would make them so expensive you might as well launch a new one.
Say you wanted to capture old spent Centaur upper stages and convert them to Lunar landers and TLI stages. The stage itself weighs only a few thousand kilos, so you could afford to build a brand new one and put it on the smallest orbital launcher you can find. They aren't that expensive either, surely not more than around $10M. The cost of modifying them on orbit... much less the STS external tanks... is such that you might as well send up a new one. How many stages will you have recycle to make up for the cost of the robots? Expendability works.
---
"He was bound to the same monetary policies that you base your ideas on. I open admitted that if I were bound by the same philosophy of banking and concept of wealth that he and most of the people on that forum... Then I explained why thing took off under John F. Kennedy and why things came to a screeching halt under Nixon. An economic policies, banking system, concept of what wealth is, can single handily launch a space program into high gear or can bring it to a screeching halt over night."
Ah yes, an extrapolation from the teachings of Lydon LaRouche again... well, being that Mr. LaRouche is a certifiable looney, you'll forgive me if I don't buy the banking excuse. What brought the space program down was not a change in monetary policy or whatnot, it was a change of national priorities. But you are correct, no Mars city can be built in the next 50 or so years that can produce a valuble export.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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If we were in an Empire that had interstellar fight from one star to another and that Empire falls, we would still lose our ability to maintain our space flight or interstellar space flight.
Some of the other people that were protesting against my views said, well once the Empire gone, then we can do what we want to do.
No, that not so!
Although the Empire was on the out side is gone, they trained you and a residue of that Empire is on the inside of you and directs the way you think. The same thing that cause that Empire to collapse because of there own rottenness, will also cause you to fall backward too if you don't root out that rottenness out of your own thinking. That kind of rottenness is in thought patterns of most people in the United States and even in the rest of the world and is our biggest hindrance when it comes to getting into space. Matter of fact, it a bigger hindrance than not having either the technology or the infrastructure in place. Because, we can develop the technology we didn’t have and we can build the infrastructure we didn’t have, but, some one who does not see that rottenness from within and refuses to entertain that idea it exist will impose those limitation on himself and stop a progressive space program and colonization and he will not know that he did that from within himself.
Larry,
What you seem to be saying is that at the beginning when Your empire was young it had little resources and it was a challenge to do anything and people who where motivated went for it and solved those challenges. Now your Empire has aged and though it has more resources it does not have the motivation to do what was once possible, people now look at these challenges and say too hard why risk my comfortable life to try.
This seems to happen to all empires they stop expanding not wanting to risk the trouble and cost. It happened to the greeks, the Romans and to the British. So will it happen to or is it happening to the USA, probably. When an empire decides that it will not keep expanding it will eventually fail, through internal troubles or due to the incapability to deal with other external factors.
But sometimes when it seems things are going to go dark there is that last gasp of expansion and that could be enough to get a breath of fresh air into the Empire as there is that new generation of people in the frontiers with so much to do that they become your new class of motivated people. Of course then these frontier provinces become independent and even with the original Empire collapsing they will push the Empires ideals forward but with the slant of local conditions.
You mentioned the Greeks, the Romans and to the British Empires. Maybe I should clarify what I mean.
I would like to remind you that the Greece, the Romans and British did not start off being empires, but were later transformed into empire. It is this transformation the started the deterioration of those nation and ultimately lead to there demise or collapse. As in the case of Greece, it went from being a Republican concept of government in Athens Greece to being an Empire with all of it rottenness. The Romans did the same thing and the British did the same thing. England was the second nation state after France, before it became an empire. It was this moral rottenness of Great Britain that drove the American Colonies to break away and form the new American Republic. It was that New American Republic that was constantly pushing for new technology to be developed and not the British Empire, which was the opposing view point of pulling thing down so they can control things.
We are dealing with two different concepts here:
The Imperial mindset of pulling things down so they can control things. It generally leads to slavery and other forms of debasing man and because of that corruption it will eventually destroy itself.
The Nation State or Republic mindset is based around building stuff up and using new technology for accomplishing that mission. Since they can continually develop new more advanced technologies, they can continue to develop almost indefinitely.
If there is an Empire that had interstellar flight between stars, at some time in there past they had to be Nation State of some type before they became an Empire. Empire don't have the capability to develop past a certain point, because you have to develop the general population and build them up so can build city on Mars or things like that. The Imperial mindset of the people in control will prevent that from happening. The will do that by brainwashing the people that they control through education, new media, etc. Now our Interstellar Empire if one existed after they took over would start the process of disintegrating. They will also be trying to brainwash all there subject throughout the Empire on other planets in other star systems. Now when our Empire collapse and it will, any body that has bought into there propaganda or economic concepts, will also continue to go backward too. They may hate the Empire. They may have been repressive, etc, etc., but the economic policies of the Empire they are still endorsing whether they recognize it or not. Those economic policies will also continue to drive them backward too, because those economic policies are corrupt and are designed to pull things down and they do.
But, lets say that there is one colony that thinks more the way I think and did not buy into that corruption and they clean house of that corruption and go back to the Nation State concept of the General Welfare and building people up. That one society would be the only society that would not lose it interstellar flight capability and would even progress to even higher levels of technological development.
What I’m saying is, you concept of reality can have both a good or negative effect on both humanity and any space development program that you think up or improvement of mankind that you can think up. What going on between your ears is more powerful than either the technology, infrastructure, because your going to have society going in both direction that either did not have the technology and infrastructure who developed it and those that had it and lost only on the bases of what going on between those ears.
Larry,
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"He was bound to the same monetary policies that you base your ideas on. I open admitted that if I were bound by the same philosophy of banking and concept of wealth that he and most of the people on that forum... Then I explained why thing took off under John F. Kennedy and why things came to a screeching halt under Nixon. An economic policies, banking system, concept of what wealth is, can single handily launch a space program into high gear or can bring it to a screeching halt over night."
Ah yes, an extrapolation from the teachings of Lydon LaRouche again... well, being that Mr. LaRouche is a certifiable looney, you'll forgive me if I don't buy the banking excuse. What brought the space program down was not a change in monetary policy or whatnot, it was a change of national priorities. But you are correct, no Mars city can be built in the next 50 or so years that can produce a valuble export.
I can see that we are going to have to agree to disagree with each other.
But, I guess that OK!
Larry,
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I would like to remind you that the Greece, the Romans and British did not start off being empires, but were later transformed into empire. It is this transformation the started the deterioration of those nation and ultimately lead to there demise or collapse. As in the case of Greece, it went from being a Republican concept of government in Athens Greece to being an Empire with all of it rottenness. The Romans did the same thing and the British did the same thing. England was the second nation state after France, before it became an empire. It was this moral rottenness of Great Britain that drove the American Colonies to break away and form the new American Republic. It was that New American Republic that was constantly pushing for new technology to be developed and not the British Empire, which was the opposing view point of pulling thing down so they can control things.
We are dealing with two different concepts here:
The Imperial mindset of pulling things down so they can control things. It generally leads to slavery and other forms of debasing man and because of that corruption it will eventually destroy itself.
The Nation State or Republic mindset is based around building stuff up and using new technology for accomplishing that mission. Since they can continually develop new more advanced technologies, they can continue to develop almost indefinitely.
If there is an Empire that had interstellar flight between stars, at some time in there past they had to be Nation State of some type before they became an Empire. Empire don't have the capability to develop past a certain point, because you have to develop the general population and build them up so can build city on Mars or things like that. The Imperial mindset of the people in control will prevent that from happening. The will do that by brainwashing the people that they control through education, new media, etc. Now our Interstellar Empire if one existed after they took over would start the process of disintegrating. They will also be trying to brainwash all there subject throughout the Empire on other planets in other star systems. Now when our Empire collapse and it will, any body that has bought into there propaganda or economic concepts, will also continue to go backward too. They may hate the Empire. They may have been repressive, etc, etc., but the economic policies of the Empire they are still endorsing whether they recognize it or not. Those economic policies will also continue to drive them backward too, because those economic policies are corrupt and are designed to pull things down and they do.
But, lets say that there is one colony that thinks more the way I think and did not buy into that corruption and they clean house of that corruption and go back to the Nation State concept of the General Welfare and building people up. That one society would be the only society that would not lose it interstellar flight capability and would even progress to even higher levels of technological development.
What I’m saying is, you concept of reality can have both a good or negative effect on both humanity and any space development program that you think up or improvement of mankind that you can think up. What going on between your ears is more powerful than either the technology, infrastructure, because your going to have society going in both direction that either did not have the technology and infrastructure who developed it and those that had it and lost only on the bases of what going on between those ears.
Larry,
It was not Moral rotteness that made the American Colonies break away from great Britain, nor was it that Britain was fading. At that time Britain was a young state and no where near the pinnacle of its power. Inventions and Ideas flowed from Britain as Britain went through the Industrial revolution a state that occured mostly after the Colonies had broken away.
You must remember that our ideas of what is classed as Morality is different now than then. The majority of the Founding fathers where slave owners and slavery existed in the USA long after Great Britain had banned it. But what we call morality really came about in the 19th century in the age we call the Victorian age. But what really matters is that the USA is now the Empire and most of your arquement can now be thrown at the USA. It is now the turn of the USA to either take on the challenges or to begin to fade.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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Martian Republic,
This where we disagree on Private Enterprise can build into space without government help or assistance. The financial rewards are not based on one linear year, but could be based on family generations. Even today on earth there are family empires that span continents, and have been running for hundreds of years. The same could happen in space.
People are motivated by more the just money, and corporations controlled by people are also sometimes driven by more than money. Example if you want market share, you could sarifice profits for control of vast resources.
To control the vast outer planets and moons of this solar system is a reason because the pricing of such resources could be profitable vs earth based resources. I think you don't understand business especially large multi-national CEOs.
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When we have to start building things in orbit from scratch then telerobotics will be a big aid. But apart from the NASA robot currently in development little has been done as far as I know to actually work out how best to do this. One advantage that Telerobotics can have is that the robot does not necassarily need just one set of arms.
I have used Rovs which are the underwater versions of the telerobotics we would need for space and it is not an easy job to actually be able to feel for the material you are working on. Advanced use of VR eguipment should be able to sort this problem, but it is still in the testing stage and most development is still in the military side.
NASA developed there space telerobotic robot in a human shape as they wanted to have it able to use Human tools already made. But is it the best shape this im not sure actually a robot with a lot of arms may be a better design as this allows for more grip and stability when working.
Needless to say this will cost a lot of money to develop and as little work has been done it will be at least 5 years before we get a robot that will meet the standards we want and actually last for more than one mission.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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Grypd,
For example use a company that has expertise in robotics, like industrial robots, and then build a prototype including a robotic assembly line process for assembly of orbital droids. Use partner with the Canadian's that build the shuttle arm and get technical information about the orbital environmental specifications.
The company still providing industrial robotics on earth producing income, and the future research will bring future income. It wouldn't be hard to have these droids operation in 12-36 months.
But you would have the process for mass production of worker droids in orbit, this timeframe leads you into the same time when team system software and developer tools are coming out in the next 12 months, for building group based working environments like droid work teams for orbit use extending information transport protocols use university student to develop components for class projects limits costs.
Think outside what you have always done.
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I would like to remind you that the Greece, the Romans and British did not start off being empires, but were later transformed into empire. It is this transformation the started the deterioration of those nation and ultimately lead to there demise or collapse. As in the case of Greece, it went from being a Republican concept of government in Athens Greece to being an Empire with all of it rottenness. The Romans did the same thing and the British did the same thing. England was the second nation state after France, before it became an empire. It was this moral rottenness of Great Britain that drove the American Colonies to break away and form the new American Republic. It was that New American Republic that was constantly pushing for new technology to be developed and not the British Empire, which was the opposing view point of pulling thing down so they can control things.
We are dealing with two different concepts here:
The Imperial mindset of pulling things down so they can control things. It generally leads to slavery and other forms of debasing man and because of that corruption it will eventually destroy itself.
The Nation State or Republic mindset is based around building stuff up and using new technology for accomplishing that mission. Since they can continually develop new more advanced technologies, they can continue to develop almost indefinitely.
If there is an Empire that had interstellar flight between stars, at some time in there past they had to be Nation State of some type before they became an Empire. Empire don't have the capability to develop past a certain point, because you have to develop the general population and build them up so can build city on Mars or things like that. The Imperial mindset of the people in control will prevent that from happening. The will do that by brainwashing the people that they control through education, new media, etc. Now our Interstellar Empire if one existed after they took over would start the process of disintegrating. They will also be trying to brainwash all there subject throughout the Empire on other planets in other star systems. Now when our Empire collapse and it will, any body that has bought into there propaganda or economic concepts, will also continue to go backward too. They may hate the Empire. They may have been repressive, etc, etc., but the economic policies of the Empire they are still endorsing whether they recognize it or not. Those economic policies will also continue to drive them backward too, because those economic policies are corrupt and are designed to pull things down and they do.
But, lets say that there is one colony that thinks more the way I think and did not buy into that corruption and they clean house of that corruption and go back to the Nation State concept of the General Welfare and building people up. That one society would be the only society that would not lose it interstellar flight capability and would even progress to even higher levels of technological development.
What I’m saying is, you concept of reality can have both a good or negative effect on both humanity and any space development program that you think up or improvement of mankind that you can think up. What going on between your ears is more powerful than either the technology, infrastructure, because your going to have society going in both direction that either did not have the technology and infrastructure who developed it and those that had it and lost only on the bases of what going on between those ears.
Larry,
It was not Moral rotteness that made the American Colonies break away from great Britain, nor was it that Britain was fading. At that time Britain was a young state and no where near the pinnacle of its power. Inventions and Ideas flowed from Britain as Britain went through the Industrial revolution a state that occured mostly after the Colonies had broken away.
You must remember that our ideas of what is classed as Morality is different now than then. The majority of the Founding fathers where slave owners and slavery existed in the USA long after Great Britain had banned it. But what we call morality really came about in the 19th century in the age we call the Victorian age. But what really matters is that the USA is now the Empire and most of your arquement can now be thrown at the USA. It is now the turn of the USA to either take on the challenges or to begin to fade.
Actually Great Britain started it transformation into an Empire about forty years before the American Revolution happened. It was there desire to unify the British Island that they sent Scottish governors over, which were also generally pro-development in the colonies as kind of a peace offering. The Scottish governor Alexander turned the Virginia Colony around and moved young George Washington Swift pass into the Shenandoah Valley and then into the Alleghenies where they ran into the French and started the French and Indian War. Which ultimately secured the Ohio Valley for the young country after the American Revolution. The other Scottish governor Hunter turn the New York colony around after it was captured by the British from the Dutch or New Holland. The reason that the British invaded the Dutch colony was so they could out flank the Massachusetts colony. It was the Massachusetts colony that especially had aspiration of being a nation building around a general good principle. Also Massachusetts at one time had the largest economy in the world and that was the place that things were really moving at. When the British found out what was going on in Massachusetts, they economically crushed it, because they wanted a resource colony and did not want a colony that was industrialized. This was forty before the American Revolution and the colonies were not ready for a revolution. But, Ben Franklin took over the responsibility of getting those colonies ready for the rebellion against Great Britain from the old Puritan leader. This is why the American Revolution broke out in Massachusetts and also why 2/3 of the Continental Army or the Minute Man Army also came from Massachusetts when George Washington took over the command of it. They were tired of the British tyranny against there colony and that why they fought so hard against the British. It the same kind of mistake that the United States is making in Iraq and I have no doubt it will have the same results too.
There are a few things that I would like to bring to your remembrance or fact that you should recall.
1. American Constitution was based on Liebnize, Nickeless Cussa which set the foundation for the Renaissance, the Greek Republican form of government or the general good. Man in the image of God.
Now the British system or concept of government is based on John Locke, which is part of Venetian Party which came out of Venice. Is the one that pushes evolution and that man is just an evolved animal and so is expendable if there too many of them. This is also where the royalty came from or those royal family blood lines came from. The one that set up the serf classes and the ruling classes in Europe after the fall of Rome and until the mid 1800 century time frame. Serf Class was basically, just another form of slavery, although it was not referred to as slavery though.
I don't claim that America is perfect or even that we even always live by the principle of what is written in the U.S. Constitution even. But, the principle that are needed to save the United State and to bring the United State around to where it needs to be so it can show real leadership is written in the U.S. Constitution.
But, you are right, the United State is acting like an Empire even though technically it still a Republic. You are also right, if the United States continue down this path, it will disintegrate like all the other country that have gone down this path. But, if the United State goes back to the U.S. Constitution and chooses to operate under those rules again, then America can rebuild itself and can develop space too. That the kind of power that the U.S. Constitution gives the American people to do good and not evil if they choose to honor the principle of the U.S. Constitution that is. Whether or not the United States will make the turn or will not make the turn is still in question.
Now you can still have good people in a corrupt Empire, but the very nature of an Empire is corruption or promoting the interest of a few people at the expense of everybody else in the rest of the world and even in there own nation too and that evil will eventually win out over any good that some individuals may do.
But, the United States was not designed to be an Empire, but a Republic which is suppose to have a nature based around the “General Welfare” concept or common interest of all the people of that nation.
Larry,
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There are still two big questions you haven't given a very good answer for, Comstar. Why and how...
Making a SPACE robot which can basicly take apart and build a rocket stage from scratch has never been done before. No robot on Earth can do it now very well even by remote control. In space, you have the time delay to worry about, and making a totally automated one is impractical because of all the things you can't predict... the list of reasons why they cost hundreds of millions of dollars goes on.
But there is another question... why? Small rocket stages, even with high-performance cryogenic engines, are simply not that expensive. A small Centaur stage can be bought and launched on the smallest of launcher, or two of them empty on a medium sized one. Reuseable stages, you wouldn't even need to do that, just get fuel for them. The extremely high cost of orbital operations is such that its cheaper not to recycle at all. Either use and throw away, or build reuseable from the ground up. Building things in orbit simply costs too much.
"Think outside what you have always done.", a variation on "think outside the box," is a fine sounding business-speak limerick, but it often doesn't help at all, because you are stuck with the constraints imposed on you if you like it or not.
Edit: Hey Martian, getting a little off topic here... you are in the wrong thread to go on for pages about American history...
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Now the British system or concept of government is based on John Locke, which is part of Venetian Party which came out of Venice. Is the one that pushes evolution and that man is just an evolved animal and so is expendable if there too many of them. This is also where the royalty came from or those royal family blood lines came from. The one that set up the serf classes and the ruling classes in Europe after the fall of Rome and until the mid 1800 century time frame. Serf Class was basically, just another form of slavery, although it was not referred to as slavery though.
Think your post at a whole is rather good, but I frankly don't understand this bit. I thought the natural rights metaphysics of John Locke was very akin to what formed the basis of the American constitution. Evolution? Surely John Locke believed in God and an inherent purpose in creation (teleology), not some kind of social darwinism.
And what's this about Venice?
The particular ideology of social relations in medieval Europe, of which there was never a clean cut everywhere prevalent case of serfdom - it varied greatly in different regions and countries - was in a sense similar. It relied on the presumption of how God had intended the social organism to be organized. It also relied on rights in the medieval sense, which was not a universal faculty, but a mundane agreement.
The social organization of feudalism itself was not the product of a conscious ideology however, but of the means of production in late antiquity and early middle ages as well as the clash between Roman and Germanic law.
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