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Tom Kalbfus

Banned

Registered: 2006-08-16

Posts: 4,401

USS Discovery: Could we build it?

I am told NASA is considering a key technology that would make this spaceship possible. I think we are close, very close.
Some of the key technologies:
Nuclear reactor
Plasma rocket engines
Human hibernation
Artificial Intelligence
Cheap Access to Space - The ability to build a wheel space station, reusable space vehicle (Space X attempting to land spent rocket stages and reuse them.)

What do you think? how close are we to building something like the USS Discovery?

kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,831

Re: USS Discovery: Could we build it?

Let's concern ourselves with the key technologies we need to put humans on Mars first.  After we've thoroughly explored Mars, then we can consider building something like this for an Europa mission.  Even if SLS was a 200t HLLV, that's a minimum of 30 flights for something with that mass.  We'd probably have to use something along the lines of Rockwell's Star Raker concept or big dumb rockets with 500t+ throws.

Some of the key technologies for Mars exploration:
* Interplanetary transfer vehicle
* Planetary landing vehicle
* Closed loop ECLSS
* Active radiation shielding
* SEP
* ISPP
* ISRU

Quick thoughts:

Eventually, gas core reactors or fusion based power sources are required for exploration of the entire solar system.

Human hibernation may become feasible at some point in the future, but it's still highly experimental.

Even if we had flight rated gas core or fusion reactors today, current plasma thruster tech is not as advanced as current hall thruster tech.

USS Discovery is the size and weight of a small guided missile destroyer and even if F9H cores are reusable up to ten times, access to LEO is still prohibitively expensive.

Lastly, although Elon's a pragmatic business man, he's not too keen on AI, so he may choose not to provide launch services to someone with an AI equipped vehicle that could cause rather significant problems if the navigational computer went haywire and it reentered.

Antius

Member

From: Cumbria, UK

Registered: 2007-05-22

Posts: 1,003

Re: USS Discovery: Could we build it?

To survive the Jovian radiation fields the ship would need to be equipped with a shielding density of 2000kg/m2 of human habitation area.  That's about the same as would be needed for cosmic ray shielding anyway.  So something like USS Discovery would also be useful as a Mars transfer vehicle after establishment of a large manned base.

The habitation area would be spherical, as you would want to maximise the amount of internal volume per unit shielded hull area.  Something like Discovery, with a hull 30m in diameter, would mass 5600 tonnes for the hull shielding alone.  Yikes!

Tom Kalbfus

Banned

Registered: 2006-08-16

Posts: 4,401

Re: USS Discovery: Could we build it?

Of course the original mission was to Saturn in the book, it was changed to Jupiter because in the book it used Jupiter for a gravitational assist, and the Hollywood producers didn't want to confuse their audience. If the Discovery was designed to go to Saturn, it could be used to send men to Titan.