31
   

Should NASA go to Mars or back to the Moon?

 
 
BillRM
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Jun, 2010 08:07 am
@Brandon9000,
Quote:
The research project required to make such a thing work would be enormous. Why not go with less unusual nuclear propulsion technology that's already well understood and well tested?


First, that little model was created to show stability in flight before computer technology was able to do so by mathematic modeling alone.

Second, unless Newton’s laws are somehow in question there is no reason to spend a dime on research for proof of concepts as modern computers simulations had been done over the decades to check on the 1950s work and found no problems.

Therefore, I would suggest you might wish to look into the matter a little more deeply before posting complete nonsense as the "research" cost would be the cost to print out the plans already in computers around the world.
BillRM
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Jun, 2010 08:34 am
@Brandon9000,
Knowing the BIS IE the British Interplanetary Society they would more then likely to be able to sell you complete engineering plans fairly cheaply minus the plans for the .3 to .03 kiloton nuclear bombs.

As I said, it is a simple concept that anyone who can run some computer simulations and then knows how to run a CAD program can get a design that can be build tomorrow.

No great secrets and we could had been launching them before the ends of the 1960s if we had have the will to do so.
0 Replies
 
Brandon9000
 
  1  
Reply Sat 5 Jun, 2010 02:10 am
@BillRM,
BillRM wrote:

Quote:
The research project required to make such a thing work would be enormous. Why not go with less unusual nuclear propulsion technology that's already well understood and well tested?


First, that little model was created to show stability in flight before computer technology was able to do so by mathematic modeling alone.

Second, unless Newton’s laws are somehow in question there is no reason to spend a dime on research for proof of concepts as modern computers simulations had been done over the decades to check on the 1950s work and found no problems.

Therefore, I would suggest you might wish to look into the matter a little more deeply before posting complete nonsense as the "research" cost would be the cost to print out the plans already in computers around the world.


Typically, plans on paper which have never been tried have to be perfected a little, particularly riding on top of atom bombs.
BillRM
 
  1  
Reply Sat 5 Jun, 2010 08:00 am
@Brandon9000,
It is a simple repeat simple heavy flat plate with bombs place behind it.

Unlike the complex nightmare of a nuclear rocket there is nothing that call for or need great testing before hands in a push plate ship.

US nuclear bomb technology is as mature as any technology in the world and does not call for any testing either.

Build the thing and fly it that is all that call for in spite of your fear when someone used the words nuclear bombs as by it very nature be far far safer the betting your life on a very complex nuclear rocker motor with far less preformed beside.


Brandon9000
 
  3  
Reply Sun 6 Jun, 2010 07:58 am
@BillRM,
BillRM wrote:

It is a simple repeat simple heavy flat plate with bombs place behind it.

Unlike the complex nightmare of a nuclear rocket there is nothing that call for or need great testing before hands in a push plate ship.

US nuclear bomb technology is as mature as any technology in the world and does not call for any testing either.

Build the thing and fly it that is all that call for in spite of your fear when someone used the words nuclear bombs as by it very nature be far far safer the betting your life on a very complex nuclear rocker motor with far less preformed beside.

If you believe that something like a nuclear bomb rocket can be built and made workable quickly, just because the plans have been on paper for awhile, despite the fact that it hasn't actually been attempted before, then you have no idea of how technology works.
BillRM
 
  1  
Reply Sun 6 Jun, 2010 02:07 pm
@Brandon9000,
Sure, it could be as the engineering is as clear-cut as anything could be.

There is nothing repeat nothing that calls for a big research program as the physic and the engineering is simple and completely understood.

Side note the gun type uranium bomb unlike the plutonian implosion type was tested by being drop on a Japanese city as we did have an understanding of that type of weapon and not a great deal of uranium to waste on tests.

In any case the complete wonderful beauty of a nuclear bomb driven ship is that is it simple not a complex nightmare of a reactor type rocket.

Once more all we need to do is build it and fly it.
Brandon9000
 
  1  
Reply Mon 7 Jun, 2010 05:04 am
@BillRM,
BillRM wrote:

Sure, it could be as the engineering is as clear-cut as anything could be.

There is nothing repeat nothing that calls for a big research program as the physic and the engineering is simple and completely understood.

Side note the gun type uranium bomb unlike the plutonian implosion type was tested by being drop on a Japanese city as we did have an understanding of that type of weapon and not a great deal of uranium to waste on tests.

In any case the complete wonderful beauty of a nuclear bomb driven ship is that is it simple not a complex nightmare of a reactor type rocket.

Once more all we need to do is build it and fly it.


I repeat - the fact that something looks good on paper doesn't mean that it won't take a long development program to make it work properly. Many things that look good on paper don't work at all.
BillRM
 
  1  
Reply Mon 7 Jun, 2010 06:03 am
@Brandon9000,
Well there is little point in going on here as I can not even dream what you could find to spend a big research budget on in connection to such a ship.

It work by Newton's laws and by placing one bomb after another behind a plate and not even our government could waste a lot of funds doing research on such a simple concept ship.

But keep repeating over and over again how somehow is must it just must require a large research program before we could build the thing and fly it by placing bombs behind a plate.
farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Tue 8 Jun, 2010 04:18 am
@BillRM,
From This mornings MY Times
Quote:
For Mission to Mars, a New Road Map
By KENNETH CHANG
Published: June 7, 2010



GALVESTON, Tex. " “Game-changing” and “affordable” are perhaps the most repeated adjectives spoken by NASA officials in the last few months.




But skeptics in Congress counter that NASA has provided too few details to convince them that they should largely throw away the $10 billion that has been spent so far in NASA’s Constellation moon program and spend billions more on something new.

At a workshop last month in Galveston, members of NASA study teams looking at how to put in effect the Obama policy presented their current thinking to 450 attendees from industry and academia.

The NASA presenters, in describing how the space agency could make it to Mars on a limited budget, said their ideas represented “a point of departure” that would be revised with feedback.

The new plans place a heavy emphasis on in-orbit refueling stations, which would reduce the size of rockets needed. For propulsion to Mars, the road map envisions a nuclear-powered ion engine.

Some aspects remain fuzzy. Cristina Guidi, deputy director for NASA’s Constellation systems division, who talked about future heavy-lift rockets, said NASA had not figured out how powerful a heavy lifter it needs for human missions beyond Earth orbit, much less a specific design.

NASA is also looking at a series of robotic missions, to the Moon, to asteroids, to Mars, that would gather data needed to set the stage for future astronauts.

Developing technology before deciding on a specific mission, however, leaves some worried that programs could fall victim to the type of budget cuts that have historically affected NASA’s technology programs. For example, NASA’s last effort to develop a nuclear reactor for spacecraft was canceled after only three years.

Indeed, the proposed technology programs being considered are already facing cutbacks.

The administration has proposed continuing development of the Orion crew capsule, which was slated for cancellation with the rest of Constellation, as a lifeboat for the International Space Station.

The slimmed-down Orion would still cost $4.5 billion to complete, and that money would come at the expense of other items in the human spaceflight program. None of the cuts would come from the $6 billion proposed for the space agency’s commercial crew initiative over the next five years, so much of the money is likely to come out of the technology programs.

The plans presented at the Galveston conference did not take Orion into account.

“We’ll just have to rebalance the whole portfolio,” said Michael G. Conley, the study leader for NASA’s so-called flagship demonstration projects, which include a prototype fueling station. “I’m still optimistic we can do some things.”

A presentation on NASA’s commercial crew plans suggested that the agency would give companies wide leeway, but would also require the work to be done at a fixed cost rather than the “cost-plus” contracts that govern most of NASA’s current work.

James S. Voss, vice president of space exploration systems at Sierra Nevada Corporation, which is developing a small spaceplane called Dreamchaser that would ride atop an Atlas V rocket, said that what he heard at the workshop “was exactly what we were hoping for and working for.”

A version of this article appeared in print on June 8, 2010, on page D4 of the New York edition.



Since a lot of the new stuff is going to depend on in-orbit construction or refueling, we are going to need to develop the "transporter" as a way to beam down astronauts to planet surfaces. Witchitie.
0 Replies
 
Brandon9000
 
  1  
Reply Tue 8 Jun, 2010 05:42 am
@BillRM,
BillRM wrote:

Well there is little point in going on here as I can not even dream what you could find to spend a big research budget on in connection to such a ship.

It work by Newton's laws and by placing one bomb after another behind a plate and not even our government could waste a lot of funds doing research on such a simple concept ship.

But keep repeating over and over again how somehow is must it just must require a large research program before we could build the thing and fly it by placing bombs behind a plate.

In the Manhattan Project, at some point, they had the plan to initiate the explosion by using a conventional explosive to implode a hollow sphere of fissionable material, and yet the time from this design to a workable bomb was years, quite apart from their difficulty in purifying the nuclear material. Why do you suppose that was? It's a simple concept.

When you try to implement a design that has previously been only on paper, you find all sorts of difficulties that you hadn't anticipated. Anyone who doesn't know this is very ignorant indeed. What if they couldn't get the ship to hold together well through bomb after bomb? What if it wasn't safe for the astronauts? What if the explosions caused vibrations in the ship that were bad for their health? What if ionization of the air damaged the ship's electronic equipment?
farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Tue 8 Jun, 2010 05:47 am
@Brandon9000,
This is sort of like a "universal solvent". What do you keep it in? A single event nuclear bomb or any high enough self oxidized one would have the capability to melt that drive plate. Also, what about all the mid point corrections in heading? Each of these minor course changes rob momentum.
0 Replies
 
rosborne979
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jul, 2010 05:45 pm
So, did we decide? Should it be Mars or The Moon?
farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jul, 2010 09:39 pm
@rosborne979,
Hell ros, The way this group disagrees on everything, if we ever wound up in a burning building, nobody'd get out alive.
Cycloptichorn
 
  0  
Reply Mon 19 Jul, 2010 11:05 pm
@farmerman,
The asteroid belt and near earth space!

But, out of the two options, the moon. Far easier and the truth is that we really just don't know exactly what is there - might as well go look.

Cycloptichorn
0 Replies
 
rosborne979
 
  1  
Reply Tue 20 Jul, 2010 09:04 am
@farmerman,
farmerman wrote:
Hell ros, The way this group disagrees on everything, if we ever wound up in a burning building, nobody'd get out alive.

Agreed.
And if we ever wound up on a burning planet, nobody might get out alive either. Smile
0 Replies
 
BumbleBeeBoogie
 
  0  
Reply Tue 20 Jul, 2010 09:34 am
At this time in our development, I think we learn more by sending robots to Mars and/or the moon. It's safer and we get the information for a longer time.

BBB

rosborne979
 
  2  
Reply Tue 20 Jul, 2010 11:07 am
@BumbleBeeBoogie,
BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:
At this time in our development, I think we learn more by sending robots to Mars and/or the moon. It's safer and we get the information for a longer time.

Despite the success of the Mars Rovers, I think it's important to remember that it would have taken a geologist in a space suit mere moments to gather the same info that it took the rovers months to gather. In addition, a human on the surface can actively select more interesti
Ang things to investigate. The rovers can't do that even with humans a million miles away looking through their robotic eyes.

The rovers have been on Mars for several years now, but the distances they have covered and the things they've discovered could have been done by a human in a mars-buggy in less than a week. Robots will get better over time, and they are definitely cheaper to send, but there is no comparison between them and humans when it comes to how much can be discovered in a smaller amount of time.

A human being can actively, creatively, interactively, and experientially *explore* an area. But a remotely operated vehicle can only report data. There is a world of difference. A Whole World in this case.
engineer
 
  1  
Reply Tue 20 Jul, 2010 12:55 pm
@rosborne979,
rosborne979 wrote:

So, did we decide? Should it be Mars or The Moon?

We gave you 21 pages of responses. Do you really want to rehash the same arguments?
rosborne979
 
  1  
Reply Tue 20 Jul, 2010 01:04 pm
@engineer,
engineer wrote:
We gave you 21 pages of responses. Do you really want to rehash the same arguments?

I just needed a cheap way to keep the thread alive. It was all I could think of. Besides, opinions change over time. Mine did. Smile
0 Replies
 
edgarblythe
 
  1  
Reply Sun 25 Jul, 2010 09:09 pm
@rosborne979,
rosborne979 wrote:

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:
At this time in our development, I think we learn more by sending robots to Mars and/or the moon. It's safer and we get the information for a longer time.

Despite the success of the Mars Rovers, I think it's important to remember that it would have taken a geologist in a space suit mere moments to gather the same info that it took the rovers months to gather. In addition, a human on the surface can actively select more interesti
Ang things to investigate. The rovers can't do that even with humans a million miles away looking through their robotic eyes.

The rovers have been on Mars for several years now, but the distances they have covered and the things they've discovered could have been done by a human in a mars-buggy in less than a week. Robots will get better over time, and they are definitely cheaper to send, but there is no comparison between them and humans when it comes to how much can be discovered in a smaller amount of time.

A human being can actively, creatively, interactively, and experientially *explore* an area. But a remotely operated vehicle can only report data. There is a world of difference. A Whole World in this case.



One rover spent months spinning a wheel in the same spot, I believe. A foot would have stepped around that spot.
 

Related Topics

New Propulsion, the "EM Drive" - Question by TomTomBinks
The Science Thread - Discussion by Wilso
Why do people deny evolution? - Question by JimmyJ
Are we alone in the universe? - Discussion by Jpsy
Fake Science Journals - Discussion by rosborne979
Controvertial "Proof" of Multiverse! - Discussion by littlek
 
Copyright © 2024 MadLab, LLC :: Terms of Service :: Privacy Policy :: Page generated in 0.05 seconds on 10/05/2024 at 10:52:53