/sci/ - Science & Math

I'm lazy, but I'll bump for the benefit of those who are less lazy than I.

Can do.

would the senate bill allow for the development of autonomous factories on the moon? why has no one tried this? if you automate the entire process, including a manufacturing plant for building more robots or copies of the plant itself, you could mine the shit out of all the minerals on the moon for almost nothing

>>1721490
still a ways off... that said, some of the projects proposed for the tech development programs in the Senate bill include developing methods of autonomous maintenance and construction, mainly with the idea of designing stations that could assemble themselves in orbit.

>you could mine the shit out of all the minerals on the moon for almost nothing

Anyone suggesting space mining is desperately trying to find an economic argument for space travel. Sorry, but there isn't one. There isn't anything in space which is worth the effort involved in retrieving it, and that isn't going to change until launch costs drop at least a hundred-fold.

>if you automate the entire process, including a manufacturing plant for building more robots or copies of the plant itself,
This is so far beyond our capabilities it's not even funny. You want to build robots on the moon? Any useful robot is going to require microprocessors and RAM and shit, so you need to build a microchip factory on the moon. Even the relatively simple stuff (i.e. metals, plastics) would be ridiculously difficult.

Get a fucking grip. Self-sustaining space colonies are centuries away, even for robots. The saying "if you wish hard enough, anything is possible" belongs in fairy tales. In fact, anything relying upon such nonsense is, by definition, a fairy tale.

>>1721432
What's the constellation program?

>>1722298
>What's the constellation program?
It's corporate welfare, aka pork, aka a kickback to campaign donors. It basically boils down to "make some kind of launch vehicle; we don't really care what, but you must use these parts from these suppliers".

>>1722298
Short version: Constellation was the plan pitched by O'Keefe and the Bush administration to get the US back to the Moon by 2018 to build a permanent manned outpost... Congress spent half a decade refusing to give NASA the necessary funding to actually pull any of the plan off, and now our shuttle replacement is almost a decade behind schedule, plans for an outpost have pretty much been abandoned, and we'll be lucky if we go back to the Moon at all by 2030.

bump

>>1722289
At 1997 prices, a relatively small metallic asteroid with a diameter of 1 mile contains more than $20 trillion US dollars worth of industrial and precious metals.[1]

>20 trillion

That's more money than America's GDP. We could fund Obama's healthcare and 4 more wars at the same time with the output from one asteroid.

The financial incentives are too good to NOT do it.

>>1721432
Hey eudoxia

Technically Saturn's rings have over a million tons of antimatter orbiting it.

Build a FFR and go there? Also I'm in Canada what should I do?

you bastard amerifags do it like PROPER scientists: here in the uk we build mars exploration vehicles from second-hand lawnmowers.

>. A record 5351 potential astronaut candidates submitted applications online when the campaign was launched last May. Following the first phases of evaluations, including preliminary interviews and basic medical tests, 40 were selected to move forward to the next round in the evaluation process.

HORREY CHEET

>>1724311

That thread was started after this series of threads began, I think.

>>1724310

Let's not forget the literal OCEANS of potentially useful hydrocarbons on some of Jupiter's moons.

>>1724348
Visit Jupiter
*AdviceNasa.jpg*
Burn its gases for fuel

>>1724345
Probably, I think he/you mentioned it was found here before it was on facepunch.

Honestly the only reason I'm here is cause I got banned trolling retards as usual. I'd actually help with this if i could but I'm firmly rooted in scotland.

The good news is that regardless of the outcome of these bills, NASA seems to actually be enthusiastic about the manned asteroid mission for 2025.

It should fall under the existing budget, and the studies on how to get it done are under way.

They had their first major mission conference here in DC a few weeks ago.

>>1724369

b --- bravehat?

>>1724417
Fuck you've rumbled me.

Yup, I assume you are eudoxia aye?

>>1724434

Well, somebody was going to find out eventually.

Glad to see one of these threads back, especially with the HoR coming back next week.

Already got my Rep (Loebsack, D-IA) to agree to vote for the Senate bill, and I convinced a few people in my astronomy lab to write in to theirs as well.

>>1724369
Non US anons can still help, if you know anyone in the US you can try to get them to write in.

>>1724402
Really, at this point I think its safe to say that capability needs to take priority over destination, and I think Rockefeller and the guys who authored the Senate bill get that. Once we have the capability to get out of LEO and into deep(ish) space, we can go wherever the fuck we want.

>>1724442
Well yeah, i've mentioned on fp that I'm a channer much to the chagrin of retards and fuck ups who think all of 4chan is spoken for by /b/

I can't wait for NASA to test the VASIMR on the space station, when that rocket is put into major use then we can start zipping around our own neighbourhood easier, no radiation issues and all that shit.

Also we should start harvesting antimatter from our upper atmosphere.

>>1724469

Oh I wonder how people will react when they find out that they have trillions of dollars worth of antimatter constantly being generated naturally above their heads, and then annihilated and all wasted.

But they will ignore the profits when the alarmists show up and claim it's all an Illuminati Social-Communist Obamacare conspiracy to give antimatter bombs to the Taliban YOU ARE ALL SHEEP WAKE UP TO THE NEO-COMMIE-NAZI CONSPIRACY 9/11 VOTE PALIN 2012!!!1!11

But seriously, considering the rate at which private spaceflight companies and nanotech are advancing, and the rate at which we run out of resources and energy sources, in the next decades (As old, god-fearing anti-spaceflight baby boomers) we should see an explosion in private spaceflight, so the point where I wouldn't be surprised to see an Asimov Array being built in the early 2030's.

>>1724490
I would cum buckets, literal bucket loads if an Assimov array was being built, seriously I would be so happy.

And if they asked for volunteers for a mars mission, I'd fucking go for it in a heartbeat, not like I'm actually doing anything important with my years.

>>1724469
>>1724490
>>1724529

Again, priority #1 needs to be securing reliable access to LEO and beyond NEO within this decade... let NIAC worry about the "twenty/thirty years from now" stuff.

bump

bump

I swear to God if you crazy nuts don't bump this thread...

OP, that's not how the legislative process works. With two bills in play, a committee will be formed and will negotiate a joint bill, which will then be put up for vote.

>implying Congressmen actually represent their constituents and not their party/selves

Politicsfag here, you scientists are cute

>>1725662
Yeah, but the house bill SUCKS. We don't want any of it in the senate bill. None.
(Not OP)

>>1725668

we can vote them out of office

>>1725662
My understanding of the process is that if one chamber passes its version of a bill before the other, the first chamber passes it on to the second. The second chamber still brings up its version of the bill but its essentially debated as an amendment to the first version.

>>1725680

This.

Jesus fucking Christ, this.

>>1724310
> At 1997 prices, a relatively small metallic asteroid with a diameter of 1 mile contains more than $20 trillion US dollars worth of industrial and precious metals.

> Implying the global market for those minerals is worth $20 trillion.

What makes those minerals valuable is their scarcity. If you suddenly add a mile-wide asteroid's worth to the supply, they'll be worth a lot less than $20 trillion.

And that's assuming that you could actually land that amount of minerals for less than their value.

Even if the demand were to skyrocket, unless you're dealing with something which is actually rare (rather than merely hard to extract, which is more usually the case), the chances are that it would be cheaper to just improve earth-bound extraction than to look to space.

Space mining only makes sense if you're going to use the minerals in space. Which presupposes that you have some existing need for large-scale construction in space (and, no, a space mining fleet doesn't count; that's a circular argument).

Looks like the opposition of the House bill has grown more than we thought over the last month.

http://www.reformspacenow.com/

Sweet!

Armstrong, Lovell, and Cernan disprove of this thread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LYNaZc8XIQ

>>1724310
>At 1997 prices, a relatively small metallic asteroid with a diameter of 1 mile contains more than $20 trillion US dollars worth of industrial and precious metals.[1]

I FUCKING DARE YOU TO SUGGEST THIS DIRECTLY TO SENATE

SPACE EXPLORATION WOULD GET BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS IN FUNDING

Captcha: Voice make

FUCK NASA, AND FUCK GOVERNMENT MONOPOLY ON SPACE.

>>1726487
that link would do a way better job at getting the word out then this thread.

http://www.reformspacenow.com/http://www.reformspacenow.com/http://www.reformspacenow.com/http://www
.reformspacenow.com/http://www.reformspacenow.com/http://www.reformspacenow.com/http://www.reformspa
cenow.com/http://www.reformspacenow.com/
post it everywehre

>>1726553

they are way too scared to do that. it is going to have to be a private company and it is going to make a whole lot of people really really butthurt because one good asteroid and the precious metal market is going to fuking collapse.

>>1726605
>>1726553

gertyfacepalm.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5uImXbhQM8

This makes me dislike McCain even more because he has this smug expression on his face.

E-mail sent. Hope you don't mind I completely plagiarized your post OP.

Fuck this bill, don't email shit.

Listen to what the experts have to say:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RujHbPpnvj8&feature=channel

Bob, this is Gene, and I'm on the
surface; and, as I take man's last step from the surface,cback home for some time to come
- but we believe not too long into the future - I'd like to just (say) what I believe
history will record. That America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of
tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus- Littrow, we leave as we came and, God
willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of
Apollo 17.

>>1726726
In favor of Constellation: Armstrong, Lovell, and Cernan
Opposed to Constellation: Aldrin, Nelson, Hoffman, Thorton, Lu, Durrance, Crouch, and Allen........ also Bill Nye

>>1726799

I used to adore Aldrin, but in the past couple years I've realized how much of an asshole he really is

>>1726811
Aldrin decked a hoaxer... that alone gets him stars in my book.

bump

>>1726605
And how do you propose we get this one good asteroid down here? Even assuming we could get enough fuel up there to provide the required delta-V (hint: we can't), smacking a mile-wide asteroid into earth is going to a) do a lot more than $20 trillion in damage (an asteroid that size would be a mass extinction event), and b) reduce the asteroid's value significantly (unless you have a plan for extracting the vaporized minerals from the atmosphere).

Less rants about how 'the man' is getting in the way of sci-fi asteroid mining.
More talking about what we can do to ensure that the Senate bill doesn't get amended into pork tenderloin.

Im in support of constellations basic premise which is to build a moon base

But I am against constellation because its a ill approached underfund piece of shit

I would propose something like this

Allow private industry to take us to LEO

Then build spacecraft like Orion and Altair for the moon portion


Ares1 costs 1.5 billion to launch once

Falcon 9 heavy costs 95 million

Ares1 takes 25,400 kg to LEO

Falcon 9 heavy takes 32,000 kg to LEO

needless to say Falcon 9 is the better Rocket

>>1727150

no idea.

either we figure it out though or we are fucked because we have limited resources and they are running out.

>>1727177
Even if Constellation does continue, the Moon base will probably be scrapped due to funding.
We'll spend the next 20 years doing jack shit, then launch a couple of Apollo-like sorties, then suddenly decide "that's good enough for now, we'll come back in another sixty years" and shut down Constellation.

On the plus side, there's a chance (however small) that with the budget due by the end of the month and so many "bigger" issues to tackle before then, the House may just pass the Senate bill through with little to no amendments just to get it out of the way quickly.

One can hope.

>>1727177
Constellation's basic premise is to hand out pork to a bunch of contractors. The "moon base" idea just sounds better than "we're going to give a load of your money away".

Nasa should just get the fuck out of the launch business. If they want stuff launched, buy the capacity on the open market: Atlas, Delta, Falcon, or even Soyuz or Arianne for that matter.

>>1726333
This.

Even Sagan discussed this and came to the same conclusion in Pale Blue Dot. He actually tears apart much of the supposed financial incentive for space travel in that book, but he does name a few advantages for space mining.

This doesn't effect the 2020 Europa mission, right?

>>1726827

Goddamn right! The bastard had it coming too. Men died to get us to the moon. Three men burned alive in their capsule to get us there. God knows how many cosmonauts were killed.

Anyone who wants to take that victory away from the men who made it there pisses on the grave of those who died to get those men there.

Fuck hoaxers.

>>1727417
Oh it definitely will. Considering the unmanned missions that were postponed indefinitely or canceled altogether during the last few years of the Constellation program, I've little doubt that something like JEO would be postponed if Constellation continues.

bump

bump

bump

YOU WILL BUMP THIS THREAD

AND YOU WILL LIKE IT

>>1728530
Rockets are fucking cool. We should end all wars, end all public healthcare and welfare, and spend all that money on fucking rockets.

Question: for all the 800 times this thread has been posted, has anyone actually called their congressman?

Or do you just repeatedly bump the thread and bitch about how fucking stupid everyone is for fucking over NASA, and democracy is a failure, and the only solution is for scientists to overthrow the government and institute a facist technocracy?

>>1730430
I've written my rep, and I think many other people did too. Stop being a faggot and read through the threads when you see them, before making assumptions and asking stupid questions.

Also, I wouldn't say a fascist technocracy is the only solution, just the best.

>>1721490
took too much from the movie Moon

>>1730430
As I already said, I not only called my rep, but convinced them to oppose the House bill.
I also got several of the people in my astronomy lab to write into their reps.

>>1730430

I bumped one of these threads which lasted almost four days, emailed moot and told him to make it a sticky (Which obviously didn't work), started threads on two different forums and got at least 20 people to call their reps, and made a few hundreds of people realize that Obama's plan for NASA is good and it doesn't destroy America's future in space, that is, I made them realize the media is full of luddite alarmists and meanie republicans.

Anything else?

>>1730754

No I think that... I think that will suffice.

>>1730430
These threads are all about democracy working. News flash, it's not an autocracy, the "dem" in democracy is you, you gotta get off your ass and tell your congressman what to do or he's gonna be an idiot and fuck you over. That is the system working perfectly.

They never faked going to the moon, that's definite. Hoaxers are so off base it's not funny.

HOWEVER, they did lie to us. There are remnants of an alien civilization on the dark side of the moon. That's one of the reasons they want to scrape "official" funding. If they had the official funding to go out there all the time, people that the government wants to blind will eventually find evidence themselves.

THAT'S the only reason NASA gets gipped in spending. They get lots and lots of money, but it's hidden from the public.

>>1730807
>the "dem" in democracy is you, you gotta get off your ass and tell your congressman what to do or he's gonna be an idiot and fuck you over.

Except that's not how it works. We can all tell them what to do, but they are NOT forced to do it.

Don't even say "well, then they won't get elected again". US "elections" are a farce.

I don't understand.... we KNOW that we are due for a huge cataclysmic celestial impact that could potentially kill all of us or at least most of us.

WHY DON'T WE WORK ON SAVING ALL OF HUMANITY INSTEAD OF CHASING THE ALL MIGHTY DOLLAR?!?!?!?!?!?!??!

Don't answer that. I'm sure making money should go in front of "saving the world from disaster that WILL happen sooner or later".

>>1730819
Maybe calls and emails won't work... but it's better to try and fail than to do nothing and guarantee the House fucks up this bill.

>>1730838
If by "saving humanity" you're talking about colonising space: the problem is that we don't have the technology and no amount of funding is going to change that.

Funding is only useful if you can figure out what to spend it on. Right now, we're so far away from being able to colonise space that we don't even know what we would need to research to do it. We don't even know how to go about finding out what we would actually need to research.

It's as if the Victorians had decided that they needed computers with human-level artificial intelligence within 50 years. Even if they were willing to spend the entire wealth of the British empire to achieve it, they wouldn't have succeeded.

They would have ended up giving Babbage billions to create a mechanical computer the size of a small city, thrown money at the phrenologists to construct detailed maps of the brain, and so on. All of which would have been completely wasted.

Less arguing about what could be accomplished in 40, 50 years, more talking about what can be accomplished now by getting the House to pass the Senate bill with as few amendments as possible.

bump

>>1731376
but we do know what to research you asshole

called my congressman's office this morning

>>1731376
>the problem is that we don't have the technology and no amount of funding is going to change that.
Zubrin thinks otherwise.

Am I the only one that thinks NASA is kind of a joke? I realize we have a lot of technology to give them thanks for, but, as a space faring organization they seem kind of bunk to me. Vague generalization/assumption I suppose.

>>1733210
It's simply because nobody is giving them the green light to build amazing shit and get us to Mars. The budget is the same year per year even with the interest as when we were doing the Apollo missions.

Maaaaars, is a world of wonders!

>>1733220

Yeah that seems about par. Isn't our only limitation really just a proper power source? Lots of viable propulsion systems other than rockets, if we just had the damn energy. I don't know what that has to do with anything.

Nuclear pulse propulsion and Langstrom Loops. Do it faggots. We've got to get launch costs down if we want a new age of imperialism in space. And imperialism is the only thing that is going to get mankind excited as a whole. This is the truth, you know it to be so.

Why is it every time one of these threads starts we get just a couple people actually talking about the current situation and the rest of the conversation descends into post upon post of "get trilons of astrod monies!" and "zomg lanch lup nao plz??"

Bitching about should-bes and could-bes is pointless. The only concern right now should be the two bills going before Congress.

>>1733294
>Isn't our only limitation really just a proper power source?
Like, propulsion?
NO!
This is the big thing that I get so angry about (and I assume Zubrin does too) is that we have the technology, the money is already there, THERE HAVE JUST BEEN NO GOALS SET.
I miss Kennedy. And I wasn't even born in his time.

>>1733483
If the House passes its bill or amends the Senate bill, we won't be going to the Mars, Moon, or anywhere beyond LEO for the next 20+ years - THAT should be our only concern right now!

You faggots need to worry less about what NASA SHOULD do in the future, and focus on ensuring it will actually HAVE one!

>>1733483

Do tell. But I don't necessarily mean propulsion. NASA's ion drive seems the most viable to me, but we still need some sort of energy source to power it. We could work out the kinks in fission and use that I suppose, but I don't see it happening.

>>1733600
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct

>>1733612
News flash. There are two options going before Congress. Mars Direct is not one of them. When you're done jerking off to your photo of Zubrin, feel free to join the rest of us here in reality.

bump

TO BOLDLY BUMP WHERE NO ONE HAS BUMPED BEFORE

>>1733475
Because such threads inevitably bring up questions about the purpose of space travel and the viability of various goals.

What do we want to do with space, and what do we need to do (research, practice) on order to do that?

I'm gonna go with the more complete program that restores project Constellation and restores the right to build parts for the space programs to companies established in conservative states like Utah.

SSTO OR BUST

>>1734479
It's a discussion worth having...but this isn't the best time for it. Arguing about missions to Mars or new propulsion is pointless so long as there's still even a chance of the House passing a bill that will allow for neither.

>>1726799
Who do you think they're going to listen to?

Heroes of space flight and public figures,
or no names who might as well served as their assistants in the space capsule?

bumping

bump

>>1721432
NUCLEAR CANNON!

I agree with Colonel Coffee Mug now! Why hide the fact it uses a nuke!? Declare it loud and proud! Until we ask for funding, then we gloss over that part.

bump

>>1734542
You're taking it for granted that people will automatically follow the instruction to oppose the House bill.

If people are going to phone their congresscritters, some of them might want a better justification than "some guy on 4chan told me to".

Sent OP, hope this works :o

wow its like the assholes at my work are on 4chan too

sending corporate emails plugging that spacewiki shit, telling everyone to mail their congressman(off company time ofcourse)

I just want to drive to Minnesota and bitchslap those fucking HR whores

>>1736371
Fuck, I've posted the text of both bills on previous threads. If people want justification for phoning congress, they're more than welcome to look them up and decide for themselves.
http://www.govtrack.us/

the future of NASA isn't a social issue, its a scientific issue, and the conclusion that Constellation is the wrong program for NASA was the result of a through survey. Its not an opinion, its a fact.

>>1736917
this

bump attempt

bump!

Can someone explain this in laymans terms?

>>1739484
Short version?

Senate bill says cancel Constellation. Build a new rocket and get commercial companies involved instead. We go to asteroids in 10 years, Mars in maybe 20.

House bill dumps another $40-50 billion on Constellation. We do a short flag-planting mission in 20-25 years.

>>1738647
This movie in your pic.
I remember seeing trailers but never actually saw it.
What's it called? And how was it?

>>1740012
Moon, directed by Duncan Jones, starring Sam Rockwell.

Also bump excuse.

>>1740012
Moon, directed by Duncan Jones, starring Sam Rockwell.

Also bump excuse.

bump

any links for cali

NASA is bullshit anyways

>>1741942
http://www.contactingthecongress.org/
Enter your zip code here and it'll give you the contact info for your district's representative.

>>1739927
But how do you know Constellation won't accomplish anything?

Fuck commercial flight
I don't want to spend my tax money so some asshole can start his commercial space flight company and profit from rich people looking at their tiny peasants from space.
I want to know if there is life in Europa damn it!

>>1742359
The reality of Constellation isn't remotely similar to when the VSE was pitched in '04. Even if Constellation continues with the funding in the House bill, the program wouldn't be capable of sending crews to LEO until the end of the decade, and wouldn't be capable of reaching Lunar orbit before late in the 2020s. Even worse, when we're finally capable of reaching the Moon, we won't be able to do anything when we get there:
1. The 6-seat LEO Orion capsule has already been cut down to 4-seats because Ares I won't be able to lift it. The 4-seat Lunar version will probably be cut down as well, so basically we're back to Apollo-size capsules.
2. There's not enough money in the House budget for a permanent outpost.
3. There's not enough money in the House budget for a lander.
Best case scenario under the House budget - in the late 2020s we can send two or three people to orbit the Moon.
Constellation's had seven years to produce, but so far all we've got to show for it is a half finished capsule and a partially successful launch of an SRB made up to resemble what the Ares I will look like.

>>1742403
The upcoming generation of commercial launch vehicles will reduce the cost of launching crew and cargo into orbit by a factor of 10, imagine what the generation after it will do.
Decades from now, NASA and other public space programs will still play a significant role in the future of human exploration and colonization... but it will be dominated mostly by private spaceflight.

>>1742359
> But how do you know Constellation won't accomplish anything?

Because it was never /intended/ to accomplish anything (other than handing vast sums of money to a handful of well-connected companies).

The entire project has been run back-to-front from the very beginning. Rather than starting with goals and selecting components appropriate to those goals, it started with the components and then tried to come up with a plausible use for them.

Read the text of H.R. 5781. It explicitly requires money to be funnelled to specific contractors.

bump

bump

>>1721432

OP, I just emailed the Congressmen of my district concerning the bill. Thank you for bringing this to my attention!

>>1744032
One more email to one more congressman, awesome!

Who's your rep?

bump