/sci/ - Science & Math

Jill Stein, and the alternative vote.

Of the two in OP, Obama is the largest supporter of scientific spending.

>wasting tax payer money on frivolous wankery by eggheads.

What PRACTICAL gain are we going to get from space travel? We already have the technology to put satellites in orbit and space travel is already being taken over by private companies.

Vote Ron Paul 2012.

>>5182435

>>5182435
0/10
This has been touched on 500000 times

>>5182472
You're a few orders of magnitude too low. It's really closer to Graham's number.

>>5182435
Space travel is the end product of an insane amount of interdisciplinary research. This research, typically involves creating ENTIRELY NEW technologies, is what spins the turbines for your "practical gain". The technologies developed by all of the involved parties are picked up left and right and applied to our everyday lives.

Why are people on /sci/ so fucking blind over this last month? The cancer is spreading, christ.

>>5182425

>Jill Stein
>wants to cut out nuclear power
>pro-science

Less nuclear power --> less money in nuclear industry --> less hiring capability --> less money given for scholarships, grants, and training programs --> less incentive and ability to pursue nuclear engineering/physics in school --> less nuclear research being done.

We're not going to put any money in fusion if we don't have any money, and we don't have anyone to research it. So no. No Jill Stein.

Romney. Obama wants to spend NASA budget on education so future generations can do shit that has no effect on the current generations.

>>5182435
Because, basically, fuck you i want to live on a Jovian moon.

>>5182478

Thank you. Thank you so much. Now we just need biochemistry and microbiology to play a bigger role. We'll never go far without legitimately complex ship-wide life support technology. And that more than anything could be applied to the private market.

>>5182508
See >>5182463

Obama.

He's done sabotaging us; now that he's wiped Bush's name off Project Constellation and rebranded it as his own ("Space Launch System") he's sufficiently appeased not to interfere with NASA's efforts anymore.

Now, Romney MIGHT be well-mannered enough not to fuck with major space programs over such petty things, but there's no guarantee.

>>5182520
He says it fairly clearly. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=obama-romney-science-debate

Or are you implicating that education of children is of more importance?

>>5182509
You never will. Interplanetary commuting will never be commonplace (well, not for several centuries, at the very least); if humanity is to spread to the outer solar system, the inhabitants will likely be overwhelmingly the decedents of a few highly-privilidged colonists (of which you will not get to be one).

>>5182533
Are you implying that you'd rather have a society in space with a bunch of fucking idiots liing there or a society that's still getting there but doing so intelligently?

It's not that I'm saying NASA shouldn't get funding, it's that education is THE FUTURE of NASA itself. You have to invest in the future, and Romney has no intention of that.

>>5182422
Write your fucking congressman that you want NASA to get a larger budget.

Also, Romney was against the moon base, because it was too expensive.

But in the end, it really doesn't matter who gets elected, both parties have had really lackluster space platforms.

So, just write your congress critter.

>>5182435
>space travel is already being taken over by private companies.
Space launch is being taken over by private companies that aren't huge defense/aerospace companies for the purpose of supplying space launch services to world governments. Private companies have done this before, the only difference, so it's no big deal really.

And before you say space tourism, keep in mind that most space tourism companies are focused on going suborbital. Going into a stable orbit requires a great deal more of energy than going suborbital.

>>5182539
Never say never. Privatized space flight means i can save up and pay. 20 years ago the smart phone wouldn't have happened for several centuries.

>>5182536
Working towards the future is great. But focusing solely on the future is idiotic. Nothing will ever get done if everybody only plans for the next generation. NASA needs to work towards research of new technologies not fucking teaching 12-year-olds about biomes.

>>5182554
And I'm not arguing that NASA should be de-funded. I'm saying they need to work too, but education is just as important. We can't choose one or the other because they are both integral to the future of science in America.

>>5182536
We should compromise, and put all of our nation's efforts behind a project to launch its children into space.

>>5182561
Consider the following: We can put money into education so kids go into STEM courses, and then no careers, or we can put money into creating STEM jobs so kids will want to go into STEM courses.

>>5182532
Space Launch System? Don't you mean the senate launch system? That effort was oddly led by the republicans. They really don't like the idea of commercial crew because they won't be able to insure rocket monies go to their constituency.

>>5182562
That'll get them into science. Its sink or swim in space.

>>5182562
>launch its children into space

I like this.

>>5182562
We can call it space camp and it will be great.

Obama. /thread

>>5182532
Actually under Obama's originally space plan there was to be no work on a new vehicle until around 2015. Instead, the focus would shift towards developing new technologies to incorporate into a vehicle that would be more than just a rehash of the shuttle or the Saturn V.

Unfortunately, the cancellation of the Constellation program turned out too be too much for Congress to stomach and theyand Congress flat out refused to pass any budget for NASA at all unless the budget preserved existing contracts with LockMart, ATK, Boeing, etc under the new SLS program.

>>5182532
Actually under Obama's originally space plan there was to be no work on a new vehicle until around 2015. Instead, the focus would shift towards developing new technologies to incorporate into a vehicle that would be more than just a rehash of the shuttle or the Saturn V.

Unfortunately, the cancellation of the Constellation program turned out too be too much for Congress to stomach and they flat out refused to pass any budget for NASA at all unless the budget preserved existing contracts with LockMart, ATK, Boeing, etc under the new SLS program.

Obama's plan - let commercial space handle all the tedious shit so we can spend that money on new science missions and new spacecraft and shit

Romney's plan - Nominate a committee to organize a panel to commission a review of the space program. Also Obama's plan sucks.

>>5182685
Both glossing over the fact that NASA is a symbol of America, of humanity, of science, and of Pushing the boundaries of the possible.

The simple phrase "We can put a man on the moon, but we cant fix X" is testament to that. Put a man on mars, build a moon base, and people will stop thinking its all been for nothing. We need the inspiration.

>>5182720
I really think NASA has served its purpose now, by showing we can do all that crap. Now that we all know it's possible, and that there are even a couple reasons to do it, let the companies take over. A multinational avoids many of the problems that a govt institution has, most importantly public image.
Many reports have been published on why the shuttle disasters may be more closely related to management pressure and bureaucracy than any sort of failure to catch the problem, or engineer a solution. Large companies don't care what the public opinion is, and can set their own goals and deadlines, so the job can be done correctly first, quickly second.

>>5182720
Words like that make for great speeches but there's not a lot of substance to them.

The simple truth is that percent of Congressmen who are even informed about NASA's ongoing projects and long-term goals, much less interested in seeing them funded is very VERY small. And the percentage of Americans for whom the same can be said is even smaller.

Political leaders are quick to applaud NASA's achievements and offer a heaping serving of empty platitudes about "America's leadership in space" and "bold visions for the future" but few act on their prose.

If the last 40 years have proved anything it's that support for NASA now is about as high as it's ever going to get. The best we can hope for is an administration willing to put in the effort to make sure the space program's limited budget is being used wisely and a Congress willing to pass those kinds of budgets.

Right now we have the former but not the latter.

Humanity is tired of space. Sorry kiddo, but we've got more pressing matters than some fulfilling some sci fi future where we all live in space.

Time to grow up and move on.

>>5182509

do you have any idea how quickly you would die from the radiation?

fucking kids.

>>5182773
Near death.

>>5182804
Yeah, shame we don't know how to shield against radiation.

>>5182773
You wouldn't be saying that if we had a moon base.

>>5182817

yeah, shame that lead lining a spacecraft isn't a practical option.

and such a terrible shame that almost no one understands the difficulties of space travel to the point where they act like spoiled children when it doesn't materialize.

>>5182815
We'll never have a moon base. There is simply no economical reason to have people on the moon. Robots will do the job much cheaper.

>>5182773
>where we all live in space
....where do you think we are right now?

>>5182835

on the earth, smartass.

>>5182831
>implying you need lead lined spacecraft to live on a Jovian moon

>>5182873

you're right. i'm silly.

you'd die even if the ship was almost solid lead.

inb4 magic shields made from magic.

>>5182882

Oh yeah, just surround the ship with a few feet of water.

That won't effect the weight at all.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/03/010329075139.htm

>>5182831
>>lead lining for spacecraft
bad idea man, lead makes deadly x-rays when bombarded with charged particles like cosmic rays. Aluminium and water works fine for this though.

>>5182831
Space travel isn't that fucking hard. We're just not using appropriate technology, and nobody's investing in production capacity in space.

Did NASA go from the amazing Apollo program to the idiotic shuttle program because "space travel is hard"? No, we stopped going to the moon because of politics. We had the capacity lift huge loads to the moon, and we used it for nothing but picking up a few rocks because of politics. We made a vehicle that was less useful in every way than what we had before because of politics. We spent over a hundred billion on a do-nothing low earth orbit space treehouse because of politics.

We could have hauled a nuclear power plant to the moon. We could have built an electric CO2 scrubber, and sent guys with enough supplies to stay for months and work, then had them start growing their own food. We could have started refining ore there, making concentrated solar power stations and rocket fuel, and structural material. We could have built the infrastructure from a modest initial investment and then from native materials, and then had it pay for itself.

We could have built a shuttle that made sense: only capable of equatorial LEO launch and light loads, with a long, slow re-entry, that wouldn't be subjected to severe stress or needed disposable boosters and could have been launched every week for little more than the cost of fuel. We could have built a nuclear rocket to shuttle between LEO and the moon at a fraction of the propellant cost of chemical rockets.

It could have gotten better and cheaper and more all the time, and not even spending more than we did, just not wasting it. There really could have been 50,000 people living and working in space by the year 2000.

This was all planned out. We didn't fail. We didn't even fucking try.

>>5182884
>implying there's not a fuckton of dirty ice in space

>>5182422
By weilding bayonets on horses.
No question.

>>5182892

>blame politicians

>blame money

Did you ever stop and consider that humans aren't what gene roddenberry thought and maybe we, ALL OF US, just don't give a damn?

We could fit hundreds of billions of people on the earth. We have no reason to go anywhere.

And it's your fault, and my fault, and everyone's fault. Not just the man in washington.

>>5182892

and with the way education is being marginalized, we will never have 50,000 skilled workers willing to risk their lives to work in space.

We peaked in the 60's, and there is no going back.

>>5182901
>>5182905

You apparently did not grow up in the same world i did, where 1/5 kids wanted to be an astronaut before they learned they didn't really do anything.

>>5182893
That doesn't magically solve everything. It's still going to be costly to lug all that water from wherever you got it to wherever you're going, unless they just happen to be in the same place.

We're kind of on a tangent though; you could probably survive the trip TO the Jovian moon even without shielding, as long as you didn't dilly-dally. Once you're there, it's as simple as digging a deep hole and living in it.

>>5182913
It wouldn't really be much different than that.
"What do you want to be when you grow up Tommy?"
"I wanna be a janitor! IN SPACE!".

You have to aim high.

>>5182892

SpaceX and Bigelow Aerospace will save the day now.

Socialists everywhere.

I say we scrap NASA, fire all employees, sell off the buildings and equipment and IP.

Leave it to private enterprise.

>>5182913

Oh i did.

And they all failed out of school because they set their sights too high.

Ask people today. Ask normal people today if they would want to go to space. I do. I get a lot of no's and only a very few "yes's", mostly from people who do not posses the skills and have nothing to lose, the last people who will ever be picked.

People simply do not like the idea of being stuck in a stuffy little tube in space where the feeling of microgravity is like when an elevator starts unexpectedly, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for months.

>>5182831
>We'll never have a moon base. There is simply no economical reason to have people on the moon.
There's no economical reason to shuttle them back and forth, but if it's a permanent, independent base using in-situ resources then things suddenly get a lot cheaper.

>>5182919

Nope.

SpaceX is just elon musk's last ditch effort to buy his name into history books as some "pioneer" of space.

>>5182920
Nobody can make laws in space. Enjoy not being paid and basically being slaves.

>>5182930

oh yeah they'll just eat space moss and breathe space air and they'll never need supplies or to ever return to home because hey, world-class engineers and other staff don't have any ties back home!

>>5182936

What you just said was very stupid, and I think you should not say it again.

>>5182917
Fair enough. ill spare you the nuclear propulsion tangent i had ready.

We could dig a hole, or just send a space station there. It will be dangerous, and expensive, but so was exploring the oceans. People died, and it was a war of inches, but it was worth it in the end. Its worth it to be the humans we were meant to be.

>>5182941

sorry if i burst your bubble.

Oh yeah, no, musk is batman, here to save us all with electric cars and spaceships.

nah, he couldn't possibly just be a selfish billionaire, he must be for our best interests because he's a rich person!

>>5182901
>we could fit hundreds of billions of people on the earth

That sounds awful.

>>5182950

Your communism has no place here.

>>5182929

People do not like the idea of being in a stuffy little boat, where the ocean rocks you day and, and makes your throw up.

>>5182901
>We have no reason to go anywhere.
This is just ignorance and failure of imagination.

You don't go to space just for "more places to live". You go to space for places to set up nuclear reactors where nobody gives a shit if they blow up and spray their waste everywhere. You go to space for intense sunlight and low or no gravity and no wind so you can make your solar concentrating mirrors out of cheap, thin foil and hold it up with cheap, thin frameworks.

You go to space for vast untouched mineral resources and unlimited energy and no environmental concerns or bumping elbows with the next guy.

You go to space for kilotons of precious metals. You go to space for computers the size of cities and petawatt power supplies to run them, and automated biolabs that run a billion experiments in parallel.

You go to space for knowledge, and power, and money like you can't even dream of.

It's the whole rest of the fucking universe. I don't know if you noticed, but we still fight over this little piece of it. People fence bits off and don't let anyone touch their bit. More is worth having.

>>5182943
>but it was worth it in the end. Its worth it to be the humans we were meant to be.

Gene roddenberry was not god's prophet. Humans have only ever explored to exploit.

If we send tanker ships to jupiter, manning them would just be a waste of mass.

>>5182945
the earth would have a lower population density than manhattan and still be able to house billions. Don't let all the henny pennies scare you into thinking we're doomed if we don't go to space.

>>5182956
I thought about using this argument, but the consequences of the sea aren't quite the same. I mean yes, the ocean can easily kill you, but it's not quite as much of a done deal as space.

I will give the naysayers that much

>>5182957
>kilotons of precious metals
Conservative estimate. Try unlimited, depending on far we are willing to go.

>>5182956
Difference being, when people got off the boat, they ended up on dry land in a place similar to home with resources, natives, breathable atmosphere, and similar gravity.

You go up in a shuttle to a space station, and the trip there is going to be exactly like the stay there.

>>5182957

oh god, are you 12? this just reeks of youthful stupidity.

>>5182956

You can go topside for air in a boat, dumbass.

and there's a reason why people don't tow their houseboats out to the mid atlantic.

>>5182957

>You don't go to space just for "more places to live". You go to space for places to set up nuclear reactors where nobody gives a shit if they blow up and spray their waste everywhere. You go to space for intense sunlight and low or no gravity and no wind so you can make your solar concentrating mirrors out of cheap, thin foil and hold it up with cheap, thin frameworks.

So we go to space to fuck up all the places?

How do we get this space solar electricity to earth in a cost-effective way? Remember, it has to be profitable.

>You go to space for vast untouched mineral resources and unlimited energy and no environmental concerns or bumping elbows with the next guy.

You can't be this naive.

>You go to space for kilotons of precious metals. You go to space for computers the size of cities and petawatt power supplies to run them, and automated biolabs that run a billion experiments in parallel.

Oh god, you have no concept of the future outside of science fiction. How sad.

>You go to space for knowledge, and power, and money like you can't even dream of.

ahahahaha what the fuck are you even talking about?

>>5182958
Leave gene Roddenberry out of this. you can just keep calling it childish and saying gene Roddenberry over and over to discredit. There's nothing immature about wanting to explore the frontier, or take advantage of resources, or find new places to live. Thinking forward IS what humans do. For prophet, for gain, to get your name in the books, to impress women, and to one day die happy because you were awesome, and the world knows it.

>>5182901
>We could fit hundreds of billions of people on the earth.
AHAHAHAH
Try low tens of billions. Most estimates are even lower than that, but I have SOME faith in technology to fill in for predicted resource crises.

>>5182967
A history book would serve you well. disease, starvation, harsh winters, a local populous looking to kill you. People still came.

Even as enthused as I am about space, a lot of people (or maybe the same individual) make a good point. Space is extremely risky and not enough people care about it. However, I don't believe that just because a whole lot of people don't care about the subject, this means it's not important. Maybe it's just not pertinent at the moment. We as the human race are not on the same level of readiness to venture outward. Right now our focus is here, and maybe some day that will change. I just hope that that day is sooner than later.

>>5182957
You're fucking delusional. More resources would be wasted trying to accomplish what you've proposed than you'd ever recover.

>>5182979
This right here. We are humans, we are the sole fucking things that we have ever known, that are trying to progress, to continue to do something and understand as much as we can. If you want to stand still just go live in the jungle with monkeys and fuck and eat and poop, and let the rest of us try to do something more meaningful.

>>5182989
<citation needed>

>>5182985
Well yeah people still came, on one note because it was better than the alternative (as depressing and unpleasant as that is to think) and on another because the first one had little to no clue what he was doing.

>>5182979

Right. and there is not sufficient profit to go to space.

So we won't go.

>>5182980

The population density of manhattan is 101,548 people per square miles. There is about 150,000,000 square miles on the earth. Do the math.

>>5182985

Who are you talking about? the settlers brought the diseases to the new world, and the land was cultivated and verdant as shit when they found it, and because of plagues spreading from earlier attempts, it was nearly deserted.

How about you read a real history book and not just cobble together bits of propaganda you've heard?

Overcrowding will never be an issue. Feeding them might, but it's not like we've ever cared about that anyway.

>>5182995

>something more meaningful

What kind of totalitarian forces what he considers meaningful upon the rest of the species.

We're still progressing. We're burning all of our lithium on smart phones.

>>5182995

oh wow you stupid fuck, just because we don't pursue your childish fantasies of space doesn't mean we've stopped progressing.

Grow the fuck up.

>>5183016
and what is your progression?

>>5182975
>How do we get this space solar electricity to earth in a cost-effective way?
You don't send it back to earth. That would be stupid.

You use it in space. Once you have space-based material sources, solar power can be many times cheaper in space than on Earth, mostly because of the ease of concentrating it. There's no wind to knock it over, and lots of places where gravity is low or not a factor.

With cheap energy, you can process even poor ores, which vastly expands what you can treat as valuable mineral resources. Abundant energy makes everything in industry far, far easier. You can throw efficiency out the window and just push past difficulties with brute force.

The rest of your post shows similar lack of understanding.

>>5183020

Iphone 5?

new cancer treatments?

better nuclear fission reactors?

more efficient gasoline vehicles?

are you this stupid?

>>5182999
Again, a history book would serve you. Christopher Columbus knew exactly what he was doing, he wasn't the first European to America, The vikings came repeatedly and were killed off way before he ever set sail.

Besides, we are ignoring all the other explorers, not just the ones that came to America. The expeditions were expensive, uncomfortable, wrecked, carried plagues, lost at sea, and more than once resorted to cannibalism and were undertaken in large part to season bland European food at a lower cost.

>>5183024
>iphone5

stop

>>5183023

>You don't send it back to earth. That would be stupid.

Oh right, silly me, i thought the people who spent all those billions to build it would want to see some sort of return on their investment.

>The rest of your post shows similar lack of understanding.

and you have a child's perspective of economics.

>>5183001
>The population density of manhattan is 101,548 people per square miles. There is about 150,000,000 square miles on the earth. Do the math.
Oh, I think I see the problem here. You're a fucking retard who thinks physical space will be the limiting factor for human population.

Do you realize how many resources, mined or cultivated from thousands upon thousands of square miles, are needed to feed Manhattan's population? Or do you seriously think every fucking metropolis on the planet is/could be somehow completely self-sufficient?

>>5183026

>Christopher Columbus knew exactly what he was doing, he wasn't the first European to America,

Oh so he really knew of a continent that nobody else knew?

What history book says that?

>>5183016
>grow the fuck up
I'm seeing this get thrown around a lot lately.
You're either a woman or a child.

>>5183029

What? I don't agree with it, but progress is progress.

Don't be a faggot.

>>5183033
Oceans. and there are other ways of making food than growing it in crops. What are we, the people from 60,000 years ago?

Because obviously guys, shipping food to space is more economical

>>5183036

>i know you are but what am i

Not making a good case for yourself, sport.

>>5183028
>hurr... all resources gathered in space must be sent immediately back to earth, or there will never be any profit for anyone
Are you going out of your way to be this stupid?

It's like I'm telling you about another continent with fast-running rivers we can dam, and you're saying, "But how will we get it back here to drink?"

That is how completely fucking stupid you're being.

>>5183043

So people just shit out billions of dollars with no hope of ever seeing returns

That's how economics works in your mind?

>>5183042
>says the guy throwing around insults left and right

>>5183040
>Oceans.
Still nowhere near enough resources to support hundreds of millions of people.
>shipping food to space is more economical
Where did anyone propose shipping food to space? There are resources already out there that could be used to build and cultivate space colonies.

>>5183028
>Oh right, silly me, i thought the people who spent all those billions to build it would want to see some sort of return on their investment.
>Implying being able to extract and utilize resources in space (instead of launching them all the way from fucking Earth) isn't in itself a massive return on investment

>>5183054

Oh shit i guess thee seven billion will starve soon if we can't even make enough food for a few million.

Oh yeah, and they'll just grow space seeds from the space wheat you find on asteroids. Why didn't i think of that?

>>5182975
>How do we get this space solar electricity to earth in a cost-effective way?
Lasers. Microwaves would be much better, but they require a larger antenna.

>>You go to space for places to set up nuclear reactors where nobody gives a shit if they blow up and spray their waste everywhere.
The Canadians would like to have a word with you about that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954

Not to mention, there are only a handful of nuclear reactors capable of operating in space. They don't output much power. Which is why we use solar power for space systems.

>>5183061

So who is going to invest several trillion dollars in an insane space mining scheme?

Don't mention planetary resources. That's never going to happen but at least they were smart enough to only outlineurely robotic missions.

ITT

>Sport, child, childish, stupid, grow up, grow the fuck up, Gene Roddenberry, delusional, childish, stupid childish, Gene Roddenberry.

>occasional logical for or against space expansion.

I just don't get why some people are so vehemently opposed to anyone trying to do anything space-related in the first place. The fuck do you care? If people you didn't like were volunteering to get as far the fuck away from you as possible, why fight it? Maybe their rocket will blow up, mission accomplished for you, maybe they'll go set up base somewhere far away, still a positive for you.

"We should only focus on this problem, and nothing else!"
Why can't we tackle more than one challenge at once?
In school you have multiple classes and multiple projects to work on, and you complete them, even if you started out not knowing how you were going to solve the questions.

>>5183065
Seconded. Thermo plants have to have a medium to transfer heat to . No reason why not that sweet unfiltered solar power though.

>>5183049
I've talked about the payoffs, you moron.

Industry in space can provide just about anything you want, however much you want, because of the unlimited material and energy resources, and lack of a biosphere to worry about damaging.

But you have to build up to it. Launching from Earth is very expensive, so if you want to get industry going, everything you launch has to be part of a seed effort toward establishing self-sufficiency.

If you immediately start throwing whatever resources you grab back down the gravity well, of course it won't work.

There's a bootstrapping process you have to work through, followed by huge profits.

>>5183074

I'm not opposed to it. But i'm not a blind zealot who just sweeps these issues under the carpet and so people demonize me for the sakke of their own arguments.

I wish it were possible. But humanity does not work that way.

Am i the only one is this thread that's not even mad, bro?

>>5183062
>space seeds from the space wheat you find on asteroids

alright that one made me smile

>>5183069
>planetary resources is never gonna happen
Then why is it being funded?
http://isru.msfc.nasa.gov/

>>5183085

Right. You're talking about investing an unprecidented amount of money for a project that, if absolutely everything goes right, will crash the markets for several metals. It could take decades for any returns to appear.

This is not how companies invest their money, which is why the only space companies are run by billionaires who want to be immortalized by dropping a portion of their cash on something like space.

>>5183094
/told

Why do you respond to the trolls /sci/? Just ignore the autistic fags spouting the usualy 'herp derp NEVER GO SPACE pleasetalktomeimsolonely"

Its a cry for help from foreveralones.

>>5183097
>implying platinum family metals wouldn't just expand in uses

>>5183078
>Thermo plants have to have a medium to transfer heat to
Not necessarily, but it helps.

>>5183078
They do not. One can transfer heat by radiation to space which is ~0 K.

Still, nuclear reactors in space don't make that much sense at the moment.

>>5183065
LEO is not one of those places where nobody cares if nuclear reactors blow up. The moon is.

Satellite nuclear reactors suck because they have to be very light, very rugged for the launch, and have trouble sinking heat. A lunar reactor could be assembled in place, be expanded with native materials, and have much better heat sinking.

>>5183108
Well you have me, technically. To be worth anything close to a damn they do. Unless you like a car battery the size of a semi trailer.

>>5183114

to what economic end?

>>5183111

>They do not. One can transfer heat by radiation to space which is ~0 K.
>Still, nuclear reactors in space don't make that much sense at the moment.

This is how bad the common perception of space is.

space has temperature? how fucking dumb can you be? we don't use RTG's in space? fucking what?

>>5183086
true that

>>5183114
Who fucking cares anyway, solar is still leaps and bounds better in space.

>>5183097
It's not an "unprecedented amount of money". We could already have been doing it with NASA's budget as it was, if it wasn't horribly misspent.

For the cost of shuttle launches, sending all of that useless dead weight up just to bring it back down again, we could have been doing moon launches. Every launch could have taken long-term assets up there and built on the previous ones.

We could have had people on the moon continuously through the 80s. Not just hanging around and being useless like the ISS, but building and expanding lunar facilities.

>>5183124

we only spent the money on apollo to beat the russians.

there would never have been enough public support to keep the program funded.

>>5183123

only to a certain distance, then it becomes useless.

which is why all of our far probes are nuclear powered.

shit, that new horizons probe is just an RTG duck taped to a few cameras and a dish.

>>5183119
To provide power to build concentrated solar power plants on the moon, and to keep astronauts alive and working through the lunar night.

When the sun's shining, you can use the power to make rocket fuel and structural materials. You can build more power capacity and more production capacity, and produce all of the propellant for trips between low earth orbit and the moon.

It's all part of bootstrapping.

>>5183129
NASA still got lots of money. It was never lack of money that stopped them.

Do you think that lack of money somehow made them build the incredibly expensive shuttle?

>>5183146

the shuttle was so much cheaper than the saturn 5.

What are you talking about?

>>5183141

why is there a manned base on the moon?

How are people profiting from that?

It seems like it'd be nearly impossible to break even.

Are you just shoehorning your romantic notions of people in space?

>>5183062
Earth seeds, space soil, space water, sun light. It's all there, we just need to start looking for it.

Noone's saying this will be easy. Colonists will be leading a hard life, just like the early settlers of the New World did. But they CAN and WILL be able to find the resources they need to survive. All we need to do is develop the processes they will use to live off the land. And there's no rush to do it, either - in all likelyhood, it will happen in a series of baby-steps as the need arises. It's not a stretch of the imagination to see how manufacturing propellant extraterrestrially in order to eliminate the need to lug heavy return stages all the way from earth could extend to the manufacture of consumables needed for a humble space outpost.

>>5183069
>http://isru.msfc.nasa.gov/
That's a NASA page on In Situ Resource Utilization(ISRU), they are not at all affiliated with Planetary Resources.

Planetary resources primary business plan at the moment is selling space telescopes and satellite imagery, a much more profitable form of "space mining" at the current time.

>>5183069
>>So who is going to invest several trillion dollars in an insane space mining scheme?

As someone who is a big proponent of space mining, it would be incredibly insane to invest in an actual asteroidal resource extraction mission at this point in time.

First off, we have taken very few geological samples from actual asteroids. And by very few, I mean literally a couple dust grains from the nearly failed Hayabusa mission.

We're also not quite sure if asteroid have easily extractable water or what they are like on the inside.

There's quite a bit more we need to understand about asteroids before we can mine them. Even if we want to mine something simple like water, there's still quite a bit to be done.

>>5183148
There's a manned base on the moon so people can work there and set things up. You're setting up industry, there's a lot of work to do.

I don't know if you noticed, but our robotic probes haven't exactly been doing heavy labor. We almost never use robots to do work unless it's in a controlled setting and very routine, for good reasons.

We need real pairs of hands to get work done, and we will for at least another couple of decades.

>>5183152

Someone adopting my new world analogy. My niggard.

>>5183119
To what economic end did the Pilgrims migrate to New England?

>>5183094
I think this could be the best bet currently. It might be quite difficult getting to, obtaining, and bringing back the metals from asteroids, but once we've brought back some sizeable chunks, it outweighs the cost. This being if the money obtained from such resources ends up in good hands, and that it's used correctly, which is the part I'm worried about.

>>5183152
>just like the early settlers of the New World did.

no, not at all. This is just a asinine thing to say.

okay, so you're saying that we can house all the excess billions of people in space, but we can't do it on the earth.

whatever man. you have your delusional faith, and no amount of evidence can shake you of it.

>>5183151
The shuttle was cheaper than developing the Saturn V, not merely using it.

The shuttle program was a complete failure, and it was a failure at a very high level of design. It started as a cheap space launch workhorse, and became this ridiculously costly hangar queen, obviously more expensive than non-reusable spacecraft.

>>5183155

>we don't build things on the moon

>because our robots suck, not because of the staggering logistics and costs

fucking conspiracy theories. there's nothing a human can do that a robot can't do better except maybe spotting a pretty rock in the distance.

>>5183157
To start a new life in an already livable environment that had it's own food and water. Not an airless void, numbnuts.

also, they were fucking religious extremists trying to get away.

>>5183160

>but once we've brought back some sizeable chunks, it outweighs the cost

it really doesn't.

>>5183165
>there's nothing a human can do that a robot can't do better except maybe spotting a pretty rock in the distance.

If this was true, there would be no jobs.

>>5183165
>there's nothing a human can do that a robot can't do better except maybe spotting a pretty rock in the distance.
They why aren't robots doing all of our work on Earth outside of factories?

Robotic probes have barely been able to roll around and scoop up samples.

>>5183114
>>The moon is.
and what are your poor moon colonists going to do when their life support fails?

>>Satellite nuclear reactors suck because they have to be very light, very rugged for the launch
And how are you going to get said nuclear reactor to the Moon in the first place?

And why use nuclear power when:
1. you have peaks of eternal light:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_of_eternal_light

2. You can make solar cells in situ completely from lunar regolith:

http://www.highfrontier.org/Archive/Jt/s5.05b.Ignatiev%20Moon%20Base%20Conf%2010-05.pdf

pic related, it's a solar paver

>>5183165
well until we have faster ways of interacting with the robots we send, it's a slow, painful process of getting any information back on what they're doing

>>5183118
Well, it becomes a big trade-off between efficiency, power and size. And it also depends what your peak working temperature is; the losses might not be all that high after all if your plant runs hot at BOTH ends.

What kind of thermal plants are we talking about, anyways? Solar-thermal plants? Because compared to PV, I think those would STILL be winners efficiency-wise, even in space.

>>5183165
>already livable environment that had it's own food and water
>and violent natives and devastating weather
>and were preceded by people looking for gold
>which were preceded by men looking for spice
>which were preceded by vikings, who were all killed off. yes. vikings.

>>5183169
>>5183174


Robots are prohibitively expensive. Third World slave labor will always be more cost-effective.

>Robotic probes have barely been able to roll around and scoop up samples.

What the fuck else should they do? throw a frisbee?

>>5183164
The Saturn V was a flimsy, jimmy-rigged design that was clearly never intended for series production. Continuing to use it would have been just as expensive as operating the Shuttle.
Not that there weren't proper expendable systems that were far cheaper than both...

>implying a half racial jew (obama) or a jew's whore (romney) is going to fund science
>5182422

these guys are going to do the bidding of there jew overlords and those that know the truth about the parasitic race, know they will keep pushing for there ideal global slave planet

pic related

>>5183180

that's not going to happen, which is why the robots can act by programs.

>>5183181

Yeah that sounds like the public misconceptions about the new world and it's colonization.

You forgot to mention that most people believe that columbus and people of his time still thought the world was flat.

>>5183186
That one is a misnomer, true, but the rest are not. Jamestown was about lumber and gold. Columbus was about spice trade. The vikings were killed off by natives. These aren't misconceptions.

You can't honestly be arguing that coming to the new world wasn't a horrifying idea embarked by only the brave or stupid, with the reward of free land and resources only slightly outweighing the risks involved. Do you know how many people died before they ever got there? how many survived the first few years? people still risked it to start something and reap the profits. This is no different.

>>5183185
What if I told the jews that space money exists?

>>5183175
>and what are your poor moon colonists going to do when their life support fails?
They'd climb in their return vehicle and there would be a big expense since they have to send out another reactor. Worst case, a small crew of workers who already knew they were taking a heroic risk will die.

I was obviously talking about the fact that there would be no environmental consequences of a meltdown.

>And how are you going to get said nuclear reactor to the Moon in the first place?
How are you going to get anything to the moon?

When you can set it up on a planet, a nuclear reactor can produce much more power for its weight than solar panels. You need a starter industrial power source to start building your major solar collectors for stuff like processing ores. If you don't care about blow-ups, you can build them like nuclear rockets, and produce tremendous power with a very light apparatus.

>>5183197
>This is no different.

THERE IS NO FOOD IN SPACE

THERE IS NO AIR IN SPACE

THERE IS NO TILLABLE SOIL IN SPACE

Fucking fucking shit. Stop saying that you fucking idiot.

>>5183205
They would go mad for space gold

>>5183209
Ships manage it with 1/3. Why you so mad bro?

>>5183182
You don't understand what point I was making? Seriously? You're that unbelievably fucking stupid?

Robots are NOT capable of doing everything men are. We haven't demonstrated anything near that level of effectiveness.

Robots don't go to a new location in an uncontrolled environment and build new things. It has never happened, and it's still decades off from happening.

If you want space industry, you have to send up men.

>>5183155
>We need real pairs of hands to get work done, and we will for at least another couple of decades.
Pic related is currently on the International Space Station. It has a real pair of hands. If all goes well, they'll ship some legs up and it will become the ISS's janitor. This will give astronauts more time to do experiments.

It is highly automated and all the controllers on the ground have to do is watch it and correct the occasional mistake.

Oh and don't forget about the DARPA Robotics Challenge, to make humanoid robots capable of preventing driving cars, climbing ladders, busting through walls, and stopping a Fukushima style disaster and operating with minimal human command under splotchy comms.

It launches tomorrow:
theroboticschallenge.com

>>5183224
That's great.

A robot that might be capable of light janitorial work on a do-nothing station in low earth orbit, with people around to fix it when it gets stuck.

Looks ready for prime time to me. Let's send some to the moon and expect them to accomplish everything a manned base could.

>>5183219

why would you send up a machine that has to be built on site? why not just send it up fully functional to lower the chance of failure?

Oh right. You're just making excuses to get people to where they do not belong.

>>5183235
but robots are safer. it's dangerous for humans to go alone!

>>5183235

oh wow, fuck you. you think they'd just give something like that a broom?

you people are such idiots.

>>5183233
Have you been paying any attention at all?

I'm talking about bootstrapping space industry. You don't do that by only sending up complete machines that don't need to be set up, installed, or expanded.

>>5183235
>> Let's send some to the moon
That was the original plan actually:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robonaut#Project_M

http://robonaut.jsc.nasa.gov/future/HistoryandPhilosophy/

Got cancelled by some higher ups.

>>light janitorial work
light janitorial work on an space station is no laughing matter, a great deal of astronaut effort is put into janitorial work.

>>5183238

why not

>>5183253
Because when they break down, you have to send up another one.

>>5183161
>okay, so you're saying that we can house all the excess billions of people in space, but we can't do it on the earth.
No, I'm not saying that. Sooner or later, the population of Earth is going to hit that ceiling, and there won't really be a damn thing we could do about it.

All I'm saying is that it will be possible for populations to exist on other planets and celestial bodies independently. Small populations, granted, but sustainable ones nonetheless.

>>5183258

you're saying that we should send up something that can repair itself and carries spare parts for everything?

Gee, why didn't i think of that...

Oh right. we have limited resources. we're not building von neumann machines.

>>5183264
>>carry spare parts for everything
No, you make the spare parts in situ.
>>we're not building von neumann machines.
Why the fuck not? The estimated complexity and thus development cost of a von neumann machine is around that of a Pentium chip:

http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/883Toth-Fejel.pdf

Once, you've built one, you've built a billion.

>>5183284

>No, you make the spare parts in situ.

>magic replicators

Oh shit, i forgot we had those.

>>5183293

3D printers? Yeah, we have those.

>>5183284
>dat picture is kinda cool

>>5183297

not like this we don't.

Show me a 3d printer that can make a 3d printer.

>>5183293
>>>magic replicators
Or you just use conventional manufacturing processes like machining, molding, vapor deposition, and what not to make components.

You could also use less conventional manufacturing processes like laser sintering, electron beam melting, and electron beam cutting.

Did I mention one can make solar cells from regolith? I did, in this post here:
>>5183175

>>5183293
pic related, it's not all the way there, but it's close.

>>5183301
There you go.

>>5183311

That's some nice tinker toys.

>>5183315

That tinker toy contraption made the molex cables and all the copper wires? bullshit.

Try to be honest for once.

>>5183315

how did that thing print the metal? or the wires?

Are you fucking stupid or just grossly dishonest?

>>5183332
You can print wires, but there's little point in doing it, because it's so easy to make your own PCBs:
http://reprap.org/wiki/Pololu_Electronics#Making_the_PCBs_in_RepRap

http://blog.reprap.org/2012/04/some-more-printed-circuitry.html

>>5183332
>>5183330
Too much metal for you to handle? Check out this Sarrus linkage based cartesian robot, can't exactly call it a printer just yet as it doesn't have an extruder:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1425

>>5183358

oh way to change the goalpost without admitting that those 3d printers did not print themselves.

>>5183362
He's made that a habit.

I love where this is all going.

romney spends more on direct research
obama spends more on stimulus checks to green energy companies, not research

also romney seems more of the type to recognize nasa's value as an advanced engineering and materials research division, which just happens to make rockets

>>5185192
Sounds like message from ass.