/sci/ - Science & Math

>>7477326
obviously so we'll be more open to funding it when the time comes

>Why is NASA filling our brains with the idea of reach mars with human manned spacecraft in the near future?
Because they're still dreaming about repeating the Apollo glory years, when NASA was treated like the point of USA's existence, rather than USA's nerdy hobby.

If you remember Apollo, it was a mission to have some guys stick a flag on the moon and then come home, and not build anything on the moon or make any use of the moon. A lot of people at the time actually thought this was a stupid waste of money, but NASA remembers it as pure glory, and the way the world ought to be.

NASA is very excited to spend billions of dollars having some guys stick a flag on Mars and then come home, and not build anything on Mars or make any use of Mars.

>>7477326
that movie will be shit

just like interstellar

and just like interstellar plenty of people will like it

oh well

>>7477345
You sound like a total joyless cynical asshole. Glad the world isn't filled with people like you.

>>7477326
Stop reposting your stupid posts from /tv/, retard. I called you yesterday, and you keep doing it.

>>7477347
Money spent at NASA only benefits NASA.

>>7477347
But he's right. Just going to Mars for the sake of reaching a milestone, with no long term plans or commitment is the equivalent of flying in a plane one time and saying, "well, glad we finally got that out of the way! Time to go back to travelling only by boat, rail, and the horseless carriage."

>>7477346
/thread

>>7477363
I knew autistic people have no imagination but damn son.....

>>7477347
I have a problem with the way NASA does things.

Throwing money at it gets you there, but it doesn't lower the barrier to doing it again. That's why we haven't been back to the moon. They only figured out how to do it by spending about a billion dollars per man-hour-on-site.

When they were supposedly going to apply what they learned to reduce costs, and did the space shuttle, they only figured out how to make a reusable vehicle by making it more expensive per flight than expendable vehicles. They increased costs.

They don't make real progress. They just pull stunts.

>>7477363
faggot, all people can do in their short lives is set some milestones and feel joy than they reach them. This is the one and only purpose of life.

>>7477387
>I want us to go to mars
>for space colony
>just like in my vidya and animu

>>7477406
This sounds like it might be good fot memedrive. Invest in memedrive.

>>7477406
They should've just ordered parts from China. Train niggers to go to space by running them through a centrifuge. If the Chinese spaceship we built breaks down, we'll have more easily replaceable shitskin astronauts.

>>7477345
>>7477363

You have to walk before you can run. Just getting to Mars, landing, taking off, and getting back to Earth would be a huge achievement. It would already be filled with many potential fail points. So why add more to the mix when they haven't even done the basics?

>>7477326
And to answer OPs question: to keep people interested in their work so investments will continue. Job security.

>>7477418
Wouldn't that be more fitting for the anon he was responding too. >>7477363 seems to be upset that NASA isn't planning some grand adventure to Mars to set up something more concrete than a flag and a few samples. Where as >>7477387 feels that is an autistic view point.

>>7477446
>So why add more to the mix when they haven't even done the basics?
Because otherwise, that's as far as we're going to get. Look at the moon. They could have at least started mining colonies there, but that won't happen because we just hit a milestone and decided that was enough.

>>7477406

>That's why we haven't been back to the moon
Not with people. But the whole idea of "putting a man on the moon" was only carried out to increase funding for space programs in general. And it worked pretty good when you consider the amount of artificial satellites in our orbit.

They knew the problems associated with manned space flight, but they just wanted to accomplish it once so that they could keep American citizens happy with the knowledge their still "number 1". Unmanned space missions are the future, past, and present. NASA has known this for a long time. A manned mission to Mars is just another ploy to bring public interest back towards space programs; with the ultimate goal of increasing funding for maintaining and building satellites (ie, unmanned).

>>7477462
>They could have at least started mining colonies
What makes you think that would be a good idea? Humans are incentive based creatures; we need incentive to do things. If were told that certain resources can be mined on the moon for a higher cost than what we can achieve currently on Earth, than we will lose interest.

The moon just isn't an economical source of material at the moment. Sometime in the future, barring we don't fuck shit up, it will be more economical to mine certain resources on the moon because we lack them on Earth (helium 3). But that just isn't the case right now. If Fusion takes off in the next couple of decades, then we may see some serious shit before we die, but that is a big if.

>>7477435
Memedrive is fantasy space magic.

>>7477446
>You have to walk before you can run.
...or you can get a pile of people crawling around together to build a go-cart and drag it up a hill, so you can coast a little way at running speed, and not learn anything about walking or running, but claim that you accomplished the horizontal speed which is the immediate purpose of running, and therefore have made a huge achievement in the field of horizontal motion.

>Just getting to Mars, landing, taking off, and getting back to Earth would be a huge achievement.
It would be a huge expenditure. We can do it with minor ad hoc extensions of current technology, as Apollo was done. It would just be expensive and pointless.

Real progress in space would start with making launch much cheaper. If the idea was progress in manned spaceflight, they should have let von Braun work on his reusable rockets, and treat it honestly as a long-term endeavor, starting at a small scale, with failure, competition, and change of approach expected along the path from the equivalent of the Wright Flyer to the equivalent of the jet airliner.

>>7477473
>the whole idea of "putting a man on the moon" was only carried out to increase funding for space programs in general.
That's some nonsense you've got there.

>>7477326
We've had the technology for over 30 years, the only big step is literally waiting for someone to arrive.

What is the fundamental limitation of commercial spaceflight? Fuel source? Propulsion? Or just necessity?

All the dreamfags who want to "go boldly" are not enough. What is there of value in the vastness of space that would make billions/trillions worth spending on competitive enterprise?

The Europeans "discovered" the new world because they wanted an alternate path to East. Then they colonized it because of its abundant resources.

What is the equivalent in space? I'm thinking mineral-rich asteroids in the Asteroid belt, but harvesting and transport seems far-fetched. Nevertheless the money is there.

>>7477485
This then is the main obstacle. Its just cheaper to stay here. Public interest never achieved a damn thing. Its going to be the competing private industries that make things happen.

>>7477406
It's a blank cheque government agency what do you expect? Prices only go down on the private market. Do you know how hard it is to engineer shit on a shoestring budget? Really tempting to just ask the taxpayer for more cash if you have recourse to that.

>>7477501
Cheap space launch has been doable since the 70s but the powers that be block it because it obviously leads to cheap ballistic missiles. Private companies have only been allowed to try because all their spacecraft is at least partly reuseable (spaceshipone etc)

>>7477501
>We can do it with minor ad hoc extensions of current technology, as Apollo was done
Your really underestimating the distance and time it would take to get to Mars. People have to eat, need water, and something to keep them sane. All the while the space craft can only be a certain mass for liftoff and flight purposes. Then there is the problem with lifting off of Mars; a substantially larger celestial body than our moon. That in itself would be a huge accomplishment, let alone including it in the design for long term human space flight.

>Real progress in space would start with making launch much cheaper
Can't really disagree with you there.

> Wright Flyer to the equivalent of the jet airliner
This is assuming our current technology isn't Wright Flyer level, and the "jet airliners" are yet to come in the future.

> That's some nonsense you've got there
I disagree. Try to convince 1960s America that spending millions to billions of dollars is a good investment just so you can put up these metal containers in our orbit. They didn't understand what the potential application could be, but the moon was something familiar and heavily covered in popular sci fi.

nasa failed because a bunch of cow-head republicans took over and started accepting military contracts with non-scientific missions and unrealistic objectives. The military should have developed its own space program.

I don't think private corporations will ever be up to the task - they could ever gather the sheer resources of a government agency. Sure nasa may have had some short comings and failures. That's to be expected. I mean, nasa has only been around for a half-century. And you guys expect miracles!? Shit! the robots have already begun colonizing mars. we're lagging behind! omg wherezmyfoilhat!?!?

>>7477617
Space launch for a nice joy ride. But nothing that has the capabilities to stay in space for a long term flight.

>>7477625
>>We can do it with minor ad hoc extensions of current technology, as Apollo was done
>Your really underestimating the distance and time it would take to get to Mars. People have to eat, need water, and something to keep them sane.
I'm not underestimating anything. This is just a matter of throwing enough mass. People don't eat, drink, or breathe all that much in a couple of years.

>All the while the space craft can only be a certain mass for liftoff and flight purposes.
You're assuming a launch straight from the Earth surface. As the 450-ton ISS demonstrates, an arbitrary mass can be assembled in low Earth orbit with an extended launch campaign. That mass can include propulsive units with storable propellant, such as NTO/MMH.

All it would take is to build a MSS, similar but lighter and designed for somewhat higher acceleration, to shift between Earth orbit and Mars orbit. It might make more sense, however, to assemble it at a lagrange point or other high orbit, because of the higher efficiency of upper-stage propulsion compared to conventional space-storable propulsion. Another option would be to launch them to low Earth orbit, and raise their orbits with high-Isp hall thrusters. This would save on launch costs and also allow some testing.

>Then there is the problem with lifting off of Mars; a substantially larger celestial body than our moon.
Still not really a problem. Just 4.1 km/s of Delta-V is needed, launching in near vacuum conditions fighting only a third of Earth's gravity. A storable-propellant craft of under 10 tons should be capable of lifting 4 astronauts to the MSS. One Saturn V equivalent launch should be sufficient to put that on Mars.

The whole thing can probably be done with the equivalent of a dozen Saturn Vs. Let's say 20 SLS launches or 40 Falcon Heavies, or 50 Delta IV Heavies. The astronauts would simply have to tolerate the radiation, which would give them a slightly increased lifetime risk of cancer.

>>7477625
>> Wright Flyer to the equivalent of the jet airliner
>This is assuming our current technology isn't Wright Flyer level, and the "jet airliners" are yet to come in the future.
Our current technology doesn't have Wright Flyer character. Expendable rockets aren't on the "Wright Flyer to jet airliner" development path.

The history of spaceflight, compared to aircraft, is one where only the Langley aerodrome approach was used. The Langley aerodrome was an attempt to build a flying machine with lots of government funding. They got the most powerful engines they could find and built a barge-launched, tandem-wing monstrosity with no landing gear, knowing they'd have to rebuild after every launch attempt. If enough money had been thrown at this approach, it eventually would have worked, as expendable rockets did.

The Wright Flyer, on the other hand, was built as lightly and cheaply as possible, with an emphasis on safe landing, so many attempts at flying could be made.

The Wright Flyer approach to spaceflight would start with a small, inexpensive, unmanned (since a pilot is not our only control option), highly reusable suborbital vehicle. Something like XCOR is doing without the lunacy of skipping straight to manned flight and passenger service.

Once you got your suborbital vehicle working reliably, you'd start both scaling it up and carrying up a small, inexpensive, unmanned, highly reusable second stage. Rather than trying for orbit, you'd turn the thing around and just launch it at the landing site, performing maneuvers to show directional control, delta-v capacity, and entry speed tolerance. Eventually, you'd start trying for orbit and recovery. Then you work on scaling it all up.

This is how you get to practical, cost-effective systems. You insist on flexibility, durability, and low cost from the beginning, and have patience with these constraints. Then when you evolve to hundred-million-dollar big systems, they aren't one-shot deals.

Travel to Mars and return is completely possible with today's technology.

Nuclear powered robots could mine ice at the Martian poles. Then haul the CO2 and water ice to the equator. Where the human habitat will be. Where it will be processed into water, oxygen, and hydrogen.

>>7477924
>today's technology
>Nuclear powered robots could mine
Why didn't anyone else think of just sending some of today's nuclear powered mining robots? It's so obvious in retrospect.

>>7477877
How the fuck did 2 bicycle mechanics outsmart the entire US military? Pretty inspiring stuff tbh.

>>7477951
Bicycles were pretty high tech in those days. Today's equivalent would be drone builders.

>>7477938
You just scale up Curiosity and add mining tools.

>>7477989
True

>>7478006
exactly like muh dick for a drill

>>7478006
Do you know how they keep the rovers working so long?

They hardly do anything. Curiosity takes a picture, and sends it back to NASA, and then a team of NASA experts decides based on the picture to have it move a couple of feet forward, then it stops again, and takes another picture.

In the 2 years of its original planned mission, it travelled only 25 miles, a distance a human being can easily walk in a day. Even so, the wheels were breaking up. Similarly, it has taken and analysed very few samples.

Curiosity certainly isn't a demonstration that NASA is capable of building a real, active worker robot to get serious shit done.

>>7478372
weight savings to keep costs down.

Spend a few billion more and you can get heavy durable robots to Mars.

>>7477359
Anyone have that image of how the discoveries made during the development of the shuttles and spacecraft involved in the moon landings hugely benefited society?

>>7478487
The thing is, nobody builds machines to do complex heavy work without hands-on maintenance and replacement parts.

Ever watch one of those reality shows on mining or other industrial work? Their shit is breaking all the time. Humans fixing things and ordering new parts is how the work keeps getting done.

If you're going to do that in the conditions on another planet, you're going to get more unexpected wear and breakage. You don't just need the bulldozer, the track hoe, and the dump truck, you need the tow truck and the garage and the machine shop.

>>7477346
i liked interstellar

i can't punctuate

i can't into prose

oh well

>>7478529
yeah people really dont understand how complex machines are...
its like in those post apocalyptic movies where someone finds idk, a 10 yo car and it still works...

very few things are designed to work without a robust industrial infrastructure supporting it and most things dont

in my opinoin the next revolution in that regard will be self repairing machines, probably nanomachines or biomachines

imagine that

>>7477346
That movie might be bad but soundtracks were are god tier so i dont give fuck

>>7477326
It pumps the money into the machine or it gets the hose again.

>>7478615
>>7478529
A machine shop would be enough to keep a lot of things going. I have a book right now that explains how you can make an entire machine shop from scraps and a motor. A lot of machines have a lot of overly complex stuff for convenience, but take out the bells and whistles and I think you'd be surprised how much a guy and a machine shop can keep functioning.

>>7478649
thee machine shop needs replacements, those replacements need factories, the machines in those factories need specialised factories, each machine in each of those specialised factories needs a machine of their own, not to mention the myriad of petrochemical plants, metallurgical plants, etc...

you cannot have complex machinery without a big industrial civilization, its just not happening

>>7477345
How many jobs has NASA created? Not just at NASA itself but at subcontractor companies, benefits to local economy in places where NASA operates, etc

Even if you don't believe that science justifies itself, to say NASA is a pure waste of money is bullshit.

>>7477345
well i guess you better stop enjoying techonology that uses satellites, mostly all of technology

yep , thank you , i guess we cant keep on talking, because the only way youre not a hypocritical idiot objectively with a low iq is if you suddenly stop using all technolgoy, yep, confirmmed, no use arguing sonny boy ;)

We need to send Humans to Mars.

Our society needs to dream again. Light pollution is so severe now most people cant even see the stars anymore. Space became boring. We need that excitement and imagination they felt in the 60's when going to the Moon was a big deal.

>>7478660
>How many jobs has NASA created?
Question invalidated by omittance of value aspect. Valid question: How much profit has NASA generated?

>>7478672
>We need to send Humans to Mars.
No we don't.

>>7478659
As I said can literally make an entire machine shop from scrap. It won't look pretty, but it will work.

>>7478676
NASA isn't a for-profit enterprise. That's like asking how much profit FEMA or the UN has generated.

How much value has NASA created for resultant industry and society as a whole?

hint: without nasa, you wouldn't be able to use your gps to find your way to the shitposting and anime figurine store, autist.

>>7478680
Rest assured anon, you personally won't be going anywhere in your lifetime.

>>7478680
Yes we do.

>>7478672
I just want to watch porn, ok? Shove that red marble piece of shit right up your ass

>>7478702
Goddam. Is this what /sci/ has fallen to? I remember when this was /sci/.

>>7478694
>How much value has NASA created for resultant industry and society as a whole?
That's an interesting question. I suspect they represent a net loss compared to what otherwise would have been created within a social system characterized by the absence of forced taxation and subsidies.alone

>>7478694
FEMA is run by a group of corrupt people gaining nothing but profit. Have you ever read behold a pale horse

>>7478721
Taxes are good. They pay for a lot of research.

>>7478715
the true /sci/

>>7478755
That came later.

>>7478614
Reddit may help you with those ;)

>>7477877
There are a number of problems with your approach which makes your comparison of airliners and rockets a false equivalency. But I'm too lazy to tackle them all and will just point to the biggest problem of them all, which you didn't even mention: heat.

>>7478715
/sci/ has never been like this, stop deluding yourself. That said the shitposting has gotten much worse over the past 4 years.

>>7478682
I know this book (it was a series when I saw it). While it certainly describes using scrap to build a machine shop, it also assumes you have access to many factory products, including some quite obscure specialty products.

>>7479128
>the biggest problem of them all, which you didn't even mention: heat.
I described a system of test flights involving higher and higher speed atmospheric entries. It's obvious that you'd have to deal with things like heat.

By gradually increasing the entry speed, you'd be able to recognize problems and deal with them, often with the benefit of a surviving returned vehicle.

There are various possible approaches, such as a high-lift entry which doesn't involve much heat. There's radiative cooling, like the shuttle used (you could certainly do a better job of that with more experimentation). You can get the same benefits as ablative cooling with a more reusable "sweating" system.

>>7478659
That's not exactly true. There's no reason you can't build machines out of a few materials that can be worked with compact equipment.

We haven't developed much complex stuff like this because on Earth there are always advantages to just picking up some off-the-shelf part that's made in a way that has nothing to do with any of the other parts.

And it's the exact opposite of the way NASA does things. NASA has a thousand palms to grease on the way to space. If some contractor has a part they want to sell, and the project leader at NASA is saying, "No, we want to keep the machine simple so it can be maintained in the field with spare parts being produced on site.", then the contractor will go to their congressman and say that NASA has an opportunity to spread money to their district and isn't taking it, and soon the project leader's boss will have a very serious talk with his boss about why he doesn't want to use a perfectly good American-made part that's better in all these quantifiable ways than the field-replacable part, and maybe he should take another look at it if he wants to stay on as the project leader...

>>7479133
I remember the glorious threads. Maybe you just preferred the shitposting threads.

>>7479140
>requires access to some quite obscure specialty products
Such as? If the intent was to rough it on Mars then couldn't these obscure items be brought?

>>7479167
You could build the mining and fabricating stuff on Mars. The mine it self would slowly turn into underground habitat.

>>7478672
>needs dreams and imagination
>needs burdens of debt
>needs corporate overlords
>needs skyrocketing college costs

Dear anon, your government went to shit after the space race. All you want to do is put more shit into it.

How bout you take your vast capacity for getting away from society and shove it up your fuck stick.

>>7479422
/sci/ has always been like this.

It's the subjective age gap from being a highschool fag to being a college fag to being a working fag that makes all the difference to what you perceive and what you chose to ignore.

>>7479544
>You could build the mining and fabricating stuff on Mars. The mine it self would slowly turn into underground habitat.
Even Mosul sounds tempting compared to cave dwelling on Mars.

>>7479577
Just think. The low gravity on Mars will make the Martian settlers super human strong. Able to do work hard and lift massive objects.

>>7479583
No.
It won't.

Id just like to see them orbit the moon with humans because it seems they cant even do that these days