/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.3660980]

Dear /sci/entists,

How do we make Space Travel profitable?

>Mass produce spaceships (?)
>Meteor prospecting (?)
>Something involving the sun (?)
>Space Tourism (?)

[Anonymous No.3660987]

Get away from Rockets.
Either Space elevator or light propulsion are the only long term solution for gettinmg there.

[Anonymous No.3661005]

Spark some sort of colonization process in the style of settlement in the Americas.

If anyone who can pay to get to the moon/mars gains legal title to a large tract of land and the resources therein, there will be plenty of motive for private enterprise to develop large cheap spacecraft.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3661021]

Rockets are inefficient in my opinion, same with >>3660987

I think we should be studying technology for larger, mass driver-launched spaceplanes, along with increased funding for ultra-strong materials engineering such as carbon nanotubes and similar compounds.

The biggest thing that will make space and in the process space travel profitable is widespread automated manufacturing of infrastructure in space out of asteroid/moon material. Not to mention the rare earth element aspect of it, as if stuff like gold and platinum became supercheap more technologies can be used, cheaper, further improving purchasing powers of constituent nations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining
>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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_Earth_Objects#Near-Earth_asteroids
>As of May 2010, 7,075 near-Earth asteroids are known,[14] ranging in size up to ~32 kilometers (1036 Ganymed).[16] The number of near-Earth asteroids over one kilometer in diameter is estimated to be 500 - 1,000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%286178%29_1986_DA
>Asteroid 1986 DA achieved its most notable recognition when scientists revealed that it contained over "10,000 tons of gold and 100,000 tons of platinum", or an approximate value at the time of its discovery of "$90 billion for the gold and a cool trillion dollars for the platinum, plus loose change for the asteroid's 10 billion tons of iron and a billion tons of nickel."[3]

To be continued...

[Anonymous No.3661017]

>>3660987
>>3661005

I could see these two things working out if you did them in tandem:
A space elevator to the moon in order to encourage settlement, tourism, and maybe moon prospecting?

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3661035]

>>3661021
And then comes the whole aspect of space-based solar power:
http://inventorspot.com/articles/spacebased_solar_cells_could_bea_7507
>"A single kilometer-wide band of geosynchronous earth orbit experiences enough solar flux in one year (approximately 212 terawatt-years) to nearly equal the amount of energy contained within all known recoverable conventional oil reserves on Earth today (approximately 250 TW-yrs)," according the report. "This far exceeds the projected 30TW of annual demand in mid-century."

A common refrain to this is 'OH INEFFICIENCY HAS TO TRAVEL THROUGH ATMOSPHERE CLOUDS YADDA YADDA'

Well, the efficiency is surprisingly low if you use certain microwave wavelengths that don't interact with oxygen/nitrogen/water vapour much.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power#Microwave_power_transmission
>More recently, microwave power transmission has been demonstrated, in conjunction with solar energy capture, between a mountain top in Maui and the main island of Hawaii (92 miles away), by a team under John C. Mankins.[38][39]

Keep in mind this is through 400+ millibar atmosphere if not substantially more, which means it would have to go through more than if it was beamed from directly overhead (as ~350 millibar and thicker is below 9 km, if I remember the air pressure at the summit of Mt. Everest correctly)

[Anonymous No.3661038]

I hope asteroid mining becomes viable before I get too old, I want to jump on that bandwagon and retire rich as fuck.

[Anonymous No.3661048]

1) Become trans-human.
2) Leave earth forever.

Fuck profit.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3661052]

>>3661035
>the efficiency is surprisingly low
Fuck
I meant 'the inefficiency is surprisingly low'

[Anonymous No.3661058]

>>3661021

>Asteroid 1986 DA achieved its most notable recognition when scientists revealed that it contained over "10,000 tons of gold and 100,000 tons of platinum", or an approximate value at the time of its discovery of "$90 billion for the gold and a cool trillion dollars for the platinum, plus loose change for the asteroid's 10 billion tons of iron and a billion tons of nickel."[3]

>mfw

[Anonymous No.3661068]

>>3661021
>>3661058

I was so suprised I forgot my face!

[Anonymous No.3661081]

>>3661058
I don't think you can properly assign a monetary value to such large quantities of precious metals.

There's so much of it relative to the currently available supply that the extraction of these resources would completely change the market for such metals.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3661082]

>>3661058
>>3661068
Exactly, you are now an example. Suppose a devilishly handsome tripfriend from /sci/ were to obtain a few billion dollars for such a company *cough cough*. Advertising such an endeavor would turn heads.

'Do you want your entire dinnerware set to be made out of solid gold and cost less than the ceramic ones?'

[Anonymous No.3661088]

can't we build biodomes on mars?

[Anonymous No.3661101]

>>3661088
I'd rather fund nanomachines meant for terraforming.

[Anonymous No.3661108]

dark matter spaceship

[Anonymous No.3661110]

>How do we make Space Travel profitable?
Perhaps by the time we develop mass space travel we would've moved beyond the "for profit" mentality, but who am I kidding?

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3661115]

>>3661110

[Anonymous No.3661120]

1. Room temperature superconductor is discovered.
2. RT Superconductor is composed of a few rare earth elements, not enough supply on Earth to sustain the massive influx of new technologies (yttrium, for example).
3. Near Earth asteroid found with loads of the rare earth elements that we need for the RT superconductor.
4. Voila, profitable asteroid mining mission. Any businessman with the capital available to go and mine it would be a fool not to.
5. The profitable space age begins.

[Anonymous No.3661123]

>>3661035

>A single kilometer-wide band of geosynchronous earth orbit

that's an enormous area it would be far cheaper to do it on earth.

[Anonymous No.3661128]

>>3661110
How else is it gonna get done?

[Anonymous No.3661140]

>>3661110
>>3661115
>>3661128
>>3661038


I demand that if we all live long enough for space prospecting to become profitable.

That we mint and or petition the creation of Space Doubloons made from Gold and Platinum.

>pic related
I refuse to have space currency represented by shitty plastic space tops.

[Anonymous No.3661146]

>>3661120
yttrium
> 400 times more common than silver.
and this is the problem with your plan if it doesn't contain one of the few low abundance elements it doesn't happen.
and also room temperature conductors are not guaranteed and certainly not quickly.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3661151]

>>3661123
If you have simple multi-material 3D printers that can replicate themselves out of purified asteroid elements (which can be done with a plasma gasification unit) you can do it for peanuts. All you need is something that mines asteroid rubble, transports it to the plasma gasification unit, it centrifuges the vapourised elements apart from each other, and then most of those metals are fired through a mass driver back home for either collection in LEO, or a designated impact site (somewhere in some remote desert) could be used for landing the materials directly.

Earth-based solar has a few major pitfalls:
Baseload power: For about 12 hours, no sunlight. Batteries to store excess energy are impractical.
Weather: Clouds fuck your shit up, yo
Location: It would be nice if everywhere got the same energy as the Sahara. Unfortunately most of civilization seems to be located around the 40 degree latitude mark.

With space-based solar, the benefits are grand. Since there is no atmosphere, the panels receive 4 to 10 times more power than Earth-based ones do. No weather either. Since the panels are in geosynchronous orbit they stay direct sunlight 99% of the time.
And the transmission of electricity to the surface can be done with microwaves that interact with the atmosphere very little, making the efficiency losses about 2%.

[Anonymous No.3661158]

>>3661017
>A space elevator to the moon
you can't do that.

[Anonymous No.3661177]

Same way we made maintaining roads profitable. Generate the demand to get up there.

What would really bump up traffic is if there's something in high demand that can only be manufactured easily in zero-G.

[Anonymous No.3661179]

>>3661158
we do need a space elevator though.

[Anonymous No.3661184]

>>3661151
if we did invent magical replicators why would it be better to go to space than rather to just build it on the ground. if you can build at no cost then storage and efficiency is not a problem.
however we don't have magical replicators so we can't.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3661192]

>>3661179
Space elevators only work without crushing everyone on the equator under a high-speed carbon nanotube tether if there is an asteroid counterweight a bit beyond geosynchronous orbit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_orbit
A circular geosynchronous orbit in the plane of the Earth's equator has a radius of approximately 42,164 km (26,199 mi) from the center of the Earth. A satellite in such an orbit is at an altitude of approximately 35,786 km (22,236 mi) above mean sea level. It maintains the same position relative to the Earth's surface. If one could see a satellite in geostationary orbit, it would appear to hover at the same point in the sky, i.e., not exhibit diurnal motion, while the Sun, Moon, and stars would traverse the heavens behind it.

[Anonymous No.3661194]

Helium-3

the moon has it

[Anonymous No.3661203]

I heard Mars is inhabited by a bunch of poor people with huge oil fields and an evil communist dictator.

AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!

[Anonymous No.3661205]

>>3661192
actually you don't need a counter weight you can just build the cable past geosynchronous orbit until the forces balance.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3661207]

>>3661184
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmx1oABwDzs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiFQnUfsENI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9VOwqtOglg

The technology needs to be adapted so that it is a fully replicable RepRap that prints in several metals. This isn't some leap of Star Trek magnitude we're talking about, this is near future.

[Anonymous No.3661291]

bump

[Anonymous No.3661312]

>>3661038

Jump on it right now. Get your learnin' on and get hired by SpaceX. Try to climb up the ranks and work with them on better spacecraft designs and feasible mining plans for asteroids.

Become rich as fuck. Or at the very least become important as fuck. Your name will forever be remembered by scientists and nerds everywhere.

[Anonymous No.3661435]

>>3661021
>1986 DA
>$90 billion
>Closer than Mars
>mfw
Cheers, Inurdaes! You always make these threads great. Post that video of Zubrin saying "we're not after making teflon"!

Oh and, you can give yourself a pat on the back for making me excited about space again at this age.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3661460]

>>3661435
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8bIQLiKi3g

Zubrin is the biggest boss in the aerospace industry to date imho.

[Anonymous No.3661461]

>>3661312
Not him, but would SpaceX hire systems biologists? Does the private space industry in general have a use for us molecular biofags/bioinformaticians?

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.3661475]

>>3661461

You would be a janitor.

With janitor I mean you'd monitor the food synthesis and the composition of the air to keep the habitat livable.

And I'd take cleaning toilets on the Villa Straylight over this crime-ridden shitpile any day now.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3661477]

>>3661461
They will likely take an interest in biology soon, probably related to algae for waste processing, nutrients and oxygen production.

[Anonymous No.3661485]

>>3661460
Dat video, man. Dat fucking video! Ray of light in a dark, cynical world.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3661499]

>>3661485

[Anonymous No.3661576]

>>3661035
I find something like Skylon to be the easiest way to get to space and back.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3661597]

>>3661576
I'm rooting for the Skylon spaceplane.

http://www.tgdaily.com/space-features/56170-skylon-spaceplane-gets-esa-approval

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.3661644]

>>3661597

BWAHAHAHHA THAT PIC

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3661648]

>>3661644
Some OC :3