 May 26, 2011 - 4:12pm | Just thought it might be fun/educational to have a few links to real world tech that is getting us nearer to the Star Frontier. Heres my first contribution. http://www.marssociety.org/home/press/tms-in-the-news/treatingspaceliketheamericanwest Reasonable men adapt to the world around them; unreasonable men make the world adapt to them. The world is changed by unreasonable men. Edwin Louis Cole |
 May 26, 2011 - 10:02pm | Hmm, interesting article. Now if I were only 30 years younger, I'd be able to share in the complete awesomeness of what's coming down the pike. My SF website izz: http://ragnarr.webs.com |
 May 27, 2011 - 5:26am | Some good points there. Still wonder if Space Exploration will ever get anywhere. How long have they been building the International Space Station? Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
May 28, 2011 - 3:37pm | Too long...But it was a political fooball not science, not business. Dr. Zubrin has allot of common sence solutions, but we will never go anywhere until getting to space becomes more affordable. I figure it will be slow going for another ten years or so...then things will take off as private industry takes an interest. Reasonable men adapt to the world around them; unreasonable men make the world adapt to them. The world is changed by unreasonable men. Edwin Louis Cole |
 May 29, 2011 - 2:42pm | but, theoretically, one family could do it from their farm, privately, and kick start the process sooner... Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
May 29, 2011 - 9:27pm | Actually there was an old TV series starring Andy Griffith in which a junk dealer built a rocket and went to the moon. Even by late 70s technology he needed quite a bit of help to pull it off. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
May 30, 2011 - 12:36am | Thespiritcoyote... the only way I see the farmer getting to space might be like these folks on my second link: http://www.jpaerospace.com/ I read the book "floating to space" cool idea, and these guys are actually getting off the ground...so to speak. The have advertisers and everything! Reasonable men adapt to the world around them; unreasonable men make the world adapt to them. The world is changed by unreasonable men. Edwin Louis Cole |
May 30, 2011 - 4:58am |
 Return on investment is definitely a motivation, but that doesn't necessitate a monetary or resource wealth return. Not every individual is motivated by those specific economies. Hence the Junk Dealers gone Interplanetary Explorer, and the Astronaut Farmers dumping their life savings into an opportunity, just to See-and-Prove it an be done. Not every society need to be motivated by a primary focus on those aspects of economy either. AEB, AEM, ANGKASA, ASI, BAS, CNA, CNES, CNVT, CSA, DNSC, DTU, DLR, ESA, EXA, ISRO, ISA, JAXA, KARI, LAPAN, NASA, NASU, ROSCOSMOS, SIP, UKSA, and some have made a lot of impressive leaps with very little material investment return (if any) expected. I would argue that material return hasn't been the main motivation for space exploration, nor has it proven to require that motivation. Quite the contrary, See-and-Prove it Motivation is a strong return, and means more to the public than credit is given, though admittedly perhaps not enough. I agree, however, should the private space exploration pick up, even from eccentric junk dealers and resourceful farmers (whom I have higher hopes for than private industy), then there would be a change, for better or worse, and it would be exciting to see. Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
 May 30, 2011 - 9:43am | JP Aerospace page may have just explained the Phoenix lights. Still cool stuff, and most likely cheaper then all the space shuttles NASA is selling off. |
May 30, 2011 - 10:12am | @spyder  For everyone...A third link. These guys seem serious. http://www.pioneerastro.com/projects.html Reasonable men adapt to the world around them; unreasonable men make the world adapt to them. The world is changed by unreasonable men. Edwin Louis Cole |
May 30, 2011 - 10:33am | Wow! Reasonable men adapt to the world around them; unreasonable men make the world adapt to them. The world is changed by unreasonable men. Edwin Louis Cole |
May 30, 2011 - 3:03pm | kewl find It takes one hundred thousand people to support a rocket that costs ten thousand dollars, and ten people to support an airplane that costs one-million dollars. but both the rocket and the airplane are built with the same resource requirement cost. Most of the people working on the rocket could be reduced if they built more of them, used smaller ground crews, automated the industry, and reused more parts... corporate downsizing is the answer, to what junk-farmer isn't able to do? Personally I think corporate, public, theistic, or private interest is irrelevant, a desire for the "just do it" that outweighs a desire for any "material return", requires a certain amount of irrational dedication, that few organized attempts are likely to pull off. Space isn't going to make anyone rich in material gains. Mars doesn't have anything useful we don't already have here. The cost of living is... astronomical... anywhere beyond the Earth biome. There is no threat that we will need to avoid in a single lifetime, that will make leaving Earth anything but a slower death for the refugees. It isn't that zero-sum costly, but it isn't that bottom-line profitable. The prime reasons are what they always have been to any exploration endeavor, "because we can, because we should, because we will learn". That simply isn't quantifiable in hard returnable economics, and never has been... "Space... Just do it!" is a slogan I am all for, but such a slogan would be hard to look at the kiddies fifty years from now and explain... so I won't support that slogan... officially. I would bring a data-monkey a coffee every day, for just a hamburger and a cot, if I thought it would get humanity out there faster and safely, and Jeff Greason's grandson doesn't have to live in a "new dark age"... but, the only thing that will make it happen, is the "Just Do It." attitude that he has, not the capitalism that he attributed. Huzzah, to the grand open skies of the just do it Frontier Spirit, and the inevitable True Reality of Freedom! Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
June 1, 2011 - 5:32pm | There are a couple of things we could get from space which might make it profitable: 1) Energy. Solar collectors which then convert it to microwave energy and beam it down to collection station. 2) Metal. Yeah the whole asteriod mining thing. This would work only for things in space like stations and factories. 3) Micro-gravity manifacturing. Some things can be made better in space like artifical crystals and ball bearings and computer chips. 4) Retirement homes. No seriously. No gravity is a blessing to people suffering many long term illnesses and chronic conditions. Just need to make it a little cheaper. There are others but this is just top of my head stuff. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
June 1, 2011 - 8:08pm | @rattraveller Reasonable men adapt to the world around them; unreasonable men make the world adapt to them. The world is changed by unreasonable men. Edwin Louis Cole |
June 2, 2011 - 11:26am | The resource advantages for what is out there to be gathered is first for Colonies, and those resources will largely be used locally: First; Mars, Luna, Ceres, Vesta, Jovian Moons, Pallas, Saturnine Moons... and then maybe by that time, we can move a small asteroid around and set up some profitable asteroid mining, but I still doubt it would be more efficient or desirable, than using whats already near a ground-colony on a settled planet. (loosely counting the moons as dwarf-planets, for colonization purposes here.) 300 years from rock k93m38 out in space, or 300 years from a mine in Cameroon... it still takes 300 years to mine 300 years worth, and it isn't like we are running out of platinum any time in the next 3,000 years. We don't actually use all that we mine here. Mars has platinum, and I am sure if the Martian demand was spurred by a Martian population growth, they would quickly mine more than they could use too. What makes SF different is accessibility, the existing geographic expanse the population already has, and the ease of which farmer junk-o-naut can fit together a weekend orbiter from spare parts, means the probability of a group setting off to exploit some remote location just because, is rather good. Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
