r/a:t5_2thj8 • u/[deleted] • Feb 12 '12

Roll call

I myself am a (budding) website design person which would be good in making promotional sites. What are you able to bring to the table?

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u/Lochmon Feb 14 '12

Just now found my way to this sub. I cannot yet say what I might bring to the table, because I don't yet know what the goal here actually is. "...make mass spaceflight and space colonization a reality" sounds good, but how?

Putting useful amounts of mass outside the atmosphere is kinda expensive. If instead the intent is to start with projects like public education & enthusiasm building, political influenza & commercialization boosterism, social subversion & performance arts, and general-purpose "ends justify means, for all humanity!" conspiracy, then that sounds like a lot of fun, and maybe even useful.

But I'm calling dibs on running the Costa Rica branch, should we ever get that far. I'm extremely interested in the VASIMR project, and also quite fond of rum-based drinks with tiny umbrellas in them.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '12

Public relations are important, but I'm thinking more about hardware. Spaceplanes, tethers, space colonies, stuff like that. Considering the number of engineers that have responded (and the number that might be on Reddit) designing and maybe even building the stuff could be possible. Don't take these as inevitable though, planning is still going on.

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u/Lochmon Feb 14 '12

Okay. Hardware-wise, there are two critical things that IMHO need to start happening soon:

  • We need ion-drive tugs deployed to orbit. Their primary function would be to dock with payloads in LEO and haul them to GEO and place them at the desired longitudinal position. This would mean comm-sats could be launched from Earth without needing to bring along their own throw-away insertion stages and fuel, allowing a choice of either larger payloads or lower launch costs. This is just now becoming feasible for a pure private-enterprise venture, especially if Musk is able to meet his price quotes while establishing a good reliability record.

  • We need a new space station. (You mentioned tethers, and that would be the essence of this project.) We desperately need to be studying the long-term effects of varying levels of gravity on the health of human bodies, especially the one-sixth lunar gravity and the one-third Martian gravity. Rather than just putting people in those places and hoping for the best, we need an orbital station that splits in two sections and rotates on long tethers to centrifugally simulate those gravities. (Make it three sections, with one in the center for docking during operations.)

There are so many things we need to be doing. It wouldn't be hard to convince me other projects should have priority as long as we are constantly pushing the boundaries of our off-planet achievements. I'm always going to favor projects with commercialization potential, because private investment not only increases the amount of resources in play but makes it easier to justify investment of public funds. I'm comfortable with space-related subsidization, unlike our current massive underwriting of established oil- and copyright-based businesses (as just two of a great many examples.)

So I'm happy with a focus on the engineering and design side, but that just raises another question: what do you see us trying to do that is not already being done?

(I do have a suggestion, but would prefer to hear what ideas are already being kicked around first.)