Author Topic: First Apollo and now this-- (Read 635 times)

SFRT - Frenchy · « **Reply #15 on:** October 27, 2007, 04:31:28 PM »

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Originally posted by rpm

Until I can find him, here's a pic of Gordo Cooper...

You mean Flash Gordon?

moot · « **Reply #16 on:** October 27, 2007, 04:37:29 PM »

We could definitely be on Mars by now. And be well on the way to medium-big permanent infrastructure on the Moon.
Space is at the initial tooling expenses period... Oil fields in the ME are nothing compared to what's up for grabs out there....

People on earth are sitting on their tulips when there's so much out there to profit from, financialy, technologicaly, environmentaly...

Stang · « **Reply #17 on:** October 27, 2007, 04:58:15 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by moot
We could definitely be on Mars by now. And be well on the way to medium-big permanent infrastructure on the Moon.
Space is at the initial tooling expenses period... Oil fields in the ME are nothing compared to what's up for grabs out there....

People on earth are sitting on their tulips when there's so much out there to profit from, financialy, technologicaly, environmentaly...

Yup. Almost all of the high tech gadgets we have today were born out of the space race as well.

But hey, people are too shortsighted to care about space exploration. Pisses me off.

Halo · « **Reply #18 on:** October 27, 2007, 05:35:58 PM »

You Earthlings are a hoot!

LePaul · « **Reply #19 on:** October 27, 2007, 09:43:53 PM »

We've got a lot to figure out before we get there.

And I think commercial spaceflight will help pave the way. I figure Space Flight, compared to aviation, has yet to really see its "Golden Era" yet. There's not enough competition in there yet but its coming. Everyone agrees we have the know how to do it, its just the enormous resources it takes.

There's a reason why only governents can afford this stuff.

But, commercial companies own and operate satellites. And as Rutan showed, flying up and down can be done. Now they are trying to do it, profitably and safely...maybe even making is routine.

So, folks, this is good stuff.

We also need to sort out the physiology. Our bodies come apart after long time zero g. 6 months to get to Mars at best course/trajectory. How can we simulate gravity to help our bodies adapt? The fine folks at the ISS are leading the charge on that.

And propulsion continues to evolve, with ion engines with more power having recently been launched (Dawn has two).

We live in interesting times. I view the 70s and 80s and great losses of space technoogy and exploration. But hopefully with the Shuttle Program and Orion's development...and the SpaceX stuff, things will march along swifter

Holden McGroin · « **Reply #20 on:** October 27, 2007, 09:50:07 PM »

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Originally posted by LePaul
We also need to sort out the physiology. Our bodies come apart after long time zero g. 6 months to get to Mars at best course/trajectory. How can we simulate gravity to help our bodies adapt?

Thats easy. Centrifugal force. Arthur C Clarke solved that problem 50 years ago.

The biggest problem is radiation in deep space. Apollo was only out of the Earth's magnetosphere (which sheilds us from a bunch of bad solar radiation) for a few days. Should a solar flare have hit the moon when Apollo was there, the crew would have been toast. The ISS / Shuttle in LOE are within the Earth's magnetic protection.*

Heavy sheilding against radiation and flight / launch are mutually exclusive.

* Or that's what they want you to believe

LePaul · « **Reply #21 on:** October 27, 2007, 09:58:20 PM »

Oh I just read about that, the Apollo astronauts wore tags to detect how much radiation they got hit with:

The members of the Apollo 8 crew were the first humans to pass through the Van Allen radiation belts, which extend up to 15,000 mi (25,000 km) from Earth. Although it was predicted that the passage through the belts would cause a radiation dosage of no more than a chest X-ray or 1 milligray (during the course of a year, the average human receives a dose of 2 to 3 mGy), there was still interest in the radiation dosages on the crew. So each crewmember wore a Personal Radiation Dosimeter that could be read back to the ground as well as three passive film dosimeters that show the cumulative radiation experienced by the crew. By the end of the mission, the average radiation dose of the crew was 1.6 mGy.

Halo · « **Reply #22 on:** October 27, 2007, 10:27:36 PM »

Enjoy space flight while it lasts, because sooner or later it all will be androids. Silicon succeeds Carbon, hopefully kindly and gratefully.

LePaul · « **Reply #23 on:** October 27, 2007, 10:30:26 PM »

Someone said they thought the F-35 would be the last humanly-piloted fighter the military flies.