Space Discussion Thread

[InfinitusEquitas]

Personally I'd be a lot more excited about an actual moon base as opposed to a manned mission to Mars.

The main reason a mission to mars is interesting, at least to me, is that in actually doing it we'll discover a host of new problems, and solutions, as well as see development of manned spacecraft to a new level. That said, much of what a mars mission would accomplish, could also be accomplished through testing done on the moon's surface, but at far lower cost.

While the idea of space travel, and space exploration is undeniably exciting, and appealing, especially as it's been drummed into our heads by many decades of books, and television, the reality is, manned exploration just doesn't make a whole lot of sense, at least not at this point in time, with our current level of technology.

When traveling at near to, or faster than the speed of light becomes a reality, that would be a game changer. Though even that could prove to be a challenge, since it's pretty hard to keep us water filled meat sacks alive, and we're nowhere near there.

With quantum communications making headway, a best case scenario I can imagine, hopefully within our lifetimes, is to send out probes that we can communicate with instantaneously, and depending on the amount of data that it is possible to transmit, might even be possible to have a virtual robotic presence in space, without needing to deal with the myriad issues travel would present.

 

[paul1598419]

There are so many problems with pushing anything heavier than subatomic particles to near light speed that I don't know that we will ever get past them. The weight alone as the things approach light speed seems prohibitive. IDK, I think it will be a very long time before these ideas become more than just that.

 

[CE5]

May I join this conversation thread? Since I'm so new here, I don't want to appear to barge.
But there is a relevant topic that I'd like to interject in this thread that well... quite frankly I'm surprised it's not actively front and center.

And after a brief sampling of this thread from inception to present, and also after doing a search for the topic that I'd like to discuss, having turned up so little attention.
This thread looks like a proper venue, in order to bring it to the forefront.
Rather than for me to create a new thread about the topic.

And there is a related secondary topic that would also mesh well, going forward.

 

[diachi]

SpaceX has done it again!

Second successful launch and landing of a flight proven booster.

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/878332861668929537

 

[CE5]

Since I've expressed a desire to join this conversation, being that there were no objections posted I will proceed.

Personally I'd be a lot more excited about an actual moon base as opposed to a manned mission to Mars.

We will not establish a Moon Base. For more on the reasons why this will not happen anytime soon, please see my post here:
http://laserpointerforums.com/f44/lasers-prove-we-ve-been-moon-100780-3.html#post1482727

Also, I'm very happy to see you that you also posted:

With quantum communications making headway, a best case scenario I can imagine, hopefully within our lifetimes, is to send out probes that we can communicate with instantaneously, and depending on the amount of data that it is possible to transmit, might even be possible to have a virtual robotic presence in space, without needing to deal with the myriad issues travel would present.

The potential of Quantum Communications, is extremely exciting!

And that recent addition to this conversation, is what picqued my desire to join this conversation presently. Also, the general discussion about communications upgrades, is really one of the primary reasons why I signed onto LPF, to begin with.

Lets talk about some 'old news' first. Specifically the OPALS, mission.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPALS

After cruising around the 'net looking to engage other folks on this subject, I took a flyer to check out LPF, in the hopes that there would be some in-depth deets and speculations as to the enormity of this accomplishment.
But alas, even after performing a search for discussions on this topic, which I would have imagined to be the 'talk of the town' especially on a site dedicated to all things Laser, I was disappointed to discover the apparent lack of interest/discussion on this amazing Laser based technology.

That is really the main reason why I would like to join this conversation: to encourage and engage in more discussion about the OPALS, technology.

The fact that we were able to achieve the linkage, utilizing such a low powered 2.5w Laser was a real eye opener, and one that still astounds me to this day.

The OPALS, technology combined with the emerging Quantum Comm. Tech- is really going to revolutionize not only our continuing efforts towards exploring the cosmos, but also be applicable to upgrading our entire existing terrestrial communications network as well.

The upgrades that just these two emerging technological advancements in our communications abilities portend, combined with the Re-Usable heavy lift vehicles as just mentioned by @daichi, will usher in a very rapid and utterly astounding new chapter in Mankind's presence in Space.

The secondary topic that I alluded to perhaps meshing well. Would be perhaps the discussion of the feasibility of a space based Laser platform, to be developed to help clean up the enormous amount of space junk orbiting the planet. I wonder if such a platform would be able to target even the smallest piece of space debris, and with the application of Laser energy, be able to de-orbit the space junk to either burn up during re-entry or to vector the de-orbiting of larger obsolete satellites etc; towards a desolate area of landmass rather than the Ocean, due to various reasons.

What say you LPF?

 

[Benm]

I say it's not that feasible to do.

If you launch any kind of laser system to clear up space debris, there are only a few things you can do with that:

You can, through photon pressure, cause things to fall back to earth eventually, burning them up upon re-entry. Alternatively you can push them into larger orbits, beyond geostatinoray, so they don't bother us much.

You could also obliterate items in orbit, breaking them in much smaller pieces. This may help to get LEO orbit pieces to fall down sooner than otherwise, but also increases the number of items to be tracked.

Mostly this would apply to geostationary orbit sats though, and they must be in pretty narrow otbit to fiunction. There are precautions already in place. At the end of life a sat is pushed into a'graveyard' orbit using what little fuel is left.

This is in most cases effective, but there always be ones that just fail in an unexpected mode. Current reality is we can do nothibg about that. In the near futue we can push failed sats ou t thougn, or back in, regarding of the preferrred method of discarding

 

[CE5]

Well @Benm, there has been ongoing discussions about a space based laser platform to de-orbit space junk since the mid 1990's. A quick google search will turn up many hits discussing the use of space based, and also land based laser platforms to clean up the space junk. At present, we do in fact have the technologies to accomplish this already. However, the sticking point seems to be the obvious offensive potential that such a system could be used for. I feel that if this could somehow be implemented to be a joint venture among the major space faring players, it would happen sooner rather than later.

It is feasible technologically, but how feasible is it geo-politically?

That is really the question that I would like to see addressed.

 

[paul1598419]

This reminds me of Sky Lab. Anyone remember that thing's obit decaying and falling back to earth. It didn't burn up on reentry, but came down in pieces that hit mostly in Australia. Fortunately not in population centers.

 

[CE5]

Yes, I remember the Skylab, event.
I also recall the 'chicken little' the sky is falling, sentiment that interviews with people in the street revealed.

Those space stations from Skylab, to Mir, and the impending demise of the Tiangong-1 and now the ISS and the Tiangong-2 They all shared one common dirty little secret. They were, and continue to be- filthy little hostels floating in space. Just do a quick google, to reveal the sort of icky poo-poo, living conditions that all these space stations have in common. The Soviets, were even tossing their bags of trash and garbage out through the airlock and into orbit when the Mir, was operational.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens when Tiangong-1 de-orbits soon.

 

[paul1598419]

Can't wait for the inevitable hysteria that will accompany the next space crap to fall from the sky. If anyone ever did get hit, I don't see where they could get compensation for their loss.

 

[Benm]

They would get it from the owner of whatever fell from the sky onto them causing damage. If Tiangong-1 from some reason de-orbits but comes down in large pieces, and one of those went through your car, you would have to claim the damage from the chinese state, or the entity that runs their space programme (i'm not sure about how that is incorporated in china).

Basically if you launch something into orbit and it falls down causing damage you are responsible for that damage, similarly to you flinging off a brick in some random direction busting someones window on the way back down.

A more interesting case would be a collission in orbit: are there any traffic rules on that?

Lets say you launched some space operation to put a sat in geostat orbit, first putting in in LEO and then manouvering it up to GEO. What if for some reason that operation collided with a weather sat or something similar?

I reckon you'd be liable if you could have reasonably known where the other sat was, but if it was some spy sat where no information is made public about its position, how could you know, and prevent it?

I suppose the rule is that you are liable for damage if you could have reasonably known something was in your way (like the iss which orbital location is public knowledge), but possibly not when you had no idea something was in your way (like a spy sat).

And it the latter case, the operator of the spy sat could be liable for your damages too - they flew something in orbit you could by no means foresee colliding with as they kept it's location/orbit or even existance secret on purpose. That'll be an interesting day in court for sure, though we'd have to decide jurisdiction before it ever came to a trial

 

[paul1598419]

That sounds good if the people doing the launching is a private organization, but governments are often exempt from civil suits. It happens all the time. What court would you try to sue the Chinese government in? And if you got a judgement, where would you get the settlement from?

 

[Rokakku]

This reminds me of Sky Lab. Anyone remember that thing's obit decaying and falling back to earth. It didn't burn up on reentry, but came down in pieces that hit mostly in Australia. Fortunately not in population centers.

I wish I was around to recover some of the debris. That'd be insanely cool.

 

[paul1598419]

Who knows? There may be some fragments out there yet to be found. I know they had a tract of the debris field, so I would start there.

 

[NightExplorer96]

Kind of a shame that space exploration has been dead for like EVER now, I mean the only thing we're really doing is flying back and forth to the ISS, surveying distant worlds and doing Mars exploration. We really need to get our act in gear and start getting serious about setting E.T bases and learning about our environment.

-Alex

 

[Benm]

The question is a bit on where to go next.

Provided we do not have any propulsion system that can reach something in another solar system for the foreseeable future, we are limited to our own.

And there are some ideas to send probes to moons around saturn and jupiter to actually land on them, though no real timeline has been established for them - there is talk of leaving in 2020, but considering the distance it'll take some time to get there.

I don't think further exploration of Mars is a wasted effort either. While it seems to be lifeless at the moment, it's still not certain that the planet never supported life in the past. This life may have only been microbial, single celled organisms, and only on very limited spots on the planet. Since such things leave little fossil records if any, and we're not overly sure on probably locations either, they may prove very hard to find even if there actually is a lot of evidence left.

Finding life that developed on mars independently of that on earth would be a huge thing, but not finding it means very little as it could have easily been overlooked, or simple never was there to begin with.

In that regard setting out missions to moons that are ice covered but still have a liquid ocean on them could be somewhat more useful. There is no guarantee we'd find it, but if there still is microbial life on such moons chances of discovery are probably better since it (or at least its fossils) would disperse through that ocean over time so you do not need to find the exact right spot.