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| Science & Technology |
| Son of Project Orion looks promising! |
| 2007-09-21 |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #4 Ironically, fast or slow, a principle I mentioned still holds true: much time, effort, energy and money can be saved by sending construction robots to the Moon and Mars first. NASA has a bad habit of not planning to exploit their successes in the future. Every landing mission should be planned to include building on previous missions. Every piece of equipment that gets there should be used over and over again--with nothing discarded. Robots digging tunnels means a permanent base with a lot more functionality than having to send up a complete habitat every time. And the more costs are kept down, the more frequent and better the missions. And people there or not, the robots continue to improve the base until they need repair and spare parts. And once robots are there, they press on, even if a Democrat president or Congress doesn't want to fund any more manned missions for a decade. So by the time astronauts do go back, they have lots and lots of new tunnels waiting for them. Some maybe filled with harvested lunar or Martian water ice. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-09-21 19:39 |
| #3 We may be on the verge of a gigantic leap forward in the exploration of space and expansion into our solar system. There are so many different concepts and designs which are suddenly showing such promise that it is only a matter of time before someone demonstrates something incontrovertible and rockets become a footnote in history. |
| Posted by: FOTSGreg 2007-09-21 15:55 |
| #2 Wow on both of these if true. |
| Posted by: remoteman 2007-09-21 14:25 |
| #1 On a comment thread, the mention a new type of engine that holds even more promise: http://tinyurl.com/2a5436 |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-09-21 09:51 |