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wdolson -> RE: OT Things to ponder (11/13/2016 12:52:50 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: geofflambert
We have to be careful about referencing religion. That's as big a boo-boo if not bigger than politics in the forum. Once it was thought by some, but not others. Democritus and Aristotle never thought any such thing.
Matrix kind of frowns on that topic too.
As far as space exploration goes, the crew of a space craft is most vulnerable during a solar storm. The ship's water tanks can be used as a radiation shield. If you know a solar storm is going on, the crew gets into a space in the middle of a toroidal shaped water tank in the center of the ship and waits it out. I believe one
Humans will need to go out into space eventually. The asteroid belt is going to eventually be vital for some materials that are going to run short here on Earth. With our current tech, we can only dabble in space, but someday we will get cheaper ways to get out of this gravity well. SpaceX already has plans to cut the costs to get a load into orbit by a factor of 10. That's the first step.
There has been a lot of talk for decades about building an elevator to get into orbit. It would go from a base on the equator up to a station in geosynchronous orbit. Carbon fiber nonotubes appear to be the key technology to making it possible. No other material we know of is strong enough.
We also need to develop some better drives once we're out of Earth orbit. The chemical rockets we have today won't get us anywhere fast enough. One idea to explore the solar system is to sail on the solar wind. The acceleration is relatively small, but it has the advantage of being constant. To return, you tack into the solar wind like a sailing ship does with normal terrestrial wind.
Humans may not colonize space in our lifetimes, but I think it's likely they will eventually. Economically it's going to become necessary at some point.
Bill
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