A US government panel, summoned by
el presidente to review the future of
human space travel, has expressed strong support for introducing
fuel depots into Earth's orbit. Refueling between stops is expected to cut down significantly on the weight of spacecraft and, accordingly, eliminate the need to engineer
ever more powerful rockets to launch missions. It would then be up to private companies to compete -- and NASA already knows a thing or two about
privatizing space missions -- by reducing costs and developing more efficient methods. While by no means the only potion
NASA has bubbling, if the panel concludes in favor of orbiting gas stations, they will form the backbone of all future extraterrestrial exploration. So we're just letting you know in advance -- we're nice like that.
posted Aug 5th 2009 1:51AM
... nowai.
I traveled back in time before this was posted and posted a comment on it. I have skills.
The entire government should run like NASA. See what kind of thinking you get with a small budget?
Still gotta get the fuel to the station, but I guess they could do that with unmanned rockets, reducing risk to a crew who would otherwise have to carry that fuel with them to orbit.
Think about it: How long will this take to engineer and build, 10-15 years? By then we just might be a little better at sending things into orbit.
Liquid fuel isn't the answer. A stray space rock could singlehandedly cause a catastrophic explosion.
I think space travel needs to focus on H3 collection and fusion power for ion engines.
I think the thinking is that, even though it would require the initial fuel movement, the initial mass would be less, and since less fuel is necessary once a craft has reached orbit and beyond, it would be less mass in all.
Think about it. You end up, currently, using more fuel just to lift more fuel for a single mission. Instead, carry just more than is needed, which is less since there isn't fuel taking up mass. Less fuel needed overall. Just a heavy initial investment.
Quantumphysics)
Yeah, because all that is needed for an explosion is fuel... Well, that and oxygen. But I'm sure there's lots of that in space.
Maybe you should stick to quantum physics?
@Jay - Wouldn't you think they'd keep the oxygen up on the orbital station as well? (as part of the required fuel mixture...)
It'd be less likely but I wouldn't rule out an explosion completely.
My thoughts exactly. Either way your still using the same amount of fuel to get stuff into space. Unless they plan on making it up there. Sure its nicer for the crew (if you used unmanned to resupply fuel station) to be sitting on a slightly less large bomb, but pretty much any explosion would kill them.
I'm sure this is something that will never happen. Atleast not in the remaining 3.5 years this guy will be here. Counting the days.
The craft that you send to the moon/mars wouldn't have to be bulky and carry it's own earth-orbit-escaping fuel. It keeps the traveling craft much smaller / easier to design. It takes a good deal of fuel to get into orbit, but refill that sucker once you're out there, and you could just about get to mars and back on the same amount. The net result of cost for moving it to orbit is going to be about the same - but the design flexibility for the actual craft which is traveling abroad is increased exponentially.
As for explosions - you guys watch too much sci-fi.....
space elevator?
anybody see anything sexual about that?
stargazing is romantic?
Why is this pic in b/w? Makes it look like a 50s pipe dream. "come one, come all! As the first Americans dive into the deep end of space exploration!"
answers like this won't lead us to big holographic images of great white sharks in 5 years... Yeah, I'm talkin to you, back to the future 2 writers...
uhmmm I never saw Kirk stop for GAS... I think we have to find different way to propel the spaceships... we cannot start to put gasoline station around the milkway :)
As always, be nice if we had a reason to go into space first before we built up a massive infrastructure.
@Alex
How about Because its there, and we haven't even begun to properly explore it yet.
That's the problem with humanity now. We're losing our sense of adventure...because of the cost!
@alex
Shouldn't we start with the ocean? It's closer and there's a lot to learn. Imo.
@ quantumphysics
im gonna have to agree with you. dont they say that there are millions of small, tiny particles and rocks and stuff flying around that could easily cause a leak, explosion, etc.?
@ matt and quantumphysics
If anything they should start working on some next level, high powered solar panels...
They might cause a leak, but not an explosion. Without an oxidizer that fuel is completely inert. Explosions are relatively easy to trigger on earth because we're surrounded by oxygen!
What's more is that in the vacuum of space the hydrogen fuel, which is only a liquid because it's under pressure, would return to its gas state and quickly dissipate.
yea, i read that in one of the other comments, but was too lazy to correct my mistake :P
thanks for that
It looks like all our spaceships will charge off USB to me.
just focus on solar power,,, its free
I guess if they build big enough panels they can support some heavy machinery..
I wonder how much a liter (or a gallon for you guys in the US) would cost lol
But the panels themselves would way to much.
As for cost per litre, it'd be pretty high since its rocket fuel. :p
Please don't refer to gallons. I'm trying to convert everyone I know over here to the Metric System, lol.
How exactly would you convert pure light into a propellant? Solar power is not very useful as a power to provide force and acceleration to move a space vehicle. You could do solar wind, but thats still way out too.
I don't know, I am not a rocket scientist... Off to bed now (its 5:00AM) Good night
E=MC^2
Get enough energy and we can make mass :)
Ion engines are already in use.
*weigh too
Gah, back to school for me.
Don't give Jinx any more ideas about sending Max into space.
el presidente? Since when was Obama Spanish?
*googles*
Oh, Your Children Should Learn To Speak Spanish. Clever.
I think they should focus on learning how to find everywhere like such as The Iraq on a map, but I'm just an Australian so my opinion doesn't count.
Hopefully they will offer rewards program for buying gas at that location
Maybe they'll clean your windshield for free?
I bet that at least the bathrooms will be kept clean.
"On The Beautiful Blue Danube" better be playing when they're docking with this thing.
i don't think we are a threat to universal temprature yet.
Right now even if the whole planet earth blows up (somehow), its affect on the whole milky way would be like a single bacteria farting on earth.
Two words: Universal Warming!
I'm sorry but i find the idea of launching highly combustible fuels into space a little bit hard to comprehend. Solar power FTW!
Umm... the same stuff they launch into orbit as part of the vehicle anyway? How do you think the Apollo missions got to the moon? They took another fuel tank and another rocket up with them, and ignited that in orbit to head out there (and get back again). This would eliminate the need to have one single vehicle which carries everything they need in one go. You get into orbit on the minimum fuel, then refuel once you get there and carry on. Smaller space vehicles launching from the surface, overall probably a significant cost saving once the infrastructure's in place.
As for catastrophic explosions... there's no oxygen in space, so if you keep the oxygen and hydrogen tanks on the station well apart all you're going to suffer from an impact is a tank rupture and leakage and pushing the station out of its orbit. But I don't think the very clever people at NASA would build something like that without taking that into account, do you?
so if god forbid a meteor hit that station .....GREAT BALLS OF FIRE would be orbiting earth then
More like GREAT CLOUDS OF GAS harmlessly dissipating into the void.
All we need is the USS Enterprise and we're good to go!
Didnt they do this in the film Armageddon? Where the russian space station (yeah i know doesnt exist any more) was a refuling platform? could just add a refulling pod to the ISS? or convert it into one when they decomission it in a few years?
ummmmm..... how exactly would you fill up a fuel station thats in space?
Get a guy with a really large lung capacity to use a straw and siphon it up.
Thats one hell of a long straw
You don't use one straw silly... just stick lots of maccas straws together (it's cheap too, because you can get those free)
That should be the next SpaceX challenge, 'Who can build a 300 km long straw that can withstand both earth and space conditions'
Screw the space elevator, this will be 200% more efficient at moving liquids. XD
Ok, a few people have been saying this, I'm gonna join in.. how does this help anything? The problem being that it takes a lot of energy to get the fuel into space to propel spacecraft to where ever they are going.. ok, understood, so having the fuel already in space means it takes less energy to get a lighter spacecraft there, and then it can fill up and go wherever. Good.
Except... how do we get the fuel up there? by sending it on a spacecraft? in which case, we would also have to deal with transporting the mass of the tanks themselves up there, and then duplicate the energy we would've spent on sending a heavy spacecraft in the first place?
Its like saying 'I can get better fuel economy if I only half fill my car, and top up the tanks midway there', but then driving a tanker halfway along your journey so you can fill up from it. seems completely retarded to me.