demagogue on 12/4/2016 at 21:52
It wasn't really to explain. I'm mostly saying that because when I was originally typing that I was going to put "fuel" in quote marks, but it became a pain to open up the stupid window for symbols on my phone and scroll over to the quote marks. It's more than just what I meant, but my intended symbology to mark it that my phone was fighting me on, and it looks better to say that than do a late edit. Chalk it up as frustrated typing on a phone sometimes.
Nicker on 28/2/2017 at 14:35
They'll never make it past the Chem Trails.
Renzatic on 28/2/2017 at 18:18
And even if they could, the Van Allen belt would fry 'em like an egg on a sidewalk.
No one's really been to the moon, you know. We're trapped here, on this flat monolith located on the back of a giant turtle floating through the phlogiston loaded aethers.
Vivian on 28/2/2017 at 21:35
With the laser stuff I've seen demo vids of, you have a sort of cone thing on the bottom of the vehicle which gets heated by a ground-based laser, and this heat forces air through it to generate thrust or something. Sounded reasonably plausible.
heywood on 28/2/2017 at 22:31
A joyride around the moon sounds like the ultimate bucket list item. But the sheer wastefulness of it bothers me. I’m thinking about the amount of money and resources that it will take, and the pollution it will cause, and the extra space junk it will create just to send two guys on a week’s vacation in space.
To be honest, I’m kind of down on the whole idea of space tourism. It just highlights the excesses of crony capitalism when some civilian can rent-a-ride on the Soyuz and ISS, taking up the space & resources that should be filled with a real astronaut and/or a scientific experiment. After all, that's what the ISS is supposed to be for. I'm pretty sure the taxpayers of the world wouldn't have wanted to spend $150B on the thing if they knew it was going to be used as a hotel for the super rich.
Bulgarian_Taffer on 14/3/2017 at 07:09
I'm all for space tourism, if it leads to meaningful exploration. In a sense, I'd be happy if they go to the freaking Moon, our last moon trip was in 1972. Better have something rather than nothing.
But Elon Musk... geez, this guys never keeps his things up to schedule. The first manned expedition to the ISS is already slipping to 2019, how does he think he'll send a man to the Moon in 2018?
Oh, I get it... He's an adviser of Donald Trump and hopes that NASA will choose his rocket over the other boondoggles.
icemann on 14/3/2017 at 11:07
I don't see that happening until there is a shift away from pumping every $$$ into the war against terror. I'd love to go into space and see the stars, and (as I spoke about in the what are you watching thread) we all pre-9/11 had similar dreams. Huge budgets of governments were being pumped into space tech. Then 9/11 happened and all that money has gone bye bye.
So until we (being the US, England, Australia etc etc) stop putting every dollar into the war against terror then things like colonization of other planes, a moon base etc etc just aren't going to happen imo.
Bulgarian_Taffer on 14/3/2017 at 11:20
Quote Posted by icemann
I don't see that happening until there is a shift away from pumping every $$$ into the war against terror. I'd love to go into space and see the stars, and (as I spoke about in the what are you watching thread) we all pre-9/11 had similar dreams. Huge budgets of governments were being pumped into space tech. Then 9/11 happened and all that money has gone bye bye.
Even in pre-9/11 there was no funding for space. During Bill Clinton-Goldin era NASA was badly underfunded, if was during that time the "faster better cheaper" space probes were developed. It was during that time when some techs mixed metric and imperial units and the Mars probe went kaboom.
The truth is - politicians don't give a crap about space. No, really. And even if some do and start funding space programs, uneducated jerks appear and start moaning: bubububut why dont we give the money for dah poor and hungry but instead go to the stupid Moon?
Mars got hot during the past few years because Elon Musk appeared and everybody said: hey look, he's a private sphere guy, he does great things minus the gummint beurecracy. Which is a delusion - Musk developed the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon spacecraft with NASA money.
If you care bout space, better follow Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos. These guys get no penny from the government, yet still do some cool things. Like Bezos, he sends rockets to space and back.