Space Navy?

Originally posted by DaSeitz
But still, this type of reactor would be suitable only for propulsion in space, not for lifting things into orbit?
Would you agree that Railguns/mass drivers are the best method to transport static things into space? (Humans would not survive the acceleration)

Would you agree that Railguns/mass drivers are the best method to transport static things into space?

as you ARE a expert on quantum physics and very good vision and understanding of technology , i accept , that railguns will the most efficient method of delivering objects to space(even more efficent cost-wise than using aerospace vessel like AYAKS) , but still that is years away .... for now we will have to rely on rockets only





[edit on 28-4-2007 by vK_man]

The technology is there. Time ins't the problem, funding is. Sad as it is, I don't think that space projects will recieve sufficient funding until earth's resources are finally depleted.

Originally posted by DaSeitz
The technology is there. Time ins't the problem, funding is. Sad as it is, I don't think that space projects will recieve sufficient funding until earth's resources are finally depleted.

a very true statement ...

Hmm, so we not only have forms of propulsions that can send massive objects millions of lightyears in mere days, we also have powerplants to power the vessels too?

I highly doubt that the technology is as readily available as some are thinking. I think we're putting too much faith in the advancements made.

Shattered OUT...

I am not talking about interstellar travel, only interplanetar. And the technologies available for interplanetar travel are sufficient for,...well, interplanetary travel.
In fact there is a multitude of engine technologies available for diefferent space propulsion requirements.
Therefore I suggest the following:
We must chosse some king of spaceship type (Freighter, Fighter, Battleship...), then we must define suitable dimensions for the ship in order to enable it to carry out its mission successfully. After that we can search an efficient engine technology for the ship type and other things. There is no master solution for Spaceships known, only solutions for specific tasks, just as with aircrafts and ships nowadays.
I would be happy to recieve some suggestions for the ship type so we can start a productive discussion.

The first spaceships will most certainly be research facilities. I am aware that Ion drives are proving up to be useful for interplanetary travel, but what's the point of building up massive ships to puddle jump?

If mankind were to ever expand, it should be outwards, not inwards. We still need however, people to volunteer for these expeditions who are willing to sit for months, years at a time inside of a cold hard box. We need enough provisions for them and enough space for those provisions. If we were to build massive ships, our best bet and easiest way to do it is to build them in space already. That would save the trouble of having to build an engine that would power a ship through atmosphere. We have shuttles for that, we don't need massive objects falling through the sky.

Gathering resources for this should be done through the asteroid belt. There is enough raw ore in that thing to build possibly hundreds of thousands of battleships. What we need is cooperation.

Shattered OUT...

The (Earth's) Moon could be used for mining required resources. Building ships in the asteroid belt would be a logistic catastrophe.We'll need to collect and transport resources in space. So a Freighter would be the most needed ship to start with?

Well I never stated that the ships would be built in the Asteroid Belt. A freighter would be a priority to build, but would not be the first thing. The very first thing you would need is an orbital platform based shipyard.

Other orbital platforms would be required as well before anything else happens. When all the bases are situated and operations are ready to begin, then we begin to mining resources and transporting them via freighter.

Shattered OUT...

So we need a Spacedock/Shipyard and a efficient transport system. Space elevators seem to be the most cost efficient solution for cargo transport to space. Considering the rapid developement in carbon nano fibers around the world such elevators should be realizeable within a few years, Shipyards in space pose some problems (complicated montage work without gravity) but no big problems in their own construction.
I guess a robotic assembly line (like today mainly with cars) would be the best solution. Building "cheap" efficient Freighters out of prefabricated modules (they don't have to look pretty). Modules for cargo, fuel or personal transport could then be inserted into the standard chassis, making the system more flexible and the overall system cost smaller.

Originally posted by DaSeitz
So we need a Spacedock/Shipyard and a efficient transport system. Space elevators seem to be the most cost efficient solution for cargo transport to space. Considering the rapid developement in carbon nano fibers around the world such elevators should be realizeable within a few years, Shipyards in space pose some problems (complicated montage work without gravity) but no big problems in their own construction.
I guess a robotic assembly line (like today mainly with cars) would be the best solution. Building "cheap" efficient Freighters out of prefabricated modules (they don't have to look pretty). Modules for cargo, fuel or personal transport could then be inserted into the standard chassis, making the system more flexible and the overall system cost smaller.

that is , you mean extensive use of carbon nanobots , as it would do away with the need for space docks right daseitz????

No, I meant a long rope made out of carbon nano fibers used as an elevator. Look up en.wikipedia.org...
Nanobots are beyond todays limits and have the potential to create huge unwanted catastrophes. Shipyards in space will be needed for construction, future revisions of those yards could include nanotechnical processes in powdermetallurgy, but not yet nanobots. In the first stages of a space project premanufactured building blocks would be the best and easiest option, as I outlined in my previous post.

I think it will be a long while before Space elevators become a reality, or become remotely useful.

Shattered OUT...

Could you provide a reason for why you do not think that space elevators are possible within the next decade?

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies
I think it will be a long while before Space elevators become a reality, or become remotely useful.

Shattered OUT...

i disagree on this and agree with daseitz ,
read this .... i

Carbon nanotubes (a material that was first fabricated in the 1950s) appear to have a theoretical tensile strength and density that is well above the desired minimum for space elevator structures. The technology to manufacture bulk quantities[4] of this material and fabricate them into a cable is in early stages of development. While theoretically carbon nanotubes can have tensile strengths beyond 120 GPa, in practice the highest tensile strength ever observed in a single-walled tube is 52 GPa, and such tubes averaged breaking between 30 and 50 GPa.[5] Even the strongest fiber made of nanotubes is likely to have notably less strength than its components. Improving tensile strength depends on further research on purity and different types of nanotubes
en.wikipedia.org...

Note that as of 2006, carbon nanotubes have an approximate price of $25/gram, and 20,000 kg - twenty million times that much - would be necessary to form even a seed elevator. This price is decreasing rapidly, and large-scale production would reduce it further, but the price of suitable carbon nanotube cable is anyone's guess at this time.
en.wikipedia.org...

Economics
Main article: Space elevator economics
With a space elevator, materials might be sent into orbit at a fraction of the current cost. Modern rocketry gives prices that are on the order of thousands of U.S. dollars per kilogram for transfer to low earth orbit, and roughly twenty thousand dollars per kilogram for transfer to geosynchronous orbit. For a space elevator, the price could be on the order of a few hundred dollars per kilogram, or possibly much less.

Space elevators have high capital cost but low operating expenses, so they make the most economic sense in a situation where it would be used over a long period of time to handle very large amounts of payload. The current launch market may not be large enough to make a compelling case for a space elevator, but a dramatic drop in the price of launching material to orbit would likely result in new types of space activities becoming economically feasible. In this regard they share similarities with other transportation infrastructure projects such as highways or railroads.

Development costs might be roughly equivalent, in modern dollars, to the cost of developing the shuttle system. A question subject to speculation is whether a space elevator would return the investment, or if it would be more beneficial to instead spend the money on developing rocketry further. If the elevator did indeed cost roughly the same as the shuttle program, recovering the development costs would take less than about a hundred thousand tons launched to low earth orbit or five thousand tons launched to geosynchronous orbit.


Political issues
One potential problem with a space elevator would be the issue of ownership and control. Such an elevator would require significant investment (estimates start at about US$5 billion for a very primitive tether), and it could take at least a decade to recoup such expenses. At present, few entities are able to spend in the space industry at that magnitude
en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by DaSeitz
Could you provide a reason for why you do not think that space elevators are possible within the next decade?

well , more than a decade possibly and ,most probably becasue of political issues

[edit on 1-5-2007 by vK_man]

Politics are a problem of their own, as it is hard to predict the politic situation within the next decades I think we should leave politics out of our considerations. The price of such an space elevator is hard to tell, but we have to estimate many things regarding a Space Navy. Somehow we'll have to find our way back to the topic of this thread, back to Spaceships.

Uhh, costs involved, who's going to contract? Who is going to volunteer on such a project, and who has the techniques involved and expertise in construction of something that has never been built, even attempted on being built before?

Next decade? No, maybe in a hundred years or so.

I did not say that the technology involved with the elevator doesn't exist, because it does and studies have been made into it. There is a big difference between having an elevator to space, and actually building it. It is a lot more complicated than simply copying and pasting theories and research done 50 years ago from online sources.

Shattered OUT...

People like to say, a hundred years more. With this position in the 1960s the Apollo project would not have been started before 2000. It's all about making the project a reality, no matter what it costs, no matter how long it takes, nothing gets done by delaying it. Sad as it is space projects recieve almost no attention from the government these days. Take a big budget, maybe 200 billion Euros (followed by annually 20bio) and start the project, and it won't take 100 years to see a working space elevator.
Anyway I guess it won't be the achievment of a governmental organisation to build the first space elevator. The commercial sector is gaining ground in this field and there are some people seeing the potential of space travel in companies like Otis.

[edit on 1-5-2007 by DaSeitz]

There are grave differences between the Apollo mission and building the space elevator. The times are different and so are the conditions.

It's easy for you to say "This is all that needs to happen", but it just doesn't work that way for one, there is no immediate need for it.

It is true, the developments in space do not get the attention they deserve.

Shattered OUT...

This thread is drifting towards politics, but that doesn't have much to do with the original topic. What kinds of ships would a space Navy use and what kind of (forseeabele) technology would the ships utilize?

A ship to defeat asteroids would most likely be one of the first to be built.

The first ships would most definitely be unarmed. And I wasn't making the conversation political, you were. Everything I've said had to do with economics which affects these projects more than anything else.

If there were to be anything built to defeat the threat of asteroids, it would be an orbital defense platform if we were to approach the situation in that fashion.

Shattered OUT...