Hey Floris, You don't happen to have a spell checker do you. Some of your ideas are interesting, but most come out garbled due to the spelling errors.

Also, the indecisive way you present this material is bizarre. To generalize about technology, add a few "I don't really know" and "I'm not an engineer", and "I don't know if this has been proposed before", and then continue to present your speculations?

And to actually use the term "Star Wars type craft" in a scientific proposal... You're kidding, right?

Not to be harsh (because I too am enthusiastic about science and continued exploration, both in space and on Earth) but you really should spend some time at the NASA web site.

all of this was expressed and designed over 50 years ago...and is quite possible with today's technology , even cheaper than when the golden age sci-fi authors came up with the "staged" system

very nice work here tho, Floris

it all comes down to money, who wants to spend it with no assurance of financial rewards...

show them how to make money from the venture and it will be done real quick...

Excelsior!

Sometimes I wonder if Americans would have the patience to support a space program if it were started today. It seems like we are so risk averse and into instant resolution that most people would not be interested.

"all of this was expressed and designed over 50 years ago...and is quite possible with today's technology , even cheaper than when the golden age sci-fi authors came up with the "staged" system"

Quite right gonzo. In fact almost all of this is in Niven's "N-Space".

SFC SKI, How many Americans take time from their TV soaps to really look at the federal budget? How many that do would take the time to express outrage at the spending priorities of whatever administration is running the show?

As with Kennedy and NASA, as with the Panama Canal, and as now with the war in Iraq, if the President says it's the right thing to do and has control of Congress and Senate... A LOT gets done without more than a whimper from the voters.

This can be good, and bad.

Look at the cost of a simple little 'ol F22. I can't imagine the price tag on another moonshot...(_|_)... but I bet the contractors are lickin' thier chops.

No return on investment, except of spinoff technologies, I dunno' if I wanna foot the bill for horse-shit. We've got a bunch of honey-do's that need work down here.

Technological innovation towards a hydrogen economy, would be nice. Other workable green solutions to everyday expeditures of toxic substances or practices. I'm no tree hugger, but come oh now... a moon shot! Another Hubble, sure. A space station sure. I'm just not geared up to throw a lot of money at the moon again.

You are right, but he idea to try and get to the moon cheaper. There lots of things that need to be worked on on earth. And even this would be done, those have priority. But it might be a good thing to get people from all over the world working together on such a project. It takes away there potenteial work on other less pleasant things. The reason for international cooperation, is that these things can get out of budget, as the ISS has shown, and putting that buden on only on economy, is well not very good. Spreading that burden, over more country's will help in its scuees.

But for now this is just a story of what could be. It is ment to get people thinking, and dreaming again. And because it is highly robotic in nature, or certainly at start, it involves no risk for humans. The technology's like the assisted liftoff could be used on earht as well.

But I agree completly thath there is enough work left to be done on earth. I just think we should keep both options open. And other materials than liquid metal [which is expensive] can be used as well.

As for the hydrogen economy. There is so much we could already use, and do, but it seems like the politacl will to get it started is missing. I once wrote a text, on wath happens if the worldwide oil resources deplete ? But it almost seems like people are going to wait tuntil it happens before theystart acting. I last read of a protoype motor bike, which could run a 100km's or more silently on 1 hydrogen fill. It sounds ideal for in city's. Maybe I should write a text about that as well. People complain about pollution, and solutions are there, and could being use in mayor city's in say 4-5 years time, but no one seems to really do anything about it.

thanks Floris, very interesting. I know you are trying hardand English is not your first language, but it would be very helpful to put each post through an English spell-checker before publication.

No more one-shot human space missions are needed. Our next steps beyond low earth orbit can and should establish a permanent human presence.

Over the long term, the best way to reduce such a project's drain on national budgets is to build settlements which will become self-sufficient as early as possible.

The best place to do that is Mars, where we have already found far more readily available natural resources than anything we can ever reasonably expect the moon to produce. The Mars environment is also far more friendly to construction, engineering, and agricultural techniques which are already proven to work.

Building settlements there would not require us to learn zero-g construction techniques, as large stations in orbit would require. Mars has more than enough gravity for standard construction methods to apply there.

Settlements on Mars won't need to hold in an Earth atmosphere against a hard vacuum, as is needed both in orbit and on the moon. The planet's thin atmosphere will make human habitats far easier and less expensive to construct.

Settlements on Mars will be able to grow crops in a light-dark cycle which is only about half an hour longer than Earth's 24-hour day. By contrast, lunar settlements would be unable to grow crops until plants can be adapted to withstand 14 days of darkness followed by 14 days of light, or until there is enough energy production to sustain a 24-hour light-dark cycle with artificial lighting.

The next logical path for human space missions runs directly between Earth and Mars. Lunar construction and orbital construction projects, cool and exciting as they may be in their own right, can wait until later.

Floris,
Thanks for the reply. DOE.gov actually has quite a bit of information on the progress of hydrogen technologies. There is some interest. But the media has got to get onboard to make the sell.

Bush paid some lip service to hydrogen automobiles, but in reality a European Diesel would be more efficient, IF you include hydrogen infra-structure into the equation.

There's some commercial interest as well, but venture capital, grants, and IPO attempts are few and fraught with failure (on the money side of the issue).

Alternative fuels, or energy production should be top priority in the U.S., we can still burn fossil fuels, carbon based fuels are not going away, but direction has to be put to the advancement of the hydrogen economy. Perhaps alternative energy production would be a better terminology to apply.

Anyway, nice talking with you. Keep the faith.

And all y'all get off of Floris' case with the lingo... he's speakin' 2 languages, if you didn't notice... how many do you have under your belt? I got several... My colloquial, APA English, foul, Chamorro, a bit of Japanese, Latin (it's a hobby), a bit of the Romantic spin-offs of Latin, and Thai.

Floris, get a damn spell checker!

Well, folks he probably just took that bit of humor personally, hopefully he understands American jocular abruptness.

But we love ya just the same.

Peace and B.C.N.U. L8tr

JD

What about air? Can we create air in space? There's no air out there, gentlemen. The logistics involved in "trucking" air out to remote sites, would be cost prohibative. I like my aire here on earth, not scattered around the solar system supporting human existance, where it wasn't met to be.

But Floris promotes robotic's, so air isn't an issue, just timing. 20 minutes after a "significant" event correction is too long. I think that processing must get to an intuitive reasoning stage before we can successfully employ it around the galaxy. Wait a minute... then you have the terminator scenario! OHMYGAWD, we'll extinguish mankind with machines that think and destroy in defense of their primary programming!!! AHHHHHHHH!

Once we start a renedevous/capture program for the near earth orbit asteroids, air is one of the easiest things to produce in space. Tons and tons of air.

The moon has ice, ice=air. No prob.

Deriving air from the Martian atmosphere is simple. The technology needed for doing this dates back to the nineteenth century.

There is also every reason to believe water is far more abundant on Mars than on the Earth's moon, which gives Mars two readily available and abundant sources of air.

Thanks for pointing out the question about air. Its a good comment, I didn't think of it. And its an obvious problem if we want to send out humans. Thank you for the comment, you made me
aware of a problem.

And I'd like to thank the others for pointing out the solution. Part 2 is partially on line at my own blog, but I'm still correcting spelling mistakes. When all is corrected it will be posted here as well. And I wil get a spell checker, one that keeps working.

The prototype version of parts 2 and 3 are now online at my own blog. A fifth part consisting out of you comments and remarks will be added later. You can use your own name, or a alias.

Also a text on the hydrogen economy sounds intresitng, so if anoyne wants to add parts to that, feel free to do so. The 4th draft of my text on perception philosophy will be posted when finished. But in parts like this one.