3 more Nasa Shuttle missions left what next?

[Aada]

How will space exploration continue? Didn't they scrap the new designs for new space craft?

Will humans actually landing on Mars ever happen? or are we at least looking 100+ years before it really happens?

 

[00dave]

only if the Chinese start a decent space program, everyone else is skint.

 

[ECA]

Trips to the ISS will be via russian soyuz craft.

As for anything else, what dave said.
Nobody wants to bankroll it.

 

[Zenith.UK]

The window of opportunity on manned missions to Mars are rapidly dwindling.
It comes down to resources. Money, materials, brain power, will... one or more are lacking.

All the missions to ISS will be by the Russians once the Shuttles are grounded. It's just a question of how long will that continue.

 

[chipper]

think your lookin at the private sector going to be the ones to fund space travel can forget anything worth while happening for some time tho they wont move on till they milked space flights for every penny personally and it really pains me to say it cos i really am a massive space exploration nut

i think money is better spent at home at the moment just so many problems in the world that need solving so much hostility between super powers, its starting to get a little scary. we are never going to achieve anything significant in space until all our governments can cooperate a hell of a lot better than they do atm when they all decide to stop squabbling and pool our resources then we will no doubt make a significant step into space

 

[Aada]

I wonder if they will just not bother with the ISS in a few years because let's face it they won't even put man on the moon again purely because it costs a ridiculous amount of money.

If they won't do that why bother at all?

 

[Mabs]

saw a thing in national geographic i think, about terraforming mars to be habitable,and it would take centuries to get it to a usuable level, and it would then deteriorate so fast anyway that it would go back to being as it is now long before the earth falls apart even at our current rate

 

[00dave]

It is such a shame that there is no safe money to be made from space exploration or terforming like the movies like to suggest.

 

[Embattle]

I wonder if they will just not bother with the ISS in a few years because let's face it they won't even put man on the moon again purely because it costs a ridiculous amount of money.

If they won't do that why bother at all?

It is questionable as to what benefit putting more men on the moon serves as well. The reality is that in many cases the increasing technology in robotics means they are able to do many of the things we require but for a fraction of the cost, although it in no way means eventually we shouldn't look to send actual people to these places.

 

[rynnor]

Manned spaceflight was always a vanity battle between superpowers - all the big advances in our knowledge come from unmanned probes and always will.

It would be nice to setup a colony on another planet/moon but its currently too much for our technology - better to refine it on probes before risking humans.

 

[Ctuchik]

How will space exploration continue? Didn't they scrap the new designs for new space craft?

afaik yes, US government wouldn't sponsor it as the new design didnt include a bay area for their spy satellites...

 

[Ctuchik]

It would be nice to setup a colony on another planet/moon but its currently too much for our technology - better to refine it on probes before risking humans.

no, the technology is there and has been for quite a while.

but there isnt anyone that wanna pay for it.

 

[Helme]

In my opinion they should just give up the pursuit of a human landing on Mars for now and start look at more realistic options, like asteroid mining.

Gaining access to the huge amounts of resources asteroids hold would allow us to start building our spaceships in actual space instead, since the most expensive part about space exploration is the launch from earth itself not having to fight gravity would cut costs(and risk) significantly.

Not to mention the other benefits it brings, finding resources on earth is very much hit and miss, it's a large planet and resources are spread out. Asteroids are pretty much 99.9% useful stuff. Take for example one of the closest asteroids to earth, Amun - it contains more iron than humanity has used in it's entire existance. It's valued at $20 trillion....

After that, all you need to do is find a way to counter boneloss(you lose about 1.5% of your total bonemass every month you spend in space, currently this is irreversible).

edit: also a colony on the moon/other planetary bodies is alot more impractical then for example O'neill Cylinders or Bernal Spheres - all which are actually quite easy to build if you have access to the resources asteroids bring.

 

[Tom]

As soon as the LHC delivers, and we figure out how to manipulate gravity, we're off

 

[Helme]

We already know how to fake gravity in space, cylinders and rotating on an axis - it does require a rather large cylinder tho

 

[Embattle]

no, the technology is there and has been for quite a while.

but there isnt anyone that wanna pay for it.

To the moon yes, but not Mars.

 

[SilverHood]

The main reason for a base on the moon is as a launchpad for further space exploration. Sending manned spacecraft is far more tricky than unmanned - get a manned base on the moon and start sending materials up on a one way ticket.

The moon is the ideal place for Man to test their space craft- it's close enough to the earth that they can bail and be rescued if it all goes horribly wrong but far enough away to ensure that self sufficiency should be the goal.

Could make it a giant penal colony...

 

[Wazzerphuk]

There's very little desire currently to put man on Mars, largely because it's dead.

Mars is potentially interesting, but only in a subterranean sense (see most recent Wonders of the Universe for reasons why), which would mean sending down drones and various machines underground to see if it's of any interest. If there's nothing down there then why bother setting foot on the planet? If there then is, there would at least be interest in setting foot there in order to learn more.

As it stands, we won't learn anything more by sending a person to the surface of Mars than sending an automated explorer, and in fact they're actually more efficient and better suited for it than people.

 

[Helme]

The moon is a worse base than just a freefloating spacestation/colony for several reasons, for example: moon dust, it's retardedly hard to keep out of machinery, it degrades solarpanels etc.

You also have the problem with lack of gravity which means very limited time for your personal to live there(6-10 months maximum). You won't have this problem with a rotating sphere colony due to the 'gravity'.

While the moon is closer to earth than Mars it's still further away than a potentional station would be, which makes resupplying, rescue missions, personell transfers etc. all harder.

You really wouldn't gain much at all by building on the moon other than maybe PR points because it's cool.

 

[Embattle]

Space elevator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[rynnor]

no, the technology is there and has been for quite a while.

but there isnt anyone that wanna pay for it.

Not really - the existing technologies are too complex and have too high a failure rate. We have struggled to build a space station in orbit with a number of people and craft lost.

To tackle the moon we would have the extra distance and the moons gravity to contend with. Its far harder to deliver a heavy payload safely under even a weak moon gravity than under zero G.

We would not be able to deliver sufficient supplies regularly enough and theres a limit to the number of craft you can safely have in orbit at any one time and a similar lack of safe landing slots.

Finally you have to ask why would you bother when the moon would not actually help you much towards Mars (if that was your target)?

 

[rynnor]

Space elevator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Come back in 50 years when we can manufacture sufficient quantities of the nanotech wires required.

 

[Embattle]

Come back in 50 years when we can manufacture sufficient quantities of the nanotech wires required.

I suspect the timeframe is less but it is also the timeframe I expect for serious manned flights to take hold as well.

 

[cHodAX]

I wonder if they will just not bother with the ISS in a few years because let's face it they won't even put man on the moon again purely because it costs a ridiculous amount of money.

If they won't do that why bother at all?

Only costs silly money because they over-engineer everything to the nth degree. They landed on the moon with something that had less computational power than a Megadrive 40 years ago, yet now we need supercomputers to go to the same place?

 

[Ctuchik]

To the moon yes, but not Mars.

mars to. but the cost of doing it is astronomical.

would basically mean that every single country on earth helped pay for it. and that will never happen, ever.

 

[Ctuchik]

Not really - the existing technologies are too complex and have too high a failure rate. We have struggled to build a space station in orbit with a number of people and craft lost.

ofc its risky and complex. it always will be no matter the tech you have available.

something will always go wrong and ppl will die doing it.

 

[Embattle]

mars to. but the cost of doing it is astronomical.

would basically mean that every single country on earth helped pay for it. and that will never happen, ever.

Sorry but then to me the technology isn't there, yes you could throw vast sums of money at it but even then the plans are more ideas and may not work. You also have to pay attention to the fact another weak point is the simple fact humans would be on the flight.

 

[Ch3tan]

mars to. but the cost of doing it is astronomical.

would basically mean that every single country on earth helped pay for it. and that will never happen, ever.

And if it costs so much, what is the point?

All of you calling for manned flight and setting up bases on the moon and mars, why? How does it benefit us at all? There are far far better things for governments to spend money on.

It's nothing but a selfish need to see manned space exploration and off-earth bases in your own life-times.

 

[Helme]

There's quite alot of benefits to spending money in space programs. They're not really that apparent to normal people but we do get alot out of it. Cell phones, GPS etc. all come from space research.

That said, if we are going to invest large amounts of money we should invest it so that future investments will be very, very small in comparison.

The only way to do that is if we could either 1) find a way to get out of earths atmosphere cheaply(space elevator, new types of engines, whatever) or 2) work around the need to launch from earth in the first place - which means building everything we need in space, with materials we mine in space.

That's why its a better idea to invest in the infrastructure to do the 2nd, yes it will cost huge amounts of money at first but once the initial infrastructure is there - it will very quickly pay itself back. Something which most space programs have failed to do so far. As I mentioned previously, the closest asteroid to earth is worth $20 trillion.


Another very real problem is that if we don't do something shortly we might never get the chance. At one point the resources needed won't be available on earth anymore and that means we can't leave.

 

[rynnor]

Another very real problem is that if we don't do something shortly we might never get the chance. At one point the resources needed won't be available on earth anymore and that means we can't leave.

Thats not going to be a problem for a few hundred thousand years tho so no great rush