-------------------- Lister: Don't give me the "Star Trek" crap! It's too early in the morning. - Red Dwarf "The Last Day"
Registered: Nov 1999
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Ongoing: Continued planetary exploration. I want every object in the system located and mapped, robot landers and/or minilanders on every moon larger than Amalthea. Development of next-generation space telescopes, interferometers, and other projects designed to detect extrasolar worlds.
#1. We need reliable, reusable systems: for cargo, and for people. A passenger liner and a heavy lifter. They don't necessarily have to be the same system.
#2. Expanded orbital facilities. Including construction facilities to aid in assembly of components for large-scale missions.
#3. A network of orbital energy stations.
#4. Detailed lunar exploration, including landers. Make certain of ice on Moon, if there is any.
#5 Moonbase, if ice makes it feasible. Otherwise, it might have to be put off until we can get some.
#6 Mars mission. Moderate scale, for now.
#7 Mass drivers. Capture comets, asteroids. If H20 absent on moon, jump this priority up and drop a couple small comets onto the Moon's south pole.
#8 Near-Earth Asteroid capture, and mining facilities.
#9 Larger-scale Mars missions. Terraforming activities (presuming no life is found on Mars). Colonization.
#10 Extrasolar probe missions as soon as feasable. Ion engines will help this along. We need to be able to accelerate and decelerate a Voyager-type probe at high G's to get to nearby stars.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:#1. We need reliable, reusable systems: for cargo, and for people. A passenger liner and a heavy lifter. They don't necessarily have to be the same system.
Yes, I always thought the one shuttle does all concept was a bad idea.
-------------------- "and none of your usual boobery." M. Burns
Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
And putting people on what's essentially a glorified barge is a waste of expertise and an unnecessary risk. Using the shuttle to ferry parts for the station was a bad idea. We and Russia have existing and fully-developed concept automated launch vehicles that would do just fine to boost the components, and an on-site construction crew would then be able to assemble. Seems more sensible to me than risking the lives of seven people each time you want to put another module up.
The two fledgeling technoligies that I think will have a profound impact on humanity's presence in space are ion propulsion and plasma field manipulation. The former is currently at about the same tech level as Benz' first automobile engine. Imagine a decade's worth of intense development and refinement, let alone fifty years... The latter makes "force fields" and "energy shields" practical, which I think is useful for stations, and essential for bases on airless bodies (protection from micro and macro objects).
The remote mining of near-Earth asteroids is unofficially dubbed Project: Virgo, and is in my opinion the best source of raw materials for off-planet construction.
And in other news, what word on development of the space elevator concept?
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
Then it's time to start liquidating some asset to balance the accounts. I say we start with auctioning off California and Texas and see where that puts us.
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
It's amazing, isn't it... Clinton left office with a a budget surplus, and W. pissed it all away and over $500 billion into the red in under three years. Impressive.
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
It's amazing, isn't it... Clinton left office with a a budget surplus, and W. pissed it all away and over $500 billion into the red in under three years. Impressive.
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
It woud be amazing if there'd actually BEEN a budget surplus (rather than an imaginary projected difference between spending increases and monies to be collected), if the dotcom tech bubble hadn't burst, if the business misdeeds that went unnoticed under Clinton hadn't come to light, and if we hadn't gotten attacked on 9-11-01.
If all those things hadn't happened, and we were STILL $400+ billion in the red, THEN it would be amazing.
Otherwise it's just the same shit that would have happened to Gore.
Except the concept of Al Gore trying to fight the war on terrorism really IS scary.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:. . . and if we hadn't gotten attacked on 9-11-01.
Some days I really wish I was still at school. This would be a perfect excuse for my homework being late, Christ knows it's been used as an excuse for everything else!
posted
I've been using it to explain why every single piece of coursework I've handed in over the past two years has been late. And why my hairline is receeding, too.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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