[Bob-san]

I think it's still a toss-up for China and the USA. I think we need to stay a step ahead of them to have the drive to reach Mars and beyond. Frankly: we should already have drawn up full plans for Lunar and Martian permanent bases, and have experimented enough with the technology to actually stay there. Other then that, I think we need a few larger shuttles to ferry a modular vehicle to go to Mars. Either from the ISS or from the Moon, we have the technology to go there but the Government is basically saying "no".

[Hellstryker]

I think it's still a toss-up for China and the USA. I think we need to stay a step ahead of them to have the drive to reach Mars and beyond. Frankly: we should already have drawn up full plans for Lunar and Martian permanent bases, and have experimented enough with the technology to actually stay there. Other then that, I think we need a few larger shuttles to ferry a modular vehicle to go to Mars. Either from the ISS or from the Moon, we have the technology to go there but the Government is basically saying "no".

I'm sure the plans are already drawn up. It's not like it's that complex, the problem is we won't actually DO it.

[Galemp]

Contact. Carl Sagan. Look it up.

[fener]

I think it's still a toss-up for China and the USA. I think we need to stay a step ahead of them to have the drive to reach Mars and beyond. Frankly: we should already have drawn up full plans for Lunar and Martian permanent bases, and have experimented enough with the technology to actually stay there. Other then that, I think we need a few larger shuttles to ferry a modular vehicle to go to Mars. Either from the ISS or from the Moon, we have the technology to go there but the Government is basically saying "no".

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

^ it would have been great except for that small problem of radioactive fallout.

[Mars]

You need to include the end parentheses in the link

[DeepSpace9er]

A mission to Mars would not be like the first mission to the Moon. They want to be able to establish long term outposts on mars, not 1 week or less stays. It takes 8 or 9 months 1 way to get there, so im sure they want the astronauts to be able to sit around for at least 6 before a replacement crew is sent up. But thats real dedication. You are talking close to 2 years a trip. I mean, i wouldnt be surprised if of the astronauts were partners or mates.

I would say even if most of the world's economy was put towards space exploration, there is still the necessary time to develop technologies that take time to develop regardless of how much money is thrown at them.

[fener]

You need to include the end parentheses in the link

Oops, fixed. See:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)
It's also probably the best technology we have at the moment to avert any kind of asteroid that would collide with the Earth.

[BengalTiger]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob - this article is also interesting...

900 kg of armor steel was launched, at an unknown speed (calculated to be 6x bigger than needed to escape the Earth's gravity), due to a nuclear boom underneath it. It was never found, so it's possible it did go on an interplanetary voyage.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

It'll be nice if nukes could be converted into this kind of propulsion...

[S-99]

We would have had nuclear powered rockets a while ago. But, during the cold war, nuclear was a dirty word, but the nuclear rocket tests were successful. All it really was just a nuclear reactor heating up hydrogen. It did consume less fuel, and only require one type of fuel as compared with slower chemical rockets. At least this is a nice little thing for space travel. Still hardly anything you'd want to go to mars and back again with, but to the moon would be great.

Had nuclear not been a dirty word back in the cold war, maybe nuclear rockets would have been prime time for at least a decade and still current instead of a suggested and successfully tested idea like it is today. I'm still waiting for cooler things like a rapid accelerating ion drive system, fusion drive system, and an ftl drive that works on the principles of creating artificial wormholes. While all of this is still ideas is ludicrous speed and the improbability drive on the drawing boards?

It'll be nice if nukes could be converted into this kind of propulsion...

It gives an idea if there's liquid plutonium

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Ludicrous speed? Yeah, maybe.

I'm not too sure about the improbability drive, though. As far as I know, it's still a plot device of Douglas Adams'.

[Colonol Dekker]

ludicrous speed

All that Tartan flying around would make me sick at night, Jet Liners vapour trails are fairly un-noticable, but imagine a night sky filled with tartan streaks

[S-99]

You mean streaks of plaid?

[Colonol Dekker]

It's tartan

I never understood why it got changed to plaid state-side, but who am i to judge....

In all seriousness though, when's the ISS gonna be finished? It started before the LHC right?

[perihelion]

The ISS was never much more than a publicity stunt.  It's actual value in terms of R&D or having an orbital platform from which to launch expeditions further out is little-to-none.  It's orbit is so fricking low that it requires constant fuel resupplies just to keep it from falling out of the sky.  I wish they had never built the thing so that the time, effort, and oh yeah, money could have been diverted to projects that actually accomplish something.  Like upgrading the Hubble (cancelled, it's due to be decommissioned in 2010 with no replacement in sight).  Or the JIMO project to the moons of Jupiter (cancelled).  Or a serious attempt at completely rethinking how we get from ground-to-orbit (the current Ares system proposed has more to do with keeping the old Space Shuttle supply chain contractors employed than really coming up with a new solution that works).  Or... need I go on?

... All I can say is I pray the private space industry grows to the point where it can be self-sustaining, because the US government-operated space agency is so mired in corruption and corporate greed that it can hardly do anything.  That's despite having some of the most clever-minded scientists and engineers on the planet in its employ.

[Colonol Dekker]

Space-ship one, Virgin airlines etc,.... i can see them tasking off, srsly

[Androgeos Exeunt]

ludicrous speed

All that Tartan flying around would make me sick at night, Jet Liners vapour trails are fairly un-noticable, but imagine a night sky filled with tartan streaks

Ahh buckle this! Ludicrous speed! GO!

[S-99]

Another thing that matters is the computer systems that go make up space flight. You could have a trip to mars with a space shuttle, but what about avoiding stuff like asteroids effectively?

The crew wont be hibernating, we don't have that technology yet. All of a sudden...BOOM! wtf just happened roger wilco? Our ship just got ripped in half jim! ****!

I guess you'd need an active radar system to watch out for asteroids in a given radius. The other thing is that when something disastrous does happen. The crew really is ****ed. It makes it that much harder to get home, if going home at all is still a possibility.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

We don't have to worry about asteroids until we go beyond Mars, but you might have a point there.

If we want to create a space exploration vessel that can support human life for years on end, that ship should also have some defence systems to blow up any obstacles. They must also be able to function at high temperatures.

Speaking of which, there are some space probes that NASA sent out decades ago, right? Where are they now? Voyager 1 is already far beyond Pluto, and it's still moving further and further away from Sol. How can it have the propulsion needed to move for 31 years?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1

[Mongoose]

By the nature of its flight path.  As the article mentions, the two Voyager probes were designed to take advantage of gravity assist, the "slingshot effect" that occurs when a smaller body interacts with a much larger body and gains momentum.  Because of the unique alignment of the outer planets at the time of the launches, both Voyager probes had the option of slingshotting by all four of them (though only Voyager 2 exercised that option; Voyager 1 was diverted to pass by Titan, which altered its trajectory).  Both Voyagers achieved escape velocity from the Sun, meaning that they're no longer gravitationally bound to orbit it.  Neither craft has any boost thrusters of any sort; all of their velocity was gained from their initial launches and subsequent gravity assists.