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Space Stations, Space Shuttles and Beyond - The Aerospace Discussion Thread
mustang6172:
--- Quote from: GarandMarine on 06 Jan 2015, 21:30 ---Actually, there's already multiple asteroid mining firms that are developing the tech needed to push to the asteroid belt for resource extraction. http://www.planetaryresources.com/
The Private sector doesn't fund basic science projects, that's true... but the development of space flight has reached the point where where private firms can not only access space on their own, either by developing their own launch platforms or using multiple private sector launch services.
--- End quote ---
Mining asteroids isn't really space exploration; it's space exploitation.
The Age of Exploration was full of government contracted explorers {Columbus, Magellan, de Soto, Cortés} whom made the maps and subdued the locals. After the explorers came the private sector {Dutch West India Company, Hudson Bay Company, Virginia Company} to exploit the new world.
GarandMarine:
They're currently looking at pushing further and harder then our governmental agencies, if they make a buck on the way I can't say I care.
In fact, you could draw comparison to all the initial flight testing, solar exploration and mapping, etc as a comparison to the age of exploration, so the time is ripe for the private sector in initial exploitation and expansion into space.
BenRG:
--- Quote from: Kugai on 06 Jan 2015, 17:53 ---Went looking for it, and here it is. Sea Launch
Seems they're currently out of business though thanks to the events in the Ukraine.
--- End quote ---
Sea Launch also had a series of high-profile launch failures including a spectacular somersault off the pad. Customers ran for the hills and bankruptcy followed. Right now, the only reason it hasn't been wound up is because its investors, US and Russian alike, are searching for a way to get at least some of their money back. This was all about a year before the Ukraine thing but it makes a useful excuse for having zero activity.
BenRG:
Dawn has reached Ceres orbit!
I've been watching this mission with increasing interest for some time. Ceres has always piqued my interest - much larger than all the other asteroids and in an orbit that suggests that it belongs in the middle solar system (between Jupiter and Neptune) rather than the asteroid belt proper.
I, for one, can't wait but find out what those bright spots in that crater might be!
Dawn itself is a fascinating spacecraft, using solar-electric propulsion (SEP) or, more coequally 'ion drive'.
Although generating very little thrust, these engines can run continually for weeks at a time, slowly increasing or decreasing the spacecraft's velocity. Ion engines are so efficient that some theorists have suggested they could be used to propel probes to other star systems, whilst NASA and Boeing are looking seriously at powering their crewed Mars ships with clusters of thirty or more of them. Without the high efficiency of ion drive, Dawn would never have achieved its' most interesting first - the first spacecraft to orbit two different major planetary objects other than Earth.
BenRG:
Has NASA Designed a Real-Life Impulse Drive?
I'm still trying to get my brain around the figures that the development team are casually throwing around about this thing. Apparently, their 'mark 2' flyable prototype can generate 3 tonnes of thrust per kilowatt of electrical power supplied. The ISS's solar arrays (which are the largest solar power array ever flown) should generate 330 tonnes of thrust or comparable to SpaceX's Falcon-9 medium-lift rocket.
Now, consider what you could do with that with no fuel limits; this thing runs so long as there is electrical power available. Attach that to a small space-going nuclear reactor and you can basically run the engine continually for decades!
It's still early days but the old Trekkie/Space Geek in me can't help but be excited!
For now, at least, NASA refuses to confirm or deny that this project exists. However, Chris Bergin, the editor of the website that broke the story, NASASpaceflight.com isn't given to accepting stories like this without a lot of confidence in the contributor. In any case, if such an engine does exist, it would be such a game-changer in terms of space flight that the development project would be blacker than night.
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