Projects to Do with Space It may be hard to believe, but some of the space missions we are planning call for us to travel incredible distances and while we are yet to have even light speed capability, which in itself would not be fast enough, we are planning these missions using what I like to call sticks and stones. In other words, we are planning them with rocket technology. Some people don’t realize how old this technology is. The Chinese developed rockets powered by gunpowder in the thirteenth century. In the fifteenth century, they were improved and the rockets had an iron case. This is almost the same technology we are using today, even though the fuel is different when we talk about solid fuel rockets the fuel is not really that different. It may not be gunpowder but it is solid and explosive. Star systems which are considered our neighbors in space would still be too far away for us to reach even in a lifetime. Lately scientists have been talking about traveling at a fraction of light speed, but what they want to do would still deliver nothing more than a primitive payload. The idea here is to send a beam from the earth which would push a very light ship towards our nearest neighbor. The ship would have a sail and the beam would be aimed at it. It would still take over twenty years to reach Alpha Centauri. This project is called Starshot and is actually being planned. The most important result of this mission, were it successful, would be the beaming back of photos and a few sensor readings of things such as magnetic fields. One thing I have to wonder about is since the pace of technology is ever increasing, might it be better to wait the twenty years, instead of launching and building all the support technology necessary for the trip or would it be better to launch? You may wonder why I am asking this question and I have a simple answer to give you. In the twenty years it takes for the probe to successfully make it to Alpha Centauri if it is successful, might we not have invented a faster way to travel which would make the whole project of Starshot obsolete? Mark my words, there is going to be a time when we develop the ability to travel much faster and ships will probably pass the Voyager probes we launched years ago in their journey to other places. It is only a matter of time before current technology becomes obsolete and it is happening faster every year. Sometimes, while scientists are working in one field, they discover something which would be useful in a different field. It has been suggested as scientists make computers faster they may be able to get components to talk to each other at light speed and somehow this may be able to be applied to space travel. I don’t know of this is true, but who knows? There has been talk over the years indicating the United States has an airplane which can take off the ground and fly into space. I’m talking about flying into low orbit, not being able to fly to other planets or anything like that. The British are working on a project known as Skylon, the project is being operated by a company named Reaction Engines and the object is to create a jet plane capable of flying into space. The company believes it can start making test flights in two years, which would be 2019. The plane would have no pilot and be capable of reaching speeds of 19,000 miles per hour. Reaction Engines is hopeful this plane will be perfected and be able to deliver 15 tons of equipment into space by the mid-2020s. Others I have heard about being perfected are said to have two different engines. One engine is an air breathing engine and the second one would be a rocket engine or an engine which would have air supplied to it by some other means. Skylon is said to have an air breathing rocket engine. It is designated as a single stage to orbit space plane. If the plane is successful it is said it will almost immediately reduce the cost of sending objects into orbit by about 50 percent and the cost will go down even further in later years. I think we are going to see a huge increase in the development of spacecraft as soon as some private company claims Google’s Luna X Prize. Google is offering thirty million dollars for any private organization that can safely land their probe on the surface of the moon, travel 500 meters and transmit high definition video and images back to earth. The grand prize is $20,000,000 with the second and bonus prizes being $5,000,000 each. Once this is accomplished and private companies gain the confidence to be able to do this routinely, there will be no stopping them. I believe the moon will become a crowded place with many different countries landing their probes all over it and many private companies doing the same. Some have said our moon will become similar in occupation to Antarctica and this means the countries of the world will have to cooperate with each other while there. Some people don’t realize the fact it is getting cheaper to fabricate the rockets we use. We have to thank 3D printers for this opportunity. While some companies have started using them to make the actual rocket body, others have also used them to create the engines. I know I am talking about the technology which I hope will not be around too much longer, that is rocket technology. The good part about the 3D printer is we will be able to apply it to almost any other technology. A 3D printer is almost an unlimited factory and is able to create hundreds of thousands of diverse parts and objects. I probably should’ve said millions. One ship on a mission will be able to carry a 3D printer and use it to replace all the parts on the ship that may need replacing rather than have to stock thousands of parts. Need a vehicle when you land on a strange planet? Just print it rather than having to transport it and you may be able to use materials found on the planet you landed on to do it. I think we have all heard how different companies and even the government want to send a mission to Mars with people on board. If we are to believe what we have been told about the flight and about Mars, it certainly doesn’t seem like this is a wise thing to do yet. Protecting people in a spaceship from radiation is very hard to do with our current technology, because the ship would have to be shielded with thick amounts of lead. Even if they make it to Mars, we are told Mars is being irradiated all the time. This means people would need shielding when they went outside and their quarters would also need heavy shielding. Even if we could transport a ship there and then take the shielding from the ship to use to shield our habitat, none of this seems very practical. On top of all this, we were just recently told that the soil on Mars is completely dead and not suitable for crops. |
