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Not for a very long time, if we’re counting the LHC as a machine. We’re really nowhere near building something larger than that offworld, although if we focused
by IntronExon 9y ago
Not for a very long time, if we’re counting the LHC as a machine. We’re really nowhere near building something larger than that offworld, although if we focused vast amounts of time and money on it we probably could. Right now our investment is minimal, and only the private sector (focused on launching payloads into LEO) is moving forward with a budget. NASA’s program is focused primarily on robotic exploration, and astronomy.
- dogma1138 9y agoIndeed we’re nowhere near building anything in space we can barely manage to 3d print a wrench in space. We’re likely going to be manufacturing things on mars or Luna before we’re going to have decent micro gravity manufacturing capacity. We haven’t even began exploring the challenges and opportunities of building things in micro gravity scaling it up to the biggest machines ever made isn’t going to happen any time soon.
- IntronExon 9y agoWe have a long way to go yeah, and it’s a strong reason to keep R&D funded in that arena. We won’t be able to just muscle our way through it, and the time may come when we need a good corpus of research in a hurry. Luna seems like a good compromise for now, with low g, proximity to Earth, and an environment we don’t mind taking risks with.
- senectus1 9y agoexcept for the dust problem. Space you dont have that problem, on the moon that shit is really destructive and pervasive.
- IntronExon 9y agoThat’s true, but we could lay down a barrier over a large area, or maybe glass it. The virtue of it having an insignificant atmosphere is that the regolith won’t blow around and get into things. Still, it’s a challenge!
- dogma1138 9y agoDust is actually a big problem in low earth orbit, it’s far from clean and with orbital velocities even small specs can cause problems.