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Bingo. This is a classic case of pop science misunderstanding half of a paper and sensationalizing the other half. > This network can transport objects from Ju
by paledot 6y ago
Bingo. This is a classic case of pop science misunderstanding half of a paper and sensationalizing the other half.
> This network can transport objects from Jupiter to Neptune in a matter of decades, rather than the much longer timescales, on the order of hundreds of thousands to millions of years, normally found in the Solar System.
By "objects" they mean asteroids and particles. "A matter of decades" is still a ridiculously long time by human spaceflight standards.
- tzs 6y ago> "A matter of decades" is still a ridiculously long time by human spaceflight standards. That's true when you are just exploring. When you start more long term projects, such as colonization, things are different. Say you want to colonize something that is 30 years away using the cheap but slow network. What you do is 30 years before you want to start the colony you start sending regular loads of supplies via the slow cheap network. Once those are near starting to arrive at the destination, you send your colonists the expensive but fast way. You can also do this to speed up exploration. Suppose we know we are going to want to send a manned exploration mission to someplace eventually, but we've got other more important targets to occupy us for the next few decades. Send fuel and other supplies to that place by the cheap and slow method. Then when it finally comes time to send a round trip manned mission, you only need to include enough fuel and other supplies for a one way trip. They can use the fuel and supplies that were sent the slow way for their return trip. This way your exploration rockets only need to carry half the mass of fuel and supplies that they would otherwise need. This will allow higher acceleration and thus shorter travel time.
- bluGill 6y agoThat only works when only a couple of governments are involved. Once (big if!) it becomes a free for all there is risk that you will send supplies and someone else will use them. Or maybe they just charge a ransom before you can get at your supplies - just send a robot out to where those supplies are going, "hide them", and ???. There are too many risks to trust that someone doesn't think of this. I hope the rocket scientists are not caught as off guard as us computer people have been by ransomware and the like (note that viruses have been doing evil things for over 30 year and we still don't have a handle on it)
- deepsun 6y ago>need to carry half the mass of fuel and supplies Not just half, but can be much more than that, because it's exponential.
- tzs 6y agoOoh...I missed that. If a one way trip takes X amount of fuel and supplies (let's assume it is the same for an outgoing one way trip and an incoming one way trip, for simplicity), then a two way trip has to carry an extra X outgoing to use for the return trip. Since X is going to be many times the mass of the ship and crew and non-consumables, having an extra X as cargo massively ups the fuel requirements for the outgoing trip.
- paledot 6y agoI love the way you think, but I suspect mastering the tyranny of the rocket equation is a lower hurdle than mastering the tyranny of small-minded governments. By the time humans are willing to commit sufficiently to colonization to send substantial amounts of supplies decades in advance of a planned colony or crewed exploration missing, nuclear or ion or quantum vacuum or Alcubierre drives will have rendered chemical propulsion and its associated problems obsolete.