4 ms·

He mentions the 100YSS Symposium, which was conveniently held in my neck of the woods in 2011. It was exciting to be among a couple hundred smarter-than-averag

He mentions the 100YSS Symposium, which was conveniently held in my neck of the woods in 2011. It was exciting to be among a couple hundred smarter-than-average people who wouldn't so much as crack a smile when the word "starship" came up in conversation. Outside-the-box ideas, lessons taken from ISS, Orion, nuclear propulsion, radiation shielding, social engineering, violation of the 2nd Law, other cool stuff. It was a brainstorming excuse, and an opportunity to dream big. If you live near Houston, and you'd care to rub shoulders with some not-stupids who think seriously about this stuff, you might check this out. http://100yss.org/symposium/2013 http://100yss.org/symposium/2013

mapt 13y ago
Space exploration is not handicapped by technology, but by societal willpower in the absence of an existential crisis like the Cold War. The Alcubierre Drive is fine as a theoretically impossible physics plaything, but the expansion of the species beyond the Earth only requires funding to achieve using much more modest means. For every one space science mission that goes forward, our academic system produces 500 concepts that are judged too impractical or too expensive, and 50 that arrive at group consensus that it would be productive to move forward and submit proposals. 5 of them get funded into fully developed systems, and 4 are cancelled just shy of completion through because the JWST has cost overruns or the new Majority Leader / President wants to make his mark with an arbitrary decision like cancelling the 6 year old 20-year-plan for a Mars base in exchange for a 20-year-plan for a Moon base (that will be cancelled in six years). The path is there, the end discoveries (relative to many other fields) relatively certain, we just don't like to make the effort in any concerted way, and our government is broken; Congress would prefer it if they could just run NASA on a soundstage.
- simonh 13y ago
  I do agree with your overall premise, but societal willpower in this case is really just a proxy for cost. Space exploration is fantastically expensive. Of course it doesn't help that the Space Shuttle and therefore the ISS were hopelessly cost inefficient, but even without the shuttle tax space exploration is still very costly. This is why SpaceX's plans for substantially reusable launch vehicles is so exciting. They have a credible roadmap towards cutting launch costs by a factor of ten or more. We're in one of those situations where yes, we could spend more billions on space exploration right now, but there's a very real chance that if we maintain current space spending for just a few years those extra billions could buy us a huge amount more. I bet projects like the planned asteroid mining venture are watching SpaceX's technology development program with bated breath.
kristopolous 13y ago
http://symposium.100yss.org/ http://symposium.100yss.org/ is the actual info and registration.

mapt 13y ago

Space exploration is not handicapped by technology, but by societal willpower in the absence of an existential crisis like the Cold War. The Alcubierre Drive is fine as a theoretically impossible physics plaything, but the expansion of the species beyond the Earth only requires funding to achieve using much more modest means. For every one space science mission that goes forward, our academic system produces 500 concepts that are judged too impractical or too expensive, and 50 that arrive at group consensus that it would be productive to move forward and submit proposals. 5 of them get funded into fully developed systems, and 4 are cancelled just shy of completion through because the JWST has cost overruns or the new Majority Leader / President wants to make his mark with an arbitrary decision like cancelling the 6 year old 20-year-plan for a Mars base in exchange for a 20-year-plan for a Moon base (that will be cancelled in six years). The path is there, the end discoveries (relative to many other fields) relatively certain, we just don't like to make the effort in any concerted way, and our government is broken; Congress would prefer it if they could just run NASA on a soundstage.

simonh 13y ago
I do agree with your overall premise, but societal willpower in this case is really just a proxy for cost. Space exploration is fantastically expensive. Of course it doesn't help that the Space Shuttle and therefore the ISS were hopelessly cost inefficient, but even without the shuttle tax space exploration is still very costly. This is why SpaceX's plans for substantially reusable launch vehicles is so exciting. They have a credible roadmap towards cutting launch costs by a factor of ten or more. We're in one of those situations where yes, we could spend more billions on space exploration right now, but there's a very real chance that if we maintain current space spending for just a few years those extra billions could buy us a huge amount more. I bet projects like the planned asteroid mining venture are watching SpaceX's technology development program with bated breath.

kristopolous 13y ago

http://symposium.100yss.org/ http://symposium.100yss.org/ is the actual info and registration.