The thread for space cadets!

[hobbsyoyo]

ESA studies 3-D Printing to make moon bases

The technology behind 3-D printing has allowed users to craft musical instruments and prosthetic limbs, and now European scientists are taking a serious look at printing their own moon base.

The European Space Agency (ESA) study is investigating how practical constructing a manned base on the moon only using 3-D printing technology could be, given that it would rely primarily on lunar dirt for building materials.

"Terrestrial 3-D printing technology has produced entire structures," Laurent Pambaguian, who heads the project for ESA, said in a statement. "Our industrial team investigated if it could similarly be employed to build a lunar habitat."

This 2,205 pound (1,000 kilograms) test-print is made from simulated lunar dirt and resembles a cross section of what the lunar home could look like.

Renewed Resolve to go to Mars?

"As we undertake the next generation of discovery, today we pause to remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice on the journey of exploration," Obama said in a statement released by NASA. "Right now we are working to fulfill their highest aspirations by pursuing a path in space never seen before, one that will eventually put Americans on Mars."

 

[peter grimes]

"As we undertake the next generation of discovery, today we pause to remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice on the journey of exploration," Obama said in a statement released by NASA. "Right now we are working to fulfill their highest aspirations by pursuing a path in space never seen before, one that will eventually put Americans on Mars."

I really wish we could get past the implicit regionalism here. Does the sentiment lose any force by replacing the word "Americans" with "people", or "humans"?

If anything, I think the statements gains power and deeper meaning.

 

[r16]

replacing Americans with anything else "would" prove Obama is actually Barack Hussein and he has a hidden agenda ...

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I don't see anything wrong with his statement. I am all for international cooperation, but he was speaking directly to his audience and I don't downplay the fact that he has to motivate them in order for them to support funding the program in an age of austerity. Nationalism or patriotism is just a tool to get that done, which is unfortunate but there it is at work.

 

[Crezth]

I really wish we could get past the implicit regionalism here. Does the sentiment lose any force by replacing the word "Americans" with "people", or "humans"?

If anything, I think the statements gains power and deeper meaning.

As stated, its pandering. Not that he wouldn't get pounced on anyway - "what about the budget problems" "typical Muslim, trying to expand government" "the demon-crats will steal American babies and hide them on Mars!" - but it pays to be political when you're a politician.

Such as it is, I consider the promise empty.

 

[Tee Kay]

Rough guide to politician promise: if the expected date of fulfilment is beyond the date the politician is set to depart the political scene, it's bull.

Obama shifted the focus of exploration to a near-Earth asteroid in the mid-2020s, with trips to Mars and its moons starting in the mid-2030s.

So yeah, it's bull.

 

[Crezth]

I had a friend who was absolutely enamored with Gingrich's plans for space, and was convinced beyond all reason that Gingrich was The Man to put the word "USA" back into "space explorUSAtion." I barely had the heart to tell him that Gingrich was, well... a politician.

 

[Winner]

Wait, they left out clouds....I don't see how that could be used even as an approximation.

What would I know though!

I wouldn't take this too seriously. Whether the planet remains habitable depends on tons of other factors - size of the planet, axial tilt, the ratio between land/ocean, albedo, cloud cover, ice cover, presence of climate-regulating biomass, etc. etc. etc. Each can profoundly expand/contract the habitable zone for that particular planet.

I read somewhere that without CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere, the global average temperature would dip below zero (°C) and Earth would basically freeze over in another 'snowball' episode. So, inner age of the habitability zone? Not for Earth, at least not for another half a billion years (unless we screw things up really big time).

 

[hobbsyoyo]

You almost summed up my thoughts on it word for word, which leads me to believe we read the same stuff.

Oh and what you wrote about the space shuttle being a 100 ton launcher with 80 tons of deadweight was really familiar. Have you read Leaving Earth (I think that is the title) by Robert Zubrin?

 

[Winner]

Oh and what you wrote about the space shuttle being a 100 ton launcher with 80 tons of deadweight was really familiar. Have you read Leaving Earth (I think that is the title) by Robert Zubrin?

I read "Entering Space". Lost my .pdf copy a while ago, sadly.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Entering Space is it! I've started it, but I've been unable to get far into it.

 

[Winner]

Entering Space is it! I've started it, but I've been unable to get far into it.

It's a good book. Full of pretty interesting ideas from the period in Zubrin's life when he did something else but rant about the same thing over and over again.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

What's he been up to lately? What's he ranting about? Is it still how much he hates NASA?

 

[Winner]

What's he been up to lately? What's he ranting about? Is it still how much he hates NASA?

Still the same, now mixed a lot more more with his personal political views, whose only contribution is that it makes it far easier to discount everything he says, no matter how true, as looney tunes.

In other words, he's now actually sabotaging his own dream without even realizing it. A sad end for him, if you ask me.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Is he a hardcore libertarian? That would be funny considering all the money he demands congress give to nasa and/or him to go to mars

 

[Kaitzilla]

Gah! Gliese 710 is going to crash through our solar system in a million years and kill us all with meteor bombardments!

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=star-set-to-collide-with-solar-syst-2010-03

 

[Crezth]

Still the same, now mixed a lot more more with his personal political views, whose only contribution is that it makes it far easier to discount everything he says, no matter how true, as looney tunes.

In other words, he's now actually sabotaging his own dream without even realizing it. A sad end for him, if you ask me.

You know I better than anyone am dismissive of such loons, but Zubrin's history in this regard is interesting. He started out as conventional as all that, but became embittered with governments over time.

Just as well, since he came to such a wrong conclusion. Still though,

 

[Winner]

Is he a hardcore libertarian? That would be funny considering all the money he demands congress give to nasa and/or him to go to mars

Yup Also, he's become quite dismissive of all things environmental (I guess for him, screwing up Earth in order to get to Mars is an acceptable trade off).

More than anything, I sense deep Machiavellianism in him. One day on a forum with international attendance, he's talking about how good it is for children of Chinese peasants to get university degrees and contribute to human progress (hands up who has heard that from him before ), the other day he'll talk about how dangerous it is to allow China to get a lead in space, because nobody but the US can carry the ideals of freedom and blahblahblah to the stars; one day he's dismissive about all non-US space programmes, the other he uses foreign space programmes as an example to demonstrate the decadence of the US programme; one day the private space companies are of no consequence, the other he hails them as the ticket to Mars, etc. etc. etc.

In other words, he'll twist anything that comes across to support his agenda, but its painfully obvious to everyone he's grasping at straws.

He's still very often right (for example about VASIMR and in general the applicability of nuclear-electric propulsion in manned inner Solar system exploration), but even his delivery has become rather abrasive where it used to be witty and smart.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Gah! Gliese 710 is going to crash through our solar system in a million years and kill us all with meteor bombardments!

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=star-set-to-collide-with-solar-syst-2010-03

In a milluon years? Yikes! I have to read this article.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Based on the URL, that aricle is 2, 3 years old.