scratch and dent sale at NASA

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Shaggie,,u are obviously up on this topic

Please, name of shuttle replacement.. [link will do]
Is new shuttle one with aerospike engines.
SSTO

Occam

PS.. yes occam could track it down, but prefers to talk with fellows who share
true passion for space exploration and expansion.
Occam would spend world investment on defence[1.5 trillion]
on space without a second thought.

 

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Id spend it on high energy physics. Though being selfless I really think we should spend that money on energy research, we arent going to get to the stars anytime soon but we do need energy.

 

Thanks Shaggie

Found the t/space proposition article very interesting an will be research more on it.
Rutan has some good ideas
Pity we are not up to building airbreathers yet.
maybe in a few decades.

Occam

 

Fat-tony

Then why not combine the two?
orbital solar arrays for example

Occam

 

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Yes.. Remember this one.. scaled down exp model worked
and flew like the wind. [reached mach 9.8]

So maybe it's all about money?
Yes. it would need 10's of billions to build a larger one man craft.

Maybe the price of keeping the US carrier force at sea each year.
What a dismal trade off.
Even if geopolitically the US carrier force keeps australia. [where occam is]
safe from aggression

damn it.. so much resource wasted on human idiocy.

Occam

 

The Earths atmosphere is pretty transparent to visible and near UV (and getting more transparent to deep UV ), the range in solar panels operate. The only real advantage to a space platform is scale but then you have to get the kit up and down again and then worry about power transmission. I was thinking of something along the lines of a mixture of fusion and ground based solar, both very likely to bear fruit, both coming along nicely and with the right investment could be realistically providing power on large scales this half of the century.

There are lots of very futuristic, potentially very high yield sources but we have a much more accute need now. My guess is that by the time we are in a position to have an orbital power grid we will know the energy density of the vacuum which could potentially solve all our problems, though im slightly sceptical it will give a very big answer.

 

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If you read Sally Ride's "Leadership and America's Future in Space: a report to the administor" from 1987, the space program is still following the plans layed out back then. Bush's so-called vision of space, is nothing new, is just rehashing of this old report. It layed the plans for the space station, robotic exploration and mapping of Mars, then humans back to the moon, then humans on to Mars. We are still doing almost exactly what was planned except we are just behind schedule.