Space Travel Technology

Huntn

Huntn

macrumors Penryn
How about some chocolate Microbial goo with your coffee? Hmm... Heard about this on NPR this morning. :)

Scientists explore using astronaut poop to make space food
https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/30/astronaut-poop-space-food/

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Astronauts aboard the ISS drink recycled pee for a reason: we can only bring so much food and water to to space. Imagine how much more we need to take for that year-long journey to Mars. Since bringing more resources means higher costs -- the heavier a spacecraft is, the more fuel it needs, after all -- scientists are looking to find ways to make self-sustaining vehicles. A team of researchers from Penn State University, for instance, have developed a method to make space food with astronaut poop.
 
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Huntn said:
How about some chocolate Microbial goo? Hmm... Heard about this on NPR this morning. :)

Scientists explore using astronaut poop to make space food
https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/30/astronaut-poop-space-food/

Astronauts aboard the ISS drink recycled pee for a reason: we can only bring so much food and water to to space. Imagine how much more we need to take for that year-long journey to Mars. Since bringing more resources means higher costs -- the heavier a spacecraft is, the more fuel it needs, after all -- scientists are looking to find ways to make self-sustaining vehicles. A team of researchers from Penn State University, for instance, have developed a method to make space food with astronaut poop.
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Well I guess I'm not going to Mars anytime soon then!
 
Let's hope they don't get too constipated, eh!

Of course, we must remember that old adage:-

If you don't eat, you don't poop.
If you don't poop, you die!
 
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I still remember watching 2001 A Space Odyssey in 1968 being disappointed that it was not the kind of space movie I expected, but thrilled that we’d have a Pan American shuttle to a fancy space station, and a moon base!

...Baby steps right?
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NASA Funds 22 Futuristic Ideas for Space Exploration 2017
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nasa-funds-22-futuristic-ideas-for-space-exploration/

Not all listed:
  • Terraforming: A Synthetic Biology Architecture to Detoxify and Enrich Mars Soil for Agriculture: Adam Arkin, University of California, Berkeley. Arkin and his team aim to use bioengineered Earth microbes to help grow crops on the Red Planet.
  • Propulsion: A Breakthrough Propulsion Architecture for Interstellar Precursor Missions: John Brophy, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. This idea would use powerful lasers to illuminate solar panels on voyaging spacecraft, allowing these probes' ion-propulsion systems to be much lighter and more efficient (and enabling the vehicles to travel much faster).
  • Propulsion: Evacuated Airship for Mars Missions: John-Paul Clarke, Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. If this idea pans out, "vacuum airships" (which achieve lift not by relying on helium or hydrogen, but by maintaining an air-displacing interior vacuum) will someday be plying the Martian skies.
  • Propulsion: Mach Effects for In-Space Propulsion: Interstellar Mission: Heidi Fearn, Space Studies Institute in Mojave, California. According to this idea, interstellar spacecraft could be powered solely by Mach effects, the transient variations in the rest masses of objects that are accelerating and undergoing internal energy changes.
  • Pluto Hop, Skip, and Jump: Benjamin Goldman, Global Aerospace Corp. in Irwindale, California. This proposed spacecraft could hop around the surface of Pluto, exploring multiple sites up close over the course of a multiyear mission.
  • Artificial Gravity: Turbolift: Jason Gruber, Innovative Medical Solutions Group in Tampa, Florida. The Turbolift system would induce artificial gravity for voyaging astronauts by accelerating them in a linear fashion (back and forth), rather than by rotating them around a central point.
  • Phobos L1 Operational Tether Experiment: Kevin Kempton, NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. A small probe would hover just above the surface of the Mars moon Phobos, studying it up close. This "hovercraft" would be attached by a tether to another spacecraft positioned at a gravitationally stable point just a few miles away.
  • Propulsion: Gradient Field Imploding Liner Fusion Propulsion System: Michael LaPointe, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. This project envisions an innovative way to potentially makefusion power for ultrafast space travel feasible.
  • Massively Expanded NEA Accessibility via Microwave-Sintered Aerobrakes: John Lewis, Deep Space Industries Inc., in Moffett Field, California. This idea explores the possibility of manufacturing heat shields from asteroid material in space — an advance that would allow the low-cost capture of space resources into Earth orbit.
  • Dismantling Rubble-Pile Asteroids with Area-of-Effect Soft-bots: Jay McMahon, University of Colorado, Boulder. Soft, pancake-shaped robotic spacecraft could improve the ability of future missions to extract water and other resources from asteroids, according to this concept. [How Asteroid Mining Could Work (Infographic)]
  • Propulsion: Continuous Electrode Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion: Raymond Sedwick, University of Maryland, College Park. This concept presents another possible way to achieve fusion-powered spaceflight.
  • Sutter: Breakthrough Telescope Innovation for Asteroid Survey Missions to Start a Gold Rush in Space: Joel Sercel, TransAstra in Lake View Terrace, California. This idea calls for launching three asteroid-hunting cubesats into orbit around the sun; the trio could find and track many space rocks for possible future resource extraction, Sercel wrote in his proposal.
  • Direct Multipixel Imaging and Spectroscopy of an Exoplanet with a Solar Gravity Lens Mission: Slava Turyshev, JPL. This study will investigate using the sun as a "gravity lens" to magnify, and directly image,alien planets.
  • Solar Surfing: Robert Youngquist, NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Youngquist and his team aim to develop a super-reflective material that could allow a future spacecraft to get within just 430,000 miles (690,000 kilometers) of the sun's surface — far closer than any probe has ever gotten — without burning up.
  • A Direct Probe of Dark Energy Interactions with a Solar System Laboratory: Nan Yu, JPL. Researchers hope to launch spacecraft to hunt for direct evidence of mysterious dark energy, the force thought to be responsible for the universe's accelerating expansion.
[doublepost=1517843080][/doublepost]MacRumors Thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/the-astronaut-who-may-just-get-us-to-mars.2104489/

The Astronaut Who Might Get Us To Mars
https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-astronaut-who-might-actually-get-us-to-mars/
...featuring a variable specific impulse magnetoplasma rocket (VASIMR) engine.

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Huntn said:
How about some chocolate Microbial goo with your coffee? Hmm... Heard about this on NPR this morning. :)

Scientists explore using astronaut poop to make space food
https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/30/astronaut-poop-space-food/

Astronauts aboard the ISS drink recycled pee for a reason: we can only bring so much food and water to to space. Imagine how much more we need to take for that year-long journey to Mars. Since bringing more resources means higher costs -- the heavier a spacecraft is, the more fuel it needs, after all -- scientists are looking to find ways to make self-sustaining vehicles. A team of researchers from Penn State University, for instance, have developed a method to make space food with astronaut poop.
Click to expand...

lol.... This one is up there. However is that any different than [we] humans back on earth, drinking filtered water?

When your out in the bush, or haven't got anything else,,, you gotta go that extra mile.
 
Most of us Millenials will be likely 70 years old when we see the first manned missions when starting the baby steps towards the Space Age.
 
The Star Trek TNG technical manual pretty much confirmed the replicators on starships have tanks of organic "goo" including recycled waste (ie. poo) to create food on demand.
 
gkarris said:
Watched it live - shed a tear in my eye as I also watched the first Apollo Saturn launch live also...

MAKE SPACE TRAVEL GREAT AGAIN!
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You watched a Saturn V launch? #envy I shed a tear when I saw it at the Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
 
I’ve seen many launches going back to the Gemini program, but this was awesome. Even set against nothing but sky, you could tell this was a BIG mother-******* rocket.

Made all the more cool by the fact that the boosters landed again just like a sci-fi spaceship. Growing up I always thought the coolest thing was watching the Jupiter II re-enter the atmosphere with a roar, landing vertically on its struts. Not even the Enterprise could do that. :D
 
yaxomoxay said:
You watched a Saturn V launch? #envy I shed a tear when I saw it at the Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
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Well, on TV, like today. Back then, on a 25" B&W console TV, today, on my computer hooked up to a 4K LCD TV - technology...

SpaceX is live streaming Starman right now - incredible!
 
jav6454 said:
Most of us Millenials will be likely 70 years old when we see the first manned missions when starting the baby steps towards the Space Age.
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We've been in the Space Age since the 60's. Some of us remember significant milestones like the moon landing and the Apollo missions, as well as Sky Lab.
 
RichardMZhlubb said:
That was incredible.


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It is amazing, but it strikes as immensely dangerous and technology dependent if people were ever intended to be on something like this, keep reading. :)

I’m not dissing it, just observing that anything relying on thrusters, especially a single thruster (if that is what it has) a single hiccup and you have a total wipeout. However these are boosters so I would not expect people to be riding on them, so instead that would be an outstanding means of cost savings. How’s that for reversing course? :D
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yaxomoxay said:
You watched a Saturn V launch? #envy I shed a tear when I saw it at the Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
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In 1971 I saw a Space Shuttle night launch from a dormitory rooftop in Miami. The college crowd was murmuring, where is it, when a huge flame burst from behind a tall building and climbed into the sky, from 200 miles away and it was still huge and magnificent! :D

And I expected this 30 years later: :-/

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I love this topic, cause lately I got absorbed with a 7 year old space game (X3- Albion Prelude), have earned almost $3 Billion credits (though A.I. traders), have a galaxy wide trading company, and recently purchased a Luxury Yacht among other nice ships. Had this fantasy since 2001 A Space Odyssey. :)

Split Ocelot 2b.jpg

Split Ocelot​
 
Ten Things to know about Space X
http://time.com/space-x-ten-things-to-know/

3. Are SpaceX Rockets Special?

Progress in rocketry is incremental. The basic science of liquid-fueled rockets hasn’t changed much since the days of Robert Goddard. And solid fueled rockets—well, they go back millennia. The advances are made at the margins, and Musk is doing well there. His rockets are modular: the Falcon is a single engine model; the Falcon 9—no surprise—has nine; the Falcon Heavy, which has yet to fly, will have 27, in three clusters of nine engines. This streamlines production in the same way that building different car bodies atop similar chassis helps keep costs down for car manufacturers. Roughly 80% of the parts in any SpaceX rocket are made on the company’s own factory floor, reducing the cost of outsourcing. This keeps price per pound of payload down and quality control in house. One study, by NASA and the Air Force, estimated that the price tag for going from the initial design stages of the Falcon 9 rocket to its first flight was $440 million, about a third of what it would have cost NASA.

NASA vs. the free market: Which is better for American space dominance? (2012 article)
https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-...which-is-better-for-american-space-dominance/

Don't expect a space race between SpaceX and NASA. They need each other
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-spacex-nasa-20170301-story.html

SpaceX, the upstart company, and NASA, the government agency, both have plans to venture to Mars and orbit the moon. But that doesn’t mean they’ve launched a new space race.

In fact, NASA has long been SpaceX's most important customer, providing contracts to deliver cargo and eventually astronauts to the International Space Station. And the Hawthorne company will need NASA's technical support to achieve the first of its grand ambitions in deep space.

SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk acknowledged as much last week, shortly after announcing that SpaceX would launch two private, paying individuals on a weeklong lunar flyby in 2018.

"SpaceX could not do this without NASA," Musk tweeted. "Can't express enough appreciation."

NASA, on the other hand, has come to rely on SpaceX and other companies for transport to the space station as its funding has tightened. In today's dollars, the agency's budget is about half what it was at the peak of the 1960s, and down from the 1990s.

In the wake of the SpaceX news, NASA issued a statement that said it is "changing the way it does business through its commercial partnerships," in part to "free" the agency to focus on rockets and spacecraft to go beyond the moon into deep space.

China's secret plan to crush SpaceX and the US space program
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/28/chinas-secret-plan-to-crush-spacex-and-the-us-space-program.html
 
RootBeerMan said:
We've been in the Space Age since the 60's. Some of us remember significant milestones like the moon landing and the Apollo missions, as well as Sky Lab.
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That was the Space Race not Age. When we are traveling between planets and have the ability to just take off, then it could be considered Space Age.
 
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