The Black Vault

Fart power. Not bad. Methane burns pretty clean and there's allot of it laying (or floating) around, and apparently it could be manufactured on both the moon and on mars. I also understand that it has some performance advantages over what is being used today. But I remember reading something about NASA dropping Methane/Liquid Oxygen for use in the "Vision for Space Exploration" initiative, which would suposedly get us back to the moon some day in the distant future, in favor of the technology we were using 40 years ago, for reasons that were not completely clear to me (therefor probably politically or financially based).

Maybe someone connected to the space program can explain why less expensive, more efficient and easier to handle fuels have been benched in favor of the tried and true expensive, inefficient and caustic stuff?

I think the future of space propulsion will probably include allot of different kinds of systems, including liquid and solid fuels, depending on what it is they need to do; power launch systems, long term acceleration, maneuvering, station keeping etc.

I've read a little about some of the systems currently in development, and Wikipedia has a nice entry that highlights most of them at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_propulsion. The much cooler, more theoretical stuff can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrou ... cs_Program.

I suppose the Holy grail would be some kind of gravity manipulation system, which would assume we acquire some kind of understanding of what gravity actually is at some point. Maybe some of what we learn from the Large Hadron collider, once they get it on line, will get us a little closer.

Not sure how we are going to get there if we continue investing in crap we can already do, badly. Seems to be the general pattern of government spending, though.

Nuclear power probably for deep space travel. That is not a new rocket technoloy by the way.

Interresting so far not a single comment from the Moon hoax landing believers. Begs the question if we faked it all in the 60's, why would the government suggest returning, and actually be working on the J2X as we speak?

I think the Ion technology will be the way.
Although they said that speeding the rocket or ships would take a long time to get up into high speeds.
Then I wonder, why not use the thruster of a normal rocket in space and give it speed already?.

greeney2 wrote:FDR pulled us out of the depression with WPA projects.

That is a myth.

Don't underestimate a big government liberal's ability to spend money that doesn't exist. The space program will go on.

How do you figure the WPA projects didn't provide jobs to people unemployed at the time in the depression. People were glad to get those jobs. The Hoover Dam was one of those projects.

maybe the future of space travel is going to be dead..

Besides the reason we need to get off this planet one day excuse' so we need to work on space travel ect..the most wonderous place to explore is this earth..not outter space ..
Maybe when out time here is up,we should just accept that the human race did its best here on earth..
I saw a theory that because of severe radiation pollution in outter space the human form is destined to modify its DNA to be able to cope with the radiation..ever thought of taking part in a dna modification that lends itself to parts from a roach ?
Should we go to the moon and live there if we have to abandon earth?
I dont think the human mind is capable of such depravity,mentally it will be no better than an inmate at a prison.. not be able to live how we once did.
And even a new generation will still suffer from depravity even though they may be born into it..

If an alien invasion occurs soon then we need to leave the solar system....not just Earth...

greeney2 wrote:How do you figure the WPA projects didn't provide jobs to people unemployed at the time in the depression. People were glad to get those jobs. The Hoover Dam was one of those projects.

I don't want to steer this thread in the wrong direction but the answer does apply to the space program so...

Socialists never comprehend economics, oy! Government spending does nothing to increase the size of the pie. The pie represents the wealth of the nation. If the population is increasing and you are not increasing the wealth (the size of the pie) then the people are getting poorer. Poverty is what causes most problems. All government does is transfer wealth around in inside the pie. That does nothing accept choose the winners and the losers. It is corruption.

All socialists in the US should be forced by law to take a college economics class. Economics is not a political philosophy. Its a fact of life.

Same goes with the space program. Being run by government means that any wealth that could be generated by space exploration will not occur and instead the country throws gobs of money down a black hole and accomplishes little if anything in the process. We've got to get space exploration out of the hands of government for it to ever amount to anything.

The US is on the WRONG path.

Today, 2 pm EDT, the space shuttle is going up to repair the Hubble one last time. The Hubble is 19 years old and we've spent $10 billion on it. This repair mission costs $1 Billion. They have 2 shuttles on the pad just in case something goes wrong, that's a first.

Obama has called for a review of all NASA programs. Not a bad idea. The mission to the Moon is at risk. We'll see what happens. The complaint has been that NASA has had no clear goals and lacks leadership. Not the first time we've heard that. I remember when Goldman took over and fired a bunch of people. Did that make things better or worse?

Lots of products owe their existence to the US space program but the future needs to be off the public dime. Due to mis-management, Americans are all out of dimes.

I'd rather have them spend my dimes on space programs instead of wasting it on issues like gay marriage, supreme court cases to take prayer and God out of the Pledge of Allegence, and giving illegals free medical care and enrolling their kids in our schools.