NASA launches 100-year quest to send humans to the stars | Hacker News Reader

NASA launches 100-year quest to send humans to the stars

csmonitor.com

61 pointsJ3L240444 comments

The trough is too long: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/576530/kickstarter/u_shape_full.png

See "Kickstarter: Shorter project durations lead to higher funding rates": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2684511

They'd be better off investing in nuclear propulsion R&D on a 5-10 year scale (Project Rover, phase IV):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Rover

If civilian nuclear power gets replaced by other forms of power generation, we'd have a surplus of rocket fuel. If present sentiment continues, investing in nuclear-thermal propulsion could result in something interesting.

Maybe I should start lobbying against nuclear power ;-)

However, before we start, we should have some clear, economically viable, destinations. An NTR is worthless for launching stuff to orbit and that is 99.999% of what current rockets do. Where it shines is in Earth-Moon ferries and in planetary exploration.

I did a rough guesstimate, and in order to get a space ship the size of the Space Shuttle to Alpha Centauri in under 100 years and stop it, you need probably about 20x10^18 J of energy, assuming roughly 1% efficiency of mass to kinetic energy propulsion and with minimal effects due to relativity. I don't think this number is off by more than two orders of magnitude, but it's probably still much too conservative.

That's a lot of energy, about 10 times more than all nuclear explosions ever. Close to half your mass would be fuel at 1% efficiency.

Prediction: funding runs dry after five years.

I think only a few religious/academic institutions have managed to have ambitious projects in the 100-year range.

I also have my hopes on commercial spaceflight these days, I don't think NASA is going anywhere anymore.

I think only a few religious/academic institutions have managed to have ambitious projects in the 100-year range.

I'd be genuinely interested to hear if you could name any.

The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore is a good example. One of the most fascinating things about this cathedral was that they had no idea how they were going to build the dome when they started building it (the construction techniques weren't advanced enough at the time). They had faith that someone in a later generation would figure it out. That person turned out to be Filippo Brunelleschi, one of the greatest engineers of that time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Cathedral

Construction of cathedrals often takes a long time - look at the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, started in 1883 and still being worked on (although it has been consecrated):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia

Meh. That's not even 200 years. Short by Cathedral standards.

Cologne Cathedral: 1248-1880

My favorite example to bring up when my boss complains about schedule overrun :)

Some people have already said a few, but I can add:

Great wall from 400BC - 1600AD

Angkor Wat 800AD - 1200AD

Chichen Itza 600AD - 1000AD

York Minster Cathedral 1220 - 1472AD

The first edition of the OED took about 70 years (starting in the mid 1800's) if I recall. Newer editions are still being edited.

I second Arethuza, if you count construction projects there are some impressive long term projects. Some, such as Chichen Itza (400yrs) or Stonehenge (1,600yrs), have direct scientific significance as well.

Dutch water projects have lasted for decades?

funny coincidence, I caught part of a documentary about that last night.

... and that is exactly how funding would have to work -- tied to an ongoing organization's operations. Academia has their endowments and perma-fundraising. Religions have donations and tithing. This effort would need an analogous long term funding source.

My first thought is that if 1% of all renewable energy revenue was sent to this effort, it would provide potentially massive funding as renewable energy grows. I don't know how to convince the greedy energy folk to give up 1%, but it sure sounds nice.

This effort would need an analogous long term funding source.

No need to re-invent the wheel: turn the problem over to the religious.

The Roman Catholics has a long organizational history, millions of adherents, a large and functional bureaucracy, familiarity with generations-long projects.

Also, they speak Latin which will jazz things up.

I suppose Rome needs a reason _why_ to pursue this.

- Long-term people will be in space. They'll need ministry.

- If you're looking for the ultimate in isolation from wordly concerns for your religious, you can't beat the Oort Cloud.

Roman Catholics, outside of Gene Roddenberry's religion-free vision of the future, often seem to end up in space. In the Speaker for the Dead series, they were attempting to convert a whole other species. In Altered Carbon, they were still on spaceships trying to catch up to the distant stars since they weren't allowed to use subspace transmission (needlecasting) to transfer their consciousness (because of issues with their souls). In either scenario, you could make the case that they'd have a vested interest in being the first or best at creating interstellar space travel.

they'd have a vested interest in being the first or best at creating interstellar space travel.

I've privately thought the Church needs to only aim a little lower: develop cheap access to space, then terraform Mars.

One billion and change, tithing a modest 1% of their income per year can put a lot of money in the kitty.

When I was a kid I was promised that in the 21st century we would have flying cars, hotels on Mars and space scouts exploring the galaxy back and forth. I am in the 21st century now and what do I get ... facebook? They've stolen my future. I want my future back. Cold war was fun.

> Cold war was fun.

On your side of the curtain, maybe.

I just meant that human progress seems to be driven by warfare more than by anything else.

Yeah technologoy has made zero progress since 1991.

Sent from my iPhone

It's 2011. Don't you think "where's my flying car" is getting a bit played out? It's in middle school.

The interesting thing is that they're not asking for innovative ideas about spaceflight, which you might expect from DARPA.

They're asking for ideas on optimal management and alternative funding for big long term projects. Spaceflight is just a widget example.

As great as it is in theory, even agreeing with thebooktocom that it'll likely not happen... It hurts a bit knowing we'll never settle another planet in my lifetime.

"in my lifetime"

First invent (effective) immortality then travel to the stars.

I was about to suggest the same approach. Immortality seems an easier problem to solve than building a starship, and travelling between stars becomes a lot easier if we're not bothered about bringing our organic bodies along.

> Immortality seems an easier problem to solve than building a starship

Why do you think so?

Immortality is essentially a question of understanding a collection of cells well enough to transfer their state to a more robust medium. Performing experiments on cells is relatively cheap, and medical research is generally very well funded.

On the other hand, a viable starship would require a considerable amount of energy. We'd need to be comfortable travelling within our own solar system, because we're not going to get the amount of energy required from Earth. The best option so far is probably to park some 100km wide solar panels close to the Sun, store up energy for a year, and then use some rather large laser beams to convert that energy into a million ton blackhole. We'd then have a portable generator powerful enough to get us to another star.

So my guess is that we'll figure our immortality long before we can seriously think about building a starship.

Just because something is cheap and funded, doesn't mean it's easy. That's like saying, "Math departments get more funding than pottery classes, and paper and pencils are cheaper than clay, therefore math is obviously easier than making your mom an ashtray."

There are exceptions to the rule, but in general if performing experiments is cheap and easy, it's easier to solve a problem than if performing experiments is a million times more difficult and costly.

This isn't NASA launching a quest, this is NASA / DARPA asking some else to take up the quest.

The citizens equivalent would be to offer a $500,000 dollar prize for the best idea to figure out how to turn myself into a quadrillionaire.

You know, $500,000 is less than it costs a developer to buy a decent medium sized duplex house within reasonable commuting distance to a tech job in San Jose.

I don't really see $500k as an indication of any serious interest at all. It might as well be a grant for $37 plus whatever change, lint and gumdrops the proposal author happened to have in his pocket that day.

This should reside under the foundation of the long now. Funded by wealthy visionaries backed by corporations instead of governments.

Downvotes? Care to explain?

Relevant, Project Icarus (A Joint Tau Zero Foundation & British Interplanetary Society Initiative): http://www.icarusinterstellar.org/

I would say spend the money on teleportation using entanglement. That would probably produce results faster then trying to move a large mass from one side of the universe to the other.

Quantum teleportation doesn't solve the problem of having to send mass across the universe.

Really...whats cheaper and easier to build. A ship to keep people alive for 50yrs or tiny cargo ship to send the other side of the teleporter?

Build me a quantum teleporter, then we can compare masses.

I guess we'll find out when we build one of each. Until then, it's like asking what's easier to build, a heavier-than-air flying vessel, or a magic carpet?

It would be a lot less work to convert the people into software, and then transmit them via a normal laser beam to a receiving station.

Sadly the Space Core's ability to add (and maybe subtract) was removed at manufacturing. This would set him up for the fall as NASA's first non-human, albeit humanly insane administrator.

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