CDZ Four Coming Phases of Colonizing our Solar System

[JimBowie1958]

The Colonization of our solar system is very feasible and one day I think most human beings will live in space instead of on Earth. The key is allowing private corporations to do most of the heavy lifting, so to speak, while governments will regulate and supervise what is done instead of managing it for everyone.

So here are some rough ideas I have on four distinct phases to the exploration of our Solar System and its development.

We are now in Phase 1, basically establishing a presence in Earth orbit. This phase is marked by the high cost of getting out of Earth orbit, but that does not mean that there is no profitability to doing so.
The potential profitability of this phase is lies in the following:

• Space tourism - wealthy people will pay serious money to go into low Earth orbit and see the stars unfiltered by our atmosphere. Early efforts toward building low Earth orbit vacation stations are very plausible.
• Space manufacturing -
  • perfectly spherical ceramic ball bearings to make molds from on Earth
  • 3D printing that exploits the zero gravity for unique production.
  • telecommunications across the planet; internet literally available on every spot of the Earth and cheap.
• Military contracts - obvious benefits.
• Cleaning up debris from orbital 'accidents' will be profitable. Just build mobile satellites that can deflect crap into re-entry where they will burn up in the atmosphere. They would be approached from behind to decrease impact and built very solid with Tungsten carbide tile shells and have replaceable tiles.
• Private exploration and prospecting of the Solar System will grow quickly as laws pertaining to mineral rights and claims are firmly affixed and initiate commercial mining operation planning and execution with robots and other forms of unmanned exploration and testing.

Phase 2 will commence when we have a functioning Space Elevator. This will dovetail with more practical and efficient methods of flying into orbit and launching packages that will self guide their way to proper position. The activity area will be mostly between the Earth and the Moon with considerable activity directed toward Mars and the Asteroid belt where the real Motherload of resources are.

• Space tourism will explode with activity and tours to the moon and large vacation stations will be like luxury tourist sites on Earth.
• Space manufacturing will expand more quickly as we develop early moon bases that will harvest minerals on the Moon to use in colonization efforts and building space construction facilities. Early space vessel prototypes will be manufactured and sold to corporations to further prospect the moon, Mars and the Asteroid belt.
• Military and policing contracts to oversee space activity among the nations involved will be an ever growing source of revenue. Nations involved in space exploration and development will number in the dozens and be from every continent.
• Space reclamation of metal parts, debris and lost vessels will grow into a major industry, in further efforts to reduce the likelihood of space collision.
• Unmanned posts on Mars, the moon, and larger asteroids will be created. These will be automated repair facilities and testing stations for mineral composition of samples returned by unmanned drones.

Phase 3 will be initiated when we have active production on the Moon, with delivery of goods by magnetic rails that will launch products into space from the lunar surface. This will be an exponential increase in Space manufacturing and will eventually see space manufacturing become the majority of manufacturing used in space, displacing more expensive Earth manufacture.

• Permanent Moon vacation spots will be built, and most of the earlier vacation stations repurposed into manufacturing stations.
• Early, simpler O'Neil colonies that will evolve the technology and be mostly manned stations that produce high demand items like space adapted alloys, robots and ships. These will be austere and functional, but greatly reduce costs of space manufacture.
• Early mining of the asteroid belt will have to be tightly regulated to allow the economy on Earth to adapt. Too much too soon will see a huge collapse in the markets of many commodities that are rare on Earth but possibly abundant in space, like gold, platinum and other precious metals and gem stones, and fuels like Uranium and Thorium.
• other industries from Phase 2 will grow exponentially.

Phase 4 will be initiated when we have active production on Mars to greatly open up mining operations in the Asteroid Belt. By the time we are able to do this in practical terms, we should have energy sources that will allow constant 1G acceleration/deceleration, which would reduce travel to Mars to a matter of days and open up the Solar System to more exploration.

• The commercial exploitation in this phase will resemble the earlier phases except that O'Neil colonies will become primarily vacation destinations and permanent space colonies that will be Utopian and have ideal environments. Some zero Gravity production will take place in their core areas, but mostly the purpose of these colonies will be to house people and be HQ to corporate interests, not production itself so much.

Any productive responses are appreciated.

 

[Mac1958]

It's a pretty exciting time that we can even TALK about this stuff. If I were entering college today, this would be my direction.

I've seen the Space Elevator thing, and it's amazing in its (relative) simplicity.

The thought of essentially "mining the Solar System" for resources is mind-blowing. I've to say, though -- not trying to pour cold water here, but... -- we haven't evolved beyond petty global politics yet, and you have to wonder what the implications would be of nasty competition vs. innovative collaboration on this stuff.

I had not heard of this "constant 1G acceleration/deceleration" thing before. I'll look into it now, though!

Good stuff Jim, thanks.
.

 

[irosie91]

thanks jim------but don't tell the ayatoilets

 

[JimBowie1958]

It's a pretty exciting time that we can even TALK about this stuff. If I were entering college today, this would be my direction.

I've seen the Space Elevator thing, and it's amazing in its (relative) simplicity.

The thought of essentially "mining the Solar System" for resources is mind-blowing. I've to say, though -- not trying to pour cold water here, but... -- we haven't evolved beyond petty global politics yet, and you have to wonder what the implications would be of nasty competition vs. innovative collaboration on this stuff.

I had not heard of this "constant 1G acceleration/deceleration" thing before. I'll look into it now, though!

Good stuff Jim, thanks.
.

Flying to Mars in three days

For how long a time is Mars reachable from Earth?

The energy source would have to be incredibly dense, and likely some form of nuclear power.

 

[Mac1958]

It's a pretty exciting time that we can even TALK about this stuff. If I were entering college today, this would be my direction.

I've seen the Space Elevator thing, and it's amazing in its (relative) simplicity.

The thought of essentially "mining the Solar System" for resources is mind-blowing. I've to say, though -- not trying to pour cold water here, but... -- we haven't evolved beyond petty global politics yet, and you have to wonder what the implications would be of nasty competition vs. innovative collaboration on this stuff.

I had not heard of this "constant 1G acceleration/deceleration" thing before. I'll look into it now, though!

Good stuff Jim, thanks.
.

Flying to Mars in three days

For how long a time is Mars reachable from Earth?

The energy source would have to be incredibly dense, and likely some form of nuclear power.

Thanks. Some interesting posts in the Comments section.
.

 

[irosie91]

It's a pretty exciting time that we can even TALK about this stuff. If I were entering college today, this would be my direction.

I've seen the Space Elevator thing, and it's amazing in its (relative) simplicity.

The thought of essentially "mining the Solar System" for resources is mind-blowing. I've to say, though -- not trying to pour cold water here, but... -- we haven't evolved beyond petty global politics yet, and you have to wonder what the implications would be of nasty competition vs. innovative collaboration on this stuff.

I had not heard of this "constant 1G acceleration/deceleration" thing before. I'll look into it now, though!

Good stuff Jim, thanks.
.

Flying to Mars in three days

For how long a time is Mars reachable from Earth?

The energy source would have to be incredibly dense, and likely some form of nuclear power.

Ask Flash Gordon----and give my regards to MING

 

[Deplorable Yankee]

some say we're already flying this
I dont think you need oxygen to burn fuel to take it into space

23 Nov 2013 | Posted by Flanker41
It doesn't exist officially. It uses highly pressured mercury accelerated by nuclear energy to produce a plasma that creates a field of anti-gravity around the ship. Conventional thrusters located at the tips of the craft allow it to perform all manner of rapid high speed maneuvers along all three axes. Interestingly, the plasma generated also reduces radar signature significantly. So it'll be almost invisible on radar & remain undetected. This literally means that it can go to any country it likes without being detected by air traffic control & air defense systems. Read more at Black triangle (UFO) - Wikipedia

TR-3B Anti-Gravity Spacecrafts

 

[toobfreak]

The Colonization of our solar system is very feasible and one day I think most human beings will live in space instead of on Earth. The key is allowing private corporations to do most of the heavy lifting, so to speak, while governments will regulate and supervise what is done instead of managing it for everyone.

So here are some rough ideas I have on four distinct phases to the exploration of our Solar System and its development.

We are now in Phase 1, basically establishing a presence in Earth orbit. This phase is marked by the high cost of getting out of Earth orbit, but that does not mean that there is no profitability to doing so.
The potential profitability of this phase is lies in the following:

• Space tourism - wealthy people will pay serious money to go into low Earth orbit and see the stars unfiltered by our atmosphere. Early efforts toward building low Earth orbit vacation stations are very plausible.
• Space manufacturing -
  • perfectly spherical ceramic ball bearings to make molds from on Earth
  • 3D printing that exploits the zero gravity for unique production.
  • telecommunications across the planet; internet literally available on every spot of the Earth and cheap.
• Military contracts - obvious benefits.
• Cleaning up debris from orbital 'accidents' will be profitable. Just build mobile satellites that can deflect crap into re-entry where they will burn up in the atmosphere. They would be approached from behind to decrease impact and built very solid with Tungsten carbide tile shells and have replaceable tiles.
• Private exploration and prospecting of the Solar System will grow quickly as laws pertaining to mineral rights and claims are firmly affixed and initiate commercial mining operation planning and execution with robots and other forms of unmanned exploration and testing.

Phase 2 will commence when we have a functioning Space Elevator. This will dovetail with more practical and efficient methods of flying into orbit and launching packages that will self guide their way to proper position. The activity area will be mostly between the Earth and the Moon with considerable activity directed toward Mars and the Asteroid belt where the real Motherload of resources are.

• Space tourism will explode with activity and tours to the moon and large vacation stations will be like luxury tourist sites on Earth.
• Space manufacturing will expand more quickly as we develop early moon bases that will harvest minerals on the Moon to use in colonization efforts and building space construction facilities. Early space vessel prototypes will be manufactured and sold to corporations to further prospect the moon, Mars and the Asteroid belt.
• Military and policing contracts to oversee space activity among the nations involved will be an ever growing source of revenue. Nations involved in space exploration and development will number in the dozens and be from every continent.
• Space reclamation of metal parts, debris and lost vessels will grow into a major industry, in further efforts to reduce the likelihood of space collision.
• Unmanned posts on Mars, the moon, and larger asteroids will be created. These will be automated repair facilities and testing stations for mineral composition of samples returned by unmanned drones.

Phase 3 will be initiated when we have active production on the Moon, with delivery of goods by magnetic rails that will launch products into space from the lunar surface. This will be an exponential increase in Space manufacturing and will eventually see space manufacturing become the majority of manufacturing used in space, displacing more expensive Earth manufacture.

• Permanent Moon vacation spots will be built, and most of the earlier vacation stations repurposed into manufacturing stations.
• Early, simpler O'Neil colonies that will evolve the technology and be mostly manned stations that produce high demand items like space adapted alloys, robots and ships. These will be austere and functional, but greatly reduce costs of space manufacture.
• Early mining of the asteroid belt will have to be tightly regulated to allow the economy on Earth to adapt. Too much too soon will see a huge collapse in the markets of many commodities that are rare on Earth but possibly abundant in space, like gold, platinum and other precious metals and gem stones, and fuels like Uranium and Thorium.
• other industries from Phase 2 will grow exponentially.

Phase 4 will be initiated when we have active production on Mars to greatly open up mining operations in the Asteroid Belt. By the time we are able to do this in practical terms, we should have energy sources that will allow constant 1G acceleration/deceleration, which would reduce travel to Mars to a matter of days and open up the Solar System to more exploration.

• The commercial exploitation in this phase will resemble the earlier phases except that O'Neil colonies will become primarily vacation destinations and permanent space colonies that will be Utopian and have ideal environments. Some zero Gravity production will take place in their core areas, but mostly the purpose of these colonies will be to house people and be HQ to corporate interests, not production itself so much.

Any productive responses are appreciated.

All very practical ideas, but it lacks two important things:

1. A projected realistic timeline to reach these stages.
2. Any sort of realistic technological platform capable of supporting these advances.

As someone with more than a passing background in astronomy and space science, I am rather pessimistic of any of this stuff happening in the timelines we imagine. For instance, it may be another century before we actually begin trying to establish a moon base where people permanently live. And despite all the talk of going to Mars and science fiction, we may be three centuries from men living on Mars and we may never get much beyond that. Why?

• There are tremendous economic costs involved that no nation can afford, nor even a consortium of nations to afford these, we greatly underestimate our problems still unsolved here on Earth.
• Economic factors including the limited number of people who will ever be able to afford PRIVATE space travel.
  
• Other factors and set backs such as: Climate change, natural disaster, supervolcano, massive asteroid impact.

Beyond all of this, there is another hurdle: we must reach a point to where the income taken in from these "mining asteroids" etc., make much more money for the business than the HUGE expenditure to getting out there. Furthermore, there are a number of as-yet unresolved technological burdens:

1. Weightlessness / low gravity for prolonged periods of time. The body dies.
2. Radiation: outside the Earth's atmosphere, no ship or base can protect man from solar radiation short of some shielding in the ship and building underground on the Moon/Mars.
3. Psychological pressures. Long periods of time in confined environments: people don't cope well.
4. Propulsion: rockets, chemicals and even ion drive provide wholly unsuitable limitations to getting anywhere. All other forms of manned propulsion remain a fantasy.

For these reasons and others, I don't see man "colonizing" the Moon anytime soon before at least another century. If we ever realize manned travel to Mars much less permanent bases there are at the outer scope and will take several more centuries. We cannot even feed millions of people on the Earth much less afford these extravagances. ITMT, a much greater import is developing the ability to predict, detect and divert or stop incoming large space rocks.

 

[irosie91]

sheeeesh our space craft can CLOAK

 

[petro]

Been saying it for years.
Build the equatorial elevator...


Human expansion is in our DNA. Our choice here to evolve into a space faring race or wither away fighting for resources of a single world. Easter Island comes to mind.
Sure the naysayers will be along anytime to say it is all a waste of money.

 

[irosie91]

we will have to contend with MING

 

[william the wie]

A tethered satellite with a landing pad at 31 miles up would cost something like less than a millionth of the cost of a skyhook. Landing on a tethered satellite with a landing pad 62 miles up would cost about a trillionth as much as a skyhook. The major skyhook costs are trash pick up, a canal monopoly as with Egypt and Panama and terrorism. With a lower cross sectional area, an orbit that makes sure everyone can cash in the political risks and therefore costs go way down fast with tethered satellite.

 

[jwoodie]

Very interesting thread! I think the process will take off slowly, then accelerate quickly with technological innovations. It took 100 years after Columbus for New World colonization to begin in earnest, so we may have a wait on our hands.

 

[JimBowie1958]

All very practical ideas, but it lacks two important things:

1. A projected realistic timeline to reach these stages.
2. Any sort of realistic technological platform capable of supporting these advances.

I did not want to engage in a timeline and instead wanted to look at trigging developments that would cause our exploration/colonization of space to enter a new phase of activity. Timelines are always wrong and a waste of time. I do think that we will be in phase 4 by 2060, but that is probably wrong as well.

The second point is merely an engineering problem, and engineers always rise to the need.

As someone with more than a passing background in astronomy and space science, I am rather pessimistic of any of this stuff happening in the timelines we imagine. For instance, it may be another century before we actually begin trying to establish a moon base where people permanently live. And despite all the talk of going to Mars and science fiction, we may be three centuries from men living on Mars and we may never get much beyond that. Why?

• There are tremendous economic costs involved that no nation can afford, nor even a consortium of nations to afford these, we greatly underestimate our problems still unsolved here on Earth.
• Economic factors including the limited number of people who will ever be able to afford PRIVATE space travel.
  
• Other factors and set backs such as: Climate change, natural disaster, supervolcano, massive asteroid impact.

Private corporations have always been able to surmount problems that governments find too expensive. This is why opening space up to corporate endeavors is so critical to space development.

ALL tourism has limited numbers of people who can afford it.

The super catastrophe's you warn of are one of the main reasons we MUST colonize space.

Beyond all of this, there is another hurdle: we must reach a point to where the income taken in from these "mining asteroids" etc., make much more money for the business than the HUGE expenditure to getting out there. Furthermore, there are a number of as-yet unresolved technological burdens:

1. Weightlessness / low gravity for prolonged periods of time. The body dies.
2. Radiation: outside the Earth's atmosphere, no ship or base can protect man from solar radiation short of some shielding in the ship and building underground on the Moon/Mars.
3. Psychological pressures. Long periods of time in confined environments: people don't cope well.
4. Propulsion: rockets, chemicals and even ion drive provide wholly unsuitable limitations to getting anywhere. All other forms of manned propulsion remain a fantasy.

All human inhabited craft must have artificial gravity, either by use of spin or 1G acceleration.

All human inhabited ships will have to have anti radiation shielding in the form of reflective Tungsten carbide surfaces and low voltage electrical fields.

So make the ships bigger and have physical exercise and entertainment of various kinds.

The propulsion we use will be some form of nuclear engine that super heats a heavy element like lead or mercury to high temperatures then ejects it like an exhaust.

For these reasons and others, I don't see man "colonizing" the Moon anytime soon before at least another century. If we ever realize manned travel to Mars much less permanent bases there are at the outer scope and will take several more centuries. We cannot even feed millions of people on the Earth much less afford these extravagances. ITMT, a much greater import is developing the ability to predict, detect and divert or stop incoming large space rocks.

Space security will be a huge goal of our early space development, but it will be a mundane consideration once we are into the third phase.

 

[toobfreak]

All very practical ideas, but it lacks two important things:

The second point is merely an engineering problem, and engineers always rise to the need.

I'm an engineer and I can tell you that you are paid to find the kinds of solutions they want, based on cost or timeline, but need nor desire creates solution nor practicality.

The super catastrophe's you warn of are one of the main reasons we MUST colonize space.

Yeah, well, I know that. I also suspect that mankind is heading towards a major, unforeseen disaster/setback in this century that will greatly quell his lofty ambitions for a while and force him back to dealing with more fundamental things.

All human inhabited craft must have artificial gravity, either by use of spin or 1G acceleration.
All human inhabited ships will have to have anti radiation shielding in the form of reflective Tungsten carbide surfaces and low voltage electrical fields.
So make the ships bigger and have physical exercise and entertainment of various kinds.

Spinning is fine, but won't help you much on the moon or Mars unless you live in spinning buildings.
Tungsten carbide is heavy and expensive. Current theory is lining ships with bags of water needed for the journey anyway or human waste. Remember COST COST COST.
LV electric fields will not stop solar particles of very high eV.

 

[JimBowie1958]

All very practical ideas, but it lacks two important things:

The second point is merely an engineering problem, and engineers always rise to the need.

I'm an engineer and I can tell you that you are paid to find the kinds of solutions they want, based on cost or timeline, but need nor desire creates solution nor practicality.

The history of technological advance illustrates that invention is not enough for a new technology to become widely used. There must also be a perceived need for the new tech or else it is nothing more than a curiosity. For example the Indians in Asia had developed a hand power cotton gin centuries before we in the West did, but we had a need to improve the efficiency of cotton deseeding on large scale commercial plantations, while the Indians did not and so the tech went nowhere in India.

There are probably a huge backlog of new tech we have never heard of but for which there is not yet a need for.

The super catastrophe's you warn of are one of the main reasons we MUST colonize space.

Yeah, well, I know that. I also suspect that mankind is heading towards a major, unforeseen disaster/setback in this century that will greatly quell his lofty ambitions for a while and force him back to dealing with more fundamental things.

Well, maybe and maybe not, but we cant allow misgivings to prohibit plans for rosier scenarios as well.

All human inhabited craft must have artificial gravity, either by use of spin or 1G acceleration.
All human inhabited ships will have to have anti radiation shielding in the form of reflective Tungsten carbide surfaces and low voltage electrical fields.
So make the ships bigger and have physical exercise and entertainment of various kinds.

Spinning is fine, but won't help you much on the moon or Mars unless you live in spinning buildings.
Tungsten carbide is heavy and expensive. Current theory is lining ships with bags of water needed for the journey anyway or human waste. Remember COST COST COST.
LV electric fields will not stop solar particles of very high eV.

The Van Allan belt doe snot have a very high voltage. Human waste will be recycled, not spent as radiation protection.

 

[toobfreak]

The Van Allan belt doe snot have a very high voltage.

Oh really? Are you at all aware that the Van Allen Radiation Belts themselves do nothing to stop incoming solar energy? They are actually trapped solar particles FROM the Sun caught in Earth's magnetic field? It is the field itself which shields the Earth, not the particles trapped by the fields. Also, the VA belts have energies as high as 400 MeV---- powerful enough to penetrate 6 inches of lead.

Human waste will be recycled, not spent as radiation protection.

Human waste will be recycled as what? Urine can be filtered to provide fresh drinking water, but not enough to provide needs on as long term a trip like going to Mars. Further, solid waste will not be recycled aboard ship. Recycled into what? And at what energy penalty? It will be saved to act as shielding around the outside of the ship where it will serve a far more useful purpose keeping the astronauts alive to Mars than any other conceivable use.

 

[JimBowie1958]

The Van Allan belt doe snot have a very high voltage.

Oh really? Are you at all aware that the Van Allen Radiation Belts themselves do nothing to stop incoming solar energy? They are actually trapped solar particles FROM the Sun caught in Earth's magnetic field? It is the field itself which shields the Earth, not the particles trapped by the fields. Also, the VA belts have energies as high as 400 MeV---- powerful enough to penetrate 6 inches of lead.

Yes, I know. It would not take a very strong electronic flow to create a protective magnetic field, and it would be well within the power range of an atomic generator (converted to electrical power, of course).

Human waste will be recycled, not spent as radiation protection.

Human waste will be recycled as what? Urine can be filtered to provide fresh drinking water, but not enough to provide needs on as long term a trip like going to Mars. Further, solid waste will not be recycled aboard ship. Recycled into what? And at what energy penalty? It will be saved to act as shielding around the outside of the ship where it will serve a far more useful purpose keeping the astronauts alive to Mars than any other conceivable use.

Human waste will be recycled as fertilizer after being subjected to sterilization and the introduction of new helpful bacteria.

This isn't rocket science, dude, why are you acting like you cant figure this stuff out?

 

[toobfreak]

Human waste will be recycled as fertilizer after being subjected to sterilization and the introduction of new helpful bacteria. This isn't rocket science, dude, why are you acting like you cant figure this stuff out?

On a planet maybe, yes. But NOT IN SPACE. They don't need fertilizer in space. They need shielding. I've told you that TWICE now, why can't you understand that?

 

[miketx]

There will never be a space elevator. Exploration of the solar system will have to wait until we can invent some way to travel that does not use coasting at slow speeds. Note: When considering interstellar travel even the speed of light is considered slow speed.