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Space Science

Pushing The Envelope 57

Posted by michael from the now-the-big-ships-fly-to-a-hundred-suns-pushing-the-speed-of-light... dept.
FWMiller sent us this gem: "Was cruising around NASA's pages and found this list of studies that have been funded by the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC). Interested in what might be coming down the pipe in the way of new propulsion and vehicle concepts? This page lists links to a few of 'em." I thought the one titled 'A Realistic Interstellar Explorer' was cool.
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Pushing the Envelope More

Pushing the Envelope

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  • Some kind of java error
  • Honestly if some crackpots called Orville and Wilbur came up to you in 1903 and said they were inventing a flying machine and were going to test it out at Kitty Hawk, you would have shrugged them off as either insane, stupid, or just mad.

    But look at what happened, the few (Orville and Wilbur) proved the many WRONG. And they got to have a cool ride on a very unsafe aircraft. :)
  • Well, any propulision system will require input energy that will eventually run out. You can't build a perpetual motion machine, because that input energy is transformed into the craft's kenetic energy.

    --
  • I guess I don't understand the culture here.

    What is this Flame bait? and how is this Flame Bait?

    I am so confused.

  • Smaller systems would probably have more survivability just as small insects are much more difficult to injure than larger animals. The smaller sizes of componants would mean that relative forces would be much less than on their larger counterparts.

    --
  • If somebody had told you in 1970 that we'd pretty much only be going up there one or two times and then it would be over, they'd say you were nuts.
  • I don't recall. As a matter of fact, I believe the proposal assumes the existence of the toroid, and leaves out matter of production. There was a proposal in there on creating toroids though. Whether its been funded or not is another matter.

    Derek
  • Geez©©© the site's not even /©ed yet ¥it's well after midnight in the US and it's already Server Error 500 time© Oh well, that's what you get for running servlets without a scalable n-tier architecture designed by a certified e-commerce professional©
  • That would be the Slashdot effect. This is not a frequently visited NASA server, from what I can tell. Lighten up.
  • I was really intrigued by that one. Take a plasma toroid, superheat air by funnelling it through a "jet engine" encompassing the toroid, and blast the superheated air out the back. Instead of using burning jet fuel to heat the air, you are using the plasma toroid. No burning fossil fuels, no fuels to blow up in an accident, no emmisions to pollute the atmosphere. WAY cool stuff.

    I haven't had a chance to read the article (the server is still /. ed), but what would they use to create the plasma toroid? Making plasma takes a lot of energy.

    Roland

  • You need to read a few Niven and Forward books, amongst others... and find out about the Electric Universe. How would you like to escape the planet by the simple expedient of giving your craft a truly humungous electric charge? ``Don't touch me there... [ZAP!]... never mind...''
  • This is why Java sucks. And people want to use it for mission-critical apps? They're nuts...

  • <B><I>Come the millennium, month 12 The village idiot will come forth To be acclaimed the leader.-Hoaxtradamus</I></B>

    Sounds like what Al Gore tried to do...

  • All that cool stuff that NASA proposes is 20 years away. That's what NASA does. It captures the American fascination with gadgets and then gets Congress to fund our collective technology jones.

    If you want to see what can be done in 2 years instead of 20, take a look at what we're doing at TGV Rockets [tgv-rockets.com]. When we're fully funded, our reusable, suborbital rockets will open the door to cheap access to space. I'm talking about $1000 per kilogram instead of the $20000 per kilogram you pay today.

    G. Harry Stine wrote about Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) rockets taking us half way to anywere [amazon.com]. Making reusable, suborbital rockets first is the baby step we absolutely must take before we can achieve SSTO and then the stars.

  • I am working with a number of very bright people on a project that can be done today, with no new technology and plausible levels of funding. We are going to do in aerospace, what the PC did in computing. Build small platforms that have a tremendous growth potential. http://www.tgv-rockets.com
  • I realize that they collect their fuel with a large funnel, but the friction from the very atoms they are collecting and stray matter/energy will slow the craft faster than it can accelerate. You can't get energy for nothing and will still need an initial supply of hydrogen fuel and extra energy to counteract the affect of friction.

    --
  • thats probably the last thing that happened on that stupid bouncy mars probe thing!
  • Very cool stuff. I really liked a link I found off the Antimater project. this [nasa.gov] site deals with the things we need to overcome before we can "warp" to a planet.
    --
  • So, "Are The Benefits Of Technology Waning?" Or are we "Pushing the Envelope"? Kind of interesting that these two articles were posted back to back.

  • More than meets the eye (Score:5)

    by DavidBrown ( 177261 ) on Saturday December 30, 2000 @06:24PM (#1425803) Journal
    Here's one proposal:

    "Self-Transforming Robotic Planetary Explorers"

    Autobots or Decepticons?
  • If you had looked at similar projects from twenty years ago, they'd have been quite different. Scientific advance is happening so fast in many areas that the "long range" plans must be continually revised, as we become more aware of what the possibilities are...

    Right now Mars missions are difficult enough that they often go wrong -- but we're also doing them for a tiny fraction of what we were spending twenty years ago. We are basically keeping reliability constant (if not actually reducing it) and accepting the cost advantage.

    Someday it will be only as difficult to mount an interstellar mission as it is now to send one to Mars; we'll only know that when the fact becomes apparent because of the ongoing feasibility studies.

    ---

  • The problem is different (Score:3)

    by jeroenb ( 125404 ) on Saturday December 30, 2000 @06:24PM (#1425805) Homepage
    I always thought the problems with figuring out how to do interstellar travel were mostly in theory - like how do we reach high velocities without using up impossible amounts of fuel or how do we steer these ships, but in fact, most of these papers have all that figured out but they're just waiting until we have the technology to manufacture stuff like the Solar Sail [usra.edu]. That's actually pretty cool, we're closer than I thought :)
  • Don't think this isn't important. This planet will be uninhabitable someday, whether it's billions of years from now (supernova) or next week (insert favorite doomsday scenario). Don't forget that we might have decades or hundreds of years warning from something like a giant asteroid/comet. Or not. Better to start looking elsewhere as soon as possible for a new home. The only way we won't go out there eventually is if we're wiped out before we're able to go.

  • Wonderfull! But what if... (Score:5)

    by Tin Weasil ( 246885 ) on Saturday December 30, 2000 @07:32PM (#1425807) Homepage Journal
    Microsoft software is used to run these "future" spacecraft? I can see it now:


    1. 2001: A Space OS

      "Houston... we have a problem..."

      "UNSS Gagarin, this is Houston. What is the nature of the problem?"

      "Well... I know we are supposed to be on a mission to Proxima Centauri, but..."

      "But what?"

      "Well, our HalNT 9000 computer bluescreened just between the orbits of Neptune and Pluto."

      "So... just reboot the damn thing and get back on the mission!"

      "It's not that simple Houston. Our friend Astronaut Sam decided to fix it by loading Linux on the computer."

      "WHAT?"

      "Yeah. Everything is working fine now, but we're going to need someone down their to get us a device driver for the ship's dueterium fuel tanks... and the drive motors... and if you could get us drivers for the life support systems we would really appreciate it. The sooner the better on those life support systems."

      "Oh... My... God..."

      "Exactly. Dave forgot to check the Hardware Compatibility List before loading it up... I guess the ship's hardware is all proprietary. Needless to say, we have trapped Dave in the airlock. Want us to let him breathe vacuum?"

      "Only if someone else has the root password."

      "Oooo! Good point. Ummm, by the way, is the new 2.4 kernel out? We could sure use some help with these USB peripherals also."

      "Okay Major Tom... you and your boys sit tight. We'll get our team down here working on a solution..."

  • don't forget the planet-eating planetoid too.

  • Am I the only one getting broken JSP here? Way to go NASA. Tax dollars hard at work.
  • And what are the Bussard ramjets? IIRCWIPD all a Bussard collector is a assemblage that collects spaceborne hydrogen atoms.

    Take the hydrogen collected into the front of your rocket, feed it through a fusion reactor, then shoot the hot exhaust out the back end of the rocket...
  • Or all the fiction about going to the moon (can you say Jules Verne?). If you had told somebody at the turn of the century that man would be walking on the moon by 1969 they would have said you were nuts.

    .technomancer

  • ::yawn:: first of all, Ive been posting a link to this site everytime anything space related shows up on Slashdot. Thanks for noticing. :/

    As to this being science fiction, well it can't rightly be fiction if it is under study RIGHT NOW, now can it? Besides, none of the projects listed are beyond our current understanding of physics and engineering. They arent on the lunatic fringe, they are only on the fringe of what what lies within the range of easy science and established expectations. The goals of the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (gasp! did you fail to realize the meaning of that? ADVANCED CONCEPTS, repeat 10 times times loud) are stated thus [usra.edu].

    To quote:


    While the NIAC seeks concepts which stretch the imagination, these concepts should be based on sound scientific principles. Now is your time to dream and stretch your imagination. The "Dreams" supported through the NIAC funding can be the framework for future NASA missions and programs. Advanced concept proposals should be aimed well beyond the evolution technical challenges that occupy current programs and set new, revolutionary directions in aeronautics and space. We are seeking advanced concepts, specifically systems and architectures, that are indeed "Grand" and revolutionary, and which will expand our vision of future possibilities.


    Sheesh.


    Derek



  • Reading the stuffs on NASA gets me into thinking along the line of the last /. item - is the benefit of technology waning ? - and the way I see it, from evidences obtain from many places, and from the NASA site, is that things like "benefits from science" are like tidal waves - it waxes and wanes, kinda like a pendulum swing, it goes one way and when it reaches its peak, it goes the opposite way.

    Looking at the effort by NASA, if we take a micro view, we can talk about "new propulsion" and stuffs like that, BUT, if we take the macro view, we'd see that it's the accumulation of the micro-stuffs like new propulsion systems that will propel us beyond the existing frontiers, and when that is reach, we will see that the pendulum swings back again, and there'd be many more new things to explore, and it'd be kinda like the "Columbus discover New Continent" thing all over again.



  • All I get is a whole long list of java error messages !

    I think there's a server crash somewhere !

  • Wouldn't nano-satellites encountering space dust be equivalent to regular satellites encountering asteroids?
    Yes and no. If a nano satellite got whacked, it'd be disastrous for that satellite. But there are two things to consider:

    It's a lot harder to hit a teeny satellite with a teeny grain of dust than it is to hit, for example, the ISS.

    Nanosatellites would be sent up, not singly, but in their thousands (m/billions?). So if you lose one, or ten, or a hundred, it's no biggie.

  • Well, we did it again: the good old /.
    DDoS...
  • Somehow "vaporware" doesn't seem quite thin enough to describe how far-out some of these ideas are. I mean, they can't even get more than 2 out of 4 Mars probes to go, or even keep the website up, are we really supposed to take it seriously when they talk about going to Proxima Centauri?
  • Hey, beter to test out java on a website than to put it on a space probe :)
  • Not all of these projects are space related. There is (was, at least last time I took a gander) a study on spherical toroid propulsion that may enable planes to literally run on air. That's pretty practical in the here and now.

    I was really intrigued by that one. Take a plasma toroid, superheat air by funnelling it through a "jet engine" encompassing the toroid, and blast the superheated air out the back. Instead of using burning jet fuel to heat the air, you are using the plasma toroid. No burning fossil fuels, no fuels to blow up in an accident, no emmisions to pollute the atmosphere. WAY cool stuff.

    Derek
  • quote the aticle and get moded up... hmmmmm

    _________________________________
  • seems the server is gagging - can get topic names but no poop, straight or otherwise.
  • Reading the other posts kind'a makes me want to read the list too...
    Sadly, all I'm reading is a really long lsit of...

    Internal Servlet Error:

    javax.servlet.ServletException: JZ006: Caught IOException: java.io.IOException: Broken pipe
    at...
    at...
    at...
    at...
    (it goes on for a while)

    At least I'm not in space. If I was in space and saw this, I'd probably mess myself.
    "Commander, er, the life support system threw an exception and crashed spectacularily. It says here we have a broken pipe..."
    ----------
  • Flight didn't seem impossible, even then. Everyone knew that birds could fly, and that simple gliders are trivial to construct. You're comparing flight to things which violate the laws of physics as we know them. At no time did our understanding of the universe indicate that flight is not possible.
  • Seriously, that's the funniest thing I've read in a long while.


  • Somebody would have to do the math, but while a smaller satellite would be more endangered by smaller space particles, space on that scale should also be more empty of same small particles. I think that a 10cm sattelite would still encounter more 1cm particles than a 1m sattelite would encounter 10cm particles, but ...
  • As their Java/TomCat server seems to have lost its little brain, I can't see anything from their site. Not a good advertisement for their technology.

    ///Peter

    -- "The sure-fire cure for seasickness is to sit under a tree." --Spike Milligan

  • This stuff is pretty wild - just took a look at the magsail, and suddenly I think of windsurfing..
  • Now this [usra.edu] looks interesting. Nanotechnology for satellites. The only problem is space dust. It doesn't affect larger satellites, because they're, well, larger. Wouldn't nano-satellites encountering space dust be equivalent to regular satellites encountering asteroids? They'd be more susceptible to any forces acting upon them, because they have less mass (and are easier to move). If people can lose satellites WITHOUT having to worry about them being constantly knocked off course, wouldn't it be a good idea to stay away from this sort of thing? Just a thought.
  • poofread
  • Here's the actual link to the NASA site. http://peaches.niac.usra.edu/studies/ [usra.edu]
    ------------
  • It's alot closer to a "warp" drive than most. For whatever reason this reminds me of the ship that sisko(sp?) sailed from ds9, only it uses plasma and magnetic fields as the sails. I personally want one, screw ion propulsion, it'll eventually run out of fuel anyway, this will be able to produce it's fuel. Whoo!

    And what are the Bussard ramjets? IIRCWIPD all a Bussard collector is a assemblage that collects spaceborne hydrogen atoms.

    But why call it a Mini-Magnetospheric Plasma Propulsion? If it pushes limits of magnetic field limits?

    Just my untrained programmer mind thinking, I'll go back to reading the OpenGL Blue Book.
    -snip-
    The Mini-Magnetospheric Plasma Propulsion, M2P2, system provides a revolutionary means for spacecraft propulsion that can efficiently utilize the energy from solar plasma to accelerate payloads to much higher speeds than can be attained by present chemical (oxidizing) propulsion systems. The system utilizes an innovative configuration of existing technology based on well-established principles of plasma physics. It has the potential of providing low cost propulsion that could power an Interstellar Probe, as well as a manned mission to Mars. The M2P2 system utilizes low energy plasma to inflate a magnetic field beyond the typical scale lengths that can be supported by a standard solenoid magnetic field coil. In space, the inflated magnetic field can be used to reflect high-speed (400 - 1000 km/s) solar wind particles to attain unprecedented acceleration for power input of only a few kW, which can be achieved by solar electric units. Our initial estimates for a minimum system could provide a typical thrust of about 3 Newton continuous (0.6 MW of continuous power), with a specific impulse of 104 to 105 seconds) to produce an increase in speed of about 30 km/s in a period of 3 months. Proposed optimization could allow the development of a system that increases the acceleration level obtained with less expenditure of fuel. The optimized system could enable a mission that would leave the solar system.
    -snip-
  • Is this science, or science fiction? Let's take a look at some of these studies, shall we? We've got:

    SHIELD: A Comprehensive Earth Protection System

    Biologically Inspired Robot for Space Operations (Data?)

    Self-Organized Navigation Control for Manned and Unmanned Vehicles in Space Colonies

    Development of Self-Sustaining Mars Colonies Utilizing the North Polar Cap and the Martian Atmosphere (Really?)

    Yeah... I think I will believe this when I see it. I suppose these must be some really long term studies.

  • These ideas are pretty spiffy, but what about the near future? Are we really going to worry much over "releastic interstellar explorers" before we manage to get a mission to Mars to go right?

    I'm not criticising (long-range plans are a good thing), just curious.


    My mom is not a Karma whore!

  • Here's what my aerospace comrades tell me about the early days of NASA:

    When NASA was proposing to go to the moon and actually planning it, they instituted the second and perhaps one of the best examples of the triumph of Systems Engineering as a development tool. One of the interesting features of it was that inventions had to be put on the schedule and were critical to the timely success of the mission.

    So they are old hands at planning for things like the sail.

    Oh, the first instance of Systems Engineering? Nuclear-tipped ICBMs. It was invented for just that purpose.

  • This is the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts... They're a research branch and are supposed to do blue sky research. For short/near term plans check NASA's other sites.

    .technomancer

  • Re:well... (Score:3)

    by KevinMS ( 209602 ) on Saturday December 30, 2000 @07:53PM (#1425836)

    reminds me of that sci-fi story in which an expedition of cryo-suspended people wake up at their destination and find people already there because along the way they were passed by faster, more advanced ships.
  • humor
    --Kevin

  • Here's to the dreamers! (Score:4)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Saturday December 30, 2000 @06:21PM (#1425838) Journal
    Well, at least they have something in case they ever get a real budget. There are so many toys here.

    Topics include

    Advanced Power - Advanced Propulsion - Aeronautics Platforms - Asteroid Detection - Astronomy - Biology - Communication - Earth Science Platforms - In-Situ Utilization - Planetary Colonization - Robotics - Satellite Teams - Software

    I like this specific abstract in the software section:

    "Architectures and Algorithms for Self-Healing Autonomous Spacecraft"

    Imagine spacecraft whose missions last three times the human lifespan. Imagine spacecraft with the ability to decide where to explore, how to plan a trajectory, and which data to record.

    These autonomous spacecraft will require computational systems whose fault tolerance and performance are orders of magnitude better than presently possible.

    This challenge has been recognized by NASA's Dan Goldin as calling for revolutionary computational systems that depart radically from contemporary designs.

    We propose to develop a family of such systems, with emphasis on algorithms whereby the architecture heals itself. Highly autonomous spacecraft will require computational systems that tolerate a number of faults in proportion to the total number of components, hardware and software.

    This is orders of magnitude better than presently possible. To enable the combination of fault tolerance and performance, we envision a self-healing architecture. Self-healing architectures would naturally support fault tolerance, and are therefore amenable to scalable constructions. Self-healing architectures could be realized using a variety of technologies.

    The benefits of self-healing architectures extend to military and commercial applications. However, a self-healing architecture such as we propose has never been built, nor is it on the evolutionary horizon of the immediate decade. Our effort will identify properties for self-healing architectures that deliver at least 1015 operations per second per kilogram, and that tolerate a number of faults proportional to the number of components.

    For Phase I we propose to deliver a graphical, executable model of a highly fault tolerant, self-healing architecture prototype. The fidelity of this Phase I model will be sufficiently rich to demonstrate tolerance to a number of faults in proportion to the number of components. For Phase I we foresee two major technical challenges:

    i) generalization and merging of results from configuration for performance with results for configuration for fault tolerance, and
    ii) specification of a baseline programming model for a self-healing architecture.

    The next step would be to design and construct a self-healing architecture and attendant software. Looking to Phase II and beyond, realizing such an architecture will of necessity be multi-disciplinary, and will draw on the expertise of specialists in algorithms, testing, software engineering, circuits, power, packaging, radiation hardening, thermal and mechanical design, control, sensors, and mission planning.

    Wow, what a project!
  • I think it's to the point where piling more thinkers on to the Mars plans isn't going to make much difference. The ideas are all there, it's just a matter of putting it together. Using people on stuff like this doesn't hurt the other things at all, and when we finally get to the point where it's practical, it will be nice to be able to have something like this to start from.
  • New space micro-gravity enhanced nano-servers that can handle the /. effect:

    Error: 500

    Location: /studies/study_main.jsp

    Internal Servlet Error:

    javax.servlet.ServletException: JZ006: Caught IOException: java.io.IOException: Broken pipe at org.apache.jasper.runtime.PageContextImpl.handlePa geException(PageContextImpl.java:386) at studies._0002fstudies_0002fstudy_0005fmain_0002ejs pstudy_0005fmain_jsp_0._jspService(_0002fstudies_0 002fstudy_0005fmain_0002ejspstudy_0005fmain_jsp_0. java:104) at org.apache.jasper.runtime.HttpJspBase.service(Http JspBase.java:126) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet .java:853) at org.apache.jasper.runtime.JspServlet$JspServletWra pper.service(JspServlet.java:174) at org.apache.jasper.runtime.JspServlet.serviceJspFil e(JspServlet.java:261) at org.apache.jasper.runtime.JspServlet.service(JspSe rvlet.java:369) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet .java:853) at org.apache.tomcat.core.ServletWrapper.handleReques t(ServletWrapper.java:503) at org.apache.tomcat.core.ContextManager.service(Cont extManager.java:559) at org.apache.tomcat.service.connector.Ajp12Connectio nHandler.processConnection(Ajp12ConnectionHandler. java:156) at org.apache.tomcat.service.TcpWorkerThread.run(Pool TcpEndpoint.java:366) at org.apache.tomcat.util.ThreadPool$ControlRunnable. run(ThreadPool.java:411) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:484)

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