ISS Could Be Followed By Commercial Space Stations After 2030, NASA Says (space.com) 93
NASA hopes that commercial space stations will orbit Earth once the International Space Station eventually retires, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said today at the 36th Space Symposium. Space.com reports: The space station, which was completed in 2011, could retire as soon as 2024. However, today, Nelson revealed that he expects the orbiting lab to last to 2030 and that NASA hopes it will be replaced by commercial labs in orbit. "We expect to expand the space station as a government project all the way to 2030. And we hope it will be followed by commercial stations," Nelson said during a "Heads of Agency" panel alongside other space leaders from around the world.
Now, while NASA hopes for commercial space stations to take over as the International Space Station nears the end of its tenure, China has already begun building its own space station. And, as NASA is prohibited from engaging in bilateral activities with China, this move by China is more competitive than collaborative. "Unfortunately, I believe we're in a space race with China," Nelson said during the panel. "I'm speaking on behalf of the United States, for China to be a partner. I'd like China to do with us as a military adversary, like Russia has done ... I would like to try to do that. But China is very secretive, and part of the civilian space program is that you've got to be transparent." Nelson pointed to Russia's longstanding history as a collaborator alongside NASA in space, despite ongoing political divides back on Earth.
Now, while NASA hopes for commercial space stations to take over as the International Space Station nears the end of its tenure, China has already begun building its own space station. And, as NASA is prohibited from engaging in bilateral activities with China, this move by China is more competitive than collaborative. "Unfortunately, I believe we're in a space race with China," Nelson said during the panel. "I'm speaking on behalf of the United States, for China to be a partner. I'd like China to do with us as a military adversary, like Russia has done ... I would like to try to do that. But China is very secretive, and part of the civilian space program is that you've got to be transparent." Nelson pointed to Russia's longstanding history as a collaborator alongside NASA in space, despite ongoing political divides back on Earth.
World's highest (Score:2)
World's highest hotel
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I thought it was in Amsterdam.
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Quite so, I've been a big fan for a while, and as I recall they were planning to actually launch their first commercial station in the next few years. Sadly, I'm not sure if they still really exist as a viable aerospace company. As I recall they were having some serious financial issues pre-pandemic, declined to bid on making a new ISS module despite being specifically invited, and and basically let all their engineers go when the pandemic hit. Now it seems like their only noteworthy activity in the pas
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Good. You leave. Rip up your Earth Citizenship card once you board your rocket.
In all seriousness, Space stations should be in the Lagrangian points, not in earth orbit. All it takes is serious screw up and the space station lands in someone's backyard... or destroys a forest or town.
The moon, is probably the "better" option first, though moondust will probably give lunar colonists Asbestosis.
Re:Moon base (Score:4, Interesting)
How do you plan to mitigate against radiation in the Lagrangian points? One of the main reasons Mir was and ISS is in Earth orbit is because we get the benefit of Earth's magnetosphere to shield it from charged particles.
Orbital habitats (Score:2)
Radiation shielding? A few meters of rock (equivalent to our atmosphere's ~10 tons/m^2 ) will reduce radiation to Earth-surface levels while also completely blocking micro-meteors. Asteroids are an obvious option - tunnel into them if they're sturdy enough, or use the slag heap from mining to make huge concrete "bubbles". Relatively simple metal or inflatable pressure vessels for habitats could then be anchored within, alongside shipyards and other vacuum facilities. With the thick shielding taken care
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So to get the comparable radiation protection and avoid the need to give ISS a push up every once in a while, you're suggesting... we go out there very far out, strap massive ion engines capable of propelling massive meteors and sending them toward the location of a new space station we're going to build.
Have you tried reading your suggestion out loud to yourself yet?
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Actually I prefer using the moon for raw materials near Earth, I must have mentioned that in a different comment. Leave the asteroids where they're at, they make perfectly good habitats right where they are. Once the Earth is months away, the actual location doesn't matter so much, and the moon has ~25x the mass of the entire asteroid belt to work with.
The ISS is a toy station designed as much as anything as an experiment in maintaining a long-term orbital station. It's got about the same pressurized volu
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Do you understand the amount of energy and costs associated with getting any meaningful amount of mass out of our planet's gravity well?
Are you aware of extreme health problems and material problems associated with any prolonged stay in space even when shielded from high energy particles?
Are you even remotely aware of the fact that Moon dust would destroy pretty much any hardware rapidly because of its extreme abrasiveness, meaning "mining the Moon" is not going to be a thing, likely ever, much less any tim
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>Do you understand the amount of energy and costs associated with getting any meaningful amount of mass out of our planet's gravity well?
Of course - that's why I'm *specifically* suggesting making space habitats from non-Earth materials, preferably materials already in an acceptable place (e.g building in/on asteroids). Both asteroids and the moon are rich and convenient sources of raw materials.
Do you understand that a huge part of the problem is not actually the energy required to get off Earth, but t
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Actually the Lagrange points might be more dangerous.
Only the L4 and L5 points are at all stable, and viewed from the perspective of a stationary Earth, objects essentially follow an easily-perturbed kidney-bean shaped orbit around the point, with a high probability of eventually breaking free to slingshot past the Earth on its way to begin orbiting the opposite L-point. And every passing could be a collision.
Meanwhile, in Earth orbit anything above geostationary orbit is slowly but steadily driven further
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Definitely want a moon base though. Even if it's mostly automated, that's the obvious place to get the raw materials for building orbital habitats. Not to mention a convenient anchor for "rail guns" that could efficiently launch materials and other payloads anywhere in the solar system for just the cost in kinetic energy, without any of the exponential inflation caused by the tyranny of the rocket equation. It wouldn't even have to be that big to start - at 1g, a 150km maglev track would get you to lunar
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Low earth orbit sucks. We need a fucking base on the moon or some other planetary body. Anything to get out of here and leave you suckers to deal with the crap on earth. I am sorry to say it but the Earth sucks. With all the creepy crawlers and predators on it. And I am not talking about animals, I am talking about humans. On another asteroid there are no rivers to shit in, no environment BS to destroy except your own. Thatâ(TM)s a lot better, because you have more control and fools will not mess with you.
The sort of people who have the money to get us off here are exactly the sort of people who fucked it all up, so there's no escape.
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You mean the ones who made things so you could stand there moving your arms and getting a house and car out of the effort, instead of living near starvation at an adult height of 5'3" hunting and gathering and dying at 43?
Those evil ones?
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You mean the ones who made things so you could stand there moving your arms and getting a house and car out of the effort, instead of living near starvation at an adult height of 5'3" hunting and gathering and dying at 43?
Those evil ones?
I don't think so, no. Who were you thinking of?
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I dunno, it's too far from Friday to start drinking yet.
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How far down the list of billionaires do you have to go until you find one where you have to say "Yeah, that would be a loss if someone put a bullet through that head"?
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Frankly, is there anyone who would fit that requirement?
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You realize adult hunter-gatherers actually lived almost as long as we do today? Infant and child mortality rates bring the average age *way* down, but if you made it to adulthood you actually had a pretty good chance of making it to your 60s or even 70s.
The "near starvion" bit is also obvious B.S. if you think about it: Name one wild animal that normally lives near starvation? And we're apex omnivores, the only reason we go hungry is when we overtax what the environment can sustain, or artificially rest
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On another asteroid there are no rivers to shit in, no environment BS to destroy except your own. ThatÃ(TM)s a lot better, because you have more control and fools will not mess with you.
You seriously need to play a few of the more serious, simulationist computer games about keeping an artificial biophere stable. The self-correcting properties of Earth are amazing. If you'd throw one percent of the pollution we've done on Earth into an artificial environment, you'll most likely topple it and kill everyone.
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Has there been any invention that "one privileged group" benefited from in the long term? If we go by your envy-fueled communistic assumption that if something is expensive it should be stopped because only rich people will have it .. then airplanes, computers, and cell phones won't exist. In 1980, a cell phone (Motorola DynaTAC) cost (2021 equivalent) nearly $15,000 and phone service was around $5 per MINUTE. The first electronic computer in the US (ENIAC) cost the equivalent of 8 million dollars. Clearly
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This is how you get idiotic movies like that one with Jodi Foster and Matt Damon, where, for some unknown reason, "the rich" keep healing techniques to themselves rather than drive costs down and roll it out to everyone for profit, as happens in reality.
"I hate capitism!" he typed into his iPhone, then took a byte of a flawless apple in the middle of winter.
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Hehe, a byte.
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This is how you get idiotic movies like that one with Jodi Foster and Matt Damon, where, for some unknown reason, "the rich" keep healing techniques to themselves rather than drive costs down and roll it out to everyone for profit, as happens in reality.
I didn't watch that movie so I don't know what you're talking about, but I have no problem believing in a world in which specific rich people who already have staggering shitpiles of money keep to themselves life extension treatments which would exacerbate existing problems in our societies if we didn't reshape them to eliminate billionaires.
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I didn't watch that movie so I don't know what you're talking about, but I have no problem believing in a world in which specific rich people who already have staggering shitpiles of money keep to themselves life extension treatments which would exacerbate existing problems in our societies if we didn't reshape them to eliminate billionaires.
I've read stories like that, and in real life we have people like Jennifer Aniston who spend a cool million a year on "health" treatments. Even at that, while she "looks good for her age", it's just about certain that she'll expire well within the standard human lifespan.
The problem with the lifespan hoarding meme is that it isn't ever likely to happen in a way that will be affordable to the average Joe and Karen.
Even if only because we'll have people willing to spend massive amounts of money to achiev
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The problem with the lifespan hoarding meme is that it isn't ever likely to happen in a way that will be affordable to the average Joe and Karen.
So it's not hoarding, just pricing it out of their reach?
There will always be rich people, there will always be poor people. Trying to eliminate billionaires is the wrong path. The right path is to not have so many poor that they revolt.
No, that's the right path for the billionaires. The right path for The People is to eliminate billionaires, because it makes it so much easier to serve people's basic needs when they're not sucking all the air out of the room.
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The problem with the lifespan hoarding meme is that it isn't ever likely to happen in a way that will be affordable to the average Joe and Karen.
So it's not hoarding, just pricing it out of their reach?
I should have explained more - not deliberate pricing, but a mad chase for something that isn't going to work.
Humans are not built to live forever, Our very internal support structure won't last long enough. We can make some pretty impressive strides, and there are more people than ever living past 100 years, but there aren't any 250 year old humans around.
So the wealthiest might be able to spend millions to chase youth and to live forever. But not to achieve it
And in a bit of karma - if you like - i
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Anyone who invents indefinite lifespans deserves every penny of the trillions of dollars of pure profit, beyond sales, they can get from it.
The dilemma isn't costly life extension vs. cheap. It's costly life extension vs. no life extension.
Quit imagining a magic wand, then disasterbating evil rich will hog it instead of making themselves rich enough to buy the FANG companies with their loose change.
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Okay - I see where you are coming from. A world of basic needs. What do you propose doing with people of ambition? A maximum pay, beyond which no one ventures?
Actually, I'm against maximum pay. I do want a well-graduated tax scale that lets the little guy off the hook, though. If you're getting paid fuck-all, you shouldn't have to pay to maintain the system stringing you along with the bare minimum while the guys taking home the massive subsidies are getting off scot-free.
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Okay - I see where you are coming from. A world of basic needs. What do you propose doing with people of ambition? A maximum pay, beyond which no one ventures?
Actually, I'm against maximum pay. I do want a well-graduated tax scale that lets the little guy off the hook, though. If you're getting paid fuck-all, you shouldn't have to pay to maintain the system stringing you along with the bare minimum while the guys taking home the massive subsidies are getting off scot-free.
I guess it depends on where that cutoff is.
Low income people can already pay nothing or next to it in taxes while garnering significant social support. Free cell phones, free child care, free WIC program food, highly subsidized section 8 housing, Medicaid, and other social programs.
That billionaires can often not pay anything is a crime.
The concept that people on the other end should have their lives largely subsidized is pretty significant. But since there will always be poor, and since it's a lit
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Jennifer Aniston doesn't look great for her age. She looks like a grandma [wionews.com]. Basically anyone who exercises, keeps their weight down, and eats vegetables will look like that.
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Jennifer Aniston doesn't look great for her age. She looks like a grandma [wionews.com]. Basically anyone who exercises, keeps their weight down, and eats vegetables will look like that.
Well, she's still spending a million dollars a year to look like she does. At least that's what she said on the Ellen Degeneras show a year or two ago.
I'm probably going to Slashdot hell for this, but there is that nasty wall that women hit. It isn't that men don't have an equivalent, but it seems worse for women.
No one is going to mistake Aniston for a 25 year old.
In point of fact, women tend to start hitting that wall in their early 30's. The disturbing thing is that in today's world, that is when
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But way back in this side topic journey is the concept that the wealthy will hide age extension treatments to themselves. Which I kinda doubt will happen anyway, but even if it does, it will likely filter down to us proles just like most medical treatments do.
Truly unlikely. Certainly it hasn't happened with existing age extension treatments (like open-heart surgery or antibiotics).
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I didn't watch that movie so I don't know what you're talking about, but I have no problem believing in a world in which specific rich people who already have staggering shitpiles of money keep to themselves life extension treatments which would exacerbate existing problems in our societies if we didn't reshape them to eliminate billionaires.
I've read stories like that, and in real life we have people like Jennifer Aniston who spend a cool million a year on "health" treatments. Even at that, while she "looks good for her age", it's just about certain that she'll expire well within the standard human lifespan.
The problem with the lifespan hoarding meme is that it isn't ever likely to happen in a way that will be affordable to the average Joe and Karen.
Even if only because we'll have people willing to spend massive amounts of money to achieve nothing more than leaving a prettier corpse.
There will always be rich people, there will always be poor people. Trying to eliminate billionaires is the wrong path. The right path is to not have so many poor that they revolt.
You have a magical treatment everyone would want more than anything else ever invented, then presume capitalism wouldn't wheedle out the costs?
Nav radios were idiotically expensive at first, reserved for ultracars. Now they are common in clunkers, and since replaced with free cell phone apps.
The idea the rich would not want to, very dersevedly I might add, profiteer trillions lowering the cost and rolling it out is patently silly given history. Many ventures fail, and this one is more assured of success t
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I've read stories like that, and in real life we have people like Jennifer Aniston who spend a cool million a year on "health" treatments. Even at that, while she "looks good for her age", it's just about certain that she'll expire well within the standard human lifespan.
The problem with the lifespan hoarding meme is that it isn't ever likely to happen in a way that will be affordable to the average Joe and Karen.
Even if only because we'll have people willing to spend massive amounts of money to achieve nothing more than leaving a prettier corpse.
There will always be rich people, there will always be poor people. Trying to eliminate billionaires is the wrong path. The right path is to not have so many poor that they revolt.
You have a magical treatment everyone would want more than anything else ever invented, then presume capitalism wouldn't wheedle out the costs?
Nav radios were idiotically expensive at first, reserved for ultracars. Now they are common in clunkers, and since replaced with free cell phone apps.
The idea the rich would not want to, very dersevedly I might add, profiteer trillions lowering the cost and rolling it out is patently silly given history. Many ventures fail, and this one is more assured of success than any other invention.
You're drawing the wrong conclusion from anything I wrote. I do not expect a magic bullet will ever be found. I know a lot of people think it is a foregone conclusion that we will somehow become eternal soon. Her'e's some scientist channelling his inner Rasputin telling us we'll be living to a thousand years old soon. https://www.ihealthtube.com/vi... [ihealthtube.com]
I can't imagine even wanting to live that long. The problem with living say for 200 years is that the extra years are all tacked on on the wrong end. If 1
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Has there been any invention that "one privileged group" benefited from in the long term? If we go by your envy-fueled communistic assumption that if something is expensive it should be stopped because only rich people will have it .. then airplanes, computers, and cell phones won't exist. In 1980, a cell phone (Motorola DynaTAC) cost (2021 equivalent) nearly $15,000 and phone service was around $5 per MINUTE. The first electronic computer in the US (ENIAC) cost the equivalent of 8 million dollars. Clearly rich persons toys.
Excellent points.
I always hate to ring up the old chestnut of class envy, and class warfare, but damn - There is some serious delusions going on in the leftosphere regarding how evil the wealthy are based solely on their wealth.
The far right indigents aren't immune either. They just want a king to rule over all, while they submit.
The concept of crabbing is in force here. The idea of pulling everyone down to make everyone equal. If someone starts to climb out of that bucket, the others grab them and p
Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
This piece reads funny. The irony is so thick, it feels like it was written for Onion. Let's break it down real quick:
as NASA is prohibited from engaging in bilateral activities with China, this move by China is more competitive than collaborative
I would like to try to do that. But China is very secretive, and part of the civilian space program is that you've got to be transparent.
"We are not allowed to talk to these people but they are so secretive."
I mean maybe one of you brilliant nerds can enlighten me on the real reason for NASA not working with China but I am pretty sure it boils down to "commies bad". So let's complain that we made a competitive environment with China thinking they would buckle. Oh no, they didn't buckle, now let's bitch about it. The ESA and the Russians are already in talks to work with China with the outliers being US and the small fish, India and Japan. So why aren't we in those talks, because it was prohibited... Jackasses...
Oh but yeehaw for privatization of space stations. I am sure the insurance companies and lawyers are foaming at the mouths. I feel certain this position will not be maintained. It seems unlikely we will work with China in this sector and they have ever right now to deny us access as we denied them. Yet, American tax dollars are certainly not done here. As the Chinese space station becomes a dominant aspect of space exploration and research, NASA might "accept" commercial space stations but the new and improved Space Force won't... So the whole thing seems like the long con where the American tax payers are the ones getting screwed.
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It's going to be an interesting race. The US relying on commercial spaceflight, China with a largely state-funded programme. Both working towards Moon and Mars crewed landings.
China's rate of progress has been impressive. Their Mars rover worked first time, and has already exceeded its original mission parameters. SpaceX has also made fairly rapid progress. Best of luck to both of them.
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Right. I think the competition is ultimately good for anyone who hopes for greater space exploration but in addition to seeing how the race plays out, we also have to keep an eye on the potential for it become a new warfront. The Space Force is already heavily pushing this narrative. Trying to find the right rules/laws for this new frontier will be difficult.
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Commies actually are bad.
How do you know? Where do you find them? All I see when it comes to governments are structures that call themselves communist, but still have currency and a class system, which means they aren't communist by definition (literally.)
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It's a bingo!
The reality is China isn't socialist or communist though we can see aspects of both of these in their government. Nonetheless, as you said, without ending currency and a class system, the real goals of communism haven't been achieved and similarly there are likely many social struggles that socialists would consider antithetical.
At some point the question becomes "Is Communism even achievable in mass"? Which maybe that's the "evil", to idealized the impossible?
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Words have meanings and if you don't use them then you're just running your suck to no useful end. I bet you think North Korea is a Democracy, too.
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Note that the USSR never claimed to be communist. They claimed to be working towards communism.
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It's pretty straightforward considering that the rules are a response to China's behavior, not a cause.
Yes, China is dependent on Spies. - they need the USA to continue to develop technology they can copy.
If for no other reason that it is much less expensive to steal technology than to develop it.
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Perhaps because it is true and happens all the time?
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Perhaps because it is true and happens all the time?
That would be the reason. If China doesn't have spies all over the world, they're the only nation that does not.
Spying is one of the basic tools of nations playing catch up. When you don't know where to even start, you have to get your knowledge somewhere. RE-inventing everything from scratch is a lot more difficult and expensive than just stealing it.
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I note the China apologist, quite possibly part of a state troll organization, copied "lol people believe this" from the west.
The irony...
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Great, since it's so straightforward, how about listing some examples of Chinese espionage of US high-tech government work between 2011 to the present?
Better yet, I am glad you can do that because it's so straightforward but since I made it clear to point out the irony, let me do that again.
But China is very secretive, and part of the civilian space program is that you've got to be transparent.
Open data, open science, open source -- see when you are being transparent, there is no such thing as "espionage"... so your logic literally just seppuku'ed your argument.
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https://www.csis.org/programs/... [csis.org]
Next?
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Who also engineered a deadly virus and, probably intentionally, let it loose on the rest of the world. China created COVID-19 and spread it world-wide.
We can work with China again once every member of the CCP has been put against a wall and shot.
Re: Ironic (Score:1)
You literally described the USA.
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But the point is it's a two-way street. Open science works because people are willing to be open which makes more people willing to be open. If Linus would of gone into business like Microsoft, than Linux would be completely different but he made the first step to be open which lead to the largest open source community project and all it's branches.
By the US not being open to China, they have forced China's hand and it's not that China is not transparent again, they are working more openly with Russia and E
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I mean maybe one of you brilliant nerds can enlighten me on the real reason for NASA not working with China but I am pretty sure it boils down to "commies bad".
During the cold war, the USSR brought some heavy engineering chops to the table when it came to building rockets and space capsules. The US collaborated with the USSR, and Russia afterwards, in some areas of space travel. All China has to offer are dodgy knockoffs of Soviet era rockets and space capsules.
All China brings to the table are cheap labor, relaxed environmental restrictions and tons of money. All are available elsewhere.
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Your explanation is fair for why they were rarely included but it doesn't explain why they were blacklisted. You don't blacklist a market simply because it's subpar.
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The X-37B is exactly this by the US. The idea that any of the countries involved in space exploration are not working with governments to gather military data is absurd. The biggest difference is China is potentially doing some of that initial research or data sharing at a deeper level with their space agency and that the US as a nation that has been in space for a long time, now has platforms more specifically designed for military research in space.
It's absurd to think any nation involved is not doing thi
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We don't work with China due to systematic IP theft and lack of transparency.
Say what you want about Russia, but when something goes wrong, they at least do thorough investigations and release the results. China accidentally killed ~600 people when a rocket booster crashed into their village, and they just covered it up.
to do what? (Score:2)
What can a human-manned space station do, that drones (satellites) cannot?
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Umm, it can get me and friends a place off this planet. That's worth something in itself.
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Umm, it can get me and friends a place off this planet. That's worth something in itself.
It's funny how some people - like you apparently - hate being on earth so much that you want to leave it to live in a tiny tin can, or caves, under martial law. to have your entire world shrink to the point of maybe a small trailer.
When in fact, you're just as likely to hate being in your cubicle in space or cave on Mars.
For all the issues Earth faces, it is still a very beautiful place, still very conducive to life. I rather like it here.
I suspect your main issue is with Humans. Unfortunately, we'r
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A space station is only 400 km 'up there' - and it's in a hostile place
You can get farther away - but only 'sideways' - on a long drive ;-)
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This is the real question. Some musings, in no particular order:
- If we look at the current Mars explorer: after drilling for a sample, the sample tube came up empty. The scientists are groping in the dark to explain this, and to figure out how to solve it. If a person were present, the problem and solution would probably be immediately obvious. The flexibility of a human presence can have a value.
- A human presence soaks up a lot of resources: living space, air, food, water, and all the systems required to
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Yeppers. If there were humans there, when the probe came back empty-handed, someone would have spent a few minutes swearing at "cheapest vendor", then put his/her/its suit on
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You are correct about the flexibility of humans to respond to situations in general.
But my question was about space stations only. I can think of only one thing humans can do now better than robots on space stations - spacewalks for adhoc repairs. But even that, a robot may now be able to do better and cheaper. Plus current space stations are in low-earth orbit (around 400 km)- I expect direct human control of a robot from the ground isn't an issue at such distances, not even high levels of autonomy may not
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Inspire children.
React in real-time to situations on the ground.
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> Inspire children.
True. But inspire them to be the one in a 100 million (current rate, space tourism notwithstanding) who goes to space to do something useful?
> React in real-time to situations on the ground.
True to an extent. My question was about space stations only. Current space stations are in low-earth orbit (around 400 km)- I expect direct human control of a robot from the ground isn't an issue at such distances, so high levels of autonomy may not be necessary for robots.
and build a REAL space station (Score:2)
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And given that it's private funded, this time we WILL get it with blackjack and hookers!
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Not sure how well hookers would work in micro/low gravity environments.
Re: and build a REAL space station (Score:2)
There's research that should only be done in orbit (Score:2)
Plus hotels. I'd like to vacation in orbit. Different station though, please.
Still waiting (Score:2)
We need a Space Race (Score:2)
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Friendly competition in space is the only way we move forward. We only made it to the Moon because of the original space race. We should still be working with China in this area, and all involved need to seriously chill out on weaponizing orbit.
Working with China is not a thing. They only work "with" people who are actually working for them. They have direct and centralized control over who is allowed to do what. Granted, every nation has some element of that, but China takes it to a higher level than most apparently do.
Talk about misreading a headline (Score:2)
ISIS to be followed by space station
They can do that now? - in Dave Letterman's classic astonished tone
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