Nasa

[capsulecorpjx]

Why not funnel half the NASA funding to researching a new engine that uses something more efficient than carbon-based fuel?

We can't get very far, efficiently using jet fuel based rocket technology, why waste money on more space missions using the stuff?

A side effect of a break through would be revamping the entire World's energy system. Imagine if they discovered an engine that used some sort of plasma as propulsion, that is a 1000 times more efficient in getting something into space compared to jet-fuel.

That same engine and energy source will cure the world energy needs.

[baja_yu]

How do you know they aren't funding such researches already? And how do you know that "some sort of plasma" is 1000 times more efficient than jet-fuel? I have blood plasma in me, about 3 liters of it, but I doubt anything powered by it could get of the planet. And by definition, plasma is just ionized gas, so it's not something magical that will help us find Klingons.

[MaximilianMayrhofer]

Unfortunately capsule, your idea exactly reflects a core problem in space travel. Propulsion, either jet fuel or your own plasma idea, is functionally equivalent to throwing a rock in one direction so that you go in the other. We are limited by the need to carry a sack of rocks on our backs wherever we go. The further we want to go, the more rocks we have to carry, which means carrying more weight for the larger containers of those rocks, ad infinitum.

What we need to be focusing on is something entirely different. Rather than carrying rocks on our backs to move across space, we need to make space move under us. This is the only way that we will be able to accomplish long distance and hyper speed travel. Interestingly, the scientific theories outlined in the book A Wrinkle In Time actually have real significance for future space travel.

[abhijit]

In the future, all engines will work on multiple sources of fuel. If one fuel source is exhausted, another will take its place. This will be seamless to the traveler.

[MaximilianMayrhofer]

[cough]hybrid[/cough]

[FireXtol]

Unfortunately capsule, your idea exactly reflects a core problem in space travel. Propulsion, either jet fuel or your own plasma idea, is functionally equivalent to throwing a rock in one direction so that you go in the other. We are limited by the need to carry a sack of rocks on our backs wherever we go. The further we want to go, the more rocks we have to carry, which means carrying more weight for the larger containers of those rocks, ad infinitum.

What we need to be focusing on is something entirely different. Rather than carrying rocks on our backs to move across space, we need to make space move under us. This is the only way that we will be able to accomplish long distance and hyper speed travel. Interestingly, the scientific theories outlined in the book A Wrinkle In Time actually have real significance for future space travel.

Sure! And chemotherapy, radiation, and a bag of pills can cure cancer.

Great Scott! Capsule, you just need to think 4th dimensionally.

[MaximilianMayrhofer]

Actually FireXtol, theories that postulate the concept of bending space-time to achieve propulsion stand on relatively firm ground. It has been shown that space-time can be warped, has been warped, and indeed during the early moments of the big bang, space-time itself would have had to travel much, much faster than the speed of light.

Great Scott! You just need to study theoretical physics!

[baja_yu]

Who's this Scott I keep hearing about? Is he really such a great guy?

[abhijit]

[cough]hybrid[/cough]

You mean to tell me the future has already happened

[baja_yu]

You mean to tell me the future has already happened

You just got out of the DeLorean, huh?

[DeanMc]

All we need to do is to get as far as mars, find the prothean data cache develop mass effect field technology and unearth the charon relay......

In fairness though, I agree with Max, I think we are going the wrong way about space travel.

[bflosabre91]

as much as all of us would love to see enormous jumps in space travel technology in our lifetime, we probably won't see it. I would be content that by the time I'm old and retired that I would be able to take a trip on an affordable space flight to see the earths horizon, the blackness of outer space, and to experience the feeling of weightlessness.

[DeanMc]

Really, I just want to get on a ryan air flight that flies to the city I am staying in not the one next to it.

[abhijit]

You just got out of the DeLorean, huh?

A telephone booth, actually.

[abhijit]

Really, I just want to get on a ryan air flight that flies to the city I am staying in not the one next to it.

Do not fly by Ryan Air.

[NickThissen]

Actually FireXtol, theories that postulate the concept of bending space-time to achieve propulsion stand on relatively firm ground. It has been shown that space-time can be warped, has been warped, and indeed during the early moments of the big bang, space-time itself would have had to travel much, much faster than the speed of light.

Great Scott! You just need to study theoretical physics!

Just because something can possibly be accomplished under our current understanding of space-time, doesn't mean that we can figure out how to do it.

Yes, warping space-time is a very good way to travel, but I can't see that happening in the far future, let alone during our lifetime. Should we stop all current developments just to focus all our efforts on something theoretical, with no idea how it should work?

What I'm trying to say is, even though we know it might be possible, we will have to get there step by step. Compare this to, I dunno, every major technological breakthrough ever achieved?

Take spaceflight for instance. I'm sure the Wright brothers knew that it was theoretically possible to fly in space. But they didn't build the space shuttle did they? No, they started small, building a plane that stays on the earth. Over time, planes develop and eventually we figure out how to overcome all the problems to get into space. Just because someone thought it might be possible to go into space in 1900 doesn't mean they simply had to build a spaceship to do it.


So, I disagree with anyone saying NASA is wasting resources. If people had any solid leads on how to get space-time warping to work, and how to overcome the major problems it brings, then I'm sure people would be working on that. But we don't. We have no idea how to warp space-time manually so don't count on it becoming a means of travel anytime soon.



EDIT
This reminds me of a Discovery channel (or NatGeo, dunno) program a while back where Michio Kaku was explaining why teleportation is possible. While there are theoretical possibilities to teleport a human being (or any object for that matter), for example using quantum entanglement, there still are major problems that for now seem absolutely impossible to overcome. In the tv show he seemed to be waving away these problems like "someone else will figure that out"... It annoyed me.

For a specific example, quantum entanglement has already been used to let an atom take on the exact properties of another atom. So, says Michio, one simply takes a human, puts him into a 'quantum state scanner' (whatever the hell that may be), scan the atomic state of every single atom in the body, send that information with the speed of light to some distant location (having no idea how to send that HUGE amount of data, I can't remember a specific figure but take all the data on any harddisk on earth and multiply that by 10 a bunch of times), somehow assemble the same number of atoms in that distant location, and finally let them take on the same state as the original atoms.
Easy!

[EntityX]

I think you make a good point Nick. I think it's good to stay open to different types of development but continue with ones that are most practical presently. I think it's possible to develop fuels and propulsion systems that could yield a tremendous amount of energy for thier wieght. You'd have to get away from chemical fuels I would think. Consider the hydrogen bomb and how much energy is released in an H-bomb explosion considering the wieght of the H-bomb. If we could learn how to harness nuclear energy for space flight somehow that might be an answer.

[NickThissen]

There's a vast amount of different options for future travel and energy generation, some highly unlikely to ever work practically. I think of simply different kinds of fuel (hydrogen for example, not very likely), nuclear fusion (very likely), solar sails (extremely long distance only and quite slow), teleportation (very unlikely), space-time warping (very unlikely).

I personally think nuclear fusion is the way to go right now, but even though there's a great amount of research in that area it's still far from being a practical energy source, let alone being able to use it in a spaceship.

[Shaggy Hiker]

If people had any solid leads on how to get space-time warping to work, and how to overcome the major problems it brings, then I'm sure people would be working on that. But we don't. We have no idea how to warp space-time manually so don't count on it becoming a means of travel anytime soon.

I'll leave my brain to science. It's pretty warped already, so perhaps they can learn something.

Fusion energy is ten years out, and has been so since sometime in the 60's.

The real answer for the earth is electricity. It can be generated in many different ways, some good, some bad, some fast, some slow, many of which are not additive (some subtract), but others are additive (some sum). And just in case anybody was curious, I wrote that sentence just for those last two words.

The drawback with electricity is not the generation, it is storage. That's the problem with Hydrogen, too, because Hydrogen can be obtained cheaply, it just can't be stored easily, transported easily, or compacted easily.

Give us a battery with 10% the energy density of a gallon of gasoline and the internal combustion engine would be a museum piece in less than a decade.

[NickThissen]

Electricity is usually the energy that needs to be generated, it is not a means to generate energy. You can't drive a car on nuclear fusion alone; two nuclei fusing together don't help the car move at all. Nuclear fusion is used to generate heat, which turns water into steam, which drives turbines, which generates electricity, and that is what will drive a car (if it ever drives on nuclear fusion).

[Shaggy Hiker]

True, but if your propellant is electricity, the source can, and will, be diverse. We don't need A new energy source in that case, as we can use a spread approach to the problem. The key would be moving away from the gas engine, which will not fully happen until battery technology leaps well forwards of where it currently stands. Nanotech might do that...but then again, it might not.

[dilettante]

We just need to get hold of Tesla's papers that were seized after his death during WWII. Who's up for a raid on Warehouse 13?

[MaximilianMayrhofer]

Warehouse 13 is t3h fun.

It has already been demonstrated that it is possible to deliver electrical power wirelessly using non-radiative resonant EM fields (Go Tesla!). You could embed a network of nodes such as this into road surfaces, enabling both the powering of automobiles as well as any devices in them. The reason that this is not already the case is simply because the power companies could not figure out a practical way of charging for the power generated. In the words of JP Morgan when he forced Tesla to stop the research, "If I can't put a metre on it, it will never see the light of day."

[Shaggy Hiker]

Yeah, they were city folk. In some countries, such a design might even be practical. In the US...not so much. There are stretches of interstate highway so remote that you can't even get FM radio (and darn little AM in good weather). In addtion to that, there are miles of forest service dirt roads, that are greater in total length than the interstate highway system, and which are not all even open, let alone serviced. You won't be embedding squat in those roads, so you would be left with a dual system, or perhaps a battery system for the off-grid area, though those could be absolutely enormous.

[NickThissen]

I don't believe the 'wireless power source in the road' approach never worked out because the power companies couldn't charge us for it. There's much more serious problems with that approach:

1. You'll have to have this system everywhere in the world where a car might go. If not, all cars would require a secondary energy source and the whole point is lost. It might be practical for large cities (but then again, who is going to completely wreck every single street in a large city to put the power sources underneath?) but I don't see this system being implemented in great amounts. If it's not in great amounts, it's useless, just like bio-fuel is right now (hardly any fuel stations to get it).

2. Wireless power transfer like that is extremely inefficient. You'd lose a lot more then we lose now.

3. And the most important reason: where does this system get its power from? Magic? These 'wireless generators' need to be powered as well, and there is still no other means than the ones we already have (fossil fuels, etc). Combine this with the inefficiency in point 2 and you'll see that it's not such a good idea after all.

[baja_yu]

Nothing's efficient in early stages. The combustion engine wasn't and neither was electricity generation and transfer through wires. But it can be perfected.

[MaximilianMayrhofer]

I don't believe the 'wireless power source in the road' approach never worked out because the power companies couldn't charge us for it. There's much more serious problems with that approach:

1. You'll have to have this system everywhere in the world where a car might go. If not, all cars would require a secondary energy source and the whole point is lost. It might be practical for large cities (but then again, who is going to completely wreck every single street in a large city to put the power sources underneath?) but I don't see this system being implemented in great amounts. If it's not in great amounts, it's useless, just like bio-fuel is right now (hardly any fuel stations to get it).

What makes you think that roadworks don't go on in large cities all the time? Because they do. A system like this would be installed in stages to prevent inconvenience. And as for the secondary energy source, what about high density batteries? Would that then 'completely defeat the purpose'? I think not. And even if this system was just for cities, that by itself could massively reduce pollution.

2. Wireless power transfer like that is extremely inefficient. You'd lose a lot more then we lose now.

There are two methods of delivering power wirelessly. One is the beam-like transmission of electromagnetic waves, which is extremely inefficient. The other is known as resonant energy transfer, which has been demonstrated as capable of high efficiency, as the power required to maintain a static resonant field is much lower.

3. And the most important reason: where does this system get its power from? Magic? These 'wireless generators' need to be powered as well, and there is still no other means than the ones we already have (fossil fuels, etc). Combine this with the inefficiency in point 2 and you'll see that it's not such a good idea after all.

Yes, magic. Magic like the many alternative energy sources already available that are non-pollutive. Nuclear energy for example, even if we consider toxic waste, is still far less pollutive than power generated from coal/gas, and insanely less pollutive than the combined output of the thousands of cars that would otherwise be burning fossil fuels to power their engine, instead of a road network powered centrally by a nuclear plant. Combine this with a new understanding of wireless transfer and it could be a good idea after all!

[baja_yu]

I don't know what's the big deal with toxic/nuclear waste. Put it in a rocket and hurl it at the Sun. Job done.

[EntityX]

That's not a bad idea baja yu. I'd never thought of it. I wonder if it has ever been seriously considered. I don't know what the total tonnage of nuclear waste is for our planet in a year. Would it be practical. What would the cost be to rocket that much waste into the sun.

[baja_yu]

Unfortunately I think there's way to much of to be financially acceptable to do it.

[MaximilianMayrhofer]

We already have methods of destroying toxic waste. Solar Furnaces.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Nothing's efficient in early stages. The combustion engine wasn't

Still isn't.

[Shaggy Hiker]

That's not a bad idea baja yu. I'd never thought of it. I wonder if it has ever been seriously considered. I don't know what the total tonnage of nuclear waste is for our planet in a year. Would it be practical. What would the cost be to rocket that much waste into the sun.

The accident rate of rockets is far too high. An error with a typical rocket is an expensive mistake. An error with a rocket carrying nuclear waste as a payload becomes a catastrophe of very long lasting result. As long as the rate of failure is 'common', you might as well just take the waste, chop it into small amounts, and mail it to random people. At least we know how to do that. Heck, they could just hire AOL.

[dbasnett]

Why not funnel half the NASA funding to researching a new engine that uses something more efficient than carbon-based fuel?

We can't get very far, efficiently using jet fuel based rocket technology, why waste money on more space missions using the stuff?

A side effect of a break through would be revamping the entire World's energy system. Imagine if they discovered an engine that used some sort of plasma as propulsion, that is a 1000 times more efficient in getting something into space compared to jet-fuel.

That same engine and energy source will cure the world energy needs.

I don't know where the NASA budget cuts went, but you might as well take the rest. I was going to say NASA might need some to pay the Russians / Chinese / Japanese for rides to the ISS, but why give the appearance of being something we aren't any longer.

When I was growing up we had people that seemed to understand that going to the moon, and then the planets fueled innovation, that striving for something difficult made us all better.

Solving our everyday problems, such as disease and energy, are important.

[baja_yu]

The accident rate of rockets is far too high. An error with a typical rocket is an expensive mistake.

A very good point. Also I just heard that a nuclear power plant near here produces about a 100 barrels of waste a year. That's about 20 tons per year. I'm not sure how much payload could one launch carry. I think Discovery wieghed about 70 tons, so we would need a launch every 3-4 years just for that one plant.

[EntityX]

When they finally successfully develop teleportation they could teleport the nuclear waste into the sun. How much the cost of teleporting is would be a consideration. If they finally do develop teleportation I wonder how much energy would be required to teleport a human to let's say the moon.