The Future of Space Exploration

I'm starting this thread to speculate on the very future of space exploration. My theory on how space exploration will happen goes like this:

The first company is able to safely take paying customers to a weightless orbit and back again for a pretty steep price.

This feat is repeated by several other companies and competition begins to drive the prices down to make it more affordable to the average citizen, making these companies begin to look like a very good business venture for investors.

Record profits for the first few of these companies boost their research divisions and they eventually are able to take their customers to the moon for a short stay, again for a very steep price.

After several companies follow suit, prices again are driven down to go to the moon and more and more people are able to travel there.

The envelope continues to be pushed and the first company begins construction on their first 'moon resort' and eventually people have the option to stay on the moon for several days.

After that the pattern would continue as the first company takes their customers to and from Mars, then entire tours of the solar system may become available.

But I don't believe any of this will be possible until the private industry makes it's first step into the space exploration realm. There is too much secrecy with NASA and the government for any of that to be possible.

So what do you think? Do you envision a similar sort of future for space exploration or do you think I am totally off base? Do you think NASA could provide these services in order to cut the strings that the government has and give themselves more freedom for the projects they want to fund?

I wonder about this myself.

If the space shuttle is being retired soon,what will replace it?

Good topic Ketzer22!

reply to post by Ketzer22


First space ops will be corps. they will sell it pretty cheap. Probably there will be a world war of some kind, and I can imagine a kind of gravity bomb being developed and used which would essentially use EM fields to compress lots of mass to a small amount, then explode. This technology will fuel superfluid compression devices which use temperature and EM fields to compress mass so much so to create a black hole-like thing. Spinning it will generate an ergosphere. This will enable a area of spacetime to exist with normal space time (earth's), surrounded by an ergo sphere, surrounded by an event horizon. This will enable FTL speeds by means of amplifying. speeds. (if the space ship travels 1 mph, the ergosphere might travel 20 times faster. After that, the local star systems will be charted by USEV, or unmaned space exploration vehicles. I'd expect some paranoia for what's out there. Humans will probably only ever venture out there on globally funded construction and colonization projects. Eventually they will demand an MSEV, or manned space exploration vehicle. These will venture out. USEVs will probably be many, and indeed carry every more probes within. It is highly likely most space exploration will be this way. MSEVs will never be popular. Eventually something will happen, and we will build CSVs, or Combat space vehicles. These will be manned and unmanned, using mass acceleration weapons which basically shoot lead ions at just bellow the speed of light. Colonization will continue, maybe some brushes with ET, who knows. Eventually G-engines will be invented. Where the craft itself will use gravity rather than fuel to accelerate on an ergosphere. Basically, a large compressed mass will be placed in front of the ship, and suspended by EM fields. The ship will seek to fall into the dense sphere, but the EM fields will repel the sphere ahead. This would basically create the "donkey-carrot" pull system. The ergo sphere will simply accelerate the drag force speed. These free falling G force engines will enable travel to most anywhere far out there, still within our gravity. As we build Dyson spheres to power us, Light based crafts will use light to alter spacetime, artificially creating gravity. Antimatter engines will enable full utilization of the mass as a Gravity generator. This will enable traveling to the furthest of galaxies.

Basically, by 2250ish, humans can go anywhere. Though they won't. Because they will be too cautious and too afraid, and anyone wanting to do it won't be able to afford it. The MSEVs will be the only ability for mankind to get away. Colonies themselves will probably be ultra controlled Le Corbusier garden cities, and planets themselves may only have anywhere from 20,000 to a few million people. HIGHLY decentralized. Earth will always be home, always be overcrowded, and always have class problems. The only difference is the fact that our social democracies will be capable of supporting the problem-ed peoples of the world.

Well I deinitely think the things that I touched on in my post would definitely not be possible until our primitive view of space flight is changed... And retiring the space shuttle is a nice first step. I personally equate our current methods of space travel to trying to cross the ocean in a hallowed out tree trunk lol...

I want to bump this thread. I would love to hear more ideas.

Well... as can be seen in this Space.com article (07 May 2010):
"Futuristic Interstellar Space Probe Idea Revisited"
www.space.com...

...the rocket-heads are still not considering Burkhard Heim's hyperspace travel.

"Heim theory"
en.wikipedia.org...
and
"Welcome to Mars express: only a three hour trip"
news.scotsman.com...

So, I guess we must wait for an sympathetic alien ET arrival... to show how to do space travel correctly.


[edit on 5/8/2010 by Larryman]

reply to post by Larryman


Well we kind of already know how to do it. It's just a matter of money and resources.

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by Larryman

 

Well we kind of already know how to do it. It's just a matter of money and resources.

If they would just stop wasting money, time, and brain-power on developing pathetic reaction-propulsion systems... then they would have the resources to develop a hyperspace-drive system.

reply to post by Larryman


Well just like most things, we will first develop a weapon that the engine will be based off of.

My first post here really goes into the engine types.

Oh well, sigh. I would just love to generate a Tesla device on steroids and use EM waves to break the very fabric of space time and change the states of matter into antimatter.