The Future of the ISS

The Future of the International Space Station.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Future
• ISS
• assembly
• international
• space
• station

[andymaque]

bag of shite and going nowhere.

Physical travel like this will take us hundreds of years just to get to a dead star.

I prefer the dollar to be spent on unmanned missions until we get more information.

Most of the experiments have been fruitless and are being canceled every day so we can afford to finish it time to crash it into the sea.

We build Sandcastles so we can smash them.

[BrunoTheQuestionable]

Will do :)

[HAL11000]

Just look for the book 'The case for MARS' my friend. Its quite enlightening. :)

[BrunoTheQuestionable]

Not yet - we won't be ready for that for a while.

At some stage it will be useful to have a fill-up station at the moon-base for return flights.

[HAL11000]

Are you thinking of putting a refueling node on the Moon?

[HAL11000]

The 'Sabatier reactor' achieved 96% conversion efficiency.-No perfection necessary. Using aerocapture in the Mars Direct mission thus eliminates a significant propulsive ∆V essentially "for free". Mars Direct uses lower energy conjuction-class trajectories that have a lower entry velocities and thus lower heating rates and experience much lower deceleration forces.

[BrunoTheQuestionable]

Manufacture of fuel on Mars looks like the way to go - but its another difficult technology that has to be perfected. Fuel can also be manufactured on the Moon if there is ice at the poles.

[BrunoTheQuestionable]

I hadn't realised the distinction - aerocapture would be great but its tricky. It would seem to be tougher for large spacecraft (smaller surface area/mass ratio). Can enough drag be acheived on a large spacecraft ? I'd like to see it done - apparently they gave up on the Mars Odyssey orbiter.

[HAL11000]

I said 'aerocapture', not aerobraking, the two methods are very different. Fuel will not be a problem for a return flight back to Earth because CH4/O2 propellent can be created from the Martian atmosphere by a separate vehicle sent to Mars before the exprorers set foot on the surface.

[BrunoTheQuestionable]

Good point about the aerobraking. The argument only holds for cargo and for when Mars is in the correct postion. What matters most is total spacecraft mass. The MRO aerobraking took 5 months - you wouldn't want to support a crew for that much longer. Also the fuel requirement for a crew return flight are less from the moon.