Discussion The next 100 years..

GoForPDI

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Its getting late, so I won't say much just now.. But, bit of a light break from all the political discussion and general pessimism amongst many posters (Hey, I don't blame you!)

So, how do you see Spaceflight evolving over the next 100 years, manned and unmanned? What do you think will realistically happen, and what do you want to happen?

What sort of adventures do you think are worth having? And make a good case! :D Might be nice to have some debate about some positive imaginationy dreamy stuff for once!

So, have at it, your predicted/fantasy space chronology, 2011-2111.
 

Columbia42

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Missions to planets and bases on Mars, Europa (to drill through the ice and study the possible ocean underneath) and others. I'd also like some serious thought to be put into interstellar travel. On a more Orbiter related note I want global hires imagery of all planets and moons. There's just so much that can/will happen and if I think of more I'll make another post.
 

fsci123

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I see massive colonies on the moon mars and Callisto...
2020|American moon base built
2029|Manned Mars Flyby
2030|First Russian moon mission
2037|American Base built and first american landing on mars
2040|Worldwide wars begin in asia and south america
2045|Second Civil War interrupts US space program
2060|America recovers and manned lunar base population reaches 200
2061|First Child born in space large debate over citizenship and title of child
2062|Callisto base developed
2065|BAse becomes a colony population reaches 5000
2067|Chinese space program putts a small outpost on moon
2078|Atomic Wars china is dissolved
2080|ET signal detected
2081|Scientist attempt to develop a strategy for interstellar travel
2083|The big three(America, Brazil and, Russia) develop a sure date for the first interstellar expedition(2130)
2090|A second signal reaches earth
2100s|TV ,computer, and phone becomes obsolete
 

Yoda

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A manned mission to Mars in my opinion will not happen in the next 100 years; there is already no funding or political/public wil to drive a program this extensive ( Hell, they just shut down the US manned space program due to public and political indifference regarding manned space flight).

With a growing global population, diminishing food and fossil fuel sources as well as climate change the manned space program will face a very grim future I'm afraid.
It's all about priorities and planting a flag on a mostly dead planet isn't high on the priority list. :cheers:
 

Donamy

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So much for the break on pessimism. :lol:
 

mojoey

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it will take a hundred years for a border fence made of aluminum foil, i dont see any new federal funded space hops for quite a while. im not certain if we as a nation will ever go beyond the moon because of democratic and republican bickery
 

Artlav

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One thing is certain, all else is speculation:
65_years.png
 

Dambuster

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If America doesn't, someone else will. And quite frankly, as long as someone does - I'm happy with that.
 

Spacethingy

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Oh, GoForPDI, what happened to your nice happy thread?! :lol:

I would like to see a moon-landing.

I'm 17, and so have only ever seen edited documentaries etc. of Armstrong and co. doing their stuff. It's not the same as seeing it live, and knowing that out there, somewhere, some blokes are doing something flippin' amazing.

With current information technology, the experience would be just as great as back in '69, if not even better, IMHO. So much time has passed, I reckon the reaction would be just as awe-struck as before.

Just imagine the astronauts' Twitter page as they descend... :cool:

And quite frankly, as long as someone does - I'm happy with that.

Here here!
 

GoForPDI

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Just imagine the astronauts' Twitter page as they descend... :cool:

That is something i've thought of before :p Blogging during a long mission, what a fantastic way to get people interested.

Who else can check in on Mars?
 

C3PO

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I believe that people will venture out of LEO, but not as frequently as most people think. Most of the exploration will be done with robots because that's the most efficient way.
I don't think the US will be in the lead in manned exploration, because the risk is too high to be acceptable to the general public.

Even seasoned Orbiteers tend to forget how dangerous space travel really is, and how enormous the levels of energy involved are.
 

Wishbone

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Mars is a must, we cannot think about colonizing the Solar system without going to Mars. Yet we either have to overengineer and send entire cities' worth into LEO (to have enough propellant for a fast hyperbolic trip), or wait for medical science to hand us the keys to space - by providing the anti-radiation and anti-atrophy and anti-bone-loss drugs. I don't think the (first) brute force approach is economical.
 

Chub777

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Manned lunar base? Definitely. Manned mission to an asteroid? Maybe. Manned Venus flyby? Possible. Manned mission to Mars? Possible. Manned mission to the outer Solar System? Probably not.
 

orbekler

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Unless someone pops up with a (real and working) kind of space warping device, I'm afraid manned flight will be mostly limited to LEO for many years, perhaps some centuries to go.
Provided that economy will survive from a worldwide collapse.

At least there is Orbiter.
 

T.Neo

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Well, there are some dates that are fixed either by plans or by physics and technology (arrival and EOM dates for interplanetary probes).

For example, 2011 is sure to be the shuttle retirement date; 2011-2012 will be the completion of the ISS. ISS is likely to be deorbited in 2020 or maybe 2025, and circa 2015 at the worst.

Once USOS operations stop, there will no longer be an ISS. Russia will likely continue operating a space station of some sort, as will ESA, potentially in a joint program (see ATV-derived Mini station, etc).

We'll see Dragon flying to the ISS first and if all goes well it'll give the US more-or-less reliable access to LEO. Once the ISS reaches the end of its life there won't really be anywhere to go to for a US program, considering the spacecraft themselves can't really be used for much on their own, so some sort of US station program (or cooperation with Russian and/or ESA efforts) is possible.

China is progressing at a snails pace, they have a painfully low flight-rate. They'll get around to launching their space station- slowly. They're definitely not going to get to the Moon by 2020, or even 2030, unless they accelerate to Apollo-like levels of progress. I doubt anything would motivate them to do so.

India also has plans for a manned capsule and a Moon mission in the 2020s, but that won't happen; they haven't even flown their capsule yet and Moon vehicles are unclear. Maybe they too will progress, however.

We might see a ESA-Russian or a US Moon program within the next 40 years, with infrastructure and experience built up over multiple years in LEO. There are reasons which would make it likely and reasons which would make it unlikely. It could end up being very much like a sort of 'budget Apollo', doable, but not really leading to anything more.

I severely doubt we will see a Mars landing within the next 100 years or more, unless there is some sort of wild-card that catalyses such a program (and the thing about wildcards is that you can't predict what they'll be or when or where they'll pop up). Or unless the cost of such a program and the hardware involved drops enough to make it viable enough for politicians, but that is unlikely.

We might see, as technological proficiency increases, a slowly dropping cost/kg to LEO. If Skylon is researched enough, built, and does what it says it can do, it could potentially be very disruptive to the launch market and potentially put most conventional launchers out of business. If. If it is successful enough (read: better than STS about delivering on its promises) it might see adoption with ESA or others depending on climate, cost, and motivation. If doesn't fulfill its promises at all (pretty much like STS), then it'll further bitter attitudes and experience towards spaceplanes/RLVs.

But it is unlikely that cost/kg to LEO will magically drop to tiny levels, certainly not within the next 100 years.

Virgin Galactic will eventually start flying commercial trips on SS2, which could be a profitable endeavour; over time, operation of such a vehicle could become cheaper and safer. But a suborbital vehicle is nowhere near on the level of an orbital vehicle, and it is doubtful that purely commercially-funded vehicles will arise to fill the need for space tourism. But we could see more tourists on Soyuz, to varying degrees, and potentially on Dragon or a similar US vehicle, eventually. But it's doubtful that there will be huge space hotels, or even small space hotels; tourism will likely be erratic, piggybacked onto missions with other goals, and be only for the seriously wealthy (in the order of several million USD per seat at the least).

Mark my words: there is no advantage to BEO manned spaceflight, and for cost, little advantage even to LEO manned spaceflight. There is no reason to go to the Moon, or Mars, or even LEO. Nobody cares. It's space; most people don't even fully grasp that it's a real place. There are no advantages worth the cost. We can go on about interplanetary lebensraum, and space survival, and deflecting asteroids and whatnot, but the cold hard fact is that nobody is going to care about it; at least not in our era. Science doesn't cut it. We- the space enthusiasts might want to see these sorts of scientific discoveries, but most people, politicians, they don't care. They don't give a damn about the ice content of Hyperion or the composition of the rings of Jupiter. It means nothing; a nice little bit of trivia, from a place so far away from our troubled little world. Not useful, or helpful, and at a cost as well. Why should we do it?

I know that's a very pessimistic point of view. But in my experience, all I've seen from spaceflight is failure, capability devolution, exorbitant costs, exploitation by politicians, corruption, unimportance, and downright disinterest from most people.

I wish we could do more in space; I wish we could finally grow up and take a challenge. I wish we could actually do things. I wish we could settle other worlds and send missions to the stars. Heck, I wish I could go to those places out in space myself.

But if we don't have a reason, if we don't have a proper attitude, our chance of doing anything new in space in the next 100 years is about as high as me staging a superluminal trip to 55 Cancri from my backyard.

If we don't have a proper attitude, we might never do anything interesting in space.
 

fireballs619

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I would make predictions, but I know there is no way they could be anything close to accurate. Picture people in the year 1900. Do you think any of them imagined that men would be on the moon in a mere 69 years? This was before the airplane had even gained prominence! There's really no way to predict the global landscape in the next 30, 40, or even 50 years. It's highly possible that manned spaceflight will turn around, and, who know, maybe we'll land a man on Mars in the next 100 years. There's really no way of knowing until it happens.
 

T.Neo

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Predicting the future is a tricky business (and often one that gets you laughed at later). However, one should note that the more knowledge there is to work from, the easier it is to speculate.

As we advance, we can speculate to an increasingly better degree. The thing that you will miss out on however is those sort of wild-cards. Like the internet, which very few people if any truely predicted the impact of.

Maybe some sort of wild-card will occur in or affecting the realm of spaceflight. But by its very nature we don't know what it would be.

We could speculate on it though, but it might be difficult to avoid things ending up becoming like a space fanboy's rocketpunk fantasy.
 

iamwearingpants

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I would say by 2030 spaceflight will be affordable to most people, and by 2025 we'll have sub-orbital flights carrying people and stuff across the planet regularly.

By 2050 We'll be setting up interplanetary bases on the Moon, Mars with populations of about 40-50 people. I'd also say that by 2110 we'll have some kind of interstellar ship in the works.
 

T.Neo

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What sort of technological and political/economic developments do you propose would support such a rapid explosion of human space activities? ;)
 
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