Discussion The next 100 years..

[Ghostrider]

Predicting the future is a tricky business

Well, we're all interested in the future because that's where we're going to spend our time. And of course future events will affect our lives in the future.:lol:

/Criswell

 

[C3PO]

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.

And another thing. USA had a lot of help from german scientists to get into space. Maybe China or India will get there with the help of american scientists. Economics is a powerful force.
And 100 years is a long time. Try thinking about where we were tech-wise 100 years ago.

 

[T.Neo]

Big difference in scenarios. Spaceflight was an entirely new field and the US and USSR were engaged in a cold war. There was far more funding and progress going into spaceflight back then.

Far more is known about spaceflight nowdays than was known during the 1950s-1960s. You can find info on the internet that wasn't known back then. If India and China need expertise, they'll get it.

But that doesn't change the economic or technical issues, or in the case of China particularly, the incredibly slow pace of their program.

 

[Jarvitä]

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

A space elevator that reduces space access costs from 1000 dollars per kg to cents per kg. As long as we're stuck with surface launchers, all we'll ever do is flags/footsteps missions, probes and limited colonisation. For a serious "get off this rock" effort (significant enough to visibly reduce Earth population), we need a series of space elevators and an interplanetary infrastructure capable of handling the numbers. Each of the G20 countries would need to build several space elevators for this to happen, combined with a united interplanetary flight, terraforming and resettlement program.

This would require a significant change in the way we look at politics, switching from "What'll get us elected the next time around?"/"What'll keep the subjects from rising against our rule?" to "What will ensure the continued survival and spread of humanity as a species throughout the cosmos?". Interstellar colonisation would also need to be seriously studied and considered - after all, given a continued geometric growth pattern, filling up the solar system should come soon after filling up the Earth.

 

[orbekler]

...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 wouldn't call it "pessimistic point of view", just... experienced optimism!:lol:

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.

That's right, there is no way to make accurate predictions, but still I got the feeling that somewhat we reached a technology knee point. We have powerful computers, and we communicate in real time all over the world at affordable prices. But for space... 42 years are passed since the first men walked on the Moon, and from that point out, nothing (manned). I know that we cannot ask space technology to follow a linear function, but neither to drop. I would like to share the "highly possible", but I can't.
T.Neo explained in a very elegant way what could (not) happen of the space exploration in the (near) future.

 

[Artlav]

Spaceflight-wise there are options, technologically and politically.

Technologically, it's:
-Chemical engines stay. No trips further than Mars, no economical space exploitation possible. No kids ever go into space.
-Nuclear engines proliferation. Trips to Mars and gas giants. Possibility of an interstellar probe. Possible economical exploitation of space resources. Some rich or lucky kids in space.
-New inventions that make space access easy. Manifest destiny. Economic exploitation of space resources. Kids in space are common.

Politically:
-The world stabilizes into something that works. Then technology dictates the possible, and all goes as said above
-The world goes out in nuclear light (or similar). No space flight in foreseeable future.
-The world becomes a legal tyranny. Few if any space flights, no reason for them.
-The world devolves into a stagnation. Technology and need for spaceflight is lost.
-A miracle happens. Interstellar settlements by the end of the century.

Which way would we go?
Keep your health good, and see for yourself.

 

[deltawing777]

Manned?...some other country will go somewhere. In america forget it. We have been mothballed. Robots and probes are now going where no man has gone before. YEY! Humanity :dry:

---------- Post added at 02:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:13 PM ----------

I am actually hoping quantum physics will get us where we need to go instead of ships or a combination of both. Like in T.Neo's post #18 I think the wild-card here is some sort of quantum physics breakthrough

 

[Artlav]

Like in T.Neo's post #18 I think the wild-card here is some sort of quantum physics breakthrough

Or someone digging up a Stargate.

 

[deltawing777]

Or someone digging up a Stargate.

Or making one or a wormhole or teleportation of organic lifeforms, warp drives, anti- matter/Dark matter propulsion,or microwave ovens (oh wait we already have those) humm.........

 

[T.Neo]

A space elevator that reduces space access costs from 1000 dollars per kg to cents per kg. As long as we're stuck with surface launchers, all we'll ever do is flags/footsteps missions, probes and limited colonisation.

Space elevators? Seriously? You mean the things that need to be made out of materials that don't exist, deliver to only one (high) orbit, clash with all sorts of debris and vehicles in other orbits, that expose passengers to high rates of radiation, that encounter atmospheric corrosion, and that we have no idea how to build?

Yeah. :facepalm:

Maybe there could be some form of non-rocket spacelaunch (such as a [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop"]Lofstrom Loop[/ame]) that could be advantageous, but the space elevator is one, big, monolithic, expensive, limited, extremely speculative concept. Nobody is going to build a space elevator and magically have launch rates per kg in the order of cents.

Each of the G20 countries would need to build several space elevators for this to happen, combined with a united interplanetary flight, terraforming and resettlement program.

That's a bit of a problem, considering that only two of the current G20 nations are on the equator. :uhh:

Where do you propose to send roughly 400 000 people each day (apparently the number needed just to offset current population growth, without actually reducing the population)?

I'm a big fan of terraforming, but to terraform Mars you'd need to move huge amounts of mass (either by redirecting magically nitrogen-rich comets, or by liberating gases from the regolith). It would be an absolutely huge project and while it might be (relatively) technologically mundane, require knowledge that we simply don't have (yet).

Terraforming Venus is even more difficult; removing that atmosphere would require very advanced efforts, and changing the spin of the planet would require an extremely powerful civilisation (spin up Venus to a 24 hour day-length over 200 years would likely require power at a rate of several exawatts).

How do you propose to send hundreds of thousands of people across the interplanetary void each day? Spacecraft that orbit around in LEO are difficult enough to construct.

This would require a significant change in the way we look at politics, switching from "What'll get us elected the next time around?"/"What'll keep the subjects from rising against our rule?" to "What will ensure the continued survival and spread of humanity as a species throughout the cosmos?". Interstellar colonisation would also need to be seriously studied and considered - after all, given a continued geometric growth pattern, filling up the solar system should come soon after filling up the Earth.

Let's work on getting the birth rate back up to 1960s growth levels so we can imitate bacteria conquering a petri dish, and outstrip all our supplies while we're doing so... :dry:

Filling up the Earth? Do we really want that? A world of trillions of people, existing only to further an economic machine, living on a planet of an entirely obliterated heritage?*

Nobody is going to care about conquering the cosmos. They're only going to care about power, or at the best, what they can achieve in their lifetime. People aren't perfect.

*And entirely obliterated oceans, Earth having long been rendered uninhabitable by petawatts of waste heat.

I wouldn't call it "pessimistic point of view", just... experienced optimism!

Yeah.

Keep your health good, and see for yourself.

In my short little life I've seen enough disappointment already. Why bother sticking around for as long as possible to see even more disappointment?

I am actually hoping quantum physics will get us where we need to go instead of ships or a combination of both. Like in T.Neo's post #18 I think the wild-card here is some sort of quantum physics breakthrough

What mechanism do you propose as this wildcard? Something magic that we don't know about?

These things could exist... but the possibility of them existing is very, very low. Generally the more magic-esque an undiscovered scientific theory is, the less chance it actually has of really existing.

Wormholes and warp drives are nice ideas, but one must remember that from what has been proposed, constructing them would require masses on the order of multiple Earths at least...

 

[Artlav]

All the cool technology is quickly restricted by the governments - a hundred years ago anyone could built and fly a plane, now few countries allow it, and even they need licenses and other crap.

And that's only one side of the problem.
Anything good enough to easy the space travel would also be WMD-grade stuff.
So there will be no-proliferation or dream-shattering restrictions and licensing to use it.

Only chance is to blast off first, and let the world adapt to consequences, instead of cowardly trying to uninvent them, like the nuclear technology.

People should stop thinking in terms of saving everyone at whatever cost, it's the way to hell and stagnation.

 

[T.Neo]

So it'd be perfectly fine if we use random third world cities as nuclear test sites?

Anything good enough to easy the space travel would also be WMD-grade stuff.

Depends on what it is. A "magic box" might be, but a low-cost small SSTO probably wouldn't pose all that threat of damage, and even an orbital fusion spacecraft could be pretty mundane (relatively).

Then again, it wouldn't make sense to let any old person fly around in a spacecraft. You need a license to drive an automobile; you needa license to be a pilot. There ought to be restrictions on spaceflight too, for a coherent spacefaring society. They'll be more severe than those for aircraft, most likely (because spaceflight is of course higher risk than the operation of an aircraft), but they need not be tyrannical*.

*Depends heavily on your definitition of 'tyrannical'...

 

[Artlav]

The traffic accident level in this city, where a quarter of drivers bought or cheated their license, is the same as in any other similarly sized city in countries where licenses were acquired mostly properly.

What's the point of having licenses then?

There must be natural selection.
Idiots should not be protected from killing themselves, otherwise they will never disappear.

 

[T.Neo]

Not to offend you, Artlav, or any other Muscovites or Russians in general for that matter, but I fear that in this particular case adherence and enforcement of laws isn't particularly good.

It's like that in South Africa as well, as it is in presumably many other places on the planet.

It's very difficult to define "idiot" in a serious manner; that leads to an extremely slippery slope into the dark realms of Eugenics and similar.

In addition, idiots might be idiots, but the people they harm are generally innocent.

 

[orbekler]

Semi-Off-Topic: how much time we'll have to wait to see a hybrid technology (Rockets & Spacewarps) like this?

 

[fsci123]

Well lets put it like this... Anything that starts off governments stays in the hands of the government(Nukes)... Anything big that starts off civilian usually gets taxed by the government(Cars and Airplanes)... Anything that starts of civilian and doesn't benefit the government stays civilian(Bikes)...

Than there is the friendly factor... If something is dangerous people dont use it(Airplanes)... If something is safe people will commonly use it(Bikes)...

Then there is the fun and labor factor... If something is fun with little labor and maintenance people will use and do it... If something is boring and needs a lot of maintenance than they will forget about it and protest it(Nuclear power-plants)...

I dont see anytime in the future even 1000yrs from now that rockets will become something that everybody own and flies to work...

 

[PeriapsisPrograde]

When looking to the future, look to the past.

After the depression, what happened? WWII, space race, cold war.
After our recession...

 

[N_Molson]

I only hope there will be a manned Mars exploration mission before my death (I will reach the age of 83 in 2060, but who knows, with some progresses on genetics, maybe I'll see 2100 (I would be 123 years old).

That will also depends of the progresses in physics. The mastery of nuclear fusion (which means being able to build 40-50 tons reactors) and the developpement of high-ISP (5000+) spaceship engines will be essential.

I guess there will be an increasing amount of more and more complexes interplanetary unmanned missions. Like retrieving a ground sample from Venus or Europa... We should not underestimate the power of the Probe.

The best I can wish to the human spaceflight is that it could become an "usual" thing, with space tourism being a "normal" buisness, featuring high but affordable costs with small but numerous private space stations (Next Month : 25% Tradeoff for 2 weeks on LEO !). :lol:

Edit : Fatal maths error, I will be 87 in 2060 and 127 yo in 2100 !

 

[T.Neo]

Nuclear fusion isn't needed for trips to Mars, you can do that with chemical or nuclear electric propulsion (the latter allowing for reduced travel times).

But if you want fast solar system travel... the kind you'd find in a civilisation that has a considerable amount of people offworld... then fusion is probably the answer.

For whatever reason such a civilisation would have a considerable amount of people offworld. :dry:

 

[GoForPDI]

Whats the point in doing anything after all?

Just think about how absurd everything is. Think about how strange it is that what exists is what exists, that we live in this three dimensional medium, filled with matter. Everything within this medium moves around, all constrained by an invisible set of rules. The very fact that there is anything at all, and the very fact that it is as we know it, is simply incomprehensibly absurd. The fact that we are on an internet forum, talking about how we, as a species, that live on a big lump of matter can move around within the medium to go to other big lumps of matter, is simply mind boggling.

So.. why do anything at all? What reason do we have to do anything? Why do we walk to work in the mornings? Why do we even get up every morning? Why do we want to live in leisure? Why do we want money? Why do we want power? Why do we want to go into space? There is no reason for anything, we just move around. Don't we?