The emerging space technology

[bearnard19]

The emerging space technology In the modern world, science and technology are fast-growing things, and as we can see a lot of new space technologies are about to be produced or invented. Which one do you expect the most and which one do you think might be the most useful for humans or for space exploration?

 

[tonnyc]

The emerging space technology In the modern world, science and technology are fast-growing things, and as we can see a lot of new space technologies are about to be produced or invented. Which one do you expect the most and which one do you think might be the most useful for humans or for space exploration?

Micro-modular reactors and its larger brother Small Modular Reactors.

Space is huge. Most of it lacks convenient energy sources. If we limit ourselves to orbits near the sun, sure, solar power is readily available. But sunlight's intensity diminishes as we go further out. Mars is about the outer limit for convenient solar powered stuff and even then we have to start adding caveats. It's no coincidence that Perseverance and Curiosity are nuclear powered. It's the only option that can last years without maintenance. Solar power on satellites around Mars may work, but on Mars surface it will be really difficult for solar powered robots to stay functional after a few days of sand storm.

But Perseverance's radioisotope thermal generator is tiny. Sure it's sufficient for a river, but what if we want to send people to Mars? We'll need a bigger power source. And nuclear reactors in the ten kilowatt and a hundred kilowatt range are great for that. Eventually we may even go into the megawatt range with small modular reactors.

And that's just for Mars. Want to check out Europa? Sample Jupiter's atmosphere? Process asteroid rock? Alternatively, want to send a robot to Mercury? The bright side of Mercury is too hot and will destroy any solar panels we can make. The robot/rover will have to stay in the dark side and thus won't get any sunlight.

Nuclear energy is also useful for us on Earth, but I think you want to focus on the space aspect.

As for space exploration tech that will be useful for us on Earth, I'm thinking asteroid mining. Oh, forget about those quintillion dollar asteroid in the asteroid belt. That's just media hype. It's too far to be useful for this century. Asteroid mining will start with capturing near Earth asteroids and melting it down. Billion dollar stuff that can see return on investment in a year or two. I look forward to seeing the gold hoarders cry when gold price drops from overproduction.

 

[John Fedup]

Just think how much more attractive gold bricks will be for radiation shielding compared to lead when all the gold space galleons start arriving!

 

[ngatimozart]

For me it has to be propulsion because chemical rocketry is very expensive and very limiting. There are two aspects to the problem. Lifting stuff into earth orbit and then achieving viable velocities for interplanetary travel, and later interstellar travel.

Of the two aspects of the problem, lifting mass from earth's surface into orbit is at present both difficult and expensive. The chemical rockets used have to carry their own fuel which makes up a considerable proportion of their mass, leaving little left for payload. Sometimes they have the inconsiderate habit of self destructing destroying the payload, which is highly inconvenient. Unfortunately until we figure out an alternative way of inserting material into orbit we are stuck with rocketry.

There have been differing suggestions over the years for inserting material into orbit with some being rather exotic, such as the space elevator. However I believe that there are significant physics problems to be addressed before this could be considered. The problems don't involve exotic particles, nuclear forces, or quantum physics, but basic Newtonian classic physics - gravity and rotational forces, such as the coriolis force, because the elevator would be firmly anchored to the earth's surface. Then there are the engineering problems.

The second aspect is drive packs. What form do they take? What can we look at technically achieving in the next 50 years? Do we need to start prospecting for dilithium crystals? Any drive packs that we use are going to have to be safe and have shielding for any hazardous emissions. However the last thing we need is having to hump tonnes of lead around space. It takes up room and has to be lifted into orbit.

So many questions to be asked and answered.

 

[bearnard19]

Micro-modular reactors and its larger brother Small Modular Reactors.

Space is huge. Most of it lacks convenient energy sources. If we limit ourselves to orbits near the sun, sure, solar power is readily available. But sunlight's intensity diminishes as we go further out. Mars is about the outer limit for convenient solar powered stuff and even then we have to start adding caveats. It's no coincidence that Perseverance and Curiosity are nuclear powered. It's the only option that can last years without maintenance. Solar power on satellites around Mars may work, but on Mars surface it will be really difficult for solar powered robots to stay functional after a few days of sand storm.

But Perseverance's radioisotope thermal generator is tiny. Sure it's sufficient for a river, but what if we want to send people to Mars? We'll need a bigger power source. And nuclear reactors in the ten kilowatt and a hundred kilowatt range are great for that. Eventually we may even go into the megawatt range with small modular reactors.

And that's just for Mars. Want to check out Europa? Sample Jupiter's atmosphere? Process asteroid rock? Alternatively, want to send a robot to Mercury? The bright side of Mercury is too hot and will destroy any solar panels we can make. The robot/rover will have to stay in the dark side and thus won't get any sunlight.

Nuclear energy is also useful for us on Earth, but I think you want to focus on the space aspect.

As for space exploration tech that will be useful for us on Earth, I'm thinking asteroid mining. Oh, forget about those quintillion dollar asteroid in the asteroid belt. That's just media hype. It's too far to be useful for this century. Asteroid mining will start with capturing near Earth asteroids and melting it down. Billion dollar stuff that can see return on investment in a year or two. I look forward to seeing the gold hoarders cry when gold price drops from overproduction.

I assume that scientists a bit far from creatin micro modular reactor. But still, such an invention will allow us to do a lot of achievements we couldn`t make earlier.

 

[bearnard19]

Personaly, I liked the way how microsatellites are developing and how they partialy substitute ordinary sats. This is a cheaper and easier way for some missions ordinary sats used to do. Also, we may use microsats bigger number of fields that only emphasis their competence. Satellite technology take part in our everyday live, so we cannot imagine our precent world without sat technology. So looing farward to new things in sat technology will be discovered soon

 

[ngatimozart]

Interesting Bloomberg video. Looks like someone may have found a way to make an impulse drive with potential to reach 0.4c where c = 3x10^6 km/s (0.4 x speed of light). The physics doesn't quite correspond with accepted theoretical physics, butthere's 90% of how, what and why of the universe that we don’t know, and by the universe I mean everything from the largest thing to the absolute smallest and everything in between including on this planet. The original experiment hasn't been independently replicated yet, but it is in the process of being and if that is successful, then this is an absolutely major discovery and breakthrough on par with the jet engine, internal combustion engine, steam engine and rocketry, maybe even more so. Even if it isn't verified, we still learn things from it and its another step.

 

[ngatimozart]

It appears that the warp drive engine is beginning to take the steps out of the science fiction realm into the field of physics research. A new paper has suggested the mathematics to form the basis for a theory of warp drive engines. It describes the structure of the fields around the engine and how they react with the space-time continuum. It suggests that it is possible to travel faster than light but the people inside the warp drive bubble would experience time as normal for them, whilst to outside observers they would be taken out of the space-time continuum. This wouldn't conflict with Eisteinian relativity because they wouldn't be inside the bounds of the space-time continuum when they went FTL. However that only applies if Einsteins theories of relativity are correct and they may not be.

It's quite an interesting and exciting development and will be interesting to see how it develops. If they manage to get it past the theoretical stage and look at building an actual engine, the research, experimentation and engineering will be a huge undertaking.

Sabine Hossenfelder is a theoretical physicist who specialises in quantum gravity. She works at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Research.

 

[cdxbow]

It appears that the warp drive engine is beginning to take the steps out of the science fiction realm into the field of physics research. A new paper has suggested the mathematics to form the basis for a theory of warp drive engines. It describes the structure of the fields around the engine and how they react with the space-time continuum. It suggests that it is possible to travel faster than light but the people inside the warp drive bubble would experience time as normal for them, whilst to outside observers they would be taken out of the space-time continuum. This wouldn't conflict with Eisteinian relativity because they wouldn't be inside the bounds of the space-time continuum when they went FTL. However that only applies if Einsteins theories of relativity are correct and they may not be.

It's quite an interesting and exciting development and will be interesting to see how it develops. If they manage to get it past the theoretical stage and look at building an actual engine, the research, experimentation and engineering will be a huge undertaking.

Sabine Hossenfelder is a theoretical physicist who specialises in quantum gravity. She works at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Research.

Interesting. Sadly we won't see it in our lifetimes, I think we are hundreds of years away from applications, and probably understanding gravity properly will be one of the those things required. Go find that graviton lads and lassies.

 

[ngatimozart]

Interesting. Sadly we won't see it in our lifetimes, I think we are hundreds of years away from applications, and probably understanding gravity properly will be one of the those things required. Go find that graviton lads and lassies.

I don't know. There are some suggestions that with current technologies we are able to send interstellar probes to Alpha Centauri which is 4.3 light years away. With velocities of 0.1 - 0.2 C it would take 20 - 45 years to reach depending upon velocity and whether to not it was decided to slow down or not when reaching the star. If it was decided to slow down then you have to double the travel time. There would also be a further 4.3 years before we would know if the mission was successful or not because it would take that long for any messages and data to reach us.

 

[cdxbow]

I don't know. There are some suggestions that with current technologies we are able to send interstellar probes to Alpha Centauri which is 4.3 light years away. With velocities of 0.1 - 0.2 C it would take 20 - 45 years to reach depending upon velocity and whether to not it was decided to slow down or not when reaching the star. If it was decided to slow down then you have to double the travel time. There would also be a further 4.3 years before we would know if the mission was successful or not because it would take that long for any messages and data to reach us.

Sure, perhaps tiny little light sail driven probes. The 'starship on a chip' makes that possible with current tech, but that's along way from a manned craft. I suspect it will require understanding of gravity, dark matter & energy and a few other mysteries in physics we currently have a really poor understanding of. The basic science is not understood. Once the science is understood, things can move quickly, it only took 50 years to go from the initial quantum descriptions matter to the transistor.

 

[ngatimozart]

Sure, perhaps tiny little light sail driven probes. The 'starship on a chip' makes that possible with current tech, but that's along way from a manned craft. I suspect it will require understanding of gravity, dark matter & energy and a few other mysteries in physics we currently have a really poor understanding of. The basic science is not understood. Once the science is understood, things can move quickly, it only took 50 years to go from the initial quantum descriptions matter to the transistor.

The "Starship in a Chip" apparently is one suggestion for the probe, but one propulsive method which would be the quickest off the mark is thermonukes and lots of them. They would be able to get the probe up to 0.2 C reasonably quickly and we don’t have to make any scientific breakthroughs to enable it. Just build a very large number of large thermonukes and amend the treaty that bans weapons in space.