Living on other planets
Question: Is there any possibilities for people to travel or live in other planets?
Answer:
Travel to other planets in our own solar system is routine but long and
pricey ($millions per months-long trip) for robots. It could be routine
for a small number of humans too but would cost right now a lot, maybe
5-10% of what the world spends on weaponry and loads more than it spends on
infectious disease prevention. Travel to planets outside the solar system
is limited by the very large distances involved (which light typically
takes decades to centuries to cross) and the lack of a roadmap. With
Apollo rocket technology it would take 40,000 years or so to reach the
nearest star, and we don't know if it has planets anyway. It's difficult
to imagine advances in propulsion technology sufficient to reach speeds
near light, or extensions in human longevity (not to mention patience) or
"hibernation" abilities to centuries, so interstellar travel within one
lifetime is hard to imagine (which does not, of course, mean it can't be
done anyway). Opinions vary, but I'd say the major hurdle to
large-distance space travel by human beings is achieving a consensus among
people and nations that it's something worth spending lots of money and
time on. Twenty-five years ago that consensus was partially achieved, for a
variety of reasons, whereas today it seems essentially absent.
Living by large numbers of people on other planets in our solar system
comfortably would be at present impossible, as none has enough breathable
air, comfortable gravity, and a temperature tolerable in ordinary clothes.
Nevertheless one can easily imagine small numbers of people living in
carefully enclosed spaces (domes, sealed buildings, underground tunnels)
on Mars, the Moon, or the largest asteroids and moons of the system. The
technology is no more demanding than living under the sea or in orbit and
only somewhat more demanding than living in Antarctica. The principle
problems would seem to be figuring out (1) how to control a small ecology
successfully, (2) how to acquire most materials you need from local
resources, and (3) how to build and maintain such communities at a price
people on Earth are willing to pay. (Alternatively you can phrase this
last as "finding jobs on Mars that are so valuable to us on Earth --- i.e.
have such a high wage --- that people can afford and are willing to move to
Mars to live.")
If Earth-like planets with native lower life exist in other systems, one
could live there perhaps by just bringing along an axe and a mule. But it
seems likely that if you could eat the life on the other planet it could
eat you, especially the microbial life, and so one might have to expect a
high initial death rate from coming in contact with brand-new diseases.
Christopher Grayce
Friday, March 28, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
NASA unveils new spaceship for travel to Moon and Mars
NASA, unveiled the spacecraft that will succeed the Space Shuttle program: the Crew Exploration Vehicle, or CEV. The spacecraft will be designed to carry four astronauts to and from the moon, support up to six crewmembers on a future mission to Mars and deliver crew and supplies to the International Space Station.
The U.S. Space Agency Administrator Michael Griffin defended the $104 billion dollar lunar program, saying it is intended to make President Bush's Vision for Space Exploration a reality.
The Administrator said on Monday, "Unless the United States wants to get out of the manned space flight business completely, then this is the vehicle we need to be building. And I don't hear anyone saying that the United States would be better off being out of space when other nations are there," reports VOA.
Griffin says the mission could cost at least $104 billion. He says the agency would adopt a pay-as-you-go approach and would not need to drastically increase its budget, now at about $16 billion per year.
He insists that space science and aeronautics will not suffer with a new emphasis on a crewed Moon mission. "This is about a budget which keeps NASA in constant dollars approximately where it is today," he says. "It's not about taking money from the science program or the aeronautics program."
But critics are unconvinced. Currently, NASA's share of the federal budget is about 0.7%. During the Apollo era, NASA took up as much as 4% of the US budget.
"I don't think this plan will succeed," says Alex Roland, a history professor at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, US. "It's plausible in a certain way because they have taken things from Apollo and the shuttle that were reasonably successful and good. Who knows whether or not you can quickly and cheaply cobble those together into a workable system?"
But others defend the plan, arguing the agency needs to move beyond its current Earth-orbiting shuttle and space station programmes. "It's obvious there's a rocket scientist running NASA again," says Elliot Pulham, president and chief executive officer of the Space Foundation, a non-profit space advocacy group. "I wish I was still young enough to go," informs New Scientist.
The U.S. Space Agency Administrator Michael Griffin defended the $104 billion dollar lunar program, saying it is intended to make President Bush's Vision for Space Exploration a reality.
The Administrator said on Monday, "Unless the United States wants to get out of the manned space flight business completely, then this is the vehicle we need to be building. And I don't hear anyone saying that the United States would be better off being out of space when other nations are there," reports VOA.
Griffin says the mission could cost at least $104 billion. He says the agency would adopt a pay-as-you-go approach and would not need to drastically increase its budget, now at about $16 billion per year.
He insists that space science and aeronautics will not suffer with a new emphasis on a crewed Moon mission. "This is about a budget which keeps NASA in constant dollars approximately where it is today," he says. "It's not about taking money from the science program or the aeronautics program."
But critics are unconvinced. Currently, NASA's share of the federal budget is about 0.7%. During the Apollo era, NASA took up as much as 4% of the US budget.
"I don't think this plan will succeed," says Alex Roland, a history professor at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, US. "It's plausible in a certain way because they have taken things from Apollo and the shuttle that were reasonably successful and good. Who knows whether or not you can quickly and cheaply cobble those together into a workable system?"
But others defend the plan, arguing the agency needs to move beyond its current Earth-orbiting shuttle and space station programmes. "It's obvious there's a rocket scientist running NASA again," says Elliot Pulham, president and chief executive officer of the Space Foundation, a non-profit space advocacy group. "I wish I was still young enough to go," informs New Scientist.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
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