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Thread: Brainstorm HSE: Human space exploration

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    Default Brainstorm HSE: Human space exploration

    Let's discuss either science or science fiction that help us to contribute to HSE.
    I can imagine a smart brainstorm like in the old days of Independence War.
    The only difference is that HSE is not Star Wars.
    The idea is to bring any out of the box idea that may change the way of planning HSE.
    Here some examples so you come with your ideas.
    There is no such a thing as a bad idea. Most of bad ideas use to have a good concept behind.


    VENUS
    Some people talk about going to Venus, but I made the numbers.
    Venus is about the same size of Earth.
    About 10% of energy is required to gain altitude and about 90% to gain orbital velocity.
    It means that to get out of it and return to Earth, you may need an Apollo rocket hanging from a floating colony that hovers over a toxic corrosive cloud of sulfuric acid with no chance of mining to build a rocket. Else, you go to Venus and you stay there forever.
    Venus sounds like the least feasible place to visit, unlike you love unfriendly planets.

    MARS
    There are 3 ways to brake:
    1.Aerobraking. using atmosphere to brake.
    2.Retrorockets.
    3.Lithobraking. Crash landing.
    How would you design your descent/ ascent vehicle?

    Mars is filled with perchlorate dust. It means that Mars is a polluted chemical plant. Living on Mars requires to practice toxic chemical plant dust management protocols. We may practice dust management on the moon. Moon is 3 days away in case of emergency evac needed. Mars is 2 years away, 7 months at most. Moon needs a colony to practice human survival for Mars.

    HUMAN BODY
    To protect yourself against radiation during interplanetary travel, you may need like 1 meter of water around you. Such a water wall absorbs radiation nicely. It is likely that you fly with fuel tank in the hull of the ship, fuel around your bed.
    Are there any microorganisms that feeds frm radiation? Should we have a "greenhouse" of such microorganisms in the hull of the ship to reduce the risk for humans.

    VEHICLE DESIGN
    SpaceX is designing a Space 4x4. It is like designing a space RV. Engine block, crew block, cargo block. Useful for unexplored planets, but inefficient if you have spaceport hubs because you carry lots of unnecessary weight for specific trips.
    Boeing is designing an airport hub type of vehicle with specialized functions:
    * Orbital spaceports serving as hubs.
    * Descent/ ascent vehicles for crew and cargo using chemical engines.
    * Interplanetary vehicles that remain and refuel in space. Possible use of VASIMR engine that is way more efficient than chemical engines, and far more powerful than other ion engines. Problem is power supply as it requires a huge solar array for the ship. Boeing's Spectrolab or Tesla may do R&D on that.
    * Orbital space factory and space mining (third party, not Boeing).

    COLONY CHEMISTRY
    Inorganic chemistry is easy, somewhat. Make a machine that is able to produce a reaction without secondary reactions.
    * Harvesting: But we lack data on inputs and outputs to grow different plants under different conditions. Biospheres 2 was a failed experiment because they put plants without being able to predict their behavior on paper, using a calculator and charts. They did not make numbers, just put a bunch of plants there to improvise and claim science was being done.
    * Requirements for humans: We do not even know what a perfect diet using space born plants and animals should be, given different levels of activity. There is an established diet, but it requires food to be brought to space. You cannot bring a cow to orbit to raise it there.
    * Sea food: Using fish as a source of meat is a very sound idea, but the problem of harvesting fish is that you need to turn non sea/river organic waste into sea food for fish. Else, fish biomass in space will be reduced by human consumption as waste cannot be recycled to be part of fish harvesting cycle.
    * Biorreactor efficiency: Having yogurt microorganisms is lighter and more efficient than building a machine to synthesize the chemistry of making yogurt. Are there living creatures with useful biorreactor functions to keep astronauts alive?

    Now let's go for "silly" ideas...

    * What if we use rocket stages as space stations? Waste to money. Not so silly. Nanoracks already is planning how to do the overhaul up there.
    * Lasers to shot debris like in Star Wars. Not so silly. Using laser to down small debris back to atmosphere may work. Put a powerful laser in front of the debris to push and decelerate debris, so these objects fall to atmosphere.
    * Let's use a vacuum cleaner. Not silly at all. The concept is useful. Using a magnetic tow device to suck particles and attach them to a magnet, is actually a good ideato collect small space debris.
    * Let's use Ghostbusters technology. Sounds cartoonish and ludicrous? Well no. If you could invent a "slimer gel" that could absorb and glue hypersonic travelling particles, you may develop the best space junk collector and a great micrometeor shield. Even better than Star Wars energy shields.

    Space brainstorming requires to think absurd, to think crazy, out of the box, because space is not intuitive. The most stupid ideas may derive into a useful idea.
    Last edited by ar81; 12-07-2018 at 05:19 PM.
    Freedom - When people learn to embrace criticism about politicians, since politicians are just employees like you and me.

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