February 18th, 2007From the Earth to Jupiter in 400 Days
Does anyone else get excited when they visit the NASA website?
New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft ever made. It’s currently traveling at 69,200 KM/h (43,000 mph) and will increase to about 83,700 KM/h (52,000 mph) once it accelerates through Jupiter’s gravity well. As of this writing, the probe has been traveling for 395 days toward the gas giant and it will make its closest approach in another nine.
From Earth to Jupiter in just over 400 days … that’s amazing.
Ever since I was a young boy I’ve wanted to do something with the space program. I know that I could never be an astronaut, as this body isn’t really designed for that kind of thrashing. But being an engineer and solving the complex problems that are presented with sending vehicles into the vacuum of space would be even more exciting.
Like many of the people at NASA, I grew up watching Star Trek and imagining myself cruising through space in a star ship capable of faster-than-light travel. Seeking out life and new civilizations and studying the cosmos up close. Of course these dreams are centuries ahead of our time but, with a healthy and active imagination, children can imagine anything.
I do believe that the future of our industrialization relies on space. What better way to preserve our world than by mining asteroids for raw material and sending the refined ores and minerals back to earth? Of course this would mean that we would pollute space instead, but how many will argue that the vacuum is already littered with trace elements and debris? There have already been many case studies and reports written on the benefits of constructing a space elevator to make orbital placements much more cost effective, as well as making it easier to send materials or passengers back down to the earth in an efficient manner. Could this truly work for us?
If I’m lucky, I will live long enough to see some of the great strides we humans will make into space. There are lots of problems that need to be solved here on Earth before we can truly venture out to new worlds, but with steady focus and determination, we can grow as a global society and explore the galaxy together.
Hey Jason!
There are things going on in labs all over the world that might make things easier to get to, and work in, space. Small steps in ion drives, star trek type impulse drives and even more are in the works!
You mentioned the space elevator. Liftport hopes to have one constructed by 2020. With current advances in nanotubes, we can hopefully reach that goal. Bigelow Aerospace wants a Orbiting Hotel by 2015, and have offered $50 million to someone who can build a ship to get you there. (I think we’ll see that SpaceShipThree will be orbital in nature.)
) will be flying tourists into space by 2009, and almost 200 tickets have been fully purchased.
Of course, SpaceShipTwo (that will be known by many names, including the Virgin Space Ship Enterprise and VSS Voyager — you weren’t the only one watching Star Trek obviously
Several companies are looking into mining asteroids and are planning probe spacecraft to see what is worth mining. We may have workers on asteroids before we have a man on Mars!
An exciting time indeed!
Liftport hopes to have one constructed by 2020. With current advances in nanotubes, we can hopefully reach that goal.
That is somewhat out of date, sorry. The 2018 date was based on work produced by Dr. Edwards for his NIAC study. Last summer / fall we revisited that in light of knew knowledge. Based on the expected tests required to make the system flight-ready we pushed the date back to 2031.
Which is, yes, somewhat disapointing. Hopefully the increased time and flight tests will allow us to produce a safer system.
Tom Nugen’ts blog entry (with links to the pdf) here - http://www.liftport.com/progress/wp/?p=988
Wow, thanks for the info Steve and Brian.
2031 isn’t too far away for a space elevator, and I’m sure that timetable would be greatly increased if corporations found semi-local asteroids with an abundance of precious metals.
It’s unfortunate that humans likely won’t venture out into space without first considering how they stand to personally profit. Of course governments can’t supply funding to less-profit driven organizations forever.
I wonder if the Mrs. would consider retiring with me on an orbital platform …
I’m sure that timetable would be greatly increased if corporations found semi-local asteroids with an abundance of precious metals.
Maybe - but the plans for the space elevator we want to to build don’t require asteroids or off-earth materials. The hold-up here is the cnt material and testing. Of course it’s a cargo-only bare-bones distinctly non-SFictional space elevator but it should be enough
It’s unfortunate that humans likely won’t venture out into space without first considering how they stand to personally profit
The goal is to have the species become extra-terrestrial. The immediate means is profit, which is simply the way that people are motivated. We’re not an altruistic-by-nature critter; you gotta go with what works.
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