# Game changing tech in space exploration? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 12, 2014, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483 "2014-11-12T23:45:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2014, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/1 "2014-11-12T23:45:18Z")
Dopers, what game changing technologies or accomplishments do you think we will see in our lifetimes (we’ll say the next 50 years, though that would be quite an accomplishment for me if I lived that many more years :p)? It seems, to me anyway, that we are on the cusp of a whole new level of space exploration, between the real possibility of hibernation for astronauts (opening up the ability to do real long term manned exploration of the solar system) to new developments in propulsion systems to much cheaper micro robotic exploration and ship design to the entry of private companies into the field and new ways to image and find remote planets and perhaps even ‘see’ black holes and keep adding puzzle pieces to the origin of the universe and explore the possibilities of the multiverse and parallel dimensions, it seems to me that the sky is the limit and perhaps a golden age of science and exploration beyond our planet. So, taking out your crystal balls, what do you think will be the most significant or far reaching development, achievement or discovery we’ll have in the next 50 years? Or, do you think all this space stuff is just a huge waste of time and resources, nothing to see out there? Feel free to weigh in on that aspect too if you don’t think we’ll have any significant discoveries or achievements. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/2 "2014-11-13T00:59:25Z")
Have there been any game changers in the last 50 years? Rocket development doesn’t seem particularly vibrant. Wake me up when they make that space elevator they’re always talking about. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/3 "2014-11-13T01:13:17Z")
Maybe if the Chinese decide that they want to dominate in space exploration, things will start happening. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/4 "2014-11-13T01:28:54Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Have there been any game changers in the last 50 years? Rocket development doesn’t seem particularly vibrant. Wake me up when they make that space elevator they’re always talking about. [Au contraire.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_%28spacecraft%29) The Skylon, if successful (yes, the “if” counts there I admit- **Stranger** can come along any time and explain why it won’t work), will make any other LEO rockets instantly obsolete. That’s a pretty big potential game changer. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/5 "2014-11-13T01:34:23Z")
3d printing seems to be to likely be very useful in space. One of the major problems with long term missions and habitation in space is the need to haul up into space the components for anything you want to build or repair. A future version of 3d printing would let people in space build much or most of what they need themselves, without having to haul an entire modern industrial complex into space first. Such technology isn’t likely to ever be as fast & efficient as a specialized factory designed to build just one thing. But a medium sized box that lets them build an enormous number of things costs far less in mass than hauling up hundreds of factory buildings, even if it doesn’t build those things as fast as those factories would. And the sheer cost of hauling mass into space is a major limiter in space exploration. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/6 "2014-11-13T03:30:27Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Maybe if the Chinese decide that they want to dominate in space exploration, things will start happening. Can someone, anyone, please explain this veneration of the Chinese space program which thus far has demonstrated capabilities that are already well established using adaptation of existing licensed or stolen technology, and shows every sign of being done first for prestige and second for strategic benefit with no particular “game changing” plans of any degree of veracity? The Chinese are engaged in showing the world they are a superpower by doing what other superpowers do. The [POST=“16486567”]SABRE engine and Skylon SSTO[/POST] are far from demonstrating technical feasibility and even if they are made workable are unlikely to be cost-effective to operate given the small amount of payload it could carry given the large amount of mass given over to tankage and lifting surfaces, which detracts one-to-one for payload to orbit. The only way the Skylon is actually a workable heavy lift vehicle is by assuming essentially magical material properties with regard to both strength and thermal resistance. There are workable SSTO concepts but all are vertical launch; the reason is that the paltry amount of benefit gained from lifting surfaces and air-breathing engines simply doesn’t compensate for the dead mass carried into orbit. Additive manufacturing (AM or colloquially “3D printing”) offers some advantages but no more so in space than on Earth. Any large scale enterprise in space, and especially space habitation, is going to require the ability to manufacture finished products on a large scale, which AM does not do effectively. The real advantage of AM is being able to produce tightly integrated products that optimize the use of materials and reduce finished mass, e.g. printing circuits directly into the structure of a CubeSat. What is really needed for space habitation is a way to use materials found in space in a minimally proceed former, e.g. habitats built from fiber-reinforced ice matrix composites, or metals extracted by centrifugal separation and grown into pure crystal forms possible in microgravity. The real game changing technology comes in two forms; propulsion technology that provides energy and propellant efficiency greater than that capable with chemical rockets (e.g. fission fragment, nuclear thermal, or nuclear fusion driving ionized plasma) and powerplant technology that allows high specific power throughput while being able to minimize or radiate away waste heat so that larger or habitable vehicles can operate at the distance of Jupiter or beyond where solar power is not remotely practical. Habitation and recycling technology, while challenging, is not a showstopper with a sufficiently large habitat or vessel such that closed cycle performance is not necessary, e.g. something on the scale of a large O’Neill cylinder. However, there is a significant threshold of resource utilization that has to be achieved before this is practical, and the problem with crewed habitation is that you have to achieve the threshold before you can cost-effectively sustain a population. What this means is to achieve this requires either a massive (multi-trillion dollar) effort to hoist all necessary resources up from Earth until the point that there is a self-sufficient infrastructure in space, or developing an autonomous capability to build up the infrastructure (still in the hundreds of billions of dollars, but persistent and not requiring extraordinary measures to keep crew alive) in order to extract and process resources to build habitats or large interplanetary spacecraft. Which is why if you want a permanent human presence in space and crewed exploration of planets beyond single missions of unsustainable cost, you should support robotic exploration and the development of autonomous space resource utilization capability. Like the lever, axle, and steam engine, these are the tools that will allow us to extend our very limited natural abilities in distance and strength to explore and inhabit interplanetary space. “Hibernation” and other “generation ark” schemes for crewed interstellar exploration are demonstrably facile, requiring a degree of reliability and robustness beyond any proposed capability, and also having to bend thermodynamic principles to an absurd degree. Baring some kind of technomagical “warp drive” or somesuch, we’ll be exploring the stars by proxy, albeit not necessarily mechanical; Freeman Dyson’s Astrochicken concept, while a primitive imagining of such a system, is likely to better represent the future of interstellar exploration than anything imagined by Gene Roddenberry or George Lucas. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/7 "2014-11-13T03:44:19Z")
VASIMIR engines, slowpoke type reactors in space, material extraction and differentiation from space resources, oxygen extraction from the Martian atmosphere and high efficiency closed cycle environments. I’d pay good money to see all that happen in the next 50 years. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/8 "2014-11-13T03:48:18Z")
Just to put it out there EAS (Europe’s version of NASA) landed a probe on a comet today after a 10 year flight. I don’t think it used any game changing technology (the harpoon was new though) but it’s still something that’s never been done. ---
**Author:** ![AnthonyElite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b487fb/32.png) [@AnthonyElite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnthonyElite)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/9 "2014-11-13T14:13:33Z")
**Stranger** wouldn’t any sort of long term space exploration, robotic or not, have a huge hurdle to leap with space debris? As I understand it any appreciable speed the vehicle could achieve would make collision with even minute particles disastrous. I loved reading about the thermodynamics of space travel - it had never occurred to me that dissipating heat would be an issue. It goes to show that science is about observation and not intuition. I’d love to see a space habitat that stays in our solar system as a way for the average human to spend some time out in space. Sort of how they handled it in Neuromancer. Without the AI. Ah, what the hell, with the AI. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/10 "2014-11-13T14:43:58Z")
> [@AnthonyElite](#): > > **Stranger** wouldn’t any sort of long term space exploration, robotic or not, have a huge hurdle to leap with space debris? As I understand it any appreciable speed the vehicle could achieve would make collision with even minute particles disastrous. Yes, at solar orbital or interstellar speeds, the differential speeds and resulting momentum has the potential to be enormous. However, space is very, very, very sparsely occupied. In interstellar space, even in our Local Interstellar Cloud (a.k.a. the “Local Fluff”) only has an average density of one hydrogen atom per 3 cubic centimeters of volume; actual aggregate particles of any size are vanishingly rare. It’s thicker her in the Solar System, of course, but note that not one of the dozens of probes that has been sent to other planets is known to have been damaged by any impact with orbiting debris. And with good design, [POST=“9514841”]a large scale habitat[/POST] or ship can be substantially protected against impact by smaller particles. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/11 "2014-11-13T15:24:43Z")
I could see a number of useful applications for graphene, such as quick-charging batteries. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/12 "2014-11-13T15:52:03Z")
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train] “Hibernation” and other “generation ark” schemes for crewed interstellar exploration are demonstrably facile, requiring a degree of reliability and robustness beyond any proposed capability, and also having to bend thermodynamic principles to an absurd degree. Baring some kind of technomagical “warp drive” or somesuch, we’ll be exploring the stars by proxy, albeit not necessarily mechanical; Freeman Dyson’s Astrochicken concept, while a primitive imagining of such a system, is likely to better represent the future of interstellar exploration than anything imagined by Gene Roddenberry or George Lucas. [/QUOTE] Interesting…you should really tell [these guys](http://www.nasa.gov/content/torpor-inducing-transfer-habitat-for-human-stasis-to-mars/#.VDOs3hYgvd7) who seem to be thinking it’s more than just science fiction or ‘demonstrably facile’. Here’s a [CNN](http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/07/tech/innovation/mars-hibernation-flight/index.html?iid=article_sidebar) article hitting the high points…and, to me, it seems they are preparing for human testing (I should say human testing of more than a few days, since the technique is already in use for medical purposes for a few hours or even a day or two) of this technology in the not so distant future. > [@](#): > > Atlanta (CNN) – Six astronauts lie motionless in a row of compartments with medical monitoring cables connected to their bodies, as their space ship cuts through the silent blackness that separates Earth from Mars. > > They’re sound asleep and will be for the extent of their six-month trip, having been placed in an artificially induced state of hibernation called torpor. > > This is the way a NASA-funded study sees space explorers traveling to Mars – unconscious, with their metabolism switched into slow motion. > > Sending astronauts that far into space would be too challenging, costly and grueling without it, says space engineer John Bradford, whose Atlanta-based company SpaceWorks wrote the study for NASA. > > “Ultimately, it’s what we’ll have to do,” he says. > [@](#): > > Sci-fi becomes reality > > Sleeper spacecraft with crews in suspended animation have been flying through futuristic science fiction movies like “Avatar,” “Alien,” “Pandorum” and “2001: A Space Odyssey” for decades. > > Now science reality is catching up, as medical advances have made stasis possible via a method called therapeutic hypothermia. > > It has been used since the early 2000s to treat patients with traumatic injuries. Formula One racer Michael Schumacher, for example, who suffered a brain injury while snow skiing, was reportedly put into therapeutic hypothermia. > > It renders the patient unconscious by lowering the body temperature. In Schumacher’s case, it also prevented swelling of his brain. The torpor stasis, which greatly slows metabolism, can help injured patients survive longer, while medical teams work to rescue them, Bradford says. > > But doctors usually induce it for only three or four days at a time, not the 180 days it would take for astronauts to get to Mars, nor the 180 it would take to get back to Earth. > > “It may take some time to get it to the state of effectiveness we want it to go to,” Bradford says. > > That involves animal testing, then some extended testing on humans, perhaps on the International Space Station. It could take decades. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/13 "2014-11-13T18:56:20Z")
That’s still secondary to getting energy dense systems into space. No one is going to be able to power an unbelievably complex and robust medical system on RTGs or solar panels. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/14 "2014-11-13T22:42:58Z")
Teleoperated robots on the Moon would be my favourite tech. If we can teleoperate robots on Mars with a light-speed delay of tens of minutes, then we can operate them on the Moon much more easily with a light-speed delay of seconds. Stranger mentions “robotic exploration and the development of autonomous space resource utilization capability.” These are the most important things to concentrate on, in my opinion; and autonomy is less important on the Moon when the Earth is only a second or so away. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/15 "2014-11-13T23:13:27Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Or, do you think all this space stuff is just a huge waste of time and resources, nothing to see out there? ^ This. IMHO, we have a lot more pressing matters to contend with on Earth and resources should be focused there instead of baubles in space. The problems are not as fun and sexy as space exporation, however. That said, I think in the next 50 years we will see longer stays in space (what’s the current record - 438 days?), with more getting done in near-Earth orbit. We’ll see additional and more reliable probes hitting neighbor planets and their moons and sending back more and better data. Sorry to be the turd in the punchbowl, but people traveling to even nearby planets is a pipe-dream. We’ll have long since snuffed ourselves out or soiled our nest before the required technology is perfected to the extent to make such travel possible. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2014, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/16 "2014-11-14T00:03:35Z")
Oh, the needs of earth - energy dense systems, high efficiency recycling, small footprint crop production and increased automation - have payoffs in space as well. There’s no need to divide the heavens and earth like medieval theologians did. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2014, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/17 "2014-11-14T04:07:01Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Interesting…you should really tell [these guys](http://www.nasa.gov/content/torpor-inducing-transfer-habitat-for-human-stasis-to-mars/#.VDOs3hYgvd7) who seem to be thinking it’s more than just science fiction or ‘demonstrably facile’. From your own link: _A means for full cryo-preservation and restoration remains a long way off still. However, recent medical progress is quickly advancing our ability to induce deep sleep states (i.e. torpor) with significantly reduced metabolic rates for humans over extended [i.e. weeks] periods of time._ This will not support any kind of interstellar transit, which would require suspension of catabolism over a period of centuries or longer. > [@snowthx](#): > > ^ This. IMHO, we have a lot more pressing matters to contend with on Earth and resources should be focused there instead of baubles in space. The problems are not as fun and sexy as space exporation, however. The “baubles in space”, as you term them, include accessible material resources–metals, rare earth elements, and basic structural materials–which dwarf anything we could extract on Earth even if we systematically ripped up the surface and diverted all fresh water and energy to smelting. The threshold to get there is high, but once a self-sustaining infrastructure is in place, sending bulk materials down to Earth is almost trivial…although the real benefit would be in being able to build large structures and manufacturing facilities in space where pollution, limited real estate, and other terrestrial issues don’t pose a problem. There is also the hazard that everyone on Earth should be concerned about, to wit, impact by a large hazardous object. While objects of a size to threaten more than a regional zone are rare (impacts on the order of tens of millions of years) they could potentially reduce civilization to medieval or lower levels indefinitely. Such a threat can be feasibly mitigated using extrapolations of extant technology, but only if the architecture exists in space to identify, track, and divert potential hazards. Sure, it would cost tens of billions to build such a system, but as insurance against the loss of millions or billions of lives and incalculable damage to arable land, real estate, and industrial capability it is a pittance. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2014, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/18 "2014-11-14T07:31:02Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Can someone, anyone, please explain this veneration of the Chinese space program which thus far has demonstrated capabilities that are already well established using adaptation of existing licensed or stolen technology, and shows every sign of being done first for prestige and second for strategic benefit with no particular “game changing” plans of any degree of veracity? It sounds like you have never heard of the “Sputnik Crisis” > [@](#): > > The Sputnik crisis was a period of public fear and uncertainty in the United States in the wake of the success of the Soviet Sputnik program and a perceived technological gap between the two superpowers. It was a key Cold War event beginning with the launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957. The Sputnik crisis led to the creation of NASA and the start of the Space Race. The term was coined by then-US President Dwight D. Eisenhower. > **[Sputnik crisis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_crisis)** > > The Sputnik crisis was a period of public fear and anxiety in Western nations about the perceived technological gap between the United States and Soviet Union caused by the Soviets' launch of Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite. The crisis was a significant event in the Cold War that triggered the creation of NASA and the Space Race between the two superpowers. The satellite was launched on October 4, 1957, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. This created a crisis reaction in nation So for example what happens if the Chinese reject the Moon treaty, set up some moon bases and claim the moon as part of Chinese territory? Suddenly you would see the U.S. and Russia massively expanding their space programs, including massive spending on technological innovation. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2014, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/19 "2014-11-14T09:33:41Z")
**Stranger** : Has anybody laid out a 200 year plan for space colonization? I’d like to see a walk through. Barring that, do you have a book on space colonization or space exploration that you particularly like? I’d like to see an article length or maybe book length treatment on the proper development of space capabilities and associated industrial capacities. ---
**Author:** ![David\_R\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8e7dd6/32.png) [@David\_R\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_R_2)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2014, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483/20 "2014-11-14T10:29:24Z")
Clearly not a single post has come from anyone living on one dollar a day, and not even a dollar on many days. And how about the billion, or is it two, who live without clean water? And with no access to health care. Tell me about the wonders of faraway stars and their planets, and the trillions of dollars that it’ll cost even just to get a signal back from these places. Then come back to reality. Take a trip to Sub-Saharan Africa, or Bangladesh, and don’t check in to the local Hilton, stay with a family. I think this chatter about space travel would be put into perspective. Okay, tell me I’m a Luddite, but I’m writing from SE Asia where decent families are struggling to put food, _any_ food on the mat for their children every night. David [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-changing-tech-in-space-exploration/704483.md?page=2)