re: #284 goddamnedfrank

If we prioritized large scale nanotube production we could quite feasibly build a space elevator within fifteen to twenty years. It would be even easier to build a companion elevator on the moon. We need to get away from chemical rockets if we’re going to get any economy of scale going with our off world presence.

Perhaps, but that really only gets you to orbit.

If you want to get somewhere else in a short enough time that your astronauts don’t decay to chimps and can bring enough with them to really set up shop we need an entirely new propulsion paradigm.

I suppose the best analogy is that we are like the Wright Brothers talking about supersonic flight.

However brilliant the Apollo missions were, it really was the space equivalent of Kittyhawk. Of course the sound barrier was breached, after numerous other technologies were developed and millions of man hours of research were spent on the thousands of different challenges that were presented. However, the planes that did that bore only the most passing resemblance to the Wright Flyer.

Another way to discuss this is that it is like people in the age of fighting sail talking about nuclear submarines. I am not saying that we will never get there or that it is a stupid thing to desire to be able to do. I am saying that if we honestly want to do that, we start working on the problems of propulsion and really heavy lift as well as astronaut survivability as our primary manned goals.

Saying we are going to Mars by thus and such a date is all well and good. Actually getting there in a way that would not eat one tenth of our budget - like Apollo did, and in a way that we can actually send enough men and material to do something worth doing, will require major innovations first.