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Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
I know I sound weird when I say this, or anti-moon. But you'd think with advances over the last 60 years in engine technology, computer design, flight systems, metallurgy and other things that we would be beyond the multi stage, vertical launch huge flame spewing rockets by now.
I'm not saying its cool or awesome, but it feels like automobile technology has lept ahead faster then rocketry.
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Has it though? ICE cars are still basically the same thing just with incremental improvements in efficiency and power.. crazy levels of improvements but still. Battery cars are very different but same thing there battery capacity and motors are still basically the same, just better at the same thing. Most of the more recent advances are just adding different areas of technology to it.
Rockets have kind of undergone the same kinds of advancements. It used to be building just one rocket was a custom effort requiring a national effort.
Now some guy with a car company can do it, and far cheaper, and more reusable, with better engines and materials etc etc.
But in terms of something radically different, qualitatively different rather than quantitatively, I think there's a few factors. First your solution is constrained by a few things.. the nature of the task has hard constraints, as does the laws of physics. Plus we're often used to seeing progress vs time like a 45 degree sloped line, but usually it starts out fast but the further you go usually the harder the next improvement is, so your diagonal line levels off to a horizontal one, to the point where progress becomes less and less worth doing.
No matter what if you're getting into orbit you need a certain amount of acceleration, a certain amount of deltaV and the energy required is fixed.
Your options for that amount of energy are very limited.
There was a design for a huge rocket that was basically a giant steel and concrete disc and you exploded nuclear bombs under it.
So yeah unless you do something completely different like a space elevator or figure out how to make a magnet strong enough to push against the earth's magnetic field or lasers strong enough to push a payload up you're kind of stuck. All the improvements make it cheaper and easier and reusable and safer, but the basics don't change. The mass of chemical fuel is the mass of chemical fuel.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
And the other thought, is if we're looking at moon missions or mars missions or deep space probe missions, wouldn't it make sense to build an orbital construction facility or assembly facility and build the larger rockets in space and just use shuttles to ferry up supplies or people.
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Eventually these kinds of things will probably exist, but as Fuzz said space is hard, and part of it is processes and materials still need to be found that facilitate them and it has to be worth doing.
Imagine a factory where the temperature swings between 100's of degrees and near absolute zero. Where the wrong kinds of metals will just vacuum weld to each other if you're not careful.
In a factory on earth it's easy to have one trade come do one thing, then the next guys come do the next thing. Knowing what works and what doesn't in construction and pluming and electrical and air and making machines to make the bottles or parts or whatever.. all of that has centuries of knowledge backing it so we know what kinds of things work. We have almost none of that in space. And don't even get me started on moon dust.
And every mistake costs thousands per kilogram at best, lives at worst.
The risks are super high which makes it even harder to try that kind of thing.
I think we'll get there eventually, it's just going to take a looong time. And I think we'd be better off doing it all with robots, advancing robotics to the point where we're basically useless until we land and walk into the habitat.