“There are very few people saying dismantle NASA and hand it over to commercial companies,-“
“-NASA has no business directly managing heavy lift anymore.”
“-spend the money on fuel depots and the rockets that are already funded and have to make sense financially because they have to compete not just for government payloads but for commercial payloads too.”
“-gets rid of the pork project-“
Nothing is going to the Moon except SLS.
I could spend a half hour or so and cut and past up to a hundred comments from SpaceX fanboys saying almost exactly what you say “very few people are saying.” I know because I have read them, year after year. Hundreds of them saying that NewSpace and the profit motive is all that is required and government space programs are “pork” that just waste money.
The game being played is transparent to anyone that has been paying attention.
SpaceX fanboys are not fooling anyone who knows anything about space.
That you know so little about radiation is telling. It is the atmosphere extending up from the surface of the Earth that stops most of this kind of cosmic radiation. Not the magnetic field of Earth. Using a magnetic field would require far more energy. Eugene Parker had concerns about both and since he is the world recognized authority on this subject I will take his advice over yours. Your “concerns” about my comment are noted.
“To stop them (heavy nuclei) within the space of a few meters, a shield would have to have a magnetic field of 20 teslas, or about 600,000 times the strength of Earth’s field at the equator. So strong a field requires an electromagnet constructed with superconducting wires, akin to those used in particle accelerators. The astronauts would have to endure a magnetic field of 20 teslas, and no one knows what the biological effects would be. The late John Marshall, a University of Chicago experimental physicist, remarked to me many years ago that when he stuck his head in a 0.5-tesla field in the gap of an old particle accelerator magnet, any motion of his head produced tiny flashes of light in his eyes and an acid taste in his mouth, presumably caused by electrolysis in his saliva.”
Parker goes on to add, “-engineers may have to cancel out the field within the living quarters using an opposing electromagnet. A secondary magnet clearly makes the system more complicated and more massive.”
No, I was not under that impression, but due to the ISS being a spacex cash cow it certainly qualifies as a NewSpace project now…which is why fanboys become so upset when anyone rightfully criticizes LEO “space stations” as a dead end.
NewSpace self-identifies as a profit-driven ideology and there is zero profit in human-crewed LEO platforms. The billions required to maintain one do not yield a ROI. The space tourist fantasy is one of the original tenets of NewSpace, but as I stated, nobody will pay when it is realized “the great adventure is essentially floating in a radiation bath and vomiting while looking out a window.”
Only government will spend on human space exploration. NewSpace ideology is inherently a contradiction, a swindle. A lie. The worst thing that has ever happened to space exploration.
600,000 times the strength of Earth’s field seems quite likely to have “injurious long-term effects. MRI machines are typically 1 tesla, and that is what a crane magnet uses to pick up 4 tons of metal. Living in a field 20 times as powerful a person would have to remove metal objects and any metal inside the body would be a disqualifier. As Parker notes, another superconductive magnet system would likely be required to cancel out this field, all of which would affect the other systems and materials in the vehicle. And it is not guaranteed to work like water shielding. A non-starter.
Polyethylene being used for rad shielding because it “would not leak” is not likely as water is utilitarian, that is, it can be used for many things. This more than makes up for the greater mass.
“Optimizing” for less mass would mean vastly increasing complexity and limiting the availability of a critical resource. Not a good “trade-off.” The optimum solution is to have a propulsion system that is not mass sensitive. This seems like a non-sensical statement, but such a system does exist and is available. In fact, the main problem with Nuclear Pulse Propulsion is that only massive spaceships, in the tens or hundreds of thousands of tons, are an efficient use of fissile material. This makes a massive water shield complementary.
“He will continue to do things NASA will find it advantageous to go along with, but NASA will rapidly recede in overall importance as private enterprise in space takes the lead.”
Private enterprise is toxic to space exploration. There is no ROI in human space flight so “private enterprise” is not going. I would consider them anti-space. I have to disagree with you.
“As for new space keeping us trapped in LEO, that is a farcical statement. I mean, seriously?”
And then…the spacex advert. And then…
“-government apathy and ineptitude.”
“-sucking out that life blood via cost plus contracts.”
Your reply shows why I believe NewSpace is the worst thing that has ever happened to space exploration.
The ISS is the spacex cash cow and delivers very little on the taxpayer’s investment. Talking about “sucking out that life blood”? Because it is making money for Spacex…no mention.
For the rocket in competition with SpaceX: literally libraries of death-to-SLS comments over the years. All in the interest of promoting a private company by denigrating the premier U.S. space project. “Cost plus” is the holy battle cry used like a divine hammer to beat down any satanic communist sympathizer.
Private enterprise is toxic to space exploration. There is no ROI in human space flight so “private enterprise” is not going. With Sidemount, we might be back on the Moon by now.
In my opinion NewSpace has set space exploration back at least a decade.
Again, only government will spend on human space exploration. NewSpace ideology is inherently a contradiction, a swindle, a lie.
Actually, the “leading” will be done by NASA. “Business” does not “support”, they are supported by the taxpayer.
Business has no interest in anything that does not have a ROI. Business would never “support” Human Space Flight without government awarding them a profit.
This entire myth that NewSpace has propagated is a lie, a confidence swindle. All designed to use a cult of personality as a P.R. trick. Manipulating the gullible conservatives on the right with red-baiting and a Neoliberal ideology that is toxic, that has largely destroyed the middle class and is wrecking the planet.
Ah yes, the old “orbit is halfway to anywhere” attributed to Heinlein. It is not actually documented exactly what he said and there are various versions. It might have been “Geostationary Orbit is halfway” which would have been more accurate. The original NewSpace dogma of the F9 and miracle depots accomplishing all things and NASA should be dismantled and it all handed over to Musk. I remember. The reality is that going around in circles a couple hundred miles up is going nowhere. LEO, like Mars fantasies, is a dead end. The Moon is the next step and always ways. It was going cheap that turned us away from that prize we never should have taken our eyes off of.
And NewSpace is all about going cheap.
I wonder how many commenting here understand the unrealized damage that is done with the endless NASA-bashing and denigration of America’s premier Human Space Flight project?
If they do understand, there is only one reason they are doing it. To end Human Space Flight.
That shiny 14 story office building is never going to be human-rated without an escape system. Never going anywhere beyond Earth orbit without very powerful large dependable cryocoolers that can maintain hundreds of tons of cryogens. Which do not exist. The reason for the shiny is to haul the tens of thousands of satellites into LEO for Starlink. Except there are simply not enough customers to make it work.
The SLS is likely all we have for a LONG time to come and we better make that work. Figure it out.
Ice on the Moon 