[Subjectivist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Subjectivist', 'S')tep one of building a real bio dome would be a plant based carbon dioxide handling system taking in gasses and producing edible plant mass in return. Getting the balance right is not just a case of making some soil and planting a garden.

[Subjectivist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'S')ub, it was sealed at the beginning. It was in the middle of nowhere. There was no need for a 'panic button', as it had a door. And yes, we are not ready to move out because we love to yap on the internet. Ain't it fun

[joyfulbozo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seldom_seen', 'N')ot a chance. Our colonization of this planet is turning in to quite a disaster and we have plenty of food, air and water here.

[aldente]

according to Andy Basiago there has been a "jump room to Mars" as early as in the 1970 back in Burbank- wonder if it is still in use ?

Just wonderful to include such trains of though. Dwight D. Eisenhowers niece Laura concurs BTW !

Bean me up, Scotty ! This is the way it works.

[DesuMaiden]

I doubt it. I believe we will destroy ourselves before we ever colonize space.

[aldente]

It was just a joke in case you did not get it !

Our destruction is both - inevitable as well as impossible at the same time.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('aldente', 'B')ean me up, Scotty !

[aldente]

I am obviously not thorough enough when it comes to spell-checking (my secretary is on vacation)- I am glad we have bean-counters as a back-up during her absence- how could I run my business otherwise???!!!

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')HE SAGAN SERIES - The Frontier Is Everywhere
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY59wZdCDo0

[Subjectivist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')ccording to an article posted on the ESA website a couple of weeks ago, the performance of the spacecraft matched expectations but the performance of Venus didn't. Mission scientists were surprised by the variability of Venus' atmosphere. Venus Express may have detected atmospheric waves, and also saw a surprisingly rapid increase in atmospheric density from the night side to the day side of the planet.

Over time, Venus Express' orbit decays, and by last week the periapsis had got close to 200 kilometers and was falling very rapidly. To keep the mission going, Venus Express must perform periapsis raise maneuvers to keep the orbit from decaying right into the atmosphere. But the spacecraft is running on empty. ESA doesn't know exactly when Venus Express is going to run out of fuel, because it's actually a difficult problem to measure the amount of fuel remaining in a spacecraft fuel tank; most spacecraft fuel "gauges" are actually just bookkeeping of the amount of fuel used over the lifetime of a spacecraft. Small uncertainties in that bookkeeping add up over time, so it's hard to know just how empty the tank is. We're now within the error bars of ESA's estimate of where zero is. But it's not actually at zero yet, because the spacecraft is still successfully performing rocket burns.

The amount of fuel left in the tank is so low that Venus Express can't do its periodic periapsis raise maneuvers all in one burn anymore. Instead, mission controllers separate the burn into 10 or so pulses, each conducted at the orbit apoapsis. Venus Express is in the middle of one such series; it began on Sunday and continues all week. Each day, we could find out Venus Express just isn't there anymore. But it's more likely that engineers have been conservative in their fuel estimates, so there is likely enough fuel remaining to survive this week. The next periapsis raise maneuver is in February, and the subsequent one in June.

As long as Venus Express survives, it'll keep doing science. Venus Express science ground segment manager Don Merritt keeps us updated in the Venus Express thread at unmannedspaceflight.com:

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Subjectivist', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')ach day, we could find out Venus Express just isn't there anymore. But it's more likely that engineers have been conservative in their fuel estimates, so there is likely enough fuel remaining to survive this week. The next periapsis raise maneuver is in February, and the subsequent one in June.

[Subjectivist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')ASA was not in a position to build any hardware, but made some funding available for theoretical studies, including conferences at Stanford University during 1975 and 1976, where O'Neill's ideas gained real academic stature. The only serious flaw in the plan—and perhaps one that NASA was happy to fudge—was O'Neill's casual approach to the first crucial crews and payloads that would need to escape from Earth in order to get the manufacturing processes under way. Everyone expected too much from the Space Shuttle, which had yet to make its first flight. The lunar mass driver, O'Neill reckoned, would call for "a year's worth of shuttle flights." No one among his team gave serious thought to the problem of launch vehicles, let alone the differences between an Earth-orbiting shutte and the hardware required for the first post-Apollo touchdowns on the moon or the initial cramped quarters for the first colony engineers. "We would use the shuttle's external tanks to make modular living quarters for use in low and high orbit and on the lunar surface," O'Neill wrote, somewhat optimistically.

Just a few minutes' drive from O'Neill's offices at Princeton, a firm of consultants was studying the shuttle's economic benefits for NASA. They suggested that thirty nine flights per year, with up to five hundred flights conducted between 1978 and 1990, transporting humans and cargo alike in the same vehicles, would make the shuttle a winner. O'Neill took this on faith. Of the many wonderful visualizations in The High Frontier made by artist Don Davis, none specify customized launch hardware. With Apollo so recently triumphant, it seemed obvious to most people that NASA would come up with some solution.

[Keith_McClary]

Today's xkcd:

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')img]http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54874cb6eab8ea75399000d3-987-1600/foundation-4.jpg[/img]
Future Elon Musk?

This Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Novel Convinced Elon Musk To Make Humans An Interplanetary Species

On Monday, he tweeted about a favorite book that's helped clarify his galactic ambitions.

"Reread Asimov's Foundation series," he said. "Brilliant."

In interviews, Musk has said that "Foundation" by Isaac Asimov is "one of the best books" that he's ever read.

From "Foundation," Musk learned that every civilization — including our own — will one day falter.

"The lessons of history would suggest that civilizations move in cycles," Musk told the Guardian. "You can track that back quite far — the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We're obviously in a very upward cycle right now and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not. There could be some series of events that cause that technology level to decline."

And when that happens in our case — when humanity hits its own dark age — what's the best thing we can do to make sure it's as short as possible?

By having the human race become, to use Musk's favored terminology, interplanetary.

Thus the need for SpaceX, the privatized space exploration company that Musk started back when only nation-states were trying to launch rockets out of Earth's atmosphere.

"Given that this is the first time in 4.5 billion years where it's been possible for humanity to extend life beyond Earth," he said, "it seems like we'd be wise to act while the window was open and not count on the fact it will be open a long time."
http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-favorite-book-foundation-asimov-2014-12

[SeaGypsy]

Hawkings is a fake I reckon, a well paid dupe. Prove otherwise. As for Musk/ Asimov, can't feign surprise at the confusion of fantasy & reality. Why not make a donation?

[Strummer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '&')quot;The lessons of history would suggest that civilizations move in cycles," Musk told the Guardian. "You can track that back quite far — the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We're obviously in a very upward cycle right now and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not. There could be some series of events that cause that technology level to decline."

[DesuMaiden]

It is unlikely we will ever colonize space, in my opinion.