Out of Pod Experience

Again, no it won't.

First of all it won't be that small just because of the minimum size for something capable of getting even a small number of people into orbit. For example, the Pegaus weighs about 30% of the empty shuttle (the limit of the 747 platform), but carries less than 2% of the payload*. There's only so much weight you can get rid of by removing seats, which leaves you with a definite lower limit on the size and weight of a practical spaceplane.

Second, we're talking about commercial space travel here. Carrying a single person to orbit aboard your micro-spaceplane might be ok for a few very limited roles, but it's far short of what anyone thinks about when they say "commercial space travel". If you want to reach that standard, you can't fly ten people aboard ten separate rockets, that's just laughably bad efficiency.

Finally, there's a limit to how big you can make the carrier aircraft. The fuel tank alone for a shuttle weighs more than three times the maximum payload of an AN-225 (the largest cargo aircraft ever built). Add on the weight of the spacecraft itself and you'll need to make some major advances in aircraft design just to get off the ground.

*To give that number some context, a single-seat Mercury capsule weighs about double what a Pegasus can lift into orbit. A hypothetical 747-max "triple Pegasus" would be lucky to carry a two-person crew.

Both of these aircraft were designed and built in the 70s, the shuttle was designed using technology from the 70s too. The Mercury technology dates back all the way to the 50s. Also, stop referencing the fuel tank of the shuttle as that is needed for the much bigger and heavyer shuttle and its 29.4 tonne cargo. Now we all knowAmericans can be heavy but I cant see them managing 2+ tonnes.

So? Spaceship Two reaches 110km altitude with near-zero payload. To launch from 110km, you need a much, much larger rocket to get a complete spacecraft there. And you know what we call that? A multi-stage, ground-launched rocket.

PS: orbit doesn't just require altitude, it requires speed.



Except that isn't what we're talking about. The subject of the thread is "humanity is going multi-planetary", not "rich people get to play astronaut for a few minutes".



I already conceded that you could save some weight with modern technology, but don't forget one other detail about their design: they were used by trained professionals who willingly accepted a risky job. The result is a horrifyingly bad accident rate, one that would never be accepted for commercial travel.

If you want to design a commercial spacecraft for a wide range of passengers, you're going to have to add MUCH better safety and redundancy. And guess what, having that safety and redundancy significantly increases size and weight.



I've already explained why:

1) The mass of the passengers is only a small part of the total spacecraft mass.

2) There's a minimum size for a practical spacecraft, and it isn't small.

3) A practical commercial spacecraft NEEDS a high payload capacity, or it won't be useful for the kind of jobs that are being discussed here.

Now, you can cut the weight down a bit, but good luck getting the size and weight of a fully loaded useful spaceplane down to a point where even an AN-225 can launch one.

Scratch out number 3. As I keep saying this shuttle is not a cargo ship, thats what the Orion is for thus saving a huge amount of weight and resulting in a smaller craft.

You're right. Now go away and let the adults talk.

To clarify my point here:

A reusable spaceplane of some form is certainly possible, as is large-scale space travel (whether commercial or government-supported). It might be small, or it might be shuttle-sized. It might even be air-launched.

However: the engineering challenges involved are not trivial. This is not a case of "throw a bigger engine on Spaceship Two and we'll be buying airline tickets to the space station within ten years". Getting to that end result is going to be a long and expensive process, and anyone who thinks otherwise needs to learn to be a lot more skeptical of marketing hype.

And of course in the end, it might be the case that a spaceplane is a bad idea, and we just go back to using expendable ground-launched rockets. After all, that was arguably true of the space shuttle, once NASA scaled back the original plans to what we actually got.

right adults, you made it pretty clear your not one.

This all started as a simple conversation. We have no idea what tech we will have in 50 years. To act like you know everything is foolish. By 2030 we'll already have working replicators for heavens sake and you're still going on about this idea that science can't find new ways around problems, or that we won't find out everything we know about physics is wrong.

We'll find new ways to get around limitations and we will continue to advance in understand what those limitation really are.

If you really think this sin't the case, then A. your a fool that ignores history, and how young we really as when it comes to even knowing that stars are other suns, and how many huge break through have happened in the past 100 years.

You won't be able to imagine whats coming next. And the fact that we can reach 100km without fuel is amazing. Using the gases already found up there to power jet engines? That's amazing, and in 50 years time that tech will be so old everyone will laugh at how primitive technology was in 2012.

but I understand this is thinking outside the relem of someone that isn't in the field everyday seeing the new tech we discover. And really understanding how they impact us in a meanfully way.

So my point was, with the tech we are showing today with giant helium balloons that can take large aircraft to 150,000km , mult-state space shuttles with low weight, and a real effort to build and grow in space will one day lead to normal travel.


Note this is my opinion you don't need to tell me why I'm wrong, why would I listen to you? I'm not posting so you can act like a child and tell me why I'm wrong on the internet. Be an adult, please.

I think we need to finish exploring our own planet first, less than 10% of the ocean floor has been mapped and we've discovered that life can occur independently from the sun. I'm sure there's a mass relay or something down there that will give us access to all parts of the galaxy

Ok, fine. Since the development of modern science we have never found "everything about physics" to be wrong. You can nitpick all you want about discoveries that happened hundreds of years ago before we had a very good concept of the scientific method, but that doesn't change the fact that we have NOT had that kind of revolution within the past hundred years.