NASA Ames’ Worden reveals DARPA-funded ‘Hundred Year Starship’ program

[bananas]

http://www.kurzweilai.net/nasa-ames-worden-reveals-darpa-funded-hundred-year-starship-program

NASA Ames’ Worden reveals DARPA-funded ‘Hundred Year Starship’ program
October 18, 2010 by Amara D. Angelica

NASA Ames Director Simon “Pete” Worden revealed Saturday that NASA Ames has “just started a project with DARPA called the Hundred Year Starship,” with $1 million funding from DARPA and $100K from NASA.

“You heard it here,” said Worden at “Long Conversation,” a Long Now Foundation event in San Francisco. “We also hope to inveigle some billionaires to form a Hundred Year Starship fund,” Dr. Worden added. (No further details on this are available from NASA at this time.)

“The human space program is now really aimed at settling other worlds,” he explained. “Twenty years ago you had to whisper that in dark bars and get fired.” (Worden was in fact fired by President George W. Bush, he also revealed.)

New propulsion ideas

Worden also mentioned some nearer-term ideas that NASA is exploring. One new propulsion concept is electric propulsion, said Worden. “Anybody that watches the Enterprise, you know you don’t see huge plumes of fire. Within a few years we will see the first true prototype of a spaceship that will take us between worlds.”

<snip>

More here http://hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=24457
and here http://hobbyspace.com/nucleus/?itemid=24487

[Angry Dragon]

1. The rich are planning to rape other worlds

[MineralMan]

4. Oh, yes...that's what this is about...for sure.

:sarcasm:

[Angry Dragon]

6. I promote the exploration of other worlds

There is much out in the universe that the humans on this planet
do not know or understand. There is life out there besides us.
I also see how this world looks today with the corporation take over of
governments and the "little people". So I feel safe in mentioning my
belief that corporations will not take the high road in promoting the
benefit of mankind over the benefit to the all mighty dollar or whatever
currency is in vogue.

So until I see where corporations work towards the benefit of mankind
and not work towards the benefit of themselves I will continue holding
this pessimistic view.

[roguevalley]

8. YEA! Beam me up. Optimus and the boys are out there and I

wouldn't mind running around with them instead of staying here on this mud ball. Until all are one.

[txlibdem]

12. The rich are GOING to rape other worlds

Let's let them go. Seriously, think about it. All the Capitalistas can get in their spaceships and get the "H E double hockey sticks" out of here. Then we can build the Socialist paradise they've been stopping us from having.

Just smile and wave every time a Capitalist leaves, your world will be the better for it.

[Orsino]

16. Meanwhile, they need an escape hatch from this planet...

...when they're finally done with it.

[Tesha]

21. But the Klingons have other plans for the rich! (NT)

[aquart]

2. So cool.

[YOY]

3. Loving it.

n.t.

[Crunchy Frog]

5. It would be really nice if we could just leave the rest of the universe alone.

I'd rather we confined the damage to this planet.

[Ready4Change]

18. Why? The universe isn't going to leave US alone.

We've only been a civilization for a short while. That means we are, basically, animals with the ability to build and shoot machine guns. Yet we have art, and music, literature and poetry. We are developing on a million different fronts at once, and not all of them poison and murder and ruin.

In other words, I choose to believe we have unrealized potential.

But the universe WILL destroy this world. Big asteroids are just the most known threat. We know of several other potential sources of doom. Doubtless there are others waiting in the wings. They could destroy us tomorrow. Or in the next minute. And we have zero defense against most of those right now. And against many, escape may be our only viable defense in the future.

Stay here, we and any potential we contain is lost.

[northzax]

7. $1.1 million?

is this a joke? a reasonable project like this would burn through $1.1 million in a day.

the only smart thing he says: "if you're a conservative, you worry about it killing us. if you're a liberal, you worry about us killing it."

[bananas]

10. NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program only had $1.2M over 6 years

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Propulsion_Physics_Program

The Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project (BPP) was a research project funded by NASA from 1996 through 2002, to study various proposals for "revolutionary" methods of spacecraft propulsion which would require breakthroughs in physics before they could be realized, hence the name.

During its 6 years, this program was funded with a total investment of $1.2 million.

After funding for research ended, the Project's founder and manager, Marc G. Millis, was supported by NASA to complete the documentation of results. The culmination of that work is the book, Frontiers of Propulsion Science, which was published in February 2009, by the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

Regarding Millis's research, Chapter 3 (Prerequisites for Space Drive Science) provides refinements and deeper explanation of the following hypothetical "space drive" propulsion methods: diametric drive, pitch drive, bias drive, disjunction drive, and 3 variations of differential sails.

Millis retired from NASA on February 3rd, 2010, and continues to pursue similar research under the nonprofit organization Tau Zero Foundation.

<snip>

[Posteritatis]

11. It doesn't cost much to think about something, and that's what this is about

Most DARPA grants are more of the "pay a team of people to research this for a year or three and see if anything interesting comes of it" rather than more physical development.

[phantom power]

9. Seems to me the most useful investment for space colonization isn't propulsion, it's...

A lot more of this kind of R&D:

[txlibdem]

13. Now you're thinkin'

That's exactly what would be needed. Any serious 100 year project would be non-survivable without several key ideas:

• Incorporate what we've learned with Biosphere II (thanks for the photo)
  
• Vasimir plasma rockets powered by nuclear reactors - get to mars in 39 days
  
• Maglev systems to boost sturdy equipment and raw materials into orbit - costs $$hundreds per pound instead of $$millions - http://www.physorg.com/news91272157.html
  
• Space Elevator (that's been on my wish list since I was 12)
  
• An artificial magnetic field surrounding the spacecraft will protect occupants from solar flares and background radiation (in exactly the same way as the Earth's magnetic field protects us)
  
• Designing the ship such that the crew areas are internal and surrounded by tanks of water or hydrogen may also provide protection from solar flares
  
• Robotic arms such as the space shuttle has and even mobile remote control ones like Robonaut 2 will do most of the dangerous EVAs
  

Just as the first airplane didn't take flight at Kitty Hawk until thousands of previous innovations came to pass, the Hundred Year Spaceship will rely on multiple disciplines to make it possible.

The most important of the ones on the above list is the Maglev launch system. The Chinese have already succeeded with a test track, they just need to make it big enough. The G forces would be too much for mere humans to endure but for 90% to 99% of the weight of the spaceship it would do just fine. Some of the equipment and any humans would need to go up in a different launch vehicle but the vast majority of the spaceship can be put in orbit for $100 a pound once the tech is worked out. The cost of electricity to put a 100 ton payload into orbit is negligible (2600 kWh, about double the average American's monthly electricity usage).

[bananas]

14. Vasimr powered by solar more likely

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1690/1

<snip>

One might expect that a technology that could shorten travel times to Mars and mitigate some of the corresponding concerns, and the support for such technology at the highest levels of NASA, would be warmly received by advocates of human Mars exploration. Yet, during a recent panel session on the topic at the Thirteenth Annual International Mars Society Convention in Dayton, Ohio, such advocates were skeptical at best about the potential of VASIMR to revolutionize Mars exploration, and at worst worried a focus on such technologies could actually delay human missions to the Red Planet.
VASIMR “has become a tollbooth on the way to Mars,” Zubrin said. “This is being used by policymakers as a reason why we can’t go to Mars today.”

Robert Terry, a physicist who worked for over two decades in the plasma physics division of the Naval Research Laboratory, expressed concern about “leaks and losses” in the VASIMR design that could reduce its effectiveness. He also pointed to a recent analysis that looked at how much usable payload could be sent to Mars as a function of both the specific impulse of the propulsion system and the mass fraction of the aeroshell that would capture the spacecraft in Mars orbit. As it turned out, improvements to the aeroshell’s mass fraction had a much bigger effect than increasing the specific impulse, even to the very high levels (10,000 to 30,000 seconds) of a system like VASIMR. “Even if VASIMR works,” he said, “there may not be a use for it in the context of Mars.”

Another concern is that for a Mars mission, VASIMR would have to use a nuclear power system that doesn’t exist yet. Mars Society president Robert Zubrin warned that mission designs that used VASIMR had unrealistic expectations about the mass of such reactors. The largest space nuclear power systems, the Topaz nuclear reactors developed by the former Soviet Union, generated 10 kilowatts and had a specific power, or alpha, of 100 kilograms per kilowatt. NASA had hoped to get alpha down to 65 kg/kW with its now-cancelled Prometheus program, and Zubrin said that if one is “quite optimistic” an alpha of 20 kg/kW was possible. The VASIMR-based Mars mission concepts, he said, assume an alpha of 1 kg/kW. “That’s like steel with the weight of Styrofoam,” Zubrin said. “It has no relationship with reality.”

Assuming an alpha of 20 kg/kW, Zubrin said, means that a reactor that generates 200 megawatts would weigh 4,000 tons. (By contrast, the VASIMR mission architectures with the 39-day travel times had assumed an overall mission mass of approximately 600 tons.) Moreover, the best travel time you could get with this much more massive system is six to eight months, comparable with conventional chemical propulsion systems, Zubrin claimed. “The numbers don’t add up,” he said.

A separate, and perhaps bigger, concern mentioned by Zubrin and others at the conference is that a system like VASIMR, regardless of its technical capabilities, could be perceived as being required for a human Mars mission in order to reduce the risk to the crew. “Rather than becoming a tool that might be of assistance in the future, a possible addition to our toolbox, it has become a tollbooth on the way to Mars,” Zubrin said. “This is being used by policymakers as a reason why we can’t go to Mars today.”

<snip>

Solar power at Mars orbit is about half that at earth orbit,
a human Mars mission is unlikely before 2030, by then PV will be meet the specs:

http://www.stretchedlensarray.com/TheProject.htm

[txlibdem]

17. Solar will get you to Mars and maybe the asteroid belt but going much farther out ...

The size of solar panel to provide the necessary propulsion would make it cost prohibitive.

A nuclear reactor (or better yet 5 nuclear reactors) would be able to provide the propulsion to go anywhere in the solar system and bring you back safely.

[Confusious]

19. Oh no. teh nuklear is eVil! nt

[txlibdem]

20. Your teachings cover this quite well, sir.

"To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or of principle." -- Confucius

Solar has its uses but to rely on solar power for a spaceship with people in it is not a good idea. As you get farther from the sun you need a larger and larger solar array just to make the same amount of power. And what if one of the panels get hit by debris or a micrometeor?

A nuclear powered spacecraft that uses a Vasimir propulsion system can go anywhere in the solar system because the beauty of the Vasimir is that it runs continously. So if you want to go faster all you need to do is run the Vasimir drive for a longer time and it will keep accelerating (up to its max speed which I don't really know what that even is).

Vasimir:


Another view:
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009-10/fast-lane-mars

Chang-Diaz says the VASIMIR is ready:
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1006/01vasimr/

[bananas]

15. Jane Poynter and Paragon are working on life support systems.

http://www.janepoynter.com/
http://www.paragonsdc.com/