Wishful Starship Missions

[Nikxice]

I just watched this recent Scott Manley video and imagined a future Starship entering Lunar orbit, rendezvousing, then capturing the Apollo 11 ascent stage. Impossible task, maybe? Assuming the spacecraft is still in Lunar orbit, the mission would have to be proceeded by an intense search.

The only glitch the A-11 crew experienced with the ascent stage was the Engine Armed push-pull circuit breaker Buzz Aldrin accidently broke. When prompted by the ascent checklist, he reset it with his felt tipped pen. (Buzz still has both of those items). Otherwise the Eagle performed flawlessly. Boy, what a museum prize to return to earth!

 

[Grendal]

Cosmic Chronicles | NASA researchers propose using SpaceX Starship & Falcon Heavy for a crewed Near-Earth Asteroid Exploration Mission

A NASA team proposed a plan to explore near-Earth asteroids using SpaceX’s Starship, Falcon Heavy rocket, and Dragon capsule during a recent conference. The concept involves a crewed explorat…

cosmicchroniclesnews.com

 

[JB47394]

Build it and they will come.

 

[ecarfan]

Love the mission plan and wonder what the cost might be, assuming that in about 5 years Starship could provide all the required capabilities. Less than $1 billion?

Also wonder exactly what the human crew will do after rendezvousing with the asteroid that could not be accomplished with robots? I’m a big fan of human space exploration, but in this example is one or two of the crew going to EVA to the asteroid and take samples? Seems like a robot could do that for far less cost.

 

[JB47394]

Also wonder exactly what the human crew will do after rendezvousing with the asteroid that could not be accomplished with robots?

That's my question for all manned exploration of space.

Every manned mission must be a round trip while robotic missions can be one-way. That allows them to provide dramatically more return for the investment. Imagine putting 100 tons of aircraft and science laboratory on Mars. We can stop this whole nonsense of sending a few kilograms of samples back to Earth for billions of dollars and instead just analyze them right on Mars. We can take a page right out of science fiction and come up with standard science probes that we can land at various destinations. Drop one on every body with an accessible surface and geek out on the data.

So all my early Starship missions would involve robotic visits to various and sundry places. Science probes first, then get to work on using local resources. Build fuel depots and refined stocks of other materials such as iron, aluminum, etc. All of that would be created using standard industrial landers (as standard as conditions allow). Later on, start building big rotating habitats from those stocks. Start with one in orbit around the Moon, using Moon resources. The next one can be in orbit around Mars, using Phobos or Deimos. Patch with resources from Mars if the moons are missing anything needed.

Once a station is in place, send out organic material from Earth. Soil, plants, insects. Start with a basic ecosystem and build on that. The goal is to get these things to the point where people can visit and even live there for extended periods in a safe, shirtsleeve environment. Sending people out to live in zero g tin cans is not tenable for the long term. It's just prestige crap.

Note that I consider even the rotating habitats dumb, but people want to be out there, so that's how I'd do it. Why dumb? For philosophical reasons. We can live happily and comfortably on Earth if we'd just get our act together as a species. We don't need to have 7 billion people at each other's throats (with a desire for billions more on other planets). We could live with a few hundred million of Earth's finest, and automate the crap out of everything we need. Just avoid pumping out billions of people and you're golden. Is anyone truly disappointed by the fact that we don't yet have 100 billion people in the solar system?

Not that it'll happen, but that's my wish.

 

[ecarfan]

We can live happily and comfortably on Earth if we'd just get our act together as a species.

I sense we’ve had this conversation before. I don’t expect global humanity to get its act together anytime soon. I think anyone with a fairly rational and analytical mind should conclude that human civilization is facing multiple existential threats in this century.

I sense this thread may be diverging from the original topic…

 

[scaesare]

That's my question for all manned exploration of space.

Every manned mission must be a round trip while robotic missions can be one-way. That allows them to provide dramatically more return for the investment. Imagine putting 100 tons of aircraft and science laboratory on Mars. We can stop this whole nonsense of sending a few kilograms of samples back to Earth for billions of dollars and instead just analyze them right on Mars. We can take a page right out of science fiction and come up with standard science probes that we can land at various destinations. Drop one on every body with an accessible surface and geek out on the data.

So all my early Starship missions would involve robotic visits to various and sundry places. Science probes first, then get to work on using local resources. Build fuel depots and refined stocks of other materials such as iron, aluminum, etc. All of that would be created using standard industrial landers (as standard as conditions allow). Later on, start building big rotating habitats from those stocks. Start with one in orbit around the Moon, using Moon resources. The next one can be in orbit around Mars, using Phobos or Deimos. Patch with resources from Mars if the moons are missing anything needed.

Once a station is in place, send out organic material from Earth. Soil, plants, insects. Start with a basic ecosystem and build on that. The goal is to get these things to the point where people can visit and even live there for extended periods in a safe, shirtsleeve environment. Sending people out to live in zero g tin cans is not tenable for the long term. It's just prestige crap.

Note that I consider even the rotating habitats dumb, but people want to be out there, so that's how I'd do it. Why dumb? For philosophical reasons. We can live happily and comfortably on Earth if we'd just get our act together as a species. We don't need to have 7 billion people at each other's throats (with a desire for billions more on other planets). We could live with a few hundred million of Earth's finest, and automate the crap out of everything we need. Just avoid pumping out billions of people and you're golden. Is anyone truly disappointed by the fact that we don't yet have 100 billion people in the solar system?

Not that it'll happen, but that's my wish.

Feels like the space-hardened version of Optimus fits in here somewhere.

Let's name the first one Roy Batty.

 

[JB47394]

Feels like the space-hardened version of Optimus fits in here somewhere.

I watched a commentary video on the papers behind this and the guy mentioned that Google is looking at additional modalities for Genesis. Touch. So the road to robots may be as one more data modality of our chatbot AIs - which I think makes perfect sense.

To stick with the thread, will our manned exploration simply be replaced by Optimus driven by chatbots? We can send them on a one-way trip and without any life support other than power and spare parts. They can be told to perform lengthy tasks, allowing a much better match for communications lag that could extend to an hour or more. This is like the difference between trying to work with Spirit and Opportunity on Mars versus Perseverance; the latter is much more able to complete driving tasks on its own, allowing for much more progress over time.

An Optimus robot masses 73 kg. We could send a thousand robots on one Starship, complete with support equipment.

 

[scaesare]

I watched a commentary video on the papers behind this and the guy mentioned that Google is looking at additional modalities for Genesis. Touch. So the road to robots may be as one more data modality of our chatbot AIs - which I think makes perfect sense.

To stick with the thread, will our manned exploration simply be replaced by Optimus driven by chatbots? We can send them on a one-way trip and without any life support other than power and spare parts. They can be told to perform lengthy tasks, allowing a much better match for communications lag that could extend to an hour or more. This is like the difference between trying to work with Spirit and Opportunity on Mars versus Perseverance; the latter is much more able to complete driving tasks on its own, allowing for much more progress over time.

An Optimus robot masses 73 kg. We could send a thousand robots on one Starship, complete with support equipment.

Agree in principle that Robotic minions can, and should, do much of the (initial) work.

I think Teslas AGI approach may be more applicable, as it's training is based on real-world object interaction. Whereas LLM's (i.e. - "Chatbots") in reality are just highly sophisticated parrots. Not downplaying their usefulness, just noting that their training mechanism and capability are somewhat different than what may be needed.