Space and Rocketry Potholes can be treacherous things. I remember when I was driving home from work, years ago, when I hit one which was hidden because it was raining and the pothole was full of water. It almost jarred the teeth out of my head. After I hit it, I noticed several cars pulled over with flat tires and a couple with bent rims. Yes, potholes can be a problem and now NASA is saying there is an area in space which they have named The Pothole. I would say this does not bode well. The real name of the area is the South Atlantic Anomaly or SAA. The area is a disrupter. The cause of that disruption is the fact there is a weak spot in the magnetic field there. One scientist explained the area this way, “More specifically, a localized field with reversed polarity grows strongly in the SAA region, thus making the field intensity very weak, weaker than that of the surrounding regions.” There are so many problems for us in space and many do not have anything to do physically with space itself but some do. One of the first things we have to do is try and figure out how to create gravity in our space craft. This in itself would help astronauts from the effects of no gravity which are considerable. Astronauts on long duration stays in the ISS, which is the space station, can’t hardly walk when they get back to earth. This is even after all the rigorous exercise they have to do every day. When the Germans were designing a space station. they designed it round and rotating. I have to wonder why we didn’t create one like that, there must have been a good reason. As we have noticed during the pandemic, too much isolation is not good for human mental health. Lock three or four people into a long duration space trip and there is a good chance they will end up harming each other or worse. They might even become candidates for suicide after time. During the pandemic suicide rates have gone way up and even school age children have committed it unfortunately. Some way to avoid this has to be found before we decide to send a ship on a year long journey or longer and even at the year long duration, we are taking a chance in this area. It might be even worse if we only had one person on the trip. Radiation is a big problem. Ways to protect astronauts from its effects have to be found. Lead is far too heavy and dangerous. New materials which can resist some radiation are available for suits, but the overall problem of making a spacecraft radiation proof is still a problem for us. Certain experiments with a cold plasma have been taking place for years. It is said the plasma can be used as a radiation shield but this has not been perfected. When we talk about setting up colonies on other planets and moons, it is still probably beyond our capabilities right now even though it is being talked about. I am not saying we couldn’t set up some sort of smaller base, but the idea of starting a civilization and all it requires on a distant world is mind boggling. The first problem is if the world doesn’t have an atmosphere humans can breathe; the problems are multiplied by a large factor. This means you have to have some way of creating breathable air. You don’t want to have to rely on shipments of tanks of air because that is just not practical. You will need comfortable homes and without a breathable atmosphere they will have to be under a dome or self-sealing. A source of water will be required which is drinkable or able to be converted to drinkable easily. You also really need a way to grow enough food for the colony. Ideally, it should be outside, but I guess you could make it work if you used very large green houses. Even with all this, shipments of necessities would be required. A sewer system would have to be setup along with heating and cooling systems. People wonder about space and many of us would love to see manned space flight advance along with exploration. Flights will become safer as time goes by. If we look at the history of early aviation, we can see how that progressed and use that as a template for the space program. The early planes were very fragile. They were made of sticks and canvas with motors. They morphed into what we have today which are passenger planes which can hold as many as 500 people or more at a time. The superjumbo, which is the nickname for the Airbus A380 usually seats 525 passengers but is certified up to 853 passengers. While our spacecraft never numbered more than 8 people aboard, that was the space shuttle, the Apollo flights had 3. SpaceX is working on a rocket which will be able to carry 100 people. The rocket is named Starship. It will be the most powerful rocket ever developed. It is still under development and is unique in the fact SpaceX is developing it on its own. Elon Musk has said Starship may be able to fly missions for just 2 million dollars a mission. I am sure this is giving companies like Boeing and Northrop Grumman heart attacks. The average price for a launch today is 152 million dollars and could be a heck of a lot more depending on the rocket and cargo. SpaceX already has undercut this amount by signing a contract with the Air Force for 95 million dollars per launch. If seems to me there are two different reasons for running an aerospace company. The first is profit, which is true for any company. The second is enthusiasm. Elon Must seems to have way more of the second reason than the first which is probably making him an outlaw with the other aerospace companies. I am not an expert on his company, but I have heard he plows all his profits back into the company and that is why he is making such fantastic progress. He does have shareholders however, but he is the biggest shareholder with 54 percent holdings. Space and space travel certainly is fascinating and I am so grateful for being alive during these pioneering years. It is a slow process, much slower than aviation was, but it is speeding up as newer companies are formed and get contracts.
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