Space Travel, Old and New Ideas This has been a busy week for NASA and a reflective one for Boeing. As I write this article, the Starliner, which stranded the astronauts at the space station is due to be sent back to earth empty. The reason is NASA doesn’t trust the rocket to deliver the astronauts back home. It really is a matter of chance. Could there be a chance the rocket might not make the trip safely? With all the problems this rocket has had from day one, I understand why NASA doesn’t want to risk the astronauts lives even though Boeing is saying the trip back is safe. NASA remembers what happened with the Columbia and Challenger space shuttles and doesn’t want to take any chances, and who can blame them? The company with the best safety record right now seems to be SpaceX. I think we can expect NASA to rely more heavily on them in the future. Starship from SpaceX is coming through testing nicely. It is more powerful than Boeing’s Starliner, holds far more weight, and people and is way cheaper to launch. It would be worth waiting until it is ready and then substitute it for the Boeing Starliner. In the long run it would save money, especially if there are many launches. It has been said the cost for one launch of Boeing’s Starliner was said to cost about 1.4 billion dollars to launch but I have heard that amount has increased, but I cannot verify that. I remember all the proposals over the years for manned spacecraft and some were pretty bizarre. Every once in a while, some of these ideas are put forth again. To me, one of the real crazy ones was powering a spacecraft by dropping nuclear bombs behind it and letting the craft get pushed along on the blast wave. First of all is contaminating space even a good idea? Second what happens if a spacecraft loaded with tiny nuclear bombs gets in an accident. Third how do you protect the crew from constant nuclear radiation? These are just some of the problems with this idea. Another idea used a sail to allow a spacecraft to be pushed by the solar wind. These are particles that blow out from the sun. This idea would allow the spacecraft to sail in space, but the further from the sun it gets, the weaker the solar wind. It would work best for a couple of closer planets and moons. On the other hand, it might not work at all. I say this because we launched a probe with a solar sail and it was not all roses and candy. The probe is now tumbling out of control and it is a lucky thing there are no people onboard. On August 29, 2024 the sail was unfurled successfully. The probe named the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System was a prototype. NASA says this was expected. They said the next thing they are going to do is stabilize the craft. It seems we have been talking about warp drive ever since Star Trek appeared on television. I think the fans of the show took some of the gadgets it showed as a sort of prophecy of the future, and the fact many of the gadgets started to be invented just fortified their expectations. Hey, if cell phones could really be invented, why not the transporter and warp drive? I think that is how they felt. Now I want to tell you about the beginning of successful teleportation. Something called Ground to Satellite Quantum Teleportation has succeeded. The distance was 310 miles to 870 miles. The object teleported was a Qbit. A Qbit is a unit of information used in quantum computing. I always felt the transporter in Star Trek killed the person transporting when they were disassembled and then cloned them and the clone thought he or she was the original person. After all, how could anyone survive disassembly? One of the oldest ideas was to build a cannon which could fire a capsule into space. It was only predated by rockets I believe. The story From The Earth to The Moon by Jules Verne featured this way of travel. If we look at technologies today, we see something similar. A company named SpinLaunch throws satellites into space. Well, it only makes it through the lower atmosphere but at that point the projectile, a two-stage rocket takes over. This procedure saves tons of money on fuel. While this concept is still being developed, it seems to be coming along nicely. One idea which has been pushed for a while is cryogenics. The idea is to put people to sleep and keep their vitals as low as they can go without killing them. How many times have we seen this in science fiction movies? We are no where near being able to do this yet, and if we could, would we be able to trust a computer to monitor the process, or would we need some other kind of answer by discovering life extension drugs and such? Possibly, we will figure out how to make spacecraft move faster, far faster than light. That is only a dream right now. Another idea was to take a high-altitude balloon carrying a rocket, which would take off when the balloon reached it maximum altitude. Again, this is a fuel saving method, but it could also be called a measure to allow the rocket to gain distance. This is called Rockoons. It Is the combination of the word rocket and balloon. I think one of the most innovative ideas was the space elevator. A platform would be placed far out into orbit in such a way it always stays in place and a heavy elevator cable or cables would be anchored to the ground. This could not only be used to carry astronauts, but heavy cargo and maybe a rocket. Again, this would be a tremendous saving on fuel for a rocket launch, but it could also eliminate the necessity for transportation by rocket to space. Think about this, we build a large spacecraft in space where it would be easier to do because of the lack of gravity. When ready to launch the astronauts ride the elevator to it and eliminate a rocket voyage. This has another advantage I have to mention, it is probably safer for the astronauts than taking a rocket. It will be interesting for those young enough to see what the future will look like 50 years from now. I saw great changes from the 1940s until now, which were remarkable and seemed like science fiction.
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