Carnival of Space 234

Dear Astronomer has Carnival of Space 234

Vintage Space has a take on Newt Gingrich’s plan to have an American lunar base up and running by the end of his second term in 2020. Vintage Space thinks a Moon base is a horrible idea, and suggest we shouldn’t take his plans of lunar domination too seriously. Vintage Space does not want to lose the Space Science and other projects that NASA works on for any ambitious project that would take over NASA’s budget.

Readers of Nextbigfuture know that I disagree with Vintage Space and believe an affordable moon base can be established. I also believe that the primary focus of NASA and any space policy is to lower the cost of getting to space and ultimately enable true industry in space. True industry means building up power generation to many megawatts and gigawatts. Everything are extras that will be more affordable once the primary goals are met. The historical model that should be examined are the establishment of affordable commercial aviation and the building of a national highway system and the building of national power grids. Space science will be great when we have affordable access and infrastructure in space. Right now every mission costs hundreds of millions to billions. Get that science horse behind the cart of affordable and robust space infrastructure. Once missions cost a few million or less we will have hundreds of times more science too, along with space tourism, a bigger satellite service market, space entertainment linked to terrestrial movie, video games and theme parks and colonization. Colonization is the ultimate goal and purpose.

Nextbigfuture- Researchers describe a new system for a society of highly advanced civilizations around a super massive black hole (SMBH), as an advanced Type III “Dyson Sphere,” pointing out an efficient usage of energy for the advanced civilizations. SMBH also works as a sink for waste materials. It would produce 100 million times the power of a dyson sphere around our sun.

Nextbigfuture – Project Bifrost is an ambitious study examining emerging space technologies that could lay the foundation for future interstellar flights and investigates the utility of fission for future space missions. Richard Obousy, senior scientist for Icarus, “the technology roadmap to antimatter, or even fusion rockets could easily be decades in the making, but there is one technology that we have available today that represents the critical first step in the long road to the stars, namely fission.”

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