The rapid progress and then stalling is not caused by lack of investment, it’s the harsh reality of physics.
We cracked how to have machines fly like birds and then it’s low hanging fruit to achieve amazing things in atmosphere.
While exploring that, rocketry makes nearby space possible, and the moon is “right there”.
But then things are exponentially farther away, and many of them bigger gravity wells, making the trips too long and difficult to make two way trips.
In a very very short time we got heavier than air flight, rocketry, fission, mass production, and all sorts of robotics and computing. But reach breakthrough has a point where we scratch our heads trying to do better. A ton has been spent and will continue to be spent trying to crack controlled fusion. Someone that lived through us managing to split an atom for the first time to fairly widespread deployment naturally assumed fusion would be next and maybe not too long after something that would extract energy directly according to Einstein’s most famous formula.
Nuclear rockets could have easily made space relatively cheap. The tech was actively tested by NASA, and it worked pretty well. Nixon canceled that program and saddled NASA with a mandate for a Shuttle without the proper funding.
The USSR’s manned program, OTOH, was built mostly to hit a number of firsts (first dog in space, first man in space, first woman in space, first space walk, etc.), but do it as quickly as possible. This resulted in a series of “get it done right the fuck now” decisions. NASA did it the slow way, with each technical advancement building on the last, which is better in the long run (if you fund it, mind you). Russia did enough to build Soyuz and then ran that for decades.
The tech did not hit physical limits. The two major approaches to space flight hit different bureaucratic limits first.
I think repeatedly hitting the moon would have had the world shrugging, none of the sci fi was ‘hey we made it to the moon and… stayed there’.
A mission to the moon was a little under 2 weeks, a similar mission to mars would be well over two years. Sure, we could, but even the most adventurous human adventures in history have been measured in months, we’ve never displayed the will to commit to years for what would be a token mission.
Yes, the tech could be improved with more investment, but the sci-fi results of even settling mars is just unreasonably far out.
even the most adventurous human adventures in history have been measured in months, we’ve never displayed the will to commit to years for what would be a token mission.
It’s laughable how wrong this statement is. Someone else already posted about Magellan and Lewis & Clark, but there are SO MANY more examples in history. An expedition taking several years was the standard for centuries. One measured in months would have been considered pretty short until around the mid 20th century.
That is a fair point. There are still examples of multi-year expeditions without any stops for resupply, such as antarctic expeditions of the early 1900’s, but they are a lot fewer; and many of those didn’t turn out too great.
I suppose early antartic expeditions would be a decent comparison point, an exceedingly dangerous and long journey when people already know they almost certainly won’t find anything ‘nice’ there. I suppose we know more about Mars now than they did in the antarctic expeditions knew in advance, but I think they had the general idea of what they could possibly find as being grim enough to be doubtful of it being worth it.
Plenty of things could have been done with proper investment even before going to Mars. Reusable rockets, cheaper launch systems, more flights to the moon, moon bases, space stations. Yes, Mars is difficult but it would be easier with well established presence in the orbit and on the moon. All of this happened way too late (or never) because no one wanted to invest in it.
I just don’t see any of that leading to a ‘scifi’ image. None of those steps would change the sheer time it takes to get to Mars in a practical way, and that’s just a deal breaker for manned flight.
On the flip side, we have had great advances in technology that makes unmanned science better, which in a way even more reduces the chances of scifi vision of ‘manned’ space flight to far places, because it just doesn’t make sense.
Depends what SciFi we’re talking about. “2001: A Space Odyssey” plays like a total fairly tale now but I would say it was technically achievable to have lunar base in 2001 (but not going to Jupiter if I remember the plot correctly). Mars trilogy by Robinson starts in 2035 if I remember correctly and initial mission was based on cheap launch system to orbit. I think this was also feasible with sustained investment. A lot of other SciFi is based on FTL travel, AI or hibernation which we cannot place on some tech roadmap so we cannot say what does and doesn’t “lead” to it.
I don’t think that’s what they’re saying, that we’d already be exploring Andromeda or something by now. We haven’t even sent a crewed mission to the Moon, let alone Mars.
There has been no investment in space travel or any attempt to establish a research outpost on the moon. Nor a research station above the atmosphere on Venus. Nothing.
Well, we haven’t sent a crewed mission to the moon in a while, because we don’t really have any particular benefit from it, and even if that had continued, that wouldn’t have fit with the scifi vision of how things should be. A Mars trip is theoretically possible, but that’s a multi-year mission for a single trip. That’s a lot for what would mostly a vanity project of a manned mission compared to sending probes.
On the concept of a Venusian research station, the question would be… why? Staff would be in practical terms in no better position to study Venus than they would from Earth. All they could do would be supervise instruments in ways that could be done remotely.
The point is while advancements are possible, none that would even tickle the more tame sci-fi visions of expansion within the solar system. The larger impediments to a Mars mission are just “why” not technical impediments, unless a technical improvement could cut that trip down by 10-fold, but nothing even vaguely hints at that being a possibility.
The rapid progress and then stalling is not caused by lack of investment, it’s the harsh reality of physics.
We cracked how to have machines fly like birds and then it’s low hanging fruit to achieve amazing things in atmosphere.
While exploring that, rocketry makes nearby space possible, and the moon is “right there”.
But then things are exponentially farther away, and many of them bigger gravity wells, making the trips too long and difficult to make two way trips.
In a very very short time we got heavier than air flight, rocketry, fission, mass production, and all sorts of robotics and computing. But reach breakthrough has a point where we scratch our heads trying to do better. A ton has been spent and will continue to be spent trying to crack controlled fusion. Someone that lived through us managing to split an atom for the first time to fairly widespread deployment naturally assumed fusion would be next and maybe not too long after something that would extract energy directly according to Einstein’s most famous formula.
Nuclear rockets could have easily made space relatively cheap. The tech was actively tested by NASA, and it worked pretty well. Nixon canceled that program and saddled NASA with a mandate for a Shuttle without the proper funding.
The USSR’s manned program, OTOH, was built mostly to hit a number of firsts (first dog in space, first man in space, first woman in space, first space walk, etc.), but do it as quickly as possible. This resulted in a series of “get it done right the fuck now” decisions. NASA did it the slow way, with each technical advancement building on the last, which is better in the long run (if you fund it, mind you). Russia did enough to build Soyuz and then ran that for decades.
The tech did not hit physical limits. The two major approaches to space flight hit different bureaucratic limits first.
Relevant article regarding NASA’s current bureaucratic limits: https://idlewords.com/2024/5/the_lunacy_of_artemis.htm
I think repeatedly hitting the moon would have had the world shrugging, none of the sci fi was ‘hey we made it to the moon and… stayed there’.
A mission to the moon was a little under 2 weeks, a similar mission to mars would be well over two years. Sure, we could, but even the most adventurous human adventures in history have been measured in months, we’ve never displayed the will to commit to years for what would be a token mission.
Yes, the tech could be improved with more investment, but the sci-fi results of even settling mars is just unreasonably far out.
It’s laughable how wrong this statement is. Someone else already posted about Magellan and Lewis & Clark, but there are SO MANY more examples in history. An expedition taking several years was the standard for centuries. One measured in months would have been considered pretty short until around the mid 20th century.
Ok, maybe I should have said single trips. Multi year expeditions involved many stops, a trip to Mars would be non stop.
That is a fair point. There are still examples of multi-year expeditions without any stops for resupply, such as antarctic expeditions of the early 1900’s, but they are a lot fewer; and many of those didn’t turn out too great.
I suppose early antartic expeditions would be a decent comparison point, an exceedingly dangerous and long journey when people already know they almost certainly won’t find anything ‘nice’ there. I suppose we know more about Mars now than they did in the antarctic expeditions knew in advance, but I think they had the general idea of what they could possibly find as being grim enough to be doubtful of it being worth it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magellan_expedition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_and_Clark_Expedition
Not with nuclear thermal propulsion, it wouldn’t. Time to Mars is estimated at 45 days with them.
Plenty of things could have been done with proper investment even before going to Mars. Reusable rockets, cheaper launch systems, more flights to the moon, moon bases, space stations. Yes, Mars is difficult but it would be easier with well established presence in the orbit and on the moon. All of this happened way too late (or never) because no one wanted to invest in it.
I just don’t see any of that leading to a ‘scifi’ image. None of those steps would change the sheer time it takes to get to Mars in a practical way, and that’s just a deal breaker for manned flight.
On the flip side, we have had great advances in technology that makes unmanned science better, which in a way even more reduces the chances of scifi vision of ‘manned’ space flight to far places, because it just doesn’t make sense.
Depends what SciFi we’re talking about. “2001: A Space Odyssey” plays like a total fairly tale now but I would say it was technically achievable to have lunar base in 2001 (but not going to Jupiter if I remember the plot correctly). Mars trilogy by Robinson starts in 2035 if I remember correctly and initial mission was based on cheap launch system to orbit. I think this was also feasible with sustained investment. A lot of other SciFi is based on FTL travel, AI or hibernation which we cannot place on some tech roadmap so we cannot say what does and doesn’t “lead” to it.
I don’t think that’s what they’re saying, that we’d already be exploring Andromeda or something by now. We haven’t even sent a crewed mission to the Moon, let alone Mars.
There has been no investment in space travel or any attempt to establish a research outpost on the moon. Nor a research station above the atmosphere on Venus. Nothing.
Well, we haven’t sent a crewed mission to the moon in a while, because we don’t really have any particular benefit from it, and even if that had continued, that wouldn’t have fit with the scifi vision of how things should be. A Mars trip is theoretically possible, but that’s a multi-year mission for a single trip. That’s a lot for what would mostly a vanity project of a manned mission compared to sending probes.
On the concept of a Venusian research station, the question would be… why? Staff would be in practical terms in no better position to study Venus than they would from Earth. All they could do would be supervise instruments in ways that could be done remotely.
The point is while advancements are possible, none that would even tickle the more tame sci-fi visions of expansion within the solar system. The larger impediments to a Mars mission are just “why” not technical impediments, unless a technical improvement could cut that trip down by 10-fold, but nothing even vaguely hints at that being a possibility.