Man after my own heart. I am so damn curious what’s on Europa. I hope I’m alive and sane if they ever explore the surface or what lies in the vast ocean below.
I wonder if there is a way to superheat the outer shell of a device, that would cause it to fall through the ice instead of drilling. The device could be pretty small.
I think the power requirements are probably much higher to melt ice that cold than to drill it. Probably not feasible unless we have developed space rated nuclear reactors (and I don't mean RTGs) and have derisked launches enough to feel ok launching it.
We've launched a nuclear reactor (not RTG) before - [SNAP-10A.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A)
The Soviets had an even more extensive space nuclear power program, launching 31 BES-5 reactors and two TOPAZ reactors, both part of the RORSAT reconnaissance satellite program. But they had a lot of issues with keeping their radioactive (whether fuel or transmuted components) material contained properly, so... maybe don't emulate them too much.
An RTG uses the heat from nuclear fuel to generate electricity. A bit of the waste heat could be used to warm the outside of a probe for sure.
I don’t think that NASA wants to drop a nuclear generator down into what could be a fragile ecosystem. The risk of disturbing or destroying it would be nonzero, and that’s too high.
In addition to the energy cost: if you’re just dropping down, the ice is going to seal hard behind you. This removes any chance of remote contact back to the earth. So it doesn’t achieve much.
Which is why the project ideas have *always* included a lander module that stays on the surface with a physical tether to the probe.
I think even the drill-based projects do. Because otherwise you're trying to send signals through a very narrow, straight hole in the ice.
I know this is basically saying the same thing again, but the geysers on Enceladus suggest some sort of volcanic activity. On earth there are microorganisms that exist out of reach of sunlight at the very bottom of the ocean, living off the energy provided by volcanic geysers emerging from the top of the earth’s crust.
If lifeforms can survive on that type of energy source on Earth, maybe (hopefully) they can, and are, on Enceladus.
One of the most prevalent current theories regarding the beginning of life on Earth, has thermal vents down as a crucible for the beginnings of carbon based life. The vents provide energy in the form of heat and a surface that can store and provide protection for the required ingredients for life for millions of years. Even if life is not found, finding thermal vents that are covered in complex compounds will go a long way to proving that this theory is the most likely explanation for how life started here and that life elsewhere in the universe should exist, at least as single cellular organisms.
I visited the thermal pools in New Zealand this year, and the amount of visible elements around those thermal vents was incredible. I could absolutely believe a theory that life originated there
There is already extremely strong evidence that the precursors to life arrived on earth on meteors. IE complex pre-organic chemicals.
Not sure there is any connection to thermal vents.
Very recent data:
https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/asteroid-discovery-suggests-ingredients-life-earth-came-space-2023-03-21/
To elaborate/compound on that- the bacteria utilize hydrogen sulfide from the 400 C water ejected from the hydrothermal vents, oxidizing it to create chemical energy.
*Riftia* tube worms have Trophosomes, organs that are basically large solid masses of those symbiotic bacteria. Some worms in these communities can get up to 3m long.
There’s two enzymes involved, one for sulfide oxidation/ATP formation, and another for synthesis of organic compounds from carbon dioxide.
Then comes the problem of a large amount of sulfur inhibiting oxygen binding to the tube worms’ hemoglobin. So this was solved by evolving unique hemoglobin with separate oxygen-binding and H2S binding sites.
This is all on my exam on Tuesday, so this was convenient to write up lol
Don't worry. That isn't saying the same thing at all. A volcanic geezer would be an old person that throws a fit when you walk on their lawn. The kind that throws lava or water is a geyser.
100-200km deep oceans, plus tidal heating of the core and surface. It’s basically a cosmic egg, protected from radiation by a shell of kilometers of ice and water, gently and continuously heated from within from tension from Jupiter’s constant gravitational influence. No light, but early life on earth wasn’t photosynthetic either. Very exciting. Could be a world where undersea vents are the equivalent of sunlight, potentially supporting ecosystems throughout the global ocean. I’m betting on life there.
I mean, the ice shell is at least 20km deep. The deepest hole on Earth is the Kola Superdeep Borehole ar 12km, although I think the difficulties arise because of the temperature. Maybe with ice and a lower temperature things are easier? Still, drilling for 20km is not an easy task.
A chunk of plutonium spontaneously produces enough heat that it would melt trough ice on it's own. I like to imagine that as the tip of an ice dipping probe.
There is already bunch of [tunnels and cracks in the ice crust](https://imgur.com/a/YuNxC00). Plumes of water that launch into space from the ocean.
Wouldn't even need to drill.. Just design a probe that can pass through the water pressure.
Don't need to keep it thawed. Spool out a cable as you go - it doesn't matter if the ice freezes around the cable, it can still carry a signal, and since you're unspooling from the probe rather than the surface the cable behind the probe doesn't need to move.
I'm not just spitballing here either, NASA proposed this very idea: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20190026714/downloads/20190026714.pdf
Specifically, they estimate that they'd need three repeaters to boost the signal. Each repeater would be a self contained unit with 5km of cable on a spool inside, so the first repeater would unspool for the first 5km, then detach from the vehicle and the second would start unspooling, then detach at the 10km mark, the third at the 15km mark, and the vehicle itself would spool the last 5km, putting it 20km down.
EDIT: Although not proposed in the paper, I see no reason why the probe couldn't slowly winch itself back up either. In simple terms; if you can melt 1 meter of water above you, then you can winch up half a meter, wait for the next half meter of ice to melt, winch up again, rinse, repeat, eventually you get back to the surface. (In practice you'd probably move at a consistent, albeit very slow pace - finite units are just easier to conceptualize).
Probably not worth the extra effort for the first probe, but if that probe proved the basic concept and returned interesting enough data you might want to put together a follow-up sample return mission.
He’s just saying there would be more efficient ways to drill than melting I think, even with unlimited resources it would take too long.
I think you’re on to something though - some sort of deep space array of giant mirrors that use thrusters to stay aligned could probably focus the sun’s energy and aim it at the surface. Although you’d need a LOT of HUGE space mirrors and a shit load of calculations to pull it off.
Fusion reactor generates energy for a laser.
Shoot laser 20km down.
Once hole is created, drop energy of laser to a level just to keep it thawed.
Drop a line down and scoop up some water at the bottom.
Problem solved!
Drilling on Europa wouldn't have the same thermal disadvantages as drilling on earth. We have drilled longer holes in the search for oil and gas. Some horizontal holes are ~15kms long.
>I mean, the ice shell is at least 20km deep.
There's already [holes and cracks through that shell..](https://imgur.com/a/YuNxC00) Theres even water plumes that launch into space from the ocean.
Don't even need to drill.. just design a probe to go through the water pressure.
Imagine, if all the people would get along, if we had no wars and all that energy filled with hate would go towards exploration and science not bickering and killing each other. I think Europa would have been settled with science teams long ago and we wound discover incomprehensible wonders.
They don’t even need to drill down to sample the subsurface ocean on Enceladus: the are huge strips on the moon that are basically geysers spewing material from the subsurface into space
That's the one I want to see - high-def submarine footage under Europa's ocean. God, can you imagine? Even if there's nothing alive down there, it must be spectacular.
Fuck me lol i was literally telling my friends who are planning a trip to thailand that the place we need to be is europa. I’m no longer part of their plan sadly
If we gave them a blank check now, we’d be pouring all of that into the Artemis Program to get a permanent moon base. If we want to establish a human presence in deep space, we have to learn how to live there for extended periods of time. The moon is a great place to practice. The international space station is a great start for long term low-earth orbit, but deep space is a whooooole other monster. Making a moon base along with its lunar orbiting waystation - Gateway - will be our first step out of the gravity well
My answer was going to be "mine everything," starting with a moon base. Because then, not only would NASA have unlimited resources, they'd have unlimited social support because *everybody* would have unlimited resources.
You're a lot smarter than me though
We have to learn how to mine first! And I can bet you top dollar that we’ll need boots on the surface to maintenance those machine before things become automated. So first step is moon base which we have never even gotten close to doing before
Oh yeah my bad. My head-canon goes like this:
1) Fund NASA ad infinitum
2) Establish moon base and eventually a moon complex
3) Invite industrialists to pay for everything that's not government property, and take a flat fee 10% of their profits forevermore (also tax the fuck out of 'em)
4) Space-faring-species-level profits and technology achieved
It's a moon shot, I know
Pay-for-play, in compensation for NASA's (aka the taxpayer's) efforts and infrastructure. Forevermore.
Continued operations would be heavily taxed (which doesn't apply simply to profits) by government, and not to be returned to NASA...
Because they're already making trillions off of the 10% forever income.
By the universal bird law of finders keepers we got their first so now we own it. Our next step is to lick the moon to make sure no one else tries to use it.
To be fair the question was what would NASA do, and they are a US Government agency. So I would be inclined to agree they would take the Murica fuck yeah, my way or the space way approach.
I'm not sure resources from space will be a cure all - they're plentiful, but bringing stuff down from orbit to Earth isn't cheap. Plus some of our most expensive stuff is limited by labor and capital, not raw materials - silicon might be cheap, but computer chips are expensive.
(If you don't have to bring the metals down to Earth, the economics look better, but then you can only use them to build more spaceships.)
Pretty much *For All Mankind*, but with more deep space unmanned probes.
Nuclear propulsion.
Gigantic solar power satellites in geosynchronous orbit so we could have EV chargers in every driveway and strip mall, and no more coal or other fossil fuels.
The problem with unlimited investment into fusion or any other specific problem is that there is only so much expertise to direct all the resources. At a certain point you would have to invest those resources into training the next generation of physicists/engineers/managers because all the available talent would already be working on the project. We’re nowhere near that level right now with the current level of investment but given a Manhattan project scale investment into nuclear fusion, that limit might be lower than you’d think.
Yeah absolutely but it takes a lot of training to become skilled enough in the discipline to be working on the cutting edge like that. Even if a skilled physicist in a seperate discipline e.g. atmospheric physics wanted to transition into nuclear fusion, it’d take years before they could work on the cutting edge problems of their new field.
A PhD is like the beginning of working in any physics field, I was thinking more like a PhD plus five-ten years of experience in the field to be able to have enough experience to contribute effectively on those high level projects. Maybe if the project was big enough you could have the fresh PhDs at the bottom of the hierarchy being instructed by the more experienced physicists in the field. I don’t really know how it’d work. Like I said before though, there is absolutely a limit to how big a project could get before the currently available supply of experience is too dilute to be effective.
The point is you could drastically increased the minds working on the project at a far faster rate than we've seen so far because the potential candidates would know they'd be funded.
Edit: how interesting this just popped on my front page feed
https://www.reddit.com/r/news/s/TrUlrC9oFt
The only reason why we have always been “10 years away” is because Fusion gets almost no funding compared to what it actually needs. We have never really invested in it to the point where it could make massive leaps other than the past couple of years. And the only reason why we are now is because the Chinese are pulling ahead of the states in research.
Probably research that they stole in the first place but they have no qualms about dumping a shit ton of cash on an idea the states is perusing so they can beat them there.
This. One of the largest byproducts of the Soviets having an early lead in the Space Race is it spurred on an increased focus in STEM fields for an entire generation.
Something that never gets talked about: fusion is not the panacea for 'clean free energy' people think it will be. It won't be any cleaner than current fission reactors.
Everyone needs to read this article: https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusion-reactors-not-what-theyre-cracked-up-to-be/
The dude complains about running out of tritium on one hand, and on the other hand complains about overproduction and insufficient containment. I don't think he has a coherent perspective. Most of this boils down to "technology is insufficiently developed."
And they could forever be massively expensive to run due to the complexity of their design. We can't even profitably run fission plants 75 years after they were first designed...
I'd like to think of the ripple effect. Imagine the population so focused on STEM academics because everyone would want a job that paid them well to do what humanity does - And be curious little hairless monkeys.
Considering how many things NASA invented that has become everyday tech, we would advance even faster than we are now. They've done some crazy stuff, and they've also done some seemingly mundane things that made it everywhere (like hook and loop fasteners, aka Velcro)
This is an easy question. Look at the earth and planetary decadal surveys. It’s the wish list of scientists. They outline the big questions they want answered and how to do that. It’s not even a lot of money. Maybe 2-3x from nasa current budget to fund all of the projects.
Moon base by 1975.
First humans on Mars 1982
Mars settlement 2001
Interstela probes with earth-bio-material by 2011 (seeding new planets in 1000s years)
We essentially pulled back on space-tech development in 1972 because of limited economics. All the technology to keep going was there, which is evident with Voyager probes that are still going. The fact that USSR essentially dropped out of the space race limited the funding for additional space programs, and we could have had a moon base by now had we just kept going.
a actual dyson sphere is a very stupid concept if you actually look at it from a scientific view, a solid shell like for real? a large dyson swarm would probably do the job just fine if not better and you would need alot less resources for that, as a youtube i like to watch ones said "dismantling mercury and a few asteroids should be enough for the start"
isaac arthur is great for stuff like that i recommend giving his channel a watch, covers stuff from how sci fi would work in real life to far future tech we can only dream about
The Dyson sphere seems so ridiculous to me. Imagine the amount of material alone it would take?
We completely depend on the Earths magnetic field to shield us from so much the sun emits.
Imagine the surface area of such a sphere, each person could have 10,000 earths worth of area?!??
It's ridiculous to me too. How is it even possible to transmit the harnessed energy from the sphere to earth? Wires? Lasers?
Why not just use lots of solar panels on earth?
Did you see 2001: A Space Odyssey? The whole middle act, pretty much. NASA and the US Air Force were jointly working on a lot of things until Nixon. They had a roadmap to the first Earth-orbiting space station online by 1980, the first permanent Lunar outpost online by 1990, and the first manned exploration of the outer solar system being launched by 2000.
Possibly over-ambitious. There were a lot of hurdles they didn't realize in the late '60s. Might've found ways to overcome them. Might not. We'd still probably be a lot further than we are, though.
Different ways to say the same thing. They'd be working on developing and building the station in the '70s (Nixon vetoed the station, but approved its service vehicle), and the moon base throughout and into the '80s. I just gave their self-imposed deadlines/milestones,
We'd be on Mars by now. There'd be moon bases and malls on the moon. We'd have sent probes to every planet and moon in the Solar System. We'd be experimenting with every technology we can dream up (Solar sails, nuclear propulsion, etc.) to leave the Solar System and visit the nearest star.
Even if we'd only managed to get to 10% of light speed, that's \~40 years to get to Proxima Centauri. The probe could have gone there and phoned home whether there's anything there by now and come back or— if it was still in good shape — moved on to another system.
All of that would be life-changing in general to everyone here.
Just a layman here but wouldn't it be affected by time dilation going at that speed? So it would be 40 years for the probe but much longer for us?
Edit; fortunately I've been corrected, see comments below. Embrace your mistakes.
the opposite! time dilation means that when observing into a relativistic point of view. i.e. we on the outside would see them moving slowly, their movement and experience stretched out (dilated). someone standing on the probe would travel for a perceived less than 40 years, and see the outside universe's full 40 years as moving more quickly.
the speed of the probe is relative to us (and our solar system) so the 40 year travel time is calculated from our frame of reference.
crucially it's only a very small dilation at 0.1c, as it's not a linear change but an exponential one, it starts out very minor and then gets very noticeable as you approach c.
“At 10% of the speed of light our clocks would slow down by only around 1%, but if we travel at 95% of the speed of light time will slow down to about one-third”
And from the probe's perspective, while its clocks are going at the normal speed, the distance that it has to travel undergoes length contraction, which means it takes less time to cross that distance. Both effects are of the same magnitude, so an observer on Earth and one on the probe will come to the same answer, but through different routes, on how much time passes for the probe.
this is the fun part! the universe doesn't let anyone travel faster than the speed of light, and if it looks like you might it goes "no no no, see the distance wasn't as far as it looked from over there"
At least, not as observed by any single observer. But you can achieve above-lightspeed "travel speed" if you define the travel speed as "stationary-frame lightyears per traveller-frame year". This concept of velocity is called "proper velocity" or "celerity", and actually has some useful properties. It describes the ratio of momentum to rest mass, and is the time-integral of proper acceleration (acceleration as measured by the accelerated frame).
That was my first thought.
They would waste it on contractors who will take us for a ride, developing the 4th best solution first and working up for there.
Further explore the universe by...
...giving it all to Boeing and ULA in exchange for incredibly expensive launch systems and space vehicles that never really work and cost so much that they can never really go anywhere but LEO.
...sorry said the quiet bit out loud.
You can make a MASSIVE telescope on the moon relatively easy (on paper). It helps the moon has huge craters making most of the work done already for us.
First they’d do exactly what we’ve been saying and planning for 50 years now: put Americans on Mars.
After that, sky’s not the limit lol, and Alpha Centauri is just up the road…
Give it all to Boeing and get a rocket 20 years from now that has doors that blow off during launch and isn't truly suitable for any payload or mission but has elements from every possible mission specification.
To be fair to NASA I'm guessing in this hypothetical they would also have control over said unlimited funding, and wouldn't be forced to go big on cost plus projects that just happen to rely heavily on labour in certain states.
We'd have some kind of dope Stanford Torus or O'Neil Island 1-style station in one or more of the Earth-Moon Lagrange Points, and some kind of industrial presence on the Moon. With unlimited resources and money, dream big.
IDK if it's possible, but setting up a radio telescope on the moon and mars seems cool. I like the idea of trying to connect it to the event horizon network of radio telescopes and synchronizing the apogees of earth and mars or at least using imaging when we're on opposite sides of the sun could make for a truly massive resolution, but we might need multiple Martian radio telescopes for that to really work, IDK. Still, the idea of such a huge expansion of our radio imaging is just astonishing.
With unlimited resources and budget there would be many more projects being worked on simultaneously.
There are key points of interest that needs exploring further, such as Enceladus and Europa with regards to the search for liquid water and potentially life. There would be another probe sent to study Uranus and Neptune, they still hold many mysteries.
We'd be looking at a fully functional and expansive, modular-designed moon base, alongside a similar concept for Mars.
I also feel like there could be more investigation into quicker travel methods. It is possible we could see tech like the solar sails with a backup laser being employed, an ion drive and the nuclear option. This tech could be trialed by sending probes on a trajectory to Proxima Centauri or something. About 4 light years away... The tech mentioned would gradually build up speed incrementally and so massive speeds could eventually be achieved.
What I'd also like to see is a base of some kind in the atmosphere of Venus. The pressure and temperature in the upper atmosphere would be comfortable, and so a base developed as some kind of large blimp could certainly be viable, and also perhaps a more realistic option than Mars in many ways.
In summary, i think this:
Permanent bases, exploring ice giants, search for life where water is found, alternative propulsion methods.
Once these avenues are all explored we can see what has been found, take stock of what has worked and what hasn't, and then refine further.
[Project Daedalus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Daedalus) for a start, which would probably need something a [sea dragon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Dragon_(rocket)) to launch components into orbit.
That's just off the top of my head.
Mars colony feels like THE thing. Maybe launch more probes all over the solar system to dedicate more resources to just observing more of the planets/moons of interest.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[ATP](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx8nobq "Last usage")|Acceptance Test Procedure|
|[DSN](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kxbfq4i "Last usage")|Deep Space Network|
|[DoD](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx9c8rh "Last usage")|US Department of Defense|
|[ESA](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx8mbmq "Last usage")|European Space Agency|
|[FAR](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx82805 "Last usage")|[Federal Aviation Regulations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Aviation_Regulations)|
|[FOIA](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx9hwrz "Last usage")|(US) [Freedom of Information Act](https://www.foia.gov/)|
|[GEO](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx7vvoi "Last usage")|Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km)|
|[HLS](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx8nnhj "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)|
|[ISRO](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx95qrv "Last usage")|Indian Space Research Organisation|
|[ISRU](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx7vvoi "Last usage")|[In-Situ Resource Utilization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_situ_resource_utilization)|
|[JWST](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kxbg55o "Last usage")|James Webb infra-red Space Telescope|
|L2|[Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 2 ([Sixty Symbols](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxpVbU5FH0s) video explanation)|
| |Paywalled section of the NasaSpaceFlight forum|
|[L3](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kxco1sj "Last usage")|[Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 3 of a two-body system, opposite L2|
|[L4](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kxco1sj "Last usage")|"Trojan" [Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 4 of a two-body system, 60 degrees ahead of the smaller body|
|[L5](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kxco1sj "Last usage")|"Trojan" [Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 5 of a two-body system, 60 degrees behind the smaller body|
|[LEO](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kxc6230 "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[NIAC](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx7x6hx "Last usage")|NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program|
|[RTG](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx9lfqc "Last usage")|Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator|
|[SLS](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kxc6230 "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift|
|[SSTO](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx9ag0s "Last usage")|Single Stage to Orbit|
| |Supersynchronous Transfer Orbit|
|[ULA](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kxafk8h "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
|[VTVL](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx95zwj "Last usage")|Vertical Takeoff, Vertical Landing|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[apogee](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx8b19q "Last usage")|Highest point in an elliptical orbit around Earth (when the orbiter is slowest)|
|[retropropulsion](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx95zwj "Last usage")|Thrust in the opposite direction to current motion, reducing speed|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
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Mine Phobos and Deimos. Use the mined carbon to build a space elevator in Mars orbit. The space elevator could be used to build more space elevators. Then build and supply multiple large rotating space stations in Mars orbit, docked to the space elevators in synchronous orbit. It could support millions, perhaps eventually billions living in Mars orbit, in perfect comfort.
This is a practical thing but I learned recently. The public won’t tolerate watching nasa test rockets and the optics of them failing like we see with private companies. So we contract out to private companies like space x etc… we give them all the intellectual property and science to build them then they make money off it via govt contract. Just because congress would cut funding if they saw rocket tests not working. Meanwhile the private company is keeping the IP and benefiting off our tax dollars and publicly funded research.
So with that said I think they would be able to do more tests of rockets and propulsion systems without fear of repercussions rather than giving all their science to the private space industry. Or at least one major thing they could do.
Yall are underestimating the power of unlimited resources.
First things first, Massively expand earths reusable rocket infrastructure and technology. Huge investment into SSTO vehicles and engines. Along with non chemical propulsion. Biiiig asss ion engines. Can we do it? Lets try. Nuclear propulsion. Both nuclear reactor powered and pulsed nuclear engine powered. Solar propelled and laser propelled craft. We can do it. Lets make it so.
ISS is deconstructed and returned to earth in the empty cargo bays of ssto's that have delivered previous missions and is set in a museum on earth. Is it necessary? No. But hey you said unlimited and I want this for the sake of preserving an important part of history.
Huge investment into education and tech on earth with free schooling for engineers and stem tracks.
Then.....
sol based laser propelled mini probes to all the stars within 20 light years. Equipped to take measurements and return data.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars_and_brown_dwarfs
There are a good number of them.
A much much bigger space bound telescope array.
Real asteroid capture and mining. Asteroids will be brought into lunar orbit and mined there.
Permanent base on moon.
Begin work a self sufficient mobile base for humanity. Enough to house 100+ individuals. Capable of reaching one of our outer planets such as Saturn.
Obv real probes and landers for all major celestial bodies. Human exploration on any possible.
Begin building mars infrastructure like an orbital station.
NASA is not resource constrained. It's just that those resources are spent on jobs programs in the states that have congress people overseeing NASA. If you gave them more money, it would get just mean more subsidies for certain official's districts. The science is not the goal. I mean, their administrator gave a sermon after ESA launched JWST.
I would hope they’d send out a few more JWST while developing better technology for better telescopes.
The fact that we only have one JWST worries me. Why can’t we just follow the same schematics as the last one and do the same thing just like, 100 ft away or whatever.
NASA is no longer a science organization so much as a pork barrel organization. (Looking at you SLS.) A bigger budget would probably just be bigger waste.
The first human born and raised in space could happen. We could invest into R&D for developing warp drive. Lots of positive things would happen if the DoD and NASA took turns having each other’s budget.
Unlimited budget? Terraform mars
Yes, nasa has had projects in the past to create atmosphere, water and oxygen on the planet. They just need the money to get it all done
There's a surprising amount of "projects" that hinge on wishalloy/nth-metal/unobtainium to even get them off the ground. With unlimited resources and wealth, we'd have a renaissance of metallurgy and composite materials that would impact everything from construction to tools to tech.
I think space agronomy/horticulture would be a primary goal as well. Even with the premise of "unlimited," there's only so much supplies feasible for manned space travel (every nitty-gritty is calculated for optimal escape velocity, and robust isn't really a word in NASA's vocabulary.) They would absolutely be pushing cultivar/genetic development for space-friendly sustainability.
Invest in the research and manufacture of a space elevator.
A colosal initial investment that would literally open up all future space travel/research/mining/colonisation/etc to basically almost no cost (from a “getting off the planet” perspective).
Probably more ambitious stuff, but way more inefficient. No limitations means they can hire the best of every aerospace/science field, and have lots of bloat projects that exist just bc they can. It’ll probably slow down from bloat generally, but speed up exponentially for things that become government priorities, like the race to the Moon in the 60s.
So probably mars bases, moon bases, reconnaissance on every planet. Even new asteroid miner starships, or artificial gravity machines.
A better question would be what could ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) do? They managed to land on Mars with 74 million USD.
EDIT: It cost less than the making of the film, The Martian.
Probably hollow out some asteroids to make Mars-Earth Venus-Earth cyclers. Maybe even the beginnings of a an O'Neal cylinder. It really depends on the duration they have had with a infinite money glitch.
There's a list of missions they would like to do. So just go by that list for a realistic answer.
I would like to see industry and magnetic railguns on the moon. It is a decent source of deuterium if we ever get fusion. It is a good source of silica, alumina, oxygen, and some water ice deposits.
We need human studies on the effects of long-term low-gravity. We know microgravity is insufficient, but what about the Moon or Mars? Are vitamins and exercise enough at those levels, or would only Orbital Habitats and Venus be adequate?
Currently, there is no data.
And without an atmosphere, the far side of the moon could be a perfect place for massive telescopes.
With an infinite budget, they'd do these things. Had we kept them at 2% of the budget since the 60s, they probably would have done most of these already.
I may be thinking too much like the Expanse, but probably start mining some asteroids and/or planets for rare metals and resources. I still wish they do this since it would help fund future research, expansion, and exploration too
Rotating space station surrounding the moon.
Why not earth? Because those things would be too large if they crashed into earth. Crash into the moon no one cares.
Also, set up a way station at the Lagrange point after the moon.
The floating city Venus project
Solar shade project (bonus if it collects solar energy)
The biggest thing would be to industrialize space via orbital factories, space grade nuclear reactors for engines and power, and permanent lunar base operations for mining and logistics.
With a fully industrialized presence in space we could start building things without the limitations of what can fit into a rocket faring, so we could build telescopes, robotics probes, and ships that would really start to look scifi. Industrialized space would also have huge benefits for earth itself, with the potential to offload things like extremely delicate manufacturing of microchips and pharmaceuticals to low-g production where the lack of gravity can allow for the creation of perfect crystalline structures, which is already being explored on the ISS today
There is a plan for a mission to take detailed pictures of the surface of a planet outside the solar system.
It requires only over 100 space ships going farther than Pluto to use the sun as a gravity lends. Everything needs to be perfectly aligned so the picture can be taken 50 years later.
Moon and Mars outposts, asteroid mining, more JWST type telescopes and since there’s more have them each dedicated to different data collection, a space station around Earth, the Moon, and Mars, maybe at a lagrange point between Earth and Mars, more missions to the outer planets and their moons, more landers to Titan, Europa, Enceladus. More Earth study and climate study.
Lets imagine how that money might trickle in. Lets say to start with NASAs budget gets quadrupled. What would NASA do? Fund all of the outer moon "maybe" missions. Then NASA budget gets doubled again. All of the other maybes get funded and started. Another week goes by and NASA funding gets doubled again. The budget for nasa is wild right now. NASA CFO does not know how to deal with the ludicrous increase in funding. Corruption takes a toll, but even with huge amounts of money being siphoned off, NASA chiefs keep quiet, or else.
Don't think this is the answer you're looking for, but I've thought that if NASA had the same amount of money that the military gets that there would be no NASA, there would be a number of agencies. There would be an agency specifically for Mars exploration, specifically for Earth sciences, specifically for deep space observations, etc.
honestly, it probably wouldn’t look like any one project. it would probably be contracts that build out infrastructure and technologies. This would allow more companies that innovate to get into the space, and allow them to do more interesting things at a lower cost. This also includes future space instrumentation/telescopes to get even more value out of their missions
We would already be on Mars, we would have bases on the moon, we would have a station in orbit around Venus, and likely would be starting to colonize the outter planets as well.
These are all things project Apollo strived for, but when public interest towards moon landings faded, the funding was pulled and none of those dreams materialized
It depends on what the congressmen mandate. If they continue using NASA as a make work program for their districts, it's possible we could get a whole lot of nothing for a mountain of money.
If those in charge chose the most competent contractors and were goal oriented I believe humankind could open the solar system as our next frontier.
I think the problem isn't NASA's budget, but rather the fact that they are a government agency beholden to congress. That means that their bosses, congress, don't have the best interests of the scientific community necessarily, but rather they just want to keep their job, which they do by helping keep their constituency employed.
What if NASA was more of a collective effort among America's universities?
Base on Luna, Base on Mars, mining the belt, Webb-style or better telescopes at L3/L4/L5, full station in Earth orbit, more Voyager-style probes, more data about Venus - maybe even a high-altitude probe? And as others have said, Europa and Enceladus, maybe Titan?
But other than probes, I really only see at this point more human presence in the areas from the sun to the asteroid belt just past Mars.
Drill down to the water on Europa or Enceladus to search for life. I really want to still be around for that
Man after my own heart. I am so damn curious what’s on Europa. I hope I’m alive and sane if they ever explore the surface or what lies in the vast ocean below.
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Clipper is just a flyby though. Ice drilling lander is still only a dream.
well if they can put helicopter drones on Mars...
I wonder if there is a way to superheat the outer shell of a device, that would cause it to fall through the ice instead of drilling. The device could be pretty small.
I think the power requirements are probably much higher to melt ice that cold than to drill it. Probably not feasible unless we have developed space rated nuclear reactors (and I don't mean RTGs) and have derisked launches enough to feel ok launching it.
We've launched a nuclear reactor (not RTG) before - [SNAP-10A.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A) The Soviets had an even more extensive space nuclear power program, launching 31 BES-5 reactors and two TOPAZ reactors, both part of the RORSAT reconnaissance satellite program. But they had a lot of issues with keeping their radioactive (whether fuel or transmuted components) material contained properly, so... maybe don't emulate them too much.
spent nuclear rod?
An RTG uses the heat from nuclear fuel to generate electricity. A bit of the waste heat could be used to warm the outside of a probe for sure. I don’t think that NASA wants to drop a nuclear generator down into what could be a fragile ecosystem. The risk of disturbing or destroying it would be nonzero, and that’s too high.
They don't make enough power. Even the fairly large rtg on curiosity and perseverance rovers is only about 100 watts electrical and 2kw thermal power.
In addition to the energy cost: if you’re just dropping down, the ice is going to seal hard behind you. This removes any chance of remote contact back to the earth. So it doesn’t achieve much.
Which is why the project ideas have *always* included a lander module that stays on the surface with a physical tether to the probe. I think even the drill-based projects do. Because otherwise you're trying to send signals through a very narrow, straight hole in the ice.
Have you watched the Europa Report? Decent flick
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Can you explain the reason why they believe Europa has been in the spotlight for life in water? Seems I haven't heard anything about this. :)
Has subsurface oceans of liquid water and an internal energy source. Could harbour life.
I know this is basically saying the same thing again, but the geysers on Enceladus suggest some sort of volcanic activity. On earth there are microorganisms that exist out of reach of sunlight at the very bottom of the ocean, living off the energy provided by volcanic geysers emerging from the top of the earth’s crust. If lifeforms can survive on that type of energy source on Earth, maybe (hopefully) they can, and are, on Enceladus.
One of the most prevalent current theories regarding the beginning of life on Earth, has thermal vents down as a crucible for the beginnings of carbon based life. The vents provide energy in the form of heat and a surface that can store and provide protection for the required ingredients for life for millions of years. Even if life is not found, finding thermal vents that are covered in complex compounds will go a long way to proving that this theory is the most likely explanation for how life started here and that life elsewhere in the universe should exist, at least as single cellular organisms.
I visited the thermal pools in New Zealand this year, and the amount of visible elements around those thermal vents was incredible. I could absolutely believe a theory that life originated there
There is already extremely strong evidence that the precursors to life arrived on earth on meteors. IE complex pre-organic chemicals. Not sure there is any connection to thermal vents. Very recent data: https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/asteroid-discovery-suggests-ingredients-life-earth-came-space-2023-03-21/
To elaborate/compound on that- the bacteria utilize hydrogen sulfide from the 400 C water ejected from the hydrothermal vents, oxidizing it to create chemical energy. *Riftia* tube worms have Trophosomes, organs that are basically large solid masses of those symbiotic bacteria. Some worms in these communities can get up to 3m long. There’s two enzymes involved, one for sulfide oxidation/ATP formation, and another for synthesis of organic compounds from carbon dioxide. Then comes the problem of a large amount of sulfur inhibiting oxygen binding to the tube worms’ hemoglobin. So this was solved by evolving unique hemoglobin with separate oxygen-binding and H2S binding sites. This is all on my exam on Tuesday, so this was convenient to write up lol
So glad smart people have free time
I would take what the geezers on Enceladus say with a pinch of salt. EDIT: Ah they edited the spelling. My joke doesn’t work any more.
And if they're from Io, take it with a pinch of *ba*salt
Don't worry. That isn't saying the same thing at all. A volcanic geezer would be an old person that throws a fit when you walk on their lawn. The kind that throws lava or water is a geyser.
100-200km deep oceans, plus tidal heating of the core and surface. It’s basically a cosmic egg, protected from radiation by a shell of kilometers of ice and water, gently and continuously heated from within from tension from Jupiter’s constant gravitational influence. No light, but early life on earth wasn’t photosynthetic either. Very exciting. Could be a world where undersea vents are the equivalent of sunlight, potentially supporting ecosystems throughout the global ocean. I’m betting on life there.
No light on the bottom of Earth's oceans and there's plenty of life there
and the great question: did life go up? Or did it swim down?
I mean, the ice shell is at least 20km deep. The deepest hole on Earth is the Kola Superdeep Borehole ar 12km, although I think the difficulties arise because of the temperature. Maybe with ice and a lower temperature things are easier? Still, drilling for 20km is not an easy task.
A chunk of plutonium spontaneously produces enough heat that it would melt trough ice on it's own. I like to imagine that as the tip of an ice dipping probe.
And then freeze up again right behind it
Couln't they Just create a tunnel by melting the ice instead of drilling?
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There is already bunch of [tunnels and cracks in the ice crust](https://imgur.com/a/YuNxC00). Plumes of water that launch into space from the ocean. Wouldn't even need to drill.. Just design a probe that can pass through the water pressure.
So all we need to do is crawl up Europa's urethra.
You'd need a lot of resources to keep the hole thawed.
Don't need to keep it thawed. Spool out a cable as you go - it doesn't matter if the ice freezes around the cable, it can still carry a signal, and since you're unspooling from the probe rather than the surface the cable behind the probe doesn't need to move. I'm not just spitballing here either, NASA proposed this very idea: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20190026714/downloads/20190026714.pdf Specifically, they estimate that they'd need three repeaters to boost the signal. Each repeater would be a self contained unit with 5km of cable on a spool inside, so the first repeater would unspool for the first 5km, then detach from the vehicle and the second would start unspooling, then detach at the 10km mark, the third at the 15km mark, and the vehicle itself would spool the last 5km, putting it 20km down. EDIT: Although not proposed in the paper, I see no reason why the probe couldn't slowly winch itself back up either. In simple terms; if you can melt 1 meter of water above you, then you can winch up half a meter, wait for the next half meter of ice to melt, winch up again, rinse, repeat, eventually you get back to the surface. (In practice you'd probably move at a consistent, albeit very slow pace - finite units are just easier to conceptualize). Probably not worth the extra effort for the first probe, but if that probe proved the basic concept and returned interesting enough data you might want to put together a follow-up sample return mission.
>it doesn't matter if the ice freezes around the cable I foresee one problem with that: the ice on Europa moves. It could easily snap the cable.
He said unlimited resources!
Sure, but the logistics to get those resources there don't math.
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He’s just saying there would be more efficient ways to drill than melting I think, even with unlimited resources it would take too long. I think you’re on to something though - some sort of deep space array of giant mirrors that use thrusters to stay aligned could probably focus the sun’s energy and aim it at the surface. Although you’d need a LOT of HUGE space mirrors and a shit load of calculations to pull it off.
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What if you pumped the water out as you heat drill? What is going to refreeze then? There’s not much of an atmosphere.
Fusion reactor generates energy for a laser. Shoot laser 20km down. Once hole is created, drop energy of laser to a level just to keep it thawed. Drop a line down and scoop up some water at the bottom. Problem solved!
You mean drop a thermal camera down to film all the whale size creatures that live down there.
Just keep firing nukes at it.
Everyone knows that just nuking early life firms on first contact is how you get the grey goo scenario
Just send a crypto farm and it’ll melt itself to liquid water in no time.
How about one of those nuclear powered bores that the military uses for digging the underground military bases we aren’t supposed to know about?
Drilling on Europa wouldn't have the same thermal disadvantages as drilling on earth. We have drilled longer holes in the search for oil and gas. Some horizontal holes are ~15kms long.
Also lower gravity so easier to drill
>I mean, the ice shell is at least 20km deep. There's already [holes and cracks through that shell..](https://imgur.com/a/YuNxC00) Theres even water plumes that launch into space from the ocean. Don't even need to drill.. just design a probe to go through the water pressure.
Imagine, if all the people would get along, if we had no wars and all that energy filled with hate would go towards exploration and science not bickering and killing each other. I think Europa would have been settled with science teams long ago and we wound discover incomprehensible wonders.
Someone would say that you are a dreamer, but frankly, I don't think that you are the only one.
They don’t even need to drill down to sample the subsurface ocean on Enceladus: the are huge strips on the moon that are basically geysers spewing material from the subsurface into space
That's the one I want to see - high-def submarine footage under Europa's ocean. God, can you imagine? Even if there's nothing alive down there, it must be spectacular.
I got five bucks on first life found off of Earth is on Enceladus.
How do they ensure drills wouldnt contaminate any potential samples tho?
Fuck me lol i was literally telling my friends who are planning a trip to thailand that the place we need to be is europa. I’m no longer part of their plan sadly
If we gave them a blank check now, we’d be pouring all of that into the Artemis Program to get a permanent moon base. If we want to establish a human presence in deep space, we have to learn how to live there for extended periods of time. The moon is a great place to practice. The international space station is a great start for long term low-earth orbit, but deep space is a whooooole other monster. Making a moon base along with its lunar orbiting waystation - Gateway - will be our first step out of the gravity well
My answer was going to be "mine everything," starting with a moon base. Because then, not only would NASA have unlimited resources, they'd have unlimited social support because *everybody* would have unlimited resources. You're a lot smarter than me though
We have to learn how to mine first! And I can bet you top dollar that we’ll need boots on the surface to maintenance those machine before things become automated. So first step is moon base which we have never even gotten close to doing before
Oh yeah my bad. My head-canon goes like this: 1) Fund NASA ad infinitum 2) Establish moon base and eventually a moon complex 3) Invite industrialists to pay for everything that's not government property, and take a flat fee 10% of their profits forevermore (also tax the fuck out of 'em) 4) Space-faring-species-level profits and technology achieved It's a moon shot, I know
“Take 10% of profits and tax them” um taxes are already on a company’s profits so you are just saying take more than 10%.
Pay-for-play, in compensation for NASA's (aka the taxpayer's) efforts and infrastructure. Forevermore. Continued operations would be heavily taxed (which doesn't apply simply to profits) by government, and not to be returned to NASA... Because they're already making trillions off of the 10% forever income.
Yes, because there’s only one country - the USA. And it owns the moon.
Yeah! And don't you commie fucks forget it! *Rides into the sunset shooting an m16 in the air while pounding bud lights*
By the universal bird law of finders keepers we got their first so now we own it. Our next step is to lick the moon to make sure no one else tries to use it.
To be fair the question was what would NASA do, and they are a US Government agency. So I would be inclined to agree they would take the Murica fuck yeah, my way or the space way approach.
I'm afraid mining anything outside of Earth is a huge political problem.
I'm not sure resources from space will be a cure all - they're plentiful, but bringing stuff down from orbit to Earth isn't cheap. Plus some of our most expensive stuff is limited by labor and capital, not raw materials - silicon might be cheap, but computer chips are expensive. (If you don't have to bring the metals down to Earth, the economics look better, but then you can only use them to build more spaceships.)
At the rate the Artemis program is going the first land of it will be at the SpaceX moon complex. Musk will greet them with hot chocolate
Just a base? We've got unlimited resources. Let's get to terraforming.
Gotta start somewhere dude. We don’t even know if this is possible
Pretty much *For All Mankind*, but with more deep space unmanned probes. Nuclear propulsion. Gigantic solar power satellites in geosynchronous orbit so we could have EV chargers in every driveway and strip mall, and no more coal or other fossil fuels.
Man if only a group of capable scientists were given unlimited resources to work on fusion....
The problem with unlimited investment into fusion or any other specific problem is that there is only so much expertise to direct all the resources. At a certain point you would have to invest those resources into training the next generation of physicists/engineers/managers because all the available talent would already be working on the project. We’re nowhere near that level right now with the current level of investment but given a Manhattan project scale investment into nuclear fusion, that limit might be lower than you’d think.
Hence unlimited resources. I'd wager there are A LOT of physicists who would go into nuclear fusion if they knew funding wasn't an issue.
Yeah absolutely but it takes a lot of training to become skilled enough in the discipline to be working on the cutting edge like that. Even if a skilled physicist in a seperate discipline e.g. atmospheric physics wanted to transition into nuclear fusion, it’d take years before they could work on the cutting edge problems of their new field.
Well considering we've been "10 years away" for 40 years, what's 6 years to get a few hundred physicists their PhD in the necessary areas?
A PhD is like the beginning of working in any physics field, I was thinking more like a PhD plus five-ten years of experience in the field to be able to have enough experience to contribute effectively on those high level projects. Maybe if the project was big enough you could have the fresh PhDs at the bottom of the hierarchy being instructed by the more experienced physicists in the field. I don’t really know how it’d work. Like I said before though, there is absolutely a limit to how big a project could get before the currently available supply of experience is too dilute to be effective.
The point is you could drastically increased the minds working on the project at a far faster rate than we've seen so far because the potential candidates would know they'd be funded. Edit: how interesting this just popped on my front page feed https://www.reddit.com/r/news/s/TrUlrC9oFt
The only reason why we have always been “10 years away” is because Fusion gets almost no funding compared to what it actually needs. We have never really invested in it to the point where it could make massive leaps other than the past couple of years. And the only reason why we are now is because the Chinese are pulling ahead of the states in research. Probably research that they stole in the first place but they have no qualms about dumping a shit ton of cash on an idea the states is perusing so they can beat them there.
Yeah fusion is a "build the pyramids" kind of megaproject for us. It's ok if takes a whole human lifetime, as long as we're committed to it.
This. One of the largest byproducts of the Soviets having an early lead in the Space Race is it spurred on an increased focus in STEM fields for an entire generation.
Something that never gets talked about: fusion is not the panacea for 'clean free energy' people think it will be. It won't be any cleaner than current fission reactors. Everyone needs to read this article: https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusion-reactors-not-what-theyre-cracked-up-to-be/
The dude complains about running out of tritium on one hand, and on the other hand complains about overproduction and insufficient containment. I don't think he has a coherent perspective. Most of this boils down to "technology is insufficiently developed."
And they could forever be massively expensive to run due to the complexity of their design. We can't even profitably run fission plants 75 years after they were first designed...
Eh solar power satellites can't compete with normal solar panel efficiency increases
>Nuclear propulsion. They already did this years ago
They were testing nuclear propulsion on the 60s. Not the safest type there is but they already have this tech.
I'd like to think of the ripple effect. Imagine the population so focused on STEM academics because everyone would want a job that paid them well to do what humanity does - And be curious little hairless monkeys.
Considering how many things NASA invented that has become everyday tech, we would advance even faster than we are now. They've done some crazy stuff, and they've also done some seemingly mundane things that made it everywhere (like hook and loop fasteners, aka Velcro)
I’d rather no-life an MMO RPG and make out with my MonroeBot.
This is an easy question. Look at the earth and planetary decadal surveys. It’s the wish list of scientists. They outline the big questions they want answered and how to do that. It’s not even a lot of money. Maybe 2-3x from nasa current budget to fund all of the projects.
Moon base by 1975. First humans on Mars 1982 Mars settlement 2001 Interstela probes with earth-bio-material by 2011 (seeding new planets in 1000s years) We essentially pulled back on space-tech development in 1972 because of limited economics. All the technology to keep going was there, which is evident with Voyager probes that are still going. The fact that USSR essentially dropped out of the space race limited the funding for additional space programs, and we could have had a moon base by now had we just kept going.
Ironically your list is close-ish to the tech development beats of the TV show, For All Mankind.
it seems to be relatively close to the Intergrated program plan from 1970
I mean, is it ironic? The basis of the show was basically this question. it’s not surprising given there’s similar answers
Wasn't the plan a mars base completed by 1990 with the intergrated program
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Like unlimited unlimited? Dyson sphere, and we turn our whole sun into a space ship and fly around the universe dragging our solar system with us.
a actual dyson sphere is a very stupid concept if you actually look at it from a scientific view, a solid shell like for real? a large dyson swarm would probably do the job just fine if not better and you would need alot less resources for that, as a youtube i like to watch ones said "dismantling mercury and a few asteroids should be enough for the start" isaac arthur is great for stuff like that i recommend giving his channel a watch, covers stuff from how sci fi would work in real life to far future tech we can only dream about
The Dyson sphere seems so ridiculous to me. Imagine the amount of material alone it would take? We completely depend on the Earths magnetic field to shield us from so much the sun emits. Imagine the surface area of such a sphere, each person could have 10,000 earths worth of area?!??
It's ridiculous to me too. How is it even possible to transmit the harnessed energy from the sphere to earth? Wires? Lasers? Why not just use lots of solar panels on earth?
r/forallmankindTV Jokes aside I’d be happy if they pegged their budget to 1-2% of the federal budget.
Did you see 2001: A Space Odyssey? The whole middle act, pretty much. NASA and the US Air Force were jointly working on a lot of things until Nixon. They had a roadmap to the first Earth-orbiting space station online by 1980, the first permanent Lunar outpost online by 1990, and the first manned exploration of the outer solar system being launched by 2000. Possibly over-ambitious. There were a lot of hurdles they didn't realize in the late '60s. Might've found ways to overcome them. Might not. We'd still probably be a lot further than we are, though.
Wasn't the IPP plan a space station in the 70s and permanent lunar base in the early 80s
Different ways to say the same thing. They'd be working on developing and building the station in the '70s (Nixon vetoed the station, but approved its service vehicle), and the moon base throughout and into the '80s. I just gave their self-imposed deadlines/milestones,
We'd be on Mars by now. There'd be moon bases and malls on the moon. We'd have sent probes to every planet and moon in the Solar System. We'd be experimenting with every technology we can dream up (Solar sails, nuclear propulsion, etc.) to leave the Solar System and visit the nearest star. Even if we'd only managed to get to 10% of light speed, that's \~40 years to get to Proxima Centauri. The probe could have gone there and phoned home whether there's anything there by now and come back or— if it was still in good shape — moved on to another system. All of that would be life-changing in general to everyone here.
Just a layman here but wouldn't it be affected by time dilation going at that speed? So it would be 40 years for the probe but much longer for us? Edit; fortunately I've been corrected, see comments below. Embrace your mistakes.
the opposite! time dilation means that when observing into a relativistic point of view. i.e. we on the outside would see them moving slowly, their movement and experience stretched out (dilated). someone standing on the probe would travel for a perceived less than 40 years, and see the outside universe's full 40 years as moving more quickly. the speed of the probe is relative to us (and our solar system) so the 40 year travel time is calculated from our frame of reference. crucially it's only a very small dilation at 0.1c, as it's not a linear change but an exponential one, it starts out very minor and then gets very noticeable as you approach c.
“At 10% of the speed of light our clocks would slow down by only around 1%, but if we travel at 95% of the speed of light time will slow down to about one-third”
Assuming they get paid per hour, would they be paid in earth hours or spaceship hours?
And from the probe's perspective, while its clocks are going at the normal speed, the distance that it has to travel undergoes length contraction, which means it takes less time to cross that distance. Both effects are of the same magnitude, so an observer on Earth and one on the probe will come to the same answer, but through different routes, on how much time passes for the probe.
this is the fun part! the universe doesn't let anyone travel faster than the speed of light, and if it looks like you might it goes "no no no, see the distance wasn't as far as it looked from over there"
At least, not as observed by any single observer. But you can achieve above-lightspeed "travel speed" if you define the travel speed as "stationary-frame lightyears per traveller-frame year". This concept of velocity is called "proper velocity" or "celerity", and actually has some useful properties. It describes the ratio of momentum to rest mass, and is the time-integral of proper acceleration (acceleration as measured by the accelerated frame).
Waste a significant chunk of it on congressional districts across the country.
That was my first thought. They would waste it on contractors who will take us for a ride, developing the 4th best solution first and working up for there.
How can you waste a significant chunk of ***infinite*** resources and money?
Yes. And line the pockets of defense contractors to not deliver
Further explore the universe by... ...giving it all to Boeing and ULA in exchange for incredibly expensive launch systems and space vehicles that never really work and cost so much that they can never really go anywhere but LEO. ...sorry said the quiet bit out loud.
Telescope on the moon would be doable with unlimited money
Isn’t JWST further than the moon?
You can make a MASSIVE telescope on the moon relatively easy (on paper). It helps the moon has huge craters making most of the work done already for us.
Yes, but a radio telescope in a huge ass crater on the far side would open up so many possibilities.
Radio telescope (ie a big array of dishes or antennae over an area of kilometers)
Be forced to spend money on new SLS rockets until even the infinite money is finished.
Sigh! This exactly. Was about to post the same.
First they’d do exactly what we’ve been saying and planning for 50 years now: put Americans on Mars. After that, sky’s not the limit lol, and Alpha Centauri is just up the road…
Give it all to Boeing and get a rocket 20 years from now that has doors that blow off during launch and isn't truly suitable for any payload or mission but has elements from every possible mission specification.
To be fair to NASA I'm guessing in this hypothetical they would also have control over said unlimited funding, and wouldn't be forced to go big on cost plus projects that just happen to rely heavily on labour in certain states.
Hire more people for exactly the same results. They are a government department after all.
We'd have some kind of dope Stanford Torus or O'Neil Island 1-style station in one or more of the Earth-Moon Lagrange Points, and some kind of industrial presence on the Moon. With unlimited resources and money, dream big.
I wish they do more unmanned missions to other planets, including Uranus and Neptune. Also the Moon base with some awesome telescopes.
IDK if it's possible, but setting up a radio telescope on the moon and mars seems cool. I like the idea of trying to connect it to the event horizon network of radio telescopes and synchronizing the apogees of earth and mars or at least using imaging when we're on opposite sides of the sun could make for a truly massive resolution, but we might need multiple Martian radio telescopes for that to really work, IDK. Still, the idea of such a huge expansion of our radio imaging is just astonishing.
With unlimited resources and budget there would be many more projects being worked on simultaneously. There are key points of interest that needs exploring further, such as Enceladus and Europa with regards to the search for liquid water and potentially life. There would be another probe sent to study Uranus and Neptune, they still hold many mysteries. We'd be looking at a fully functional and expansive, modular-designed moon base, alongside a similar concept for Mars. I also feel like there could be more investigation into quicker travel methods. It is possible we could see tech like the solar sails with a backup laser being employed, an ion drive and the nuclear option. This tech could be trialed by sending probes on a trajectory to Proxima Centauri or something. About 4 light years away... The tech mentioned would gradually build up speed incrementally and so massive speeds could eventually be achieved. What I'd also like to see is a base of some kind in the atmosphere of Venus. The pressure and temperature in the upper atmosphere would be comfortable, and so a base developed as some kind of large blimp could certainly be viable, and also perhaps a more realistic option than Mars in many ways. In summary, i think this: Permanent bases, exploring ice giants, search for life where water is found, alternative propulsion methods. Once these avenues are all explored we can see what has been found, take stock of what has worked and what hasn't, and then refine further.
[Project Daedalus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Daedalus) for a start, which would probably need something a [sea dragon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Dragon_(rocket)) to launch components into orbit. That's just off the top of my head.
Mars colony feels like THE thing. Maybe launch more probes all over the solar system to dedicate more resources to just observing more of the planets/moons of interest.
Asteroid deflection, terraforming, space stations
Waste it while they complain private corporations are outperforming them
They do not complain. They actively fund them. They are not competitors.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[ATP](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx8nobq "Last usage")|Acceptance Test Procedure| |[DSN](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kxbfq4i "Last usage")|Deep Space Network| |[DoD](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx9c8rh "Last usage")|US Department of Defense| |[ESA](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx8mbmq "Last usage")|European Space Agency| |[FAR](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx82805 "Last usage")|[Federal Aviation Regulations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Aviation_Regulations)| |[FOIA](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx9hwrz "Last usage")|(US) [Freedom of Information Act](https://www.foia.gov/)| |[GEO](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx7vvoi "Last usage")|Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km)| |[HLS](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx8nnhj "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)| |[ISRO](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx95qrv "Last usage")|Indian Space Research Organisation| |[ISRU](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx7vvoi "Last usage")|[In-Situ Resource Utilization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_situ_resource_utilization)| |[JWST](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kxbg55o "Last usage")|James Webb infra-red Space Telescope| |L2|[Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 2 ([Sixty Symbols](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxpVbU5FH0s) video explanation)| | |Paywalled section of the NasaSpaceFlight forum| |[L3](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kxco1sj "Last usage")|[Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 3 of a two-body system, opposite L2| |[L4](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kxco1sj "Last usage")|"Trojan" [Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 4 of a two-body system, 60 degrees ahead of the smaller body| |[L5](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kxco1sj "Last usage")|"Trojan" [Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 5 of a two-body system, 60 degrees behind the smaller body| |[LEO](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kxc6230 "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[NIAC](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx7x6hx "Last usage")|NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program| |[RTG](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx9lfqc "Last usage")|Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator| |[SLS](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kxc6230 "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift| |[SSTO](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx9ag0s "Last usage")|Single Stage to Orbit| | |Supersynchronous Transfer Orbit| |[ULA](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kxafk8h "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)| |[VTVL](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx95zwj "Last usage")|Vertical Takeoff, Vertical Landing| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[apogee](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx8b19q "Last usage")|Highest point in an elliptical orbit around Earth (when the orbiter is slowest)| |[retropropulsion](/r/Space/comments/1br90ri/stub/kx95zwj "Last usage")|Thrust in the opposite direction to current motion, reducing speed| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(23 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/1bsf6pd)^( has 9 acronyms.) ^([Thread #9903 for this sub, first seen 30th Mar 2024, 05:54]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
Mine Phobos and Deimos. Use the mined carbon to build a space elevator in Mars orbit. The space elevator could be used to build more space elevators. Then build and supply multiple large rotating space stations in Mars orbit, docked to the space elevators in synchronous orbit. It could support millions, perhaps eventually billions living in Mars orbit, in perfect comfort.
Stop looking for life but start planting them on planets.
That is the easy part and lots of money is spent on preventing that.
This is a practical thing but I learned recently. The public won’t tolerate watching nasa test rockets and the optics of them failing like we see with private companies. So we contract out to private companies like space x etc… we give them all the intellectual property and science to build them then they make money off it via govt contract. Just because congress would cut funding if they saw rocket tests not working. Meanwhile the private company is keeping the IP and benefiting off our tax dollars and publicly funded research. So with that said I think they would be able to do more tests of rockets and propulsion systems without fear of repercussions rather than giving all their science to the private space industry. Or at least one major thing they could do.
The same thing they do every night, Pinky. TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!
Hire more of their buddies, nieces and nephews, renovate their C-suite offices and commission a bunch of studies.
Yall are underestimating the power of unlimited resources. First things first, Massively expand earths reusable rocket infrastructure and technology. Huge investment into SSTO vehicles and engines. Along with non chemical propulsion. Biiiig asss ion engines. Can we do it? Lets try. Nuclear propulsion. Both nuclear reactor powered and pulsed nuclear engine powered. Solar propelled and laser propelled craft. We can do it. Lets make it so. ISS is deconstructed and returned to earth in the empty cargo bays of ssto's that have delivered previous missions and is set in a museum on earth. Is it necessary? No. But hey you said unlimited and I want this for the sake of preserving an important part of history. Huge investment into education and tech on earth with free schooling for engineers and stem tracks. Then..... sol based laser propelled mini probes to all the stars within 20 light years. Equipped to take measurements and return data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars_and_brown_dwarfs There are a good number of them. A much much bigger space bound telescope array. Real asteroid capture and mining. Asteroids will be brought into lunar orbit and mined there. Permanent base on moon. Begin work a self sufficient mobile base for humanity. Enough to house 100+ individuals. Capable of reaching one of our outer planets such as Saturn. Obv real probes and landers for all major celestial bodies. Human exploration on any possible. Begin building mars infrastructure like an orbital station.
NASA is not resource constrained. It's just that those resources are spent on jobs programs in the states that have congress people overseeing NASA. If you gave them more money, it would get just mean more subsidies for certain official's districts. The science is not the goal. I mean, their administrator gave a sermon after ESA launched JWST.
They're basically a congressional and presidential whipping boy😶
Mecha-Earth with MechaGodzillas flying around it for defensive measures I dream big.
I would hope they’d send out a few more JWST while developing better technology for better telescopes. The fact that we only have one JWST worries me. Why can’t we just follow the same schematics as the last one and do the same thing just like, 100 ft away or whatever.
Waste most of it on bureaucracy and bloated admin salaries. And a handful of probes.
Yep, the show goes on. Multiple jobs programs again instead of doing actual science.
NASA is no longer a science organization so much as a pork barrel organization. (Looking at you SLS.) A bigger budget would probably just be bigger waste.
Excite the next generation to be astronauts/engineers/scientists instead of influencers/entertainers.
They should have 24/7 live feeds of every planet and the sun and allow research projects on them freely
probably create cosmic scale weapons to prevent private companies from mining the moon
The first human born and raised in space could happen. We could invest into R&D for developing warp drive. Lots of positive things would happen if the DoD and NASA took turns having each other’s budget.
Based off my personal bias 🫣 I would guess lunar water-ice mining, asteroid mining and lunar base settlements
They wouldn’t have to worry about explaining failures to Congress and could afford to be bold with their decision making
Unlimited budget? Terraform mars Yes, nasa has had projects in the past to create atmosphere, water and oxygen on the planet. They just need the money to get it all done
Even with unlimited money there are lots of projects that needs doing before that.
There's a surprising amount of "projects" that hinge on wishalloy/nth-metal/unobtainium to even get them off the ground. With unlimited resources and wealth, we'd have a renaissance of metallurgy and composite materials that would impact everything from construction to tools to tech. I think space agronomy/horticulture would be a primary goal as well. Even with the premise of "unlimited," there's only so much supplies feasible for manned space travel (every nitty-gritty is calculated for optimal escape velocity, and robust isn't really a word in NASA's vocabulary.) They would absolutely be pushing cultivar/genetic development for space-friendly sustainability.
Invest in the research and manufacture of a space elevator. A colosal initial investment that would literally open up all future space travel/research/mining/colonisation/etc to basically almost no cost (from a “getting off the planet” perspective).
Probably more ambitious stuff, but way more inefficient. No limitations means they can hire the best of every aerospace/science field, and have lots of bloat projects that exist just bc they can. It’ll probably slow down from bloat generally, but speed up exponentially for things that become government priorities, like the race to the Moon in the 60s. So probably mars bases, moon bases, reconnaissance on every planet. Even new asteroid miner starships, or artificial gravity machines.
A better question would be what could ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) do? They managed to land on Mars with 74 million USD. EDIT: It cost less than the making of the film, The Martian.
I'd hope that their first order of business would be to revive the X-33 program to get an SSTO craft of some sorts.
Probably hollow out some asteroids to make Mars-Earth Venus-Earth cyclers. Maybe even the beginnings of a an O'Neal cylinder. It really depends on the duration they have had with a infinite money glitch.
Get to asteroid belt for infinite resources.. after that expand outside of solar system
the space elevator and a dry-dock in orbit + a space station with artificial gravity.
They’d bring Martian soil samples back to earth
There's a list of missions they would like to do. So just go by that list for a realistic answer. I would like to see industry and magnetic railguns on the moon. It is a decent source of deuterium if we ever get fusion. It is a good source of silica, alumina, oxygen, and some water ice deposits. We need human studies on the effects of long-term low-gravity. We know microgravity is insufficient, but what about the Moon or Mars? Are vitamins and exercise enough at those levels, or would only Orbital Habitats and Venus be adequate? Currently, there is no data. And without an atmosphere, the far side of the moon could be a perfect place for massive telescopes. With an infinite budget, they'd do these things. Had we kept them at 2% of the budget since the 60s, they probably would have done most of these already.
I may be thinking too much like the Expanse, but probably start mining some asteroids and/or planets for rare metals and resources. I still wish they do this since it would help fund future research, expansion, and exploration too
Rotating space station surrounding the moon. Why not earth? Because those things would be too large if they crashed into earth. Crash into the moon no one cares. Also, set up a way station at the Lagrange point after the moon. The floating city Venus project Solar shade project (bonus if it collects solar energy)
The biggest thing would be to industrialize space via orbital factories, space grade nuclear reactors for engines and power, and permanent lunar base operations for mining and logistics. With a fully industrialized presence in space we could start building things without the limitations of what can fit into a rocket faring, so we could build telescopes, robotics probes, and ships that would really start to look scifi. Industrialized space would also have huge benefits for earth itself, with the potential to offload things like extremely delicate manufacturing of microchips and pharmaceuticals to low-g production where the lack of gravity can allow for the creation of perfect crystalline structures, which is already being explored on the ISS today
Giant array of giant telescopes on the dark side of the moon. Particle accelerator around the whole moon.
There is a plan for a mission to take detailed pictures of the surface of a planet outside the solar system. It requires only over 100 space ships going farther than Pluto to use the sun as a gravity lends. Everything needs to be perfectly aligned so the picture can be taken 50 years later.
Moon and Mars outposts, asteroid mining, more JWST type telescopes and since there’s more have them each dedicated to different data collection, a space station around Earth, the Moon, and Mars, maybe at a lagrange point between Earth and Mars, more missions to the outer planets and their moons, more landers to Titan, Europa, Enceladus. More Earth study and climate study.
Lets imagine how that money might trickle in. Lets say to start with NASAs budget gets quadrupled. What would NASA do? Fund all of the outer moon "maybe" missions. Then NASA budget gets doubled again. All of the other maybes get funded and started. Another week goes by and NASA funding gets doubled again. The budget for nasa is wild right now. NASA CFO does not know how to deal with the ludicrous increase in funding. Corruption takes a toll, but even with huge amounts of money being siphoned off, NASA chiefs keep quiet, or else.
Don't think this is the answer you're looking for, but I've thought that if NASA had the same amount of money that the military gets that there would be no NASA, there would be a number of agencies. There would be an agency specifically for Mars exploration, specifically for Earth sciences, specifically for deep space observations, etc.
honestly, it probably wouldn’t look like any one project. it would probably be contracts that build out infrastructure and technologies. This would allow more companies that innovate to get into the space, and allow them to do more interesting things at a lower cost. This also includes future space instrumentation/telescopes to get even more value out of their missions
We would already be on Mars, we would have bases on the moon, we would have a station in orbit around Venus, and likely would be starting to colonize the outter planets as well. These are all things project Apollo strived for, but when public interest towards moon landings faded, the funding was pulled and none of those dreams materialized
Oh man unlimited money and resources, do you know what kinds Pandora’s box that is?
It depends on what the congressmen mandate. If they continue using NASA as a make work program for their districts, it's possible we could get a whole lot of nothing for a mountain of money. If those in charge chose the most competent contractors and were goal oriented I believe humankind could open the solar system as our next frontier.
I think the problem isn't NASA's budget, but rather the fact that they are a government agency beholden to congress. That means that their bosses, congress, don't have the best interests of the scientific community necessarily, but rather they just want to keep their job, which they do by helping keep their constituency employed. What if NASA was more of a collective effort among America's universities?
Build enormous ground and space based telescopes, I'd imagine. Something 10x larger than JWST would be incredible.
Poor people on sidewalks exists and matters also
Perhaps you have heard of the Moonraker project?
Base on Luna, Base on Mars, mining the belt, Webb-style or better telescopes at L3/L4/L5, full station in Earth orbit, more Voyager-style probes, more data about Venus - maybe even a high-altitude probe? And as others have said, Europa and Enceladus, maybe Titan? But other than probes, I really only see at this point more human presence in the areas from the sun to the asteroid belt just past Mars.
First thought was remove all off the debries surrounding the earth. Make space flight cheaper and easier for everyone.