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20 votes
20 answers
4k views

How will corporations ensure return on investment for funding slower than light colonization efforts?

Let's say a future world where faster than light communication exists, but not faster than light travel. There is a desire to colonize other worlds outside the solar system, but it's massively ...
dsollen's user avatar
  • 33.9k
2 votes
3 answers
253 views

Time needed to travel to Proxima Centauri in 2050 and technology behind [closed]

Given: current (2020 year) knowledge and science status of human-kind and that human-kind and human science development will occur in exactly the same way as it did so far, how long will a ship ...
trejder's user avatar
  • 2,393
38 votes
17 answers
7k views

How could the crew on a small spacecraft (6 people) on an isolated long (10yr) mission remain productive and harmonious?

Near future, Earth is starting to die, we send out dozens of small spacecraft to investigate promising exo-planets for habitability among neighbouring star systems: AI isn't smart enough to do the ...
User12321313's user avatar
  • 1,320
-1 votes
2 answers
505 views

How many people could fit into a spaceship? [closed]

I’m writing a story where the world is coming to an end but I want it to sound as realistic as possible. The story takes place in 2024, not too far from now, and NASA sends out a crew in space to ...
Nikko027's user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
3k views

How large would a space station have to be to hold one million people indefinitely?

A moon-sized asteroid approaches Earth in the near future, where space tourism has become normal. The Earth has a few satellite structures above Mars conducting research, as well as successful ...
Alex's user avatar
  • 2,088
8 votes
4 answers
2k views

What torch-ship engine requires the least complex control system?

A side shot from my series on a computer-less future; see here, here, and here. Project Rho defines a torch-drive as an engine with both high acceleration and high exhaust velocity. A torch-ship is a ...
kingledion's user avatar
  • 85.8k
16 votes
12 answers
6k views

A clock for interplanetary travel

Introduction See background information here. 1000 years after darkness fell on Old Earth, humanity is scattered throughout the solar system. Apart from the Harmonious Republic of Mars, there are ...
kingledion's user avatar
  • 85.8k
9 votes
7 answers
3k views

Could an astronaut in a near-future space ship survive transit through our asteroid belt?

In the near future we may find cargo ships fleeing space pirates! Given that... It's a small cargo ship carrying 10 metric tons of wheat (cargo volume, approximately 13 m3). Total volume: 100 m3. ...
JBH's user avatar
  • 132k
-1 votes
3 answers
209 views

How to establish the relationship between exponential development and space exploration and consequences for future prognosis? [closed]

How long might it take to colonize the solar system - and how to make a mostly educated guess? On one hand, we know that we are yet in the very beginning phase to develop technologies to make life in ...
J. Doe's user avatar
  • 582
9 votes
3 answers
1k views

Reasons for pregnancy to be difficult in long-term space travel

I am looking for medically viable reasons why we might discover it to be more difficult than expected to bring pregnancies to term in space. This is for a society based approximately 75 years in the ...
Ksamby's user avatar
  • 99
10 votes
5 answers
614 views

Economic system to support Kessler Remediators, with maximum drama

After reading this question by Nick M (now closed) and exchanging some comments with him, I have some ideas related to the scenario. I realized that the comprehensive design covers several distinct ...
JDługosz's user avatar
  • 69.8k
83 votes
30 answers
15k views

Ugh, I'm stuck in an orbital spaceport. But why?

This is, for the record, the same universe as in Is space piracy orbitally practical? and How can I prevent Kessler Syndrome among space stations?. In my world, circa 2100, space stations orbiting ...
HDE 226868's user avatar
  • 102k
8 votes
6 answers
504 views

Damaging a near future spacecraft by hand

It's the near future, and Bob goes for a spacewalk outside the International Space Station or Space Shuttle or some similar type of realistic space craft. Suddenly, and unfortunately, Bob goes space-...
Fhnuzoag's user avatar
  • 4,629
19 votes
4 answers
4k views

If Venus mission finds life, will we shift our attention from Mars to Venus?

Guilty pleasure: I just returned from one tinfoil-hat type of internet pages which suggests that we are being visited by Aliens who live on Venus. The fact, that we have only pictures from the ground ...
Pavel Janicek's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
263 views

Evolution of spacecraft with advent of cheap and effective payload launch

All of the launched human habitable space stations in orbit around Earth (such as the International Space Station, are very spindly and brittle as of current day. In a idea I'm contemplating that ...
Quiquȅ's user avatar
  • 3,317
4 votes
1 answer
357 views

Could we improve space travel using beamed energy?

It is some small number of years into the future. We are regularly using beamed energy, as defined in this answer: large arrays of microwave transmitters. We have developed this so that these arrays ...
ArtOfCode's user avatar
  • 10.4k