First, concerning electric cars. I don't like them and never did. My problems with them are several fold. First among them is the batteries. Not because they don't allow for long ranges --more than 90% of my driving is well withing 100 miles a day. Not because of the time it takes to charge the batteries --100 miles worth of charge happens within the timeframe I usually find myself sleeping. No. My biggest problem with the batteries includes what happens to them after I'm done with them and that they must be replaced every 5-9 years, depending on the chemistry of the battery.
Supposedly LiIon batteries can be recycled. But that's not exactly
true.
But even when a battery *is* recycled, the process is
ugly, at best. And when they're not recycled, they become an awful source of pollution.
For these reasons I do not look forward to the idea of replacing our fleet of ICE drive cars with battery driven cars.
Of course, that's assuming chemistry like the
SiO batteries aren't realized.
A better alternative, IMHO, is compressed air. It would work well for 100 mi/day driving, which is the norm, and
hybridization with ICEs. Compressed air is non-polluting --even if you use non-oil-less compressors, it's by far better than current-chemistry batteries. It's an extremely
mature technology, being used for at least
140 years. It does, of course, have many problems, not the least of which is low power density and energy escape via cooling of the air while in the tank.....But enough of that. Y'all likely have your own opinions on the subject and I need not expound further on mine.
As to GIThruster's opinion that the colonization of Mars, "Still needs propellantless propulsion, IMHO." I simply do not agree. Even if it takes 6 months to get there, in short order there would be people lined for their ticket and I would be among them. From a historical point of view, the exploratory journeys of Europe from the 1500s to 1700s could take years and the same with civilian travel. Of course a sailing vessel could be expected to travel several times from home to a port of call several times, where a rocket launcher can not. This is why SpaceX's Grasshopper is so exciting. As is Skylon, for that matter....The point is, however, that colonizing another planet does not depend on travel times shortened by 1g acceleration or reactionless engines.
Furthermore, I would like to disagree with GIThrusters assertion that, "Neither fission nor fusion for propulsion will make a large difference here. A rocket is a rocket and any rocket going to Mars is going to coast almost the entire trip." Bussard's studies on what a Polywell might be able to do as the energy source for a rocket engine clearly show (IMHO) that a fusion powered rocket would make an enormous difference to interplanetary travel and colonization. Taking his numbers as granted (which I usually would not, but there you go) a trip from Earth runway to Mars runway would take a month, and the outbound space craft --from LEO to LMO-- would accelerate continuously all the way there. (Though nowhere near 1g.) And if we assume fusion isn't going to happen anytime soon, an Orion type, nuclear pulse engine would still allow for relatively fast movement around the solar system....Keep it away from Earth, though.
Of course, if a 1g reactionless were available, we'd be colonizing the entire solar system in only a few decades. That'd be pretty awesome!
Next on the list is terraforming Mars. To say this not an easy task is to understate things to several orders of magnitude. But before we really consider the task, the first question is whether or not there are living things there in the first place. No, it doesn't seem likely. But if there is terraforming becomes out of the question: it must be Aeroformed. It must be turned into a paradise, not for us, but for Martians, whatever they are and whatever that means.
If Mars is dead --and this is likely-- then I say do what you gotta do to make it a paradise for our life, and I don't mean Humans, though that would be the ultimate result anyway. I mean for mammals, birds, fish, trees, moss and waterbears.
Finally, GIThruster has it 100% right: You don't educate engineers & scientists and then give them a task. You excite children about science and engineering by striving to do exciting things with science and engineering. The vision and excitement has come first. Big goals and grand visions, then hard work. That's what creates. That's what educates. "The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a flame to be sparked." And you spark a mind --any mind, young or ancient-- with exciting projects.
And I think a large reason a large portion of the public is so jaded on space, with the opinion that Robthebob stated, "I think our attention, right now in this time, should be focused on something else" is that what we have been doing in space since Apollo 13 has been pedestrian and uninteresting. There's no feeling of a genuine opening of space to the average person. *I* don't get to go. Not today, not tomorrow, not my lifetime. My children might. (Even that's unlikely) But certainly not me. Were that one thing to change --and Musk seems to want to change it-- I think we'll find an insurgence of money and people into the industries of space exploration and colonization.
Ok. Sorry. Post got outta hand.