"High Frontier" space settlement video game

[GIThruster]

I think a 1 Gee Solution gets you to Titan in 9 days, and that is decelerating the second half of the trip. There isn't much out past Titan of real interest and colonies really want the abundance of sunlight you have further in. But yes--such a solution opens up the whole planetary system much as steam took transatlantic travel to the next step. It would be a serious socioeconomic leap and enable a true "Golden Age of Human Spaceflight".

[JoeP]

Tom, thank you very much for sharing the project!

We're halfway through the campaign and oh-so-close to halfway funded. I'm sure there are still plenty of space enthusiasts (or city-simulation gamers) out there who haven't heard about it yet, so the more we can spread the word, the better.

I agree that we will almost certainly have a mixture of planetary and orbital bases — but as Tom points out, we don't know yet how much gravity is needed for children to grow up healthy, and a base without children isn't really a settlement. So, we may end up with orbital settlements housing most of the population around (say) the Moon and Mars, with workers commuting to the surface for their mining or research or tourism or whatever sort of jobs they have there.

In researching interesting orbits for High Frontier, I found that there is a stable low-Lunar orbit (LLO) at 100 km altitude, 27° inclination. This would provide a really amazing view, and you also get some protection from cosmic rays with the Moon filling nearly half the sky.

To all: If you haven't supported the KickStarter yet, I'd very much appreciate it — you know I run this site on my own dime and have never asked for anything before, nor am I likely to ask again. A pledge to High Frontier would be the perfect way to say "thank you" this Thanksgiving season.

I can see the surface<->orbit commute happening even easier with things like space elevators.

Also, on say Mars, sleeping and living quarters can be built into revolving disks that add enough force to equal 1g. So there are cheaper surface options too.

Hey, one thing that I'd like in a game is all the things planned for your simulation, plus some survival goals that might come with an interstellar option, such as terra-forming new planets with all kinds of time, material, technological, and bio challenges.

I'll definitely sign up for the Kickstarter campaign.

edit: Geez. Forgot my Kickstarter password and the reset system they have isn't sending the email system into my inbox -- and it isn't in my spam or junk folders. Anyone else having the same prob?

[Tom Ligon]

Looks like this project made it, with room to spare! Still a few hours left as I post this.

[Tom Ligon]

I just got back from the "Why Mars" conference, featuring some NASA brass. One attendee wondered if it might be possible to create a video game to engage the younger generation in wanting to explore and colonize Mars. I said, "Sure!", and told them about this project.

[GIThruster]

Yeah, NASA says we're going to Mars in the mid 2030's. This puts them just a decade behind Elon Musk and SpaceX.

http://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-as ... -mid-2030s

Of course, if Pelosi were leading the House, this could not have happened.

[krenshala]

Of course, if Pelosi were leading the House, this could not have happened.

NASA wouldn't be sending anyone to Mars, or NASA wouldn't be sending folks to Mars after SpaceX?

[GIThruster]

Pelosi famously threatened G.W. Bush that her Congress would not pass any budget with a single penny for Mars exploration. She went straight to the press and made the threats. Was really outlandish behavior and she got what she wanted--no human spaceflight program except what the Senate wants. Orion has become a really bad joke. I think that program is tipping the scales at $8B now and it still cannot land on land the way it was supposed to. Unbelievable. If the press ever gets hold of fair figures comparing it to Dragon, the American people should riot in the streets. So many billions of dollars just thrown away. . .astonishing.

You realize for 1/4 what Orion cost the American taxpayer, we could have had a working TRITON system?

http://www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/Space ... TRITON.pdf

For the cost of Orion, we should have an entire fleet of extended duration, interplanetary space cruisers. Instead we have a throw away capsule that can't do what Dragon can do at 100X the cost.

[krenshala]

I've always been a fan of NTR technology. Unfortunately its labeled with the "dreaded" N word, and thus gets no love from "the people".

[Tom Ligon]

Orion gets its first shot at orbit tomorrow. A couple of the NASA conference attendees had to leave to go deliver a press conference on it.

I'm not enamored of Orion. It is what it is. It goes back to what worked for Apollo, big dumb boosters with a cone on top, but upgraded. The Russians are still using their old boosters and are beating our pants off in manned spaceflight. It should work. It is as overpriced as one expects of NASA. It will take them until 2020-something to fly Orion with a crew. Apollo went from test flights to manned in far less, in spite of having to rework the capsule after the Apollo 1 fire on the pad.

I would, frankly, be tickled pink if Musk beat them to Mars. And everyone at that conference, including the NASA people, feel pretty much the same, although few there thought he has the resources to do it on his own.

And I have told you folks many times, Dr. Bussard's business plan was pretty much the same. If he could have gotten the Polywells running and commercially licensed, as much of the cash flow as he thought he could stand was going to space transportation, especially Mars, and he wanted a home a little south of Syrtis Major.

The problems with fickle administrations was much-discussed.

But really, do you know what the US is spending on space? We had some poll results presented at the meeting. I'll share them with you after I get a few answers to these questions.

1) What percentage of the US budget do you think NASA gets now?

2) What percentage of the US budget do you think NASA should get?

3) What percentage of the US budget do you think the public wants NASA to get?

[Betruger]

The inevitable management caveat ought to be made - ideally after something like SpaceX demonstrates it and provides a real, tangible reference point.

[GIThruster]

1) What percentage of the US budget do you think NASA gets now?

2) What percentage of the US budget do you think NASA should get?

3) What percentage of the US budget do you think the public wants NASA to get?

IIRC, NASA gets about 0.7% of the federal budget and is amongst the most highly regarded agencies USG runs. I think 1/3 of that is for human spaceflight, and that is distributed now between SLS which includes Orion, and ISS. What do I think they should get? 1% sounds good, but the amount doesn't matter when their leadership is so risk avoidant and feeble. If NASA had $5B/year that it could count on would stay in the human spaceflight budget for a decade at a time, and they had the nerve to fire the standing army of useless souls they support, they could very easily build a fleet of interplanetary explorer craft powered with something like TRITON, and operate those craft for the next couple decades.

What does the public want NASA to get? Probably 1/10 what it does. I hear arguments regularly that we shouldn't spend money on human spaceflight, and most people don't know that is only 1/3 of what NASA does. NASA does a terrible job explaining why they are an important investment in our future. The fact you can't get NASA TV on most cable networks is just astonishing to me.

[krenshala]

Most of the so-called arguments on why NASA funding should be cut all boil down, in my opinion, to "spending money in space removes it from Earth where it is needed". I've never been able to figure out why they think we're spending the money anywhere but on Earth yet, however.

[GIThruster]

Most of the human spaceflight budget at NASA is welfare for the over educated. (And not just that--look at JWST!) Most people would rather those people worked real jobs and the money went to the uneducated. And honestly, though I am pro-NASA in general, I have to admit that it appears the only way to move ahead is to privatize the fun stuff NASA wants to do, because they do it at 20X the cost as compared to private industry. SLS is really the last straw. For NASA to press ahead on something so asinine, clearly demonstrates they are out of vision and out of control. It's the Senators providing jobs who are in control. That is just sickening.

People can complain and whine about Griffin and the Stick and Constellation and Apollo on Steroids, but the situation we have now is fantastically worse because we're not even trying to be sensible. We're just pandering to Senators protecting jobs.

[Tom Ligon]

From the survey linked below:

"On average, Americans believe that NASA spending represents 2.43% of the federal budget with a standard deviation of 1.68%. Of respondents polled, 95% believe NASA spending falls within 0.75% and 4.11% of the federal budget. In reality, NASA’s budget in FY2011 was $18.4 billion representing 0.5% of the federal budget.

75% of Americans Strongly Agree or Agree that it is worthwhile to increase NASA’s percentage of the federal budget to 1 percent to fund a mission to Mars.

54% of Americans believe that settlement of Mars should not be left to privately-funded private sector efforts and that there should be a strong NASA role.

84% of Americans support sending humans to Mars if Curiosity finds signs of past or present life.

However, 83% of Americans believe that NASA should strengthen and expand partnerships with the private sector to send humans to explore Mars."

http://www.exploremars.org/wp-content/u ... 7-2013.pdf

[Tom Ligon]

It's interesting to me that the public seems to think NASA should get the same 1% of the federal budget that GIThruster thinks they should get.

I should hope you all find it interesting that the figure is that high.

There's an age-demographic difference in WHY people want to go to Mars. The old greybeards who grew up on Apollo (that would be me and an awful lot of the TP crowd) think in terms of US technological leadership and, face it, beating the Ruskies. It is a national pride issue.

The kids, who will be the ones to bend tin and actually go, think in terms of learning about Mars to save the Earth. However, they want to go just about the same amount as us greybeards.

Apparently no demographic would be unhappy to see private enterprise pull this off.

But the overall numbers don't show a lot of fire in the belly and sense of urgency like we had in the 60's.