this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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Futurology
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I'm very excited about kinetic gun type launch tech. Its way to harsh for humans, but it could get cargo to space very cheaply. If that were true the building blocks for a huge space station suddenly become much more economically feasible.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/10/longshot-space-wants-to-make-space-launch-dumb-and-really-cheap-too/?
Kinetic gun type launch is great for transporting materials from earth to within our solar system, we need methods for either the best method that is best suitable for humans to travel in space or humans must adopt to harsh traveling methods.
What would be really be a game changer in this regard is either a Space Elevator type system (which would be really difficult and expensive to build even if we did have suitable materials to do it) or a Reusable Single-Stage To Orbit rocket (even the mighty Starship rocket is two stages, so this is also very difficult to achieve).
As for actual travel in space, faster is better (both in the sense that it limits exposure to cosmic radiation and microgravity, two things proven harmful to human health; and also that it reduces the need to carry a large amount of provisions onboard for a long trip), so it helps for instance to have in-orbit refuelling capability (so you can actually use your rocket engine to propel you faster) or different engines such as nuclear propulsion engines that have better performance than existing chemical rockets.