NASA Is Considering Fuel Depots In The Skies

nytimes.com:

By considering a proposal to put filling stations in the sky, NASA is looking to accelerate plans to send astronauts to distant destinations.

Read the whole story: nytimes.com

Comments

[anthonyNtx]

02:38 AM on 10/24/2011

Put the gas station on the moon

[cdchicago]

01:14 AM on 10/24/2011

Maybe we should create vehicles to be refueled first, then franchise filling stations. We could use a few hundred mining ships.

[FerrisValyn]

02:50 AM on 10/24/2011

We have ships that could be refueled (or at least pieces that could be assembled into such ships)

[NoiseOfKnowing]

06:23 PM on 10/23/2011

To answer all of your short sighted questions, no, the space program isn't as important as feeding and educating people. But when you consider that we spend more on makeup in this country than the space program, yes, the space program is A LOT more important than makeup. So if you are that worried about feeding and educating people then we should place a 100% tax on makeup, and leave NASA alone.

[Keith Twenty-two]

07:01 PM on 10/23/2011

How about the wisdom of putting a GAS STATION up there? Or weapons? Or radioactive materials? Or ten thousand other things?

[FerrisValyn]

07:09 PM on 10/23/2011

Actually, a gas station makes a lot of sense. Otherwise, we are stuck always bringing all of the fuel with us, resulting in never actually being able to move to the point where we are actually able to develop space so it helps people.

As for radioactive materials - it depends on the purpose - if its for power generation, related to science and/or development, no problem. At least I fail to see one.

[NoiseOfKnowing]

11:29 PM on 10/23/2011

Well that's what people do when they colonize and explore, they move things to where they are colonizing and exploring. Only difference is that there won't be any native people to displace.

[Keith Twenty-two]

06:14 PM on 10/23/2011

Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal. (Albert Einstein)

[MyTake]

03:37 PM on 10/23/2011

This is rich!

Yeah, lets park a bunch of HYDROGEN gas pumps out in space when we could be parking one on every OIL CARTEL controlled service station lot which would ENABLE the POLLUTION FREE Hydrogen Economy to get underway!

And dear little NASA was running those POLLUTION FREE Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electrical Generators out in the Space Station and on the Space Shuttle for all these years and WOULD NOT share this technology with Al Gore and the rest of us!

As Henry Kissinger, a Rockefeller agent, once said: "IF YOU CONTROL THE OIL, THEN YOU CONTROL THE NATION".

America the beautiful!

[FerrisValyn]

05:47 PM on 10/23/2011

You really think NASA has magical technology that its not sharing?
Please.

As for prop depots - the point is that this saves money, and allows us to do cheaper and more effective human spaceflight.

[Enzo Ferrari]

12:31 PM on 10/23/2011

If we had actually landed on the moon almost half a century ago we would have built airports and stored plenty of fuel there for farther trips out into space.

[FerrisValyn]

12:35 PM on 10/23/2011

Only if we had had the foresight and planing to view space as a place to expand to.

We didn't, at least not at that time

[Lori Ladybug]

11:39 AM on 10/24/2011

You can fly airplanes in space? AND these planes were capable of deep space exploration too?! Who knew! NASA spent all that time and money to build rockets, rovers, capsules, and shuttles when they could have used those resources on space airplanes and moon airports. It's all so simple. Darn bureaucrats! *waving fist angrily in the air*

[frank day]

12:00 PM on 10/23/2011

It doesn't matter how many Americans go homeless or hungry.

This is more important.

[FerrisValyn]

12:05 PM on 10/23/2011

Things like this, and human spaceflight in general, can help people.

Blaming spaceflight for things like world poverty is really short sighted

Do you blame the Teacher's Unions for lack of clean energy?

[frank day]

12:07 PM on 10/23/2011

Absolutely,

We should privatize all schools and rehire teachers for minimum wage with no benefits.

We can then reinvest the money into arming space.

[jsarets]

01:19 PM on 10/23/2011

Frank, we can't afford to support the poor if we don't create well-paying jobs for the middle class. We have to relentlessly pursue an economic future for America, developing technology and infrastructure that will empower world-leading competitors in 21st century industries.

Clearly, space-based assets are playing an expanding role in human civilization and will continue to grow in importance. Surely there are other very important problem spaces for future competitiveness, such as energy and agriculture, but space is an undeniable part of what's next for humanity.

If we stop aspiring to build the future, then we won't have a middle class. The middle class doesn't exist because we need to provide basic necessities like food and clothing. It exists because of wants, not needs. The middle class is a consequence of our aspirations to do more, go farther, and aim higher.

[frank day]

01:25 PM on 10/23/2011

The myth that technological progress will be our salvation.

Until we make technology work for average people's needs,

I'll take a pass.

Watch the video I linked above.

[Captain Archer]

11:22 AM on 10/23/2011

It's a great start but they should focus on impulse power first. Zefram Cochrane won't develop warp drive for another 51 years.

[Keith Twenty-two]

08:29 PM on 10/23/2011

In a different film, James Cromwell played 'Poppy' Bush.

[GaryNOVA]

10:50 AM on 10/23/2011

Speaking of which. Where are all the flying cars I was promised as a child? The future is disapointing.

[cambo]

10:51 AM on 10/23/2011

Yes it appears Bif found a way to go back to the future.

[Saywhut]

11:10 AM on 10/23/2011

http://youtu.be/Xo0MEQSGW8w
Looks like your "disappointment" days are over unless you wanted the price to come down, well I'm sorry that materials for creating mass production of these cars are being held up by greedy folks who want big bucks for the materials, eventually we'll see something like this appear as a daily thing but, then again, look at the traffic around you....do you really want some of these drivers of today in the sky? I don't.

[Skydiver63]

10:44 AM on 10/23/2011

I just finished reading about satellite debris that crashed "somewhere" on earth and we are at a loss to pinpoint location or size of the object(s). Now we are considering launching "filling stations" into space!

Maybe our scientific community as a group suffers from ADD.

[FerrisValyn]

10:57 AM on 10/23/2011

Yes, we have a bad history of not reusing hardware in space.

Having propellant depots would go a long ways towards pushing better habits when it comes to reusing hardware in space

[cambo]

10:22 AM on 10/23/2011

Those targets, for the next two decades at least, include a return to the moon or a visit to an asteroid. NASA has been promising to send a man back to the moon for over 40 years since the last GREAT STEP FOR MANKIND, so now it will be 60 years. There is a reason space staions are only around 250 -400 miles up and it is called radiation, man get past it with today's technology.

[SouthStJo]

12:37 PM on 10/24/2011

man get past it with today's technology­?

So how did they get to the moon to leave those laser retroreflectors and collect those moon rocks?

[Forest GreenMan]

10:09 AM on 10/23/2011

NASA needs to get something going before we end up like dinosaur toast

[FerrisValyn]

10:22 AM on 10/23/2011

Agreed. Of course, part of the issue is that there are many in Congress who only see NASA as a way to get money to a particular small group of companies, rather than actually doing stuff in space

[Forest GreenMan]

10:26 AM on 10/23/2011

That is true.

I hate to think about how much of NASA's budget has been wasted on Congressional pork that has done nothing for the Space Program.

If only we could get Congress, NASA and industry to work for the greater good for once where the Space Program is concerned.

I know, wishful thinking.

[Djay0252]

10:03 AM on 10/23/2011

They better come of with an alternative source of fuel before space travel goes up into the trillions of dollars.

[FerrisValyn]

10:07 AM on 10/23/2011

Actually, when it comes to the price of spaceflight, fuel is pretty "cheap", when looking at the total cost of the systems.

Of course, thats partly based on the fact that we haven't been very intelligent about how we do space travel...

[donnyraindog]

08:28 AM on 10/23/2011

I hope they make it Hess stations ,if i were in route to mars i would certainly want to pick up some krispy kremes,lottery tickets and a good cup of coffee!

[argonaut50]

08:15 AM on 10/23/2011

It's about time. Did this thought really just occur to them? Getting solid rocket modules into low earth orbit and attaching them to a space craft should not be that hard, especially after building a space station.

[FerrisValyn]

08:42 AM on 10/23/2011

It wouldn't be done with solids. It would be liquid propellant. Liquids are much better than solids