The One Where I Start Talking About Rockets

     Scientists can hypothesize as much as they want about what planets may lay outside our home, we can dream of lush worlds like Pandora from Avatar, desert wastelands like Tatooine from Star Wars, or intellectual paradises like Gallifrey from Dr. Who; none of it really matters much though if we have no means of making it to those places. While the news media is filled with talk of nearly Earth-sized planets being found, very few reports focus on the future of rocketry and space transport.

     Don't get me wrong, we have made some huge strides in how we get from the surface world up to space, the Saturn V rocket was a spectacular feat of human engineering. Still these can get us to the Moon, our nearest neighbor with a small price tag of 40 or so billion dollars for development and launch, 50-80 if you include everything to do with the program. Currently our main workhorse for human transport is the Space Shuttle, which as of writing, is nearly done with. While the Space Shuttle is advanced, its the equivalent of a shallow water barge when compared to the technology required for deep space travel.

pretty, yes, meant to handle the tortures of deep space, not at all

     On the other hand we have a vast array of launch vehicles not compatible with human flight. While most of these push small satellites up to the edge of space, a few of them have delivered payloads that are well outside the bounds of the traditional solar system. These, while fast, are impractical for humans, they are too small and they accelerate fast enough to turn your average astronaut into a splatter. So we need something that is reliable, like a Space Shuttle or Saturn V, or dare I say it, Buran Shuttle, but also meant for deep space, like one of Lockheed's army of rockets.

yes, the Russians had a shuttle, and admittedly, it was significantly cooler than ours

     There have been many designs proposed, such as attachments to the now cancelled Constellation program, but none have come to an actual building phase, which is unfortunate.

     So now comes my opinion; I feel we need space docks, we will never be able to make a ship that can truly efficiently and safely cross the vast distances (and times, see last astro fact) here on Earth, it will just waste too much material to leave the planet and theres a large risk at that point, especially with the cost and complexity of a ship like that. So we make a port in space where we can build ships from materials sent up from the Earth (or the moon, it costs less fuel) and we have no risk of a problem on launch, we use cheaper rockets to transport, and then when we take off, we send the astronauts up and board them in space, sure there is now crowning launch moment like what defined the Apollo program, but it is a significantly smaller risk.

     To keep people coming back, I will add a cliff hanger. Next time around on Rocket Wednesday I will discuss some rocket types that we could use efficiently in space and some of the problems associated with human space travel. See you back here then.

May the stars shine brightly in your skies!