12 thoughts on “Solargraphy”

  1. Just suppress any desire to speak of space solar power, asteroid mining, space settlement and the like and we’ll be fine.

  2. “Many who are ardent supporters of their nation’s military do not understand the extent to which those organizations depend on space assets.”

    SpaceX is a strategic resource and that protects them from Biden.

  3. “SpaceX is a strategic resource and that protects them from Biden.”

    Yes. We know the Biden/dems hate space but for:

    The key element is Space Force/DOD/SDI; the super heavy wedded to the Starship can deliver 100MT to orbit and will be reusable. Larger sats/stations/structures in orbit would be possible assembled from multiple launches. This would be of enormous value to the Pentagon as far as launching larger, more powerful spy sats; to say nothing of space-borne components of SDI. Just the thing for counteracting Russian/Chinese next generation hypersonic missiles. Large powerful lasers/particle beams /kinetic kill weapons in orbit at last rendered practical/feasible. These things would likely happen concurrent to if not before any significant action colonizing Mars. Taking on Musk is one thing, getting in the way of DOD’s ambitions is quite another; the Pentagon has lots of clout (some would say too much but still).

  4. Solargraphy is a clumsy and badly constructed neologism. At a minimum it should be solarigraphy (solar is from Latin solaris, “in the glare of the sun”). It really should be periheliography, but no one will accept that!

  5. Pointless. Because they dialogue in the space community, professional or advocate, lacks any coherence as to intent or desired outcome. Except maybe that folks hear the word Mars a lot, but why exactly?

    I do talk to regular folks about space, because I’m in a weird position right now where I can do random anecdotal polling amongst the populace. No one cares about space, and they don’t see why they should. This is entirely the fault of the space community, both professional and advocate. The professional community spends most of their time trying to get their rice bowls filled with the projects du jour. This doesn’t give the advocate community a lot to work with, and so they are constantly struggling, especially with weak membership which doesn’t allow them to get much done.

    I wish things were different. I wish we had a coherent strategy that said “We are going into the Solar system to procure energy and resources for the benefit of humanity, starting with the Moon”. I wish we were smart enough to do things like set up shop at EML-1 and put asteroid hunting infrastructure that looked Sunward in place. I wish we could drop this quixotic “Mars Uber Alles” mindset that has had our space program spinning its wheels for decades trying to get traction.

    You know what gets the public’s attention? Results. Perhaps part of the reason that Elon Musk is proving popular with a broader audience. He delivers results and not just promises.

  6. “We are going into the Solar system to procure energy and resources for the benefit of humanity, starting with the Moon”.
    We don’t know if we going to start with Moon, instead we going to start with exploring the Moon. And see if there is mineable water or find out other stuff which could lead to starting with Moon in terms using lunar resources.

    I think we going to use the orbit of Venus to get resources from the solar system. One advantage of Venus orbit, is you use it’s atmosphere brake stuff coming from a higher orbit, though you can do this with Mars also. Though Venus has far more solar energy and it is in better location than Mars [or Earth]. And if using hohmann Venus is shorter distance to anywhere. With Venus you travel shorter distance [and faster] to Mars, as compared to Earth to Mars and Venus is shortest distance to Mars or Earth.
    Venus shorter distance to Jupiter- and further out.
    Venus is shorter distance to anything [other than say Earth to the Moon, or going some nearby space rock.

    But in terms of exploration, it makes sense to start with Moon and then explore Mars.
    But before going to Mars, we need to test artificial gravity [in order to send crew to Mars] and one also need to test artificial gravity to use Venus orbit.
    Both Moon and/or Mars could ship water to Venus orbit. And Venus orbit with cheap rocket fuel, opens up our solar system.

    1. So, say Moon has mineable water.
      Mineable lunar water can mean less than 100,000 tonnes of mineable water near [within few km] of mining location.
      It could also mean 1 million tons within few km of mining location. It could also mean, 1 billion tons of mineable water within 10 km of mining site.

      Mars mineable water mean about 1 billion tons of Mars mineable water close to a town [10 km or less].

      If Moon has billion tons, it can ship cheap water to Venus. If Mars has more than 10 billion tons of mineable water, it could ship water as cheap or maybe cheaper than the moon can. If both Moon and Mars are shipping water, then it will be cheaper- Cheaper than shipped water to Earth LEO.
      But eventually water shipped from somewhere other than Moon or Mars will make water cheaper than the surface of the Moon or Mars, and some day cheaper than water on the Earth surface.

  7. I do have ro admit The International Solargraphic as a periodical does have a ring to it.

Comments are closed.