a more practical consideration is that launching big things even into earth orbit is EXPENSIVE. I don’t think launching a precisely targeted mega-nuke at the sun is feasible for most governments and feasible to hide for even fewer.
Barring changes of type, such as a successful orbital elevator or a similar change to a technique where fuel is not part of the payload, pretty likely. The technical costs of space flight have decreased, but the costs of fuel and materials haven’t changed that dramatically.
And that understates the energy costs involved when you’re talking about the sun, specifically. There’s a huge amount of delta-v involved in a straight shot—the Earth orbits the sun at 30 kilometers per second, compared to the 8-10 km/s that a space ship needs to orbit the Earth, where the cost of delta-v increases exponentially—and not many good targets for gravitational slingshotting to reduce that.
Your statement would be a safe bet based on the past 50 years. 50 years ago, or 1963, was 4 years before the Saturn V first launched. Using modern figures of 3.3 billion/launch, including R&D costs, that comes to approximately $28,000 per Kg to low earth orbit. The same math says that the Space Shuttle cost about $61,000 per Kg.
(I’m lumping in the total cost of the entire program in both cases divided by the number of launches. There’s problems with this method, but it means that costs can’t be hidden by accounting tricks as easily)
With that said, there are scads of methods that would lower this cost, at least for unmanned payloads, and there is also the realistic possibility that automated manufacturing could build the rockets for a fraction of what they currently cost. There’s videos taken at the SpaceX plant showing automated lathes, and direct metal 3d printers can apparently make parts that meet spec. It seems at least possible that over the next 50 years the entire end to end process could be automated to take minimal human labor.
it depends: Manufacturing and space delivery will become cheaper and easier but surveillance and data gathering will also. I don’t know what will prove more important but I feel comfortable not planning for this disaster 50 years from now when we’ll definitely have more knowledge about it in 15 years or whatever.
a more practical consideration is that launching big things even into earth orbit is EXPENSIVE. I don’t think launching a precisely targeted mega-nuke at the sun is feasible for most governments and feasible to hide for even fewer.
How true will this be 50 years from now?
Barring changes of type, such as a successful orbital elevator or a similar change to a technique where fuel is not part of the payload, pretty likely. The technical costs of space flight have decreased, but the costs of fuel and materials haven’t changed that dramatically.
And that understates the energy costs involved when you’re talking about the sun, specifically. There’s a huge amount of delta-v involved in a straight shot—the Earth orbits the sun at 30 kilometers per second, compared to the 8-10 km/s that a space ship needs to orbit the Earth, where the cost of delta-v increases exponentially—and not many good targets for gravitational slingshotting to reduce that.
Your statement would be a safe bet based on the past 50 years. 50 years ago, or 1963, was 4 years before the Saturn V first launched. Using modern figures of 3.3 billion/launch, including R&D costs, that comes to approximately $28,000 per Kg to low earth orbit. The same math says that the Space Shuttle cost about $61,000 per Kg.
(I’m lumping in the total cost of the entire program in both cases divided by the number of launches. There’s problems with this method, but it means that costs can’t be hidden by accounting tricks as easily)
With that said, there are scads of methods that would lower this cost, at least for unmanned payloads, and there is also the realistic possibility that automated manufacturing could build the rockets for a fraction of what they currently cost. There’s videos taken at the SpaceX plant showing automated lathes, and direct metal 3d printers can apparently make parts that meet spec. It seems at least possible that over the next 50 years the entire end to end process could be automated to take minimal human labor.
it depends: Manufacturing and space delivery will become cheaper and easier but surveillance and data gathering will also. I don’t know what will prove more important but I feel comfortable not planning for this disaster 50 years from now when we’ll definitely have more knowledge about it in 15 years or whatever.