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How would you go to the galaxy as an astronaut and how long does it take to build a spaceship?
I'm Ms. Balint at the International Community School. My 2nd graders have a few questions and I'd like to share your advice with them. Thanks in advance!
#astronaut #engineering
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Spruce’s Answer
In the year 1969, we had the technology for human spaceflight to and from Earth's moon (2 weeks one way – 240 thousand miles), but in the year 2021 we still do not have the technology to go to our nearest neighbor planet Mars (4 months one way – 34 million miles) or beyond. We have sent robotic spacecraft to all the planets in our solar system and two spacecraft launched in 1977 that have sailed beyond our solar system into intergalactic space (44 years one way – 14 trillion miles).
For humans to go to Mars and beyond, we need breakthroughs in the following technologies: propulsion, computers, heating and cooling, radiation protection, structural and other materials, life-support systems, food supply, medicine, and others. To go to “the galaxy” (a minimum of a voyage from our solar system to the next closest one with habitable planets – 11 light years), we’ll need new breakthroughs in all these technologies plus one more, the human body.
Unless we can travel faster than the speed of light, these trips will take multiple lifetimes (young men and women leave earth and their grandchildren land on the new planet), unless a way to keep humans alive for years in stasis is invented.
After all the new technologies are developed and tested (maybe 1000 years), building a spaceship will be simple (a few weeks, maybe). Which of these technologies interest you the most?
https://www.space.com/16875-how-far-away-is-mars.html
For humans to go to Mars and beyond, we need breakthroughs in the following technologies: propulsion, computers, heating and cooling, radiation protection, structural and other materials, life-support systems, food supply, medicine, and others. To go to “the galaxy” (a minimum of a voyage from our solar system to the next closest one with habitable planets – 11 light years), we’ll need new breakthroughs in all these technologies plus one more, the human body.
Unless we can travel faster than the speed of light, these trips will take multiple lifetimes (young men and women leave earth and their grandchildren land on the new planet), unless a way to keep humans alive for years in stasis is invented.
After all the new technologies are developed and tested (maybe 1000 years), building a spaceship will be simple (a few weeks, maybe). Which of these technologies interest you the most?
https://www.space.com/16875-how-far-away-is-mars.html
Updated
Bill’s Answer
OK, I am going to try an anwer suitable for the second grade inquisitive mind. The question comes from no-limits minds, so here is your challenge.
To build a spaceship to the galaxy you have to have a number of questions answered:
1. Where in the galaxy (ours) do you want to go? Or to which other galaxy are you going?
2. How far away is the place you want to go (just like a car trip, some places are father away than others, and in the sky, some are WAY FAR AWAY!)
3. How long would it take for you to get there. NOTE: Of course, the faster you go, the less time it takes. But your speed limit is 186,000 miles per second.
FIRST CHALLENGE: Nobody knows yet how to travel that fast, so double the trip time for now because you have to go a lot slower until we figure out how to go at the speed of light.
3. Does anybody already make a spacecraft that can get you there?
SECOND CHALLENGE: The answer is :"NO" (at least for now.)
4. If the answer to #3 is NO, then someone has to figure out how to build a spacecraft that can do what you want.
THIRD CHALLENGE: It takes many years to invent, build, test, and make a "spaceworthy" version of a new rocket. For rockets we have now, sometimes10 years or more. And they have to be safe for the astronauts and a good place to live in for a long time! But it will take longer for your trip than any astronauts have ever travelled before, because you want to go so much farther than ANYONE has traveled in the past.
5. There are more questions, but it takes a lot of study and hard work just to answer the four I have already listed, so we'd better get to work! See my suggestions.
Learn all you can about science in school, especially the physicla sciences (your teacher can tell you what that is.) Science gives us the rules for building anything if we want to do it right.
Read lots of books and visit online sites about the universe, space flight, rockets, and building things. These give you the tools you will need to figure out how to make that rocket you need.
Read some science fiction books, and watch sci fi movies. These resources were created by people like you who want to go far. Sometimes the way they do it does not obey the rules of science, so it can't really be done that way. But their ideas can help you imagine BETTER ideas!
Build some spaceship models out of things you find around the house and imagine them going on a trip in space. When you get older, you might put together rocket and spaecraft kits, but they cost a lot. Your imagination can work just as well as a fancy model. LEGOS are good to play with to help you build things and see how they turn out.
If someone says you can't do what you are dreaming of doing, pay no attention to them. Keep dreaming and learning. That's how people got to go to space in the first place!
To build a spaceship to the galaxy you have to have a number of questions answered:
1. Where in the galaxy (ours) do you want to go? Or to which other galaxy are you going?
2. How far away is the place you want to go (just like a car trip, some places are father away than others, and in the sky, some are WAY FAR AWAY!)
3. How long would it take for you to get there. NOTE: Of course, the faster you go, the less time it takes. But your speed limit is 186,000 miles per second.
FIRST CHALLENGE: Nobody knows yet how to travel that fast, so double the trip time for now because you have to go a lot slower until we figure out how to go at the speed of light.
3. Does anybody already make a spacecraft that can get you there?
SECOND CHALLENGE: The answer is :"NO" (at least for now.)
4. If the answer to #3 is NO, then someone has to figure out how to build a spacecraft that can do what you want.
THIRD CHALLENGE: It takes many years to invent, build, test, and make a "spaceworthy" version of a new rocket. For rockets we have now, sometimes10 years or more. And they have to be safe for the astronauts and a good place to live in for a long time! But it will take longer for your trip than any astronauts have ever travelled before, because you want to go so much farther than ANYONE has traveled in the past.
5. There are more questions, but it takes a lot of study and hard work just to answer the four I have already listed, so we'd better get to work! See my suggestions.
Bill recommends the following next steps:
Updated
Hassan’s Answer
According to https://howthingsfly.si.edu/ask-an-explainer/how-long-does-it-take-build-rocket it takes 18m to build a simple rocket and 5 years for a space shuttle. Of course that's once you figured out the design and ensured they work. The original development process takes many more years.