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Several studies supported the ISF, and some even pointed out that a manned presence (even a heart beating) in a microgravity environment would contaminate the microgravity environment.

It turned out that the desigh was so sensible, that many of the big aerospace contractors percieved it as a threat. An ISF could be placed into orbit for a cost of about $700 million (vs the billions for the station) and would be an inexpensive (compared to the ISS) paltform to screen processes for space manufacturing. If and when an application was found, the operation would become self financing.

To make a long story short, there are dangers when trying to find a place among the hogs feeding at the federal money trough. The new company was stomped to the ground and eventually went away.

There is now talk about abandoning the ISS to redirect big $$$ for the mood and Mars exploration. A permanent manned predence in space is too dangerous and expensive to maintain.

Not so, Hubble was launched by Space Shuttle Discovery.

There are currently moves to design the next generation launch system after Ariane 5. It is supposed to come online sometime after 2020. The Germans made a study called FESTIP. They studied several alternatives. SSTO and TSTO, winged, ballistic, etc. They identified two concepts as having the highest payoff and highest chance of success: a TSTO winged launch system and a suborbital so-called HOPPER space vehicle. They settled on HOPPER as the lower cost and risk approach and are currently doing a prototype.

In the meantime the French recently awoke to the necessity of an Ariane 5 replacement and have signed a deal with the Russians to develop two new reusable high performance engines. One using LOX/Hydrocarbon and another using LOX/LH2. They also started their own study, called FLPP. FLPP will build a test vehicle called Socrates using the Russian engines and the thermal protection systems pioneered in the yet to be launched EXPERT test vehicle. Talk about NIH syndrome. In their defense, the French are responsible for the Ariane 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 designs, so they probably think they have more experience to be able to pull this one off. That has some merit, but then again CNES was also responsible for the Hermes boondoggle... Not that the Germans are any better, with plans for expensive vapourware like this in the past.

There are currently moves to design the next generation launch system after Ariane 5. It is supposed to come online sometime after 2020. The Germans made a study called FESTIP. They studied several alternatives. SSTO and TSTO, winged, ballistic, etc. They identified two concepts as having the highest payoff and highest chance of success: a TSTO winged launch system and a suborbital so-called HOPPER space vehicle. They settled on HOPPER as the lower cost and risk approach and are currently doing a prototype.

In the meantime the French recently awoke to the necessity of an Ariane 5 replacement and have signed a deal with the Russians to develop two new reusable high performance engines. One using LOX/Hydrocarbon and another using LOX/LH2. They also started their own study, called FLPP. FLPP will build a test vehicle called Socrates using the Russian engines and the thermal protection systems pioneered in the yet to be launched EXPERT test vehicle. Talk about NIH syndrome. In their defense, the French are responsible for the Ariane 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 designs, so they probably think they have more experience to be able to pull this one off. That has some merit, but then again CNES was also responsible for the Hermes boondoggle... Not that the Germans are any better, with plans for expensive vapourware like this in the past.

I would say that is the smallest "big list of all spacecraft" I have ever seen. A more comprehensive resource on spacecraft, be it manned, planetary or ordinary telcomms, is the ever-useful www.astronautix.com. Go here for a full list sorted by type of mission. (scroll down to 'planetary' for the interesting stuff).

Short answer; No

Long answer; Read this excelent artcle about the various soviet lunar programs.

I have seen such designs for space launch vehicles using scramjets. They are not a new idea. Ever heard of Saenger II, Tu-2000? Here is a more complete list of these colossally expensive failures.

All the designs using scramjets rely on tricks to achieve orbital capability. Rocket-powered sleds for launch, rockets for reaching orbital velocity, etc. Why not use a regular rocket in the first place? At least the spacecraft would have less points of failure and would likely have less weight.

FYI, orbital velocity is Mach 26, not Mach 10. The amount of kinetic energy required increases quadratically with the target velocity: E = 1/2*m*v^2. Perhaps now you see why space launch is tricky.

I have seen such designs for space launch vehicles using scramjets. They are not a new idea. Ever heard of Saenger II, Tu-2000? Here is a more complete list of these colossally expensive failures.

All the designs using scramjets rely on tricks to achieve orbital capability. Rocket-powered sleds for launch, rockets for reaching orbital velocity, etc. Why not use a regular rocket in the first place? At least the spacecraft would have less points of failure and would likely have less weight.

FYI, orbital velocity is Mach 26, not Mach 10. The amount of kinetic energy required increases quadratically with the target velocity: E = 1/2*m*v^2. Perhaps now you see why space launch is tricky.

I have seen such designs for space launch vehicles using scramjets. They are not a new idea. Ever heard of Saenger II, Tu-2000? Here is a more complete list of these colossally expensive failures.

All the designs using scramjets rely on tricks to achieve orbital capability. Rocket-powered sleds for launch, rockets for reaching orbital velocity, etc. Why not use a regular rocket in the first place? At least the spacecraft would have less points of failure and would likely have less weight.

FYI, orbital velocity is Mach 26, not Mach 10. The amount of kinetic energy required increases quadratically with the target velocity: E = 1/2*m*v^2. Perhaps now you see why space launch is tricky.

Actually, I was serious with the "one throw" stuff - that wasn't a throw-away line! ;)

The Ares booster, which was what I was talking about with modding the STS stack, has already been essentially designed. Check out the link! It has a whacking great cargo fairing on the top, that would easily fit (comparatively) HUGE additions to the ISS inside, no en-orbit manufacture required, if that's what we wanted to do. And with 121 tonnes to LEO actual launch cap., the 100 tonnes I was talking about had that healthy margin you're talking about built in.

I, too, wish we'd at least start with the prelim. studies for a space elevator - but we can do what I'm talking about here with 70's tech. All we have to do is lose the damn shuttle!

Call me nuts, but this is the old Dyna-Soar project, so there's nothing new about it except for will to get it done.

ObJoke1: It's hard to keep a Dyna-Soar extinct.
ObJoke2: That project's so old, it's a Dyna-Soar!
(boo, hiss)

They're not. I did say "close to being ready-to-build", and it's not that close - just a heck of a lot closer than anything else. Nothing else is off the drawing boards and into even static testing.

But it's a flight-proven design capable of taking five people (in an emergency configuration - one was planned for a potential Skylab emergency) and as such is probably a good base to start from.

It's not the first time that an existing design has been considered for a reuse. The Gemini capsule was at the heart of a single stage to orbit design as well as a small space station, a rescue craft for stranded Apollo astronauts and a cargo truck.

Apollo had a similar number of possible spinoffs, as did the Saturn V launcher (apart from Skylab 1 and the unflown Skylab 2, which were modified from Saturn IVB casings - Apollo third stages). But unforunately reusable craft became the total focus of the US space programmme, instead of just one aspect of it.

They're not. I did say "close to being ready-to-build", and it's not that close - just a heck of a lot closer than anything else. Nothing else is off the drawing boards and into even static testing.

But it's a flight-proven design capable of taking five people (in an emergency configuration - one was planned for a potential Skylab emergency) and as such is probably a good base to start from.

It's not the first time that an existing design has been considered for a reuse. The Gemini capsule was at the heart of a single stage to orbit design as well as a small space station, a rescue craft for stranded Apollo astronauts and a cargo truck.

Apollo had a similar number of possible spinoffs, as did the Saturn V launcher (apart from Skylab 1 and the unflown Skylab 2, which were modified from Saturn IVB casings - Apollo third stages). But unforunately reusable craft became the total focus of the US space programmme, instead of just one aspect of it.

They're not. I did say "close to being ready-to-build", and it's not that close - just a heck of a lot closer than anything else. Nothing else is off the drawing boards and into even static testing.

But it's a flight-proven design capable of taking five people (in an emergency configuration - one was planned for a potential Skylab emergency) and as such is probably a good base to start from.

It's not the first time that an existing design has been considered for a reuse. The Gemini capsule was at the heart of a single stage to orbit design as well as a small space station, a rescue craft for stranded Apollo astronauts and a cargo truck.

Apollo had a similar number of possible spinoffs, as did the Saturn V launcher (apart from Skylab 1 and the unflown Skylab 2, which were modified from Saturn IVB casings - Apollo third stages). But unforunately reusable craft became the total focus of the US space programmme, instead of just one aspect of it.

They're not. I did say "close to being ready-to-build", and it's not that close - just a heck of a lot closer than anything else. Nothing else is off the drawing boards and into even static testing.

But it's a flight-proven design capable of taking five people (in an emergency configuration - one was planned for a potential Skylab emergency) and as such is probably a good base to start from.

It's not the first time that an existing design has been considered for a reuse. The Gemini capsule was at the heart of a single stage to orbit design as well as a small space station, a rescue craft for stranded Apollo astronauts and a cargo truck.

Apollo had a similar number of possible spinoffs, as did the Saturn V launcher (apart from Skylab 1 and the unflown Skylab 2, which were modified from Saturn IVB casings - Apollo third stages). But unforunately reusable craft became the total focus of the US space programmme, instead of just one aspect of it.

The interesting thing is that, as the Russians plug the holes in their nuke shield, the USA dismisses its equivalent deterrent. The Peacekeeper. This is a large MIRV missile which was forbidden under later treaties. But ever since the USA stepped down from the ABM treaty, Russia has threatened to develop MIRV versions of Topol-M. Hence the USA is dismissing its most recent deterrent. Which by the way, is less survivable than Topol-M since it is only silo-based. The railroad version was never put into use AFAIK. Topol-M is silo, railroad and road based. It has more survivability because the bases are mobile.

Topol-M also features a maneuverable warhead to evade anti-missile systems by presenting a non-ballistic terminal trajectory.

The Russians also have better anti-missile systems in the shape of the S-400 Triumf. Some of their anti-missile systems can also be fitted with tactical nuclear warheads to ensure a better kill ratio.

This means the USA's nuclear deterrent now mostly consists of the submarine launched nukes (i.e. Trident).

Wait a second...I thought this is what ASAT was for!

One of the earlier "nuclear" test engines was this puppy, the nuclear thermal rocket. If you have seen a video of it when it was being tested, you would know that that thing is one mighty beast. The soviets also attempted to design one (both the Soviet and the American versions had the purpose of getting people to mars) which looks a lot cooler. I would love to have a model of that sitting on my desk. :)

Anyway, this nuclear propulsion is somewhat related to the newer Xenon method albeit with lower specific impulse but much higher acceleration.

Please, don't blame everything on post-communist people. The "New Estabilishment" does at least as much mess.

Just for Polish status in race into space...
Miroslaw Hermaszewski

Here's something from astronautix about the Proton story:

Development of a three-stage version of the UR-500 was authorised in the decree of 3 August 1964. During development, in comparison to the original polyblock design, the engine performances were improved by about 5 seconds; the mass of the first stage increased by 71 tonnes; the second stage by 30 tonnes; and the third stage by 27 tonnes (more than doubled). These changes brought the low earth orbit payload from 12,000 kg up to almost 20,000 kg. The UR-500K, although it exceeded the launch mass of the 11A511 Soyuz by 2.22 times and the fuel mass by 2.25 times, was more efficient with a useful load by 2.78 times greater. However putting the new variant of Proton into service proved difficult.

Decrees of 12 October and 11 November 1964 authorised development of the Almaz manned military space station and the manned circumlunar spacecraft LK-1 as payloads for the UR-500K. However at the same time Khrushchev was ousted from power. Chelomei lost his chief patron and his projects came under negative scrutiny by the new leadership.

Although Korolev was opposed to the Proton, he now used it to his advantage. On 8 September 1965 Korolev presented several schemes for using Chelomei's UR-500K to fly around the moon. One alternate was a two-part spaceship, using the Proton with the upper stage Block D from Korolev's N1-L3 lunar project. This would launch Korolev's 7K-L1 spacecraft (derived from the 7K-OK Soyuz spacecraft) onto a translunar trajectory. This project received the name UR-500K-L1, and was adopted in place of Chelomei's LK-1. It required construction of 18 UR-500K rockets, which, in a combination flight-test and government trials program, would send L1 spacecraft around the moon, at first unmanned, then manned.

Tried before? Uhm... you you care to back that statement up, preferable with links? Because, even thought some germans during the last big war messed with rocketproppeled planes, those wasn't meant to go anywhere near space, and the various winged programs (DynaSoar, Shuttle, Buran to name a few) that has been either close to flight or actually has flown have all been large, costly goverment programs.

AFAIK civilians has always dreamed of "cobbling together a rocketship in the backyard" and head up into space, but it's only the last few years that the technology needed has reached a pricepoint where it is possible for anyone but a goverment to afford to develop and build a manned spaceship (or even a suborbital one). Papaerprojects has floated around since before the dawn of the spaceage, but no one went into space on those. It looks like the X-prize and XCOR are the first programs that results in actuall hardware beeing built.

On the other hand, if you want a real affordable, private launch, you could try cobbling together a huge suger or sorbitol rocket, put a chair on it and see if you can't get hold of something like the MOOSE. Off course, you would need a suit too, but as the early suits where souped up versions of a standard flightsuit, a visit to the nearest military surplus store will solve that.

So there you have it... an simple, affordable launchsystem. Wonder why no one has done that... oh, safety. Right.

Tried before? Uhm... you you care to back that statement up, preferable with links? Because, even thought some germans during the last big war messed with rocketproppeled planes, those wasn't meant to go anywhere near space, and the various winged programs (DynaSoar, Shuttle, Buran to name a few) that has been either close to flight or actually has flown have all been large, costly goverment programs.

AFAIK civilians has always dreamed of "cobbling together a rocketship in the backyard" and head up into space, but it's only the last few years that the technology needed has reached a pricepoint where it is possible for anyone but a goverment to afford to develop and build a manned spaceship (or even a suborbital one). Papaerprojects has floated around since before the dawn of the spaceage, but no one went into space on those. It looks like the X-prize and XCOR are the first programs that results in actuall hardware beeing built.

On the other hand, if you want a real affordable, private launch, you could try cobbling together a huge suger or sorbitol rocket, put a chair on it and see if you can't get hold of something like the MOOSE. Off course, you would need a suit too, but as the early suits where souped up versions of a standard flightsuit, a visit to the nearest military surplus store will solve that.

So there you have it... an simple, affordable launchsystem. Wonder why no one has done that... oh, safety. Right.

I work for a competitor, but I've always regretted the DC-X getting its funding cut. It looked like it was a truly innovative idea and had a lot of promise.

The largest gun ever used was constructed by Nazi Germany and had an effective range of less than 30 kilometers (and that's horizontal distance, it couldn't have got that far up).

Actually, the Germans had a gun in 1918 that had a range of about 130 km. "From March through August of 1918, three of the guns shot 351 shells at Paris from the woods of Crepy, killing 256 and wounding 620." See: http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/parisgun.htm.

Not true. The Russians had an operational ASAT system starting in the late 60's. . As you suggested they used the "rendezvous and explode" approach, which is reasonably well suited for taking out satellites in high orbit. However, the rendezvous takes time and can sometimes be avoided. It's not all that hard inherently, though - Kepler worked out the basic math a few hundred years ago, and as long as you keep you units straigh (JPL!), orbital rendezvous is straightforward.

It should be noted that the current U.S. missle defence system, while useless against incoming missles, is a very capable ASAT system against low-orbit satellites such as most spy satellites.

Scoring a direct hit in a head-on approach requires a very fast control loop, good sensors, and a highly reliable spacecraft system. Again, it's something that is not beyond, for instance, the Chinese. However, it isn't necessary to score a direct hit. If you deploy shrapnel (the famous "bucket of gravel") you can accept miss distances in the hundreds of meters - which can be done with pretty simple technology. Better yet, if you use a large nuke you can take out every spacecraft within 1000 km, a miss distance even North Korea could achieve.

Also, you don't have to be going in a couter-rotating orbit. all you have to do is place some gravel in the path of the satellite - it supplies the kinetic energy. A simple sounding rocket can get to 300km, which is where you find spy sats. So it is not beyond the realm of reason (though very unlikely) that you could take out a $1 billion U.S. radar bird using a $10 million sounding rocket launched at the exact right time and place. Very tricky in practice, though.

The harp gun project in the 60's was capable of launching projectiles into space, the highest launch achieved on an atmospheric test package was 170KM. The project ran from a Canadian University on the guise of doing high altitude research, but, the real research, was to attempt to build a payload package that included guidance and propellant sufficient to achieve orbit. The project was funded by the US military. The project was never viewed as a serious 'space threat' by other countries because the technical difficulties of creating a guidance package that could withstand the 2300 g launch were pretty big obstacles, and to create a nuke that could survive that was unthinkable.

Missle programs were another story, it was techically feasable to use a missle to launch a nuke and in theory drop it anywhere in the world. Besides the issue of launch vehicle reliability, there were a whole mess of other issues to demonstrate that such a program would indeed work. Compared to a bullet, a nuke is a rather fragile and complex piece of equipment, so you cant subject it to the types of forces you subject a standard conventional payload to during the delivery phase.

To really demonstrate to the 'other guys' that the ordinance delivery system is truely capable of providing an environment capable of supporting a nuke from liftoff to arrival at target, its really simple, stick a man inside it. If the human body can withstand the rigors of the launch forces, and the vehicle can be dropped back to earth on a precise target, with the human intact, a lot of things have been demonstrated. The most important one though is this, if the human can survive the trip, the forces/temperatures involved are such, a nuclear payload can survive, and be operational when it arrives on target.

The same way that Russia and subsequently the USA demonstrated to the world that they had a launch system capable of providing a ride gentle enough for a nuclear device, yet capable of arriving anywhere in the world, China has just provided the same proof. The on orbit maneuver is a critical component of this demonstration.

Not only have they demonstrated they can put an object into orbit, maneuver it, and then land it on/near a target, they have concisely demonstrated that the vehicle provides an environment to deliver a very fragile package, probably the most fragile of all weapons, a human body. That's pretty much de-facto proof that a nuclear device can survive the same trip.

Well, excuse me, but it's a long way from a V2 rocket to a Mercury capsule.

Is it really? In one way you're right - just as there is a long way from the engine of your car to the seat you sit in while you drive. On the other hand... the first american in space rode in a Mercury capsule on top of a Redstone missile - slighty modified to manrate it.

I qoute from the website I linked to above: "Redstone was the first large liquid rocket developed in the US using German V-2 technology". In most respect, Redstone was naught but a A4 MkII - but mostly by the same people who built the A4 in the first place. In fact, those people, and the ideas behind the A4 and its derivatives, is behind almost every major american designed and built up to and including Saturn V.

And as other people on the tread has said; it makes good sence to learn of what others has done before. The soyus is pretty much the optimum shape for a spacevehicle - combining good aerodynamics with hich volumetric efficency - so it makes perfect sence in using that as a startingpoint for an enlarged capsule. Or would you rather that the chinese went for the cramped 'spam in can' approach that the US Mercury programe was before they moved on to bigger and more efficiant designs?

Well, excuse me, but it's a long way from a V2 rocket to a Mercury capsule.

Is it really? In one way you're right - just as there is a long way from the engine of your car to the seat you sit in while you drive. On the other hand... the first american in space rode in a Mercury capsule on top of a Redstone missile - slighty modified to manrate it.

I qoute from the website I linked to above: "Redstone was the first large liquid rocket developed in the US using German V-2 technology". In most respect, Redstone was naught but a A4 MkII - but mostly by the same people who built the A4 in the first place. In fact, those people, and the ideas behind the A4 and its derivatives, is behind almost every major american designed and built up to and including Saturn V.

And as other people on the tread has said; it makes good sence to learn of what others has done before. The soyus is pretty much the optimum shape for a spacevehicle - combining good aerodynamics with hich volumetric efficency - so it makes perfect sence in using that as a startingpoint for an enlarged capsule. Or would you rather that the chinese went for the cramped 'spam in can' approach that the US Mercury programe was before they moved on to bigger and more efficiant designs?

Well, excuse me, but it's a long way from a V2 rocket to a Mercury capsule.

Is it really? In one way you're right - just as there is a long way from the engine of your car to the seat you sit in while you drive. On the other hand... the first american in space rode in a Mercury capsule on top of a Redstone missile - slighty modified to manrate it.

I qoute from the website I linked to above: "Redstone was the first large liquid rocket developed in the US using German V-2 technology". In most respect, Redstone was naught but a A4 MkII - but mostly by the same people who built the A4 in the first place. In fact, those people, and the ideas behind the A4 and its derivatives, is behind almost every major american designed and built up to and including Saturn V.

And as other people on the tread has said; it makes good sence to learn of what others has done before. The soyus is pretty much the optimum shape for a spacevehicle - combining good aerodynamics with hich volumetric efficency - so it makes perfect sence in using that as a startingpoint for an enlarged capsule. Or would you rather that the chinese went for the cramped 'spam in can' approach that the US Mercury programe was before they moved on to bigger and more efficiant designs?

"The Shenzhou spacecraft appears similar to the Russian Soyuz, but is different in dimensions (slightly larger and heavier) and does not seem to use any detailed parts copied from the Soyuz or built under license. Therefore although it follows the classic layout of the Soyuz, adopts many of the same technical solutions, and the re-entry vehicle has the same shape, it cannot be considered strictly a 'copy'. And if one considers Shenzhou to be a copy of the Soyuz, then was the Soyuz design stolen - from the American General Electric Apollo spacecraft proposal?"

If it had happened it would already have leaked by now. After all, we now know the secret history of the Soviet moon race. The secret history of the German scientists involvement in their rocket program. So why not about this bit as well.

US's problem was they cheerfully duplicated WWII missiles without trying to develop new stuff. While the Russians, pushed by Stalin's megalomania, dumped loads of resources on missiles.

Read all about early Russian rocket development here.

They are putting all their new nukes on solids. e.g. DF-31 For nukes you need cold-launch capability and a LOX/LH2 space rocket requires a couple of minutes to fill the tanks and for the engines to heat-up. They are no good for nukes. Too slow.

See this link. This link is also relevant; it has various facts and figures on the Shenzhou.

See this link. This link is also relevant; it has various facts and figures on the Shenzhou.

If you built something that the human could survive inside to withstand the stresses, congratulations, you've just rebuilt the shuttle.

Hardly.

How about a soyuz return capsule.
Or even a 60's era MOOSE.

It's only a metric ton of heat when you've got 50 tons of orbiter smacking into the atmosphere. There's a lot less excess energy to bleed off when it's 1 man+250kg. Still, *I* wouldn't want to try personal orbital re-entry until every other option was exhausted.

That is far too low for life by any measure.

Is it really? Since the last serious attemt to look for traces of life on Mars (the Viking probes), we have found life on earth living under conditions we previously thought it was impossible for life to exist under; in black smokers, in the middle of hot geysirs, inside rocks in the middle of saltlakes and so on. Life is amazingly adaptable, and - despite what some biblethumpers says - able to evolve to suit the place it exists. And martian life, if it exists, have evolved on Mars and as such will be adapted to the contitions there.

Or to qoute someone most /.ers know who are: "It's life Jim, but not as we know it."

Just throw humans on there.
Yes, in theory, we could have done that in the seventies (by 'we', read NASA and the american taxpayers). The technology needed for a "there and back again" style of mission isn't substancially different from what you need to go to the moon, if you don't mind hanging around with a couple of buddies for, oh, around three years. In fact, NASA did play with the idea of a Mars flyby or landing using Appolo hardware.

...to enable humans to travel to mars...
We already have that technology. Once we managed to stagger up off earths gravitywell - and we did that by going to the moon - we had the tech needed to go anywhere. But again, not fast.

...faster propulsion...
I suppose you mean 'propulsion allowing a higher terminal speed'. Todays chemical rockets are basicly 'burn, then coast'. You accelerate a lot for a while, then glide towards the target. A ion-engine or a nucular rocket will let you accelerate less but for a much longer time, meaning you'll get a higher terminal velocity. The providial Holy Grail for interplanitary missions would be an engine which would let you accelerate forever. Just think about it; you blast off into orbit, then turns on the flightengine. That gently accelerates you to one G.. and keeps that accelatation all the time. Halfway to the target, you simply turns around and deacceleate with one G, leaving you with zero relative speed as you enter orbit around Mars (or wherever you want to go). The speeds you'll reach are way higher than any chemical rocket can provide, the flighttime shortens and we don't have to worry about the determinal effects of living in zero G for years on end. I havn't got my notes and calculator here right now, but maybe someone could punch up some numbers on this?

...possible cold(cryo) sleep...
With the right sort of propulsion (see above), there is no need to bother with things we probaly wont master for centuries anyway.

It could be the first base humanity establishes on another planet.
Maybe - but it probaly wont be the first base humans establish on another heavenly body.

Just throw humans on there.
Yes, in theory, we could have done that in the seventies (by 'we', read NASA and the american taxpayers). The technology needed for a "there and back again" style of mission isn't substancially different from what you need to go to the moon, if you don't mind hanging around with a couple of buddies for, oh, around three years. In fact, NASA did play with the idea of a Mars flyby or landing using Appolo hardware.

...to enable humans to travel to mars...
We already have that technology. Once we managed to stagger up off earths gravitywell - and we did that by going to the moon - we had the tech needed to go anywhere. But again, not fast.

...faster propulsion...
I suppose you mean 'propulsion allowing a higher terminal speed'. Todays chemical rockets are basicly 'burn, then coast'. You accelerate a lot for a while, then glide towards the target. A ion-engine or a nucular rocket will let you accelerate less but for a much longer time, meaning you'll get a higher terminal velocity. The providial Holy Grail for interplanitary missions would be an engine which would let you accelerate forever. Just think about it; you blast off into orbit, then turns on the flightengine. That gently accelerates you to one G.. and keeps that accelatation all the time. Halfway to the target, you simply turns around and deacceleate with one G, leaving you with zero relative speed as you enter orbit around Mars (or wherever you want to go). The speeds you'll reach are way higher than any chemical rocket can provide, the flighttime shortens and we don't have to worry about the determinal effects of living in zero G for years on end. I havn't got my notes and calculator here right now, but maybe someone could punch up some numbers on this?

...possible cold(cryo) sleep...
With the right sort of propulsion (see above), there is no need to bother with things we probaly wont master for centuries anyway.

It could be the first base humanity establishes on another planet.
Maybe - but it probaly wont be the first base humans establish on another heavenly body.

It's more like China's Soyuz, as that's pretty much what it's based on.

It will be cheaper, faster to develop since it needs less parts. It will carry more given the same launch rocket. It will be safer because it is easier to make a capsule with a continuous intact abort feature (i.e. you can evac the crew any step of the flight).

Just think about it. A top mounted capsule can be ejected upwards in case there is a problem with the booster, afterwards it safely lands using a parachute.

If there is a problem with the shuttle booster or other side mounted vehicle, you can probably kiss your ass goodbye.

The wings are a nuisance while taking off. That is the reason why the Shuttle is mounted sideways on the rocket instead of at the top. The original X-20 Dynasoar space plane was planned to be top mounted until someone figured out that having wings on the nose of a rocket isn't a good thing because it makes the whole thing unstable. There is a reason arrows have the feathers on the tail instead of the opposite.

So you carry wings, a reinforced hull to support the structural stresses wings provove, wheels, etc. All just for landing?

A parachute is much simpler, cheaper, and doesn't use all that space and weight! You could also use landing rockets like the DC-X used, or a parafoil (a sort of a cross between a parachute and a wing) with some skids like the X-38, etc.

Why must a space vehicle look like an airplane? An airplane does not look like a train, a train does not look like a boat either.

The main medium is different, the vehicle is supposed to fit to the medium, not the other way around. In space wings are just as useless as wheels on a boat at sea.

For more info on all I talked above, just check out the excellent site Encyclopedia Astronautica.

It will be cheaper, faster to develop since it needs less parts. It will carry more given the same launch rocket. It will be safer because it is easier to make a capsule with a continuous intact abort feature (i.e. you can evac the crew any step of the flight).

Just think about it. A top mounted capsule can be ejected upwards in case there is a problem with the booster, afterwards it safely lands using a parachute.

If there is a problem with the shuttle booster or other side mounted vehicle, you can probably kiss your ass goodbye.

The wings are a nuisance while taking off. That is the reason why the Shuttle is mounted sideways on the rocket instead of at the top. The original X-20 Dynasoar space plane was planned to be top mounted until someone figured out that having wings on the nose of a rocket isn't a good thing because it makes the whole thing unstable. There is a reason arrows have the feathers on the tail instead of the opposite.

So you carry wings, a reinforced hull to support the structural stresses wings provove, wheels, etc. All just for landing?

A parachute is much simpler, cheaper, and doesn't use all that space and weight! You could also use landing rockets like the DC-X used, or a parafoil (a sort of a cross between a parachute and a wing) with some skids like the X-38, etc.

Why must a space vehicle look like an airplane? An airplane does not look like a train, a train does not look like a boat either.

The main medium is different, the vehicle is supposed to fit to the medium, not the other way around. In space wings are just as useless as wheels on a boat at sea.

For more info on all I talked above, just check out the excellent site Encyclopedia Astronautica.

It will be cheaper, faster to develop since it needs less parts. It will carry more given the same launch rocket. It will be safer because it is easier to make a capsule with a continuous intact abort feature (i.e. you can evac the crew any step of the flight).

Just think about it. A top mounted capsule can be ejected upwards in case there is a problem with the booster, afterwards it safely lands using a parachute.

If there is a problem with the shuttle booster or other side mounted vehicle, you can probably kiss your ass goodbye.

The wings are a nuisance while taking off. That is the reason why the Shuttle is mounted sideways on the rocket instead of at the top. The original X-20 Dynasoar space plane was planned to be top mounted until someone figured out that having wings on the nose of a rocket isn't a good thing because it makes the whole thing unstable. There is a reason arrows have the feathers on the tail instead of the opposite.

So you carry wings, a reinforced hull to support the structural stresses wings provove, wheels, etc. All just for landing?

A parachute is much simpler, cheaper, and doesn't use all that space and weight! You could also use landing rockets like the DC-X used, or a parafoil (a sort of a cross between a parachute and a wing) with some skids like the X-38, etc.

Why must a space vehicle look like an airplane? An airplane does not look like a train, a train does not look like a boat either.

The main medium is different, the vehicle is supposed to fit to the medium, not the other way around. In space wings are just as useless as wheels on a boat at sea.

For more info on all I talked above, just check out the excellent site Encyclopedia Astronautica.

It will be cheaper, faster to develop since it needs less parts. It will carry more given the same launch rocket. It will be safer because it is easier to make a capsule with a continuous intact abort feature (i.e. you can evac the crew any step of the flight).

Just think about it. A top mounted capsule can be ejected upwards in case there is a problem with the booster, afterwards it safely lands using a parachute.

If there is a problem with the shuttle booster or other side mounted vehicle, you can probably kiss your ass goodbye.

The wings are a nuisance while taking off. That is the reason why the Shuttle is mounted sideways on the rocket instead of at the top. The original X-20 Dynasoar space plane was planned to be top mounted until someone figured out that having wings on the nose of a rocket isn't a good thing because it makes the whole thing unstable. There is a reason arrows have the feathers on the tail instead of the opposite.

So you carry wings, a reinforced hull to support the structural stresses wings provove, wheels, etc. All just for landing?

A parachute is much simpler, cheaper, and doesn't use all that space and weight! You could also use landing rockets like the DC-X used, or a parafoil (a sort of a cross between a parachute and a wing) with some skids like the X-38, etc.

Why must a space vehicle look like an airplane? An airplane does not look like a train, a train does not look like a boat either.

The main medium is different, the vehicle is supposed to fit to the medium, not the other way around. In space wings are just as useless as wheels on a boat at sea.

For more info on all I talked above, just check out the excellent site Encyclopedia Astronautica.

Why the need for a vertical take-off?

Any Harrier Jump Jet pilot in the Royal Navy will tell you that a heavier load can be lifted with the same amount of fuel if you take off horizintally and with a bit f help from the 'ski-jump' that was added to British Invincible-class aircraft carriers many years ago. A design for a horizontally launching/landing unmanned launcher called HOTOL was proposed to ESA by British Aerospace in the '80s but didn't get off the drawing board. There's another article here that describes the air-breathing ascent and the take-off trolley that would support it on the runway. Sounds a bit like Fireball XL5!

For those of you who wondered...
Here are some ideas that have already been turned over and rejected (and might have to be revisited!):

There are variations of the Apollo

Rescue plans/variations

The original Alpha lifeboat

And Alpha lifeboat's replacement

And, of course, the Saturn V variants

Happy surfing!

For those of you who wondered...
Here are some ideas that have already been turned over and rejected (and might have to be revisited!):

There are variations of the Apollo

Rescue plans/variations

The original Alpha lifeboat

And Alpha lifeboat's replacement

And, of course, the Saturn V variants

Happy surfing!

For those of you who wondered...
Here are some ideas that have already been turned over and rejected (and might have to be revisited!):

There are variations of the Apollo

Rescue plans/variations

The original Alpha lifeboat

And Alpha lifeboat's replacement

And, of course, the Saturn V variants

Happy surfing!

For those of you who wondered...
Here are some ideas that have already been turned over and rejected (and might have to be revisited!):

There are variations of the Apollo

Rescue plans/variations

The original Alpha lifeboat

And Alpha lifeboat's replacement

And, of course, the Saturn V variants

Happy surfing!

For those of you who wondered...
Here are some ideas that have already been turned over and rejected (and might have to be revisited!):

There are variations of the Apollo

Rescue plans/variations

The original Alpha lifeboat

And Alpha lifeboat's replacement

And, of course, the Saturn V variants

Happy surfing!