Russia Wants to Launch Manned Mission to Mars

Raul654 writes "The Maimi Herald, via the Associated Press, is reporting that Russia wants to launch a manned mission to mars. The article says that the Russians are hoping to work closely with the European Space Agency and/or NASA. The 6 person, 440 day trip would cost around $20 billion. Should be interesting to see how this shapes up. See also here for mirror article."

Comments

Re:Good

[ryepup]

NASA's funding is ridiculously low. My college (University of Florida) was recently announced as one of the partner schools for NASA to help develop new launch procedures and vehicles so going into space is as safe and inexpensive as commercial airliners. The budget for this monumental task that will revolutionize mankind? 15 million. NASA has got 15 mil as a research budget. It's fucking NASA. They should have a few orders of magnitude more funding. Someone needs to convince Bush that in order to get a space-based laser missile defense system (for all those rouge ICBMs laying around) we need safe and efficient space flight. I mean, really, 15 million? The technological advances that have arisen from the few missions they've done have led to thousands of new products to improve every day life. Really, when is the US gonna take care of that?

Mars Direct

[cybrpnk2]

Anybody interested in a Mars mission would do well to use as a starting point Zubrin's Mars Direct plan...

Re:If International Space Station Is An Indicator.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.pbs.org/saf/transcripts/transcript902.h tm

ALAN ALDA (Narration) It's the rocket's fuel that for Bob opens up the possibility of a small, cheap Mars mission.

BOB ZUBRIN: This is the lab where we have the machine that can make rocket propellant on Mars. Here it is. The carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere comes in here, goes down into a reactor here which is something just the size of this, where it reacts with some hydrogen that you've brought from Earth, to turn into carbon monoxide and water.

ALAN ALDA (Narration) Out the other end you get rocket fuel and many other useful chemicals. And it all happens on Mars.

BOB ZUBRIN: This is a general purpose Martian still. It makes oxygen, water, methane, methanol, kerosene, ethylene, anything you want.

ALAN ALDA This is going to affect the whole cost of the mission, won't it? What will that effect be?

That's Mars Direct

[Goonie]

As will undoubtedly be mentioned multiple times on this discussion, that's Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct plan, and the concept of making the fuel there for the return trip seems to be the only vaguely sane way to do things.

Re:If International Space Station Is An Indicator.

[Hays]

a mars mission is by no means 95% fuel unless youre looking at the design present to reagan in the early 80s. We now know we can get all the fuel we need and refine it and store it right on mars.

It mentioned a two ship approach. Presumably the first ship leaves a couple of years earlier and starts filtering oxygen out of the atmosphere and hydrogen out of the ground water/ice and storing it before the manned mission even takes off. Once they know things are looking good they leave and find a fully fueled space ship for their ride back sitting on mars. Its been proposed by Robert Zubrin a thousand times over (though he didnt even assume the hydrogen could be extracted on site, which we now know is possible)

Its not at all unreasonable and its very refreshing to see the Russians having balls where our leaders havent.

Re:Space shuttle isn't the cheapest launch vehicle

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

IIRC though, there are actually a couple of those Russian Energia boosters at Baikonur that they were going to use for their shuttle program before the old Soyuz Sovietski fell apart. Probably not in great shape, but they were an impressive design from what I remember.

The original Energia (pre-Buran modifications) could be quite useful. I'd still recommend building NEW ones rather than relying on boosters that have been in storage for ~20 years, but it might be better than trying to rebuild Saturn V designs.

An alternate point of view

[Austenite]

Quote: The United States has also been the only nation to successfully navigate a manned spacecraft beyond the orbit of the Earth.

I am sure the Russians were the first to have a manned flight orbit the moon. In fact, a quick web search reveals Russianspaceweb which lists at least 4 (unmanned) Russian missions that flew around the moon. The documentary that gave me this point of view put the view that since the Russians had a man around the moon earlier than expected, the American moon landing was more rushed than even JFK envisaged.

Also, the Russians weren't THAT far behind being able to land on the moon.

The wonderful thing about Slashdot is that I am sure that someone actually involved in both programmes will reply, presently. :)

To The Moon, via Space Shuttle

[SEWilco]

Yes, the Space Shuttle can not get to the Moon. But it could carry a Moon ship to orbit.

The Space Shuttle has a payload bay of 15 feet around and 98 feet long. Payload weights can be up to 65,000 pounds.

The Saturn IVB stage, used to leave Earth orbit to the Moon was 58.4 feet long and 21.7 feet around. The Space Shuttle can't carry that up, but it can carry something almost twice as long and almost 3/4ths the diameter -- should be enough volume for fuel tanks large enough. The S-IVB weights 23,000 empty, which is well within the Shuttle weight limit. The 230,000 pounds of fuel would require four Shuttle trips -- probably five or six due to weight of tanks.

Assuming we have to take the spacecraft up in a separate launch, an Apollo CM/SM/LEM weighs 43,196 Kg/95,230Lbs. That's 1.5 times the Shuttle payload max weight, so have to carry those up in two trips. The SM and CM are 12.8 feet around, so can fit in the Shuttle. The LM ascent stage is 14.1 feet, so it fits too. The LM descent stage is 31 feet from leg-to-leg, so a different design for that is needed.