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James Cameron's Illustrated Mars Reference Design
An anonymous reader writes "Terminator Director James Cameron commissioned renderings of the NASA Mars Reference Design [HTML, 4 PDFs]. The mission profile calls for a cargo ship sent ahead of a crew, a huge (Terminator-like?) rover, and inflatable habitats. It's not clear where Skynet and the T-800's hyper-alloy combat chassis fit in yet. Between now and then, the 5 Mars missions: 2005 Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter, 2007 Phoenix and Netlanders, 2009 Science Lab Rover, and 2011 Scout. Skynet comes in 2026."
James Cameron may have spawned the Terminator franchise, but he had no connection T3 (the film was directed by Jonathan Mostow.) Rumor has it that Cameron was planning to buy back the rights to the Terminator franchise, and then produce/direct his own script, but was outbid. When the guys who bought the Terminator rights tried to hire him for T3, Cameron turned them down.
Those pictures are famous, and there's even an animated Disney documentary from the period.
The "Collier's space program" was far more ambitious than what's been done to date, or even what Cameron had drawn. The Collier's program had a big rotating space station in Earth orbit, a Mars rocket under construction in orbit, and heavy industrial traffic to and from orbit. Cameron has much lower ambitions.
Bill Clinton authorized NASA to launch missions to mars every 20 months when Mars is in an opportune window. It is actually cheaper to launch a $300 million probe every other year than wait every 5 years and launch a $500 million one (my cornell profs, who run the current MERs explains it) - sitting around w/no payoff loses you money. Sucessful missions like pathfinder and MERs 2003 get you science and grants. The 20-month (or whatever the window is) has been followed pretty closely:
1997: Pathfinder/Mars Global Surveyor
1999: Mars Climate Orbiter/Mars Polar Lander (both lost)
2001: Mars Oddessey/Mars 2001 Lander (Code name: Apex - cancelled after the 1999 failures)
2003: "Athena:" A lander that was planned back in the late 90's, then cancelled after the 1999 failures(much of Athena became incorporated into the current MERs). Spirit/Opporunity (also Japan and ESA took advantage of the opportune planetary alignment).
Also, before the 1999 failures, there was an amazingly complex Mars Sample Return mission in it's initial stages planned for 2008. Professor Squyres (Spirit/Opportunity leader) was also to have been involved in that. It was a sort of "Rube-Goldberg" trick that would have had a lander on the surface, scoop up some soil, put it in a rocket not much bigger than a model rocket, launch it into Mars orbit, rendezevous with an orbitting satellite, launch it back to earth and finally be snapped up by a helicopter as it paracheutted down over the American desert (this parachutte technique happens to be how StarDust's sample will be retrieved). That mission woulda been so cool though. Honestly, making it work sounds even cooler than the actual specimen we woulda gotten back!
I interviewed Cameron last year, and flat-out asked him why he hasn't made a film (as opposed to a documentary) since 1997. His answer was, "I'm having too much fun." Well, lucky bastard on the one hand, but on the other, all credit to him!
Still, looks like he's going ahead with Battle Angel now. And in 3D, to boot!
You must think in Russian.
A more complete study of a different approach is available online for anyone to view at Explore Mars Now. It's a flash tour of a possible first manned mars landing environment that is based on the virtual tour of the actual Mars Arctic Research Station.
But apparently nobody cares because it wasn't commisioned by a well known director with a fetish for explosions.
James Cameron owns the screen adaptation rights to Kim Stanley Robinsons Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars Trilogy.
This probably means that at last the books are being adapted for the screen...