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Private Mars Mission Planned For 2009
Enkidu writes "Spiegel and other German media are reporting that a complete private Mars mission (automated translation) is planned for 2009. Organizations behind are AMSAT and Mars Society Germany."
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"No private organization has even been to the moon, and NASA is going pretty great lengths to ensure they understand all effects and implications from staying in space a very long time."
Be careful, this has nothing to do with staying is space for a long time. They aren't sending a human, living, person.
It's all right there in google's attempt at translating.
they have sent up private amateur radio satellites into earth orbit for years using some spare space in ESAs arianes since 1980.
they're a rather large group of scientists who work on the project for free in their spare time.
here are some infos in english (and german)
"How can a private group raise the money for a mission like this? I would think the cost would easily be in the hundreds of millions of dollars range, maybe the billion dollar range."
Please! RTFA!
It'll cost 10 million euros! Not a penny less, not a penny more.
I don't remember the exact current exchange, but I think that should be a little over 12 million US. Dollars.
Here is a PDF with some discussion on the planned Phase 5-A mission, or a amateur satelite to Mars
:-)
http://www.amsat-dl.org/p5a/p5a-to-mars.pdf
And here is the main Phase 5-A website on AMSAT-DL, with text in both German and English:
http://www.amsat-dl.org/p5a/
Stuff like this makes you proud of holding a HAM license
73s
http://k26.com/buran/Future/Mars/_energia_to_mars. html
I'm not a native speaker, mind, but should be a little less incomprehensible than what the fish churns out ;)
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Marburg Consortium plans mars mission before 2009
A German consortium of scientists, engineers, and technicians wants to prove that private groups are also in the race for interplanetary flights. By 2009, the group plans to send a probe and a satellite to Mars.
The Amsat consortium has approximately 1200 members working largely as volunteers on the rpoject. The mission of exploration will cost around 700 million Euros, according to Amsat in Bochum, Saturday.
The goal of the mission is to prove that private organizations can make space flights within the solar system possible, according to Karl Meinzer, professor of Space Flight Technology at the University of Stuttgart. The 500 kilogram probe will be put into earth orbit on board an Arianne rocket.
The space flight organization intends to purchase spare capacity on a rocket that would not be filled enitrely by other satellites. Later the probe would be brought into an orbit around Mars where it would serve as a communications relay.
Ground Control in Bochum
Meinzer says, We'd be able to receive signals from transmitters already on Mars". The Observatory in Bochum would serve as ground control. Before the actual flight to Mars could commence, the probe will have to be placed into orbit around the Earth. "We can't set a term for the rocket launch, but we must begin the flight to Mars within a limited timeframe." In 2007 and 2009 Mars will be in a beneficial location for the flight.
After the nine month flight to the neighbouring planet the probe will begin sending signals from Mars to Earth. The signals will be broadcast on amateur radio frequencies, so that anybody with a transceiver will be able to receive them.
Another goal of the mission will be investigation of the Martian atmosphere. To achieve this, the Munich Mars Society, also an organization of scholars and technicians, wants to send along the "Archimedes" probe on the mission to the red planet. "Once in Martian orbit, a 14 meter diameter balloon will inflate above the probe", said Hannes Gabriel of the Mars Society. The balloon will slow down substantially as it glides through the atmosphere towards the surface of the planet with its landing craft. The researchers hope this will yield better opportunities to collect data.
The 30 year old Amsat consortium has succesfully lanched satellites into space, according to Meinzer. Since the eightiies they have participated in a total of nine missions.
I want the fire back.
Considering SpaceShipOne rings in at around $20 mil US, and most people would say that they operate pretty efficiently and without any ridiculous overhead, I'd hate to see what 10 mil euros will buy when it comes to building a Mars ship.
What's stupid about that? Just getting there is pretty simple, just fire your boosters at the right time... And AMSAT has a history dating back to the 1960's of building space crafts... They're not sending people there... And yes, IAARS.
Give me a job. Please?
... apart from a little bit of money and some moral support. It was put together more or less as a private project by a Professor and anyone he could find to help him.
Has anyone told you that Chicago (MS-Windows-95) almost shipped without a web browser because of that?
It DID ship without a web browser. Internet Explorer was shipped a few months later with the awesome ability to *snicker* show web pages while they were loading. Yet all downloads happened in the same browser windoe. i.e. If you clicked on a link to download, you'd then have to wait as the browser load bar told you the status of the download. If you left the page, you'd lose the downlaod.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
"The Company" is more formally known as Weyland-Yutani.
Just FYI..
RTFA - they do not build their own launch vehicle. They want to hitch a cheap ride on Ariane when there is excess capacity.
Most of the money will go into building the probe.
Once their feet left german soil they were no longer germans. Only americans and russians have made significant advancements in rocket science and space exploration.
And if you think me wrong, consider this, did you earn your last paycheck or did your hands? That's right, you did, your hands are an extension of yourself and in isolation would not have produced anything.
It takes a superpower to utilize resources capably enough to successfully run a space program. It doesn't matter where those resources come from.