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Visiting Our Red Space Neighbor
Enthusiasm for visiting our red space neighbor seems to be growing. m4dm4n writes "A study carried out by MIT's Aeronautics and Astronautics department has concluded that getting men to Mars in the 2020 timeframe is possible. The intelligent re-use of crew habitat modules, propulsion stages, and engines in various missions will enable NASA to significantly reduce their initial timeline which was well past 2030." Relatedly, ErikPeterson wrote to mention a Space.com article where Neil Armstrong says getting to Mars may be easier than getting to the Moon was back in the day, because of the hurdles they had to overcome. From the article: "It will be expensive, it will take a lot of energy and a complex spacecraft. But I suspect that even though the various questions are difficult and many, they are not as difficult and many as those we faced when we started the Apollo (space program) in 1961." We're starting to understand more about the red planet as well, as madstork2000 writes "The BBC is reporting on the possibility of active volcanoes on Mars. So now there is water, heat, and soon big business when 4Frontiers gets there. Hopefully we'll get a Google Mars soon to check it out up close."
So now there is water, heat, and soon big business when 4Frontiers gets there.
What will they make and who are they going to sell it too? I'm open for making money on Mars, but I haven't read one proposal that looks like it would make money.
I can see why a country would want to go to Mars. There is always the national honor, staking territorial claims, etc. for a Mars landing. I just can't see spending billions of dollars for no financial return at all.
How much money has a business made from the US landing on the Moon?
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
What about getting women there ?
Geeks can't get women here, so isn't that a rhetorical question?
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
My priorities include being as happy as possible, and learning about the universe (via space exploration) makes me happy. Got a problem with that?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Does this mean that soon, I too could wake up next to Sharon Stone and lead a martian revolution?
Considering that the government has severely increased spending (Iraq, Katrina) while decreasing money input (less taxes taken in), something is going to suffer.
Education is almost always at the front, and I'd say that NASA is second in line for the big axe.
Advice for my fellow geeks: before seeking out that threesome you dream of, you might see what a TWOsome is like first.
"Visiting our Red Space Neighbor?" What the hell? That's a terribly headline. What's wrong with saying "Mars?"
"Excuse me honey. I have to go to the big toilet room neighbor."
Stupid like a fox!
I'd like to see this happen sooner. Even if there is life on Mars, it's probably only at the microbial level. However, on Europa, there could be bigger things swimming around in the ocean under the ice.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
the study suggests that the most efficient scheme for lunar exploration would involve sending a spacecraft non-stop to the Moon's surface, and then back again
This conclusion is probably 100% accurate. Direct shots are, in general, probably more efficient. Efficiency, however, is not the only criteria.
Griffin's plans involve launching large interplanetary payloads into LEO to which a manned CEVs are docked prior to interplanetary injection. The very large benefit of this design is crew safety. The mass goes up using immense, dripping wet, snarling 100t+ boosters. People go up in small, simple, reliable systems.
Rockets fail frequently. Dramatic detonations on the pad, missed orbits due to failed stages, etc. Why are most people oblivious to this? Because there are no people on board when it happens.
NASA has got to stop killing astronauts. Griffin intends to launch people using the simplest, safest system he can come up with. That intention will probably lead to something other than enormous non-stop direct flight vehicles.
would actually increase mission safety, by decreasing the number of critical maneuvers required, such as orbital rendezvous and docking
There have been a lot of rendezvous and docking maneuvers in space and no one has yet been killed as a result. Mir was almost lost due to a fender bender with a Soyuz, but that's as close as it has gotten. I question the risk value assigned to these events in this analysis.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
>> What about getting women there ?
> Geeks can't get women here, so isn't that a rhetorical question?
You shouldn't reply if you think it's a rhetorical question.
Depends on where the Earth and Mars are in their orbits. Also depends on where Earth and Mars are in their daily rotations, as for a lot of the day your servers would be on the wrong side of the planets. You would need to set up a satellite relaying system, and a global radio network in order to be able to have constant communication. And even with that, there may even be times when the Sun is in the way, and communication doesn't really work. That is why some people propose using the Lagrange points as good places to put communications relays.
This is all actually important for if we ever want to actually send astronauts there.
It won't be easier to get to Mars than to the Moon because the US manned space program is no longer run by engineers, but by greedy defense contractors, paper-pushers, and ass-covering PHBs. In short: NASA no longer has the Right Stuff.
And this talk of "the" CEV is disturbing. Sounds like the same "let's-make-one-spaceship-that-can-do-it-all" approach that gave us the Shuttle.
PS - Am I the only person in this country who thinks putting a manned spacecraft (the new CEV) atop a solid rocket (Thiokol SRB; as used by Shuttle) is a really bad idea?
Ever wonder is this fantastical stuff is an attempt to distract from their current manned mission problems?
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Do you think you might be taking all of this a bit too seriously?
That's a very interesting question, and you are right, it does often seem to b conveniently ignored. I did find a couple of rather woolly links here and here. There are of course many other links , but they seem largely preoccupied with managing food, oxygen and human waste rather than actually getting the astronauts back off the Martian surface.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
"...Depending on Mars's distance from Earth, which can vary by as much as 200 million mi. (322 km), radio signals from the planet can take anywhere from 4 minutes to 21 minutes to reach Earth...."
YMMV I guess.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
I suggest building one of these and sending an entire city to Mars. Why visit when you can colonize?
chown -R us ~you/base
Google Earth Hacks has overlays of all the planets! So if you have Google Earth, you can have Google Mars!
I like human space travel however humans are inferior to robots in one important area: cleanliness. You simply can't sterilize a human you send onto another planet like you can a robot, unless they never leave their habitat/lander (if nothing else then because dragging such sterilization equipment to mars isn't feasible).
The only "fossils" we're likely to find on Mars are microbes, and even those are probably rare which means w need every advantage in finding them. Humans simply increase the risk of contamination orders of magnitude which makes finding such microbe remains a much greater challenge.
It'll never happen by 2020 to 2030. Why? Because first humans have to design a real spaceship, not some skinny ass 1960's style rocket or some slightly modified space shuttle with the heat shielding falling off every third takeoff. I'm talking at least on a level with something like the ships in the original Alien movie or something on that level. It's a lot farther to Mars than to our moon. Sure we've come a long when since then but I don't think people realize there's a hell of a long way to go before we're zipping around our solar system much less our galaxy in a real spaceship. A whole new type of propulsion system needs to be designed at the very least. Also, I don't recall hearing about anyone solving the problem of astronauts being bombarded with cosmic radiation both on the way to Mars as well as once they're on the surface of Mars. I'd love to watch people strolling around on the surface of Mars as much or more than anyone else but let's face it. It's a long ways off and thinking we'll be there in 2020 or 2030 is kind of ridiculous. Just because this is the 21st century doesn't mean we're living like the fscking Jetsons yet.
I know it sounds crazy. But to walk just once under an alien sky...darnit, our children deserve the stars, and someone needs to claim that inheritance for them. IMO, if you've never looked up at the sky and wondered why we're stuck here, well, call God and see if you can get a refund or warranty repair job on your soul.
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
The other part of the problem is maintaining public interest. The mission would last a minimum of a year, and the general public would get their fill of Mars coverage. Trying to fund the *2nd mission* to Mars would be just about impossible.
I can imagine the public response: "It costs a billion dollars, and we've had people already spend a year there. Why spend any more?"
I personally don't think it is worth the effort to go to Mars unless we already have the technology and infrastructure in place to maintain a permament settlement. Otherwise it will be the Moon program all over again: Plant the flag, hit some golf balls, come home, cancel the follow-up missions.
Huh ? Your claim that "the return trip always ignored" is completely bogus. Any serious mission study deals with ascent and return (well, a few people have proposed 1 way missions, but they tend to not be taken very seriously). If you haven't seen it discussed, it is because you are reading fluff pieces in the popular press, rather than the actual studies.
Getting off mars is harder than getting off the moon, but it's a lot easier than getting off earth. Like any other part of a mars mission, it presents technical challenges...
Inhibition of Mars will change the 2048 electoral map?
They could do it now with the images on file from US, ESA, and Soviet spacecraft but for the zoom-way-in effect we all love we'll have to wait for the Mars Reconnaissance Observer to build up some data. Details here: http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/
Before we get to Mars, we need to stop and ask why we want to go. As far as I can see, our reason is pure conceit. We want to say that people have reached Mars. What does reaching Mars accomplish? Mars is an inhospitable desert. We can't do much research there that wouldn't be better done here, except for investigating Mars itself. Aside from research, why go? It's not profitable, and earth is still inhabitable enough so that establishing colonies on Mars isn't necessary.
All the money spent on making Mars spaceships and reasearching how to protect the astronauts, etc, would be better spent on improving our earthships (cars) and figuring out ways to make civilization much more energy efficient. This HAS to get done in the near future with Peak Oil and the end of cheap energy approaching. Unfortunately, we definately don't have enough money to do both types of research. With the current trends, we could be even a lot worse off by 2030.
The articles linked aren't specific about mission details, but NASA planners acknowledge that a major problem on any Mars mission will be radiation exposure. Getting to Mars and back at all with chemical rockets requires either taking a long slow trajectory or using gravity assist from other planets, making any Mars mission more than a year-long prospect and exposing the crew to radiation beyond the allowable lifetime limits. The shielding method that stands head and shoulders above others is plain water. A double hull spacecraft with about a foot thick layer of water between the hulls would cut radiation exposure by more than half -- far better than anything else proposed. The water hull would also provide micrometeorite shielding. The outer few inches would freeze. If a micrometeorite penetrated the hull, water leaking out through the hole would freeze re-seal it immediately. The water hull would also provide an enormous heat sink that would eliminate the need for a complex refrigeration system to get rid of heat from human bodies and equipment. But to haul that much water weight around is beyond the current capabilities of chemical rockets.
One possible solution is to use nuclear rockets to get there and back. For sheer power they leave chemical rockets in the dust. A nuclear powered rocket would enable "point and shoot" missions, essentially aiming at the spot in the sky where the destination will be in a few months, overcoming planetary gravity by brute force. Here's an interesting article about a design for a fully reusable, non-polluting nuclear rocket based on the Saturn V form factor, that could lift one thousand tons of payload into Earth orbit and return intact to a powered landing. No solid fuel boosters, no jettisoned fuel tanks. Just a big rocket that takes off and comes back.
But the thing is, the NSF is a bargain. It costs about 5.5 billion a year and funds things as diverse as biotech, computing, and fisheries management. It funds undergrads, graduate students, and professors, and it buys equipment and pays for research projects. In the process it cultivates basic research in the United States, in all areas of the sciences. Yet NASA gets over three times that- 16 billion this year.
But you have to question whether the $150 billion dollars we've spent on the Space Shuttle is really worth it in scientific terms. It's not that I object to the research- some of it, like the Hubble, I'm very much a supporter of. And I could think of worse ways to spend the money (that billion a week in Iraq isn't buying us very much) But what it comes down to is return on investment. If our goal is research and exploration, funding the NSF and NASA's unmanned program will allow us to get more out of each tax dollar.
I submit that sending people to Mars at this point in time would be a most illogical thing to do. Here are some reasons:
Of these alternatives, I consider the space elevator the most realistic, but I could be proven wrong by future developments. But regardless of the method, something needs to be done to improve on the current process.
Only when all those prerequisites are met - and this might be in 2010, 2020 or later - are we really ready to send humans to Mars. Before then, whatever is done will be reckless grandstanding.
My personal opinion, which may or may not meet with agreement, is that Bush has no real interest in getting people to Mars. I think this project is just a bid for getting his name into a possible future history book. In other words, a long-view PR stunt. I hope humans don't end up being sacrificed for the glory of the President.
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Rel