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Buzz Aldrin's Roadmap to Mars
FleaPlus writes "Former astronaut (and MIT astronautics grad) Buzz Aldrin has an article in last months Popular Mechanics in which he describes a plan for manned Mars missions. Aldrin's plan proposes using a Cycler spacecraft permanently orbiting between Earth and Mars. This would have a shielded habitat and rotation-induced gravity, and would take just 5 months to reach Mars. Smaller vehicles would take astronauts to and from the Cycler. Aldrin claims the plan is less costly and more sustainable than NASA's current plans."
Has this guy lived or what?
Before this feature, articles like this would simply never appear on the main page unless users configured their homepage to include all articles from the section (in this case "Science"). Now, these non-front-page articles get a small footprint at least.
I dug around a little and found the following abstract detailing an older version of Buzz Aldrin's work. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a free link to the actual paper...
Evolutionary space transportation plan for Mars cycling concepts
Aldrin, Buzz; Byrnes, Dennis; Jones, Ron; Davis, Hubert
AIAA Space 2001 Conference and Exposition
A promising new human Mars exploration approach based on the use of an Earth-Mars Cycling Interplanetary Transportation System is described. In this approach, a cycling vehicle acts as a permanently emplaced transportation element that continuously cycles between the Earth and Mars using gravity assist with minimal course adjustment on each cycle eliminating the need to repeat the large and expensive injection propellant requirement of traditionally conceived Mars vehicles and missions. With the implementation of a two Cycler system, one Cycler would always be going to Mars while the other is returning to Earth. When in the vicinity of the Earth or Mars, the Cyclers release or are intercepted by smaller aerobraking "taxis" that ferry people and supplies to and from the surface. Alternatively, in the Semi-Cycler Concept, the Cycler vehicles themselves would use aerobraking and gravity assist to orbit about the Earth or Mars for a period before returning. In this way, unmanned cargo flights to Mars could use the minimum energy, long trip time trajectories while crewed flights could use the shorter flight time, longer stay time options. Both concepts are addressed in the paper, and the results of preliminary flight mechanics analyses are presented. In addition, a transportation plan is presented based upon a logical extension of existing space assets augmented by new vehicles providing a reusable transportation capability.
And water is one of many simple, universal compounds. Even thought there are no great heaping pools of it on the Moon and Mars, it's bound up by chemical activity in the minerals there. It can be cracked out easily enough through heating. And if a spacecraft uses fuel cells, they'll be able to carry significant quantities of hydrogen and oxygen aboard their ship as propellant, atmosphere, and fuel to produce electricity and water. Water isn't really the biggest challenge; dealing with the radiation that lashes the Martian surface is a bigger challenge.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Nobody seems to have the courage of Columbus any more. In his time he put forth a half thought idea that sailing west he may end up in the east.
Well, everyone at the time was pretty much certain world was round, and that if you sailed west far enough you would end up in the east. That wasn't new or revolutionary, it was commonly accepted knowledge.
The interesting thing Columbus did was convince some brain addled religous zealots to agree with his half-thought maths about the size of the world. There's probably something to be said about a stupid man's spectacular failure being more impressive than a smart man's prudent inaction. There's also something to be said for not starving to death in the middle of the ocean.
I saw this referred to in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (no images). There's also a section that lists the "leading" proposed manned Mars missions.