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Lockheed Martin Wins Contract to Build Mars Lander

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the up-up-and-away dept.

Lord_Slepnir writes "Lockheed Martin has won a contract to build the Orion crew exploration vehicle that will eventually take humans to the moon and then on to Mars. This vehicle will hopefully also replace the aging space shuttle fleet. According to NASA the vehicle will have manned missions by 2014 and moon missions by no later by 2020."

4 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. We do NOT need to send 300 tons to Mars! by unixj · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This is a myth. We only need to send 6 tons of liquid hydrogen and a small reactor. In a 2-step process you can use this to create 108 tons of fuel.

    1. CO2 (from atmosphere) + 4 H2 (from Earth) -> CH4 (rocket fuel) + 2 H20
    2. 2 H20 (from 1) -> 2 H2 (feed back into 1) + O2 (oxygen for rocket fuel)

    You fly to Mars with just enough fuel to get you there, create your own fuel from the Martian atmosphere, and fly back. To make things less risky, we send the first one unmanned, so there's a return vehicle on the surface of Mars all fueled up when humans arrive.

    The 300 tons is only if you insist on bringing the fuel for your return journey along with you.

    This is clearly described in The Case for Mars by Robert Zubrin. Surprised more people haven't read that.

    1. Re:We do NOT need to send 300 tons to Mars! by BiggerIsBetter · · Score: 4, Interesting

      How much Hydrogen could be collected on the way?

      --
      Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
  2. Re:great by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 4, Interesting
    So really...why do we need to go there?

    Want fuel? Dip-scoop the outer surface of Jupiter for enough "fossil fuel" to last us forever. Send one per year; might take 10 years to get the first balloon full back, but after then you'd have one per year -- a tank of arbitrary size, full of burnable, polymer-able methane.

    Unless you really believe in voluntary population control, sustainable ecosystems and the Tooth Fairy to keep us alive as a planetary population, in which case I can't help you.

    ..but where are they now?

    Their descendents became you. I wonder what went wrong.

    --
    Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
  3. Re:Technology Love you long time by ipfwadm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's a theory of mine that the lack of interest in space exploration is at least partially due to light pollution obscuring our view of the night sky. Whenever I find myself in a really dark place (and living in the northeast US, such places are hard to come by) I always look up in wonder. I can just lie down and stare up at the stars for hours. Looking at the hazy glow of the Milky Way, watching satellites go by and shooting stars streaking across the sky... it's hard to not be interested in finding out more about what's up there. But in many cities it's hard to even see the Big Dipper. It's not surprising people have no interest in space when many of them don't have a connection to it anymore.