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Could We Abort a Manned Mission To Mars?
StartsWithABang writes: The next great leap in human spaceflight is a manned mission to a world within our Solar System: most likely Mars. But if something went wrong along the journey — at launch, close to Earth, or en route — whether biological or mechanical, would there be any way to return to Earth? This article is a fun (and sobering) look at what the limits of physics and technology allow at present.
If you're interested in a hard sci-fi, near-future look at how a catastrophic Mars mission might go, you should read an excellent novel called The Martian by Andy Weir.
"The Martian" by Andy Weir is one of the best SF books I've read, and I highly recommend it. Even if you're not into SF, if you're a member here, there's a good chance you'll like it.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Yes, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria could've gone back home - so could the Mayflower (yeah, yeah, I know, I'm pasty white, etc.)
It's a lot harder to do that with a spacecraft if you know you need the Oberth effect of your destination to make it home.
So? A poll was done a while ago indicating that a lot of qualified people would go if they had 1 chance in 2 of surviving.
The only safe ship is the one that never leaves harbor...
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
The first mission or two is probably no return anyway so who cares if you can't abort?
I'd still sign on in a heartbeat.
We need to be WAY less cautious about manned space travel again, we aren't going to do much of import at this pace.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you're interested in a hard sci-fi near-future look at how a non-catastrophic, well planned mission with unforgettable personalities and epic adventures, I recommend Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy: Red, Blue, Green Mars. There's catastrophe in there too but it occurs only occasionally.
There's more "things go wrong... in spaaace!" novels and movies than you can shake a stick at. During these boring space creature features I wind up doing a freeze frame on the movie.
I then mentally leave the room and walk around down the space station's corridors, look out the windows, maybe browse the tech manuals for the station. Then I key up some popular music these people of the future listen to, go to the space john (not much has changed) and visit the hydroponics bays. Have some lunch. If it's a lunar colony I don a suit and go play some golf, take a buggy ride. Then I strap on wings and climb the giant trees that fill the dome and jump off and fly.
Eventually I mentally return to the room that is frozen in time on the screen, take a deep breath and un-pause the movie. And the gallant characters resume their battle with the Space Menace and mostly become eaten or horribly killed and all the precious equipment becomes ruined in the process and everything blows up.
Life can be lonely sometimes when you're not into the things that other people enjoy.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Your opinion of what a good parent is, isn't the end all, be all, of parenting...
Parents brought their kids to America on ships a long time ago, ever heard of the Mayflower?
Many died...
Those who didn't, experienced something well beyond the "comfort and safety" of Europe...
[citation needed]
I think we will never achieve a great leap forward until we come to terms with the fact that what is holding us back from leaping forward is the irrational notion that we need to send flesh for a mission to be legitimate. Sending human flesh to another planet is about as useful long term as sending frozen steak or a banana. We don't insist on using only our hand when building a house: we use tools and machinery. In fact, it is said that the thing that separates us from other species is our tool making. We make tools to achieve the things we want to do, and to advance and make our lives better. The tools for exploring outer space are unmanned probes, robots, machines. Machines that don't require flesh in situ to make them work. 10000 years ago, flesh was needed to dig a hole. Now, we use a back hoe. We don't think of a hole dug by a back hoe as somehow suspect because we didn't dig it by hand. Why is space travel subject to these artificial constraints? Sure: Before the age of computers we didn't imagine machines could be sufficiently autonomous to enable them to be effective, long term in space. But now, we know better. In the 1960s, it was thought the future lay with sending humans into space to move levers. Now, we know better. The humans are just inert luggage. Let's go luggage free.
Non sequitur. As long as there have been kids getting born and raised, there have been kids getting born and raised in transit. That's neither a reason for not having the kids, nor for not making the trip.
What bothers me about you self-appointed anti-space-nutter crusaders:
1. I don't see any space nutters. I see some people who are interested in space travel the way some folks like you are interested in pro sports and pr0n.
2. Your arguments all boil down to "I'm afraid to do this; therefore, you should be forbidden from doing it." Now that is fucked up.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
We still don't have a station orbiting the moon. We don't have a station on the moon. We don't have a sustainable system within our own lunar orbit.
The only reason a Mars mission is one way is because we insist on building the vehicles and launching from Earth.
The cost of launching from earth is much higher than from space because we have to break Earth's gravity and pass through the atmosphere.
We picked on India for making it to Mars by basically cutting corners and just slingshotting a chunk of cheap crap at Mars and then said "ours costs more because we're more conservative". What's our response? Throw a huge expensive chunk of metal at Mars to prove we do it better.
Build the next space station already. Build it big and ship it people and supplies and do it there. If we cat accomplish that, we don belong in space.
Because space is mostly empty, and extremely hostile.
Given the technology available 500+ years ago so was North America: freezing cold winters, strange plants, new diseases etc. Indeed the available technology was barely able to match the challenge and some early colonies failed. However once there, as our knowledge of the new environment and our technology improved it became easy to survive there.
Isn't space exactly the same? Our technology is barely up to the job of keeping us alive on Mars and I expect some of the early colonies will fail. However given time it is likely that survival will become easier and there is a good chance to discover new resources which Earth lacks and which might be very useful in the future e.g. helium-3 on the moon.
Because space is mostly empty, and extremely hostile. There's no rational reason for anybody to go there.
There are plenty of rational reasons to go there. Not all of them are economically rational. None of them are without some amount of danger. But the notion that there is no rational reason to go into space is easily and demonstrably false. Off the top of my head:
1) Scientific discovery, particularly as it relates to the human body in hostile environments
2) Technology development
3) Preserving the species (the Earth will cease to be habitable at some point)
4) Curiosity (simple curiosity is rational if risky)
5) Economic development (space R&D has a multi-fold economic payback)
6) Because the experience of standing on another planet is as different as standing on a mountain versus looking at a post card