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How Close Are We To a Mars Mission? (thenewstack.io)
destinyland writes: NASA is developing the capabilities needed to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in the 2030s," reads the official NASA web site. But National Geographic points out that "the details haven't been announced, in large part because such a massive, long-term spending project would require the unlikely support of several successive U.S. presidents." And yet on November 4th, NASA put out a call for astronaut applications "in anticipation of returning human spaceflight launches to American soil, and in preparation for the agency's journey to Mars," and they're currently experimenting with growing food in space. And this week they not only ordered the first commercial mission to the International Space Station, but also quietly announced that they've now partnered with 22 private space companies.
I'm going to guess about 225 Million km. (on average)
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Because /. is so full of Republicans. So full of Republicans.
We should not be in such a hurry that we are sending people in fragile tin cans reliant on chemical rockets. Instead we should be working on building an actual Ship in orbit.
What is a "Ship"? First, it is a vessel with ample power: some kind of reactor that can run all the ship's systems, plus a magnetic shield. The other systems a reactor would power is the engines...Ion or those EM drives (should they pan out. I expect the truth should be sorted out by the time they get around to building something like this). Sure...they are low thrust, but you can have a lot of them. And they have some pretty powerful ones in development.
Another thing it would have to be is big. Room for rotating sections for artificial gravity, hydroponics, a workshop (because AAA doesn't serve Space yet). Storage for fuel, water, a lander of some sort, etc.
Sure, it sounds all futuristic, but we have the essential technologies or they are on the drawing boards, or can be with just a bit of political will. It's time we took the next step in Space Travel...the step where it's actual travel and not just joy rides to lower orbit. We can put off Mars for a decade or and instead focus on building something that is safe, reliable and not a one and done soda pop can.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
How do we guarantee we don't contaminate Mars and vice versa? The risk of bringing back a deadly disease is not zero. Suppose Mars has prions or something we have no immunity for?
I agree it's a small chance, but also a potential civilization-killing chance.
Table-ized A.I.
Sad to say, that has become the U.S.'s battle cry. Unless an immediate short term profit can be had the funding should be put elsewhere. Let the next guy worry about investing in the future, I need my profits now!China, on the other hand, has a history of investing for long term gains. They are a much more patient people,
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
My guess is that absent any major change on this planet, no group or combination of groups that has enough money is willing to spend it on the trip.
So the answer is far away.
Why is Snark Required?
Humans are still more concerned with blow each other than exploring other planets.
Too bad your typo isn't true. But yes. Humanity is not the space-faring species we are looking for.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
I'm a guy who stared up, glassy eyed (mostly because I was a kid in the middle of a serious sunstroke) as Armstrong stepped down that ladder, I had my plastic model of the Saturn V and scrapbook after scrapbook of the Apollo missions,so I guess you could call me a fan of exploration, science, engineering - all the things that had to come together for that moment to happen, but I honestly think those days are gone or at least disappearing. Two things end up driving exploration - a romantic ideal of the need to know, and the chance for someone to make a whack of cash. I think like after the "discovery" of North America, it's the investors that will drive the future of space. Nobody with any control over the sort of money this is going to cost believes that we are genuinely on the edge of destroying Earth - no "Interstellar scenario" is forthcoming - so what it will end up being is profit. Mining, most likely. As robotics advances the arguments are fewer and fewer for putting humans in harm's way. Maybe Mars will end up being on the list, my bet is the asteroid belt, though.
Sending people to Mars is aspirational, but ridiculous. We need to find a commercial basis for a self-sustaining colony on the moon first. Once we have a self-sustaining colony on the moon, that is somehow able to support itself commercially, sending people to Mars will be more achievable.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
Attempting anything at scale in space with chemical rocketry is utterly foolish.
While I generally agree, we don't have anything else at present nor does there appear to be any promising replacements in the near future outside of a few corner cases. We have NOTHING else to get us out of Earth's atmosphere. Until we come up with an alternative for getting into space that is economical and has a similar safety record we're going to be using chemical rockets. While I'm hopeful we can develop something clever one day, I'm realistic that it is going to be a while. Probably longer than my remaining lifespan.
Also, even if we put people on Mars, they need a dense, compact, and reliable source of power. Nothing but nuclear engines and reactors even remotely fit the demanding requirements for long-term space activites.
I think we need to figure out how to get there first without it being a suicide mission. Other than RTGs we don't currently have any reactor designs that are ready for space travel and none are being seriously worked on to my knowledge.
A molten salt reactor can be made compact enough to power an airplane, and would be suitable for use in a Mars colony, providing electricity, heat, and production of chemical fuels.
Did you read your link? They never got a system that powered an aircraft. Yes we could probably design a fission reactor that could power a Mars colony and we could probably get it there. Furthermore how do you know that a molten salt reactor is an appropriate design for space or for use on Mars? There could be lots of better designs. But there are a LOT of problems to solve before that that are a LOT harder, including designing a (safe) reactor for the trip there and getting to Earth orbit economically and designing the life support systems to keep people alive and healthy for the journey.
"Except going to Mars is propaganda and not science. "
Actually it's both -- and more. Is the goal to JUST send robots to probe our solar system? Or to actually make a human presence? I believe the latter and I believe it's important for many reasons which should be obvious.
We need to go back to the Moon first, set up a colony there, and build infrastructure there to support further exploration of the solar system! Why? Number One, because we can make all our inevitable mistakes a few days from Earth, where we'll have an opportunity to handle them without everyone dying, and Number Two, if there are launch facilities on the Moon, it'll be that much easier in the long run to get to places like Mars and the asteroid belt, than having to use up all the delta-v necessary to boost out of Earth's gravity well, that's why.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
No scientific value in sending man to Mars.
That's not true. You could argue that much of the science could be done cheaper another way, but it does have value.
Except going to Mars is propaganda and not science. No scientific value in sending man to Mars.
That's not true at all. We would learn a tremendous amount from sending a man to Mars. There would have to be great advances in medicine, agriculture, life support, power, shielding, and much more. Much of it would be technology we are unlikely to develop any other way. We would learn a tremendous amount by sending a man to Mars or even to the Moon.
Lots of scientific value sending probes and what not to explore the galaxy. Cheaper too.
Of course there is value in probes. But there are things you cannot learn by sending probes. That's like saying you can learn everything about Earth by using satellites and ROVs. It simply isn't true. You cannot learn anything about human physiology for one. You learn nothing about life (ours or alien) in these remote places. Probes have their value but the idea that they can completely replace sending people is absurd.