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Trump Offered NASA Unlimited Funding To Put People on Mars by 2020, Report Says (nymag.com)
From a report, based on a book by Cliff Sims, who worked as a communications official for Trump on his presidential campaign and in the West Wing: As the clock ticked down, Trump "suddenly turned toward the NASA administrator." He asked: "What's our plan for Mars?" Lightfoot explained to the president -- who, again, had recently signed a bill containing a plan for Mars -- that NASA planned to send a rover to Mars in 2020 and, by the 2030s, would attempt a manned spaceflight. "Trump bristled," according to Sims. He asked, "But is there any way we could do it by the end of my first term?"
Sims described the uncomfortable exchange that followed the question, with Lightfoot shifting and placing his hand on his chin, hesitating politely and attempting to let Trump down easily, emphasizing the logistical challenges involving "distance, fuel capacity, etc. Also the fact that we hadn't landed an American anywhere remotely close to Mars ever." Sims himself was "getting antsy" by this point. With a number of points left to go over with the president, "all I could think about was that we had to be on camera in three minutes .. And yet we're in here casually chatting about shaving a full decade off NASA's timetable for sending a manned flight to Mars. And seemingly out of nowhere."
Sims described the uncomfortable exchange that followed the question, with Lightfoot shifting and placing his hand on his chin, hesitating politely and attempting to let Trump down easily, emphasizing the logistical challenges involving "distance, fuel capacity, etc. Also the fact that we hadn't landed an American anywhere remotely close to Mars ever." Sims himself was "getting antsy" by this point. With a number of points left to go over with the president, "all I could think about was that we had to be on camera in three minutes .. And yet we're in here casually chatting about shaving a full decade off NASA's timetable for sending a manned flight to Mars. And seemingly out of nowhere."
What makes you think this will be different?
...that he reminds me of Verruca Salt - "I want it NOW!"
This sig left unintentionally blank.
Sounds like someone is not used to having a boss. Managers ask unknowingly ridiculous things all the time. It is called having a job.
J
We could absolutely put people on Mars by 2020.
But if you want them to be alive when they get there, it'll take a bit longer.
This is how people with a very high IQ think and act. Almost like ADHD, except very focused.
This is just an observation, not an endorsement or denial of President Trump. I've worked w/people
like this. You look at their results, not the traveled path they took getting there 'cause chances
are you wouldn't understand it.
And you might see an easier way to their answer, but remember, you saw their answer and thus
were influenced by it.
CAP === 'ranked'
Trump's one of those "businessmen" who think two women can bring a baby to term in 4 1/2 months.
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
How is this different than any other business? A CTO with a million things on their plate may come to you and ask if you can speed up SAP deployment to a year.
It's a good question. If your constraint is funding or inter-company politics, a motivated CTO can fix that. There are limits to how fast you can speed up some projects, but what's the harm in asking?
Ditto for Mars. The President might have some interesting conversations if he made a phone call to Musk asking the same thing. Grant a contract or two, for half the cost of NASA, and see w hat magic Elon can pull out of his hat. (SpaceX will have landers on Mars before SLS does it's first launch anyway...)
..he would have said "No, Mr President we can't get it done for 2020 but we can get it done for the end of your second term if you start the funding right now.!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I imagine he was rather disappointed with where our space program is at the moment though. Can't say as I blame him.
It'll happen eventually though.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
I'm guessing this was after he heard that Mars has no extradition treaty with the US.
Also, constitutionally he doesn't have the rights to do this. This is why there is a government shutdown right now. He wants to pay for the wall, an other part of the government doesn't. The House of Representatives has the power of the purse strings, so they will not fund this wall. So the president will not approve any budget without such funding.
If he had the ability to unlimited fund NASA, why doesn't he have the ability to fund for his wall.
Also of note even with unlimited funding, putting a Man on Mars by 2020 is impossible. To perform such a project new technologies need to be made and the mythical man month is in play. There is only so much the everyone can do at once until they start stepping on each others feet.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Nobody else, Republican or Democrat would ever suggest such a ridiculous and obviously ego catering idea.
Sure they would. They just wouldn't do it publicly.
With Trump, there is no filter. What he says in private is what he has in public. This is what his supporters love, and his detractors hate.
Or have we forgotten that Obama shut down the space program altogether?
https://www.nasa.gov/
Seems to be working for me?
I hate fat people.
Yep, just paste Trump's face over Matt Damon's with MS Paint-level graphics work and his supporters will insist that it's absolutely real, infinity times more real than the moon landing...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
If he asked the same question of Elon Musk, he would have had a yes. Of course, Elon has a long track record of missing deadlines, but if SpaceX didn't have to use profits from regular launches to fund their Starship program, they could probably move it forward faster.
This would be little more than another pork trough for Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
And if any Democrat President had offered unlimited funding to get a human mars landing in 4 years we'd be applauding the progressive actions to move technology and human progress forward.
Or have we forgotten that Obama shut down the space program altogether?
Nice troll.
TL/DR? Okay, here you go:
The Space Shuttle program was extended several times beyond its originally envisioned 15-year life span because of the delays in building the United States space station in low Earth orbit—a project which eventually evolved into the International Space Station. It was formally scheduled for mandatory retirement in 2010 in accord with the directives President George W. Bush issued on January 14, 2004 in his Vision for Space Exploration.[
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
and maybe Mitch McConnell? Asking for a friend.
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Whatever happened to that plan for a private company to send two people on a flyby of Mars? It probably couldn't happen by the end of 2020, though.
I think the best Nasa might be able to do by 2020 would be to send a small mammal, like a mouse, on a flyby of Mars. I'd say its chances of survival would be 50/50 at best, but it would give us a good idea of the danger involved. Landing it on Mars might also be possible, but launching it back to Earth after that probably wouldn't be. Which would turn it into the next Laika.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
He doesn't care about science, or exploration, or doing things the right way.
There is no scientific reason to send people to Mars. It is a political stunt. Every president is for it, but they all extend the schedule so the big spending will occur after they leave office.
Guess what? We aren't going to Mars by 2030. Here's the reason: National Debt Clock.
Nah. We'd also call him desperate to pull a publicity stunt because he feels like his approval ratings are sliding.
To Mars in 4 years. From what is essentially standstill. Keep on dreaming.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No they wouldn't, because they aren't so stupid and uneducated that they would think it was possible. And Trump didn't do this in public dumbshit. He did it in a private meeting, and it was so fucking stupid that they couldn't stop talking about it.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
and they might even survive. Yeah, it's technically 4.83 months, but since when is any construction project on time?
That said, it's probably not a good idea if you value human life. And at any rate it's really just a distraction/vanity project. I'll believe Trump is concerned for our future when he makes good on his campaign promise of Universal Healthcare.
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Neither did JFK and going to the moon within a decade when he challenged it was a much larger leap. But keep on with the derangement.
I can't begin to describe how immensely sad this makes me at so many levels. At what point did the techies become such losers? I can remember a time, when we would examine the seemingly impossible, buck up, and meet the challenge. We have by no means met the edge of technology or solved all the problems we can solve. Like so much in life, it comes down to will, and you guys are a a complete bunch of pussies.
I want you to think about this. Really, truly, deeply think about this, and opportunity that was just lost. The space program has by and large been stalled. There is constant talk of going somewhere or doing something, sometime, which always seems to be 20 years away. Bureaucrats have been hired, who are more interested in job security than achieving. We have had a series of presidents, both republican and democrat, who have half assed the space program. We have lacked drive. We have lacked purpose. Now, an increasing number of people are losing interest that there is talk of far reducing funding or cancelling altogether. Why chase dreams when we can pay for more mundane practical stuff. It IS a good question.
So, along comes trump. You (likely) live in California, so you reflexively hate him, no matter what he says or does. So, when he asks if you want to chase your so called dreams, for real, you withered in the moment and said no. You disgust me. You should disgust yourself, and anyone else who loves epic science. The bell was rung, and you CHOSE to be tone deaf.
When Kennedy similarly rang the bell, better men than you rose and answered it. A whole host of knew technologies needed to be developed, but they new at its core, the moon shot was possible. Mars is the same. There are some issues to be solved, but they are not infinite. If Elon Musk offered a blank check for materials to have the best and brightest to work on this, you would faun over him, and maybe even be involved. But no, since you are small and petty, you mock and deride the effort because it was Trump.
You can say the timing was bad. You can claim it was unfair. But anyone who has ever chased a dream knows, you have to have your elevator speech ready. You never know who you bump into to make it happen. Instead of being snarky at Trump, you should save your Ire for the fucking NASA admin who was not prepared. He was asked, and he was not ready. Pathetic.
This was a moment in history lost. This was a moment for serious people with serious dreams. Instead, we got you. Instead of galvanizing expertise to figure out ways to meet the challenge, we will continue to support the nowhere scientists making nowhere plans for nobody. We will hand-wring and bitch that there is not money to test out solutions, since it is more fun to hand-wring and bitch than to actually tackle the problem. Again, you disgust me.
the poles are shifting rapidly.
we could be witness of what adam&eve or noah went through :)
Yes, but at least with a halfway realistic time frame.
Flying to the moon is fairly easy. You're dealing with a body that has a fraction of the mass and thus gravity, and to return from it you basically fall back into Earth's gravity well after overcoming a fairly trivial one.
This is fundamentally different for a flight to another planet.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They have not yet solved the problem of humans surviving several months of radiation in space yet -- I'd call that a "new technology that needs to be made", although I suppose 100 tons of lead shielding would probably do the job...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
There is no scientific reason to send people to Mars. It is a political stunt.
I don't think any disagrees that it is a political stunt but so was the initial moon landing. There was no scientific reason to send people to the moon. Yet, that helped spur technological and scientific advancement. I think the same could happen with a manned mission to Mars. Is it worth it? I don't know.
Agree with the debt.
shuttle program != space program
The shuttle program is one aspect of the space program. You do not need to conflate things like that in order to disprove the AC.
And Reagan. And Bush I. And Bush II. And Mitch McConnell.
Share the credit where it is due. He's just carrying on a time honored Republican tradition.
And after Trump's term is up ... what's the worst that could have happened? The guy gets fired and nobody is on Mars. But there would have been a lot of progress made. Maybe it would have then been possible by the end of Trump's second term?
That is the problem with bureaucrats: they are too honest. Nobody expects politicians to tell the truth - the people they deal with should be self-serving for their causes, too.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
And I know just the man to put in charge of this project...
Starting with Nancy Pelosi and the Mueller team and their 13 angry democrats.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
What offer? There was no offer.
No new technologies need to be made. All you need is a ship, food and water, and someone willing to go. That's it.
They could easily use the space shuttle to fly there, I don't know why they haven't done it yet.
No sig today...
The point is that Obama did not "shut down the space program altogether". He did cancel the Constellation program because, in his words, it was "over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation." He and other officials subsequently restored development of the Orion capsule, along with the Ares I lift stage and a Heavy Launch Vehicle stage to replace Ares V.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Graphene works as a shield and is very lightweight.
No sig today...
If Kennedy hadn't been shot, there's a good chance the Moon landing wouldn't have happened. Kennedy became a martyr and the Moon shot became a monument to him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
You are the only one I can see using the word demand. It's build your own straw man day!!!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
> Now, as for NASA's part... I'd say take the money and RUN!
--That was my take on it as well (in fact I have that song in my head right now.)
--Unlimited funding for space? YES SIR, SIR
--By the time our long national nightmare is over, $NASA-admin should already have his exit strategy in place
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
If he wants fame so much, lets send Trump on a one way trip to Mars, in fact lets send his whole damn family.
Tell him its a revival of the TV series "Lost in space" and he is playing "Smith"
Aim the damn thing at the sun and tell him its a short cut as Mars is on the other side.
I'm not sure when Kennedy told NASA to work on a moon landing, but he gave the speech in September 1962.and Apollo 11 launched in July 1969. If Trump gave a "we're going to Mars" speech today and expected the same turnaround, we'd launch in October 2026 - well after a theoretical second Trump term and MUCH later than his 2020 preference.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Or just a Tesla. They can launch a Tesla into space with four space suited astronauts (two in the front, two in the back.) Easy-peasy.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Deficits only matter when a Democrat is in charge.
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I'll be the first to admit I'm not a fan of Trump. I also realize that pulling off something like this in a couple years is nearly impossible and just throwing money at it isn't a solution. That said, reading some of the other things that he said, I almost think he's on to something even if he was probably more concerned with making himself look good.
“We don’t capture people’s imaginations anymore,” Trump said, in what Sims described as “a rare moment of wistfulness.” Trump continued: “We used to do big things — incredible things. No one could do the things we could do. You have to inspire people. They went to the moon. But the call would be great. Honestly, how cool is NASA?”
Are we really on track to actually do something like a manned Mars mission by the 2030s or will that keep slipping? There are a lot of problems that need to be solved but is anyone actually working on solving them? Whether you like Trump or not, he did have a point - the space program used to inspire people and it would be amazing if it got back to that point.
Is it lies or is it delusions of adequacy?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
The very reason why we consider Obama a better President is that he wouldn't promise unlimited funding for someone so unnecessary. Hell, he didn't even promise unlimited funding for infrastructure, and that's still urgently needed.
It's bad enough when Trump defenders come up with "Oh, so it's bad when Trump does it but I don't hear any complaints when Obama did something that's not actually the same thing at all and was widely criticized at the time by the left", but "Oh, you'd support something completely stupid and reckless if it were proposed by someone you support precisely because he wouldn't do anything stupid and reckless" line is a whole new level of stupid.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The last President did claim that all he needed was a pen and a phone and the knowledge of how to use them.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
This isn't democrats vs republicans. It is that Trump is an Insane Idiot, not fit to be president.
Precisely.
My thoughts while reading TFS were "Unlimited funding sounds silly", then "Mars by 2020... that's ridiculously aggressive..." and I started thinking about the planetary motions involved, and current launch capabilities (for humanity, not just NASA), and started constructing a timetable in my head. They'd need to launch by early 2020, with supplies for a year, and we'd still need some way to get them home... it just isn't going to happen.
None of that has anything to do with who's in the White House. Even with unlimited funding, there is reality to be dealt with. Space is big. Rocket science is hard. Humankind has not yet built a spacecraft that is capable of landing humans on another planet (with planet-scale gravity) and taking off again, let alone actually returning them to Earth. If we don't return them to Earth, human society has not reached a point where it's generally acceptable to send people to their certain death.
"But is there any way we could do it by the end of my first term?"
Again, my thought: "Oh, of course. That's why it's a ridiculous date. He wants a headline."
Past presidents had reasons for their decisions, however they affected NASA's funding. I may not agree with those reasons or their priorities, but at least they had American societal interests in mind. Trump is only interested in his own brand.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Also of note even with unlimited funding, putting a Man on Mars by 2020 is impossible. To perform such a project new technologies need to be made and the mythical man month is in play. There is only so much the everyone can do at once until they start stepping on each others feet.
Well, it's not totally impossible to put a man on mars by 2020. He may not be alive though.
The shielding needed for a deep space habitat will need to be a composite due to the different types of radiation and the weight limits that could be allocated to shielding. There is EM radiation such as x-rays, charged particles coming from the sun, and cosmic rays in high energy neutrons coming from deep space which are all blocked in different amounts by different materials. It's going to require different materials together to provide the lightest form of shielding. This will hopefully be able to include the storage of water, fuel, and other materials in order to save weight and space. How much of the craft they'll need to shield will depend on how much space the crew will generally need, which might mean some areas where less time is spent might have less or no shielding. All of this is going to require testing which will also be dependent on things such as the food and water reclaimation systems which have also not been built yet to be as efficient and reliable as needed for a two year mission.
No new technologies need to be made.
They haven't yet figured out how to safely land several tons of humans and descent craft on Mars.
Machines? Yes, some, but not all, of the time.
But they don't know how to safely land people.
Sometimes you can overcome logistical problems by simply throwing money at it.
Other times, you could throw every last cent, ruble, kopeck, yen, yuan, won, bot, pence, etc on the planet at it and it still won't make some problems go away.
If POTUS asks you about something like this, simply tell him that a manned Mars mission on a 1-2 year (since launching in December of 2020 would essentially be 2 years) timetable falls into the latter category.
Hey, unlike past presidents, this one actually ASKED NASA about it.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I don't think the border wall is immoral. It's just stupid.
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See my reply to penandpaper above.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Where are you getting 438 days? Every proposal I've seen for sending humans to Mars has transit times in the range of a few months to a few weeks,depending on payload. Assuming we sent a SpaceX Starship carrying only a few people and only enough supplies to reach Mars (having sent the rest of the supplies ahead of time) you could cut the transit time way down.
And once you're on Mars (or the Moon), radiation pretty much stops being an issue unless you're stupid about it. A few meters of rock or twice that of sand offers as much radiation protection as the Earth's atmosphere, and we don't actually need that much to be reasonably safe.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
It's an interesting question - "can you do it?"
My next question would have been - "What would it cost?"
And then I'd have started asking about priorities and what they presently had on the table, etc.
Folks sure are funny though, getting wrapped around the axle 'cause the man asked a question.
- real hackers don't have sigs -
Many are indeed "dull knives" while some are very smart, but Trump is the only one cutting his shitty steaks with a spoon.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
When the NASA guy tried to patiently explain why it would be 2030 when NASA was there, Trump should have responded with:
"Well SpaceX says they'll be landing people there in 2025, why is NASA so slow? Maybe I should just send more government money to SpaceX. Why do you think you deserve it instead?"
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
RTFA. The question was asked almost two years ago.
And if you get past your derangement, it's a reasonable way to prod a bureaucrat into thinking big.
OK, but he could say "there is a caravan of people coming, which amounts to an army threatening invasion, and the easiest way to deal with it is a wall."
That would be within his purview and emergency powers, at least close enough that it would likely pass supreme court review (in the current court, of course).
Just because you don't want something to happen doesn't mean it won't.
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
Certainly, it is impossible to send young baby-face astronauts to the Mars by 2020. It is too risky. If they die in an accident the young promising lives will be destroyed and people will be upset.
However, there are fit old men who could risk it. For example, try to do the exercises which this 70+ years old mad does: https://youtu.be/HMe2JyoIOYk
Such men if selected and trained properly could do it.
Low energy transfer orbit times are always about the half the average of the two bodies years. As the ratios change, 'half the average' breaks, but for earth and mars, close enough.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Also, constitutionally he doesn't have the rights to do this.
He certainly has the right to champion it, and when the GOP controlled both houses he had a lot of effective power over the budget. Still not enough to get his wall, of course, but that's only because most Republicans opposed the wall (judge politicians by their actions, not their words: they had 2 years to fund it if they actually wanted it).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Safely is the key word. With unlimited funding and an unhealthy disregard for human lives, we can build and send millions of these crafts. At least a few people will survive the landing.
Of course he has the right to do this. All he has to is claim that it's needed for national security, and to declare a national emergency about it.
Remember all those emergency powers you granted past Presidents?
He might eventually do that for the wall, though clearly he enjoys the current situation. But for increased NASA funding? That would be a heck of a story even for Trump!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Richard Nixon, the last criminal commander-in-chief (well, last one to get caught) was president during the first moon landing, so it's only fair that Trump gets to be president during the first mars landing.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Cut up and down your arms, not across when he's re-elected.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Every property in the history of cities have roofs. Should we build one of those over the country?
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They have not yet solved the problem of humans surviving several months of radiation in space yet -- I'd call that a "new technology that needs to be made", although I suppose 100 tons of lead shielding would probably do the job...
Not quite true. Your thinking in terms of getting to Mars and returning safely. Just not dying of radiation poisoning before you land? Much easier problem. More reasonably, there is some good lightweight shielding, as sibling post pointed out, which is good enough that you'd find plenty of people willing to take the risk. I believe radiation is just not the worst problem with long-term zero-g space flight - you can at least shield against radiation; bone loss is a much harder problem.
The big problem is just the massive delta-v needed for a manned Mars mission (with return), and the tyranny of the rocket equation. We simply can't build a rocket big enough to have that sort of delta-v budget (it's the stuff of "works in Kerbal Space Program", but not so much with real material limits). SpaceX imagines multiple launches, with several parts docked in orbit and many fuel launches.
We do have the tech to do that today, if cost were no issue, but the logistics just don't work. We have the tech to design the components, but not actual tested components, and that's many years of work. Then of course there's the multi-year wait for the launch window, then the travel time itself.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Woah now, slow down with that wild optimism. It's only been proven that we can launch a 2-seater Tesla into space.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
even with unlimited funding, putting a Man on Mars by 2020 is impossible.
Do you think the answer would be different if something twice the size of the Chicxulub asteroid was discovered heading towards Earth?
Would you like it to be?
To perform such a project new technologies need to be made
No. We know how to create artificial gravity, and we know how to protect ourselves from radiation. Supplying food, water and oxygen is already a solved problem. As is landing something the size of an SUV on Mars.
the mythical man month is in play. There is only so much the everyone can do at once until they start stepping on each others feet
The mythical man month only applies to individual projects. Not everyone needs to be on the same project. There could be thousands of separate efforts, delivering different parts of what's necessary. You can have a dozen entirely separate launches devoted to putting enough water in space, a dozen more for putting it on Mars, a few hundred for delivering people. At least a few of them will make it.
Of course, most of NASA would leave for the private sector before poor suckers are launched at Mars
Most of NASA is the private sector. Very few people actually work directly for NASA, mostly project managers and administrators these days. The guys who build NASA rockets work for ULA, mostly, since the shuttle program ended.
It is great that the New Space Race is on, though, I agree with you there, but it has always been "private sector" doing most of the work, even in the 60s with the original Space Race. New Glenn vs Starship, place your bets (betting tip: New Shepard had a good launch today, while Star Hopper ... didn't).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Absolutely - but nobody is proposing low energy transfer orbits to get to Mars. You might send cargo that way, but even if the crew survived their health would be permanently devastated. Plus you'd need a lot more supplies and possibly a recycling system on board, which would slow things down dramatically. Take the same rocket with just the crew and minimal supplies and you'd get there a lot faster.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Gee the second top article on that site is the BuzzFeed article that was proven to not be credible. Liberal bias much Slashdot?
We'll make great pets
There's no funding available. Nor is there political will to provide it. That's the real impossibility here.
A lot of the other "impossible" things would suddenly become possible if the deadline was a huge asteroid coming our way. For one, we would probably restart Project Orion and stop worrying about launch windows.
And had it been Obama, we'd be talking about how visionary and forward looking and all that he must be ...
Only the sheeple that can't think for themselves, i.e. most people.
We'll make great pets
At no point in the TFA does it say anything about unlimited funding the submitter added that.
Also with money as no object and a rocket city rednecks attitude they could certainly get there faster than 10 years.
They have not yet solved the problem of humans surviving several months of radiation in space yet -- I'd call that a "new technology that needs to be made", although I suppose 100 tons of lead shielding would probably do the job...
Actually it's not that bad. Current estimates are that a Mars round trip will take about 60% of an astronaut's career limit and that below 16 feet of Martian soil radiation will be Earth level. With a reasonable surface budget you're straddling the career limits, but note that they mean +3% chance of dying from cancer, it's not like a lethal dose or anything. The biggest dynamic is solar flares which are fairly low power and also directional so possible to shield against. Most think there'll be an emergency shelter inside the water tank, because water is quite effective at those energy levels. There's also the galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) that you can't shield much against, but they aren't a blocker for an exploration mission. They'd make it really hard to make any kind of permanent settlement though.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
What does a wall have to do with racism? It won't affect legal immigration. The voters in a democracy benefit from the ability to control immigration. The richest 100 families are the ones who will be hurt by the ability to control immigration - gotta keep labor costs down. This is why neither the Democrats nor the Republicans want the wall: it would hurt those actually in power.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You may be onto something here. The gyroscopic effect of the wheels, which can each be rotated individually, could be used to orient the vehicle. It already has climate control, slots for drink stowage, and a box for storing spacesuit gloves. Outgassing by cracking a window could be used to provide thrust if maneuvering was required.
Better known as 318230.
How about we send Trump himself?
Trump is the only one cutting his shitty steaks with a spoon.
in his defense, all of the forks and knives were dirty because he used them to eat a pizza.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
Flying to the moon is fairly easy because the minimum energy transfer orbit is a few days, and windows come along every day, or a couple times an hour if you're in orbit.
Flying to Mars is harder because the transfer orbit is 8.5 months long and a window opens once every two years.
The amount of energy (depth of gravity wells, etc.) isn't really much different, and is dwarfed by the energy required to get into Earth orbit in the first place.
Declaring an emergency and then fighting about it in court is nuclear? Compared to laying off 800k government workers?
What's wrong with you?
It had to be out his own pocket, since Congress, specifically the House controls the purse.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
I'd imagine it's pretty common for a president to ask something stupid of an expert. What I can also imagine is, with this particular president, the anecdote from the expert becomes public and the subject of articles like this one. And I like that. Trump seems to have no shame. He also seems more than willing to go out on a limb and ask something risky and look like an idiot. I personally have Never held that against someone in my professional career of 30+ years in technology. I also rarely ever share an embarrassing moment like that. Rarely, haha. With this exchange, I think it was right to share it.
The President typically proposes a budget and makes aspiration speeches about what he thinks the country should focus on and accomplish. Each year he can propose a budget with whatever funds for NASA they request so that is, in a sense, unlimited. I think it's reasonable to look at this through that lens. For example when JFK said "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard...", he hadn't gotten approval in the budget for all funds necessary to do so.
As well, the NASA administrator was incorrect in, apparently, claiming that it wouldn't be possible to attempt a manned space flight to Mars by 2020. First, an "attempt" is only that -- I can "attempt" to fly to Mars by flapping my arms very fast (and I'll happily take the contract to perform that attempt - for a mere $100M). Second, I didn't see any requirement that a "manned" space flight to Mars even required that the person survive past launch - in fact, I'll bet you could find some rich terminally ill person who would happily pay to launch on a flight to Mars with just ten days of supplies (O2, food, water) and a "sleepy pill" (or helium or nitrogen -- whatever works best) to use just before the O2 ran out. Given the way Trump makes deals (even when in the rare instances where he keeps his side of the bargain), one should just ask what fine print is in the agreement before claiming attempting such a mission by 2020 is not possible.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
On a related note, the russians are pressuring their NASA also. Time to put up or shutup and let some other folks have a shot perhaps: https://arstechnica.com/scienc...
The suggestion did cross my mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Not an unreasonable question. The USA when puts its mind to something gets shit done.
Other examples include Manhattan project 1939-1945.
Not within 1 term mind. But still good question
You can't do it in a few weeks. Well, you can, but it would require an insane amount of delta-v.
Transit times to Mars fall roughly around 600-800 days and 150-250 days.
I think that would be a long shot even with our current Supreme Court. Those people in the caravan aren't armed to any real degree. Without that it's beyond a stretch to call them an invading army. I'm fairly certain at least a few of the conservative justices would balk at setting legal precedence giving the position of the president that much more power.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
He does this all the time. He says something way out of bounds of reality and in return he gets half of the world's experts writing pages and pages of detailed reports on anything he needs to know. Crowdsourced expert opinion for $0!
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
He does that anyway but how many damn hit pieces do you need for one person?
Telling the truth is not a "hit piece".
Stating facts are not libel.
So every time he does something (stupid|clueless|evil), someone will write "Princess Tinyhands just did something (stupid|clueless|evil)....for the third time this hour."
Hence, each (stupid|clueless|evil) is documented, not as a bug but as a feature of a system that is working.
Welcome to an America that, for now, still has free speech and a free press.
As you say, you can make the trip as short as you want, you just need to reduce the payload. And while hundreds of days is perfectly acceptable for hardware, it's not for humans, so we wouldn't do it that way.
The alternative to getting there fast, is radiation shielding, which basically means at least a few pounds per square inch of surface, and preferably several. 14.7psi will get you Earth-atmosphere class radiation shielding, since radiation shielding effectiveness is directly proportional to mass, and only lightly affected by density, but that translates to a shell of rock 3.9 meters thick. As a back-of-the-napkin calculation: The SpaceX Starship has a pressurized volume of ~1000m^3, which if it were a minimum-surface sphere would be 483 m^2, or 749,000in^2 . For convenience lets call it an even million square inches for the definitely-not-spherical rocket. That means a million pounds for each 1psi of radiation shielding - or ~5x the payload to orbit. Put enough shielding on the thing to keep people safe, and you'll never get off the ground, so you'd have to install it in orbit, and even than would make the delta-V to reach Mars outrageous.
So instead we have to go light. Not much shielding, not much payload, and fly like the devil himself is on your heels.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Probably just as well nothing happened. Presidents have an irresistible urge to cancel a previous one's NASA pet project to save a little money temporarily but more importantly so they don't have to stand here like Nixon and thank a previous president for the effort.
Continuing such is a lose-lose for a president.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
That's why almost every property in the history of cities is separated by fences and walls, because it's a stupid idea and doesn't work.
That's such a dumb analogy. The reason you put security stuff on or around your house is to "encourage" a burglar to pick a different house. If someone is specifically targeting your house and only your house that privacy fence you've got isn't going to do shit.
So, where exactly do you think people on the southern border are going to go if they see there's a wall there? What, are they going to try the next country over?
Try a different analogy. You own a big piece of property, a ranch or something. You're a turf farmer, so you've got miles and miles of turf that is great for sleeping on. Every homeless person in a 100-mile radius wants to sleep on your turf, and only your turf, and nowhere else. These people are determined to sleep on your property. Is a wall going to stop them if they're determined to get in? How about 24-hour security with infrared cameras, drones, etc? Wouldn't that be a better investment if your goal is to keep everyone out than simply building a wall and calling it done?
That's the discussion the country is having. For some reason though, people in Trump's camp have decided to suggest that anyone opposed to Trump's ideas wants no border security at all, in any way, and people can just freely frolic across the border at will. No one is arguing in favor of that, people are just saying that a wall is not the end-all-be-all solution. A wall in specific locations would probably help. Increased funding for patrols, cameras, drones, etc would also help, maybe even more so.
That's the discussion, so take your "but houses have walls" analogy and shove it up your ass. Thanks.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
What exactly is the difference in the landing vehicle? We've plopped a 900kg machine on the surface is gently as we could, why does it matter if that 900kg is full of metal or people?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
there is a caravan of people coming, which amounts to an army threatening invasion
Huh? A bunch of hungry migrants looking for a better life is akin to a professional armed military force trying to overthrow the government? How do you figure?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I would think we celebrate a President that is asking for accelerated space exploration...
He was asking what it would take.. not blindly demanding it...
A few minutes of explanation of the logistical challenges cleared it up.
Why does everyone have to jump to their particular political confirmation bias as a knee-jerk reaction ?
I would take this as a sign that Trump will support increased space exploration and try to support it... unless your politics outweighs your love for science and exploration.
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
Trump thinks his approval ratings will rebound if he successfully gets the wall. If he loses the wall fight, he'll almost certainly lose re-election. Also he's counting on a North Korean peace deal announcement next month to really give him a boost.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It's not quite that simple. To go fast you need greater delta-v; because of orbital mechanics, to go more than a little bit faster you need a LOT more delta-v. Because of the need to carry fuel, the rocket equation tells us that our maximum delta-v is related to the specific impulse of our engine. It's a bit counter intuitive, but chemical engines can only let you go so fast. Making the non-fuel payload lighter helps, but it very quickly becomes an insignificant factor compared to the fuel mass. As long as you're using chemical rockets, launch windows, and the transit times they imply, are very much windows, with brick walls in between.
You could make a fast transit to Mars using ion or nuclear engines, but that's not off the shelf technology so it's not going to happen in the next two years.
We've plopped a 900kg machine on the surface is gently as we could, why does it matter if that 900kg is full of metal or people?
The Apollo LEM had a mass of 34,000 Kg, plus two astronauts, and that only supported the astronauts for 75 hours.
Even if you put the Mars habitation modules, food, rovers, ascent fuel and everything else down in separate landers (difficult in itself as it's all got to land together) you've still likely got 100 tons of lander and astronauts you have to safely put down in gravity twice that of the moon.
We haven't yet figured out how to do it.
a Mars round trip will take about 60% of an astronaut's career limit and that below 16 feet of Martian soil radiation will be Earth level.
We'd need to send a metric buttload of drones to prep the site first. Otherwise, the astronauts doing it when they got there would require some heavy digging tools in case they run into rock a few feet down, which would *dramatically* increase launch weight.
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
That's false and you know it, the total cost is approximately $25 billion, this has been stated many times.
no what they said was true. Point of fact, before Trump got into office, 2008 Pelosi wanted to build a wall, 2009 Schumer wanted to build a wall and 2014 even Hillary on the campaign trail stated that she wanted a wall. The democrats hate trump which is why they are playing this game.
Unless my fellow democrats can come up with a better candidate than that total nut job Cortez or the fake native American, President Trump will win another term in office. As it stands right now, we simply don't have a viable candidate to oppose the President.
Whoosh, he's saying that's what Trump would say. Obviously it isnt true. Anyway the first thing any justice should ask is if they are such a threat, what idiot would build a wall instead of sending in the Army to defend the damn border with violence. But they're not the enemy and shame on us for even thinking that way when this entire country is built by immigrants. Even the "natives" migrated here from another continent long ago.
The Apollo LEM had a mass of 34,000 Kg, plus two astronauts, and that only supported the astronauts for 75 hours.
Ooohhhhhh.
I mean, just scale up the Curiosity retro-rockets, right? The retro-rockets just need to be, what, 6 times bigger? Plus fuel? And a giant sky crane?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Unless they are contract workers (not paid directly by the government) don't these people get paid regardless? The shutdown may indeed delay payment but they're still getting paid.
NASA is part of the executive branch. Theoretically, they've been planning to put a man on Mars by 2020 in the 1990s. There is no shortage of mission plans, both grandiose and mundane.
He should have said yes. Gotten the funding -- bipartisan congressional support might have existed to do something other than appease the illiterate racists masses. And maybe in a decade this would have happened. Otherwise NASA is going to keep reorganizing various projects into each other and buying staplers until the public gets tired of funding it.
For the record: I do not for a second believe that he understood the complexities. But what NASA needs more than an increase in funding is direction and for the direction not to change drastically every 2-4 years. We could have had multiple cities on various heavenly bodies by now if it wasn't for politicians fear or ACTUALLY telling NASA to go to space.
Whoosh, he's saying that's what Trump would say. Obviously it isnt true.
Yeah, right. So, then is the Supreme Court going to back him up like he asserts? I don't think so. Therefore, I don't think it's an option for Trump.
Whoosh.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Well, tough guy, don't let me stop you from showing pictures of this "screaming horde of violent criminals, waving flags of another country, throwing rocks, and trying to break into our country." Make sure they're actually violent criminals and that they actually have flags and are throwing rocks. I wouldn't want you to change the goalposts if you're going to throw out a bunch of hyperbolic bullshit.
Next, explain the logic behind a violent criminal who decides to sneak into another country, and decides to bring his giant flag to wave along the way. Because there's no better way to be stealthy than screaming while waving your foreign flag, right?
So, go ahead, show your evidence that the situation that you have been frightened into believing and that you shit your pants over daily is actually happening. Or, you know, shut the fuck up.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
And had it been Obama, we'd be talking about how visionary and forward looking and all that he must be ...
When the ACA fucked up my health coverage, I called it like I saw it. When "cash for clunkers" let people trade in old pollute-mobiles for new pollute-mobiles, yup - bitched about that, too. I also recall not being too happy about the EV tax credit, because rich people don't need the taxpayer's help buying a luxury car (regardless of how "green" it is).
I still think the Republicans are worse, because homophobia is part of the their platform (yes, that's actually the GOP's own website admitting they're against marriage equality), and they're still just as bad (if not worse) at taking taxpayer money and using it to give benefits to the super-rich. They're also fucking hypocritical for incessantly claiming how pro-life they are, yet they don't seem to mind when adults drop dead because they can't afford healthcare/medicine. Gotta take a mulligan on that one, right GOP?
Both sides of our two-party system are evil. The Republicans are just more so.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
My life is a wreck. There is nothing left for me on earth so i'd gladly volunteer for a one way trip to mars if you'll take me.
To be one of the first humans to set foot on another planet would be an honour i'd gladly give my life for.
Found the non-'Merican. Fake news. How can we MAGA by sending limeys or Canucks?
Yes but there's all sorts of flow on effects to the delay. Peoples insurances are lapsing. Rents are going overdue. Medical expenses are being unpaid for. Kids school fees. All of this over the Christmas /new year which is notoriously the worst time to be poor
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Actually there is no maximum delta-V implied - delta-V increases with the logarithm of the fuel mass, and the logarithm increases increasingly slowly, but without any upper bound. In practical terms though the exponential increase in fuel requirements makes the diminishing returns unlikely to be worth it beyond some point.
You are right that we probably couldn't realistically make the trip in a few weeks with current technology though.
However, the typical Mars mission takes only ~150-300 days to reach Mars, and that's in a craft that launched directly from Earth's surface. Stop to completely refuel in high Earth orbit instead, as is a common feature of proposed crewed Mars missions, and your available delta-V increases dramatically.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Hello?! Trump doesn't need Congress because Mars is going to pay for it!
They have the ability to override his veto, he's not "doing it".
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
The military has propulsion, guidance, and control systems at least 2 generations ahead of what's available publicly.
They really don't.
OK, but he could say "there is a caravan of people coming, which amounts to an army threatening invasion, and the easiest way to deal with it is a wall."
That would be within his purview and emergency powers, at least close enough that it would likely pass supreme court review (in the current court, of course).
Just because you don't want something to happen doesn't mean it won't.
I doubt that even this court would buy it. It's just too obvious a ploy to get the money congress is refusing to allocate him. Which, is the entire point of the divided government in the US constitution.
I think the actual plan would be to declare an emergency as a way to justify ending the shutdown. I don't know if Trump thinks it would work but the administration basically expects it to fail, the plan there is to reopen the government and give Trump the SCOTUS to tweet at instead.
I stole this Sig
The last President actually had a clue.
The only problem is that it isn't true. Not that that stops trump. He doesn't even understand the concept that some things are "true".
"Remember when I told you this was a slippery slope when you cheered your guy doing it?" "Sure, but this is so much worse" "Yeah, that's how slopes work...." (heard it on Instapundit today...) I still want him to apply the DACA philosophy to gun laws... Executive order directing ATF to ignore all law violations... If for no other reason then to go to a direct path in the courts to eliminate those executive powers for all time.
I probably should have said a *practical* maximum delta-v. The point remains, you cannot just go as fast as you want, as asserted by the OP.
If you look at the dv required it costs a lot to make the transit much shorter. For the window in 2019 it looks like you might actually better off waiting until 2020. In that window, 150 days is about the optimal. If you want to make that 100 days you pretty much double the dv required, and that's close to the rule-of-thumb limit of twice your exhaust velocity. You could trim that down to 80 days if you really, really wanted to go all out, but that's about it.
Don't you uneducated deplorables know that space travel is ANTI-SCIENCE? Everyone knows that, or at least us real people do. And it's also RACIST!! You Trumpanzees know who else was into rockets? That's right, the NAZIS. Educated people like ME know that USian rednecks are too genetically stupid to ever put a man in space. Fire the locals, bring in the H1Bs! We will replace you! Heil Hillary!!
I bet the Great Orange Cheato doesn't plan to send even one transgender Islamic feminist astronaut! And CNN says he's planning to build a WALL on Mars!! Except everyone knows it's impossible for Americans to travel space - only our Chinese betters can do that. Death to America! Long live cheap plastic junk and the financial oligarchy!
Orange man BAD!!!!!!1!!11!!!!!!!!
"first we need to deal with the dependence on low-cost undocumented labor for the agricultural sector in the US"
Easy. Any agribusiness company caught willfully and repeatedly employing illegal immigrant labor shall have the whole of their lands seized. Expropriate the traitorous capitalist dogs, and sell off their land for cheap to family farmers.
Sure sure, the enemies of the people on the Supreme Kangaroo Court would object. But let us not forget how the great President Franklin Roosevelt put the judicial oligarchy in check.
But really, illegal immigration is a red herring. The real harm to American working people comes from the fully lawful "guest worker" (unwelcome guest) programs. The entire, explicit purpose of such programs is to drive down wages for indigenous workers. Ending the unwelcome guest worker programs is a necessary first step towards making America great again.
There were. Congress has slowly - through precedent - eroded its own powers of oversight.
"Trump DGAF about approval ratings, as that would require a bit of dignity."
So the leader who does _not_ pander to the media old boys' club, nor to fickle (and often enough outright fake) public opinion polls, is _lacking_ in dignity? Oooookay then....
The real harm to American working people comes from the fully lawful "guest worker" (unwelcome guest) programs.
That, but I'd say automation is the bigger issue. And changes in business practices. Big companies replacing decently-paid employees with outside contractors paying minimum wage. The gig economy. That sort of thing.
Earth and Mars are between 50 and 400 million miles or so apart. Currently they are 150,000,000 miles apart.
So no, this is not a good window to get someone there, even if you are ok with launching tonight, going fast and not slowing down on the way down.
The distance fluctuates on a more or less annual basis. No, tonight wouldn't be a good time to launch, but Trump didn't ask his question yesterday; he asked in early 2017. That means that between the time he asked his question, and the end of his hypothetical second term, there would be some 6 or 7 ideal launch windows. Between time he asked his question and new years 2020 there would be at least 3 or 4.
As a matter of fact the closest approach will occur this year, so if NASA could somehow have put together a mission in 2 years, the alignment would have been ideal to do it a couple months from now.
Because unlike faith, science doesn't need you to believe to affect your life. See gravity.
The problem is that you're hiding the science behind your politics.
Did my math wrong; the closest approach was in 2018. There will be another one in 2020 that's just about as good. After that the closest approach starts to get further away for the next decade or so.
Doesn't change anything, just correcting the details.
Well then use the shielding already present. Send a team to turn an asteroid into a spaceship and send it to mars orbit.
And how do you plan to shield that team? I guess if you use Mexican miners you don't have to worry about it?
You could just look for caves. We already know of a few on Mars, so just land close to it.
Or old Lava tubes. We know about a few of those also.
Why dig when nature already did it for you? Build a base in an existing hole, then operate out of those if/when you decide to go construct habitats elsewhere.
No, you do not understand TrumpWorld. He isn't really interested about getting a man there and back again. If he gets marooned, Trump would be okay with that.
Lots of us are ok with that. The astronauts of Apollo 8 figured they had about a 50/50 chance of coming home alive, and they were willing to take that chance. I'm sure I'm not exactly a prime astronaut candidate, but if NASA offered me the opportunity to go to Mars with those odds, I'd take them up on it.
Life without risk is pretty fucking boring. I'd much rather die doing something amazing than live to be 100 by avoiding all risk.
Perfect; then he goes down in the history books as the first man to Tweet from the surface of Mars.
The military should be on the border laying landmines and setting up a free fire zone. Walls have historically not worked.
Historically, the times when walls haven't worked, militaries haven't either.
Now living people, that might be a bit more of a challenge...
Don't ignore that all the fuel that takes you to Mars and back is essentially dead weight on your ascent from Earth. Which means you need more fuel and bigger rockets. Which means that you have to haul more weight into orbit. Which means that you need... you get the idea.
The time necessary and the human factor (how do you keep them trained and sane in the long time in a confined space? Nobody likes to see the first step on the Mars be a stumble because the person taking it has no muscle mass left, with the rest of the astronauts laughing their asses off because they're at the point where they would very gladly leave him there after smelling his farts for about a year in transit) are something I didn't even touch. The engineering alone is already something you don't solve with the snap of a finger.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Even if the two facts are unrelated causally, they're both still true. Trump is shameless, which may make him just the person needed to shake things up. Time will tell.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Sounds like someone is suddenly desparate for a huge success.
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
Yeah, that's what I thought.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Well, yes. He does have six months to come to Congress, and explain why it should go on longer.
On the other hand, there is NO minimum time... meaning, as the papers have pointed out, he can sign it, and the Speaker of the House can call for a vote then and there to end it.
Do you want me to like Trump?
Because this is how you get me to like Trump.
The ISS is within Earth's Thermosphere, and still protected by Earth's magnetic field. Granted, human habitation on Mars would be in caves, which would effectively block cosmic radiation, so the transit flight is the only problem./
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Google "Florida Secretary of State Michael Ertel resigns after blackface images emerge". I'll wait. The (R), it doesn't just stand for Republican!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Agreed. However, the practical maximum is a LOT faster than needed for a Hohmann transfer orbit. And as an added bonus the faster you go, the less distance you have to travel, since you don't have to travel nearly as far around the sun. (even as measured from the rotating Earth's-orbit frame we start in)
Besides which I've not heard any of the experts challenge Musk's claim that a 60-90 day transit time is practical to achieve. That tells me it's not even getting severely close to the practical limits for a rocket of that size. Heck, past Mars missions fall in the range of 158 to 333 days to make the trip, and they've all been flights directly from the Earth's surface, with no orbital refueling and all the much more drastic limitations that puts on the mission profile.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Which has what to do with the wall? I mean, I'd support a wall to keep Florida Man inside Florida, but ...
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Musk's 2016 proposal was 80-150 days using a 6 km/s interplanetary orbit injection delta-v. That follows the rule of thumb that (for a single stage) you can practically get dv equal to about twice your exhaust velocity. His plan is to burn pretty much ALL his dv on that transfer insertion and enter Mars' atmosphere at interplanetary speeds. The spaceship would then either stay there (as a habitat), or refuel at Mars for the return.
Refuelling at the destination (or not coming back) definitely lets you go faster. But since we're considering what might be close to possible on Trump's timeline, I don't think refuelling at Mars is in the cards.
Musk also said the transit time might go as low as 30 days in the distant future, but for that he must be imagining some new type of engine.
Ah, yes. If you're planning to carry enough fuel for the return trip, that does alter the picture quite dramatically. Though even without fuel manufacturing on Mars, there is the option of sending one or more fuel tanker rockets ahead on a much more fuel-efficient trajectory, so that you can refuel in Mars orbit, both before landing and again before returning to Earth. You can even still use the atmosphere for braking to orbital speeds.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Z^-1
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Definitely. Unfortunately there's only one viable launch window (in 2020) so you'd have to send your tanker and your crewed ship at about the same time. That more or less doubles the chance of failure, since two ships have to work correctly instead of just one, and it probably wouldn't be worth the week or so you could save in transit.
For a sane plan, not tied to the US election schedule, you'd send the tankers (or fuel production facilities) ahead of time, make sure they were working correctly, then launch the crew in a subsequent window. Most of the Mars plans through the years have included something like that.
Eventually the situation will correct itself
Yes, it will. America will collapse.