I think I would prefer the upper atmosphere of Venus if I had to choose between the two for a one-way trip:
"At an altitude of 50 km above Venusian surface, the environment is the most Earth-like in the solar system – a pressure of approximately 1 bar and temperatures in the 0°C–50°C range. Because there is not a significant pressure difference between the inside and the outside of the breathable-air balloon, any rips or tears would cause gases to diffuse at normal atmospheric mixing rates, giving time to repair any such damages. In addition, humans would not require pressurized suits when outside, merely air to breathe, a protection from the acidic rain; and on some occasions low level protection against heat."
That is the most interesting bit of space knowledge I've ever read. It certainly seems like the potential in Venus is much greater than on Mars. I wonder why the space industry is so fixated on Mars?
It's not really "new" since it was conceptualized in 1977 but recent technological advances have made it a real prototype (2005) and it will be tested on the space-station in 2013.
The guy who designed it, Franklin Chang-Diaz, is incredible as well as his lifestory - literally made his farfetched startrek-inspired dream to become an astronaut come true by sheer willpower and he went to MIT.
[SpaceX] has won $75 million from the US space agency NASA to help its pursuit of developing a spacecraft...
I was wondering what possible economic rationale a "private" mission to Mars could have, given that there are a limited number of billionaire space tourists whose ultimate dream is to be locked in a space the size of a bus for six years.
Now I know. They're in the traditional, lucrative business of collecting government grants.
What I'm seeing here is a contractor. Big deal. Exactly what is the difference here between SpaceX and, say, Grumman Aircraft Engineering in 1962?
Grumman wasn't part of the government. It was a corporation.
The point of "private" space ventures is that they're supposed to have a different business model, not just a different approach to branding themselves. Thus far their big business-model innovation is to collect checks from NASA without ever using the words contractor or NASA.
Since I'm not a US tax payer I should be careful. Its true, SpaceX would not be where they are today without massive government support.
But consider the following.
First, they are a lot more cost efficient. The Falcon Heavy is supposed to be 6 times cheaper per ton to LEO than the Delta IV Heavy. This can save the US government as well as many companies around the world lots of money.
Second, the ability to jump in, just when the, expensive, shuttle program runs out seems to be very helpful for the USA as a - if not the - space nation. Without SpaceX the US would depend on Russia to send astronauts to the ISS and anywhere else in space for many, many years.
Also, I would be careful about dissing "space tourists". Many of the so called tourists have actually done scientific experiments in space. I believe most of them did not fly, so they can show the "I was there" pics at home. No, they wanted to be astronauts since they were little boys, more than anything else in the world! This is pure speculation, but if NASA would auction their astronaut positions to people who match the minimum requirements, they might be profitable tomorrow.
Same goes for Elon Musk and Mars. I've read many times, he is a betrayer and just wants make money at the SpaceX IPO. I know you didn't state this and maybe its actually true. But I don't believe it. I think he and others really want to have humans on Mars and if possible they want to fly by them self. I find it totally plausible that the first manned mission to Mars will be financed by the crew and their private supporters. Just consider how much people pay to be the XXXth person to be on Mount Everest. And thats arguable not less dangerous, let alone the hardship in the death zone.
How much would be the final prize on a auction that determines who will likely be the first human in history on a different planet?
Last but not least, whats wrong about Grunman and the Lunar Module? From the wikipedia article you cited:
"Though initially unpopular and plagued with several delays in its development, the LM eventually became the most reliable component of the Apollo/Saturn system, the only one never to suffer any failure that significantly impacted a mission,[1] and in at least one instance (LM-7 Aquarius) greatly exceeded its design requirements."
But keep in mind that SpaceX's lineup of launch vehicles will probably allow them to capture a rather substantial segment of worldwide launch contracts.
This is not a small market.
We're talking about many billions of dollars. And their vehicles are both more capable and dramatically cheaper than the competition. It seems highly likely that they will be rolling in billions of dollars of profit in a rather short period of time.
Take billions of dollars of excess revenue per year, roll it into more R&D. Take additional billions and an engineering base from a newly formed space tourism industry and add that. And then maybe it doesn't look so crazy if SpaceX is sending humans to Mars on their own dime, independent of any government funding.
This is a great headline-grabber but I still see landing a man on Mars as being an awful long way off.
I heard Jerry Pournelle talking about this and he said something like landing a man on the Moon and establishing a lunar colony is an engineering problem. Landing a man on Mars is a science problem.
The difference? We can already do the former. it's simply a question of money and the will to do it. The problems are basically solved.
Landing a man on Mars has far bigger problems. The round trip (or even one way) journey with current propulsion technology will take an incredibly long time (upwards of 2 years). How do you keep someone alive that long? What about the psychology of isolation? Sustained radiation exposure is a real problem.
Personally I see manned spaceflight, particularly to other planets, as being largely a propaganda exercise until:
1. The cost of lifting into orbit (per kg) goes down. Way down. Like 2 or even 3 orders of magnitude; and
2. We have a much faster means of propulsion to make journey lengths manageable.
(1) is probably the easiest to solve. SpaceX's launch prices are actually quite low (but those are fairly low orbits; launching to another planet is more expensive). Virgin Galactic and other private suborbital efforts will (hopefully) lead to a dramatic cost reduction of getting into orbit.
(2) is a fundamentally hard problem. Ideas such as solar sails and the like are far from being practical (plus with a solar sail, how do you get back?). Magnetic fields as solar sails is an interesting idea but has a whole bunch of other problems.
Otherwise you need to eject mass to give you velocity. That mass is something you have to carry. The more mass (fuel) you carry, the less effective each gram is (in delta-V terms).
What I think will probably drive this is the coming earthbound resource shortages (inevitable unless we drastically reduce population; it's simply a question of when) that will drive a permanent presence in space. Once you have a huge industrial manufacturing capacity in space, the economics completely change.
EDIT: I agree with other comments in that a one-way (colonization) mission makes far more sense but I'm still unconvinced this will happen anytime soon, probably not in my lifetime.
Mars does have some interesting properties though if a colony can become self-sustaining:
1. Lower gravity. This actually makes the idea of a space elevator far more feasible [1]; and
2. Mars has features that extend beyond the atmosphere. The atmosphere is ~11km thick. Olympus Mons is 25km high.
I've read seemingly informed speculation that if we (the human race) had evolved on Mars, we'd already be heavily spacebound since it would be far, far easier.
This is what might justify colonizing Mars. Not that that is an easy problem.
At this point, sending humans to Mars is also just an engineering problem, not a science problem.
The trip time using conventional chemical rockets is limited to modified Hohmann transfer orbits of around six to eight months each way, and the duration on the surface would be about eighteen months before the next orbital launch window between Earth and Mars. With basic well-understood radiation mitigation techniques, total radiation exposure for each astronaut over the duration of the mission is around 50 rem, less than the amount needed to increase by 1% the chances of a 35-year old adult of developing cancer at some point later in life, a lower risk than by spending the same amount of time smoking cigarettes on Earth.
Getting the astronauts back isn't prohibitively more difficult than getting them there in the first place: the energy expenditure for escaping the surface is 17% of the Earth's, and using the Mars Direct mission architecture, you can send a return vehicle ahead of time with seed hydrogen to manufacture liquid methane propellant and liquid oxygen oxidizer from the carbon dioxide air, through the Sabatier reaction for both and also with electrical dissociation of the carbon dioxide for more oxygen. You can also test it in flight after producing its fuel before deciding to launch the humans to Mars in the first place.
We still need a heavier-lift heavy lift vehicle of at least 100 to 140 tonnes to LEO to start being able to send major assets to the Mars surface in one shot, but SpaceX is becoming increasingly credible as a possible creator of such a vehicle. Putting humans on Mars within twenty years would require at least a few billion dollars a year (a small fraction of NASA's budget) and ironing out some engineering details, but is entirely doable. The biggest obstacle is just having leadership with a sustained focus on that goal over the course of the couple of decades required, and that hasn't been forthcoming from within government, but perhaps could be supplied from a private entity. SpaceX has been laying down a solid record of presenting visionary plans for spacefaring capabilities and then making them happen.
I'm not sure we need to dramatically reduce the population in order for the Earth to sustain us, we just can't let it continue to grow unchecked forever.
I'm not a rocket scientist and you seem to be very knowledgeable. However, I feel like you are overstating the problems and should drink some of that "homo faber can do anything he/she wants" cool aid. ;-)
I mean, "psychology of isolation" come on! People have been in super tiny submarines for months, while water bombs are exploding around them all night long. And thats at least two generations ago.
I doubt that von Braun and co. had solved all the problems for flying to the moon, when Kennedy set the goal. I have no doubts that they would have put a man on Mars soon after, had the program continued. When the Saturn V was retired, humanity was put four decades back - and counting. Its only a question of will. Do we want to have nicer cars or advance the frontier of humanity?
Currently the method that's worked best is to bounce down a sturdy probe on giant balloons, and now NASA is trying a quite rube-goldberg lander that hangs below its retrorockets. Still very much in the experimenting phase.
This is actually really simple and not a problem at all -- you just have to understand orbital mechanics a bit. Basically, you angle the solar sail so that its force is directed against your direction of travel along your orbit. This slows you down, causing you to start spiraling in toward the sun. Then you change angle so that you start speeding up again and match orbital velocities just as you arrive at your destination.
But it's a separate issue anyway -- solar sail technology (or Vasimir, or Nuclear Thermal) is no more required for exploring Mars than jet airplane technology was required for exploring North America.
"We'll probably put a first man in space in about three years," Elon Musk told the Wall Street Journal Saturday. "We're going all the way to Mars, I think... best case 10 years, worst case 15 to 20 years."
It's pretty obvious from the context though. SpaceX's vehicles are capable of putting robots on Mars right now and will probably due so as part of some future NASA, ESA, etc. contract within the next 5 years, easily.
Targeting 10-20 years is basically wishful thinking. The time horizon is too long to make serious estimates. Look at fusion! Workable fusion has been 10-20 years off as long as I can remember.
It took 7 years to go from a primitive orbital capsule to a manned lunar landing.
With 1960s technology.
Don't use the pace of NASA progress within the last 2 decades as some sort of benchmark, it has no meaning and no correlation to anything other than government handouts to important congressional districts.
What is possible and what will be possible within 10-20 years is a great deal more than what has been done.
SpaceX is seemingly capable of building a Saturn V class launch vehicle in less time and for far less money than was done historically. Given that I don't doubt that they'll be able to do amazing things.
In order to send a man to Mars and bring him back alive, you'll need:
- a propulsion system that can send an habitat and supplies good for, at least, 6 months.
- a separate trip to send the supplies for the return mission and park it in Martian orbit for rendezvous when the manned vehicle arrives
If you also want the crew to land on Mars, you'll need a lander. You may consider doing the surface-to-orbit return mission on a separate vehicle you can land before. You may consider sending supplies and a shielded habitat (Martian surface is about as shielded from cosmic radiation as space itself - not at all) if you want the humans to stay.
20 years is a very hard schedule for that.
You can send the unmanned parts with current technologies, but the manned part depends heavily on the development of adequate shielding and/or adequate NTRs to make effective use of the reaction mass the spacecraft carries.
If shielding is developed before, you could even make the whole thing easier - you put a shielded habitat in an Aldrin cycler orbit and just send crew and supplies (and spares for the habitat) to rendezvous with it when it passes by Earth leave the habitat when it's time to enter Martian orbit. The trip is longer, but it's easier if you don't have to give the whole habitat the required delta-V.
I think so. I was talking to a friend at ESA the other day and he seemed to be pretty positive about getting to Mars soon.
Of course, getting /back/ from Mars is an entirely different proposition altogether. It's pretty likely the first man on Mars will be taking a one-way trip (and there are definitely people willing to do this).
Getting a man to Mars if you don't need him to get home again is probably within capabilities. Getting a man to Mars if you don't mind him being dead when he lands is even easier!
Last year the journal of cosmology had an issue devoted to problems related to Mars. There are many people who believe putting people on Mars is completely feasible. The most well known is maybe Robert Zubrin, advisor to NASA, who has a fairly well thought out plan ("Mars Direct") how to establish an outpost on Mars by a series of trips that are all within our current technological abilities, i.e. they don't require experimental propulsion systems. He has also written a very good book on the topic.
"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth."
Doesn't sound like they have a whole load of confidence.
Elon Musk is not Kennedy. His default style of speech is less political and usually not aimed at inspiration.
You can draw no inferences about his confidence from this comparison.
What you could take from this comparison, if you were so inclined, is that when it comes to inspiring Americans about space travel, Musk&Co. are less motivational than what worked in the past. Time will tell if you need the same motivational leader to accomplish something like this in the private sector.
Thinking about all this, maybe kids will no longer want to be astronauts when they grow up, but entrepreneurs who get to send people to the frontiers of space.
It's so fascinating to see a private enterprise undertake these inspirational endeavours.
Put men on mars or launch hundreds of robots and satellites to survey the solar system? Which will produce more knowledge? Which will be more cost effective? In 100 years, which path will lead to more increased human space travel?
Sending robots is agile space exploration. Release early, release often. We can lose a few robots and use more experimental technology quicker. Sending humans sounds cool but we shouldn't go until it's as safe as commercial aviation then we can do it frequently.
> Sending humans sounds cool but we shouldn't go until it's as safe as commercial aviation then we can do it frequently.
That's almost asking for it never to happen at all. Air travel has a safety rate of 1 fatality per 2 billion passenger miles, making it one of the safest modes of transport out there. When Europeans first started exploring the Americas, the fatality rates were much higher, and people simply went in knowing that what they were doing was risky, but also fundamentally really cool.
Which one would inspire more people to pursue a career in aerospace? Which one would result in more legends? Do we care about the small robot that burned in Martian atmosphere because someone used kilometers instead of miles?
We need robots to pave the way, but we also need manned expeditions to bring back stories.
but we shouldn't go until it's as safe as commercial aviation
I would not put the goal that far away. There are people taking a ~5% (nowadays; this used to be much higher in the early years) fatality risk to climb Everest. I expect we would get plenty of capable volunteers for that risk on a Mars mission, and I also think we should pick the best and send them.
I'm in space robotics and albeit I believe that huge advances will be made in this area, we are still not anywhere close to human capabilities. Why else do you think, the Japanese are sending dozens of their people to lethal work at Fukushima?
I do believe though, that remote controlled and partly autonomous robots are already capable of helping humans on a mission like Mars exploration and colonization.
This is not to mention all the very successful robot programs like Voyager I/II, Spirit/Opportunity etc. But those are smal scale projects in my mind. They are cost efficient, but I doubt you could do what you could do with humans, just because you put the same amount of money behind it now. Of course, there could be breakthroughs in AI tomorrow that change that game. But putting a human on the moon is doable for decades now and its about time that someone has the balls to do it.
disclaimer: Elon Musk is my hero and I'm a hopeless fan boy.
[+] [-] Jeema3000|15 years ago|reply
"At an altitude of 50 km above Venusian surface, the environment is the most Earth-like in the solar system – a pressure of approximately 1 bar and temperatures in the 0°C–50°C range. Because there is not a significant pressure difference between the inside and the outside of the breathable-air balloon, any rips or tears would cause gases to diffuse at normal atmospheric mixing rates, giving time to repair any such damages. In addition, humans would not require pressurized suits when outside, merely air to breathe, a protection from the acidic rain; and on some occasions low level protection against heat."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus#Aerostat_...
Just don't fall off the edge... :)
[+] [-] TheEzEzz|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ck2|15 years ago|reply
It's called VASMIR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_Specific_Impulse_Magne...
It's not really "new" since it was conceptualized in 1977 but recent technological advances have made it a real prototype (2005) and it will be tested on the space-station in 2013.
The guy who designed it, Franklin Chang-Diaz, is incredible as well as his lifestory - literally made his farfetched startrek-inspired dream to become an astronaut come true by sheer willpower and he went to MIT.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Chang-Diaz
[+] [-] rdoherty|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FrojoS|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mechanical_fish|15 years ago|reply
I was wondering what possible economic rationale a "private" mission to Mars could have, given that there are a limited number of billionaire space tourists whose ultimate dream is to be locked in a space the size of a bus for six years.
Now I know. They're in the traditional, lucrative business of collecting government grants.
What I'm seeing here is a contractor. Big deal. Exactly what is the difference here between SpaceX and, say, Grumman Aircraft Engineering in 1962?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Lunar_Module
Grumman wasn't part of the government. It was a corporation.
The point of "private" space ventures is that they're supposed to have a different business model, not just a different approach to branding themselves. Thus far their big business-model innovation is to collect checks from NASA without ever using the words contractor or NASA.
[+] [-] FrojoS|15 years ago|reply
But consider the following. First, they are a lot more cost efficient. The Falcon Heavy is supposed to be 6 times cheaper per ton to LEO than the Delta IV Heavy. This can save the US government as well as many companies around the world lots of money.
Second, the ability to jump in, just when the, expensive, shuttle program runs out seems to be very helpful for the USA as a - if not the - space nation. Without SpaceX the US would depend on Russia to send astronauts to the ISS and anywhere else in space for many, many years.
Also, I would be careful about dissing "space tourists". Many of the so called tourists have actually done scientific experiments in space. I believe most of them did not fly, so they can show the "I was there" pics at home. No, they wanted to be astronauts since they were little boys, more than anything else in the world! This is pure speculation, but if NASA would auction their astronaut positions to people who match the minimum requirements, they might be profitable tomorrow.
Same goes for Elon Musk and Mars. I've read many times, he is a betrayer and just wants make money at the SpaceX IPO. I know you didn't state this and maybe its actually true. But I don't believe it. I think he and others really want to have humans on Mars and if possible they want to fly by them self. I find it totally plausible that the first manned mission to Mars will be financed by the crew and their private supporters. Just consider how much people pay to be the XXXth person to be on Mount Everest. And thats arguable not less dangerous, let alone the hardship in the death zone. How much would be the final prize on a auction that determines who will likely be the first human in history on a different planet?
Last but not least, whats wrong about Grunman and the Lunar Module? From the wikipedia article you cited: "Though initially unpopular and plagued with several delays in its development, the LM eventually became the most reliable component of the Apollo/Saturn system, the only one never to suffer any failure that significantly impacted a mission,[1] and in at least one instance (LM-7 Aquarius) greatly exceeded its design requirements."
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|15 years ago|reply
But keep in mind that SpaceX's lineup of launch vehicles will probably allow them to capture a rather substantial segment of worldwide launch contracts.
This is not a small market.
We're talking about many billions of dollars. And their vehicles are both more capable and dramatically cheaper than the competition. It seems highly likely that they will be rolling in billions of dollars of profit in a rather short period of time.
Take billions of dollars of excess revenue per year, roll it into more R&D. Take additional billions and an engineering base from a newly formed space tourism industry and add that. And then maybe it doesn't look so crazy if SpaceX is sending humans to Mars on their own dime, independent of any government funding.
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cletus|15 years ago|reply
I heard Jerry Pournelle talking about this and he said something like landing a man on the Moon and establishing a lunar colony is an engineering problem. Landing a man on Mars is a science problem.
The difference? We can already do the former. it's simply a question of money and the will to do it. The problems are basically solved.
Landing a man on Mars has far bigger problems. The round trip (or even one way) journey with current propulsion technology will take an incredibly long time (upwards of 2 years). How do you keep someone alive that long? What about the psychology of isolation? Sustained radiation exposure is a real problem.
Personally I see manned spaceflight, particularly to other planets, as being largely a propaganda exercise until:
1. The cost of lifting into orbit (per kg) goes down. Way down. Like 2 or even 3 orders of magnitude; and
2. We have a much faster means of propulsion to make journey lengths manageable.
(1) is probably the easiest to solve. SpaceX's launch prices are actually quite low (but those are fairly low orbits; launching to another planet is more expensive). Virgin Galactic and other private suborbital efforts will (hopefully) lead to a dramatic cost reduction of getting into orbit.
(2) is a fundamentally hard problem. Ideas such as solar sails and the like are far from being practical (plus with a solar sail, how do you get back?). Magnetic fields as solar sails is an interesting idea but has a whole bunch of other problems.
Otherwise you need to eject mass to give you velocity. That mass is something you have to carry. The more mass (fuel) you carry, the less effective each gram is (in delta-V terms).
What I think will probably drive this is the coming earthbound resource shortages (inevitable unless we drastically reduce population; it's simply a question of when) that will drive a permanent presence in space. Once you have a huge industrial manufacturing capacity in space, the economics completely change.
EDIT: I agree with other comments in that a one-way (colonization) mission makes far more sense but I'm still unconvinced this will happen anytime soon, probably not in my lifetime.
Mars does have some interesting properties though if a colony can become self-sustaining:
1. Lower gravity. This actually makes the idea of a space elevator far more feasible [1]; and
2. Mars has features that extend beyond the atmosphere. The atmosphere is ~11km thick. Olympus Mons is 25km high.
I've read seemingly informed speculation that if we (the human race) had evolved on Mars, we'd already be heavily spacebound since it would be far, far easier.
This is what might justify colonizing Mars. Not that that is an easy problem.
[1]: http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=95924
[+] [-] bfe|15 years ago|reply
The trip time using conventional chemical rockets is limited to modified Hohmann transfer orbits of around six to eight months each way, and the duration on the surface would be about eighteen months before the next orbital launch window between Earth and Mars. With basic well-understood radiation mitigation techniques, total radiation exposure for each astronaut over the duration of the mission is around 50 rem, less than the amount needed to increase by 1% the chances of a 35-year old adult of developing cancer at some point later in life, a lower risk than by spending the same amount of time smoking cigarettes on Earth.
Getting the astronauts back isn't prohibitively more difficult than getting them there in the first place: the energy expenditure for escaping the surface is 17% of the Earth's, and using the Mars Direct mission architecture, you can send a return vehicle ahead of time with seed hydrogen to manufacture liquid methane propellant and liquid oxygen oxidizer from the carbon dioxide air, through the Sabatier reaction for both and also with electrical dissociation of the carbon dioxide for more oxygen. You can also test it in flight after producing its fuel before deciding to launch the humans to Mars in the first place.
We still need a heavier-lift heavy lift vehicle of at least 100 to 140 tonnes to LEO to start being able to send major assets to the Mars surface in one shot, but SpaceX is becoming increasingly credible as a possible creator of such a vehicle. Putting humans on Mars within twenty years would require at least a few billion dollars a year (a small fraction of NASA's budget) and ironing out some engineering details, but is entirely doable. The biggest obstacle is just having leadership with a sustained focus on that goal over the course of the couple of decades required, and that hasn't been forthcoming from within government, but perhaps could be supplied from a private entity. SpaceX has been laying down a solid record of presenting visionary plans for spacefaring capabilities and then making them happen.
[+] [-] drm237|15 years ago|reply
According to the FAO, the earth could feed up to 12 billion people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger#World_statistics
[+] [-] FrojoS|15 years ago|reply
I mean, "psychology of isolation" come on! People have been in super tiny submarines for months, while water bombs are exploding around them all night long. And thats at least two generations ago.
I doubt that von Braun and co. had solved all the problems for flying to the moon, when Kennedy set the goal. I have no doubts that they would have put a man on Mars soon after, had the program continued. When the Saturn V was retired, humanity was put four decades back - and counting. Its only a question of will. Do we want to have nicer cars or advance the frontier of humanity?
[+] [-] joeyh|15 years ago|reply
Currently the method that's worked best is to bounce down a sturdy probe on giant balloons, and now NASA is trying a quite rube-goldberg lander that hangs below its retrorockets. Still very much in the experimenting phase.
[+] [-] benl|15 years ago|reply
This is actually really simple and not a problem at all -- you just have to understand orbital mechanics a bit. Basically, you angle the solar sail so that its force is directed against your direction of travel along your orbit. This slows you down, causing you to start spiraling in toward the sun. Then you change angle so that you start speeding up again and match orbital velocities just as you arrive at your destination.
But it's a separate issue anyway -- solar sail technology (or Vasimir, or Nuclear Thermal) is no more required for exploring Mars than jet airplane technology was required for exploring North America.
[+] [-] ANH|15 years ago|reply
Install reflectors on the surface of Mars, shine super-big lasers at Mars, sail home on reflected light.
[+] [-] abeppu|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] szany|15 years ago|reply
He didn't say it's necessarily man on Mars.
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hugh3|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BenSS|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|15 years ago|reply
With 1960s technology.
Don't use the pace of NASA progress within the last 2 decades as some sort of benchmark, it has no meaning and no correlation to anything other than government handouts to important congressional districts.
What is possible and what will be possible within 10-20 years is a great deal more than what has been done.
SpaceX is seemingly capable of building a Saturn V class launch vehicle in less time and for far less money than was done historically. Given that I don't doubt that they'll be able to do amazing things.
[+] [-] Fargren|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rbanffy|15 years ago|reply
- a propulsion system that can send an habitat and supplies good for, at least, 6 months.
- a separate trip to send the supplies for the return mission and park it in Martian orbit for rendezvous when the manned vehicle arrives
If you also want the crew to land on Mars, you'll need a lander. You may consider doing the surface-to-orbit return mission on a separate vehicle you can land before. You may consider sending supplies and a shielded habitat (Martian surface is about as shielded from cosmic radiation as space itself - not at all) if you want the humans to stay.
20 years is a very hard schedule for that.
You can send the unmanned parts with current technologies, but the manned part depends heavily on the development of adequate shielding and/or adequate NTRs to make effective use of the reaction mass the spacecraft carries.
If shielding is developed before, you could even make the whole thing easier - you put a shielded habitat in an Aldrin cycler orbit and just send crew and supplies (and spares for the habitat) to rendezvous with it when it passes by Earth leave the habitat when it's time to enter Martian orbit. The trip is longer, but it's easier if you don't have to give the whole habitat the required delta-V.
[+] [-] NickPollard|15 years ago|reply
Of course, getting /back/ from Mars is an entirely different proposition altogether. It's pretty likely the first man on Mars will be taking a one-way trip (and there are definitely people willing to do this).
[+] [-] hugh3|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adrianN|15 years ago|reply
http://journalofcosmology.com/Contents12.html
Last year the journal of cosmology had an issue devoted to problems related to Mars. There are many people who believe putting people on Mars is completely feasible. The most well known is maybe Robert Zubrin, advisor to NASA, who has a fairly well thought out plan ("Mars Direct") how to establish an outpost on Mars by a series of trips that are all within our current technological abilities, i.e. they don't require experimental propulsion systems. He has also written a very good book on the topic.
[+] [-] bfirsh|15 years ago|reply
Compared to:
"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth."
Doesn't sound like they have a whole load of confidence.
[+] [-] tylerhwillis|15 years ago|reply
You can draw no inferences about his confidence from this comparison.
What you could take from this comparison, if you were so inclined, is that when it comes to inspiring Americans about space travel, Musk&Co. are less motivational than what worked in the past. Time will tell if you need the same motivational leader to accomplish something like this in the private sector.
[+] [-] kmfrk|15 years ago|reply
It's so fascinating to see a private enterprise undertake these inspirational endeavours.
[+] [-] nazgulnarsil|15 years ago|reply
I want to send my upload to mars.
[+] [-] melling|15 years ago|reply
Sending robots is agile space exploration. Release early, release often. We can lose a few robots and use more experimental technology quicker. Sending humans sounds cool but we shouldn't go until it's as safe as commercial aviation then we can do it frequently.
[+] [-] rflrob|15 years ago|reply
That's almost asking for it never to happen at all. Air travel has a safety rate of 1 fatality per 2 billion passenger miles, making it one of the safest modes of transport out there. When Europeans first started exploring the Americas, the fatality rates were much higher, and people simply went in knowing that what they were doing was risky, but also fundamentally really cool.
[+] [-] rbanffy|15 years ago|reply
We need robots to pave the way, but we also need manned expeditions to bring back stories.
[+] [-] Someone|15 years ago|reply
I would not put the goal that far away. There are people taking a ~5% (nowadays; this used to be much higher in the early years) fatality risk to climb Everest. I expect we would get plenty of capable volunteers for that risk on a Mars mission, and I also think we should pick the best and send them.
[+] [-] FrojoS|15 years ago|reply
I do believe though, that remote controlled and partly autonomous robots are already capable of helping humans on a mission like Mars exploration and colonization.
This is not to mention all the very successful robot programs like Voyager I/II, Spirit/Opportunity etc. But those are smal scale projects in my mind. They are cost efficient, but I doubt you could do what you could do with humans, just because you put the same amount of money behind it now. Of course, there could be breakthroughs in AI tomorrow that change that game. But putting a human on the moon is doable for decades now and its about time that someone has the balls to do it.
disclaimer: Elon Musk is my hero and I'm a hopeless fan boy.
[+] [-] tsotha|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Clue|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ccarpenterg|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drm237|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jasonmcalacanis|15 years ago|reply