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Mars Colony?


Asperion

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Recently I got wondering how humans would be able to be able to first reach and then establish a long-term colony on Mars. We will be using modern technology (no fancy rubber-science, techno-device). First lets state the problem then the possible solution for the problem.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

Project Orion. Gets you there. Gets a LOT of stuff there all at once and pretty darn quick....laid out quite nicely back in '79 in Pournelle's "A Step Farther Out".....

 

~Rex....Project Orion gets you all over the Solar System....Hard Science.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

... And it's pretty much politically impossible. Don't forget that bit.

 

It's only Politically Impossible if folks choose to be that way. History is full of examples of folks basically deciding someone elses political desires mean jack and squat. You end up with a situation where there is a Need to get as much stuff off the planet as possible (And I can think of dozens), Project Orion will fly regardless of how many anti Orion folks want to protest about it.

 

~Rex....ain't nothing else that can do the job as well. You're on Mars in launch from earth. Launch from Orbit after that or the Moon and you can land a CITY on Mars.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

Project Orion. Gets you there. Gets a LOT of stuff there all at once and pretty darn quick....laid out quite nicely back in '79 in Pournelle's "A Step Farther Out".....

 

~Rex....Project Orion gets you all over the Solar System....Hard Science.

 

~Rex....ain't nothing else that can do the job as well. You're on Mars in launch from earth. Launch from Orbit after that or the Moon and you can land a CITY on Mars.

Mars Direct. Use off-the-shelf tech, build an infrastructure on Mars via telepresence before launching your crew.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

I guess it's up to me to take the conservative view. Mars by Hohmann transfer orbit. Send an unmanned cargo ship first, then a large vessel, small crew - six months there, six months back, one year on site, in addition to scientific research they use that time to build a LARGE base, landing field and beacon. Next, build a large vessel that does nothing but travel in a Hohmann orbit between the Earth-Moon and Mars solar orbits (a cycler), and start up continuous population transfers.

Lower initial outlay than Mars Direct (though greater total cost, ameliorated over greater time), no political fallout from using nukes in space.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

... And it's pretty much politically impossible. Don't forget that bit.

Interstingly that is the only reason we never made it. It could have brought is to the moon and the mars for less than what the Apollo Project costed us and interestingly the fuell efficience goes up the bigger/heavier you build it. Here are some links/a discussion about it:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/85436-Mars-by-1965-Saturn-by-1970?daysprune=365

 

No idea about other concept though, I didn't keept up.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

It's all a bit surreal, though. We're conjuring with technologies we don't have. Even telepresence, which sounds so straightforward, is still an emergent technology.

 

If you'll pardon me for beating the same old drum, you've got to walk before you can run.

 

Now, granted that, if you want to build a largescale Mars colony tomorrow, all of this implies taking enough stuff and people with you to allow margins for failing forward in place. I've had my disagreements in the past with Rex about the viability of Project Orion as an ongoing launch programme; but in this situation, it is the only option.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

We could have pulled off Mars Direct in the seventies, if there had been the will to do so. Today it's a bit more difficult. There's nothing today that can lift as much as a Saturn V, so we'd either have to design a new Heavy Lift Rocket, or dig up the old plans start up a new production line of Saturns. There are no geologists in today's Astronaut Corp as their last (and only) one resigned in '75.

 

Basically, it became a lot harder after the Apollo program lost steam. But the basic technology has existed for years, and even the more high tech stuff like semi-robotic rovers has been tried and proven. The price tag is in the order of 50 billion over a twenty year plan, so about 15% of NASA's budget, compared to the ISS's 150 billion and the shuttle's 192 billion (in fact, if half the shuttle program's budget money now went to Mars Direct, we could land humans on Mars by the end of the decade).

 

But without sufficient political will...

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

Lota GOOD programs out there fell by the wind. I've got a Once a month Hard Science Star Hero game that's basically modeled on, What if we didn't let such things fall by the wayside. Especially when you look at what could have been accomplished, the reward vs risk, and the Combinations of all the various plans......

 

~Rex....huge fan of Off the Shelf as well....ah well, the Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Best cover up when the rocks start falling when someone else with a different viewpoint gets there first. *Pets his Project Orion Model*

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

We could have pulled off Mars Direct in the seventies' date=' if there had been the will to do so.[/quote']

 

No. No, we couldn't. This meme seems to come out of a mash-up of Project EMPIRE and von Braun's proposal for an Apollo follow-on. No-one who has actually investigated the question has ever claimed that we had, or were on track for, a solution to the many problems that must be solved before a Mars mission is possible.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

*Shoots all the Project Orion Protesters Outside the Cape* Problem Solved! Though I'd prefer the Barge Launch up in the Arctic somewhere. Less Messy.

 

For my Game I used a combination of a lot of things. Drew a lot of inspiration from things like "A Step Farther Out", and Novels like Footfall, as well as a few other Interesting Hard Sci Fi like Big Lifters from Dean Ing (stuffs gotta move dirt side first), and the Stephen Baxter Nasa trilogy (and more and more...Caidin, Clarke, Pournelle, Niven, Pohl, etc).... So, Had Orion, and stuff that evolves from that, as well as the "conservative Methods" and bugs worked out stuff alongthe lines of Mars Direct and even back up stuff like our last cancelled Constellation stuff)....

 

Lota stuff to use, most of it out there for the taking.

 

~Rex

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

I guess it's up to me to take the conservative view. Mars by Hohmann transfer orbit. Send an unmanned cargo ship first, then a large vessel, small crew - six months there, six months back, one year on site, in addition to scientific research they use that time to build a LARGE base, landing field and beacon. Next, build a large vessel that does nothing but travel in a Hohmann orbit between the Earth-Moon and Mars solar orbits (a cycler), and start up continuous population transfers.

Lower initial outlay than Mars Direct (though greater total cost, ameliorated over greater time), no political fallout from using nukes in space.

 

I'm going to agree with Sundog. Going with what we (more or less) know to do now, a nice large space barge in a Hohmann transfer orbit is the way to go. First you just take prefabs, then robots and humans last.

 

If you are willing to put fusion on the table, it is worth considering putting Mars on hold and instead focusing on the moon. You can set up a helium-3 mining operation on the moon. Once that is up and running then you can move on to Mars in style using fusion power and lunar dust propellant. However, even in this scenario you are going want to set up your Hohmann transfer orbit barge to move large cargo.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

If you are willing to put fusion on the table' date=' it is worth considering putting Mars on hold and instead focusing on the moon. You can set up a helium-3 mining operation on the moon. Once that is up and running then you can move on to Mars in style using fusion power and lunar dust propellant. However, even in this scenario you are going want to set up your Hohmann transfer orbit barge to move large cargo.[/quote']

 

You know, I have yet to be convinced that human-controllable fusion is possible without creating problems that make fission look like a truly reliable, fault-free technology by comparison. I still remember the cold fusion fraud of the 1990's which essentially killed off serious research into the use of fusion for energy production. For a fusion reactor to actually fuse it appears it will have to be kept incredibly hot, hot enough to make actually tinkering around with it virtually impossible. You can use neutral elements to control a fission reaction, but I'm not convinced that would work with fusion.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

You know' date=' I have yet to be convinced that human-controllable fusion is possible without creating problems that make fission look like a truly reliable, fault-free technology by comparison. I still remember the cold fusion fraud of the 1990's which essentially killed off serious research into the use of fusion for energy production. For a fusion reactor to actually fuse it appears it will have to be kept incredibly hot, hot enough to make actually tinkering around with it virtually impossible. You can use neutral elements to control a fission reaction, but I'm not convinced that would work with fusion.[/quote']

 

In 1989 there was a highly premature announcement regarding the cold fusion work of Fleischman and Pons, and since then, cold fusion has been considered something of a 'crank' project. But other forms of fusion are still in development, and continue to make progress towards 'breaking even' in terms of energy output versus input. No, they're not there yet, but nor have they been discredited in the same way as "cold fusion."

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

Well, back to the original question, the biggest problem is finding a loose several billion dollars to do it with. But let's gloss over that and look at technical details.

 

The single biggest problem is radiation shielding - interplanetary space can be filled with a lot of ionizing radiation (the bad kind). The only way to stop it for sure is a few meters of rock, but that would require a prohibitively heavy spacecraft. However, since we've got sun-watching satellites today, we get a little help here. We just have to make a small part of the spacecraft protected from the worst levels of radiation, and design the rest for lower levels. Now, stepping into slightly speculative territory, it may be possible to use magnetic fields for radiation shielding. That would cut the weight a bunch, but it's not proven science, and I don't know how much engineering you want to add into this.

 

At the risk of adding complexity, we probably want a fair sized crew (6?) for redundancy and safety, which keeps adding mass to the mission, so we're kinda stuck with multiple heavy-lift launches to build the ship in orbit. Though, at that point, we might as well design it to withstand multiple trips between worlds to get better payback on the investment. In any case, fuel and water tanks, and cargo is arranged around the living area to as to make our radiation shielding multitask. And at the center of our ship is the crypt, a room just big enough for the crew and with just enough radiation shielding to protect against a large solar flare (there is still the risk of an extra-large solar flare, but there is no way to make this ship perfectly safe).

 

The next problem is the engine. We could make it work with chemical rocket engines, though that's a last resort if we can't get something better. The most desirable choice would be nuclear power, of the conventional fission variety. I don't have numbers handy, but my gut feeling is that a straight up nuclear thermal rocket would work the best. You lose some performance, but the simplicity and power density should make up for it. IIRC, some of the Mars Direct lit mention that a nuclear thermal rocket is powerful enough to be used in an SSTO on Mars. To me, this suggests that we bring along a separate landing craft with another nuclear rocket, which gives the mission a spare engine that could get them home

 

Now, a middle option, which probably requires a bit more engineering, would be to use a VASIMIR or similar engine for the mission. It has the highest performance of any realistic engine, at the expense of more complexity and lower acceleration. It would also be pickier about the fuel it uses, and probably require all the fuel for the mission to be brought from Earth. The nuclear thermal rocket is nice that way, in that it is not picky about it's fuel at all (well, as long as it's well designed).

 

With all respect due to Dr. Zubrin, I'm not sure that the direct ascent modules he's proposing could have adequate shielding or house enough people for that length of time. I welcome actual numbers to answer that question, but until then, I'm going to have to throw in for actual spaceships.

 

Anyway, to sum up my ramblings, your basic problems are:

 

radiation shielding

~2 years of supplies and/or hydroponic equipment

reliability and redundancy

carrying enough fuel to get there & back (well, there is some cheating allowed on this one)

 

also, other issues that might come up:

 

X people living that closely for that long without killing each other

contaminating the Martian biosphere with Earth bacteria and so on

a better EVA suit for our astronauts (though MIT is working on that one. As it turns out, skintight spacesuits do have practical value in addition to the fan service :) )

is it worth landing people on Mars, or do they stay in orbit and use drones?

are you able to use aerobraking on this mission to save fuel, or is it all rocket based?

 

I'm sure there's more, but I'm getting tired. And I probably need to elaborate on some of what I said, but I'll wait until I'm told what that is.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

Contamination of the Martian biosphere isn't really an issue. Every probe we've sent to take a look' date=' from Viking to the mobiles, has come back with "There [i']is [/i]no Martian biosphere".

First, "every probe we've sent to take a look" is both of them, only the two Viking landers were equipped to look for life. Second, the Viking biological experiments were, at best, inconclusive. The far-from-unanimous consensus is that there is an abiological explanation for the results, but the follow-up experiments have not been done to confirm that hypothesis.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

Well' date=' back to the original question, the biggest problem is finding a loose several billion dollars to do it with.[/quote']

 

The problem isn't one of money so much as priorities. Substitute Mars for the Moon in this graphic (the math still works, IMHO) and you'll see what I mean....

 

 

We%20Could%27ve%20Had%20the%20Moon.jpg

 

 

Throw in the cost of invading Iraq and we could definitely have a viable Mars exploration program by now.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

And?

 

Back in the 70's, when the Vikings were launched, I would have said that the presence of perchlorates in the regolith was pretty much case closed. But in the past 40 years we've discovered life can exist in environmental extremes we never dreamed possible back then.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

Anyway, to sum up my ramblings, your basic problems are:

 

radiation shielding

~2 years of supplies and/or hydroponic equipment

reliability and redundancy

carrying enough fuel to get there & back (well, there is some cheating allowed on this one)

Wich where all solved by using Orion, feasable back in 1960:

Radiation shielding? Need to put a lot on it anyway, for the drive.

Supplies? The heavier it is, the better the fuel efficiency. The main problem when using all the possible thrust is: Humans are to squishy. The heavier it get's, the lower the G-forces affecting the astronauts.

Reliability and Redundany? When the shit hits the fan, just sand a unmanned Orion-Design with replacement parts. Replacement parts are not so squishi (ergo: way faster flight). And you don't need to save weight at any point, you can just build this thing heavy and sturdy like a bunker or battleship anyway.

Carry enoug fuel? The 8000 Ton design could carry enoug Fuel for a Saturn Mission. I believe Mars it not as far as Saturn.

Reuseable? Why even land this thing again on earth. Just park it in orbit, bring new food and new bombs for the next tour.

 

Contamination of the Martian biosphere isn't really an issue. Every probe we've sent to take a look' date=' from Viking to the mobiles, has come back with "There [i']is [/i]no Martian biosphere".

Let me answer this with a Story:

A alien visits earth. It cannot land and for some reason picks up no radio waves and does not recognises any of the artficial strutures in orbit as the work of inteligent beings. It can only send probes with a sensor and mobility range of a few hundred meters.

It fires three of those. One hits a dessert, one the arctis, one a forest where a wolf is just peeing against a tree.

His report will read: Some debris in orbit, no intelligent life.

 

At the time being we can't even rule out that there is no intelligent (but primitve) life on mars, that juts developed differently from what we understand and lives in caves.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

Your story is unconvincing. There is plenty of evidence of intelligent life on Earth visible on a mere flyby. Likewise while it is remotely possible that there are some micro-organisms on Mars, there is no biosphere. If there was, the products of it would be in the atmosphere and we wouldn't even need to go there to detect it.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

Your story is unconvincing. There is plenty of evidence of intelligent life on Earth visible on a mere flyby. Likewise while it is remotely possible that there are some micro-organisms on Mars' date=' there is no biosphere. If there was, the products of it would be in the atmosphere and we wouldn't even need to go there to detect it.[/quote']

Turn the clock back 10.000 years, before humans developed farming. Not much you can see on a flyby back then and 10.000 Years are only a mere second in galactic terms.

And afaik we never made a deep radar imaging of the mars. There could be a biosphere in cavers we have not located. There is chemosynthethic live in the depts of the ocean, so no reaseon there could not be the same near an underground volcano/ocean on mars.

Two landers knocking around some rocks on the surface is not what I would call a "complete examination".

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