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Mars Colony?


Asperion

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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']

If there are micro-organisms or any other life forms, that's a biosphere.

 

What would we need to detect in the Martian atmosphere to indicate life? Free oxygen? Check, it's there! Methane? Got that too! An atmosphere out of equilibrium? Dude, methane and free oxygen together, that's SO out of equilibrium!

 

Again, this may be the result of non-biotic causes, but 30 years ago we would have called that "possible life signs." Nothing conclusive to say that there is indigenous life on Mars, but I maintain it is way too early to rule it out all together.

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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.

 

As I understand it, if there happen to be perchlorate insensitive (or even perchlorate utilizing) primitive forms on Mars, our biology and their will almost certainly have a "mutual ignore him society" going on. Which pretty much obviates the problem of contamination anyway.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

As I understand it' date=' if there happen to be perchlorate insensitive (or even perchlorate utilizing) primitive forms on Mars, our biology and their will almost certainly have a "mutual ignore him society" going on. Which pretty much obviates the problem of contamination anyway.[/quote']

Yes, that's the theory. Mind if we wait until we have an actual perchlorate-utilizing lifeform before we bet the whole planet's biosphere on it?

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

Even with every thing stated here there is only one problem that I see that we need to overcome (and that will be EXTREMELY hard to do) is lack of politicial will. If we could somehow convince the international gavernments to fund such a mission, then all these other porblems will disappear rather quickly (might even make one's head spin).

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

Again, for, like the billionth time: doing stuff in space is hard, and we have no idea how to do it. We're going to have to learn how to do it. That will take time, not money.

 

It will take time. Time it will take. There will be time taken. See my point? We can't go to Mars tomorrow. That's why we didn't go yesterday.

 

Eventually, we will go to Mars. When we've solved all these problems. Which will take time. Time will be taken. It will be a while.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

We coulda gone....and quite awhile ago ......So says a Step Farther Out and more then a few other serious pieces of literature..... The only thing stopping it, is PCBS, not time. And we won't learn How to do it until we get out of LEO and start doing it, again.

 

~Rex

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

Sure, doing things in space is hard. But we have been doing them for over 50 years. Give me fifty billion (over the next ten years) and my own choice of staff, and I could put a man on Mars within the decade.

 

Radiation Shielding: A six month trip through space to Mars and back gives an increased risk of cancer of 0.905%. You have a base 20% risk of getting cancer. Tell me you wouldn't find volunteers.

 

Supplies: A human requires about 30 kilo of supplies per day (by NASA standards with double meal rations for better morale than the usual dried crap). 1 kilo of oxygen (can be recycled with 80% efficiency), 2 kilo of food (not recycled, except as extra water through peeing), 4 kilo drinking/cooking water (can be recycled with 80% efficiency), 23 kilo of washing water (can be recycled with 90% efficiency). Do the math and you end up with about 1700 kilo per person per year. But! Air and water can be gotten from a Victorian-tech refinery once you're on Mars. You could also get away with giving tightened washing rations in transit. In total you require about 2 tons per person. (I'm being optimistic; Mars Direct calls for 2.5 tons per person).

 

Enough fuel: The required Delta V to reach Mars in 180 days (given aerobraking) is 4.3 km/s, and getting back from the surface about 6 km/s. Assuming you cheat (use your Victorian-tech refinery to produce the return fuel on Mars) this is actually quite easy. A crew rated transport can manage to land about 18% of its Low Earth Orbit payload on the Marian surface. Two heavy boosters (one with the crew and their cabin and one with the return ship and the refinery) can launch your whole mission.

 

And all this tech has been functioning reliably since the late seventies. We know how to recycle oxygen and water. We know how to reach Mars cheaply. We know how to create methane and water from hydrogen feedstock (6 tons of Hydrogen becomes over a hundred tons of fuel and water). We know how to build heavy boosters. The only reason I'd need ten years and not five is that while the RL-10 rocket engine has reportedly been tested with methane fuel successfully, I'd like to give it (and all the other stuff) a more careful testing to avoid any embarrassing mistake.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

Sure, doing things in space is hard. But we have been doing them for over 50 years. Give me fifty billion (over the next ten years) and my own choice of staff, and I could put a man on Mars within the decade.

 

Radiation Shielding: A six month trip through space to Mars and back gives an increased risk of cancer of 0.905%. You have a base 20% risk of getting cancer. Tell me you wouldn't find volunteers.

 

Supplies: A human requires about 30 kilo of supplies per day (by NASA standards with double meal rations for better morale than the usual dried crap). 1 kilo of oxygen (can be recycled with 80% efficiency), 2 kilo of food (not recycled, except as extra water through peeing), 4 kilo drinking/cooking water (can be recycled with 80% efficiency), 23 kilo of washing water (can be recycled with 90% efficiency). Do the math and you end up with about 1700 kilo per person per year. But! Air and water can be gotten from a Victorian-tech refinery once you're on Mars. You could also get away with giving tightened washing rations in transit. In total you require about 2 tons per person. (I'm being optimistic; Mars Direct calls for 2.5 tons per person).

 

Enough fuel: The required Delta V to reach Mars in 180 days (given aerobraking) is 4.3 km/s, and getting back from the surface about 6 km/s. Assuming you cheat (use your Victorian-tech refinery to produce the return fuel on Mars) this is actually quite easy. A crew rated transport can manage to land about 18% of its Low Earth Orbit payload on the Marian surface. Two heavy boosters (one with the crew and their cabin and one with the return ship and the refinery) can launch your whole mission.

 

And all this tech has been functioning reliably since the late seventies. We know how to recycle oxygen and water. We know how to reach Mars cheaply. We know how to create methane and water from hydrogen feedstock (6 tons of Hydrogen becomes over a hundred tons of fuel and water). We know how to build heavy boosters. The only reason I'd need ten years and not five is that while the RL-10 rocket engine has reportedly been tested with methane fuel successfully, I'd like to give it (and all the other stuff) a more careful testing to avoid any embarrassing mistake.

 

Let me step into conservative mode once again, and point out that with appropriate 6P planning (Proper Planning Prevents P***-Poor Performance) even the refinery stuff stops being a necessity. Just send unmanned cargo vessels first. You can even wait until you are absolutely certain that they're in position before you launch the manned vessel.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

Sure, doing things in space is hard. But we have been doing them for over 50 years. Give me fifty billion (over the next ten years) and my own choice of staff, and I could put a man on Mars within the decade.

 

Radiation Shielding: A six month trip through space to Mars and back gives an increased risk of cancer of 0.905%. You have a base 20% risk of getting cancer. Tell me you wouldn't find volunteers.

 

Supplies: A human requires about 30 kilo of supplies per day (by NASA standards with double meal rations for better morale than the usual dried crap). 1 kilo of oxygen (can be recycled with 80% efficiency), 2 kilo of food (not recycled, except as extra water through peeing), 4 kilo drinking/cooking water (can be recycled with 80% efficiency), 23 kilo of washing water (can be recycled with 90% efficiency). Do the math and you end up with about 1700 kilo per person per year. But! Air and water can be gotten from a Victorian-tech refinery once you're on Mars. You could also get away with giving tightened washing rations in transit. In total you require about 2 tons per person. (I'm being optimistic; Mars Direct calls for 2.5 tons per person).

 

Enough fuel: The required Delta V to reach Mars in 180 days (given aerobraking) is 4.3 km/s, and getting back from the surface about 6 km/s. Assuming you cheat (use your Victorian-tech refinery to produce the return fuel on Mars) this is actually quite easy. A crew rated transport can manage to land about 18% of its Low Earth Orbit payload on the Marian surface. Two heavy boosters (one with the crew and their cabin and one with the return ship and the refinery) can launch your whole mission.

 

And all this tech has been functioning reliably since the late seventies. We know how to recycle oxygen and water. We know how to reach Mars cheaply. We know how to create methane and water from hydrogen feedstock (6 tons of Hydrogen becomes over a hundred tons of fuel and water). We know how to build heavy boosters. The only reason I'd need ten years and not five is that while the RL-10 rocket engine has reportedly been tested with methane fuel successfully, I'd like to give it (and all the other stuff) a more careful testing to avoid any embarrassing mistake.

 

Where do I even begin?

 

(1) You do know that the Victorians never made methane and water out of hydrogen+oxygen on Mars, right? Nor did they ever build a refinery that could be shipped interplanetary distances. They certainly never built one that could be aerobraked tothe surface of Mars, and then set itself up and run reliably long enough to process, what, 800 tons of Martian atmosphere at 100% efficiency. How long would that take? How much power would it take? What kind of gaskets would you use to seal out dust from your turbine bearings? What kind of lubricants would you use? Once all of these difficulties are handwaved away, it all sounds quite easy. Of course.*

 

(2) How much mass goes into your shot? Mars Direct, IIRC, assumed 8 Saturn V launches, assembled in space. But we've never done that. The first thing we ever assembled in space is the ISS. And that took a long time and was very expensive. WE still haven't done stuff like pump rocket fuel between units. This thingie will be a vastly more complex assembly. One question to stand in for all of the others about this stage: what is your estimated life support stores expenditure from venting during assembly crew entry/exit of the life support module? (I could get really mean and ask the same question for the poop-venting during flight.)

 

(3) Aerocapture? Pull the other one. It's got bells on.

 

 

*One third of all Americans plan to buy an iPhone5 when it comes out, and Apple has lots of money. My modest proposal is that they skip the iPhone5 and release the iPhone10 in September, instead. They'll crush the entire phone, perhaps computing, industry under their heel! It's so obvious, I'm not sure I understand why Steve Jobs hasn't thought of it.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

Sure, doing things in space is hard. But we have been doing them for over 50 years. Give me fifty billion (over the next ten years) and my own choice of staff, and I could put a man on Mars within the decade.

 

Radiation Shielding: A six month trip through space to Mars and back gives an increased risk of cancer of 0.905%. You have a base 20% risk of getting cancer. Tell me you wouldn't find volunteers.

 

Supplies: A human requires about 30 kilo of supplies per day (by NASA standards with double meal rations for better morale than the usual dried crap). 1 kilo of oxygen (can be recycled with 80% efficiency), 2 kilo of food (not recycled, except as extra water through peeing), 4 kilo drinking/cooking water (can be recycled with 80% efficiency), 23 kilo of washing water (can be recycled with 90% efficiency). Do the math and you end up with about 1700 kilo per person per year. But! Air and water can be gotten from a Victorian-tech refinery once you're on Mars. You could also get away with giving tightened washing rations in transit. In total you require about 2 tons per person. (I'm being optimistic; Mars Direct calls for 2.5 tons per person).

 

Enough fuel: The required Delta V to reach Mars in 180 days (given aerobraking) is 4.3 km/s, and getting back from the surface about 6 km/s. Assuming you cheat (use your Victorian-tech refinery to produce the return fuel on Mars) this is actually quite easy. A crew rated transport can manage to land about 18% of its Low Earth Orbit payload on the Marian surface. Two heavy boosters (one with the crew and their cabin and one with the return ship and the refinery) can launch your whole mission.

 

And all this tech has been functioning reliably since the late seventies. We know how to recycle oxygen and water. We know how to reach Mars cheaply. We know how to create methane and water from hydrogen feedstock (6 tons of Hydrogen becomes over a hundred tons of fuel and water). We know how to build heavy boosters. The only reason I'd need ten years and not five is that while the RL-10 rocket engine has reportedly been tested with methane fuel successfully, I'd like to give it (and all the other stuff) a more careful testing to avoid any embarrassing mistake.

And what is the effect of living 18 months at 1/3 G? That's what we don't know that we can't find out on Earth.

 

Let me step into conservative mode once again' date=' and point out that with appropriate 6P planning (Proper Planning Prevents P***-Poor Performance) even the refinery stuff stops being a necessity. Just send unmanned cargo vessels first. You can even wait until you are absolutely certain that they're in position before you launch the manned vessel.[/quote']

That's the Mars Direct proposal.

 

Where do I even begin?

I would suggest by reading the actual Mars Direct proposal.

 

(1) You do know that the Victorians never made methane and water out of hydrogen+oxygen on Mars' date=' right? Nor did they ever build a refinery that could be shipped interplanetary distances. They certainly never built one that could be aerobraked tothe surface of Mars, and then set itself up and run reliably long enough to process, what, 800 tons of Martian atmosphere at 100% efficiency. How long would that take? How much power would it take? What kind of gaskets would you use to seal out dust from your turbine bearings? What kind of lubricants would you use? Once all of these difficulties are handwaved away, it all sounds quite easy. Of course..[/quote']

108 tonnes, 10 months, a 100 kilowatt nuclear reactor.

 

 

(2) How much mass goes into your shot? Mars Direct' date=' IIRC, assumed 8 Saturn V launches, assembled in space. But we've never done that. The first thing we ever assembled in space is the ISS. And that took a long time and was very expensive. WE still haven't done stuff like pump rocket fuel between units. This thingie will be a vastly more complex assembly. One question to stand in for all of the others about this stage: what is your estimated life support stores expenditure from venting during assembly crew entry/exit of the life support module? (I could get really mean and ask the same question for the poop-venting during flight.).[/quote']

HUH? This is Mars DIRECT, as in direct from Earth to Mars. Not Mars Assemble In LEO. NO LEO assembly, no assembly crew, no life support vented by non-existent assembly crew. Big uncrewed booster to Mars, makes fuel for return trip. ERV should be ready to go long before the launch window of the crewed mission.

 

(3) Aerocapture? Pull the other one. It's got bells on.

After all, it's only been tried on, um, EVERY crewed return from Earth Orbit. And more than one successful robot Mars missions.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

And what is the effect of living 18 months at 1/3 G? That's what we don't know that we can't find out on Earth.

 

 

That's the Mars Direct proposal.

 

 

I would suggest by reading the actual Mars Direct proposal.

 

 

108 tonnes, 10 months, a 100 kilowatt nuclear reactor.

 

 

 

HUH? This is Mars DIRECT, as in direct from Earth to Mars. Not Mars Assemble In LEO. NO LEO assembly, no assembly crew, no life support vented by non-existent assembly crew. Big uncrewed booster to Mars, makes fuel for return trip. ERV should be ready to go long before the launch window of the crewed mission.

 

 

After all, it's only been tried on, um, EVERY crewed return from Earth Orbit. And more than one successful robot Mars missions.

 

 

If we go to Mars without In-Situ Resource Utilisation, we have to boost everything to Mars. Much more stuff launched. That's why ISRU was proposed. The fact that it's magic engineering doesn't change that. Ditto an unmanned nuclear reactor.

 

Aerocapture was similarly proposed as a means of braking rockets headed for Mars at very high relative velocity. The high velocity was needed to catch Mars in a short transit, but that implied bringing braking fuel. Ramming the atmosphere at high speed was the suggested alternative. This is very different from braking back into Earth atmosphere, a practice that is itself not entirely trouble free, and doesn't produce landing precision sufficient for Mars Direct. Doing this at high speed into an atmosphere of poorly defined parameters with an interplanetary vehicle is something that we might try --once we've done it a few times with unmanned probes. I'm sure that it's not impractical. We just have to learn how to do it, as opposed to pretending that we already do.

 

And, yes, Mars Direct specifically rules out in-orbit assembly. (And I could have read up on this aspect before shooting off my big mouth. Sorry.) But the interplanetary vehicle is unrealistically small, and the heavy booster needed is unrealistically large. Modified proposals involve much orbital assembly. I thought that it was worthwhile talking about the fact that we don't actually know how to do that yet.

 

Again. Nothing about a Mars trip is implausible. We just don't know how to do it yet. Mostly because we haven't worked out the concrete details of tedious sweat-the-small-stuff. That's why it isn't on the agenda for the near future.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

If we go to Mars without In-Situ Resource Utilisation' date=' we have to boost everything to Mars. Much more stuff launched.[/quote']

Transporting Equipment is easy and comparatively cheap, thats why we often fire 2-3 Satiltes at once into orbit.

Transporting squishi humans is expensive.

The Shuttle transported Equipment and Crew in one vehicle, so you had to haul your Equipment for crew costs wich is - simply the dumbest possible way to reach space with chemical rockets.

 

Ditto an unmanned nuclear reactor.

And what exactly is the problem with an unmanned nuclear reactor, especially when it only needs a continous, output (that we can calculate in advance) instead of having to go with a uncalculable change in energy demand?

Also unmanned does not means unsupervised. And if anything goes wrong, well we launch the crew only once the tanks are full and bring another ERV along - that either is used as replacement for this mission, or primary for the next (wich also brings an additional ERV along).

 

Gravitation:

During travel, spin the crew module. On the Mars, there is mars gravity.

 

Crewlimits:

Longest time in Space is currently 803 day and Nasa already figured out how to have sex in 0-G/low G.

 

And we always had Orion, wich only not used because of the nuclear test ban treaty.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

Gravitation:

During travel, spin the crew module. On the Mars, there is mars gravity.

 

Crewlimits:

Longest time in Space is currently 803 day and Nasa already figured out how to have sex in 0-G/low G.

Good point. 26 month mission, with 2/3 of that spent in Mars gravity, is going to be better than the same time in free fall.

 

Other than gravity, main stumbling block still seems to me to be the psychological factors. How do six people share what is in effect an efficency apartment they can't leave for over two years without someone being murdered? Humans don't do crowding well.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

Let me step into conservative mode once again' date=' and point out that with appropriate 6P planning (Proper Planning Prevents P***-Poor Performance) even the refinery stuff stops being a necessity. Just send unmanned cargo vessels first. You can even wait until you are absolutely certain that they're in position before you launch the manned vessel.[/quote']

 

True, but sending supplies from Earth costs far more than making them onsite, and making them onsite has more long term advantages. Of course, if the refinery fails, you can always ship out supplies and have one of the engineers on the first crew mission figure out what went wrong.

 

And what is the effect of living 18 months at 1/3 G? That's what we don't know that we can't find out on Earth.

 

On rats, nothing. It's been tried in an orbital spin grav satellite. On humans; well there's an obvious place we can check, assuming you can find four people willing to take the risk. Pro tip: you can.

 

(1) You do know that the Victorians never made methane and water out of hydrogen+oxygen on Mars' date=' right? [/quote']

 

No, they did it no Earth, which has far less of the operative ingredient; CO2. The CO2 soaker is a solid block of zeolite. The Martian night cools it down to a temperature where it absorbs CO2, the lid closes at dawn, and CO2 is released as the Martian day, and the exothermic reactions required, heat it up. No turbine means only a simple filter is needed. The required CO2 is gathered up in six days. Unless you landed it in a dust storm, the filters won't clog in that time. (see aerobraking later for why you don't have to land if there's a dust storm). The system has been built and tested in a pressure chamber designed to simulate Mars.

 

what is your estimated life support stores expenditure from venting during assembly crew entry/exit of the life support module? (I could get really mean and ask the same question for the poop-venting during flight.)

 

In total: 15% of the hydrogen brought along (even with up to 30% the return flight is possible; the rovers use the spare fuel). Oxygen loss from the air lock is countered by the next door oxygen factory. The crew launch with the hab, so no assembly or LEO waiting. Oxygen loss during flight (including poo venting): 160 kilo each way, so 320 kilo total (20% of the required air). Poop venting itself: 6 tons (that's worst case, with the crew having to stay 5 years on Mars). Unrecoverable water (including pee): 3.4 tons (again worst case). Anything I've missed?

 

If we go to Mars without In-Situ Resource Utilisation' date=' we have to boost everything to Mars. Much more stuff launched. That's why ISRU was proposed. The fact that it's magic engineering doesn't change that. Ditto an unmanned nuclear reactor.[/quote']

 

The ISRU module has been built and tested already. 20 years ago. Landing it on an other planet will require some ruggedness testing, of course. But it should be possible. And the module they built out of spare parts weighs only half of the budgeted weight, so there's plenty of room for making it more rugged. Or bringing a spare.

 

The nuclear reactor, well, we'll need to develop them eventually, so why not use this project as our great chance? If we can't get a reactor working in time Radio Thermal Generators can provide a fifth of the power with the same weight. That slows the refining down significantly, but not fatally. (it's still done a year before the crew leaves; and the gathering of CO2 [which is sort of time critical due to dust] requires only the power to open and close a hatch).

 

Ramming the atmosphere at high speed was the suggested alternative. This is very different from braking back into Earth atmosphere' date=' a practice that is itself not entirely trouble free, and doesn't produce landing precision sufficient for Mars Direct. Doing this at high speed into an atmosphere of poorly defined parameters with an interplanetary vehicle is something that we might try --once we've done it a few times with unmanned probes. I'm sure that it's not impractical. We just have to learn how to do it, as opposed to pretending that we already do.[/quote']

 

All this would be true if the plan was to go strait from interplanetary travel to landing. The plan is to aerobrake into orbit and then land with the more traditional parachutes and rockets system. Which we've do with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Mars Odyssey and even the Mars Global Surveyor (despite it being damaged during Earth take off). And none of these satellites even carried a shield; the used their solar panels to brake.

 

Landing on Mars (while under directions from Earth 40 minutes of communication lag away) has been consistently done with 50 kilometer accuracy or better (both the vikings did les than 30 km). The piloted hab only needs to land within 1000 kilometers of the return vehicle to be able to use it (the hab has a pressurized rover on board). Miss by more than that, and the back up return vehicle just needs to land within 1000 kilometers of the hab. It can be directed in real time from the hab.

 

Oh, and as for aerobrake into landing scheme, we did that with Pathfinder, Spirit, Opportunity, and Phoenix. We've done it a few times with unmanned probes.

 

But the interplanetary vehicle is unrealistically small' date=' and the heavy booster needed is unrealistically large. Modified proposals involve much orbital assembly. I thought that it was worthwhile talking about the fact that we don't actually know how to do that yet.[/quote']

 

The heavy booster is a Saturn V, or a shuttle derived equivalent. If we can't build a 60's booster any more, that's the first sign of technological decline I've seen, and the thought is frankly scary.

 

The interplanetary craft has 50m^2 of pressurized floor space per astronaut (with 2.5 m head room for some reason). That's about three times the area I live in as a student. It's probably a bit cramped for a 180 day trip without being able to leave, but it's plenty once you're on the surface. Actually, scratch that. The living space per person is equal to the ISS. Plenty of space. Mars Society has run isolated bases with less space to prove that it works without the crew killing each other, and ESA are running a simulated trip to mars as we speak, with six people locked in a box for 3 years.

 

Speaking of the ISS. 15 pressurized modules assembled in orbit. Granted, they had the shuttle, we don't any more. Mir assembled five modules without any crew, however. ISS has had on site refueling. We have the technology for orbital assembly.

 

But say the 25 ton hab (that's just the mars surface payload, by the way, the full interplanetary craft is 140 tons) is optimistic. A single 140 ton engine stage (Saturn V class launch required) could easily boost a 50 ton payload to Mars orbit. Said payload could land about 35 tons on the surface. So now you need to launch the crew in a Falcon Heavy and do a crewed orbital link up before departure. We've done that at least 28 times on ISS alone (I don't have the exact data, so that's just the number of crews that have docked). Need something even bigger? Using staging (a 40's technology) three heavy launches (2 engine sections, one payload) lands about 50 tons. That's still only two launches per year, methane can be stored indefinitely in space (with a tight launch schedule and hydrogen fuel you can land 60 tons). Even that requires just two link ups. Which we've done over fifty off already.

 

Again. Nothing about a Mars trip is implausible. We just don't know how to do it yet. Mostly because we haven't worked out the concrete details of tedious sweat-the-small-stuff. That's why it isn't on the agenda for the near future.

 

Yes and no. The Beagle (Dr. Zubrin's supposed name for the hab) has not been designed yet. The technology exists, it just needs to be put together and launched so we can actually get there. The "small stuff" remaining is engineering, not research; the building and testing of the actual stuff you need. And that's always going to have to be done; you can't skip it, can't wait to let it resolve itself. The reason it isn't on the agenda for the near future is that President Obama is leading a country with extreme dept, and any lofty sounding plan for Mars Now! is going to have pundits screaming for blood at an expense that is actually cheaper than the current NASA plans of building an orbital vehicle they can't launch.

 

EDIT: Wow. Two new post while I was typing. Mars Direct calls for 4 people, NASA's DRM calls for 6.

Transporting Equipment is easy and comparatively cheap, thats why we often fire 2-3 Satiltes at once into orbit.

Transporting squishi humans is expensive.

 

The cheapest we can do today is about 4000 USD per kilo for cargo. Into LEO. To get cargo to Mars takes about 5 kilo per kilo of cargo. To get it back again takes about the same. That's 25 kilo launched into orbit for each kilo you want to take back from Mars. The MArs Direct return vehicle weighs 10 tons when it enters Earth's atmosphere. Hence You'd need to launch 250 tons to get it back, compared to the 140 tons of the empty one and the refueling system. 440 million dollars saved.

 

Longest time in Space is currently 803 days and Nasa already figured out how to have sex in 0-G/low G.

 

A common rumor. NASA's policy is always to say "no comment" when asked and no papers have been published on the topic by NASA.

 

Other assorted arguments for Mars Direct:

Compatibility with other missions: A 25 ton pressure sealed hab with rocket landing technology can be used on the Moon as well. As can the pressurized closed cycle rover. A heavy booster can launch space stations extremely cheaply (compare a 420 ton space station put together in orbit from 20 ton pieces to a 420 ton station put together from three 140 ton pieces). A fuel production center on Mars can fuel asteroid belt missions (it's actually far cheaper to refuel there than go direct).

 

Leaves the hab, power plant, rovers and refinery behind: You want a permanent Mars colony? A twenty year Mars Direct program leaves you with quarters for over fifty people, plenty of EVA suits and infrastructure. Even better, a stripped down hab (no rovers, science lab, return supplies, etc) could serve as an 12 man transport. 24 men per launch if you allow for the use of a NERVA upper stage.

 

Alternative mission plans:

It might be prudent to talk about the different types of mission plans exist today (for reference purposes).

Mars Direct: As explained above. Uses local supplies and low tech solutions where ever possible. Also one of the cheapest.

Suicide Run: The best way to avoid the costs of returning to Earth is to not return to Earth. The Suicide Run mission plan involves a one way trip for everyone involved with the goal of establishing a colony from the very start.

Big dumb booster: Orion, Sea Dragon, it really doesn't matter. Overcomes the problem of supplies with pure brute force. By launching a bigger rocket.

The 90-day Plan: von Braun and NASA's plan, as cancelled by Bush Senior. Includes the need for an orbital assembly station, lunar mining operation and nuclear (NERVA) engine. And yet, for all that, they spend 30 days on the surface.

Design Reference Mission: NASA's current plan. Looks a lot like Mars Direct, but leaves a return vehicle in mars orbit, and only uses ISRU for launching into Mars orbit.

 

Personally I'm a fan of the Big dumb booster/suicide run combination. It gets us a colony, and does so fast, and it's one of the few missions where I have a chance of coming along. But Mars Direct has a greater chance of actually being used, and getting there is more important than getting a COLONY NOW!.

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Re: Mars Colony?

 

The most important question anyone proposing a MArs exp[edition, whether it is government or commercial, will be "Why? What does it do for us?".

 

Commercial enterprises do nothing unless there is money to be made from it. Certainly the effort will yield profitable ancillary technologies the way the push to the Moon did, but where is the commercial reward once you actually get there? What can you do on Mars that will bring you a profit on your enormous investment?

 

When government made the push to the moon in the 1960s, a lot of the impetus was the need to improve rocket technology to make practical ICBMs. The theory was that if we could put a man on the Moon we could drop a non-interceptable nuclear warhead on Moscow. We now have ICBMs that work reliably. But other than that and the ancillary technologies that resulted from the effort, the Moon was a dead end. There wasn't any there there. Nothing on the moon compelled us to return because there really wasn't anything on the Moon at all that would have benefited government or industry at the time. Even the propaganda value of landing on the moon faded away with remarkable rapidity. A similar push to Mars would fall on deaf ears for the most part.

 

We probably could go to Mars if we really wanted to, but why would we want to?

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