Mars Colony?

[RexMundi]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

The Biggest Barrier is the Naysayers. They tend to be quite Loud (but deserving of a front row seat at an Orion or Seadragon Launch ) Still, excellent point, and would toss rep that way but alas, must spread some around so on and so forth.....

 

~Rex....has found Seadragon Stuff....starts working it into a game.

[Gnaskar]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

Chris' date=' I never called you a utopian promoter, although Gnaskar's been listening to them too much. You're young. You're unrealistic. You've been taken. I don't wish wisdom on you, because it will come with age and aches and pains and regrets. Save those for later.[/quote']

 

And that's the last word in our Mars Direct debate. Between Ad Hominem, Argument From Age, Statement Of Conversion, Argument Ad Nauseam, Argument From Personal Astonishment and whatever fallacy it is to claim your opponent has been conned (probably Ad Hominem against Zubrin) this debate stopped proving useful information pages ago.*

 

*This last paragraph itself is an Ad Hominem attack, so should not be considered a part of my argument, merely an explanation for why I stopped.

 

However, I'm working on writing up the Sea Dragon based Project Romulus plan for colonization of Mars, and will of course provide that for use in the original topic.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

And that's the last word in our Mars Direct debate. Between Ad Hominem, Argument From Age, Statement Of Conversion, Argument Ad Nauseam, Argument From Personal Astonishment and whatever fallacy it is to claim your opponent has been conned (probably Ad Hominem against Zubrin) this debate stopped proving useful information pages ago.*

 

*This last paragraph itself is an Ad Hominem attack, so should not be considered a part of my argument, merely an explanation for why I stopped.

 

However, I'm working on writing up the Sea Dragon based Project Romulus plan for colonization of Mars, and will of course provide that for use in the original topic.

 

Let us now narrowly focus our argument on a hypothetical machine that will draw in 800 tons of Martian atmosphere, either in a continuous run, or in the course of six days and store it as a feedstock for a chemical reactor that will run continuously for up to a year. Which I have a little difficulty wrapping my mind around in terms of physical operations, but never mind.

 

i) Has such a machine been designed? No. But we wasted all of our precious time with the claim that it had been prototyped and tested decades ago. Upon investigation, those claims referred to a demonstrator of the practicality of the reaction itself. Given that the feedstocks were different, I'm not even sure that this was demonstrated.

 

ii) Has the developmental infrastructure been built? Even the need for it was not acknowledged until I pointed to the beginnings of it at NASA Ames; at which point the Martian environment wind tunnel was embraced as further evidence of the practicability of Mars Direct. When I pointed out the absence of any means of simulating Martian gravity (of pretty obvious salience to the design of an engine), I was countered with an irrelevant reference to the Perfect Gas Law. We are, again, not talking about the chemical reaction itself, but the mechanical operation of the engine. Once we get that nailed down, we can move on to the reactor.

 

iii) When attention was brought, again, to the problems of filtration, lubrication and viscosity, which are so pressing that armies and manufacturers routinely operate environmental test centres to prove equipment for use or sale in Iraq or Canada, the argument was waved off with magical claims about being able to avoid "dust storms" (as though particulate in the air were confined to storms, or that the compressor's operation wouldn't produce additional particulate) for either six days or an entire year, depending on how magical the engine itself is assumed to be. Oh, and the claim that since "all" Martian dust might be "magnetic," we might be able to use magnetic filtration. Okay, fine. Design it.

iv) When my disparaging use of "magical" was challenged, and I spelled out the difficulties, I was met with deafening silence and bold statements of faith about the human potential.

v) I replied to youthful bold statements of faith with the cynical experience of the old, including about a million links to over-ambitious technological failures of the past.

vi) I was denounced for contributing no useful information, for getting personal, and for being a "naysayer."

vii) I anticipate the further objection that all of this development can so be done overnight. I could say, "Listen to what the historian of technology is telling you: No. It. Can't." But that would be an argument from authority, so I offered all of my links instead. And they were ignored. I'm sorry. That's the way that a historian argues.

 

Sigh. Again. There is no technological barrier standing in the way of a manned Mars exploration. But there is a vast developmental gap between what we now know and can do on the way, and at Mars, and where we need to be. Take my specific example: how would we get ISRU, a great idea, and, I am sure, the key to Mars exploration, working? We should send running prototypes to Mars.

 

This hasn't been done. The development hasn't been done. We can't even launch boosters from Earth empty, and fill them up in orbit right now.

 

The development will take some time. Which is why the manned exploration of Mars will happen. In time.*

 

Am I repeating myself? Yes. I'm repeating myself. Because my objections are being ignored or willfully misconstrued.

 

But I am not saying "nay." I'm saying that a realistic timetable is quite long. That's it. It's all I'm saying. The endless prolongation of this thread by people unwilling to take my fairly well-informed objections on board thus seem to me to justify a measure of repetition. I'm not sure that I can say why they justify it, since this exercise has been about as profitable as arguing with a door-to-door evangelist, but let me give it another try. This magical thinking erodes trust in the effectiveness of NASA, and, by extension, government in general, and that's not a good thing.

 

 

 

*Project Orion would obviate many, albeit not all, of these difficulties. Its impracticalities lie elsewhere, above all, in the wanton expenditure of scarce uranium.

[Gnaskar]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

Table of Contents:

 

• The Romulus Project
  
• The Sea Dragon
  
• Landing Habitats
  
• Mission Summary
  
• Phase one: Finding a site for the base.
  
• Phase two: Human verification.
  
• Phase three: Colonization.
  
• Phase four: Profit?
  
• A Quick Guide to Payload, or How to Make Your Own Mission (This part applies to all non-Orion Mars Missions)
  

The Romulus Project

Well, I had to name my plan something. Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome (which, as we all know, wasn’t built in a day), claimed by some to be the son of Mars, makes an obvious name for a Mars colonization project. And let’s be clear, the goal of a mission to Mars is to colonize it. No “flags and footprints”, no “been there, done that”, not even a 600 day mission but a permanent research base on another planet.

 

The idea of The Romulus Project is based on some lessons learned from Mars Direct, the Space Shuttle Program and the International Space Station. And the main lesson learned is this: Orbital Assembly is expensive and complex, well beyond the costs of building a bigger rocket. Or as a more general rule: Don’t muck about.

 

The Sea Dragon

Made mostly from 8mm steel plating in a submarine construction facility, but featuring the single largest rocket engine ever built, the Sea Dragon is an awesome sight. Its 150 meters long, 23 meters in diameter, and towed out to its ocean launch site by an aircraft carrier (which also carries the payload, refueling system and mission command out). A launching Sea Dragon moves with a force of 360 Mega Newtons, 45 times more than the current record holding rocket engine, the Soviet RD-171, and 11 times the biggest rocket ever launched (The Soviet Energia, which used four RD-171’s for its first stage).

 

The two stage Sea Dragon could lift a completed International Space Station into orbit with a single launch. Put a third stage on top instead and it can take 180 tons into a low energy (250 day) Mars Transfer Orbit or 160 tons into a higher energy (180 day) Mars Transfer Orbit. You could go even faster, but payload fraction drops off rapidly and aerobraking gets more difficult the faster you’re going.

 

With current technology going from Low Mars Orbit to the surface requires about 38% of the ship’s mass for braking systems and landing rockets. That leaves us with 110 tons landed from a low energy (cargo) transfer and 100 tons landed from a high energy (crewed) transfer. This can be improved slightly with careful optimization of the stages, but makes a decent base line assumption for a rocket designed to be cheap rather than efficient.

 

The Sea Dragon is an expensive launch (a rough estimate would be a billion dollars initially, brought down to about half that within 20 years), but with a capacity three times anything else on the planet, it’s still cheaper per kilo of payload than any alternative. It’s also going to be expensive to design (to the point where it may be worthwhile to team up with SpaceX or some other agent with experience with multiengine launches (in the age the spawned the Sea Dragon getting multiple engines to work safely together was considered an enormously complex computing challenge; today my calculator could probably do it and building a bigger engine is considered a complex challenge).

 

Landing Habitats

There are some pretty definitive limits to how much you can safely land in one piece on a planet. Especially if that something has crew inside. As these limits are completely unknown at the moment, I choose to go with 50 tons; Well, technically 80 tons, 50 of which is useful payload. If that offends your sensibilities feel free to assume I mean two 25 ton habitats whenever I talk about a 50 ton one.

 

The standard way of landing something like this is having it ride in on a shield, looking vaguely like a mushroom falling upside down. The shield is discarded a few kilometers from the surface, and the lander starts burning retros. In less pop-sci-fi vernacular, we use rockets to brake. Smaller (up to about 20 tons) payloads can also use parachutes to help slow down. Assuming everything works correctly, the payload lands gently, hitting the ground at about 0.5m/s. Even so, most mission plans call for the crew to be suited up in these kinds of operations. It doesn’t take a very hard landing to split parts of the hull.

 

While we’re on the subject there are a few traits of all Martian habs, and for that matter rovers, that bares mentioning. First of all, Mars is cold. And not just Norway cold. The Martian equator is about as warm as northern Norway, and it gets colder the further you get from it. At the poles CO2 is frozen most of the year. As such, pressurized areas on Mars have a large number of small Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTG) imbedded in the hull, that heat the interior and provides something for the air to leach from without harming the crew.

 

What they’ll do with the Extra Vehicle Activity (EVA) suits I don’t know, though current ideas involve a backpack mounted RTG and a network of heat conductive wire. I’m not sure how I’d feel about being heated by a nuclear backpack, even knowing that Plutonium 238 is only dangerous to me if I eat it (or touch it; it’s warm, that’s why it’s there in the first place), but at least it works.

 

Mission Summary

Phase one: Finding a site for the base. A satellite network and twenty rovers are boosted into Mars orbit with the goal of finding viable colony sites. The rovers offer detailed evaluations of up to twenty potential areas.

 

Phase two: Human verification. Depending on the exact technologies available either 3 crews of 3 or 5 crews of 2 are launched to examine the top potential sites. The crews are equipped with a rocket capable of sending them to the selected site upon the completion of the study.

 

Phase three: Colonization. Human colonization begins at a rate of 56 per launch window (about 26 per year). A large and semi self sufficient base is built, with on site production of more and more vital resources established. Wide spread planetary research commences.

 

Phase four: Profit? Reusable commercial transportation to Mars established, with maintenance costs inflicted on “native” Martians rather than Terran investors or emigrants. Prospects of mining on Mars examined, as well as Mars based asteroid belt exploitation. The operation will never be profitable to the initial investors, but profit motives may at some point begin to drive the effort to colonize Mars.

 

Phase one: Finding a site for the base.

In this phase a 100 ton satellite network, powered by Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) is put in orbit around Mars, along with 20 2.5 ton rovers and their landing gear. Over the course of 2 years this network will map the planet and it’s weather patterns, search for locations with accessible water, as well as exploitable local resources. The network consists of 30 light (1-2 ton) satellites for Low Mars Orbit examinations, 9 dedicated short range communication satellites providing GPS signals and planetary communications for later phases, 3 high powered long range communications satellites for rapid Earth-Mars communication, and 30 disposable light (up to half a ton) probes.

 

The top twenty sites get a visit from a rover, each of which is equipped with a ten meter drilling rig for deep sample retrieval, a deep ground penetrating radar, and a small science lab geared toward soil analysis. With access to a small machine shop, all of this equipment can be removed, turning the scientific rover into an automated transport truck. The rovers are also powered by RTGs (the same model as the satellites, in fact, for economy of scale purposes).

 

Phase two: Human verification.

In the second launch window a pair of Sea Dragons are launched. One with three hab modules (each weighing 30 tons) and 5 spare communication satellites, and one with three 40 ton, fully fueled Mars Ascent Vehicles (MAV). The hab modules are each met by a crew of three in orbit. The MAVs will stay in Mars orbit until a site has been determined, when one will land at each failed site, with the last acting as a spare.

 

Should in-situ propellant development (ISPD) be available, five 20 ton habs and 8 unfueled MAVs (each weighing 10 tons, but with a 5 ton refinery system for each included) with be sent instead, and the crew for each hab reduced to two. These will land at the top three (five) colony sites along with a MAV. One MAV lands at each site, and we have three spare should something go wrong with the propellant production.

 

Note that while the MAV launch seems to violate our landing capacity by being 120 tons of payload to the Martian surface, the extra 10 tons are in the form of rocket engines that are both used for a soft landing and the later launch. They would normally be counted amongst the 38% payload wasted for landing on Mars, but count as payload in this instance.

 

Phase three: Colonization.

A pair of Sea Dragons leave Earth in the third launch window, each carrying two 50 ton habitats and a crew of 28 (14 per hab). Each hab is a 3 story structure with each story slightly smaller than the one beneath (diameters ranging from 11 to 13 meters). The top floor is a storage/research center (storage in flight, research center on arrival). The central floor consists of a ring of 14 6m^2 bed rooms, with bathrooms in the central area. The first floor has the communal parts of the structure, including kitchen, living room, gym and several offices. The central part of this floor, the mess hall, is protected against solar flares, and works as a storm cellar against solar activity.

 

The habs additionally have a number of rovers, construction tools and power sources with them (making up about 10 tons worth per hab). Note that these first habs don’t leave with a full crew (each hab launches two or three short), leaving space for the crew that left two years ago.

 

The first crew of 56 Martians have the following priorities for their first (Martian 668 day) year: Become self sufficient with regards to food production (including paving the way for a later transport to bring chickens, salmon and goats), obtain a steady supply of water, construct large scale underground habitat (capable of supporting 500 people), and create a materials industry capable of supporting the population with bulk materials (steel, aluminum, bricks, concrete, rebar, glass, wires, fuel, air, water) leaving only highly technical equipment to be imported.

 

The next several launch windows feature three launches. Two with more habitats and one pure cargo launch. As the underground habitat on Mars is finished, the sent habs will start featuring bunk beds for the crew, doubling their capacity for crew (at the expense of bringing less equipment). The first cargo hauler will carry up a nuclear reactor, giving the crew the energy they need for any early challenge.

 

Phase four: Profit?

In addition to survival, planetary research and expansion of reach for such research (by setting up remote refueling stations around the base camp, or even a small satellite community near some interesting feature [with its own food production, allowing expeditions to resupply there]) joint Martian/Terran efforts will go towards developing a reusable methane Single Stage To Orbit (SSTO) craft for Martian operations. When such a vehicle exists transport to Mars becomes much cheaper. A methane powered rocket launchable with a Sea Dragon can take about 120 tons to Mars Orbit. If it could be refueled there, it could be returned to Earth for another trip. This still requires about one Sea Dragon launch per two trips to bring up the fuel needed, but with more people sent per trip and fewer launches per trip, it’s clear how this becomes cheaper.

 

Even if orbital refueling is not available a Martian SSTO still makes the mission more efficient, as each Sea Dragon launch can put 160 to 180 tons in Mars Orbit, where the SSTOs can retrieve them (increasing payload capacity by 38%; or effectively more as the payload no longer needs to be sturdy enough to land on its own). A Martian SSTO is also an invaluable tool for long distance travel on Mars; allowing research posts to be set up anywhere on the planet.

 

A late stage Earth launch might consist of a 50 ton transport designed to make a number of trips between Earth and Mars. It would be fully refueled and possibly even resupplied in Mars orbit (meaning no further heavy launches for Earth), putting much of the cost of colonization to Mars instead. This could eventually allow private citizens the chance to buy a one way trip to Mars for about a million dollars (assuming the most efficient launch cost of today becomes the normal launch costs of the future). Each such transport can take one group of 30 colonists each four years (every second launch window), so only eight would be required to maintain the 112 per launch window travel rate of the early transports. Assuming the transport is rated for about twenty trips they’d be ten times as price efficient as the early transports.

 

If water is found to be plentiful on Mars, as is consistent with current understanding, another potential advancement for a transmartian transport would be the Nuclear Thermal Rocket (several prototypes of these were built in the 60’s; google NERVA if you want the retro-tech variant). An NTR driven transport could make the trip with about 100 tons, or do a one way delivery with about 275 tons. (Yes, a 1975 Mars Mission in an alternative universe could have landed 170 tons on Mars in a single launch.)

 

Mars is ideally suited to launch expeditions into the asteroid belt or into the outer solar system, making it a valuable outpost for later exploration and resource utilization. Armed with cheap access to orbit, plenty of farmable land, significant supplies of metallic materials, and (potentially) cheap geothermal energy supply, Mars has the potential to become an economic powerhouse within the solar system.

 

A Quick Guide to Payload, or How to Make Your Own Mission

 

First of all, a lot of these calculations are based on work by Robert Zubrin, and are estimates only. This is simply a collection of short hands used to avoid having to do detailed examinations of all designs.

 

All of these percentages are Payload fractions, that is "how much of the vehicle is not engines, fuel, tankage, etc, but actually the stuff I want with me." When combining them simply multiply. A 3% launch followed by a 33% trip to Mars Orbit is an even 1%.

 

A hydrogen-fueled rocket on the launch pad, ready to launch its payload into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is about 1-5% payload, with 3% being a typical number. Bigger rockets have smaller percentages. Putting stuff in LEO costs typically 10,000 dollars per kilo for NASA in 2015. For the private sector, the cheapest you can get is about 2,500$ for cargo or 5,000$ for crew rated transport. With near future technologies this can drop to the 1,500$ range, but much cheaper than that isn’t expected.

 

Payload fractions going from LEO to Low Mars Orbit varies extremely based on the rocket used, whether aerobraking is involved, when you leave and how fast you want to get there. A standard hydrogen rocket can do 33% in a slow (250 day) run or 29% on a fast (180 day) run. Methane rockets (who can store their fuel for years, unlike hydrogen) does from 20%-25% percent (they remain untested, so these specs are based on estimates). Nuclear Thermal Rockets running on hydrogen 53% in a slow run or 50% in a fast run. If you run it on CO2 instead, allowing it to refuel for free on Mars, it’s roughly equivalent to a standard hydrogen rocket. You can do up to 80% with Nuclear Electric or Nuclear Ion, but those take over a year to get there and cost to hell and back.

 

Modern Mars Landing systems make up about 38% of the weight, for a payload fraction of 62%. A SSTO system in place on Mars would make that 100%, but requires some heavy infrastructure on Mars.

 

Launching from mars with local produced (or long term storable) methane gives a payload fraction or 10-12% to Mars orbit. A reusable SSTO does maybe 5-10%.

 

Getting from Mars back to Earth orbit is about the same as getting them there in the first place.

 

PS: I had a three page essay based on Lawmower Boy's last post, but I'll leave it with only this:

 

I anticipate the further objection that all of this development can so be done overnight.

I'll reiterate my fundamental argument: We have all the technology needed for a Mars Direct style program. This does not mean it should be put together and sent without being tested. It does not mean there aren't significant engineering challenges left. My point is that these engineering challenges can't be solved without actually setting the goal. A Mars rated compressor is never going to be developed except as a part of mission to Mars that needs one. Waiting solves nothing.

Looks to me like we have another failure to communicate. I'm saying we can and should start a Mars program ASAP' date=' which would take some time to get ready to launch. Engineering takes time.[...'] I'm not saying we can launch tomorrow. I'm saying we'll never launch unless we start engineering.

It can' date=' and must, be pretested.[/quote']

We can't launch tomorrow. We can't even launch in the December launch window. Heck' date=' I have some doubts that we could launch this decade. But we won't be able to launch next decade, either, unless we start doing the engineering. [/quote']

Two people shouting past each other in cyberspace isn’t a very fruitful debate, hence my leaving it.

 

PSS: I miss Nyrath. I'd have loved to hear his view on Mars Direct and the Romulus Project.

[RexMundi]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

For a Non Orion mission that's pretty solid. Sea Dragon is making it further up my list of favorites and it's a shame we don't have a few ready to roll right now. The sheer money saved for being able to launch the ISS in one go alone woulda been worth the cost of a Sea Dragon.... Hell, Endeavor cost what, 1.7 Billion to build, so Sea Dragon is already cheaper.

 

The minimum cost for a Shuttle Launch is 450 Million (raw) though the numbers for 2008 show roughly a Billion and a Half per Launch (though that number factors in total cost like catering gatorade and cheese sandwiches and such). ISS used around 35 Shuttle Missions, not counting the Russians bit of help.....so that alone rakes us over the coals for 52.5 Billion combined.

 

Seriously, are we just STUPID when it comes to our Space Program? How Hard is it to look at some paper and go, "Gee Whiz, if we use the Shuttle to do this it's gonna cost a lot by golly, Why not build a Sea Dragon and just do it in one shot?"

 

Mars by 2025? Shoulda been Mars in '78. Nope apparently we gotta do everything the Hard Way.

 

~Rex

[Gnaskar]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

Seriously' date=' are we just STUPID when it comes to our Space Program? How Hard is it to look at some paper and go, "Gee Whiz, if we use the Shuttle to do this it's gonna cost a lot by golly, Why not build a Sea Dragon and just do it in one shot?"[/quote']

 

The dream behind the Shuttle was that it could be launched once a month for virtually nothing, do maintenance, experiments and construction in space, and come back two weeks later. Once it was pointed out that they didn't actually have anything planned that would demand sending up 300 tons a year, let alone the 6,000 provided by the whole fleet, they came up with the idea to make the ISS.

 

Then the shuttle dream died, and it turned out that it could only launch once every six months, it cost more than planned and the first stage wasn't reusable. The fleet was down sized, and the ISS, originally a five year experience become a 30 year marathon and the single most expensive thing ever built. Someone should probably have pulled the plug back then, but the shuttle created jobs in just about every state (part of why it cost so much in the first place) so was the Senate's darling.

[Cancer]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

I will say, only tangentially and not as a judgment, that the Pu-238 supply is rather scarce now; more than one mission is effectively scrapped because the US is no longer making Pu-238, and the Russians are playing gamees with what they have.

[McCoy]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

Let us now narrowly focus our argument on a hypothetical machine that will draw in 800 tons of Martian atmosphere' date=' either in a continuous run, or in the course of six days and store it as a feedstock for a chemical reactor that will run continuously for up to a year. Which I have a little difficulty wrapping my mind around in terms of physical operations, but never mind.[/quote']

• Agreed prototyping needs to be done, was mistaken in believing it had been done.
  
• AFAIK no Mars probe to date has been prototyped under simulated Martian gravity.
  
• Restating my contention that you are exaggerating the particulate problem, gravity works and how much particulates can 7 millibars of atmosphere support?
  
• Restating that the sample return mission would be a good place to field test making methane and oxygen from H2 and indigenous CO2.
  
• Restating my contention that "political will," not time, is the missing ingredient, if we had the funding we'd be doing the prototyping.
  
• Restate the saving Grace of Mars Direct is that we would have the ISRU and other infrastructure on Mars and working before we have to commit a crew. If it does not preform as anticipated, we don't launch the humans. You do not often get a chance to run your machine for a year and a half break-in before anyone depends on it.

[McCoy]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

I will say' date=' only tangentially and not as a judgment, that the Pu-238 supply is rather scarce now; more than one mission is effectively scrapped because the US is no longer making Pu-238, and the Russians are playing gamees with what they have.[/quote']

 

 

There are no words

[Clonus]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

[*]AFAIK no Mars probe to date has been prototyped under simulated Martian gravity.

 

Of course there was a long and illustrious career of failure until the last couple of Mars probes which experienced unprecedented and entirely unexpected success.

 

[*]Restating my contention that you are exaggerating the particulate problem, gravity works and how much particulates can 7 millibars of atmosphere support?

 

Well if the gravity is very low and the particulates very fine...I really have no idea.

 

 

 

 

 

[*]Restating that the sample return mission would be a good place to field test making methane and oxygen from H2 and indigenous CO2.

 

Something like that might be feasible with the modern budget too.

[RexMundi]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

The dream behind the Shuttle was that it could be launched once a month for virtually nothing, do maintenance, experiments and construction in space, and come back two weeks later. Once it was pointed out that they didn't actually have anything planned that would demand sending up 300 tons a year, let alone the 6,000 provided by the whole fleet, they came up with the idea to make the ISS.

 

Then the shuttle dream died, and it turned out that it could only launch once every six months, it cost more than planned and the first stage wasn't reusable. The fleet was down sized, and the ISS, originally a five year experience become a 30 year marathon and the single most expensive thing ever built. Someone should probably have pulled the plug back then, but the shuttle created jobs in just about every state (part of why it cost so much in the first place) so was the Senate's darling.

 

Yeah I know but one could hope, that on the next go around there will be a few smart people to point backwards and go "Really? This Again? What about that Sea Dragon thing on the books?".....Or other options. It's only a matter of time before we go looking to the Russians to launch something and the only thing we hear back from that side of the world is a large BOOM.

 

~Rex...

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

Yeah I know but one could hope, that on the next go around there will be a few smart people to point backwards and go "Really? This Again? What about that Sea Dragon thing on the books?".....Or other options. It's only a matter of time before we go looking to the Russians to launch something and the only thing we hear back from that side of the world is a large BOOM.

 

~Rex...

Like the kind of BOOM you hear with 800 sequential bombs going off in a big chain?

[RexMundi]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

Like the kind of BOOM you hear with 800 sequential bombs going off in a big chain?

 

Bah, where I want to launch an Orion the only thing that would hear it, would be Penguins. I grew up on Missile, MAC, and SAC bases.....noise is irrelevant to me, but failure when such needs not be, that's the annoying part.

 

~Rex

[assault]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

Bah' date=' where I want to launch an Orion the only thing that would hear it, would be Penguins.[/quote']

 

There's no penguins in the USA, and I seriously doubt it could be launched anywhere else.

 

Rest of world to USA: How many nukes?

[RexMundi]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

I've got a Multi Thousand Ton Launch Vehicle and Hundreds if not Thousands of "Propulsion Devices". I'll launch it wherever I feel like it. Best place to Launch an Orion from would be either on a Barge up in the Arctic, or In the Middle of Antarctica.

 

I am rather fond of Gnaskar's Outline there as well. That has some nifty game potential as well not to mention real world potential.

 

~Rex

[Cancer]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

I think also when going from surface to 300 km up, some number of those 800 explosions are up in EMP-making space. That depends on details, of course, and I haven't looked into those.

[RexMundi]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

Not to worried about the EMP. Besides You only have to launch ONE Orion. After that it's Cake. Combine some programs and you even avoid that hassle. Really liking the Sea Dragon stuff now that I found more stuff to read about it, and if I can't have Orion, I want Sea Dragon, and Ideally, I want Both.

 

Consider, Russia (back in the day) or China in this regard, because that's the Mindset that's gonna get back into Real Space again. The "Look a Protester!" *Runs them over with a Tank* or the "Noooooo, Not the Environment, Think of the Penguins!!!!!" *Extends Giant Red Flag Wrapped Middle Finger and hits the Orion Launch button*.....Eventually, it's gonna get done, and if it isn't done by us, there ain't a lot to hide under when the rocks start falling. What held true during the Moon Race still holds true today.

 

~Rex...says folks need to look at the possibilities, and not assume that the rest of the world is gonna give a crap about a signed piece of paper, or World Rights and such when they decide to go for the gusto. Sea Dragon looks like a Lot of Gusto, just think of the Marketing Revenue if you Paint a Sea Dragon like a Can of *Insert Beer of Choice*.....

[Gnaskar]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

Sea Dragon looks like a Lot of Gusto' date=' just think of the Marketing Revenue if you Paint a Sea Dragon like a Can of *Insert Beer of Choice*.....[/quote']

 

Or have the big car producers scrambling to give you money so the rovers on the Mars Colony can have their logo on front.

Or having the fast food chains fight over what wrapping to have around the first meal eaten on another planet.

Or TV rights for the big-brother 24 hour cameras in the hab.

Or a seat on the aircraft carrier for the launch (camera crews extra, of course).

Or the first video game played, the first book read, first movie seen, first roleplaying system used, which TV channel is beamed to the crew.

Or the logos on the EVA suits, brand of clothing worn under, type of boot used, shipyard that built the launcher, country who's citizen was first out the airlock.

Or whether the computers used are Macs or Windows based, Dell, HP, Amilo, etc.

Or auctioning out the first words spoken on Mars.

 

I don't like this kind of marketing, but I need 50 billion to do Mars Direct, or 150 billion to do Romulus. If I can't get that from NASA...

 

Hm, looking at all the options, I'm temped to start up an indiegogo.com account and see if the money actually is there.

[Christopher]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

There's no penguins in the USA, and I seriously doubt it could be launched anywhere else.

 

Rest of world to USA: How many nukes?

Less than what was fired between 1945 - 1998. And they use the minimum critical mass, so it will also be less radiation:

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

...but I need 50 billion to do Mars Direct...

 

No. You. Don't.

 

Mars Direct is impossible. We've been through this. Pick at a "detail," and the whole thing falls apart. I think it's pretty clear that this is a fantasy number. A little more respect for your erstwhile interlocutors, please.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

And, Chris: minimum nuclear bursting charge still does not mean minimum radiation. Here. Knock yourself out.

[McCoy]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

No. You. Don't.

 

Mars Direct is impossible.

Did I miss something? When did it go from "it can't be done as quickly as the proponents say" to "it's impossible."

 

What was the insurmountable obstacle?

[Christopher]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

Mars Direct is impossible.

But it won't be, if we actually start workign towards it.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

What I meant was that while we can go to Mars, given time and effort, the precise details of Mars Direct (that is, a 50 billion dollar project doable with current technology) make it an impossibility. See Portree, 91ff. The ERV was judged too small, a docking manoeuvre in Mars orbit was rejected as too dangerous, and the weight estimate for the Mars landing vehicle was raised by 50%. The new, "scrubbed" design reference mission (Portree, 96ff) of circa 1997, often described as a modified Mars Direct, is back to using next-generation drives. The actual Design Reference Mission seems to call for nuclear thermal rockets.

 

As usual, that has led to calls to use the more realistic VASIMR and solar-electric drives instead. At which point we're back to relying on orbital infrastructure and working on the International Space Station. And, so, welcome to 2011.

[Gnaskar]

Re: Mars Colony?

 

but I need 50 billion to do Mars Direct

 

No. You. Don't.

 

Mars Direct is impossible. We've been through this. Pick at a "detail," and the whole thing falls apart. I think it's pretty clear that this is a fantasy number. A little more respect for your erstwhile interlocutors, please.

 

I'm sorry. I should have said: "The Johnson Space Center Costing Group (Aka NASA) estimated a cost of 55 billion 1993 dollars for 3 six man Mars-Semi Direct missions (a variant that includes a Mars Orbiter for more space on the return trip) landing a decade later, including 'the development of all required technology'*, which I think I could get down to 50 billion by going with a 4 man crew and dropping the orbiter (thus saving myself six 140 ton launches with a crew rated transport, or an estimated 4.2 billion in launch costs alone)."

 

*Source is The Case For Mars; take that as you will.

 

We did not agree that Mars Direct is impossible. That was not the conclusion.

But I am not saying "nay." I'm saying that a realistic timetable is quite long. That's it. It's all I'm saying. The endless prolongation of this thread by people unwilling to take my fairly well-informed objections on board thus seem to me to justify a measure of repetition.

Look. I'm not arguing that the Sabatier process won't work. I'm arguing that it will take some time to build a Mars-ready prototype.

As I have said many times before, my only issue here is that we have to accept that all of this prototyping will take many years to do.

There seems to be a failure of communication here. I'm not arguing that the ISRU is impractical. I'm arguing that the Mars Direct developmental timeline is unrealistic. I personally don't think that even 10 years would be enough time for such an ambitious developmental programme; but a century seems far too long.

 

To summarise, and perhaps I should have put this more clearly at an earlier point in the discussion, it will take a good length of time for us to develop the technology required for Mars Direct or various related projects.

 

That is, it will take time.

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.

 

Sorry. Quoting someone contradicting themselves is a low blow as debates go, but come on, nothing is truly impossible.

Edit: Cross posting. Always a drag.