Got Mars?

octatonic

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/11/opinions/america-will-take-giant-leap-to-mars-barack-obama/index.html

Anyone else excited by the thought of this?
I cannot believe that I might possibly get to live at a time where human beings are able to colonise another planet.
Just incredible.

Bellycaster

Sod that, imagine the Shipping Costs from Andertons

Moss

As long as they send Trump, yes

littlegreenman

Where the fuck is my flying car?

WezV

It's good they are talking about it again.... seems like cynicism and a lack of imagination will be more of a barrier these days.  The public really need to be excited by the prospect.

Surely we need moonbase alpha first... but the moon isn't exciting enough

HAL9000

littlegreenman said:

Where the fuck is my flying car?

Who else here remembers watching Tomorrow's World on TV?

We were promised flying cars,  x-ray specs, space tourism, and a working week which seemingly only involved turning up on Monday mornings to turn the machines on.

And what have we actually got from TW's Aladdin's cave of goodies?

Velcro, and some bendy metal. That's what!

axisus

I knew we'd get there one day. We are nearly out of Mars bars and that just can't happen.

ICBM

Right now I'd put a small amount of money on the Chinese getting there first.


CNN: "Editor's Note: Barack Obama is President of the United States"

octatonic

ICBM said:

Right now I'd put a small amount of money on the Chinese getting there first.


CNN: "Editor's Note: Barack Obama is President of the United States"

I'm thinking it will be private industry before a nation.

Chalky

HAL9000 said:

littlegreenman said:

Where the fuck is my flying car?

Who else here remembers watching Tomorrow's World on TV?

We were promised flying cars,  x-ray specs, space tourism, and a working week which seemingly only involved turning up on Monday mornings to turn the machines on.

And what have we actually got from TW's Aladdin's cave of goodies?

Velcro, and some bendy metal. That's what!

I remember Tomorrow's World being adamant that the world was cooling down for the next mini Ice Age....

RocknRollDave

F#ck flying cars and all that, Tomorrow's World promised me CD's that wouldn't scratch...........still waiting, Maggie.

ESBlonde

At least TW taught us how to spread strawberry jam onto our CDs, I was doing it wrong before then.

RocknRollDave

ESBlonde said:

At least TW taught us how to spread strawberry jam onto our CDs, I was doing it wrong before then.

"What's that racket....?"


"I'm listening to the jam...."

digitalscream

I suspect he's underestimating things a bit. There's a launch window roughly every 26 months (give or take a bit), which means that any round trip would need to be about 21 months long (relative orbits).

Given the fact that sending a bare crew (5 or 6 people) would probably require launching over 1000t of stuff (people, supplies for nearly two years, radiation shielding, fuel etc) and we can currently only manage to send about 20% of that into Earth orbit while using an enormous amount of fuel, it strikes me that there's a significant problem which it's most likely going to take more than a couple of decades to fix.

Of course, this is all irrelevant, because that piece is more about self-aggrandising for the US than it is about human endeavour and manned exploration of the solar system.

hugbot

The upside of going to mars isn't whats there (rocks, maybe some deuterium), its with the technological progress that would result from trying to meet the challenge.

ICBM

octatonic said:

I'm thinking it will be private industry before a nation.

I doubt it, not least due to the cost. It's not like launching satellites or even going to the Moon.

That's one reason why I think it will be China - the US may be on the way out as an economic superpower, and more likely that China will be the dominant power in the likely time scale of Mars exploration, which I doubt is going to be within the next twenty years and probably not thirty.

digitalscream said:

Given the fact that sending a bare crew (5 or 6 people) would probably require launching over 1000t of stuff (people, supplies for nearly two years, radiation shielding, fuel etc) and we can currently only manage to send about 20% of that into Earth orbit while using an enormous amount of fuel, it strikes me that there's a significant problem which it's most likely going to take more than a couple of decades to fix.

It's also going to be much easier for a nation which may accept the idea that the first explorers aren't coming back - the US has already ruled that out. By far the most difficult part of the return trip is getting back off Mars into orbit - it's not like launching from the Moon where there is no atmosphere to cause trouble. You have to use a large rocket and build something much more like a launch platform on Earth, which will take huge resources and a lot of people on Mars.

So I think the only way to do it is to establish a colony first, then ship in the components for the return vehicle and assemble them there.

digitalscream

ICBM said:

digitalscream said:

Given the fact that sending a bare crew (5 or 6 people) would probably require launching over 1000t of stuff (people, supplies for nearly two years, radiation shielding, fuel etc) and we can currently only manage to send about 20% of that into Earth orbit while using an enormous amount of fuel, it strikes me that there's a significant problem which it's most likely going to take more than a couple of decades to fix.

It's also going to be much easier for a nation which may accept the idea that the first explorers aren't coming back - the US has already ruled that out. By far the most difficult part of the return trip is getting back off Mars into orbit - it's not like launching from the Moon where there is no atmosphere to cause trouble. You have to use a large rocket and build something much more like a launch platform on Earth, which will take huge resources and a lot of people on Mars.

So I think the only way to do it is to establish a colony first, then ship in the components for the return vehicle and assemble them there.

One thing they could do is assemble the outbound craft in Earth orbit - that would simplify matters significantly and get around the problem of trying to get 1000+ tonnes of stuff and people off this planet.

Establishing a colony (of any size, really) would be a very, very time-consuming process given the time between available launch windows. You'd have to send one craft with enough resources for them to survive and basically twiddle their thumbs until the next window, when you send three or four haulers full of construction materials. Then repeat that pattern for the next 8 years or so...very, very costly...and what happens if the country (or company) in question runs out of money during that time?

The bonus is that gravity is much weaker on Mars (something like 10% of the mass of Earth), so reaching escape velocity has to be easier in absolute terms than for the outbound journey. The problem, I think, is the fact that you'd need a minimum of 2 years' of supplies in order for the crew to survive until the next launch window. Of course, if they miss that then they're utterly boned.

ICBM

digitalscream said:

One thing they could do is assemble the outbound craft in Earth orbit - that would simplify matters significantly and get around the problem of trying to get 1000+ tonnes of stuff and people off this planet.

The outbound craft, yes - which is also the return vehicle from Mars orbit to Earth - it's the Mars launch vehicle which is the difficult bit.

digitalscream said:

Establishing a colony (of any size, really) would be a very, very time-consuming process given the time between available launch windows. You'd have to send one craft with enough resources for them to survive and basically twiddle their thumbs until the next window, when you send three or four haulers full of construction materials. Then repeat that pattern for the next 8 years or so...very, very costly...and what happens if the country (or company) in question runs out of money during that time?

Exactly. Or some crisis happens in the colony in the mean time - no means of support or rescue.

digitalscream said:

The bonus is that gravity is much weaker on Mars (something like 10% of the mass of Earth), so reaching escape velocity has to be easier in absolute terms than for the outbound journey. The problem, I think, is the fact that you'd need a minimum of 2 years' of supplies in order for the crew to survive until the next launch window. Of course, if they miss that then they're utterly boned.

I think it's about a third rather than a tenth - that's not the big problem, it's the atmosphere. Although it's much thinner than Earth's it's still a significant barrier to getting from the surface to orbit and would need something much more sophisticated than the little single-stage ascent vehicle on the Moon. (And I'm still surprised that was capable of reaching orbit!)

Whereas if you went with the full intention of establishing a self-supporting non-(at least initially)-returning colony in the first place, with building and other projects to be getting on with while they're waiting for rocket components to arrive, it becomes easier to see how it could be done. Of course that does make the initial outbound trip much more expensive and risky too, if you're talking about sending a lot more people.

It's not an easy project though. It dwarfs getting to the Moon by orders of magnitude, not just a little bit harder.

Chalky

Biggest problem is project obsolescence.  From Day 1 of stipulating requirements and design of the spacecraft to Day 1 of sailing off to Mars will be such a long time (20 years?) that some 20-50 percent of the spacecraft's design criteria and implementation will be known to be obsolete.  The risk profile will also have changed accordingly. There will be great political reluctance to send off the pioneering crew knowing that they are in a spacecraft of notably obsolete design.

This problem is shared with high-value military items like bombers and aircraft carriers - it isn't theoretical.

octatonic

What I want to know is do Apple have a timeline for their first Martian Apple Store?

ICBM

Chalky said:

Biggest problem is project obsolescence.  From Day 1 of stipulating requirements and design of the spacecraft to Day 1 of sailing off to Mars will be such a long time (20 years?) that some 20-50 percent of the spacecraft's design criteria and implementation will be known to be obsolete.  The risk profile will also have changed accordingly. There will be great political reluctance to send off the pioneering crew knowing that they are in a spacecraft of notably obsolete design.

This problem is shared with high-value military items like bombers and aircraft carriers - it isn't theoretical.

It also hasn't stopped the MoD pursuing several such projects to the bitter end, both recently and longer ago...

The problem is well-known in the unmanned planetary probes too - by the time they get to the outer reaches of the solar system, their electronics and software is years or sometimes decades old. With the rate of technological change now, that can be very frustrating for the designers.