Visiting Our Red Space Neighbor 209
Enthusiasm for visiting our red space neighbor seems to be growing. m4dm4n writes "A study carried out by MIT's Aeronautics and Astronautics department has concluded that getting men to Mars in the 2020 timeframe is possible. The intelligent re-use of crew habitat modules, propulsion stages, and engines in various missions will enable NASA to significantly reduce their initial timeline which was well past 2030." Relatedly, ErikPeterson wrote to mention a Space.com article where Neil Armstrong says getting to Mars may be easier than getting to the Moon was back in the day, because of the hurdles they had to overcome. From the article: "It will be expensive, it will take a lot of energy and a complex spacecraft. But I suspect that even though the various questions are difficult and many, they are not as difficult and many as those we faced when we started the Apollo (space program) in 1961." We're starting to understand more about the red planet as well, as madstork2000 writes "The BBC is reporting on the possibility of active volcanoes on Mars. So now there is water, heat, and soon big business when 4Frontiers gets there. Hopefully we'll get a Google Mars soon to check it out up close."
Re:a question of priorities (Score:3, Interesting)
Mars, shmars (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is the return trip always ignored? (Score:1, Interesting)
Efficiency (Score:5, Interesting)
This conclusion is probably 100% accurate. Direct shots are, in general, probably more efficient. Efficiency, however, is not the only criteria.
Griffin's plans involve launching large interplanetary payloads into LEO to which a manned CEVs are docked prior to interplanetary injection. The very large benefit of this design is crew safety. The mass goes up using immense, dripping wet, snarling 100t+ boosters. People go up in small, simple, reliable systems.
Rockets fail frequently. Dramatic detonations on the pad, missed orbits due to failed stages, etc. Why are most people oblivious to this? Because there are no people on board when it happens.
NASA has got to stop killing astronauts. Griffin intends to launch people using the simplest, safest system he can come up with. That intention will probably lead to something other than enormous non-stop direct flight vehicles.
would actually increase mission safety, by decreasing the number of critical maneuvers required, such as orbital rendezvous and docking
There have been a lot of rendezvous and docking maneuvers in space and no one has yet been killed as a result. Mir was almost lost due to a fender bender with a Soyuz, but that's as close as it has gotten. I question the risk value assigned to these events in this analysis.
Look, a blimp! (Score:3, Interesting)
Spacecraft (Score:2, Interesting)
we need a spaceship (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How soon until this happens? (Score:5, Interesting)
I know it sounds crazy. But to walk just once under an alien sky...darnit, our children deserve the stars, and someone needs to claim that inheritance for them. IMO, if you've never looked up at the sky and wondered why we're stuck here, well, call God and see if you can get a refund or warranty repair job on your soul.
You know this was coming..... (Score:2, Interesting)
Inhibition of Mars will change the 2048 electoral map?
Re:NSF (Score:3, Interesting)
But the thing is, the NSF is a bargain. It costs about 5.5 billion a year and funds things as diverse as biotech, computing, and fisheries management. It funds undergrads, graduate students, and professors, and it buys equipment and pays for research projects. In the process it cultivates basic research in the United States, in all areas of the sciences. Yet NASA gets over three times that- 16 billion this year.
But you have to question whether the $150 billion dollars we've spent on the Space Shuttle is really worth it in scientific terms. It's not that I object to the research- some of it, like the Hubble, I'm very much a supporter of. And I could think of worse ways to spend the money (that billion a week in Iraq isn't buying us very much) But what it comes down to is return on investment. If our goal is research and exploration, funding the NSF and NASA's unmanned program will allow us to get more out of each tax dollar.