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Space Science

Private Mars Mission Planned For 2009 187

Enkidu writes "Spiegel and other German media are reporting that a complete private Mars mission (automated translation) is planned for 2009. Organizations behind are AMSAT and Mars Society Germany."
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Private Mars Mission Planned For 2009

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  • American Companies (Score:5, Interesting)

    by artlu ( 265391 ) <artlu@art[ ]net ['lu.' in gap]> on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:24PM (#10356923) Homepage Journal
    I am surprised that a company like Boeing has not attempted to break into the privatized space arena. It seems like the government regulations/costs are too constricting to focus on space travel from a government perspective. Maybe we'll have an X-Prize to mars within the next 25 years!
    • by antifoidulus ( 807088 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:28PM (#10356948) Homepage Journal
      As one of the largest provider of aerospace technologies to the US government, why on earth would Boeing compete with itself? Sure, Boeing isn't going to Mars, but they have produced a lot of stuff that went up into space...
    • Could it simply be that the government contract stipulates that the companies can only produce components for space flight exclusively to NASA?

      Much like the exclusive clause in the satellite photos?
    • by qbzzt ( 11136 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:29PM (#10356953)
      I am surprised that a company like Boeing has not attempted to break into the privatized space arena.

      There are US companies in this arena, but Boeing is too big and corporate for it. Big companies like guaranteed profits, not high-risk high-reward ventures like private space flight.
    • by Seoulstriker ( 748895 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:32PM (#10356968)
      I am surprised that a company like Boeing has not attempted to break into the privatized space arena.

      Boeing doesn't have the technology or motive to travel to Mars yet. I think we'll see Union Aerospace Corporation really go all out on this and try to establish a Mars base by 2145. The UAC has the mining and space technology to outdo easily any other space ventures.
      • No, I think Umbrella corporation will get there first... or maybe the "Company". [alien ref.]

        You'd think MS would venture into space travel...if only to get the executives away from the DOJ... remember guys, Engineers are CHEAPER than lawyers!!!

    • by Anonymous Coward
      Well, Boeing did an internal study on building a business out of privately funded exploration of Mars. Unfortunately, the resulting 3-phase business plan was:

      1. ???
      2. ???
      3. ???

      So they shelved it.

    • Or (putting on my tinfoil hat) the government contracting system is just too lucrative to make it worthwhile to step outside of it and bear the development costs, risks, COST OVERRUNS all by themselves.

      Granted, I think it will take someone with a pile of money AND vision (Mr Gates, are you listening??) to simply take the risk to build things like a space elevator or a real space program that has solid commercial goals like a moon base, or asteroid collection. Goverment is too bungling, and corporations ar
      • ...missed or almost missed practically every single major turn of the computer industry, such as the Internet? Has anyone told you that Chicago (MS-Windows-95) almost shipped without a web browser because of that? Have you ever read "The Road Behind^WAhead"? Pile of money? Check. Vision...? Anyone...?

        If anyone from Microsoft did such a thing, it would be Paul Allen - who IPOF is funding Bert Rutan - but I think he'd require more signs of life on Mars before he cut a cheque for it, since he seems to be an evangelist for materialism.
      • Why Mr Gates?
        Mr Allen (Microsoft co-founder) has been funding the Scaled Composites X-Prize entry Space Ship One.

        Just because Bill Gates is the best known man with money, doesn't mean that all the others are ignoring the field.
    • by UniverseIsADoughnut ( 170909 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:56PM (#10357081)
      Maybe it's because boeing is smart anough to relize that there isn't money in space travel. About the best you can do right now is selling space hardware to others (nasa) or launching commercial satilites.

      Space travel lacks one big thing. A true compelling reason that everyone agrees on that makes it needed, and makes it worthwhile, to make money from space travel is all but impossible. If say we ran out of gold on earth, and it became the most important thing to keap life going on earth, and we found some out and space, then you would have something. Until such things happen, it's not going to work. Space tourism will never keap it up since there isn't anough people wanting to go, or have anough money to go. And often people who want to go are those without the money, and those with the money are the ones who don't care to go.
      • by Coryoth ( 254751 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @05:40PM (#10357329) Homepage Journal
        Maybe it's because boeing is smart anough to relize that there isn't money in space travel. About the best you can do right now is selling space hardware to others (nasa) or launching commercial satilites.

        Space travel lacks one big thing. A true compelling reason that everyone agrees on that makes it needed, and makes it worthwhile, to make money from space travel is all but impossible.


        Correct, space travel is currently uneconomic. That does not make it pointless to invest in efforts researching it, because if you make it sufficently cheap, it will be economic. Whether space travel is "worth it" is a function of the cost of space travel. Bring that cost down, and all of a sudden your equation changes.

        When flight was first invented it wasn't all that practical or economic either. Flying across oceans was simply beyond the range of aircraft, and rail and trucking was almost as fast as airplanes, but a hell of a lot less expensive. "Why would anyone use airplanes for transport? All you do is get a nice view from up there which isn't enough to sustain an industry. Building planes big enough to carry any sort of worthwhile load would be unbelievably expensive - there's just no money in it."

        You don't need a compelling reason, you just need to keep researching new technology and improvements to make space travel cheap and efficient. That's what the X-prize is all about - bringing low cost reusable launch systems into existence. Scaled Composites looks like they've pulled it off too - though we'll have to wait to be sure.

        Jedidiah.
      • Three Words (Score:5, Funny)

        by CiXeL ( 56313 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @06:01PM (#10357419) Homepage
        "Oil on Titan"
      • Thats true but they'll be kicking themselves in the arse when one of these 'ventures' finds something valuable on another planet. Then these new ventures will be the next Boeing and Lockheed Martin's.

        I honestly don't expect these companies to have a fully funded space program but I would expect that they put a few dollars from R&D in this area. I'm sure they do, we probably just haven't heard about it.

        • by UID1000000 ( 768677 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @09:17PM (#10359001) Homepage Journal
          I think that they should be kicking themselves in the arse now. There is one valuable asset elsewhere---land. I don't see any "new" land here on Earth. Like people have said before, "God isn't making any more land". It's true the most valuable asset out there is land.

          The problem that exists is the fact that the land isn't something that we can utilize right now. The technology exists to make habitats in extreme places like Mars or the Moon but the technology to get it there is what's lacking.

          I think that is the movitation to get into space personally. It's got to be something that we can keep. Wouldn't it be great to have a home here and a condo on a nice flat out on Mars? Sure the ping time would suck when playing your favorite FPS and the commute would be a bitch but new industries would develop. This is where the biggest payoff would be. If someone privately went to the Moon or to Mars and colonized. If the could colonize and sustain they could charge whatever they wanted to allow people to move into their colony. It's kinda like the expansion of America. Once there they'd need a shitload of transportation, communications, etc. $$$.

      • by maxpublic ( 450413 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @07:19PM (#10358006) Homepage
        The first company capable of building ships able to go to the asteroid belt and conduct mining operations, then return to Earth with the bounty will make itself unbelievably rich. There's unimaginable wealth scattered throughout the solar system; the biggest obstacle right now is that it costs more to extract that wealth than you could expect to gain.

        To think that this situation will remain forever unchanged is just plain foolish. Affordable space travel will be developed no matter the whining of the naysayers. Each advance puts *someone* that much closer to cashing in on a frontier that'll make the current crop of billionaires look like amateurs in comparison.

        It won't be a race between corporations who can't look beyond the quarter, much less strain themselves over a five-year plan. It'll be a race between people with vision and the ability to plan 20, 30 or even 50 years in advance. *They* will be the ones to win, and have the last laugh over everyone who said that it couldn't be done.

        Max
        • by bilsaysthis ( 411014 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @07:54PM (#10358323) Homepage
          You're forgetting that the nations of the world, though the UN, have already signed a treaty that prevents any single nation or private corporate entity from exploiting extraterrestrial resources. No corp would be allowed to go to the Asteroid Belt and bring *anything* back unless they agreed to give the minerals to the UN for use/dispersal.
          • by maxpublic ( 450413 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @08:01PM (#10358415) Homepage
            And *you're* forgetting that there is no one-world government, and that any country with a corporation capable of make a profit off of space will whip out their willy and piss in the U.N.'s general direction.

            Do you honestly think the U.S. would bow to any U.N. treaty over something like this? Pause a moment while I laugh my ass off.

            Max
    • by MouseR ( 3264 )
      There's no financial incentive to go to Mars. Not for the government, less so for corporations.

      Unless you could charter enough of the red stuff back by the ton and sell half a gram for a few dozen millions, then it might turn a few corporate heads.
  • Irony (Score:4, Funny)

    by jdkane ( 588293 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:24PM (#10356924)
    Wouldn't that be hilarious of the Martians "plans a research flight up to the year 2009 to" Earth.
  • by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:25PM (#10356931) Journal
    No private organization has even been to the moon, and NASA is going pretty great lengths to ensure they understand all effects and implications from staying in space a very long time.

    Seems overly ambitious to me, although the goal sounds honorable. :-)
    • by ZZeta ( 743322 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:31PM (#10356963)

      "No private organization has even been to the moon, and NASA is going pretty great lengths to ensure they understand all effects and implications from staying in space a very long time."

      Be careful, this has nothing to do with staying is space for a long time. They aren't sending a human, living, person.

      It's all right there in google's attempt at translating. [google.com]

    • ...NASA is going pretty great lengths to ensure they understand all effects and implications from staying in space a very long time.

      Although the article doesn't specify, I think it is a safe bet that the 500kg probe will not be home to an astronaut. The effect of space travel on robotic missions is understood quite well...

    • by fname ( 199759 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @06:42PM (#10357630) Journal
      Maybe not what you meant, but there has been a commercial satellite that orbited the moon [cnn.com]. This was in 1998, when a launch mishap left a satellite in a useless, near Geosync orbit. It was sent around the moon (twice, I think) to help it get into GEO. I think getting a moon orbiter is well within reach on a commercial scale, but Mars is a lot tougher and landing is a lot tougher.
    • NASA also has the responsibility to make sure our bioforms don't contaminate other (possible) ecosystems - not only pre-mission, but end-mission as well. Take Galileo's crash into Jupiter for example.

      I'm not sure whether we can trust private corporations with the same responsibility

  • Faugh. (Score:1, Funny)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 )


    I'll send some lucky volunteer in 2008, if you all send me enough money to pack a tube full of dynamite.

  • Yeah right.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gnuman99 ( 746007 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:26PM (#10356940)
    Yeah, and by 2001 they will go to Jupiter... oh wait..

    Seriously, they can't even get to *Earth's* orbit, and they are planning to go to Mars?

  • Will the mission use Linux?

    I wonder what kind of case mods they will have on board...

  • by Sponge Bath ( 413667 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:32PM (#10356965)

    Powered by cold fusion and manned by Ewoks.

  • by Anonymous Coward
    Goatse has funded several probes to Uranus.
  • How can a private group raise the money for a mission like this? I would think the cost would easily be in the hundreds of millions of dollars range, maybe the billion dollar range. What will they get back, what return? I am thinking government has to back them somehow for this to really happen.
    • Re:Money (Score:2, Informative)

      by ZZeta ( 743322 )

      "How can a private group raise the money for a mission like this? I would think the cost would easily be in the hundreds of millions of dollars range, maybe the billion dollar range."

      Please! RTFA!

      It'll cost 10 million euros! Not a penny less, not a penny more.
      I don't remember the exact current exchange, but I think that should be a little over 12 million US. Dollars.

      • Re:Money (Score:3, Interesting)

        by miu ( 626917 )
        It'll cost 10 million euros! Not a penny less, not a penny more.

        I defy you to find a group of people who can manage to bring in lunch in at the initially projected price. Unless these have purchased all their hardware (and none of it fails in the meantime), paid all their people (and none of em die or jump ship), paid all their service fees (and none of the providers goes out of business or sells the service out from under them), and 10 million other things I can't think of then "not a penny less, not

        • RTFA - they are only building the probe not the launch vehicle. It is launched commercially with an Ariane rocket.
          • RMFP - that is one of the service that could be sold out from under them (or otherwise become unavailable).
    • Re:Money (Score:3, Insightful)

      by nick-less ( 307628 )
      How can a private group raise the money for a mission like this?

      the point is not raising 100 billons to fund a mission to mars, the point is doing it for less than 100 billons...
    • Re:Money (Score:3, Interesting)

      by imsabbel ( 611519 )
      Hm. The last missions by the usa or the eu didnt cost more than a big movie...
      There are plenty of people that could finance a probe to mars instead of, say buying a football stadium or a fleet of privat jets or whatever billionaires do with all their money...
    • It's a voluntary effort, so the people building the sats don't get paid. That's a big cost reduction. Next, some companies donate parts or sell them at a reduced price because Amsat is a well-known organisation, and it allows the company to test their new products in space. And they have donation programs, you can also donate to Amsat.

      Also, people building satellites in their spare time tend to work at companies that can support the program. If you work at Agilent for example, you have access to cutting ed
  • shuttle (Score:5, Funny)

    by IAR80 ( 598046 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:43PM (#10357030) Homepage
    Maybe they plan to use the shuttle form the Bahrain deseret.
  • Private Mars Mission isn't kinky in itself, but if you couple it with the two subheadings in the article:

    500 Kilos heavy probe

    and

    Favorable Mars position

    Suddeny, "Private" takes on a whole new meaning...
  • by MisanthropicProgram ( 763655 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:48PM (#10357041)
    do you really think it can be done for ten million euros as they say in the article?
  • Private?? (Score:5, Funny)

    by euxneks ( 516538 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:48PM (#10357042)
    This trip to mars brought to you by McDonalds: I'm Lovin' It!
  • Aiming High (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ravenspear ( 756059 )
    While I applaud attempts like this, if governments couldn't get it right with Beagle then private orgs are certainly going to face some very difficult work to make this happen.
    • if governments couldn't get it right with Beagle then private orgs are certainly going to face some very difficult work to make this happen.

      Ha ha ha, have you any evidence to suggest that "government" scientists are any smarter or more efficient than those in the private sector?

      They have bigger budgets, usually, that's true. But they need 'em when they're spending $800 on a hammer or a toilet seat...
  • by Koyaanisqatsi ( 581196 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:50PM (#10357053)
    Here is a PDF with some discussion on the planned Phase 5-A mission, or a amateur satelite to Mars

    http://www.amsat-dl.org/p5a/p5a-to-mars.pdf [amsat-dl.org]

    And here is the main Phase 5-A website on AMSAT-DL, with text in both German and English:

    http://www.amsat-dl.org/p5a/ [amsat-dl.org]

    Stuff like this makes you proud of holding a HAM license :-)

    73s
  • by gonerill ( 139660 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:53PM (#10357069) Homepage
    I imagine the sub-etha communication system will be provided by WorldCom and the fusion propulsion unit by Enron. Once it launches and hasn't been heard from for a while, Arthur Andersen will certify that the craft did, in fact, land on Mars as projected, steered there by the invisible hand.

    A few quarters later, the taxpayer will bail out the investors.
  • by irokitt ( 663593 ) <archimandrites-iaur.yahoo@com> on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:54PM (#10357072)
    Is the fact that the company formed for the mission is named The Union Aerospace Corporation.

    Are they asking for volunteers yet?
  • by Daikiki ( 227620 ) <daikiki@wan a d oo.nl> on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:56PM (#10357077) Homepage Journal
    I'm not a native speaker, mind, but should be a little less incomprehensible than what the fish churns out ;)
    --
    Marburg Consortium plans mars mission before 2009

    A German consortium of scientists, engineers, and technicians wants to prove that private groups are also in the race for interplanetary flights. By 2009, the group plans to send a probe and a satellite to Mars.

    The Amsat consortium has approximately 1200 members working largely as volunteers on the rpoject. The mission of exploration will cost around 700 million Euros, according to Amsat in Bochum, Saturday.

    The goal of the mission is to prove that private organizations can make space flights within the solar system possible, according to Karl Meinzer, professor of Space Flight Technology at the University of Stuttgart. The 500 kilogram probe will be put into earth orbit on board an Arianne rocket.

    The space flight organization intends to purchase spare capacity on a rocket that would not be filled enitrely by other satellites. Later the probe would be brought into an orbit around Mars where it would serve as a communications relay.

    Ground Control in Bochum

    Meinzer says, We'd be able to receive signals from transmitters already on Mars". The Observatory in Bochum would serve as ground control. Before the actual flight to Mars could commence, the probe will have to be placed into orbit around the Earth. "We can't set a term for the rocket launch, but we must begin the flight to Mars within a limited timeframe." In 2007 and 2009 Mars will be in a beneficial location for the flight.

    After the nine month flight to the neighbouring planet the probe will begin sending signals from Mars to Earth. The signals will be broadcast on amateur radio frequencies, so that anybody with a transceiver will be able to receive them.

    Another goal of the mission will be investigation of the Martian atmosphere. To achieve this, the Munich Mars Society, also an organization of scholars and technicians, wants to send along the "Archimedes" probe on the mission to the red planet. "Once in Martian orbit, a 14 meter diameter balloon will inflate above the probe", said Hannes Gabriel of the Mars Society. The balloon will slow down substantially as it glides through the atmosphere towards the surface of the planet with its landing craft. The researchers hope this will yield better opportunities to collect data.

    The 30 year old Amsat consortium has succesfully lanched satellites into space, according to Meinzer. Since the eightiies they have participated in a total of nine missions.
  • by Sialagogue ( 246874 ) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {eugogalais}> on Sunday September 26, 2004 @05:06PM (#10357136)

    Just how stupid does an announcement have to be before working journalists decide not to report it? A private mission to Mars by 2009?

    Okay fine, in that same spirit:

    "Dear Speigel:

    I plan to evolve into a being composed entirely of ionized gas and electromagnetic energy by 2009. I realize this is an ambitious timeframe, but with recent advances in genetic engineering and non-CFC spray bottle technology I believe it's achievable.

    Please call me if you have any questions, or I'll be happy to seep into your offices in five years."

  • with an 'M' (Score:4, Funny)

    by LuxFX ( 220822 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @05:13PM (#10357168) Homepage Journal
    You know what sucks? Seeing this headline and reading "Planned" as "Manned". I was getting all excited.
  • My prediction: If any private company gets within sniffing distance of sending people to Mars, the environmentalists and scientists will go hand-in-hand screaming about contaminating the native environment.

    And they'll get a lot of sympathetic ears, too. The crowd here on Slashdot who grew up on "gee wow" Science Fiction stories won't want to believe it, but my gut feeling is that once regular people start thinking about it, they won't want to see Mars screwed up.

    And settlements on Mars are even less lik

    • Easily fixed (Score:2, Interesting)

      by CiXeL ( 56313 )
      SPOIL the environment there. Send a simple probe containing dozens of cultures of bacteria and lichen that would most likely survive the environment and have it land in an area most suitable. If the environment is already contaminated. There won't be as much opposition. Besides, we're going to have to contaminate it one way or another unless we just never intend to colonize it which is just a waste.
      • Theoretically possible, although I tend to think you could bomb the area with high temp bombs to sterilize the landing area. In any case, sure, it's possible, if you want your ass landed in jail for the rest of your life. One nut can't just send a "simple probe", it takes a lot of nuts with a lot of money, who don't mind being villainized for the rest of human history.

        As for whether it's a "waste" to not colonize it, I'm not convinced that it isn't a waste. Mars a big freaking ROCK. It's not that interest

        • "In any case, sure, it's possible, if you want your ass landed in jail for the rest of your life."

          really what laws would I be breaking? there are no laws protecting undiscovered endangered species on another planet.

          "One nut can't just send a "simple probe", it takes a lot of nuts with a lot of money"

          as technology increases so does personal power. it will get more and more feasible as technology marches forward and access to space grows.

          "villainized for the rest of human history."

          i could live with that
          • really what laws would I be breaking? there are no laws protecting undiscovered endangered species on another planet.

            The ones that will be created when the technology exists to necessitate the laws.

            as technology increases so does personal power. it will get more and more feasible as technology marches forward and access to space grows.

            Yes, but as personal technology grows, government technology grows faster. If you have the tech to send a personal spacecraft to Mars, chances are, the government has

        • who don't mind being villainized for the rest of human history.

          My guess is that 99% of the people out there could give a shit one way or another if some nameless Mars microbe is wiped out.

          And in any event Mars is pretty worthless unless it's eventually terraformed. I'm willing to bet you'd find that the number of people interested in terraforming Mars into brand new real estate (if it becomes possible) is many times greater than the whining losers who'd scream about 'despoiliing the Martian environment'
    • If a group of people manage to actually get there in one piece, land, and somehow settle it, then who's equipped to stop them, exactly? Are the environmentalists and scientists of the world going to unite, build a ship, and go drag them back kicking and screaming?
      • Let me tell you, if I sat on a boat for two years going to a place I've wanted to go to for my entire life.

        It's going to take a lot more than a couple of environmentalists and scientists showing up and telling me I've got to leave!

    • by bigpat ( 158134 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @08:11PM (#10358520)
      "My prediction: If any private company gets within sniffing distance of sending people to Mars, the environmentalists and scientists will go hand-in-hand screaming about contaminating the native environment."

      Then we'll just have to grind up the "environmentalists" for martian fertilizer.
  • Get the surfer duuude, the angry black chick, the whitebreads, the gay guys, the goth chick, the dweeb, the urban hip street black guy, the repressed screaming argumentative vaguely asian girl, the useless stoner, the guy with a drinking problem and the crybaby.

    Put em in a space ship for like 15 months and give them utterly useless but challenging tasks to do while they Keepin it Real in Space, yo.
  • Is this really a "private" initiative? What makes it private? The article doesn't really say . . .

    AMSAT is a private organization, but the article fails to identify where the funding comes from . . . if a probe or experiment from a private university is launched into space or performed on the space station, is that a "private space experiment" because the experiment came from a private organization? If the funding is from public sources (like the National Science Foundation in the USA), does that make it

  • Rumours that a titanium sun lounger and a beach towel are among the capsule's payload have been strongly denied... :P

  • I always wanted to be the first man to mars, I think the current speculation is a 2 year trip there and back.

    I have child-like [ie non seriously] sketched is a ship with a rotational gravity ring [stabalizers and counterweights] or a partial ring to allow 2 years of centrifugal gravity^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hforce.

    It would unfurl from its stored position about 2 days into the trip. I am sure there are more problems, such as micro-particle belts or other wierdness of space we haven't seen.

    Oh and I would want some

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