DailyDirt: Making It To Mars
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Traveling to Mars is no simple feat, and it's much more difficult than a relatively short trip to the moon. The atmosphere on Mars is thinner than the Earth's, so it poses a significant threat to any vehicle that attempts to land on the planet. Plus, a trip to Mars could take months depending on how much fuel is used (or what kind of propulsion is used). Still, several projects are making the ambitious journey, and here are just a few examples of Martian missions.- India's Mangalyaan spacecraft has successfully reached Mars orbit, and this Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) cost just $74 million to accomplish. This wasn't as easy task, as the worldwide record of 30 of the 51 previous attempts to reach Mars have ended in failure and India is the first country to accomplish a successful Mars mission on the first attempt. [url]
- Over 200,000 people have volunteered to go on a one-way trip to Mars in 2023. These folks will be narrowed down to about a group of 40 people selected to do seven years of intensive training. [url]
- The Time Capsule to Mars (TC2M) project aims to send some cubesats to Mars in 2017 containing an assortment of digital media. Will anyone be surprised if some unlicensed music or media sneaks on-board? [url]
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Filed Under: cubesat, india, mangalyaan, manned missions, mars, mars one, orbit, satellites, space, space exploration, spacecraft, time capsule
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nuclear rockets
NASA actually developed a nuclear powered rocket (named Nerva) in the 1960s, and ground testing proved that it worked. But it's funds were axed by the Nixon administration, which was not particularly friendly to the space program. So Nerva never flew:
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/N/NERVA.html
A nuclear-powered rocket would allow astronauts to reach Mars months earlier. Less time spent in space means less exposure to radiation. Surviving on the surface of Mars would also be challenging, but it may be possible. Burying a house in the Martian soil will give the residents good protection from radiation. It's possible to grow crops on Mars, but only indoors with heating. There is water on Mars, but it has to be made by melting ice. That all takes energy.
It will require a nuclear reactor to keep astronauts alive on Mars. Without it, they would freeze to death. Wind power is a non-starter, as the atmosphere is too thin. Solar power is feasible during the day, but could not produce sufficient heat to survive the night. Fossil fuels are unlikely to exist on Mars, and even if they did you could not burn them in the CO2 atmosphere.
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Re: nuclear rockets
There's one big problem with nuclear powered rockets: Accidents.
How large an area would have been contaminated if the Challenger mission had been nuclear powered? Or the Columbia?
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Re: Re: nuclear rockets
I don't think that's the big problem. Modern nuclear engine designs are made so that if a catastrophic accident occurred there would not be a wide dispersal of nuclear material into the environment.
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Solar is only good during the day?
"Solar power is feasible during the day, but could not produce sufficient heat to survive the night."
Energy storage technology has had so many breakthroughs it's hard to keep up. If solar can support a colony during the day, it can support a colony during the night. Just get a bigger battery/capacitor/whatever.
Humans are pouring radioactive waste into the Pacific at a prodigious rate. Some Asian countries no longer consider shellfish safe to eat because, as filter feeders, they're turning into nasty little tumor bombs by concentrating toxic reactor wastes. As for other effects of the Japanese reactor containment failure, it's still early days. We don't know but those who follow such matters closely are not optimistic about long-term effects.
Having poisoned Earth, do we really want to risk doing the same to Mars? There have got to be better approaches. Let's learn from our mistakes.
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Gotta love, "We've poisoned the Earth!" people.
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Re: Solar is only good during the day?
Not just Asian countries. Along the northwest coastline of the US at least, you don't assume the shellfish are safe to eat since because quite often they aren't. You have to check the current status of the shellfish before harvesting them.
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what number 2 said
if you want to die , we can arrange to off your heads and make room for employment for 200,000 people
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