DailyDirt: To Infinity Mars And Beyond!
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
The space race to get people to the moon and other destinations in our solar system has pretty much stalled. But a few billionaires and some really passionate hobbyists are trying to build rockets that will get people off our planet (with wildly varying success). Suborbital flights are difficult, but they're not really enough to get some serious space exploration going again. Still, we gotta start somewhere, right? Here are just a few projects that could get people into outer space on the cheap.- It doesn't take a rocket scientist to build a spacecraft that can take a human passenger to an altitude of about 60 miles up. It takes two rocket scientists. Plus, a lot of crowdfunding and volunteers to get Copenhagen Suborbitals into a DIY space race on a shoestring budget. [url]
- Mars One may be a one-way suicide mission to Mars, but the project is still making an investment in getting its life support systems to work. Paragon Space Development Corp will design the life support systems, but Paragon's previous experience includes Biosphere 2. Uh, maybe work out the bugs in a totally enclosed system on Earth before making the jump to Mars? [url]
- Elon Musk is aiming to get a Mars settlement going as an insurance policy for the human race. Musk also estimates that it would take at least a million settlers to make a viable Mars colony, and even with that many people, each person's productivity would have to be incredibly high. [url]
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Filed Under: biosphere2, crowdfunding, diy space, manned missions, mars, mars colony, mars one, space, space exploration
Companies: copenhagen suborbitals, paragon space development corp, spacex
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Robots
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Re: Robots
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I know I harp on nuclear energy, but...
It will require nuclear power. Without it, manned space flight beyond the moon is out. However, these days it just isn't fashionable to be pro-nuclear, even when we're talking about Mars.
Fossil fuel on a planet with no oxygen in the atmosphere is useless, since it won't burn. And the possibility of finding fossil fuel on Mars is slim, though I won't dismiss it completely. The thin atmosphere makes Martin wind power equally useless. It is sunny on Mars, but that's not sufficient to generate enough heat to survive night time temperatures of minus 100 degrees Celsius. No hope for hydro-power or geothermal either. A Martian colony powered by solar and wind is going to be a graveyard, populated with colonists frozen to death.
So if Elon Musk is serious, he ought to be talking about this. I hope he doesn't think that the colony can be powered by his lithium-ion batteries, recharged with a long extension cord from earth.
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CMEs are still an obstacle to the Mars shots, yes?
During Apollo we just aimed for low-solar-activity seasons and prayed a lot. Not possible with a 9-month mission to Mars.
Last I checked, according to the folks at JPL, we haven't solved this problem yet.
Is Mars One going to risk its crew on providence, or do they have a plan?
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Re: I know I harp on nuclear energy, but...
Human space flight has many, more pressing issues than the lack of nuclear driven engines.
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Re: I know I harp on nuclear energy, but...
The oxygen doesn't have to be in the atmosphere. It just has to be provided to the engine. There actually is plentiful oxygen on Mars. It's in the polar ice and soil rather than the atmosphere, but it does exist.
However, yes, nuclear power will be essential for the trip. I don't think that's quite as large of a hurdle as you do. We have already launched a few spacecraft with nuclear power plants, after all, without any serious opposition. There's a world (ahem) of difference between a nuclear power plant on Earth and one in space -- in space, any accidents won't cause a problem on Earth and disposal of nuclear waste is a nonissue.
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One-way suicide mission....
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Re: One-way suicide mission....
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Re: One-way suicide mission....
Mars is about half of Earth's size, meaning it has about half the atmosphere as well, but still plenty of gravitational pull, so there's not enough air to help cushion you from the planet's gravity during landing maneuvers. That means parachutes barely work and rockets become a liability because of all the heavy fuel they need. You can't land more than a single robot at a time on that planet. And you can only launch toward the planet when it's in alignment with Earth, i.e. once every fifteen years, plus the price for a settlement trip would be about the same as the combined GNP of the Earth's largest countries.
Even if you overcame all that and landed on Mars, there's no water there and, again, not enough atmosphere, which not only means not enough oxygen to breathe no matter how much of it you synthesize, but no protection from the sun's ultraviolet and gamma radiation and not enough pressure keeping your muscles from going soft, such as your heart or even your eyes. How does spontaneous cardiac arrest or blindness sound to you? It could be before or after you develop cancer.
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Re: Re: One-way suicide mission....
True, there are a lot of things to be overcome before the mission can begin, this is true -- and even then, it will be incredibly dangerous. But calling something a "suicide mission" is disparaging -- as if that's the most important aspect of the idea. It's a little like saying that using a bellows on a campfire is "suicidal" for the fire since it burns all its available fuel much more rapidly, when the important part is that it burns larger, hotter, and brighter.
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Re: Re: One-way suicide mission....
Mars actually has much less than "half" the amount of Earth's atmosphere, and there's some debate over the cause. Mars may have had a thicker atmosphere in the distant past, but it could have been stripped away by the solar wind. The Earth's atmosphere might be protected by the solar wind due to its strong magnetic field....
http://www.space.com/11187-earth-magnetic-field-solar-wind.html
As for the term "suicide mission" -- that can be debated endlessly until we see the actual viability of the technical specs of Mars One in 2020-something. (So far, I'm not convinced that Mars One will even have a reliable launch vehicle -- unless it purchases one from SpaceX/etc -- much less a viable spacecraft for a multi-week space journey.)
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Re: Re: Re: One-way suicide mission....
I do admire the idealism of going to Mars and cannot fault anyone for pushing the boundaries of what humanity can accomplish, but realistically speaking, we're probably going to get destroyed in the chaos of global climate change before we manage to settle on another planet. And I may continue saying that just so modern scientists can use gloating over me as motivation to accomplish the impossible like they've done many times in the past.
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Re: One-way suicide mission....
The whole premise is rather astonishing, considering the fact that there is nothing to gain by doing so other than notoriety.
The hurdles jumped in their crossing of the Atlantic are in no way similar to those faced by crossing the space between Earth and Mars.
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Re: Re: Re: One-way suicide mission....
And I will admit, at the very least, that going to Mars is probably a less suicidal mission than all the wars we've been having recently.
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Re: Robots
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Re: Re: One-way suicide mission....
I disagree. What is to be gained is the exploration and experience. I would go in a heartbeat, but "notoriety" isn't in my list of reasons why at all.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: One-way suicide mission....
Of course it is. But it's no more of a gross oversimplification than calling it a "suicide mission" -- and it's a lot less insulting.
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