What it would actually take to get to Mars by 2020
What the hell happened to Popular Science magazine?
When the two planets are nearest in their rotational orbits, if planned/timed correctly, the transit could be as little as 4 months at conventional speeds. Now getting back could take a hell of a lot longer since you may have to wait for a full rotational alignment to return. But to say a time machine is needed is utter defeatist bullshit (I suspect political partisan as well).
When the two planets are nearest in their rotational orbits, if planned/timed correctly, the transit could be as little as 4 months at conventional speeds. Now getting back could take a hell of a lot longer since you may have to wait for a full rotational alignment to return. But to say a time machine is needed is utter defeatist bullshit (I suspect political partisan as well).
I worked on the space program for over 40 years and still do consulting for several space oriented businesses. The challenges are daunting but the general consensus is that the economic rewards of large scale space industrialization are so great that they cannot be ignored. When compared to asteroid and gas giant atmosphere mining Mars and Lunar colonies may well be just an interesting sideshow.
Not really, a tethered rotation system is quite minimal and relatively easy to do. On the outbound trip you would provide the rotation equivalent to martian gravity. The return trip could also be done via a tether for the duration, and here you could relatively easily provide an increasing momentum (ideally via longer tether) for an increase in gravity to reach close to or at Earth levels by the time you get to Earth orbit. Or you could simply maintain martian levels and be farther along a "return to earth" capability than that time in ISS.
"When compared to asteroid and gas giant atmosphere mining Mars and Lunar colonies may well be just an interesting sideshow."
Quite the contrary, the laws of physics and out current limitations place the building of a Mars colony as the most economically sound path to mining the belt and gas giants. Now a Luna colony, I'll agree with you on that. That won't be profitable or economic viable prior to the Mars colony (cheaper to ship to Luna's surface from Mars than Earth).
Earlier explorers put their lives in great peril. If we were willing to do that and willing to accept a one-way mission, it would be doable. A one-way mission would mean horrible living conditions for someone, subsisting on supplies from earth in a habitat the size of a prison cell until age or illness (likely cancer because of radiation exposure) kills the colonists.
I can't predict the future, but if there were some immediate need to be in space, to get rare minerals or for low-G fabrication processes, of a sudden private investors will make it happen.
Not true, unless you insist on doing it in one trip. A sensible expedition would utilize pre-placed resources. At a minimum such an expedition would send two launches to pre-position the resources in one cycle, and at the earliest send humans and possibly a third supply launch in the second window. Your colonists would arrive to enough water and air (and fuel) to last them for many years, and the machinery to continue producing them. There would be at least two full habitats and one Earth return vehicle (ERV); though for a true one-way you could swap that ERV for dome materials or an additional had, or more equipment (or both).
With the dome shipment and the right equipment you could have a nicely sized domed habitat for the settlers within a year or two - depending on the amount of settlers and the priority placed on it.
The living conditions would actually be quite reasonable, even pleasant. Hard work, to be sure. All that gardening and manufacturing won't come easy. Humans are cheaper and more effective than robots in this case.
".. until age or illness (likely cancer because of radiation exposure) kills the colonists. "
Actually the likely risk between those two would be old age. The radiation risk is actually only a very small increase in the already small chance of cancer late in life. Career transcontinental and transoceanic airline pilots would have similar or higher risk increases than the settlers depending on how much time they spent at altitude. Of course, the settlers' risk of diabetes and dementia (type 3 diabetes) would go down. It is also possible that the health benefits of naturally grown food and a non-sedentary lifestyle would give them a net increase in life span rather than a decrease - as compared to the average member of western civilization on Earth.
This reminds me of the book As It Is on Mars. I love the thought of it.
"Career transcontinental and transoceanic airline pilots would have similar or higher risk increases "
I have not looked it up, but I thought it's worse than astronauts in LEO, shielded on one side by the earth, and much much worse than flying a plane.
If the colonist travel in a ship with an amount of shielding similar to an Apollo capsule, they'll get a lot of radiation on the trip. Once they land, they have to put a thick layer of regolith (Martian "dirt") on the roof and walls to block the radiation. I have heard the sun emits occasional burst of radiation that could result in severe radiation sickness after only an hour of time unshielded. All this radiation would complicate farming.
I'm confident we'll overcome radiation and other perils of space travel, but it will be hard.
And I honestly believe that travel beyond our moon should be a huge portion of the Government's efforts. But they are approaching it from the wrong direction. Figuratively a trip to Mars with the current technology is akin to starting a journey across the Atlantic Ocean in a single person rowboat.
The research and development should not be in how to survive the trip, but in how to make the trip faster, easier, and safer. I.E. Upgrading the figurative rowboat so it has a sail, then a steam engine, then a gas engine, then a nuclear engine...
The trip to Mars will happen when it's (again) profitable for the Government to go. They shouldn't do it just to throw money at it just to put a gigantic check mark in the box.
Going to Mars,like the moon, is profitable in and of itself for no other reason. The industry created to make something like this happen, including the many things needed for habitation, is reason enough to do it.
Government may provide a lawful framework but actually doing something of this sort is best left to business and/or private entrepreneurs.
My 2 bits.
Not to mention finding / creating a new land for colonization.
It's owned by a large media conglomerate in Sweden that bought it along with 20 other magazines from Time Warner about 10 years ago.
Don't expect a lot of advanced thinking. Its focus is entertainment.
It's not the same magazine that promoted creative engineering and inspired so many boys and girls. There are so many other magazines that focus on specific areas and hobbies and provide insight and details in a limited area that the old Popular Science would have a hard time unless they hired some brilliant people.
How often in the past 75 years has federal government done something good in only 3 years?
Could be they are right and Trump is just an uninformed cheerleader.
I read up on this quite a bit to make Shadows Live Under Seashells.
We are far more advanced (and better prepared) than were were in 1961 when Kennedy gave NASA less than a decade to get to the moon. Are we so unimaginative and spineless that we are unwilling to try to rise to the occasion with the far superior tech we have today? To answer naysayers - we bring with us what we need to sustain and replenish ourselves as needed. We use the ISS as a storage/staging area to amass what we need initially and we cultivate what we need, entirely, while we are there.
I may not live long enough to see this happen, but it will happen in the next 20 years or so.
private industry looks for short term profits, not long term so they will only try to get something going that will be like a amusement park ride.
I guess it is good to dream so keep it up, so to speak.
I'm with you. However, I'm not sure private industry will make much of an effort until something of value can be found on the planet.
As for politics...one party could pronounce a landing by 2020 and be wholly praised, while the opposite party could suggest the same date and be slammed as being delusional. You can't believe what you hear from Washington (at least, not since the Kennedy days of space exploration).
That issue did not last a full minute on the kitchen table before I tossed it in the trash.
OTOH, any realistic plan to land people on Mars within the next few years would need to involve SpaceX, ULA, and ArianeSpace. They have rockets that could boost vehicles, launchers, food, and fuel to orbit for launching to Mars.
SpaceX plan to send their notionally habitable) Dragon spacecraft to Mars in the 2018-2020 time frame. They should get their reusable Falcon Heavy flying this year: that could boost a big habitation module into orbit and fuel for the flight, all at low cost.
Well, I have seen an estimate that for a trillion dollars, you could build a massive space-to-space ship that could not only get to Mars and back within ninety days, but also leave behind a dizzying plethora of probes and even some robot tunneling machines and other apparatus to prepare the way for building a permanent base on Mars.
And here is my source: http://www.buildtheenterprise.org/
To be more specific, here is the source's discussion on the cost of such a project: http://www.buildtheenterprise.org/cos...