Of course the Timeline is way off, the first batch of 100 colonists on a gigantic rotating spaceship with parks and farms and whatnot built into it launched in 2026.. I'd add about 20 years at least to that number..
But it is an interesting read, especially because it focuses alot on the psychological state of the colonists and the lengths the designers went to help them stay mentally stable for the one year journey and beyond.
One strange thing is that they rotated the ship at 0.38g, the gravity of mars, instead of 1g. I would have kept them at 1g until they reached the surface, or steadily lowered the g as the journey progressed.
I'm no space doctor but surely 1/3g is enough to stop bone decalcification? Living on Mars may make your muscles weaker but you wouldn't have your skeleton dissolve away from inside you like true microgravity would do.
Also I'll third the Red/Green/Blue Mars books.
(Red Mars Spoiler)
If uou could terraform Mars like they do in book, release genetically alterered bacteria, seed the planet with millions of heat generators, blow up a moon, crash a space elevator into the planet, burst all the aquifers and nuke the poles. Sure the atmosphere would be a poison that slowly leeches away. But over the course of hundreds of years. I'm guessing in 500 years time we can just supertech our problems away and turn on a magnetic field like a lightswitch.
Remember it doesn't need to be breathable, just enough to stop
I dont understand all this Moon colony hating...
Theres no real amounts of hydrogen, but you can make rocket fuel
Man does not live on rocket fuel alone.
Mars also has other helpful stuff, like an atmosphere to soak up small impactors with. If you get real creative you can use that atmosphere to soak up things like cometary fragments or any other big icy chunks that you can find and move to the planet.
Of course the Timeline is way off, the first batch of 100 colonists on a gigantic rotating spaceship with parks and farms and whatnot built into it launched in 2026.. I'd add about 20 years at least to that number..
But it is an interesting read, especially because it focuses alot on the psychological state of the colonists and the lengths the designers went to help them stay mentally stable for the one year journey and beyond.
One strange thing is that they rotated the ship at 0.38g, the gravity of mars, instead of 1g. I would have kept them at 1g until they reached the surface, or steadily lowered the g as the journey progressed.
Believe the thinking was that it gets them faster acclimatized to the gravity of the planet they'll be permanently living on. Rotating it at 1g for a permanent colony that's going to be experiencing 0.38g doesn't make too much sense.
Mars also has other helpful stuff, like an atmosphere to soak up small impactors with. If you get real creative you can use that atmosphere to soak up things like cometary fragments or any other big icy chunks that you can find and move to the planet.
I do agree Mars is the prefered goal but think the Moon is a good stepping stone. Keeping a small moonbase supplied would be much cheaper than keping a fledgling Mars colony going. And the Luna rocket fuel is great problem solver. With a higher Dv reserve you can cut down a trip to Mars from 9 months to 2 weeks, sidestepping any problems of longterm microgravity and radiation exposure to your colonists. Last thing I read on the radiation problem was that 1 in 3 people would get cancer from the 9 month trip to Mars.
Yeah, you don't want to be shipping supplies to a Mars colony all the time. You want it ready-to-go by the time you put people there.
Honestly before we do any of it we need to start manufacturing some ridiculously big, fuel-inefficient rockets with large payloads and engines that aren't bleeding-edge. I don't care what the payload mass fraction is, since most of the rest is going to be fuel anyway and honestly isn't all that expensive.
What'd be nice to see would be a decade or two long program focussed solely on dropping supplies on exactly one point on the Martian surface where we'd site a future colony.
I think it'd be a pretty cool bit for public imagination to be launching a rocket every year with the purpose of sending ahead equipment and supplies for a Mars base.
I mean, MRE's last decades already. Let's send some into space damn it!
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Gennenalyse RuebenThe Prettiest Boy is Ridiculously PrettyRegistered Userregular
There's a private company that's actually trying to do that. SpaceX I think it's called? Founded by one of the guys that made Paypal. They launched a satellite not that long ago, I believe.
What'd be nice to see would be a decade or two long program focussed solely on dropping supplies on exactly one point on the Martian surface where we'd site a future colony.
I think it'd be a pretty cool bit for public imagination to be launching a rocket every year with the purpose of sending ahead equipment and supplies for a Mars base.
I mean, MRE's last decades already. Let's send some into space damn it!
It could be a nifty PR program to reserve whatever little bits of space you can, the fractional tons that fall out once you've packed up all the stuff you need into whatever heavy launcher you've got (presumably an Atlas 500 something or Delta IV), for schoolkids to send shit into space for the astronauts. You know, giant butcher paper cards signed by all the kids in the school, little trinkets. Stuff where two decades along the line some astronauts will hang it on the wall of the Marsbase.
I feel like we'd be much better served by taking all the money we want to spend on colonies and manned expeditions and focusing it on the development of a workable space elevator, if the goal is to reduce launch costs to make long-term space exploration more feasible. Plus, by the time we got that sorted out we'd have had time for technology in other areas to advance considerably as well, making the whole endeavor a great deal easier and cheaper.
In the meantime, unmanned probes tend to give us a hell of a lot more data per dollar than manned missions; if you really wanted to be hardcore about the whole 'must cut budget' thing you could probably reduce NASA's budget by a fair amount and still increase the return we get from it by reprioritizing things so that we focus primarily on unmanned missions. (Although I personally don't think the budget should be cut, by any means)
Cost estimates for even a single manned mission to mars range well upwards of $200 billion, and they're unlikely to tell us a whole lot we don't already know from our unmanned probes.
In contrast, the Voyager program has had a total cost of well under $1 billion, and has given us a massive wealth of data, including first-hand measurements of the outer portions of the heliosphere, which no other man-made object has ever approached, rendering new insights into our understanding of the solar system and the galaxy at large.
I feel like the program we should be prioritizing is pretty clear, there, and for irony points, the Voyager program almost got shut down early because people wanted to defund it and use the money to help pay for manned missions, in spite of the fact that the program currently only uses a couple million dollars a year.
Ultimately I think the focus on manned missions is pretty destructive to the value of the space program.
Ultimately I think the focus on manned missions is pretty destructive to the value of the space program.
Data isn't the only thing of value.
A space elevator would be nice, too, but what are you going to do with all the crap under geosync that's going to cross its orbit?
True enough, but it's really the only thing we can't as easily get from here. We don't need to go to Mars for breakthroughs in self-sufficient environments, we've got people working on that right here. We don't need to go to Mars to figure out the basics of terraforming when we've got all kinds of deserts and other inhospitable places all over the place on Earth. Certainly, a base on the Moon, or on Mars, would be helpful for long-term space exploration, but we can do all the necessary groundwork much, much cheaper on Earth, so that when we do decide that it's cost-effective to go, it'll be much cheaper and easier to do. And in the meantime, we can fuel our technological advance with information collected from unmanned probes.
The rate of return on manned missions versus unmanned ones, especially to other planets, is just so abysmal at our current levels of technology that it's not reasonably justifiable.
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
edited July 2009
Efficiency isn't generally the overriding concern in any given endeavor that isn't economic in nature.
And in the meantime, we can fuel our technological advance with information collected from unmanned probes.
Invention is born of necessity. Things like wars and frontiers drive periods of aggressive technological expansion. Data from unmanned probes is great, and unmanned probes are great ways to get data, but it's not a way to expand your technology base (unless you get noticed by aliens).
I wonder if the best way to get humans to Mars would be some sort of hibernation/suspended animation process á la 2001: A Space Odyssey. Rogue supercomputer notwithstanding, it seems to me to be the best way to reduce the amount of cargo space devoted to food. The science behind it, however, is not very well understood, at least in humans.
Of course unmanned missions are better economically however eventually we're going to need to learn to live on another world.
This is not an attack against Abbalah but judging what's worthwhile for space exploration based solely on ROI is silly. What about adventure?
Also, while yes, robotic missions can do excellent science, I believe a real human being can do so much more.
Sounds great, but (as a non-American) I find stuff like "new Unified Space Vision, a plan to ensure American space leadership for the 21st century" a bit strange. Surely an endeavour like this should be an international thing, something to bring us together, rather than a dick-waving contest again. Oh nice, we get to stay on the Moon though. Great.
I would disagree with this. I doubt an international colony would be very successful. To many chiefs and all that.
If our goal is a large scale human presence off world then international competition and a colonial race for prime real estate are more likely to be effective.
I feel like we'd be much better served by taking all the money we want to spend on colonies and manned expeditions and focusing it on the development of a workable space elevator, if the goal is to reduce launch costs to make long-term space exploration more feasible. Plus, by the time we got that sorted out we'd have had time for technology in other areas to advance considerably as well, making the whole endeavor a great deal easier and cheaper.
In the meantime, unmanned probes tend to give us a hell of a lot more data per dollar than manned missions; if you really wanted to be hardcore about the whole 'must cut budget' thing you could probably reduce NASA's budget by a fair amount and still increase the return we get from it by reprioritizing things so that we focus primarily on unmanned missions. (Although I personally don't think the budget should be cut, by any means)
Cost estimates for even a single manned mission to mars range well upwards of $200 billion, and they're unlikely to tell us a whole lot we don't already know from our unmanned probes.
In contrast, the Voyager program has had a total cost of well under $1 billion, and has given us a massive wealth of data, including first-hand measurements of the outer portions of the heliosphere, which no other man-made object has ever approached, rendering new insights into our understanding of the solar system and the galaxy at large.
I feel like the program we should be prioritizing is pretty clear, there, and for irony points, the Voyager program almost got shut down early because people wanted to defund it and use the money to help pay for manned missions, in spite of the fact that the program currently only uses a couple million dollars a year.
Ultimately I think the focus on manned missions is pretty destructive to the value of the space program.
The current NASA design reference mission (version 3.0) is estimated to cost around $50 billion. The DRM is itself a scaled up version of the Mars Direct mission, which is estimated to cost about $20 to $30 billion.
The "hundreds of billions" figures are based on the 90-Day Study (regarding the proposed Space Exploration Initiative years ago), which determined the approximate cost of a Mars mission would be $500 billion. That mission architecture is now obsolete, and was based on orbital vehicle construction and fueling and all kinds of other really, really expensive stuff. Modern proposals involve direct launch from Earth aboard a heavy lift vehicle—and this brings the cost down to a very reasonable level, especially given that the above $25 or $50 billion (depending on your mission of choice) represents program costs over ten years or so. It could be fit within NASA's current budget without too much difficulty.
It's worth noting that even if we don't do a manned mission, putting an MRO around every significant body in the system both gives us incredibly valuable scientific data and creates an interplanetary communications relay which can be used to make further exploration efforts - manned or unmanned - a hell of a lot easier. Also, gigabit internet in space.
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
I wonder if the best way to get humans to Mars would be some sort of hibernation/suspended animation process á la 2001: A Space Odyssey. Rogue supercomputer notwithstanding, it seems to me to be the best way to reduce the amount of cargo space devoted to food. The science behind it, however, is not very well understood, at least in humans.
Ehhh, Mars isn't that far away to warrant stasis of some kind. To travel to another star, sure. But to Mars?
I feel like we'd be much better served by taking all the money we want to spend on colonies and manned expeditions and focusing it on the development of a workable space elevator, if the goal is to reduce launch costs to make long-term space exploration more feasible. Plus, by the time we got that sorted out we'd have had time for technology in other areas to advance considerably as well, making the whole endeavor a great deal easier and cheaper.
In the meantime, unmanned probes tend to give us a hell of a lot more data per dollar than manned missions; if you really wanted to be hardcore about the whole 'must cut budget' thing you could probably reduce NASA's budget by a fair amount and still increase the return we get from it by reprioritizing things so that we focus primarily on unmanned missions. (Although I personally don't think the budget should be cut, by any means)
Cost estimates for even a single manned mission to mars range well upwards of $200 billion, and they're unlikely to tell us a whole lot we don't already know from our unmanned probes.
In contrast, the Voyager program has had a total cost of well under $1 billion, and has given us a massive wealth of data, including first-hand measurements of the outer portions of the heliosphere, which no other man-made object has ever approached, rendering new insights into our understanding of the solar system and the galaxy at large.
I feel like the program we should be prioritizing is pretty clear, there, and for irony points, the Voyager program almost got shut down early because people wanted to defund it and use the money to help pay for manned missions, in spite of the fact that the program currently only uses a couple million dollars a year.
Ultimately I think the focus on manned missions is pretty destructive to the value of the space program.
The current NASA design reference mission (version 3.0) is estimated to cost around $50 billion. The DRM is itself a scaled up version of the Mars Direct mission, which is estimated to cost about $20 to $30 billion.
The "hundreds of billions" figures are based on the 90-Day Study (regarding the proposed Space Exploration Initiative years ago), which determined the approximate cost of a Mars mission would be $500 billion. That mission architecture is now obsolete, and was based on orbital vehicle construction and fueling and all kinds of other really, really expensive stuff. Modern proposals involve direct launch from Earth aboard a heavy lift vehicle—and this brings the cost down to a very reasonable level, especially given that the above $25 or $50 billion (depending on your mission of choice) represents program costs over ten years or so. It could be fit within NASA's current budget without too much difficulty.
Basically, your figures are way out of date.
Fair enough; I did do the bulk of my research on the issue a couple years ago.
Nevertheless, that doesn't invalidate my point: Taking Voyager as a benchmark, you're looking at more than one hundred times the cost ($50 billion/10 years versus a bit less than 1 billion/30 years) for a mission that is less likely to generate the same caliber of return.
The idea that efficiency shouldn't be a major concern in the space program is a little ridiculous, though. You have a limited amount of time and money and you should be trying to get the most out of it that you can; doubly so when you're spending public funds.
And yes, necessity drives invention, sure. But when you're talking about technology for manned missions, most of that is pretty use-specific. You're going on manned missions to develop technology for manned missions...so that you can do more manned missions. And while there's a fair amount of stuff that has more general use, the fact that it has a more general use means we'll have a necessity for it even without it being driven by space exploration, and will develop it accordingly.
We might well get the technology for exploration faster through manned missions, but it'll be a hell of a lot more expensive and it's not like there's a huge hurry; I'm at least 90% sure that Mars will still be there to colonize in 20-30 years. In the meantime, given our fucked-up health and education systems, fast-teching our space exploration capabilities for shits and giggles really ought to be put on the back burner, especially when we have another, much cheaper, option that will give us a much better return with broader applications.
It's been said before, but unmanned missions generally don't capture the public's imagination, whereas look at what we have right now looking back at the Apollo program and the first moon landings. Our parent's generation grew up remembering that moment, and I think it'd be safe to say it inspired a generation.
It's been said before, but unmanned missions generally don't capture the public's imagination, whereas look at what we have right now looking back at the Apollo program and the first moon landings. Our parent's generation grew up remembering that moment, and I think it'd be safe to say it inspired a generation.
Unmanned missions don't do that.
The scene I'm reminded of doesn't appear to be up on youtube, and searching through Invader Zim fansites makes me want to jab an icepick into my brain, but working from memory I believe the relevant conversation runs something like:
Martian Hologram: I am the last remnant of Martian civilization. My people worked themselves to extinction in order to convert their entire planet into a navigable space vessel!
Zim: Wh...why would you do that?
Martian Hologram: Because it's coooool
I understand the appeal of capturing the collective imagination of the public, but I have trouble seeing "because it's awesome, and people will think it is awesome" as enough of an advantage to outweigh the associated disadvantages. I mean, if we can find the cash to keep funding probes, fix the healthcare system, fix the education system, and colonize Mars, then I am totally for it.
I'm just concerned because the trend thus far seems to be that the shiny awesome thing captures our imaginations so effectively that the other, arguably more concretely beneficial things end up underfunded.
It's been said before, but unmanned missions generally don't capture the public's imagination, whereas look at what we have right now looking back at the Apollo program and the first moon landings. Our parent's generation grew up remembering that moment, and I think it'd be safe to say it inspired a generation.
Unmanned missions don't do that.
The scene I'm reminded of doesn't appear to be up on youtube, and searching through Invader Zim fansites makes me want to jab an icepick into my brain, but working from memory I believe the relevant conversation runs something like:
Martian Hologram: I am the last remnant of Martian civilization. My people worked themselves to extinction in order to convert their entire planet into a navigable space vessel!
Zim: Wh...why would you do that?
Martian Hologram: Because it's coooool
I understand the appeal of capturing the collective imagination of the public, but I have trouble seeing "because it's awesome, and people will think it is awesome" as enough of an advantage to outweigh the associated disadvantages. I mean, if we can find the cash to keep funding probes, fix the healthcare system, fix the education system, and colonize Mars, then I am totally for it.
I'm just concerned because the trend thus far seems to be that the shiny awesome thing captures our imaginations so effectively that the other, arguably more concretely beneficial things end up underfunded.
If if if if if. The space program has been crippled by decades of ifs. If we can just get this done, and that done then we'll start thinking about space. Oh, we did that now, but now this is more important. If we can just save the whales, and fix world hunger. If we can just do this, and that, and this. It's time to stop saying if, and say that the space program is a key priority which we will do at the same time. To say that its worth delaying introducing the armys new Slambanger 42 super missile a few years to achieve the greatest thing our species has ever done. To inspire our culture that we can do great things, things which seem impossible. That we can take something that was no more than a dream 50 years ago and really do it. Space is the most important thing we could ever invest our money in. If you really don't want manned probes, then I say we should have unmanned probes on their way to nearby star systems. I want assembler platforms for unmanned ships in earth orbit. Fuel producing robots digging on the moon and so forth.
Man does not live by bread alone, and everything else we're thinking about instead of the space program. It's just more bread. OK, except saving the environment. Thats pretty vital too.
There is something else to consider: momentum. Not literal, mind you, but social and political momentum. Today most people have a middling opinion of space flight, mostly because the STS is pretty glamorous. I can easily see the public losing even more interest in NASA, and thus less likely to be willing to fund it, if no Astronauts go into space for, say, 5 years. Which is the current plan.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I want NASA to still be in "first place" in the "space race." But we must remember: we have the most experience working in space than any other country, possible second to Russia... and well, their program suffered for numerous reasons, most of them caused my stupid politics.
Russia has been pretty god damn exceptional, considering everything. If I wanted to build a space program from scratch, I think I'd try my hardest to get Russian rocket scientists to design it for me. Because...god damn.
It's worth noting that even if we don't do a manned mission, putting an MRO around every significant body in the system both gives us incredibly valuable scientific data and creates an interplanetary communications relay which can be used to make further exploration efforts - manned or unmanned - a hell of a lot easier. Also, gigabit internet in space.
It's worth noting that even if we don't do a manned mission, putting an MRO around every significant body in the system both gives us incredibly valuable scientific data and creates an interplanetary communications relay which can be used to make further exploration efforts - manned or unmanned - a hell of a lot easier. Also, gigabit internet in space.
More like kilobit.
There was a proposal to use lasers for interplanetary communication a few years back to let us send "live" HDTV from Mars.
God I hope someone implements that, because HD video from another planet would be unbelievably awesome.
It's been said before, but unmanned missions generally don't capture the public's imagination, whereas look at what we have right now looking back at the Apollo program and the first moon landings. Our parent's generation grew up remembering that moment, and I think it'd be safe to say it inspired a generation.
Unmanned missions don't do that.
So? I think its far more important to focus on missions that actually accomplish something, instead of trying to compete with whatever is on TV at the time. The Simpsons episode covered this pretty darn well; if your basing your space missions on TV ratings you're not going to accomplish a whole lot.
Russia has been pretty god damn exceptional, considering everything. If I wanted to build a space program from scratch, I think I'd try my hardest to get Russian rocket scientists to design it for me. Because...god damn.
Well, to their credit, they've been doing it longer than anyone else. Unless that Chang'e myth turns out to be true.
Any country that has had a constant space program, and frequently some continuous presence in space, for the past 52 years is going to have a lot of experience at it. And in so respects, they were teaching other people--like with Intercosmos or Kazakhstan, home of Baikanur.
And I don't think putting off a manned mission until fixing our seriously messed up healthcare system is all that unreasonable. Patience is a necessary part of any space program.
It's been said before, but unmanned missions generally don't capture the public's imagination, whereas look at what we have right now looking back at the Apollo program and the first moon landings. Our parent's generation grew up remembering that moment, and I think it'd be safe to say it inspired a generation.
Unmanned missions don't do that.
So? I think its far more important to focus on missions that actually accomplish something, instead of trying to compete with whatever is on TV at the time. The Simpsons episode covered this pretty darn well; if your basing your space missions on TV ratings you're not going to accomplish a whole lot.
My response to this is that if we truly believe that all that matters is efficiency, then we need to pick a 20 year timescale unmanned mission which is truly epic and do that instead. As has been suggested, MRO s around EVERY major object in the solar system. A satellite assembly and repair platform in earth orbit capable of producing its own fuel. The problem is that we say "Oh, unmanned missions are more efficient" and then hugely underfund them anyway.
While I'd prefer to send a human to mars, I'd be pretty inspired if we could build a self managing base there which could produce, maintain and refuel Rovers under control from earth.
It'd be wonderful if we could land a core drilling rig on Mars. We've really only scratched the surface - literally - of that planet and could get a lot of useful information if we could peer even a few meters underneath the surface.
I've also heard the idea of landing a UAV on the planet.
They do so many things in Red Mars that are pretty unbelievable.
But most of it relies on robots building bigger robots and really, really high efficiency solar panels.
Both of which we should have by the time we send colonists to the planet.
Most of the book, however, I was basically going "Whaaaat!? How can you do that? That's waay to expensive!"
Yeah, that was my only problem with the series. Even if they had the robots to build robots, they'd need a ton of energy to do it, and Mars is kinda lacking in that regard.
If if if if if. The space program has been crippled by decades of ifs. If we can just get this done, and that done then we'll start thinking about space. Oh, we did that now, but now this is more important. If we can just save the whales, and fix world hunger. If we can just do this, and that, and this. It's time to stop saying if, and say that the space program is a key priority which we will do at the same time. To say that its worth delaying introducing the armys new Slambanger 42 super missile a few years to achieve the greatest thing our species has ever done. To inspire our culture that we can do great things, things which seem impossible. That we can take something that was no more than a dream 50 years ago and really do it. Space is the most important thing we could ever invest our money in. If you really don't want manned probes, then I say we should have unmanned probes on their way to nearby star systems. I want assembler platforms for unmanned ships in earth orbit. Fuel producing robots digging on the moon and so forth.
Man does not live by bread alone, and everything else we're thinking about instead of the space program. It's just more bread. OK, except saving the environment. Thats pretty vital too.
I absolutely disagree. Just why is the space program so important? I agree that we're spending way too much on defense, but that money definitely shouldn't be going to the space program. Personally I feel that finding ways to curb pollution is by far the most important thing to devote money to, but that's partly my obsessive fear of carcinogens talking.
BTW, I'm fairly certain that there was a Super Friends episode in which the bad guy was sabotaging the space program because he felt that the funding should be used "first on Earth, and then in space."
Seriously, the idea that unmanned probes that kind of suck are a good idea because they're efficient is silly. If they work really the best? Then let's do something big and impressive and useful and not just send a single probe in a single direction once every 20 years. Why not shoot a probe to Mars every other Tuesday?
Edit: There's no such thing as "first...."
It just doesn't happen. You don't ever get to the point when you can say with certainty "ahhh, done!" Making life on Earth "good" is too fractal a problem.
Seriously, the idea that unmanned probes that kind of suck are a good idea because they're efficient is silly. If they work really the best? Then let's do something big and impressive and useful and not just send a single probe in a single direction once every 20 years. Why not shoot a probe to Mars every other Tuesday?
Edit: There's no such thing as "first...."
It just doesn't happen. You don't ever get to the point when you can say with certainty "ahhh, done!" Making life on Earth "good" is too fractal a problem.
Because the window for hitting Mars' orbit is very narrow and infrequent.
It just doesn't happen. You don't ever get to the point when you can say with certainty "ahhh, done!" Making life on Earth "good" is too fractal a problem.
Why should we devote any time and money to the space program? The only possible benefit I can think of that would be worth it is so we'd be able to evacuate Earth once the Sun's getting ready to go out, and it's entirely likely that something else would have caused humanity to go extinct by then.
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But an America excursion throws my whole tour of science off!
Of course the Timeline is way off, the first batch of 100 colonists on a gigantic rotating spaceship with parks and farms and whatnot built into it launched in 2026.. I'd add about 20 years at least to that number..
But it is an interesting read, especially because it focuses alot on the psychological state of the colonists and the lengths the designers went to help them stay mentally stable for the one year journey and beyond.
One strange thing is that they rotated the ship at 0.38g, the gravity of mars, instead of 1g. I would have kept them at 1g until they reached the surface, or steadily lowered the g as the journey progressed.
Also I'll third the Red/Green/Blue Mars books.
(Red Mars Spoiler)
Remember it doesn't need to be breathable, just enough to stop
Man does not live on rocket fuel alone.
Mars also has other helpful stuff, like an atmosphere to soak up small impactors with. If you get real creative you can use that atmosphere to soak up things like cometary fragments or any other big icy chunks that you can find and move to the planet.
Believe the thinking was that it gets them faster acclimatized to the gravity of the planet they'll be permanently living on. Rotating it at 1g for a permanent colony that's going to be experiencing 0.38g doesn't make too much sense.
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I do agree Mars is the prefered goal but think the Moon is a good stepping stone. Keeping a small moonbase supplied would be much cheaper than keping a fledgling Mars colony going. And the Luna rocket fuel is great problem solver. With a higher Dv reserve you can cut down a trip to Mars from 9 months to 2 weeks, sidestepping any problems of longterm microgravity and radiation exposure to your colonists. Last thing I read on the radiation problem was that 1 in 3 people would get cancer from the 9 month trip to Mars.
Honestly before we do any of it we need to start manufacturing some ridiculously big, fuel-inefficient rockets with large payloads and engines that aren't bleeding-edge. I don't care what the payload mass fraction is, since most of the rest is going to be fuel anyway and honestly isn't all that expensive.
Got to get those launch costs down!
I think it'd be a pretty cool bit for public imagination to be launching a rocket every year with the purpose of sending ahead equipment and supplies for a Mars base.
I mean, MRE's last decades already. Let's send some into space damn it!
There's a private company that's actually trying to do that. SpaceX I think it's called? Founded by one of the guys that made Paypal. They launched a satellite not that long ago, I believe.
It could be a nifty PR program to reserve whatever little bits of space you can, the fractional tons that fall out once you've packed up all the stuff you need into whatever heavy launcher you've got (presumably an Atlas 500 something or Delta IV), for schoolkids to send shit into space for the astronauts. You know, giant butcher paper cards signed by all the kids in the school, little trinkets. Stuff where two decades along the line some astronauts will hang it on the wall of the Marsbase.
In the meantime, unmanned probes tend to give us a hell of a lot more data per dollar than manned missions; if you really wanted to be hardcore about the whole 'must cut budget' thing you could probably reduce NASA's budget by a fair amount and still increase the return we get from it by reprioritizing things so that we focus primarily on unmanned missions. (Although I personally don't think the budget should be cut, by any means)
Cost estimates for even a single manned mission to mars range well upwards of $200 billion, and they're unlikely to tell us a whole lot we don't already know from our unmanned probes.
In contrast, the Voyager program has had a total cost of well under $1 billion, and has given us a massive wealth of data, including first-hand measurements of the outer portions of the heliosphere, which no other man-made object has ever approached, rendering new insights into our understanding of the solar system and the galaxy at large.
I feel like the program we should be prioritizing is pretty clear, there, and for irony points, the Voyager program almost got shut down early because people wanted to defund it and use the money to help pay for manned missions, in spite of the fact that the program currently only uses a couple million dollars a year.
Ultimately I think the focus on manned missions is pretty destructive to the value of the space program.
Data isn't the only thing of value.
A space elevator would be nice, too, but what are you going to do with all the crap under geosync that's going to cross its orbit?
True enough, but it's really the only thing we can't as easily get from here. We don't need to go to Mars for breakthroughs in self-sufficient environments, we've got people working on that right here. We don't need to go to Mars to figure out the basics of terraforming when we've got all kinds of deserts and other inhospitable places all over the place on Earth. Certainly, a base on the Moon, or on Mars, would be helpful for long-term space exploration, but we can do all the necessary groundwork much, much cheaper on Earth, so that when we do decide that it's cost-effective to go, it'll be much cheaper and easier to do. And in the meantime, we can fuel our technological advance with information collected from unmanned probes.
The rate of return on manned missions versus unmanned ones, especially to other planets, is just so abysmal at our current levels of technology that it's not reasonably justifiable.
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Invention is born of necessity. Things like wars and frontiers drive periods of aggressive technological expansion. Data from unmanned probes is great, and unmanned probes are great ways to get data, but it's not a way to expand your technology base (unless you get noticed by aliens).
This is not an attack against Abbalah but judging what's worthwhile for space exploration based solely on ROI is silly. What about adventure?
Also, while yes, robotic missions can do excellent science, I believe a real human being can do so much more.
If our goal is a large scale human presence off world then international competition and a colonial race for prime real estate are more likely to be effective.
The "hundreds of billions" figures are based on the 90-Day Study (regarding the proposed Space Exploration Initiative years ago), which determined the approximate cost of a Mars mission would be $500 billion. That mission architecture is now obsolete, and was based on orbital vehicle construction and fueling and all kinds of other really, really expensive stuff. Modern proposals involve direct launch from Earth aboard a heavy lift vehicle—and this brings the cost down to a very reasonable level, especially given that the above $25 or $50 billion (depending on your mission of choice) represents program costs over ten years or so. It could be fit within NASA's current budget without too much difficulty.
Basically, your figures are way out of date.
Ehhh, Mars isn't that far away to warrant stasis of some kind. To travel to another star, sure. But to Mars?
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Fair enough; I did do the bulk of my research on the issue a couple years ago.
Nevertheless, that doesn't invalidate my point: Taking Voyager as a benchmark, you're looking at more than one hundred times the cost ($50 billion/10 years versus a bit less than 1 billion/30 years) for a mission that is less likely to generate the same caliber of return.
The idea that efficiency shouldn't be a major concern in the space program is a little ridiculous, though. You have a limited amount of time and money and you should be trying to get the most out of it that you can; doubly so when you're spending public funds.
And yes, necessity drives invention, sure. But when you're talking about technology for manned missions, most of that is pretty use-specific. You're going on manned missions to develop technology for manned missions...so that you can do more manned missions. And while there's a fair amount of stuff that has more general use, the fact that it has a more general use means we'll have a necessity for it even without it being driven by space exploration, and will develop it accordingly.
We might well get the technology for exploration faster through manned missions, but it'll be a hell of a lot more expensive and it's not like there's a huge hurry; I'm at least 90% sure that Mars will still be there to colonize in 20-30 years. In the meantime, given our fucked-up health and education systems, fast-teching our space exploration capabilities for shits and giggles really ought to be put on the back burner, especially when we have another, much cheaper, option that will give us a much better return with broader applications.
Unmanned missions don't do that.
The scene I'm reminded of doesn't appear to be up on youtube, and searching through Invader Zim fansites makes me want to jab an icepick into my brain, but working from memory I believe the relevant conversation runs something like:
Martian Hologram: I am the last remnant of Martian civilization. My people worked themselves to extinction in order to convert their entire planet into a navigable space vessel!
Zim: Wh...why would you do that?
Martian Hologram: Because it's coooool
I understand the appeal of capturing the collective imagination of the public, but I have trouble seeing "because it's awesome, and people will think it is awesome" as enough of an advantage to outweigh the associated disadvantages. I mean, if we can find the cash to keep funding probes, fix the healthcare system, fix the education system, and colonize Mars, then I am totally for it.
I'm just concerned because the trend thus far seems to be that the shiny awesome thing captures our imaginations so effectively that the other, arguably more concretely beneficial things end up underfunded.
If if if if if. The space program has been crippled by decades of ifs. If we can just get this done, and that done then we'll start thinking about space. Oh, we did that now, but now this is more important. If we can just save the whales, and fix world hunger. If we can just do this, and that, and this. It's time to stop saying if, and say that the space program is a key priority which we will do at the same time. To say that its worth delaying introducing the armys new Slambanger 42 super missile a few years to achieve the greatest thing our species has ever done. To inspire our culture that we can do great things, things which seem impossible. That we can take something that was no more than a dream 50 years ago and really do it. Space is the most important thing we could ever invest our money in. If you really don't want manned probes, then I say we should have unmanned probes on their way to nearby star systems. I want assembler platforms for unmanned ships in earth orbit. Fuel producing robots digging on the moon and so forth.
Man does not live by bread alone, and everything else we're thinking about instead of the space program. It's just more bread. OK, except saving the environment. Thats pretty vital too.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I want NASA to still be in "first place" in the "space race." But we must remember: we have the most experience working in space than any other country, possible second to Russia... and well, their program suffered for numerous reasons, most of them caused my stupid politics.
More like kilobit.
God I hope someone implements that, because HD video from another planet would be unbelievably awesome.
So? I think its far more important to focus on missions that actually accomplish something, instead of trying to compete with whatever is on TV at the time. The Simpsons episode covered this pretty darn well; if your basing your space missions on TV ratings you're not going to accomplish a whole lot.
Well, to their credit, they've been doing it longer than anyone else. Unless that Chang'e myth turns out to be true.
Any country that has had a constant space program, and frequently some continuous presence in space, for the past 52 years is going to have a lot of experience at it. And in so respects, they were teaching other people--like with Intercosmos or Kazakhstan, home of Baikanur.
And I don't think putting off a manned mission until fixing our seriously messed up healthcare system is all that unreasonable. Patience is a necessary part of any space program.
My response to this is that if we truly believe that all that matters is efficiency, then we need to pick a 20 year timescale unmanned mission which is truly epic and do that instead. As has been suggested, MRO s around EVERY major object in the solar system. A satellite assembly and repair platform in earth orbit capable of producing its own fuel. The problem is that we say "Oh, unmanned missions are more efficient" and then hugely underfund them anyway.
While I'd prefer to send a human to mars, I'd be pretty inspired if we could build a self managing base there which could produce, maintain and refuel Rovers under control from earth.
I've also heard the idea of landing a UAV on the planet.
But most of it relies on robots building bigger robots and really, really high efficiency solar panels.
Both of which we should have by the time we send colonists to the planet.
Most of the book, however, I was basically going "Whaaaat!? How can you do that? That's waay to expensive!"
Yeah, that was my only problem with the series. Even if they had the robots to build robots, they'd need a ton of energy to do it, and Mars is kinda lacking in that regard.
I absolutely disagree. Just why is the space program so important? I agree that we're spending way too much on defense, but that money definitely shouldn't be going to the space program. Personally I feel that finding ways to curb pollution is by far the most important thing to devote money to, but that's partly my obsessive fear of carcinogens talking.
BTW, I'm fairly certain that there was a Super Friends episode in which the bad guy was sabotaging the space program because he felt that the funding should be used "first on Earth, and then in space."
Edit: There's no such thing as "first...."
It just doesn't happen. You don't ever get to the point when you can say with certainty "ahhh, done!" Making life on Earth "good" is too fractal a problem.
Because the window for hitting Mars' orbit is very narrow and infrequent.
Why should we devote any time and money to the space program? The only possible benefit I can think of that would be worth it is so we'd be able to evacuate Earth once the Sun's getting ready to go out, and it's entirely likely that something else would have caused humanity to go extinct by then.