On Jan 14, 6:50*pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
" wrote:
On Jan 14, 5:47*pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Damien Valentine wrote:
On Jan 12, 11:24 am, " wrote:
What if aerobreaking were used?

The manned portion would detach and dive perhaps repeatedly into the
atmosphere to slow for landing.

This would mean the transit vehicle would only accelerate on its way
to mars cutting travel time.

So you've got a launch vehicle that flies past Mars at top speed,
drops off the crew capsule (which lands safely by aerobraking), and
then keeps going?

It feels to me like there is something VERY wrong with his physics,
unless his goal is for his "manned portion" to make a really deep
smoking hole on Mars.

Didnt some earlier unmanned missions use aerobraking?

and just how robust of a heat shield would be necessary?

The problem isn't the heat shield. *The problem is you don't get much
drag from Mars' atmosphere. *I believe there was at least one
successful unmanned aerobraking probe. *These probes are relatively
small. *The aerobraking maneuver on Mars is VERY tricky. *You're not
going to do it if you're accelerating all the way there.



the now not needed manned stage could be abandoned to exit the solar
system at high speed, perhaps with some experiments.

Freudian slip on your part. *I suspect you meant that the UNmanned
stage was not needed and could be abandoned.



or have it slingshot brake and do a slow or muliti year return to
earth.

dont think of it as wasted, think of it as used up

I'm more concerned about the smoking hole your people made by not
doing any deceleration until they reached Mars.

--
"Rule Number One for Slayers - Don't die." *
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yep the no longer manned stage would be considered waste, or
slingshotted slowly back to earth.

think out of the box, since the box isnt your friend........

how about a small crew capsule, very robust with a large inflatable
transhab breaking or parachute?

if the capsule is low weight, its speed high might be compensated for
by a large drag to slow re entry.

obviously for this type mission robots will have set up a base camp,
or perhaps camps in advance.....

in prep for peole arriving.