On Sunday, March 27, 2016 at 12:38:23 PM UTC+13, William Mook wrote:
All those steps for a lunar base above can be carried out in 24 months of funding and will prove out the technology for a Mars base.within one synodic period of a return to the moon.

I have gone through the numbers for a Stulinger style Mars mission using a Falcoln heavy launcher. A lighter mission involving a single launch with a single capsule one way is possible in 24 months as well. Survival on Mars is the issue at that point.

A crewmember of typical size requires approximately 5 kg or 11 lb(total) of food, water, and oxygen per day to perform the standard activities on a space mission, and outputs a similar amount in the form of waste solids, waste liquids, and carbon dioxide.

The mass breakdown of these metabolic parameters is as follows:

0.84 kg of oxygen,
0.62 kg of food, and
3.52 kg of water

Using solar power water and oxygen are easily recovered. So we are talking 0.62 kg of food per day. Two people 500 days equal 620 kg of concentrate with air and water recycling. Waste accumulates as carbon in the system. That is used to fertilise Martian crops

The dragon capsule is designed for up to two years up to 7 people. Two people per capsule and three capsules per launch to a Mars transfer orbit one way is possible. That's $15 million per person. 3D printing and soil processing to build Martian homestead upon arrival is within reach.

This is the decade we will return to the moon and begin settlement of Mars.

They're not mutually exclusive. With a water resource on the moon we will settle on the moon as easily as Mars.

Population was reportedly 7.125 billion three years ago. today, population is reportedly 7.411 billion. This is an implied rate of population growth of 1.322% per annum. Over the next 10 years population will rise to 8.451 billions by 2026AD at this rate. At that time 12,745 people will be added to the human population each hour.

Removing 50,000 people per hour from Earth to colonies on Mars, the moon, and the major asteroids, will reduce human numbers permanently on Earth over an 18 year period, after which permanent population levels will be maintained at a low level as desired; in millions of people;

Year Earth Off World

2026 8,451.00 525.96
2027 8,036.76 1,068.86
2028 7,617.05 1,629.23
2029 7,191.79 2,207.65
2030 6,760.90 2,804.70
2031 6,324.32 3,420.97
2032 5,881.97 4,057.09
2033 5,433.77 4,713.69
2034 4,979.64 5,391.43 -- population off world exceeds Earth's.
2035 4,519.51 6,090.99
2036 4,053.30 6,813.08
2037 3,580.93 7,558.42
2038 3,102.30 8,327.76
2039 2,617.36 9,121.88
2040 2,126.00 9,941.56
2041 1,628.14 10,787.64
2042 1,123.71 11,660.96
2043 612.60 12,562.40 -- populaton on Earth below 1 billion.
2044 94.74 13,492.87 -- export rate collapses due to low population.

Compare this rate to air travel today;

http://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/pag...-12-06-01.aspx

Today, airlines carry 410,000 passengers per hour in 2015 and 165,400 passengers per hour over international routes. There are 3,825 wide body passenger aircraft and 1,026 wide body cargo aircraft. There are another 15,500 smaller aircraft owned by 800 scheduled airliners around the world.

So 50,000 per hour is less than 1/3rd the international traffic today and 1/8th the commercial airline travel today.

How will people be supported off world?

By automated AI that self replicates.

Self replicating machine systems will be used to transforms the environments of the moon, Mars and the major asteroids,

http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/selfRepNASA.html

Here are the materials available:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/nlsc2008/pdf/2116.pdf

Mars 6.39x10^23 kg 6778 km diam 1.5237 AU 5.027 km/sec 14.1778 km depth = Ceres mass
Moon 7.34x10^22 kg 3474 km diam 1.000 AU 2.380 km/sec 3.1660 km/depth = Ceres mass
Ceres 8.95x10^20 kg 950 km diam 2.7675 AU 0.510 km/sec 1 Ceres Mass
Vesta 2.95x10^20 kg 525 km diam 2.3618 AU 0.360 km/sec 32.96% Ceres Mass
Pallas 2.10x10^20 kg 512 km diam 2.7716 AU 0.330 km/sec 23.46% Ceres Mass
Hygeia 8.67x10^19 kg 500 km diam 3.1421 AU 0.210 km/sec 9.68% Ceres Mass

It takes 69.6 doubling periods to grow from 1 kg mass to the Mass of Ceres. So, a 1 second doubling time using a controlled fusion reaction would take little more than a minute to complete the reaction!

There are 7 parts per billion of Lithium, and 7.5% of that total is the easily fissioned isotope Lithium-6 which forms an alpha particle and a tritium particle along with 4.8 MeV after absorbing a neutron. This tritium particle easily has sufficient energy to fuse with a deuterium nucleus to create another helium particle and a neutron again, releasing 17.6 MeV. This combination, called the Jetter Cycle and is aneutronic. This process is used to fuse other materials as well. D+T and D+D. Neutron flux can be used to fission Thorium or Uranium as desired as well, or cause Boron to undergo aneutronic fusion as well.

Hydrogen including deuterium is super-abundant compared to Lithium-6.

http://www.space.com/17680-giant-ast...pacecraft.html

Initiating a fusion reaction that reduces a well defined volume of material to elemental plasma, and then extracting materials from the plasma created in this way via time of flight mass spectrometry, and using additive manufacturing to re-assemble those materials into anything desired, is a process whereby self-replicating machines can quickly operate throughout these bodies to produce anything required of them.

This rapid transformation of lifeless objects to life bearing worlds was portrayed in a 1986 sci-fi film as follows;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM1r37zIBOQ

Of course in addition to transforming the surface of a planet, the interior of the planet may be processed as well, and material ejected from the world to create large colonies in a parallel orbit around the Sun.

Here's the energy it takes to eject a kg off world

Mars: 25.2707 MJ/kg
Moon; 5.6644 MJ/kg
Ceres: 0.2601 MJ/kg
Vesta: 0.1296 MJ/kg
Pallas: 0.1089 MJ/kg
Hygeia:0.0441 MJ/kg

This all compares favourably with 15 MJ/kg to reduce materials to elemental atoms and recombine them.

Open air haibtats were first engineered in 1997 by Forrest Bishop

http://www.iase.cc/openair.htm

A square meter of colony masses 100,000 kg. So dividing this figure into the mass of Ceres results in 17.55 Earth areas, which are comprised of 2,723 colonies each about the area of India, or 3.29 million sq km each.

Mars, the Moon, Ceres, each have a grand total of 8,171 colonies which rise to 9,968 colonies when the major asteroids are added to the total. In 2044 AD total population at each colony is 1,353,620 persons each occupying 2..43 square kilometers of habitable area. 600 acres per person. An extended family of 13 persons would occupy an area equivalent to the Biltmore Estate.

http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/vi...e-estate/14380

Here's the break-down;

Mars: 2,723 colonies - in solar orbit 1.5237 AU
Moon: 2,723 colonies - in solar orbit around Earth Sol L1 & L2
Ceres: 2,723 colonies - in solar orbit 2.7675 AU
Vesta 897 colonies - in solar orbit 2.3618 AU
Pallas 639 colonies - in solar orbit 2.7716 AU
Hygeia 263 colonies - in solar orbit 3.1421 AU


Vis Viva equation gives us the velocity of objects in an orbit;

V =sqrt( 2/r - 1/a)

Where V is the velocity and r is the position of the object and a is the semi-major axis of the orbit. Now the Earth takes 1 year to travel around the sun in 1 AU with this formula. To convert to km/sec we need to know the length of a AU in kilometers and the number of seconds in a year. So we take the length of AU in km as the radius of a circle and calculate the circumference and divide that length by the number of seocnds in a year. This gives you the average speed of the Earth in km/sec - which is 29.785 km/sec. This allows you to convert the values obtained for the transfer orbits from Earth to Mars and the asteroids.

A minimum energy orbit requires the following transfer times;

Mars - 259 days
Moon 4 days
Ceres 472 days
Vesta 398 days
Pallas 473 days
Hygeia 545 days

At constant 1 gee boost;

Mars 2.07 days to 4.54 days
Moon 3.75 hours
Ceres 3.80 days to 5.55 days
Vesta 3.34 days to 5.24 days
Pallas 3.81 days to 5.55 days
Hygeia 4.18 days to 5.82 days