Pat Flannery wrote:
On 4/30/2011 7:29 AM, Val Kraut wrote:
One wonders what the plan is to keep the travelers from being killed
by radiation.

NASA tended to be in denial on this issue and made statements like the
Mars
crew will get their lifetime dose during the round trip - so no Mars
crews
will fly twice. What we need is th acceptance that shielding must be
provided asgainst both gamma and fast particles, and a realistic
allotment
for the extra weight. May need some different thoughts on where we
make the
fuel - Moon or Mars.

They played around with shielding the spacecraft with an electrostatic
screen:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5079651/...science-space/


But the article ends with a statement about surrounding the habitable core of
a Mars transit ship with tanks of LH2 or L-H20 to provide shielding. If liquid
water is used as a shield wouldn't it also need to be heated while in transit
to Mars? Or would pressurizing the water tanks help? Or both? All it takes is
energy, energy, energy.

These Dragon capsule Mars exploration wet dreams produced by the SpaceX PR
department makes my even more off-topic ranting fair game:

Warp drive or an interplanetary 'transporter' would solve *all* these mundane
problems. You know if we *had* a really good quantum traveling device,
everyone could get a chance to be everywhere at least once in their lifetime.
Hence all of space exploration could be achieved in just a few years (time
needed to get everyone to experience the quantum trip). Or maybe we just sell
hallucinogenics on the street corner instead of spending millions on NASA.
Outsource space exploration to Mexico!

:-)

Back on topic for a second. Really, if Musk wants to go to Mars and HE is
footing the bill, he is free to try...

Dave