Jonathan wrote:

On 9/5/2016 3:30 PM, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Jonathan wrote:

On 9/5/2016 9:30 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:

In article ,
says...

$3 to $5 billion per year to keep two (2) American
astronauts in space all year long is just too
expensive. What the ISS has primarily returned
is evidence bone loss for long duration space flight
shows the whole colonizing Mars dream isn't practical.

Bull****. This is an engineering problem, not a medical problem. Why
NASA continues to treat it as a medical problem baffles me.

Not until we can build spacecraft large enough to
supply artificial gravity and that means a sea-change
in cost to orbit.

Not that hard. All you need to do is attach your transfer stage to your
habitat module by a long cable and spin it up. Again, this is an
engineering problem that is not very difficult to solve.


Not that difficult? Don't be ridiculous, your cable
solution is another pipe-dream.


Physics, Jonathan. Get some.


Engineering, Fred. You really think NASA is
going to build a ship like that? Show me
the plans?


"Is going to" means you don't have a complete design yet, Jonathan.
Applying your 'logic' to everything in history and we'd still be
waiting to cross the Atlantic because nobody had plans for the Queen
Mary back when people were paddling canoes.




A spacecraft large
enough to supply artificial gravity AND go to Mars
AND carry enough gear to support more than a few
days stay would make the $150 billion dollar
/several decade long/ ISS project look like
...chump-change.


That's why you don't use A spacecraft. You use a bunch of them. Like
most problems, things are much easier if you break it down into
bite-sized chunks.


ISS started in 1985. If we started now that
space craft to Mars might be done by 2050.


Hogwash. Musk is talking a private manned mission launching in 2024
that would have an 18 month stay time.


Thank you for falling into my logical trap, then
why should NASA spend all it's dough on it's
OWN MISSION? If Musk will have already done it
long before.


By that thinking, why NASA? Because they want to be a player and
they'll probably throw some money in the kitty.


Got a cite for that 18 month stay claim?


See any of the FIVE Reference Mission plans.


I expect that will slide by 18
months or so (which would be the next launch opportunity).


Here's what Musk said about that absurd schedule
and I quote.

"I may be delusional. That is entirely possible,..."

https://spaceflightnow.com/2016/06/0...-mars-in-2024/


Look up "self-deprecating humor". Not everyone is the humourless
stupid **** that you are.



Rovers could have mapped half the planet
of Mars by then.


Beyond hogwash. How many rovers are you going to send? In 4 years
Curiosity has gone about 6 miles.


You could double NASA's budget, spend every dime
of it on the manned Mars mission and it would still
take twenty or thirty years and only give astronauts
...HOURS on the surface.

A useless mission scientifically speaking.


Which is why that's never been the plan. Have you even bothered to
look at ANY of the NASA Reference Missions? How many hours in 18
months, Jonathan?


NASA's plan last I read involved 4 people on the surface
for 2 weeks, how much of that time will be about the
habitat? Virtually all of it, sure they could collect
some samples for return, but so could a far cheaper
and FAR sooner unmanned mission.


Where did you read that? The plan has been 18 months on surface since
at least 1997.





The next space station, manned space flight
in general, should wait until that day
arrives. We're not even close yet.

Waiting for "artificial gravity" stupid since it's something we could do
today given the motivation. NASA isn't doing anything meaningful
towards sending people to Mars. Just look at where the money is being
spent. There are no Mars landers being designed and built. There is no
habitat being built big enough for a Mars trip. There are no in-situ
propellant production experiments being run on Mars (could be used to
fuel an unmanned sample return mission). SLS/Orion is the only big
thing NASA is spending money on and neither, by themselves, will take
people to Mars. Orion doesn't even have a good enough heat shield for a
direct reentry of a returning Mars mission.

The biggest problem with going to Mars, or anywhere beyond LEO, is the
high cost to launch anything into LEO.


Thanks for agreeing with me.


He didn't. No thanks for acting like a moron. Are you going to stalk
out of here in high dudgeon after throwing a hissy fit AGAIN when
people point out you're just talking ignorant ****e?


LEO is "half way to anywhere" in
terms of delta-V. Low launch costs will open up spaceflight like we've
never seen before.

Until then we should spend our space budget
on more ambitious unmanned missions to Mars
not this pipe-dream of sending people there.

Toasters are fine, but can't do 1/100th what a person in an EVA suit
plus a pressurized laboratory module can do.

I'm sorry to but to think a few days, or week or two
on the surface of Mars is going to return useful
science is absurd. They'd be spending most of their
time on the habitat and surviving just like
with the ISS. Where some science is shoe-horned
in when they can.


18 months...


Where's you cite? And have you considered all
that has to happen to accomplish that?


See *ANY* of the *FIVE* Reference Missions published since 1997.
Jonathan, if you want to enter into a discussion you should do at
least minimal research on the topic before you make yourself look like
an ass.


Falcon Heavy, manned capsules, numerous cargo flights
etc etc? Who is going to pay for it? Have you
considered that? Show me the links that give
any reality to such a claim.


Musk is going to pay for at least the first two (2018 and 2020)

snip


--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson