The first human mars mission?

As the reply posts to an earlier post stated there has been no metal
bent for a Mars mission, or even the crew short listed. Has there
been any preliminary designs on the lander craft, or how it's going to
get to Mars yet, or has the total work done on a Mars mission been
restricted to the work done by the Mars Society, with NASA
contributing nothing as yet except for some pretty animated movies,
and pretty pictures of martian astronouts on Mars?


Christopher
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Kites rise highest against
the wind - not with it."
Winston Churchill

In article ,
Christopher wrote:
...Has there
been any preliminary designs on the lander craft, or how it's going to
get to Mars yet...

*Lots* of designs. Lots of paper and viewgraphs. None of which have any
likely relation to anything that might happen.

NASA has *no plans* for a manned Mars expedition. None. It's completely
beyond their planning horizon. So there are no "preliminary designs":
that would imply a commitment, with specific plans to turn those
preliminary designs into definitive designs. There is no such commitment.

What NASA has, is design studies. A large pile of them; some of the ones
on the bottom of the pile are from the early 1960s. They might, or might
not, influence any real design that might someday be done.

or has the total work done on a Mars mission been
restricted to the work done by the Mars Society...

The Mars Society's work has been at the same level: design studies.
(Yes, they have built and experimented with mockups of some of the studied
designs. NASA has been known to do that too.)
--
MOST launched 1015 EDT 30 June, separated 1046, | Henry Spencer
first ground-station pass 1651, all nominal! |

NASA's first big study was in fact a manned Mars mission flyby one. EMPIRE
(Early Manned Planetary Interplanetary Roundtrip Expeditions) started in 1962.

The Mars Society has little money and is doing what we can do with it to move
the possiblity of manned missions to Mars beyond viewgraphs and studies.

--Chris Vancil

On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 17:14:47 GMT, (Henry Spencer)
wrote:

In article ,
Christopher wrote:
...Has there
been any preliminary designs on the lander craft, or how it's going to
get to Mars yet...

*Lots* of designs. Lots of paper and viewgraphs. None of which have any
likely relation to anything that might happen.

NASA has *no plans* for a manned Mars expedition. None. It's completely
beyond their planning horizon. So there are no "preliminary designs":
that would imply a commitment, with specific plans to turn those
preliminary designs into definitive designs. There is no such commitment.

What NASA has, is design studies. A large pile of them; some of the ones
on the bottom of the pile are from the early 1960s. They might, or might
not, influence any real design that might someday be done.

or has the total work done on a Mars mission been
restricted to the work done by the Mars Society...

The Mars Society's work has been at the same level: design studies.
(Yes, they have built and experimented with mockups of some of the studied
designs. NASA has been known to do that too.)

Thanks for that-and the other posters-looks like it'll be 2050 at
least before we go, and I'll probably be dead by then.


Christopher
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Kites rise highest against
the wind - not with it."
Winston Churchill

Christopher wrote:

Thanks for that-and the other posters-looks like it'll be 2050 at
least before we go, and I'll probably be dead by then.

Why 2050? One of the reasons, the manned missions to Mars have taken so
long to materialize, is that evolution in space travel has largely been
seen as "automatic". In the sixties, we thought we'd probably have lunar
bases around 1980 and manned Mars missions around 1995. Why did we think
that? In 1985, we thought we'd have manned missions to Mars by 2000.
What did we base that on? Now you say 2050, but based on what?

Nothing happens by itself. Nothing just comes into being. Someone has to
say "let's do it!" and then do it.

(This isn't meant as an advertisement, but seriously: support the Mars
Society. As I view it, it's our best chance to show the politicians that
we think something ought to be done.)

--
Steen Eiler Jørgensen
"No, I don't think I'll ever get over Macho Grande.
Those wounds run...pretty deep."

"Steen Eiler Jørgensen" wrote in message
...
Christopher wrote:

Thanks for that-and the other posters-looks like it'll be 2050 at
least before we go, and I'll probably be dead by then.

Why 2050? One of the reasons, the manned missions to Mars have taken so
long to materialize, is that evolution in space travel has largely been
seen as "automatic". In the sixties, we thought we'd probably have lunar
bases around 1980 and manned Mars missions around 1995. Why did we think
that? In 1985, we thought we'd have manned missions to Mars by 2000.
What did we base that on? Now you say 2050, but based on what?

Nothing happens by itself. Nothing just comes into being. Someone has to
say "let's do it!" and then do it.

(This isn't meant as an advertisement, but seriously: support the Mars
Society. As I view it, it's our best chance to show the politicians that
we think something ought to be done.)

No, it's not. The Mars Society will be 100% irrelevant whe the
ultima decision is made to do a manned Mars mission. It's just a
way for people to get together and feel good about something.

Our best chance is to wait for a Presidential candidate who
vocally advocates a manned Mars mission, and then vote for
them.

Bruce

In article ,
Bruce Sterling Woodcock wrote:
Our best chance is to wait for a Presidential candidate who
vocally advocates a manned Mars mission, and then vote for them.

There will be no such candidate; waiting for one equals giving up.

No presidential candidate with any hope of being elected is going to be
passionately in favor of *anything* except seeing himself sworn in as
President... because that sort of single-minded dedication is what it
takes to get the job.

So the only reason he would advocate such a thing is that he'd think it
would get him a lot of votes. And space as a spectator sport simply isn't
that popular.
--
MOST launched 1015 EDT 30 June, separated 1046, | Henry Spencer
first ground-station pass 1651, all nominal! |

Our best chance is to wait for a Presidential candidate who
vocally advocates a manned Mars mission, and then vote for
them.

Bruce

The problem is, that the timeline of such a mission will exceed their term of
office even if reelected.

On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 14:14:17 +0200,
=?iso-8859-1?Q?Steen_Eiler_J=F8rgensen?=
wrote:

Christopher wrote:

Thanks for that-and the other posters-looks like it'll be 2050 at
least before we go, and I'll probably be dead by then.

Why 2050?

Humanity might have grown up a little by then.

One of the reasons, the manned missions to Mars have taken so
long to materialize, is that evolution in space travel has largely been
seen as "automatic". In the sixties, we thought we'd probably have lunar
bases around 1980 and manned Mars missions around 1995. Why did we think
that? In 1985, we thought we'd have manned missions to Mars by 2000.
What did we base that on? Now you say 2050, but based on what?

Nothing happens by itself. Nothing just comes into being. Someone has to
say "let's do it!" and then do it.

(This isn't meant as an advertisement, but seriously: support the Mars
Society. As I view it, it's our best chance to show the politicians that
we think something ought to be done.)

--
Steen Eiler Jørgensen
"No, I don't think I'll ever get over Macho Grande.
Those wounds run...pretty deep."


Christopher
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Kites rise highest against
the wind - not with it."
Winston Churchill

Christopher wrote:

On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 14:14:17 +0200,
=?iso-8859-1?Q?Steen_Eiler_J=F8rgensen?=
wrote:

Christopher wrote:

Thanks for that-and the other posters-looks like it'll be 2050 at
least before we go, and I'll probably be dead by then.

Why 2050?

Humanity might have grown up a little by then.


Depends on what your definition of 'growing up' is, but in terms of
overall behavior, I don't see anything to make me think the next fifty
years will be much different from the last fifty (most of which I
remember) in that respect.

We'll simply have bigger/better/faster toys (technology) to do
whatever it is we'll be doing, good or bad. But then, that's actually my
hope. And a safer bet than a change in human nature.