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Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking the poles
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Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking the poles
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Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking the poles
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Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking the poles
"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
... In article , m says... True, but most Americans couldn't name a single Antarctic researcher. I'll bet come a Mars mission they'll be able to name at least one if not most of them. I doubt most Americans could name 1/4 of the US astronauts who died during Apollo 1, on Challenger, and on Columbia. Astronauts were a hell of a lot easier to name when they were the Mercury 7 and we were behind the Soviet Union in space. Today, not so much. At the time of the incidents I'd bet many could. Of course naming 1/4 of the astronauts on Apollo 1 might be though. :-) Seriously, with Challenger, I bet most still could name 1/7th though. Columbia though, now... I'm sure none could. And this is the problem. If some anonymous American dies at the South Pole, it'll make the news for one evening and then folks will move on. If an astronaut dies, it's a national tragedy and commissions will be formed. And based on past experience, it might set back the program a year or two at most. And after several more years, the public will have forgotten the names of most of the astronauts who died. I don't think we're too far apart on this. But, I think a setback of 2 years (or more likely at least 1-2 launch cycles given Mars' orbit) could severely constrain any program. It could easily push it off into another administration which could easily kill it. There is also the cost of the program that makes it a very easy target, especially if something goes wrong. A death at the South Pole and most people wouldn't question the budget. A death on Mars and people are going to immediately ask if the billions spent are worth it. I don't always agree with this, but I think it's the reality we're in. It's one reason in a sense I both think a private mission is more and more likely before a government one, but I favor it. I think fewer questions will be asked and fewer people held responsible. I disagree. America isn't that sensitive to death. History has proven this. In part yes, but in reality, we spend millions more on construction projects to avoid deaths, we expect safer cars. We spend more and more money on saving lives (and not just in total, but per capita). In a wealthy country, I don't have a big problem with this. But I do think it constrains us at times. Jeff -- Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/ CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net |
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Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking the poles
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Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking the poles
"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
... In article , says... I disagree. America isn't that sensitive to death. History has proven this. In part yes, but in reality, we spend millions more on construction projects to avoid deaths, we expect safer cars. Yes, but in both cases, deaths are inevitable. Injury and death in general is inevitable on large scale projects. If it weren't, insurance wouldn't be such a huge business. True, but the rate of deaths has definitely dropped. There are many major projects now that are completed without a single death. We spend more and more money on saving lives (and not just in total, but per capita). In a wealthy country, I don't have a big problem with this. But I do think it constrains us at times. It only constrains us if we let it. Again, none of the past NASA astronaut tragedies have stopped the then current manned space program. Really? You don't think Columbia's breakup had anything to do with Bush cancelling the program? Prior to the accident there were no firm plans to end the program. And several of the higher ups in NASA during the Apollo era later said that Apollo 1 and 13 made them very nervous to continue. If these programs are more likely to be canceled today than in the past, perhaps you should consider factors other than "safety" and the deaths of astronauts and focus on those issues. For example, you mention the high cost (e.g. many billions of dollars for manned Mars missions). Focusing on ways to get those costs, and schedules, down would be more productive than allowing such an expensive, admittedly financially fragile, programs to go forward as they are. Oh, I agree 100%. I think the best thing we can do is continue to reduce launch costs. The more mass we can toss at the problem, the easier it is to solve. For example I'd advocate that one of the simplest things we can do to greatly increase the safety of a Mars mission is to basically fly two craft that can be independent so either can be a lifeboat. This is probably easier, and if launch costs come down, cheaper than trying to make sure we have a single space craft that "can't fail". And as Fred noted in another post, cutting mass of Mars Reference Missions reduces redundancies. That can impact the safety of a mission. This seems to me to be a product of focusing too much on a transportation architecture too heavily based on "heavy lift" (i.e. Ares V and now SLS). Agreed. Other than in what feels like the distant past (e.g. the NASA Fastrac engine R&D that SpaceX then used as a solid basis for the Merlin engine), NASA has not done anything "big" in the way of successfully reducing costs through technology development. Again, IMHO. I'd agree. As I think most of us here would agree, SLS is a mistake. It's a solution in search of a problem. NASA really should be funding stuff engine designs. Tank designs (can we use different/better materials?) etc. I don't want to see them building a super lifter and then trying to find missions. It's one reason I really think Musk will get there before Uncle Sam. Jeff -- Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/ CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net |
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Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking the poles
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Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking the poles
"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
... In article m, says... On 2015-10-04 14:07, Jeff Findley wrote: Other than in what feels like the distant past (e.g. the NASA Fastrac engine R&D that SpaceX then used as a solid basis for the Merlin engine), NASA has not done anything "big" in the way of successfully reducing costs through technology development. Again, IMHO. What about the engines on DC-X ? ( forget what they were called). RL-10. Absolutely nothing special there. Completely off the shelf. Still used in the Centaur upper stage. DC-X did prove you could "gas and go" with them, which many people doubted was possible (because space and rocket engines are somehow "special" because space is "hard"). Yeah, the RL-10 has a great history and shows that a fairly simple engine JFW. It's the VTVL of DC-X that was truly special. It paved the way for the Falcon 9-R first stage and for Blue Origin's first stage as well. But NASA abandoned VTVL when it picked the "winner" for the X-33 design. Politics uber alles :-P Just because the project didn't pan out doesn't mean that R&D wasn't done on it. Sometimes, testing a solution to find out it doesn't work is just as valuable since it helps draw the roadmap to avoid this tech. According to NASA, X-33 "proved" we didn't have the tech for SSTO. That was complete B.S. They abandoned the then proven VTVL of DC-X and went for VTHL because it was cool (everyone knows spaceships land on runways, like the shuttle right?), despite the fact that it is harder to meet mass fractions with a horizontal lander. And in that sense ayup, it proved we probably can't build a VTHL SSTO. On the same token, we probably can't build a usable 747 helicopter hybrid. Might be why Boeing not only hasn't built one, they haven't even suggested it. ;-) With the failure of X-33, all that DC-X investment went into the $hitter and NASA went back to warmed over 1960s and 1970s tech for Ares I and Ares V, which has morphed into SLS. It's a technological throwback to an era when everyone "knew" you dropped spent stages into the ocean, because "performance uber alles" said the former German engineers. Too bad "performance uber alles" is the antithesis of low cost access to space. :-P At some point one has to optimize for performance, but agreed, definitely after you've optimized for cost (unless performance is such a huge improvement. But given where we stand with modern rocket engines, it's not like someone is suddenly going to come up with an main engine with 10x the ISP of anything out there!) If we look at the Shutle engines, I know NASA improved their performance (allowing them to go to something like 105% of originally rated performance). Didn't they also manage to substantially reduce their operating cost over the years ? Fat lot of good that did. They're still too expensive for SLS to be thrown away after every flight. NASA is going a$$ backwards technologically, and the US Congress is at the controls. I'm actually a fan of the later versions of the SSME. They did show that once you had plenty of flight time (an simplified the more complex parts of the design) you can build a high performance engine. For a disposable, it's far to expensive. If I were building a reusable, I might consider it, other than LH2 probably isn't a good choice. Obviously, when you start with something very very expensive, reducing the costs may only bring it down to "expensive". But it could still be a substantial reduction. Nope, not when NASA plans to literally drop every flyable SSME to the bottom of the ocean along with the rest of the very expensive SLS core stage. The shuttles in museums are now left with non-flyable engines and mock-ups, not that most of the viewing public would notice or even care. I've little love for SLS these days. It's a multi-billion dollar launcher to absolutely nowhere. Agreed, 100% Jeff -- Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/ CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net |
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