SpaceX Is Sending a Red Dragon Spacecraft to Mars in 2018

"SpaceX has been teasing potential Mars plans for a while now, but the
company just announced a launch date--and it's soon. They plan to hit the
surface of Mars by 2018.

Especially intriguing is that the announcement refers to the spacecraft
as the "Red Dragon.""

See:

http://gizmodo.com/spacex-is-sending...-20-1773383681

wrote:

http://gizmodo.com/spacex-is-sending...-20-1773383681

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04..._landing_2018/
gets a little more detailed, including how NASA is involved.

I wonder how the Great Galactic Ghoul likes its Dragon - fried or
flattened?-)

rick jones
--
I don't interest myself in "why." I think more often in terms of
"when," sometimes "where;" always "how much." - Joubert
these opinions are mine, all mine; HPE might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hpe.com but NOT BOTH...

On Thursday, April 28, 2016 at 5:08:18 AM UTC+12, wrote:
"SpaceX has been teasing potential Mars plans for a while now, but the
company just announced a launch date--and it's soon. They plan to hit the
surface of Mars by 2018.

Especially intriguing is that the announcement refers to the spacecraft
as the "Red Dragon.""

See:

http://gizmodo.com/spacex-is-sending...-20-1773383681

It is equipped with hardware to land on Mars' surface.

http://www.space.com/32718-spacex-re...pictures..html

They may plan to put one or two persons on board, using suspended animation to get them there, and suspended animation to keep them there until a return mission, or a supply mission arrives. This would create the sort of drama that occurred in the move 'The Martian' which is in many respects predictive programming for this mission. The recent movie repeats some of the drama in the 1961 story by A.C. Clarke, "A Fall of Moondust."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fall_of_Moondust

There are 60 peer reviewed papers and 200 researchers looking at Roth's method of suspended animation, and he has over 7 years experience. It may very well be that SpaceX have secretly solved the problem with enthusiastic volunteers, and plan to send one or two people as volunteers one way in a Red Dragon to Mars.

You depart Earth, go into suspended animation, awaken at the halfway point and review condition, go back into suspended animation, and then awaken a few days before Mars landing. Spend time on the surface, and then go into suspended animation until the next mission arrives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPlQFs4G1fk

On 28/04/2016 8:54 AM, William Mook wrote:

There are 60 peer reviewed papers and 200 researchers looking at
Roth's method of suspended animation, and he has over 7 years
experience. It may very well be that SpaceX have secretly solved the
problem with enthusiastic volunteers, and plan to send one or two
people as volunteers one way in a Red Dragon to Mars.


Why would Elon Musk keep that secret?

Sylvia.

In article ,
ess says...

On 28/04/2016 8:54 AM, William Mook wrote:

There are 60 peer reviewed papers and 200 researchers looking at
Roth's method of suspended animation, and he has over 7 years
experience. It may very well be that SpaceX have secretly solved the
problem with enthusiastic volunteers, and plan to send one or two
people as volunteers one way in a Red Dragon to Mars.


Why would Elon Musk keep that secret?

He would not. The first Red Dragon test flight will clearly be
unmanned.

Mook has gone off the deep end. His head is completely full of
conspiracies these days. That's why I placed him in my killfile.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

On Thursday, April 28, 2016 at 12:58:44 PM UTC+12, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 28/04/2016 8:54 AM, William Mook wrote:

There are 60 peer reviewed papers and 200 researchers looking at
Roth's method of suspended animation, and he has over 7 years
experience. It may very well be that SpaceX have secretly solved the
problem with enthusiastic volunteers, and plan to send one or two
people as volunteers one way in a Red Dragon to Mars.


Why would Elon Musk keep that secret?

Sylvia.

Launch vehicles and capsules are regulated under International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). They are considered munitions and thus information about them is restricted.

This was confirmed in an interview with Wired magazine, where Musk said:

Musk: I can't tell you much. We have essentially no patents in SpaceX. Our primary long-term competition is in China--if we published patents, it would be farcical, because the Chinese would just use them as a recipe book.

http://www.wired.com/2012/10/ff-elon-musk-qa/all/

On Thursday, April 28, 2016 at 2:33:30 PM UTC+12, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
ess says...

On 28/04/2016 8:54 AM, William Mook wrote:

There are 60 peer reviewed papers and 200 researchers looking at
Roth's method of suspended animation, and he has over 7 years
experience. It may very well be that SpaceX have secretly solved the
problem with enthusiastic volunteers, and plan to send one or two
people as volunteers one way in a Red Dragon to Mars.


Why would Elon Musk keep that secret?

He would not. The first Red Dragon test flight will clearly be
unmanned.

That is very likely.

Mook has gone off the deep end.

No I haven't. Your interpretation of what I've said is another story.

His head is completely full of
conspiracies these days.

Not at all.

That's why I placed him in my killfile.

Why are you responding then? lol. Look, ask me to leave and I will never post here again.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

In article ,
says...

Jeff Findley wrote:

In article ,
says...

On 28/04/2016 8:54 AM, William Mook wrote:

There are 60 peer reviewed papers and 200 researchers looking at
Roth's method of suspended animation, and he has over 7 years
experience. It may very well be that SpaceX have secretly solved the
problem with enthusiastic volunteers, and plan to send one or two
people as volunteers one way in a Red Dragon to Mars.


Why would Elon Musk keep that secret?


He would not. The first Red Dragon test flight will clearly be
unmanned.


In fact, they will all be unmanned until there's a big enough rocket
to do a fast transit. A slow trip leads to too much radiation
exposure.

Which is no doubt one of the reasons why SpaceX is developing the Raptor
LOX/methane engine. The upper stage for what I anticipate to be their
next generation (hopefully fully reusable) TSTO will surely form the
basis of a transportation system to get people to Mars. Not throwing
away expensive hardware on every launch opens up unique possibilities
for fully reusable transportation architectures. This would directly
translate into the ability to throw a lot of LOX/methane at the Mars
transit time problem.

Meanwhile, any NASA program would be limited by the throw weight and
extremely low launch rate of the fully expendable SLS. Considering how
badly the US government is screwing up their efforts, someone needs to
take the lead. NASA is still screwing the pooch with SLS/Orion, and
recently cutting funding for inflatable heat shield research. All of
this is due to earmarks dictated by Congress, who clearly knows more
about science and engineering than NASA. ;-P

Mook has gone off the deep end. His head is completely full of
conspiracies these days. That's why I placed him in my killfile.


Mook has always been off the deep end.

Yup.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

On Thursday, April 28, 2016 at 11:20:32 PM UTC+12, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
says...

Jeff Findley wrote:

In article ,
says...

On 28/04/2016 8:54 AM, William Mook wrote:

There are 60 peer reviewed papers and 200 researchers looking at
Roth's method of suspended animation, and he has over 7 years
experience. It may very well be that SpaceX have secretly solved the
problem with enthusiastic volunteers, and plan to send one or two
people as volunteers one way in a Red Dragon to Mars.


Why would Elon Musk keep that secret?


He would not. The first Red Dragon test flight will clearly be
unmanned.


I agree, that is very likely, though a manned system along the lines I describe would be possible, and a game changer.


In fact, they will all be unmanned until there's a big enough rocket
to do a fast transit. A slow trip leads to too much radiation
exposure.

You obviously haven't heard of EX-RAD have you?

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/...nder-drug.html

http://investor.onconova.com/release...leaseID=779403

There are also a few medical studies done with hydrogen sulfide induced torpor being used to improve survival rates in cancer treatments since more radiation can be tolerated by a hibernating subject than not especially when the subject's tissues are infused with drugs like EX-RAD. This suggests that sending astronauts in hibernation loaded up with anti-radioactives is one way to go.

Which is no doubt one of the reasons why SpaceX is developing the Raptor
LOX/methane engine. The upper stage for what I anticipate to be their
next generation (hopefully fully reusable) TSTO will surely form the
basis of a transportation system to get people to Mars.

The broader Raptor concept "is a highly reusable methane staged-combustion engine that will power the next generation of SpaceX launch vehicles designed for the exploration and colonization of Mars."

According to Elon Musk, this design will be able to achieve full reusability (all rocket stages), and as a result, "a two order of magnitude reduction in the cost of spaceflight".

That's reducing costs from the $90 million range to the $900,000 range - for a Falcon Heavy. High rates of reusability also translate to higher confidence levels and lower failure rates.

Not throwing
away expensive hardware on every launch opens up unique possibilities
for fully reusable transportation architectures. This would directly
translate into the ability to throw a lot of LOX/methane at the Mars
transit time problem.

LNG is also about the same price as LOX ($0.16 per kg) which is less than the price of RP-1. They are also both mildly cryogenic, and high density (relative to hydrogen fuel) so there aren't the gyration issues in emptying the tanks that you have with hydrogen. Finally, since Mars has CO2 in its atmosphere, H2O in its soil, and sunlight, LOX/LNG can be made on Mars by anyone who has a solar panel.

Refuelling reusable rockets on Mars, makes settlement of the planet possible, and return of any valuables developed there possible as well.


Meanwhile, any NASA program would be limited by the throw weight and
extremely low launch rate of the fully expendable SLS. Considering how
badly the US government is screwing up their efforts, someone needs to
take the lead.

vonBraun proposed fully reusable rockets since his first debriefing after his capture at the end of World War 2. He hoped for the development of ballistic transport systems that would naturally grow into lunar travel and travel to Mars.

Eugene Sanger showed as early as 1933 that a winged ballistic transport that attained 2.4 km/sec or more, could skip off the Earth's atmosphere and reach any point on Earth in less than 90 minutes.

ITAR has put the kabosh on this since its inception. US missile defence could easily be overwhelmed if 600 ballistic transports were skipping passengers around the world 2400 times a day. So, it ain't going to happen.

Musk, Bigelow, any innovator must work within ITAR.

The U.S. Department of State is responsible for the control of the permanent and temporary export and temporary import of defense articles and services. Under what's called the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), the job is clear-cut: Control of arms sales to foreign parties is an integral part of the U.S. ability to safeguard national security and further foreign policy objectives.

"One of the most difficult aspects of conducting a mission like Genesis-1 is surviving all of the red-tape involved in export control. Without working with Defense Technology Security Administration (DTSA) and Defense Trade Control (DTC) officials, I don't know if we would have made it," said Mike Gold, Corporate Counsel for Bigelow Aerospace in Washington, D.C.

Gold confirmed that there was a "long document trail" before Bigelow Aerospace workers at the launch site in Russia opened the sea container that contained Genesis-1 in preparation for its July 12 blastoff.

"Second only to gravity, the force that had the greatest potential to keep Genesis-1 on the ground was the ITAR," Gold explained to SPACE.com. "I think there is a consensus in the industry that some reforms in this arena are warranted and potentially overdue."

Red Tape and Reform

"It was extremely difficult for us. The amount of red tape and regulations are enormous," said Robert Bigelow, founder and president of Bigelow Aerospace at a press briefing last week at the company's central location in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In Bigelow's view, the ITAR seems designed to discourage any kind of interaction between U.S. companies on a space effort with other countries. His advice is to return such decision-making to the Department of Commerce.

For his part, Gold also had some near-term solutions, while saluting how DTSA, in particular, handled the Genesis-1 launch. Echoing his employer's sentiments in regard to the Department of Commerce, he also had some additional near-term suggestions.

"We're big supporters of export control. Ballistic and militarily sensitive technologies should unquestionably be protected," Gold said. "However, when it comes to projects that don't involve any such information or hardware, and like Genesis, are composed virtually completely of commercially available technology, a different regime is required."

Gold said that within existing law, licensing officers should be encouraged to look hard at applications, and, if they do not involve militarily sensitive hardware, act accordingly.

More discretion

"I've worked with DTSA in particular for two years now, and there are some very smart people there...it would be beneficial if the system encouraged them to make more commonsense judgments in regard to monitoring and other requirements, particularly when dealing with off-the-shelf technologies," Gold explained.

In Gold's view, there needs to be more discretion built into the system, a bifurcated process, so that commercially available technology is not treated in the same way as militarily sensitive hardware.

"The key is to take the time to distinguish one from the other. That way, DTSA and DTC can focus more of their scarce resources on technologies that legitimately need watching."

Very thin line

There is ongoing debate regarding ITAR and whether this regulatory muscle impedes U.S. trade, an ability to compete in the global marketplace and hinders science exchange--a claim voiced by many U.S. industries and academia.

From their perspective, the Department of State contends ITAR is a must-have security benefit with the various rules and regulations imposed having limited impact.

"There is a legitimate national security concern on proliferation of missile technology and launch technology, and all the know-how that goes around that," explained Robert Brumley, former chairman of Reagan's commercial space working group. He is also former general counsel for the U.S. Department of Commerce.

"You only have to look as far as North Korea, Iran and China to really see sort of the cause and effect. It has always been a concern...and it's a very thin line," Brumley told SPACE.com. "There is a line you cannot cross by essentially selling the rope to our enemies and they will come over here and hang us with it."

There's a good reason for both sides of the line, Brumley said. "There is a process in place, a bureaucratic process, but it's a process," he advised, and Bigelow proved it can be done.

"That's just the way it's going to have to be until we're in a safer world," Brumley said. "The consequences of not having a process are too extreme to imagine."

Remove impediments

Bigelow's boost on a Russian ICBM for launch was done as a cost-saving and needed measure.

An early rocket of choice by Bigelow Aerospace for tossing its test modules into space was the Falcon 5, offered by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), based in El Segundo, California. But the firm's Falcon 1 booster has been trouble-plagued, failing last March in its maiden flight.

Elon Musk, SpaceX chairman and chief executive officer said his firm's booster is slated to orbit one of Bigelow's larger, still under design prototype modules in late 2008 on a Falcon 9.

The Genesis-1 design that went on the ISC Kosmotras Dnepr was too large for a Falcon 1, but too small for a Falcon 5 or Falcon 9, Musk explained to SPACE.com.

Bigelow's blastoff courtesy of the Dnepr also underscored the impediments for launching within the United States, Brumley observed. "We still have third-party liability insurance issues. We still have access to launch facility problems. We still have certified vehicle issues," he noted.

U.S. launch firms do not crank out production model boosters like the Russians do, Brumley added. Rather, American providers build a "build-to-suit" launch vehicle, he said.

"The way to avoid the ITAR problem is to remove impediments in the United States to the kind of launch services and payload integration that is now being done offshore," Brumley observed. "That's the better solution."

See more at: http://www.space.com/2664-genesis-1-....8bw3Iky8.dpuf

NASA is still screwing the pooch with SLS/Orion, and
recently cutting funding for inflatable heat shield research. All of
this is due to earmarks dictated by Congress, who clearly knows more
about science and engineering than NASA. ;-P

Mook has gone off the deep end. His head is completely full of
conspiracies these days. That's why I placed him in my killfile.


Mook has always been off the deep end.

Nonsense. You go off the rails misinterpreting what I say, and then blame me for your mistake. Fact is, it is entirely possible for Musk to send a manned person to Mars one way, using hydrogen sulfide hibernation. It is highly UNLIKELY - but it is POSSIBLE. It would be a very dynamic thing to do and be a great game changer. If it were actually done, it would be very similar to "The Martian" which has the same dramatic elements as "A Fall of Moondust" written by Clarke in 1961.


Yup.

shrug You're making a mistake if you think I said it was likely that Musk would send a person to Mars in 2018. I said it was possible and gave you the reasons it was possible. So, you're the one off the deep end.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
...

Jeff Findley wrote:

In article ,
says...

On 28/04/2016 8:54 AM, William Mook wrote:

There are 60 peer reviewed papers and 200 researchers looking at
Roth's method of suspended animation, and he has over 7 years
experience. It may very well be that SpaceX have secretly solved the
problem with enthusiastic volunteers, and plan to send one or two
people as volunteers one way in a Red Dragon to Mars.


Why would Elon Musk keep that secret?


He would not. The first Red Dragon test flight will clearly be
unmanned.


In fact, they will all be unmanned until there's a big enough rocket
to do a fast transit. A slow trip leads to too much radiation
exposure.

Or a hab of some sort with enough shielding.




Mook has gone off the deep end. His head is completely full of
conspiracies these days. That's why I placed him in my killfile.


Mook has always been off the deep end.





--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net