Private mission to mars:)

In article ,
says...

Jeff Findley wrote:

Sure we are. We just need someone smart enough to pay for the cheapest
way to get there and back (NASA's proposed "way to Mars" has never been
cheap enough to actually get funding). A Mars flyby is a good starting
point because it will prove a lot of things which will also be needed
for a manned Mars landing. For one, it will silence the nay-sayers,
like you, who say things like radiation and equipment breakdowns will
almost certainly kill the crew.

As a "starting point" - it would not have the pizzaz of a Mars fly-by,
but how about a 500 day mission in orbit about the Earth, but above
the Van Allen belts?

With ISS in LEO doing much the same? Meh. Far too timid to inspire
anyone. Besides, this whole proposal hinges on the fact that a quite
favorable conjunction of earth and Mars orbits is coming up. Do the
same mission in high earth orbit and you'll miss the opportunity to go
to Mars and back.

Presumably, then you have a better shot at
getting back if something went wrong no? I don't know that it would
be all that much cheaper than an actual fly-by though, and it would
mean that your fly-by "program" would be something approaching 2X the
cost.

So? There are many sorts of expeditions here on earth where there is
the very real possibility of death. Even expeditions of no scientific
value that are performed only for "personal achievement" have the very
real possibility of death. Mt. Everest is the example which springs to
mind. Many people die in the so-called "death zone" of Mt. Everest
every year and their bodies are just left there.

Why should space travel be forced to be "safer" than earth bound
activities which are similar? Just because NASA has unrealistic
expectations of "safety" doesn't mean that a private expedition into
space needs to follow their example.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

On 2/28/2013 8:47 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
says...

Jeff Findley wrote:

Sure we are. We just need someone smart enough to pay for the cheapest
way to get there and back (NASA's proposed "way to Mars" has never been
cheap enough to actually get funding). A Mars flyby is a good starting
point because it will prove a lot of things which will also be needed
for a manned Mars landing. For one, it will silence the nay-sayers,
like you, who say things like radiation and equipment breakdowns will
almost certainly kill the crew.

As a "starting point" - it would not have the pizzaz of a Mars fly-by,
but how about a 500 day mission in orbit about the Earth, but above
the Van Allen belts?

With ISS in LEO doing much the same? Meh. Far too timid to inspire
anyone. Besides, this whole proposal hinges on the fact that a quite
favorable conjunction of earth and Mars orbits is coming up. Do the
same mission in high earth orbit and you'll miss the opportunity to go
to Mars and back.


At the risk of playing the role of seeking out dark clouds on sunny
days, might I point out that there *is* another, easier alternative that
had once been considered by NASA as an alternative to Skylab using the
leftover Apollo hardware. And that was a Venus fly-by. And there several
advantages over the Mars proposal:

1) Many more launch opportunities, roughly every 19 months.
2) Much shorter duration. Approximately 360 days at optimal launch
window vs 500 days, thereby reducing consumable requirements, exposure
to cosmic rays, etc. by nearly half.
3) Closest approach on the sunlit side at fly-by.
4) Venus being closer to the Sun than Earth means no redesign of solar
arrays on Dragon to increase their efficiency, lifetime might remain an
issue, but that should be easier to address.
5) Less communications delay between astronauts and Earth, but still
significant, just not nearly as bad as Mars.

Of course Venus isn't going to provide pretty pictures for the crew, but
then the night-time side of Mars won't really either.

Mars holds this incredible fascination for us, mainly because of the
fiction written about it from the 19th century on, when ground-based
observations first yielded clues that Mars has seasons just like Earth,
which led on to the further (groundless) speculations.

But from a practical perspective, for a fly-by mission, there is a much
better choice.

Dave

PS: There is a fascinating paper in the NASA archives detailing a
Venusian fly-by mission using leftover Apollo hardware that can be found
he

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1967017910.pdf

From the Wikipedia Article found he

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Venus_Flyby

David Spain writes:

Mars holds this incredible fascination for us, mainly because of the
fiction written about it from the 19th century on, when ground-based
observations first yielded clues that Mars has seasons just like Earth,
which led on to the further (groundless) speculations.

But from a practical perspective, for a fly-by mission, there is a much
better choice.

From a purely practical perspective fly-by missions are pointless
anyway. The cultural background that underlays the preference for Mars
missions is imperative, there's no way around that. It's the only reason
anyone is even considering a Mars fly-by mission today.

PS: There is a fascinating paper in the NASA archives detailing a
Venusian fly-by mission using leftover Apollo hardware that can be found
he

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1967017910.pdf

Yes, this is fascinating, especially since this *could* have happened
decades ago. Also, a Saturn IVB wet workshop hab would even today
be a great thing to use for a fly-by (and many other) missions. The
glory of the past...



Jochem

--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

On 2/28/2013 3:47 PM, David Spain wrote:
PS: There is a fascinating paper in the NASA archives detailing a Venusian fly-by mission using leftover Apollo hardware that can be
found he


Actually there is a much more detailed paper I meant to link to than the NASA technical summary cited previously.
This paper is entitled "Manned Venus Flyby" by Feldman, Ferrara, Havenstein, Volonte and Whipple dated February 1, 1967 from
Bellcomm Inc. an independent contractor hired by NASA to do a study.

This paper can be found here and was the paper I was actually referring to previously, not the technical summary I accidentally
linked to:

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1979072165.pdf

This is a fairly large document, you may want to save it to your computer before browsing. It presents the case in much greater
detail. The hardware referenced is no longer available, but many of the trajectory guidelines and mission profiles would likely
remain the same even with more modern hardware.

From the Wikipedia Article found he

http://wiki.developspace.net/Human_V...ecture_Studies

See the link entitled: Manned Venus flyby, NASA-CR-114025

Dave