A human Mars mission?

On 11 Aug 2003 07:28:27 GMT, (Patrick) wrote:

In article ,
(Christopher) writes:


I don't care if the Chinese space program sends humans to Mars, so
long as I can live long enough to see it happen.

The Chinese may very well be the first to do it, since their developing
country would probably feel that it needs the prestige more than
any other. Realistically, on the other hand, it's hard to see how it could be
done
without major cooperation between the superpowers, which itself
could be a reason to do it (there's value in keeping open friendly
communications).

But even if someone started NOW on it, I'd be surprised if it could
happen in the next 50 years. How are they going to get there?
A Hohman-transfer orbit would require keeping astronauts alive
for about 2 years, 14 months in space and the rest on the surface
of Mars. What's the longest anyone has lived in space? A year?
Is it possible to counteract the effects of no gravity on the human
body? Nobody knows yet. Is it possible to make a system that
can provide food/air continuously for long periods away from earth?
A mars-direct launch might cut the time but then you need
a BFR (big f****** rocket), which we don't have now. You'd probably
in either case have to build a ship in orbit, not launch it from the earth,
and you'd probably need at least two, one to go ahead of time
to set up a supply base on Mars. Right now we can't even build the
ISS because of the shuttle problems. So even if we want to do it and
decide to do it, it's a major, major, major undertaking, even if
dollars were infinite.

I could hang on till 2041 but not for much longer.

This web page has documents on the issue. The first one has the
details of the mission and the options ("Practial Methods for Near
Term Piloted Mars Missions"). The windows doc file version worked
on my computer (the text version had every paragraph as one long
sentence in my browser):

http://www.nw.net/mars/marsdirect.html

Thanks for the url, but I already know of that site.

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

On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 21:49:17 -0700, "Jason Rhodes"
wrote:


"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" wrote in message
.. .

"Jason Rhodes" wrote in message
...


To maybe, but then your country never had an empire like mine.

Can you rephrase this sentence to make your point clear? The first
clause
is total nonsense and it is hard to understand what you are implying.


Insert the word you in the first part.

Jason

So his point was that by virtue of his being British,

English.

he has a better grasp
of the intricacies of empire building, trade, and exploration (and how these
are related) than anyone of any other nationality?

Something like that. Rule Britannia.



If that isn't his point,
I still don't know what his point is.

*He* was replying to the tangent this thread had developed into.


If that is his point, I disagree.

No change there then.



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

On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 22:28:08 GMT, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:


"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 16:55:33 GMT, (Christopher)
wrote:

The British weren't the first to the New World, so your argument
fails.

True, but the Danes took one at it look saw what a dump it was then
turned round and went back. The English were the first to stay and
establish colonys, so my 'argument' dosn't fail.

Actually it's not even clear the English were the first to stay and
establish colonies. The Vikings appear to have tried.

I belive thats still a question of debate, but this isn't the
newsgroup for it.

Trying is only 1/2 the battle. Succeeding is the other half.



No, that would be the *Spanish*, by a significant margin.

Brian



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

"Christopher" wrote ...
On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 21:49:17 -0700, "Jason Rhodes"

So his point was that by virtue of his being British,

English.

he has a better grasp
of the intricacies of empire building, trade, and exploration (and how these
are related) than anyone of any other nationality?

Something like that. Rule Britannia.

Nah, I think it was that the British Empire was a different kind of empire.

American imperialism is in order that every country may, indeed must, have
the privilege of eating McDonalds whereas the British Empire was to ensure
an ample sufficiency of former colonial countries to beat our socks off at
cricket.

I'm glad I was able to clear that up for you.

On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 22:07:24 GMT, Brian Thorn
wrote:

On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 16:55:33 GMT, (Christopher)
wrote:

The British weren't the first to the New World, so your argument
fails.

True, but the Danes took one at it look saw what a dump it was then
turned round and went back. The English were the first to stay and
establish colonys, so my 'argument' dosn't fail.

No, that would be the *Spanish*, by a significant margin.

What year, and do you mean North America, or South America, or the bit
in the middle?



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

On 10 Aug 2003 22:50:50 GMT, (G EddieA95) wrote:

don't want to spend $100 billion to
raise our flag on Mars?

Your DoD has been given that amount extra to raise your flag all over
the middle east.

That has to do with *protecting* our people, and yes our interests, from
*attack.*

On this side of the big pond the view is its to do with securing oil
supplies so American motorists can continue to have cheap gasoline, to
ensure cowboy george wins a second term.

That takes precedence over a prestige stunt that few in the world
really care about.

Does that also go for Apollo 11?

more important things to do with that
kind of money right now.

If we had thought that way we'd have never built the British Empire,
starting with a collection of colonys in a place called the New World.

There was *money* to be made in that, for the generation that did it. There
will come no money from Mars, even for the *nation* that sends the ships there.

Mars is closer to the mineral and metal rich asteroid belt, and who's
to say there is no money to be made on Mars, if Mars has water, it'll
open up a whole new set of opportunities for the human race.



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

On Mon, 11 Aug 2003 08:44:15 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Christopher) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

So his point was that by virtue of his being British,

English.

he has a better grasp
of the intricacies of empire building, trade, and exploration (and how these
are related) than anyone of any other nationality?

Something like that. Rule Britannia.

You object to being called British, but use the phrase "Rule
Britannia"? Why not "Rule Englandia"?

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

On Sat, 09 Aug 2003 23:03:43 GMT, Brian Thorn
wrote:

You're indicting us because we don't want to spend $100 billion to
raise our flag on Mars? I'd like to see a manned expedition to Mars in
my lifetime, but there are many more important things to do with that
kind of money right now.


That was the same argument used against Apollo, IIRC. If we wait for
all the "important" things to be done with that money, we'd never use
it to go to Mars. Or anywhere else, for that matter. As another
poster pointed out, if the English had waited for everything to be
perfect back home before colonizing North America, the map would look
very different today.

On Sat, 09 Aug 2003 21:06:32 GMT, (Christopher)
wrote:

Thats a sad indictment of America and it's 'frontier sprit' I bet if
our European Space Agency announced a human mission to Mars, and
started major work and had a date for the landing Congress would have
a rapid change of mind, as Americans don't like coming in second
place.


Since there's no cold war between the US and Europe (much to Jaques
Chirac's dismay, I'm sure, although it's not for lack of trying), if
the ESA were to express an interest in working towards a manned Mars
flight, most likely we'd work with them on it instead of competing
with them over it. That seems to be the way of things today. Witness
the ESA's spacelab module that's flown on the shuttle, the Columbus
module the ESA is building for the station, and the fact that
Euronauts have flown on the Shuttle. Forthermore, the ESA doesn't
have the experience with really big lauch vehicles which might be
required for a Mars mission. So most likely, IMHO, a manned Mars
mission would be a multinational effort involving cooperation between
the US, EU, Russia, Japan, etc., rathern than competition. What's
lacking is the political will for something like this. It's not that
anyone *opposes* space epxloration, but there's no political will for
spending huge amounts of money on it.

Patrick wrote:
In article ,
(Christopher) writes:

But even if someone started NOW on it, I'd be surprised if it could
happen in the next 50 years. How are they going to get there?

50 years is a long time - in that time we (as a species) will have
doubled the time we have been exposed to spaceflight.

A Hohman-transfer orbit would require keeping astronauts alive
for about 2 years, 14 months in space and the rest on the surface
of Mars. What's the longest anyone has lived in space? A year?
Is it possible to counteract the effects of no gravity on the human
body? Nobody knows yet. Is it possible to make a system that
can provide food/air continuously for long periods away from earth?

you don't need that if you can send out 6 supply sattelites - 3 for the
way there and 3 for getting back to rendezvous. Plan to miss one on both
trips, so a refueler will need to carry about 8 months worth.

A mars-direct launch might cut the time but then you need
a BFR (big f****** rocket), which we don't have now. You'd probably
in either case have to build a ship in orbit, not launch it from the earth,
and you'd probably need at least two, one to go ahead of time

You can send a lot of small(er) ships to carry suplies, you can start sending
them well in advance, they can continue to leave Earth when the main mission
is in progress and a large portion of them can definately use fuel efficent
ion propulsion.


Patrick

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++