NASA's next project:

Because it's like...far?

Because there are no brown people to bomb on Mars.

2010 NASA budget = $18.7 billion
2010 Military Budget = $1,030 billion

Isn't there a Kardashian ~on~ Dancing with the Stars? Ratings must be through the roof.



//That's no moon...
//Wish I had time to photoshop that on the skanky ones rear...darn work.

BurnShrike: Because there are no brown people to bomb oil reserves on Mars.

2010 NASA budget = $18.7 billion
2010 Military Budget = $1,030 billion



FTFY

Something something dumbing down something

jackiepaper: For humans, getting there is easy; it's the getting home part that causes the most problems.

Indeed. It's very hard to get home when your bones turned to dust on the way there...

italie: jackiepaper: For humans, getting there is easy; it's the getting home part that causes the most problems.

Indeed. It's very hard to get home when your bones turned to dust on the way there...you turn into the Fantastic 4 from radiation in space

Getting to Mars is... well frankly it's easy. Landing on Mars a bit trickier but quite possible. Hell getting people back from Mars is equally possible. Dealing with the whole prolonged exposure to zero/micro gravity environments is quite solvable: spin to win works in fact any solution that generates a 0.9g approximation is good.

But doing that does not involve simply slapping more chemical rocket motors on to the shuttle and making sure you brought plenty of bailing wire and chewing gum to fix shiat enroute.

We had these Tonka toy LEO taxi's and chemical rockets. What we need is this:



No not an Earth Force Destroyer but the CCCP Alexi Leonov from the 2010 movie. Something that could carry a crew of 15 - 20 (or more) people, spare parts, equipment, fuel, landing craft, food/water and shielding for the 18 month - 2 year trip or 6 months if you do the 'suicide dive' in to Earth's atmosphere and bounce off in the right direction.

But you don't get to build the Alexi Leonov when your raping your space agencies budget and killing their heavy lift capabilities. Nor do you get to build it whilst a bunch of lentalists hand wring over launching a nuclear reactor in to space.

And until you build something like the Leonov you ain't getting to Mars because it's just too damn far to go on nothing but chemical rockets... especially when their are humans onboard.

BurnShrike: Because there are no brown people to bomb on Mars.

2010 NASA budget = $18.7 billion
2010 Military Budget = $1,030 billion

For the cost of the TARP bailout, we could have built a city on Mars.

sarah_t_s: Getting to Mars is... well frankly it's easy. Landing on Mars a bit trickier but quite possible. Hell getting people back from Mars is equally possible. Dealing with the whole prolonged exposure to zero/micro gravity environments is quite solvable: spin to win works in fact any solution that generates a 0.9g approximation is good.

But doing that does not involve simply slapping more chemical rocket motors on to the shuttle and making sure you brought plenty of bailing wire and chewing gum to fix shiat enroute.

We had these Tonka toy LEO taxi's and chemical rockets. What we need is this:

[1.bp.blogspot.com image 199x200]

No not an Earth Force Destroyer but the CCCP Alexi Leonov from the 2010 movie. Something that could carry a crew of 15 - 20 (or more) people, spare parts, equipment, fuel, landing craft, food/water and shielding for the 18 month - 2 year trip or 6 months if you do the 'suicide dive' in to Earth's atmosphere and bounce off in the right direction.

But you don't get to build the Alexi Leonov when your raping your space agencies budget and killing their heavy lift capabilities. Nor do you get to build it whilst a bunch of lentalists hand wring over launching a nuclear reactor in to space.

And until you build something like the Leonov you ain't getting to Mars because it's just too damn far to go on nothing but chemical rockets... especially when their are humans onboard.

This.

and:
flaminio: BurnShrike: Because there are no brown people to bomb on Mars.

2010 NASA budget = $18.7 billion
2010 Military Budget = $1,030 billion

For the cost of the TARP bailout, we could have built a city on Mars.

That.

Getting a person to Mars is easy. Oh, you want them to be alive when they get there? And be able to come back? And be alive when they come back?

So what I'm saying is we should send Jeff Dunham to Mars.

Mikey1969: This would be billions of times easier if we would get around to putting a manned station on the Moon. Launches from the Moon would be a breeze, and there would be FAR less waste, since most of the fuel burned is just to escape Earth orbit, leaving room on board for more maneuvering fuel . Power plants would be safe on the Moon, there being no ecosystem to pollute, and very little gravity to keep waste on the planet, the stuff could be blasted into a decaying orbit around the Sun whenever it started to build up. You're also taking the atmosphere of the Earth out of the equation, and all of the communication issues that result. If we base on the Moon, Mars could be a few short years behind that, and a base on Mars within my lifetime.

But as someone already pointed out, waging war is more important than expanding humanity's resources, so I bet it's another 200 years before someone figures this shiat out AND implements it.

It's not that simple. The micro-gravity on the moon isn't much better than the zero-g experienced in orbit. Your bone and muscle tissue will atrophy and waste away and as of right now we still have no way to stop it.

PanicMan: Getting a person to Mars is easy. Oh, you want them to be alive when they get there? And be able to come back? And be alive when they come back?

So what I'm saying is we should send Jeff Dunham to Mars.

Easy. There are already prototypes of "deflector shields" in various labs. A sufficiently strong enough magnetic field will deal with a lot of issues with space travel; as would a heavily shielding safe room for any solar events that could overwhelm the ships 'shield'. The ship would have plenty of warning it was inbound thanks to communications with a ground station: LOS laser based stuff with a radio relay between the transceiver in orbit and Earth.

That's 'slightly' more power than solar arrays can generate so you're looking at nuclear & fuel cells. It's also 'slightly' beyond NASA's current budget.

Baron Harkonnen: Russia's always sucked at it. I think they had one or two flyby's or orbiters in the 1960s succeed, but never any landers.

Meanwhile, NASA has kicked ass for the last several years. Curiosity is due to be launched next month. A robot that can literally eat rocks and excrete dust, and capable of shooting lasers out of its eyes.

[upload.wikimedia.org image 300x169]

The Russians did have a lander that landed, but it only lasted 20 seconds before something shorted out, so I don't know if that counts. But they have landed stuff.

Instead, Curiosity will be lowered on cables to the Martian surface by a hovering, rocket-powered sky crane - a method that has never been tried before. [Video: Curiosity's Unusual Landing] Link (new window)

If this works the way the video shows, that will be one hell of a feat. I would love it if they could land a camera there ahead of the drop to see how it all goes down.

//Yay Science.

If Phobos-Grunt can't be saved, it will be the 19th straight Russian Mars mission that failed to achieve its mission goals

Maybe they should pick better names.

squirrel_spam: Instead, Curiosity will be lowered on cables to the Martian surface by a hovering, rocket-powered sky crane - a method that has never been tried before. [Video: Curiosity's Unusual Landing] Link (new window)

If this works the way the video shows, that will be one hell of a feat.

But the sky crane performed well in full-up computer simulations!

/dubious plan is dubious

If going to the Moon was analogous to hiking 26 miles across a desert with only what water one can carry in a backpack, then going to Mars would be like crossing the Sahara desert. Same backpack. For starters, you can't shoot for the planet in a straight-line trajectory. You'd actually use a Hohman Transfer Orbit (new window), which requires a lot less fuel but it's a helluva detour.

Going to Mars is in the realm of possibility, but it'd require the full commitment of a first-world country. Today's America just doesn't have that resolve. Ironically, the political obstacles are more imposing than the technical ones.

KarmicDisaster:

The Russians did have a lander that landed, but it only lasted 20 seconds before something shorted out, so I don't know if that counts. But they have landed stuff.


Yeah, but weren't we lucky it was there to salvage?

Baron Harkonnen: Russia's always sucked at it. I think they had one or two flyby's or orbiters in the 1960s succeed, but never any landers.

Meanwhile, NASA has kicked ass for the last several years. Curiosity is due to be launched next month. A robot that can literally eat rocks and excrete dust, and capable of shooting lasers out of its eyes.

[upload.wikimedia.org image 300x169]

Not next month, this month. On the 26th.

and, in True American fashion, we've put the Kardashians ON Dancing with the Stars.

/cuz we know changing the channel is hard.

Baron Harkonnen: Russia's always sucked at it. I think they had one or two flyby's or orbiters in the 1960s succeed, but never any landers.

Meanwhile, NASA has kicked ass for the last several years. Curiosity is due to be launched next month. A robot that can literally eat rocks and excrete dust, and capable of shooting lasers out of its eyes.

[upload.wikimedia.org image 300x169]

Also, technically Russia or rather the Soviet Union did succeed on landing on Mars with the Mars 3 lander. The first lander having crashed. Though 20 seconds after it landed it stopped working. Possibly due to the fact that Russian spacecraft in general had better success on shorter missions. IE: NASA had better spacecraft that could stand the harshness of space on a journey to Mars.

NASA's offical plantetary exploration timeline: Planetary Exploration Timeline (new window)

Also, the website for all NASA launches: NASA's Consolidated Launch Schedule (new window)

Oh, and if you want more launch schedules that don't include just NASA, Spaceflight Now has an excellent one: Wordwide Launch Schedule (new window)

dragonchild:


If going to the Moon was analogous to hiking 26 miles across a desert with only what water one can carry in a backpack, then going to Mars would be like crossing the Sahara desert. Same backpack. For starters, you can't shoot for the planet in a straight-line trajectory. You'd actually use a Hohman Transfer Orbit (new window), which requires a lot less fuel but it's a helluva detour.

Which is why we need to stop treating manned exploration as a weekend backpacking trip. Your trip across the Sahara is easily done if there are caches waiting for you.

For example, for the moon we should send up some big dumb boosters full of teleoperated equipment, ammonium ice and butane clathrate. Once everything has landed and checks out, THEN send the meatshot. So long as we try carrying everything with us in one capsule we're never going to get anywhere.

Apply the same idea to Mars. We don't care if a bunch of supplies and equipment has to spend several years getting there. We *do* care if live meat does. You can get a lot more acceleration out of a ship if it's only carrying crew rather than crew + everything they might need on the surface.

Political will is the only thing stopping humans from going to Mars. It's just an up-scaled Apollo project - there are zero technical challenges that couldn't be overcome.

Er, that isn't to say Mars 2 & Mars 3 were the only Russian landers or that Mars 2 was the first (it was the first to make it that far though even if it crashed into the surface). 3 was just the only one to land successfully even if the mission was a failure. Russia tried again with mars 6 & 7, which were also failures. Oh, and technically Mars 3 landing in 1971 makes it the first successful landing on another planet. Though Viking 1 and 2 in 1975 would be the first successful mission after a successful landing.

Zoidfarb: [ecx.images-amazon.com image 500x500]

Political will is the only thing stopping humans from going to Mars. It's just an up-scaled Apollo project - there are zero technical challenges that couldn't be overcome.

Really? I can think up a few if you're talking about getting back you investment for what is going to be a very expensive mission and do mind if you kill the crew on the way there.

1: Space weather, its dangerous and can fry you and the spacecraft.

2: Sustainability. The ISS is a marvel of technology, but it isn't able to sustain life without regular launches of supplies to the station. Also the ability to get rid of their garbage, get new supplies and let the garbage burn up on reentry.

3: If something breaks, ISS again as an example is relying on the earth to send a new part. Any trip to Mars wouldn't. They'd have to cope. Think Apollo 13, something broke and they came up with a patch until they got back to earth. Travelers to Mars wouldn't have the safety net of earth being close by.

4: Nobody knows what the long-term effects will be of traveling to Mars and back. Physically or psychologically. Nor have we really given it much study. Yes, the Russians did sort of do it a while back but that was only 500 days I believe. A mission to Mars would last at least two years.

5: Once you get to Mars, you have to stay there until the orbit is right again. Which gives you time to mine Mars for the fuel you'll need to get back to earth.

Again assuming you don't need medical attention, something doesn't break, and you don't die of radiation or some other hazard.

And killing the crew is a good way to kill any further chances of sending anymore people. So that's out. Humans are very hard to keep alive in space, robots are much easier and less temperamental.

Von Braun solved all the major problems in the 70's, because its just an engineering problem. So much fuel and so much thrust gets you to mars in so many months. Pack food and warm cloths, you're off.

...Or you would be, if not for all the politicians who'd rather spend our money on hookers and blow.

The real problem is that our leadership doesn't think about the future of mankind or the children. It doesn't really care about science or religion, or what's best for you.
It only concerns itself with representing the people who can afford its services.

Until we realize we've been had by the divisive nature of our political system, no one's going anywhere.

/Not unless SpaceX can make a mint on private contracts, anyway.

maxheck: dragonchild:


If going to the Moon was analogous to hiking 26 miles across a desert with only what water one can carry in a backpack, then going to Mars would be like crossing the Sahara desert. Same backpack. For starters, you can't shoot for the planet in a straight-line trajectory. You'd actually use a Hohman Transfer Orbit (new window), which requires a lot less fuel but it's a helluva detour.

Which is why we need to stop treating manned exploration as a weekend backpacking trip. Your trip across the Sahara is easily done if there are caches waiting for you.

For example, for the moon we should send up some big dumb boosters full of teleoperated equipment, ammonium ice and butane clathrate. Once everything has landed and checks out, THEN send the meatshot. So long as we try carrying everything with us in one capsule we're never going to get anywhere.

Apply the same idea to Mars. We don't care if a bunch of supplies and equipment has to spend several years getting there. We *do* care if live meat does. You can get a lot more acceleration out of a ship if it's only carrying crew rather than crew + everything they might need on the surface.

That's the problem. You might get the political backing of one trip. Spread it out over 3 years with 6 trips and all of the sudden you have a bunch of shiat on the Moon and no astronauts to send because the new presidential administration decided it wasn't worth the effort

I got it! Let's send the Kardashians and DWTS contestants to Mars! Problem solved!

bhcompy:

That's the problem. You might get the political backing of one trip. Spread it out over 3 years with 6 trips and all of the sudden you have a bunch of shiat on the Moon and no astronauts to send because the new presidential administration decided it wasn't worth the effort

Probably so, but that could work the other way as well... Take a look at the inertia that the ISS has, even throughout the multiple cutbacks they still can't bring themselves to cancel it.

There are other ways to make moon and mars trips much cheaper than they are now...

For example, everything we launch outside of the ISS's orbit has to be fully self-contained. It has to have enough fuel to reach it's destination, power systems, deep-space telemetry equipment, it's own custom navigation and diagnostic software etc etc. All of this adds mass, failure points and expense.

Why not build a "shuttle bus" from sections sent up on small, cheap lifters, give it extremely efficient & reliable (if slow) ion engines, the power, telemetry, navigation, diagnostics systems, and then just send dumb boosters to dock with it the way we do with unmanned Soyuz capsules.

It wouldn't have to get to orbit in one piece, it never has to land anywhere, and it's cargo could be a series of capsules that are simpler and lighter than even the cheapest weather satellite. The shuttle bus itself would be used over and over.

Don't like a mars supply chain that only makes one delivery every three years? Send up a dozen of them properly timed and get deliveries every 4 months.

This would actually make moon and mars runs much cheaper and downright routine.

In reality you don't even need to get back. I know for a fact that people with the skills and necessary training would be willing to make it a one way mission, hell I would. The problem is getting funding for a mission where people are going to die.

BurnShrike

Because there are no brown people to bomb on Mars.

2010 NASA budget = $18.7 billion
2010 Military Budget = $1,030 billion

NASA's entire budget from inception till today is still smaller than what Zero threw away in a few months on his bribes and payoffs bailout scheme.

but keep crying raaaaaaaaaaaaaacist.

simplicimus: PanicMan: Getting a person to Mars is easy. Oh, you want them to be alive when they get there? And be able to come back? And be alive when they come back?

So what I'm saying is we should send Jeff Dunham to Mars.

Always the point of surviving a round trip. Cosmic radiation will not give you superpowers, but it will shorten your lifespan.

Don't get me wrong. Going to Mars would be awesome. But right now we don't even have the technology to go to the moon. We'd have to reverse engineer the Saturn V from what parts and data are still surviving. It would take a lot of time and money, and we don't have the political support that would require.

And that's just the moon. Getting to Mars is considerably harder.

maxheck:

For example, for the moon we should send up some big dumb boosters full of teleoperated equipment, ammonium ice and butane clathrate. Once everything has landed and checks out, THEN send the meatshot. So long as we try carrying everything with us in one capsule we're never going to get anywhere.



One would think we should already be doing this. With the military having such a large budget 'n all, why haven't we convinced them of the strategic importance of having "supplies" on the moon?

We might have to put up with a few military items on the lunar surface, but it would be a free ride for other supplies and equipment, no?

Shouldn't getting to mars add value? Let me explain. I love science, but, exploration should be done for the same reasons exploration was done in the days when the new world was undiscovered. Early explorers came looking for gold, riches and a short cut to the orient. When going to mars and discovering it's a big red dust ball with a little frost and not much else is the main reason for going, how can the money being spent be justified. The moons closer. Probably has He3. Is obtainable. I just don't see the reason to go to Mars..right now. Maybe in the future.

.
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return to your previously scheduled program.

PanicMan:

Don't get me wrong. Going to Mars would be awesome. But right now we don't even have the technology to go to the moon. We'd have to reverse engineer the Saturn V from what parts and data are still surviving. It would take a lot of time and money, and we don't have the political support that would require.

Ummm. No.

Saturn V isn't the only way to get to the moon or mars. I even suggested a model in my 03:39:08 PM post that could be done with stuff we're currently using.