Mars or the Moon????

Send robotic probes into it.

Why? What benefit is there to mankind to send a few humans somewhere?

 

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The moon then mars. We'll need the moon for it's lower gravity to build EM rails to send people to mars. The technology is there (maglev).

 

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I'm not so sure about that. The up-front costs are so high that I doubt many companies would be interested in trying unless they were pretty damn sure that they would see a return on the investment. The cost of developing manned space vehicles is on the order of all sorts of other projects that big companies spend gigabucks on, but such expensive projects aren't usually undertaken unless they know exactly when and how the project will pay off. It's not clear to me how a company could ever be confident enough that it would be able to pay for the development costs. If the hardware was already developed AND there was a clear way it could be used to make more money that the cost of purchasing/building it (with a high likelihood of success), then sure, companies would go for it.

 

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I suspect they'll do okay; last time I saw an article on it, they had already pre-sold about 300 tickets. Presumably there will be more people interested in going if none of the initial flights explode and kill a bunch of rich people.

But that's all sub-orbital stuff, which is generally considered to be at least an order of magnitude easier/cheaper then actually going into orbit, much less anything beyond earth orbit. And it's possible that the sub-orbital space tourism market will kill the market for orbital tourism; there have been a handfull of rich people who paid tens of millions for an orbital ride, but they might have opted to pay "only" a few hundred thousand for a sub-orbital flight instead, had they the option to do so.

 

I was having a hard time tracking down actual numbers, and the ones I did find were a little contradictory. The terms 'expressed an interest' and 'booked flights' were used interchangeably often, and it's not clear how much cash interested parties have parted with already.

Even if all 300 people had paid up front, they are going to have to wait a long time for their ride once the service starts, I think they envisage one flight every three days, and they only have the one vessel at present.

Well, this is rocketry. I don't want to be a naysayer, but expecting 300 faultless launches would make this new system the safest launch vehicle to date.

Yeah, that's quite possibly true, or at least, people will try out Virgin Galactic before a trip to the ISS. I think people that can afford the latter won't find the fee for the former hard to find!

If I won big on the lottery (I only play when there are tens of millions up for grabs) I'd seriously consider blowing the vast majority of it going to the ISS, and returning home to just a million or two. If I won a lesser prize, well, it would be astronaut school in Russia and flight in a MiG 31, which can be had for about £50,000.

 

There seems to be 300 people who have pre-paid in part or in full. 84 people paid the full $200k up front (and so get to go first), while others have put down either $100k or $20k. All will have to pay the full $200k ticket price, but the amount you pre-pay determines your spot in line. $60 million in sales before they even finish building the thing isn't too shabby...although like I said, it will probably all depend on how safe it turns out to be. If it crashes and burns with a load of passengers on board, some of the people who have pre-paid might just walk away from their $20k down payments. On the other hand, I suspect that there are probably more people who would be willing to pay but are waiting to see if they can actually build it (and make it safe) before then put down tens of thousands on it.

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/564040-schumacher-latest-to-sign-up-for-galactic-trip

http://www.consumertraveler.com/tod...irgin-galactic-flights-will-be-life-changing/

They say all 300 should get to go in the first year. The ship is supposed to hold two crew and six passengers, so it's only about 50 flights to accommodate all 300 pre-paid passengers.

 

Does the (maglev) EM rail Plan include mass transportation. it sounds kind of just like would we would need to keep a mass population on the move from place to place within the solar system. (Transportaion of goods and people).

Where can i read more about this, or did you think this good idea up yourself.

How long do the rails have to be to launch a vehicle from the moons surface.

DwayneD.L.Rabon

 

dwayne interesting point, heres the problem with the maglev, the suns rays might damage the electronics and the magnetic field, so there is a lot that has to be thought out.

 

Why land on another gravity well having just escaped one, to go to Mars? That's just using more energy.

Also, the escape velocity of the Moon is 2.4 km/s, current hopes for maglev trains ~500KmH. A mere factor of 17 difference. Having no atmosphere on the Moon will help, but building a long enough maglev hideously expensive, and before you say 'loop' please perform some calculations of G-forces going around a loop at near escape velocity, and see what diameter you need before launch vehicles stop falling to pieces.

 

Any "stopover" at the moon on the way to mars would probably involve a ship that was launched from Earth getting refueled in lunar orbit with fuel harvested from the moon, rather than actually landing. Still, if you look at the delta-v requirements involved, it doesn't seem to make much sense to stop at the moon on the way to Mars. It takes only slightly more delta-v to go from low Earth orbit to Mars than it does to go from LEO to lunar orbit to Mars. In other words, if you can get to the moon, you can practically get to Mars anyway...

 

Hahahahahahah hohohohohohohohoh

Dude, I doubt you'll live to see a human on Mars. Seriously. If all goes to plan Ares V/Altair is due to land on the Moon in 2019, assuming changes of leadership and economics don't scupper that. Mars is then 10+ years after that, assuming the same.

And if we get someone to Mars, so what? Maybe they can fix the wonky wheel on the Mars rover. Maybe they can take some pictures, or bring back some rocks. Can they do anything that a probe can't do?

Of course, this assumes that the Astronauts don't die horribly attempting to get to Mars. Ares isn't a good design, and we don't have a good record of landing objects on Mars. It's pure folly to send humans.

UPDATE: or, 'I TOLD YOU SO!'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8489097.stm

 

Mars is a dysons sphere composed of a 5 mile thick iron crust. IO was its power core which powerd the olympus mons volcano which essentaly powerd the planet for the first 3 billion years of existance.

 

I say Mars because I think it's much more interesting.

 

Does anyone know if there is anything useful on mars? Resources wise? Or is just a bunch of iron oxide.

 

No, nothing worth shipping off that planet and back to earth for profit.

 

Mars, no not really but it's moons might if they contain water, if they contain water we could ship them of to a low earth orbit for a profit (if there is any need for it).

Mass launched from earth has to be accelerated by 9.5km/s to go into a low orbit yet to go from phobos to earth only requires something like 4km/s.

 

probably get an even lower delta V by mining a near earth asteroid.

 

I picked the moon because it is prettier and I can see it better. Plus, I'd like to see if we're any better at wagging the dog with science fiction these days.

 

True, especially when combined with the fact that with advances in medical technology, anyone of "us" rich enough will probably live to be 150+, barring accidents and depending on current age.

 

Sure, if you can find one that's not wizzing by at many km/sec already.