Bases on Mars? What's the holdup?

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HGVonGalten said:
This leaves us with the "high-g" catapult. The problem with this is that the escape velocity has to be about mach 11. I can't recall where I read that, but that is so high that it just might burn anything up. But we have to give this catapult a try.
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Actually it's about mach 37, which is 11.2 km/second. The problem with this idea is that it would place huge G forces on whatever you were launching. If your catapult was 1 km long, anything being accelerated to escape velocity on it would be subject to about 6400 G. If it was 100 km long, it would still be around 64 G - far too high for a person, and probably too much for most materials. And that's assuming you could even build a launcher that was 100 km long.
 
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HGVonGalten said:
I'm told Mars doesn't generate a magnetic field like earth, thus its atmosphere has slipped away. Can anyone tell me for sure what - if any - atmosphere Mars has? I don't see how it can contain any liquid on the surface if it's in hard vacuum.

-HG
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Atmospheric pressure is 6-10mbar (earth's is ~1000mbar). Solar wind striping is believe to be one possible factor in the loss of Mars's atmosphere, another one is that mars with is low gravity had most of it's atmosphere blown off in asteroid collisions, and I would put my bets on the later being the bigger factor.

Mars's atmospheric pressure is at the triple point for water so water can exist as a liquid but just barely within a very small temperature window, still it will evaporate/subliminate really fast as ice or gas is the more stable states for water on Mars.
 
ElectricFetus said:
Mars's atmospheric pressure is at the triple point for water so water can exist as a liquid but just barely within a very small temperature window, still it will evaporate/subliminate really fast as ice or gas is the more stable states for water on Mars.
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Really, I never knew that, interesting...

I had a small brainstorm a while back about how to do a mars mission at a discount by simply not putting a lander capable of takeoff on the surface. A mission that would be a precursor to a true mars mission would be an interplanetary manned trip in a ship that has a lander loaded up with base construction materials and remote controlled drones and robots. Some may have some autonomy, but some could be made humanoid and controlled by the astronauts in the ship as it orbits mars. It would be something like a VR setup, with VR headsets, sensors to detect arm and leg movement, etc. The mission would be to have the drones build a working base and have it mothballed and ready to go in time for a future mission. Also, it would be the first manned interplanetary mission, which would give engineers and scientists a wealth of information on how to improve future interplanetary manned spaceflight systems.

It just seems like a huge undertaking to do a mars mission because to prepare for the mission, not only do we need to perfect manned spaceflight, but we'd need to have a lander, then we'd need to have whatever gizmos we need to make fuel, then hope to god the lander makes it with that fuel, etc. etc., it just sounds like an engineering nightmare to attempt all that in a single trip, compared to just making a mission intended purely to improve manned spaceflight and to prepare for a future mars mission. Kind of a baby step if you will.
 
draqon said:
you missed the point here, we need new physics discoveries to get to places like Mars.
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To make it easier and more comfortable, or to get there at all ?
I really think the technology to get to mars and set up a colony is already here, and has been for some decades.
 
Enmos said:
To make it easier and more comfortable, or to get there at all ?
I really think the technology to get to mars and set up a colony is already here, and has been for some decades.
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no...unfortunately there is not. We need a different sort of lander on Mars to be able to land very heavy and volume full objects like rockets on there.
 
draqon said:
no...unfortunately there is not. We need a different sort of lander on Mars to be able to land very heavy and volume full objects like rockets on there.
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Yea but that's doable with current technology.
 
Once we have a colony on Mars, they would want to be independent and their own government, then they would throw all the teacargo into the valley...
 
Enmos said:
Yea but that's doable with current technology.
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thats what I am saying...its not doible right now...the only alternate option is to have it land using propulsion element on most of the trajectory. All the reason why this is so hard to land on Mars is because of 1/100 of Earth air density there...there is just not enough drag to slow down the vehicle.
 
draqon said:
thats what I am saying...its not doible right now...the only alternate option is to have it land using propulsion element on most of the trajectory. All the reason why this is so hard to land on Mars is because of 1/100 of Earth air density there...there is just not enough drag to slow down the vehicle.
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But we don't have to invent new technologies to come up with a solution for it.
 
Enmos said:
But we don't have to invent new technologies to come up with a solution for it.
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but you see the problem here is different...it is just going to be soo expensive (even on space business scale money) that it is not practical. Its like trying to move a mountain with woodsticks. I hope you got the analogy.
 
The currently proposed technology for Mars are overly expensive and are not feasible. The rovers sent to Mars get away with parachutes + some propulsion element at low altitudes + expandable ball technique maneuver...well the rovers get away with it because they are not as heavy and volumetric as what is needed to be landed on Mars. When we need something 4 times as much as Spirit rover landing there...the usual approaching of it hard landing and bounching on the expandable balloons is not practical...because there are humans in there if they will experience such jerk (change in acceleration) movements they will most likely die. And another solution is to land using propulsion element all the way...but can you just imagine what that means? It means that vehicle that is to land on Mars needs to have most of its weight being fuel which will be used to power the propulsion descent. And...added to that...we just dont have that much experience with landing using propulsion.
 
draqon said:
The currently proposed technology for Mars are overly expensive and are not feasible. The rovers sent to Mars get away with parachutes + some propulsion element at low altitudes + expandable ball technique maneuver...well the rovers get away with it because they are not as heavy and volumetric as what is needed to be landed on Mars. When we need something 4 times as much as Spirit rover landing there...the usual approaching of it hard landing and bounching on the expandable balloons is not practical...because there are humans in there if they will experience such jerk (change in acceleration) movements they will most likely die. And another solution is to land using propulsion element all the way...but can you just imagine what that means? It means that vehicle that is to land on Mars needs to have most of its weight being fuel which will be used to power the propulsion descent. And...added to that...we just dont have that much experience with landing using propulsion.
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That's what I said, it's mostly the money that's holding them back.
 
Enmos said:
That's what I said, it's mostly the money that's holding them back.
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but you got to realize how much money...we are not talking Apollo-like type of hype money...nope...many times more than Apollo needed at its own time money.
 
draqon said:
but you got to realize how much money...we are not talking Apollo-like type of hype money...nope...many times more than Apollo needed at its own time money.
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I do realize ;)

That's why I said it's mostly money that's holding them back, not technology.

:p
 
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