Bases on Mars? What's the holdup?

In popular science I read about a scientist who was working on an air cannon with a mile long muzzle that could fire objects beyond the captive gravity of earth; for some reason it was discontinued. However on the same thought, placing this cannon atop mount Chimborazo in Equador (the locale furthest from the center of the earth" would give us a 4 mile "jump" on the trip and also acting through a weaker drag and weaker gravity field. Perhaps with today's economy, this idea will become feasible for launching spent atomic waste as well as surviva reserves.

 

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Right, we send the atomic waste up into the orbit around Earth and it comes down somewhere else when its orbit decays and it returns back down!

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The idea would be to send it on a trip into the sun or out of the solar system, of course.

 

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I think the most important thing would be just to get all of the large "stuff" into orbit first (by shooting it up by the cannon or the sling) THEN putting it together (use the space station as a base to work from) and then get on the way to Mars. Maybe make a few drops to Mars first (of supplies) THEN send your people.

Needless to say, unless we can get off this planet for cheaper, there is no way we'll ever inhabit another planet. It'll be more reasonable to send a small population (200 is the smallest number I've read) then they get "jiggy with it." And in several hundred years, it would be a decently populated planet.

-HGVonGalten

 

It would be more fun if the large stuff was allready in orbit. Zubrin proposed to make the return fuel for a mars mission on mars itself saving the weight of having to launch it on earth and land it on Mars.
If you have his book of "the case of Mars" He designed 2 modules of wich the ERV module weights 28,6 ton containing 4,5 ton propellant almost all for the landing. It would be nice if they would find a way to make the descend fuel on phobos (it's contains a lot of ice [hydrogen oxygen]). And it would safe a other 15% of the launch mass

 

Mass drivers ? Magnetic accelerators on the moon ?, I think the late Arthur C clarke mentioned one in one of his books.

 

I am excited to announce that Russia has set a goal to be on Mars and built a nuclear power station there

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3162129.stm

 

"It will produce enough power for future Russian missions to the planet to be fully self-contained and will not need more than six engineers to maintain. "


Hohohohoh ahahahahahahah! Yeah right. We haven't set foot on Mars yet, but they think they will be in the position to have a permanent manned base there in 2030? I have serious doubts we could achieve such on he Moon in such timescales.

 

It's all a matter of how much you're willing to spend and how much you're willing to risk. We could have built a large base on the moon by the late 1970s if we had wanted to - in fact, most of the people at NASA assumed we would. Then Nixon cut NASA's funding to almost nothing, and they got stuck opperating a semi-useless space shuttle that the air force forced on them. I have no doubt at all that we could build a large Mars base by the 2030s if we wanted to. It's just that the people in charge don't really want to.

Remember, it only took 8 years to go from no one ever having even gone into space to landing a team on the moon. But that was back whem people were willing to pay...

 

Not with a Mars mission it's not; it's about repeatedly breaking human endurance records in space.

Every astronaut on those future missions has to exceed everything that has been done so far. We are talking nearly a year in space, we are talking limited to no resupply options.

A permanent crew of six on Mars by 2030 is laughable. Having them service a reactor, doubly so.

 

Héhéhé

 

Yeah, those Astronauts had better take some shovels, and some sticky tape.

 

People have already spent over a year in space. Russian cosmonaut Valery Polyakov holds the record for the longest continuous time in space, at 438 days. This is not a problem. And it's possible to use teathered masses to create artificial spin gravity. This hasn't been tried yet, but 20 years is more than enough time to work it out.

Why do you think so? We're talking about over 20 years here, and most of the technology already exists. Clearly a very large heavy-lift rocket would be needed, but it only took about 6 years to develope and build the Saturn 5 from initial concept to first launch. A heavy-lift rocket in the same class as the Saturn V could launch direct-to-mars flights in one go, especially if nuclear engines (that we already know how to build) are used. It would just be a matter of sending a few unmanned cargo shipments ahead of the crew so that they have something to live in/eat/etc when they get there. Running a nuclear reactor isn't any harder than doing anything else in space. The nuclear reactor is a non-issue. Both Russia and the U.S. have already launched nuclear reactors into space that ran for years without ever being serviced by anyone. The reactor would probably be launched in one piece, ready to go. The crew would simply have to plug it in and hit the "start" button.

 

Believe

well we arent sure if we can put bases on mars.
i mean we arent sure of life or air on mars
how would we build bases when we dont know this stuff
plus money would be a big issue too

 

I think just about anyone who seriously looks into it is sure that we could put a base on mars with current technology is we wanted to. We know what the air on mars is like, and we can be pretty sure that there isn't any life. Money is the only issue. It would be expensive, yes, but it would also cost a lot less than a lot of the things that large government spend money on.

 

A Mars Semi-Direct or Mars Direct would cost 60-50 billion, so could have gone to mars 24-30 times by now instead of going to iraq.

 

I definetely agree with you and strongly disagree with phlogistician. Mission to Mars is possible and technology now will let us get there. And we def. can have a Mars base if we invest in this much more than we do now.

 

Very few people have logged the flight time he has, in fact, only about a dozen people have logged the same amount of cumulative flight time as would be required for a Mars mission, let alone continuous flight time!

We are talking about pushing the limits of human endurance, and requiring at least six people to be able to achieve that, more would need to be sent as backup.

We haven't even got plans to deploy that in Earth Orbit within the next ten years afaik.

Hmm, no it doesn't. We can recycle water and air fairly well, but Mir and the ISS were still resupplied with both. There is a very limited resupply option on a Mars trip, so basic life support systems need to be improved vastly or;

A vast rocket would be needed to take a crew of six, and everything they need to survive. How much water does a person need for a year in space? I have various hobbies which require me to carry everything I need for a period of time. Once you start monitoring your consumption of basics like water, or notice the degradation of lifestyle once you can't just turn on a tap and take a shower you understand the enormous difficulties of surviving in inhospitable terrain.

Resupply, is limited, because we just don't have a good record of landing robotic missions on Mars, just check out the failure rate. Not good if you are relying on those packages for basic survival.

And at present a replacement for the Shuttle, Orion, is scheduled to send humans back to the Moon, by 2020. You really think firstly that we are going to hit that deadline, and then achieve Mars just a decade later? Even with International co-operation that sounds doubtful to me.

Nuclear engines? That have not been built, tested for such payloads, or type approved for manned flight, ... hmmm, keep chuffing on that pipe.

Like I said earlier, we don't have a good record of landing robotic missions on Mars, so resupply missions would have to have that factored in.

Hand waving over the detail doesn't take it away. Take something we know about, and extrapolate, .. say, a Nuclear Submarine. It takes up about half the volume of a submarine, requires a fairly substantial crew, and can use sea water as a coolant. Now, take that to Mars, it has to be far more compact, self contained, use minimal coolant, and be able to be staffed by just six people. That rather limits the size, and utility.

Rather simple nuclear thermocouples, with very limited output. IIRC of the order of tens to a few hundred watts in general, with the odd large version having limited lifespan. There are limits as to how much fissionable material you are allowed to launch on manned missions, btw, and limits on how much toxic metal, I recall having to dispose of a cryostat once because it used beryllium and was no longer flight worthy.

Would Geordie La Forge, or Commander Data do that?

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hmmm...were did you get that estimate?:bugeye: I was under the impression that figure was 10 times as much...

 

You only say that because you ignore the very real problems with getting there, like human endurance in space.