The Case for Mars

[Crow]

An interesting read over at gizmodo/i09

The Case For Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must

Fifteen years ago, aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin published The Case for Mars, and issued a clarion call to his fellow scientists, and the people of Earth. We need to plan our Mars colony, and we need to do it now.

Today Zubrin has released an updated and revised version of his classic book, outlining the most realistic way to get ourselves to Mars and start setting up a human society there. Smart, idealistic, and pragmatic, this book is more important than ever. And we've got an excerpt from it.

[Narwhal]

Thanks for posting it was very interesting.  I'm definitely going to buy the book!

[Heretical Rants]

Make all people in control of NASA read that book.

[The Magic Pudding]

China is trying to get to Mars first, they want the red planet for their own.
If I say this often enough will people start to believe it?
It could make a difference, Sputnik certainly got things moving.

[CHI83]

I don't think NASA will invest in Mars. They are looking for exoplanets that are easier to colonize. They preferably want exoplanets with liquid water and an atmosphere so they wont have to go through as much trouble. I personally believe they should start terraforming Mars or at least settle underground of Mars. The survival species could possibly be in danger in the future and we don't want to be sorry later on. It probably can be done but it just will take some time.

[Crow]

China is trying to get to Mars first, they want the red planet for their own.
If I say this often enough will people start to believe it?
It could make a difference, Sputnik certainly got things moving.

Well the Moscow-based Institute for Medical and Biological Problems, European Space Agency and China's Space Training Centre are currently doing the MARS-500 experiment at the moment and there currently a year into the experiment so who knows maybe your onto something.

[Heretical Rants]

.....so basically they just sit in a box for 520 days 

[Tank]

.....so basically they just sit in a box for 520 days  

Pretty much. Which appears to be what on will do when going to Mars and back. Trouble is a box on Earth is pretty safe, a box travelling to Mars and back could be considered a little more risky. Possibly a more realistic test would be a box orbiting the Moon.

[hismikeness]

.....so basically they just sit in a box for 520 days  

Pretty much. Which appears to be what on will do when going to Mars and back. Trouble is a box on Earth is pretty safe, a box travelling to Mars and back could be considered a little more risky. Possibly a more realistic test would be a box orbiting the Moon.

I do believe that advances in virtual reality will need to be made before sustained trips to the outer planets is possible. The human psyche is frail, more so than those planning the trips want to admit, and the comforts of Earth will need to be simulated. Sitting in a box, on Earth, for 500 days is doable, because as stated, in the back of the inhabitant's minds, they know at the first sign of danger the hatch is opened and in rushes help. Not so in space.

A fundamental need of humans is communication. So the astronauts would only be able to communicate with the other astronauts in real time for the entire trip. Any communication with Earth would have a delay which would grow more and more significant the further they travel.

Because of the orbits of the Earth and Mars, I thought I read that there is only an optimal window for the shortest duration round trip every 3 1/2 years or so... So the 18 month to 2 year time frame is minimum duration.

[Rizuidad]

Colonizing other planets simply is no substitute for sustainable living, no matter how one looks at it. Going into space is, essentially, limiting one's resources for an extreme amount of time. Humans simply aren't going to survive by being wasteful on more planets. If we can raise our consciousnesses and more intelligently live, then we can be more efficient.

I would much rather design a spaceship that acted more like a gravity slingshot, which traveled by slinging itself around massive objects, such as the sun, etc. By creating a very intensely curved orbit, one can calculate a quick fall close to the sun that is tangent, and then slingshots out parrallel to mars or some other solar system. The tighter the curve, the faster the acceleration, and it would indeed be very fast, and very efficient. The resulting space saved could be reserved for creating ecosystems inside the space ship and life preserving systems. The space ship could be made large enough, dense enough, to support a small tribe of people.

Naturally, one wouldn't want one large ship. But a fleet.

[Heretical Rants]

The best use of the sun's gravity in interplanetary space flight would be to change direction in space without wasting fuel. This could allow trips to be taken every year and a half rather than every three years, that's about it. The maximum gain in velocity possible is twice the velocity of the sun relative to wherever you're going, and if that's another planet in our solar system (such as Mars), then it's effectively zero (but not quite zero, as the orbits of the planets are elliptical).

The spaceships involved are basically the same; all you're talking about here is the flightplan.

One could conceivably use the inner planets as gravity slingshots on a trip to Mars, similar to what the Voyager did on its trip to the outer reaches of the solar system, but I don't think all that much could be gained by doing so, especially since you'd have to wait until they were properly alined in their orbits.

[Tank]

The problem of 'sling shot' gravity acceleration is you have to get as close as possible to the gravity source. Now if that source is Jupiter all you have to worry about is the astonishingly powerful magnetic fields and the effect those have on accelerating particles that then rip into, and through, the space craft.

However going close to the Sun is a whole different ball-game. The radiation emitted by the Sun would sterilise the Earth if it were not for its magnetic field and atmosphere. Building a spacecraft that could protect people during a close solar transit would be quite problematical as it would have to be protected from the heat and radiation emitted by the Sun.