New Mars Forums

If another means were available to go would it be better to bring up a partial Hubble II and transfer the guts to it from the old one.

A refinement of the vision but this one scares me a little bit.

Still reading thou.

Originally when I had heard the news of the Hubble mission cancelation and of the need for a safe haven I began the process of think of how that could be solved. Many solution were launching left over modules to sending up Bigelows inflatable to launching the shuttle with just the soyuz capsule in the cargo bay for just in case the unthinkable should happen. Well here is a story now in the news months later.

IMO the plan would actually benifit the US to give another research platform and infact the military could be the ones to finance it and to man it was just another of my off the wall thoughts.

How a ‘safe haven’ could help save Hubble

Yup quite possibly after the first few maidon flights where the tiles came off and the refurbishing costs could be analysed it probably should have been shelved then (asthe Russian did there Buran) but that would have left the US with no launch capability other than to resurect the apollo program back then. Which was an even more costly program IMO.

To control space flight costs we must start using what ever will work that has the lowest cost to begin with that will do the job. Where this is an External tank made in china or a solid booster rocket made in Russia if either example existed.

Do not sink huge amounts of money into what should be a steady state concept of making a standard chemical rocket propulsion system or in exotic shapes, advanced materials unless there costs are lower once the R&D is done. Gubber things together that will function to meet the goals if we must but keep the cost as low as possible.

Each letter in the genetic code is an amino acid and if they are constant I would expect to see the same combinations not different ones as seen in the patterns. Mars is much higher in iron content and any early life would probably form these same acids but with differing letter combinations. Now subplant a few dozen Mars meteors into earths early conditions and I believe we get a mixing of the possible genetic codes or blending at least.

Please can some tell me why when a contract is issued that it can balloon out of control to such an over charge as that. I had presumed that it would be launched on a modified Delta IV and that the 300 million contract was for the whole package. So even after that still how can it rise so high. It will not be done if it is more than 700 million all told.

Questions
Does the ITV have the lander or is that a seperate vehicle that is waiting in orbit for crew to transfer into once they arrive.

Also when does the ITV jetison the orbit to orbit stage engines if using the aero braking shield or is this part of the lander and not the ITV.

As noted there has been little progress on some of the issues of returning the shuttles to flight an lots in other areas.
Multiple articles are running today on  spacetoday.net,
CBS News/Spaceflight, SPACE.com, Florida Today, Houston Chronicle, Washington Post and many others.
The main issue after foam shedding is of tile repair of which Nasa's engineers are still hoping for a solution.

On the not of toxic minerals, there has been research into methods to remove them via plant growth.
Purdue study finds antioxidant protects metal-eating plants
There was also another article about other toxins and of gold extractions as well that I can recall.

Yes thanks for joining NewMars ftlwright, It is good to here from some one that actually works for the very agency that most of us can only dream of doing.

Now back to the cost of the Rocket specifications from the previous page.

So this tank will be in the 70million plus cost ball park.

That make options cost approximately 60million, 90 or 120million for the 4 segment units. While the 5 segment must be at least 45million each. Also for the lighter lift requirements why not make a 3 segment unit also for use.

All for trying to save where ever possible. 6 engine total at 15million each.

So let total up the figures
engines 90m
solids 60 to 120 million
fuel tank 1 70 plus
fuel tank 2 less than the 40 million on a normal shuttle tank.

This figures are rough but this is just to lobe cargo to orbit.
minimum figure 250million plus all the way to the super duper model 310million as best guess cost.

So now how much would be the development fees and for how many launches that could be used to spread the costs over to give us an average cost for each rocket in full production mode.

Well one way to get around the half way point is to give your self a stopping point, lets say a small ISS at any of the legrange points or put them on an orbit that can be synchronized to both worlds such that they are always along the way on each launch.

What would the other parameters of this clean slate be for height and width of all stages? Would it taper from the lowest stages to the top as apollo did? Can you post a picture of rocket or nice glossy drawings? Some people need to see in order to evaluate any design concepts.