New Mars Forums

Sea Launch has succeeded because it is a PRIVATE international venture, as opposed to a government-funded collaboration.  The teams involved in Sea Launch all speak the same language:  Capitalism!  When you try to get the government space programs together for a non-profit venture, things fall apart, because everybody wants something different and each agency is looking out for its own interests.  Case in point: the ISS.  Russia was unable to pay for its portion of the ISS, so the U.S. gave them some more money to finish it.  Now the U.S. doesn't have the money to finish its habitiation module, and the Europeans are b####ing about it.

As for your fixation with fixed price contracts, Rob, I suggest you read the book "The $5 Billion Misunderstanding" by James P. Stevenson.  It details the demise of the Navy's A-12 medium bomber, and much of it has to do with the government's insistence on a fixed-price contract.  The Navy's timetable was too rigid and there were too many unknowns in the design of the A-12 to justify that kind of contract.  Any humans-to-Mars project will be even more complicated than the A-12, and there will be many more unknowns that need to be solved from the beginning of the design process to the time hardware is built.

I would definitely like to see fuel cells on Mars, and I believe that they will come of age as the automotive industy and the utility companies do more research.

Fuel cells are more efficient than internal combustion engines but they are much heavier than a combustion engine with the same power output. That's why companies like Ford and Volkswagen are working feverishly to reduce the size of the fuel cells.  Chrysler was also working on a catalyst system that would extract hydrogen from normal petroleum.  The power companies are going one step further, trying to build a catalyst that will take the hydrogen from natural gas on home fuel cells.

Assuming that we launch Mars Direct before 2020, that will give industry about ten years to make lightweight fuel cells that run on the methane produced in the Sabatier reactor.  I would say that the odds are good for using fuel cells during the first exploration of Mars.

Now that we are aware of abundant water deposits on Mars, a lot of options are open to us for Mars Direct.  For example, the water can be electrolyzed into hydrogen and oxygen for fuel, with no need for hydrgogen feedstock or martian carbon dioxide.  However, this fuel combination is highly cryogenic.  It would be possible to save on the weight of the fuel tanks by using storable propellants--namely, Kerosene and Hydrogen Peroxide.  The Kerosene can be brought from earth, while the peroxide can be manufactured from either the water or from the soil (as I understand it, Martian soil is rich in peroxide ions, but I could be wrong here.)

For more on the applications of hydrogen peroxide, check out: http://members.aol.com/dsfportree/ex87b.htm

There is a lot of confusion about the wherabouts of Burans and the static test articles.  A static test article sits on display in Gorky Park, while the Aerodynamic test article (equivalent to the American "Enterprise" with jet engines) is on display in Australia.  The only Buran to have flown in space was slated to go on display somewhere in Russia until several events took place last month.  First, a radio station in LA tried to auction off one of the shuttles or mockups (it wasn't revealed which one they were selling.)  Then the Buran hangar collapsed.  I had heard that none of the shuttles were in the hangar at the time, but I've been hearing conflicting reports about this.  I don't know if there are two Burans for sale, or if the topic of this thread is the Buran being auctioned by the radio station.

Reviving the Saturn V is possible, but it isn't very practical because the tooling was destroyed in the early 1970's.  With today's technology we can build a better booster.  Of course, it would be nice if we could revive production on the ENGINES for the Saturn V, because we have fallen woefully behind the Russians in terms of engine development since the end of Apollo.

I share your feelings about solid rocket boosters, but I disagree about the use of Energia boosters on a Mars rocket.  The Energia boosters were the basis for the first stage of the Zenit.  As you know, Boeing now markets the Zenit for commercial space launches.  I don't think that NASA, Congress, or the taxpayers would have a problem with using Zenit first stages, bought from Boeing, on the Mars rocket.

Shaun, that was my point exactly.  I can just imagine a 21st century "Sanford and Son," salvaging old satellites and selling them from their orbiting junkyard. 

Returning the satellites to earth will be a bigger problem, as none of them have thermal protection systems.  On-orbit repair might be a better solution.  It might also be possible to build an unmanned shuttle that could deploy a solar-electric engine after it reached orbit.  It would collect satellites for a year or so and then deorbit and land on a runway.

Good ideas to trim down the mass of Mars Direct?  I have a few.  For starters:

1. Use composites wherever they would save weight.
2. The ERV should find something better than the methane/oxygen fuel mixture.  You could dispense with some of the tankage and Sabatier reactors if you used a nuclear thermal reactor that heated compressed carbon dioxide.  Better yet, you could land at one of the water deposits and use the ice to make hydrogen and oxygen fuel.
3.  Use ballutes (inflatable balloon-parachutes) for landing.  The parachutes will be heavier than normal but it might eliminate the need for descent engines and propellant on the hab lander.
4.  Integrate the aerobrake with the hab's outer skin.  This is a key feature of the lander in NASA's DRM 3.0.

Once we iron out the political roadblocks, I believe that Orion would be technically feasible.  To back up what Dayton3 said, I present the following: in the book "Sum of All Fears," an 11.2 KT nuclear bomb cannot completely destroy a football stadium.  I'm certain that Tom Clancy's assumption is based on his consultation with experts in bomb effects.  The question is not whether the pusher plate can survive one nuclear blast, but whether it can take repeated nyuclear blasts.  The original team behind Orion did create a pusher plate that survived several conventional blasts, and Von Braun became a supporter of Orion when he saw the demonstration.

In the American nuclear stockpile, we have large quantities of B61 gravity bombs, each with a low-end yield of 3 KT.  I would like to see if Orion could be modified to use these warheads.

The Space Exploration Act would be a lot more realistic if reusable spacecraft were not required.  Granted, a fully-reusable RLV for transport to earth orbit has been long overdue, but the first landing on Mars will be too difficult to accomplish if we must wait for someone to develop an RLV to take us there and back.

I really can't say whether a lunar return or an asteriod landing is essential before we go to Mars.  I've always thought of lunar return as more of a private venture instead of a NASA project.  Still, a lunar return will give us much needed experience in living for long periods of time in reduced gravity and building closed-loop life support systems.

If we choose Mars Direct as a baseline, there needs to be some kind of demonstration flight which proves that humans can survive the flight to Mars and the surface stay in reduced artificial gravity.  Although we will still need a test of the machinery that will spin to provide the artificial gravity, an extended stay on the moon will help us to study the effects of Martian gravity much more realistically than an extended stay on the ISS.

After the discovery of underground H2O on Mars, Rep. Lampson's bill seems both timely and necessary.  NASA insiders say that Mars Sample Return is a priority again, and that a manned mission will take place in 20 years.  Rep. Lampson's bill will allow this to happen.

On the downside, the Lampson bill sounds too much like the Space Exploration Initiative, and its goals may be too rigid, in the sense that the initiative will fall apart if one of the goals isn't met.  I agreed with the Space Exploration Initiative and its goal of a long term, national commitment to space exploration.  Unfortunately, Congress didn't, and I do not think that their collective opinion has changed.

The Lampson bill also reminds me of LBJ's support for Apollo: he saw it as a federal jobs program that would benefit Texas.  Congress rarely supports programs if they do not have pork barrel spending attached.  In order for space to become a national priority, every state needs to gain something economically from the space program, and the lawmakers need to realize the benefits of space funding.

NASA has mentioned "Pulse Detonation Engines" on some of its websites as a future propulsion technology.  If I'm not mistaken, this type of engine is allegedly used to propel the "Aurora" Mach 6 spyplane.  I've seen a patent drawing for such an engine before but I've heard several different explanationson how one would operate.  I also don't understand why an airbreathing engine would be adapted for space travel.  Can anybody shed some light on the situation?

I really like your thinking regarding the ISS, and I'm trying to think of what modifications would be needed (aside from engines used for earth escape.)  The life support loop would need to be closed, so the ISS wouldn't need to rely on Progress resupply ships.  And any modules that are not necessary for cycler duties should be discarded.  Because the solar panels would be less effective as the station got closer to Mars, they would have to be augmented, possibly with a nuclear reactor.

It is not currently possible to retrieve the Russian reactors that currently orbit the earth.  These satellites have been placed in "doomsday orbits" that are quite high above the earth and will not decay for thousands of years.