New Mars Forums

Oh well, I'm still satisfied running Windows 98 at 466 Mhz, but I've heard similar complaints about 'bloatware.' 

Somebody criticized the UN for its poor track record.  I would blame the communists. The world is still not as free as we would like it to be. Civilization is 5,000 years old but slavery only ended 150 years ago, unless you count some of the slave labor and sweat shops in the 3rd World today. It's amazing we've made as much progress as we have in such a short time.

I still remain optimistic.  We don't have flying cars and other sci-fi stuff, but our lives have been enriched tremendously in the past 40 years and the trend will continue.  Advances in medicine and biotechnology will improve our lives and the hydrogen economy will be revolutionary. 

Getting back to Mars exports.  I have long thought that Mars could make money selling light elements to industry in Earth-Moon space, if there is any in the future. Mars is a world with all the elements necessary for civilization.  Mars could reach economic sef sufficiency, unlike the Moon or space colonies.  Will exports even be necessary?

Mars could export copper, carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen to Earth orbit and the Moon. But where is the money to get this done going to come from?  Just because someone else said we'd be working 3 days a week by now doesn't mean I'm wrong because he was.  In 100 years, technology will be astounding.  Look at what has happened since I was born in 1959-color TV, cable, satellite, the internet, home computers, big screen TV, video games, cell phones, man has landed on the Moon, the Shuttle, Viking, Voyager and many other probes, the Keck telescope, the Hubble, VCRs, DVDs, CD players, fax machines, heart transplants, psychiatric medicines, longer survival times for cancer patients, soft contact lenses, laser eye surgery and hair removal, hybrid cars; cars with AT, power brakes & steering,AC, and all kinds of goodies as standard equipment-unlike my old '64 Chevy that didn't have any of that, GPS, the eradication of smallpox, genetically modified crops, the unraveling of the human genome, genetic engineering, microwave ovens, etc. etc. In 1959, my parents still owned a Victrola.  Times have changed and will continue to do so.  So what if we aren't working 3 days weeks?  Give it a few more decades. Have faith.

By the time we colonize Mars we might not have to worry so much about exports.  Advances in AI, robotics and nanotech might make us all so rich we can afford anything.

I think we are accumulating all kinds of good hardware and throwing it in the trash because of bean counting politicians who don't have any vision for leadership into space.  The Saturn V is in the trash, so is the Gemini and Big Gemini, the Apollo capsule, the X33 and Venturestar, linear aerospike engines, some big cheap solid rockets about 20 feet in diam. Numerous other X planes have been trashed and over 100 external tanks have been discarded only to burn up over the Indian Ocean.  They spend billions, then cancel programs before they finish them.  They spent billions on the X33 and then slashed it!  They built a shuttle launch base in southern California and trashed it after blowing billions on it.  Can't these guys make up their minds and stick with something! 

What can we do besides saying 'ain't it awful' all the time?  I guess we have to write up our ideas and mail them to Congress critters, NASA officials, etc.  Maybe somebody can inspire those bums.  Heck, I'd elect Arnold Schwarzenegger if he was willing to commit this country to the exploration of the new ocean of space the way JFK did.

We could jettison the heat shield while parachuting down to Edwards AFB to get rid of the weight and inflate airbags for a landing as soft as splashdown on water.

If we're going to build a capsule like Zubrin advocates, we might as well just use the Soyuz or the Shenzou.  If we aren't going to build a HLLV we might as well buy the Energia. Sure, this won't make any money for the US aerospace corps. and that's why it will never happen!  I'd like to build Shuttle configs like C,Z and Ares and put a Big G capsule on a Shuttle Z.  A whole new orbiter would be cool.  We could keep the ET and step up to LFBBs and recycle some of that X-33 and Venturestar program technology like a lifting body design and linear aerospike engine to make an all new orbiter that has twice as much passenger room within to haul tourists. a good link: http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4221/ch1.htm
The OSB or 'mini-shuttle' doesn't appeal to me.  I thought the Japanese were working on something like that.  Anyhow, until NASA has a clear cut goal like Mars and a return to the Moon, it will just be a bloated bureacray run by bean counters.  Email your congress critters!!

Yes, a faring would be needed over the GEO transfer stg. engine.  To reach GEO from LEO you need to speed up to 23,000 mph, then a 3,000 mph burn to circularize.  To return a 3,000 mph burn and then aerobraked reentry.  The Gemini capsule would have to be modified with a better heat shield. It could also use modern electronics and displays.  The old Gemini had mechanical displays, sort of like odometers in it! And a computer with like 16K! 

Anyhow, if 330 second hydrazine/N2O4 motors are used on the 2nd stg., a mass ratio of 4.8 is needed, so a payload of about 16.7 tons can go if the Shuttle Z can haul 80 tons to LEO.  I don't know what a Gemini with service module masses.  The GEO transfer stg. should actually consist of two stgs. for efficiency.

There's room for lots of ideas about this sort of thing.

Solar or nuclear?  If solar can do the job, be cautious and use solar.  If nuclear is the only way to do it, we got to use nuclear.

Send some robotic mining gear to the moonlets.  Land some devices to make fuel from the martian atmosphere on the surface of Mars.  Orbit some GPS satellites and comsats. As long as all this stuff lasts 20 years...or why don't we just send manned missions 5 years after all this junk?

this is good:  http://www.moonminer.com/external-tank-ships.html

In space, a freighter could be 95% cargo.  A space freighter is much different from an ocean going vessel that must be strong enough to resist the high seas, and the heavier the cargo the heavier the ship. You still need to fire retro rockets or aerobrake to get the cargo into orbit. Now, you could let the 5% that's freighter ship proper just fly on by while the cargo modules fire retros and then aerobrake.  I guess that would amount to some efficiency.  Solar sails would be great for cargos to and from Mars.  A good article is in last month's Moon Miner's Manifesto about that.  But why freighters at all? Doesn't Mars have everthing it needs?  Or are you planning on selling light elements to lunar colonists?

here's a pulse unit for you Orion drive:
W48 155-millimeter Nuclear Artillery Shell

During the 1950s and 1960s, nuclear weapons were developed for every conceivable military mission. An estimated 1,000 W48 nuclear artillery shells (designed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) were produced and deployed with Army and Marine Corps forces between 1963 and 1991. The W48 had a yield of 0.02-0.04 kilotons (equal to 2-4 tons of TNT).

AS for the tokamak thrusters, you could cluster a few hundred together to make a space drive system, but that's only possible if these things ever work.  Although you will get a high Isp, at 100% efficiency you will only get as much power out as you put in, which is good when you condsider that ion drives are about 50% eff. and VASIMR about 70%.  Your typical steam turbine 30-40%.  I recommend the vapor core fission reactor to power the tokamak thrusters. However, they still have to get these things to work, and you will need deuterium and tritium. Those don't come cheap.