New Mars Forums

Thanks, RobertDyck.  When you mentioned mini magnetosphere, that got me to remember about a university that was working on that.  It was supposed to be faster than nuclear propulsion.  Has anyone else heard anything about this?

Looks like I got the NASA Mars mission and the ESA Mars mission mixed up!! 

I haven't looked around yet, but I assuming the the Beagle has taken off okay?

http://cmex-www.arc.nasa.gov/CMEX/data/ … Table.html

Most if not all of you have probably found this page at one time or another.  My question is if we can have this much detail in this type of mission, why couldn't we launch the first manned mission within the 2007 - 2014 time frame?  Shouldn't our technology advance enough to develop a heavy launch vehicle within 3-11 yrs? 

Glancing through the site, it mentioned a problem about depending on one launch facility.  We probably will have the shuttle flying (unfortunately) so that's one launch facility.  We could bring in the Russians or the ESA to help with the other.  I believe the US could do it on our own, but why not get international help.  The US will more than likely be the biggest contributor anyway.

It just bugs me to see this much planning and details in a manned Mars mission and it seems like nothing is being done.  I could be wrong.  I hope I am.

I was doing some searching on nuclear powered spacecraft and came across this NASA spacecraft design from 1989. Go to this site.  You won't be able to read too much about it but you can order the document.

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/

It's going to be delayed by a few days. 

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/me … 30527.html

I voted "pay for a guided tour"  although I do think that the government would try and stop your efforts.  Too bad that we can't convince Bill Gates and Warren Buffet to help! 

I found this site the other day.  It may have been posted here before.

http://www.exploremarsnow.org/

It's great to see the developement of this new propulsion type system.  The quote stated that NASA will probably be the first customer.  My questions for anyone are as follows:

1.  With NASA pushing for Project Prometheus, will the Mini-Mag Orion (MMO) take a back seat? 

2.  Which would be faster to build and test Prometheus or MMO?

3.  Can MMO be launched directly from Earth? 

It's nice to see something new that could possibly change space exploration forever.  According to the article, MMO could be built within this decade!  We need to push for the development immediately.  Not that it will do any good, but I'm going to write a letter to Congress/Senate and NASA.  IMHO, NASA needs to go full throttle on a new launch system (not the shuttle) and develop MMO.  I would love to see the day when we will have continous launches of manned exploration of the solar system.

If this "foundation" does exist, maybe this will spur NASA to react.  You know the government will not allow this.

Mine was the 80s era robot type cartoons Voltron...Defender of the Universe; Mighty Orbots!!, Transor Z etc....

With all these reports coming about liquid water on Mars, we definitely need to put the Mars exploration into overdrive.  We are always looking for life elsewhere in the universe and it could be right next door!  Enough with the analysis and let's go see for ourselves!  Not with robots but humans!!!!

How long can antimatter be stored?