New Mars Forums

If you want something more than a research base with a handful of scientists, you will need complete reusability, you will want to expend nothing but fuel and energy, and not create junk and scrap all along the way. Now it would help if their pieces than came off could be retrieved and reused, instead of having to build replacement parts for each trip. The less we have to manufacture the less it will cost.

High profits by oligopoly players will have the effect of bringing in more competition? If SpaceX can do it, it will be followed by a lot of copycats trying to do the same. There is no reason to suppose that only SpaceX can reuse its rocket stages, so any advantage SpaceX reaps will be only temporary until other companies get in on the act. In the meantime SpaceX can raise a lot of money with its cheaper access to space than its competitors.

Basically it sounds like you want to harness lightning.

Huh? What?

So what's the hard part about making a Bernal Sphere colony? if you assume you already have all the material on site, such as this asteroid? Maybe you might need to bring in some water, I don't know. I was thinking of inflating a balloon in space around it, not necessarily so astronauts don't need space suits, but to form a sphere, and then by grinding up rocks, separating them out into certain components an adding water, we could make concrete. We would set the concrete along the walls of the balloon, perhaps by rotating the balloon and then after the concrete hardens we use that as a shell to build other things out of that. We would need to make glass for the windows to let in light, and we'd use the metals to make the mirrors. Maybe some gold could be shipped Earthwards to finance the project, later on we could sell real estate inside the Bernal Sphere.

I guess the only thing we don't have a lot of is labor, perhaps robots can be brought up, 3-D printers that make things out of concrete, perhaps some metal printers. Maybe build a mass driver with 3-D printers perhaps, using excess rubble as propellant to shift this asteroid into a closer orbit around Earth. NASA is far too cautious, look at what its doing compared to SpaceX.

if it is Earth's distance from the Sun, it likely contains no water, unless it somehow recently got there.

In Figure 3, the most common (modal) value of the distribution falls at 2.63 g/cm3, roughly the density of quartz, an abundant rock-forming mineral. Few density values for these upper crustal rocks lie above 3.3 g/cm3.

If this rock is 40 meters in diameter, that is 4000 centimeters which is 64,000,000,000 cubic centimeters which would weigh 168,320 metric tons, lets say its 200,000 metric tons as the low estimate.

If it is 100 meters across it would weigh 3,125,000 metric tons. You know this mass is roughly equivalent to one of Gerard O'Neill's proposed Space Colonies, probably one of the smaller ones such as the Stamford Torus or the Bernal Sphere. We got all the material already out there, we don't even need to mine it from the Moon! What are the chances of converting it to an actual space colony, lets say the Bernal Sphere for instance? Lets say we build it in place, in the orbit it now stands in, what would the say the difficulties would be?

9.5 million miles (15,288,768 km) About 51 light seconds away 1.7 minutes time delay.

Well its better than the Russians who have lost 100% of the missions they sent to Mars! The competition is greater now, chances are more likely in the 2020s.

Because salaries are the entire cost when you look at every level of production when getting the rockets produced and launched, whether it be mining the raw materials, manufacturing, producing rocket fuel, or actually launching the vehicles. The more we can eliminate salaries and wages paid along the way, the more we can reduce costs!

I do not think we'll go to the Moon only or to Mars only, I don't think it is a choice between the Moon or Mars. I think a scenario where we go all out for Mars while pretending the Moon is not there and ignoring it is an unrealistic one. I think the scenario of an all out drive to send people to Mars with international partners as part of a UN agency is unrealistic, with the expectation that everything else will be put aside with a single-minded drive for Mars.

I think Obama's cancellation of the Constellation program was foolish, the fact of the matter is, the Moon is easier to get to, and for that reason alone, we are likely to see more footprints on the Moon before we see footprints on Mars. The capability to go to Mars includes the capability to go to the Moon. Going to the Moon is not necessary for going to Mars, there is no need to build a fuel plant on the Moon, there is no need to build a shipyard in orbit to assemble an interplanetary spacecraft for getting to Mars either. A Mars Mission can be broken up into three parts:
1) Getting to Mars
2) Staying on Mars
3) Getting back to Earth

Each phase of the mission can be handled separately through pre-supplies. Probably the easiest to accomplish would be staying on Mars, for that existing vehicles can land supplies on the surface of Mars to last between arrival at Mars and the next launch window back to Earth. We don't need special vehicles for that, we can use what we have for sending probes to Mars, if we land enough of them on Mars, then astronauts who land there will have enough supplies to last. Getting there requires a vehicle that can keep the astronauts alive for 180 days without resupply, and going back could require another vehicle.

The Moon is a lot easier, it just has higher fuel requirements than an International Space Station mission, the launch window to the Moon is constantly open, so long as we have a vehicle which can get us there.

As for a base, we just can launch supplies to the Moon ahead of the astronauts SpaceX can probably use its existing Vehicles for this. Air bags can cushion the landing on the Moon, if they are dropped from a low enough altitude.

I think there is a relatively radiation free zone just above Jupiter's atmosphere, just like there is just above Earth's, if we can get within 200 km above Jupiter's cloud tops, a probe there could last quite a long time. The best way to get into a circular orbit around Jupiter would be with an atmosphere grazing maneuver. You'd need an ablative heat shield to slow down the probe, and then a rocket burn to circularize the orbit afterwards, and like a low Earth orbiting space craft, you'd need periodic rocket burns to keep the probe from falling into the atmosphere. So far only one space agency has ever sent probes to Jupiter or any of the outer planets, that would be NASA. Russia hasn't even sent one probe there.

Because the NASA people in charge will get fired, and those that replace them will give Space X new contracts that would have otherwise gone to Boeing. If SpaceX can do it better, they should show it, and those people who's career is to waste taxpayers money will be out of a job, and no longer a concern to SpaceX. I think Donald Trump for one would be sympathetic to this view point if he ever becomes President.

Because they want more of NASA's money. NASA has only a finite amount to spend, and the more Boeing gets, the less SpaceX gets, now why should SpaceX give up business in order to share the Market with Boeing. If Boeing can't compete with them on price and quality, they should not compete at all, and their friends in Congress should be gotten rid of, because they are not serving the public but themselves!

The had that feeds them is the American Taxpayer, they decide who is in Congress, and right now they are very angry! Congressmen who use taxpayer money to get themselves reelected are ill-serving the public. As a side note, we really need to clean the House and Senate, not with any particular party, but get rid of those who get kickbacks and campaign contributions from contractors who buy votes rather than produce quality at a low price.

The only way to properly win a bid is by producing the most for the least, not through gifts to congressmen and Senators, nor for building factories and production facilities in certain districts to facilitate votes! those things make it more expensive, the low bidder who can deliver should always win the contract. No more living with corruption or accommodating one self to it.