New Mars Forums

With the way the shuttle was done we can probably expect progress in about 10 years. Of course this is without the "push" of private enterprise on NASA and we can expect there to be some changes on how the CEV is created.

Also there is the other space agencies and there operations which could spur NASA to actually move faster than the usual snail pace. But we also have to be aware that there are budget constraints against manned flight.

So for your answer SpaceNut the answer is we have no idea, there are too many factors to consider that effect the answer

The willingness the American people have to pay for any increases in the cost of Gas is small. With the recent rise in Oil prises it has started a lot of discontent. Anyway both parties have been using the term Tax cut a lot so I think the American debt is here to stay

You are assuming we will only have one cycler that does not make sense we will want to have four as a minimum. This allows the gaps between arrivals and departures to be kept to the minimum and should there be a problem with a colony craft it aborts and the colonists can get the next cycler to come to get there transport. And another advantage to cyclers is the capacity they have to be expanded so allowing for larger amounts of people/cargo transported.

The biggest cost in space operations is that first step from Earth to Orbit, we are hoping that new style shuttles will hopefully reduce this cost. If we can reuse the colony craft again and again this will help in keeping the costs down. I want to ensure that all people have the chance to go to Mars and not who the goverment picks. And if the cost of sending a colonist is 150 million $us then forget any colonisation no country can afford that. But the possibility of fully reusable shuttles and Infrastructure can get the cost of the colonist down to 500,000 $us for one then that means it is a possibility though still expensive.

The colonists colonisation craft will be nuclear and it will be as reusable as we can make it. The cycler in its nature is reusable with it recieving resupply from Moon launched mass driven materials like oxygen etc.

The one advantage we have yet to mention is that if we start a telerobotic base on the Moon to use Lunar materials this will need us to actually have centers on Earth to control them. One of these centers should be in India as it has the location, education standard and desire to be in the space race.

Why should we do this well in the case of politics it will give another country and its friends who will support a change in the outer space treaty if it sees direct benefit to itself.

This would also see a groundswell of public support form these countries to push for space and this will hopefully lead to more support in the space tired west. And if the outer space treaty can be modified to allow at the least licensing of mining and use of space materials then we get private enterprise willing to push money into space investment.

We wont have that many people to keep an eye on any energy production gear so if we want a good safety measure we ought to ensure that the system we do use is a bit idiot proof. And it does seem that a pebble bed reactor has that function over a sophisticated liquid metal cooled system.

To be able to fully colonize mars we need to really go for it and this needs infrastructure.

The vikings colonized America but there colonisation effort relied on longboats and Knars which though for there age where the greatest sailing vessels in existence they where too small. As such we now need archeologists to find out where the Vikings had been. This is the stage we are with our space program our craft are too small and though we can send our people to Mars we will ultimatly fail with the small craft we have.

The next colonisation that came though used much bigger ships these could carry a decent amount of people and the colonies where able to get more and more people to replace the ones who died due to the hard life they faced. These lead to the cruise liners who took colonists and tourists in bulk to America so doubling its population again and again and providing the workforce and impetus to go west. This is what the Moon can do it can allow us to build the large ships which means when we go to Mars to colonise we go in force and we succeed.

Another point is the Moon will give us the skills we need to be able to go further than Mars and for that it is worth doing all on its own.

China has a lot of recent experience with Maglevs, In shanghai for instance they now have the largest working maglev train system. The design came from germany I think but with the chinese doing all the labour im sure they have learned a lot. Well with us getting closer and closer to room tempature super conduction if they take the long view they can learn how to do it now and when the required missing technology is brought along probably by the computer/electronics industry it wont take them long to get going. That is something we do not have much of in the west patience but it seems the chinese can play the waiting game.

You are considering two stage or even single stage to Orbit tsto or stto and vertical take off, vtol.(this is for guests who may not know the terms).

But why if we are trying to build a space plane with two stages does it have to be vertical launch. If we are going to go for two stages make the lower section another plane. This way the lower stage can use already available technology to get to a decent height before igniting rockets to speed up before releasing the second stage at the required speed. This principle was shown to work look at the X15. I have ignored single stage as the mass fraction that can be sent up is of a very low magnitude with the materials we have currently present. Another advantage to using the two plane method is the lower stage may be used for other purposes so reducing operating cost.

President Von Bushy

Ian Flint and myself must be related

Smart-1 due to its design will be doing a lot of mapping of the lunar landscape. But due to orbital mechanics it will start mostly with the equator region of the Moon and as the mission continues hopefully more of the Moon including the very important lunar regions of the Moon. What is very exciting is that the resolution of the Photos will be high and this will help plan the next series of landings.

There is the little problem that we the west have few allies in this area and many enemies. Should Iraq split what would happen is our allies would be harmed and our enemies given new ground to operate in.

The Kurds are wanting a large part of one of our best friends there turkey and if we find Iraq splits then the likelihood is we will have another Iran or two. Not to mention the likehood of serious Ethnic cleansing and very bloody civil war.

But here is the rub,
The seti crowd used one of the giant radio telescopes to send a message OUT, guite a few years ago.

The strength of that signal will not peter out