New Mars Forums

What about new books?

I've been trying to write - - not argue. Well at least not here. 

For what its worth, GCNRevenger's confidence in space elevators make me take their technical feasibility far more seriously.

That said, with six day trips, simply paying back the interest might make it hard to close the business case.

$1 billion construction costs @ 12% interest amortized over 7 years means a $17.5 million per month mortgage payment. With 5 trips per month (6 days / 30) thats $2.9 million per trip. At $100/lb each climber needs to carry 29,000 pounds of net payload.

Are the climbers that big?

Remember, this excludes insurance, wages, energy, ground handling, etc. . .

It excludes the costs of the car/climber as well which needs to be spacecraft pressurized construction.

Go to $10 billion for construction and you need to carry 290,000 pounds every 5 days to amortize at $100/lb

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Oh, the technical challenges of tethers do appear more significant.

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Without a colony "out there" to support, is there sufficient demand to launch enough payloads to repay the bank the construction costs?

No suicide necessary.

RobS pegged Proton at $100 million each. Some reports are for a much lower cost. One Proton could deliver a fairly large number of ration bars periodically.

Send Jesuits and the Catholics could have periodic 2nd collections at Mass to pay for the launches.

Send two Jesuit priests. Monks, sort of but scientists like the guys who work at the Vatican observatory.

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About a year ago, I did some back of envelope calculations to make MarsDirect one-way-to-stay for two people.

I believe the Mars craft can be built with two launches of da' Stick with 2 astronauts ferried up in Soyuz or the t/space system.

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Ask the Vatican to pay for it.

The Daily Show rocks . . .

Whatever Griffin may believe in private, he needs to bolster the morale of his work force. What is said in public, and what Griffin prepares for as a contingency plan need not be the same.

Killing ISS must occur at a level above Griffin's pay grade. He cannot advocate for that (in public) whatever his personal opinion. If Griffin goes on record to kill ISS and President Bush says "finish it" then Griffin's position is tenuous.

If OMB kills orbiter now, do we "give" ISS to Russia?

Russia says they are willing to take over ISS.

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In my opinion, Griffin knows perfectly well the shuttle army must be culled.  However,  morale among those that remain is also mission critical.

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PPS - - Early versions of "Operation Offset" to offset federal hurricane relief expense with other federal budget cuts mentioned cancellation of Moon-Mars, not orbiter.

But if Operation Offset is modified to cancel orbiter but NOT accelerate Moon-Mars,   with alleged savings going to NOLA, Griffin may be saying he needs ALL the money to do Moon-Mars and may be is being "political" when he says cancelling orbiter now won't help save money.

As has been commanded, my master. . . :twisted:

Mars is the second best place in the solar system to raise a family. Otherwise, this is a pretty good list.

Except for my belief that early deployment of a lunar LOX facility would be politically useful (at least symbolically) to communicate an intention to stay I pretty much agree with GCNRevenger's last post.

Stick cargo on that lander and land on Luna and there you go.

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Is the RL-10 / RL-60 officially part of the design for the lander? I hadn't seen that yet.

How many engines?

The silt issue is a big one for me.

I recall reading a book many years ago saying that valuable midwestern top soil is being shot out into the deeper regions of the Gulf of Mexico because the levee system accelerates the water flow like a fire hose.

Use the silt to build wetlands and marshes and in decades or centuries to come, fertile farmland can be "built" by growing the Delta.

Mars radio audio file.

Its under sci-fi, Radio Mars.

and this: