New Mars Forums

The newly-published drawings do a good job of illustrating the Mars mission.  I see that there is no Venus fry-by involved; however, use of ion engines instead of chemical or nuclear-thermal engines adds three months onto transit time.  The vehicle would also need Energia production to restart, which is unlikely given the dismantled state of the Energia assembly line. 

I also think that solar panels are impractical and that the design team was pushed away from nuclear power due to political considerations.  Although engineers generally have great faith in nuclear power, the general public does not consist of engineers, and they fear this efficient and relatively clean source of power.

I think that your proposal is a good one under the existing treaties.  The only area where I would quibble is the "no weapons" clause.  I think that "weapon" is ill-defined, as any heavy or sharp object can be used as a weapon.  Furthermore, it is inevitable that there will be crime on Mars, and some weapons should be available to the police and citizens so they can defend their colonies.

Of course, your proposal was designed to work under the existing treaties.  However, the Moon Treaty was never ratified by a majority of UN members (or any space-faring nations), and I have stressed before that I'd like to see the Outer Space Treaty amended.  But these political issues must be solved by the UN and by the Mars-faring nations before colonization begins.

I read that and I'm quite mad.  Whatever happened to Von Braun's vision of a man on Mars by 1983?  America has lost its will to dream and to accomplish the grand feats that would immortalize our culture. 

It will take nothing short of a discovery like life on Mars to get our stagnant space program to change course.  Say what you will about Richard C. Hoaglund; at least he's keeping people interested in Mars.  Polls show that only 35% or so of Americans want to put men on Mars.  When interest is so low, is it any wonder why Mars is so low on Washington's priorities list?

One of the least well-defined aspects of Mars Direct, at least from what I've read in "Case for Mars," is the descent to the Martian surface from orbit.  I'm assuming that it will follow the same profile as all previous Mars landers:  retro-rocket fires and falls away.  Spacecraft enters Mars's atmosphere, protected by heatshield.  Parachute deploys, heat shield is released.  Braking engine fires just prior to landing.

This would all be fine, except that the aerobrake (assuming an unfurling, hemispherical shield) would have to protect the retro-rocket during aerocapture.  Of course, other designs such as the NASA DRM have integrated the aerobrake with the lander's skin.  Stil, I think that this expendable stack of heat shields and engines is inefficient.

I'm imagining an alternative lander shaped similarly to the McDonnell Douglas Delta Clipper (or a missile re-entry vehicle, for that matter.)  it would enter the Martian atmosphere nose-first, before re-orienting itself using RCS thrusters and making a powered landing on the same engines used for the retro-fire burn. 

I think that this approach is elegant, but it is untested.  Before it can be added to Mars Direct, a sub-orbital demonstration of this type of lander must be made on earth. It would go one step beyond the DC-X test flights.  My hope is that the Mars Society will recognize the need for this landing system and form a partnership with somebody to carry out these tests.

This forum can do without the ad hominem arguments and personal attacks.  I can see an opportunity for tyranny on Mars under the scenarios this thread has discussed, but I'm certain that any peace-loving and democratic republic will put safeguards in place to prevent a non-benevolent dictatorship from coming to power and killing off vast numbers of Martians. 

I can't say with certainty that Martian colonies will be American dominated, or even practice a lifestyle that is similar to that of America.  It depends on whether the initial landings are conducted by America, an international effort, or by a corporate venture.

On the subject of terminating life support, I'd just like to say that I hope Martians will come to respect and protect human life from conception until natural death.  I hope that they do not turn to Malthusian population control, and that they can come up with better deterrents to crime and civil disobediance than terminating life support.

Definitely "The X-Files." The show was believable, the plots were intriguing, and Chris Carter's extensive use of cliffhangar endings just made you want to watch more.  I especially liked how the writers worked spirituality and faith into the storylines of many episodes.  The only problem with calling X-Files "Science Fiction" is that the show became a little too real for some people (ones whose names rhyme with 'Richard Hoaglund.'))

From an engineering standpoint, it will be impossible to conduct a fully reusable mission to Mars on our first try.  Of course, certain parts of the mission can be designed for reuse.  These include the habitat lander (as a backup habitat for a future crew), nuclear transfer vehicles, the earth return capsule, and flyback boosters on the launch vehicle.  But designing for full reusability will be too tall a hurdle for the engineering community.

After mankind has made a few landings on Mars, you just might see full reusability.  A cycler, built from a shuttle ET and using some form of electric propulsion, will travel continually between earth and Mars.  A National Aerospace Plane will ferry astronauts from earth to the cycler, and NIMF hoppers will ferry astronauts between the cycler and Mars.

An organized government is essential to Keeping the peace on Mars.  The question is, who will govern Mars?  The UN is an option, but I feel that the UN suffers from too much bureaucratic bloating and corruption to do the job.  Rule of Mars by the Martians, as Zubrin advocates, would be ideal, but it will not happen until Martians are self-sufficient.  The best initial form of government for Mars, then, would be government by the countries that colonize Mars.  Each colony would apply the laws of its mother nation and organize a police force accordingly.  It remains to be seen whether the federal government would step in ( in cases similar to the Oklahoma slave master) because of the distances between Earth and Mars.  But I have a feeling that Martian authorities will have a great deal of autonomy from their earthly counterparts, much as the American colonial governors did prior to the French & Indian War.

RMS speed is our expression for the velocity of gas particles as they move around in their chaotic way.  According to Dr. Zubrin, Mars has sufficient gravity to support an earthlike atmosphere, so there's no need to worry about that aspect of terraforming.

The most important thing mankind should remember when terraforming is not to be too hasty in choosing a time to begin.  Most people are restrained enough to say, "let's look for life and make sure the planet is dead before we begin to terraform."  But at what point do we give up the search for life and declare the planet dead?  Mars is a large world, and it will take years to establish an answer to that question.  Even if we spend thirty years looking for life and find nothing, there is nothing to say that Mars didn't support life at some point in the past, whether it was extinct Martian life or extraterrestrial transients.  Terraforming could destroy this evidence we had been looking for.  Although most of us agree on terraforming, I think that the decision on when to change Mars from "red" to "green" will have to wait for some time, perhaps until the 22nd century.

An assumed donor system, in which organs can be donated unless the dying person says otherwise, is much better than the system used in the United States.  I know that many European countries have assumed-donor programs, but I'm not certain as to which countries do practice this policy.

I had read somewhere that Translife would be conducted onboard the ISS because it would be cheaper (and better/faster ?) than launching an independent bio-satellite on a Russian SLBM.  Of course, the teams involved are also planning a free-floating version of the spacecraft in case ISS doesn't pan out.  As currently envisioned, ISS astronauts will only be able to devote 20 hours/week for science until the station'scapacity is expanded in 2009.