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Hi all,
In the event that the ISS costs really to much for the returned benefits, even in the future, and could be replaced by a MIR-like automatic station, is that possible to add a propulsif nuclear reactor to the ISS and relocate the ISS to a Mars orbit ? or just to transform the ISS in a space ship ?
The ISS orbiting Mars ! that would be great. I am talking in the far future of course, like in 40/50 years. That would still be better than to burn the ISS in the atmosphere like for MIR.
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Hi all,
In the event that the ISS costs really to much for the returned benefits, even in the future, and could be replaced by a MIR-like automatic station, is that possible to add a propulsif nuclear reactor to the ISS and relocate the ISS to a Mars orbit ? or just to transform the ISS in a space ship ?
The ISS orbiting Mars ! that would be great. I am talking in the far future of course, like in 40/50 years. That would still be better than to burn the ISS in the atmosphere like for MIR.
Until further notice, the Russian Soyuz space transportation system is ready and able, I'm convinced, to service the ISS in its present half-built stage of development. I could go on...but it's a bit too soon after the catastrophe.
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you would still have to fly a ship to get there. it wouldnt work until we had a manned mars base.
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But you all agree that the ISS, in concept, with the help of a propulsion system, could be sent orbiting Mars ?
It doesn't need to be inhabited to do the trip. But once there, it could serve as a docking station for earth incomming ships as well as local Mars shuttles. It would greatly facilitate the Mars exploration.
maybe the Mars society could buy the ISS, OK, say the price is 200 billions $, with 100.000 Mars society members worldwide each giving 2000 $ every year, it will take 1000 years only to buy the ISS ! we should start now.
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I'm not sure what the point of relocating ISS to Mars orbit would be. It already has a mass of 200 tonnes. Putting that much mass into Mars orbit without a heat shield means using a rocket; with hydrogen and oxygen fuel to perform the delta-vee of, say, 1 km/sec (for a highly elliptical orbit around Mars), you'd need something like 50 tonnes of hydrogen and oxygen (more like 60 tonnes including the tanks and engines). To send 260 tonnes to Mars from low earth orbit you need a delta-vee of 3.8 km/sec, which would require about 400 tonnes of fuel and tanks.
So altogether you need to launch about 460 tonnes. At $10,000 per kilogram (the current cost) that would run $4.6 billion. That doesn't include the cost of building the equipment to send it to Mars orbit. And once it's there, you have a facility that's designed to function based on three or four annual resupply flights, not one designed to fly autonomously.
So you might as well start from scratch and design something for permanent stationing in Mars orbit, more compact and self-sufficient. By the time ISS is ready to be decommissioned, the technology should be better and cheaper anyway. So will the ion engines, nuclear engines, and other propulsion equipment.
-- RobS
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I doubt the ISS station is built to withstand the rather large force required to kick it into Martian orbit either.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
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Rob, I understand that in 50 years the ISS might be obsolete, and your point for a new station built from scratch is pertinent. But then what to do with the ISS, send it in the pacific ocean like MIR ?
I hope that some elements can be recovered, if not the most of the station, and why not, be used for a future Mars station.
By the way, how long the ISS is supposed to stay (i mean being used) on earth orbit, 50 years, more ?
Do the metallic elements can wisthand so long ?
Can the ISS expand forverer with new elements ?
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The ISS is not designed for the Marian orbit environment. Due to the Earth orbit design which sees it spend almost all of its time within the Van Allen Rdaiation belts protection, the station has not been designed with space radiation in mind. As a result, no human could live on the station in Mars orbit for any length of time.
What is needed is a united approach to Mars research, such that information can be gathered that is required for the desinging of a realistic Mars mission plan. Current deficiancies in the knowledge of human factors, space radiation and microgravity effects currently dooms all current plans (including my own) to failure.
Adequate research and investment could see a human mars mission, with the plan on further research while they are there to set up a permenant base within the next 30 years.
Currently though, we may need another cold war space race to get governments investing the required money.
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Dickbill, you ask some very interesting questions that may or may not have answers. I suspect the ISS was designed with a lifetime in mind, but I don't know what it is (maybe it is findable via Google, though!). Whatever the lifetime is, people may want to extend it because of the cost of replacement. On the other hand, engineers may conclude that radiation or the heating/cooling cycle (18 times per day) have fatigued the metal more than expected and that the modules will have to be discarded (i.e., dropped into the Pacific).
It would be ashame to waste potentially usable stuff. Maybe the most likely use, rather than hauling it to Mars where a failure could be catastrophic, would be to sell it wholesale to the developer of a LEO industrial park. There it would be accompanied by more recent modules that could be used as backups if some sort of failure occurred, and where rescue vehicles would be more common. But who knows?
-- RobS
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