One man one way suicide mission...

Josh Cryer · 2005-10-06 17:15:44

Why is it so expensive for these facilities, Robert? I mean, I know this sounds naive, but can it not simply be a nice big pad, and a big ass hangar? Are there special things that are in these facilities that make them so expensive?

RobertDyck · 2005-10-06 20:42:21

That's a very good question. The Energia does require a transporter/erector that can carry the big rocket and lift it upright at the pad. Something that big is expensive simply due to the size. The pad requires a tower for service access as well as fuel lines. The fuel tanks aren't filled until it's upright and on the pad. There are cryogenic fuel tanks, pumps and feed lines to provide that fuel. A rail line to carry the vehicle from assembly building to pad. Russia likes rails, you could use wheels or tracks but something as big as Energia or Shuttle is hard to carry on tires. The tracked crawler at KSC has river stones on the roadway; those stones are crushed from the weight and have to be replaced every time. Soyuz uses a normal rail line but Energia uses two sets of rails; they don't need to be replaced. The pad also needs a concrete flame pit, and a giant water tank to flush water into the flame pit to suppress vibration. The folks at Titusville in Florida reported they could feel the vibration when Saturn 1B launched, they feared Saturn V would shake their town apart. The Saturn V pad had a water system to prevent that. There are also big hold-down clamps to prevent the rocket from tipping over until full thrust. An igniter of some sort. Radar and communications to track and control it.

The vehicle assembly building has a big bridge crane. You can see it here in this picture of Buran on Energia from April 25, 2002; just 17 days before the accident. But, yea, the assembly building is basically just a big clean hanger with bridge crane. Many warehouses have a bridge crane, just usually not this big. Actually ship ports often have cranes even bigger.

Assuming the bridge crane and concrete floor of building #112 in Baikonur are still intact, what would it take to repair? It's 190m x 240m with 5 bays, two of them 27m high, and three 52m high. It's the roof of the 3 highest bays that collapsed. Based on the picture I would say the high bays are 120m wide. How much would it cost to fix a roof and the top of 3 of the walls of a building 190m x 120m by 80m high? I have small pictures after the accident inside and out.

Converting into US measure that's 245,417 square feet. According to this web site the price for a new warehouse is C$47 to C$62 per square foot. Assuming C$50 to fix this building, that's C$12,270,850 and converting to US dollars it's $14,251,365.19. Round that off to $14.25 million. It may be more expensive for a remote site like Baikonur, but you shouldn't have to replace the pad or most of the walls. I used the price for a whole building because the inner walls may be damaged after 3 1/2 years without a roof. The estimate per square foot ignores roof height, and this building is extra tall, but again the walls up to the clear-story should be intact.

RSC Energia's estimate of $60-100 million to restore Energia to production in 1994 would be a bit more expensive now due to inflation, but not a lot. If you add the cost to repair this building, assume the bridge crane still works and ignore any equipment like support frames, that still sounds like a single flight of Energia is less than 2 launches of Delta-IV Heavy, and Energia can lift 4 times as much weight as a single Delta-IV Heavy. The cost per kg makes Energia worthwhile.

Josh Cryer · 2005-10-07 01:57:08

Okay, you've done the numbers before I bet, eh, Robert?

You're more realistic than me, probably. I'm a kind of person who makes cross country several week long trips on his motorcycle for less than $500. I am a thrifty sort of guy, so I think, well, we can throw down a few million and build our own dang launch facilities. That's probably unrealistic. But, basically, I know that if you consolidate all of the necessary technologies to facilities you own, you can control the price of using those technologies. I want to bring the cost of launching into space down to human, private individual, levels, with potentially several launches occuring every week. We could potentially, as an organization, come up with the money to get Energia to fly again, and even get to Mars, but if for the same cost we can create a business which is sustainable and can get us to Mars again and again, I'd rather it be done that way.

A one way suicide mission potentially means more one way suicide missions, which in reality means colonization (heh, and I know this whole thing is quite fanciful, but I don't need to be taken seriously).

I think the Russians were on the right track using a rail system, from the pictures, it looks kind of ugly, but I think it's the smart way to go about it. We'd need a similar system for our own approach, which of course would probably cost millions to create. So my idea to be thrifty already has its kinks, using the Russian site would be the better solution so far.

Theoretically, couldn't you just use a canvas roof (such as on stadiums or such that the military uses) to fix that building? The walls seem largely intact, some structural strengthening could probably be needed, but we could just be looking at a building that just needs a big tent. Certainly if we were to build our own launch facilites we'd want to use a canvas type roof for our hanger. Airplane hangers are made of this same stuff. The question is whether or not it can scale. It'd be a big large tent!

RobertDyck · 2005-10-07 15:09:37

So you want to build a private HLLV. I could be done. One reason I like Energia is that it's an existing design, so we don't have to pay for design, analysis, and testing. Energia was extensively tested. There's a vertical test stand, a dynamic test stand that can act as a third launch pad, and I don't know how many scale models, wind tunnel test, and component tests. It sounds like you propose building a vehicle with same performance as Energia with the same main engines. Yes, you could do that. Modern computer programs could do much of the analysis so you don't have to build as many scale models. Scaled Composites demonstrated how much testing can be replaced by computer analysis with SpaceShipOne. There are ways to use Commercial Off The Shelf equipment for vehicle assembly and launch instead of custom built, that would reduce cost.

Actually, current upgrades to the Space Shuttle Main Engines include features from RD-0120. They reduced pressure and enlarged the combustion chamber without reducing thrust, and simplified the exhaust nozzle. From Encyclopedia Astronautica:

The channel-wall nozzle is a proposed replacement for the current SSME nozzle. Employing a process developed in Russia and used for the Russian RD-0120 rocket engine, flat stock is roll formed into a conical shape, which serves as the nozzle liner. The liner is slotted to form channels for the nozzle's liquid hydrogen coolant to flow through. A jacket is then installed over the liner and welded at the ends. The entire assembly is then furnace brazed. The channels in the liner take the place of the 1,080 tubes that regeneratively cool the current SSME nozzle. The channel-wall nozzle is a relatively simple design that has fewer parts and welds than the current complex SSME nozzle. (The current SSME nozzle takes two-and-one-half years to build, costs $7 million, and is currently flown no more than 12 to 15 times because of safety concerns related to hydrogen leaks.) NASA expects the channel-wall nozzle to be more reusable than the current nozzle and to have less risk of critical failure. The new nozzle is also expected to improve engine performance slightly (although any gain in payload capacity may be canceled by the increased nozzle weight), to cost less and take less time to produce, and to cost less to operate. NASA and Rocketdyne (through Aerojet) have spent $0.8 and $1.2 million respectively to study this upgrade, and development could start at the beginning of 1999. The proposed upgrade would cost an estimated $63 million over four years for development and testing, plus an additional $71 million to build 18 certification and production nozzles.

RD-0120 still uses a single dual-stage turbopump and a single pre-burner instead of separate ones for hydrogen and oxygen. The simplified design is less expensive and eliminates one (also expensive) control system but requires some serious optimization during design. For those interested in promoting American technology, SSME upgrades will include a new computerized health monitoring system that Russia doesn't have.

All this means engines are expensive to develop. Cost reduction for a commercial venture requires using existing engines. I expect RD-0120 will be less expensive than SSME while providing the same performace. Based on the simpler design and lower Russian salaries, I expect RD-0120 to cost a fraction of the SSME price, and even less expensive than RS-68.

One concern is government documentation to certify a new rocket. Elon Musk said in one speech that it was more work to go through government paperwork than designing the Falcon 1 rocket itself. When Jim Benson was asked about certification of a new, private manned spacecraft for the X-Prize he said they didn't. He said sometimes it's better to ask forgiveness than permission. That's a risky path though, if anything goes wrong the government guys will jump on you. You could find out what ESA's certification is like and buy a patch of land for your launch complex in Kuoruo.

Tank cost is a concern of mine. News reports state the Shuttle external tank costs $60 million each. Why would a fuel tank cost that much! This is just a pair of aluminum tanks with feed lines. If you stick with aluminum alloy 2219 instead of aluminum-lithium then welding is easier. The Shuttle's oxygen tank is 19,563 cubic feet and the hydrogen tank 53,518 cubic feet. The spray foam insulation is only polyurethane, commercially available. If you use an axial configuration without a Shuttle orbiter then foam loss is Ok. I've argued for side-mount for orbital assembly but that only makes sense if the engine pod is recoverable. Direct launch to Mars is best with axial. What's the reasonable cost to make a tank that size? I'm told alloy 2219 is being phased out; the aircraft industry is using something else now. The price is about $18 to $35 per pound; that's a wide range depending on thickness and temper, the thinner the more expensive. So using the high price for 66,000 pounds (Shuttle ET dry weight) we get $2.31 million. Add cutting and welding and shaping and feed lines and foam, and everything else. The result is millions, but single digit.

So you believe you can do better than RSC Energia? Do you have the capital?

Josh Cryer · 2005-10-08 04:48:28

Well, basically, I don't want to go too off topic here. The goal is to get to Mars, cheaply. As cheaply as possible. But if it is going to cost as much to start your own HLLV company, why the heck not? Kill two birds with one stone. I personally think you could start your own HLLV company, and I think we both have the same idea, at least, we're both optimistic it can be done cheaper than it is now, you've obviously done more research than I, but I'm the dreamer of us two!

Energia is the obvious route here. Proton is still part of the picture, but it would require several launches, and it is not that great as far as kg per dollar to space.

So getting Energia running again is the primary argument, how can we do it, how much would it cost, and what is the potential to keep it up and running? KBKhA seems to want a contract before they'll start production again of the engines (which seems reasonable). I wouldn't see creating your own SSME from scratch when we have them willing to do business, and I agree it'd be a complicated, and expensive process anyway. The technology exists already, no need to reinvent the wheel here. So I'm proposing one of two things, getting the site in Russia rebuilt, or building our own highly cost effective site somewhere else, leasing out the engines from KBKhA (or owning part of the technology itself, depending on the contract). And possibly working with RSC Energia in some fashion to build Energia 2.

Putting a tent roof on the complex in Russia, in my opinion, seems feasible for significantly less than what it would cost to put in an actual metal roof structure. Deployment costs alone would make it the ideal way to go. Were the upper floors used for anything during Energia's life? They look like office space floors from the picture (those windows at least seem to suggest so). But since they were used as storage, I don't think they were ever employed as office space or anything like that, possibly they overbuilt the system? Replacing the crane is probably going to be necessary, I don't see it surviving the elements that long. So if we're going to be replacing the roof, and the crane, how much more would it really cost to set up our own launch facilities elsewhere? Certainly equatorial countries would have the cheap labor we'd want.

I don't have numbers on how much a tented facility would cost, because it would have to be a custom design, something like the Millennium Dome, which costed around a billion to build (outrageous, I know, but I think a lot of pork went everywhichwaybutloose in that project). But significantly smaller. There are several hits on Google for fabric based roofing on stadiums, just to give an idea of their feasibility. The question that I'm finding is that maintenance costs seem to be huge on these buildings, so it may actually be a dead end. Certainly, however, aircraft hangers have been made of fabric before, and they seem to last. The links I gave suggest that they'll last 25 years, as long as roofing shingles, and that would probably be how long any roof would last without a recoat. They have a 10 year warranty on their fabric. I just sent off a few quote requests to fabric manufactures, because I think this really and truly is the best way to go. We'll compare to the cost of a metal structure (raw materials; the fabric may or may not be cheaper than tin, but I'll want to include shipping and deploying costs, too).

That said, though, in the end, a new facility would need only the launch pad, tower, and rails over the original site (the crane and building/roof can be presumed needed for that site, if not the actual transporter). I did a cost analysis on the rails, and rail steel goes for about $50 per meter with the biggest size rails. Can't find the link to steal prices, but it's around 60 cents per kg (I'm rounding all these numbers up quite a lot here to leave room). How many meters of rail would we need? I'll look for a crane later, it's late here.

BTW, I cannot believe how much the Shuttle tank costs. How much was the Energia tank? Do you have numbers for it? The Shuttle tank sounds insanely expensive, there has to be many pockets lined in the process of it being made. Has to be. And to think 60 million dollars burns up or winds up in the ocean every time a launch occurs! It's ridiculous! God, that makes me boil. Even if it costed $20 million! And it doesn't, it cannot possibly, it's just a tank for crying out loud.

So you believe you can do better than RSC Energia? Do you have the capital?

Well my initial thrifty attitude about the costs seems reasonable, perhaps we're both naive, or just too optimistic, but maybe it could be done. Wouldn't you think that at the bare minimum having our own facilities would be better for a company than relying on RSC Energia? Plus, an equatorial launch facility would be great. All you need it one, just one successful launch, and you've created the first private manned orbit capable company in the world. And with Energia being so cost effective per kg, you could destroy the competition in one fell swoop.

And I'd have the capital if one of my hairbrained schemes would ever get off the ground.

RobertDyck · 2005-10-09 20:38:09

Here's a little theory. Michoud was converted from producing S-1C stages (first stage of a Saturn V) to produce Shuttle External Tanks. Although the August 1968 requirements for the TSTO Shuttle included a launch manifest with a peak launch rate of 66 launches in a single year, when the current shuttle was designed they expected a launch rate of 50 per year. Actually, according to Scott Horowitz (former astronaut now working for Thiokol) the factory in Utah still has moulding pits to produce/fuel 100 SRBs per year; enough for 50 Shuttle launches. This means the Michoud manufacturing building is 43 acres under one roof because it's sized for 50 ETs per year. Could the fact the ET is 10 times the reasonable cost be due to paying to maintain capacity for 50 ETs per year? Basically, NASA is paying for 50 ETs but only getting 4-6 ETs so the average cost of each tank is 10 times. If that's true, then NASA could reduce cost by moving production equipment from Michoud to a much smaller building at KSC and permanently shutting down Michoud. Personel would also be relocated, but after all the hurricane damage, now may be the time to do that.

::Edit:: This web site says the Michoud building was originally built to manufacture plywood cargo planes, landing craft and air-sea rescue vehicles for World War 2. During the Korean war it was converted by Chrysler to manufacture 12-cylinder engines for Sherman and Patton tanks. NASA took over the plant in 1961. Fine, let heavy industry use it again.

RobertDyck · 2005-10-12 11:12:47

Another alternative is the Falcon 9. According to the manufacturer SpaceX, the Falcon 9 - S9 will lift 24,750kg to LEO or 9,650kg to GTO for a price of $78 million. Price includes launch range, third party insurance and standard payload integration costs. The 5.2m fairing has an outside diameter of 5.2m, but the inside diameter (where payload sits) is 4.6m. Click the link to see their web site, then click the "FALCON" tab to see an overview of their rockets with cost. The overview gives you another row of tabs you can click for details of each model of rocket.

They use aluminum 2219 for the tanks, joined with friction stir welding. What I think is the best, most economical method to build a rocket. The interstage is a carbon fiber honeycomb structure. They use the same engine for first stage of all models of rocket: 1 engine for the Falcon 1, 5 engines for Falcon 5, and 9 engines for Falcon 9. Fuel is LOX & kerosene (RP-1), the same fuel used by Saturn V first stage and the strap-on boosters of Energia. These guys really know what they're doing. They get Isp 255s at sea level and 304s in vacuum, the RD-180 gets 311s at sea level and 338s in vacuum. Not quite as efficient but total launch cost is the most important factor.

They use a smaller engine for the upper stage of Falcon 1, but Falcon 5 & 9 use a shorter version of their respective first stage. I would prefer a LOX/LH2 upper stage like the Centaur use for the upper stage of Atlas V, but you can't have everything.

According to a NASA web page, Titan IV/SRM/IUS could lift 23,350kg to LEO, 2,360kg to GTO, 3,988kg to C3=0, 3,193kg to C3=10, or 986kg to C3=50. Interpolating that should permit Titan IV/SRM/IUS to lift 2,795.5kg to C3=15 (TMI). Using the GTO:TMI ratio then Falcon 9 - S9 should be able to lift 11,430.75kg to TMI. The LEO:GTO ratio is quite different for these two vehicles. This raises the question whether the orbital parameters for GTO are the same, are we comparing apples to apples. C3=0 is very similar to GTO because GSO is so close to escape velocity and you don't need to circularize, but you do need to raise GTO perigee above the atmosphere. C3=0 would escape Earth orbit but give you zero forward velocity; C3=15 is necessary to raise your solar orbit to rendezvous with Mars. I don't know why Titan & Falcon have different LEO:GTO ratios. If we were to use the LEO:TMI ratio then the calculated throw weight for Falcon is 2,963kg to TMI, a dramatic difference.

Using the landed vs. TMI mass ratio from "The Case for Mars" that gives us either 7,094.9kg or 1,839.1kg to Mars surface. Again a big difference. Proton K could lift 19,760kg to LEO but with an upper stage deliver 3,860kg to Mars surface. These are really wild ranges. Furthermore, C3=15 is for a 6 month express trajectory. If you're willing to use an 8.5 month Hohmann transfer orbit the TMI mass is slightly greater.

Josh Cryer · 2005-10-17 18:23:08

Sorry for not responding in some time Robert, I had actually written a response the other night but my browser crashed and I didn't have the energy to rewrite it.

Just a general question, how much would you say it would cost to get a launch of Energia? My guess is around half a billion, would that be too high?

RobertDyck · 2005-10-17 18:59:49

According to the US department of labor, using their infilation calculator the accumulated inflation from 1994 to 2005 is 1:1.35. The price to restore infrastracture for Energia in 1994 was $60 million to $100 million, so using the higher figure and factoring for inflation we get $134 million. Then add $14.25 million to repair building #112 you get $148.25 million. The price per launch in 1994 was $120 million so applying inflation you get $160.8 million. So the total is ~$150 million to restore infrastructure and ~$160 million per launch. The total is $310 million for a single launch.

idiom · 2005-10-18 01:00:48

Are these numbers off somewhere? If you could get one person one way for even two Billion, then for Nasa's hundred Billion ear marked for the VSE you could set up a permanent colony of 50 people, or more once you accounted for redundant development expenses.

Thats a lot better than a flag and foot prints...

noosfractal · 2005-10-18 17:07:47

Are these numbers off somewhere? If you could get one person one way for even two Billion, then for Nasa's hundred Billion ear marked for the VSE you could set up a permanent colony of 50 people, or more once you accounted for redundant development expenses.

I don't think it works like that.

I think it is more like ...

R&D (regardless of # of people): $40b
Manufacture & Operations (regardless): $50b
per person costs: $2b x 6 = $12b
Total: $102b

There'd be higher R&D costs for a "town" than a 6-person habitat, and for a 20-50 year stay vs. a 2 year stay. But the R&D costs would be fixed whether you sent 50, 75 or 100 people.

I also think it is a good idea to have a plan for medevacing the first few explorers. Ground truth can be pretty harsh no matter how much prep you do.

.

Dook · 2005-10-18 18:11:53

Are these numbers off somewhere? If you could get one person one way for even two Billion, then for Nasa's hundred Billion ear marked for the VSE you could set up a permanent colony of 50 people, or more once you accounted for redundant development expenses.
Thats a lot better than a flag and foot prints...

A letter from one of your 50 colonists:

Hi mom!

A lot has changed from yesterday. I know you are probably getting tired of all these long distance E-mails but this is my last one.

I'm sure I made a mistake in coming here. I bump elbows with the same people each day. We argue constantly.

I knew we were in trouble when our pressurized vehicle died on us. It worked fine for the summer but the winter cold killed it's batteries. We cut a hole in one of our greenhouses and parked the other small vehicles inside. It stays a little warmer in there but we can't use the vehicles until summer. They were supposed to send a new set of batteries to us on the next mission in a year and a half.

Then the sandstorm came through and tore up our greenhouses. We all had to run out and seal up the holes in a hurry. That's when Taylor died, he got lost and couldn't find his way back to the hab. His air ran out. All our greenhouses are all patched with tape, which worked fine until we ran out of tape. We lost all of our fruit trees first, then the vegetables. We have enough dry food to last us a few years but we are certainly tired of it.

Our solar panels are still working but the wires are always breaking. It's the cold and the wind. We've repaired some of them over ten times. We only use the water recycling system for drinking now to save energy, I haven't had a shower or bath in two months.

But still it was livable, barely, until the carbon dioxide converters fizzled out. We don't know what's wrong with them. Something is clogging them up because they are using more and more energy but putting out less and less oxygen. We'll be on emergency oxygen in the morning and that will only last us for a few hours.

Plain and simple mom, we were stupid for trying this. Why didn't we just test out some of this stuff first and take our time? What was all the rush about?

RobertDyck · 2005-10-18 20:04:26

I'm not sure whick post to call more pessimistic. The extravagant cost or the belief that any attempt to colonize Mars will result in death.

Commodore · 2005-10-18 20:19:01

How long and how many people did it take to explore the planet Earth?

I have a feeling it was more than 50.

SpaceNut · 2005-10-18 20:34:29

Dook your effort to point out the state of possible failure senerios would serve for further discusion in the, [url=http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3780]Mars first mission experience critical power failure
one of many plausible, What are the options?[/url] thread or perhaps maybe make a new one so as to not get this one so far off. This one is more of what would it take at a minimum to get one there. Everything else is about planning as you have indicated for the worst so as to make survival more plausable.

noosfractal · 2005-10-18 23:17:08

I'm not sure whick post to call more pessimistic. The extravagant cost or the belief that any attempt to colonize Mars will result in death.

Oops, sorry idiom, RobertDyck, I forgot this was the suicide thread. I guess if people are expendable, then a lot of money can be saved. If your budget allows for communications with Earth, then later guinea pigs^W^W colonists can try to avoid whatever kills the earlier ones. Eventually life expectancy after arrival would rise to months. At least half of those leaving Earth would likely get their one sunset on Mars.

I recommend you launch in pairs though. If they both make it, having another person around can help avoid some really pathetic deaths like being pinned under something heavy or falling down an incline and breaking your ankle. Although I guess there is no guarantee they'd land anywhere near each other. How small of a landing oval can you achieve with off the shelf hardware?

Would there be any provision for travel in this bare bones scenario? Maybe a mountain bike? You'd have to ride in a suit with an oxygen tank. What would be your range? 5 miles after you got used to it? 10 miles? That brings up the pressure suit. Are we thinking refurbished Apollo suits? Replicas?

.

RobertDyck · 2005-10-19 00:12:54

You can buy a new 737-600 for $45.5 - 53.5 million. Even a new 747-400 costs $205.0 - 236.5 million. Why would a 15 tonne Mars habitat cost more? Remember Energia can throw that into TMI for $160 million. Even if you add a cargo lander for each habitat, I don't see how you get $12 billion per person. I treat this thread as a one-way mission to retire on Mars, not suicide. Doing it privately means controlling costs.

noosfractal · 2005-10-19 02:03:25

You can buy a new 737-600 for $45.5 - 53.5 million. Even a new 747-400 costs $205.0 - 236.5 million. Why would a 15 tonne Mars habitat cost more? Remember Energia can throw that into TMI for $160 million. Even if you add a cargo lander for each habitat, I don't see how you get $12 billion per person. I treat this thread as a one-way mission to retire on Mars, not suicide. Doing it privately means controlling costs.

Retiring on Mars. I can see the brochures now The $12b was supposed to be for 6 people and contrast marginal costs to development costs. The Boeing planes are another good example - each model is backed by billions in R&D - if you contracted with Boeing to build you a brand new type of plane it would cost you $2b for the first one. And that is for something they have experience building. No one has experience building a Mars habitat. ISS modules come closest - may be you can get some use out of the billions that have been spent on them.

So Energia gets me to TMI. Now I'm approaching Mars. What's my plan for getting to the surface? I've got some velocity to get rid of: 3-6 km/s. Do I have fuel left for MOI? Is aerobraking/capture going to come into play? What's my cost for an aerobraking system that gives me a reasonable chance of reaching the surface alive?

.

RobertDyck · 2005-10-19 08:47:11

Mars orbit is used for a vehicle that will return to Earth. A one-way mission to Mars will use direct-entry like Mars Pathfinder and the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. Heat shields, parachutes, landing legs and rockets have been used for decades; they're very well characterized. Phoenix has a total budget o $385 million including all instruments, launch vehicle, in-space guidance, landing systems, mission control, data analysis, and data archiving. Beagle 2 was the little lander carried by Mars Express. It had a budget of $54-89 million including instruments, mission control, landing systems, data analysis and archiving. All these vehicles required unique landing systems; there wasn't a secret budget somewhere for development. Soyuz is a well established design, but in 2000 Soyuz-TM-31 cost $3.69 million to manufacture. Soyuz is a 7.25 tonne vehicle with in-space manoeuvring, life support, and landing systems for a 3 tonne capsule in Earth gravity. Do you still think in-space guidance and landing systems will cost more than a few million of dollars?

Dook · 2005-10-19 14:01:40

Robert: Pessimistic or realistic? The key is to minimize the risk and right now there is nothing but risk. An engine not firing when it's supposed to, an electrical short somewhere that causes a fire, leaking habitat seals, burnt out diodes that allow electricity to go a way it's not supposed to...What kind of testing are you planning on doing on your equipment before sending these 50 colonists? What kind of backup life support? Food? Parts delivery?

SpaceNuts: This thread is titled "One man one way suicide mission." The post to which I replied to thinks that 50 colonists is the way to go. It's preposterous to think that going to mars to settle or colonize is worth the death of a single person. Now in the course of a human mission to mars, or anywhere else, deaths may occur but to plan a mission with that as the intent is simply sub-human.

Commodore: How long and how many people did it take to explore the earth? Dunno, but what does that have to do with mars? Are you suggesting we sacrifice the same numbers just to forcefully colonize a place that we don't need anyway? How about this, maybe, since we are homo-sapiens and all, you know, supposed to be smarter than the dumb animals, just maybe, we test out some of this mars stuff with a few missions rather than send 50 people to their deaths just because some Trekkie is in a hurry.

Why do we need 50 people on mars anyway? For all of you it's just the fact of having them there. Colonists on mars, as if it is some victory for you. If they die, you care not. "It's the price you pay," you say.

Sometimes stampeding animals fleeing danger run off a cliff. But they're animals. We're humans and supposed to be smarter. Going to the moon in the 1960's was very risky and barely within our ability. We did it but we didn't risk 50 lives to get there. Think of what would have happened if we had left 50 people there to colonize the moon with 60's technology? There would be a lot of deaths.

It's the same thing now. Going to mars is barely within our ability to do successfully. Six is enough.

Commodore · 2005-10-19 14:39:09

So your telling me that its vitally important that we intensely study a handful of 20km^2 sites, but you could care less about the rest of the planet?

noosfractal · 2005-10-19 15:32:01

A one-way mission to Mars will use direct-entry like Mars Pathfinder and the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.

The quote six minutes of terror unquote. But let's do a little compare and contrast.

Pathfinder: delivered 360 kg, EDL system 210 kg, Δv = 7.5 km/s, deceleration 20g (ouch)

Rover: delivered 350 kg, EDL system 300 kg, Δv = 5.3 km/s, deceleration 6g (survivable, but 4g max would be better)

Now for the Dyck Express. You enter the Martian atmosphere with 15000 kg. You've got to get rid of 30 times the kinetic energy. The Martain EDL systems use ablative heatshields, so the mass goes up proportional to energy. I could justify claiming 40% of your payload for the EDL system, especially since you don't get to bounce off the surface with airbags (you're not thinking airbags, right?), but I'll be generous and say that you can get away with a 3000 kg EDL system for $100m. Every kg you want back after that costs you an extra $1m.

Phoenix has a total budget o $385 million including all instruments, launch vehicle, in-space guidance, landing systems, mission control, data analysis, and data archiving.

But isn't Phoenix basically a revived Mars Surveyor Program? It was basically ready to go when the program was canceled. Still, that is a pretty good price for, what, 385 kg delivered? Call it $1m/kg. What's your estimate for 12000 kg?

Beagle 2 was the little lander carried by Mars Express. It had a budget of $54-89 million including instruments, mission control, landing systems, data analysis and archiving.

Do you really want to use Beagle 2 as a data point?

All these vehicles required unique landing systems; there wasn't a secret budget somewhere for development.

They're heavily based on the Viking landing systems (except the Beagle 2 - hmmm, could be a lesson there somewhere). I'm sure there is stuff we can leverage for a human payload. Given that you don't care about making it safer, you can probably get away with a close copy.

Soyuz is a well established design, but in 2000 Soyuz-TM-31 cost $3.69 million to manufacture. Soyuz is a 7.25 tonne vehicle with in-space manoeuvring, life support, and landing systems for a 3 tonne capsule in Earth gravity.

Wow. That really is a good price. I think I know who is going to be mining the asteroids. However, you can only use tech like this if you first establish low Martian orbit. Otherwise we're talking Viking style EDL systems.

Do you still think in-space guidance and landing systems will cost more than a few million of dollars?

$100m minimum for the first one, and that's only with significant delivered payload sacrifice. Probably more. I don't think you want to skimp in this area.

.

RobertDyck · 2005-10-19 19:27:37

Very good, you're on the ball. Phoenix is the 2001 Mars Lander with some of the instruments changed. The lander platform is the same. It uses legs and landing rockets like Viking for a soft landing. It was the first Scout mission, which had an absolute maximum price of $325 million per mission. Phoenix bid at exactly $325 million, the maximum to the penny. Now how did the budget grow to $385 million? The Phoenix program director announced that price at this year's Mars Society conference. Scout missions were supposed to be limited to $325 million maximum. Anyway, it is millions and does have a soft landing system.

Beagle 2: they had an aeroshell optimized for Titan, not Mars. They missed the fact that thinner air on Mars required a flatter aeroshell. It descended too far before opening it's parachute. Oops! I think we can avoid that mistake.

Soyuz price: Yea. Novosti Kosmonautiki / ESA News From Moscow published the budget for Mir operations in year 2000. That included $3.69 million US dollars to manufacture Soyuz-TM-31, $2.8566 million to manufacture the launch vehicle, $0.3333 million for fuel, $0.32 million for personal gear, and $0.64 million for launch costs. Total is $7.54 million. Note the price for a space tourist is $20 million for just one seat, the Soyuz has 3 seats. Russia is making a profit! One reason is mass production. Russia launched 34 Soyuz-TM and 6 Soyuz-TMA spacecraft. They launched 852 Soyuz launch vehicles in various models, not including other launch vehicles in the R-7 line. You could add 318 Molniya, 300 Voskhood, 158 Vostok, 2 Polyot, 9 Luna (7 of which failed), 21 R-7A, and 31 of the original R-7 launch vehicles. The first satellite launched with the original R-7 was Sputnik on October 4, 1957.

As for mass, I interpolated launch mass to trans-Mars trajectory using C3=15. The table from NASA has C3=0, =10, =50, and =100. The interpolated figure is 24,207.5kg to TMI. I then used the ratio of TMI mass to landed mass from "The Case for Mars" to get 15,025kg. If you want to estimate atmospheric entry and landing systems from trans-Mars mass then start with 24,207.5kg.

So the bottom line is you want $100 million for the first human vehicle to Mars? Ok. That's a lot better than $100 billion.

RobertDyck · 2005-10-19 19:36:13

Dook: Josh Cryer created this thread. I'm trying to take it seroiusly. No one would want to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to kill your astronaut. However there are a number of people who would like to go on a one-way mission to Mars. Not to commit suicide but to live the rest of their lives. I'm trying to say it can be done, but you have to work at it rather than finding excuses. You also have to reduce the cost from a 1960s space-race that was a national battle of champions as a substitute for war.

SpaceNut · 2005-10-19 20:35:09

Many of the details that noosfractal and RobertDyck have talked about are in the CEV details since it is being designed from the stand point of Mars and making it work for the lunar missions.

The high G impact is being adressed by a heat shield that is ejected while parachutes are slowing the ship down for an air bag style landing. This demonstrator has been already proven by lockheed. The heat shield for Mars would be of possibly lighter materials since Mars atmospher is co2 and not O2 as in the case for Earth which presents the need for a thicker one. Possibly even the RCC tiles might make for the right item if glued to a deposable under backing.

The engines for the LSAM could be the same ones used in the Mars lander combining them with the disposable shield and parachutes the air bags would do just fine for even a heavier down mass as compared to what is needed for the moon.

As for the cost from the Monopoly pool building the CEV, ya it will be way more expensive and really should not be that way. Going with foreign made hardware from the CEV designs in esence clooning it would lead to what is needed at the desired price.

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