Inspiration Mars Foundation

Number04 · 2013-02-21 15:25:05

I just came across a plan from Dennis Tito about a Mars Mission. Anyone have any more info?

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=40141

http://io9.com/5985923/dennis-tito-want … n-he-do-it

louis · 2013-02-22 09:15:32

Brilliant! At last someone with real vision.

Will he be using Space X tech to deliver the mission I wonder? Is he the front man for Musk?

Whatever - this sounds really exciting. We need someone to make that leap.

louis · 2013-02-23 08:09:15

Typical! The biggest news ever about Mars and there's no-one there!!

My suspicion about Space X seems to be borne out by rumours. But presumably we'll get a better idea on 27th Feb when the announcement is made.

Looks like it will be an fly by flight - a proving flight. Ambitious but not overly so. A shame it's not a proposed landing, but it will be a big story nonetheless and could attract substantial sponsorship in and of itself (maybe $2-300 million). It may provide the motivation for a landing a few years later.

louis · 2013-02-23 18:54:09

Yep, it's just me speaking to myself! How sad!!!

sanman · 2013-02-25 01:15:21

Yo dude, have no fear, I am here! Plenty of chatting going on about this on sites like nasaspaceflight.com, etc.

Yeah, so as I was saying on the other sites, if Tito goes with SpaceX, he'd better go with Bigelow too. Because there's no way he could do a Mars flyby squeezed into a Dragon for the whole journey. You'd probably suffer some serious deterioration cooped up for such a long trip without decent room to exercise in.

I think you'd want to go with Bigelows largest BA-2100 Olympus hab, to use that for the voyage. It has 3 decks and 2100m3 of volume. And actually, once Falcon Heavy is already out there, if Musk is able to field that rumored MCT rocket with its even larger lift capacity, then I'd bet Bigelow would come up with an even bigger hab to max out its payload. Musk is the best way to get you to space, but once you're there, Bigelow is the best way to spend the rest of the trip. They'd probably need to keep a Dragon attached for the final Earth re-entry, though.

Midoshi · 2013-02-25 16:42:46

This mission reminds me a bit of the manned Venus fly-by that was proposed in the mid-60s, which was based on using the available Apollo hardware. That mission would have been somewhat shorter at 400 days, but still pretty comparable in length and scope. It's not as glamorous as landing, but it's a crucial step in that direction. It will get the human element involved in planetary exploration, which is important in capturing the public's imagination. Don't get me wrong, I love our robotic rovers and satellites (working on MAVEN is paying my bills for the next few years)...but it will be absolutely thrilling when we get back footage of an astronaut peering out of a porthole and seeing world that isn't Earth.

louis · 2013-02-25 17:18:22

Midoshi wrote:

This mission reminds me a bit of the manned Venus fly-by that was proposed in the mid-60s, which was based on using the available Apollo hardware. That mission would have been somewhat shorter at 400 days, but still pretty comparable in length and scope. It's not as glamorous as landing, but it's a crucial step in that direction. It will get the human element involved in planetary exploration, which is important in capturing the public's imagination. Don't get me wrong, I love our robotic rovers and satellites (working on MAVEN is paying my bills for the next few years)...but it will be absolutely thrilling when we get back footage of an astronaut peering out of a porthole and seeing world that isn't Earth.

I agree. Although it's not my favoured option, it will be a very significant step forward. If I remember rightly, there was a lot of interest in Apollo 8 when a manned craft first left Earth Orbit.

I think the mission could raise at least $500 million in sponsorship, TV and film rights over 2-3 years.

Although it might be more of a gimmick than anything else, I think it would be good if the mission could maybe incorporate a small Mars satellite.

Rxke · 2013-02-26 01:22:14

louis wrote:

Yep, it's just me speaking to myself! How sad!!!

NMForums seem to be totally dead, no?

GW Johnson · 2013-02-26 10:36:48

Spending a week and a half in a capsule to go to the moon and back is a feasible thing to do. About 2 weeks in a capsule was the limit demonstrated by Gemini 7. That crew was in bad shape by the time they landed.

Going to Mars or Venus is quite another proposition entirely, as the travel time is measured in years for the round trip. Some sort of large, spacious habitat is simply required. Artificial gravity by spin is simply required medically, and it makes life support design so much easier (for example, you can use an ordinary toilet, and you can cook over an ordinary stove with ordinary pots and pans).

If you're going to go to all the trouble (and it really is an enormous amount of trouble to mount such a mission!) to send men all the way to Mars and back, the small additional burden of adding a lander to the mission seems quite stupid to ignore. Why go all that way and not land? Landing is THE emotional imperative, and has been since the invention of the telescope.

Guys, I made a small breakthrough. I got sidetracked from looking at Mars missions: I looked at small spaceplanes from LEO, re the cheap access problem. I found a way to use a low density ceramic composite as a non-ablative fully-reusable heat shield. I found a way to balance convective entry heating against skin temperature in a configuration that could be built, and stay below the solid phase-change temperature limitation for the material. For LEO, this is restricted to low ballistic coefficients of small spaceplanes entering belly-first, with folded wings to avoid non-survivable airloads at 90 degree angle-of-attack attitudes.

The heating environment for Mars entry, especially from LMO, is a whole lot easier. The same heat shield material should work there on capsule-shaped craft with far higher ballistic coefficients. The "reusable Mars ferry" or "reusable landing boat" dream is indeed feasible. This material is only a little bit denser than styrofoam. No more heavy ablative heat shields.

I, too, noticed it's been a bit quiet here on the forums.

Hi Midoshi, long time no see.

GW

Number04 · 2013-02-26 14:29:43

It does seem like a tremendous amount of effort to not send a lander to the surface.

There should be a press conference soon, so hopefully there will be more information.

louis · 2013-02-26 15:05:08

I agree that it would make much sense to go for a landing. I think once people realise just how much sponsorship could be available then momentum for a full scale mission would build.

I hope you've been out patenting! Those ideas sound interesting.

GW Johnson wrote:

Spending a week and a half in a capsule to go to the moon and back is a feasible thing to do. About 2 weeks in a capsule was the limit demonstrated by Gemini 7. That crew was in bad shape by the time they landed.
Going to Mars or Venus is quite another proposition entirely, as the travel time is measured in years for the round trip. Some sort of large, spacious habitat is simply required. Artificial gravity by spin is simply required medically, and it makes life support design so much easier (for example, you can use an ordinary toilet, and you can cook over an ordinary stove with ordinary pots and pans).
If you're going to go to all the trouble (and it really is an enormous amount of trouble to mount such a mission!) to send men all the way to Mars and back, the small additional burden of adding a lander to the mission seems quite stupid to ignore. Why go all that way and not land? Landing is THE emotional imperative, and has been since the invention of the telescope.
Guys, I made a small breakthrough. I got sidetracked from looking at Mars missions: I looked at small spaceplanes from LEO, re the cheap access problem. I found a way to use a low density ceramic composite as a non-ablative fully-reusable heat shield. I found a way to balance convective entry heating against skin temperature in a configuration that could be built, and stay below the solid phase-change temperature limitation for the material. For LEO, this is restricted to low ballistic coefficients of small spaceplanes entering belly-first, with folded wings to avoid non-survivable airloads at 90 degree angle-of-attack attitudes.
The heating environment for Mars entry, especially from LMO, is a whole lot easier. The same heat shield material should work there on capsule-shaped craft with far higher ballistic coefficients. The "reusable Mars ferry" or "reusable landing boat" dream is indeed feasible. This material is only a little bit denser than styrofoam. No more heavy ablative heat shields.
I, too, noticed it's been a bit quiet here on the forums.
Hi Midoshi, long time no see.
GW

GW Johnson · 2013-02-27 13:24:09

Hi Louis:

My ceramic composite is similar to NASA's shuttle tile: both are primarily "low density alumino-silicates", essentially rock fibers and flakes as very porous structures. You put a hard surface coat of ceramic cement on it to stop the gas permeability.

The difference is that my composite material is very much tougher structurally, being reinforced by layers of alumino-silicate woven cloth. Mine is not restricted to small tiles that must be individually bonded in place, it's just a big monolithic layup. Mine is also much more durable in the face of threats, although it is still more fragile than most familiar engineering materials.

I last made this stuff 29 years ago. Those materials are no longer available, but some modern equivalents are, I checked a couple of years ago. The last time I used it, was inside a tiny ramjet combustor, where the heat balance depended on very low conduction through the material. For entry, it is very high radiation from the surface that is important, which brings into play the "effective color" of the surface.

The only limitation is the solid phase change all alumino-silicates experience at about 2300-2350 F. It gets brittle, shrinks, cracks, and wants to break up if you get too hot. Below, none of those things happen, you stay durable and strong. Shuttle tiles had the very same limitations, plus all the other fragility-induced vulnerabilities we have already seen.

GW

Number04 · 2013-02-27 16:23:24

Well, it seems that the crew will be a husband a wife team.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story … -tito.html

He's planing on funding the project for 2 years out of pocket. That's plenty of time to draw up studies, find partners and create noise. Especially if you are partnering with Biggalow and SpaceX for support.

louis · 2013-02-27 16:55:01

Number04 wrote:

Well, it seems that the crew will be a husband a wife team.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story … -tito.html
He's planing on funding the project for 2 years out of pocket. That's plenty of time to draw up studies, find partners and create noise. Especially if you are partnering with Biggalow and SpaceX for support.

This project has already received huge publicity across the planet. I think a lot of sponsors will be ready to stump up money. We are talking about regular publicity and advertising opportunities. The sponsors can have rights across various sectors e.g. automobile, sports shoes, food, soft drinks etc. Also TV and radio companies across the world will be prepared to pay for exclusive content. Just to put this in context - 50 sponsors paying $20million over 5 years = $1 billion with sponsors paying $4million per annum. Companies like Coca Cola have annual advertising budgets of $1billion. The companies are thirsty for exposure, from wherever it comes. It's not necessarily a question of raising new money, just diverting it from other opportunities like the Olympics, sports events and so on.

Midoshi · 2013-02-27 18:50:05

Hi GW

Yeah, I haven't been around much lately. Lots of major life changes recently (mostly for the better).

Sounds like you've made some interesting progress on the heat shield issue. How difficult is it to process the aluminosilicate material from ore? Do you think is this something that could realistically be manufactured on Mars within a couple decades of having a permanent presence? If not, it wouldn't be a show stopper, since worn out shields could just be replaced back on Earth at the end of their lifespan.

cIclops · 2013-02-28 02:49:50

Tito's mission analysis paper (PDF)

When asked by a reporter what he wanted to take with him on his moon flight Neil Armstrong said "more fuel" ... some extra propellent would also be a good idea for this trip.

Last edited by cIclops (2013-02-28 03:00:26)

Russel · 2013-02-28 23:53:21

GW I havent been around much because Im on holidat on a beach with only sporadic reception.

Ceramics have crossed my mind. In designing a low Beta, "winged" lander were you thinking more of a relatively low mass crew lander or a seriously big lander for large payloads.

Im still working through the details of my reusable ascent/descent vehicle primarily to provide the safest path for crew. Been working on the structure, the landing gear and the mechaniam for the air brakes. Optimistic that the dry mass can be kept around 10 tonnes.

With the air brake panels Im considering adding ceramic cloth in some areas and adding carbon fibreinserts in a couple of places in order to stiffen the metal.

As for the mars flyby I think its a great idea. If it works it will change perceptions of risk... Especially to do with background radiation. If it fails because of some silly simple system that was rushed or suffered lack of oversight.. Then it will set things back.

Russel · 2013-03-01 00:15:56

Just looking at the inspiration mars pdf I note its a bit of a foot to the floor wild ride

RGClark · 2013-03-02 10:21:04

GW Johnson wrote:

Guys, I made a small breakthrough. I got sidetracked from looking at Mars missions: I looked at small spaceplanes from LEO, re the cheap access problem. I found a way to use a low density ceramic composite as a non-ablative fully-reusable heat shield. I found a way to balance convective entry heating against skin temperature in a configuration that could be built, and stay below the solid phase-change temperature limitation for the material. For LEO, this is restricted to low ballistic coefficients of small spaceplanes entering belly-first, with folded wings to avoid non-survivable airloads at 90 degree angle-of-attack attitudes.
The heating environment for Mars entry, especially from LMO, is a whole lot easier. The same heat shield material should work there on capsule-shaped craft with far higher ballistic coefficients. The "reusable Mars ferry" or "reusable landing boat" dream is indeed feasible. This material is only a little bit denser than styrofoam. No more heavy ablative heat shields...
GW

Great news GW. Perhaps you can send it in as a grant proposal to NASA. They are certainly looking for solutions to the landing of large mass on Mars problem.

Bob Clark

Terraformer · 2013-03-02 13:01:29

I don't think this is a good idea, from a financial standpoint - investing in Lunar fuel production makes more sense. But if they can pull it off without killing the crew within a few years of launch, I have no other problem with it. But I do think that pulling of a Lunar sortie with Lunar fuel in 2019 would be a better use of his money, especially if it leads to a fuel depot.

GW Johnson · 2013-03-02 16:20:18

For Tito's plan, if they keep the rocket stage that injects them onto the Mars transfer trajectory, then they can re-dock the capsule and habitat modules with it, to face them the other way relative to "cluster" cg. Then spin the whole assembly head-over-heels at no more than about 4 rpm to create at least some artificial gravity.

That solves a whole host of medical issues and life support design issues. You can use "normal" toilets and "normal" cooking, for example. Even at half or a quarter gee. Better than nothing. By far!

I'll post the folding-wing spaceplane / low-density ceramic composite heat shield stuff over at "exrocketman" in the next day or two. As a text document it's over 20 pages long, but there's lots of figures in it. Enjoy. UPDATE 3-2-13 9:35 PM Central Time (USA) -- it's posted! Have fun!!! That address is http://exrocketman.blogspot.com, for those who don't know.

Hi to all. Glad to see you looking round here on the forums.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2013-03-02 21:38:07)

louis · 2013-03-02 19:45:33

Suggestion for an add on to Tito's expedition... how about a tiny lander (given they are passing within 100 miles of the planet) which will, after landing, produce say a litre of rocket fuel from the atmosphere/water ice?

GW Johnson · 2013-03-02 21:40:48

I just hope they give real thought to crew survival. I haven't seen it yet in anything published. This ain't no 3-day one-way cruise to the moon, you know.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2013-03-02 21:41:32)

GW Johnson · 2013-03-03 16:35:56

Update:

I posted the most recent Earth LEO spaceplane results Saturday (3-2-13) night. I today (Sunday 3-3-13) ran the numbers for Mars entry, based on the "Mars Lander Revisit" I did recently on "exrocketman".

If black-surfaced (high emissivity), both entry from LMO and entry from a direct transfer orbit are feasible at Mars with low-density ceramics as heat shield materials. If left the natural bright white color (low emissivity), then entry from Mars LMO is feasible with low density ceramics, but direct entry from Earthy is not.

This applies to both the stuff I made experimentally back in 1984, and to NASA Shuttle tile. My stuff is a lot tougher structurally, but also a snit denser. My stuff is somewhere between 30 and 100% denser than Shuttle tile, but withstands all kinds of abuse better, and can be applied as big bolt-on panels, not small individual bonded tiles.

GW

Number04 · 2013-03-05 09:26:45

Terraformer - It's his money (in part) so he can spend it how he wants. While it might not be the most financially efficient mission, but if it captures the imagination of the world like Apollo, it will be worth every cent, and then some.

GW Johnson - I agree with you about the micro gravity. Yes, it adds complexity, time and fuel. But they will be in space for 500 days, minor issues will quickly become major annoyances. A stressed crew could lead to mission disaster. Yes, people have spent lots of time in freefall, but not while there is a 30 minute communication delay. That's going to add a whole new layer of stress.

I'm also wondering what experiments the crew will take along. Small lander, telescope, sensors etc.

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