One man one way suicide mission...

GCNRevenger · 2006-01-05 17:55:40

"Position value. Supplies for explorers going further out from Earth, perhaps."

Absolutely not. Stop thinking in terms of distances, distances are irrelivent for cargo hauling, its all about the delta/fuel, ease of operations, and reliability. An RLV stationed on Earth will haul as much as a Martian RLV will, except everything you are shipping originates on Earth anyway. It would be cheaper to bring it from Earth then to in any way involve the gravity well of Mars.

You need an RLV to operate the Lunar mine, reguardless how you get product metal back to Earth. Otherwise it will be too expensive, particularly if there is no carbon to be had, to do any commertial mining at all. There is no possible way you could turn a profit if you have to buy expendable rockets. At the very least you need a TSTO setup, be that a spaceplane or a uprated Kistler-style contraption that actually works.

bobunf · 2006-01-06 23:50:26

Well since there are 16 ounces to the pound and 2000 of them to a short ton. That would if we could bring that much back from the surface of mars make a grand total of $16,960,000 for processed gold.
So the real question is not the return of the item but how much does it cost to get the equipment needed if sufficient ore quality and quantity worth refining since there is no cost other than to feed and to keep the crew alive...

Gold at $530 an ounce is not economic to sell from Mars to Earth. But what about the example of Moon rocks, which have sold for $2 million a gram?

Instead of bringing the tourist to Mars, bring Mars to the tourist (or collector).

Mars rocks should be able to fetch at least as much. Transport 500 kilograms from Mars to Earth, that’s 500 x 1000 x $2 million = $1 trillion, which would pay, not only for a very healthy Mars program, but a very healthy space program for many years.

No prospecting, no mining, no extracting, no processing, no mess, no fuss--just rocks.

Of course, there is the problem of diminishing returns.

Bob

RobS · 2006-01-08 00:48:06

I doubt the price would hold up if you brought half a tonne of rocks. Not many people can pay the price you cited. If you want a lot of people to buy, you need to be in the $10 per gram ($10 million per tonne) range; then someone can afford to buy a piece large enough to look at. But you'd have to haul back 100 tonnes to make a billion dollars, and that might be difficult.

-- RobS

bobunf · 2006-01-08 02:16:44

I don't think it will be possible in this century to fly to Mars and back, with or without cargo, for less than a billion dollars. But I think you greatly underestimate the revenue that could be obtained from Mars rocks with good market control and good marketing. I also think you overestimate the size of the market—100 million people willing to pay $10 for a gram of Mars rock—a speck you can hardly see--I don’t think so.

Better to concentrate on serious, and relatively well to do, collectors and institutions.

The value of Mars rocks, as with Moon rocks and diamonds, is determined by their rarity. Rarity can be enhanced by peculiar characteristics and by historical provenance. The first rock brought back from Mars is likely to be more valuable than the one millionth. It, in fact, will hold value even if Mars rocks are ubiquitous and of little value.

Rocks taken from the site of one of the Viking landers will be more valuable. “Viking II sat on this actual rock,” or “Here is the rock that you see in this picture taken in 1976.” Geologically interesting or rare rocks will also have more value. One needs to sell not just any old Martian rock, but every rock has to be made special. In other words, market segmentation and price dis-crimination.

Only ten thousand individuals and institutions paying an average of two million dollars per kilogram would generate $20 billion dollars in revenue. And that would be for transporting ten tons of Mars rocks—forget about 100 tons.

Then one could approach the retail crowd: making the rocks special would be more difficult with these larger amounts, but certainly efforts can be made. Would it be possible to sell ten million people at an average price of $1,000 per kilogram—thus generating another $10 billion with the next cargo of ten tons?

$30 billion would cover NASA’s budget for two years.

Bob

augmento · 2006-02-10 22:39:04

you could bring a squigie and rag and charge nasa to wipe the dust off the rovers then use them for live broadcasts from the red planet.

i think syndication rights for the 'reality tv' show of life on mars would more than pay for the costs of maintaining a 2 person retirement mission. especially if we put GNCrevenger and Robert Dyke together in the same habitat. That kind of stuff sells! it made Oprah rich.

It might even pay enough for follow up missions with supplies and more colonists. hmm, rent out a location for "survivor: the red planet".

edit: i would be so homicidal if they did this to me http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Cadets

EuroLauncher · 2006-03-25 13:35:52

If we are afraid to at least take some risk, we should then not be going into space at all.

Mars, One Way
http://www.redcolony.com/art.php?id=0403130

SpaceNut · 2007-02-22 06:50:35

So lets work on the amount of consumables for crew support for a mission that will probably not have a greenhouse on first mission and would be one way. Lets get some really numbers for its volume of space making believe that the next crew would handle return for the first crew back to Earth but be able to stay until the next to keep coming every aproximate 2 years.

Lets use the crew size of 4 to generate the first pass numbers. The ISS has had a crew of 2 for a good amount of time of a 2 year period with the means to resupply the ISS being the Progress M or M1. During this time frame there has been at least 10 ships not counting any shuttle delivery as a minimum to base the initial numbers on.

can carry up to 1,700 kilograms (3,748 pounds) of supplies to the Space Station in a pressurized volume of about 6 cubic meters (212 cubic feet)

About 110 pounds of oxygen, 2,784 pounds of dry cargo and almost 250 pounds of water are probably average since the numbers for each amount does change because of shuttle deliveries but no matter the max amount is still 1,700 kilograms (3,748 pounds) within a 6 cubic meters (212 cubic feet)space.

So for a crew of 2, the total require volume is 60 cubic meters and the mass is 17 mT for a 2 year period of time.

SpaceNut · 2007-03-06 12:38:22

It would seem that we have no lack of voluteers for such a mission to mars and here is another to add to the list.

The world's first female astronaut Valentina Tereshkova still has space dreams of flying to Mars

June 1963, 25-year-old now marking her 70th birthday spent 71 hours in orbit on board a Soviet Vostok spacecraft, earning a niche in the history books and scoring propaganda points for the Soviet Union in its Cold War space rivalry with the United States.

Terraformer · 2008-01-06 15:31:53

I'd sign up!

But seriously, why can't, instead of sending probes to Mars, we send packages of stuff for future explorers? Concentrate them all in the same area then send the people. Sending everything in stages will reduce the weight for each launch. If there's already a greenhouse and hab on Mars it will drastically reduce the manned launch costs. If a few ships are sent every launch window...

How much would it cost, if it's even possible, to launch a Mars mission with the shuttle (the transfer vehicle being the payload)?

How much for a private company? How much for someone unburdened by the government and law going 'oh you have to have you craft meet this safety regs' and such like? Call me an idealist but this year I intend to put together an R & D team and consruct a suborbital shuttle on a small budget (hoping for £100 a week. That's roughly 200 and a bit dollars to those in the States. £100 a week = £5200 a year. Enough to do something.)

noosfractal · 2008-01-06 18:21:03

But seriously, why can't, instead of sending probes to Mars, we send packages of stuff for future explorers? Concentrate them all in the same area then send the people. Sending everything in stages will reduce the weight for each launch. If there's already a greenhouse and hab on Mars it will drastically reduce the manned launch costs.

This is basically the plan outlined in Zubrin's The Case for Mars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Mars

How much would it cost, if it's even possible, to launch a Mars mission with the shuttle (the transfer vehicle being the payload)?

It isn't possible.

How much for a private company?

$US 1 million per pound delivered to the surface.

How much for someone unburdened by the government and law going 'oh you have to have you craft meet this safety regs' and such like?

Rocketry is a strategic technology with national security implications and thus will never by unburdened by government regulation.

Call me an idealist but this year I intend to put together an R & D team and consruct a suborbital shuttle on a small budget (hoping for £100 a week. That's roughly 200 and a bit dollars to those in the States. £100 a week = £5200 a year. Enough to do something.)

Best of luck to you.

louis · 2008-03-26 20:57:19

OK, maybe not the most brilliant proposal - but it does resonate a little with me.

I was wondering whether there is any scope for multi-part craft that splits as it approaches Mars. So say with a three person craft, perhaps it splits into four with three individual pods and a supplies unit which then descend. IN theory, this could make the descent easier.

Im not really advocating this - it's just something that occurred to me. The pods could also be launched separately and then assembled together (so reducing need for big launchers).

I've just seen below others (e.g. Terraformer) are more or less putting forward the same idea, so maybe not so daft.

SpaceNut · 2014-04-27 19:23:06

A Mars Daily article Mission to Mars

1. One company wants to send a couple on a free-return close-fly-by of the Red Planet.
2. Others want to land a crew on the surface of the planet.
3. Still others have suggested that a colony be formed on Mars.
4. Just last week, NASA's advisors suggested that a human expeditions to Mars remains unachievable in the near term due to a lack of needed technologies and the high price tag.
NASA has been conceptualizing a typical exploration mission that would take a crew of astronauts on a round trip to Mars. However, in order to colonize the planet, one or more astronauts would have to make such a journey "one-way." In other words, one or more explorers would have to occupy a colony on a permanent or rotating basis.
All this begs the question: "Why is a Mars mission so difficult?" Certainly, a successful expedition would be a phenomenal achievement for mankind and extremely prestigious for the national and team that reached this goal.
The typical flight to Mars takes between seven and eight months, depending on the selected launch window, which opens every 26 months. The astronauts would likely have to use a spacecraft that is sufficiently large to endure the trip, i.e., much larger than Orion.
Life support would be provided in the form of freeze-dried and canned food and water, and recycled air. Daily routines would include several hours of exercise in order to maintain muscle mass. In addition, since interplanetary space is exposed to attack by solar storms, the crew would require a designated solar-shelter within the spacecraft for protection.
Upon arrival at Mars, the spacecraft will have to provide a means of making a soft landing on the planet's surface. Immediately upon landing, the astronauts would begin development of living quarters that are probably inflatable structures capable of holding a breathable atmosphere for the crew.
Any outside activities require the use of Mars-type EVA pressure suits. Surface rovers could be used for travel and exploration. It is possible that some structures would have been sent ahead of the crew and robotically assembled. Additional equipment could be sent after the crew arrives.

SpaceNut · 2016-12-28 20:40:48

This was one option for missions to mars as it cuts mission launch mass from earth and would shift it to cargo instead of a return plus would leave nothing in mars orbit as it would be all on the surface of mars.

GW Johnson · 2016-12-29 17:01:27

I was intrigued by the notion in this thread. I don't have real weight statements for Spacex's Dragon capsule family, or for real life support numbers, but here's my best shot.

You can send a man in Dragon v2/Red Dragon plus some supplies, plus a small BEAM-type inflatable habitat with a few more more supplies, using Falcon-Heavy to send up to LEO a ready-to-fire kerolox departure stage not too dissimilar to their Falcon second stage. It takes a Falcon-9 to send the small inflatable to LEO, and and another Falcon-9 to send up the capsule containing the man in a suit plus some of his supplies. Dock these three together in LEO, fire the departure stage, and he lives in the inflatable for 6 to 8 months on the way to Mars. He goes down in a direct entry trajectory in the Dragon with about 1.7 tons total supplies and the suit on his back. Everything else is lost in space. His supplies will NOT last to the next opposition! Doing only this costs about $230M based on current prices. The inflatable and the kero-lox departure stage "development" are fixed costs to add to that total, of course.

To keep him alive till the next opposition, you must also send another Red Dragon with 2 tons of supplies and equipment. This takes another Falcon-Heavy shot with a Red Dragon, for $100M. That gets him to the next opposition for a total of $330M in direct launch costs. He will have about 3/4 ton worth of exploration equipment. Not very much at all, actually.

From one opposition to the next takes more supplies than the 2 ton cargo capacity of the Red Dragon. He needs at least about 3 tons of supplies to last through 2 years to the next opposition. So the maintenance requirement is two Red Dragons on two Falcon-Heavies per opposition, for another $200M every two years. He'll have a little over a ton's worth of exploration equipment after one such resupply, which is certainly not enough to build any self-sustaining facilities for himself. He's living in his capsule when not outside in his one-and-only suit. Eating freeze-dried camp food. With nobody to keep him company. Miserable existence.

So it's ~$500M to put him there initially, and ~$200M every two years to keep him alive in his miserable existence. Stop sending supplies, and he dies. There is no way home, that costs a whole lot more. Sending him the stuff needed to make him self-sustaining also costs a whole lot more. You keep him supplied in his misery "in perpetuity", or you kill him when you decide to quit spending.

There. THERE'S your minimalist mission! We can do this as soon as Falcon-Heavy is flying. Sometime in 2017.

But do we really want to send someone to hell like this?

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2016-12-29 17:10:46)

SpaceNut · 2016-12-29 19:40:11

Thanks for the numbers...

Life support for Mars by Donald Rapp

Hybrid Life Support Systems for Sustainable Habitats

8 Steps to Red Planet Colonization

There are lots of ways to go about this from rationing of water to preloading the landing site prior to going.

I think we could go and return with a single astronaut but it would take sending a set of methane engines and a insitu plant to make fuel for a return once that the astronaut would use to retrofited the return red dragon while staying on mars. Since we would have a waiting orbital habitat for a return home.

The cargo red dragons could be further alterred as these do not need the life support stuff in them or the crew men seat plus other stuff that they would interact with to pilot the craft. These could serve as additional living space as they become empty during the stay on the surface of mars provided we give the means to move and connect them.

If we have unused fuels from landing then provide the means to pump them back to the return Red dragons tanks for the return trip steering on orbit.

As far a Beam inflateable, I would use an ISS node to house food for going and resources for the return legs as we can dock the extra Red dragon cargo units to it. Sending these down first to land near the return ship before going down.

GW Johnson · 2016-12-30 10:51:31

There is very little difference between Dragon v2 and Red Dragon. The Red version rips out the seats and life support, and deletes the parachutes. And I think uses a thinner, slightly-lighter heat shield. As near as I can tell, propellant tank volume is unchanged. There is no trunk when used to land.

Neither Red Dragon nor Dragon v2 has sufficient propellant capacity to take off from Mars, not by a long shot, even if fully refuelled. And its propellants are NTO-MMH, not LOX-LCH4, so they have to be scavenged from other Dragons, or else shipped in. I'm estimating delta-vee with 2 tons on board at 0.8 km/s theoretical. Zero the stuff on board, and it gets up to just above 1 km/s. LMO velocity is 3.6 km/s, escape is 5 km/s. Way, way outside the ballpark!

Before you get too upset about landing with so little delta-vee, the great bulk of the velocity (around 6+ km/s on a direct-entry entry trajectory) is dissipated by hypersonic entry drag, which is what the heat shield is for. You come out of that around local Mach 3 in the vicinity of 5-10 km altitude, if your entry angle is shallow enough. If too steep, you crash while still hypersonic.

Local Mach 3 is right at 0.7 km/s. If you have 0.8+ km/s delta-vee capabilty, you just barely might not crash. It pays to come out of hypersonics low when doing retropropulsion without chutes, because greater heights require more burn time, something you are very short of. Timeline will be fast and critical, deceleration gees will be high.

The ascent vehicle you need to reach Mars orbit is something a LOT bigger than a Dragon and its trunk module. Sorry, that's just an ugly little fact of life.

In the minimalist mission I described above, the entry is direct. Both the transfer stage and the inflatable are lost. Nothing goes into LMO. Its architecture is essentially identical to all the probes we have landed.

If you pre-landed enough stuff, you might make your unfortunate astronaut self-sustaining quicker, including a bigger, nicer place to live. You'll have to solve the precision landing problem to do that, but you already have to do that in my minimalist design, as the poor fella is on foot. No rover car to go anywhere.

He's essentially the same sort of sacrificial victim as was Laika the dog in Sputnik 2, back in 1957. Start pre-landing stuff, and your price class is no longer a $1B mission, it starts approaching $5B pretty quickly, at $100M per Falcon-Heavy/Red Dragon shot, plus the costs to build or buy whatever you send in that Dragon.

I put that utter-minimalist design together only to show how ridiculously cruel and unethical a minimalist mission design really is! If you squeeze the budget too harshly, that's what you get. That's what a $1B mission looks like: 4 years max to a gruesome death, if insanity or mischance doesn't kill him much sooner. It's inherent, given the rocket technologies we have ready-to-apply.

At the other end of the spectrum is the big mission based on orbit-to-orbit travel with landing boats, based out of LMO while there. That's my "Mars mission 2016" study posted over at "exrocketman". It's an update to the 1950's proposal taking into account what we know of technology today. Musk's giant rocket is a different embodiment of that same big-mission endpoint, one that assumes direct entry and landing at only one site. (I have often contended that one site is not exploration, and history backs me up.) Musk says he wants to do this in 2022. Based on his history, I think a fuzzy 2030 is more realistic.

My mission design sends 6 people to Mars, visits 8+ sites in month-long stays at each, leaves a minimal functioning base camp running on automatic at the best site for the next mission, and recovers the manned transport in LEO for use again. There are 3 in orbit doing science and acting as rescue capability for 3 on the surface during any one visit. It is definitely way far beyond any flag-and-footprints stunt. I need Falcon-Heavy to be flying, along with Atlas-5 and Falcon-9. I need about 10-15 years to get the single-stage reusable landing boat developed and proven. Could be done by about 2027-2032.

If not done by NASA and its favorite contractors, I estimated ~$50B to do this. If done by the usual gang, it would be at least $500B, maybe a full $T. So, it really, really matters who actually does this, and how they go about it. The NASA of 1960 could maybe do this for the $50B. The current NASA cannot even wipe its collective ass for that price.

Most of the other mission plans I am aware of fall between these spectrum endpoint extremes. The lower their price tag, the more they become just flags-and-footprints stunts, which is what exploring only one site almost-inherently becomes. I learned a long time ago that cheapest is NOT best, it is usually very low bang-for-the-buck. So also is the most expensive. Best bang-for-the-buck is usually somewhere about the middle-of-the-road price tag. Very true for most things in life. Mars won't be any different.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2016-12-30 11:34:04)

SpaceNut · 2016-12-30 18:45:02

So we need a homing beacon technology demonstrator mission that can be done at the same time another landing is attempted of which probably knowing the 6 year cycle for funding, design to build its going to be long after 2020 which is still I think on the books to happen.

GW Johnson · 2016-12-31 09:47:08

Spacenut:

The answer is yes, but it's not just some beacon. Spacex could easily do this when it starts shooting Red Dragon missions to Mars in 2018. That is, if they get their second stage explosion problem fixed, and get started flying again. Musk's Guadalajara plan reveal said they start shooting Red Dragons in 2018, supposedly as "pathfinders" (undefined concept) for his big ship. NASA finally got on board in a small way with the first Red Dragon shot. They're providing guidance and tracking help, but nothing toward the payload.

From LMO, when you fire to de-orbit, you're on the other side of the planet. Similarly far away if entry is direct, precisely because the entry angle must be shallow. A beacon on the landing site is of no help for that. A GPS satellite system would be, but there's none at Mars. But, there are other satellites whose positions are well defined. If your spacecraft can track them in some way, it can establish a precise deorbit burn location or a precise direct entry "window" to hit. Achieving high precision is easier from LMO, but it can be done direct. We did it coming home from the moon.

Radio goes blind somewhere near peak heating, which with larger ballistic coefficients is very near end-of-hypersonics at low altitude. The craft can use on-board inertial navigation stuff to control its lifting maneuvering during entry to hold the intended trajectory, even in spite of density variations. Some portion of the hypersonics is flying blind, though, just like here.

It's when you come out of hypersonics and the radio clears that you need the site beacon to home in on. You're but seconds from touchdown with the sort of no-chutes retropropulsive landing from low altitude that Red Dragon must fly. That part is very similar to what the Falcon stages have to do to hit that barge. It's happening at high deceleration gees on a very fast timeline. Challenging, to say the least.

If Spacex gets its act together and starts doing this Red Dragon thing, especially landing a second one where a previous one has landed, they will be light years ahead of NASA in the technology required to land large objects (over a ton) on Mars. That's why NASA finally decided to participate at least a little: they want to learn from Spacex how to do this. The sort of thing NASA-JPL has been doing since Viking only works at all under about a ton, and only works well when the package is well under a ton. And nobody yet has landed a second craft near a first. I think you'll agree that we do have to learn how to do that.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2016-12-31 09:54:36)

SpaceNut · 2016-12-31 15:09:53

GPS could be done in a single orbital launch with nano sats sent to ring the planet for cheap money as college's could build them for Nasa as part of a STEM project.

GW Johnson · 2017-01-01 16:46:14

Sure would help if that were done.

Wouldn't the existing satellites, they're not configured to use it. But it sure would help for future stuff, especially precision landings.

GPS is radio, still subject to entry blackout near peak heating, when the craft is surrounded by plasma.

GW

louis · 2017-01-01 17:25:17

Thanks GW - I learnt something I should have known there!

GW Johnson wrote:

Sure would help if that were done.
Wouldn't the existing satellites, they're not configured to use it. But it sure would help for future stuff, especially precision landings.
GPS is radio, still subject to entry blackout near peak heating, when the craft is surrounded by plasma.
GW

GW Johnson · 2017-01-02 10:34:59

Does anybody have a traceable weight statement for Spacex's Dragon configurations? Spacex does not include that on their website.

My data is a best-guessed fake-up for Dragonv2 / Red Dragon. Too undiscriminating to tell them apart.

weight statement (Red Dragon), kg

capsule
dry 4000
cargo 2000
bo 6000
prop 1800 Dr v2/Red; cargo ~1200
ign 7800 what hits "air" for entry

trunk
dry 2000
cargo 0
tot tr 2000

nose cap
cap 50

total
all 9850 what you launch with the rocket

The Isp ~ 330 sec in vacuum for the NTO-MMH propellants. For the weights in the statement, I get ~0.85 km/sec delta-vee capability out of the capsule alone, with no trunk. Both v2 and Red have landing legs.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2017-01-02 10:41:50)

SpaceNut · 2017-01-15 22:08:09

https://www.aiaa.org/uploadedFiles/Abou … -04-03.pdf
pg 21 has the 500 day mission for 2 people life support numbers

SpaceNut · 2018-06-20 18:32:46

wondering if doing this would allow for a better setup for the landing site for the BFR....

SpaceNut · 2018-11-25 17:39:16

A space x dragon mission if we had the Red Dragon seems like a good option to get started with

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