Using ISS to get to Mars - Makes more sense than any other ISS plan

Ad Astra · 2003-10-19 19:23:12

In a recent article on the IEEE Spectrum website, James Oberg and others advocate re-scoping the ISS to support Mars exploration. A splendid idea, IMHO.

There is much to be learned about how the human body would react to 2.5 years of weightlessness and Mars gravity. Can people work effectively after so much time in zero-G? Can a group of six people work together in a confined space for a year and not go nuts or kill each other? ISS also lets us test the life support systems that will be needed for Mars.

If we have an asset, let use it. Use ISS to do a dry run for Mars. ISS is not good for assembling the Mars spacecraft, but it will take much of the uncertainty out of the first Mars landing.

sethmckiness · 2003-10-19 22:05:54

Not to be abrupt, but is this feasible, I know it has been brought up on atleast 3-4 separate occasions with the notion that it was unable to handle the g-forces involved.

Gennaro · 2003-10-20 04:29:58

What's there to be learned exactly? How to break down human bodies through an elaborate scheme of torture in order to incapacitate human exploration of solar system bodies? Why not just have humans drag a dog sledge and see if they can make it to the south pole? I'm sure it can provoke a lot of study and validation.

Hey, I'm obviously a little edgy today!

Get artificial gravity, by whatever means available. It don't matter how fast we go to Mars (in travel time that is), only how we get there.

Ad Astra · 2003-10-20 04:44:50

Building the Mars spacecraft would be easier if we could eliminate the artificial gravity. Most serious engineers have rejected Zubrin's idea for spinning the hab and booster joined by tethers, and have focused on heavier solutions. Besides, even Mars Direct calls for zero-g on the return leg of the trip.

To date, we haven't surpassed Polyakov's record of 438 days in space. And even when Polyakov got back, they didn't make him do any productive work like Mars astronauts will have to do upon landing.

I feel that there should be a program where a crew of three or so spends 250 days on ISS, returns to earth, and re-acclimates to 1g. After they've recovered and contributed blood samples and bone density tests, they go back up to ISS for another 250 days. A separate series of tests would isolate a crew of six inside a functional Mars spacecraft mockup (docked to ISS) for 500 days or so to look at how well the crew would function as scientists and technicians and see how the group behaves.

sethmckiness · 2003-10-20 05:54:23

My only problem with this is simple, attaching a mockup to the ISS is one thing, using the ISS as a ship is another. You don't turn a Dock into a boat you sail accross the Ocean.. Just like you don't take a Space Station and sail halfway accross the inner solar system. It was never meant to withstand much G-Forces once constructed.

dickbill · 2003-10-20 08:10:05

The issue of moving the entire ISS has been discussed before in this forum and the opinion of some experts here was that the ISS could not sustain the structural forces and stretches that involves that kind of journey.

But after that, I asked, OK, the g force could dismantle the ISS if the transfer to a Mars orbit was too abrupt, but maybe not if the transfert was accomplished smoothly over a period of several years, with minimal g forces applyed. At this point no answer was given. So maybe it's possible to transfer the ISS to a Mars orbit after all ?

The 2 other points are: maybe part of the ISS, not all, could do the trip to Mars, and the second point is, even if the ISS has to stay in LEO, that's fine, but like everything, the ISS has been designed for a certain amount of time, maybe 50 years ? I don't know, but NASA might have to get rid off some elements in 50 years or so, but instead to throw them in the pacific ocean, maybe at that time it will be better to send these old elements to MArs.

However, beside that the ISS costed a fortune and is now not really efficiently used, maybe in the future, the ISS will find a critical role in Low Earth Orbit. So, don't throw away the ISS so quickly.

Bill White · 2003-10-20 11:40:39

Building the Mars spacecraft would be easier if we could eliminate the artificial gravity. Most serious engineers have rejected Zubrin's idea for spinning the hab and booster joined by tethers, and have focused on heavier solutions. Besides, even Mars Direct calls for zero-g on the return leg of the trip.

Can you offer further guidance on this? How was this determined by the "serious engineers?"

If true, Mars is much farther away than many here would like to believe.

RobS · 2003-10-20 20:38:47

I don't think the problem of moving the ISS to Mars is primarily gee forces. ISS was designed for frequent repair and resupply because when it was designed that was all we can do. Zurbin's Mars Direct calls for the two vehicles of 25 and 28 tonnes respectively to support four people for two and half years using seven tonnes of supplies, total, and about the same amount of spares (gyroscopes, computers, etc,). ISS supports three people right now and could support seven with a few more modules and a life boat, but it requires forty tonnes of stuff per year; food, water, clothing (they can't wash clothes up there, so they wear them once and throw them away!), gyroscopes, etc. For a two and a half year mission, that's 100 tonnes of stuff.

NOT PRACTICAL.

ISS is the testing ground for the new stuff that can go to Mars. Like a zero-gee clothes washing system, gyroscopes that are more reliable, better water recycling, etc.

By the time we send people to Mars, the current ISS equipment will be dinosaurs, not worth preserving. Too expensive to operate.

To give another example: the Galileo spacecraft that was crashed into Jupiter was designed before IBM compatibles. Its tiny on-board computer had almost no capacity and had to be programmed using assembler. And they've had to find spares for the space shuttlrs computers on ebay because the commercial hardware is no longer made. That's already true of some ISS parts as well.

--RobS

Spider-Man · 2003-10-20 20:39:50

No no no; for godsakes no; don't waste another dime on that hideous contraption of a Space Station. Josh is quite right, in sentiment and word alike.

Building the Mars spacecraft would be easier if we could eliminate the artificial gravity.

Well that's stupid. How hard is it to make a strong tether and rotate the hab around the final stage?

Most serious engineers have rejected Zubrin's idea for spinning the hab and booster joined by tethers, and have focused on heavier solutions.

Exactly! it's this kind of thinking that means it's going to take decades to reach Mars when we should have been there two years ago. You don't want a heavier solution; it's pointless; it's more expensive; it's harder to support a dozen guys instead of just four. This are all such 'duh' solutions, but yet we strive for the most complicated way to possibly get there. Nihil hac sententia rumeneribit. This way of thinking shall reward nothing.

Besides, even Mars Direct calls for zero-g on the return leg of the trip.

Mars Semi-Direct does, but not Mars Direct; the booster is again employed for the return trip in the advanced versions of Mars Direct.

Ad Astra · 2003-10-20 21:17:45

In the Borowski et al plan for exploring Mars, the tether is replaced with a truss that also supports the ship's hydrogen tank. The reasoning is that because the shuttle tethered experiment broke, the Mars Direct tether would break. It's not a totally coherent argument, but I wouldn't like to be sitting in the hab if another tether break does occur. Also, the Mars Society's Translife project rejected a tethered design in favor of a different design that spun along its axis, partly becase the tether was seen as unreliable. Plans such as Benton Clark's "Concept 6 / Straight Arrow" had artificial gravity, but provided it by placing the crew in two modules that were connected by a rigid tunnel and spun in a circle.

As for ISS, a recent interview of an official at the Russian Space Agency (in the Oct. 13 edition of Aviation Week) stated that ISS would be used until at least 2016. When its time is up, the station should be burned up. The Russians have proposed using Salyut & Mir derivatives for Mars flybys (most recently, the Marpost station,) but a new spacecraft would have to be fabricated in place of using old ISS modules.

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#1 2003-10-19 19:23:12

Re: Using ISS to get to Mars - Makes more sense than any other ISS plan

#2 2003-10-19 22:05:54

Re: Using ISS to get to Mars - Makes more sense than any other ISS plan

#3 2003-10-20 04:29:58

Re: Using ISS to get to Mars - Makes more sense than any other ISS plan

#4 2003-10-20 04:44:50

Re: Using ISS to get to Mars - Makes more sense than any other ISS plan

#5 2003-10-20 05:54:23

Re: Using ISS to get to Mars - Makes more sense than any other ISS plan

#6 2003-10-20 08:10:05

Re: Using ISS to get to Mars - Makes more sense than any other ISS plan

#7 2003-10-20 11:40:39

Re: Using ISS to get to Mars - Makes more sense than any other ISS plan

#8 2003-10-20 20:38:47

Re: Using ISS to get to Mars - Makes more sense than any other ISS plan

#9 2003-10-20 20:39:50

Re: Using ISS to get to Mars - Makes more sense than any other ISS plan

#10 2003-10-20 21:17:45

Re: Using ISS to get to Mars - Makes more sense than any other ISS plan

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