New Mars Forums

I know this is rather behind the times, but I haven't posted here until recently.  I was on that crew with the Times reporter, and it was the most fun I have had in my entire life.  The reporter was also a very gracious guest and didn't complain about the smell while there (good thing to, since we all stunk).   :bars3:   Anyway, there have been many excellent articles written about MDRS, surprisingly more than FMARS.

This is actually pretty sound in the first part, but unfortunately you are not going to want to deliver all of your supplie via a landing bag system.  One key factor is that there are weight limits for the landing bag style landing.  Second, you may have supplies that could be damaged in the randomness of a landing bag style of landing.

While the idea is nice in theory and seems to be doable on the surface, there are some major problems with this approach.  I'll outline two below.

1.  Cost
Using the moon as a launch point to Mars is inordantley expensive.  The amazing costs involved in just launching the needed materials to get started on the moon with this type of infrastructure is amazing.  What would be required are facilities for processing the insitu materials, facilities for storage, equipment for processing and utilization of materials, regular launches for consumables (food, air, water, etc.), large workforce (depending on if you wanted to produce items quickly or not), facilities for the workforce to live and work, vehicles to be used to collect materials, mining equipment, storm shelter for all personnel, etc.  This adds up very fast.  If we did it, it would force world governments to add space as an important domestic issue, but the startup costs would be enormous. 

2.  Time
This would be the equivalent of transplanting an aerospace plant from Earth to the Moon.  Not by just moving it as one piece, but one small piece at a time.  Once moved, it then has to be put together, but all resources (fuels, food, etc) would have to be brought up as well.  No country has the political foresight to do this type of undertaking over the amount of time it will take.

I don't see Europe leading any mission to Mars.  They can hardly agree on monetary issues or even something as cheap as Beagle and Mars Express.  I don't see them being a vital part of any mission to Mars, because they would cripple it.  I see maybe a token member on the team and some monetary or equipment contributions.