New Mars Forums

Its not dimming, it just has way too much baggage and way too little funding and Presidential support. I know Bush has lots on his plate, but would it kill him to make more that one speech on it? The public would support it.

I think that given how close they are, and the value of this mission, it will fly.

This is really our first trip to the asteroid belt, and once inside it we'll learn alot more about it as a whole on top of Ceres and Vista, which are really gateways to the outer solar system.

This wasn't even outsourcing, all the people working there would still be American. The only thing that would change is the name on the paycheck.

I'd like to see American companies owning every step of the process as much as every other American. But the opposition, at least on capital hill, was the worst kind of hypocritical, policically motivated xenophobia.

As for outsourcing in general, the fact of the matter is our standard of living makes it impossible for us to competitively produce cheap plastic crap, and any other product that requires mindnumbingly boring repetetive tasks. If we want to compete, we have to fight back with technology, and beat cheap chinese labor with robots that don't need pensions.

Ports on the west coasts are own by China.

Its all election year politics.

On timelines, 2033 is probably a bit optomistic even for Mars. Then again I envision an extensive lunar program and a series of NEO missions leading to a much more extentive series of missions to Mars in the 2040's range than the DRM. Foothold missions to the gas giants would follow.

I'm not sure how much mass your going to save by prepositionong, because your going to need every bit of whats on your transit craft on the surface, and then some. Your likely to need two or even three 500-600 ton craft to support all your surface habs, labs, farms and workshops. Plus IRSU equipment, and finally science packages for the other moons.

Remember the sole purpose of the CEV is a cheap, safe way to get 6 people in and out of LEO. The since the Moon is only 3 days away, it can also support 4 people for the 6 total days it takes to get there and back. To get from LEO to LMO, they have a transit craft.

Larger capsules will likely follow before we have a full blown space liner. But the CEV does what we need it to do for the immediate future.

I too want to see more long term planning. But the more pretty pictures you show the Congresscritters, the more dollar signs they see, and the more they balk. Perhapes there is a method to NASA apparent shortsided madness.

Gee Purdue, why don't you tell us how you really feel? 

Seriously, we should compare notes. 

And round the bend it goes... right on target!

Great job! 

Were all slewwed up and burning...

If you can find the development money then by all means. But nothing I've seen indicates we can just park the shuttles in a hanger untill the CaLV is ready to fly.

Oh and I intended the cradle to be disposable. They are custom built for the modules.

I was refering more to the idea that someone mentioned to use solar sails, which would get there from much less energy.

Just saying that the Saturnian system is much more furtile overall.

As much of a waste of payload volume it might be, I think double barreling it would just over complicate things. First off, the CaLV is a non starter with the shuttle still flying. You won't have a shuttle to help. I think the best way to do it is to build a cartridge with as many of the modules and their shuttle like cradle that will fit, and to drive the whole thing right up to the port and dock. Any other connections can be done via space walk from the station. Then the cradle releases the module, backs off, and releases the cradle. Rinse and repeat untill your out of modules.

The big question is what peices can be deployed like that. The 4 truss segments are the only ones that I think still need the shuttle. The rest are cylindrical and should be perfect for the above method.