New Mars Forums

They want to till soil. Have these people never heard of hydroponics?

You can probably eliminate half your labor and complexity right there. Plus its easier to pull off in transit, allowing you to use much the same systems.

"THOR" Mars Mission To Seek Underground Water

This is a good opertunity to include some capability from the axed Telecommunications Orbiter. Also it'd be really cool to aim it within a safe observeable distance from the MSL so that it could take front row seat data from the impact and recovery, and sniff around ground zero.

Getting a EDS-class rocket to do a couple dozen burns over the course of a year in space is far more usefull than one that can reenter.

That wouldn't have anything to do with some laws that drew the ire of the Vatican, would it? 

I'd love to see this issue be solved through peaceful means. But I just don't think its going to happen. Diplomancy only works when both sides want the same thing. Japan wants to buy our beef, and we want to sell it. Only when both sides work together to bring down barriers will resolutions be found. Likewise with various Cold War arms reductions treaies, both side wanted to reduce the cost maintaining massive forces, and reduce the threat of war.

Iran wants at the very least unrestricted nuclear research, which leaves open the possibility for nuclear weapons and we'd never know it.. We, the EU-3, and the Russians have offered the compromise of providing the fuel and disposing of it form them, which would give them the power they want. The only safe conculsion we can come to is that they want more than electricity.

A repeat of the cold war with Iran is impossible. There is no such thing as MAD to prevent the Iranians from making a first strike. While Isreal has (in theory) its own nukes, it doesn't have the hundreds required to completely destroy Iran. Dozens would be requiered to disable just the Iranian miltary. And even then there is little point. It would take very few bombs to wipe out the vast majority of the Isreali population, and the rest would need to evacuate, or die, or be immediately overrun. The theorized "Samson Option" is little more than revenge attack against major Arab capitals. Iran could most likely shrug it off, happy to have finally slayed the Zionists no matter the cost. The rest of the world would not want to deal with the fallout, literally and figuratively, of a full scale Isreali counterattack.

The lines have already been draw. I don't think there is any question that Isreal will strike if Iran doesn't back down. And Iran knows that it can likely survive the worst Isreal can dish out, and they "know" have several dozen virgins waiting in paradise if they don't. The best outcome comes from us stepping in, because only we have the power to land cripling conventional blows.

The key is letting the UN process run its course so we can regain our offensive forces. That is why Bush let the European take the lead on this. That is why Iran is making its stand now. Any furthur delay over the next couple years and they will miss their chance.

Iran can't be invaded and occupied like Iraq. Its several times the size with 3 times the population.

Like in Iraq, the biggest question is how connected the regime is to the day to day goverment operations. In Iraq it evaporated out from under us. Iran had before the most recent election a fairly robust opposition in its pariliment. They were powerless, but vocal. Its likely they'd be willing to fill in if they don't die first. We need to go straight to the people with various forms of electronic infromation warfare.

War is inevitable barring a sudden counter revolution. The navy and air force can tear Iranian armed forces to shreds, but they also have extremeist militias. If we are going to bring peace, were going to need to do a slow, methodical, house to house, town to town, city to city clearing and disarming campaign that denies outsiders reentry to clear areas, or at least the delievery of arms. Also we will need to secure, rebuild, fortify, and rearm on the fly. It will be a slow grinding affair, but if we are methodical we will always have overwhelming firepower to bear.

That said there is time. The whole UN charade will take at least a year. That will give us time to finish up in Iraq. Also interesting, the more indignant the EU-3 get, the less wiggle room they have to weasle out this time.

Also, apparently Syria has decided to side with Iran. They can be tied down easy enough so that they can not assist their Persian friends.

Launch put off again do to unexplained power outage.

Which is strange cause my power went of this morning too.

Though it was most likely unrelated. 8)

I think the reason behind a lot of this is that most people live in urban or suburban areas really have no idea where the the basics of life come from. Power comes out of the wall, food comes from the supermarket, and clothing comes from the mall.

Hopefully once people see the labor required for the most basic substinance that they gain a little prospective.

...and back off at 2:34min.

Untill tommorrow.

All systems go... except that pestky wind.....

Oh sure they cut the most intresting part out of the broadcast version. 

I don't think a manned grand tour is ever going to be practical. Even an unmanned tour creates more questions than answers. Plus I think the Voyager missions were launched to take advantage of rare alignment when the gas giants were all in a nice arch. Probably won't happen again for hundreds of year.

Our best bet is to develope our own Moon, then repeat the cycle on Mars. After that we aught to be good at sending the right equipment to make stuff out of local resources. Then we pick one large low rad, atmosphere free moon to develop at each gas giant. Probably Calisto, Rhea, Titania, and Triton. Once established they can provide the resources needed to carry on to the others.

Hyperglocs are likely to be avoided do to toxicity and the fact that they are useless for ISRU.

But ban we can pin done just how much wiggle room we actually would have with LOX/LH engines?

Would we have 1, 2, even 3 weeks to launch the CEV before the EDS and/or LSAM boiled off too much to be useful?
Would the CEV have enough fuel after the 2/2.5 week mission to get people home?
What about 6 months docked to the ISS?
How much mass would we lose to insulation?

One way to solve the boil off problem is to preposition fuel depots with fuel condensers at each end of the trip. That way you can dock with it and you'll only lose a tiny amount of fuel during transit.

On the Luna end, decent modules can be prepositioned, launched yearly in magazines of 4-6 (depending on weight, I think the current LSAM weights in at 40-50 tons, so the DM alone should be 20-30tons) at time and propelled via and expanded EDS, at the lost of only 2 CaLV launches instead of 4-6, along with a modified CEV serving as a reusable accent module. Once docked at the Lunar Depot, the fuel in the LSAMs is off loaded into the depot tanks were it can be recirculated indefinately. The accent stage automatically intergrates with the first decent stage. When crews arrive, they dock at the depot and offload the CEV fuel to depot tanks, again to avoid boil off, which might be overkill for week long missions, but likely vital for missions of 6 months or more, and move to the LSAM, fuel it up and go on their merry way. Repeat in reverse to go home. Over the long term its a perfect place to store reuseable landers, and to deliever harvested fuel to.

On the Earth end, a simple tank with fuel condensers. And a small EDS that sends the CEV to Luna, and then returns to the depot. Fuel is provided by a single CaLV launch, with enough fuel for several missions. Later, when and if Lunar fuels are available, it can come from there.

Both are nearly identical. The only difference for the lunar version is the the mechanism intergrate the AM to the DM. Both could likely be launched tankless with a single CaLV launch, if have their own built in engines (likely for station keeping). Deployment on the lunar end would begin with the launch of the main spine, fuel condensers, and docking apperadus. The second launch would feature the main tank, full of fuel. The same would be done on the Earth end first. For the lunar depot the tank of fuel would be used to propel the depot to lunar orbit, with some extra for stationkeeping. Then the decent module magazine would be launched, docking with the Earth depot to perserve fuel and await the EDS. The landers would then fuel up, dock with the EDS, and head to luna. Once docked at this depot they defuel, and the EDS makes permenent contact with the lunar surface for salvage years down the road.

This requires a lot of fuel transfers that we have little operational experience with, especially in zero g. But all the hardware can be ported directly to the surface down the line, and we have to push the envelope somewhere. Plus by launching DMs in bulk and reusing the AM we save on CaLV launches, though at the cost of 4 flights to launch the depots, but at a landing rate of 5 per year, we pay for that in just a couple years. Not to mention it eliminates all threat of mission loss by boil off, and builds in growth options for the architecture

As far as development costs, it would all be dependant on immediate retirement of the Shuttles, and the CEV/CLV, and the CaLV, and probably the mid-range EDS envisioned in the ESAS, primarily for ISS completion, all by roughly 2012. Not impossible if we get going. Should the Shuttle launch in May and the same problem repeats itself, I don't think there will be any other choice. Following that, the high end EDS is little more than an extention of the one developed to finish the ISS. The low end one to send the CEV to lunar orbit is little more than a slightly larger SM. The use of a CM for an accent module eliminates or greatly reduces a development cycle. The depots are the greatest expense, but the hardware is the first step to setting up similar structures on the Moon and Mars later.