New Mars Forums

@ Austin Stanley: Yeah, the deal breaker really is the shuttle. You need something with a lot of power to keep pace, and as a last resort, return to earth in short order. Nuclear Thermal perhaps?

Redevou shouldn't be all that hard though. We match orbit with things all the time. The biggest issue would we a malfuntioning docking bay. Now if we have to dock with a spinning ladder, thats another story.

If you got the December 05 issue of Popular Mechanics, then you already know the details.

It features a cycler in permenent solar orbit of the most absurd shape you'll ever see. Picture a 2 step ladder spinning in space. It even has pressurized elevators to transport crew between the hab and the docks and reactor. It supports a crew of 8 for 5 months.

The oddest part has to be the Semi-Cycler. This thing makes regular trips as well, but its sole purpose seems to be to ferry crews between the cycler on the Mars end of its orbit, and Mars orbit. On the Earth end, the CEV is launched directly from earth to somewhere between the Earth and the Moon (I'm pretty sure they mean L1), were it refuels on lunar fuel. It then uses that fuel to meet the cycler. Why he needs something that goes all the way from the Earth to Mars to ferry people from Near Mars Space to Mars Orbit is beyond me.

Finally, the first mission lands on Phobos first to set up a base using by then tried and true lunar hardware to be used as a launch pad for the following missions to the surface. Phobos might have useful minerals, but unless it has fuel I see no reason to add it to the list of gravity wells we need to deal with that early on.

Overall I think he's on the right track, he just trips on every tie. He mentions setting up infrastructure, and making the Mars program politics-proof. Heres how he should have done it.

The cycler is a good idea, but its much too small. It needs to be able to support a much larger crew with the supporting greenhouses, labs, crew quarters, ect. A little closed loop ecosystem away from home. And I would perfer one shaped like a revoler, and not a ladder.

I don't know what he was smoking when he dreamed up the semi-cycler. If you need to shuttle people from the cycler to orbit, at either planet, have one at each planet. It can be much smaller and cheaper. It would also solve the most dangerous weakness I see in the mission, a failure to dock in Near Earth Space. A CEV drained of fuel and crammed with a crew it can't support is the worst thing that happen to a program. We are better off having a shuttle in LEO, or maybe lunar orbit. Some thing that can chase the cycler down if need be, and return under its own power. Same thing on the Mars side. Theres plenty of fuel on Mars. If we can expolit it on the moon we can on Mars.

Theres plenty of good reason to have an outpost in Mars orbit. But Phobos isn't the place to put it. If it were up to me I'd build an exact copy of the cycler and park it in Mars orbit. The perfect place to store landers, and fuel for your Shuttle. Plus you can grow and stockpile food on it. Its also a retreat in the event things go pear shaped on the surface.

I'll scan the article as soon as I get to my scanner.

They didn't fear for their lives, they feared getting caught. A lot of suspects run cause they think they get away with it. They rarely do. And whats the average police officer going to think when a couple teens break out in a dead sprint?
Enless these kids have reason to fear for their lives when under arrests, or the police intentionally herded them into that substation, this is much ado about nothing, and these kids deserve a darwin award.

So that excuses the mass destruction of private property? A police car running a red light?

Right, because kids in 300 French towns, Belgium, and Germany, are all such buddies that they all risk serious jail time, injury, and when if police ever get their act together, death, to help each other burn stuff. And they all have such pride in their old countries that they abandoned them in search of a better life. And they love France so much that they are burning it down. Islam and their crappy situation are the only things unite them. And they figured out the connection. The riots are in defense of who they are, Muslim. If islamic extremists are not exploiting this now, they will.

No one will argue that. The question is how do you deal with. Do you allow the communities in question to police themselves? Try to buy them off with more wealth redistribution? Admit you don't want France to turn into Eurarabia and ship them someplace else?

I've been keeping an eye on this, and I must say its very disturbing because the "punishment" does not fit the "crime".

These people have been treated as second class citizens (in France) for 40 years, completely dependant on welfare, and they come completely inhinged because 2 idiots got themselves snapped? At least there was actual evidence of police brutality in the Roodney King case. The police didn't even touch these kids. The only way you can go nuts about this is if you think your kids are somehow above French law.

I'm sorry, but something else has got to be going on here. If you don't like government policy, economic, social, or otherwise, you don't just go around burning things. That You sit in front of Chiracs house and yell hell no we won't go, or something like that. These people are skipping steps.

Something more sinister is going on. Somehow these people, all over the country, at the same time, are getting the idea that this is going to help. And given the age and education level of these people, its not historical knowledge of the French love affair with the white flag. This isn't just boys being boys. You can guess who is using this non-event to stir up trouble.

This reminds me of the Underpants Gnomes of South Park Lore.

I whole heartedly support 4Frontiers efforts to research, develop and design space mining equipment and methods. Someday someone will make a mint on it. But that day is at least a quarter to a half century away. These people will either never be heard from again, or will eventually stand with the Morgans, Vanderbuilts, Carnegies, Rockafellers, Fords, and Gates.

If they can survive that long, all power to them. Though I wouldn't base my business on something that is at the moment is completely dependent on the whims of the goverment and a seperate industry.

If there is ample sources of water on the poles, we are going to want to spead it around to enable base building elsewere on the surface to open up mineral resources. A cheap suborbital RLV full of harvested hydrogen can bring water to equatorial areas, and return with oxygen.

NASA seem unwilling to commit much to long term lunar planning. Most likely this is do to the uncertainty surrounding lunar water. They need to go full steam ahead regaurdless, because the same technology will open up other sources of water.

If they shed their totalitarian & communist tendancies on their own, we work together.

If not, I think earth issues will ground them.

Well, in terms of a military threat, its no comparision. China already has ICBMs. The worst thing that may come out of this is MIRVs, and they are after them anyway.

But this is a direct challenge to US dominance of space, which is considered reason enough to keep the shuttle around long past its useful life. In terms of national pride and engineering prowess, this is a race we can not afford to loose. And as Gryp pointed out, the control of polar and equatorial areas, and high altitude sites are vital in terms of future developement.

The congressional subcommittees controlling NASA needs to take this very seriously.

The legs could be designed to let the DM "hang" off them, allowing the hab part could be dropped off and dragged/rolled to the side, leaving just the AM propped up on the legs with a ladder going up.

Why is Charon so... turquoise?

I still think it criminal that were sending something all the way to Pluto for the first time, only to fly right on by.

This only reenforces that.

I was under the impression that many peices required the specific skills of the shuttle arm. The truss and solar panels come to mind. Some of the other peices (ESAs Columbia, Japans Science Module) could be docked directly via a tug. Others could be  launched via cargo module and put together via ISS arm and space walk.

It is important to note however that no individual component is bigger than the Shuttles lifting power, so the stick (though Griffen says he'd rather not go that route), or even a Delta 4 heavy could in theory lift many of the peices. But each would require its own tug. It would seem to me that developing a single large tug who's cargo bay is closely based on the Shuttle bay launched via the Heavy SDV and put together with the help of the shuttle would be the most direct approach.

The agency is already pondering retiring one or more shuttles to save money between now and final retirement. Keeping one shuttle operational in storage for a few years and sending the others to museums is sure to save plenty of money. Enough to field the HLLV? Who knows.

Also, could more regular Soyuz or progress flights enable the ISS crew to to be upped to 3? An extra man up there, who was trained in advance for the gauntlet of ISS construction tasks could allow Soyuz contingencies in the event of a Shuttle heat shield failure

Well now if we ever have to rescue humpbacks to save the Earth in the 23rd century...