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#101 Re: Human missions » Space groups Unite - Stop acting like children » 2003-12-18 08:59:20
Listen everyone here's my opinion and you can flame me all you want. Pushing for Mars Direct now is the wrong strategy. I usually agree with the Mars Society but we are wrong on this one. The will and the budget just isn't there.
We are like little kids who sit in a corner and say "I want it and I'm not going to take anything else" , What does the parent say , "ok go to your room your not getting anything".
December 17th came and surprise surprise no anouncement of a new space initiative from the White house. Of course they were saying right along that it was to early to release any details from the interagency panel.
Right now the space Advocacy groups are fragmented each with there own agenda. We need to be a united front.
The climate is right and there is a good chance we can get a reasonable Lunar program. Members of congress seem to be on board, the president may be poised to release something maybe by the state of Union, or maybe at a ceremony on the anniversary of the Challenger or Columbia disaster, your guess is as good as mine. China and the ESA have announced Lunar Plans.
What we (members of the Mars society ) should do is try to push for items which may build the infrastructure for a Mars program as an off shoot of the Lunar program.
Redeployment of the shuttle stack as a shuttle C or Shuttle with the orbiter replaced by a hydrogen booster.
Its time for a reality check, the most we can hope for in terms of a budget increase is 3 to 7 percent over 5 years. That is not enough to support Mars Direct.
There are dark forces on the horizon.
There are many groups that oppose any kind of space effort.
Citizens againt waste in goverment
Citizens against nuclear weapons and power in space
These are fringe groups but they do have a following, They prey on the lack of science education among the general population , all they need to do is mention the word "nuclear" and they can garner public dismay. Their current target is Project Prometheus. We need to find innovative ways to combat these groups. Since there sites are full of disinformation and photocopies of copyrighted documents the thought occurs to me maybe we could use that useless DCMA copyright act against them.
Other things members should do , is write their reprsentatives, pass out lititure at polling places, place support logos on their websites. I think every website that has the Mars society click on add should also show the NSS and planetary society adds. In 2004 my site will carry a voters guide to space issues support by the candidates in the coming elections.
Get involved, this is the best opputunity yet we've had to get something. But we could lose everything. Its happened before.
#102 Re: Human missions » Not enough optomists - hard to predict 25 years out » 2003-12-14 18:31:37
Hi all,
First off, don't expect quick replies or rebuttals to my posts I have a life too. Secondly whats the big deal with all the comments to my little statement about the air force, I don't pretend to be a historian, the point of the comment was that nuclear power transformed the navy, especially the submarine force. And That a similiar tranformation may take place shortly with space. Adding nuclear power to the equation changes everything. Nasa highly critical stepping stones approach which I don't entirely believe in says you develop the enabling technologies first which gives you the abilities to reach for a number of different destination possibilities.
I hope the handwritng that is emerging is that the US may be moving towards both developing new propulsion sources and startup of a sustainable moon program . With landings at intervals of months rather than years.
As to Amageddon, If I recall the Mit folks said the movie was technically possible but not probable. There were a lot a problems. How they got to the asteroid for instance, Some type of modified shuttle . 2) There is the possibility if you fail to completely destroy the asteroid you may end up with many fragments on collision with earth rather than one body.
I believe the current proposals are to try to alter the bodies course over some period of time perhaps using ion thrusters of some type.
As to manned vs. unmanned operations. How is the population going to handle knowledge of the end of the world. If its going to be 100 or more years there probably will be little panic, 50 years , more panic but not chaos. but if you had a ten to 15 year window of a civilization destroying impact what kind of panic will there be. How will the world leaders handle damage control. Wait a few years and send a few small unmanned ds-1 class probes ladden with explosives to try to destory it. Thats going to do much to calm the population.
"My fellow americans....We won't know until several hours after the impact if we were sucessfull ..... .
I suspect that the only way those 10 or 15 years are going to resemble anything normal in terms of the financial markets , consumer spending, population growth is if the world leaders build it into a post september 11th or post pearl harbor type operation...We will put the resources of the entire planet into defeating this threat.
Read my story when I post it and judge . ok, thats all I ask.
#103 Re: Human missions » Reasons against Mars Direct » 2003-12-12 05:42:45
Well I suppose you could use a HIPEP engine in a form of cycler, than the most fuel expendeture is in catching up and docking with the fast moving cycler. It may take the cycler awhile to get up to a resonable velocity but who cares because there is no crew onboard.
#104 Re: Human missions » Reasons against Mars Direct » 2003-12-11 13:53:07
Ask an intelligent question , and get a stupid reply.
I thought we were talking Ion engines. 
#105 Re: Human missions » Reasons against Mars Direct » 2003-12-11 10:56:57
But I thought the HIPEP NEP engine , one of the candidates for the JIMO mission was being touted as a "High Power" , "High Thrust" ion drive. The Nasa website says it could reduce transit times. Ok not to sound dumb, but what are we talking about in terms of transit time from earth orbit to mars overall vs. using chemical rockets for Mars Direct.
#106 Re: Human missions » Reasons against Mars Direct » 2003-12-11 07:54:32
I thought the amount of thrust you get from an ion engine was dependent on the amount of power you put in , ie. you would get a greater ISP using a nuclear vs. solar array. Didn't deepspace one ion engine achieve a higher thrust than smart-1. Doesn't seem like that mission duration was that long.
#107 Re: Human missions » Not enough optomists - hard to predict 25 years out » 2003-12-10 09:12:33
reply to sethmckiness
Not sure what was relevant about your reply to my air force remark, as to a 5 to 10 year window. I think more like 10 to 15 years would be more resonable. Yes perhaps we could destroy or deflect the threat with nukes. Or send unmanned probes to try to deflect it. But all that time the threat hangs over the heads of the population, the probablity of sucess is quite low. Meantime what happens psycologically , what about the world markets. All I'm saying that if you have enough of a window, say 10 to 15 years, it might make more sense to send a manned mission to try to deflect the threat. I doubt destroying it with nukes would work, what was in amagedon was very scientifically inaccurate. I hope I do better with the novel I'm attempting to write. I'm only starting my resource now. I know more about human nature than engineering.
#108 Re: Human missions » Not enough optomists - hard to predict 25 years out » 2003-12-10 06:34:11
Predicting the future is a very imprecise process, those who try usually get it wrong.
Who in 1944 would of predicted a moon landing by 1969. Taken from another vantage who in 1968 at around the time 2001 was showing around the country would of predicted the slow down in space exploration. There were predictions of a mars landing by 1975.
When one sets out to predict the future the successful folks look for trends political and technical as predictors. Just because the infrastructure isn?t in place now doesn?t mean we can?t be on mars in 20 to 25 years. The infrastructure for the moon program was not in place in 1949. Nor was the political climate. Are there any key predictors present that may indicate we may be further along in 20 to 25 years than the current crop of pessimists (many on this board) believe.
?
#109 Re: Human missions » George Bush Jr planning on kennedy speach - mostly moon, but as prep for mars » 2003-12-09 11:26:14
"Mothball the ISS. Cut our bloated military budget."
Isn't that how we got into this mess in the first place, Skylab was garbage don't save it, the apollo program is unsustainable so abandon it. (although , I think in apollo's case, Political infighting had alot to play, it was Kennedy's program)
The original concept for ISS was good, it was all the revisions that made it unuseable, there may be things we can do to make it somewhat useable in a new interplanetary strategy. At least in terms of long duration micro-gravity research, and earth observation. Maybe some moneies could be transferred out of the earth observation program.
Lets not start abadoning anything until we're sure we get something in return.
As for the military budget, you have to be careful what you cut, but I am sure there are some pork barrel cold war era programs that could be cut.
#110 Re: Human missions » Send Letter to President - Mars society latest Directive » 2003-12-09 06:50:41
Generaly I agree with most of the goals of the Mars Society, I've been a member for some time now, I'm also a member of NSS (since it was called the L5 society) and planetary society. But I have concerns that if we press for a commitment to Mars now, we will get nothing.
A Cislunar program may at least put us in the right direction. After all the US really doesn't have much recent experience with conduction operations beyond LEO.
My own opinion is that a sustained Lunar program would put the nation in the right direction, with the best bet for mars being with the JIMO project. A light weight nuclear source coupled with an Iron Drive could be repurposed for Mars operations.
I firmly believe we will see a Mars Landing in the next 20 to 25 years, but it will not be this administration that initiates the program.
I don't have the resources to start a chapter , however I do maintain two web domains portal.holo-spot.net (click on zones) with something like 300 mb of space . I already post my own opinions on the space program and have a forum. I plan to put out a voters guide before the next election and am beginning an online science fiction tale called DARKSIDE, were humaity is forced into an accellerated space effort when its threatended by a 150 kilometer astoriod, as the story evolves there's a major discovery on Mars.
I Could start something like an online chapter if I had some direction how to do that.
Just wanted to voice some opinions.