"No, we won't go to the Moon; we will visit Mars instead," says Obama
- Thread starter Ziggy
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Of course it was over budget and behind schedule, it's a NASA project
I don't quite understand your argument on LEO, in what way were they concentrating on this? Unless you plan on launching everything for a 1+ year mission to Mars in one go, you're going to have to stop off in LEO
And you neatly sidestepped my question, what on earth are we going to replace Orion with?
We're not going to replace Orion, since Orion is actually still an option, but in any event - Maybe a variant of the Dragon capsule (commercial ISS resupply), or maybe even ESA's ATV could be adapted (they were looking at the possibility of human rating it). Guesswork on my part - time will tell.
NASA's problem with LEO is that they were concentrating all of their resources on it (well, almost). Without Ares 5, there was no way we were going to get past ISS any time soon, and as it happens neither Ares 1 nor Orion would have been any use to ISS either (since it would likely have been de-orbited by the time they were ready - especially given the original plan to use it only until 2015). Hence, lame duck.
In short, NASA did a half-hearted job of Constellation because their Government masters didn't have the will or belief to fund it properly. With Ares 1 late, Orion going through redesign after redesign and Ares 5 being little more than plastic models at KSC Visitor Center, it was a mess and deserved to be cancelled. Norm Augustine concluded the same, and so it happened.
Any more questions? - fire away - I'll do my best not to side-step them for you.
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Deleted member 651465
Deleted member 651465
Bruce Willis on standby...
It's still a fair point though. With only 1/6th (IIRC) Earth mavity to worry about, the rocket fuel to cargo ratio is much lower - so you can either have a much smaller rocket or a much bigger cargo. Staging at the moon does have some logic to it, provided there are local resources you can take advantage of (like water).
Associate
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interesting stuff but no info on the actual speeds and thresholds it can actuall obtain
Mars in 39 days is what they throwing around last year
Um....the same way they did with Apollo 13? That was pretty close to the Moon when Oxygen Tank 2 grenaded itself.
Its a space only engine design though which means your potential spacecraft would be enormous. You'd need a rocket to get it all into space, then a habitat, lander with reserve fuel for take off then the physical bulk of the new engine stuck somewhere into that lot lol.
Dare I say, if they do build such a craft, it would most likely be the biggest space craft ever built by quite some way.
Soldato
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STUPID QUESTION ALERT!
If we landed on an asteroid could we not save fuel and just use it to transport us further than we have ever been from earth? Then use the fuel saved to get back to Earth?
If we landed on an asteroid could we not save fuel and just use it to transport us further than we have ever been from earth? Then use the fuel saved to get back to Earth?
you mean if the asterioid was moving in the direction you want to go in at a constant velocity?
Soldato
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Yeah.
If it was naturally occuring and the entire risk factor was taken out of it, yeah probably a good idea.
However
Most of the asteroids in our solar system are located between mars and jupiter so for an earth to mars trip, we'd have to go out of our way to get one in the first place. Also using the slingshot approach with current technology, you only need to do a primary fuel burn once to get upto a very high speed and then all you have slowing you down (albiet it by a tiny amount) is mavity and to some extend, the solar wind.
You might be able to do it, but could you do it with any kind of safety?
The early lunar missions (Apollos 8, 10, 11) travelled on a free-return trajectory - if the main engine failed, they just needed tweaks from the thrusters to keep them on a steady course to whip around the Moon and get thrown back towards Earth. Following 11, NASA was able to be a bit more adventurous and take their Moon craft off the free-return course. This nearly bit them with 13, but the LM had enough engine power to make a free-return burn and get them on a course for home.
If you go for an asteroid heading outwards, you're going to have no free-return contingency whatsoever. You also have no way of testing the mission parameters like with Apollo - 8 doing lunar orbit, 10 doing lunar orbit and LM orbital testing, with manned and unmanned testing on 5, 6, 7 and 9 in Earth orbit. You could probably work up an unmanned test I guess, but otherwise you just have to throw caution to the wind and hope for the best when you launch the mission.
This is what I don't like about the current plans for Mars. Canning the return to the Moon is a very bad idea - the Moon makes a perfect staging post for exploring the rest of the Solar System. You can test your craft in Earth orbit, and Lunar orbit. Get all the bugs worked out, and then shoot for Mars once you know you have a fair chance of making it back.