starbrewer
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God can go to hell
Posts: 226
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Post by starbrewer on Apr 4, 2009 8:16:29 GMT -5
I was torn between >100 years and never. Can you imagine how EXPENSIVE a manned visit to Mars would be? How do we make a spacecraft that people could live in that long, with all the food and other living supplies?
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Post by Tiger on Apr 4, 2009 22:38:37 GMT -5
I was torn between >100 years and never. Can you imagine how EXPENSIVE a manned visit to Mars would be? Very. Which is why we haven't done it already. I don't think this would be that much of a problem. Food storage is easy, and they can put a urine filtration unit onboard to supplement the water they bring with them. NASA's got some really cool tricks to deal with stuff like that. It's really just expense that's the issue. I think that saying "never" is fairly short-sighted. In 1930, going to the moon was practically unthinkable, but they did it less than forty years later. Forty years after that, we're sending people into space so regularly that a shuttle launch doesn't rate more than 30 seconds on the evening news. Who knows where we'll be in another forty?
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Post by Khaine on Apr 5, 2009 2:07:59 GMT -5
Life in a tin canGood article about the problems facing the crew of any mission to Mars. Imagine being stuck with the same people for 500 days. assuming that is the minimal time needed to complete a trip. IMO, a lot of work is going to be needed to keep the crew sane and functional. Btw, I voted for the 15-50 year. Seems to me that would be least amount of time to get the tech up to speed and create the infrastructure needed to launch such a mission.
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Post by Mira on Apr 5, 2009 4:48:24 GMT -5
Tomorrow. Me and some buddies have been working on this for a while.
jk, I don't have friends.
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Pwnzerfaust
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Arbiter of all things arbitrary
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Post by Pwnzerfaust on Apr 5, 2009 13:39:03 GMT -5
I was torn between >100 years and never. Can you imagine how EXPENSIVE a manned visit to Mars would be? On the order of a few tens of billions of dollars, I'd say. Assemble it in space. Make it big. Make the crew as small as possible to complete the mission. Send a supply ship to the Martian surface prior to the manned mission so they only need enough food for the trip there. Oxygen/water filtration systems.
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Post by MaybeNever on Apr 5, 2009 14:24:08 GMT -5
Assemble it in space. Make it big. Make the crew as small as possible to complete the mission. Send a supply ship to the Martian surface prior to the manned mission so they only need enough food for the trip there. Oxygen/water filtration systems. This. If we could build ships in space itself, the game changes entirely. Otherwise, I think we could probably build a large modular ship and put together the pieces in space as well. Not as elegant, but definitely more practical.
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Pwnzerfaust
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Arbiter of all things arbitrary
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Post by Pwnzerfaust on Apr 5, 2009 16:54:49 GMT -5
Assemble it in space. Make it big. Make the crew as small as possible to complete the mission. Send a supply ship to the Martian surface prior to the manned mission so they only need enough food for the trip there. Oxygen/water filtration systems. This. If we could build ships in space itself, the game changes entirely. Otherwise, I think we could probably build a large modular ship and put together the pieces in space as well. Not as elegant, but definitely more practical. Yeah, what I meant was a modular ship. Send up the pieces one at a time on rockets and assemble them in space, ISS-style.
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D'Coke
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In the service of the Church of Darwinian Materialism
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Post by D'Coke on Apr 5, 2009 20:38:10 GMT -5
Oh, I'm sure we'll do it, as the tech becomes cheaper. Not saying there's a point to it other than 'cool beans!'. But I support the cool beans.
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Pwnzerfaust
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Arbiter of all things arbitrary
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Post by Pwnzerfaust on Apr 5, 2009 22:49:36 GMT -5
Oh, I'm sure we'll do it, as the tech becomes cheaper. Not saying there's a point to it other than 'cool beans!'. But I support the cool beans. Sure there's a point. Science!
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Post by MaybeNever on Apr 6, 2009 0:55:16 GMT -5
Oh, I'm sure we'll do it, as the tech becomes cheaper. Not saying there's a point to it other than 'cool beans!'. But I support the cool beans. Sure there's a point. Science! When you get right down to it, what's science but "that was awesome! Let's figure out how to do it again!"?
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Post by Tiger on Apr 6, 2009 1:58:09 GMT -5
Assemble it in space. Make it big. Make the crew as small as possible to complete the mission. Send a supply ship to the Martian surface prior to the manned mission so they only need enough food for the trip there. Oxygen/water filtration systems. This. If we could build ships in space itself, the game changes entirely. Otherwise, I think we could probably build a large modular ship and put together the pieces in space as well. Not as elegant, but definitely more practical. NASA's next project (after the ISS) should be the construction of an orbital shipyard. Or perhaps a lunar one--easier to break free of the moon's gravity than Earth's.
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Pwnzerfaust
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Arbiter of all things arbitrary
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Post by Pwnzerfaust on Apr 6, 2009 3:37:01 GMT -5
Sure there's a point. Science! When you get right down to it, what's science but "that was awesome! Let's figure out how to do it again!"? You have a point there.
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Pwnzerfaust
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Arbiter of all things arbitrary
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Post by Pwnzerfaust on Apr 6, 2009 3:38:47 GMT -5
This. If we could build ships in space itself, the game changes entirely. Otherwise, I think we could probably build a large modular ship and put together the pieces in space as well. Not as elegant, but definitely more practical. NASA's next project (after the ISS) should be the construction of an orbital shipyard. Or perhaps a lunar one--easier to break free of the moon's gravity than Earth's. I think an orbital shipyard wouldn't exactly be feasible at this point. The most practical and cost-effective approach, I think, would still be to assemble a modular ship ISS-style. Also, I don't think that this'll be a single-nation deal. It'd probably have to be a cooperative effort, at the very least between NASA and ESA.
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Post by Einherjer on Apr 7, 2009 9:09:57 GMT -5
I chose 15-50 years, but that is a very wide range of time.
As it currently stands, a manned mission to Mars would be a one-way trip, and those who went on the trip would end up dying there not long after they arrived. Due to the limitations with fuel and costs, the return vessel would simply be too heavy and too expensive to be sent to Mars, and even if it were, an unaided, inter-planetary launch from the surface of Mars is currently technologically impossible, and will likely remain so for 20-25 years, baring any huge and sudden advancements in technology.
So while I chose the 15-50 year option, I am looking at the later part of that, probably some time around 2050.
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Post by MaybeNever on Apr 7, 2009 18:59:34 GMT -5
I find it interesting that nobody voted "never". I think we have, as a species, an imperative built in to us to explore and to conquer challenges, and failing something catastrophic I believe that our arrival on Mars is inevitable even if the time frame is longer than I now expect.
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