Sadly, I'm pretty sure the budget for this will be axed by congress.
[QUOTE=LarparNar;30041482]That's not the same. They don't actually have any solid plans for how to go to Mars with it yet, and right now the ship is designed for 21 day trips.
Going to Mars will probably take longer than that.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, it will take a lot longer than that, even if Mars is at its closest to earth. However, Apollo didn't reach the moon alone. Apollo 11's capsule was a combination of lander, command module and [i]service module[/i]. The service module carries large supplies of air, water and fuel and has most of the thrusters used during flight.
I reckon, looking at the size of that capsule, attaching an SM with the same-ish proportions as Apollo's CM/SM combination will allow it to carry huge amounts of fuel and water, however, probably not enough for the trip to Mars which will take months. Perhaps the CSM/Lander could link up with a previously-launched larger craft carrying the fuel needed to keep the spacecraft moving and the supplies the astronauts will need.
I have fears that NASA will run into a new problem soon: safety margins. Because of the timescale of interplanetary trips, we simply can't have 6 test flights before the real thing, somewhat like Apollo. The people that are running it will have grown old by the time the project gets the go for manned flight.
[QUOTE=Mikesword221;30043428]I think 21-day trips around Earth but that seems really long for such a small space.[/QUOTE]
What?
[QUOTE=Swebonny;30043167]No way it's going to Mars in 21 days. It has to refer to something else.[/QUOTE]
Don't you remeber there was a news story awhile back about new rocket engines NASA had been working on?
Said that they could do a trip to mars in 30 odd days, that said i don't know if the engines are finished or not.
21 days to mars is a bit of a stretch.. I know with the newer rockets we have coming and when Mars is closest to earth in its orbit, it's possible to send Astronauts to Mars, stay a month, and return, all in under a year though
[QUOTE=madmanmad;30044222]Don't you remeber there was a news story awhile back about new rocket engines NASA had been working on?
Said that they could do a trip to mars in 30 odd days, that said i don't know if the engines are finished or not.[/QUOTE]
Yeah I remember that. I think it was called VASIMIR or something, but that was 39 days. And I'm not even sure if they've tested it at all.
Yeah, they have a ground based prototype of the engine, I don't think they have gotten the required thrust levels out of it though. They are not far off mind.
[QUOTE=Swebonny;30044459]Yeah I remember that. I think it was called VASIMIR or something, but that was 39 days. And I'm not even sure if they've tested it at all.[/QUOTE]
I think i read somewhere that they are gonna test it in space soon, but i'm not sure.
[QUOTE=IliekBoxes;30042292]Does this mean NASA is going to make Mars Base: Alpha?
aeiou[/QUOTE]
Totally need to include aeiouliens as a joke.
You'd need to have some form of gravity on a trip to Mars, since it takes a few months.
You simply can't stay in a zero gravity environment without serious health problems.
That means it has to rotate to cause centripetal force like in 2001.
I really wish I hadn't read back in 1995 that we'd be on mars by 2015. It really makes any future date setting feel like such a huge delay.
What are we planning to launch it on, again? The Ares program was an underfunded boondoggle and NASA has no serious designs to even begin development on. The larger Deltas could get it to LEO if they were man-rated, but they don't have the capacity for a departure stage. Also we lack even preliminary designs for a Mars lander or transit vehicle.
Isnt it that this capsule is meant for re-entry and travel, and a second lander module is used along with it? Im pretty sure that on the apollo missions there was a seperate landing module, and that a module similar to the orion was used as a command and re-entry module.
[QUOTE=mecaguy03;30052909]Isnt it that this capsule is meant for re-entry and travel, and a second lander module is used along with it? Im pretty sure than on the apollo missions there was a seperate landing module, and that a module similar to the orion was used as a command and re-entry module.[/QUOTE]
Were Orion to be used for a lunar mission, the mission profile would be almost identical to Apollo. It would have been used with a scaled-up lander that has been subsequently cancelled.
China and the EU will get there and establish colonies before the USA because they don't have hillbilly politicians cutting the funds of their space programs
[QUOTE=Whomobile;30041509]What if they land in a fresh water lake?[/QUOTE]
It'll be saltwater obviously.
Trips to mars take a ton of time, not just because it's far away, but because you can't just come back whenever you want. If you go to the moon, you can simply return whenever you want. If you try to come back from mars at the wrong time, you could be on the opposite side of the sun from the earth. I heard some lecture from Niel Degrasse Tyson that going to mars and back would require them staying on the planet for ~1 year.
[QUOTE=deathstarboot;30049915]I really wish I hadn't read back in 1995 that we'd be on mars by 2015. It really makes any future date setting feel like such a huge delay.[/QUOTE]
At the same time, look at the explosion of computer technology and the internet.
[editline]26th May 2011[/editline]
[QUOTE=FinalHunter;30053991]Sure, let's throw 7.5 billion dollars into the ocean. That's cool.
That's like NASA saying "lol fuck you it's our budget".[/QUOTE]
Imagine if that money was channeled into the private space sector.
[QUOTE=Cuntsman;30053820]China and the EU will get there and establish colonies before the USA because they don't have hillbilly politicians cutting the funds of their space programs[/QUOTE]
space is cool and all, but we could spend 7 billion on something better
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