Re: I think you may be under estimating how much supplies two people would need to last them forty
Macharius Send a noteboard - 15/11/2010 11:26:51 PM
If you are going to plan a round trip to mars you will need to figure out how to make rocket fuel on the surface of the planet so that really on cost you the plant to make it and what it cost to get the plant there.
"Only?" That seems quite a feat to me. This would probably require a radical new propulsion system to be developed, which would incur enormous engineering costs prior to the trip. And that's to say nothing of this plant that you figure will be delivered.
In any case, that's only one of the challenges of getting them back. You still have to figure out how to launch from the surface of the planet. I suppose you could have a small lander module, but if you do that, you need to figure out how to transport hundreds of thousands to millions of pounds of fuel from the planet to the orbiting ship.

It's already been planned out. A guy named Robert Zubrin (former NASA engineer, etc) has been planning this stuff out for the better part of 30 years. He published a book in the mid 90s called "The Case for Mars" in which his plan for a manned visit is described and defended. I read it, and even met him once: he's a pretty smart guy.

As interesting as it would be, I agree with Isaac (or was it BlackAdder?) who said planetary colonization was a waste of resources and that we're better off moving to the asteroids and constructing entire artificial habitats and then set them rotating to use inertia as a substitute for gravity. We'd only need to create one orbital factory and bring in asteroids for raw materials to make as many habs as desired and never have to worry about those pesky gravity wells at all.
Scientists propose one way trip to Mars.
15/11/2010 04:35:40 PM
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Interesting idea but a non-starter
15/11/2010 05:04:38 PM
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Plenty of volunteers can be found for a suicide mission to Mars.
15/11/2010 05:22:10 PM
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You may know more about it than I do, but I'm not sure you're right.
15/11/2010 06:26:16 PM
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I think you may be under estimating how much supplies two people would need to last them forty years
15/11/2010 07:50:24 PM
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Re: I think you may be under estimating how much supplies two people would need to last them forty
15/11/2010 10:20:48 PM
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Re: I think you may be under estimating how much supplies two people would need to last them forty
15/11/2010 11:26:51 PM
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I half-expected the body of this post to read "... for their ex-wives." *NM*
15/11/2010 07:38:50 PM
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I've been. Cold, dusty, a little dry... got some pretty pictures, though. *NM*
15/11/2010 10:26:43 PM
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Paul Davies wrote one of my favorite books: God and the New Physics. Excellent book.
16/11/2010 04:52:03 AM
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Can we nominate passengers?
16/11/2010 01:52:06 PM
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