"Why We Can’t Send Humans to Mars Yet " Topic

"While humans have dreamed about going to Mars practically since it was discovered, an actual mission in the foreseeable future is finally starting to feel like a real possibility.

But how real is it?

NASA says it's serious about one day doing a manned mission while private companies are jockeying to present ever-more audacious plans to get there. And equally important, public enthusiasm for the Red Planet is riding high after the Curiosity rover's spectacular landing and photo-rich mission.

Earlier this month, scientists, NASA officials, private space company representatives and other members of the spaceflight community gathered in Washington D.C. for three days to discuss all the challenges at the Humans to Mars (H2M) conference, hosted by the spaceflight advocacy group Explore Mars, which has called for a mission that would send astronauts in the 2030s.

But the Martian dust devil is in the details, and there is still one big problem: We currently lack the technology to get people to Mars and back. An interplanetary mission of that scale would likely be one of the most expensive and difficult engineering challenges of the 21st century.

"Mars is pretty far away," NASA's director of the International Space Station, Sam Scimemi said during the H2M conference. "It's six orders of magnitude further than the space station. We would need to develop new ways to live away from the Earth and that's never been done before. Ever."

There are some pretty serious gaps in our abilities, including the fact that we can't properly store the necessary fuel long enough for a Mars trip, we don't yet have a vehicle capable of landing people on the Martian surface, and we aren't entirely sure what it will take to keep them alive once there. A large part of the H2M summit involved panelists discussing the various obstacles to a manned Mars mission…"
Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

Yeah, that water thing is a sticky wicket. 'So here's the plan, we drop you onto the plaet (somehow) and you take out this divining rod and get yourself some water real quick. Oh, and if you do find it and all die from some little pathogenic organism/parasite in the water, well then, you go down in the History books as the folks who proved there is life on Mars!

Well, we can send them there, and probably could have done that about 50 years, or so ago.

Getting them back, and alive make it a little harder.

I've got some people I'd be willing to send on a mission today, if I had funding for a rocket booster, and small capsule.

Perhaps a good, Kickstarter project to consider…….

Well for the cost of the F-35 we probably could have sent them on a mission to Mars. It's a matter of priorities.

The article is a bit inaccurate. "We don't have the technology" actually means "we don't have engineered, tested and manufactured devices" to do the task, not "we don't know how to do it." We have the technological potential to send people to Mars, survive, and return— that is, we understand the science and the engineering necessity behind it all, and can do all of those things to create what we need. We just haven't actually engineered any of the actual technology needed. Which is pretty much true of any "it's never been done before" endeavor. The actual tech doesn't appear until you start creating the actual tech. Duh.

As for getting there and back, an Orion pulse system could pull it off in a matter of days. We're just too hidebound to develop and use what amounts to mid-20th century tech. If we *did* use it, we could easily send all the life support resources needed to maintain whatever number of scientists we chose to send for however long we felt would be necessary. Heck, build two Orion craft, and we can ship supplies on a regular basis.

Here's what needs to be done:

1.) Call a meeting of the signatory nations to the Outer Space Treaty and add a codicil allowing the non-military use of dedicated nuclear pulse spacecraft. If you have to, get the nuclear nations to all participate so that nobody whines about one nation having "bombs in space."

2.) De-classify the DARPA files on the Orion project and provide those materials as a basis for engineering a modern version of the vessel. With improved construction techniques and all the advances in space tech and computer tech over the last five decades, it shouldn't be too hard to develop an improved Orion design, especially one scaled down to a smaller crew complement— say a dozen or so? (The original Orion design had a crew of around 70 and was intended to fly to Saturn.)
If some of the files are considered too sensitive for declassification, at least make the status be whatever is necessary to have engineers design and build the needed components.

3.) Begin earnestly designing and testing manned rovers and suitable Mars suits.

4.) Simultaneously, begin selecting personnel and training them for the mission. Frankly, given Orion's capabilities, the majority should be scientists from the get go, though of course a mission commander, copilot, doctor and ship's technician/engineer should be part of the mix.
Let's see: Commander, Co-pilot, Engineer, Doctor, Aresologist (a geologist specializing on Mars "geology"), Xeno/microbiologist, Ares-climatologist, Astronomer. That's eight. Double up on the aresologist and microbiologist positions, and you've got room for two more.
Note that part of the training should be in the technology of the devices being used— we want people capable of on-the-spot repairs, if necessary, 'cause the Geek Squad ain't coming to help out if something goes wrong.

There you go. I'll bet it could be done in less than a decade.

Room for two more? How about the empath with cleavage and the red shirt security guy?

Hmm. Just lost my rant.

Nevermind. I don't care.

Suffice to say Orion gets us there in 4 weeks, single stage. We could get there in 20 days.

We just don't have the will and everything, yes including the R/C cars sent to Mars, just plain sucks.

Vikings came back with bible-thick data but no one cared. We don't need more probes. We need someone with the sand to pick up, ignore the various interests that will never be solved, and get to Mars and everywhere else.

What Parzival said.

And don't forget to pack your thermals and a muffler. I hear its kinda cold.

What you need is for the Chinese to say they will get there FIRST…

I'm waiting for Iran to say that.

We'll need at least one squirrel expert …

Great thread Parzival.
I enjoy it very much.

Amicalement
Armand

Iran has already been there. That's how they developed the technology for their stealth fighter.

We won't send men to Mars for the same reason we no longer send men to the Moon.

There's no point. There's nothing a man can do that the same cost in robots can't do much better.

Even if technically feasible (and people always leave out the fact that trip requires a shielded spacecraft) it is farcically expensive. Money that would be spent on earth much more usefully, and still have room for several vanity propaganda projects.

Parzival manages to leave out that we still have to get them to and from the surface. Sending a man to Mars orbit is nothing like the problem of sending one down and back again. Mars has substantial gravity and it will take quite a big rocket to get them out of it.

We need to transport a largish rocket to Mars, in such a way that it can be set up so that it can make the return trip. Without heavy machinery to do so. Not just flinging it down and hoping it doesn't break like we currently do. Somehow we have to get it down smoothly, in a deep gravity well and almost no atmosphere.

It's not going to happen.

"No bucks … No Buck Rogers … "

Parzival manages to leave out that we still have to get them to and from the surface. Sending a man to Mars orbit is nothing like the problem of sending one down and back again. Mars has substantial gravity and it will take quite a big rocket to get them out of it.

We need to transport a largish rocket to Mars, in such a way that it can be set up so that it can make the return trip. Without heavy machinery to do so. Not just flinging it down and hoping it doesn't break like we currently do. Somehow we have to get it down smoothly, in a deep gravity well and almost no atmosphere.

It's not going to happen.

And who says an Orion can't land? It sure as heck can take off from Mars. Nuclear charges don't give a carp what planet you're on. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM, you're in Mars orbit, BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM you're at escape velocity.

But heck, with an Orion you could transport a Delta Clipper SSTO type vehicle to Mars. Fuel can be created in situ (read Robert Zubrin's The Case for Mars), or carried on the Orion. Yes, Mars has gravity— but it's 1/3 of Earth's— I'm betting the SSTO Clipper concept would work easily on Mars.

Radiation shielding is damn easy with an Orion— the pusher plate is already a shield; orient it towards the sun, problem solved. Otherwise, transport a lot of water (you need it anyway), and encircle the crew areas with the water tanks. Either way, Orion can do the job. And we can build it NOW.

Yes, bucks are part of the problem. But so is political will.

Lastly, robots, schmobots. I dispute that the rovers can do everything a human can do, if only because the rovers can't think for themselves. And they move at a snail's pace, too. But that's beside the point. The point is, that we humans have all our eggs in one very fragile basket— Earth. We'd better figure out how to get off this rock and stay off this rock, or we're goners as a species.

And, in the end, I want our kids to look at technology and dream of something a little bet better than a fancy new smartphone.

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?

Instead of giving them their every whim, we ought to be giving them the stars.