Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Goober5000 on February 22, 2013, 10:18:11 am
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At the moment, all the information is based on technical analysis and leaked news reports, but the mood surrounding this is cautiously optimistic. Here's the official part:
The Inspiration Mars Foundation, a newly formed nonprofit organization led by American space traveler and entrepreneur Dennis Tito, invites you to attend a press conference detailing its plans to take advantage of a unique window of opportunity to launch an historic journey to Mars and back in 501 days, starting in January 2018. This “Mission for America” will generate new knowledge, experience and momentum for the next great era of space exploration. It is intended to encourage all Americans to believe again, in doing the hard things that make our nation great, while inspiring youth through Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and motivation.
(from http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=31160.0)
Here's what is based on leaks:
This publication obtained a copy of the paper Tito et al. plan to present at the conference, discussing a crewed free-return Mars mission that would fly by Mars, but not go into orbit around the planet or land on it. This 501-day mission would launch in January 2018, using a modified SpaceX Dragon spacecraft launched on a Falcon Heavy rocket. According to the paper, existing environmental control and life support system (ECLSS) technologies would allow such a spacecraft to support two people for the mission, although in Spartan condition. “Crew comfort is limited to survival needs only. For example, sponge baths are acceptable, with no need for showers,” the paper states.
(from http://www.newspacejournal.com/2013/02/21/new-insights-on-that-private-crewed-mars-mission/)
Here's a pretty good opinion piece with summary and speculation:
http://news.discovery.com/space/private-spaceflight/space-tourist-mission-to-mars-in-2018-130221.htm
We'll know more after the press conference on February 27th.
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By 'actual' we mean 'totally notional right now' ofc
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tbh I would rather see this sort of thing pushed back a few years for a 4 person crew basis with an actual mission such as dropping and recovering a probe, droping some equipment in prep for a crewed surface mission or some such, before returning. A "minimum expendature" proof of concept there and back seems a bit thin for such a huge endeavour, ok the survival data will be necessary for any large scale mission but, I dont know, given that for a little more expenditure a lot more could be gained i would prefer to see something more substantial and perhaps with greater safety margines.
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I wonder if they'll be giving eachother sponge baths...
...and if they're both women
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I wonder if they'll be giving eachother sponge baths...
...and if they're both women
web cam ;7
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Interesting.
That sounds like a very unpleasant year and a half for the astronauts, though.
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Hmm... I guess you have to be American to sign up? :(
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Ha! Amerricans so far behind. Soviet Union will bury you! (http://vodo.net/pioneerone) :p
tbh I would rather see this sort of thing pushed back a few years for a 4 person crew basis with an actual mission such as dropping and recovering a probe, droping some equipment in prep for a crewed surface mission or some such, before returning. A "minimum expendature" proof of concept there and back seems a bit thin for such a huge endeavour, ok the survival data will be necessary for any large scale mission but, I dont know, given that for a little more expenditure a lot more could be gained i would prefer to see something more substantial and perhaps with greater safety margines.
Excuse me, but isn't that the kind of thinking that's been keeping us in the ground for so many years by now?
I wonder if they'll be giving eachother sponge baths...
...and if they're both women
web cam ;7
Then think of how that women might look after a year and a half in such conditions, and you will start to reconsider... :lol:
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This mission should be robotic. It would actually really own (and stand a chance of happening) if it were!
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I wonder if they'll be giving eachother sponge baths...
...and if they're both women
web cam ;7
Then think of how that women might look after a year and a half in such conditions, and you will start to reconsider... :lol:
we cant smell them, give them a year and a half supply of razors, or perhaps veet hair removed and its all good
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As long as they ae provided with an ex-military combat drone-come-science droid, then nothing can go wrong...Providing that they don't encounter some sort of carnivorous mars beetles, giant stone faces emitting strange radio waves or magicalmysticalmumbojumbo mars ghosts.
Hmm...Better send Ice Cube as well, just in case.
Did I forget any other references? Oh!
And make sure they don't send this guy:
(http://www.historiann.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/CaptainBlack.jpg)
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(http://www.historiann.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/CaptainBlack.jpg)
:yes::like:
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Sounds tough. 2018 is like, tomorrow.
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we should sent a pair of crazed lunatics. that way if it ****s up you are not minus two functional members of society.
i would like to volonteer to be one of those crazed lunatics. please make the other one a sex addicted russian chick who doesnt speak any english.
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While I understand that this is to (possibly-sorta-maybe) take place five years from now, putting two people in a cramped, hazardous environment for five hundred days is a good way to kill two people. And on top of that, you have to worry about the actual, external dangers involved in the journey.
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While I understand that this is to (possibly-sorta-maybe) take place five years from now, putting two people in a cramped, hazardous environment for five hundred days is a good way to kill two people. And on top of that, you have to worry about the actual, external dangers involved in the journey.
External you can compensate for
It's what is inside the human brain that would prove to be the bigger problem. You're being taken away from society for a long period of time cramped in a small space in space, with one other fellow. If you aren't going crazy, I wouldn't trust the other guy to be the same
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they need broadband :nod:
/me dives for cover
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A signal needs 2 minutes to get from Mars to Earth, and that's in good conditions. So, you'd end up with an unavoidable 4 minute lag on the connection. That'd be very annoying. No real-time chat, constantly getting ninja'ed on forums... If you want to drive a man crazy, that's what you give him. :)
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Are the risks of the privatization of the space industry starting to bear fruit? I'd like to think so.
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
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By 'actual' we mean 'totally notional right now' ofc
Yeah, pretty much everything at NASA right now is committed to James Webb. They've staked their existence on that project.
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By 'actual' we mean 'totally notional right now' ofc
Yeah, pretty much everything at NASA right now is committed to James Webb. They've staked their existence on that project.
Er but the mission proposed in this thread doesn't involve NASA!
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Yeah, but anybody who wants to go to Mars is almost certainly going to want their help at some stage, or access to their data, or borrow their facilities to test something, or the loan of the Vomit Comet. And right now that just isn't going to happen. If Webb fails then the agency dissolving is not an unreasonable scenario.
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The press release has occurred, and the website is now live:
http://www.inspirationmars.org/
This is pretty cool. There's a feasibility study and two other PDFs to download, and there is a large amount of technical discussion on the NASASpaceFlight.com forums. The important thing is that this proposal is more than notional, it has names and dollars behind it. In particular, Dennis Tito is committed to fully funding development for two years. Granted, he can't finance the entire project on his own, so more funding will be needed.
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The fact that they're not trying to land makes this sound like a much more feasible plan.
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Looking at the website, I find it kinda weird that there's so much emphasis put on its being an explicitly American project. Also, why does it have to be one man and one woman? I'm all for space exploration, but it seems like they're taking a "symbolic value first" approach which...I dunno, I'd like to see us do the best science possible as efficiently and effectively as possible. That's more inspiring to me than going out of our way to hit a particular milestone, no matter how cool it is.
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It's to get all the sexism remarks off their backs most likely.
Gay and lesbian couples need not apply
Tito says he's looking for a man and a woman — preferably a married couple beyond childbearing years. Cosmic Log's Alan Boyle says what everyone's thinking: "We're talking about sex in space, folks." Hot, hetero, middle-aged space sex.
Anyway, according to Tito, this is because humanity's first flight to Mars should be represented by both genders, and because when you're that far from home, "you're going to need someone you can hug."
http://io9.com/5987372/everything-we-know-about-dennis-titos-2018-human-mission-to-mars
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I dunno, I'd like to see us do the best science possible as efficiently and effectively as possible. That's more inspiring to me than going out of our way to hit a particular milestone, no matter how cool it is.
Yeah, but... we already have a nuclear-powered compact car on Mars using a space drill and a dirt oven.
And that's really cool and all, but this would be people flying by Mars.
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The goal for this mission seems to be more "We can build a spacecraft capable of transporting humans to Mars and back", rather than "Go to Mars and do science there". Of course there's going to be a few things for these people to do once they are in orbit around Mars, but getting there and back without major equipment failure, or major psychological failure, is the important part for now.
Just like the first few missions to the moon were round trips, rather than landings.
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Just like the first few missions to the moon were round trips, rather than landings.
The big difference there, though, is that those Apollo missions were direct stepping-stones toward a future planned and designed landing. While the novelty of sending a pair of humans on a round-trip fly-by to Mars is admittedly pretty cool, it leaves me thinking, "Okay...but then what?"
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While I understand that this is to (possibly-sorta-maybe) take place five years from now, putting two people in a cramped, hazardous environment for five hundred days is a good way to kill two people. And on top of that, you have to worry about the actual, external dangers involved in the journey.
I disagree, it's in fact quite an inefficient way to kill two people.
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Just like the first few missions to the moon were round trips, rather than landings.
The big difference there, though, is that those Apollo missions were direct stepping-stones toward a future planned and designed landing. While the novelty of sending a pair of humans on a round-trip fly-by to Mars is admittedly pretty cool, it leaves me thinking, "Okay...but then what?"
Then we build a bigger ship, larger crew, and an objective to orbit and possible put a lander on the planet itself
This to me seems like a massive data collection using living subjects, and I support that. Afterall, without data, we can't project projects of a further nature accurately. Crawl before you walk, walk before you run, run before you fly and land on a ****ing planet close to two years away from here!
Sidenote: We could see strides in rocket technology between here and 2018 which could reduce the 501 days
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those advances would have to be made fairly soon to be viable in the design and build time in the project
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once they are in orbit around Mars
As a nitpick, they won't go into orbit on this mission. They'll just fly by. They'll spend about 10 hours in the vicinity of the planet, though, which is enough time to make some decent observations and take pictures. They will get as close as 100 miles to the surface.
The big difference there, though, is that those Apollo missions were direct stepping-stones toward a future planned and designed landing. While the novelty of sending a pair of humans on a round-trip fly-by to Mars is admittedly pretty cool, it leaves me thinking, "Okay...but then what?"
The biggest problem with a Mars mission is just surviving in deep space for the length of time needed to travel there and back again. There are obstacles of cosmic radiation, solar radiation, equipment durability, crew psychology, and crew health to deal with. All of these problems have been studied, and solutions have even been demonstrated on Earth or on the ISS, but it's one thing to talk about it and another to actually take the plunge and do it. It's a lot easier to do something if you know it's been done (or even attempted) before.
Sidenote: We could see strides in rocket technology between here and 2018 which could reduce the 501 days
No, we couldn't. There hasn't been a major leap forward in the principles of conventional rocket design (i.e. burning kerosene and oxygen, or hydrogen and oxygen) since the sixties. All of the advances nowadays are in the field of manufacturing efficiency: materials science, integration and testing, supply-chain management, quality improvements, etc. (see SpaceX). That makes the rocket cheaper, but doesn't make it more powerful.
The only technological advancements which could reduce the travel time are alternative propulsion systems. We have made some progress in these areas (see ion propulsion, VASIMR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_Specific_Impulse_Magnetoplasma_Rocket)) but the technology isn't mature enough to put on a human spacecraft yet. In any case, something like VASIMR would require a nuclear reactor to generate the 1.21 gigawatts enough power to provide meaningful propulsion for a human mission.
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It's to get all the sexism remarks off their backs most likely.
Gay and lesbian couples need not apply
Tito says he's looking for a man and a woman — preferably a married couple beyond childbearing years. Cosmic Log's Alan Boyle says what everyone's thinking: "We're talking about sex in space, folks." Hot, hetero, middle-aged space sex.
Anyway, according to Tito, this is because humanity's first flight to Mars should be represented by both genders, and because when you're that far from home, "you're going to need someone you can hug."
http://io9.com/5987372/everything-we-know-about-dennis-titos-2018-human-mission-to-mars
Seems to me that they're setting up the first extra-orbital murder in the history of humanity.
I cannot imagine spending 501 days in 24-hour contact and proximity with my wife, and I'm sure the feeling is completely mutual for her. Yikes.
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Seems to me that they're setting up the first extra-orbital murder in the history of humanity.
I cannot imagine spending 501 days in 24-hour contact and proximity with my wife, and I'm sure the feeling is completely mutual for her. Yikes.
But would you rather it be a complete stranger, in whose selection you have had no say at all? Sending man and wife seems a reasonable idea to me... But indeed, they better be sure of the stability of their relationship.
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Seems to me that they're setting up the first extra-orbital murder in the history of humanity.
I cannot imagine spending 501 days in 24-hour contact and proximity with my wife, and I'm sure the feeling is completely mutual for her. Yikes.
But would you rather it be a complete stranger, in whose selection you have had no say at all? Sending man and wife seems a reasonable idea to me... But indeed, they better be sure of the stability of their relationship.
You'd probably get to know the other people pretty well during training. It's not like they're just gonna go find people at the bus stop 20 minutes before launch.
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"Oh by the way, here's your traveling companion"
"LIKE OMIGOD IT'S SO GREAT TO MEET YOU" - Man
*Woman stares at man* "Dafuq"
And yeah, fair point Goob
Although you misquoted Mongoose with me in that middle section
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And yeah, fair point Goob
Although you misquoted Mongoose with me in that middle section
So I did. Thanks for pointing that out; post edited.
Seems to me that they're setting up the first extra-orbital murder in the history of humanity.
I cannot imagine spending 501 days in 24-hour contact and proximity with my wife, and I'm sure the feeling is completely mutual for her. Yikes.
This is definitely a concern, but I should point out that the husband and wife team of Taber MacCallum and Jane Poynter spent two years locked in Biosphere 2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2). (Though they weren't married at the time.)
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I should also point out one is acres in measurement, the other in cubic feet
A rather obvious point, but important nonetheless.
I'd still volunteer for this trip
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The real problem? You can't play DnD with only two people.
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The real problem? You can't play DnD with only two people.
That's the reason for the bandwidth.
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Lag is a killer though. You'd be forced to PBEM pretty soon.
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Clearly they just need a crapton of Lego and a whole lot of RPing imagination
And yet somehow, someone will still step on a piece without a doubt
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What if she gets pregnant?
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What if she gets pregnant?
Tito says he's looking for a man and a woman — preferably a married couple beyond childbearing years. Cosmic Log's Alan Boyle says what everyone's thinking: "We're talking about sex in space, folks." Hot, hetero, middle-aged space sex.
Hopefully, they'll pick someone who can't, so we can just avoid the issue entirely.
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Just the idea of zero-g sex makes me laugh. Just the thought of certain..."Fluids" floating back up into ones face makes me both laugh and gag at the same time.
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Just the idea of zero-g sex makes me laugh. Just the thought of certain..."Fluids" floating back up into ones face makes me both laugh and gag at the same time.
People are really unattractive in zero-G because fluids don't drain properly in the body so everyone gets puffy and smelly.
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Sex with gas masks
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Just the idea of zero-g sex makes me laugh. Just the thought of certain..."Fluids" floating back up into ones face makes me both laugh and gag at the same time.
People are really unattractive in zero-G because fluids don't drain properly in the body so everyone gets puffy and smelly.
Way to kill my fantasies, bro. :(
Anyway, this thread has motivated me to do some reading on this, but I do agree with Mongoose to some extent. This is an awfully expensive and nasty (for the couple involved) proof of concept that we can send someone around Mars, isn't it? Especially with not as much of a research bent as there could be.
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Just the idea of zero-g sex makes me laugh. Just the thought of certain..."Fluids" floating back up into ones face makes me both laugh and gag at the same time.
People are really unattractive in zero-G because fluids don't drain properly in the body so everyone gets puffy and smelly.
Way to kill my fantasies, bro. :(
Don't worry, there's still SpaceShipTwo. You'll be able to get four minutes' worth of weightlessness for a minimum of expense.
Anyway, this thread has motivated me to do some reading on this, but I do agree with Mongoose to some extent. This is an awfully expensive and nasty (for the couple involved) proof of concept that we can send someone around Mars, isn't it? Especially with not as much of a research bent as there could be.
You're forgetting that plenty of research will be involved in putting together the life support systems, radiation shields, etc., as well as psychological and physiological accommodation.
Incidentally, I've been keeping my eye out for any attempts to fly this in Orbiter Spaceflight Simulator, and sure enough, one of the intrepid modders at the Orbiter forum (http://orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=30508) is on the case. He's already done it with the Delta Glider, and he's going to make an attempt with the Dragon and Falcon Heavy this weekend.
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Four minutes is plenty of time! :P
And that's true, I am forgetting that. But do you think this mission is maximising utility in terms of what could be efficiently achieved?
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Probably not, and while I love efficiency, I'd rather see something just get done than us just keep piddling around waiting for.... something.
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That's fair enough. The sooner we get to Mars, the better, I suppose!
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:bump:
Inspiration Mars released the results of their architecture study today, in testimony to the House Subcommittee on Space.
Press Release (http://www.inspirationmars.org/IM%20press%20release_Arch%20Summary-Testimony_11-19-13.pdf)
Testimony to Congress (http://www.inspirationmars.org/Written_Testimony_DTito_Nov2013.pdf)
Architecture Study Report (http://www.inspirationmars.org/IM%20Architecture%20Study%20Report%20Summary.pdf)
Architecture Study Fact Sheet (http://www.inspirationmars.org/IM%20Architecture%20Study%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf)
It uses a Cygnus spacecraft to provide the electrical power, avionics, and habitation volume; an Orion to provide the re-entry craft; a commercial crew launch to provide the astronauts; and the SLS rocket to launch the whole thing toward Mars.