Sending people to Mars...

xrapidx

xrapidx

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This whole rover thing got me thinking, one day when we're ready to send a manned mission to Mars... will it be a one way trip? :confused:
 
well the mars is larger (thus more gravity) and has an thicker atmosphere than the moon, so after landing you would need a lot of fuel basically a second rocket for them to leave Mars' surface.
 
With current tech we can't protect astronauts adequately either way tbh. Shortest possible time in space is currently ~1000 days for a Mars trip (thats return). Thats pretty much suicide. Solar flares are powerful enough to knock out entire power grids here on earth...despite us having an atmosphere & being shielded by the earth's magnetic field. In short its a sht-load of energy.

So until we find a way to prevent extra crispy astronauts we're not going to mars. Shouldn't take too long until the tech is ready though.

To answer the question: Return trip will be easier. We can maybe keep someone alive for 1000 days in space soonish...but the rest of their lives is still quite a long way off until thats possible.

There is another solution though: If you can find a way to get there dramatically faster then you can skip a lot of troubles & just accept the remaining risks. For that we'd need something like Mach 100 though...with current tech we can't get a person much higher than Mach 20 safely.

GforceD said:
well the mars is larger (thus more gravity) and has an thicker atmosphere than the moon
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The moon has no atmosphere.

GforceD said:
so after landing you would need a lot of fuel basically a second rocket for them to leave Mars' surface.
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Actually ~1/4 of a rocket will suffice (compared to earth launch).
 
HavocXphere said:
With current tech we can't protect astronauts adequately either way tbh. Shortest possible time in space is currently ~1000 days for a Mars trip (thats return). Thats pretty much suicide. Solar flares are powerful enough to knock out entire power grids here on earth...despite us having an atmosphere & being shielded by the earth's magnetic field. In short its a sht-load of energy.
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Actually the tech does exists to shield astronauts, it's just very cumbersome and would be hellishly expensive to lift up in a rocket. You'd have to shield the spacecraft with a combination of lead, water and plastics. Increasing the weight of any spacecraft exponentially. This shielding would also not be 100% effective, it would just considerable reduce the radiation exposure.
 
I'm not going in to space until they invent plausible artificial gravity. Being weightless for a while is probably very cool, but I'm pretty sure it gets hell annoying after a while (especially on the length of trip to Mars).
 
Yes the shielding they use is only effective for short periods of time. What really protects them is the drugs an astronaught takes before flight that counters radiation. However its not good enough for extended periods of time.

Easy to make artifical gravity you just got to spin, however microgravity is extremely bad. Most likely none of us here will survive a trip to space. Even for a short period of time, our CVS will collapse in that conditions. Remember you have to be an extremely fit person to go to space.
 
Crusader said:
Actually the tech does exists to shield astronauts, it's just very cumbersome and would be hellishly expensive to lift up in a rocket. You'd have to shield the spacecraft with a combination of lead, water and plastics. Increasing the weight of any spacecraft exponentially. This shielding would also not be 100% effective, it would just considerable reduce the radiation exposure.
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Realistically it would have to be some type of energy field to do the shielding. i.e. Duplicate the magnetic field that shields us here on earth. That tech does not exist yet. But yes, technically lead & water would work too though the weight would kill the travel speed, leading to longer exposure & back to square 1.
 
HavocXphere said:
Realistically it would have to be some type of energy field to do the shielding. i.e. Duplicate the magnetic field that shields us here on earth. That tech does not exist yet. But yes, technically lead & water would work too though the weight would kill the travel speed, leading to longer exposure & back to square 1.
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That wont save you from UVc radiation
 
RiaX said:
Yes the shielding they use is only effective for short periods of time. What really protects them is the drugs an astronaught takes before flight that counters radiation. However its not good enough for extended periods of time.

Easy to make artifical gravity you just got to spin, however microgravity is extremely bad. Most likely none of us here will survive a trip to space. Even for a short period of time, our CVS will collapse in that conditions. Remember you have to be an extremely fit person to go to space.
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Yes I was going to also mention I'm not fond of radiation either :)

Regarding centrifugal force to create gravity, the fact is that it's not really gravity and is cumbersome to implement to use in a complex craft design. It's definitely is the solution for now, but I was thinking along the lines of actual graviton manipulation, if that ever even becomes remotely possible. Would be sweet.
 
The only way you can do that is to warp space-time fabric. The earth itself barely warps the fabric, earth's gravity is due mainly to the roation on the axis. Only things like the sun warp space time significantly. A man made craft isnt going to be able to do this. Secondly our knowledge of gravity stops at the theorized graviton, even if correct then could create gravity my manipulating those sub atomic particle however then ship is going to need a particle accelerator. I say just make the ship a cyclinder and the crew cabin like a gyroscope type thing and let it spin

I wonder if that would work though? :/
 
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