When Will We Send Astronauts to Mars?

[Binary_Bark]

I applaud pioneers like elon musk to do governments dirty work,
but don't be surprised if suddenly he cuts his space dream short, or suddenly one of his companies runs into financial issues,
or numerous other 1 in a million things happen to keep him or his companies firmly on the ground....

It seems you are being a bit prophetic there: Was SpaceX’s Lost Falcon 9 The Victim Of Sabotage?

 

[C4Cat]

think about it, the moon landings happened in the 70's when computers were the size of a small building,
the guidance computer had how much processor power?

where are we now? 2016, when every housewife has the power of a supercomputer from the mid 70's available at home,
and calculations that took a week are now done in hours, if not min with cloud computing....

and yet space tech hasn't moved much since that high of the 70's, yes we build the ISS and robots and such things,
but besides that, nothing much else,

show me a field of human endevour that hasn't advanced since one big precipice....
something is deeply wrong with the entire enterprise, why cant more people see that?


let me give you an analogy, that maybe explains my point better,
I mean its as if we invented the motor car, and left it at that, still with a speed limit or 4 KM/H and extremely expensive and unreliable.
in the meanwhile we invented roads and everything else, but haven't touched the motor car for everybody.
wouldn't you also think that is wrong?

I wouldn't say the ISS is nothing, that is a huge achievement. Much more impressive than landing on the moon.

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

It seems you are being a bit prophetic there: Was SpaceX’s Lost Falcon 9 The Victim Of Sabotage?

maybe, maybe not, nobody can prove anything at this stage, but if its ture,
there will be a revolution among the scientific community, as people will protest at what the trillions of dollars spent on space tech as done so far...

maybe there will be some answers that make sense soon enough....

and maybe we can finally know what really happened in 1969 and since then....

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

I wouldn't say the ISS is nothing, that is a huge achievement. Much more impressive than landing on the moon.

ISS is really great, really a marvel of our time,

but technically its still on earth, its not high enough to be exposed to solar radiation, and a lab for human survival in space....
so yes that is great, but not enough, and nothing further being done with it?

I mean nobody has decided to build a rotating part that simulate gravity, for long voyages,
and nobody has tried to build a effective shield for micrometeorites or a way to get rid of space junk.

and nobody has attempted to build an effective space keeping propulsion system for it, besides freighters that dock with it to push it higher...

so many things haven't been attempted,

 

[C4Cat]

ISS is really great, really a marvel of our time,

but technically its still on earth, its not high enough to be exposed to solar radiation, and a lab for human survival in space....
so yes that is great, but not enough, and nothing further being done with it?

I mean nobody has decided to build a rotating part that simulate gravity, for long voyages,
and nobody has tried to build a effective shield for micrometeorites or a way to get rid of space junk.

and nobody has attempted to build an effective space keeping propulsion system for it, besides freighters that dock with it to push it higher...

so many things haven't been attempted,

Yeah, as someone else said, I think that just comes down to limited budget. In the 60's exploring space was a high priority, part of the USA exerting it's power and influence but that waned and other, more earthbound concerns, took higher priority

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

Yeah, as someone else said, I think that just comes down to limited budget. In the 60's exploring space was a high priority, part of the USA exerting it's power and influence but that waned and other, more earthbound concerns, took higher priority

100% agree with you, in the 60's and early 80's and 90's

we now past the first decade of the new century, by now technology has advanced, and many more billionaires have been created.
but yet nobody has built their own space station, or copied or brought a old russian space plane to use to fly into orbit,

I dont discount what your saying, but part of me says there is more to the story then if you do some digging

 

[Drifter]

Don't be like that now!

I'm sure if we club togheter we can at least send Thor and Yorkie to space.
What does it cost to lauch a trash can into space?

If you promise to send Ngwe23 with, I'll club in.

 

[Binary_Bark]

100% agree with you, in the 60's and early 80's and 90's

we now past the first decade of the new century, by now technology has advanced, and many more billionaires have been created.
but yet nobody has built their own space station, or copied or brought a old Russian space plane to use to fly into orbit,

I don't discount what your saying, but part of me says there is more to the story then if you do some digging

That is the thing, the biggest technological advancements where because of a war, Apollo was a result of the WW and the cold war.
Not saying we need a war, but as you have said before we need a big event, something similar to a world war to start the spark again.

Put fake nukes in space facing the US, things will pickup very quickly then

 

[Willie Trombone]

Only one man can answer this
Where is Wayne these days?

 

[Willie Trombone]

http://www.space.com/34210-elon-musk-unveils-spacex-mars-colony-ship.html

SpaceX's Elon Musk Unveils Interplanetary Spaceship to Colonize Mars

Now we know how Elon Musk plans to get 1 million people to Mars.

At a conference in Mexico today (Sept. 27), the SpaceX founder and CEO unveiled the company's Interplanetary Transport System (ITS), which will combine the most powerful rocket ever built with a spaceship designed to carry at least 100 people to the Red Planet per flight.

If all goes according to plan, the reusable ITS will help humanity establish a permanent, self-sustaining colony on the Red Planet within the next 50 to 100 years, Musk said at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara. [SpaceX's Interplanetary Transport for Mars in Images]

"What I really want to do here is to make Mars seem possible — make it seem as though it's something that we could do in our lifetimes, and that you can go," he said.

The ITS rocket will be more or less a scaled-up version of the first stage of SpaceX's Falcon 9 booster, Musk said. But the 254-foot-tall (77.5 meters) ITS booster will feature 42 Raptor engines, whereas the Falcon 9 is powered by nine Merlins. When combined with its crewed spaceship, the ITS will stand a full 400 feet (122 m) high, Musk wrote on Twitter. That would make it the largest spaceflight system ever built, taller even than NASA's legendary Saturn V moon rocket.

The Raptor engine, which SpaceX recently test-fired for the first time, is about the same size as Merlin but three times more powerful, Musk said. ITS will therefore be an incredibly potent machine, capable of lofting 300 tons to low-Earth orbit (LEO) — more than two times more than Saturn V could lift. (That's for ITS's reusable version; an expendable variant could launch about 550 tons to LEO, Musk said.)

The spaceship, which sits atop the booster, will be 162 feet (49.5 m) tall and 56 feet (17 m) wide and will have nine Raptors of its own. The booster will launch the spaceship to Earth orbit, then return to make a soft landing at its launch site, which is currently envisioned to be Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. [Fly Through SpaceX's Interplanetary Spaceship | Video]

The spaceship will lift off with little if any fuel on board, to maximize the payload — people, cargo or a combination of both — that the craft is able to carry to orbit. An ITS booster will therefore launch again, topped with a tanker, and rendezvous with the orbiting spaceship to fill its tank.

Then, when the timing is right — Earth and Mars align favorably for interplanetary missions just once every 26 months — the spaceship portion of the ITS will turn its engines on and blast from Earth orbit toward the Red Planet.

The spaceship will be capable of transporting at least 100 and perhaps as many as 200 people, Musk said. It will also likely feature movie theaters, lecture halls and a restaurant, giving the Red Planet pioneers a far different experience than that enjoyed by NASA's Apollo astronauts, who were crammed into a tiny capsule on their way to the moon.

"It'll be, like, really fun to go," Musk said. "You'll have a great time."
This SpaceX graphic shows how the capabilities of the company's Interplanetary Transport for Mars stacks up to NASA's massive Saturn V moon rocket.
This SpaceX graphic shows how the capabilities of the company's Interplanetary Transport for Mars stacks up to NASA's massive Saturn V moon rocket.
Credit: SpaceX

The powerful Raptors will allow the ship to make the trip in as little as 80 days initially, depending on exactly where Earth and Mars are at the time, Musk said. That's a pretty quick trip; it takes six to nine months for spacecraft to reach the Red Planet using currently available technology. And Musk said he eventually thinks the ITS ship will be able to cut the travel time to just 30 days or so.

There won't be just one ship making the journey. When the ITS is really up and running, 1,000 or more of the ships will zoom off to Mars every 26 months.

"The Mars colonial fleet would depart en masse," Musk said.

This fleet would land on Mars using "supersonic retropropulsion," slowing down enough to touch down softly by firing onboard thrusters rather than relying on parachutes. SpaceX said it plans to test this landing technique during the company's upcoming "Red Dragon" mission, which aims to launch SpaceX's uncrewed Dragon capsule toward Mars in May 2018.

Not a one-way trip

SpaceX also plans to build a solar-powered factory on Mars that will use the carbon dioxide and water ice in the planet's air and soil, respectively, to generate methane and oxygen — the propellant used by the Raptor engine. (Musk didn't discuss other aspects of the Mars colony; SpaceX is concentrating on the transportation architecture, reasoning that the colonists themselves will build most of the city they live in.) [SpaceX's Interplanetary Ship Could Go Beyond Mars | Video]

The ITS spaceships will be refueled on Mars and will launch back to Earth from there, meaning prospective colonists don't have to stay on the Red Planet forever if they don't want to. (Getting off Mars doesn't require a big rocket, because the planet is much smaller than Earth and therefore has a weaker gravitational pull.)

"We need the spaceship back, so it's coming," Musk said. "You can jump on board or not."

Each ITS spaceship will probably be able to fly at least a dozen times, and each booster should see even more action, Musk said. This reusability is the key component of SpaceX's plan, and should be the chief driver in bringing the price of a Mars trip — which Musk said would cost about $10 billion per person using today's technology — down to reasonable levels.

"The architecture allows for a cost per ticket of less than $200,000," Musk said. "We think that the cost of moving to Mars ultimately could drop below $100,000."

Coming soon?

Fewer than 5 percent of SpaceX's personnel are working on the ITS at the moment, Musk said. And the company is currently spending just a few tens of millions of dollars on the project every year, which Musk estimated would ultimately require a company investment of about $10 billion.

But that should change as SpaceX wraps up work on the final version of the Falcon 9 and its crewed Dragon capsule, which will carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station for NASA (and perhaps ferry folks to other destinations close to Earth), Musk said.

Within two years, Musk aims to be devoting most of SpaceX's engineers to ITS, and to be spending perhaps $300 million annually on the project. He envisions other organizations eventually aiding SpaceX in Mars colonization as well, saying the effort will be a "huge public-private partnership."

He said he hopes to complete the first development of the spaceship within four years, then start suborbital testing shortly thereafter. If everything goes really well, Musk said, the ITS could be launching on its first Mars mission "within the 10-year time frame."

In the meantime, SpaceX plans to keep launching Dragons toward the Red Planet every 26 months using the company's Falcon Heavy rocket, to test technology and to establish a "steady cadence" of robotic missions that scientists could take advantage of to send experiments to Mars, Musk said.

The ITS could also be used for many other things, possibly enabling human exploration of Jupiter's ocean-harboring moon Europa or allowing cargo to get from New York to Tokyo in just 25 minutes, Musk said. But for now, the main goal is colonizing Mars, which Musk has long said is the reason he started SpaceX back in 2002.

"The objective is to become a spacefaring civilization and a multiplanet species," the billionaire entrepreneur said, adding that doing so will make humanity far less susceptible to extinction. "The main reason I'm personally accumulating assets is to fund this."

 

[Willie Trombone]

[video=youtube;0qo78R_yYFA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qo78R_yYFA[/video]

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

That is the thing, the biggest technological advancements where because of a war, Apollo was a result of the WW and the cold war.
Not saying we need a war, but as you have said before we need a big event, something similar to a world war to start the spark again.

Put fake nukes in space facing the US, things will pickup very quickly then

so humanities future is based in the hands of a few elite government fatcats?
so they potentially screwing everything up for future generations and don't even know about it.

 

[Binary_Bark]

so humanities future is based in the hands of a few elite government fatcats?
so they potentially screwing everything up for future generations and don't even know about it.

For now, humanity's biggest problem and hold back is the eggshells called "religion"

Just think how far we would have come without it.

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

For now, humanity's biggest problem and hold back is the eggshells called "religion"

Just think how far we would have come without it.

do agree with you there, what makes one specific place in the world the epicenter of 3 main religions,
even though there is nothing of material/economic benefit to be found there.

will that situation change? probably not, as its hardwired into our brains, the need to believe in something.
whether that is G_d, or the FSM or tom cruise

as for the space topic,
I don't see anything changing, many of these billionaires have nice dreams, but all powerful governments that prevent those dreams from happening.

sad situation we find ourselves in, maybe this is why JFK was assassinated,
but my tin foil hat is falling off, I better get a pin to hold it in.

 

[Binary_Bark]

/snip

Elon Musk's presentation seems to have stirred something

Boeing vows to beat Elon Musk to Mars

Boeing once helped the US beat the Soviet Union in the race to the moon.

Now the company intends to go toe-to-toe with newcomers such as billionaire Elon Musk in the next era of space exploration and commerce.

Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg sketched out a Jetsons-like future at a conference Tuesday, envisioning a commercial space-travel market with dozens of destinations orbiting the Earth and hypersonic aircraft shuttling travelers between continents in two hours or less.

And Boeing intends to be a key player in the initial push to send humans to Mars, maybe even beating Musk to his long-time goal.

“I’m convinced the first person to step foot on Mars will arrive there riding a Boeing rocket,” Muilenburg said at the Chicago event on innovation, which was sponsored by the Atlantic magazine.

Like Musk’s SpaceX, Boeing is focused on building out the commercial space sector near earth as spaceflight becomes more routine, while developing technology to venture far beyond the moon.

The Chicago-based aerospace giant is working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to develop a heavy-lift rocket called the Space Launch System for deep space exploration. Boeing and SpaceX are also the first commercial companies NASA selected to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station.\

Mars Transport

Musk last week welcomed competitors as he unveiled a SpaceX craft that would dwarf the workhorse of Apollo missions of a half-century ago, hauling 100 travellers to Mars with cruise-ship-style amenities.

“The goal of SpaceX really is to build the transport system. It’s like building the Union Pacific railroad,” Musk told a space conference, as he laid out a plan to bring travel to Mars to a mass market with tickets priced one day as low as $100 000.

Boeing built the first stage for the Saturn V, the most powerful U.S. rocket ever built, which took men to the moon.

Nowadays, Muilenburg sees space tourism closer to home “blossoming over the next couple of decades into a viable commercial market.”

The International Space Station could be joined in low-earth orbit by dozens of hotels and companies pursuing micro-gravity manufacturing and research, he said.

“I think it’s a fascinating area for us,” he said.

Muilenburg said Boeing will make spacecraft for the new era of tourists. He also sees potential for hypersonic aircraft, traveling at upwards of three times the speed of sound.

Science Fiction

Boeing and Lockheed Martin are among the space heavyweights developing experimental aircraft that could fly U.S. travelers at speeds right out of a science fiction movie.

Lockheed’s Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 is being designed to zip through the sky at Mach 20 (about 13,000 miles per hour), flying between New York and Los Angeles in 12 minutes. Boeing’s X-51A WaveRider, which relied on its own shock waves for compression lift, reached Mach 5.1 in 2013.

Costs will need to drop substantially before these experimental spacecraft can be seriously considered for commercial use, Muilenburg said.

“That business model isn’t closed yet. At some point it will,” he said. “The future of innovation has to include not only the technology, but economic viability.”

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

and then we will find out that they been pursuing space projects for a while now, in secret,

and the US govt will go with them natch.....

 

[satanboy]

100% agree with you, problem is I think there is something holding us back,
I belive it is an artificial barrier, that been put in place for some reason,

what it is? one can speculate, treaty with ET, radiation poisoning, other factors maybe?

but humanities future as you so rightly put it isn't on Earth at all,
mars, maybe, or a space station build to our specifications with artificial gravity adjusted to us,

We are living in the matrix.

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

We are living in the matrix.

who knows?

\stop kicking my chair Morpheus.....

 

[SauRoNZA]

Surely it would be much more simple to keep Earth habitable (artificially or otherwise) than trying to do the same on Mars?

I reckon we'll see more unmanned space mining in the future rather than a real effort to colonise Mars.