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Go to Mars

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  • 16-04-2009 2:14pm
    #1
    Kevster
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,980 ✭✭✭


    Given the opportunity, would you like to be on the first spaceship that goes to Mars? Obviously, as it would be the first mission there, it would be high risk (an innumerable amount of things could go wrong). I think that the roundtrip would also take over 3 years (allowing for time on the surface too).

    I'd definately go, because I don't see there as being too much things keeping me here on earth; but what do you think?


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    #2
    regob
    Registered Users Posts: 1,418 ✭✭✭regob


    yeah i think i would like to be on it, to good of an experience to give up


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    #3
    dmcdona
    Registered Users Posts: 1,188 ✭✭✭dmcdona


    I'd be a bit more conservative and maybe go on the second/third trip - assuming the previous journey's had been successful and everyone made it back in one piece...

    I think the biggest hurdle to a manned Mars mission is exposure to radiation and possibly the provision of life-support consumables (oxygen, food etc) during what would be a very long round-trip.


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    #4
    Kevster
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,980 ✭✭✭Kevster


    Muscular wastage would be a problem too, because without gravity we don't need the fundamental 'support' muscles (which normally prevent our bodies from collapsing here on Earth).


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    #5
    Hauk
    Registered Users Posts: 588 ✭✭✭Hauk


    I'd love to go.

    I wish they'd hurry up :(

    Hauk


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    #6
    Kevster
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,980 ✭✭✭Kevster


    I think they've discussed using Phobos (Mars' biggest moon) as a stop-off point for future missions to Mars. I suppose that in the long term future, the Moon (Earth's one!) could be used as a kind of stop-off point too. The shuttle programme might be coming to an end, but there are still exciting times ahead for cosmology and space exploration.

    I mean, New Horizons is well on it's way to Pluto (arrives in 2014); a recent mission has been announced to land a probe on Europa (one of Jupiter's moons, and contains water); and the US intends to have a base on the Moon by 2020.


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    #7
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,962 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    If you survived then you would be on the gravy train for life.

    lots of time in low g environments too

    mars is dark and cold though


    the moon isn't that good a stop off point unless you are taking on fuel as the delta v is about the same as mars

    590px-Deltavs.svg.png
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget

    space shuttle was just a great big money pit, they cancelled a program that would have lead to a reusable vehicle in the 1966's weighing about 5 tonnes
    http://www.astronautix.com/craft/dynasoar.htm
    The space shuttle orbiter weighs more than skylab and there was another 25 tonnes of external tank taken to 98% of orbital velocity. Most of the flights did not need the full payload capacity.


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