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| Maybe for Elon Musk a human trip to Mars could be little unrealistic with current technology |
Technological Challenges to a Human Mars Mission .
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| Musk's Star Ship X has still to reach high altitudes , and safely land in one piece . |
Mars , or anything to do with space exploration has its hazards. The moon is within reach of humankind, its really the easiest as demonstrated by the Apollo Program. Mars is father , much more distant even at it's closest approach , much more "dangerous" as in respect to our current technology . As for technology we have now , if you look at Musk's concepts they are pure 1960 tech . Anything going to Mars is going to require a Star Trek type technology. A space ship with a crew of 20 men and women , a ship large enough to carry oxygen , food, water . The space ship alone has to use some kind of nuclear power engine rather than a chemical propulsion engine . NASA's human Mars mission presents even more challenges of sending humans safely to a farther distance and to a more dangerous environment. Designing an aircraft that can safely enter and exit Mars' unpredictable atmosphere is a big challenge. (3.2)>>An independent report concluded that NASA has no chance of sending humans to Mars by 2033, with the earliest such a mission could be flown being the late 2030s.NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation that there is a path to reach Mars by 2033, contradicting an earlier independent report that found that timeline unfeasible. (4)>>The BIG QUESTION has to be technological development by 2033 . Musk with Space X could develop a reusable large payload launcher . Beyond that Space X rocket couldn't get to Mars in one long shot . Science & Technology Policy Institute was deeply critical of the timeline established by the administration of President Donald Trump for reaching Mars. The institute stated that any further delays would realistically push the launch date back to 2039.The report’s authors wrote, “We find that even without budget constraints, a Mars 2033 orbital mission cannot be realistically scheduled under NASA’s current and notional plans. Our analysis suggests that a Mars orbital mission could be carried out no earlier than the 2037 orbital window without accepting large technology development, schedule delay, cost overrun, and budget shortfall risks.” The achievable trip times (within given delta-v and maximum reentry velocity) also varies enormously with the specific transfer window, so this might just be about being conservative.Or to put it another way, in favorable transfer windows a 3 month transfer should be very doable, but a 6 month transfer is possible in any transfer window, while the 3 month transfer might be close to impossible in an unfavorable window.I seem to recall (may be recalling wrongly) that the arrival velocity was actually a greater constraint in "unfavorable" windows than the departure delta-v, essentially (5)>>it's not too hard to intercept Mars, but the transfer orbit and the orbit of Mars cross at a rather severe angle rather than being nearly tangential. So the most important thing for very quick transfers (especially in unfavorable windows) would be an amazing heat shield, though g-forces also do become problematic, as with the 7500 m/s entry we're looking at peak g-forces of something like 5 g, and an arrival at something like 10000 m/s would increase that to something like 8 g.We are talking timelines of developing a SpaceX NTR. (6)>>This is next generation Starship territory. The diameter can change. The volume ratio of propellant tanks to cabin can change. If you're going full fast transfer the ship is going to get optimized for that. Larger diameter ship goes well with needing to handle faster entry. Part of entry heating scales with radius of curvature in addition to ballistic coefficient.It could also pair with a pusher stage. A Starship that has Hydrogen NTR propulsion that is pushed by another Starship tug (Normal propulsion bus, but a booster/ship interface on top instead of fairing) is a great fit. The lower mass of the H2 prop pays off in letting the Methalox stage toss it to a decent Earth escape velocity before braking back to orbit. Now you have the NTR full with all deltaV for speeding up the transfer. This architecture can be done all Methalox, but it doesn't do nearly as well because the pusher stage is tossing a full 1200 metric ton prop load Starship . Such a starship would be capable of sending humans to Mars , but it must be a multi-crew of international astronauts , men and women .
MARS at a Glance .
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| Somewhat "Earthlike" but hazardous planet Mars in all glory . |
(7)>>Next to Earth, Mars is the most habitable location in the solar system (by terrestrial standards). Multiple lines of evidence accumulated over the course of decades have also shown that it may have supported life at one time. Unfortunately, sending astronauts to Mars will inevitably entail a number of distinct challenges, which arise from logistics and technology to human factors and the distances involved.It's not about technology. It's that Mars isn't a viable option. It's size makes for a weaker magnetic field, meaning less protection from solar radiation. Between this and the lesser gravitational pull, Mars can't sustain the kind of atmosphere we have on Earth.Mars can sustain an Earth-like atmosphere, we'd just have to replenish it or it'd dissipate over time. Venus has an atmosphere significantly thicker than Earth's and also has almost no magnetic field.Creating a self-sustaining atmosphere on Mars would probably involve mining ice on planet to thicken the atmosphere up, or bringing in icy asteroids to mine in orbit. Break them up into small bits and send them into the atmosphere at a constant rate and the atmosphere dissipation wouldn't be an issue. Of course, the infrastructure to do that doesn't really exist yet, nor would it really be technically practical at this point either. With the recent landing of the rover on Mars its made me think: DO I want to live on Mars. I want to colonize it. I know it will be incredibly tough, it will be hellish, it will probably bring a sane man to the brink of insanity, but I'm willing to take the challenge, willing to take the risk. Imagine 50 years from now when there's ~1000 people on Mars. (8)>>Living on Mars is really a piece of fiction , with a long history . Examples like TOTAL RECALL of the film sake , with human colonies , and a so called "tourism industry shuttling people between planets might take a thousand years . Imagine taking strong, healthy and fit humans and send them to the International Space Station for a year. When they come back they are unable to get up and require physiotherapy to learn to walk again. Every time you set foot on the ground, nerve cells on the soles of your feet send a signal to the brain, reminding it that bones are very important. Weightlifting does increase the pressure on your feet and can lead to greater bone density. Conversely, staying for a long time in micro-gravity will cause you to lose bone and muscle mass. Now imagine travelling to Mars for several months, going through a very dangerous landing because of a very thin atmosphere and then be stuck there. There is no one to come and help you out of the landing module. You better be able to get up or your colony will be short-lived. On the other hand, you will have the advantage that the gravity is about 1/3 that of earth.Let's say that this part goes well. If the idea is to colonize (9)>>Mars then people will need to reproduce there. It is totally unclear whether humans can successfully conceive and gestate in 1/3 earth's gravity. If adults lose bone and muscle mass, it is not a safe bet that the skeleton and musculature of an embryo will develop properly. Whether or not it's possible to have children in the Martian environment is still unknown. Humanity has fantasized about moving offworld since time immemorial, or at least since we realized we were part of something much larger than just this rocky sphere. But there are also real ethical, legal, biological, sociological and psychological considerations at play. I will look back and think "I set the foundation for this new frontier." I will set the footwork for people to want to discover new habitable planets. If there's a complication and my crew and I encounter a fatal event, I will still know that I set foot were only several decades ago, living on a planet other than earth, was impossible. I will be a pioneer, a pioneer of the future. It fills me with joy just writing about it. I hope others share the same fascination, and I hope there's still a future the human species.
NOTES AND COMMENTS:
(1)>>Elon's Elon Musk must be CRAZY or he on to something . My personal theory is he wants to colonize Mars because the first baby born on Mars is a sovereign citizen of that planet and gets to rule it. Musk has the Bond villain mentality, but unlike Bond villains; he's working smarter not harder. Instead of trying to take over the world, he's starting fresh on a new world. He'll ensure his offspring will be the first born there, and his legacy will be the ruling class. I have no doubt that they can put a ship on Mars by then, but sending a manned ship that far, and landing it (presumably with them still alive) is a bit harder. All of the closed system recycling for food and water for long duration, the protection from radiation, all of that sort of stuff is still in early stages.I guess if they build something in orbit, in stages, and make it large enough to carry all those supplies rather than recycling them or growing them on the way, then it may be more achievable. But I don't think that our technologies to keep humans alive for even 6 months are advanced enough unless they are confident about getting, and using, some significant resources (especially water/ice to provide both drinkable water and oxygen) from Mars itself. And right now, that is certainly possible, but unproven. (2)>>"I’m definitely going to be dead before we go to Mars,” Musk's forecast came in response to a question about how he's passing his vision along to the next generation of space explorers. "I hope I'm not dead," Musk said, before acknowledging that he's not confident humans will complete a mission to Mars while he's still alive without improving the current rate of innovation.The biggest technological obstacle, according to Musk, is building a reusable rocket with enough capacity to carry the things humans would need on a Mars mission."There's really just one thing that matters, and that is a fully and rapidly reusable rocket," Musk said, adding that "it needs to be reasonably big."Musk’s plan is as ambitious as it is grand: if all goes according to plan, he wants to establish a one million people-strong city on the Red Planet as soon as 2050 using a fleet of Starships.And such a city “has to survive if the resupply ships stop coming from Earth for any reason whatsoever,” Musk told Ars Technica “Doesn’t matter why. If those resupply ships stop coming, does the city die out or not?”(3)>>Living on Mars isn't just a cool thing to do --- Concepts of crewed Mars missions take about six months for between three and six astronauts to reach the planet, along with a few dozens of tons of consumables. Although it may be possible for some resources to be obtained from Mars—carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, water ice from the soil to produce oxygen and organic compounds, hematite to produce iron, silicates to produce glass—we’re decades away from understanding if any of that would be practically possible. Relative to Earth, the air on Mars is extremely thin. Standard sea-level air pressure on Earth is 1,013 millibars. On Mars the surface pressure varies through the year, but it averages 6 to 7 millibars. That's less than one percent of sea level pressure here. To experience that pressure on Earth, you would need to go to an altitude of about 45 kilometers (28 miles). (Yes, you'll need a space suit to walk around on Mars.) The Martian surface pressure also varies due to elevation. For example, the lowest place on Mars lies in the Hellas impact basin, 7.2 km (4.4 mi) below "sea level." The pressure there averages about 14 millibars. But on top of Olympus Mons, 22 km (14 mi) high, the pressure is only 0.7 millibar. In addition to dust storms, Mars has clouds made of both water ice and CO2 ice particles. Scientists have studied these from orbit with spacecraft, from the ground with rovers and landers, and from Earth with big telescopes. Clouds collect near the large volcanoes as winds rise over them and ice particles condense. In winter, clouds also form over the polar regions as broad hazes that scientists call polar hoods.Future Mars exploration missions will present scientists and astronauts alike with a host of problem that will challenge human survival. Accessing water, dealing with a frigid planet that lacks oxygen and coping with dangerous levels of radiation are among the biggest hurdles to overcome. But as humans persists toward the moon with an eye on Mars, they will learn to adapt, as they always have, and find new solutions to the problems facing them over the next horizon.(3.1)>>Musk has compared building computer programs exponentially smarter than any human to "summoning the devil".Elon Musk told Bloomberg’s Ashlee Vance, the author of the biography Elon Musk, that he
was afraid that his friend Larry Page, a co-founder of Google and now the C.E.O. of its parent
company, Alphabet, could have perfectly good intentions but still “produce something evil by
accident”—including, possibly, “a fleet of artificial intelligence-enhanced robots capable of
destroying mankind.” In September 2017, the SpaceX and Tesla CEO even said that competition
for A.I. superiority among countries such as China or Russia could lead to World War III. He
explained that he was not just concerned about the prospect of a world leader starting the
war, but also of an overcautious A.I. deciding “that a [pre-emptive] strike is [the] most probable
path to victory”. The possibility of developing autonomous, robotic, lethal weapons does not
scare only Musk, however. Thus, we believe that Elon Musk’s fears about
the development of A.I. being „summoning the devil”
are way too exaggerated. However, while the
technology has much potential for transforming
society, the latest positive attitudes might also be inflated. The best potential pair is a human with technology. This is the only balance
that can lead to a positive future with more and more disruptive innovations including everimproving cognitive computing but also ever-improving human intelligence and wisdom. (3.2)>> An independent report see [👉👉 https://www.ida.org/-/media/feature/publications/e/ev/evaluation-of-a-human-mission-to-mars-by-2033/d-10510.ashx ] while completed prior to the March 26 speech where Vice President Mike Pence directed NASA to return humans to the moon by 2024, does offer insights into how much a lunar return might cost and how it fits into long-term plans to send humans to Mars.(4)>>The BIG QUESTION has to be technological development by 2033 . In 2033, human potentiality will widen more. It will be a future where a person can live without any restrictions by pursuing only the creativity that is innate in humans. Machines can do much more to unleash human potential.Together with machines, human can experience more joy in their lives. Mission success of a landing, on the moon or other body, depends on the
productivity of astronauts or robotic explorers deploying instrumentation and collecting scientific samples in the surroundings of their landing sites. (5)>>it's not too hard to intercept Mars. But keep in mind that when it comes to human missions to Mars, NASA’s “preparation” has already lasted quite a while: the last 70 years straight.The delay is at least in part technical. A trip to the red planet is like visiting an even more inhospitable Antarctica, and its unbreathable atmosphere is less than two percent of what you’d find at Everest’s summit. Never mind the fact that you have to fly at least a year, round-trip, to get there in the first place.(6)>>This is next generation Starship territory. Going to MARS requires a interplanetary space ship that has to be assembled in Earth orbit. There are several parts to this question. First, the questioner asks why they building three new ships: Orion, Crew Dragon, and CST-100 Starliner? Crew Dragon and Starliner (from SpaceX and Boeing, respectively) are transport ships from Earth to low Earth orbit destinations, including the ISS. Their life support systems and heat shields cannot handle extended deep space conditions or survive reentry at reentry speeds of 25,000+ mph (vs. 17,500 mph from low Earth orbit). NASA is contracting to use these ships for astronaut trips to ISS, but SpaceX and Boeing want other customers, like tourists and industrial firms, too. The companies are contributing around half of the development costs in partnership with NASA.Orion and the Space Launch System are designed for taking four-person crews to the Moon’s vicinity. Orion has three times the internal living space of Apollo, can support the crew during a month-long mission in deep space, and has a heat shield capable of interplanetary reentry, where temperatures are 5,000 degrees F vs. the 3,000 degrees experienced by low Earth orbital craft. The SLS requires more takeoff power than the Saturn V moon rocket because it must launch the heavier, larger Orion, with its life support supplies and rocket propellants, to the Moon or beyond.(7)>>Next to Earth, Mars is the most habitable location in the solar system. The Moon and Mars are without exception could be considered "habitable" in NAME ONLY . Humans will have to live with artificial means , somehow like STAR TREK produce artificial gravity . AI SpaceFactory, an architecture and technology design agency that specializes in designing and 3D printing Martian habitats. The company recently competed in and won NASA's 3D-printed habitat challenge with a design called Marsha for examples. Mars X House’s exterior is dotted with small windows that would give astronauts a connection to the outside world, while providing some small exposure to sunlight to help keep their circadian rhythms on track while in space. Terraforming Mars would be a long shot , but difficult . The researchers suggest that regions of the Martian surface could be made habitable with a material — silica aerogel — that would mimic Earth’s atmospheric greenhouse effect. Through modeling and experiments, the researchers show that a 2- to 3-centimeter-thick shield of silica aerogel could transmit enough visible light for photosynthesis, block hazardous ultraviolet radiation, and raise temperatures underneath permanently above the melting point of water, all without the need for any internal heat source. This would take hundreds of years to achieve any kind of climate change on Mars.(8)>>Living on Mars is really a piece of fiction , with a long history . Prior to the scientific community’s brushing-off of this concept, another French astronomer, Camille Flammarion, wrote several works that would today be considered sci-fi novels. In one of these, Les Terres du Ciel (1884), Flammarion describes the scenery of bodies such as the moon and Mars to his readers. Flammarion’s interest in the moon may have been sparked by the 1865 novel by his fellow countryman Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon. Around 1898, a mere three years after the publication of Percival Lowell’s first Martian book, H.G. Wells’s epic sci-fi classic The War of the Worlds was published. The story he tells is one of invaders from Mars coming to Earth and leveling cities with their destructive lasers. Humanity retaliates with what it can, but the Martians’ tech is too advanced and efficient. It is fitting that the Earth finds itself in a desperate fight with the inhabitants of Mars, the name for the ancient god of war. The War of the Worlds enjoyed a host of Hollywood film adaptations. It was also converted into a radio play in 1938, late in the Great Depression, and was broadcast and narrated by Orson Welles. His realistic rendition and delivery of the script famously caused a panic throughout the U.S. Carl Sagan said in his 1980 book Cosmos: “Mars has become a kind of mythic arena onto which we have projected our Earthly hopes and fears.” (9)>>Mars then people will need to reproduce there. Do I even need to talk about inbreeding? You could prevent those problems by sending enough humans to Mars but of course that only makes the logistics even harder and more expensive.Conceiving on Mars will be an experiment. We don't know what will happen: miscarriage, baby born in terrible pain, baby born deformed? How can we ethically justify doing that experiment?
