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The problem I always thought there was with the Mars colony stuff was that there's too little infrastructure on the way, and going straight from Earth surface t
by ufmace 9y ago
The problem I always thought there was with the Mars colony stuff was that there's too little infrastructure on the way, and going straight from Earth surface to Mars surface with essentially no infrastructure in between is a recipe for expensive disaster. We have 3 expensive and difficult steps between the two - Earth surface to orbit, Earth orbit to Mars orbit, and Mars orbit to Mars surface. If anything goes wrong anywhere, it's almost impossible to fix or send help when it can only come from Earth Surface.
It's hard to figure anyone being motivated to build much infrastructure in Mars orbit, so I'd like to see some real infrastructure in Earth orbit. Meaning hundreds of semi-permanent residents, rotation for artificial gravity, capturing asteroids and comets to have bulk raw material, setting up some limited manufacturing there of pure space craft. All in a place where help from or escape to Earth is fast and relatively easy. Get to where sending a colony fleet to Mars is a modest stretch of existing capabilities, not a wild reach involving inventing dozens of new fields.
- nickik 9y agoIts a chicken-egg problem. We can not start with expansive infrastructure. When going west people did not build the rail roads first, they just went and eventually it made sense to build the rail road. Musk has build the ITS so that it is a transport ship that can reliable establish surface to surface transportation. Maybe eventually it will make sense to have tugs and refueling stations in orbit. This will only happen if there is a reason to fly very often. Elon is building the cheapest possible thing that can get the job done. > anything goes wrong anywhere, it's almost impossible to fix or send help when it can only come from Earth Surface. The idea is that multiple ITS will fly at the same time, they will be able to exchange people before landing on Mars if one of the ITS has problems.
- ufmace 9y ago> Its a chicken-egg problem. We can not start with expansive infrastructure. That's true, but I had always figured that the infrastructure construction would need to be an actual profitable business outside of a planned colonization of Mars. Perhaps it would make sense to build or assemble satellites, or mine asteroids for rare earth metals or something like that.
- simonh 9y agoI did not see what infrastructure in Earth Orbit, or Mars orbit, adds though. It would be like installing a tethered zeppelin in Siberia to help service airliners between Europe and Japan. There really isn't much point. Unless a space station happened to have almost exactly the same orbit as an outgoing ship, you're much better off launching a rescue mission from Earth directly into a rendezvous trajectory to the stranded ship. Likewise at Mars, once we have a base there we should permanently keep a fuelled return ship on standby anyway. If there's a problem with a launching or incoming vessel, it would be available to help.
- ufmace 9y agoI may not know as much as I would like about orbits, but I would think we can find an orbit compatible with interplanetary journeys that we can service from the Earth without too much difficulty. Wouldn't any realistic Mars transport ship for Humans have to be assembled in Earth orbit anyways? I'm thinking it'd be nice for whoever is doing that assembly to have a nice station to live in instead of some kind of tiny disposable capsule.
- simonh 9y agoThe system Musk has published about and released a CGI movie of is not assembled in Earth orbit, only refuelled there. I recommend looking it up, it's well worth it.