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SpaceX aims to put man on Mars in 10-20 years
- jasonmcalacanis 16y ago#winning
- Fargren 16y agoDoes this sound believable for anyone that knows something about the current state of the art in space traveling?
- NickPollard 16y agoI think so. I was talking to a friend at ESA the other day and he seemed to be pretty positive about getting to Mars soon. Of course, getting /back/ from Mars is an entirely different proposition altogether. It's pretty likely the first man on Mars will be taking a one-way trip (and there are definitely people willing to do this).
- Fargren 16y agoYeah, I read something about that being the opinion of Buzz Aldrin. But a on way trip seems like a hard sell. Doesn't the government have to approve something like that? Immigration, maybe? And it just doesn't some like a good PR move to approve that. Here's the article: http://buzzaldrin.com/a-one-way-trip-to-mars/ http://buzzaldrin.com/a-one-way-trip-to-mars/
- ams6110 16y agoThanks for that link. After reading it, I agree: a one-way mission would not be a "suicide mission" but more like a high-risk adventure. History has proven that many people relish these opportunities. And it's not even that there might never be a chance for return; just that it's not part of any of the current planning. Would be attractive to the same sorts of people who in the 14th and 15th centuries sailed in wooden ships to the "new world"
- billswift 16y agoI submitted a link to an article about it here, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2478079 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2478079 . I also linked to a couple of books, including one containing the linked article, To Boldly Go: A One-Way Human Mission to Mars, in a comment.
- adrianN 16y agoHere is a link with extensive material about colonizing Mars http://journalofcosmology.com/Contents12.html http://journalofcosmology.com/Contents12.html Last year the journal of cosmology had an issue devoted to problems related to Mars. There are many people who believe putting people on Mars is completely feasible. The most well known is maybe Robert Zubrin, advisor to NASA, who has a fairly well thought out plan ("Mars Direct") how to establish an outpost on Mars by a series of trips that are all within our current technological abilities, i.e. they don't require experimental propulsion systems. He has also written a very good book on the topic.
- arethuza 16y agoThat book is: "The Case for Mars" http://www.amazon.com/Case-Mars-Plan-Settle-Planet/dp/0684835509 http://www.amazon.com/Case-Mars-Plan-Settle-Planet/dp/068483... Strongly recommended for all areophiles.
- apl 16y ago> Last year the journal of cosmology had an issue devoted > to problems related to Mars. Rarely a good source.
- hugh3 16y agoGetting a man to Mars if you don't need him to get home again is probably within capabilities. Getting a man to Mars if you don't mind him being dead when he lands is even easier!
- rbanffy 16y agoIn order to send a man to Mars and bring him back alive, you'll need: - a propulsion system that can send an habitat and supplies good for, at least, 6 months. - a separate trip to send the supplies for the return mission and park it in Martian orbit for rendezvous when the manned vehicle arrives If you also want the crew to land on Mars, you'll need a lander. You may consider doing the surface-to-orbit return mission on a separate vehicle you can land before. You may consider sending supplies and a shielded habitat (Martian surface is about as shielded from cosmic radiation as space itself - not at all) if you want the humans to stay. 20 years is a very hard schedule for that. You can send the unmanned parts with current technologies, but the manned part depends heavily on the development of adequate shielding and/or adequate NTRs to make effective use of the reaction mass the spacecraft carries. If shielding is developed before, you could even make the whole thing easier - you put a shielded habitat in an Aldrin cycler orbit and just send crew and supplies (and spares for the habitat) to rendezvous with it when it passes by Earth leave the habitat when it's time to enter Martian orbit. The trip is longer, but it's easier if you don't have to give the whole habitat the required delta-V.
- Zaak 16y agoThe propulsion system from Earth to Mars could just be a scaled-up version of the systems we've been using to send probes to Mars for decades. Yes, it would be wisest to send at least two trips, so that equipment can be ready for the crew when they arrive. (Especially if you're making return-trip fuel from local resources.) Radiation is a problem for a manned mission to Mars, but I understand the numbers work out to less lifetime risk of cancer than smoking. (So send former smokers without any cigs and you've improved their expected lifespan.) Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct and its descendants. Many of the problems have been solved, with an expected 10-year timeline.
- rbanffy 16y ago> The propulsion system from Earth to Mars could just be a scaled-up version of the systems we've been using to send probes to Mars for decades. You would have to send a Mir-sized object (in order to accommodate humans on their way up) on a transfer orbit to Mars, with the required shielding and supplies to keep the crew alive for at least 6 months, plus fuel for braking when they need to inject themselves into Martian orbit (or, at least, to circularize the orbit after atmospheric braking). Doing this with chemical rockets is possible, but operational NTRs would decrease the time for the trip and expose the crew to less radiation. I am not sure the numbers for radiological risk are that low. Besides, the longer they stay en-route, the higher the risk from a CME catching them. If they are on Mars, at least they have a planet to shield them 50% of the time.
- szany 16y ago"We'll probably put a first man in space in about three years," Elon Musk told the Wall Street Journal Saturday. "We're going all the way to Mars, I think... best case 10 years, worst case 15 to 20 years." He didn't say it's necessarily man on Mars.
- hugh3 16y agoNow a SpaceX probe on Mars in ten years, that I can definitely believe.
- rbanffy 16y agoTen years for an orbiter? Feasible. For a lander? Very, very hard. They can do it, but they'll need some luck.
- Devilboy 16y agoCould they not simply purchase existing technology?
- hugh3 16y agoDo you think so? A Martian lander is an easier job than an Earth lander, and they've already built one of those. In fact, there was the story here the other about how a Dragon can theoretically land on Mars, so if they just manage to build a big enough booster it should be well within their capabilities. Still very expensive, of course... they'd need to talk someone into paying for it.
- JshWright 16y agoWhy would a Martian lander be easier? On earth you get to use parachutes. The Martian atmosphere is too thin to use parachutes for any significant payload. I know SpaceX is planning on a thrust-based landign system for Dragon, but the "lander" they've "already built" relies on parachutes.
- InclinedPlane 16y ago
- cletus 16y agoThis is a great headline-grabber but I still see landing a man on Mars as being an awful long way off. I heard Jerry Pournelle talking about this and he said something like landing a man on the Moon and establishing a lunar colony is an engineering problem. Landing a man on Mars is a science problem. The difference? We can already do the former. it's simply a question of money and the will to do it. The problems are basically solved. Landing a man on Mars has far bigger problems. The round trip (or even one way) journey with current propulsion technology will take an incredibly long time (upwards of 2 years). How do you keep someone alive that long? What about the psychology of isolation? Sustained radiation exposure is a real problem. Personally I see manned spaceflight, particularly to other planets, as being largely a propaganda exercise until: 1. The cost of lifting into orbit (per kg) goes down. Way down. Like 2 or even 3 orders of magnitude; and 2. We have a much faster means of propulsion to make journey lengths manageable. (1) is probably the easiest to solve. SpaceX's launch prices are actually quite low (but those are fairly low orbits; launching to another planet is more expensive). Virgin Galactic and other private suborbital efforts will (hopefully) lead to a dramatic cost reduction of getting into orbit. (2) is a fundamentally hard problem. Ideas such as solar sails and the like are far from being practical (plus with a solar sail, how do you get back?). Magnetic fields as solar sails is an interesting idea but has a whole bunch of other problems. Otherwise you need to eject mass to give you velocity. That mass is something you have to carry. The more mass (fuel) you carry, the less effective each gram is (in delta-V terms). What I think will probably drive this is the coming earthbound resource shortages (inevitable unless we drastically reduce population; it's simply a question of when) that will drive a permanent presence in space. Once you have a huge industrial manufacturing capacity in space, the economics completely change. EDIT: I agree with other comments in that a one-way (colonization) mission makes far more sense but I'm still unconvinced this will happen anytime soon, probably not in my lifetime. Mars does have some interesting properties though if a colony can become self-sustaining: 1. Lower gravity. This actually makes the idea of a space elevator far more feasible [1]; and 2. Mars has features that extend beyond the atmosphere. The atmosphere is ~11km thick. Olympus Mons is 25km high. I've read seemingly informed speculation that if we (the human race) had evolved on Mars, we'd already be heavily spacebound since it would be far, far easier. This is what might justify colonizing Mars. Not that that is an easy problem. [1]: http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=95924 http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=95924
- BenSS 16y agoTargeting 10-20 years is basically wishful thinking. The time horizon is too long to make serious estimates. Look at fusion! Workable fusion has been 10-20 years off as long as I can remember.
- InclinedPlane 16y agoIt took 7 years to go from a primitive orbital capsule to a manned lunar landing. With 1960s technology. Don't use the pace of NASA progress within the last 2 decades as some sort of benchmark, it has no meaning and no correlation to anything other than government handouts to important congressional districts. What is possible and what will be possible within 10-20 years is a great deal more than what has been done. SpaceX is seemingly capable of building a Saturn V class launch vehicle in less time and for far less money than was done historically. Given that I don't doubt that they'll be able to do amazing things.
- BenSS 16y agoI'm not looking at NASA's progress at all here. I'm sure SpaceX can accomplish a lot in that time frame, but saying they'll definitely be on Mars then is simply wishful thinking. Lift capacity is not the sole limiting factor.
- InclinedPlane 16y agoCertainly. But look at the simple facts. From 1961 through the 1990s only 2 organizations (the US and Soviet governments) had developed or flown manned spacecraft. Since then 6 organizations have developed, built, and flown such spacecraft: China, Scaled Composites (a sub-orbital flight), SpaceX (an unmanned test flight of a crew capsule), ESA and Japan (ISS modules and re-supply craft), and Bigelow Aerospace (unmanned tests of inflatable space habitats). It's especially notable that half of these achievements are from non-governmental activities. The point being: the ability to build manned spacecraft is much less difficult and much less rare than it once was, and no longer restricted to governments. Given that, it's no small stretch to imagine impressive increases in lift capacity coupled with equally impressive reductions in launch cost facilitating even greater fluency with manned spacecraft design, construction, and operation. It is not so terribly difficult to mount a manned mission to Mars as some people seem to imagine. Read Zubrin's "The Case For Mars" to see how it can be done rather efficiently. Given the projected payload capacity of the proposed Falcon XX launcher it would really only take a few launches to get things running. Given that SpaceX has already built a seemingly functional crew capsule will it really take much more than 20 more years to build and test all of the necessary pre-requisite components of a manned Mars mission? I don't think the timeline is so terribly optimistic really.
- ccarpenterg 16y agoPeople talks about "the rocket" but who's building the other stuff to survive and then come back from Mars?
- drm237 16y agoComing back isn't required if the goal were to create a settlement on mars.
- hugh3 16y agoCreating a self-sustaining settlement, though, is even harder than creating a return rocket. As a first step we should see if we can create a self-sustaining colony in Antarctica.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- rbanffy 16y agoA self-sustaining settlement on Mars is not that difficult. Mars is not nearly as barren as the Moon.
- JabavuAdams 16y agoCreating a self-sustaining colony anywhere is hard. Especially, if it has to work the first time.
- rbanffy 16y agoYou can stockpile supplies before humans get there. It doesn't have to self-sustain for as long as the supplies last. You can also send machinery to extract materials from the environment.
- Jeema3000 16y agoI think I would prefer the upper atmosphere of Venus if I had to choose between the two for a one-way trip: "At an altitude of 50 km above Venusian surface, the environment is the most Earth-like in the solar system – a pressure of approximately 1 bar and temperatures in the 0°C–50°C range. Because there is not a significant pressure difference between the inside and the outside of the breathable-air balloon, any rips or tears would cause gases to diffuse at normal atmospheric mixing rates, giving time to repair any such damages. In addition, humans would not require pressurized suits when outside, merely air to breathe, a protection from the acidic rain; and on some occasions low level protection against heat." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus#Aerostat_habitats_and_floating_cities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus#Aerostat_... Just don't fall off the edge... :)
- TheEzEzz 16y agoThat is the most interesting bit of space knowledge I've ever read. It certainly seems like the potential in Venus is much greater than on Mars. I wonder why the space industry is so fixated on Mars?
- rbanffy 16y agoKeeping the habitat 50 Km from the surface for decades isn't a trivial task. Mars also has easily accessible water and a lower gravity. All you can get from Venusian high atmosphere are the gases you capture. On Mars you can mow rocks to get stuff like, say, steel.
- InclinedPlane 16y agoIndeed, there's not a lot to recommend a Venusian floating habitat over a pure space station, for example. However, if you look at what's possible with Mars, things get interesting quickly. Firstly, the CO2 atmosphere and local sub-surface water ice can be used to generate rocket fuel with a very low level of infrastructure, making initial exploration dramatically more efficient. Secondly, Mars has plenty of Sun and near-Earth day/night cycle, making it straightforward to grow food there. The day/night cycle also makes relying on solar power much more feasible, and makes direct communication with Earth more reasonable (since a location on Mars and on Earth will generally have line-of-sight to each other on the order of once per day). Thirdly, local martian materials can be used to maintain a self-sufficient industrialized civilization over an indefinite period of time (local metal ores, water ice, CO2, even Uranium ores, ability to grow food, etc.)
- melling 16y agoPut men on mars or launch hundreds of robots and satellites to survey the solar system? Which will produce more knowledge? Which will be more cost effective? In 100 years, which path will lead to more increased human space travel? Sending robots is agile space exploration. Release early, release often. We can lose a few robots and use more experimental technology quicker. Sending humans sounds cool but we shouldn't go until it's as safe as commercial aviation then we can do it frequently.
- rflrob 16y ago> Sending humans sounds cool but we shouldn't go until it's as safe as commercial aviation then we can do it frequently. That's almost asking for it never to happen at all. Air travel has a safety rate of 1 fatality per 2 billion passenger miles, making it one of the safest modes of transport out there. When Europeans first started exploring the Americas, the fatality rates were much higher, and people simply went in knowing that what they were doing was risky, but also fundamentally really cool.
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- melling 16y agoOur appetite for failure was much higher then. It was acceptable to lose ships. We lost more test pilots trying to break the sound barrier than shuttle astronauts, for example. Any accident will set back the program by years. Also, we didn't have an option to send machines. A space shuttle explodes and it's forced into early retirement out of safety concerns. If a rocket carrying a satellite explodes, it's hardly newsworthy. The shuttle was suppose to fly every few weeks. It didn't come close. With the cost of rockets dropping, I would think that we can reach daily launches within 10-15 years. With the same amount of money, we'll develop commercial rockets and the necessary robotics.
- biot 16y agoFatalities per distance isn't a very good metric for safety. Otherwise, you could send 3000 humans 1 light year away and as long as 1 passenger survives, it's safer than air travel per billion passenger miles. Fatalities per trip makes for a better comparison as the vast majority of the risk for space travel, like with air travel, is on takeoff and landing.
- bfirsh 16y ago"We're going all the way to Mars, I think..." Compared to: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth." Doesn't sound like they have a whole load of confidence.
- tylerhwillis 16y agoElon Musk is not Kennedy. His default style of speech is less political and usually not aimed at inspiration. You can draw no inferences about his confidence from this comparison. What you could take from this comparison, if you were so inclined, is that when it comes to inspiring Americans about space travel, Musk&Co. are less motivational than what worked in the past. Time will tell if you need the same motivational leader to accomplish something like this in the private sector.
- Mz 16y agoKennedy was also assassinated. There is likely a direct link between how inspirational he was and the fact that he was assassinated: Jesus was crucified, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, and Dr. Martin Luther King was shot. If Elon Musk wants to get the task done without ending up dead for it, speaking in a less inspirational style may be the better path. Edit: It's a completely serious observation, not intended as funny at all. Anyone care to explain the downvote? Or argue the point? Thanks.
- ck2 16y agoThere is a brilliant "new" engine in the works that will make travel to Mars possible in days instead of months. It's called VASMIR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_Specific_Impulse_Magnetoplasma_Rocket http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_Specific_Impulse_Magne... It's not really "new" since it was conceptualized in 1977 but recent technological advances have made it a real prototype (2005) and it will be tested on the space-station in 2013. The guy who designed it, Franklin Chang-Diaz, is incredible as well as his lifestory - literally made his farfetched startrek-inspired dream to become an astronaut come true by sheer willpower and he went to MIT. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Chang-Diaz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Chang-Diaz
- FrojoS 16y agoYeah, its awesome! I hope the two companies will work together on this.
- rdoherty 16y agoDays? The current existing version can tow 7 tons from LEO to LLO in 6 months, so I don't think we'll get to Mars in days.
- tsotha 16y agoDays is ridiculous. A few months instead of the years chemical rockets would take is probably a better estimate. The big advantage to VASMIR is that, unlike the Deep Space 1-style ion engine you can get reasonable thrust and a high specific impulse at the same time.
- Clue 16y agoThis site thinks it will be later: try 2037 http://future.rouli.net/?query=man%20will%20land%20on%20mars http://future.rouli.net/?query=man%20will%20land%20on%20mars
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- kmfrk 16y agoThinking about all this, maybe kids will no longer want to be astronauts when they grow up, but entrepreneurs who get to send people to the frontiers of space. It's so fascinating to see a private enterprise undertake these inspirational endeavours.
- mechanical_fish 16y ago[SpaceX] has won $75 million from the US space agency NASA to help its pursuit of developing a spacecraft... I was wondering what possible economic rationale a "private" mission to Mars could have, given that there are a limited number of billionaire space tourists whose ultimate dream is to be locked in a space the size of a bus for six years. Now I know. They're in the traditional, lucrative business of collecting government grants. What I'm seeing here is a contractor. Big deal. Exactly what is the difference here between SpaceX and, say, Grumman Aircraft Engineering in 1962? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Lunar_Module http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Lunar_Module Grumman wasn't part of the government. It was a corporation. The point of "private" space ventures is that they're supposed to have a different business model, not just a different approach to branding themselves. Thus far their big business-model innovation is to collect checks from NASA without ever using the words contractor or NASA.
- FrojoS 16y agoSince I'm not a US tax payer I should be careful. Its true, SpaceX would not be where they are today without massive government support. But consider the following. First, they are a lot more cost efficient. The Falcon Heavy is supposed to be 6 times cheaper per ton to LEO than the Delta IV Heavy. This can save the US government as well as many companies around the world lots of money. Second, the ability to jump in, just when the, expensive, shuttle program runs out seems to be very helpful for the USA as a - if not the - space nation. Without SpaceX the US would depend on Russia to send astronauts to the ISS and anywhere else in space for many, many years. Also, I would be careful about dissing "space tourists". Many of the so called tourists have actually done scientific experiments in space. I believe most of them did not fly, so they can show the "I was there" pics at home. No, they wanted to be astronauts since they were little boys, more than anything else in the world! This is pure speculation, but if NASA would auction their astronaut positions to people who match the minimum requirements, they might be profitable tomorrow. Same goes for Elon Musk and Mars. I've read many times, he is a betrayer and just wants make money at the SpaceX IPO. I know you didn't state this and maybe its actually true. But I don't believe it. I think he and others really want to have humans on Mars and if possible they want to fly by them self. I find it totally plausible that the first manned mission to Mars will be financed by the crew and their private supporters. Just consider how much people pay to be the XXXth person to be on Mount Everest. And thats arguable not less dangerous, let alone the hardship in the death zone. How much would be the final prize on a auction that determines who will likely be the first human in history on a different planet? Last but not least, whats wrong about Grunman and the Lunar Module? From the wikipedia article you cited: "Though initially unpopular and plagued with several delays in its development, the LM eventually became the most reliable component of the Apollo/Saturn system, the only one never to suffer any failure that significantly impacted a mission,[1] and in at least one instance (LM-7 Aquarius) greatly exceeded its design requirements."
- nazgulnarsil 16y agono canned primates in space. all of those billions need to be in radical life extension and brain mapping. I want to send my upload to mars.
- tsotha 16y agoA manned mission to mars is a great idea. As long as they don't intend to use tax dollars.