Humans Land on Mars
 

There was a lot of hype recently over the landing of various pieces of robot on the surface of Mars. We havent heard much since.

Does anyone know when the boffins are planning to actually put a human being on the red planet? Do they have a spacecraft that will be able to do this?

I wonder if it'll be seen as great an achievement in the eyes of the world as Apollo 11? Or will we, in our modern view, see it as a waste of precious money and resources?

Kermie :D

I saw a documentary on this recently and what it boiled down to is that they want to but are nowhere close to solving the many and varied problems.

Nine months to get there and nine months to get back plus time on the surface which will vary between a relativeley short time and a few months. I don't understand the science/physics of why that must be but its all to do with the moving relative positions of the planets and orbital mechanics.

Eighteen months plus of food for X number of astronauts presents huge weight problems to say nothing of the need to carry the associated rocket and fuel to get back.

Even if they carried everything needed in multiple trips to a space station and launched from there, with existing technology the cost would be astonomical (no pun intended) compared with anything that has been done up to now.

In summary the program gave the impression that such a trip is many decades away.

I read something about it in Scientific American or some such publication. Might be able to overcome some weight probs if could build the ship in Earth orbit or on the Moon, itself no easy matter, but would still face huge difficulty with regard to supplies of fuel, water and air. Some suggestion that it's a no go unless and until they can confidently send an expedition with the means to obtain fuel, water and oxygen en route or on Mars itself.

I was under the impression spacecraft were able to produce water through distillation of human waste, ie urine. :(

With all these problems, how did the Mir space station stay in orbit for so long? I presume it was re-stocked every now and again by visiting spacecraft and shuttle flights to accomplish this.

Kermie :confused:

Kermit, you presumption is correct. They did have regular visits to carry up all the necessary consumables and take away the garbage on the return journey. Even in space they can't escape putting out the rubbish bag.

I heard they had put Captain Ed up there and that was why he hadn't been seen around PPRuNe for a long time! :)

If they didn't, they should :D

Its already happened! Didn't anyone else see Val Kilmer there? :D :D

Didn't bother with that one. Anyway I thought Val Kilmer was a Martian who made the effort to come to Earth to entertain us. Another reason not to go to Mars?

Kermie :eek:

If you remember the old comic books about Buck Rogers you will have noted that the events depicted in the storyline took place in the 25th century. The problem is that NASA wants to do it now before the necessary technology has evolved. They want to do in the 21st century what should be happening over the next 400 years. To make those necessary advancements in the next few years will cost the American taxpayer a lot of money and they can’t guarantee that the reliability will be such as to make the mission failure proof.