I disagree with this. He seems to be operating under the delusion that NASA is ever going to get anyone to Mars, and seemingly ignores the people with money who are working to do so.
16 thoughts on “How SF Will Get Us To Mars”
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I disagree with this. He seems to be operating under the delusion that NASA is ever going to get anyone to Mars, and seemingly ignores the people with money who are working to do so.
Comments are closed.
Personally, I think NASA will succeed in sending send people to Mars, probably starting around 2060. Yup, NASA.
What will the mission architecture be? Fairly simple; they’ll just buy tickets from SpaceX or one of the other commercial spacelines, and stay at one of the several hotels that will be operating on Mars by then.
Yes, but it could be simpler than that.
Your prediction could also come true if SpaceX coughs up a few thousand dollars and buys the domain name NASA.com.
Hard science fiction, which emphasizes scientific accuracy, has reemerged in Hollywood recently.
Not that I believe this, but it is a trend I’d like to see gather steam. The problem is only a very small minority are any good at writing it. ‘The Martian’ was an accident, not intended for Hollywood. Hopefully Damon won’t screw it up and similar stories set in the solar system will become popular. Ganymede or bust! This might make an orbital studio more likely. BA330 interior in green screen?
If set in the near term solar system, current real companies would likely get some visibility and folks might take settlement a bit more seriously. One of the problems today is the hecklers, who can’t do, are winning. The sixties would have had a much more negative result had they been in such force back in the day (and I hold the sixties were a negative result from what might have been.)
For every real danger we need to mitigate are probably dozens that colonists will just take in stride or not exist at all. We need to find out and researching it to death doesn’t move us forward. Progress takes prudent risk.
Hmm didn’t listen to the podcast but the article was interesting. The guest says this,
People will go wherever they feel like going. All they need is access to it. Eventually, our technology will reach a point where it doesn’t cost that much to go into space.
The emphasis is on what people will do when technology allows. And after a dig at the GOP for being anti-science for not increasing NASA’s budget, the the interviewer moves onto,
“NASA is firmly on a journey to Mars,” Bolden said. “Make no mistake, this journey will help guide and define our generation.”By the agency’s current estimate, a Mars mission would be on track for the 2030s.
No questions asked. Like, how many NASA’s could be funded by government workers paying their back taxes or with the long lead times in construction, what is being constructed now to support landing on Mars? Nothing other than SLS, Orion, and expandable heat shields. But what is needed are payloads for Mars. It is just blind faith in the government. People and their dreams, desires, and other motivations are wiped from the equation. What is the role of the individual?
We also need stories that compel, inspire, and draw our eyes toward the red planet. Maybe that’s where science fiction comes in.
Ahh, to write propaganda in support of the state. Science Fiction will get us to Mars by acting as propaganda for the government. No thanks.
One year of NASA funding equals 144 Falcon Heavy flights or 90 flights with a mars lander putting 225,000 tons on the surface of mars.
Any fools want to argue we could NOT get a colony started on mars with that? That could include hundreds of colonists and resupply FOREVER (unless they grow some of their own food in which case it’s beyond forever… er, sumptin like that.)
FH will be able to do this, this year. The lander needs less development than the F9R. I expect it would take a handful of test flights to get the lander right after which we would then have reliable, cheap transport to the martian surface.
That 225,000 tons is just payload. The colonist might also find use for the package it came in… 90 temporary emergency shelters with life support for 630.
Not to be confused with the massive permanent shirtsleeve malls and mansions they build for themselves.
One year of NASA funding equals 144 Falcon Heavy flights or 90 flights with a mars lander putting 225,000 tons on the surface of mars.
This is meaningless. NASA has a lot more on its plate (and should) than landing on Mars.
An SLS comparison would be fitting though.
$40b for SLS/Orion or 200 FH/Lander flights. Yep, still meaningless…
However it still makes the point that a mars colony is doable if it were important.
Imagine each launch sent 2 crew per lander with an inflatable. That’s 400 colonists at a completely scale-able rate. Meaning anyone with $200m could contribute to an ongoing mars land rush. If it mattered.
Starting in much less than a decade. If we cared.
You are forgetting the first A in NASA. The part of the NASA budget that could go for FH flights and still allow any hardware development is about 3 billion or about 20 flights a year utillizing the crossfeed and including intergration.
Even at that .. would still drop a lot of hardware on the planet.
But .. ah .. where is my pork (looks around) I don’t see anything in here for MY district.. LOL
Any colonization plan that counts on indefinite resupply from home is a plan for a failed colony. A couple hundred tons of equipment and supplies still sounds like a good start on a colony if it includes the means to bootstrap to local supply.
Any colonization plan that counts on indefinite resupply from home is a plan for a failed colony.
A point that can not be emphasized enough. The goal, training and crew selection should be for independence the moment of landing. We don’t just send tools. We send tool makers.
We already know they can be independent with regard to life support with the exception of food. The mitigating factor with food is if we lose the bet that they can grow it (how is that even possible?) supplying food is about $25m per person per year which we could certainly do until the farming rate takes over.
In the comment section of that article, an anti-space colonization eco-priest named Richard DeBacher is getting butthurt when a couple of commentators pointed out that his Eco-cult was a nature death cult similar to the Aztecs.
I’ll take my libertarian hat off for just a moment and state what I think is going on rather than my own goals.
Charlie is not lying. It started while our friend Lori was working with him. NASA high command knows the power of congress to insist on Pork, and that the Pork may not deliver anything except a few years of jobs for the boys and girls in a few districts. They also know that with very little watering, they can grow an alternative path that actually works. The NASA of today is not the NASA of previous decades. Instead of being out to destroy or neglect commercial space, [and in the 1980’s they really *were*] they are quietly rooting for it and doing what they can to nurture. Now true, government nurturing can be deadly, but it is at least an approvement over the old world.
So NASA will go to Mars. And I am sure they are thinking in terms of MCT and a Martian Dragon and Bigelow Habs. The people up there right now *want* to be able to buy the gear off the shelf.
I am hoping that continues after 2016 as well… there I’m not able to predict who will be President then. It is the GOP’s election to lose, and they are very good at picking old guard candidates no one will vote for, even to get a real change. If they lose, I think I know the name of our next NASA Administrator… if they put in a reasonable free market and liberty oriented candidate who could actually win the Presidency, I can think of a certain NASA center chief whom I’d love to see nominated for the job.
My point is, if NASA stays steady for the next 10-15 years, they will be a partner with Elon and others in Mars settlement. If the next NASA Administrator is placed there to protect SLS, then NASA will die. There will be no NASA other than a rump doing a bit of science, perhaps under a different name, by 2030.
So if we get a libertarian or tea-party Republican or Hillary, we win. If we get a Christie or another Shrub or their ilk, we lose.
75% of the public wants to double NASA’s mars budget which would still be less that SLS development cost’s.
Meanwhile, SpaceX is developing FH at zero cost to taxpayers. Musk has been trying to get NASA to fund a red lander, but who knows?
Soon 5 FH launches with mars lander for about one billion could put 12,500 tons on the surface of mars (that’s potentially dozens of colonists every launch window.)
How fast could we build a mars colony at just $500m per year? We could start development of the lander this year (if you don’t count that 90% of the development is already completed and al;ready on the critical path of one mars colony plan.)
Oops, 12.5 tons for one billion.