Musk: Time to Colonize Mars

[Jocassee]

Mr. Musk, to much fanfare, has announced a plan for his company to send people to mars.

http://www.space.com/31388-elon-musk-colonize-mars-now.html (not a terribly technical article)

From what I heard on the radio, they are thinking about sending people straight in from earth, not staging them in orbit first.

Why is it we are not currently working on a large dock facility in high orbit, where Mars-bound craft would not have to worry about re-entry to earth? That seems to make more logistical sense to me.

Perhaps the science people can chime in and enlighten me.

[AJ Dual]

Musk's plan does have orbital rendezvous for refueling, several of them in fact in low earth orbit before the ship departs. So there is that. I think this almost kinda/sorta single-stage to Mars concept is because it's trying to leverage SpaceX's growing experience with re-entry of large boosters and vertical landing, and it's trying to control costs and logistics by not relying on space stations or other parts they might not be making.

It does seem a bit like one of the crazy Kerbal Space Program joke-videos people put up on YouTube with obnoxiously large rockets etc. but I'm guessing SpaceX crunched numbers for different scenarios and so far, this one works out.

The CGI videos gloss over a ton of things. And if it comes to fruition, the "plan" and the spacecraft will probably change... a lot before it's done.  The huge domed window in the front of the craft... there's no way that's going to stay. The mass penalty, structural issues etc. are just too great. And that's just one minor detail of many.

The other videos and mockup photos saying the same craft could go all the way to Jupiter is laughable. The radiation in the Jovian magnetic field alone would quickly kill the crew of the ship shown having landed on Europa. So it's going to need a magnetic shielding system, a nuke plant to run it, radiators for the nuke plant... on and on... You could use regular water/mass shielding for the crew, but I think that would probably be too heavy.

As to Earth-return being direct re-entry on all sorts of Mars concepts, ones using the SLS and Orion capsule etc. it saves on fuel, fuel you might need to schlep to Mars then all the way back just to dock in LEO, when you can brake against the Earth's atmosphere for "free".

[makattak]

From what I read on another report, Mr. Musk states that he has no plan for how to build the city on Mars, just how to get people there.

I'm really happy about his plans and progress, but there's a LOT of work to be done ("We can just compress the atmosphere and it will be great!") to make his plans worthwhile.

[Calumus]

I don't think I'd be willing to fly in anything he makes until he can figure out how to keep his cars from being hacked... A ship with the required hardware to make it to Mars with life onboard could make a hell of a nice missile after "something goes wrong" on launch.

[roo_ster]

Why is it we are not currently working on a large dock facility in high orbit, where Mars-bound craft would not have to worry about re-entry to earth? That seems to make more logistical sense to me.

Perhaps the science people can chime in and enlighten me.

Has nothing to do with science, but the implementation of affirmative action / racial politics after Apollo.  NASA resisted mightily for years, but eventually became a high-tech DMV office.

For an example of the resistance put up by NASA through 1972, read Chuck Yeager's autobio and Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff." 

For a more recent treatment, Paul Kersey's "'Whitey on the Moon': Race, Politics, and the death of the U.S. Space Program, 1958 - 1972" tackles it.
https://www.amazon.com/Whitey-Moon-Politics-death-Program-ebook/dp/B00M2766EI

On July 20, 1969, man first stood on the moon; on December 18, 1972, man stood on the moon for the last time. What happened to end the dream of space exploration, left instead to the colorful imagination of Trekkies and science fiction fans believing some diverse band of humans could navigate the heavens in a utopian future?

The US Government neutered NASA by forcing a much different mission upon the space agency: diversity...

...in 1972, the Apollo program was grounded, with the Space Shuttle program becoming a glorified experiment in social engineering and special interest group cheerleading. Each successive launch included women, blacks, and other racial minorities, not for the sake of exploration, but for the sake of gender and racial cheerleading...

The mandate then was to get the moon; the mandate soon after was the promotion of blackness and diversity, at the expense of the initial dream of exploring the stars.

For an examination of the phenomenon from an diversity uber alles perspective:

Until September 97 (in the wake of Griggs), naSa had no systematic
civil rights element in its employment program at all, even though three-quarters
of its facilities were located in Southern states, including Virginia, alabama,texas,
louisiana, Florida, and mississippi. instead, naSa’s director of personnel in
Washington carried out tasks “on a part-time basis.”the labs where most of naSa’s
people worked, meanwhile, were generally devoid of any organizational structure,
lines of responsibility, or policy guidelines regarding affirmative action...

Holy hopping hottentots, no race bureaucracy?  How did they get _anything_ accomplished? 

Peanut gallery: Maybe because they didn't give a damn about race and just wanted to accomplish the objective?

Accordingly, NA SA’s newly installed Administrator James Fletcher started off his
tenure as the fourth leader of the U.S. civilian space program with bold moves on the
civil rights front. On 24 August 1971, several months after he assumed office, a press
release signed by Fletcher announced that a 52-year-old African American woman,
Ruth Bates Harris, would become NA SA
Headquarters’s new Director of Equal
Opportunity. Harris would “provide
direction” to all civil rights in employment
programs for all the “approximately
29,000 NA SA Civil Service employees.”
This would include the top managers at
all of NA SA’s far-flung labs. She would
also oversee “contract compliance”: the
hiring of women and minorities by the
many private firms providing products
and services to NA SA facilities

Thank goodness for that.  I am sure the laws of physics were duly impressed. 

[Perd Hapley]

Perhaps the science people can chime in and enlighten me.

If you have a question about space travel, if no one else can solve it, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the Science People.

[KD5NRH]

As to Earth-return being direct re-entry on all sorts of Mars concepts, ones using the SLS and Orion capsule etc. it saves on fuel, fuel you might need to schlep to Mars then all the way back just to dock in LEO, when you can brake against the Earth's atmosphere for "free".

Heat shielding capable of keeping a crew alive through reentry is heavy too, and unnecessary for the vast majority of the trip.  Orbital transfer stations at both ends of the trip would allow for a much lighter craft to handle the big leap between stations with landing craft only having to go from surface to station and back.  Unmanned tankers and cargo transports could be used to get supplies and construction materials to the station orbits, taking longer routes as needed since there's no risk to crew and no added life support costs.

[Hawkmoon]

I don't think I'd be willing to fly in anything he makes until he can figure out how to keep his cars from being hacked... A ship with the required hardware to make it to Mars with life onboard could make a hell of a nice missile after "something goes wrong" on launch.

Perhaps of more concern is that his Tesla software can't distinguish between a trailer truck and a ble sky. I don't trust that to take a ship to Mars -- or even to the supermarket.

[Hawkmoon]

If you have a question about space travel, if no one else can solve it, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the Space People.

I see what you did there. I wonder how many others caught the reference.

[Jocassee]

Perhaps of more concern is that his Tesla software can't distinguish between a trailer truck and a ble sky. I don't trust that to take a ship to Mars -- or even to the supermarket.

Totally different set of problems. Sending a craft to mars (or the moon) is, in its own way, much less complicated than camera and radar based driving systems. As illustrated by the fact that we've been doing it already for decades.

[Jocassee]

Perhaps of more concern is that his Tesla software can't distinguish between a trailer truck and a ble sky. I don't trust that to take a ship to Mars -- or even to the supermarket.

In any case, you're safe. I doubt you're going to be enlisted for a trip to the red planet.

[MillCreek]

^^^They won't be asking middle-aged risk managers either, but I would gladly sign up for a one-way colonization mission.

[KD5NRH]

Totally different set of problems. Sending a craft to mars (or the moon) is, in its own way, much less complicated than camera and radar based driving systems. As illustrated by the fact that we've been doing it already for decades.

Still, it only takes mixing up blue sky and blue ocean once.

[AJ Dual]

Heat shielding capable of keeping a crew alive through reentry is heavy too, and unnecessary for the vast majority of the trip.  Orbital transfer stations at both ends of the trip would allow for a much lighter craft to handle the big leap between stations with landing craft only having to go from surface to station and back.  Unmanned tankers and cargo transports could be used to get supplies and construction materials to the station orbits, taking longer routes as needed since there's no risk to crew and no added life support costs.

You'd think so, however re-entry shielding/thermal protection tiles are rather light weight. Kind of like construction foam insulation, but made of ceramic or carbon etc.  And the logistics train of setting up stations in low Earth orbit, and then Mars orbit, having/hauling dedicated landers up for both Mars landing and Earth return/landing etc. is orders of magnitude larger.

I would guess that SpaceX has done some math on this, and found it worked out, or could work out. Whereas doing it the "right way" was exceptionally more expensive, and more inclined to never get going, or get finished.

I am skeptical, and I do find that having the same ship take off from Earth, make the transfer, then land on Mars is rather shocking, as is doing the mission all chemical fueled/propelled, however I also know the people at SpaceX are smarter than I am.

I eagerly await some input from birdman on this

[birdman]

A couple of things:
Reentry-capable second-stage/ship enables:
Mars aero breaking (don't know if they plan on this)
Earth return aero breaking (this would be a very obvious one)
And most importantly, use of a common design for both the crew ship and the fuel-haulers, as the latter has to be reused...a lot.
So pull the crew compartment, insert propellant tanks, use as tanker to deliver to LEO.  Leave crew compartment, use for ship.
The bulk of the vehicle would be identical in both cases, saving development money.

This is pretty much the least-capital intensive way--you only have to build lots of two fully reusable parts.
Same reason why it's a common engine as well--the upper stage uses 3 non-vacuum raptors, and 6 vacuum raptors (IIRC), while the first stage uses 42 non-vacuum raptors.

Effectively, their design is to minimize the development time/cost at the expense of a reduction in "efficiency" which can be made up for in quantity.  Since literally -all- prior ideas/attempts/programs didn't happen because of cost to start, rather than efficiency in the long run...this is a smart way to do it.

So it's the same strategy they already use for Falcon...one engine type at a time with only a nozzle change for vacuum ops, one vehicle diameter, etc.

[wmenorr67]

A couple of things:
Reentry-capable second-stage/ship enables:
Mars aero breaking (don't know if they plan on this)
Earth return aero breaking (this would be a very obvious one)
And most importantly, use of a common design for both the crew ship and the fuel-haulers, as the latter has to be reused...a lot.
So pull the crew compartment, insert propellant tanks, use as tanker to deliver to LEO.  Leave crew compartment, use for ship.
The bulk of the vehicle would be identical in both cases, saving development money.

This is pretty much the least-capital intensive way--you only have to build lots of two fully reusable parts.
Same reason why it's a common engine as well--the upper stage uses 3 non-vacuum raptors, and 6 vacuum raptors (IIRC), while the first stage uses 42 non-vacuum raptors.

Effectively, their design is to minimize the development time/cost at the expense of a reduction in "efficiency" which can be made up for in quantity.  Since literally -all- prior ideas/attempts/programs didn't happen because of cost to start, rather than efficiency in the long run...this is a smart way to do it.

So it's the same strategy they already use for Falcon...one engine type at a time with only a nozzle change for vacuum ops, one vehicle diameter, etc.

Thinking this is a one-way trip for man/woman, beast, and machine.

[makattak]

A couple of things:
Reentry-capable second-stage/ship enables:
Mars aero breaking (don't know if they plan on this)
Earth return aero breaking (this would be a very obvious one)
And most importantly, use of a common design for both the crew ship and the fuel-haulers, as the latter has to be reused...a lot.
So pull the crew compartment, insert propellant tanks, use as tanker to deliver to LEO.  Leave crew compartment, use for ship.
The bulk of the vehicle would be identical in both cases, saving development money.

This is pretty much the least-capital intensive way--you only have to build lots of two fully reusable parts.
Same reason why it's a common engine as well--the upper stage uses 3 non-vacuum raptors, and 6 vacuum raptors (IIRC), while the first stage uses 42 non-vacuum raptors.

Effectively, their design is to minimize the development time/cost at the expense of a reduction in "efficiency" which can be made up for in quantity.  Since literally -all- prior ideas/attempts/programs didn't happen because of cost to start, rather than efficiency in the long run...this is a smart way to do it.

So it's the same strategy they already use for Falcon...one engine type at a time with only a nozzle change for vacuum ops, one vehicle diameter, etc.

I immediately thought that this would be a cheaper way to provide a ship capable of landing and taking off from Mars (which is more important than being able to do both on Earth) than the attendant multiple ships suggested for long term efficiency.

It's nice to read that my instincts are correct, even if I'm not as knowledgeable about the technology involved.