Don't forget part of the idea of both a moon base and reaching the asteroid belt is to possibly set up way points and staging areas for a trip to mars in the first place.
Also if the logistics for a single ship trip is so daunting each ship you add only multiplies those complications.
edited 13th Jun '13 10:49:24 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?The asteroid belt is PAST Mars. Mars would be a way station on the way to it.
Anyway, due to cost of construction we're only going to be sending single ships at first that have just enough supplies to get there and back. Not some sort of hunker down and say for a while operation. Though with 3D printers it's more feasible that they'd be able to program something to build shelters out of the local materials, I guess.
It's an optimization problem. How many ships do we need to carry all the necessary supplies while minimizing the actual number of ships used? Time to start deriving, I guess.
Your point about stations on the Moon and asteroid belt is noted, but that further narrows the window of opportunity to get spacecraft going (now ALL of it has to line up as opposed to just Earth and Mars).
ok boomerLast time I saw discussion into the Mars mission it was about first sending automated factories on rockets to lay out a landing base for future personnel. These would include fuel refineries, as well as some other smaller stuff. Basically, we'd spend probably a decade seeding Mars with a bunch of automated machinery and so when we actually send a manned mission, it'll be cheaper and there will be supplies ready and waiting over there.
The cost would be much less than a straight $600 billion 2-year supplied manned mission to Mars. You can send a one-way ship to be refuelled there.
Other ways to reduce cost would be to create orbital plants around Earth but without any space-elevator equivalent tech, the cost would still be quite high. However, the idea of pouring money into this type of research is that it would spur on technologies that will reduce the cost. So if we don't spend, then it won't happen because there's no incentive.
@ Joesolo
As I said, NASA would receive $100s of millions in equipment and personnel, which is money. Are you really that adamant that my statement mean exactly that Chinese officials walk over with a bag of cash and hand it to NASA officials? Rockets cost money. You pay for less rockets, NASA can do other stuff. It's beneficial for both sides.
If nothing less than a bag of cash satisfies you then I can see why it's so damn hard to work with NASA.
Does anybody know if there are stable orbits between the planets that we can use to give more windows of opportunity for launch? That is, automated refueling stations we can put in? We could do it over a 10 or 20 year period of time to lower budgetary concerns (also do it with a global alliance). I mean, it'd be something like the LHC, where there was a gazillion countries contributing small amounts of money to equal up to 10 billion USD.
We could repeat it but over a longer period of time given that space budget these days are the lowest priority for everybody but China.
Short answer? No.
Long answer? Launch windows have nothing to do with "refueling stations" or anything like that. The reason that we'd really only want to launch a Mars mission approximately every two years is because that's when Mars's orbit and Earth's orbit line up to make the trip between them as easy as possible. The simplest way to think of it is that that's when the two planets are "closest" in terms of space travel (though that's not actually the point in their orbits where the distance between them is as low as it ever gets). No matter what technological advances we make (short of teleportation over interplanetary distances, I suppose), the every-two-years launch window will always be the best time to send something from Earth to Mars. We could do it pretty much whenever we want, but the farther outside that launch window we get, the less efficient the trip is, the longer the trip takes, and (consequently), the less actual payload we can send to Mars.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.The Earth's magnetic field is generated by the flow of conductive magma in the core. Mars supposedly has a solid core, which is why it doesn't generate a strong magnetic field like the Earth does (it only has weak local magnetic fields). My impression is that the scale of the Earth's magnetic field is way too huge for any foreseeable technology to generate artificially (despite what you may have seen in movies). We are not even close to being able to do it here on Earth, much less on another planet. Creating a smaller magnetic field to protect just a single human habitat on the martian surface is much easier, but in order for it to stop the particle radiation it would need to be much stronger, strong enough that it would interfere with electronic equipment, yank metal objects around, and possibly even kill the colonists.
At any rate, by the time we have the ability to generate a magnetic field to protect a planet, we will probably have rebuilt our own bodies so that particle radiation isn't an issue anymore.
Join my forum game!Well the idea of refuelling stations is that you can launch more often and then sit and wait at the stations. This is especially useful for unmanned supply missions as an example. Waiting only every two years introduces other inefficiencies that may make launching only during those times even more inefficient in the big picture (for instance, you'd have to create only manned missions primed for two-years between resupply, whereas in the other scenario, we can launch unmanned missions in between and they sit in orbit until they hit secondary windows for another launch).
It's rather difficult otherwise to have only once every two-year missions.
You wouldn't make anything more efficient doing it that way, though. For one, in order to get the refueling station there in the first place, you'd have to launch it into position. You've already spent the energy to get all the stuff there — so where does the increased efficiency come from? You're just frontloading your costs (and adding some overhead), not actually making anything more efficient.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.@bread- You said they'd get money. "equipment and personnel" is not money, it's equipment and personnel. it has monetary value, but it's still not money in and of itself. Say what you mean.
on refueling stations- unless we start putting up spaceships that stay in space, there isn't a lot of point to them. you need multiple launches of small rockets for one mission that usually just needs one big rocket.
I'm baaaaaaack"Refueling stations" doesnt really make any sense, but a self-sustaining raw materials processing plant that could make, say, rocketships would be eminently useful. It wouldnt change the launch timing very much, but would significantly alter the cost and logistics. That's why it might be more important to go to the asteroids than Mars.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.My best friend does not believe that NASA is going to build any rocket, and if they do, it will be launched by private companies.
I cannot imagine private companies launching the Saturn V equivalent that was discussed before. Not at this level of technology development.
My President is Funny Valentine.The general idea was to put space infrastructure staying in space. Frontloading costs isn't just a matter of shifting things about with a bit of overhead. The idea is that a single large spaceship can be exponentially more expensive than simply running a few smaller ships.
Refuelling stations means something that you can touch while in transit such a spaceship that flies past and grabs a module full of goods. It can mean automatic facilities on Mars making fuel. Unmanned spaceships that move supplies around on automated trajectories.
The idea is this (remember what I can from the article): You build automated unmanned refineries for all sorts of things (mostly air and fuel). You launch them out to Mars and anywhere else you think your spacecraft might go. You run unmanned spacecraft that truck around goods (to the refuelling stations, not to the stations on Mars) to those refuelling points. They stay in space. You build one-way or even half-way spacecraft which are immensely cheaper due to high fuel efficiency (you can refuel on the way) that then fly to Mars. Rather than build a 2-year capable spaceship, you build a 6-month capable spaceship (or whatever) lowering the cost exponentially.
So you don't just "frontload costs with some overhead", you reduce it exponentially. Building a ship that can last 2-years and building one that lasts 6-months is a gigantic difference. Of course, the overall system is only efficient if you reuse it.
We can cut out the refuelling stations entirely, but with the Mars-based automation that still means you can build one-way ships.
@ Joesolo
I didn't think I'd have to specify that "getting money" did not mean bags of cash. It's very standard. For instance, CSA (Canada) provides NASA with rovers, robotic arms and other highly expensive technology. If you thought the US government paid money for it, they do not. They paid in shuttle rides and rockets. Same thing with ESA/CSA and ESA/NASA cooperation. The exchange is almost always "I pay for one thing, you pay for another thing". I wasn't aware you had no idea this was how space industry worked, so I apologise for the confusion.
edited 17th Jun '13 1:20:02 AM by breadloaf
@bread- Money is Money, Ships are ships and support is support. You probably just meant it would save Nasa money or something, it's really not an issue.
@captain- Nasa generally doesn't build the rockets itself, they design it and then contract it out to companies. the Saturn V, for example, was built by IBM, Boeing, North American Aviation, and Douglas.
edited 17th Jun '13 1:31:40 PM by Joesolo
I'm baaaaaaack

@solo: that is not gonna happen, and you know that.
We hate the government too.
When we get to Mars, the flag we stick should be the Earth flag.
edited 13th Jun '13 10:17:14 PM by KnightofNASA