Dennis Tito's mission to Mars
economist.com
economist.com
The big pain is that you only get one launch window, so there's no chance of sending an unmanned version first, etc. And the timescale is compressed (although that also limits the budget helpfully -- it might be less efficient from an engineering perspective, but a 5y drop dead launch date means there will be less bureaucracy and inefficiency...).
I'd still prefer robots which stay and build stuff, and then send humans in force later to colonize, but this can be done now and for low-single digit billions, I don't see why not to do it.
[1] http://io9.com/5987372/everything-we-know-about-dennis-titos...
We're not going to learn anything about Mars that various orbiting satellites and landers haven't already told us. The effects of long-duration spaceflight have been explored using through Mir and the ISS.
The radiation exposure issue is important, but as far as I know solar radiation cycles and intensity are well understood and modelled, as is the effects of radiation on the human body.
I guess we might learn about the extreme pathological effects of confining two people together for such a long voyage, but unlike Mars-500 [1] this is unlikely to help with planning serious expeditions which would require larger crews. Tito's belief that marriage will help his crew psychologically survive the experience seems rather naive, and I wonder if he has consulted anyone with knowledge of team dynamics or the psychological effects of isolation and confinement.
Sorry to be cynical. I'd love to see a serious expedition to Mars within my lifetime, but this isn't it.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARS-500
Edit: Hey downvoters - how about you explain why you disagree? If I'm wrong I'd like to know why so that I can learn.
> attention seeking publicity stunt
Perhaps it's not; how do you know inside this man's mind?
> not going to learn anything about Mars that various orbiting satellites and landers haven't already told us
How do you know? This mission will be manned, that in itself is different. Maybe we will learn stuff. We learn by doing. Also, what did we learn by going to the South Pole? That it was cold? Sometimes people are allowed to do things because they can and because it has yet to be done.
We learned what was there. In 1911 there was no other way to find out except to go there. Thats not true of Mars, where we have high-resolution mapping data on most of the planet available to everyone [1] and a couple of active rovers on the surface. I'd like to see humans go there to land, explore, and do science. Something like robomartin describes [2].
You mention adventure. Apollo 8 was a real adventure: new hardware, the second crewed US flight, the first to leave orbit, and they took it around the moon when comparatively little was know about it. Titos's proposal is not the same thing. The crew will apparently have little to do during the 500+ days of the flight except for during a single brief swing around Mars. They won't even orbit.
I suspect there is a good chance that the crew will come back psychologically damaged for no real gain. Am I a killjoy for saying that?
[1] http://www.google.co.uk/mars/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5324850
Humans have only landed on the moon once. I would have thought going to moon more often. Establishing some sort of base on the moon and improving space technology would increase the speed in which we do anything meaningful with Mars.
I mean, surely there are minerals on the moon? Rare minerals perhaps? Metals? It seems like a far better place to launch ships from due to the lack of atmosphere and less gravity.
Do we actually have a method of propulsion apart from rocket fuel?
While this is a noble mission, I don't see why there is so much interest in the red planet when we haven't even found a relatively efficient way to get to and from our own moon.
Not to be nitpicky, but humans have landed 6 times on the moon, from '69 to '72. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing)
I agree with most of what you've said though. As for the moon and its minerals, I don't think it has any valuable ones but it's an excellent starting place for future long-distance space flights.
12 people have been to the moon, spread over 6 different missions.
http://www.universetoday.com/55512/how-many-people-have-walk...
While this mission might not produce other results than getting better at space travel, I definitely see the point of it.
This mission would be an excellent test of building and using a long-haul space vehicle.
No, that's not true, we know how to build it, but we can't afford it. A fully shielded spacecraft is easy to imagine and draw on a piece of paper, but not so easy to build and launch.
That's true, but (a) we know exactly what radiation levels take place during such an event, and (b) we know how to build radiation shields. It's just not practical to launch an adequate shield.
> but actually trying it is the only way to know if we're right ...
No, we have enough experience with radiation to know our model corresponds to reality.
> but it's still not a solved, easy problem.
It's solved, but it's not easy.
There are several alternatives (solar sails, tethers, nuclear), but the engineering details are yet to be worked out, and all of them still ultimately depend on the same principles as rockets: something has to go in the opposite direction for the vehicle to accelerate.
Absolutely. Hayabusa and Dawn (among others) have already demonstrated the efficiency of ion propulsion systems.
I'm working on a new way to get into orbit and they'll play a part if I can figure out if it's possible to operate them in the upper atmosphere.
Moreover, it's not useful for escaping a planet's gravity well, atmosphere or not. Ion thrusters are extremely weak. E.g. the Dawn probe has a thrust/weight ratio of 0.000007. At the earth's surface, the gravity pulling it down would be 135,000 times stronger than the thrusters pushing it up. It can't fly.
Here's what I was thinking. Float an ion thruster powered ship tethered to a weather balloon with solar panels up to 53km altitude (world record) and fire up the thrusters gradually reaching orbital velocity.
Here are my calculations:
altitude = 53 km
Air density = 5.3 kg/m^3
max speed =7 km/s
Coefficient of drag = .02
Cross section area = 130 meters
I used this equation to calculate the drag:
(aird/2) * (speed2) * coeffdrag * area
And I got around 340 newtons of drag. If an Ion thruster could produce something greater than that, we might be in business.
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=density+air+53+km
Put together, I get something like 2 million Newtons or 200 tonnes force. This is about half the thrust of SpaceX's Falcon 9, so clearly this won't work.
https://www.google.com/search?q=(7.2e-4+kg%2Fm%5E3+%2F+2)+*+...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9
The drag power at this speed is 16 gigawatts, which needs about 100 square kilometers of solar panels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_(physics)#Power
https://www.google.com/search?q=(7.2e-4+kg%2Fm%5E3+%2F+2)+*+...
Another problem: at this altitude, a sphere with a 130 m^2 cross section has a lifting power at most 0.8 kg (the mass of the displaced air).
https://www.google.com/search?q=4%2F3+*+pi+*+(130+m%5E2+%2F+...
This really won't work.
Btw what did you mean about the lift? I was proposing a helium balloon/blimp to supply the lift.
As the atmosphere thins, the amount of lift capable of generated by a helium balloon decreases to the point where, at the altitude you've mentioned, it could lift a total of about 0.8kg (according to GP's calculations). The point being that you wouldn't be able to have much of a payload lifted to those heights.
Oh well on to the next idea.
Frankly, it's hard to get excited about manned missions to Mars if we won't do a thing with the planet in the following 40 years.
You need a lot of propellant to escape from Martian gravity (versus, say, the moon or an asteroid).
Besides the possible problems with carrying it during the whole mission and being sure it will work in Mars after the whole trip, lifting all that propellant out of the Earth is in the best of cases extremely difficult and expensive. Its an enormous hit in the mass budget for your spacecraft.
You can try and do the math, it is not by any means the hardest part of rocketry:
Mars is interesting because it has the ingredients for humans living there: water, minerals for industry and agriculture, energy. The Moon has only solar energy, even that dampened by the 2 week long night.
A much better plan would be an expedition with no set return date (other then intention) - if you were going to land people. A reasonably self-sustaining habitat could probably be set up if we could prove a few key things (namely - can you grow things in Martian soil if you provide an atmosphere, and can you find extra water while you're there?)
The big benefit of a fly by mission - the one we should take advantage of - would be to put people close enough that we could do more frequent rover moves since they'd have real time control for a period while in orbit.
TL;DR: This is in part the "just fucking do it" approach to manned space exploration including travel. Some people argue that it / a return to it are long overdue.
"Mr Tito hopes to pay for Inspiration Mars with a mix of his own money, donations from the public and the sale of media rights"
Maybe this is going to be the first space-based reality TV show. Could be worthwhile just to get the general population excited about space travel. I can't wait to watch this!
There's a lot of notable firsts to be had from this, and we know from ground missions that people can certainly deal with being isolated for 500+ days (and not even being in space).
Tito is planning for 2018. Elon Musk around the same time, maybe a bit after. And Bezos will pick up the pace too. We really do have a new Mars-focused space race with multiple billionaires competing. Amazing!
That said, I'm worried about it. The Moon landing was a highly planned and comparatively efficient expedition. This is being bankrolled by a man who will likely have some control over things despite not having training. I don't think just anyone should be able to plan monumental journeys through space without the official sanction of NASA - at least not until space travel becomes as ubiquitous as driving or riding the train. There are safety protocols to follow.
And choosing 40-50 year old astronauts seems a bit naive. Why wouldn't you choose younger, more fit astronauts? And why not two who have a demonstrated history of working together? Marriage doesn't automatically mean a frictionless relationship.
In any case, I hope whoever they choose has the good sense not to start reading from the Bible. Maybe another scripture, or something less denominational.
What the hell do you mean? He's a former JPL aerospace engineer!
So he was a JPL engineer, but for a short time 40 years ago.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Tito#Life_and_career
What I think might be worthwhile would be the construction of what I am going to call "Enterprise One". This would be a large spaceship (crew of 20 or more) built in orbit. Enterprise One would never be capable of re-entry. That would be the domain of smaller (two or three occupant) capsules built for that purpose.
Ideally, Enterprise One would be an international effort.
The goal would be to construct something far more substantial (and safer) than one could launch from Earth at one time. If it takes ten years to build, so be it.
Once completed Enterprise One could start regular runs to the Moon and back. It would carry Lunar lander modules that would take people to the surface and back. We can learn a lot by having such a spacecraft conduct near-space manned missions with regularity. We could certainly use it to test all manner of technologies, including more advanced robotics.
While perhaps not as sexy as going to Mars, I would do this way before even considering manned missions to Mars. Humanity could benefit from Enterprise One in many ways. I see little benefits from sending a married couple for a Mars fly-by.
I am not sure a mission to Mars would really inspire people to such an extent that it would be worth it.
We have robots on Mars right now. Think about that for a moment: Humanity has robots on another planet this very second. How many kids are in awe of that? How many have thoughts about this on a daily basis?
The sad reality is that a lot of kids (and adults) are far more preoccupied with moving up the level playing Clash of Clans on their iPads than what's going on with space exploration. One is far more tangible and satisfying than the other.
An "Enterprise One" concept would have real continuing research benefits and an opportunity to, perhaps, elevate awareness and interest in the sciences. Missions to the Moon are far more tangible than a two year run to Mars.
I am all for inspiration. Not sure a dueling middle-aged married couple going to Mars would serve that purpose. The other problem is that all manner of things can happen during such a trip. Darwin forgive, if one or both of them die in transit they'll friggin ruin far-space travel for at least a generation.
When curiosity landed on Mars, Time Square was paying attention. The world was paying attention. That will sparks childhood dreams.
I believe that a flyover to Mars will do the same thing, but hopefully on a bigger scale. Plus, they will be communicating with the world constantly.
I am all for inspiration. Not sure a dueling middle-aged married couple going to Mars would serve that purpose. The other problem is that all manner of things can happen during such a trip. Darwin forgive, if one or both of them die in transit they'll friggin ruin far-space travel for at least a generation.
Inspiration and science are not the only reason to do space exploration, but also space colonization as well. How are we going to colonize the solar system if we never sent astronauts beyond low earth orbit and the moon?
And then they forgot. Seriously. That's our reality today.
I'll use my oldest kid as an example of this. He is a straight A (more like A+) student. So are all of his immediate friends. A perfect pack of nerds. I love them all. He is intensely interested in science. He loves it.
Do you know how much of his inspiration comes from the space program or the robots on Mars? Not much. Every so often we'll go to JPL for "ooh" and "ahh" moments. The problem is that these always seem like short hits of adrenaline rather than persistent boosts.
Where these kids get inspiration and constant drive at this point is at home and at school. We make it a point to take them to local (Los Angeles) and distant (San Jose) robotics events and other science-related activities. When he has a science project we dive right in. I've been teaching him how to approach such projects as a real engineer, doing research, modeling, estimating, constructing prototypes, testing, etc. We build and fly model airplanes and helicopters. We build giant soap bubble machines. We got rid of our dinning room table and built a (good looking) Lego FLL competition table right in the middle of our dinning room [1].
On top of that I am teaching him programming in various languages and generally exposing him to that world.
All of this takes time, dedication and, yes, some money. Without effort at this level the decay time of exciting events such as the Mars rover drilling into a rock is probably measured in minutes, if not seconds. These days kids have so many interesting and fun things competing for their attention that keeping them focused on what is really going to make a difference in their lives can be a full time job. Not easy.
That's why I am skeptical about this whole idea of a mission to Mars having any lasting inspirational value. It'll be an "Oh, wow! We did it!" moment for sure. Not certain that it will have mass value beyond a day or two, certainly not months later. Yes, a few people will be inspired. I think there are far cheaper ways to accomplish the same thing.
With regards to space colonization. I'm a Star Trek baby. Grew up watching the show. Love the idea. Also understand that it is as close to impossible as can be. Unless we make an absolutely astounding discovery on Mars the likelihood of finding a habitable planet within a distance measured in human lifetimes is very low. Mars might be the closest we can possibly consider for such an exercise. Even then, it is nearly an impossible task. Have you ever watched a show like Survivorman? Not so easy to survive and thrive with limited resources here on Earth. Exponentially more difficult on another planet.
This is why I think that developing and using a near-space spacecraft as I described would be worth it. We would learn a lot from this. It would be used to develop and test technology for far-space exploration. It would probably create long term financial benefits from near-space activities. And it could be a constant source of interesting activities for our short-attention span generation.
In another sense I am saying: Let's build a reusable no-reentry vehicle that can make regular trips to the Moon. Let's operate it and learn from it for a few years. Then, and only then, consider the idea of building a spacecraft that will take humans to far-space locations. For all we know our near-space ship could, over time, evolve into the far-space ship we would require. That would happen "organically", if you will, and over time.
[1] http://thenxtstep.blogspot.com/2006/06/fll-competition-table...
How is that for a startup idea? I'd probably pay a few hundred bucks to get some time programming a robot for a mission on the Moon.
Imagine what science class would be like? Comms delay to the moon is in the order of 1.3 seconds. That, for all intents and purposes, is real-time.
I can't imagine kids and adults not getting into this. Control my own time-shared robot on the Moon and go take some pictures? That would be amazingly cool.
What's the cost for launch? What's the R&D cost? What's the specs?
Incidently, we already have people developing rovers and lander for the moon, thanks to the Google Lunar X Prize. Maybe by the end of the decade, we will be able to do what you want.
I know it's not cheap. That said, if someone is willing to spend gobs and gobs of money to send a middle-aged couple for a Mars fly-by this would surely be orders of magnitude cheaper and far more likely to generate far more revenue.
Which doesn't exclude you from making a back-of-an-envelope calculation of the cost and a little bit of research, such as figuring out how expensive is a falcon heavy launch, and so on.
I know, with near absolute certainty, that it would be far cheaper to land 1,000 little robots on the Moon than to send two people to do a Mars fly-by. There is no way a fully automatic (no humans, no life support) Moon mission could even approach the cost of a mission to Mars with everything you need to support life and bring them back to Earth.
Part of engineering is to develop a sense for these things. After a while you don't need to resort to constantly calculating things to have an idea of the relative degree of complexity or cost of a project. This, I think, is one of those cases.