Firstly the ISS is the dry dock not the ship. It is actually doing quite
a lot of quiet science; learning to live in space *was* the original
objective.
The ISS would not survive a trip to Mars. It would not survive the
required acceleration, and it would not carry enough supplys to make the
round trip of three to five years. About 30% of its mass would not be
required on a trip to Mars but can't be removed. I'm in the Australian
Mars society and the National space society NSS. We're doing the design
work that Nasa keeps claiming the credit for.
Space exploration would be simpler if we had the heavy lift craft the
National Space Society NSS has been talking about for years and Nasa has
just announced it now will slowly design and build the thing./ /That's
called reinventing the wheel; given that volunteers in the NSS did a
full design a decade a go. The heavy lift ship could lift the remaining
ISS components in two shots. It can lift ~100 tons. We could do one lift
if all the bits fitted in one bundle but they don't. *Dou!*
It could, for the cost of two shuttle launches, put about 80 tons in
Mars orbit or 30 to 40 tons on the surface. Mars colonization goes in
five phases.
* Robotic exploration. Now underway.
* An Orbiting network of data relay sats and navigation beacons.
Mars Net. It's been designed awaiting funds. This means that a
crew or robot on Mars can call earth at any time from anywhere on
Mars and no-one can get lost. It also means a team on Mars can
teleoperate a robot anywhere on the planet in real time at any
time. We have 3 fission options. Pebble bed, a Hafnium reacter and
neutron bombarded isotops. That's safer than EVA's.
* Mars fuel plant launch. A robot rover equipped unmanned mars
lander that makes fuel from Martian atmosphere. Powered by some
kind of reactor. Cold fusion would be nice. We need 50 kw.
* Manned exploration. Fast rugged rovers with long range. Uses the
fuel from the fuel plant to fly home.
* Permanent base, probably part underground, part in multistory
buildings and part in modular glass houses. It needs to be placed
near a multi-ton water ice deposit. Pressure domes, farm designs
and other system are either in testing or on the drawing board.
If we had the launch money we could build and launch Mars Net plus two
nuclear powered rover in 18 months. Several people are working on
private launch funding.
Robin van Spaandonk wrote:
Hi,
Since the ISS isn't doing a great deal of good science where it
is, why not use it to go to Mars? Since it's already in Earth
orbit, it should cut down on the cost considerably.
Regards,
Robin van Spaandonk
http://users.bigpond.net.au/rvanspaa/
Competition provides the motivation,
Cooperation provides the means.
