In reply to Wesley Bruce's message of Thu, 03 Nov 2005 15:09:42 +1100: Hi, [snip] >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,
I think that if you put the modules in line, rather than in their current configuration, it wouldn't have any problem with the acceleration. However I'm more curious about how long the trip would take using a nuclear reactor and an ion engine at low acceleration as opposed to the high acceleration chemical thruster you appear to be considering. >and it would not carry enough supplys to make the >round trip of three to five years. It need not be the whole ship. >About 30% of its mass would not be >required on a trip to Mars but can't be removed. What mass would that be, and why can't it 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. Excellent, then you should be able to answer all my questions! :) > >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!* What's the lifting capacity of the Russian's largest rocket? [snip] > * An Orbiting network of data relay sats and navigation beacons. > Mars Net. It's been designed awaiting funds. This means that a How many satellites are already in Mars orbit, and is there any reason they can't talk to one another, and thus be used as relay satellites? I know there is at least one, if you count the trip vessel as a second, then you need only one other small satellite to form a triangle, and that could be taken along on the trip. > 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 and > neutron bombarded isotops. That's safer than EVA's. By the time this mission gets off the ground, you may have a CF option as well. BTW I don't think the Hafnium reactor is for real. Perhaps you could explain the "neutron bombarded isotopes" - where do the neutrons come from? Also, if by "Hafnium reactor" you are referring to Hf-178, then that's not really a fission option. [snip] > * 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. Why not land the reactor portion of the main ship on Mars? Then you can use the power from the main reactor to create all the fuel you need in a short period of time. It would save the whole fuel plant trip. It could also make enough fuel for it's own launch for the return trip. The fuel plant could be taken along on the main ship. Might be better than landing only to discover that the previous fuel plant mission didn't quite work, and you now have no way of getting back. If the crew + fuel plant landing doesn't work, then the crew are probably dead, and not very interested in coming back anyway. [snip] > * 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. Given that the Martian atmosphere is so thin, wouldn't you expect the radiation hazard on the surface to be greater than on Earth? If so, can you really afford to have part of it in a multi-story building? (or is that just for the farms?) (Do the current Mars rovers have radiation detectors on board?) [snip] BTW it might be an idea to have 2 smaller reactors rather than 1 large one. Then one can be left in orbit, while one lands. On the trips out and back, both can be used in tandem. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://users.bigpond.net.au/rvanspaa/ Competition provides the motivation, Cooperation provides the means.
