Words alone won't get the stars and stripes to Mars

"America is going to Mars," said Elon Musk at yesterday's inauguration of US President Donald Trump. America is already there, thanks to decades of robotic exploration. Musk's vision is to send humans to the Red Planet rather than the rovers rolling around the Martian surface. Those astronauts would then plant the American …

[alain williams]

I suggest that the first two explorers be ...

Trump and Musk. Let them take risks rather than letting others do so on their behalf.

Them leaving would also make this planet a much safer place for the rest of us. It is a shame that we will need to wait until the end of next year for the launch window.

[DS999]

Re: I suggest that the first two explorers be ...

Let's put them up on the next Starship launch. Think of how their supporters would cheer their bravery going into orbit. If it blows up like the last one, we'll give them a monument in DC somewhere. I'm sure we can find room for a 400 foot high 3D version of the turd emoticon.

[MyffyW]

Re: I suggest that the first two explorers be ...

If Elmo and his pet politico are the passengers, no need to prioritise safe return, so no need to wait for a suitable launch window. In the brave new world, launch windows are for pussies, shirley?

Launch, Trump-baby, launch

[Roj Blake]

We're twenty years away from a man on Mars

Much like we've been for the last fifty years!

[MachDiamond]

Re: We're twenty years away from a man on Mars

"Much like we've been for the last fifty years!"

It's much more than 20 years. The moon is a few days there, a few days back and whatever time is spent tootling around collecting rocks. Mars is 9 months there, 9 months back and if the return trip isn't started rather soon after arriving, it's another couple of years of waiting. Provided, of course, that after more than 2 years in zero to 1/3G doesn't divorce one permanently from living on Earth.

Elon talks a lot about people on Mars, but the only thing being worked on is a giant rocket that only has a tentative chance of getting to the moon. No life support, no habitats, food production technology, water recycling and collecting, etc. There's a massive amount of hand waving in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, but it does talk about sending heavy equipment and industrial scale processing components which don't seem to be things that are being designed and prototyped but could take a long time to work out. On a planet where the average surface temp is -60 something, common alloys can change properties that are understood on Earth. Even Antarctica play a prank on early explorers by messing with Tin solder that was used to seal tins of food and fuel.

It will take loads of money and a very long term commitment to put people on Mars. Convincing the citizens that it's a great idea to spend money on it will require something more than a 'flag and footprints' mission. In the US, the window for a commitment is only 4-8 years long. Years 5-8 are only there if the President wishes to leave a legacy with the project. Since 4 years is far short of what a serious project would require, it won't help a first term President come the next election and may do damage if the program is not going well and way over budget.

[corb]

I'd be very happy if Musk put himself on a Mars-bound rocket tomorrow but, when you look at it, his vehicle is minimally capable of doing what he wants it to do.

As far as I recall, his Starship rockets can't leave Mars without being refueled from automated facilities that were somehow set up and operated, before the crewed vehicle's arrival, to manufacture and store propellant and oxidizer using subsurface water ice. Seems to me a very long tent pole.

Only a bit shorter is the pole representing the requirement for Musk's vehicle to be refueled multiple time in low Earth orbit before it can go anywhere else, including to the Moon.

(I'd also like to know if his vehicle is capable of navigating to a landing next to those automated fuel depots if Mars gins up one of its long-lasting dust storms while the ship is en route.)

[Excused Boots]

Alas I can’t upvote this observation more than once, because it is absolutely spot-on.

Theoretically, it could be done, now, but Starship (really?) has yet to be placed in a stable orbit* and de-orbit itself and safely land. Secondly, there will need to be multiple launches of ‘tanker’ versions (which don’t currently exist) to refuel the Mars-bound spaceship, in orbit refuelling has yet to be tested and any bugs ironed out - it ‘should’ work, but still!

The radiation hazards en-route have been mentioned before, no need to me the go other it. It ‘could’ be helped by arranging bags of water around the hull, or segments of the hull, water is a good absorber of high-energy particles. So this may not be an insurmountable issue - but again it need to be tested.

But, as stated, if all of this works, then the explorers aren't coming back to Earth, they won't have enough fuel. It supposes some kind of facility on Mars to generate fuel from existing resources, which implies multiple launches and automated facilities.

It’s not impossible and, I’m sure we will do it eventually, but it’s decades away!

[Neil Barnes]

But, but... surely inertialess and faster-than-light travel was documented in the 1930s by the excellent E. E. Doc Smith?

Have the secret global conspiracy masters been suppressing that knowledge ever since?

[Mage]

Skylark

The 1st book was 1928.

Humorously used iron as a fuel. He would have known about fission and fusion. So a deliberate joke.

A wonderful inventor of "Space Opera". We own him a lot.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Skylark

A wonderful inventor of "Space Opera". We own him a lot.

What we *don't* owe him for is his white supremacy and racism (which are pretty pervasive in all his books - especially the Lensman ones).

I liked his books when I read them as a kid. Trying to read them as an adult was fairly uncomfortable.

[mdubash]

Re: Skylark

Same applies to Heinlein

[Andrew Scott]

Re: Skylark

Only remember reading "Skylark DuQuesne. Thought it was pronounced du-kes-ne. 8th grade and didn't know anyone else who read stuff like that. No one to share correct pronunciation with. Had the same problem with D-Art-ag-nan. Found out years later it was Dar-tan-yun". Probably still mispronouncing names from old books.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Skylark

"Probably still mispronouncing names from old books."

It's annoying to get sci-fi audiobooks where the narrator doesn't know how to pronounce the words. They really should be able to get help rather than just trying to guess. What other meaningful work is there for a producer/director to take care of? Some readers I won't even bother with they are so bad.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: Skylark

> It's annoying to get sci-fi audiobooks where the narrator doesn't know how to pronounce the words.

This is what I regularly use dict.cc for. Also exposes the English problem of inconsistent pronunciation :D.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Skylark

"He would have known about fission and fusion.

Perhaps not. When did Otto and Lise conceive the mechanics of fission? Good grief, I'd have to listen to "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" again and take notes for once.

[Anonymous Coward]

>some kind of facility on Mars to generate fuel from existing resources, which implies ...

Nuclear power stations. Decent sized ones. You aren't going to get that much energy from solar panels

[MachDiamond]

"It ‘could’ be helped by arranging bags of water around the hull, or segments of the hull, water is a good absorber of high-energy particles. "

The thickness of a water shield that's of any use cuts way into the volume and can mass more than the rocket can lift all by itself. The measurements have already been done and the theory has been well tested.

SpaceX has already contemplated an orbital propellant depot that is yet to be unveiled if any work on one has been done. They'll need that to deliver HLS Starship to lunar orbit. People have mentioned an architecture where HLS is sent to Earth orbit and refilled without a depot, but SpaceX (Elon) hasn't talked about it.

For Starship to test being plucked out of the air with chopsticks, SpaceX will need permission to overfly populated areas as the ship comes back down to the only operational facility they have in Boca Chica, TX. It might take a few orbits or some good cross orbital maneuver capability to accomplish that since the track up and out is severely constrained. Can they get that done in a few months from now or will several more loads of Starlink sats make it too difficult?

[Ken Hagan]

In short, a Mars mission will require several dozen flights, only one of which will carry people. Also, they won't be able to stay long unless there are many more flights to place serious infrastructure at the landing site.

(The navigation problem might be solved by some of those flights carrying a few GPS satellites.)

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Navigation on Mars won't need GPS. There is already enough data to do without anyway. The interesting part of Mars mapping is where GPS cannot be used anyway, which is dangerous. But wait, maybe the Mickey 7 or Moon (2009 movie) scenario is the solution for Mars here.

While we are at it: I started reading Mickey 7, and the moon movie does not seem to have a novel it is based on - but maybe some commentards here got nice suggestions? Nowhere else so many good reads were suggested as in this forum.

[Jellied Eel]

..,but maybe some commentards here got nice suggestions? Nowhere else so many good reads were suggested as in this forum.

Have you read this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy

It's a classic tale of colonisation, terraforming and the politics that could go along with any Mars ventures.

[Rattus]

+1

KSR's Mars Trilogy is not so much Si-Fi novel, instead more a probable future history.

Key events and their sequence seam more or less inevitable to me.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Kim Stanley Robinson is already on the List :D.

[MachDiamond]

"It's a classic tale of colonisation, terraforming and the politics that could go along with any Mars ventures."

Don't forget the loads and loads of social differences with even more politics used as a frosting in addition to the creamy center.

There are some interesting memes being explored in the book, but it also suffers from Robert Zubrin's obvious input. A lot more thinking has been done since the Mars Direct paper was written.

[MachDiamond]

"Also, they won't be able to stay long unless there are many more flights to place serious infrastructure at the landing site."

Before that, some sort of robotic proof-of-concept mission will have to be sent since sourcing the raw materials will be an issue as well. Can an air miner run on Mars without breaking down long enough to collect and separate the gases needed? Live will be on the line if people are sent.

[Jellied Eel]

As far as I recall, his Starship rockets can't leave Mars without being refueled from automated facilities that were somehow set up and operated, before the crewed vehicle's arrival, to manufacture and store propellant and oxidizer using subsurface water ice. Seems to me a very long tent pole.

This is the bit I don't get. Nice dream, but is Starship really the right rocket? The design is all very Buck Rodgers, but doesn't seem that practical to land it arse-first on the Martian surface, figure out how to get people and supplies to the surface, refuel it etc etc. The tent poles could be useful however to stop it getting blown over. Part of the mission could include a partnership with Ikea to ship a self-assembly landing table I guess.

Doing it the traditional way of orbiter plus a more practical lander would seem like a cheaper and safer idea. Might be merit in having Starships as freighters, but landers.. Not convinced. Might be more convinced when the data from the landings SpacX did on the Moon all those years ago are released.

[Flocke Kroes]

"The Martian" was not a documentary

First up, much of the mass is at the bottom of Starship. The angle require to get it to tip over is greater than the maximum Apollo landers could handle.

Next up: Starship will not blow over. Mars atmosphere is only 1% the pressure of Earth's. Combining the low temperature, higher molecular weight (CO2 vs N2+O2) and huge wind velocities means it is just barely worth thinking of a Martian wind turbine - but only because it might start working during a dust storm when you would like an alternative to solar panels. (The more likely solution would be to run the propellant farm in reverse: burn methane and oxygen to keep the lights on until the storm blows out.)

NASA have tried costing up a traditional lander and orbiter. They were getting figures of over $10B with plenty of opportunity for schedule slips and cost overruns. They were not going to get $10B and even if they did it would be with a "work first (only) time + no risk whatsoever". That would drive the delivery date into the far future and make SLS look cheap. And that is for a few hundred grams of regolith. It would have to scale up by a factor of at least 1000 for humans.

I know there is a loud mouthed arsehole who spends most of his time making fart noises twitter. Ignore him and remember that a bunch of very clever people also work at SpaceX. They have a budget of about $2B/year from Starlink. Almost enough to launch half an SLS! It is quite possible some of these people can re-invent the elevator. Archimedes had one working in 236BC and understanding of the required the technology has improved over the last 2000 years.

Landing a Starship on the Moon will be "interesting". My bet is it may not work first time and SpaceX will be doing an uncrewed HLS Demo landing 2. If you want to know more try some of Laura Forczyk's videos as they are available now and she has been studying lunar regolith for years.

[Excused Boots]

Re: "The Martian" was not a documentary

"Next up: Starship will not blow over. Mars atmosphere is only 1% the pressure of Earth’s”

In fact I do recall reading a paper that suggested that although the wind speeds may be high, the low pressure means that it might, might, just about be able to move a piece of paper on the surface!

There is an interview somewhere with the producer (I think) of the film adaptation of ‘The Martian’, who was questioned about the scene of the MAV being blown over and admitted, that “yes we know, it was just dramatic licence’.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: "The Martian" was not a documentary

First up, much of the mass is at the bottom of Starship. The angle require to get it to tip over is greater than the maximum Apollo landers could handle.

Next up: Starship will not blow over. Mars atmosphere is only 1% the pressure of Earth's. Combining the low temperature, higher molecular weight (CO2 vs N2+O2) and huge wind velocities means it is just barely worth thinking of a Martian wind turbine

Yeh, I bet Diotisalvi said the much thing about his Tower of Power. It'll be fine, it'll never blow/tip over. Oh, and.. isn't there some relationship between temperature, pressure and molecular weight that affects wind force, and aerodynamics in general?

But.. Hasn't the Starship's payload shrunk from 200t, to 150, to 100t? And that payload sits at the top of a 52mx9m diameter tower made of thin walled stainless steel, with some void-ish spaces between top and bottom? That might, if full mass another 1500t? All will have to be perched on.. something so that the whole column doesn't sink, tilt, or generally knacker the wobbly bits on it's arse that are a tad critical for getting our first humans on Mars back safely back home?

And then there's that atmospheric pressure, or for simplicity's sake, call it density. So the ability for the Starship to bellyflop, glide, and not lithobrake at life incompatible velocities.

But I'm sure SpacX has thought of this, especially after it was due to have landed on the Moon years ago, and it hasn't yet demonstrated an ability to return from orbit and land on Earth with any kind of realistic payload, let alone a human rated test vehicle.

NASA though is a tad risk averse when it comes to yeeting humans on top of explosives. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, but being a long time SF fan I can't help thinking a lander that could be fit inside a Starship payload bay might be a far safer idea. Maybe something with a lower COG/COM, big thrusters at the back, 4 thruster pods set around a detachable cargo pod and a crew cabin up front. Call it the 'Eagle' or something.

It's also why I think we need a lot more probes first. Not for payback for those kinky aliens, but to learn more about where we might be going. Especially as previous ones have shown a few surprises around what we thought the Martian surface might be like.

(Pet peeve and sometimes shouting at the screen when TV/Movie spaceships are shown with engines at the back, but nothing at the front, top or sides to give them much in the way of control. Plus sinking waaay too many hours making my own misguided missiles in Space Engineers. A fun physics and Klang simulator, available on Steam..)

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: "The Martian" was not a documentary

"Hasn't the Starship's payload shrunk from 200t, to 150, to 100t?"

That's launch payload you are talking about. Without getting into the ins and outs of prototypes, new engines, new ship designs (latest one that blew up was a new design from all the previous and even that is expected to be superseded by a version 3 before they are flight/production ready - and anyway V1s and V2s are well known for exploding :-)), I doubt very, very much that those payload masses are anywhere close to what will able to be landed safely on Moon or Mars. At the very least, the more mass you are trying to land, the more fuel (and more mass!) you need for slowing down without lithobraking. You and up in a similar situation the launch fuel/mass equation.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: "The Martian" was not a documentary

I doubt very, very much that those payload masses are anywhere close to what will able to be landed safely on Moon or Mars. At the very least, the more mass you are trying to land, the more fuel (and more mass!) you need for slowing down without lithobraking. You and up in a similar situation the launch fuel/mass equation.

Yep. And a payload mass would also need to be landed to get the astronauts back to Earth. But various iterations of Starship have added mass with additional stringers & strengthening, heat shielding which reduces the mass to orbit and thus increases cost per kg. Plus it hasn't successfully landed with any simulated payload has it? But any attempt would be a few months off (Musk time) or years off (real time) and I still think it's the wrong kind of lander.

I like the idea of staging, so building a Earth-orbit or lunar fuelling/supply/assembly base, then a Mars orbital, and prepping a landing site with fuel and supplies. But having a Marship & lander still seems more sensible than trying to land a Starship and having that take off again from Mars. It's been fascinating to see how various missions have dealt with the challenges of landing on Mars already, especially things like the Mars copter.

[Spherical Cow]

Re: "The Martian" was not a documentary

"But various iterations of Starship have added mass with additional stringers & strengthening, heat shielding which reduces the mass to orbit and thus increases cost per kg."

The version which ferries people from LEO to LMO won't need any heat shielding or wings/flaps. It just goes from orbit around one planet to orbit around another.

Having said that, it will need a different kind of shielding: radiation.

[MachDiamond]

Re: "The Martian" was not a documentary

"Not for payback for those kinky aliens, but to learn more about where we might be going. "

What? These aliens

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjiGH9QNiU0

[MachDiamond]

Re: "The Martian" was not a documentary

"Hasn't the Starship's payload shrunk from 200t, to 150, to 100t? "

Version one shrank to between 30T and 50T. Looking at the fuel gauges, I don't buy it.

V2, now that one will lift 100T to LEO, I'm highly confident, sometime in the next year, maybe a year and three months.

[MachDiamond]

"Might be merit in having Starships as freighters, but landers.. Not convinced. "

The freight has to get to the surface somehow. To send along small landers to shuttle gear down and return for another load would be a big operation with no backup support such as we have on Earth. Any mishap would be fatal (to humans or robots) and it would be another few years to send a backup. I'm not so sure that after 9 months in space there'd be any cryogenic propellants left in the tanks to establish orbit at the very least. If the Mars Starships used storeable hypergolics, they could land and be built in a way so they can self-disassemble. (When Worlds Collide) Sections could be used as habitats after being emptied and tanks used as storage vessels for fuel being made in situ for a return trip. I suppose the surplus engines could be turned into lamps or something.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Chinese!

Note that the Apollo program was a response to the Soviets beating the Americans to space. The prospects of the Chinese beating the Americans to outer space would be a strong motivation.

Except, such an endeavor requires stamina, focus, foresight, and organization. Trump's first term lacked all four. The current roster of appointees are not different, quality wise.

Also, the budget for a manned mission to Mars is enormous (~$500B and up) and is antithetical to slashing all federal funding.

And why would Trump put his weight behind a project he will never see the end of, given his age?

(although I wonder whether Trump understands the concept of a world without him)

[Killing Time]

Re: The Chinese!

'And why would Trump put his weight behind a project he will never see the end of, given his age?'

Same could be said for Musk, he is moving into the back end of the bellcurve and you don't know what is going on with his health.

All the money in the world is not going to help if your time is up. Jobs would probably attest to that if he was still around.

I'm sure I saw Musk's heels clicking together when he was 'waving' to the crowd yesterday, maybe he was wishing his way to wonderland, yeah, I'm sure that was the reason.

P.S. I do hope El Reg makes that image the default of Musky going forward, it's quite flattering....

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The Chinese!

Another one of Godwin's sons has found a keyboard, he must be proud to have come up with such a wonderfully imaginative slur.

[Mr F&*king Grumpy]

Re: The Chinese!

Yeah, he should follow Musk to pick up on really imaginative, giggling-nerd-schoolboy slurs like "Oaf Schitz". What an inspiring human he is.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: The Chinese!

I'm sure I saw Musk's heels clicking together when he was 'waving' to the crowd yesterday,

I'll happily call you out for that comment. I realise TDS creates all sorts of cognitive behaviour anomalies, but this is the first I've heard of it giving sufferers such as yourself remote x-ray vision. There may be other video, but all the ones I saw showed Musk standing behind a lectern.

Far-left fever dreams are really far out I guess..

[Killing Time]

Re: The Chinese!

TDS? My, aren't we on vogue with the comebacks! Unfortunately for you it missed completely as I was clearly referring solely to Musk.

I'll let you in on a little secret, between me, you and the lampost, I was being facetious.

What respect I had for Musk is disappearing rapidly, primarily as he appears to be unwilling to own his public behaviour. It's my personal view of his ethical and moral behaviour, politics have nothing to do with that, that's your baggage.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: The Chinese!

It's my personal view of his ethical and moral behaviour, politics have nothing to do with that, that's your baggage.

So basically what your saying is your politics Trumps your ethics and morals, and allows you to invent something that didn't happen? You seem to be carrying far more baggage that I..

[Like a badger]

Re: The Chinese!

"Same could be said for Musk, he is moving into the back end of the bellcurve"

Moving into the back of the bell-end curve, more like.

[SundogUK]

Re: The Chinese!

My god, you're so funny...

[MachDiamond]

Re: The Chinese!

'And why would Trump put his weight behind a project he will never see the end of, given his age?'

For some, they want a big successful project tied to their name as a legacy. JFK was not that interested in space, but thought putting humans on the moon would secure his place in the history books. It can be found in them, but not in a way he would have preferred. BTW, If you take the Amtrak Southwest Chief through Texas, you can see from the train the book depository building and the "grassy knoll" where JFK was assassinated.

[John Smith 19]

"Note that the Apollo program was a response to the Soviets beating the Americans to space. "

This was a massive part of Apollo. Starting with the memo from Johnson (Lyndon, not Boris) about what the USG could use to show US prowess to the world.

NASA was 5% of the US Federal budget at the time, itself swollen by expenditure on the Vietnam war.

Today it's more like 0.9% and. Last time I checked it was < a)What the DoD spends on aircon for it's overseas bases and b)what Americans spend on home delivered pizza.

On the upside.

On orbit refuelling is a routine practice of the Space Station for reboosting to altitude. NASA has repeatedly failed to launch an on-orbit cryogenic test project despite Robert Braun's work in the early 2010's showing that on-orbit cryo storage and management (IE a depot) is the 2nd best way to massively reduce the payload to LEO needed (by 60% IIRC) for a Mars mission* Curiously, despite it's vital part of enabling Musk's vision SX doesn't seem to have done any either.

Vertical take off SSTO is difficult on earth, but Apollo achieved it on the moon 56 years ago, with very poor engine Isp. Raptor (Currently 3rd or 4th Gen HW) exceeds the best Soviet era engines on T/W and Isp developed for the USSR moon landing. SSTO from the Martian surface (provided they get the fuel) is quite feasible.

NASA has a 10Kw nuclear power reactor that was sized to power both the ion drives to the outer planets (It's been a long time since anyone's been to Uranus and Neptune) and power high energy payloads like radars or crewed surface missions. Their DUFF PoC evolved into the 1st gen KRUSTI design.

BTW Starship was designed to do affordable space exploration. It recognizes propellent is cheap, (at least on earth). Aluminum alloy is quite cheap and steel is very cheap (and a damm sight easier to weld). But the NASA BAU of a new-vehicle-for-each-stage-there-and-back with its millions of staff-hours for each stage is not cheap. It is however very good at injecting cash into the US aerospace industry.

SX are making progress and have gone further and faster than any previous (and current IE Blue) competitor but humans to Mars in 4 years? No chance. Musk is a world class tool but SX's achievements are impressive.

It's just too bad he can't get his head around his child's transition.

*the first is nuclear thermal propulsion, with a cost estimate alone of $13Bn.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: "Note that the Apollo program was a response to the Soviets beating the Americans to space. "

On orbit refuelling is a routine practice of the Space Station for reboosting to altitude."

IIRC, the US booster/engine/thruster module was cancelled. One of the Russian modules has thrusters and fuel but only as a very last resort. The vast majority of orbital burns are carried out by the cargo ships that are attached. NASA has no in orbit refuelling facilities for ISS because they don't do in orbit refuelling. Even when they were planning a thruster module, the plans at the time called for tanks to be delivered and swapped out as needed by the Space Shuttle specifically so they didn't have to deal with in orbit fuel transfers.

[John Smith 19]

Re: "Note that the Apollo program was a response to the Soviets beating the Americans to space. "

"IIRC, the US booster/engine/thruster module was cancelled."

True but ATV could and did refuel ISS. The Zedzda is the Service Module for the ISS and has 2 690lb thrusters that have been used for orbit raising and.

No US experience <> no experience at all. That process is known both in Russian and the EU.

What is lacking is experience of cryogenic transfer, even of LOX levels.

What is known is that Saturn V did active propellant management by using thrust in the 10 micro g range to keep LH2 & LO2 in a ball at end of their respective tanks. That used hypergolic thrusters but the J-2S project planned to migrate that to running the J-2s in a low power pressure fed mode.

[MachDiamond]

Re: "Note that the Apollo program was a response to the Soviets beating the Americans to space. "

"Raptor (Currently 3rd or 4th Gen HW) exceeds the best Soviet era engines on T/W and Isp developed for the USSR moon landing. "

They are doing that by pushing materials to the absolute limits which is risky and makes reuse less likely or even more risky. Funny cars and dragsters go like mad with insane horsepower, but at the expensive of needing to tear down and rebuild the engines for each run (if they didn't go boom). At one point, many teams were blowing up a lot of engines in pursuit of every last foal that many organizations started fining teams when it happens. The danger to the people and giant oil slick that takes so much time to clear up were massive problems.

[smudge]

"America is going to Mars," said Elon Musk

Well it's certainly going to Hell, that's for sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "America is going to Mars," said Elon Musk

Well it's certainly going to Heil, that's for sure.

FTFY.

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Re: "America is going to Mars," said Elon Musk

At least if we go, we'll have a song to sing.

American Guys on Mars

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

It will work... IF

Trump gets the same treatment as JFK. Then, and only then, five and a half year after that treatment, we will land on Mars.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It will work... IF

Why do you think that this it is normal or morally correct to suggest that a man is assassinated?

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: It will work... IF

Oh I don't. He won't be assassinated. Not the slightest change that will happen since he is surrounded by security which do know their job. And when it comes to his personal security I bet he is the one listening instead of talking.

Therefore human landing on Mars is not in reach within this decade. Next decade could get interesting, but that depends on how much more is wasted on that political enragement surrounding Donald Trump.

In the current situation there is a high possibility China will be the first step for mankind on the moon. I'd say about 50:50 for now, and by the end of this decade a better guess might be possible.

[MachDiamond]

Re: It will work... IF

"In the current situation there is a high possibility China will be the first step for mankind on the moon. I'd say about 50:50 for now, and by the end of this decade a better guess might be possible."

Getting accurate information about China's space plans is often contradictory, but one menu I've seen has them aiming for a (semi) permanent base on the moon without a first "flags and footprints" mission. It's well known that we can get there and China has had several successful missions already with landers and bots. I could believe a manned program that begins with some sort of first steps in building a long term base.

[Roj Blake]

Re: It will work... IF

God is protecting Trump from assassins. Trump said so himself, so it must be true.

[David Hicklin]

Re: It will work... IF

> God is protecting Trump from assassins. Trump said so himself, so it must be true.

That has a chillingly familiar ring about it.....

[Jan 0]

Re: God is protecting Trump from assassins. Trump said so himself, so it must be true.

Why is Trump so silent on why the dad near him got killed? Was he an evil dad?

[theOtherJT]

Re: It will work... IF

It became normal when Trump and people like him started whipping up mobs to suggest that politicians be hanged for not doing what they want. Violence as a political action was normalized by Trump and the people who support him.

It became morally acceptable when the very people who were chanting that they should be hanged - that stormed the capital with the intent to overthrow a government by force - are given unconditional pardons, because when there's no rule of law, "frontier justice" becomes the only kind available.

Trump, by his own actions, has demonstrated over and over again out that "You can do and say what you want as long as you have enough power" regardless of what the law might suggest. As someone who is very against that concept I would not be at all sorry to see the consequences of it demonstrated. A little bit of "This is exactly what we fucking warned you about" feels decidedly justified at this point.

[Mr Dogshit]

Re: It will work... IF

Oh, please sir! Me sir! I know this one!

It's because he's a vain, barely literate, fascist, criminal, lying, narcissistic, venal, backstabbing, bullying, incurious, intellectually and morally bankrupt, sordid, degenerate, sociopathic bag of shit, who isn't fit to run a Scout troop.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: It will work... IF

It's because he's.. incurious

Not sure how you figure that one given the diverse range of businesses under the X belt. Plus most of the other characteristics are common to many CEO and many of the MBA-crowd still seem to think that greed is good, and having an ASPD or 3 can help you climb your way to the top, and over the fallen corpses of your cow-orkers. But see also the way the knives came out for Biden when he went from being as sharp as a tack to Mr Potato head practically overnight. I really hope he writes (or more likely has ghostwritten) a book about that affair.

[MachDiamond]

Re: It will work... IF

" the knives came out for Biden when he went from being as sharp as a tack to Mr Potato head practically overnight."

I've got a strong feeling I won't live long enough for the truth to be told about who was in the White House for those four years pulling the levers behind the curtain. It was painful to watch Joe nod off during important meetings/events and not have a clue which way he was to go even though he would have been told a few minutes prior. High level politicians are severely choreographed. The are coached before events to know who is important to acknowledge, when they'll "take the stage" and what they do after delivering the highly crafted soundbytes.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: It will work... IF

You deserve more up votes than only mine.

[Charlie Clark]

Typical Trump – don't look there, look here

A manned mission to Mars, unlike the manned missions to the moon, makes little sense. It was only really by going to the moon did we learn just how dangerous is for human bodies. Going to another planet to put up a flag is just the most expensive photo opportunity that anyone has ever come up with. And the costs could dwarf even the Apollo programme in a time of growing deficits and tax cuts.

However, and you can see this in various documents, the US and US companies are already vying to privatise assets in space with the ownership automatically passing to the first country or first company there and it wants to establish legal precedent in the US to underline this. This is very much in the tradition of American expansion and flies in the face of all the lessons we could have learned from the wanton exploitation of resources and the tragedy of the commons. Indeed, we may learn even more about this over the next decade as space junk and debris in the upper atmosphere build up due to more and more and larger and larger launches. How long before we see court cases where attempts are made to claim ownership over certain orbits?

[m4r35n357]

Re: Typical Trump – don't look there, look here

We all know that Mars orbits the _Sun_, not Earth, right?

Just checking.

[alain williams]

Re: Typical Trump – don't look there, look here

We do, but Trump thinks that everything revolves around himself. A modern day Louis XIV who is president not king.

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Re: Typical Trump – don't look there, look here

"Going to another planet to put up a flag is just the most expensive photo opportunity that anyone has ever come up with. "

I'd hope The Markle's were up for it, they would only hang around for 17 minutes.

[werdsmith]

Re: Typical Trump – don't look there, look here

“It was only really by going to the moon did we learn just how dangerous is for human bodies”

I don’t think so. The danger was very well understood before any Apollo launch.

[PerlyKing]

Re: Typical Trump – don't look there, look here

Charlie might have been referring to the dangers of lunar regolith?

[werdsmith]

Re: Typical Trump – don't look there, look here

Maybe the +120, -130 centigrade temperature variation between peak lunar day and night was more important, there was a barrier for the human body at all times whilst on the surface.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Typical Trump – don't look there, look here

Martian in this case…

The ultimate Instagram moment! I know that short stories about such stunts have already been written…

I love Andy Weir's book The Martian which has sufficient science in it to be "plausible enough" for a story whilst highlighting just how difficult life on other planets is going to be: things need to do go right nearly all the time and even then you're likely to die horribly.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Typical Trump – don't look there, look here

"I love Andy Weir's book The Martian which has sufficient science in it to be "plausible enough" for a story whilst highlighting just how difficult life on other planets is going to be"

I appreciated it when the hab airlock blew out from being cycled more often/too often than designed to accomodate. It highlights the sorts of engineering things that can crop up and bite you in the nethers. It created another emergency set of circumstances, but, yes, so many of those were very plausible. Turning Sojourner into a comm device was a bit hand-wavium.

[m4r35n357]

Re: Typical Trump – don't look there, look here

Looks like at least two of us do not ;)

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Typical Trump – don't look there, look here

Er, yeah. I wonder why you ask? Maybe you thought my comment on orbits wasn't clear enough? Okay, how long before, for example we see Starlink seeking ownership of some LEO, including everything below them?

[MachDiamond]

Re: Typical Trump – don't look there, look here

It was only really by going to the moon did we learn just how dangerous is for human bodies."

Ah, no. We learned how bad it was after stays on space stations with the Soviets doing the first studies. The Salyut program (prior to Mir) did much of the initial work. The Apollo trips to the moon and back weren't long enough to get good statistical data. When stays of a year happened, it was very apparent that long term in microgravity is highly problematic for humans. What isn't know is if those effects are linear. Those questions might be answered with longer stays on the moon in fractional G.

One of the nurses that worked on the studies during the Apollo missions was a member of the Space Studies Institute and I had several opportunities to talk with her. When I asked Charlie Duke about some of the health studies, he told me that recovering from the mission was a dawdle compared to recovering from all the medical "tests".

[Eclectic Man]

O M G Particle

The 'Oh-My-God' particle* was observed recently, but remember, although only one has been seen, we've not been looking for very long.

The amount of radiation in interplanetary space is a great deal more than in near Earth orbit, courtesy of the Earth's magnetosphere. Astronauts / Cosmonauts / Taikonauts would be exposed to serious radiation for weeks if not months on the round trip and on the surface. No amount of shielding that is practicable to carry on a Mars-bound spacecraft can protect from such particles, and of course, there is the ever-present danger of CME frying the craft's electronics.

Don't get me wrong, a wo/manned landing on Mars would be a fabulous achievement, but the medical challenge of getting there and back in reasonable health seems to me greater than the technical engineering challenge. And how long would people stay there? You'd want more than a couple of hours, probably up to a week to do some serious science / geology.

Best of luck to all concerned.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle

[Ken Hagan]

Re: O M G Particle

"You'd want more than a couple of hours, probably up to a week to do some serious science / geology."

If you wanted to do serious science, and you had the budget required to send the many missions that would be required to send humans to Mars (let alone bring them back), you would spend a tenth of that budget on robots and spend the rest on sex and drugs to keep you amused while you were waiting for the results.

[werdsmith]

Re: O M G Particle

"You'd want more than a couple of hours, probably up to a week to do some token science / geology."

Fixed.

It wasn't until the last moon mission Apollo 17 that Harrison Schmitt got feet on the lunar surface.

[MachDiamond]

Re: O M G Particle

"It wasn't until the last moon mission Apollo 17 that Harrison Schmitt got feet on the lunar surface."

He was also a huge asset in noticing things somebody not trained in geology might walk right by. Steve Squires has commented on how slow robotic studies are compared to a person wandering around and banging rocks with a hammer. Of course, he wasn't keen on dying for the opportunity to do that on Mars so settled on having two bots do the work instead. (not that the Mrs would have allowed it anyway).

[John Smith 19]

"serious radiation for weeks if not months on the round trip"

Without nuclear it's months, at least 3, can (IIRC) hit 5.

People really don't realise how s**t chemical propulsion is.

At 1% of the speed of light however Mars is 21 hours away.

And yes in principle that is possible without any kind of "Breakthrough" physics.

[AVR]

Re: "serious radiation for weeks if not months on the round trip"

In principle is carrying a lot of weight there. 1% of the speed of light is a lot faster than any spacecraft has travelled, and you're unlikely to get there without a few rapid unscheduled disassemblies of the prototypes. Screw those up enough and you could kill the idea for good.

[John Smith 19]

"you're unlikely to get there without a few rapid unscheduled disassemblies of the prototypes."

Which is why they are called prototypes.

I would like to point out that before the Wright Brothers (which was not govt funded) the USG launched a heavier-than-air project with a $100k budget (inflation calculator only goes back to 1913, so at least $3.1m in today's money).

It failed.

Newspapers of the time reported the belief that HTA flight would not be achieved within (literally) "A million years."

The Wrights achieved HTA by 1903, a few years later.

[MachDiamond]

Re: "serious radiation for weeks if not months on the round trip"

"and you're unlikely to get there without a few rapid unscheduled disassemblies of the prototypes."

I call them "BUGs" for "Blowed Up Good". If it lights up the sky, BURG, "Blowed Up Real Good".

RUD isn't a SpaceX saying, it's been around for ages in aerospace. Classically it's RUDE for "Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly Event".

Killing the idea would come down to cost per try. If the work can be done at a smaller scale, it might not be too bad. When I worked on rockets, we found there was a tipping point when it came to vehicle size. To go smaller meant more custom parts to shave weight/size rather than being able to buy things such as valves and regulators "off-the-shelf". We did make some parts, but could often buy something, use the complicated guts out of it and fabricate a lighter shell to go around it since the maker used steel rather than spend more on Aluminum since, for an industrial application, lower mass wasn't a concern. If the smallest version that can be built can have a good portion of the parts sourced out of the McMaster-Carr catalog, that's time and money saved.

[Roj Blake]

Re: "serious radiation for weeks if not months on the round trip"

What kind of acceleration would be required to get to 1% of c?

[Mark #255]

Re: "serious radiation for weeks if not months on the round trip"

1m/s² (which is about what trains aim for) for 3 million seconds (or just shy of 35 days).

[Jellied Eel]

Re: "serious radiation for weeks if not months on the round trip"

1m/s² (which is about what trains aim for) for 3 million seconds (or just shy of 35 days)

.. and then doing it again in reverse when you want to stop. Which is one of those neat things about physics and engineering because it's getting easier to achieve those kinds of velocities.. Plus using orbital mechanics to help. But I think I'll stick to KSP and leave this stuff to the experts..

[John Smith 19]

1m/s² (which is about what trains aim for) for 3 million seconds

One option that has never been looked at seriously is the use of a nuclear pulse reactor. Such reactors have existed on earth since at least the early 60's.

The conventional (but unwisely designed) Army reactor that failed in Idaho in the early 60's went from 20MW to 3GW* Most of them are used for materials testing. TRIGA reactors are designed to do this with neutron pulse in the few msec range.

Human beings can take a surprisingly high g level if it's short enough. Multiple roller coasters can deliver 5.25g IE 51.5m/s.

The joker in the pack is how long is the recovery time between pulses. On a 1 min cycle running 24 hrs a day with 51.5 m/s pulses it's 40 days to full speed. On a 50sec cycle it's 33 days and so on.

TBH the Obama project on asteroid capture was the best way to get substantial shielding for the trip as it's already in space to begin with.

*IIRC the future President Jimmy Carter helped in the cleanup. He was told "You'll probably never have children."

[MachDiamond]

Re: "serious radiation for weeks if not months on the round trip"

"Without nuclear it's months, at least 3, can (IIRC) hit 5."

The most typical Mars transfer is around 9 months. A bit faster depending on the changing distances. It has to be remembered that whatever velocity that's built up to get there needs a similar amount of energy to slow down and get into orbit or directly down to the surface.

Some estimates using nuclear propulsion and accelerating halfway, turning around and accelerating the other way for the other half can be really short, a couple of months. If nuclear propulsion comes into being, the first systems are likely to be at the slower end of the bracket. 5 months would be close to half the time, so not tea bag. If that's done mostly under acceleration, many health effects might be mitigated, but those studies are why staying longer on the moon would be useful as a prelude.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: O M G Particle

And how long would people stay there? You'd want more than a couple of hours, probably up to a week to do some serious science / geology.

Considering the flight time to get there, is there a return window available that would make anything less than a year or so there feasible?

[gweedo]

Rockets that can land and be reusable? Madness. What a colossal waste of time and resources. The incredible hubris of someone to think they can do something never done before.

[Adair]

Given the significance and urgency of challenges still unmet and rather closer to home 'hubris' is definitely the word to apply to giving 'humans on Mars' any priority. Mars will still be there whenever we manage to give ourselves a decent chance of a sustainable future.

[MachDiamond]

"Rockets that can land and be reusable? Madness. What a colossal waste of time and resources. The incredible hubris of someone to think they can do something never done before."

Where on the timeline are you locating this statement? Landing rockets was done in the 1960's. (intact and controlled speeds)

[0laf]

Musk will hitch his wagon to someone else as soon as he's not getting what he wants from Trump or as fast as he wants it. It'll be interesting to see Trump deal with someone as untrustworthy as himself.

[Joe W]

Columbus?

Oh, that's a brilliant comparison. A dude that was convinced the Earth's circumference was much smaller than was accepted at that time, only rescued by a convenient continent appearing... seriously, Erasthostenes and Ptolemaios had that figured out.

I doubt there will be a safe space appearing out of nowhere this time.

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Re: Columbus?

I doubt there will be a safe space appearing out of nowhere this time.

Not to mention a dearth of exploitable natives when we get there.

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Re: Columbus?

Exploitable natives.... what about these guys?

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/admascots/images/7/76/Smashmartians.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20180401213856

[Richard 12]

Re: Columbus?

Also about 33 of Columbus' crew died on the voyage.

Losing 25% of the astronauts is unlikely to be considered acceptable these days.

[Eclectic Man]

Re: Columbus?

Columbus did quite well then, compared to Magellan:

"

The numbers break down as follows:

There were initially 243 men on the expedition; 56 returned to Seville on the San Antonio, which deserted in the Strait of Magellan. Of the remainder, 103 died and 49 were assumed to be lost.

Of those who died, 80 did so as a result of illness, 18 died fighting, and five were drowned."*

Of course some of the men died as a result of being discovered 'in flagrant dilecto' as it were.

"During the ocean crossing, the Victoria's Sicilian master, Salomon Antón was caught in an act of sodomy with a Genoese apprentice sailor, António Varesa, off the coast of Guinea. At the time, sodomy was punishable by death in Spain, though in practice, sex between men was a common occurrence on long naval voyages. Magellan held a trial on board the Trinidad and found Antón guilty, sentencing him to death by strangulation. Antón was later executed on 20 December 1519, after the fleet's landfall in Brazil at Santa Lucia (present-day Rio de Janeiro), his strangled body being burnt.[55][54] Varesa drowned after going overboard on 27 April 1520, having been thrown off by his shipmates."**

* From https://artsandculture.google.com/story/death-and-disease-on-the-first-circumnavigation-of-the-world-fundacion-elkano/vQWxOWN1pDjbJA?hl=en#

** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magellan_expedition

[Chet Mannly]

Re: Columbus?

Not to mention Columbus actually made the full trip - Magellan died less than halfway into his trip, before they even decided to try and circumnavigate the world.

Elcano was actually the Captain that circumnavigated the globe...

[MachDiamond]

Re: Columbus?

"Losing 25% of the astronauts is unlikely to be considered acceptable these days."

Especially if it changes the quota ratios.

[Philo T Farnsworth]

You first, Elon. You first.

Personally, I'd rather see a commitment to more robots to Mars, rather than humans, for reasons I've outlined elsewhere in these pages.

But barring actual sanity breaking out, I'd be more than delighted to see Elon follow through with his desire to die on Mars¹, preferably as quickly as possible.

Though I suspect that when it comes down to donning a pressure suit and strapping in atop one of his Starships², he'll find he has a pressing engagement elsewhere.

Leaving all that money and power behind to merely survive³ for a few days on an inhospitable, nay, hostile planet?

Pull the other one.

___________________

¹ See Elon Musk thinks he’ll die on Mars

² Oh, please, honky, get serious.

³ Assuming he gets lucky and makes it down in one piece.

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Re: You first, Elon. You first.

Just to clarify, when I somewhat inartfully said "I'd be more than delighted to see Elon follow through with his desire to die on Mars," I had no intention of wishing death upon Mr Musk. Rather, I wish no misfortune to the gentleman and I express the hope he goes to Mars, lives a long and happy life, and leaves the rest of us alone.

Please.

Soon.

[Sam not the Viking]

Prima inter Pares

He has the means. How can the President himself resist being first to step on Mars?

And putt a flag on the first green/red .....

He'll need a Caddy.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Prima inter Pares

"He has the means memes."

FTFY :-)

[Bran Muffin]

Comments like "manned travel to Mars/nuclear fusion/a cure for cancer will always be fifty years away" tell me that someone believes that if something cannot be done right now, it can never be done. I don't accept that, but heck, I think rain is wet, so I am very unreliable.

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Do you have a cat called The Lord?

[Philo T Farnsworth]

And if "a man called Zaphod Beeblebrox Donald Trump is President but he is in financial collusion with a consortium of high-powered psychiatrists who want him to order the destruction of a planet called 'Earth' because of some sort of experiment..." well, please just go right ahead.

It'll be no great loss.

[Anonymous Coward]

What is it about nazis and rockets?

Its so funny and speaks of a collective idiocy that many go along with this from musk.

He would have to prove he could land people on the moon and bring them back before attempting to go several hundred times the distance further.

The way people act like we have already done that is comical. You never did anything. Someone else did before being a gobby cretin got you the job.

As for columbus daring explorer and all that? The genocidal italian sailed on the water and breathed the air and could have fished the sea. No matter what amount of wandering the seas he did it was super easy, barely an inconvenience.

At least all these space clowns will be old and discredited before any mad plan reaches launch.

As a solution to the madness I propose a simple project to capture public interest in space missions again. Go to the moon and land at the apollo 11 site and do some broadcasts from the site.

Pretty much the reason camaron keeps diving to the titanic wreck. People get excited about looking at old things.

The mars surface is thunderously uninteresting and seems to look nothing like ridley scotts dishonest film of the stupid book.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure who has seen the anime Dr Stone but it's quite good. It's not entirely accurate but it uses a very simple concept all the way through. To do Z you must first do X and Y.

X and Y in this case can be many things. We aren't going to be launching a ship from the earth to mars and back again. It's theoretically possible but would be foolish to even try. Therefore we need a full functioning space port in orbit. I'm talking huge. Where you could build the ship and launch it from there. There also needs to be scientific advances because even though we could, again it would be foolish till we work out a lot of the kinks. These aren't beyond our ability. We just have no reason to put focus into solving them right now.

Having said all that it won't come to pass. The world has become consumed by capitalism and money. A trip to Mars is not profitable. Therefore it won't get done. Seriously, these people are trying to import cheap labour from India to save money, there is no way they are going to spend it on a trip to Mars. What's the benefit? No one will be living there in our lifetimes or theirs no matter what they do.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

I did and do. Is indeed good. Didn't have time for the mangas yet, they may be more accurate on a few details with a bit less emphasis on the comedy part (like it usually is between Anime <-> Manga).

As for your "Mars is not profitable" argument: Humans will be on Mars, maybe even this century. It is part of our existence to break such borders and limitations. Else we would still not control fire to boil / fry our food. And without food preparation we cannot get as much energy out of the it as we need for our brains. And our jaws got so weak compared to our biological ancestors we _need_ food preparation, even without boiling / frying. Luckily we got nimble hands to do so!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I had your optimism. I just can't see it. Food prep gives immediate results. Something outside someone's lifetime is another matter. You are asking them to invest in something they will never benefit from or see. We shall see what occurs.

[werdsmith]

What’s the benefit?

Why does there need to be a benefit?

There are certain people that have personalities (problems) that drive them on and helps them get into certain positions of great wealth and influence.

Generally these are not nice people but they can be very successful on our humanity. Examples litter history. These people often include extreme narcissistic traits in their personality.

So if Trump and Musk, possibly examples of this kind of person, want their names to go down in history forever more, like Kennedy and Armstrong, then tapping into the biggest economy in the world is a way of doing it. All the time these two will be using each other for what they can get.

Look at Musk, he isn’t quietly getting on with his entrepreneurial ambitions, he is front and centre of everything seeking fame and glory. He wants to be remembered forever.

Now possibly there is a real benefit as with the 1960s, Apollo spearheaded science, right from elementary schools and a whole nation pulled together and up, and pushed the USA into a huge technological and engineering lead that has only recently, in some areas, been caught up.

There are, I’m sure, huge immeasurable benefits in terms of motivational and national pride from Apollo, and I’m certain Trump wants some of that.

[SundogUK]

Men built cathedrals all across Europe, none of which were completed in the lifetime of those who started them.

[MachDiamond]

"Men built cathedrals all across Europe, none of which were completed in the lifetime of those who started them."

I expect some of them were looking to atone for their sins and even without being there to completion, they might have believed what they did accomplish would pay off.

[John Brown (no body)]

"You are asking them to invest in something they will never benefit from or see."

And yet we have the likes of Stonehenge, the Pyramids and all sorts of ancient monuments from the last umpty thousand years of humanities existence, some of which took lifetimes to complete.

[MachDiamond]

"And yet we have the likes of Stonehenge, the Pyramids and all sorts of ancient monuments from the last umpty thousand years of humanities existence, some of which took lifetimes to complete."

The pyramids were the off-season works projects to keep people occupied with something. Idle hands, and all that.

Stonehenge might have more of a religious reason for it even if you don't assign a divine commandment to construct it was in the mix. Something much less complex and on a smaller scale would have sufficed to use as a seasonal calendar to reckon the planting of crops, driving livestock hither and yon, that sort of thing.

Carnegie, not a nice person as most people that attain great wealth tend to be, endowed libraries as a legacy so his being a complete bastard could be slightly veiled. Some people as they reach a certain age will do things to atone for perceived failings they see in themselves.

Politicians are the worst of the lot so anything they do has to be completed in their lifetime as much as possible, and preferably completed before they are up for re-election.

[BadRobotics]

Is re-use an essential component?

OK, I get that re-use makes a whole lot of sense for the booster stage, I mean it does have 39! expensive Raptor engines, plus all the bits to power them.

But does Starship need to be re-use?

What if that part was eliminated, could Starship contain all the modules required to go there, land, take-off and come back safely?

Look at Apollo, it went to the Moon, landed and came back. You could probably get a few Apollos in the Starship....

Then the astronauts may get to Mars and realise it's so bloody inhospitable/dangerous etc that returning is not worth it.

[Zolko]

Re: Is re-use an essential component?

could Starship contain all the modules required to go there, land, take-off and come back safely ?

I was looking for someone making such a comment, thank-you:

with sufficient funding the rocket could be made operational and sent to Mars with a crew onboard

no it couldn't. Even IF Starship was working as expected, it's not powerful enough. A mission to Mars would require to build/assemble the spacecraft in space, which in turn means that you would need an orbital station, but the one available to the US is going to be scraped. Well, may-be a lunar base would also be an option to assemble to spacecraft, not sure about that. So there simply is no way to go to Mars in the next 20 years, even discounting all technical problems.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Is re-use an essential component?

There are already moves afoot to replace the ISS with a commercial offering. Some plans are quite advanced, involving adding to the existing ISS initially, before separating and going it alone when things like power and life support modules can be launched. And don't forget the Chinese already have a relatively new space station up there now and have at least three space companies working on re-usable 1st stages and have demonstrated them at low altitudes. Although I've not seen any plans yet, I don't doubt that SpaceX could launch some sort of 4 or 6 port module and permanently dock 2 or more Starships to it. I think they are already considering using Starships fitted out as "space stations" for medium to long stay in orbit labs for one off trips as temporary space stations. There's a lot going on that doesn't always make the headlines. (and may or may not ever come to fruition!)

[BadRobotics]

This comedian sums up Musk & Mars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru8WeRqB0ts

I hope links are allowed.

[DS999]

Fortunuately this foolishness can't be done in Trump's term

But its fun seeing them make that promise when we all know they cannot do it, and Trump's awful diet will insure he won't live long enough to see it ever happen.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Fortunuately this foolishness can't be done in Trump's term

His acolytes believe it and that's all that matters. So long as they have circuses to watch, they are happy. The price of bread might shock some of them over the next few years though.

[IamtheOWG]

Your measurements are off!!!!

Of course this seems like an impossible, or even reckless, endeavor...particularly for people who still use the "metric system". Here in the USA, we are not saddled with the elitist, patriarchal systems of bygone eras. By combining the power of Quantum Field Theory and making measurements in fractions or GE refrigerators, lengths of blue whales and (in the planck scale) Prince Andrew anatomy, not only will we get to Mars, we will also get to Pluto and make it great again!!!

[Wang Cores]

Re: Your measurements are off!!!!

You've got the wharrgarble backwards. In america the patriarchial system is doubleplus good now, you may be looking for parochial because we'll be on top.

[Mage]

Elephant in the room.

People on the moon was a spectacle, but a poor way to do the science.

Mars would be the same.

In the past, exploring our own world, people could use (often steal) resources already there and we had no robots. The ideal of Moon or Mars bases or Colonies is entertaining as fiction (and I've read plenty). It's not logical or sensible.

Calling a launcher a "starship" doesn't help credibility. We probably also have the technology to build a self repairing "Generation" ship to reach the stars. Like people on Mars, it's pointless, neither would be viable or sensible "backup" of humanity.

Explore with robots and make here fairer and safer. Review the idea if we ever figure out how to make a usefully real starship.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Elephant in the room.

"Calling a launcher a "starship" doesn't help credibility."

FWIW, they first started calling it Starship[*] in 2018, a year AFTER Boeing’s space going SUV called Starliner was originally supposed to start it's full service flights to the ISS and back, so he's only following the marketing trends of trying to outdo the competition in naming :-)

* Starship appears to consist of Super Heavy Booster and Starship. Wikipedia calls the upper stage Starship, but SpaceX, at least during the launches, only ever seems to refer to Starship as the assembled pair and then later, after separation "Booster" and "Ship". It's a little confusing in terms of names.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Elephant in the room.

"It's a little confusing in terms of names."

Ok, let's start calling the upper stage the ESS (Elon's space ship) B.S. Johnson.

[Bebu sa Ware]

America is going to...

on the list of destinations the Red Planet is pretty much bottom of the list with something more canine being favourite.

At least a Chinese (PRC) expedition wouldn't need to dust off the red dust from their flag. ;)

[John Smith 19]

The *real* challenge is...

How do you make a settlement* self financing?

The "New World" had forests to make timber, land to plant crops, animals to skin.

All of which could be sent home for a fat profit.

Basically the major assets of Mars are

a) Being able to stamp "Made On Mars" on any product. Eg "Mars glacier water (with a zesty tang of peroxides)"

b) Low gravity, offering prospects such as "Musk Villas, Gracious living for the extraordinarily well off. Choose from our range starting from the affordable "Donald" suite to the opulence of the "Blowfeld" (pedigree cat and wardrobe full of collarless jackets not included)."

The alternative is some kind of Hunger Games style sponsor-a-settler deal. So what happens if a settler doesn't get enough support? Survival of the cutest?

Keep in mind Musk has said even making crack on Mars wouldn't be cost effective to send home so usual rules of economics don't apply. He's hoping they will get down to $100-200/Kg.

BTW Mars won't exist in some sort of legal grey area. A base (and that's all it will be unless you get non-govt people to go there and stay, Like the staff from "Musk Villas" who stay on after their contract as old codger minders care staff expires.) is governed by the laws of the country that sent it.

*Because for a lot of humanity "Colony," along with colonial and colonist have very bad connotations and evoke very negative feelings.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: The *real* challenge is...

How do you make a settlement* self financing?

Yup. I think first though, it needs to be self sustaining. If we can do that, then the financing gets easier as it doesn't need as many kilos hauling out of our gravity well. Then as you say, there's turning a profit. Which gets fun because the obvious one would be scientific knowledge, which can be priceless or worthless depending on perspective. Or there's space tourism, which is already a thing, but there are probably fewer people who'd take the risk, could afford the cost or take the time out to fly to Mars and back. How much would the first TikTok from a famous 'influencer' be worth?

I still think it's the right and wrong thing to try. There's the politics of planting flags, and there's the human ambition of saying 'we achieved this!' that might encourage more people to take up science and engineering. I know our earlier lunar and Mars inspired me. Personally I think we'd be better off spending money on orbital manufacturing and a lunar way-station first. There are commercial things we can do in microgravity, and energy-wise, it's cheaper to go from orbit to the Moon than it is to try and fly direct. Then it could also make some money from space tourism again, and how much would the first OnlyFans video from a space station be worth?

And then there's asteroid mining, which has the potential for 'free' resources in space.. Or wreaking havoc with some commodity prices, as Tim Worstall once pointed out here. Sure, there's a carpton of gold and platinum in the Asteroid Belt, but dropping that down the gravity well would just crash the price. But then we could also mine iron, and make a reinforced lunarcrete spaceship for any future manned mission to Mars. Or just a send a whole bunch of construction materials, supplies and componets there first, because that would be a lot 'cheaper' to do from space than it is from down here at the bottom of the gravity well.

Lunarcrete is something that has long fascinated me, and how we could use in-situ resources to expand into space. I think having robo-fab plants that could produce lunarcrete forms could make building colonies a whole lot easier, and there seems to be structural benefits from using 'spiky' regolith vs our weathered sand. Plus can be thick enough to offer decent radiation protection, along with protection from micrometeorites. Then again, all the concrete would end up making it look like Basingstoke.

[SundogUK]

Re: The *real* challenge is...

"Personally I think we'd be better off spending money on orbital manufacturing and a lunar way-station first."

Get on with it then. These things are not mutually exclusive.

[MachDiamond]

Re: The *real* challenge is...

""Personally I think we'd be better off spending money on orbital manufacturing and a lunar way-station first.""

Good luck with that. Trying to make things in zero G is a right PIA.

I was glued to the TV during the first Hubble telescope servicing mission. A whole lot of thinking had to go into that. You don't know how much gravity is a blessing as well as a curse until it's gone. If you aren't anchored, you are the one spinning if the screw you are trying to work is attached to a bigger mass. I think there are the training videos online from the work the astronauts did in the pool to practice and identify problems.

[MachDiamond]

Re: The *real* challenge is...

"Lunarcrete is something that has long fascinated me, and how we could use in-situ resources to expand into space."

ISR (In Situ Resource utilization) is massively important. I believe that the first new moon landings should not be focused on reuseability, but in getting landing sites prepared that make a fully reusable architecture much easier. With a nice landing pad, there isn't as much need to consider needing to land at any landing site. We can take a bit of a lesson from Apollo 11 that there needs to be some flexibility, but at this point, we are much better at space navigation and have more detailed imagery of the lunar surface so we aren't going to plan a landing in a boulder field.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: The *real* challenge is...

"is governed by the laws of the country that sent it."

We need the "Star Cops!"

NB, the show was broadcast in 1987 and set "40 years in the future". Nearly there :-)

[MachDiamond]

Re: The *real* challenge is...

"a) Being able to stamp "Made On Mars" on any product. Eg "Mars glacier water (with a zesty tang of peroxides)""

I already have a couple of bottles of "Mars Water". The US isn't particularly strict on stating the origins of food products, but it does say "Mars" on them.

[MachDiamond]

Re: The *real* challenge is...

" is governed by the laws of the country that sent it."

and constrained by the Space Treaty if that country is a signatory.

[Dr Kerfuffle]

Suppose we disturb the Mysterons?

I'm worried that if we send a ship to Mars, we will upset the Mysterons. We saw how annoyed they got in the 1960's. Captain Scarlet might have been invincible but the rest of his team suffered for it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Turn tables on the bully

So the reason we havent sent anything to moon apollo landing sites is there is no confidence of landing anywhere near them.

Moon probes just sort of bounce around in the general area they are sent to. Then everyone cheers if it sends one brief message before a cold and lonely death.

Imagine trying to set up equipment from multiple launches to mars? All scattered 100s of miles apart. Obviously not a problem for the fictional jason bourne.

Musk seems to be testing his power to agitate. A good response is some good cold and sober space travel debunking shows on the bbc without the usual wide eyed idiot ex pop star presenting.

He will hate it.

[SundogUK]

Re: Turn tables on the bully

"Moon probes just sort of bounce around in the general area they are sent to. Then everyone cheers if it sends one brief message before a cold and lonely death."

Curiosity has been active on Mars since August 6, 2012. It's still going. So much for 'one brief message.'

[MachDiamond]

Re: Turn tables on the bully

"Curiosity has been active on Mars since August 6, 2012. It's still going. So much for 'one brief message.'"

Don't forget it's brother, Perseverance.

The MER rovers, Spirit and Opportunity went way past their best-by dates.

The downside with rovers is their tool box is limited and not very flexible. The sorts of science and investigations that can be done have to be part of the plan from the outset. Humans are more flexible, but whine a lot more.

[imanidiot]

Musk keeps going on and on about mars and wrinkling his nose at going to the moon which is an entirely stupid take imho. Going to the moon is an "easy" and "nearby" thing to do to develop the technologies needed, do fast iteration and get stuff solved. Going to Mars is going to be extremely difficult and once we get there we'll once and for all destroy the only chance we'll ever have to definitively answer the question of "is there life on mars" because once one of us filthy monkeys puts a foot down, we'll have contaminated the surface with earth microbes which we know can survive in mars conditions and spread very far and wide. From that point on, we'll never be able to be 100% certain if we find earth like micro-organisms whether they were martian origin or earth origin contaminants. We should be sending far more rovers ala Curiosity and Perseverance which we can properly clean and disinfect and do far more useful science RIGHT NOW, instead of sinking billions into Musks starship to get it to go to Mars. We're not at a stage were we should be doing that.

[SundogUK]

Musk isn't interested in doing 'easy' things.

[Roj Blake]

Imagine the resources Louis Bleriot needed to fly across the English Channel.

Now consider how many times more resources were required to put Neil Armstrong and co on the Moon.

Now multiply those resources by the same number, and you have enough to get someone to Mars.

[MachDiamond]

"Now multiply those resources by the same number, and you have enough to get someone to Mars."

and if a tiny thing goes wrong, everybody dies. There's no way back once the engines light and the ship is on it's way. All of the bits that would be needed to deorbit and land on Earth won't be on a rocket going to Mars.

[MachDiamond]

"destroy the only chance we'll ever have to definitively answer the question of "is there life on mars" because once one of us filthy monkeys puts a foot down, we'll have contaminated the surface with earth microbes which we know can survive in mars conditions and spread very far and wide."

Too late and I have that on good authority.

[Irongut]

> "America is going to Mars," said Elon Musk

So was this before or after his Nazi salute?

Someone should really tell him that the secret Nazi base is on the moon, not Mars. He's looking for his Furer in the wrong place!

[tiggity]

No rush

Let the technology improve (big issues, as people have mentioned, currently a slow trip & lots of damaging radiation, non ideal combination when carrying humans).

Excellent science can be done by unmanned missions - work on return trips can be done as part of that (e.g. plenty of rock samples currently awaiting return).

Other than the "look what we can do" showing off stuff, no real point in manned Mars mission anytime soon - if idea was for a colony then way more sensible to prove (or not) the viability of that / develop the technology on the moon as closer (& easier & cheaper & more chance of positive PR in better chance of being able to rescue people if things went awry) - doing a colony "from scratch" on Mars, would be stupid.

[MachDiamond]

Re: No rush

"(e.g. plenty of rock samples currently awaiting return)."

It would have been so much more convenient if those samples weren't being dropped off but held onboard in an easy to retrieve box.

[John Smith 19]

The other problem with sending people to mars is

Finding a reason to stay once they are there.

The pictures you see of Mars have been re-calibrated to earth sun. IRL it's all Orange, all the time (The Martian is more honest about this).

Sure hang gliding down a 26 mile valley would be amazing, but is it worth the minimum 3 month journey, followed by the 26 month launch window back? Low-gravity sex could be quite novel (but nowhere near as novel as the zero gravity sex you could experience on the way there, or indeed in LEO).

How about having children there? No one has ever had a child outside earths gravity field (let alone it's magnetic field)? Probably best done in a cave, or under 3m of regolith, which is what you need to match the protection of earths mag field and atmosphere.

I've done a game to look at the logistics of getting 1 000 000 people on mars in a reasonable amount of time (say 50 years) and the numbers are staggering. Without on-mars childbirth the fleet sizes are huge. Keep in mind Musk's statement that 9-in-10 of the fleet will be support materials for the settlers.

And with on-mars childbirth you're looking at 4 or more kids per family to achieve that sort of population size. I'm sure "Go to Mars and become a baby factory" must be a very compelling pitch for some women somewhere.

That also probably means active gender balancing, but given the FOCF "Terminated Roe-v-Wade" that shouldn't really be a surprise, should it?

The best model for Martian settlement I've seen is JM Bujold's "The Warriors Apprentice" and the trip to "Beta Colony." Described as a place with "A low tolerance for social failures."

I want to go to other planets. I want to see the solar system settled and (ultimately) other star systems settled but I just don't see how you close the case to make it sustainable.

And a flag-and-footprints mission like Apollo is just a massive national w**king exercise. Otherwise it's a hobby settlement, like some kind of theme park that people can follow on (basically) pay-per-view. Which IMHO is a fu**ing horrible idea.

OTOH just because I can't figure out how to make this sustainable doesn't mean that somewhere in the 6.6Bn people on this planet there isn't someone who can form such a plan.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: The other problem with sending people to mars is

I've done a game to look at the logistics of getting 1 000 000 people on mars in a reasonable amount of time (say 50 years) and the numbers are staggering. Without on-mars childbirth the fleet sizes are huge. Keep in mind Musk's statement that 9-in-10 of the fleet will be support materials for the settlers.

And with on-mars childbirth you're looking at 4 or more kids per family to achieve that sort of population size. I'm sure "Go to Mars and become a baby factory" must be a very compelling pitch for some women somewhere.

That also probably means active gender balancing, but given the FOCF "Terminated Roe-v-Wade" that shouldn't really be a surprise, should it?

Most of that is just the harsh reality of nature, genetics, and building any sustainable, viable colony. Which is also something both SF and scientists, sociologists have discussed and debated. But I think 1m people in 50yrs is a tad excessive. So the challenges of building the infrastructure and life support systems to support that kind of population, along with finding some kind of gainful employment so the colony doesn't collapse. One of my favorite stories along those lines is Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton with 'asset realisation' missions to recover colony costs, especially if they don't produce anything Earth wants. But there's a lot of SF that does 'what ifs?' around post scarcity societies.

But on the population front.. It's just a harsh necessity. There's a minimum population size to prevent inbreeding, and I've read that can be 2-300+. But then assumptions like to encourage genetic drift, women might be expected to have multiple partners. Either way, women might be expected to be 'breeders', if the population is going to grow organically.. Which then pretty much becomes eugenics in space. Same is also true for any interstellar colonisation attempts, especially if that becomes a 'generation ship' which with current & near current technology, they'd have to be.. But that's also an SF staple.

(one of my favorite thought experminents is when generation ships get overtaken by faster colony ships. So colonists arrive at their destination, expecting to grab all the best spots and be founders.. Only to find the faster ships got there first, all the good spots are taken and they're historical anachronisms.)

[mdubash]

Re: The other problem with sending people to mars is

That overtaken bit? That's been written about in SF too.

[MachDiamond]

Re: The other problem with sending people to mars is

"And with on-mars childbirth you're looking at 4 or more kids per family to achieve that sort of population size. I'm sure "Go to Mars and become a baby factory" must be a very compelling pitch for some women somewhere."

Ideally, each child would have a different father. So there's that to come to grips with. Artificial insemination will likely not be a thing on Mars for a while.

[MachDiamond]

Re: The other problem with sending people to mars is

"The pictures you see of Mars have been re-calibrated to earth sun."

There's a color calibration chart on the rovers to make sure they are getting correct color. I'm not certain how long it's good for. They do expire since no pigments are permanent enough to last forever and different pigments degrade at different rates.

[CorwinX]

It's not so much getting there ...

... it's getting back.

Both the National Geographic scientific series "Mars" (highly recommended) and to a lesser extent "The Martain" have quite serious points to make.

Getting the lunar landers back into orbit was relatively trivial. But Mars has gravity.

So you need an air-dropped, ready-to-go habitat. With a lot of oxygen and preferably kit to suck supplementary oxygen out of what little atmosphere there is.

That would probably be a hydroponics rig to grow food as well as the plants generating oxygen.

And you need a an escape craft to get back into orbit to catch a ride home!

You're not going to get too many volunteers for a one-way trip.

So we hear a lot from Musk, Bezos & Co about getting a spacecraft to Mars. Not so much on the logistics of keeping people alive for at least a few weeks and getting them back alive.

[MachDiamond]

Re: It's not so much getting there ...

"So you need an air-dropped, ready-to-go habitat. With a lot of oxygen and preferably kit to suck supplementary oxygen out of what little atmosphere there is."

There is an experiment on one of the rovers, but the partial pressure of Oxygen is so tiny that looking to the rocks is probably a better alternative. Finding water, heating it up and smashing it apart is another way to go. Either way, it has to be worked out in detail since a breakdown means death. The really thorny hedge is the lack of Nitrogen. Both for plants and humans. Humans could substitute another inert gas to bulk up breathing air, but plants demand N2. Apollo 1 demonstrated why a pure Oxygen environment is bad. They did that so they only needed to pressurize to 5.5psi (0.379bar). That made building the lunar lander and the capsule much lighter and mass was a huge issue.

[MachDiamond]

Re: It's not so much getting there ...

"So we hear a lot from Musk, Bezos & Co about getting a spacecraft to Mars. "

Jeff's not gunning for Mars like Elon. He'd be more happy with a wheel city circling Earth and holidays on the moon.

[mdubash]

Unlikely to happen befre Trump's term as POTUS ends, eh? When do we suppose that's likely to be? Given the Orange One's propensity to ignore the rules and the Holy Constitution, I'm taking no bets on it being in 2028.