One-way ticket to Mars

[Kip thorp]

War Byrd!
+1k
Never give up never surrender, there is an answer! We can go forward!
To Mars!

By the waybif we get a really long rope and fly it to mars, anchor it, the the whole world population gives it a tug we can bring that red sob right here to us! Just a thought?

[Kip thorp]

4) survive on the supplies you can bring (something much easier said than done. The human body, just one, is a massive consumer of material. Factor in lots of people and you need a shit ton of material, and a shit ton of material conservation systems.)

Define "Shit Ton" please.

[a player]

4) survive on the supplies you can bring (something much easier said than done. The human body, just one, is a massive consumer of material. Factor in lots of people and you need a shit ton of material, and a shit ton of material conservation systems.)

Define "Shit Ton" please.

That which turns factor two back into factor one in the above system.

[Kip thorp]

That which turns factor two back into factor one in the above system.

Cool, I thought it might just be the ferterlizer they need to bring!

In other words, I step forwards, two steps back!

[Ekoz]

Not going to say that the trip would be easy, but depending on his plans (I haven't bothered to watch the video), all the problems you have listed can be solved with present technology, to say nothing of the advancements that will be made in the next eight years or so.

actually, most of the problems couldn't be solved with present technology - new technology would have to be heavily funded and even then its a crapshoot. maybe i was too hasty saying we couldn't do it in 8 years; but at the pace extraterrestrial exploration is being funded nowadays (see: basically not at all), it's significantly harder to research new systems.

There are multiple ways to generate a weak pseudo-gravity with present technology. Provide exercise equipment, and the explorers will be in at least sufficient health to tolerate the weaker gravity of Mars.

even with exercise equipment, the human body can only tolerate zero gravity for so long. and providing micro-gravity in space is itself a daunting task - one of the better ways to do that is to set the cabin to rotate at high speeds - which causes the issue of extra mechanical equipment and integration, not to mention the physiological stress a passenger would encompass of constant rotation.

Either land it in parts and deploy robots to assemble the basic structures before any humans set foot, or land the space ship like a plane and land at an angle with plenty of horizontal space to slow down rather than going for the vertical landing.

option A has the issue of landing zones, landing success, and automation. you have to choose where these parts land and then hope and pray they land there, in their correct location - now you're playing the "we have an 8 minute window where anything and everything might fuck up" game. if one thing does, the entire operation is shot and the payload is considered unstable, or unusable at worst. then you have to sort out automation of filtering and construction. robots are frail and to send a signal from earth to mars encompasses a significant amount of time - try playing halo with 10,000 ping. oh, and remember that fine dust that covers mars? that's rust. pure rust, in the consistency of flour. everything better be tightly sealed and constructed without letting that dust in, or it's screwed.

option B has the issue of utilizing the ship in a planar fashion. now we're talking aerodynamics. now, remember, Mars has basically no atmosphere. aerodynamics pretty much isn't a thing. there is no such thing as gliding on Mars. so utilizing a horizontal slope is going to take thrusters. the only issue is, the whole ship is now holding the payload, which means you need a ton of thrusters and pinpoint accuracy. and all those thrusters need fuel. therein lies the issue - you can't just throw fuel on a ship and say it's ready to go. fuel load is precisely calculated so that the ship can make it off the ground in the first place. too little load for the ship's departure, it will get halfway through the atmosphere and peter out. too little for landing, it'll plummet like a rock. too much of both and it'll sit its fat ass at the terminal and fart fire. even having enough of both is an issue because that extra weight has to be made up somewhere, which is cutting into other vital systems, and extra fuel reserves are just another reason to pull a Columbia.

Except in terms of duration and self-sufficiency, how is that any different from people on long term space flights or living on the International Space Station? Hell, how much different is it from living on a submarine?

submarines and the ISS are both serviced regularly, and are constructed in a friendly environment and tested in a proper setting before utilization. a station on mars would have to be prefab, to allow astronauts immediate use of a facility, dragged across space (quite like the ISS), but then also has to go through the gratuitous step of landing, surviving, and then sustaining in an environment that we truly couldn't emulate on earth if we tried.

See above comment. Also, hydroponics systems can go a long way. A small footprint can grow many plants with recycled water, providing both food for a handful of people and oxygen.

once again, this is all about added weight. i don't doubt hydroponics is the answer here; it is. it's the answer to pretty much all of our foreseeable space travel. but you're thinking end results, and also small. humans do require food, water,and air, yes, but they also require:

1) space
2) privacy
3) waste areas

supposing these people, doomed to die on another planet, are all going to live there and be productive, we need to keep them alive for as long as possible for the project to be worth it. now, the average person can survive on food, air, water, and minimal space alone. but throughout extended periods of time, that lifestyle will eat at your mental and physical health like acid. this is why ISS astronauts changed shifts regularly. the ISS had these minimalist conditions because the astronauts who worked there weren't relegated to living there their entire lives. to stimulate truly productive work, these guys on Mars would basically need a laboratory of substantial size, with fuly functional preservation systems that convert waste instead of destroying it, along with initial material to start this cycle. WHIIIICH brings us back to added weight, WHIIIICH also brings us to launch issues.

~~~~~~

in the end, it all comes back to "how is this mystical adventure getting off the ground", and with present technology we just couldn't without substantial issues. and the issues only mount from there on out. one could stay hopeful that by the end of this 8 year training period the technology would be available, but as i said; nobody is in a rush to get to the moon, let alone mars. it's highly doubtful.

i'll bite my tongue if someone pulls it off though.

[a player]

So, first step is collect all the sh!t from the ISS and slingshot it near the sun to end up in orbit around Mars?

[Warr Byrd]

I am hardly an expert in any of the necessary fields, so I don't know how feasible this would be (which would also be dependent upon number of people and amount of money involved), but the general theory should work.

You create a large space station/ship that, in essence, looks like a unicycle: large wheel that can rotate, stationary axis, something sticking out from the axis perpendicular to the plane of the wheel on each side, and something that arcs around the wheel. This would be the primary transport vehicle that got you from Earth's orbit to Mars' orbit. It would have to be constructed in orbit and would not be capable of landing on a planet. Part of this would be because of the engines used - ion engines, which require large amounts of energy but get their fuel from the environment, which unfortunately has to be outer space. The primary engines would be on the perpendicular axis struts. Additionally, there would be a few ion engines along the perimeter of the wheel, causing it to rotate with relation to the rest of the ship. This rotation would then result in a gravitational field within the wheel, where living compartments would be located, as well as could be used for an electric motor to generate some of the ships energy needs. In order to get from the surface of Earth to the Interplanetary Unicycle, and then from the Interplanetary Unicycle to the surface of Mars, you would need spaceplanes, preferably capable of using renewable biofuel, which can be manufactured in vats provided with essential nutrients, which can obviously be found on Earth and can hopefully be found on Mars. The occupants of the first spaceplane to land on Mars would likely have a rough landing, but they would then be able to construct a proper landing strip for remaining trips between the Interplanetary Unicycle (ok, I think I'm going to have to copyright that name) and the Martian surface. In terms of living on Mars, some of the spaceplanes could be cannibalized into the first stages of building, and then subsequent expansion occur by burrowing into the surface and living underground. If, after the initial voyage, more supplies are sent (in either direction), they could travel by space plane to a space station in Earth's orbit, another small but fast vessel from Earth Orbit to Mars Orbit and the Interplanetary Unicycle, and then from the Interplanetary Unicycle to the Martian surface via spaceplane.

[Ekoz]

I am hardly an expert in any of the necessary fields, so I don't know how feasible this would be (which would also be dependent upon number of people and amount of money involved), but the general theory should work.

i'll help poke some holes, as well as further refine your idea.

You create a large space station/ship that, in essence, looks like a unicycle: large wheel that can rotate, stationary axis, something sticking out from the axis perpendicular to the plane of the wheel on each side, and something that arcs around the wheel. This would be the primary transport vehicle that got you from Earth's orbit to Mars' orbit. It would have to be constructed in orbit and would not be capable of landing on a planet.

prefabrication would do you some wonders here - it's how the ISS was put together. in essence your idea is sound, but in reality it's a bit shaky. a wheel, being a disc, would have its gravitational field extruded along its longitudinal plane - basically, everything would want to migrate towards the edge of the wheel. herein lies the issue - compartmentalization. you would need to break the wheel into sectors, each of which has their own unique problem. for one, living space. there needs to be a place for people to live and procure visuals of their surroundings outside the ship. you could do that with cameras, but a primary system would be windows. the issue is those windows would rotate very fast the closer they are to the edge. not only that, but the edge of the wheel would be comprised of those windows, meaning your view port is under your feet.

the closer you get in to this wheel, the less gravity occurs until you are no longer in a gravitational field. fluid dynamics is now inconsistent throughout your ship, meaning that all mechanical systems need to constantly dynamic. that in itself is a tough feat. not only that, but the relationship between the distance to the wheel edge and the wear of systems is proportional.

traversing through sectors is itself a feat. you have to imagine yourself living in a disc, where the gravity is the edge of this disc. traveling towards the center is exactly like climbing a mountain, or a ladder. you're going up. these center most rooms would need air to be pumped directly into them, as since such a small gravitational system would cause fluid to rush towards the extremities (the disc edge). think about how a car drifts, you get pushed towards the edge. without a complex pumping system, this air would do exactly that.

...also, this disc would have to be ENORMOUS. if you make it small with a strong gravitational field, now you just have that carnival ride that plasters you to the inside of a drum. if it's small and weak, you won't have room for any of the necessary systems for a cognitive interplanetary travel. if it's massive and weak, you might as well go full on zero-g. you need massive and strong.

Part of this would be because of the engines used - ion engines, which require large amounts of energy but get their fuel from the environment, which unfortunately has to be outer space.

so, just sayin', but Ion engines are pretty much not happening for the foreseeable future. sure, we can manipulate atomic mass to produce an Ionic thrust, but we...are really nowhere close to furthering this to be anything more than a novelty.

The primary engines would be on the perpendicular axis struts. Additionally, there would be a few ion engines along the perimeter of the wheel, causing it to rotate with relation to the rest of the ship. This rotation would then result in a gravitational field within the wheel, where living compartments would be located, as well as could be used for an electric motor to generate some of the ships energy needs

so, lets say we hit jackpot and make ion engines within 8 years. golden. even then, that's not really what you would want to do. in essence, you'd want to manipulate magnetism to produce a much more stable, adjustable rotation. this would give you a much smoother rotation that isn't as jerky due to lack of choppy thrust. the only issue is that now the entire edge of the wheel has to be a LARGE mass of material that can utilize this magnetic thrust, but also protect all of the internal vital electronics from a potent magnetic field. the best part of this is that a controlled, spinning magnet is, surprise surprise, the best way to (possibly) create a perpetual motion engine. (one magnet gives off magnetism, one magnet uses first magnet to begin spinning, last magnet uses rotating field to generate electricity which can power the first magnet.)

In order to get from the surface of Earth to the Interplanetary Unicycle, and then from the Interplanetary Unicycle to the surface of Mars, you would need spaceplanes, preferably capable of using renewable biofuel, which can be manufactured in vats provided with essential nutrients, which can obviously be found on Earth and can hopefully be found on Mars.

now you're just making your thing leviathan-sized. remember: the smallest a ship can be to function in space while carrying a payload is still very large. you want your ship to carry THOSE ships, and MULTIPLES, this thing will be an unholy size.

The occupants of the first spaceplane to land on Mars would likely have a rough landing, but they would then be able to construct a proper landing strip for remaining trips between the Interplanetary Unicycle (ok, I think I'm going to have to copyright that name) and the Martian surface.

herein the issue is how long could one group last on the surface without shelter? i couldn't say, i doubt it would be too long, and i don't think they'd have time to do that. a better idea is to land them all and immediately work on producing shelter. risky, no doubt, but the only real way to do that.

In terms of living on Mars, some of the spaceplanes could be cannibalized into the first stages of building, and then subsequent expansion occur by burrowing into the surface and living underground. If, after the initial voyage, more supplies are sent (in either direction), they could travel by space plane to a space station in Earth's orbit, another small but fast vessel from Earth Orbit to Mars Orbit and the Interplanetary Unicycle, and then from the Interplanetary Unicycle to the Martian surface via spaceplane.

the rest of this kind of just plays out as wanting star wars to happen. for the station on mars; if the first ship is to be broken down and reconstituted as a shelter on the surface, then where does a return vessel, that brings the visitors BACK to this unicycle, harbor? you can't keep it outside; remember that dust. but it's exactly as big as one ship, which is the size of the initial shelter.

in all fact, you'd need to break down a LOT of the ships, just to kind of make one big as igloo of metal around one of the ships. then you'd need to completely, 100 percent seal it. 110% seal it. because here comes the next big issue: air. you need to fill that boy with air your brought in, probably compressed, ASAP. but before you even do that, you need to get rid of as much of that dust or the sudden increase in pressure will cause it to cloud up and cause absolute havoc on every and anything in this bubble. (yeah, mars dust is quite the bitch) get rid of as much as is physically possible (preferably; all of it). then, it is safe to fill this unholy amalgamation of shrapnel and electronics with air. if you tunnel down you might be lucky enough to find water. alternatively, you'll find nothing. the space would be nice though.

lastly, the part about sending goods through interplanetary ships? all of this INITIAL work would probably take the work of a MASSIVE task force, a shit ton of money, and possibly the cooperation of at least two countries. sending more ships, just to supply 8 people who are effectively dead to the world, would never happen. and if they could send goods from mars back to earth? hell, just send themselves why not!

[Warr Byrd]

prefabrication would do you some wonders here - it's how the ISS was put together. in essence your idea is sound, but in reality it's a bit shaky. a wheel, being a disc, would have its gravitational field extruded along its longitudinal plane - basically, everything would want to migrate towards the edge of the wheel. herein lies the issue - compartmentalization. you would need to break the wheel into sectors, each of which has their own unique problem. for one, living space. there needs to be a place for people to live and procure visuals of their surroundings outside the ship. you could do that with cameras, but a primary system would be windows. the issue is those windows would rotate very fast the closer they are to the edge. not only that, but the edge of the wheel would be comprised of those windows, meaning your view port is under your feet.

the closer you get in to this wheel, the less gravity occurs until you are no longer in a gravitational field. fluid dynamics is now inconsistent throughout your ship, meaning that all mechanical systems need to constantly dynamic. that in itself is a tough feat. not only that, but the relationship between the distance to the wheel edge and the wear of systems is proportional.

traversing through sectors is itself a feat. you have to imagine yourself living in a disc, where the gravity is the edge of this disc. traveling towards the center is exactly like climbing a mountain, or a ladder. you're going up. these center most rooms would need air to be pumped directly into them, as since such a small gravitational system would cause fluid to rush towards the extremities (the disc edge). think about how a car drifts, you get pushed towards the edge. without a complex pumping system, this air would do exactly that.

...also, this disc would have to be ENORMOUS. if you make it small with a strong gravitational field, now you just have that carnival ride that plasters you to the inside of a drum. if it's small and weak, you won't have room for any of the necessary systems for a cognitive interplanetary travel. if it's massive and weak, you might as well go full on zero-g. you need massive and strong.

I had intended for the wheel to be enormous, hence why the Interplanetary Unicycle is a movable space station and not a surface to space vessel. And while traversing through sectors would be tiring when going up towards the center, it would not be particularly difficult for someone as physically fit as astronauts are supposed to be, especially if the maximum g-force is only, say, 0.8 Earth gravities, heavy enough that the body recognizes it as close to normal but light enough to have a significant effect. As for windows, those would actually be a bad idea on an interplanetary flight, especially if we were talking distances further than Mars. Most of space is empty, and the unaided human eye would not be able to pick out too many more stars than it could given ideal stargazing conditions on Earth. Furthermore, if you were looking out a window on a stationary part of the ship (say, the "seat" of the "unicycle"), there would be so little relative motion that the stars would appear almost stationary. This could prove to be more psychologically damaging for some people than having nothing to look at but those electronic moving picture novelties.

so, just sayin', but Ion engines are pretty much not happening for the foreseeable future. sure, we can manipulate atomic mass to produce an Ionic thrust, but we...are really nowhere close to furthering this to be anything more than a novelty.

We have already launched space ships that use ion engines. Yes, they move slowly initially, but they eventually pick up more speed than conventional chemical engines. If you were to prime the engines by using them to fly around Earth while preparing for the trip to Mars, it would make docking space planes more difficult but could potentially make the trip shorter than as if using conventional engines.

so, lets say we hit jackpot and make ion engines within 8 years. golden. even then, that's not really what you would want to do. in essence, you'd want to manipulate magnetism to produce a much more stable, adjustable rotation. this would give you a much smoother rotation that isn't as jerky due to lack of choppy thrust. the only issue is that now the entire edge of the wheel has to be a LARGE mass of material that can utilize this magnetic thrust, but also protect all of the internal vital electronics from a potent magnetic field. the best part of this is that a controlled, spinning magnet is, surprise surprise, the best way to (possibly) create a perpetual motion engine. (one magnet gives off magnetism, one magnet uses first magnet to begin spinning, last magnet uses rotating field to generate electricity which can power the first magnet.)

Like I said, not an expert. Your suggestion is probably better for many reasons.

now you're just making your thing leviathan-sized. remember: the smallest a ship can be to function in space while carrying a payload is still very large. you want your ship to carry THOSE ships, and MULTIPLES, this thing will be an unholy size.

Again, for the Interplanetary Unicycle, it is intended to be large. And depending on the size of the payload, you can still have a relatively small vehicle. So, say, the Unicycle carries one or two spaceplanes the size of a space shuttle to carry the largest, heaviest essentials, and then the other spaceplanes closer to the size of the X-15 or SpaceShipOne.

herein the issue is how long could one group last on the surface without shelter? i couldn't say, i doubt it would be too long, and i don't think they'd have time to do that. a better idea is to land them all and immediately work on producing shelter. risky, no doubt, but the only real way to do that.

Given that building landing strips in inhospitable environments for guerrilla warfare and emergency evacuations has been done since WW2, I can't imagine that it would take too long, particularly if a somewhat favorable landing site were selected prior to departure from Earth.

the rest of this kind of just plays out as wanting star wars to happen. for the station on mars; if the first ship is to be broken down and reconstituted as a shelter on the surface, then where does a return vessel, that brings the visitors BACK to this unicycle, harbor? you can't keep it outside; remember that dust. but it's exactly as big as one ship, which is the size of the initial shelter.

This problem is at least partially solved by variable spaceplane sizes.

in all fact, you'd need to break down a LOT of the ships, just to kind of make one big as igloo of metal around one of the ships. then you'd need to completely, 100 percent seal it. 110% seal it. because here comes the next big issue: air. you need to fill that boy with air your brought in, probably compressed, ASAP. but before you even do that, you need to get rid of as much of that dust or the sudden increase in pressure will cause it to cloud up and cause absolute havoc on every and anything in this bubble. (yeah, mars dust is quite the bitch) get rid of as much as is physically possible (preferably; all of it). then, it is safe to fill this unholy amalgamation of shrapnel and electronics with air. if you tunnel down you might be lucky enough to find water. alternatively, you'll find nothing. the space would be nice though.

Perhaps I am just extremely uneducated, but I would think that if something were sealed enough to prevent air from escaping into the vacuum of space, it would be sufficient to keep air in and dust out on Mars. Meanwhile, funny thing about water (or, failing to find it under ground, the polar ice caps, which are probably relatively flat and would make for a good landing site)? Run an electric current through it, you can generate oxygen. Feed this to hydroponics, convert some of it into carbon dioxide. There would probably be air bubbles in the water/ice to provide some of the other gases in air. The hydrogen produced when getting oxygen from water could be used to power generators. All of this would decrease the amount of air needing to be brought from Earth. Nitrogen would likely be a problem, but there should be some in the soil that can be converted by bacterial processes.

lastly, the part about sending goods through interplanetary ships? all of this INITIAL work would probably take the work of a MASSIVE task force, a shit ton of money, and possibly the cooperation of at least two countries. sending more ships, just to supply 8 people who are effectively dead to the world, would never happen. and if they could send goods from mars back to earth? hell, just send themselves why not!

Conversely, the possibility of sending something useful from Mars back to Earth might result in increased funding for the initial venture. And sending non-organic material back and forth is simpler than sending fragile organic matter.

[Ekoz]

Given that building landing strips in inhospitable environments for guerrilla warfare and emergency evacuations has been done since WW2, I can't imagine that it would take too long, particularly if a somewhat favorable landing site were selected prior to departure from Earth.

...

Perhaps I am just extremely uneducated, but I would think that if something were sealed enough to prevent air from escaping into the vacuum of space, it would be sufficient to keep air in and dust out on Mars. Meanwhile, funny thing about water (or, failing to find it under ground, the polar ice caps, which are probably relatively flat and would make for a good landing site)? Run an electric current through it, you can generate oxygen. Feed this to hydroponics, convert some of it into carbon dioxide. There would probably be air bubbles in the water/ice to provide some of the other gases in air. The hydrogen produced when getting oxygen from water could be used to power generators. All of this would decrease the amount of air needing to be brought from Earth. Nitrogen would likely be a problem, but there should be some in the soil that can be converted by bacterial processes.



Conversely, the possibility of sending something useful from Mars back to Earth might result in increased funding for the initial venture. And sending non-organic material back and forth is simpler than sending fragile organic matter.

this back and forth could go on for a lifetime...so i'll cut some of the logistics away. let's assume we can get around the size, funding, and development part. just pretty much focus on landing and say we can get productive ion thrusters on this battlecruiser (because at this point, why not).


we even got this guy to pilot it:

Because behind every Battlecruiser is a Russian. Always™.


the problem with landing and preparing landing comes down to how much oxygen you can reserve for the people who are destined to work laboriously on this. not to mention the fact that low gravity work is strenuous on the human body - but not for the reasons you imagine. at face value low gravity work is exponentially easier than work at 1g. in reality, it's just not an issue in a properly pressurized cabin. but when you perform a spacewalk (which is closer to working on mars than you'd think), your MINUTES are numbered; and hours? those are extraordinarily strenuous and can actually cause trauma.

but back to oxygen, you can only hold so much oxygen in tanks. you don't have much time to continuously work, and to create stable landing ground is time costly.

(although, i have to reiterate - there wont be sufficient atmosphere to glide. these ships will almost certainly be plummeting, so they will be landing much like an apollo moon lander - not coming to a graceful land like an earth plane. a landing strip could be useful for dropping cargo in packages that roll to recover, but then you'd need a radial strip, not a linear one.)

as for your question on the dust and why it would be and issue - the entire planet is covered in dust. this dust is actually just rust, pure rust, in the consistency of flour. if you think no dust will get into your shelter while you are preparing it you are absolutely joking yourself. even digging down to make tunnels will produce dust. it doesn't matter which way you slice it, there will be dust. this dust is bad for humans (breathing rust = death), bad for electronics (filtering rust = death), bad for metal (showered by rust = eventual decay), just plain bad. now, lets say you create a totally sealed igloo, you still have mars surface underneath you and mars atmosphere above you. even though you're a totally sealed system, you're a totally sealed MARS system.

try putting a bed of flour in a vacuum. then introduce a shit ton of air in there all at once. that flour will FLY. it'll just be a massive cloud of flour. that's exactly what's happening in this situation. pressurizing a closed martian environment will result in the entire system being filled by a cloud of rust. that's bad. that's VERY bad. ergo; the need to clean out the ENTIRE system of dust. OR, the need to land your entire lab on the surface as is. if it's already built in space and then landed, then provided it doesn't crack on impact it's already pressurized and free of dust

if you wanted to send material back that'd be fine, but then you are permanently loosing material from your system. either you've planned for this and have packaged tons of extra weight for sending packages safely back to earth (which isn't that much of a stretch since you acknowledged this thing was going to be giant), or you are literally breaking apart your own necessary systems to create an on-the-spot space program.