What do you think about my idea for a Martian mission?

[Pawelk198604]

We build one base station with a few modules, enough to give shelter to 6 astronauts/cosmonauts and enough fuel to fly to Mars and return to Earth. We add the Mars lander to the station. We send the crew in several capsules to dock to the station. When everyone is there, we send the whole to Mars.

When the station is in Mars orbit, some of the astronauts go to the lander, and land on Mars, do their job, and those who have been in orbit help in the analysis of the data. After some time they start from Mars, dock to the station, but do not reject the lander. They are waiting for a transfer window to Earth, when they are again in orbit around the earth, they land on Earth in capsules in which they arrived at stations. The transfer vehicle itself and the Martian lander could be refurbished and  used multiple times, and maybe even capsules too

 

I think the real scientist probably figured it out a long time ago, but that was my thought when I played Surviving Mars

 

[DDE]

3 minutes ago, Pawelk198604 said:

I think the real scientist probably figured it out a long time ago

LockMart called.

This is similar to most proposed approaches. Biggest hole is that the orbital crew stays there for no particular reason, while experiencing all the fun stuff with zero-g and radiation. Surviving Mars is indeed easier, albeit not as easy as the pun.

Oh, and you (and LockMart artists) forget about the need for an Earth-Mars transfer vehicle of a size comparable to the station.

[Pawelk198604]

2 minutes ago, DDE said:

LockMart called.

This is similar to most proposed approaches. Biggest hole is that the orbital crew stays there for no particular reason, while experiencing all the fun stuff with zero-g and radiation. Surviving Mars is indeed easier, albeit not as easy as the pun.

Oh, and you (and LockMart artists) forget about the need for an Earth-Mars transfer vehicle of a size comparable to the station.

Thanks

I'm 32 years old but I always fascinated about the possibility of manned Mars expeditions  

 

Maybe i try to do it in KSP when i got more time  

[cubinator]

This requires many Earth launches, so you had better do it on a reusable launcher. Otherwise, the cost of this operation will be much larger than it needs to be.

[razark]

1 hour ago, Pawelk198604 said:

do not reject the lander.

Not sure what you're trying to say here.

 

1 hour ago, Pawelk198604 said:

We send the crew in several capsules to dock to the station.
... when they are again in orbit around the earth, they land on Earth in capsules in which they arrived at stations.

Why haul these capsules all the way to Mars and back?  Bring the crew up, drop the capsules, go to Mars, come back, send up new (or refurbished) capsules to return the crew.

[kerbiloid]

The transfer flight lasts for 6..8 monts twice.
The expedition lasts for up to 3 years.

So, at least a half of the expedition the crew spends in a ship. And needs space, rad protection, physical activities (very good if a medical centrifuge, as they are going to land), redundant life support, etc.
Thus you anyway have to send a full-featured orbital station for every flight. 

So, a base station will make sense when the transfer time will be in weeks, not months.
This means ISP*g for an order of magnitude higher than now, ~100 km/s. So, either thermonukes or gaseous core nukes.
And also this is the condition of a reusable Martian ship.

Edited December 8, 2018 by kerbiloid

[DDE]

10 hours ago, razark said:

Why haul these capsules all the way to Mars and back?  Bring the crew up, drop the capsules, go to Mars, come back, send up new (or refurbished) capsules to return the crew.

Removes the step of having to decelerate into Earth orbit... oh, and @Pawelk198604 doesn’t seem to have an Earth-Mars transfer vehicle to offload them to.

A lot of mission achitectures have the interplanetary ship disposed of without entierijg Earth orbit, while the crew endure an aggressive reentry in an RV capsule. Or the ship isn’t even disposed of - it just has low-thrust engines that require an additional few months to decelerate, including a lot of time in the rad belts.

10 hours ago, razark said:

Not sure what you're trying to say here.

Using the station to keep the reusable lander around.

3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Thus you anyway have to send a full-featured orbital station for every flight. 

Not if you’re trying to analyse some of the data in situ, resulting in a larger station.

But of course, doing analysis with two people up there cannot possibly be better than doing analysis with an additional two thousand people down here.

3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

So, a base station will make sense when the transfer time will be in weeks, not months.

Only partially, though. It’s a third wheel to the pairing of an interplanetary transfer ship, and a lander (and, also omitted from the discussion, a Phobos ice hauler).

12 hours ago, cubinator said:

This requires many Earth launches, so you had better do it on a reusable launcher. Otherwise, the cost of this operation will be much larger than it needs to be.

For a slimmed-down architecture, look no further than Mars Direct/Semi-Direct - 2-3 SLS equivalents per sortie.

12 hours ago, Pawelk198604 said:

Maybe i try to do it in KSP when i got more time  

When you try to use KSP as a simulator, always keep in mind that IRL dVs are twice as high, and even though the tanks are also more mass efficient, you still need bigger rockets for the same payload.

Edited December 8, 2018 by DDE

[kerbiloid]

13 minutes ago, DDE said:

Not if you’re trying to analyse some of the data in situ, resulting in a larger station.

In situ they should analyse just regolith samples before delivering them to orbit, to select only significant ones to ascend.
When the samples are in orbit, the crew should just deliver them to the high-rank specialists.
So, a mini-lab is useful for a land base, but not for the orbital one.

They fly to Mars not to make discoveries, but to drill and sort, nothing more. They are lab assistants and workers.

24 minutes ago, DDE said:

It’s a third wheel to the pairing of an interplanetary transfer ship, and a lander

If the flight lasts fo a month, you can use more risky solutions. Less redundant and smaller.
Say, no need in life support redundancy, no centrifuge, lesser empty volume to live in.
This makes the courier ship smaller.

The orbital station should provide a full-featured habitat.
Also it's an orbital vault for those who can't start to Earth right now.
And for the land base crew if a terrible Martian storm crashes their habitats, lol.

[Pawelk198604]

As reject lander I mean discard as the Apollo mission did, just bring new 1st stage and use it again