AngelLestat

But the gravity of mars is not enoght either, so even if we solve all long term issues with oxygen, we still have the long term issues due gravity.. unless we use genetic engineering. Increasing the pressure is not efficient either, because mars would lose higher amount of atmosphere by day, more than the amount produced. That only happens because all the fuel is at a good mix with its oxidant, something that does not happen just with convection. 0.1 bar oxygen atmosphere.. yeah the cigarrete would last less time with higher combustion temperature, but nothing crazy.

But lets imagine that we want to include the basic aspect of relativity into KSP as time dilation and fuel consumption (I miss something important?), besides only when you overseed 10% lightspeed. There is not noticeable cpu consumption there.

many thermal plants already do this, its secondary function is to produce potable water. There are many cogenerating process that can include this increasing the overall efficiency of the system. The problem that not all thermal plants are close to the sea.

What?? heh.. that is a fail in many ways.. first.. if your sensor is so far away.. then it will be almost impossible to detect something so small as a ship. In case you can find it with magic, then it will take a long time to the heat reach the sensor, and it will take the same amount of time to alert earth. And all this depend in how collimated is the heat source.. if is well collimated there is almost not chance that your sensor is in the path, also you can radiate heat normal to the solar system plane or towards the sun. But well, spacewars is something that never would happen. Is complety pointless. At that level of technology you dont need to sent ships to eliminate life or targets. You can shoot micro capsules with nanovirus. Impossible to detect.

Darkstar already answer you, all speeds are relative between objects, but what matter most for us is the speed of earth "everybody we know" against ours, that difference on speed is what give us the time dilation, and the max is 300000 km/s, in the KSP scale might be 30000 km/s because all distances are 1/10.

Yeah, but I accept the topic hypothesis rising a bit more the pressure estimated in the first post under the condition that it will be few hours by day and only trained people, not kids or old people. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/118308-breathable?p=1889096&viewfull=1#post1889096 Why the atmosphere would turn into a fireball? Yeah any combustion would be more energetic, with higher temperature, the energy density is kinda lower due pressure. But to burn all the atmosphere you need a mix of fuel in the whole atmosphere. Yeah I mention that in my latest post. Also I have a pond.. The nitrogen cycle is important in that case to keep the water clean.

If some day implement higher speeds and age.. then is not so difficult to do.

Heat management takes time and energy, less time --> much more energy --> which generates more heat. Heat is the form of energy more difficult to handle. stealth planes dont hide, they just bounce waves at angles difficult to intercept, in the heat case you can have a low emissivity ship surface with a radiation device to release your heat in a collimated way (hard but doable). But sticking to your example, I would pump liquid hellium(best) or hydrogen over the skin surface using cavities, that it would cold your ship by a while, then you would need to use a lot of energy to cold that hydrogen again.

but it depends on the density K2, is not the same 1 atm pure oxygen atmosphere than 0.1 atm. For example oxygen is poison for us if is pure at 1 atm, lower than that we dont have problems.

http://phys.org/news/2011-04-russian-cosmologist-life-black-hole.html But lets not forget that scientist still doesn´t know the real physsics which operate crossing the event horizon.

Also you can use the dragon engines as escape pod (very important)... that is what spacex will test in five days. If you dont have that, then you need a solid booster tower. And it will not provide the same safe margin. Also you can use the onboard engines to correct any other problem with the launch, orbit, etc. If you run out of fuel, you still have the parachutes.. You can not guide parachutes, and its terminal speed is still very high, so you need to land on water or install solid rockets or air bags.. If you land on water, then you have a problem with reusability. Parachutes should remain in the past. There are much better ways to get a soft landing.

? that is not the only way to fix nitrogen... what about nitrates and ammonia.. that is what plants get from the ground.

There are so many possibilities for a reusable launch vehicle, all are valid methods, very hard to choose the perfect balance. The vehicle with our current technology may be 2 stage or 3stage to orbit. The most difficult to solve is the second stage reusability in a 3stage vehicle. And that makes me wonder... what are the benefics of a 3 stage vehicle against 2 stage? If the second stage already puts things into orbit, after that you only need to decelerate a bit and fall. Also vehicles with low density due size reduce the amount of thermal shielding needed. I will thoght in one possibility maybe inspire by the falcon9. Things that I have for sure... the first stage would use rotor-blades with autorotation instead rockets+fins to land. I will choose methane for the first stage and hydrogen ballon tank for the second. I cant think in a good idea to recover the second stage.. I would see. In case the payload is big enoght to not be able to go back to base, I would use a manned barge to that task.

Is still a gas, any liquid comparison will confuse much more than help. I dont understand what is his plan to reach the ground, with the rocket+helicopter, or is a 2 atmosphere stage vehicles and only the helicopter down.. You will have to have into account this table to calculate the bouyancy at each altitude..

plants absorb nitrogen from the ground... not the atmosphere.. (from what I know). "ignore this" Edit: Ah you mean that it needs to be fixed from the atmosphere into the ground? I read wrong sorry..

There is nothing wrong with your idea.. is possible. If your vehicle is manned then the amount of time you can stay in the surface is lower, also you can not descend from the vehicle to ground so is pointless. I dont see any problem with the unmanned case. Also you dont spent any energy to land because you use autorotation. As someone else point.. A lighter than air vehicle may be a better idea, because the helicopter would consume more energy to reach 50km altitude to launch your rocket from there. But the vehicle needs to have variable bouyancy and able to resist a higher difference of pressure and temperature.. It will be easier to use 2 lighter than air vehicle, for example one for 30km to 50 km, and another one to 0km - 30 km. The land vehicle needs to wait until the upper vehicle do a whole turn over the planet (4 days)

I dont know, maybe you can survive that for shorts amounts of time, but not live there. There are many factors that matters: partial pressure = total absolute pressure × volume fraction of gas component ppO2 = P × FO2 where: ppO2=partial pressure of oxygen, P=total pressure, FO2=volume fraction of oxygen content. in your example, it will be ppO2 = 0,07 bar x 1 --> ppO2= 0,07 bar as you mention. But in literature the minimun safe limit of ppO2 is 0,17 bar. The ppO2 value will force us to breath more fast or less fast, this mean exhaustion, no even hard trained people can survive for more than few hours in the everest top. But mars gravity is lower, so the exhaustion is less. So maybe an estimated minimun safe limit (not for full time living, no more than few hours by day, not old guys or childrens) it will be around 0,1 bar in mars. That is still a lot of atmosphere that you need to release.. Mars atmosphere pressure : 0,006 bar. So you need to rise 20 times the mars pressure and reduce a bit more the amount of co2.

The only thing I want, that the first time we visit another planet, I hope to find at least one woman in the team.. We our bound, and we need to accomplish the great advances together.

That is stupid, to fight what war?? They had 6 times more budget than arabia and like 20 times more army, and if arabia attack someone, all the other countries needs to answer, so is not USA alone.. which by the way they spent the same than the rest of the world combined. You dont need to remplace all probes missions with manned mission. The same that you can not remplace the need for manned missions with probes missions.. I can not say it any clearer than that. Probes already did what they suppose to did.. now is our turn to go venus or mars. The same will be true for an under ice europa mission, first you sent probes, then after some missions if there is still a good potential for discoveries or goals, you sent a manned mission (in case you can deal with radiation). And if NASA management are smart, they will do every once a while what people wants! Because that is money from the US citizens, and they will allow huge budgets if they like what they see. Also is a way to decrease army expenditures. from 50% to 20%?? you really believe that? sources? Also the cost of welfare is to counter the weapons that they also sale to the zones of conflict. Take a look what it will happen if US citizens keep voting wrong or ignoring this problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures This is the budget predicted for the 2045 in case USA dont reduce its budget.. The stupidest army race in the history.. And eventually USA will lost against China of course. All that to what???? They can not enter in war... is silly. Nobody can today.. The only they can do is encourage civil wars in afrika to sale more weapons to them, and once every a while enter in those conflicts to said... stop fighting between you two (as excuse, to move all your army and show that is "usefull") Meanwhile the real threat is terrorism which can not be stopped with armies, in fact is encourage by them. And all the democracy countries who spent ZERO in defence.. had no problem and not risk to enter in any war or conflict. To all US citizens... you need to pressure your goverment to stop this madness. Only then the world would be able to focus in the space.

I was waching with my brother. But nobody else that I know watched or care.Maybe in your friends group you have many people interested in that, but take a look to real stadistics, probes popularity is almost non existing. With the time yes.. but only for maintenance they will spent that. It will be like drop money already spent. This is sad by the way: Military expenditures 2014.

is not the same amout of science.. you need to add the science comming from the development and the social impact. Also you do many times more than a single robot can do, and you go back with huge terabytes of data and superHD for the masses. After all that is people´s money.. what they get with robot missions? just a few parameters on temperature and pressure? which not everyone has access.. From their point of view is like just paid to see some scientist obtain what they want.. but only for them.. You need to give them also something. The Coliseum age is not over.

I agree. Maybe 7.5% nasa and extra to other.

I just wanted to remark this. Yes, but we also gave many reasons for manned mission which never was addressed by you guys, the only thing that you keep mention is cost.. ignoring all the others benefics which are a lot!! But the main benefic is that you get extra budget for these kind of missions, a type of budget that you never will get for unmanned missions. Take a look in apollo program, at one point was cancelled just for one reason.. lack of public interest. It was not a money problem.. is about public interest. There was not real goal for the upcomming missions, it was just kinda a copy from the first ones. The same mistake that Nasa wants to make with the new moon missions, of course the first mission will have the world attention.. but it will be for 1 week tops. People wants adventure.. reach a place where nobody was before, with a real goal and risky, they need new heroes, they need to experience the adventure as if their were there.. that is something that a robot can not give us. 46 years past since our last step... how many years more we need to wait???

Some benefics come many years later, but if you see the info and analysis of my links shows how the space program bring almost instant benefics to the US economy. First you are mobilizing/activiting many industry sectors, that implies new job oportunities, people had more salary then invest their own money in different products. Some of these industries can take advantage right away of the new products develope for the apollo program or find them different uses. Why you mention the genome project? I never said that goverment investments in other science projects were bad.. I just said that some countries are wasting a lot of money in armament. Then I was answering that manned exploration is not a waste of money.And I prove that. And?? Soo??? This mean that we need to stop invest money in development and exploration? You still have some benefics that are a sure bet. To solve problems you can invest money directly in those problems.. but those problems will keep emerging all the time.. one way to stop dealing with them is develoment a long time solution. Countries who invest in development are better than those who doesn´t. But I dont know what else I can add after all already said.

It does not matter if some technologies would be develope anyway years later.. Because to do that you would need also an investment, but what if that same techonology was develope in other country before? For example the microchip was develope by and for the apollo program, something that now all world electronics use and contribute to the fast grow of silicon valley. what´s the cost of being second instead first? https://spinoff.nasa.gov/apollo.htm (100% products develope under the apollo program) To that you need to add all those technologies which had a huge improvement under the apollo program as: astronaut suits rocket engines (higher isp) computers, chips, software. fuel cells aerodynamics etc The economical benefics of the apollo program is estimated from 7$ to 40$ for each 1$ invested. http://www.nss.org/settlement/nasa/spaceresvol4/newspace3.html Plus all the indirect benefics you had inspiring people and show yourself as the innovative world leader, also the different technologies which were partially develope but was not used in the program, as the heliblades with autorotation to remplace parachutes between many others. https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/80660main_ApolloFS.pdf http://freakonomics.com/2008/01/11/is-space-exploration-worth-the-cost-a-freakonomics-quorum/ (Opinions of different important people about the economical benefics of space exploration) http://onlinelearningtips.com/2014/07/25/the-continued-socioeconomic-impact-of-apollo-11/ Mostly all biggest scientist from my country lives in foreing countries, mostly USA or Europe and they work for them. What is the point to stay in a country where nothing happens and the chances of get funds to study or develope something is very low. This was very mentioned by many popular scientists, from what I remember: Michio Kaku and Neil degrasse Tyson. What is the cost for stop dreaming? In the ARM vs Moon topic I explain why is so important manned exploration vs robots. Probes are important for many things.. but manned exploration can not be remplaced, it has a huge social impact, the human purpose depend on that.