Simon Ross

Cling film comes to mind. Wrap the suit before each EVA and cut it off before entry into the airlock after the EVA is over. Heck, multi million dollar problem solved with a dollar worth of plastic film :-) God forbid we would actually use something that simple and straightforward !

With respect Soda, your missing the bigger picture Do a chemical mission to Mars which is pushing the technology we currently have to the very ragged edge and then what ? Nothing There is nowhere else to go with that technology That's the problem Without NTR there is simply no future for a manned space programme

OK, so lets put this into language we can all understand The ISS is a $100 billion 500 tonne structure that orbits above us in LEO. The ISS is self sufficient for approximately 3 months after that it is totally reliant on Earth based launches to keep it resupplied. The ISS is the single biggest structure we have ever built in space yet it is only 250 miles away It took over a decade to build using the technology we had Are we capable of building a Mars capable system. No way ! Even with SLS It's about keeping a crew alive for 3 years without earth support, it's something we cannot do with our existing technology. TBH it's a pointless discussion. If chemical boosters are all we are ever going to have what's the point of any manned space programme? We might as well draw a map of the solar system and anything beyond a flag and footprints mission to Mars should just read ' Here be Dragons' it really is that simple.

Well, it's very simple, if all you have is chemical boosters to get mass into orbit how many launches do you need to put a Mars capable system up there ? If you use a NTR upper stage, you reduce the launches by half Kinda simple economics We need NTR, simply because bugger all is going to happen otherwise

@Soda NTR doesn't change the mission time As I have already stated, it's not about delta v. we can do that with chemicals, it's about the amount of redundancy you need to include in the mission profile to give the passengers a realistic chance of surviving the mission. Without NTR, you are simply never going to see this mission happen

@Soda It wont work for exactly the same reason the studies in the 60's fell down. The delta v isn't the issue, building a life support system that can operate independent of Earth support for 3 years is the issue. If you want to do a manned Mars Mission, you need a HUGE amount of redundancy built into the system and every gram you have to add to the system costs money to get off the ground. With current chemical booster tech, forget it, it isn't going to happen I was born in 1960, watched the first men land on the moon. Two decades ago I kinda realised that I was never going to see a person land on Mars in my lifetime, what scares me is that I don't think any of us posting on this thread are going to see it :-(

@Soda Sorry, but Ares I / Ares V doesn't get close to mounting a manned Mars mission. Basically your back with using Apollo level HLV technology with all the constraints of that technology. Sure, studies were done in the 60's to mount a Mars mission using Apollo hardware, but that's as far as they ever got, just studies. Unfortunately you simply face the same issues using SLS as the basis for a Mars mission, in almost 50 years nothing has really changed. Until we grow up and use nuclear we are stuck in LEO

You do kinda wonder what exactly new we are going to learn from such a mission. Asteroids are pretty much the same in terms of chemical composition regardless of whether they are floating around in space or sitting on the Earth surface after entering the atmosphere What are we actually going to learn ?

OK, I really hate to rain on the parade but ... Mars isn't 'reachable' with the technology we have today If you want to do a manned mission with existing chemical boosters your looking at a minimum of a 3 year round trip The ISS is just above us in LEO, after $100 billion it can barely sustain itself for 3 MONTHS let alone 3 years We don't have the life support capability to do a 3 year mission We don't have the booster technology to shorten the mission In short, we cannot do the mission

In a direct answer to the OP's challenge, it simply cannot be done with the chemical technology available to use today and the restrictions limiting the development of nuclear power sources in the immediate future. And yes, it's a pretty depressing outlook from someone who was around to watch the original moon landing :-(

My all time favourite site of retro future http://davidszondy.com/future/futurepast.htm Unfortunately due to personal reasons David does not update the site any more :-(

I'm sorry, but what missions ? That's the whole problem with SLS, there is NO programme that is set in stone. At the moment it almost feels like NASA is building a system in the hope that an administration change might grow some balls and actually commit to funding a real life mission for the system

Gravity is a natural force, so can we artificially create it, of course we can. The only stopping point is we don't actually know how to do it short of accelerating objects or rotating them.

Unfortunately I have to agree, SLS is simply a vehicle without a real mission in the pipeline. Given ISS has recently had a life extension and the only real missions are simply to crew rotate and resupply to the ISS, the SLS just makes no sense at all About the only mission that would make any real sense for SLS is an unmanned Mars sample return and no one is even talking about that

The most frustrating aspect is during the 60's NASA was able to design and build 3 highly successful LEO launch systems with the technology at hand, namely Mercury, Gemini and Apollo all within 7 years of each other. Gemini is particularly frustrating as it had by far the biggest growth potential of all 3 systems. If you look at some of the follow on proposals, Gemini Blue, Big Gemini it makes you want to f**king weep, so many possible opportunities we missed. But no, NASA is back trying to design a one size fits all system again. It's almost as if we didn't learn anything from Shuttle :-(

I believe there is a Planet Factory mod that provides exactly this extra feature

The original concept was fine. A small, reusable space plane capable of carrying a crew of 3-5 people into LEO with a small <5 ton science payload. The Shuttle would have been much more a lifting body type shape, no large delta wings and a much less complex configuration. To secure USAF support, the Shuttle grow massively from it's original design concept and capability into the delta winged monster we actually ended up with. As others have already stated, it's pretty much the kiss of death when you start mixing man carrying capability and cargo carrying capability into a single design, it ends up not doing either of them particularly well

Must admit to being with Cmoody on this one. Would much rather see optimisation that makes full use of multi core processors rather then simply 64 bit support

Frankly I don't see us getting to Mars much before 2040 perhaps even 2060 In terms of technology, we have probably been in a position to have gone there any time over the last 40 years. Quite simply the money and political will to do it has been the stumbling block every time

So, expanding on a few of the posts that have already been generated. First problem Atmosphere....Very simple, Mars simply doesn't have enough, convert every single CO2 molecule to O2 and you are still going to die pretty quickly Second problem Mass... Mars simply doesn't have enough of it, the reason it lost it's own atmosphere a very long time ago Third problem Temperature... It's cold, it's really, really cold ! Sure with limitless power you can heat it up, leach gases from the soil, but at the end of the day, the warmer it gets, the quicker the atmosphere you are trying to create gets stripped from the planet We are never going to terraform Mars, much as I would dearly love it to happen :-(

Well, a few basic issues... Firstly I would be wanting to make sure there is no existing life on the planet however small and humble it may be. Personally I couldn't think of a worse crime then to kill of another planet's eco system even if it consisted of nothing more then bacteria hidden below ground. Secondly, you simply couldn't do it with existing biology no matter how rugged it is. That doesn't preclude bio engineering strains that could survive the conditions in the future, but frankly it's a pretty big ask. Mars is a TOUGH place to live

Great design, you should put it up as a craft file

For me, a functioning Verne gun using atomics. All the advantages of Orion for unmanned payload with none of the fallout

Eve A hard mistress. Never done it 'stock' and managed a manned return One day :-)

Certainly in the UK, all engineering is now conducted in metric quantities, however, everyday life is still dominated by the usage of imperial terms. Ask someone their weight, they are unlikely to answer in kilograms but rather pounds and ounces