Manned Mars mission poll

[Northstar1989]

23 hours ago, KSK said:

Compare all this to the ITS concept which takes a single ship to Mars surface and back relying on orbital refuelling in LEO and refueling at Mars. Not a remotely trivial thing to design build and operate either but it's a potential workhorse ship for getting everything to Mars on a more flexible timescale than the Cycler ship and/or slowboating colony infrastructure. Sure its maybe a bit over the top for getting infrastructure there but again - you're only using a single ship, rather than a flotilla of different vessels. 

Two vehicles (plus slowboated colony infrastructure).  The Cycler Ship architecture gets everyone to Mars and back with two vehicles- a Cycler and an Interceptor- exactly the same number of spacecraft that are needed to transport humans to Mars with the ITSy (the new name commonly being used for the new, downsized vehicle that will only be 9 meters in diameter and thus smaller than the originally-proposed ITS)

The Interceptor doesn't need a dedicated Lander to get to the surface of Mars- it can do it on its own (but doesn't have to- the use of a dedicated lander is still an *option*) just the same as the ITSy.  Slightly easier in fact, since it's a smaller spacecraft (due to not containg long-term orbital habitat equipment), and thus likely has a lower Ballistic Coefficient.

Nor does thr Interceptor need a dedicated fuel tanker, like the ITSy does.  Since the Interceptor is substantially smaller than the ITSy (though a very significant fraction of its mass in LEO is still fuel) if it launches on a first stage the same size as the ITSy it can carry all the fuel it needs for its mission with it in a single launch, without requiring any additional tanker-launches (a reusable upper stage can be used to insert the Interceptor into Low Earth Orbit, ensuring all its fuel tanks are full when the upper stage decouples).

Of course, just like with a dedicated lander, I would argue that while you CAN launch the Interceptor in a single launch with all its fuel from an ITSy-sized booster, launching the Interceptor dry (with just enough fuel to reach Low Earth Orbit) and then refueling it in orbit is actually beneficial, mostly because it allows use of a smaller launch-stage (you could even use a Falcon Heavy, if you relied on a small flotilla of Interceptors with a few people in small capsules each, instead of a single large one cramming in 40-50 people like sardines in a can...) and future-proofs the design against the development of a very low-cost launch architecture with a small maximum payload (so it is cheaper for launching fuel, but can't possibly lift the Interceptor itself) like a reusable spaceplane (planes don't scale to larger sizes very easily), a Mass Driver launch system (Mass Drivers need to amortize their costs over a lot of launches to beat the costs of rockets to orbit- which means they need to be sized to launch only normal-sized payloads rather than the rare monster-sized one), or anything relying on Microwave Beamed Power (the driving cost of a MBP system is the ground-array, so once again you want to build a smaller array and only launch the most common payloads using BMP alone- although it *is* still capable of powering smaller side-mounted Microwave Thermal boosters on larger chemical rockets...)

As for the Cyclers- they would probably be launched to orbit in multiple pieces and then assembled together, just like the International Space Station (in fact, you could literally use *THE* International Space Station as one of your Cyclers - just strap an array of electric thrusters and enough propellant to it and push.  Since electric-thrusters produce *VERY* low g-forces, they won't cause damage to the fragile structure of the ISS when active; and since the Cycler doesn't need to have a crew aboard when it establishes itself in its Cycler Orbit, the amount of time it would take to get the ISS to a Cycler Orbit is largely irrelevant...)  So there's no reason your Cyclers would need to be refueled in orbit either- just launch the propulsion module (with electric thrusters) as one of the many modules of the Cycler- you can take as many launches as you want to assemble it.  Since the Cycler's structure never needs to survive high g-forces (literally the only times it will ever be under Thrust would be from an electric thruster, if you opt for electric over chemical propulsion) and it never needs to land or enter an atmosphere- it's a craft that will remain almost permanently in microgravity, much like a space station...

 

Because the Interceptor is capable of being launched wet, and the Cycler Ship in multiple pieces, a Cycler Ship mission architecture requires literally only one size of launch vehicle (the Cycler can be designed to be launched in Interceptor-sized pieces) in the bare-bones scenario.  Or two, if you want to minimize the amount of docking and assembly for the Cycler by launching it in larger pieces.  And the colony infrastructure can be slowboated to Mars using whatever launch vehicles you have available, in as many pieces as necessary- there's no reason you have to launch it all in one go...

So, with only two types of spacecraft and as few as only one ITSy-sized launch vehicle as a minimum requirement, the Cycler architecture doesn't necessarily require any more types of vehicles than the ITSy plan (one launch stage, a manned spacecraft and a tanker.)  Even colony infrastructure can be included in a cargo-hold on the Interceptor for no more cost than including it in a cargo-hold on the ITSy (the ITSy and Interceptor require *almost exactly* the same Delta-V to reach Mars.  Remember, a 5-month Mars transfer is a 5-month Mars transfer, it doesn't matter if you meet up with another spacecraft on the way by carefully timing your launch...)

[Nibb31]

The only point of a cycler is living space. Everything else (crew, supplies, propellant, and shuttle craft) needs the same amount of dV, plus you have to bring extra propellant for cycler corrections. The cycler itself would only have a larger ECLSS than the shuttle craft, power, and maybe propulsion (it could use the propulsion of the shuttle craft). Since the whole point of a cycler is that it's bug and heavy, it will also need a lot of energy for course corrections.

I don't buy the "100 pax" capacity of the Musk's ITS project, but it can probably accomodate 10 or 20 people in relative comfort for a round trip to Mars. Once you want to start sending people by the thousands, then you have to calculate the tradeoffs between building a huge cycler and putting it into its orbit, or simply mass producing more ships. Maybe the latter makes more sense in that it gives you redundancy and mass production is cheaper than a one-off.

Either way, getting that far depends on a whole lot of assumptions and hand waving at this point. This is so far in the future, that there is no point in speculating on the economics of a cycler, since we don't even know what the economics of this colonization effort are going to be.

Edited September 23, 2017 by Nibb31

[Northstar1989]

On 9/22/2017 at 2:35 AM, KSK said:

It's all trade-offs and - until somebody starts trying to fly serious hardware to Mars - mostly speculative trade-offs at this point. All we can say is that either option is going to be expensive.

Like I said, not all tradeoffs are equal.  Sometimes you trade off something not very useful for something MASSIVELY valuable.  Not to mention you've yet to show any actual trade-offs in any of your posts- the Cycler architecture doesn't need a lander, which was your main "tradeoff".

In fact, the Cycler architecture doesn't actually need any more types of spacecraft than the ITSy- just swap a Cycler for your Tanker, and remove all the long-term orbital habitat from the ITSy and put it on your Cycler to make it an Interceptor.  You even have the same number of docking-capable craft for each plan: two.  Though the Interceptor only has to dock with the Cycler ONCE, and the ITSy has to dock with its Tanker 4-5 times at a minimum...

You can even launch less mass to LEO with the Cycler architecture- since the Cycler doesn't have to have any more amenities than the ITSy, as both only support a crew for 5 months...  The Cycler can be accelerated to its Cycler Orbit once over the course of months or years and left there, however, whereas the ITSy must make its Mars-transfer in a few weeks or less, and land all the orbital habitation equipment on the surface of Mars...

 

In short, you failed to identify any trade-offs (there are some, but none of them you mentioned)- there is no way you identified that the ITSy architecture as proposed is significantly "better" than the Cycler one.  In its bare-bones version, the Cycler architecture requires no more types of spacecraft than the ITSy, less mass to orbit, and is just as effective as the ITSy.  There ARE potential drawbacks- but you didn't hit on any of them, and in my opinion they are well worth the primary benefit: MASSIVE cost-savings.

Edited September 23, 2017 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

18 hours ago, ModZero said:

Sorry, but what? There's little proven benefit to going to Mars, outside of prestige stuff. Meanwhile there a ton of opportunity lost by not spending the resources  - materials, people's time, money - on pretty much anything else. Opportunity cost is what Mars mission advocates routinely miss. Going to Mars misses other opportunities, like hiring your presumably highly qualified colonists in some actually productive jobs, like, say, teaching. Or manufacturing faucets. Still more productive.

Nothing is a "proven" benefit until it's actually been done.  By that logic, nobody should ever go out to socialize with friends, or apply to a better job, or attend college- because none of those are PROVEN benefits, for that particular person, before they happen...

There are however many extremely valuable SPECULATIVE benefits that we can be almost completely certain of.  Any colony on Mars will eventually become self-sustaining (it may take a couple hundred years, but it WILL hapoen).  And when it does, Earth will no longer need to send anything to Mars (that doesn't mean it shouldn't- commerce is generally beneficial to all) and in return will receive one extremely important product that is likely to be the only thing Mars ever exports...

KNOWLEDGE.

The MAIN benefit to Earth of colonizing Mars is that Mars will eventually produce its own Science.  Which means Earth won't have to work nearly as hard to maintain the same rate of technological advancement (or, ideally, can maintain a FASTER rate of scientific advancement for the same expense).

For a few hundred Billion dollars or less, if done efficiently, Earth should be able to set up an entire new self-sustaining civilization that will eventually produce more scientific breakthroughs than the entire United Ststes and Europe combined (Martians will HAVE TO- life will be hard on Mars, even after 2 centuries of colonization- and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics will be the ONLY ways to make it easier.  Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention)  Right now, the US spends $31 Billion annually on the NIH and $7 Billion annually on the NSF.  Mars could probably be colonized for less than $300 Billion with SpaceX at the helm, and will eventually (600 or so years down the line and 400-500 years after self-sufficiency) produce just as much science as all the scientists in the USA and Europe combined every year with no additional.  Do the math.

It's a long-term investment to be sure, but pays handsome dividends in the long run on this basis alone.  Not to mention all the scientific breakthroughs investing in actually GETTING TO Mars could produce...

18 hours ago, ModZero said:

Huh? That doesn't matter. There's little benefit of this for us here, there's no global crisis this is going to prevent, if anything you're missing out on 2 years of sending rescue missions. From the colony perspective, it doesn't matter at all, because its development *starts* when the thing happens. It's an isolated economy anyway.

A global crisis of apathy.  Americans, in particular, have become dangerously myopic and focused only on living a comfortable life.  Going to Mars could change that, and inspire MILLIONS to become scientists, engineers, or entrepreneurs...

18 hours ago, ModZero said:

We can have great famines here on Earth, we don't need to go to Mars for that.

If Mars experiences a famine (and at some point it will- so will Earth.  Famines are an inevitability given a long enough stretch of time...) it won't harm Earth in any major way.  On the other hand, BILLIONS of dollars worth of scientific data and MILLIONS of new scientists and engineers could prove incredibly useful on Earth...

[Northstar1989]

17 hours ago, tater said:

There is no opportunity cost associated with not going to Mars with people that I can even imagine, since there is no plausible economic benefit of doing so, ever, as far as I can tell.

A failure of imagination on your part is not Mars' fault, nor mine.  Mars could someday TEEM with life, after it is terraforms, and support close to a Billion people once it no longer becomes necessary to live in domes there.  That kind of population could prove MASSIVELY useful to Earth in terms of all the scientific progress they will produce.  Technological breakthroughs can be transmitted to Earth for very little cost- and are one of the primary long-term benefits of colonizing Mars for Earth.

In the short-term, however, the main benefits of colonizing Mars are the scientific breakthroughs we will make attempting to get there, particularly in aerospace sciences (I just spent a consiserable amount of time explaining why SpaceX should invest in breakthrough electric propulsion methods for its plan to colonize Mars, for instance) and the MILLIOBS of young people in the USA and around the world thst going to Mars will inspire to pursue a career in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields...

A secondary benefit I haven't even mentioned is the way going to Mars will alter our collective social consciousness.  Earth-centric thinking does an ENORMOUS amount of damage- particularly among religious people (who find it MUCH easier to justify fanaticism when the *only* planet humans can live on is one they think God created specifically for us...)  How will going to and settling Mars change the way we think about ourselves and the world- think of thst the next time you go to church... (IF you go to church)

[KSK]

4 hours ago, Northstar1989 said:

A lot of unsubstantiated verbiage.

Do you any basis for these numbers at all or are you just plucking them from thin air to support your preconceptions?

[Northstar1989]

17 hours ago, p1t1o said:

Sorry to gang up on you NorthStar, but im in a rather cynical space right now...

 

 

You contradict yourself. You lose two years for a two year delay., there is no magnification of time.

Actually, there IS a magnification of time in a way.  At least a magnification if today's decisions far into the future...

You lose 2 years of progress now, and 2 years of progress 20 years from now, and 2 years of progress 200 years from now, and so on and so forth.  At EVERY point in the development of Mars, from here to infinity (even after humans leave the solar system, it will likely be 2 years later, or with 2 years less Martian scientific knowledge at least...) humans will be less advanced, because we delayed colonizing Mars.

Right now, space exploration is one of the single best investments we can make- yielding an estimated 10 dollars of economic activity from commercialization of associated scientific breakthroughs for every dollar spent on a space program.  And that's just data on NASA from messing around in Low Earth Orbit.  Going to Mars (the RIGHT way, anyways- fueled by innovative approaches to getting there and looking for scientific opportunities every step of the way) will UNDOUBTEDLY prove more valuable in the long run...

4 minutes ago, KSK said:

Do you any basis for these numbers at all or are you just plucking them from thin air to support your preconceptions?

Which numbers?  You know it's impossible to answer your question when it's phrased as an unspecified, confrontations statement...

Edited September 23, 2017 by Northstar1989

[Col. Kernel]

On 9/15/2017 at 1:13 AM, Nibb31 said:

There is no reason to colonize other planets. Exploration is fine. Science is a great motivation. But colonization is just a massive waste or resources for no real purpose. We are smarter than that.

Mars has been there for billions of years. We have only been around for a few thousand years. Mars and the rest of our solar system aren't going anywhere. It will all still be there in another couple of thousand years, unchanged. So no, there is no rush. The only rush is at a selfish individual level, because your personal time is limited, but that is meaningless for science or for out species. As individuals, we will never know everything there is to know. There will always be new shiny things over the horizon that you won't live to see. You have to accept the fact that you won't live to see a lot of cool stuff, but that's ok. Just live your own life the best you can and enjoy what you have.

When is Yellowstone, or one of the other 5 super volcanoes going to blow?  When is a wandering asteroid that we haven't detected yet going to come screaming out of the sky and ring the Earth like a bell?

All of the eggs our species has are in one basket, and we've just recently become aware just how fragile that basket is.

I'd rather see a self sufficient Lunar colony first.  It's a lot easier/faster to resupply if we find out that it's not as self sufficient as we think it is.  Or, far more likely, it won't start off being self sufficient; we'll have to figure out how to make it that way as we go along.

Mars is 8 months away, the moon is a day and a half.  The first step towards a Martian colony begins on the Moon.

Mars will NEVER be terraformed until we get mass conversion or some other SciFi energy source.  Mars' iron core isn't liquid, and can't rotate, therefore Mars does not have a magnetic field.  No magnetic field means that the Solar wind will erode any atmosphere we attempt to generate there, almost certainly faster than we can replenish it.

[Northstar1989]

17 hours ago, p1t1o said:

Exactly why spending billions on another planet is a poor idea....at this point in time, with our current tech level and cash-based society....and myriad significant problems here at home begging for financial impetus, which would not be affected at all by advances in space exploration/colonisation. There are no cures or fast-growing cheap food sources waiting on Mars. No raw materials of any use to anyone except Martians. No society-changing technologies just waiting for a close look at Martian soil.

It's precisely BECAUSE of those problems we should go to Mars.  The answers to those problems can be found in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (the "STEM" fields for short).  You know- the careers we can never get enough people to go into anymore.  Going to Mars could inspire MILLIONS of people to go into STEM fields (just lime did the Apollo program), ESPECIALLY if we accompany the Mars push with a major effort to expand the number of slots at graduate and professional schools worldwide (the Apollo Program was accompanied by a more than TRIPLING of the number of PhD students in America- inspired by the space program and enticed by major government funding-efforts to get more people into the sciences...)

Raw Materials aren't just going to magically appear because we wish them to, by the way.  The way you discover natural resources is through LOOKING FOR THEM, with the appropriate scientific knowledge to back up your search.  Advances in Geology from looking for metals and other mineral resources on Mars should prove MASSIVELY useful for discovering new mineral deposits here on Earth...  And on the recycling side of things- early Martians will need to learn how to recycle ALMOST EVERYTHING (right down to their own fecal matter).  That knowledge should prove MASSIVELY useful here on Earth...

Edited September 23, 2017 by Northstar1989

[KSK]

2 hours ago, Northstar1989 said:

Unfortunately you don't understand the entire idea correctly- your difficulties in understanding evident in this paragraph mainly center around the "shuttles" as you call them (by which I assume you mean dedicated landers).

Separate landing-craft simply aren't required in an Aldrin Cycler arrangement. They can prove beneficial, if you can amortize their R&D costs over enough flights, but they are not at all required to complete the mission successfully.

Excuse me? The Cycler remains in orbit. Therefore you need some means of getting crew onto the Cycler from LEO and then off the Cycler and onto the surface once you get to Mars. Therefore a separate landing craft is required, although you might also choose to use that landing craft for other parts of the mission.

Anyway - you can take your patronising first paragraph and shove it. 

For future reference, if you want to engage in constructive debate, I suggest being less confrontational and not immediately jumping to conclusions about what the other person was talking about.

For the moment I refuse to engage in a pointless 'debate' in which @Northstar1989's preconceptions are self evidently correct and anyone who disagrees is self evidently too stupid to understand.

I'm out. The door has failed to hit me on the way.

[Northstar1989]

14 minutes ago, Col. Kernel said:

Mars will NEVER be terraformed until we get mass conversion or some other SciFi energy source.  Mars' iron core isn't liquid, and can't rotate, therefore Mars does not have a magnetic field.  No magnetic field means that the Solar wind will erode any atmosphere we attempt to generate there, almost certainly faster than we can replenish it.

Funny you should mention that.  Turns out a planet doesn't need a ferrous core to be protected from the solar wind.  You heard about the recent proposals to use a small heliocentric satellite positioned between Mars and the Sun to generate an artificial magnetic field and divert the solar wind away from Mars, right?

https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmosphere.html

http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a25493/magnetic-shield-mars-atmosphere/

It would be positioned at the Mars-Sun L1 Lagrangian Point, so it would require almost no thrust to maintain its position.  A large (compared to the soacecraft) Solar Sail should do the job of station-keeping there quite nicely...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point

[Green Baron]

This slightly heated discussion has lost all connection to reality :-)

I read a page up that ITS has been boiled down to baby itsy (still a BF(reaking) Rocket). Is that a rumour and is there any more info on that ?

Edited September 23, 2017 by Green Baron

[Northstar1989]

4 minutes ago, KSK said:

Excuse me? The Cycler remains in orbit. Therefore you need some means of getting crew onto the Cycler from LEO and then off the Cycler and onto the surface once you get to Mars. Therefore a separate landing craft is required, although you might also choose to use that landing craft for other parts of the mission.

Separate from the Cycler and the Interceptor, which you already accounted for elsewhere:

[DDE]

1 minute ago, Green Baron said:

This slightly heated discussion has lost all connection to reality :-)

I read a page up that ITS has been boiled down to baby itsy. Is that a rumour and is there any more info on that ?

Musk wants to borrow the VAB now, has reduced the diameter from 12 m to 9 m and may be reviewing the Mars landing mode.

8 hours ago, G'th said:

Because its been proven time and time again we aren't going to see these billions spent where it really needs to be spent.

It remains to be shown that this sort of spending is any more worthwhile. Nor does reducing military spending lead to a reduction in objective military threats.

Military spending is subject to the Prisoner Dilemma: lower it, miss out on the latest toys, and you end up exposed for decades to people from whom you should expect no mercy.

[Green Baron]

So itsy as more of an intermediate state or possible technology tester or just to please Musks impatience :-) ?

[Northstar1989]

On 9/22/2017 at 2:35 AM, KSK said:

Transport to and from the Cycler at either end of the journey is handled by lighter ships that don't need all the heavy life support gear that the Cycler does. Those lighter ships still have to match velocity with the Cycler at one end and lose that velocity at the other, so they're not exactly trivial to design, build and operate. Then you get into the whole debate of how best to get your crew off the Cycler and down to Mars.

See?  You accounted for the Interceptor Ship and THEN started talking about additional ships.  You were clearly unaware that the Interceptor Ship can also serve as your Lander...

3 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

So itsy as more of an intermediate state or possible technology tester or just to please Musks impatience :-) ?

It seems to be about saving time and money by not needing to build a new manufacturing facility, and being able to utilize the NASA VAB...

I think it's Musk's wisest move so far.  Like I said a while ago, now I just wish he would consider making OTHER changes to his mission architecture...

[Northstar1989]

21 minutes ago, DDE said:

It remains to be shown that this sort of spending is any more worthwhile. Nor does reducing military spending lead to a reduction in objective military threats.

Actually, it has been shown time and time again that NASA spending returns MASSIVE economic dividends from technology commercialization (one study I saw said that technology from the space program generates as much as $10 in activity in the private sectors of the economy for every dollar spent on NASA).

This myth that somehow the space program doesn't provide anything worthwhile is just that- a myth.  One repeated again and again by the same sort of people who deny Global Warming (often LITERALLY the same people, as it serves their intetests to reduce NASA funding so they can't produce more Climate Change data) until it has soaked into the public consciousness...

Edited September 23, 2017 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

24 minutes ago, DDE said:

Military spending is subject to the Prisoner Dilemma: lower it, miss out on the latest toys, and you end up exposed for decades to people from whom you should expect no mercy.

Military *Power* is a Prisoner's Dilemma.  You don't want to be too much weaker than your rivals.  But it's a tool best never used- not wastefully depleted invading developing countries.

And there are plenty of more cost-effective ways of maintaining a reasonable military deterrent without having all the (expensive!) fanciest new toys anyways.  Maintaining a large Guard/Reserve force, for instance (that is why many countries mandate 1-2 years of military service from military-aged-males, with a mych longer period of mandatory participation in an active or inactive Reserve force after that...) and having lots of small, localized Guard/Reserve posts so those reservists don't have to change where they live to fulfill their service obligation, and can live wherever the best jobs are... (interestingly the US military has been CLOSING Guard/Reserve bases- which should make the world *very* anxious, economically and militarily, as it means our generals are moving us towards a more offensive and less cost-effective military footing...)

 

[Northstar1989]

1 hour ago, Col. Kernel said:

When is Yellowstone, or one of the other 5 super volcanoes going to blow?  When is a wandering asteroid that we haven't detected yet going to come screaming out of the sky and ring the Earth like a bell?

All of the eggs our species has are in one basket, and we've just recently become aware just how fragile that basket is.

All great reasons to colonize Mars.  Sadly, because of the low gravity, lack of atmosphere, month-long day-night cycle, and scarcity of H2O (unlike Mars, the Moon can NEVER be terraformed), the Moon is an extremely poor candidate for colonization.

Mars vs. the Moon are like Iceland vs. Svalbard as candidates for Norse (Norwegian, Danish, or Swedish) colonization.  Svalbard is closer, but Iceland had a MUCH more promising climate, and thus developed FAR more rapidly...

The day-night cycle of the Moon alone is enough to make almost any colony location except on the poles non-viable. 14 days of night is simply NOT survivable with any technology we have today (except nuclear reactors- and those are... controversial to put on the Moon).  A Martian Day, on the other hand, is only 40 minutes longer than our own...

Edited September 23, 2017 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

18 hours ago, p1t1o said:

There are no cures or fast-growing cheap food sources waiting on Mars. No raw materials of any use to anyone except Martians. No society-changing technologies just waiting for a close look at Martian soil.

(Emphasis added).

I missed this earlier, in reading that list a little too quickly, but as a Biologist with specialties in disease-research (both infectious and genetic) in real life, I just *HAD* to comment on it when I noticed it...

You DO realize that the early days of Mars colonization will be incredibly harsh, and under unusual conditions, right?  Large numbers of colonists will become sick living under such conditions, and the colonies will become a literal GOLD MINE for human disease-researchers from Earth (because it's not ethical to intentionally inflict diseases on people just so you can study the pathology.  But if a large number of people in one place all become naturally ill with the same sorts of diseases...)  Not only that, but native Martians who were born and raised on the planet will have a MASSIVE incentive to invest in disease-research themselves.

Eventually, such trends will lead to cures perhaps CENTURIES ahead of when they might have otherwise been discovered on Earth...  That alone is worth every dollar we spend on colonizing Mars or developing the technology to get there...

Edited September 23, 2017 by Northstar1989

[Nibb31]

3 hours ago, Northstar1989 said:

Unfortunately you don't understand the entire idea correctly- your difficulties in understanding evident in this paragraph mainly center around the "shuttles" as you call them (by which I assume you mean dedicated landers).

You need something to "shuttle" crew, supplies, propellant, and equipment between the surface of both planets and the cycler. Call it an interceptor, a lander, an ITSy, or... a shuttle. Same thing.

30 minutes ago, Northstar1989 said:

Actually, it has been shown time and time again that NASA spending returns MASSIVE economic dividends from technology commercialization (one study I saw said that technology from the space program generates as much as $10 in activity in the private sectors of the economy for every dollar spent on NASA).

This sort of argument is bandied around a lot, with examples like Tang, the Space Pen, or Velcro, all of which are urban legends.

In reality, most of the money spent on space ends up paying contractors, who employ workers, who buy stuff, etc... It flows back into the economy exactly the same way as military spending. One could even argue that military spending has advanced technology more than NASA ever did, with things like GPS or the Internet.

1 hour ago, Northstar1989 said:

Actually, there IS a magnification of time in a way.  At least a magnification if today's decisions far into the future...

You lose 2 years of progress now, and 2 years of progress 20 years from now, and 2 years of progress 200 years from now, and so on and so forth.  At EVERY point in the development of Mars, from here to infinity (even after humans leave the solar system, it will likely be 2 years later, or with 2 years less Martian scientific knowledge at least...) humans will be less advanced, because we delayed colonizing Mars.

You don't "lose" progress. Technology keeps advancing with or without Mars. One could argue that it's pointless to go to Mars today at a huge expense when technology in 10 years might make the endeavor ten times cheaper.

[Northstar1989]

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

You need something to "shuttle" crew, supplies, propellant, and equipment between the surface of both planets and the cycler. Call it an interceptor, a lander, an ITSy, or... a shuttle. Same thing.

No NOT the same thing.  Not the same thing at all.  My POINT here is that the Interceptor *IS* the Lander in a bare-bones no-frills Cycler mission architecture.  Thus it's important to use the same name for both to make clear that one is in fact talking about the same craft.

And KSK wasn't- he in fact believed that a Cycler mission architecture would require a "whole flotilla" of seperate ship-designs, including a Cycler, an Interceptor, a seperate Lander, and God knows what else...  In reality, it would require only TWO designs- a Cycler and an Interceptor that is capable of also landing on Mars.  Anything beyond this is added complexity that may serve to generate some cost-savings with enough flights, but is wholly unnecessary to create an effective mission architecture that beats the standard ITS/Tanker pairing Musk has been sticking with on both a cost basis, while adding little to the development tine- which are ultimately the only two things that matter (time, and money).

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

This sort of argument is bandied around a lot, with examples like Tang, the Space Pen, or Velcro, all of which are urban legends.

In reality, most of the money spent on space ends up paying contractors, who employ workers, who buy stuff, etc... It flows back into the economy exactly the same way as military spending. One could even argue that military spending has advanced technology more than NASA ever did, with things like GPS or the Internet.

Those examples might be urban legends (you'll notice you brought them up not me), but the pattern is not.  Most of the advances generated by the space program haven't been in consumer goods- they've been in fields like materials science, computer engineering, and precision-manufacturing techniques: fields the average American knows next-to-nothing about.  So urban legends like Tang and Velcro being the advancements that came from, and paid for, the space program have arisen as proxies for the REAL advances that space-spending actually HAS generated instead...

Edited September 23, 2017 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

You don't "lose" progress. Technology keeps advancing with or without Mars.

You *ABSOLUTELY DO* lose progress.

Think of the history of a human Mars colony like a chart of human progresd vs. time.  If you have two lines- one charting the advancement of Mars with the first base built in 2038, and the other with the first base built in 2040, they would probably have more or less the same positive slope over a long time, indicating the same approximate rate of development.  However the one with the base built in 2038 would have an X-intercept two years earlier and a greater Y-intercept, meaning that at ANY point along the graph, the older Mats colony would be more advanced.  The total progress "lost" by a certain year can then be considered the area between the two lines, starting at the X-axis and ending at that time point for comparison.

In reality the slopes won't be straight lines- but they WILL have approximately the same slope at most two points the same time after the bases were established (except where affected by specific outside events that occurred at a specific year- a natural disaster, disease outbreak, etc.), meaning the scenario with the earlier base will always have more human advancement than the one with the later base, though by randomly varying amounts at any given time.

You can measure the progress lost in a variety of ways- scientific advancement produced by the Mars colony (by any of a variety of measures of scientific contribution- papers published by Martian scientists, grant money awarded on Mars, etc.), annual crop yield, population, annual electricity production, life expectancy.  But my favorite is GDP.  The economic value in DOLLARS lost over time is after all the clearest argument as to why colonizing Mars as soon as possible should be preferred, provided the cost of doing so remains the same...

The situation with the cumulative scientific advancement for the human species AS A WHOLE looks a little different.  Comparing the lines for the two scenarios (base established in 2038 vs. 2040) they will both remain identical in slope up until 2038, after which that line's slope will start to increase more rapidly than the other due to scientific breakthroughs resulting from the colonization process.  2 years later the other line's slope will start to do the same.  However as technological progress tends to beget technological progress- every answer produces new questions, and technology provides more people withbthe free time to ask more questions- you'll end up with the first line gaining more and more ground ahead of the second, in a rubaway effect as humanity pulls comparatively further and further ahead in a snowball-effect...

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

One could argue that it's pointless to go to Mars today at a huge expense when technology in 10 years might make the endeavor ten times cheaper.

As for this point, I actually partially agree.  I even have highlighted specific technologies that could reduce the cost of getting to Mars that SpaceX should work to develop before trying to go to Mars.

The key word is WORK, though- SpaceX and NASA shouldn't just sit idly by, waiting for these technologies to develop whenever their scientists feel like getting around to them- they should develop strategic initiatives to identify key technologies and PUSH to develop them as quickly as possible, much like NASA did in the Apollo Era.

Technically NADA already *HAS* such strategic initiatives in place- but they work to pursue them with no real sense of urgency.  What they, and you, need to understand is that they should be applying maximum pressure to develop Mars-enabling technologies as quickly as possible, and then *GO* to Mars as soon as they are ready, because colonizing Mars will eventually increase humanity's annual scientific output by at least 33-50%.

THAT is a MUCH better investment of NASA and the government's time and resources right now than almost anything else (except Education spending, biomedical research aimed at CURING or PREVENTING the diseases that are busy bankrupting the US economy and costing millions of lives, and scientific literacy initiatives)-including planetary science, which there is really no rush to do and they can always get around to later, AFTER humanity has a stable colony established on M ars...

Edited September 23, 2017 by Northstar1989

[Green Baron]

14 minutes ago, Northstar1989 said:

Think of human history like a chart of advancement vs. time.

Trying hard but i just can't :-)

Seriously, this is a very coarse simplification and does not allow any future predictions. We could as well be fighting over resources in a more and more unfriendly climate in a contaminated world after a nuclear war in Asia, that prediction is worth as much as "2040 there is a base on Mars". Any such predictions are pointless as long as there is no demonstrator of any of the discussed technologies, and there is none right now, not even a ready crew module for a lunar flight (yet).

[tater]

Terraforming Mars is pure fantasy for any reasonable time horizon. We have no evidence to say that mars will ever be a satisfactory place for humans, that would require spinning up a habitat and studying the long-term effects of 0.38g on mammals (short of using astronauts as the test animals on actual Mars).

Mars is not required for spacefaring tech advancement, you could have the same advances doing something else, like building long-term orbital habitats, or any number of alternatives.

There is never anything that can be done on Mars to generate revenue that offsets the cost. Commerce between Mars and Earth makes zero sense. Any intellectual work doesn't require Mars, and any such human work would need to occur before the last human invention gets built (machine intelligence), at which point we no longer need human intellectual work, we will have outsourced that.

While I favor manned spaceflight precisely for a reason you state, that exploration (with people) has a value in and of itself, Mars is a goofy target past visiting, IMO.

Edited September 23, 2017 by tater