Mars Colonization Discussion Thread

[tater]

54 minutes ago, Kerbal7 said:

Good god man. They're speaking colloquially with a pinch of fun on twitter. Not presenting serious Mars mission plans. If you can't tell the difference your judgement is beyond repair.   

All their press was like his for years, not just Twitter. Were you not paying attention the last several years?

Yes, as I said, anyone who dove even slightly deep knew that Orion was going to Mars only as a passenger, but the majority don’t even dive shallow, they read the headline. NASA knows this, it was to intentionally conflate their expensive program with landing on Mars.

Regarding BFR, I see plenty of serious engineering people taking the concept seriously. Look at the manufacturer of Orion. The LockMart MADV, is in fact a large, reusable atmospheric lander, using aerodynamics, then propulsive landing. LockMart takes the concept seriously enough. While smaller, I wonder what the mass difference is since the MADV lands with a full prop load to make orbit, vs landing empty.

[kerbiloid]

14 minutes ago, tater said:

I see plenty of serious engineering people taking the concept seriously. Look at the manufacturer of Orion. The LockMart MADV, is in fact a large, reusable atmospheric lander, using aerodynamics, then propulsive landing. LockMart takes the concept seriously enough.

They must take it seriously regardless of whether they take seriously its big space perspectives or not.
It's their job to take seriously particular technical details.

Edited February 23, 2018 by kerbiloid

[DAL59]

5 hours ago, NSEP said:

An old article, but this is what i based it around.

http://spacenews.com/op-ed-mars-for-only-1-5-trillion/

What? Even NASA predicts a price of 200 billion, and Mars Society, Planetary SOciety, and SpaceX all predict 40 billion at most.  There is no way a MArs mission could cost that amount of money.  That would be 750 SLS launches!  

[DDE]

1 hour ago, DAL59 said:

What? Even NASA predicts a price of 200 billion, and Mars Society, Planetary SOciety, and SpaceX all predict 40 billion at most.  There is no way a MArs mission could cost that amount of money.  That would be 750 SLS launches!  

Because they propose a Travelling Space Station expended in every mission, each of which they base on the total lifecycle costs of the ISS. Multiply the ISS by nine missions.

Here's our man Zubrin: http://spacenews.com/op-ed-misdirection-on-mars/

4 hours ago, tater said:

Regarding BFR, I see plenty of serious engineering people taking the concept seriously. Look at the manufacturer of Orion. The LockMart MADV

Whoops. I'm afraid you've made the usual Musketeer mistake of largely ignoring the Earth-Mars transit, and the associated problems of keeping the whole thing in peak condition for two years of flight, whereas they've only had to do so for minutes, and then survive EDL from hyperbolic orbits.

MADV is very specialized, whereas the BFR is an enormous leap.

Edited February 23, 2018 by DDE

[tater]

3 minutes ago, DDE said:

Because they propose a Travelling Space Station expended in every mission, which they base on the total lifecycle costs of the ISS.

Here's our man Zubrin: http://spacenews.com/op-ed-misdirection-on-mars/

Whoops. I'm afraid you've made the usual Musketeer mistake of largely ignoring the Earth-Mars transit, and the associated problems of keeping the whole thing in peak condition for two years of flight, whereas they've only had to do so for minutes, and then survive EDL from hyperbolic orbits.

Which vehicle? They're all stuck in orbit for a long time, which is non-trivial (not the least because of prop boiloff, but also just materials issues).

[DAL59]

15 minutes ago, DDE said:

ecause they propose a Travelling Space Station expended in every mission,

WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THAT!  Even NASA reuses the MTV every mission.  Also, do they really think building a station nowadays, with FH and BA and all, will cos the same amount as ISS?  

[PB666]

8 hours ago, Antstar said:

LOL space is cold. Just hide behind your solar panels and black body to space (I was joking by the way)

The inner solar system is quite warm, remember it is capable of boiling sublimated gases off of asteroids.
 

8 hours ago, Antstar said:

 I take your point that Musk is given a lot of credit by the public for things he didn't really do himself...

His company has at least a few patents and he is paying people to develop stuff. In terms of what he is doing, nothing new . . but that then leads to another question, if the technology has been in place for 50 years (the electronics at least from the 386 DX40) then why has it taken 30 years for just 1 member of the rocket industry to figure out how to recycle rockets. We know why that is. 

If he really really wants to go to Mars, his company will be inventing lots of new stuff, not to worry.

 

[Antstar]

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

The inner solar system is quite warm, remember it is capable of boiling sublimated gases off of asteroids.

 

Nope, space is cold.

The sun is hot. The Earth is warm, the day side of the moon is warm etc...

But mostly, the sun is hot:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshield_(JWST)

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

 

His company has at least a few patents and he is paying people to develop stuff. In terms of what he is doing, nothing new . . but that then leads to another question, if the technology has been in place for 50 years (the electronics at least from the 386 DX40) then why has it taken 30 years for just 1 member of the rocket industry to figure out how to recycle rockets. We know why that is. 

If he really really wants to go to Mars, his company will be inventing lots of new stuff, not to worry.

 

Yeah, SpaceX is innovating for sure. And Musk is a smart guy. But, I think he has had a lot of help from several US agencies, ever since a falling out in the Crimean peninsula led to a shortage of very excellent Russian rockets.

The media however is making it out like he built all these himself with his bare hands, and that the next FH is going to take everyone to Mars. So yeah, mostly the stupid media's fault for talking out of their a$$ for sensationalism

[Bill Phil]

Space has very little matter in which to have a temperature...

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, PB666 said:

why has it taken 30 years for just 1 member of the rocket industry to figure out how to recycle rockets.

Do you mean McDonnel's DC-X or Space Shuttle?
Don't treat their makers so severely, they didn't have even modern computers and materials.

Or you call one first stage per dozen rockets flown twice "recycling"?

Reusing was/is not economically justified, though tests were lasting since early 1960s.

6 hours ago, DDE said:

Because they propose a Travelling Space Station expended in every mission

About the reusable fairings...

5 hours ago, DAL59 said:

Also, do they really think building a station nowadays, with FH and BA and all, will cos the same amount as ISS?  

Launch cost would be a tiny part of the price.

Mir was assembled with 20 t Protons.

4 hours ago, PB666 said:

If he really really wants to go to Mars, his company will be inventing lots of new stuff

It's a pity they are still using Intel computers and Linux rather than making their own ones.

[DDE]

9 hours ago, DAL59 said:

WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THAT!  Even NASA reuses the MTV every mission.  Also, do they really think building a station nowadays, with FH and BA and all, will cos the same amount as ISS?  

In a word? Yes.

That's why Zubrin accuses them of black propaganda by pretending to be proponents of Mars exploration when they're actually trying to kill the very idea.

[Antstar]

4 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

Space has very little matter in which to have a temperature...

You can have temperature without matter. It can be defined in many ways, but lets say for example, the temperatuer which a perfect black body would reach at equilibrium. So, 3.5K in empty space. Hotter near the sun. But as I said in earlier post there are ways of shielding against the sun. So lets call temperature a vector quantity, with a magnitude in each direction of 4pi solid angle...

4 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

It's a pity they are still using Intel computers and Linux rather than making their own ones.

I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic? You have to use what you know works. I mean yes, innovation is good but building a good,fast, modern CPU and OS from scratch is as much of a challenge as building an orbital rocket in terms of investment $ and time. If we are using CPUs from the new millennium and rocket engines from the 1960s (ok, updated progressively a bit) then it makes more sense to look at rebuilding the rocket from scratch than concentrating on the computer...

[kerbiloid]

7 minutes ago, Antstar said:

I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic?

Yes and no. If they indeed created their own SpaceXOS I believe a lot of people would give it a try just for its brand, and who knows... Just not one more next door linux.

Edited February 24, 2018 by kerbiloid

[Diche Bach]

It seems we all "get it." You've got to take everything Musk says with a grain of perchlorate. I think the term Kerbal7 used "huckster" is about right. There ARE some real products/services/innovations/achievements there, but Edison or Henry Ford with their truly era defining inventions, "simple" and yet watershed potent . . . not so much.

Most likely no one is going to die, and if anyone loses their money, well they likely were not legally defrauded, so much as beguiled. Beguiling seems to be the main thing that venture capitalists do, so in that respect Musk is pretty standard.

[DDE]

2 hours ago, Diche Bach said:

There ARE some real products/services/innovations/achievements there, but Edison

Actually, from some of the unflattering descriptions of Edison, he was the Elon Musk of his era, mobilizing or downright appropriating talent and then selling it on the back of a lot of PR. His smear campaign against Nicola Tesla, Westinghouse and alternating current is legendary - he tortured a convicted man to death over several hours in front of an audience in the failed bid to prove AC to be deadly.

[Antstar]

3 hours ago, Diche Bach said:

It seems we all "get it." You've got to take everything Musk says with a grain of perchlorate. I think the term Kerbal7 used "huckster" is about right. There ARE some real products/services/innovations/achievements there, but Edison or Henry Ford with their truly era defining inventions, "simple" and yet watershed potent . . . not so much.

Most likely no one is going to die, and if anyone loses their money, well they likely were not legally defrauded, so much as beguiled. Beguiling seems to be the main thing that venture capitalists do, so in that respect Musk is pretty standard.

Huh. Why do people keep thinking Edison invented things? He was a true capitalist. He stole what ideas he could, and bought what he could not. A smart businessman, could read the public and the market, sure, but I am not aware of a single thing he himself invented?

Edited February 24, 2018 by Antstar

[Kerbal7]

20 hours ago, tater said:

Regarding BFR, I see plenty of serious engineering people taking the concept seriously. 

Find a competent aerospace engineer and transportation expert near you and ask them if this'll work.

 

 

[tater]

3 hours ago, Diche Bach said:

It seems we all "get it." You've got to take everything Musk says with a grain of perchlorate. I think the term Kerbal7 used "huckster" is about right. There ARE some real products/services/innovations/achievements there, but Edison or Henry Ford with their truly era defining inventions, "simple" and yet watershed potent . . . not so much.

Most likely no one is going to die, and if anyone loses their money, well they likely were not legally defrauded, so much as beguiled. Beguiling seems to be the main thing that venture capitalists do, so in that respect Musk is pretty standard.

I don't think "huckster" is appropriate, though I agree with some of what you said.

One, I think Musk might be bipolar. (seriously)

Two, he's smart enough to realize that his science fiction dream goals (what he'd usually call "aspirational") coexist in the real world with the ability to make money, sell launches, etc. So while his manic side wants the Mars colony, he knows that he has to sell launches.

1 minute ago, Kerbal7 said:

Find a competent aerospace engineer and transportation expert near you and ask them if this'll work.

Once again, pay attention to what they will actually build vs the dog and pony show. The regulatory issues alone make the P2P transport a non-starter. His own statements in that talk about making it airliner safe give some idea of the timeframe that would be involved, even if it were possible to convince the FAA, etc to allow it. Airliners are incredibly safe, he;d have to launch the thing many, many thousands of times with no accidents to even have them pay attention to it as safe. He'd have to make it tomorrow, and fly it many times a day (without passengers) for decades. That's science fiction. It was thrown in because he wanted to show a lateral use case. He's trying to show that rockets could be used in ways people haven't really considered lately.

The actual rocket will be the unmanned, cargo version. I'd wager any crew version carries crew in the nose with some sort of LES (built-in like D2 or New Shepard)), it's not going to have 100 seats. LES that can handle pad abort, can handle a terminal landing abort, too.

The point of BFR is keeping up with where Blue Origin will be in a few years. Really.

[Kerbal7]

21 minutes ago, tater said:

Once again, pay attention to what they will actually build vs the dog and pony show. 

The actual rocket will be the unmanned, cargo version. I'd wager any crew version carries crew in the nose with some sort of LES (built-in like D2 or New Shepard)), it's not going to have 100 seats. LES that can handle pad abort, can handle a terminal landing abort, too.

Elon Musk is building the rocket. I can't be expected to figure out what he's hoodwinking the public about and what he clandestinely thinks the BFR really will do. I can just go by what he's presenting to me. 

Edited February 24, 2018 by Kerbal7

[tater]

1 hour ago, Kerbal7 said:

Elon Musk is building the rocket. I can't be expected to figure out what he's hoodwinking the public about and what he clandestinely thinks the BFR really will do. I can just go by what he's presenting to me. 

He's presenting a rocket. He's also presenting possible use cases, even if they are science fiction. When I was posting crap on USENET forums on a V102 terminal, if you had said (EDIT:) that people my grandparent's age would be wirelessly sending each other insanely hi-res images on a handheld supercomputer, and keeping in touch with their grandkids vid hand-held video phone, I'd have wondered what sorcery you were thinking about. I assumed everyone would have a computer, but I envisioned them closer to what computers looked like at that time. The use case of something like FaceBook, etc, wasn't even a glimmer in anyone's eyes, and people proposing something close would have looked like Musk pitching P2P rockets.

The rocket is a game changer in the sense that any fully reusable rocket will radically alter cost to orbit. he needs to create a new market, hence his notional use suggestions. You need to stop being so literal, and understand what he's actually doing. Right now, the market is launching sats in certain size ranges. They are either cheap and small, or large and expensive. When launch is cheap, they could, for example, be cheap and BIG. Stop worrying about making everything light, and folding up tiny. That's just one way things can change, he's trying to get customers to think outside the box, because if they do, he's got new customers.

For this thread, Mars colonization---something I think makes no sense even if people are just fine in 0.38g---BFR is a possible way to create a Mars colony, I suppose. So you'd have to find a group of people who want to live on Mars (for reasons), and they'd have to come up with money to buy transport/cargo to Mars with BFR. Then the person in favor of this needs to show how that would work. In that plan, Musk makes money on the flights, but is not really all that related to the colony. Maybe he sells them boring machines to dig tunnels, too. Dunno. In this scenario, he's created not only a new market, it is one that has to continue to buy his services or they die, lol. Good business plan, now they need to find the people dumb enough to move to Mars with no way to make money to pay for the flights they need to live.

Edited February 24, 2018 by tater

[PB666]

12 hours ago, Antstar said:

Nope, space is cold.

The sun is hot. The Earth is warm, the day side of the moon is warm etc...

But mostly, the sun is hot:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshield_(JWST)

 

JWST has an active cooling system and will be deployed at ES L2 shield from considerable solar output and solar wind.

Quote

The Spacecraft Bus is on the Sun-facing "warm" side and operates at a temperature of about 300 K.^[35] Everything on the Sun facing side must be able to handle the thermal conditions of JWST's halo orbit, which has one side in continuous sunlight and the other in shade by the spacecraft sunshield.^[35]

MIRI needs to be colder than the other instruments so it has an additional cooler. - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Science_Instrument_Module

Had JWST not done this it would have required two sun shields, one to block the intensity of the sun and the another to block the non-reflected heat from the first to the telescope. In addition to its heat shield its low temperature experiments required a cooler to drop the temperature to near CMBR. This will eventually limit the life of the telescope. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIRI_(Mid-Infrared_Instrument)#Cryocooler

There are no simple answers in space, only inadequate solutions.

 

Temperature is a function of the motion of particles. The motion of particles at a distance of earths orbit and factoring out Earths orbital motion (30 km/sec) is 250,000 --500,000 m/s. That constitutes as hot, if you remained in space for  a long period of time your mummufied skin would eventually be charred. Comets detect this motion and begin degassing once they are approach the orbit of Mars, inside Mercury's orbit small comets disappear.

If a human was placed in space they would feel cold, that is because of evaporative cooling, however once the temperature feel and most of the water was gone they would begin to heat up again. In fact its hot enough the temperature cannot be estimated for several reasons the first is variable temperature of particles coming from the sun as a result of its magnetic field. Therefore the solar wind is not constant even on a daily basis. The magnetic field is strong enough to be considered a MHD dynamo and considerable electric flow. If you happen to be in a focal point of one charged mass flows you would (irrespective of the insolance) feel the heat of current flow and protons and electrons try to neutralize themselves in a manner dependent on the charge of your body.

There is an assumption that space is the same temperature as CMBR, but this really should be describe as the temperature of the intergalactic media because there are both hot and cold gas pockets and the solar system is currently moving through a cold gas pocket. If the temperature is not CMBR then what temperature is it. This can be ciphered from the temperature at which the solar wind begins to sublimated and extrapolated to distance this is the coldest component of space, dust. This roughly means that the particles are spread out enough that the particles are able to radiate their heat before other particles hit them.

165 K at 3.2 AU
200 K at 2.2 AU

Inside the asteroid belt volatiles tend not to sublimate because the temperature is above the triple point of most gases (I posted recently on the triple points of those gases). This makes it difficult to deduce the temperature of space, the temperature of static gas pockets in space can be deduced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionospheric_dynamo_region

This describes the motion of clouds of gas relative to the expected motion caused by the interaction of solar particles from space.

Quote

It is believed that proton energies exceeding 50 MeV in the lower belts at lower altitudes are the result of the beta decay of neutrons created by cosmic ray collisions with nuclei of the upper atmosphere. -Wikipedia - Van Allen radiation belt

So that if you were a small particle setting between the orbits of Earth and Venus what might your internal temperature be. A particle would not sit, it would fall, but a particle in a constant velocity spacetime energy isoquant would be moving ~35 km per second, and assuming all other particles would be moving the same.

A reasonable guess of the temperature of space near Earth but outside of earths SOI  is ~ 300K  degrees (+/-50K and variable) for a dust particle of size similar size and reflectivity as one found in asteroid belt.

165K * SQRT(3.2) = 295 +/- 5
200K * SQRT(2.2) = 296 +/- 5

And that's what you should take the temperature to be. Again the data that support this is the average temperature of the Earth 288 K, the therma temperature of JWST main electronics array 300 K, etc. The temperature differences of the objects is the result of the difference in the composite forcing factors. On Earth the temperature is less because the Earth magnetic field shields Earth from the magnetic and electrical forces from the sun, the Van Allen Radiation belts are separated from the Earth and spread this radiation in space allowing it to be dissipated by radiation at distance from the Earth, just as the shield on JWST shields the telescope. If this were not the case the Earth might experience wider temperature variation, and in particular a higher compliment of radiation in the shorter wavelengths.

 

 

 

 

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, Kerbal7 said:

Find a competent aerospace engineer and transportation expert near you and ask them if this'll work.

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/new-project-of-wernher-von-braun-the-redstone-passenger-rocket-retro-images-archive.html

[tater]

10 minutes ago, tater said:

When I was posting crap on USENET forums on a V102 terminal, if you had said

LOL, my daughter called me away to make her breakfast, and I lost my train of thought.

I was going to say that back in the day, if you had said that people my grandparent's age would be wirelessly sending each other insanely hi-res images on a handheld supercomputer, and keeping in touch with their grandkids vid hand-held video phone, I'd have wondered what sorcery you were thinking about. I assumed everyone would have a computer, but I envisioned them closer to what computers looked like at that time. The use case of something like FaceBook, etc, wasn't even a glimmer in anyone's eyes, and people proposing something close would have looked like Musk pitching P2P rockets.

[Antstar]

10 minutes ago, PB666 said:

JWST has an active cooling system and will be deployed at ES L2 shield from considerable solar output and solar wind.

Had JWST not done this it would have required two sun shields, one to block the intensity of the sun and the another to block the non-reflected heat from the first to the telescope. In addition to its heat shield its low temperature experiments required a cooler to drop the temperature to near CMBR. This will eventually limit the life of the telescope. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIRI_(Mid-Infrared_Instrument)#Cryocooler

There are no simple answers in space, only inadequate solutions.

[snip]

 

Very thorough, thank you.

You have indeed mentioned that the temperature of space is hard to define. I was aware of some of the non insolar affects such as solar wind already. Still, these are not isotropic. From the wikipedia article you included:

Quote

Its target is to cool the MIRI instrument down to 6 kelvin (-448.87 F or -267.15 C).[9] The ISIM is at about 40k (due to the sunshield) and there is a dedicated MIRI radiation shield beyond which the temperature is 20 k.

Because the "temperature" at Earth orbit is not isotropic, but depends which direction you are facing, we can see that matter can be held at <<100kelvin without active cooling, simply by blocking the influence of the sun... So I feel justified in my argument that space is cold, except in a few directions like towards the sun (ok 20k is not 3.5K, but its still cold).

[PB666]

16 minutes ago, tater said:

LOL, my daughter called me away to make her breakfast, and I lost my train of thought.

I was going to say that back in the day, if you had said that people my grandparent's age would be wirelessly sending each other insanely hi-res images on a handheld supercomputer, and keeping in touch with their grandkids vid hand-held video phone, I'd have wondered what sorcery you were thinking about. I assumed everyone would have a computer, but I envisioned them closer to what computers looked like at that time. The use case of something like FaceBook, etc, wasn't even a glimmer in anyone's eyes, and people proposing something close would have looked like Musk pitching P2P rockets.

I graduated to PINE in 1989, VT102 was too cumbersome, the problem. Everyone thought that when W95 came out that the days of VT102 would be over. Nope, it was the USENET whose days as a relevant discussion that were numbered. The lesson that was learned is that with freedom come responsibility. Freedom of speech on the internet is an illusion, its basically freedom to be irresponsible. Fortunately I don't have kids or grandkids so there is no need for a device for handing out addictive content. If they could bring back the old Usenet and limit access only to NNTP proxies that where not attached to google or other mass consumption web applications (IOW individual pay by the year or graduate institutional accounts; repeat  crossposters between desparately different groups would be banned and all post from anonymous remailers banned except in certain groups, political, and no-crossposting) that would be a cool thing, but it ain't going to happen.

VT102 was not a bad thing, it was a good thing, it was insect repellent.