BBC asked some top professor from a University if they could plan a Mars Mission...

[Albert VDS]

I'm not so sure about that. Pumping air is easy. Excavating huge volumes of soil is not. Keep in mind that Mars Direct requires 8 tones of hydrogen because in that plan the ERV is going straight from the surface to an earth return trajectory. In this case you would need much less since you are only going to low orbit, so let's say only 2 tons is required. Even so this will require a huge amount of digging.

There's also Mars Semi-Direct which has a Earth Return Vehicle in orbit around Mars, Mars Ascent Vehicle and a Mars Habitation Module.

So it does the same as the university proposed mission, except MSD's MAV is split into 2 different vehicle to safe weight in it's launch.

And then there's one I like to call Mars SpaceX-Direct, which uses a Falcon Heavy* which reduces the launch cost.

They would use the 2 Dragon Capsule (and possibly 2 inflatable module to increase living space) 1 which is send ahead like the original MD.

The 2nd Dragon would house 2 people and on the surface of Mars can use both Dragons as living space.

Mars SpaceX-Direct might be the cheapest solution.

*Before anyone post it, yes the FH hasn't even been build yet. But so have most of the parts in these plans.

[meve12]

Am I the only one who noticed this is almost exactly the "Mars Direct" mission architecture that was produced a while back?

Convergent Evolution?

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Actually, in the majority of cases, exposing something to radiation doesn't make it radioactive. You can get rare occasions where neutrons are captured by nuclei and transmute them into radioactive isotopes, but there is a pretty negligible neutron flux in space.

In fact, a lot of the food you eat might already be treated with far higher doses of radiation to preserve it, depending on where you live: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation

Very true - Apples and all sorts of other fruits and vegetables actually benefit from a quick blast of radiation - to go off topic a little bit to refer to one of my favourite films, 28 Days Later, there is a scene where they find a nigh-untouched supermarket, and prety much all the fruit and veg had gone rotten except the Apples, and the person finding them goes "Mmmmm, Irradiated!".

Plus, who uses a mirowave oven? "Microwave" is a type of radiation... the grill/mesh in the door stops it leaking out and affecting anything/one around it, yet the food it heats is 100% safe

[KerbMav]

Plus, who uses a mirowave oven? "Microwave" is a type of radiation... the grill/mesh in the door stops it leaking out and affecting anything/one around it, yet the food it heats is 100% safe

Ahhmmnnnuuhh ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation

uses

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionizing_radiation

whereas your microwave uses

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation