Let's Be Honest About Mars

I love space. My middle is fascinated by it. My dad served with 4 Star Retired Kevin Chilton (not to get him in trouble but he is like minded with Conservatives) who headed Space Command and went on STS 49 (pilot)/STS 59 (pilot)/STS 76 Commander. My daughter has a signed picture from him and might follow that route in life.

That said. I still fail to see the need to go to Mars. Now Space is different…

 

IMO, there's no good reason to go to Mars. We can do most scientific research with probes at a fraction of the cost. It would cost trillions of dollars to establish a human presence and one that would always teeter on the edge of a complete loss of life to the colony by storms or earthquakes and such.

And, for what exactly?

 

Establishment of a colony on the moon or mars no longer assures mutual destruction in a nuclear war.

 

Went to Space Camp in Huntsville, AL as a kid. Was right after the movie came out. It was pretty cool from what I can remember.

 

I do not expect Mars to happen in my lifetime but do think it will happen at some point

 

define reasonable
there are some zealots with potential credentials that would fly under less standards than what nasa used to accept. with doge in charge, who knows if there are safety standards anymore

but tesla is building robots so..

 

Huntsville is in Al because Texas was too hot and flat for the German scientists and the liked the rolling hills and weather there better

 

SpaceX would have run out of money and folded onto itself without government hand outs of just shy of $20B, $14B from NASA and another $5.5 from the Defense Department. The tax payers have received ZERO return on the investment. The epitome of Waste and Fraud.

 

Part of the plan is to send landers with equipment first and to mine the materials for the return trip on site.
Also current engines don’t burn fuel the whole way there mostly just on take off. Then the rocket coasts to Mars(actually once you get caught by the Martian gravity it pulls you there).
3D printers will print new parts as needed.

I’d bet we send a manned ship by 2040.

 

That’s just silly and I detest Elon. SpaceX has worked wonders under Gwynne Shotwell and regularly performs NASA missions for cheaper than its competitors and Russia. In other words, those are not “hand outs” but fairly compensated contracts performing a service for the government.

 

Define Gov “handouts”.

SpaceX is being paid just like any other contractor to furnish products and services to NASA, this includes much of the lift capacity used since the shuttle was decommissioned.

Would you rather pay Russia more to do the same thing? Didn’t realize you preferred Putin over a US company.

 

He’s been explained this before. Must not care or has read one too many garbage memes on the net.

 

It’s designed to be capable but still needs to be proven out. First step is to simply get it to hold together. The plan is to launch several Starships into orbit at a SpaceX cost of ~$10M each to refuel another Starship and send it to Mars. It calcs out but, as I said above, they have to prove the theoretical.

 

Certainly no one should go expecting to come back. The launch window is every 26 months with another 8 month transit time each way. So you’re talking nearly 3 years if everything goes perfectly smoothly and they make the first available launch window back to Earth (8 months transit + 18 months on Mars + 8 months transit back).

 

We already know there is CO2 and H2O Mars the main ingredients to make rocket fuel.
As far as radiation that’s easy, underground habitats.

If we want to we can do it.