..::''Earth-Moon-Mars OR Earth-Mars''::..

[nikispaceshiplover123]

If humans are going to travel to mars is it better:
to build space station and on the moon (repair damages, refuel, etc) then go to mars
OR
go staight to Mars from earth

How much the rocket will cost?
Please consider which one will be less costly and safe...

How long does it take to get from moon to mars???

If u decide to go from earth to moon then to mars, how long do you have to wait on the moon for the right time to launch to mars?

THANKS SOO MUCH

 

[yevaud]

Sorry, slow night, not a lot of coverage this evening.

If humans are going to travel to mars is it better:
to build space station and on the moon (repair damages, refuel, etc) then go to mars
OR
go staight to Mars from earth

Functionally, to build stations in orbit, then construct a ship there, then to Mars. A base on the Moon is technically irrelevant to traveling to Mars.

How much the rocket will cost?

Many Billions of dollars. It's not just the rocket, there's an entire infrastructure required to even get to a rocket on the pad ready for launch (or in orbit).

Please consider which one will be less costly and safe...

Can't answer that, not enough information.

How long does it take to get from moon to mars???

That depends on the type of ballistic to Mars from Earth, the position of the planets when you do, the velocity of the rocket, etc. Departing at the proper moment, if we could thrust at 1G continuously - burn half way to Mars, flip 180 degrees, decelerate the rest of the way - a trip might take as little as about 4.5 days. Regrettably, we can't even thrust at 1/10 of a G continuously. As things stand now, the minimum possible voyage would be six months, one-way.

If u decide to go from earth to moon then to mars, how long do you have to wait on the moon for the right time to launch to mars?

The same amount of time as if you were departing Earth orbit. Since the Moon orbits Earth, not much changes.

THANKS SOO MUCH

You're welcome, though please understand we normally don't answer people's homework questions (which your's obviously are). But you caught me on a good night.

 

[bdewoody]

From the standpoint of overall safety I believe the earth to moon mission first is the best bet. We can establish a base on the moon to test the procedures and hardware needed to send long duration missions to Mars. I think an Apollo type mission to Mars is a waste of time and money. We should wait to go to Mars until we can go in force, meaning a substantial sized crew for a long term visit to the red planet with overlapping additional crews working toward a large permanent base.

But I believe we should do this on the moon first. Maybe by the time we have 5 or 6 hundred people working on the moon we can then build the interplanetary transport off of the earth and use it to go to Mars and beyond.

 

[Keln]

From the standpoint of overall safety I believe the earth to moon mission first is the best bet. We can establish a base on the moon to test the procedures and hardware needed to send long duration missions to Mars. I think an Apollo type mission to Mars is a waste of time and money. We should wait to go to Mars until we can go in force, meaning a substantial sized crew for a long term visit to the red planet with overlapping additional crews working toward a large permanent base.

But I believe we should do this on the moon first. Maybe by the time we have 5 or 6 hundred people working on the moon we can then build the interplanetary transport off of the earth and use it to go to Mars and beyond.

I'd have to agree with you. I don't understand what the point is of going to another planet yet when we have not even demonstrated that we can do serious research and exploration of our own moon. And the excuse that the moon is "boring" or "been there done that" is ridiculous. Every time we look at the thing we find something new. If we want to have a successful mission on Mars, we have to hit the Moon first. Mars is too far away to waste time doing a touch-and-go type mission like we did with Apollo. If we go there, we need to stay there long enough to get some scientific value out of it. Use the Moon to develop our strategies for long term survivability on Mars. It also wouldn't hurt to use the Moon as a launch pad for such a mission.

Does anyone want to waste that kind of time, money, and effort to bring a couple rocks from Mars when we could do so much more with a longer stay? Can we get the kind of experience necessary to survive on mars for weeks or months by sticking it out in a desert on Earth? I just don't think so. Use the Moon as a guinea pig.

 

[captdude]

I believe we should build a complete stepping stone infrastructure to mars as follows. We should build a moonbase to test technology, build an orbiting mars outpost to assist with entering and exiting mars atmosphere and launch a sereies of earth/mars orbiting supply shuttles. (if we launched 24 of them there would be an empty shuttle coming by earth every month to be resupplied and a full shuttle coming by mars to dreop off its payload every month as well)
With this infrastructure in place a real, thriving, mars outpost could be built, maintained and operated.

 

[neuvik]

I believe we should build a complete stepping stone infrastructure to mars as follows. We should build a moonbase to test technology, build an orbiting mars outpost to assist with entering and exiting mars atmosphere and launch a sereies of earth/mars orbiting supply shuttles. (if we launched 24 of them there would be an empty shuttle coming by earth every month to be resupplied and a full shuttle coming by mars to dreop off its payload every month as well)
With this infrastructure in place a real, thriving, mars outpost could be built, maintained and operated.

Why? A Moon base will not reflect the enviroment Mars will have. Anything inside the structure can just be tested here on Earth for a fraction of the cost; frankly so can the external set up.

Mars has an atmosphere (although thin) with weather such as wind. A building there will see a force loading that a lunar structure wont have. Not to mention the differences in temperatures, and daylight hours, and force of gravity.

 

[csmyth3025]

I think establishing a moon base is probably the best first step. There are resources there that are fairly close at hand that can be used for buliding orbiting space stations and space ships that can be more easily orbited from the Moon than trying to achieve LEO from Earth. The Moon has of plenty of mass available to provide protection against solar and cosmic ratiation and it has a natural gravity about 1/6 that of Earth which may be sufficient to avert some of the detrimental effects of "zero-g" ISS-type space stations. Both of these latter attributes may prove to be very beneficial to those undertaking long-term stays in space. Regarding bone loss and muscle atrophy, lunar personnel may be able to mimic Earth-like stresses by simply wearing weighted wrist and ankle bands and donning weighted vests while in their moon base.

I suspect that the "living conditions" on Mars wont be much more hospitable than those on the moon. If this is, indeed, the case, then we would be better off learning how to cope with a space-like environments on the Moon (~250,00 miles from Earth) than on Mars (~35 million miles from Earth at closest approach).

Chris

 

[SteveCNC]

I agree with the moon first , easier to re-supply while developing and perfecting methods of becoming self sustainable . Once that happens then try for mars , any trip to mars would have to be able to bring or send ahead everything needed to survive with no further supplies for an undertermined amount of time . Going to mars is far more complicated than the moon and launch windows are far apart without resorting to long duration flights , couple that with the possibility of a problem and you have a potential disaster on mars if they aren't self sustained at least in the neccesity department .

 

[neilsox]

On the average, the moon is the same distance from Mars, as Earth, so the travel time is the same plus or minus about 1%. If we are going to Mars before 2060, leaving from the Moon is grossly inferior, as a trillion dollar infrastructure needs to be built on the moon before we can launch from there. Even after we spend several trillion building stuff on the Moon it will still likely be at least slightly less costly to leave from Earth, an asteroid habitat or an orbit around Earth.