i see how the private space guys can reach orbit and beyond;

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qso1

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That would be a little expensive for now since the Zuibrin plan had a specific purpose. Going to mars and setting up a base. If private industry/enterprise sees profit potential in such a venture they might well go. But for now, they still have to demonstrate the ability to tackle the biggest enchilada. Low cost access to space. Providing a way to get people to and from low earth orbit economically and safely on a regular basis.<br /><br />As relatively inexpensive as the Zubrin Mars direct proposal was estimated (By Zubrin) to be ($20B dollars 1990), its still a tough nut to crack for private industry/enterprise. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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j05h

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<i>> As relatively inexpensive as the Zubrin Mars direct proposal was estimated (By Zubrin) to be ($20B dollars 1990), its still a tough nut to crack for private industry/enterprise.</i><br /><br />Mars Direct's "weak link" from a commercial/non-profit/adventurer Mars mission is the need for an HLV. Baring commercial access to ARES V (doubtful), any private Mars missions will be assembled in LEO using standard ELVs. There is no shame in building it from 20 ton components. What Zubrin considers to be Mars Direct is extremely specific. It is somewhat outdated at nearly 20 years old, even he would admit that. At this point it is an extremely useful and well thought out reference mission. <br /><br />At this point, there would/will be a range of purchasable spacecraft available for any Mars mission, as we have run into on the Mars Direct ERV thread. Many things change if Bigelow is successful (the same with SpaceX) - they are the baseline on which we are all mentally building near term crewed spacecraft. Why develop a Hab or orbital storm shelter? Just buy one. <br /><br />Even with an HLV, a private Mars Direct would probably be a flags-and-footprints mission. The real commercial action will probably be in Mars orbit (the moons) and select mining sites planetside, eventually. This requires a much different development path than Mars Direct.<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>
 
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qso1

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Good points. If I had to bet, I'd probably bet on private industry/enterprise working on exploiting the moons of mars as you mentioned. Then they might do a flags and footprints on mars to raise awareness of their efforts on the moons. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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j05h

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I had a long thread a while ago proposing Phobos First. 100% commercial, makes money mining volatiles and other stuff from Phobos, provides real-time teleoperation around Mars and leases habitable volume to others. Mars landings are performed for maintenance of other mining equipment, probably with the first one as a stunt of some kind. The first water (and science) could be coming from Phobos/Mars commercially around the same time NASA gets back to the Moon, if the effort started now and had the right backers. Phobos First! <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />http://uplink.space.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=businesstech&Number=503952&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>
 
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qso1

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Years ago, or more like two decades ago, an astronaut (Brian Oleary IIRC) wrote a book about what he called Phd missions or Phobos Deimos missions. The reasons for doing them were basically to use the moons as the staging point for landing on mars or something like that.<br /><br />The main reason I can see for going to mars has little to do with industry but would allow for eventual industry. A mission to discover and catalogue potential life forms on mars assuming any are discovered initially. A base could build up around the site where potential microorganisms might be found. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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j05h

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<i>> The main reason I can see for going to mars has little to do with industry but would allow for eventual industry. A mission to discover and catalogue potential life forms on mars assuming any are discovered initially. A base could build up around the site where potential microorganisms might be found.</i><br /><br />That's one of the beauties of a Phobos (or Deimios) base. There can be people on call 24.65/7 teleoperating research and other robots on Mars. In my thread on Phobos First I didn't describe much about the tele-ops going on, except to suggest that there would be a lot of real-time work. I think that some of the major early martian industries will involve farming native Mars and/or Earth-adapted life. We would garden Mars remotely. A few humans working a lot of robots is a perfectly valid economic unit, especially once it starts producing resources for export. <br /><br />Cis-Mars space (Mars, Phobos, Deimos) has the potential to fuel cis-lunar development. If we (private groups, NASA, other agencies) dared to reach further outward, we could develop the moon and LEO much faster, simply because volatiles should be much easier to access on Mars' moons than our Moon. And we know, baring a totally dry Phobos, that Mars has oceans of frozen water. So what if it's further away? <br /><br />Judging by some of the evidence of the MER rovers and Mars Express, I think we will encounter hostile, macroscopic life on Mars. Not charging 6-armed monkey-beasts, but warmth-seeking and other survival trended, plant-like symbiots. Mars may still live in the cold. If we ever terraform, the warming process may awaken interesting things. Then again, maybe it's just rocks.<br /><br />We have to go there, regardless of how. The rewards are simply to great not to do it.<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>
 
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qso1

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Well stated. And I agree, we have to go there.<br /><br />I'm more of the search for life justification type but would like to see eventual industrialization and colonization. I don't think we will find anything more than microbiological type life but would be more than happy to be proven wrong. There were some very interesting pics back in 1998 that have not been fully explained but which appeared to be trees. I'd like to see some follow up imagery of that from MRO. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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oker59

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another generalization based on current technology and even a generalization on the Mars moons idea is to go to some of these apollo asteroids(hell, one of them is coming by pretty close by I think 2028) that we're now finding in abundance; getting a city killer is more than enough material substance to plant a colony on; and by the time they're done sapping its resources, they would probably already had started working on another asteroid/moon, moons of mars, or mars itself!
 
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