C
Crossover_Maniac
Guest
<p>I have been doing some thinking. Now, even the shortest missions to Mars, which would be 40 days, will place the rocket engine used to get the astronauts off planet in less than clean room conditions and subjecting the engines to dramatic shifts in temperature, dust, and just letting the rocket components sit around unused. Now, if it takes a team of workers months to work on the space shuttle's main engines, what will Mars explorers do about maintaining their rocket engines for 6 months to 2 years from the day the Ares rocket is put on the pad till the ascent stage fires up and launches the crew from the surface of Mars to its Earth trajectory orbit around the Sun?</p><p> </p><p>Edit: Sorry, I put this in the wrong catagory. Can the mods give me a boot and put this discussion on the mission and launches board? </p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Feel the Hope-nosis </div>