Private Mars Missions

[nyarlathotep]

>>"possesion is 9/10s the law ya know.."<br /><br />Only when that posession is backed by a large standing army.

 

[alek_a]

I have a feeling that profit does not play the most important role in building a mars mission. The 'unavailability of funds to cover the expenses due to low return on investment' seems to me like an excuse very similar to the one you get when you propose an improvement/reserch project to your boss while working in a mass-production facility. Following this analogy, what matters to your boss are ad-hoc solutions of problems that arise from the demands of customers as they come in. Long-term planning (roadmapping in managers language) is left to a loose constelation of persons deeply involved with themselves and their support basis (high-level managers) i.e. it is all politics. <br /><br />Now correlate this with political leadership and the ideas that are generated here in this thread. There are plenty of public funds available for many projects, but the naked reality is that none of them are about the realisation of our dreams but only about enhancing our ability to dream. It is more fruitful to a politician to perpetually stimulate people and allow them to be distracted, and therefore susceptible to his influence, than to actually let a dream become reality thus marking the end of his influence over the people.

 

[edawg]

touche...what i would do is purchase a couple of bigewlows habs guesstamite($500mil),useing ion engines for the first cycle.On the return trajectory i would start selling tickets and media rigts.And boom their ya go!!<br /><br />i would cut a deal or 2 with russia(nuke reactor) tho..

 

[tap_sa]

<font color="yellow">">>"possesion is 9/10s the law ya know.."<br /><br />Only when that posession is backed by a large standing army."</font><br /><br />Large standing army may not be necessary if your possession is located so that 'the other guys' are practically unable to send anyone/anything to threaten it.

 

[j05h]

(just realized how long this post is, it's a reply to whole thread)<br /><br /><b>> Large standing army may not be necessary if your possession is located so that 'the other guys' are practically unable to send anyone/anything to threaten it.</b><br /><br />Exactly. That is also why I discussed the primacy of human over robot presence on a landing site/claim. It's really easy for the human to go monkeywrench the opponent radio beacon. I can see a claims-regime that gives transponders/beacons a timelimit, maybe 10 or 20 years, then the claim reverts to nothing. This would give people a chance to stake/buy a claim, then arrange the trip over a given period. If they fail to get there in time, either the stake goes back up for sale or <br /><br />This all assumes a "seller" that maintains the interest, I'm guessing something like Edawg described (great idea, go for it), a "frontier company" as I am discussing or a national Agency would field the beacons. This might applicable in two ways:<br /><br />1, On Planets, for some intended mass-landing. A large group of Mars settlers wants to be inside a single landing ellipse, but with separate landing sites. A quiver of beacons is launched to give them each a homestead signal.<br /><br />2, Single beacons for claiming NEOs, Asteroids. This would be useful for claiming asteroids. Not sure about multiple claims per object - there is enough material out there that every town on Earth could claim a sister-city in space. Any land rush in the forseeable future can involve tens of thousands of NEO and Inner Belt objects. If a single beacon claim is enough to get a tenative legal hold on an object, that would greatly increase investor's confidence in a project.<br /><br />I think Phobos as described could be the first Off-Earth city - simply because it has the water to support an industrial population. It's harder to get to timewise, but is in an ideal location at Mars, has many valuable resources (extremely mixed object, metals, volatiles, <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[j05h]

A couple more notes on this. <br /><br />I think we should call this plan "Phobos First" or "Phobos Fastest". I also described this as 'the Case for Water' on a different forum.<br /><br />Once you know how to mine Phobos, you have tools and access to every other minor body in the Inner Solar System. <br /><br />I know it would currently saturate world launch capacity, but the more I think about it, the more appealling a multi-craft flotilla is. If one craft suffers terminal issues, it can be salvaged and the crew can transfer to another vessel.This is how successful sea expeditions have always been run.<br /><br />more later,<br />j <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[tap_sa]

Couple notes; you can use water in STR but then the Isp drops radically, to poor LOX/LH2 engine levels, probably below 400s. Unless there's a way to use sunrays to heat directly the water instead of heat exchanger pipes. A transparent reaction chamber or something. To get near 1000s Isp you have to use hydrogen propellant as in NTRs.<br /><br />Transporting water from Martian moons to LEO etc ... dunno if that ever turns into viable business. Moving thousands of tonnes of water as described requires monstrous vehicle, or large fleet of very big vehicles. I believe when that kind of technical adeptness is reality moon bases with LOX plants are reality too. And since water is 8/9th of oxygen, getting the remaining 1/9th from Earth or collecting it from regolith is much cheaper than the long haul from Mars.<br /><br />I do believe Martian water will be transported to Earth in some quantities, as collector items of Martian wines, beer etc <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

 

[j05h]

> <br />Couple notes; you can use water in STR but then the Isp drops radically, to poor LOX/LH2 engine levels, probably below 400s. Unless there's a way to use sunrays to heat directly the water instead of heat exchanger pipes. A transparent reaction chamber or something. To get near 1000s Isp you have to use hydrogen propellant as in NTRs. <br /><br />400 Isp could still do the job then, it just means much less returned water. Not saying this is most efficient but will take into account. There have been lensed STR demonstrations with good results. Main problem is clouding of lense - perhaps a combination lense-injector using modern micromachining (water lens) would solve the problem? Other solutions include verious self-cleaning and replacing lenses. <br /><br /> /> Transporting water from Martian moons to LEO etc ... dunno if that ever turns into viable business.<br /><br />I am thinking of low-thrust STR combined with solar sails in heliostat configuration, it aerobrakes into LEO or HEEO for processing. These are the really slow boats back to Earth, several years most likely. But the system is simple, comparatively. It requires a long setup and return cycle, but once the system is running from any decent dead-comet NEO, you have all the water Humanity needs to build cities in space. I should explain: I'm of the Marshall Savage school: we will live in vast bubbles of water in a developed Solar System. It is definitely a long term prospect. If Phobos is an icy body (it appears to be) then it has a unique position for water mining, as it can directly serve Mars and provide long-term supply lines to cis-Lunar space. Along with the other advantages discussed. <br /><br />I see Luna as interesting but not that interesting. Great view, but the temperature swings are nasty. And all the talk about mining in the polar shadows completely disregards how dangerous that environment is. I'm not saying Don't Go, please go, but that environment is going to pose surprises that the Lu <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>