Astronomy Mission to Mars

Will we see a manned Mars mission within 10 years

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Mars is the new black.

If the movie 'the Martian' didn't get you excited for a life of potato eating in a small lifeless chamber listening to a playlist of 70's disco, then maybe you're hanging out for Elon Musk's push towards the Red Planet with SpaceX and some soon to follow terraforming(on a major scale).

It seems that we are now pushing hard towards manned missions to Mars, with Musk quite unequivocal that this is where the future of humanity lies.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/09/elon-musk-mars-spacex-human-mission-space-science/


What say you?
 
In all seriousness, we need Trump to come out and pull JFK's speech

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon

and replace Moon with Mars, set a timetable that shakes people up, and go for it.

I was born after the moon landing, but I'm told it simply freaked people the * out, and the entire world was glued to their tiny televisions.

Imagine what it would be like now. The internet would melt down, a million memes would be created, and you know the astronauts (or cosmonauts) (or taikonauts) would take the very first selfie on Mars, people would walk around high-fiving complete strangers because they'd all feel a part of something bigger than themselves, it would be one of those "where were you?" moments, and up there with fire, the wheel, radio, landing on the moon as the real milestones of our civilisation.

The first person to walk on Mars may have already been born.

But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the Moon! ... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win ...
 

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deaneus said:
Imagine what it would be like now
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People would be in meltdown that the money isn't going to health, education or supporting jobs

It's interesting that the OP focuses on SpaceX as a private enterprise leading the way here, not governments
 
Tayl0r said:
What weapons/weapons delivery system can a government test while building the hardware to take people to Mars?

I'm not convinced Mars can sustain an atmosphere without the the field generated by a core similar to Earth.
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While the magnetic field helps, it's mainly just lack of gravity that 'loses' the atmosphere.

If we wanted Mars to have an atmosphere that was even vaguely able to sustain life as we know it outside, we'd have to spend the next century or so having every asteroid/comet we could get out hands on crash into it, and then wait a few more centuries for the resulting mess to clear up before we started working on the atmospheric chemistry.

I kinda doubt that'll be happening any time soon.
 
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boydshow said:
People would be in meltdown that the money isn't going to health, education or supporting jobs

It's interesting that the OP focuses on SpaceX as a private enterprise leading the way here, not governments
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For good reason.
 
Sorry to sound cynical but I just can't see it happening. It requires the development of something other than chemical rockets to get the required components into Low Earth Orbit first for assembly and staging. I'm not sure what is being worked on in any form of serious development effort. SpaceX and others are just another form of chemical rocket. Using chemical rockets is going to cost way too much for any private operator to accomplish. It is going to be hard to get governments involved too, the circumstances of the cold war that drove the moon landings were unique to their time and not likely to happen again, it was really a bit of cold war utensil-waving dressed up as science that drove the thinking behind it, even though the actual program itself turned out to be very science worthy.
 
EM Drive will make a Mission to Mars much more appealing.

If you can travel to Mars in 70 days without rocket fuel all of a sudden it becomes much cheaper!
 
Ruck Machine said:
EM Drive will make a Mission to Mars much more appealing.

If you can travel to Mars in 70 days without rocket fuel all of a sudden it becomes much cheaper!
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Maybe in time, but the amount of thrust generated from EM drives currently would take a VERY long time to get you there, and to do even that they'd need a decent push to start off.
 
Admiral Byng said:
Sorry to sound cynical but I just can't see it happening. It requires the development of something other than chemical rockets to get the required components into Low Earth Orbit first for assembly and staging. I'm not sure what is being worked on in any form of serious development effort. SpaceX and others are just another form of chemical rocket. Using chemical rockets is going to cost way too much for any private operator to accomplish. It is going to be hard to get governments involved too, the circumstances of the cold war that drove the moon landings were unique to their time and not likely to happen again, it was really a bit of cold war utensil-waving dressed up as science that drove the thinking behind it, even though the actual program itself turned out to be very science worthy.
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Agreed, but for now at least, chemical is needed to get out of the atmosphere.

After that other options can come into play.
 
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  • #12
This could be one of those threads that is really fun to read in 5-10 years from now.

I'd be interested to know what percentage of people think we will send a manned craft to Mars within 10 years and who thinks its a pipe dream, so I'll add a poll.
 

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Not sure why it would take that long. You look at the first plans to put a satellite up in the mid 50s and then a manned mission to the moon in 69. We already know a lot about space travel now so much of the initial work is done. We already have a rover there and know what the surface is like.
 
Its not so much getting to Mars its the why. As noted elsewhere the Cold War gave great impetus to the Moon Race. I am a strong proponent that Living-Space and Resource Deficit will drive the next great Space Race. Sure people like Musk will dabble and do things but it needs countries/alliances to make the next great leap. I can see a country like China teaming up with Russia and making an effort to get to Mars.

I could make a joke about India doing so just to put a Kwik-E-Mart on Mars but India also has a developing Space Program. I wonder if the race for Mars will become Race based. The idea of populating a new world exclusively of one racial identity.
 
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There is a great series on Foxtel currently screening on this topic funnily enough called Mars on Sunday nights
 
WCErevival said:
Not sure why it would take that long. You look at the first plans to put a satellite up in the mid 50s and then a manned mission to the moon in 69. We already know a lot about space travel now so much of the initial work is done. We already have a rover there and know what the surface is like.
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Sure if there was some desperate reason to get there within 10 years and there was suddenly a heap of funding available maybe it could get done in a pinch, but there isn't.

iluvparis said:
While I'd love to see it I'd highly doubt in can be achieved inside 10 years.
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Should hopefully at least see a manned flyby of Mars at some stage in our lifetimes, even that would be pretty cool.
 
Whilst I'd love to see the goal finally realised and watch the first words of the first person to walk on Mars, I agree with another poster on here. Mars has been done to death, and there are far more interesting things to do in this solar system, like sending a probe into the seas of Europa. With the flotilla of rovers and probes that have been to Mars, it's almost as if we've already walked there.

When Armstrong said 'one giant leap for mankind', so overcome with emotion that he stuffed up the sentence and shed joyful tears when he got back inside, it was the day that, for the first time, a person had walked on a body other than the earth. In my mind, when someone walks on Mars, it'll just be a further and bigger version of the moon.

In a sense, Apollo 8 was more important than Apollo 11. The Apollo 8 crew didn't walk on the moon, but they got the first truly detailed close-up look of it, and they were the first people to leave Earth orbit, venture off into space. Most profoundly, of all the humans that had ever lived, they were the first people to see the circle of the earth, hanging in space.

TL;DR: Mars is 'been there, done that', getting to the moon was far more significant for the human race, there are other places that are far less well-explored than Mars.
 
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  • #22
Elon Musk is driven to land on Mars.

That's why he's the guy being discussed in the OP, and not governments.

Whether you're a mechanical engineer at Tesla, a graphic designer at Solar City or a physicist at SpaceX, you all know that the guy pulling the strings is adamant that it's all part of a bigger picture where he is going to send people to Mars.

With what has been achieved by Tesla, SpaceX and Solar City to date, I like to think that he's just crazy enough to succeed.
 
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  • #23
TheFourPillars said:
There is a great series on Foxtel currently screening on this topic funnily enough called Mars on Sunday nights
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You just reminded me. I've series linked it.
 
Abasi said:
You just reminded me. I've series linked it.
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Off to a great start talks about everything mentioned in here and much more
 
Rotayjay said:
Whilst I'd love to see the goal finally realised and watch the first words of the first person to walk on Mars, I agree with another poster on here. Mars has been done to death, and there are far more interesting things to do in this solar system, like sending a probe into the seas of Europa. With the flotilla of rovers and probes that have been to Mars, it's almost as if we've already walked there.

When Armstrong said 'one giant leap for mankind', so overcome with emotion that he stuffed up the sentence and shed joyful tears when he got back inside, it was the day that, for the first time, a person had walked on a body other than the earth. In my mind, when someone walks on Mars, it'll just be a further and bigger version of the moon.

In a sense, Apollo 8 was more important than Apollo 11. The Apollo 8 crew didn't walk on the moon, but they got the first truly detailed close-up look of it, and they were the first people to leave Earth orbit, venture off into space. Most profoundly, of all the humans that had ever lived, they were the first people to see the circle of the earth, hanging in space.

TL;DR: Mars is 'been there, done that', getting to the moon was far more significant for the human race, there are other places that are far less well-explored than Mars.
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Isn't Europa a tad too far/too tricky to get to for a landing probe?

I'd post an article I read, but it would have been about two years ago
 
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