with present technology, can we really send a person to Mars?

Question

I'm a space exploration enthusiast, but I've had doubts about this. Looks like roughly two years minimum. With all the supplies alone needed for life support, the ship would have to be huge. Then there are the questions about psychological health, etc. I'm pessimistic, but am I missing something?

Answer 1

The reality is that we are a heck of a lot closer to landing people on Mars today than we were to landing people on the Moon when John F. Kennedy made his famous "...before this decade is out..." speech at Rice University on 25 May 1961. On the other hand, there is still a lot of work to do, so the straight yes-and-no answer is "No."

I'm leading a Humans to Mars mission design effort at the MarsDrive Consortium (www.marsdrive.com) and our self-appointed task is to figure out a mission plan that makes the best use of existing technology to land on Mars. The areas likely to require the most development (in descending order) are:

1. Entry, Descent, and Landing Systems (EDLS): Landing on the moon is a lot easier, since it has less gravity and no air. The Martian atmosphere is enough to help out with entry, but not thick enough to avoid using rockets. To land on Mars, the typical approach for robotic missions is to wrap an Apollo like LEM inside an Apollo Command Module like aeroshell. The future may include inflatable aeroshells, but is less likely to include the biconic "sled". The cheapest way is to shrink the individual payloads to the point where such new techniques are not required, which is our current approach at MarsDrive.

2. Earth boosters: Launching the mission from Earth will require development of booster technology. The current thoughts related to the Vision for Space Exploration involve gigantic NOVA class boosters (NOVA being the original concept by Von Braun to follow the Saturn V.) It may be possible to launch a mission using smaller and more easily developed boosters. The heaviest versions of current boosters (such as the Atlas V and Delta IV) might be able to do it, but are still likely to require upgrades.

3. Mars boosters: The previous revolution in Mars mission planning is called ISRU, for In-Situ Resource Utilization. In a nutshell, you land your return booster on Mars, empty, and make your own fuel for the return trip on Mars, rather than carrying it with you. All proposed solutions to date are partial, because of the current inaccessiblity of Martian hydrogen. The general approach is to ship your own hydrogen from Earth, and then use it with the Martian carbon dioxide to create liquid oxygen and a hydrocarbon fuel, such as methane, ethylene, or benzene.

4. Low gravity health: This mission is about two and a half years long, with about one year in space between Earth and Mars. The year and a half on the surface is at a gravity only 38% that found on Earth. Based on Mir and ISS experience (especially the 437 day record set by Dr. Polyokov on Mir, after which he walked away from his Soyuz descent module), we're pretty sure that this is not a major problem, and might be worth the risk without further development.

5. Mars surface mobility: If you're going to spend over a year on the Martian surface, you're going to want spacesuits, rovers (preferably pressurized ones you can comfortably sleep in) and some speed on these rovers. You also need some lab equipment to help select samples for return to Earth, and make sure they don't contain harmful life, if there is any on Mars.

6. In-flight repair: Everything from fixing rocket engines to patching air-conditioned socks will need to be done during the flight. This is an area that is relatively easy to address, since industry already has such requirements. I discovered a three-dimensional printer, which can build up a part layer by layer, at the GO-EXPO petroleum show in Calgary, AB last week. By the time we fly to Mars, it can be made to print with wax, which would then be used as the basis for an investment casting of a metal part, for example, to replace a broken turbine disk in a rocket engine, or a bearing sleeve on the wheel of your rover.

I hope this helps.

Answer 2

Yes we can.

We have had the technology to send people to other planets since we visited the Moon.

BUT….

We don’t have the economical resources to finance such project.

If you do some research, you will find how many times NASA have tried to present the US Government a decent plan, including one time when the Government actually requested a serious and probable plan to go to Mars back in the 90’s.

NASA gave a good project, with massive ships, massive stations orbiting both earth and Mars, and big bases on both Mars and the Moon.

But when the Government saw the price… $400 Billion plus… they just laugh and closed the file and gave it back to NASA and told them “when we said serious and probable, we meant that, nit to recreate a Star Wars or Star Trek Hollywood movie film”.

We could have already a colony in the Moon and have already started also one on Mars if it wasn’t of “money issues”.

If you look at NASA’s latest proposals, which are actually already approved for the most part and set on motion, we are going back to the Moon, and from there to Mars. But this time, we are using “cheap” and small ships, hoping they can always meet the budget.

At the rate we are, I wouldn’t be surprise if the first ships with humans that go to Mars have stikers all around from private sponsors like McDonalds, Walmart, Ford and GM.. and big stickers all around that say “Intel Inside”… lol

Answer 3

I remember reading how both Clinton and Bush in their administrations both wanted to impress the world with a plan to go to Mars. When they asked Nasa for a plan they were told it would cost at least 400 billion, with no guarantee of success at the end due to the length of time it would take to get there (2 years) and the lack of proper shielding for the spaceship because travelling in deep space (beyond the orbit of the moon) is much more hazardous than going from Earth to the moon. And also food supplies would be a problem. Neither president was really serious about going there it just makes them look good to plan for it. Further I heard that even if they wanted to reuse the Apollo era rockets they can't because Nasa destroyed the blueprints during the 80's.

Answer 4

We could have gone in the eighties but with NASAs pricetag, at the time, of over $500 billion that mission was dead in the water. So the focus is to move away from the bruteforce aproach of the Apollo era and do things a little more lightweight. One aproach is the "Mars direct" aproach conceived by Dr Bob Zubrin. He suggest we first send a robotic that is the earth return vehicle. Once on the surface it begins to make rocketfuel out of the martian air. When Mars and Earth is in alignment again that´s when the manned craft go. The astronauts will land with the Earth return vehicle all prepped up and ready to go home. To the longest extent they will also grow their own food in space. Alot of research need to be made in food production in space and in situ propellant production. Other then that it is basically a green light and and about $75 billion that is missing.

Answer 5

We have the technology, and your concerns are valid. The idea is to build the Mars-bound craft at the space station, load it up, and launch it from there. The "take a wiff of some sleep gas" and go into suspended animation for two years routine, if it worked would be nice, but this is not a viable approach at this time.

Answer 6

I almost want to say that I would like to send George W. Bush to Mars without a return ticket, but that would then mean that Dick Cheney would be in charge. Why? It's because he's the worst President ever! I can't wait until January!:)

Answer 7

Nope. You have pretty much got the gist of the problem in hand Pal. Now, just double the amount of junk needed and you might have a mission capable plan...unless you plan to have the guys orbit around Mars for say one or two weeks.
In that case, multiply the massive amount of stuff you calculated on needing to get there by two point five for a round trip with a two week fly by visit.

Oh my gosh...you don't want to land there do you???

In that case you would need to multiply the amount of junk by about five or six for a round trip, lander separation, landing, two week visit, lander blast off, rejoin main space ship, re-ignition of main engines, flight home, and landing. We are talking about a huge amount of consumeables and logistics for ...how many people did you say were going to be on the mission??? Four? Five?? Six?? How many Pepsi Colas is that?

Answer 8

Yes you are missing something. That is the huge amount of investment made for war and personal gains. Imagine if this huge ammount of money was spent in space research....where we would have been. If you are so scared of Terrorist why not leave this planet and colonise mars...or at least send them to the mars...hahahaha

Answer 9

With public technology, no... not even close, but with technology that's still classified, I'm sure we could be there now. Look at some of the newly declassified planes. They look like something out of the next century and we had them in the last century, so think about what we'll have in about 200 years and that's about the technology we have right now, but is still classified.

well, that's my two cents.

Answer 10

With present technology, It is possible. It's not probable.