Plan to colonize the moon and mars.

[spacester]

The space elevator can't work unless the mass flow is a net zero up and down. You need to impart a huge transverse momentum as you climb. (surely this has been adressed in this forum already I hope.)

Incorrect. The lost angular momentum is restored by applying upward thrust to the upper terminus or mid-elevator station.

Have you read the original paper by Brad Edwards? I first read it many years ago, what 2002 or so. He has the physics covered. If you think you have discovered a fundamental flaw in the physics, you are wrong.

Building the elevator is all about deploying the unobtanium needed to build the ribbon itself.

 

[spacester]

I can't really imagine that we could ever afford to 'colonise' in any real sense - bearing in mind that humans can't even make efficient or responsible use of what they have on Earth. The cost of maintaining any sizeable human presence on the Moon or Mars would be enormous and self sufficiency is unlikely.
It's not going to be a re-run of the Wild West / New World colonisation. The situation is far different.

My personal fave is the 'space elevator' as a low cost (energy) method for getting out into a suitable orbit for serious space exploration.

Agreed on colonization. I prefer the approach implied by the word 'Settlement', which means to me that the purpose of going there and being there is to set up habitation long enough to determine the practicability of taking the next step of establishing a 'colony', which means you are there to stay and most importantly, have babies. Settlements would not support babies, we are not ready for that.

Agreed on that it is not going to be a re-run. History teaches lessons but is typically poor at providing complete models for future development.

I love the space elevator, but even if we had one or more, there would still be a need for rocket launches. Else, this space civilization the elevator is intended to create would automatically have a limiting bottleneck, and lots of people would have lots of missions that would not get manifested on elevator rides. Remember that the ride up takes several days.

 

[Scia]

another key element of my plan and why the lunar industry is so important is that to colonize Mars we need buildings. We need building supplies, And of course launching stuff
off the moon is much much cheaper.

The point being in the long run the moon will help to colonization of mars.

 

[spacester]

I suggest an experiment. Strand 10 people in the Antarctic. The arctic is an inhospitable place, but far balmier and breathable than Mars, so we'll give them this longer period of non-support than some intrepid Mars colonists might expect.

Give them all the survival gizmos one could expect for a colonization effort with expectations on return of investment. The cost per pound would be what, $10,000, $100,000 $500,000 for a trip to Mars? After 10 years we can visit the Antarctic survivors and see if they came up with anything useful to justify the price tag would all their stuff have been transferred to Mars instead of Antarctica.

At first I'm like "Cool, a very reasonable proposal, let's do it!"

And then I'm all "wait, what?"

:D

This idea of 'stranding' and not providing support for 10 years is foreign to me, what's with that? Mars Settlers would likely not even start out unless there was an operating habitat and ample food, fuel and water reserves for their almost 2-year long stay. Long time periods between deliveries, which is certainly the case, does not equate to non-support.

It IS a challenge to be sure. Note that orbital mechanics (IINM) dictates that a group returning to Earth would have to leave some months before replacements arrive. To me this means at least some of the settlers are looking at multiple "hitches" in order to keep the habitat occupied. It isn't a large leap from there to talking about one-way missions for some of the settlers.

 

[Scia]

This is what inspired the SSTO to von braun station part of my plan

 

[spacester]

Just calling it a "challenge" doesn't really justify the exercise. I am very much in favour on space exploration as a way, when we can afford it, of investigating our world. Limited manned adventures and a huge number of unmanned projects can do this. Just going there to rubberneck and say you've been there actually achieves very little. It's like taking an expensive boat trip to the Antarctic just for the sake of it and at the same time, polluting the place a bit more.

Of those who talk about our future in space there are IMO two types: those who see the establishment of a space-faring civilization as a worthy end in and of itself, and those who do not. I am of course of the first faction. The supposition is that the investment (not cost) will be worth it many times over. As it is a mere supposition, I am not able to prove a darn thing. Formulating a proof necessarily requires formulating a plan.

I have to suppose that those who do not see space-faring capability as a worthy goal unless it comes cheap do not understand that the history of mankind is all about extending our reach until we can grasp that which was formerly well beyond us.

 

[spacester]

This is what inspired the SSTO to von braun station part of my plan

Very cool. I saw that movie when it first came out. I'm old. But I can still dream. I like it.

A. C. Clarke was a giant. Have you read his novels and short stories?

Did you know that he was one of a small handful of guys who developed the use of radar for aircraft landings at night and in inclement weather? WWII. He wrote a semi-fiction book called 'Glide Path" about it.

 

[Scia]

Very cool. I saw that movie when it first came out. I'm old. But I can still dream. I like it.

A. C. Clarke was a giant. Have you read his novels and short stories?

Did you know that he was one of a small handful of guys who developed the use of radar for aircraft landings at night and in inclement weather? WWII. He wrote a semi-fiction book called 'Glide Path" about it.

Yes a great man

 

[spacester]

Not many people are telling me if its feasible or not.

It isn't.

There, are you happy now?

What it is, is a heck of a good start.

My main problem with it is the SSTO plane. IMO it is a fool's errand to develop such a vehicle. It's a rocket equation thing. Virtually no one who works more than a little bit with the rocket equation soon realizes that it is not the way to go.

It is elegant, pretty, inspiring and utterly impractical.

Orbital refueling (and re-oxidizering) is the answer IMO. Add that capability to current rockets and off we go.

 

[Scia]

It isn't.

There, are you happy now?

What it is, is a heck of a good start.

My main problem with it is the SSTO plane. IMO it is a fool's errand to develop such a vehicle. It's a rocket equation thing. Virtually no one who works more than a little bit with the rocket equation soon realizes that it is not the way to go.

It is elegant, pretty, inspiring and utterly impractical.

Orbital refueling (and re-oxidizering) is the answer IMO. Add that capability to current rockets and off we go.

so the only impractical part if the SSTO plane?
I really only need to get to the station with a completely reusable craft. The virgin galactric idea would work.

 

[spacester]

so the only impractical part if the SSTO plane?
I really only need to get to the station with a completely reusable craft. The virgin galactric idea would work.

Well to some people the whole thing is impractical, lol.

A VASIMR powered spin-gravity ship is IMO essential for what we want to do.

The Lunar lander and Mars lander parts make perfect sense to me as well. Specific vehicles for each major chunk of delta V expended. Certainly this idea of landing on Mars without going into orbit first is not going to work for large payloads. And if we are looking at a lunar industrial park, we need up/down capabilty on a regular basis and a vehicle dedicated to doing just that is needed. Note that L-1, from a delta V standpoint, is very close to lunar orbit, and that the lumpy gravity of the moon requires more than a little orbital maintenance whereas L-1 is basically stable in comparison.

Having perhaps abandoned the Von Braun station and the SSTO, you probably need to reformulate the big picture and re-present the next version.

 

[spacester]

I worked up a basic design for what I call an "Interplanetary Cruiser" a few years back, based on 4 BA-330 habitats. This would rotate at 3 rpm to produce 1 g of spin-gravity.

Also check out
http://www.spacefuture.com/
search on 'gravity'

 

[Scia]

Well to some people the whole thing is impractical, lol.

A VASIMR powered spin-gravity ship is IMO essential for what we want to do.

The Lunar lander and Mars lander parts make perfect sense to me as well. Specific vehicles for each major chunk of delta V expended. Certainly this idea of landing on Mars without going into orbit first is not going to work for large payloads. And if we are looking at a lunar industrial park, we need up/down capabilty on a regular basis and a vehicle dedicated to doing just that is needed. Note that L-1, from a delta V standpoint, is very close to lunar orbit, and that the lumpy gravity of the moon requires more than a little orbital maintenance whereas L-1 is basically stable in comparison.

Having perhaps abandoned the Von Braun station and the SSTO, you probably need to reformulate the big picture and re-present the next version.

Abandon the SSTO? probably, I do need a way to get to LEO with a reusable ship though.

But not the von braun station. I was thinking you could use bigelow aerospace inflatable habitats for the wheel part.

 

[Scia]

I worked up a basic design for what I call an "Interplanetary Cruiser" a few years back, based on 4 BA-330 habitats. This would rotate at 3 rpm to produce 1 g of spin-gravity.

Also check out
http://www.spacefuture.com/
search on 'gravity'

Have any documents of it?

 

[Scia]

This is an update I am still working on the plan

-Outline-
I was recently thinking of a way to get to colonize Mars and the moon and provide cheap travel between them, after building space infrastructure. First we put a von braun station in an orbit around the earth, Then we take reusable spacecraft and dock with the station. After that we take a small shuttle using VASIMR technology to a second station orbiting the moon. Then use an advanced lunar lander to get to the moons surface. Once on the moon build factories there to create more space infrastructure. In the long run it's cheaper to launch things off of the moon. I envision a future where the only things carried off of Earth are humans. Then once you have a lunar industry going you can create an orbital shipyard to create a fleet of interplanetary spacecraft .

Then we can reliably colonize the red planet. While we are colonizing the moon and building factories, stations, and spacecraft we should utilize the Mars to stay plan. the point being to establish a presense on the red planet while we build the infastrure required to make cheap reliable trips there possible. Now the interplanetary ships to get to Mars and back would use centrifuges to simulate gravity on the 39 day voyage much like the centrifuge used on the von braun stations. Also when they get to Mars they will need to use a Mars lander due to the fact that VASIMR powered craft can only operate in space and does not have suiable thrust to escape a planet's or moon's gravity.

Now the reason the moon is more cost effective in the long run is that to colonize Mars we need suplies carried there. At 1/6 of Earth's gravity those launches over a long peroid of time would make it far easier/cheaper. The main point of this plan is to create a long term plan for the colonization of Mars and eventualy the solar system.

-Vehicles and infrastructure-

Interplanetary craft:
Earth station to moon station stuttle:
Earth to LEO reusable spacecraft :
Von braun station:
moon factories:

-Pros and cons-

Pros
1.Everything is reusable once the project is completed
2.Much cheaper in the long run.
3.It will allow reliable cheap travel to the moon and eventually mars.
4. The VASIMR shuttle only needs solar power and argon to function in Earth to moon distances.

Cons
1.Large upfront cost.
2.You need to devolp new advanced nuclear technology to power the interplanetary ships.
-Misc-

Links:
VASIMR:http://www.adastrarocket.com/aarc/
Mars to stay:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_to_Stay
Von braun stations:http://www.astronautix.com/craft/vonation.htm

 

[Scia]

Can some mod move this to the aerospace engineering board?

 

[spacester]

Have any documents of it?

Any documents on my Cruiser? Um not really, I mean there are calcs behind it, the 3D models of the BA-330s are accurate (as of when I did it), but nothing presentable.

Did you check out Space Future? If you want a von braun ship (wouldn't that be great?) you will want to understand about Coriolis effects and start picturing some of the configuration decisions.

 

[Scia]

Any documents on my Cruiser? Um not really, I mean there are calcs behind it, the 3D models of the BA-330s are accurate (as of when I did it), but nothing presentable.

Did you check out Space Future? If you want a von braun ship (wouldn't that be great?) you will want to understand about Coriolis effects and start picturing some of the configuration decisions.

Yes i checked the site out.

 

[spacester]

This is an update I am still working on the plan

-Outline-
I was recently thinking of a way to get to colonize Mars and the moon and provide cheap travel between them, after building space infrastructure. First we put a von braun station in an orbit around the earth, Then we take reusable spacecraft and dock with the station. After that we take a small shuttle using VASIMR technology to a second station orbiting the moon. Then use an advanced lunar lander to get to the moons surface. Once on the moon build factories there to create more space infrastructure. In the long run it's cheaper to launch things off of the moon. I envision a future where the only things carried off of Earth are humans. Then once you have a lunar industry going you can create an orbital shipyard to create a fleet of interplanetary spacecraft .

Then we can reliably colonize the red planet. While we are colonizing the moon and building factories, stations, and spacecraft we should utilize the Mars to stay plan. the point being to establish a presense on the red planet while we build the infastrure required to make cheap reliable trips there possible. Now the interplanetary ships to get to Mars and back would use centrifuges to simulate gravity on the 39 day voyage much like the centrifuge used on the von braun stations. Also when they get to Mars they will need to use a Mars lander due to the fact that VASIMR powered craft can only operate in space and does not have suiable thrust to escape a planet's or moon's gravity.

Now the reason the moon is more cost effective in the long run is that to colonize Mars we need suplies carried there. At 1/6 of Earth's gravity those launches over a long peroid of time would make it far easier/cheaper. The main point of this plan is to create a long term plan for the colonization of Mars and eventualy the solar system.

-Vehicles and infrastructure-

Interplanetary craft:
Earth station to moon station stuttle:
Earth to LEO reusable spacecraft :
Von braun station:
moon factories:

-Pros and cons-

Pros
1.Everything is reusable once the project is completed
2.Much cheaper in the long run.
3.It will allow reliable cheap travel to the moon and eventually mars.
4. The VASIMR shuttle only needs solar power and argon to function in Earth to moon distances.

Cons
1.Large upfront cost.
2.You need to devolp new advanced nuclear technology to power the interplanetary ships.
-Misc-

Links:
VASIMR:http://www.adastrarocket.com/aarc/
Mars to stay:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_to_Stay
Von braun stations:http://www.astronautix.com/craft/vonation.htm

NICE!

My first test of a proposed space architecture is self-consistency, and the second test is consistency with real world technology. Your plan is not too shabby by those tests, not bad at all really.

But it looks like you've got a long ways to go for my third test (btw I've been doing this for years, these tests aren't something I'm just now making up). What is the first step?

To state the obvious, building a von braun station in LEO is certainly beyond our current capability. But is it beyond current technology? Meaning: Can we start designing the craft stem to stern right now, or are their 'enabling technologies' that need to be developed first?

Certainly one of these enabling techs, or "risks to be retired" is to conceive and develop and deploy hardware to do the assembling. Central to this solution will be the need for some kinds of vehicles to move things around and do manufacturing ops, IOW maneuverability, IOW delta V. This ability to get around and do things would presumably require conventional thrusters and engines, it's not like they would all have VASIMR drives.

Are you assuming we need to go with the current fleet of EELVs (including Falcon 9 and considering Falcon 9 Heavy) to get the mass up there? (I have an alternative for that in mind btw).

How would you arrange the BA-330 in a wheel? The problem is that you need a large radius to create a benign environment. The main point of posting my cruiser's image was to show the scale of the ship compared to the BA-330s themselves. It has a 100 meter spin radius, which at 3 rpm turns out to be very close to 1.0 gee. Neat trick of the math when you plug in 3 RPM: divide the spin radius in meters by 100 and you have the gee force equivalent at that radius.

3 rpm is not at all arbitrary. There is only a tiny amount of research on this subject, but in my judgment after reviewing it anything faster than 3 rpm is not going to provide the benign environment I seek.

So you could reduce the spin radius to 38 meters and get Mars-level spin gravity (0.38 g) at 3 rpm. Perhaps one mode of operation would be to spin up as required to get 1.0 g, and perhaps the Coriolis forces and other strangeness would be no big deal.

We won't know until we do it, actually. It might be bad news, and we have to have a big radius like mine, or maybe it turns out that as long as you've got *some* gravity, you're good to go for long term stays. It amazes me how few answers we have to this question, and I've been meaning to find out if Obama's NASA is pursuing anything along these lines. We need that research to inform our designs.

So how many BA-330s would you be looking at? You'll have to look up the numbers yourself, my craft's calcs are buried I know not where. Bigelow's site should have dimensions.

Oh, and how many crew on a Mars voyage are you looking at? I was thinking, using a swag, 7 people per BA-330.

 

[spacester]

Yes i checked the site out.

"Required Reading"

Displaying 1 to 10 of 189 matches for gravity

1.
87%
Artificial Gravity and the Architecture of Orbital Habitats
T Hall, 20 March 1997...
2.
86%
Inhabiting Artificial Gravity
T Hall, 28-30 September 1999...
3.
82%
The Architecture of Artificial Gravity: Theory, Form, and Function in the High Frontier
T Hall, 1995...

Ted Hall is (was?) the man on this subject. To go anywhere in our space fantasies, we must stand on the shoulders of giants.

There may or may not be a test, lol.

 

[spacester]

Here's the formula:
R = (9.81 * G) / [(pi * rpm) / 30]^2
Where
R is the radius in meters
G is the desired g-force (fraction of normal Earth gravity)
rpm is revolutions per minute

If you have a 38 meter spin radius and you spin at 3 rpm,
G = (R / 9.81) * [(pi * rpm) / 30]^2
G = (38 / 9.81) * [(pi * 3) / 30]^2 = 0.382 which is very close to the gravity on Mars.
If you increase the rotation to 4.2 rpm, you get 75% of Earth Normal and at 4.85 rpm you get full Earth Normal gravity. Well not all that "normal?, is it? :D

 

[Scia]

NICE!

My first test of a proposed space architecture is self-consistency, and the second test is consistency with real world technology. Your plan is not too shabby by those tests, not bad at all really.

But it looks like you've got a long ways to go for my third test (btw I've been doing this for years, these tests aren't something I'm just now making up). What is the first step?

To state the obvious, building a von braun station in LEO is certainly beyond our current capability. But is it beyond current technology? Meaning: Can we start designing the craft stem to stern right now, or are their 'enabling technologies' that need to be developed first?

Certainly one of these enabling techs, or "risks to be retired" is to conceive and develop and deploy hardware to do the assembling. Central to this solution will be the need for some kinds of vehicles to move things around and do manufacturing ops, IOW maneuverability, IOW delta V. This ability to get around and do things would presumably require conventional thrusters and engines, it's not like they would all have VASIMR drives.

Are you assuming we need to go with the current fleet of EELVs (including Falcon 9 and considering Falcon 9 Heavy) to get the mass up there? (I have an alternative for that in mind btw).

How would you arrange the BA-330 in a wheel? The problem is that you need a large radius to create a benign environment. The main point of posting my cruiser's image was to show the scale of the ship compared to the BA-330s themselves. It has a 100 meter spin radius, which at 3 rpm turns out to be very close to 1.0 gee. Neat trick of the math when you plug in 3 RPM: divide the spin radius in meters by 100 and you have the gee force equivalent at that radius.

3 rpm is not at all arbitrary. There is only a tiny amount of research on this subject, but in my judgment after reviewing it anything faster than 3 rpm is not going to provide the benign environment I seek.

So you could reduce the spin radius to 38 meters and get Mars-level spin gravity (0.38 g) at 3 rpm. Perhaps one mode of operation would be to spin up as required to get 1.0 g, and perhaps the Coriolis forces and other strangeness would be no big deal.

We won't know until we do it, actually. It might be bad news, and we have to have a big radius like mine, or maybe it turns out that as long as you've got *some* gravity, you're good to go for long term stays. It amazes me how few answers we have to this question, and I've been meaning to find out if Obama's NASA is pursuing anything along these lines. We need that research to inform our designs.

So how many BA-330s would you be looking at? You'll have to look up the numbers yourself, my craft's calcs are buried I know not where. Bigelow's site should have dimensions.

Oh, and how many crew on a Mars voyage are you looking at? I was thinking, using a swag, 7 people per BA-330.

Yes the sad thing is I had never taken a physics class in my life(i will next year+advanced trigonometry)

After i get the mathmatical and physics down i will work out the specifics of the plan

 

[Scia]

So anyone else have any opinions of my revised plan?

 

[Scia]

So any new ideas to improve the plan?

 

[sophiecentaur]

any good plan needs a timescale. We're talking in terms of at least une hundred years for this one. When you consider a really worthwhile project like Fusion, that's the order of magnitude involved and, until energy ceases to be a problem, the Dan Dare stuff will not be affordable. There are one or two other projects that could also be said to have priority.

 

[Scia]

any good plan needs a timescale. We're talking in terms of at least une hundred years for this one. When you consider a really worthwhile project like Fusion, that's the order of magnitude involved and, until energy ceases to be a problem, the Dan Dare stuff will not be affordable. There are one or two other projects that could also be said to have priority.

Well I don't know the timescale it depends on how much funding the project gets.

 

[Pattonias]

You could start by researching the process by which a group could receive funding for a project of this magnitude. Setting yourself up as a future subject matter expert could one day be very important.

 

[sophiecentaur]

A rough costing in units of GDP might be interesting, too.

(What a curmudgeon! LOL)

 

[Pattonias]

A rough costing in units of GDP might be interesting, too.

(What a curmudgeon! LOL)

Do you want him to summarize the percentage in terms of the entire project from start to finish which may span a hundred years, or do you want him to break it up into smaller steps that would make the cost accessible. Why not offer some real advice on the matter?

Theorize how he could accomplish this instead of telling him it is impossible. Do you really think that we will be confined to the planet for eternity due the impossibly high cost, or do you think that people like this guy will eventually get us there with steady vision and determined process?


http://www.virgingalactic.com/" isn't waiting around for anyones permission to push forward.

 

[sophiecentaur]

I actually, seriously doubt that space colonisation will be a reality within hundreds of years because there is so little in it for us compared with the cost. It may be one of the sexiest idea around but it is way at the back of a very long queue of justifiable "challenges".
The very name "Virgin Galactic" says it all. What is "galactic" about the project"? It's a Fun Project in which a few rich people will see a black sky, felt microgravity and feel that they've been 'in space'. Mr B has spotted an excellent and possibly achievable commercial venture - good luck to him. But that's all it is. The numbers count in engineering and space colonisation needs to satisfy cost-benefit analysis to get off the ground. To my mind it represents extremely bad value compared with feeding the existing population. We are a long long way, even from that.