The thrust of curiosity that leads men to try to go where no one has gone before. (The Space thread)

[retsmah]

I think Elon's twitter mentioned at some point that for the Dragon mission to Mars the side boosters should be recoverable, but the center core may have to fly expendable. Sending the Dragon capsules to Mars will be on Falcon Heavy, but manned missions are going to be on a new rocket, which will be on the same size scale as Saturn V.

I liked the landing video, a lot of the earlier landing attempts looked like that, you'd see the barge start to light up, then the video would start cutting out, you'd see one frame that's just a bunch of fire, then another cut out, then the video would come back to a barge with rocket parts scattered over the deck... was cool to see the video come back with the rocket on it!

[Crazed_Insanity]

If I remember correctly from school, one of my prof said that if we're going to Mars directly from the surface of the earth, given current rocket technology, we'd need a rocket the size of empire state building in order to get there. Saturn V is what's necessary to get to the moon only.

What makes more sense is to have a space station or a moon based as a spring board. Trying to escape earth's gravity directly while carrying enough fuel to get to Mars just doesn't make sense. I don't think we've made that much progress in terms of rocket technology. Can SpaceX really reach Mars with a rocket size of Saturn V?

[retsmah]

Yeah another aspect of the Mars mission would be that this Saturn V size rocket would be refueled in earth orbit before leaving for Mars. So it'd take multiple rocket launches to get one spacecraft on it's way to Mars. Or at least that was the plan the last time I had heard. The new engine being developed for this rocket uses methane for fuel rather than kerosene, and unlike the moon on mars you should be able to produce both methane and oxygen, so that has the potential to change the equation on how much mass you need to carry if you don't have to bring along fuel for a return trip.

The size of the rocket depends on your payload though, SpaceX plans on sending a pretty large vehicle capable of carrying a lot of people and supplies. A Falcon Heavy will be capable of sending a Dragon capsule one way to Mars, and then the curiosity rover only required an Atlas V to get there.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Ah, that makes more sense. Refueling in orbit and making it only a one way trip certainly can reduce the size of the rocket to mars...

As for payload, surely a trip to mars by default will have a much larger payload than a trip to the moon if we considering amount of food we have to bring! We can perhaps recycle water, but can't really recycle shit!

BTW, I heard rumors saying Musk wants to personally go to Mars, that's why he's keeping SpaceX a private company... so that he can have complete control of it... without others telling him that he cannot go! Any truth to that rumor?

Another reason is perhaps to just to keep the financial info hidden. I'm really curious how SpaceX can do so much with such a low price. I'm working on the competing crew capsule... and our capsule is like a basic version of Toyota Yaris and the SpaceX's version is like the Model S... yet, we're charging NASA higher price for the Yaris compared to SpaceX's Model S.

Really curious to see if Musk can pull this off... to revolutionize both the auto and aerospace industry!

[Rare White Ape]

For a one-way trip, you actually require less fuel to land something on Mars than you do the Moon. The difference is the atmosphere of Mars, which can slow a spacecraft down without even needing to do an orbit insertion then a landing burn. The fuel needed to leave Earth and push a payload to Mars is only marginally higher. All the big savings happen at the landing phase.

To send humans, you can do it with current tech. Send multiple spacecraft to LEO and dock them together. We've done that with ISS. Something much smaller than ISS can support a crew with enough supplies for a year-long journey. You can also send supplies in advance of a crewed vehicle, and even send a whole station to Mars orbit, ready for a mission, with fuel for a return. They key here is... wait for it... sending a little bit at a time.

To leave the Martian surface, it's a lot easier than leaving Earth's surface. It has a very thin atmosphere and less gravity. You don't need a 50-meter stack to get to Mars orbit. This will be the only part of the mission that has never been done before; figuring out the best way to land, have enough fuel to lift off again, and do science and bring back a payload to an orbiting platform.

[Freude am Fahren]

Of course! DockSyde was an rocket scientist!!

[Godson]

Ffs, does this mean we were just trolled?

[Rare White Ape]

A minor trolling occurred, but all of what I said is genuine.

[overpowered]

If Mars' atmosphere is so thin, how much slowing will it actually provide?

[Random]

Enough that it seems like a bunch of the recent missions have used it.