Posted on 06/20/2018 12:51:12 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Chris Hadfield, who flew to the International Space Station as part of the Canadian Space Agency, told Business Insider that making it to Mars is going to take technology that has yet to be conceived. Put simply, he doesn’t believe the new rockets being worked on by NASA, SpaceX, or Blue Origin have much chance of fulfilling their stated goals.
“Personally, I don’t think any of those three rockets is taking people to Mars,” Hadfield said regarding the SpaceX Big Falcon Rocket, Blue Origin’s New Glenn, and NASA’s Space Launch System being constructed by Boeing. “I don’t think those are a practical way to send people to Mars because they’re dangerous and it takes too long.”
“My guess is we will never go to Mars with the engines that exist on any of those three rockets unless we truly have to,” Hadfield added.
None of this is any surprise to the scientists and engineers working on the rockets, of course. Traveling in space is incredibly dangerous, as it always has been, and venturing to a new world for the very first time will carry monumental risks. SpaceX boss Elon Musk has been very public about the dangers that go along with planning a Mars mission, even going so far as to say that the first travelers to Mars have a “good chance” of dying before ever returning to Earth
(Excerpt) Read more at bgr.com ...
There’s a few demonrats who we could send to prove him wrong.
Rockets....
No, Rocket are not all that good for space travel...
mass cancellation and electro-grativics is where it is at
Nice to see we have optimists in the astronaut corps
Any launch vehicles he ever designed?
I really think they should aim a bit closer to home, myself.
The Moon is a far better target, and is a far safer bet.
When you are 50 years rusty, you have to relearn that ground.
Yeah ... Dr. E. E. Smith did pioneering work on that topic in the 1930s.
We won’t ever get anywhere until it becomes a commercially enterprise.
Get the government out of the way and let business do it.
Rockets are the least of the problems.
The fun part is staying alive on Mars for a long period of time.
A wise man once said:
...you go to space with the rocket you have, not the rocket you might want or wish to have at a later time.
Space ventures are seldom decided by reason. Going to Mars is akin to going to the moon before America was discovered. Luna must first be exploited, then comes the rest of the solar system. Forget about visiting other stars, it cannot be done. The tyranny of rockets rules all space exploration. The average solar system exploring human-staffed spacecraft that leaves from the Earth will use 99% of its volume just to fling the equipment needed to explore Mars. If, however, such a venture was launched from the moon it would be able to delivery a payload to Mars and back with less than a 50% payload to boost ratio. Eventually the only thing we should be delivering into space from the Earth is humans and high-tech gear.
Shoulda been on Mars by the late 70s or early 80s. Instead, NASA dicked off.
They’ll get there long before that little Red car ,LOL
Correct. And besides, the Moon has something that could be very useful: a lot of very valuable strategic minerals. Titanium for sure, but also thorium-232 in large quantities (useful for Gen IV molten-salt nuclear reactors).
Stick a Democratic astronaut in a Tesla, put it on autopilot, and launch him to Mars. Let the taxpayers foot the bill. What could go wrong?
Well, now we can DRIVE there, right?
I worked on some space shuttle experiments as a graduate student back in the early to mid 90’s. (I had about 10 years of active duty between undergrad and graduate school.) I had the pleasure of directly working for a few of the shuttle crews.
Amongst other fond memories, I got to spend a pleasant afternoon water skiing with Chris and his family just east of JSC where he lived. As the Canadian astronaut, he was a really personable guy.
As to going to Mars, he correctly points out that its going to be really tough given the challenges of keeping a life support system and all the other things required working long enough and well enough to get astronauts to Mars alive.
Trump could sign and executive order!
Mars is the wrong step at this point in our deveolopment of space travel.
There is so much that could be done and needs to be done on the moon. The moon need to be the launch site for a trip to Mars
Our current chemical rockets are the flintlock muskets of space travel we need to move the more advanced method of propulsion before we attempt a Mars landing. To send humans to Mars with no assuured chance of return is murder.
Step one is to lift people, fuel, and equipment to either LEO or Moon orbit, and assemble a trans-Martian space vehicle in space.
Step two is to send the trans-Martian space vehicle to Martian orbit, and ultimately to a soft landing on Mars.
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