Request Seth Eden's Mars Direct

[R8-Q88]

A couple days ago I was researching Mars Direct, and I came across some pictures of a beautiul Mars Direct addon for Orbiter. So, I researched the addon a bit, and came across Seth Eden's site and the Yahoo! group site. The project has stalled, and the Yahoo! group is VERY inactive, but a beta was released. So, could someone who is a member of the Orbiter Mars Direct Yahoo! group please upload the beta to OHM? It would be great to get that beautiful addon out there for all to enjoy.

 

[cymrych]

2nd that.

Since the question of a realistic Mars mission has come up recently in the forum a couple of times, a search of OHM reveals some promising options, but all quite a few years old and seemingly no longer in development/upgrade phase. It'd be great to have another option to explore, even if it too is a stalled project.

 

[Zachstar]

The ERV was never made.. So sadly it would be impossible to simulate the mission fully anyway.

 

[RichWall]

Perhaps if this mission plan worked, it would have been done by now. Who knows?

Maybe the problem with completing a Mars mission is defining the Goal.

Can it be nuclear propulsion, or not?

What is the maximum Launch Vehicle capacity? How many Launches per mission would be acceptable?

Will it be done by a Gov't entity or a private concern to do this? One sponsor or many?

Will it be for Flags, foot prints and glory?

To establish a base? For how many? Why?

Exploration...? Terra-forming? Evolution and Biological studies in an uncontaminated environment? Exploitation of natural resources?

Could Phobos be used as a staging point? For habitation, Fuel, Equipment resource build up before a planetary landing?

What is the acceptable safety factor level? Would using a pair of ships in flight together add for safety?

The reason no Mars mission is ever completed is just this.

Why have only one OFMM? Perhaps 4 or 5 different OFMMs are needed based on the goals that fit the contributers common desires.

IMHO, it is not even worth a single manned mission to Mars if the goal is less than building a permanent base and for the reason of Terra-formation. Might as well do the Moon Base first.

If you figure out the goal first, the rest will come.

If you want to be first for it's own sake, so be it. If you are going in order to stay, then so be it.

Some like to travel , some like to camp, and others need room service.

 

[RichWall]

In all fairness, even though I have not been a big fan of the Mars Direct Mission Plan, I thought I might like to pass along an e-mail received from the Mars Society.

Mars Society Announcement

May 11, 2011

Robert Zubrin to Speak at 2011 International Space Development Conference Dr. Robert Zubrin, President of the Mars Society and author of “The Case for Mars,” will present a radical new plan for space development during his featured address at the 2011 International Space Development Conference in Huntsville, Alabama. Scheduled for Sunday, May 22nd at 9:30 a.m., Dr. Zubrin will lay out a bold new proposal to establish inexpensive access to orbit, get humans to the planet Mars and begin opening up the solar system to human exploration and settlement within the present decade.

The International Space Development Conference, hosted by the National Space Society, will run from May 18-22 at the Von Braun Center & Embassy Suites Hotel. Further information on the ISDC program can be found at http://isdc.nss.org/2011.--

For further information about the Mars Society, visit our website at www.marssociety.org. Your donations are welcome.
This newsletter was sent because you subscribed at the Mars Society web site, or were subscribed as a Mars Society member, or had previously subscribed at the Yahoo Group. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected].

Things evolve and this sounds interesting.

Maybe comments of members and projects developed here in this forum might have had some influence on the content of this announcement.

 

[Urwumpe]

Maybe comments of members and projects developed here in this forum might have had some influence on the content of this announcement.

Then pray to all gods you know and trust, that it hadn't been my comments. :lol:

I doubt we have such a big impact there, we just want to play in space.

 

[RichWall]

....we just want to play in space.

I'm sure they do too. :lol:

I would like to see your plan finished..Maybe..hint ..I know you could if you wanted to.....:thumbup:

 

[Urwumpe]

I'm sure they do too. :lol:

I would like to see your plan finished..Maybe..hint ..I know you could if you wanted to.....:thumbup:

The problem is NEVER the wanting. The problem is that I spent too much time at an university and already wrote a 25 page design document about it. I have an ivory tower problem. :facepalm:

 

[RichWall]

The problem is NEVER the wanting. The problem is that I spent too much time at an university and already wrote a 25 page design document about it. I have an ivory tower problem. :facepalm:

I would like to see that document. Do you have one in English?:hmm:

 

[Urwumpe]

I would like to see that document. Do you have one in English?:hmm:

Of course, since my German writing is much worse than my English one. :lol:

Would just need a weekend formatting it and add some graphics where they are needed. :tiphat:

Just to be sure... we are talking of the biconic SkyCrane concept? :hello:

 

[RichWall]

Just to be sure... we are talking of the biconic SkyCrane concept? :hello:

Yes, that's one I've seen you reference in the OFMM.

 

[Urwumpe]

Yes, that's one I've seen you reference in the OFMM.

Fine, then it is the right document we are talking about. :lol:

But it looks already nowhere like the early sketch I tested in Orbiter...

That shape:

is no longer representing the Skycrane design.

 

[RichWall]

Very Good.

I'll have a look at your paper when your ready and start reading.

We best move to PMs and let the "Direct" folks have their thread back.

 

[RichWall]

It looks like the new MS mission plan has been released. Here it is for your scutiny...

This eliminates 2 of the 4 issues I had with the original.

May 16, 2011


In its May 14th issue, the Wall Street Journal, one of America’s top newspapers, published a commentary article by Dr. Robert Zubrin, President of the Mars Society, laying out a radical new plan for accomplishing a humans-to-Mars mission in this decade by using hardware systems soon to be fielded by SpaceX, a leading American space transport company. The full article by Dr. Zubrin is presented below.

A paper containing additional material explaining the basis of the proposed mission plan can be found at: http://www.marssociety.org/home/press/news. In addition, Dr. Zubrin will give a special in-depth presentation on the mission plan at the Fourteen Annual International Mars Society Convention, to be held in Dallas, Texas, August 4-7, 2011.

How We Can Fly to Mars in This Decade – And on the Cheap
The technology now exists and at half the cost of a Space Shuttle flight. All that is lacking is the political will to take more risks.


By Robert Zubrin, Wall Street Journal, May 14, 2011


SpaceX, a private firm that develops rockets and spacecraft, recently announced it will field a heavy lift rocket within two years that can deliver more than twice the payload of any booster now flying. This poses a thrilling question: Can we reach Mars in this decade?


It may seem incredible—since conventional presentations of human Mars exploration missions are filled with depictions of gigantic, futuristic, nuclear-powered interplanetary spaceships whose operations are supported by a virtual parallel universe of orbital infrastructure. There’s nothing like that on the horizon. But I believe we could reach Mars with the tools we have today, or will have in short order. Here’s how it could be done:


The SpaceX’s Falcon-9 Heavy rocket will have a launch capacity of 53 metric tons to low Earth orbit. This means that if a conventional hydrogen-oxygen chemical rocket upper stage were added, it would have the capability of sending 17.5 tons on a trajectory to Mars, placing 14 tons in Mars orbit, or landing 11 tons on the Martian surface.


The company has also developed and is in the process of demonstrating a crew capsule, known as the Dragon, which has a mass of about eight tons. While its current intended mission is to ferry up to seven astronauts to the International Space Station, the Dragon’s heat shield system is capable of withstanding re-entry from interplanetary trajectories, not just from Earth orbit. It’s rather small for an interplanetary spaceship, but it is designed for multiyear life, and it should be spacious enough for a crew of two astronauts who have the right stuff.


Thus a Mars mission could be accomplished utilizing three Falcon-9 Heavy launches. One would deliver to Mars orbit an unmanned Dragon capsule with a kerosene/oxygen chemical rocket stage of sufficient power to drive it back to Earth. This is the Earth Return Vehicle.


A second launch will deliver to the Martian surface an 11-ton payload consisting of a two-ton Mars Ascent Vehicle employing a single methane/oxygen rocket propulsion stage, a small automated chemical reactor system, three tons of surface exploration gear, and a 10-kilowatt power supply, which could be either nuclear or solar.


The Mars Ascent Vehicle would carry 2.6 tons of methane in its propellant tanks, but not the nine tons of liquid oxygen required to burn it. Instead, the oxygen could be made over a 500-day period by using the chemical reactor to break down the carbon dioxide that composes 95% of the Martian atmosphere.


Using technology to generate oxygen rather than transporting it saves a great deal of mass. It also provides copious power and unlimited oxygen to the crew once they arrive.


Once these elements are in place, the third launch would occur, which would send a Dragon capsule with a crew of two astronauts on a direct trajectory to Mars. The capsule would carry 2500 kilograms of consumables—sufficient, if water and oxygen recycling systems are employed, to support the two-person crew for up to three years. Given the available payload capacity, a light ground vehicle and several hundred kilograms of science instruments could be taken along as well.


The crew would reach Mars in six months and land their Dragon capsule near the Mars Ascent Vehicle. They would spend the next year and a half exploring.


Using their ground vehicle for mobility and the Dragon as their home and laboratory, they could search the Martian surface for fossil evidence of past life that may have existed in the past when the Red Planet featured standing bodies of liquid water. They also could set up drilling rigs to bring up samples of subsurface water, within which native microbial life may yet persist to this day. If they find either, it will prove that life is not unique to the Earth, answering a question that thinking men and women have wondered upon for millennia.


At the end of their 18-month surface stay, the crew would transfer to the Mars Ascent Vehicle, take off, and rendezvous with the Earth Return Vehicle in orbit. This craft would then take them on a six-month flight back to Earth, whereupon it would enter the atmosphere and splash down to an ocean landing.


There is nothing in this plan that is beyond our current level of technology. Nor would the costs be excessive. Falcon-9 Heavy launches are priced at about $100 million each, and Dragons are even cheaper. Adopting such an approach, we could send expeditions to Mars at half the mission cost currently required to launch a Space Shuttle flight.


What is required, however, is a different attitude towards risk than currently pervades the space policy bureaucracy. There is no question that the plan proposed here involves considerable risk. So does any plan that actually involves sending humans to Mars, rather than talking about it indefinitely. True, there are a variety of precursor missions, technology developments, and testing programs that might be recommended as ways of reducing risk. There are an infinite number of such potential missions and programs. If we try to do even a significant fraction of them before committing to the mission we will never get to Mars.


But is it responsible to forgo any expenditure that might reduce somewhat the risk to the crew? I believe so. The purpose of the space program is to explore space, and its expenditures come at the cost of other national priorities. If we want to reduce risk to human life, there are vastly more effective ways of doing so than by spending $10 billion per year for the next two or three decades on a human spaceflight program mired for study purposes in low Earth orbit. We could spend the money on childhood vaccinations, fire escape inspections, highway repairs, better body armor for the troops—take your pick. For NASA managers to demand that the mission be delayed for decades while several hundred billion dollars is spent to marginally reduce the risk to a handful of volunteers, when the same funds spent elsewhere could save the lives of tens of thousands, is narcissistic in the extreme.


The Falcon 9 Heavy is scheduled for its first flight in 2013. All of the other hardware elements described in this plan could be made ready for flight within the next few years as well. NASA’s astronauts have gone nowhere new since 1972, but these four decades of wasteful stagnation need not continue endlessly. If President Obama were to act decisively, and bravely embrace this plan, we could have our first team of human explorers on the Red Planet by 2016.


The American people want and deserve a space program that is really going somewhere. It’s time they got one. Fortune Favors the Bold. Mr. President, seize the day.

It looks like a smaller version of the Mars Reference mission.

With an aggressive team and a lot of luck this one could make it I believe.

 

[Wishbone]

I can see almost no way a crew of two can cope with the work overload and solitude on a 500 day stay (unless they are a stable married couple without much knives and heavy cutlery available for throwing). By the way, how is he planning to provide medical assistance?

 

[Urwumpe]

I also think, two is a bit little for such a mission, that is literally flags and footprints. I think Apollo documents too well, that you can for a short time do a lot of work with just two astronauts, but also feel the limits soon... Apollo 17 was literally enough work for three missions.

 

[RichWall]

.... that is literally flags and footprints.

I fully agree.

If this done in the private sector, heck,...go for it.

If it ends up being a suicide mission through NASA or any public sector entity, that would end things real quick politically.

 

[Urwumpe]

I fully agree.

If this done in the private sector, heck,...go for it.

I doubt it will. It will be presented as "cheaper" alternative to full scale Mars missions. Not that the idea is that bad for precursor missions, but for doing full science missions during the stays on Mars, you need a bit more crew, so you can work in shifts, have reserves for inevitable illnesses or accidents and also do the maintenance: Apollo didn't need maintenance on the surface because of the short stay, a Mars mission would need it.

 

[RichWall]

(unless they are a stable married couple without much knives and heavy cutlery available for throwing).

:lol: A married couple is a good idea. A couple with many skill sets for sure.

But if larger and safer is required, I understand that too.

This plan represents the minimum bare-bones. After this you are trading $ for increased Safety and increased Equipment and crew.

What if this plan was literally Doubled?...Crew, Equipment...2xLaunches all sent together..etc...?

 

[n122vu]

:lol: A married couple is a good idea. A couple with many skill sets for sure.

Like, say, a couple that consists of a PC Hardware Technician who also has a degree in Computer Programming & basic knowledge of orbital mechanics, and a Registered Nurse....