Mission to mars 2010

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The United States hopes to send an astronaut to Mars in a nuclear-powered rocket, according to a senior Nasa official. Under the space agency's ambitious plan, humans would be sent on a two-month journey to Mars in a spaceship travelling at three times the current speed of space travel.

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Whole article here

I just don't see what the direct and immediate benefit from going to mars will be? It seems highly unlikely that we will find the cure to aids or cancer there. And as far as the idea of colonizing it, we have to business on another planet, when we haven't proven we know how to care for the one we live on now.

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The project throws up many questions about the effects of such travel on humans. Already astronauts are returning to Earth with a decrease of up to 30% in their muscle mass and 10% in their bone mass.

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ive never heard of that, if anyone can explain why thatd be cool

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Currently, spacecraft travel at 18,000 miles per hour.

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wow.. same speed as me on my bike.... sounds like they better go faster ;)

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It would commit the US to the exploration of Mars as a priority and herald the development of a nuclear-powered propulsion system.

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can you say "ploy for nuclear proliferation?"

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or just common physics..

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nice post syini666 very interesting.. im just in a comical mood :)

er0k > the reason you loose muscle in space is because in zero gravity everything is weightless, so you don't need that much strength to move heavy objects, so the lack of use causes deteriotation, which is why they have to rotate out the space station crews periodically, to make sure the don't do severe damage to their bodies, that could be fatal once back in the earth's gravity.

I think it is a good move, as much as you people would like to laugh at me, I do one day want to become an astronaut. It takes a lot of hard and dedicative work, but I can do it. I wish that i was one of those astronauts that would actually go on this amazing mission. It will have some after affects on them, but all will go well, and they will be okay. After that we will make some adjustments and find out how we can protect ourselvies more. I love space it is my life, and i would to hear or see what is out there. -Ebo

Syini, I'm not sure what NASA's agenda for this Mars mission is but, according to the article, it's not so much cures and colonization NASA is interested in rather, the testing of a new type of engine for space travel. The article does indicate that exploration of Mars is priority, but I re-read the article and it seems they go on and on about this new engine.

these are excerpts from the article:
"We're talking about doing something on a very aggressive schedule to not only develop the capabilities for nuclear propulsion and power generation but to have a mission
using the new technology within this decade"

"Currently, spacecraft travel at 18,000 miles per hour. The goal is to build a new vehicle which uses small nuclear reactors to give the engines a greater thrust and circumvent
the problems of fuel supply."

"We've been restricted to the same speed for 40 years," Mr O'Keefe said.

Personally, I think the idea of a nuclear powered space shuttle/vehicle is a really cool idea.
On the same note though, I agree that we have some major issues to contend with here on Earth. Do we limit and/or stop space exploration because of current crisis? Hell if I know but, would you turn down going to Mars? I wouldn't :D

Just another couple of billions of dollars wasted because we, Americans, don't know how to put real issues ahead of fun and fantasy.

Well, if you ask me, as humans we have a natural sense of curiosity. That sense, in my opinion, is what drives US to pursue this mission. I hope all goes well in the years to come.


Regards,
Silentstalker

It definately is going to be interesting to see how the mission shapes up. There are lots of issues to deal with, like the effects of gravity on the human body, sheidling the craft against cosmic rays, working out the propulsion system, the whole return cycle, which takes over a year I believe because of the orbit of mars around the sun and its relation to the earth. Who knows, maybe seeing the earth from farther away will somehow inspire us to learn to take better care of the planet.

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Originally posted here by Syini666

I just don't see what the direct and immediate benefit from going to mars will be? It seems highly unlikely that we will find the cure to aids or cancer there. And as far as the idea of colonizing it, we have to business on another planet, when we haven't proven we know how to care for the one we live on now.

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(sigh)

the earth is fine, we couldn't hurt the earth if we tried, its a ****ing planet, for christ's sake, what we're hurting is our own ability to leach off of it. the planet isn't going anywhere. we are. and not even because of what we are doing to it. the cosmos have plenty of ways of getting rid of us. comets, asteroids, black holes, its amazing we haven't gotten wiped out already, WHICH IS WHY we have to learn to live elsewhere, because the hole in the ozone is not from polution, the same thing happened to venus millions of years ago, and it didn't have us to pollute it. the reason our ozone has a hole in it is the solar wind is slowly blowing away our atmosphere. the sun is getting hotter and hotter, and we can't live here forever.

I am STOKED that nasa has finally anounced plans for a mission to Mars, this is a subject that has FACINATED me forever. the thing about muscle and bone density in long trips in space has already been solved by Robert Zubrin, head of the center for mars research. He had a plan that could send us to mars 30 years ago for less than 5 million dollars. he suggested that they soup-up an old Saturn V rocket, do a burn to slingshot the capsule to mars. then once in route, the capsule would separate into two peices, connected by a teather. retro rockets on the two capsules would fire, sending them into orbit of one another, and creating an artificial gravity environment with centrifugal force. several articals about how this can be done are on zubrin's website at : http://www.nw.net/mars/marsdirect.html

<EDIT> It's interesting Syini666 mentioned curing aids and cancer, since many medical and scientific breakthroughs have already been made since the we started exploring space. Earth is a nightmare situation for a scientist, since a scientist needs a controled environment, and earth makes that nearly impossible. not even in orbit, astronaughts don't experience zero gravity in orbit of earth, they experience microgravity, which is almost worse, microgravity is unpredictable. flying to mars gives us the opportunity to experiment with gravitational forces that aren't zero, but Infinitesimally small. which can provide a very good environment for experimentation. plus it would be WICKED COOL!

a lont time ago, i always wondered. if a pregnant mother was sent to a planet that has eight times the gravity (if she could) and had her baby there. then the baby could come back to earth and be stronger than everyone on the planet. in theory, the baby should be 8x stronger than that of someone of equal mass. and when it grew up, it would be the strongest. imagine if there were generations of this. by the 4th generation they would be impossible to stop :D

just a thought

sucha a baby would most certainly suffer terribly and might never learn to walk or live without help... however, if you were to take a teenager and slowly increase the gravity over a number of years, that would produce some interesting results! hehe

actual manned mission to MARS that early?
i didnt think they were going to do that for years, like maybe 2015, but not in 2010
Syini has a good point, how would we go having to look after 2 planets instead of only 1?

and ive never really like the idea of nuclear powered spcae shuttles / space thingy's, when a space launch goes wrong its generally not very good, but what if a nuclear powered spcae launch went wrong, the results could be catastrophic

they launch using normal rocket engines, the nukes are to take them to mars and back once they reach orbit, as for a normal failure on launch, the nuclear material is highly protected and precautions are taken to make sure that any catastrophic lauch failures don't go nuclear.

as for launching this early, we have had the capability to do so for several years, the recent missions have been to make sure such a trip would be safe.