UM-Bot Posted April 27, 2016 #1 Share Posted April 27, 2016 Elon Musk's private space firm is aiming to land a spacecraft on the Red Planet within just two years. SpaceX has been going from strength to strength lately and now, following the successful landing of its reusable rocket on an ocean barge earlier this month, the company is setting its sights on Mars. Read More: http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/293960/spacex-reveals-plans-for-2018-mission-to-mars 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merc14 Posted April 27, 2016 #2 Share Posted April 27, 2016 (edited) Pretty tight schedule, even for SpaceX. I wish them luck and hope they get their capsule to Mars on time. Edited April 27, 2016 by Merc14 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skulduggery Posted April 27, 2016 #3 Share Posted April 27, 2016 This is going to go smoothly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROGER Posted April 27, 2016 #4 Share Posted April 27, 2016 (edited) There's a lot of chatter going on many space forums right now both enthusiastic and nay Sayers . A bare bones capsule I can see , maybe . But the time line gives me pause . Launch permission and other things may delay at least a couple of years . IMO Edited April 27, 2016 by ROGER 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeastieRunner Posted April 27, 2016 #5 Share Posted April 27, 2016 I don't think that timeline is doable one bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nzo Posted April 27, 2016 #6 Share Posted April 27, 2016 Good luck?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
highdesert50 Posted April 27, 2016 #7 Share Posted April 27, 2016 The classic hero's journey: the call to adventure, committing to change, tests, ordeal, road back, and mastery. A lore where the hero can do no wrong. A celebration of what we do best as humans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crandles57 Posted April 28, 2016 #8 Share Posted April 28, 2016 "The idea was conceived to be proposed for funding in 2013 and 2015 as the United States NASA Discovery mission #13 for launch in 2022,[4][5][6] but it was not submitted." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dragon_(spacecraft) Who is paying for this then? Still indicates that much preparation working out what modifications to Dragon are necessary have been going on since 2012 or maybe a little earlier. Even with work, 2018 does seem ambitious - first falcon heavy is not earlier than November 2016 Could it be SpaceX deciding waiting for funding which would be some time after 2022 is too long to wait and paying for it themselves? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psyche101 Posted April 28, 2016 #9 Share Posted April 28, 2016 I love stories like this. Bite of more than you can chew, then chew like all ....... crazy!! I wish them the very best, if they can achieve this, it will be a benchmark for future missions. I know space is dicey, and we cannot take risks, they play out badly, but if it can be done, this will be an achievement that will inspire many. I wish them all the best of luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merc14 Posted April 28, 2016 #10 Share Posted April 28, 2016 I'm not so pessimistic as many here that SpaceX can't get a capsule to Mars in the next two years. Unlike a government run program, SpaceX can take a long term approach to things and has been planning on the Falcon 9 being tied into the Falcon Heavy since its inception and so designed it to that end and have been designing the Heavy since day one. NASA, the best in the world at getting things onto Mars and into orbit around it, are deeply involved with passing their knowledge on to the SpaceX engineers and mission planners (at least that is what they told we tourists when I visited Kennedy) and a variant of the capsule has flown into space several times already and been modified from the experience. Also, SpaceX is the De-facto champion of landing rockets under their own power on a planet nowadays. The biggest challenge will be actually ramping the Falcon 9 into the Falcon Heavy but it wouldn't surprise me if the maiden launch was this trip to Mars. Why not? If it fails it fails and there is no massive public outcry about wasted taxpayer money, no national embarrassment about NASA failing before the eyes of the world, SpaceX simply writes it off to testing (which is what this would be), learns from the mistakes and builds another, better one. There is a great freedom in this approach that NASA will never again have, I'm sad to say, which is one reason, I believe, that NASA is so involved with this young company. Let SpaceX take risks NASA can't afford to and let NASA do the heavy science projects, like the James Webb Space Telescope, that no private sector company would be interested in doing (at least not today).. Best of both worlds here and NASA will learn from SpaceX's mistakes and victories as well. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Willis Posted April 28, 2016 #11 Share Posted April 28, 2016 The biggest challenge will be actually ramping the Falcon 9 into the Falcon Heavy but it wouldn't surprise me if the maiden launch was this trip to Mars. Why not? If it fails it fails and there is no massive public outcry about wasted taxpayer money, no national embarrassment about NASA failing before the eyes of the world, SpaceX simply writes it off to testing (which is what this would be), learns from the mistakes and builds another, better one. There is a great freedom in this approach that NASA will never again have, I'm sad to say, which is one reason, I believe, that NASA is so involved with this young company. Let SpaceX take risks NASA can't afford to and let NASA do the heavy science projects, like the James Webb Space Telescope, that no private sector company would be interested in doing (at least not today).. Best of both worlds here and NASA will learn from SpaceX's mistakes and victories as well. That's an interesting suggestion. A paying customer would be reluctant to put a very expensive payload on top of a new rocket. I know the Falcon Heavy is an upgrade of the Falcon 9, but the cross-feeding of the propellants and then jettisoning the boosters is untried by Space-X. Putting the Mars capsule on top would be a sensible thing to do because if the launch succeeds, Space-X goes to Mars; but if the launch fails, it is only the kind of setback that is expected when developing a new launch system. The first launch of the Falcon 9 carried a boilerplate version of the Dragon capsule, so using the first launch of a Falcon Heavy to carry a stripped-down version of the Mars capsule is following the same developmental process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crandles57 Posted April 28, 2016 #12 Share Posted April 28, 2016 it wouldn't surprise me if the maiden launch was this trip to Mars. Why not? If it fails it fails and there is no massive public outcry about wasted taxpayer money Nice idea, may as well use test flight for something, but the timetables don't seem to fit. Demo Falcon Heavy is supposed to be about November this year. Mars is being suggested that it will be a 2018 launch - miss that and it is about 2 years before next launch with planets in position for a relatively easy flight that does not need a lot more fuel. If the heavy gets delayed by more than a year then the timetable might fit but I would think it would be more likely that whatever delayed heavy by that much would also delay other work. Red Dragon is more easily put aside than the crewed Dragon v2 development as otherwise Boeing might steal too much of a lead with CST100. Also, for demo Heavy flight, probably want an ordinary dragon fitted with lots of sensors to verify that stresses and vibrations are close to what they project. Probably need that data to convince customers that it is safe to fly Falcon Heavy. For going to Mars, would want a different payload spacecraft i.e. Red Dragon instead of ordinary dragon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waspie_Dwarf Posted April 28, 2016 #13 Share Posted April 28, 2016 The maiden flight of the Falcon Heavy is scheduled for later this year and is a demonstration flight with no paying customer. There are several commercial flights scheduled before this Mars mission. If all goes to plan the Falcon Hevy will be flying before the Red Dragon is ready. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merc14 Posted April 28, 2016 #14 Share Posted April 28, 2016 Thanks all, I didn't realize they had one scheduled already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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