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Use ISS to get to Mars


grimsituation6

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so i am formulating what I believe to be the safest and cheapest way to place people on mars. simply retrofit the International Space Station to escape earth orbit and travel into martian orbit and then come back to earth. trailing behind the ISS would be four modules, traveling seperate and independent to the space station. module 1 would be a lift off vehicle and platform to leave martian surface, module 2 would be winch and supplies to construct launch platform stored in module 1. module 3 would be the landing vehicle that crew would enter once in martian orbit in order to land. module 4 is simply emergency food, fuel, and duplicates of critical parts and supplies.

primary mission is for crew to travel to mars within the international space station, enter martian orbit, then escape martian orbit and return to earth.

secondary mission is for a portion of the crew to rendezvous with a convoy of 4 trailing modules after they reach mars, and use the modules to land on the martian surface, assemble a preconstructed lift off platform/vehicle using a winch device and then return to ISS from the martian surface. the lift off vehicle and winch device would be modules 1-2 and would land before the crew, if all goes well the crew would then commence landing in a landing vehicle located in module 3. ISS would maintain orbit around mars along with module 4. a reserve lander and lift off system could even be connected to ISS to insure greater safety and mission success.

this could be the most reasonable approach to a manned Mars mission, even if we did not land on surface just achieving a round trip there and back would be the greatest endeavor undertaken by humanity to date. the ISS was built for the very purpose of sustained space flight, there is no reason it couldn't be refigured to make an interplanetary trip. simple plants or algae could be grown in the station to create a resustaniing food or fuel supply. with the advent of ion propulsion, and cheaper access to ISS from earth, modules designed to retrofit the station for the long trip there and back are more possible than ever. the entire mission crew would remain on ISS for the trip and simply transfer to the other modules upon arrival and then proceed with the surface mission.

Edited by grimsituation6
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it would also be the easiest way to denationalize a mission to mars, it would be a global effort, one planet as a whole reaching out to another planet, flagless and communing to humanity.

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different space companies could also invest in the project, essentially buying stake in the mission, no single entity could own more than 10% of the mission assets. avoiding a scenario where a government agency and corporations from the same country could collectively own a majority of mission assets, equalizing control between all nations involved.

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6 minutes ago, Kismit said:

It might take some time to get a response from the right person

yeah, but it seemed like an "oh duh" idea, so im sure its been thought of before, but it almost seems too easy. so what is preventing it from being a reality? its probably going to be an obvious problem.

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Since you asked. My entirely uneducated opinion. Wich I reply with absolutely no knowledge at all would say that retrofitting the international space station while in space to a specification suitable for space travel would be far harder than expected.

Also the international space station allready serves a purpose.

And funding space travel is probably not going to be an international possibility at this stage of things because space technology  equates to military technology for many countries. And nobody wants to show their whole poker hand.

I may be wrong though, as I said this is not my area of knowledge.

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How much energy would be required to accelerate a ~419 ton space station to escape velocity?

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28 minutes ago, Rlyeh said:

How much energy would be required to accelerate a ~419 ton space station to escape velocity?

It took about 80 tons of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen to send the 50 ton Apollo spacecraft from Earth orbit to escape velocity, so on that basis almost 700 tons would be needed to send the ISS to Mars.

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The (fragile) structure of the ISS wasnt designed to withstand the acceleration needed for a boost to Mars.

The cooling/heating systems of the ISS were designed to work at a distance of 1AU and would not fulfill the needs if below or above 1AU.

The segments of the ISS were not designed to enter the atmosphere of Mars and to withstand the drag and temperature during entry.

etc. etc. etc.

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3 hours ago, grimsituation6 said:

any obvious reasons why this couldnt work?

Three problems come to mind.

The first problem is that the ISS wasn't intended to be accelerated out of earth orbit. This means that any acceleration of the ISS would have to be low otherwise it would literally fall apart. This in turn means a long thrust to build up the speed necessary to reach escape velocity. In other words, this means a low thrust rocket with a lot of fuel. The same would apply to entering Mars orbit, leaving Mars orbit, and then decelerating back into Earth orbit. That's an awful lot of extra fuel to carry - I can't do the sums, but I'm sure there are people here who could. But I'd be betting the amount of fuel needed would be much more than the current mass of the ISS.

This leads to the second problem. The fuel needed to slow down into Earth orbit would need to be stored for the whole outbound and return journey. That means either a lot of insulation to prevent boil-off, or a very stable fuel which in turn would be less energy efficient.

The third problem would be energy. The ISS generates its power from solar panels. The panels are double-sided, generating most of their electricity from the side facing the Sun, and the rest from light reflected off the Earth. Move away from the Earth and you lose that second source of energy. And move away from the Sun and you get less energy from that source too. My rough calculation is that you'd get half the power from the Sun at Mars as you do at the Earth.

A possible fourth problem would be heat. I understand that the ISS generates excess heat which means it needs a cooling system. This might not be a problem at Mars, but it would be a problem in the period after the ISS leaves Earth orbit but is still not much further from the Sun than it currently is: as it orbits the Earth the cooling is assisted by spending time in the Earth's shadow, and once on the way to Mars that option won't be available.

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3 hours ago, Kismit said:

It might take some time to get a response from the right person

Read: Waspie_Dwarf :D

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1 hour ago, Peter B said:

Three problems come to mind.

The first problem is that the ISS wasn't intended to be accelerated out of earth orbit. This means that any acceleration of the ISS would have to be low otherwise it would literally fall apart. This in turn means a long thrust to build up the speed necessary to reach escape velocity. In other words, this means a low thrust rocket with a lot of fuel. The same would apply to entering Mars orbit, leaving Mars orbit, and then decelerating back into Earth orbit. That's an awful lot of extra fuel to carry - I can't do the sums, but I'm sure there are people here who could. But I'd be betting the amount of fuel needed would be much more than the current mass of the ISS.

This leads to the second problem. The fuel needed to slow down into Earth orbit would need to be stored for the whole outbound and return journey. That means either a lot of insulation to prevent boil-off, or a very stable fuel which in turn would be less energy efficient.

The third problem would be energy. The ISS generates its power from solar panels. The panels are double-sided, generating most of their electricity from the side facing the Sun, and the rest from light reflected off the Earth. Move away from the Earth and you lose that second source of energy. And move away from the Sun and you get less energy from that source too. My rough calculation is that you'd get half the power from the Sun at Mars as you do at the Earth.

A possible fourth problem would be heat. I understand that the ISS generates excess heat which means it needs a cooling system. This might not be a problem at Mars, but it would be a problem in the period after the ISS leaves Earth orbit but is still not much further from the Sun than it currently is: as it orbits the Earth the cooling is assisted by spending time in the Earth's shadow, and once on the way to Mars that option won't be available.

In addition:

- ISS isn't designed for independent operation and is dependent on regular resupply from Earth, something that wouldn't be possible on a Mars mission. 

- ISS is actually getting pretty old, so it is bound to become more and more unreliable.

- ISS operates within Earth magnetic field providing protection from radiation. On a mission to Mars any spacecraft will have to have atleast some part of the spacecraft that is protected from solar flares.

- Using the ISS would make for a lot more mass to be accelerated and thus require an enourmous amount of fuel. One of the most expensive parts of spaceflight is launch cost.

- The modifications required to make ISS usefull for a Mars mission would most likely result in a more expensive spacecraft than if you design one optimised for the purpose.

 

Lets try to do the maths about how heavy it would be, if we assume a mass of 419 tons, which is ISS's current mass without modifications for a Mars trip and without the 26 months of supplies.

I will assume that we are going to use LOX/Hydrogen, with no hydrogen boil-off. (I am being very generous here)

It will take about 6 km/s to get from low Earth orbit to Mars orbit and then you have to get back again, so I assume a total delta-v of 12 km/s. 

Using Tsiolkovskys rocket equation this means that the ISS will need around 13500 tons of fuel. (I have included around 500 tons for fuel tanks in the calculations. A very low figure)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation

To launch this much mass you will need around 100 SLS launches. 

I am not saying that this calculation is perfect but it gives some idea of the problem involved.

 

All of this does not included anything actually needed to land on Mars, live there and take off again. A rather important omission, don't you think ?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Also factor in cost. NASA put a figure out (I forget what it was) that it would take far more money to get to Mars then NASA has received in it's entire existence. 

Who's paying for this? 

Edited by internetperson
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I was getting ready to write a list, a long list....of reasons this wont work, the most obvious being that the ISS is not a craft designed to travel...its just designed to be an ORBITAL habitat... but then I decided not to bother as the plan has absolutely no credibility

thats your first and biggest hurdle...the entire design is wrong for powered deep space travel

Bear in mind...we have ALREADY been to Mars via spacecraft and rovers... there are even satellites orbiting Mars also...and like the moon (in some respects)  there's not a lot there worth visiting for, plus we have plenty of photos taken by the rovers to PROVE theres nothing there

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  • 2 weeks later...
58 minutes ago, tmcom said:

I thought that you were going to use terrorists to get to Mars!

:ph34r:

    undefined

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