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Human flight to Mars possible


Waspie_Dwarf

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NRC says humans flight to Mars possible, but more money needed

Without a substantial, long-term increase in funding, sustained political support across multiple administrations and extensive international participation, the United States will not be able to send humans to Mars before the middle of the century and possibly not even then, according to a National Research Council report released Wednesday.

The long-awaited report -- "Pathways to Exploration -- Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Program of Human Space Exploration" -- was ordered by Congress in 2010 to review "the goals, core capabilities, and direction of human space flight."

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NASA Statement on National Research Council Report on Human Spaceflight

The following is a statement from NASA regarding the National Research Council report, “Pathways to Exploration – Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Program of Human Space Exploration” --

“NASA welcomes the release of this report. After a preliminary review, we are pleased to find the NRC’s assessment and identification of compelling themes for human exploration are consistent with the bipartisan plan agreed to by Congress and the Administration in the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 and that we have been implementing ever since.

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Do the Russians and Chinese have similar plans? There's nothing like a good race to speed things up a little. (I could be dead by the middle of the century and miss it all)

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Like it or not, it looks like the USA are going to have to link up with China and possibly some other countries if this is going to happen

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Do the Russians and Chinese have similar plans? There's nothing like a good race to speed things up a little. (I could be dead by the middle of the century and miss it all)

No. Russia's Roscosmos has set it's sights on a permanent Lunar base. China has plans to start constructing a space station in around 2020. They have talked about a manned lunar programme after that, but have no firm plans for it yet.

Like it or not, it looks like the USA are going to have to link up with China and possibly some other countries if this is going to happen

I think that international cooperation would be sensible, but not absolutely necessary for NASA. Despite cut backs NASA still has a budget that exceeds that of ESA, Roscosmos and the Chinese National Space Agency combined.

With Russia and possibly China fixing their gaze on the Moon cooperation with either of them seems unlikely (especially given the current diplomatic situation between the USA and Russia and the fact that US law prohibits NASA cooperating with China).

ESA is already contracted to provide the service module for NASA's Orion spacecraft and so maybe further cooperation is possible.

What NASA is lacking (and has been since Apollo) is the political will to give them such a long tern goal and realistic funding to achieve it.

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Didn't NASA recently announce planning for deep space or long duration missions were being put on hold for a couple decades for safety reasons? YES. Guess no problem is big enough to overcome with the right funding, eh?

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Didn't NASA recently announce planning for deep space or long duration missions were being put on hold for a couple decades for safety reasons?

Re-read it, that is NOI what it says.

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I wonder if they've every consider using a linear acceleration (rail gun) type of setup to launch space craft into deep space? Wouldn't a hyper velocity shuttle that only needs landing fuel be much more efficient? Even at that kind of speed wouldn't take 3 years to get there? I'm a dummy when it comes to this stuff so feel free to enlighten me.

I fear that the only humans who are every going into very deep space would need to be cybernetic organism. The vital organs housed in a mechanical body. Then again that's just sci-fi talk.

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I think the international community need to come together for any space exploration. This I feel would would bring pride to all nations involved and in time build some much needed trust between countries. Working together on a common goal should beat out useless wars hands down..

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A common goal for humanity would/should help resolve many global issues. There would be those groups opposed to such things. But if we can leave this planet and colonized/terraform other worlds, why not just leave them behind?

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I wonder if they've every consider using a linear acceleration (rail gun) type of setup to launch space craft into deep space? Wouldn't a

hyper velocity shuttle that only needs landing fuel be much more efficient? Even at that kind of speed wouldn't take 3 years to get there?

I'm a dummy when it comes to this stuff so feel free to enlighten me.

Nope for various reasons. Small objects (projectiles) have been accelerated during military technology test trials up to a speed of approx 120.000km/h (approx Mach 100), so lets take this value as a basis for the model even if there is no technology available, or will never be,

to use rail gun technology to accelerate spacecrafts, carrying humans, into orbit/space. Assuming that the rail gun inner track is designed

as a vaccum chamber to avoid air friction effects, the craft will be taken into the atmospheric environment at the time it will left the device

at a speed of Mach 100. Means, at this time the craft gets decelerated by air friction causing the impact of very high temperatures to the

crafts body. Just to compare, the Space Shuttles entered the earth atmosphere/ at an altitude of 120km at a speed of Mach 25 resulting

in head shield surface temperatures of >1000°C in an enviroment where the atmosphere`s density is <5% of the desitiy level on the

ground. I cannot calculate the exact values but an object that gets into the earth atmosphere at ground level and at a speed of Mach100

will get vaporized by temperature and air pressure immediately. Also, the G-forces involved in an accelaration up to 100Mach are on such a high level no human would survive. And, 120.000km/h isn`t that much for space crafts as the fastest space crafts (unmanned) ever launched were the HELIOs probes, accelerated by planetary swing-by maneuvers up to approx 250.000km/h.

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