Former astronaut doubts that NASA or SpaceX will make it to Mars with their shiny new rockets

BGR ^ | June 19th, 2018 at 10:52 AM | Mike Wehner

[BenLurkin]

Chris Hadfield, who flew to the International Space Station as part of the Canadian Space Agency, told Business Insider that making it to Mars is going to take technology that has yet to be conceived. Put simply, he doesn’t believe the new rockets being worked on by NASA, SpaceX, or Blue Origin have much chance of fulfilling their stated goals.

“Personally, I don’t think any of those three rockets is taking people to Mars,” Hadfield said regarding the SpaceX Big Falcon Rocket, Blue Origin’s New Glenn, and NASA’s Space Launch System being constructed by Boeing. “I don’t think those are a practical way to send people to Mars because they’re dangerous and it takes too long.”

“My guess is we will never go to Mars with the engines that exist on any of those three rockets unless we truly have to,” Hadfield added.

None of this is any surprise to the scientists and engineers working on the rockets, of course. Traveling in space is incredibly dangerous, as it always has been, and venturing to a new world for the very first time will carry monumental risks. SpaceX boss Elon Musk has been very public about the dangers that go along with planning a Mars mission, even going so far as to say that the first travelers to Mars have a “good chance” of dying before ever returning to Earth

[PAR35]

He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It really isn’t that hard to get someone to Mars with current technology.

There’s only an issue if you want to make it a round trip.

[The Duke]

I do hope you waved at the Garriots as you skied past their home on Clear Lake.

[elbook]

it isnt an easy thing to do.

even when its planned to be a one way trip

[KEVLAR]

They did build the big robotic arm for the shuttle.

[Falconspeed]

"We will never go to Mars with the engines that exist." True.

The 16 Apollos were designed by engineers from Cal Tech, Berkeley and MIT and their average age was 23. Only people in the Apollo program over 30 years old were the astronauts, the top flight heroes from the military.

Mars? Yeah, right. Just a dream to scam money like electric cars, solar panels, and recycling plants.

The engineers from the Apollo program made the best space vehicle. Every future rocket will be a footnote to the mighty Space Shuttle, pride of rocket engineers and industrial mathematicians.

[NCC-1701]

To expand on your post, what about the trip outbound and inbound? Having three to six people cooped up in a tiny capsule is just not appealing to anyone. If I were going, I’d like to have a ship like Skylab in volume to live in. Plenty of room to live, work, and get away from the others when needed. The downside of that is there wouldn’t be enough room for the food and water required for such a long trip. Until that issue is resolved, a manned Mars trip is out of the question. Orion is fine, the Space Launch System is great, but without somewhere to live some what comfortably, you can forget about any such trip. Also, a propulsion system that would cut the travel time significantly would be an added plus.

[woodbutcher1963]

I swear he said shorter. I could be wrong.

As far as the near sited, it has to do with the changes to the shape of the eye ball. My NASA friend state that Dartmouth was doing a study on the effects of low gravity on changes to the human eye ball and how to measure them. He is in charge of managing NASA grant money to colleges/universities doing research. Many of these experiments end up on the International Space station.

[PeterPrinciple]

Nice to see we have optimists in the astronaut corps7

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My headline this morning is: Very few Freepers read past the headline.

Am I an optimist or a realist?

[woodbutcher1963]

It is not that they get shorter it is bone loss. I assumed this meant they were getting shorter.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-happens-human-body-space-180958259/

[woodbutcher1963]

“The fluids in your body will shift upwards to your head, which could put pressure on your eyes causing vision problems.”

This quote is from a NASA article regarding the effects of low gravity and extended exposure to radiation on the human body.

[woodbutcher1963]

https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/bodyinspace

[Mr. Jeeves]

SpaceX boss Elon Musk has been very public about the dangers that go along with planning a Mars mission, even going so far as to say that the first travelers to Mars have a “good chance” of dying before ever returning to Earth.

Same way Tesla drivers have a good chance of dying before ever returning to the garage. At least he’s consistent. :)

[Mr. Jeeves]

mars by 1965, saturn by 1970

Well, that was the generation who won WWII, so they were a bit more willing to take on the difficult challenges.

Our group will be arguing for years about the impact of rocket engines on global warming before ever attempting a Mars mission.

[Magnum44]

Chris probably pointed them out but I am sure I don’t remember. That was 25 years ago (how time flies). There were roughly 125 astronauts in the astronaut office at that time and I met most but worked closely with only about a dozen. ‘Hoot’ Gibson was in charge of the office at the time and wrote my military fitness report for my assignment there (kind of cool as a junior officer to have a fit rep from the chief astronaut). Made many other great friends while there.

[Regulator]

“Am I an optimist or a realist?”

Beats me.

But I’ve been working on Mars missions on and off for 35 years. Never heard anyone out of the Astronaut office making noises like this.

Chemical rockets are what we’ve got. Ain’t gonna have no impulse engine anytime soon. So we’re gonna go with what we got. Do the orbit mechanics right and the trip time is not that awful. One of the reasons for the ISS’s existence is to validate long term stays for interplanetary travel.

The risks are what they’ve always been, and have been radically reduced since guys were crawling into spam cans like Vostok and Mercury capsules.

[Magnum44]

We should trade notes sometime. Based on your last post, I think we may in the same neighborhood.

[PeterPrinciple]

Am I an optimist or a realist?”
Beats me.

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My point is you didn’t read the article and responded to the headline.

[PIF]

Well, that was the generation who won WWII
—
Korea, and Nam.

Nixon killed it; Congress defunded it; the public never knew; the USAF rejoiced; the Apollo program proceeded in a pale mockery of what could have been, until it too was killed in a further act of political cowardice.

Notice the theme: failure of political will, political cowardice. until that crap is overcome, it does not matter what ability or not any generation has, nothing will happen with manned space flight.