This one might not even WANT to come back. All we're doing is sending her home anyway.
Posted on 01/07/2009 1:15:48 PM PST by presidio9
The co-founder of a rocket launch firm has proposed an audacious plan to send astronauts on a one-way trek to Mars using a pair of tethered U.S. space shuttles that would parachute to the Martian surface.
Inventor Eric Knight, a co-founder of the rocket firm UP Aerospace, detailed the plan - which he's billed "Mars on a Shoestring" - in a thought exercise designed to encourage unconventional thinking for future human spaceflight.
"My thought paper is a mental exercise to encourage new ideas," Knight told SPACE.com in an e-mail interview. "I also hope it spurs a re-evaluation of the timeline for human exploration of Mars. Twenty years seems like an eternity, given that we were able to get to the moon in less than 10 years – and we were essentially doing so 'from scratch.'"
NASA's current plan for future human spaceflight includes retiring its three aging space shuttles - Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour - in 2010, launching their capsule-based successor Orion by 2015 and returning astronauts to the moon by 2020. Any push to Mars would come in the decades that followed under the NASA vision.
Why wait?
Knight posted his proposal to the Web site of his Connecticut-based firm Remarkable Technologies, Inc., where he serves as president. The interplanetary pitch goes like this:
Instead of mothballing NASA's aging shuttle fleet in 2010, two of the orbiters could be launched with SpaceHab's Research Double Modules in their respective cargo bays for living space.
The two shuttles would be connected in orbit - cargo bay to cargo bay - by a truss outfitted with a central rocket engine to provide the thrust necessary to leave Earth orbit. An inflatable connecting corridor between the two shuttle airlocks
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
A one-way trek to Mars?
Who do FReepers think should crew that mission?
Any volunteers for a 1-way trip to Mars?
This one might not even WANT to come back. All we're doing is sending her home anyway.
It’s cruel to post her NASA centrifuge picture with her face pulled back and her eyes bugged out like that.
Those old things? I tell ya they barely make orbit and back much less Mars. I am amazed every time they get up and down.
I’ll do it. $10 Billion tax free. Cash, now.
Unconventional stupidity perhaps.
Gee, I don’t know about SanFranNan....my guess is, if she pulls more than 1g, her eyes will pop out.
Steven Baxter did this in a science fiction novel. The goal was Titan, not Mars, but it was a cheap one-way ride using a surplused shuttle, a couple of Apollo capsules, and assorted stuff like a couple Russian space reactors from their ocean radar program.
They grew most of their food, which gave them extra O2 as well.
With NASA, it will be a miracle if we ever get back to the moon, let alone another planet. Their unmanned stuff is pretty interesting, but their manned program has stank for decades. I knew in the 5th grade (mid 70’s) that the shuttle idea was a terrible move and I have not seen much better since.
If they’re going to take a space shuttle to Mars, it’s a good bet it will be a one-way trip, maybe even a 1/4 trip.
This sounds crazy enough to work.
(Oh, and I, um, have plans that weekend).
ION propulsion... hehe
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