A Scary Fact About The Upcoming Mission To Mars
- Thread starter fmdog44
- Start date
That's the way I understood it to be. Go and stay ...
I can remember reading overly-optimistic books in my school library in the 1960's that confidently predicted we'd be exploring the inner planets by the late 20th century. The future is arriving late, and too slowly. I'm still waiting for my Jetsons-style flying car, too...
fmdog44
Well-known Member
- Location
- Houston, Texas
At first I read the mission will take 7 months now I see 10 months. The rocket to launch the Orion capsule that will contain the three astronauts will have a thrust of 8.8 million lbs. To date the most powerful rocket ever built had 7.6 million pounds of thrust. Landing the capsule is a problem because among other issues the atmosphere is about 100 times thinner than ours so a parachute landing is impossible. The latest theory is to bring the capsule close to the surface where the atmosphere is thicker then rotate it in to a horizontal track parallel to the surface then when it is slow enough rotate it 90 degrees to execute a vertical landing. While the mission s planned for the 2030's the life and death issues are enormous. For example, the type of radiation there will penetrate lead so they will have to be contained and surrounded instead by water. Water weighs 8.345lbs. (3.786 Kgs.) per gallon so getting water to Mars in the quantity needed is a problem. Food will be grown in hydroponic cells because the soil there is poisonous. The whole thing is scary to me and it could turn out to be a very bad idea with what we may learn in the coming years about what is called "The Angry Red Planet."