Go to Mars in 39 days

[Smithsonia]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100226/sc_afp/usspacenasamars

Development at NASA is slow. This Rocket should speed things up.

[Gunner C]

I wonder what the G-loads on the astronauts would be during accelleration/decelleration.  It would have to be more than 1 G sustained for quite some time.  Getting there in 39 days would be scootin pretty fast!

[Irishrenegade]

uhhh...i got a headache just thinking about how fast that is and that kind of feeling that would be on a human body!

Would be wicked fun though  haha

35 Miles Per Second
126,000 Miles Per Hour
3.24 million miles in a day
90 Million miles in 39 days

few questions...Can you say road trip! and can I use my frequent flyer miles rewards?? oh and last question
where do I sign??

[Майор Хаткевич]

How long are they "Full Speed Ahead", and how long until they reverse thrust?

Either way, THIS is what we should have been working on in the 70s after Apollo...

[lordmonar]

I wonder what the G-loads on the astronauts would be during accelleration/decelleration.  It would have to be more than 1 G sustained for quite some time.  Getting there in 39 days would be scootin pretty fast!

the rocket has very low trust....but is capable of reaching very high speeds.  So the actual G loads will be very low but they will be constant through out the flight.

[Gunner C]

Anyone remember the formulas for acceleration?  Keeping something just above 1G would take (guessing here) more than 39 days to get to Mars (even if they employed aerobraking on arrival).  Mass is a funny thing to overcome.    Either way, just let me know.  I can be packed and ready to go within the hour!

[desertengineer1]

The idea of slow continuous acceleration has been around since the inception of orbital mechanics. 

Know that the 39 day idea takes heavy advantage of the Earth-Mars orbital period as well.

Arthur C. Clarke knew this well, and his Rama series was astounding.

[Smithsonia]

I talked to a Woman who is head of the Post Analysis of Astronauts bones and muscles after long duration flights. She is a big time Space flight biologist. She stated to me 2 weeks ago that a 3 year Mars Mission was currently impossible due to crew physiological effects. Basically the muscle and bone mass would erode down to death upon re-entry, using numbers gathered during Apollo and the Space Station... as, "Their insides would be turned to gravy."

I think this 39 day mission, with a constant loading of 1 or 2 G acceleration and similar deceleration with only 90 days (39days going, 12 days on Mars, and 39 days to return for a round trip of 90 - would solve the crew biology issue rather nicely.

[lordmonar]

Okay someone check me.

I went to this site and punched in some numbers....http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/hframe.html

Mars at it's closest approach is 54.6 Million KM or 54600000000 meters.

and

39 days or 336960 seconds

Okay...assuming an initial velocity of zero and a zero zero intercept at Mars and a constant acceleration for half the trip followed by a constant deceleration for the other half.  I get these numbers.

So for 19.5 days (1684800 seconds) they travel half the distance or 2730000000 meters accelerating all the time then they do a flip and decelerate.

I punch those numbers in and I get the following

Velocity at turn around is 32407.4 m/s
Constant Acceleration is 0.0192 m/s²

1g is 9.81 m/s²

So...the spacecraft would only have to accelerate at 0.00.195g to get there in 39 days.

At 1 G. it would only take 1.72 days to get to Mars!

[Smithsonia]

^^^^^^
Lordmar;
1.72 days to Mars, let's do that. If we had a Starship and ran it at 12 times light speed we'd be there in
seconds if not minutes. Which makes me laugh...

At that speed you pass Mars and are out of the solar system with huge amount of G-strains, before you'd even realize it.

Going to Mars in a Warp Speed Starship would be quick but worse than trying to parallel park an aircraft
carrier in Mid-town Manhattan on garbage day. Sometimes science fiction is a science absurd comedy.

[SarDragon]

Okay someone check me.

I went to this site and punched in some numbers....http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/hframe.html

Mars at it's closest approach is 54.6 Million KM or 54600000000 meters.

and

39 days or 336960 seconds

Okay...assuming an initial velocity of zero and a zero zero intercept at Mars and a constant acceleration for half the trip followed by a constant deceleration for the other half.  I get these numbers.

So for 19.5 days (1684800 seconds) they travel half the distance or 2730000000 meters accelerating all the time then they do a flip and decelerate.

I punch those numbers in and I get the following

Velocity at turn around is 32407.4 m/s
Constant Acceleration is 0.0192 m/s²

1g is 9.81 m/s²

So...the spacecraft would only have to accelerate at 0.00.195g to get there in 39 days.

At 1 G. it would only take 1.72 days to get to Mars!

That would work if both points were stationary. They aren't. The path from one orbiting body is nowhere close to a straight line. The launch occurs when the Earth is behind Mars, and the spacecraft flies in an arc that catches up to Mars.

[lordmonar]

Dave,

I know the actual distance will be a moving target...and will have to have some sort of elliptical component....but I was using the straight line distances to get a ball park.  Even if you let the day of closest approach 39 day will not change the numbers that much.

The point I was making is that for a 39 day trip the G forces are very very low.

[lordmonar]

^^^^^^
Lordmar;
1.72 days to Mars, let's do that. If we had a Starship and ran it at 12 times light speed we'd be there in
seconds if not minutes. Which makes me laugh...

At that speed you pass Mars and are out of the solar system with huge amount of G-strains, before you'd even realize it.

Going to Mars in a Warp Speed Starship would be quick but worse than trying to parallel park an aircraft
carrier in Mid-town Manhattan on garbage day. Sometimes science fiction is a science absurd comedy.

I was just putting in the numbers.....

[Smithsonia]

Lordmar;
I thought you did great with the numbers. Gosh knows I couldn't have done that.

My comment was directed toward science fiction-philes not Cap-Talkers.

thanks for your help in this intellectual pursuit, no dis, offense, or even the lightest of slights intended.

[indygreg]

Where do I sign up?  I'd go tomorrow if they'd let me.  Of course, I don't know how NASA feels about over 40, asthmatic, slightly overweight astronauts.

[Smithsonia]

^^^^
IndyGreg;
The Air Force loves guys like us... I am overweight and almost 60. Anyway, in the early '60s they were testing super sonic ejection seats for the B-58 and SR-71.

The Stanley Supersonic Ejection capsule was the beast that was supposed to pop out of the plane at 2 or 3 times mach. They couldn't find a guy to give it the first go... so they doped up a bear, strapped it in, and blew him out the door. Since the bear lived, Air Force personnel were next.
http://www.ejectionsite.com/ffacts.htm

Bears are heartier than you and I, but apparently some days - they'll accept the dopey and overweight for testing.

From time to time -- I think about that dopey bear in a drug induced haze being dropped into a blast of frigid air that must've been an real eye opener. If that Bear could talk - he'd be blabbering the story at American Legion Halls to this day.   

[Strick]

From an orbit around the earth and the command engage.......

The Warp Drive Concept

The basic concept of warp drive is simple: instead of accelerating a space ship through space-time with a traditional rocket thrust propulsion sytem, where the limit is the speed of light, accelerate space-time around the space ship, where there are no limits to the speed. This acceleration of space-time means contracting space-time in front of the space ship and stretching it behind the ship. The result of this warping of space-time around the ship means that the ship is accelerated forwards. This is the same effect as falling in a gravitaional field which according toEinstein is the very nature of gravity - a warping of space-time:

I will use these definitions for warped space-time:

Flat undistorted space-time = zero gravitational field = no gravitating mass-energy present.

Contracted (positively distorted) space-time = an attractive gravitational field - this needs normal (positve) mass energy to do this.

Stretched (negatively distorted) space-time = a repulsive gravitational field - this needs (negative) mass energy to do this.



^ source not verified

[Major Lord]

I think what we are looking at here is the classic venture capital scam. First of all, we need to heat a gas to 19 billion degrees. Right, we will just pop down to home depot and buy a 19 X 10 to the 9th degree electrical heater-----wait They don't exist! Assuming you could do this without a nuclear reaction ( and the post says its done electrically) we will then use "magnetic fields" to steer the 19 billion degree plasma stream, and presto, directed propulsion. Wait a minute, Home depot seems to be out of 19 billion degree magnetic field plasma directors......Oh, they don't exist either. Darn. So we need one great big nuclear generator to electrically heat hydrogen continuously to 19 Billion degrees, and run the magnetic field containment/direction fields to steer the ship. So our giant nuclear reactor, or possibly lots and lots of double A batteries cook our hydrogen to plasma. To obtain the thrust we need to go to Mars, how much hydrogen do you think we will need? Even assuming that the launch took place from a space station so as not to have a fight with earth's gravity, the answer is: A lot!

Now affiliating with NASA sounds cool. But NASA also brought you the admittedly false temperature data relied upon by the priests of global warming to substantiate their scientific quackery. They said it was a mistake, but I am not sure if its better for them to be incompetent or just subversive. Walking over miles of freezing desert looking for Shuttle baco-bits reinforced in my mind that NASA is not the agency it used to be.

If you bought stock in cold fusion, flying cars, solar sails, and Amway, this could be a swell investment for you!

Major Lord

[Smithsonia]

Human imagination can take us far.Science Fiction writers do lead in ways that are transforming. For instance - the earth being round and circumnavigation a possibility was proposed by the Greeks in 200BC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos
However it wasn't for 1700 years until Columbus did it in the Age of Discovery.

I am hoping we'll get to Mars in something short of 1700 years. So we best prepare 2 plans. One is the old fashioned Apollo mission way. One is the new way using possibility of the engine desrcibed above.  We've got the time. We've got the brains. We may not have the technology for awhile.

That said, Science Fiction is more Fiction than science - or my George Jetson robot would be flying my car to the shop for me today.

[DG]

"11 million degrees Celsius"

   

Now somebody, please, tell me what materials can be used for the tailpipe to withstand 11 million degrees Celsius.