I think we'll walk on Mars by the year 2060. I don't think we'll really do much there. There'll be decades & decades of robot exploration & construction before humans can even think about living there.
...my essential 50 http://www.imdb.com/list/ls056413299/
Well, I dont think we will have a permanent human occupation on Mars anytime soon.
The problem is simply in order to permanently live on Mars, you need a ***load of stuff that supports you.
As an example, just take solar panels. Obviously they are absolutely needed. Obviously they wont last forever. But crafting them is extremely involved, for example you need extremely pure silicone and a very high quality clean room. However, sending them from earth is very costy.
Same with many other stuff. Moving it from Earth to Mars is very costy, producing them on Mars is not realistic.
Thats why right now only temporary visits are very likely.
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Why not build bases, essentially bridgeheads on Phobos and Deimos end then send research parties down from there? That way, if you run into a situation like they did in "The Martian" they wouldn't have wasted one mission being cut short and another being expended on the rescue. And this plan would be more workable
if they find that the EM Drive is feasible, because you wouldn't have to manufacture propellant on site, just generate electricity with a small on-board reactor.
Why not build bases, essentially bridgeheads on Phobos and Deimos end then send research parties down from there? That way, if you run into a situation like they did in "The Martian" they wouldn't have wasted one mission being cut short and another being expended on the rescue.
The scenario from The Martian is impossible to happen in reality, but yes, building bases on Phobos or Deimos first is a much better plan than going to Mars directly. The problem is that going to Mars would be more of a symbolic and political achievement than anything else.
And this plan would be more workable if they find that the EM Drive is feasible, because you wouldn't have to manufacture propellant on site
If the emdrive works -- which I doubt -- scientists will be too busy dealing with the consequences.
just generate electricity with a small on-board reactor.
At 1 MW/N? You need a lot more than a small on-board reactor to get any reasonable thrust from that using current technology, and by the time you add all that reactor mass, fuel and complexity, it's probably not worthy it for such a relatively short trip.
At 1 MW/N? You need a lot more than a small on-board reactor to get any reasonable thrust from that using current technology, and by the time you add all that reactor mass, fuel and complexity, it's probably not worthy it for such a relatively short trip.
Could you provide the source of those numbers? Because I remember reading about the first jets, like the ME-262, the P-80, ECT and how they guzzled jet fuel
and other problems.
The 1 MW/N is the claim in the emdrive published papers.
http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/pdf/10.2514/1.B36120
Actually it's 1.2 mN/kW, so I'm assuming it scales linearly, which is another big deal.
I don't get the comparison with jets. What do you mean?
I don't get the comparison with jets. What do you mean?
Early jets used lots of fuel compared to later ones. As finer tooling, more refined fuels, better and lighter materials in both the engine and airframes,
and various overall improvements in aerodynamics reduced the amount of fuel needed. That why, just for example's sake, the amount of fuel used by an F-86
Sabre traveling at 600 MPH from San Diego to San Francisco would be enough to get a F-22 from San Diego to Seattle at twice the speed. So in relationship to the EM Drive, as they refine the process the energy requirement might reduce.
Something like this has occurred with the Albecurrie drive. While the amount of energy required is still outrageous, every time they crunch the numbers it get less. It's gone from the entire energy output of the solar system down to just the energy output of Jupiter.
Well... jets don't violate the known laws of physics. The emdrive isn't even supposed to produce any thrust, no matter how much energy you put into it. Speculating on how much it can be improved is pointless until it's clear that it works and we have a good idea why.
Don't get me wrong. I actually think it works and should work under a modified Lorentz ether theory, but if that's the case we have much more complicated problems.