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Galaxy Quest

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Re: Galaxy Quest

#31

Post by nemo »

danielweber wrote: post #26
nemo wrote: post #16

Mars One actually accepted applicants who were married? I'd thought I'd already lost all respect for them but somehow found more to lose.

Since Mars One isn't sending anyone anywhere, it doesn't matter if the applicants are married or not.

Sure, they aren't actually sending anyone, but they are pretending they are, and gullible people believe them. Accepting applicants who are married and screwing with their spouses' minds is incredibly ugly, even if it's just messing with people's heads and not actually separating families.

Re: Galaxy Quest

#32

Post by bitJericho »

oafitupa wrote: post #25
moubarak wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way? i find it sad that Mars One > family for some "nerds". Family is the real mission and the real heros are those who achieve that status. Family also has a greater social benefit. The OP talks about Mars One as the mission that has great social benefit. That's really sad.

Yeah who cares about saving humanity from extinction. Let's just stay here with out families and our 4x4's until we drown. Real heroes.

The mars mission is a death mission. Someone with a family has a duty to support and protect that family. She's a complete failure as a parent. She's telling her children that her death mission is more import an than them. I'd hope she would come to her senses come launch day.

Re: Galaxy Quest

#33

Post by lifeisstillgood »

rm445 wrote: post #21
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #5

But seriously I thought this Mars One thing was just crap - we have no idea how to build the rockets to get there let alone land, find water, make food and oxygen. I mean nice idea and all that but... It's crap. By the time we sort this out these folks will be retired and we will be looking for another 20 younger folks to go die. Surely they can't think she is actually going to go, as opposed to go do training and ha…

Robert Zubrin reckoned the whole Mars Direct programme would cost $55 billion in 1995 dollars. Let's say 'The Case for Mars' is viable but the costings were optimistic, and should be more like $500 billion in 2015 dollars, that's more like 0.3% of USA GDP for ten years. Way greater than Mars One's supposed budget but achievable if America decided to colonise Mars.

Iirc NASA's budget for Apollo reached 5% of GDP - so I would rather look at the past project costs than future projections.

Re: Galaxy Quest

#34

Post by lifeisstillgood »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #33
rm445 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robert Zubrin reckoned the whole Mars Direct programme would cost $55 billion in 1995 dollars. Let's say 'The Case for Mars' is viable but the costings were optimistic, and should be more like $500 billion in 2015 dollars, that's more like 0.3% of USA GDP for ten years. Way greater than Mars One's supposed budget but achievable if America decided to colonise Mars.

Iirc NASA's budget for Apollo reached 5% of GDP - so I would rather look at the past project costs than future projections.

So some slightly more researched figures:

http://mobile.extremetech.com/latest/221705-the-apollo-11-mo...

>> In 2009, NASA looked back at the cost of the Apollo program in its entirety, and arrived at a figure of $170 billion in 2005 dollars.

1966 NASA funding peaked at 4.4% of Federal Budget (not GDP). So my memory is way off.

The parent post of 500bn looks more reasonable against the Apollo cost of 170bn, but current Federal budget is 3.9 Trillion, 4.4% of which is 170bn.

So looking at NASA as % of federal budget we see 170bn per annum for best part of a decade, or close on 2 trillion dollars.

Whichever way we look at it, Mars will be pricey. And well beyond non state actors.

Re: Galaxy Quest

#35

Post by rm445 »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #34
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iirc NASA's budget for Apollo reached 5% of GDP - so I would rather look at the past project costs than future projections.

So some slightly more researched figures: http://mobile.extremetech.com/latest/221705-the-apollo-11-mo... >> In 2009, NASA looked back at the cost of the Apollo program in its entirety, and arrived at a figure of $170 billion in 2005 dollars. 1966 NASA funding peaked at 4.4% of Federal Budget (not GDP). So my memory is way off. The parent post of 500bn looks more reasonable against the Apollo cost of 170bn, but curre…

Good post, and well done for finding the numbers.

However the point of Mars Direct was to avoid some of the endlessly-extrapolating-upwards budget numbers by avoiding big technology developments (building a giant ship in orbit / launching from a moonbase / exotic engine technology); making use of elements present on Mars to produce rocket fuel on-planet from a smaller feedstock sent from Earth; and making use of automation, by preceding each manned trip with an unmanned fuel-production vehicle, with there always being one more lot of return fuel than human crews on Mars.

I quite agree with "beyond non state actors" - much of the above appears in Mars One's plans, probably because it's the only way they could even start to appear plausible on a below-shoestring budget. But for a state actor, or at least for the USA or some as-yet-unbuilt alliance of developed countries, Mars is possible with 80s technology, at a viable price. You don't need to multiply the numbers up forever, so long as you resist distracting proposals from those who in reality want funding for a moonbase, or nuclear rockets, or whatever other technologies that promise first you have to solve a difficult, expensive problem, then Mars is cheap and easy.

Re: Galaxy Quest

#36

Post by lifeisstillgood »

rm445 wrote: post #35
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So some slightly more researched figures: http://mobile.extremetech.com/latest/221705-the-apollo-11-mo... >> In 2009, NASA looked back at the cost of the Apollo program in its entirety, and arrived at a figure of $170 billion in 2005 dollars. 1966 NASA funding peaked at 4.4% of Federal Budget (not GDP). So my memory is way off. The parent post of 500bn looks more reasonable against the Apollo cost of 170bn, but curre…

Good post, and well done for finding the numbers. However the point of Mars Direct was to avoid some of the endlessly-extrapolating-upwards budget numbers by avoiding big technology developments (building a giant ship in orbit / launching from a moonbase / exotic engine technology); making use of elements present on Mars to produce rocket fuel on-planet from a smaller feedstock sent from Earth; and making use of auto…

Well, I am not convinced. The Apollo program probably looked cheap and easy when JFK promised it. It did not try and create exotic solutions, but had to for example push the frontiers of chip fabrication just to get 72kb of memory on board.

I am pretty certain that some of the nice cheap ideas mentioned (automated fuel production?) seem simple in a lab on earth but making it work reliably after landing on Mars will take extra effort - even if the basic underlying technology is under grad level right now.

I will still say that the last closest thing humanity tried to Mars landing was Apollo, and 4.4% of federal budget per annum is a good proxy for the cost of a Mars landing. No matter how much tried and true technology you think you can bring in from elsewhere.

Of course I hope I am wrong and we have built most of the basics in Apollo and since. But ...

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