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Russian Nuclear powered spacecraft by 2025

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    #32
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 91,419 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Tomk1 wrote: »
    A craft can be final assembled in orbit as we know and refueled in ordit, SNAKEDOC how many died assembling the ISS ?
    One hundred billion buys a lot of healthcare.

    Defo enough to eradicate several diseases.




    Thing to remember about the Russians is that they can give NASA / ESA a run for their money on about a tenth the budget.



    As for reaction mass, there are plenty of decomissioned satellites up there, could probably charge to remove them


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    #33
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 91,419 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    shizz wrote: »
    It's actually an awful lot safer to produce fuel on the surface (providing the technology works). Can you imagine the risk involved in landing a fully crewed and fuelled ship on Mars? One that is full with the return to Earth fuel?

    Also, why is it better to have a mothership in orbit? These Mars missions will be going on for over a year on the surface. So you're talking about leaving an unmanned orbiter there for that length of time and hoping that nothing happens to it and its safe to ride home. You are putting all of your hope in that ship which you can't maintain or fix.
    Apollo 13 got home because they were able to use the fuel in the lander

    Mothership means all the mass you don't need on the planet can be left in orbit. Like radiation shielding, long range communications, exercise rooms, food for the return trip, you can sleep in inflatable tents or find a cave on mars and seal it. Enviromental conditions on the surface are easier for humans but more difficult for machines the reverse in orbit.
    It's just like apollo ,having an orbiter means the lander only needs to a smaller crew alive for a shorter time, so suddenly you have a much smaller lander which means weight savings all the way back.


    To make fuel on the surface you would need nuclear reactor or perhaps wind turbine and hope there are no accidents in the 18 months it takes you to get there,


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    #34
    shizz
    Registered Users Posts: 1,506 ✭✭✭shizz


    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    Apollo 13 got home because they were able to use the fuel in the lander

    The Apollo programs ascent/lander didn't have nearly as much fuel as would be needed in a Mars mission. Not to mention he was talking about landing in the ascent vehicle with all the fuel needed, through an atmosphere. That could be incredibly dangerous.
    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    Mothership means all the mass you don't need on the planet can be left in orbit. Like radiation shielding, long range communications, exercise rooms, food for the return trip, you can sleep in inflatable tents or find a cave on mars and seal it. Enviromental conditions on the surface are easier for humans but more difficult for machines the reverse in orbit.
    It's just like apollo ,having an orbiter means the lander only needs to a smaller crew alive for a shorter time, so suddenly you have a much smaller lander which means weight savings all the way back.

    Why would having an orbiter affect the crew size and time? There's no way you could leave someone up there in the orbiter for the length of time manned missions to Mars are planned for. This leads to it being unoccupied and orbiting for many days,presumably in some sort of idle working condition, where if something goes wrong on it the crew could be in jeopardy on the ground.

    EDIT: Admittedly this obviously can be done and is an engineering problem more than anything. But of course other events out of your hands could come into place.


    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    To make fuel on the surface you would need nuclear reactor or perhaps wind turbine and hope there are no accidents in the 18 months it takes you to get there,

    Yes you would undoubtedly need a large power source and this has been implanted in Mars mission plans. The crews wouldn't be sent out until they signal coming from the ISRU plant confirms that the provisions of fuel needed are satisfactory. If anything happens to it on the way there are aborts available (most notably to Mars anyway). Also 18 months? 180 days is the length that has been chosen for manned missions, which comes from a conjunction type mission. No one would want a crew travelling for 18 months.


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