Re: Mars Viewmaster

On Mar 31, 11:04 pm, Totorkon <aertr...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mar 31, 8:45 am, Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Mar 30, 3:04 pm, Totorkon <aertr...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The discussion about sending more mers to mars should include the
price tag of
almost half a billion per copy (delivery included),  But the
possibility of sending a dozen rovers as part of a plan to increase
launch frequency, perhaps with an RLV, makes sense.

Looking at the pictures from S&O, many of the landscapes look like
heaven to an ATV, doonbuggy or dirtbike enthusiast.  Forty mph would
be called catious.  Of course on mars any rover will be horsepower
challenged and computers don't yet have the off road skills of humans,
but five miles a day (roughly the distance traveled by each of the
mers over the last four years) is not out of the question.

For the primary purposes of traversing terrain, collecting and storing
solar
energy and photography with multispectral cameras, a robust quarter
ton rover
could be built for under $100M.

With solar "wings" that could fold up when in motion and a cherry
picker arm with a 'hammer head' set of 50mm telephotos (giving a
stereo view with apx 1ft resolution at a distance of 30mi), the
machine could plot out a 100yd dash,
orient to the sun and extend its wings.  The collectors could tilt to
be more
perpendicular to the sunrays and to allow the wind to clean them.  The
arm could extend to twelve feet or so above the deck, take a panoramic
shot and set up the next dash.

Even at an average of three miles a day, 500 miles could be traversed
in a single
summer season.

The cost to put each person on mars and keep them there goes down when
the scale of the program increases.  Building an Ares spacecraft to do
a Mars Direct sort of mission

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct

and cost around $55 billion, add another $15 bilion, and you can test
out much of your hardware on the moon.  This program takes 10 years
and is preceeded with a number of robotic explorers.  This in addition
to the 40+ robotic explorers already on Mars on on their way to Mars.

Some of the more interesting notions were airplanes on Mars and
balloons on Mars.  These vehicles could sample the air, fly near
interesting objects, and even land on the surface repeatedly, perhaps
releasing a small crawler at each landing site.

Another interesting possiblity is something like the Mars Channel, or
an interplanetary internet that allows interested parties to access
spacecraft.  For a fee you could use a rover to write you name in the
Sands of Mars - or operate a small remote medallion engraver on Mars -
that would engrave names and other information on a small aluminum
medallion 'coin' and leave it on the Mars surface.

A sample return system could collect gem quality rocks to return to
Earth to process into jewelry.

A sample return system with rover could land where the failed Beagle
or Mars Polar Lander and search for crash debris - which should be
identified by high resolution pictures from the Mars Reconaissance
Orbiter - and return pieces of the failed spacecraft, complete with
HDTV video and news stories and what-not - to establish provenance -
and sell it to the highest bidder - with a reserve equal to a good
fraction of the mission cost divided across the weight of all the
samples returned.  This 'law of space' should be extended from the
'law of the sea' wreckage - to spur private development of space
capabilities.

Now, I said at the beginning that your cost of $1 billion per person
is about right, for a Mars Direct type approach.  But, what if we
think bigger?

Who 'acosted' the price per person to mars (PPPTM) at $1B per?


I thought you did. I realize though that $45 billion with 4 people on
mars is $11 billion per person - but with 20 trips an 80 people it
drops to $1 billion.


Maybe thin sheets of plastic in spectral colors not common on the
surface of mars could help track winds and dust distribution.  'Your
message here' might sell for ten grand, 5% of Rutan's ride.

A solar powered robot that vacuumed up the dust and sorted it
according to color, could then redeposit the dust in patterns on the
surface. That way no material need be taken to Mars to make patterns
of any size. You could charge $10,000 per square meter.

Or make a parachute kite, with the roboexplorer adding a rock to drag
along.

Launching the kite and keeping it aloft may be a problem.

Either could be tracked by a small telescope, maybe 100mm... less than
the power needed to resolve a grocery bag.

From Mars orbit?.

You can calculate it using the Rayleigh criterion.

aking existing hardware and engines and airframes and using them
efficiently can save some money.  Aerospace projects can be correlated
with the structural mass of the vehicles used.  At the low end is $5.3
million per metric ton.  At the high end is $23.0 million per metric
ton.  The highest of these are for first generation high performance
fighter jets with new engines, new capabilities and so forth - like
the ATF.  The lowest of these are mature systems modified for a
different use, such as Skylab.

Making vehicle larger, and investing in infrastructure to efficiently
handle these vehicles in some quantity, also pays huge dividends in
reducing operating costs.  Furthermore, building fully re-usable
systems where possible, provides profound savings.

For example, an Ares V

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ares_Vhttp://www.astronautix.com/lvs/are...

Total mass at lift off is 3,360 metric tons with 256 tons of
structure.  So the entire vehicle should cost around $1.36 billion to
build at the low end, $6.11 billion at the high end.  The SRBs and
RS-68 engines are expected to be recovered, which recovers 178.6 tons
- saving between $947 million at the low end to $4.26 billion at the
high end, with an added $150 million to $300 million refurb and
integration cost per launch.  This makes total launch cost about $563
million to $2.16 billion per launch.

A fleet of three vehicles costs between $4 billion and $18.33 billion
- and launching them 10 times adds another $10 billion to $43 billion
- and the payloads are 125 metric tons, so these cost each $663
million to $2.981 billion - adding another $6.63 billion to $30
billion.

So, the cost of a Mars mission will total $45 billion to $90 billion -
as a preliminary estimate.

But what if we make a larger commitment to space?   What if we commit
to build solar power satellites using private money,  and let the
private sector build a fleet of fully reusable launchers with
infrastructure, that loft between 500 metric tons to 2,000 metric tons
to GEO?   And then use these systems at cost plus a reasonable profit,
to send expeditions to the moon and mars, and then license the
technology to hoteliers and other interested private parties?

What if we tax telecom and power sales derived from global power and
communications network to support exploration initiatives?

What does this do to the budget?

Well it increases total expenditure, of course, but spreads it to
those who will make money in space.  It also increases the utilization
of infrastructure and talent and reduces costs to the lower end of the
spectrum.

I have posted elsewhere a fleet of elements that may be assembled into
a two-stage three-element booster, and a three-stage, seven-element
booster.  Elements only 9.2 meters longer than todays ET mass 1,000
metric tons full and 70 metric tons empty, and place 500 metric tons
in GEO.  These elements are FULLY reusable and are designed for low
refurbish costs.  Elements 88 meters long and 13.3 meters in diameter,
built along the same lines at the first, mass 4,000 metric tons full
and 120 metric tons empty, and place 2,000 metrict tons into GEO.  The
smaller element costs $1.2 billion the larger elements  $2.0 billion.
A fleet of 10 elements costs $12 billion and $20.0 billion
respectively.  They can loft a 500 metric ton payload and a 2,000
metric tons payload to GEO once a week.  The smaller vehicle orbits a
4 km diameter 7.5 GW solar laser power satellite.  The larger vehicle
orbits an 8 km diameter 30.0 GW laser power satellite.  The elements
may be reused 1,000 times, and operate for 20 years.  Every 2.1 years,
the fleet is allocated to send payloads to Mars.  The launch costs are
around $200 million each of the 2,000 ton payloads, and $120 million
each for each of the 500 tons payloads.  So, this is $0.1 million for
the larger payloads and $0.24 million for the smaller payloads.   The
power satellite builders work at a tremendous rate to keep up with the
needs of humanity.  Today's power usage rate is 15,000 billion watts
and it grows at 4% per annum. - or 600 billion per year at present.
So, to meet all of today's needs with powersats would require 500 of
the larger satellites and 2,000 of the smaller satellites.  That is,
it would take 10 years to meet today's needs, and by then, more
satellites would still be needed.  The builders would be busy.  This
would have the effect of lowering the cost of payloads - due to
learning curve effects and ecoomies of scale.  Costs are estimated to
drop below $0.3 million per ton.  This added to the $0.1 million to
launch costs for the larger system, or $0.24 million to the smaller
system - would make total payload cost on orbit $0.4 million to $0.54
million per ton.  Another interesting fact, a single launch of the
larger vehicle would equal the launch of 16 Ares - so, a single launch
during the synodic period would equal the efforts of the entire fleet
of Ares V vehicles.

Since the cost of the vehicles infrastructure and operations are paid
for by private operators - they only need charge the costs - plus
reasonable profits (i.e. opportunity costs) - for the launch hired out
by NASA or other Mars expeditionary forces.  The cost for those
agencies and organizations would be say double the $200 million per
launch cost, and the payload would cost double the direct $600 million
construction cost - so we're talking about a total for the Mars
expedition $1.6 billion out of pocket, every 2.1 years.   With 2,000
metric ton payload on hyperbolic escape trajectory, far more than four
people may be sent to Mars.  30 to 40 people - and the cost is $50
million to $40 million per person.   Approximately 4 weeks during the
most favorable time of the year could be used to send 4 or 5 vehicles
to Mars for $8 billion every 2 years - $4 billion per year which is
less than the Mars Direct program - and 200 people every 2 years to
Mars.

Large scale exploration of Mars, assisted with and preceded by large
armies of very capable robots - built and flown at similar savings -
costs about the same as the program described above, but provides much
more bang for the buck - and incorporates our space technology into
our economy in a big way.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

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