future mission to mars?


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i heard that nasa is preparing this mission to send humans to mars rite? wow, when it happens its gonna be so amazing. is it likely that it will happen in 10 years? lets hear your input.

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Probably not for at least 50 years. NASA is having a hard enough time getting the Shuttle or its replacement back in orbit, so a Mars mission will involve satellites and rovers for the time being.

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They had a show about this on TechTV today. They were saying about how it would take more than 5 years for a ship to get to mars, and how there could be SO many problems in 5 years.

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Are you refering to the Ion drive? or is there some kind of Electron Drive I havn't heard about?

And Martian probes seem to do just fine with the radiation present on Mars. Granted a few have got lost on the way, but that wasn't due to radiation. (Ok, so humans will have problems, it's being worked on apparently)

I do think though that it will take a lot longer than 10 years before the first man is on mars. If everyone put their minds to it they could get a man on Mars probably within 20 years (like they did with putting a man on the moon), but I don't see it happening with Nasa's budget cuts etc.

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Well when the have spaceshuttles in space, they need an action/reaction force (Newton's third law) for it to go anywhere, so they have the product of the used rocket fuel to come out, which is inefficient.

well the theory is that instead of rocket fuel, they could strip electrons from the protons and that energy will be used as the reaction force.

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well the theory is that instead of rocket fuel, they could strip electrons from the protons and that energy will be used as the reaction force.

i think you mean strip electrons off neutrons to make protons

with no link i can only wonder the reason, do we really need something beyond chemical reaction to get to the moon and mars?

and for intergalactic flight we have bussard ramjets :D

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actually, ur both wrong, removing electrons from protons would create a positively charged nucleus, stripping electrons from neutrons would create a positively charged nucleus, the only thing that would create substantial energy would be stripping neutrons from protons

because breaking proton electron bonds creates energy (through a process known as fission)

so basically, the rockets will be powered by a fission reactor

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:cry: NASA will need to solve the radiation problem first -- rotating magnetic fields ? :rolleyes: Plus billions are being wasted on wars. :no: To quote an old pop song, 'I think it's gonna be a long long time ....'

My recent trip to Mars:

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actually, ur both wrong, removing electrons from protons would create a positively charged nucleus, stripping electrons from neutrons would create a positively charged nucleus, the only thing that would create substantial energy would be stripping neutrons from protons

because breaking proton electron bonds creates energy (through a process known as fission)

so basically, the rockets will be powered by a fission reactor

:no:

You can't remove electrons from protons to create a positive entity, as by definition, a proton is already a positive entitiy.

However, you can add an electron to a proton to create a neutral entitiy (neutron).

You can also remove an electron from an atom to create a positively charged ion, or add an electron to create a negatively charged ion. :yes:

the only thing that would create substantial energy would be stripping neutrons from protons

because breaking proton electron bonds creates energy (through a process known as fission)

:no:

'Stripping' protons from neutrons is not nuclear fission!! And neither is "breaking proton electron bonds".

When a nucleus fissions, it splits into several smaller fragments. These fragments, or fission products, are about equal to half the original mass. Two or three neutrons may also be emitted.

The sum of the masses of these fragments is less than the original mass. This 'missing' mass (about 0.1 percent of the original mass) has been converted into energy according to (Einstein's equation).

Fission can occur when a nucleus of a heavy atom captures a neutron, or it can happen spontaneously.

fission.gif

I won't get into anymore basic chemistry then that here - there's a place and a time for that (PM or new topic).

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oh yea about those hugh mars rocks that look like faces, whas up with those?

when they found the "face" initially, the pic wasn't very high-res so it looked like a face, but when they went back a few years ago to take hi-res pics due to popular demand, they found that it obviously wasn't a face, just an ordinary mountain that looked like a face when it was blurry

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Dont Quote me on this, but I think I read somewhere (perhaps it was BBC News) that according to the latest scans of the planets surface, there is an area which isn't as radiated as the rest of the planet, they don't know why yet, but they recon we could survive a space walk. OK the walker would become affected by the radiation, but they would survive, and there would be no major damage. But anyway, future spacewalks all depend on the december landing of the Beagle 2, and the landings that follow, as, I'm sure we all know, a walk would contaminate the planet and future research would be impossible.

If it finds signs of life, then future space walks on mars may never happen.

Anyway, I'm only interested if Mars harbours life, not whether we can walk on it. I'm far more interested in the nearby solar system with the potential for life.

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"In the engine, each xenon atom is stripped of an electron, leaving an electrically charged particle called an ion. Those ions are then jolted by electricity that is produced by the probe's solar panels and accelerated at high speeds as they shoot out from the engine. That produces thrust for the probe."

Quoted from http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sola...ion_000816.html

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Dont Quote me on this, but I think I read somewhere (perhaps it was BBC News) that according to the latest scans of the planets surface, there is an area which isn't as radiated as the rest of the planet, they don't know why yet, but they recon we could survive a space walk. OK the walker would become affected by the radiation, but they would survive, and there would be no major damage. But anyway, future spacewalks all depend on the december landing of the Beagle 2, and the landings that follow, as, I'm sure we all know, a walk would contaminate the planet and future research would be impossible.

If it finds signs of life, then future space walks on mars may never happen.

Anyway, I'm only interested if Mars harbours life, not whether we can walk on it. I'm far more interested in the nearby solar system with the potential for life.

You act as though no rovers have ever been on the surface of Mars. When the Beagle 2 was just in concept, NASA had already landed a rover called Sojourner on the surface of Mars, July 4, 1997.

There are currently two Mars rovers called Spirit and Opportunity on their ways to Mars, and should arrive by the 3rd of January. The rovers will land at two locations on opposite sides of the planet and were launched in June of 2003.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html

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