MovieChat Forums > Mars (2016) Discussion > That old Saw

That old Saw

posted 8 years ago by drbriggs3
2 replies | jump to latest

Again with the Space Traveling version of the Mayflower and going to Mars, where we will colonize that planet first, before sending along Christopher Columbus with his Pinta, Santa Maria, and Nina and Henry Hudson with his Half Moon. And using one space craft to leave the surface of Earth, travel to Mars, and then land on that planet. Come on people and wake up. Early explorers to the New World used one ship to explore the New World, and a second to actually colonize the New World. And Apollo Astronauts used one spacecraft to place themselves into Lunar Orbit and a second to reach the surface of The Moon and return back into orbit. Going to Mars will take a LOT longer, and if you only use a single craft, your astronauts are going to be in terrible shape by the time they GET to Mars.

To really get to Mars properly you need to build a spacecraft in Earth Orbit which will REMAIN in space, but which will take your crew from orbit around Earth to an orbit around Mars, using a second spacecraft to go from the surface of Earth to Earth Orbit, and a third (or more) craft to travel from Martian Orbit down to the surface of the planet. And you need a larger crew, at least a dozen, but I've set up crews of well over 100 persons (and actually closer to 175 crewmembers) just to EXPLORE Mars. At the very least you need a lot of back-up among crew positions, to include at least 2 MD's (or 1 MD and 1 or 2 Physicians Assistants), because without professional medical capability directly on-hand, people are going to die. And once you've lost your Physician/Surgeon, everyone else is going to die in short order as well, and from causes that are not life threatening here on Earth (such as a broken bone).

Incidentally, that 175 person crew? A Transport Ships Crew of 15-20, a Medical Team of also 15-20 (manning a fully equipped, and staffed Hospital), an Aviation Flight of 15-20, and the rest split into 3 teams of 40-50 persons each, each of which has 2 or 3 Paramedics. That organization can support 3 teams of 10-15 Scientists (total of 30-45 Scientists) exploring Mars for 2 full years.

[–] buttsronc 8 years ago

You raised some good points. In the book and movie "The Martian" they did use two ships. One ship remained in Earth orbit and then made the trip to Mars. The crew then used a second ship to land on and leave the surface of Mars.

The problem with your idea is logistics. The more people you bring means more food, water and oxygen you have to produce or bring with you.

The next problem is building a space ship big enough to carry everyone and all the equipment to Mars. It took a massive Saturn V rocket to get 3 men to the moon. How big of a ship are you going to need to carry 100 humans and enough supplies to keep them alive? How are you going to fuel it?

In a nutshell you are going to have to develop the technology to build big enough ships and power them.

[–] bruce-129 8 years ago

Build the ship in Earth orbit. Also, it makes more sense to try to automate the building of shelter and power generation remotely from Earth by sending robots.

But I just watch this show and try to understand the trade-offs they made. It's like Star Trek ... it's 500 "man" crew that we never say more than 10 in an episode.

There is a lot that is not going to make sense for a dramatization ... it's for kids and teens mostly, not PhDs.