NationStates Jolt Archive


What's the cheapest way to get to Mars?

Phylum Chordata
28-05-2005, 13:52
You are the director of the space program of a powerful developing nation. Your leaders have instructed you to put at least one citizen on Mars before any other nation does. They only care about the prestige of being first. Science is secondary. They want you to bring the astronaut(s) back in one piece, but that isn’t as important as getting them there alive. However, you have a limited budget. What’s the cheapest way to put one or more people on mars? What ideas do you have to make the trip as cheap as possible?
Cam III
28-05-2005, 13:53
Trebuchet..... failing that, catapult....
Yammo
28-05-2005, 13:59
Buy the airfares off the internet :p
Phylum Chordata
28-05-2005, 14:09
Trebuchet..... failing that, catapult....

No, I thought of that. Even a carbon fibre linear induction motor trebuchet falls apart before the payload reaches escape velocity.

But if we ever develop material strong enough to make space elevators, then we wouldn't need space elevators. We could make super trebuchets instead!

However, a super trebuchet can, I think, fling stuff off the moon.
[NS]The Vivid Dead
28-05-2005, 14:10
Yep. Forget rocket fuel, just build a giant slingshot.

When they arrive at mars they'd just wait for the second country to get there, and ask a lift back home :D
Chicken pi
28-05-2005, 14:12
You are the director of the space program of a powerful developing nation. Your leaders have instructed you to put at least one citizen on Mars before any other nation does. They only care about the prestige of being first. Science is secondary. They want you to bring the astronaut(s) back in one piece, but that isn’t as important as getting them there alive. However, you have a limited budget. What’s the cheapest way to put one or more people on mars? What ideas do you have to make the trip as cheap as possible?

Easy. Don't have a return journey, tell the astronauts to colonise Mars.
Pure Metal
28-05-2005, 14:17
thumb a lift
Phylum Chordata
28-05-2005, 14:20
Easy. Don't have a return journey, tell the astronauts to colonise Mars.

Very cheap. Especially if you don't bother to provide any colonization equipment. You have a beacon on the ship that sends scrambled signals automatically, and you pretend that the colony is doing fine after they are long dead. Pretty embarrassing if you're found out though. Also hard to fake. You might fool your own people, but everyone else will be suspicious. Maybe you have the ship blow up killing the astronaughts and then blame it on sabotuers, rather than admit your colony couldn't work.
Potaria
28-05-2005, 14:30
http://www.chocolate.org/choclove/mars-bar.gif

Sorry.
Phylum Chordata
28-05-2005, 15:01
I would send one astronaut and he or she would be tiny and weigh perhaps 35 kilos. (But in the propaganda photos I'd make the astronaught look bigger. The ground crew would consist of circus midgets.)

The smaller the astronaut, the less food, oxygen, and water will be required. Perhaps it would be possible to use less than a kilo of life support a day. (Although that would have to be cutting it fine, even if it is possible at all.)
Ashmoria
28-05-2005, 15:03
hitch a ride on a vogon transport, just be careful of the poetry
Homieville
28-05-2005, 15:03
The cheap way is go to to the store buy some pins a rubberband and take a strong man and fling away there is the cheapest for you
Alien Born
28-05-2005, 15:19
Film it on a large sound stage, and then issue the results as a documentary. As it is prestige that matters, all that counts is what your population believes. So fake it.
Eutrusca
28-05-2005, 15:27
http://www.chocolate.org/choclove/mars-bar.gif

Sorry.
As well you should be! Tsk! The idea! :D
The Downmarching Void
28-05-2005, 15:32
A couple hits of LSD and sevral joints of weed laced with Crystal Meth. For a few days before the binge, watch every Mars related film you can get your hand on, and one just beofre and after you've begun the trip. So real its almost like being there. Also a good way to have a cupcake with death, find Jesus and get in the psyche ward.
Phylum Chordata
28-05-2005, 15:43
Film it on a large sound stage, and then issue the results as a documentary. As it is prestige that matters, all that counts is what your population believes. So fake it.

Good idea, but the next day it would be all over the net how everyone who isn't your stooge says it's a fake. Anyway, the leaders are probably used to forced adulation from the masses. They want some respect from other countries for a change.
Pure Metal
28-05-2005, 15:43
A couple hits of LSD and sevral joints of weed laced with Crystal Meth. For a few days before the binge, watch every Mars related film you can get your hand on, and one just beofre and after you've begun the trip. So real its almost like being there. Also a good way to have a cupcake with death, find Jesus and get in the psyche ward.
sounds fun. sign me up for that.
Ashmoria
28-05-2005, 16:18
i think speed it more important than cost. sure we'd get plenty of volunteers to be the first "man" on mars but isnt it a bit cruel to use a persons ambition to stick him in a can for 3 years (to get there) then, if he can stand it, another 3 years back? even guys in solitary confinement get an hour a day in the exercise yard.
Venus Mound
28-05-2005, 17:26
A giant sling. :p

I'm only half-joking, too; with a space elevator (slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/03/05/1914246) we could literally sling spaceships accross the solar system. And that would be wicked cool.

:cool:
Jeruselem
28-05-2005, 17:29
Make a movie! Just make sure it looks real.
Worldworkers
28-05-2005, 19:09
will i gess the worl hasent lrend there lession chepest is not all was best. look at that be for you graiep.
Haken Rider
28-05-2005, 19:52
A spaceship with sails (seriously, I saw it in a documentary)
Chaos Experiment
28-05-2005, 19:55
Shuttle to orbit, mass accelerator the rest of the way.

Fin.
The Vuhifellian States
28-05-2005, 19:57
Invade Colombia then burn all the drugs there, then, when the world is uber-high, make a cheap-ass video of someone landing on something like Mars. Everyone will be so high that they will believe it!
The Noble Men
28-05-2005, 20:10
Here's my super simple solution. Develop a device that deconstructs an object at the atomic level, transports it across and reassembles the object at the other side. Think; Scotty. Then all you do is put a reciver on Mars, inside a big oxygen tank.

The craft would take years to get there, plenty of time to show it works, and also to improve the transmitter device.
Example:

(Transmitter) :cool: >------------------------------< :cool: (Reciver)
Cam III
28-05-2005, 20:11
Don't.


its the cheapest way... >_>
Iztatepopotla
28-05-2005, 20:15
Forget the space elevator. Think space escalator!

Failing that, a nuclear engine or solar sail. Antimatter should also work.
Khudros
28-05-2005, 20:29
The world would need another Cold War to get to Mars. There's really nothing like two competing super powers, both willing to expend 4% of their GDP in a macho space race, to advance human exploration into the heavens.

The truth is the US hasn't been back to the moon since we proved that we could do it and the Soviets couldn't. And we won't go back until there's another substantial threat to our global authority. The Chinese are the only real competitors and tbh their space program hasn't progressed to the point where they could openly challenge the US Space Program on the massive scale that the USSR did.
The Noble Men
28-05-2005, 20:33
The world would need another Cold War to get to Mars. There's really nothing like two competing super powers, both willing to expend 4% of their GDP in a macho space race, to advance human exploration into the heavens.

The truth is the US hasn't been back to the moon since we proved that we could do it and the Soviets couldn't. And we won't go back until there's another substantial threat to our global authority. The Chinese are the only real competitors and tbh their space program hasn't progressed to the point where they could openly challenge the US Space Program on the massive scale that the USSR did.

The Chinese are a major threat to U.S domination of space. If they all wear space suits and stand on one another's shoulders they can reach the Moon easy.
Alien Born
28-05-2005, 20:39
Good idea, but the next day it would be all over the net how everyone who isn't your stooge says it's a fake. Anyway, the leaders are probably used to forced adulation from the masses. They want some respect from other countries for a change.

Well it worked for the moon landings (http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicapollo.html) ;)
Chaos Experiment
28-05-2005, 20:42
Well it worked for the moon landings (http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicapollo.html) ;)

Do you actually believe that or are you being facetious?
Alien Born
28-05-2005, 20:44
Do you actually believe that or are you being facetious?

Do you see that little yellow thing, that is winking, or not?
The Noble Men
28-05-2005, 20:51
Do you see that little yellow thing, that is winking, or not?

Oh. I thought it was the symbol for "there is dust in my eye but I enjoy it."
Pharoah Kiefer Meister
29-05-2005, 00:57
i think speed it more important than cost. sure we'd get plenty of volunteers to be the first "man" on mars but isnt it a bit cruel to use a persons ambition to stick him in a can for 3 years (to get there) then, if he can stand it, another 3 years back? even guys in solitary confinement get an hour a day in the exercise yard.

Surely a large enough ship could be built to house more than one person? You could put them in suspended animation and when the ship reaches orbit they are awakened.

Of course it would be more than six years before they returned because they would have to explore the place and barring any catastrophic event here on earth, like humans destroying each other and apes becoming rulers over us, they could return and tell all of us about it. ;)

Make sure that if a colony is established, that the protective dome built around the colony is built with the best materials and that the government doesn't cheap out on it so radiation doesn't affect the people living next to it. ;)
Phylum Chordata
29-05-2005, 02:21
The solar sail is probably the most cost effective suggestion yet. But I think it would be very slow.

As for a quick trip, you could send the bulk of equipment to mars by slow cheap rocket (or perhaps by solar sail) and then use a faster rocket for the crew. I don't think four years+ in space is good for people, but I don't think the national leaders will care about the suffering of the astronaughts. If they're lucky they'll get a playstation with a copy of tetris. I think a low cost mission would send everything at once. It would be cheaper to send the extra supplies they'll need rather than the extra fuel for a faster trip. Of course, the faster the trip, the less time they'll have for something to go wrong and kill the astronauts.
Kibolonia
29-05-2005, 10:52
Make a movie! Just make sure it looks real.
Is OJ Simpson busy?

Failing that Sealaunch + Nuclear rocket
Commie Catholics
29-05-2005, 11:01
A giant ACME slingshot.
The Alma Mater
29-05-2005, 11:12
Launch a craft with an ion drive using a conventional missile to overcome earths gravity. Due to the low acceleration it will take a while - but the vessel will get there with a very low fuel consumption. Ignoring the risks and using a fission based powersource will also aid the trip.

Alternatively, grant a cockroach citizenship and send it to Mars in a small vehicle. Or perfect quantum teleporting to allow whole human teleportation (though if one does that reaching mars will no longer seem an accomplishment).
Daistallia 2104
29-05-2005, 12:05
You are the director of the space program of a powerful developing nation. Your leaders have instructed you to put at least one citizen on Mars before any other nation does. They only care about the prestige of being first. Science is secondary. They want you to bring the astronaut(s) back in one piece, but that isn’t as important as getting them there alive. However, you have a limited budget. What’s the cheapest way to put one or more people on mars? What ideas do you have to make the trip as cheap as possible?

It depends on the budget, but my solution would be to offer a significant portion (possibly the entire budget) as a reward to the first commerical enterprise that puts a man on Mars. This worked for the X PRIZE Foundation (http://www.xprizefoundation.com/).
Phylum Chordata
29-05-2005, 12:21
One of the heaviest, and thus expensive components, will be the mars lander. So rather than land it with supplies for an for a prolonged stay of months or even years, only have enough supplies for a week. Don't even pressurize it. The single astronaut spends the entire time in a space suit and is fed intraveniously. The astronaught dumps everything for the return trip to orbit, only taking only maybe 10 kilograms of rock samples. Once she returns to the orbiter, she stays in orbit for 18 months or however long it takes for the next launch window and the 2 year trip home. (Let's hope the playstation handset doesn't wear out in a hurry.)
Californian Refugees
29-05-2005, 15:07
The cheapest way: Don't be the one that pays for it. Get corporate sponsors. You might even be able to do it for free if you get a few of the biggest corporations on board (Coca-cola, Microsoft, McDonalds.......)
Phylum Chordata
29-05-2005, 16:56
Get corporate sponsors. You might even be able to do it for free if you get a few of the biggest corporations on board (Coca-cola, Microsoft, McDonalds.......)

Excellent idea. It might look a little tacky, but painting the capsule so it looks like a giant Pepsi can could rake in the cash. You could bring a basket ball hoop and film Nike commercials on Mars. The only danger is overloading your CO2 filter when you shoot the Pepsi commercial. (Pepsi is very carbonated, you know.)
Shadow Riders
29-05-2005, 20:08
Hitch a ride on an asteroid that travels outside the orbits of earth and mars annualy.Launch from the space station and return to it from the same asteroid. The Japanese have already successfuly tested landing on an asteroid.Use its momentum and save on fuel.

To Mars and back in three years. Not impossible nor even improbable.
Ph33rdom
29-05-2005, 20:39
The objective is speed and cheap, right?

Lead, lots and lots of the cheapest good ol’ metal there is, lead. Build your ship out of solid lead, many feet thick, to protect it’s occupants from radiation.

Make the bottom of the ship bowl shaped, and thick, really, really thick. Make yourself about a fifty thousand tactical nuclear warheads and a tube in the bottom of your ship that can launch them one or two at a time. Ignite about a hundred warheads, one at a time under your ship, to steadily launch your beast into orbit riding on the nuke clouds. Keep going until you're at mars... Land and take off again the same way, just point the ship backwards and lunch nukes in front of you to slow down…