Took a shot at creating some illustrations for one of my favorite Mars mission concepts
https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1kusbrs
Took a shot at creating some illustrations for one of my favorite Mars mission concepts
https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1kusbrs
7 Comments
[Link](http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/wendorff1/docs/aiaa-2009-5308.pdf) to a paper and an [animation](https://youtu.be/uUBhn3_P3hU?si=BRd_8PgfAuNErJ5e) if anyone’s interested
The DRM 5.0 Constellation architecture will always be my absolute favorite. It always felt so real, but remains so far away…
Great illustrations!
That’s a lot of fun speculation! But multi-launch missions are bad in the SLS era.
The massive expense of such concepts killed them. IMO any future similar proposals will be stillborn for the same reason. Until it’s around an order of magnitude cheaper, there’ll be no public appetite for the huge bill. That more or less demands significant reuse and/or very cheap standardized systems.
In a better timeline.
Humanity would actually be doing cool space stuff.
Earth to Mars is a non-starter.
However, Moon to Mars could work.
Assuming that Above Space Development (http://AboveSpace.com) actually succeeds in building the Voyager Space Station which would serve as a waystation to build a lunar colony, that colony could build the ships necessary to reach Mars.
Launching from the moon would enable using lighter structures, increasing the payloads available. Launching using an electromagnetic rail would conserve fuel allowing for either increased payloads or higher transit speeds.
From Voyager to lunar colony would take ~10 years if focused development took place. 2-4 years after that the first modules could be on their way. Moon to Mars would be achievable within two decades.
Constellation was a rather unrealistic program unfortunately. They handwave away all the supply problems.