My scientifically accurate science-fiction paper will be about the first trip and attempt to colonize Mars. I will talk about the trip itself, starting on Earth and ending with the landing, what happens once they get to Mars, and how life is once they settle in. I will mainly focus on the struggles and difficulties the colonists will face and how they will deal with and overcome them. I haven’t decided what perspective I’m going to write the paper in but I was considering writing it as either the first person view of either the captain or colonist or as a mission log type format.
SpaceX and Virgin Galactic
There is no definitive border between Earth’s atmosphere and what is considered space but the Karman line, 100 km above sea level,
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This may sound far-fetched but everything SpaceX is currently doing is helping them set up a future mission to Mars. Reducing the cost of rockets will help make the trip affordable and setting up a satellite based internet network around Earth and eventually Mars will allow for seamless communication between the two planets. Musk’s current vision of how to colonize Mars is to use what he is calling the Mars Colonial Transporter. The plan is for the MCT to be over 100 times the size of an SUV and able to take 100 tons of cargo or 100 people to Mars per trip. The MCT will be powered by the Raptor rocket engine currently under development by SpaceX. The Raptor will be a highly reusable, liquid methane powered engine capable of over ten times as much thrust as the Merlin 1D engines in the latest Falcon 9 rockets (NASA). It is currently speculated that the rocket will be ready for testing in the early 2020’s.
Virgin Galactic, one of SpaceX’s main competitors, is a company whose primary goal is to become the leader in space tourism. It was founded by Richard Branson and the Virgin Group in 2004 and is headquartered in Pasadena, California. Although Virigin Galactic hasn’t gotten any big contracts like SpaceX they have gotten investments in total of more than $680 million including around $200 million from the state of Nevada (Virgin Galactic). Virgin Galactic currently has one aircraft, the White Knight Two, one spaceship, SpaceShipTwo,
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It is carried by White Knight Two to an altitude of around 15 km where it is released and flies to 110 km (Space). Once into space the two crew members and six passengers will experience approximately 6 minutes of weightlessness before gliding back down to Earth and doing a conventional runway landing at a spaceport. A flight to suborbital space in SpaceShipTwo from liftoff to landing will last a total of two and a half hours and tickets are currently being sold for $250,000 (Virgin Galactic). Virgin has already sold more than 700 tickets with many big name celebrities on the list such as Stephen Hawking and Brad Pitt. The first commercial flight has been delayed multiple times by Virgin Galactic and Richard Branson’s most recent estimation was for its maiden trip is 2016. The most recent cause of delay was a crash of a SpaceShipTwo on October 31, 2014. Virgin was conducting a powered flight test when the spaceship broke apart in flight. The cause of the crash is still being investigated and sadly one of the pilots in the crash died and the other had serious
Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, has been trying to get a manned mission to Mars since 2002; it was the reason that he started his own business to build and improve on rocket technology.
We want to be able to go there and potentially create a “home” or a “base”. The first manned mission to Mars is supposedly going to be in 2030. No one quite knows when it’ll be, but scientists are trying their best.
With Flight 001 being a smaller company, they primarily focus on marking towards key demographics. Their target market are those in the fashion industry who love to travel. Flight 001 focuses on selling travel products that are fashionable and trendy. Both founders agreed to stay within the fashion industry and bring a new element into it. They sell luggage, guide
“There’s as much chance of repealing the Eighteenth Amendment as there is for a hummingbird to fly to the planet Mars with the Washington Monument tied to it’s tail” said Morris Sheppard. In my opinion we don’t need a man mission to Mars. A man mission to Mars is way too dangerous. First, it is way too cold on Mars for any living thing.
Musk conceptualized a project called “Mars Oasis,” in 2001, in which he would “land a miniature experimental greenhouse on Mars that contained seeds and dehydrating gel, after hydrating the gel the seeds would grow on Martian soil” (McKnight, 2001). The project was to regain a dwindling public interest in space exploration and increase the budget of NASA. Musk quickly realized that the expense of getting to Mars was far greater than he expected and that there would need to be a breakthrough in rocket technology. Musk traveled the world meeting with different rocket builders and space engineers in hopes of finding the right rocket builder and the right price to make his project a reality but did not find a suitable candidate. Musk had the idea of creating a company that could build the rockets that he needed at a fraction of the cost. Musk saw opportunity where others saw dead ends. He hired renowned rockets engineers and opened a facility in El Segundo, California, called SpaceX. “Musk decided SpaceX’s first rocket would be named Falcon 1, a nod to Star Wars’ Millennium Falcon” (Vance, 2015). A few of SpaceX’s achievements include: the first privately funded, liquid-fueled rocket (Falcon 1) to reach orbit (28 September 2008), the first privately funded company to successfully launch (Falcon 9) orbit and recover a spacecraft (9 December 2010), the first private company to send a spacecraft 9Dragon) to the International Space Station (25 May 2012) and the first private company to send a satellite into geosynchronous orbit. In 2011, Musk stated that he hopes to “send humans to Mars’ surface within 10-20 years and believes that by 2035 at the latest, there will be
If these discoveries of possibilities of ice (which results in water) on Mars go further into research then it could be a place for humans to live. Earth is the most habitable planet but Mars is second, because the soil has water but the climate is extremely harsh and cold, the atmosphere of Mars is 100 times thinner than Earth’s and has 95% of carbon dioxide. Mars can be a place to live but there are so many cons that it might not be possible. The Phoenix has three vertebrae back bones, a robotic arm, a robotic camera, two sets of solar arrays, thermal and gas analyser, mars descender, and meteorological station. To us the Phoenix spacecraft looks like a bird because the solar panels act as the wings and the robotic arm acts as the head. The companies that were involved with the spacecraft were the NASA’S Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Canadian Space Agency, MacDonald Dettwiler, Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Associates, Finnish Meteorological Institute and other aerospace companies. The Phoenix is important to the economy of Canada because there could be hopes for human exploration and future robotic
After the Earth, Mars is the most habitable planet in our solar system. Its soil contains water and when compared to our neighbor planets, Mars isn’t too cold or too hot. There is enough sunlight to use solar panels and its gravity is 38% that of our Earth’s, which is believed by many to be sufficient for the human body to adapt to in a healthy fashion. It has an atmosphere, albeit a thin one that offers protection from cosmic and sun’s radiation. Another important point is also the day and night rhythm, which is very similar, that of Earth: a Mars day is 24hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds. According to the data gasses like carbon dioxide and nitrogen are found in the atmosphere of Mars which can be used to grow plants through hydroponics.
Overpopulation and sustainability are growing concerns for the future of Earth. Time is running out on Earth as population continually increases. Such a large population will put a strain on Earth’s resources and environment. Fortunately, there are many ways in which people are working to lessen and slow these issues on Earth. Despite their efforts, it is still evident that a future on Earth will be a precarious one, so alternate options are being explored. Elon Musk, founder of Space X, has proposed a plan to colonize Earth’s neighboring planet, Mars. NASA, Mars One, and several other corporations have also expressed similar interest in colonizing this planet. Mars would not be a replacement for earth, but instead it would
The objectives for the first goal will be to confirm water resources and identify hazards along with putting in mars power, mining, and life support structures. A second mission, with both cargo and crew, is wanted to be targeted for 2024, with primary goal of building a propellant depot ( a propellant that is placed in orbit around Earth or another body to allow spacecraftand), and preparing for future crew flights. The shuttles that will be sent to Mars will also serve as the beginnings of the first Mars base, from which they can build a city and eventually a self civilization on
Mars a small, reddish planet that is the fourth in order from the Sun and is periodically visible to the naked eye. Mars is the second-smallest planet in the solar system only Mercury is smaller. In comparison to Earth, Mars is about half (53 percent) the size of Earth, but considering Mars is a desert planet, it has the same amount of dry land as Earth. Mars has a diameter of 4, 222 miles (6, 794 km), but from pole to pole the diameter would be 4,196 mile (6,752 km). Also, of course the radius of Mars would be half of the diameter. The circumference of Mars around the equator is approximately 13,000 miles (21, 342 km), but from pole-to-pole Mars is only 13,200 miles (21,144 km) around. This shape is called an oblate spheroid, an oblate
Of course, SpaceX sells medium to heavy class payloads to LEO, GTO, or polar orbits. However, this is just how SpaceX pays their bills. SpaceX ’s long-term goal is to colonize Mars, à la Europe colonizing the Americas. In September of this year, SpaceX will reveal the plans for their new rocket, the BFR, and payload, the MCT (“I Am Elon Musk, AMA”).
Going to the moon took 24.4 billion dollars for the Apollo program. Even though technology has vastly improved in the space travel department, sending the first four astronauts to Mars will “Mars One estimates the cost at US six billion dollars” said Mars One. NASA and other space organizations have been trying to go to Mars for a long time. In fact, the first spacecrafts to land on Mars was in the 1970’s by Viking 1 and Viking 2. The initial astronauts going to Mars are going to need costly shipments of food and oxygen tanks. The satellite for the astronauts to communicate with people on Earth will cost 425 million US dollars. Without even worrying about the cost of going to Mars there are all the problems here on Earth related to money. Nearly one half of Earth’s human population lives on two dollars and fifty cents per day! Spending money on things that will make the world a better place would make a lot more sense, such as donating to places like Crisis Nursery. The nursery is a child care center if something urgent comes up in a person’s life, like someone in the hospital, and there is not someone to watch that person's children. Money could also be donated to charities that help repopulate endangered species or other nature problems, instead of on a rocket or landing pod that might just blow up before it reaches Mars. A spaceship actually landing on Mars without incident is approximately thirty percent chance. Colonizing Mars has the vast issue of
Colonizing Mars will be one of the largest challenges humans will face, but it will also be one of the greatest. People should go to Mars for many different reasons. Mars is capable of becoming a habitable planet for earthlings. It can support humans, but it must be prepared first. We must colonize Mars to help it sustain our needs.
Earth is face with an extreme problem. The University of North Carolina, of which I am apart, has decided to send a fifty people to Mars. Fifty people will have the chance to visit the new world in mars. This apocalypse is upon us and we only have a month to evaluate and send fifty people to mars. They will live, and procreate, thereby allowing the continuation of human life on planet Mars and set up a colony across mars. The staff of UNCG have to come up with a way to select fifty people and it want be easy. Although, the method of selection will be a lottery, there will be a clearing process before the names are entered. This will be done to levitate the confusion of the people of UNCG community. Being a part of the group as we want Mars
The competition between SpaceX and Boeing started a week after Elon Musk the CEO of SpaceX, unveiled his ambitious plan to colonize mars. After that statement, Dennis Muilenburg the CEO of Boeing announced that they also have sights on sending people to Mars. He stated during a conference in Chicago “I am convinced that the first person to step foot on Mars will arrive there riding on a Boeing rocket”(Thorbecke).