The best first step towards a manned mission to Mars would be the
development of a space elevator, which is probably a decade of so from
having all the pieces necessary.
Right now the cost per kilo of getting things out of the gravity well is
too high to allow for anything but a barest bones trip; more PR than
science. Until the price comes down a lot getting the propulsion plant,
fuel/reaction mass, supplies, and shielding is prohibitive.
Personally, I would like to see a lot more robotic missions, to Mars,
the Moon, and Jupiter. I think we have reached a point where the
capabilities of unmanned craft are so high that space travel will have
to be almost free before the trade-off is in favor of manned missions.
-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
[mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of
JPreisig at aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2011 2:25 PM
To: radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Mission to Mars
Hello Again,
This is from: _jpreisig at aol.com_ (mailto:jpreisig at aol.com) .
Dr. Raabe is probably right in that early missions to Mars will
be
chemically propelled.
Then a less uptight country like China will beat us to Mars (a ma
nned mission) using a nuclear
propelled spacecraft, in tandem with a chemically propelled liftoff from
Earth. One could assemble the
reactor spaceship from parts sent to the international space station.
Then launch that bad boy
spaceship.
Once the shuttle program ends, NASA scientists and engineers will
tire of twiddling their thumbs, and
will start to get going on a nuclear propelled spacecraft, as suggested
by
the professor from
IIT.
Glory be, I had forgotten about fast neutron reactors. Fast
neutrons and enriched Uranium or
Plutonium could lead to a one way Mars travel time of less than 2
months???!!!! Whoa.
Star trek, here we come.
I am not too familiar with what happened with the fire (and
plutonium) at Rocky Flats.
I think remediation there went on for quite some time. Hope the fire
doesn't affect Los Alamos.
Did terrorists set these fires???
Goodness, Americium on US car air filters??? (Americium in my
Maypo
or Grape Nuts
breakfast cereal). My heavens, isn't Americium considerably heavier
than
air? Does it actually
get to the USA from Japan or is it here from bomb testing way back
when????
NaI detectors for gamma spectrometry --- hmmmm, only if there is
no
Ge detector around????
Nice internal dosimetry job at Brookhaven for someone right now.
See
their web site.
Be good. Regards, Joseph R. (Joe) Preisig, PhD
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