If I understand right, the most efficient way to launch a manned Mars mission is to start from Earth orbit
– ie. you launch the crew and vehicle from orbit
– then slingshot round the moon
– this would require a significantly larger space station than the current ones…
– which would also require a next-generation Space Shuttle replacement, which is only on the drawing board and would cost…
– still completely neglecting the financial and international aspects..
– so you couldn’t launch the mission before, say, 2020 at the earliest
– neglecting the round-trip time of ~4yrs
– for propulsion, assume chemical, because fusion, ramjet and ion ramjet will not yet be feasible. Also, solar sailing is unfeasible for manned mission because it takes too long.
– regardless of whether economically and morally to do it at this point, my question is technically how could you do it?
Based on this:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Akh6vSOFdZq9kAsEUw5dAW3py6IX?qid=1006021010869
Nobody’s answered it yet. Ain’t nobody getting 10 pts here yet.
I already said for *manned* missions that ion propulsion and slingshotting asteroids make no sense, because you’re talking journey times of decades, multiply that by two. Also, the Asteroid Belt is not in the same plane as the planets, and they’re too small to slingshot.
The launch-from-moon idea is silly because you already had to haul all the material and escape the earth’s gravitational field to get there. That’s why you launch from earth orbit.
It’s a damn sight cheaper to only haul stuff to earth orbit than the moon.
