[BloodEagle]

To those who claim that we lack the proper engines to reach Mars: The Hell, you say.

[General Battuta]

I think VASIMR and its derivatives are probably a better bet.

[Ioustinos]

Sorry. But, seriously, nobody in this thread has seriously suggested (I think?) that space exploration is a bad idea. This is a FreeSpace fansite, after all.

I am.  If we do, we risk finding the Shivans much earlier than we should have.

[BloodEagle]

Sorry. But, seriously, nobody in this thread has seriously suggested (I think?) that space exploration is a bad idea. This is a FreeSpace fansite, after all.

I am.  If we do, we risk finding the Shivans much earlier than we should have.

Silly goose. It will be centuries before we expand enough for the Shivans to start destroying us.

[The E]

To those who claim that we lack the proper engines to reach Mars: The Hell, you say.

Yes, Project Orion. Loading a spaceship with a few hundred nukes that have to be transferred into orbit safely first. I can see that going down well with the security crowd.

[Ioustinos]

Sorry. But, seriously, nobody in this thread has seriously suggested (I think?) that space exploration is a bad idea. This is a FreeSpace fansite, after all.

I am.  If we do, we risk finding the Shivans much earlier than we should have.

Silly goose. It will be centuries before we expand enough for the Shivans to start destroying us.

We already attacked the moon, creating an alternate reality in which the Shivans may be really more angry!

[BloodEagle]

To those who claim that we lack the proper engines to reach Mars: The Hell, you say.

I can see that going down well with the security crowd.

And that has to do with my point... because?

[watsisname]

Why would we even need nuclear or ion drives for a Mars mission?  A direct Hohmann transfer takes less than a year and little more than 3km/s delta-v.  Perfectly within capabilities of conventional rockets I'd wager.  Now if you intended to send humans to NEPTUNE, then that's a different matter. xD

[Kosh]

Sorry. But, seriously, nobody in this thread has seriously suggested (I think?) that space exploration is a bad idea. This is a FreeSpace fansite, after all.

It's not a question of space exploration in general, it is a question of having people in space.

However, none of these are suitable for reaching the space and many of them are yet so weak as to be inferior to chemical drives in pretty much every aspect, but alternative propulsion does exist already.

True they can't reach space on their own, but they can be paired with other launch technologies. If you have something like a maglev launch assist ramp combined with a small chemical rocket, the nuclear rocket can take over once the craft is past a certain point in the upper atmosphere.

Actually NERVA was originally intended to be the upper stage of the Saturn V, which would let it be able to send out stuff to other planets.

The biggest problem with nuclear rockets (even though we need them to make interplanetary trips feasible) is the anti-nuclear scare mongering. Anyone remember the big hoopla 10 years ago when NASA launched Cassini, a probe with an RTG? 

[General Battuta]

Why would we even need nuclear or ion drives for a Mars mission?  A direct Hohmann transfer takes less than a year and little more than 3km/s delta-v.  Perfectly within capabilities of conventional rockets I'd wager.  Now if you intended to send humans to NEPTUNE, then that's a different matter. xD

With a VASIMR derivative (hypothetically) you could do it in weeks.

[watsisname]

Indeed, and that would greatly come in handy for any manned interplanetary mission, but the point I'm making is that with Mars being just one planet over, I don't understand the /need/ for the advanced drives to get there when we have more efficient means which are still reasonably fast enough.

If we were considering manned missions to an outer planet, let's say Jupiter, then it'd be a much bigger issue.  With conventional rockets, we don't have the capability to take a faster path and then slow down upon arrival, which means a ridiculously long trip and the problems of life-support, solar storms, radiation, etc.

[General Battuta]

Well, it hugely cuts down on your life support requirements and even puts a Mars 'base' in reasonable rescue range if something goes awfully wrong.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Didn't the europeans or India or something already find water on the moon? Is NASA just trying to upstage them with this little "let's make a crater" thing???

[BloodEagle]

Didn't the europeans or India or something already find water on the moon? Is NASA just trying to upstage them with this little "let's make a crater" thing???

Yes.

[General Battuta]

No. Making a debris plume allows for spectroscopic analysis of all kinds of stuff.

[Mongoose]

And this mission wasn't about proving "water on the Moon" in general so much as it was about proving the existence of significant amounts of ice in the permanently-dark regions of polar craters.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

What I'm wondering about is why NASA didn't send someone up there to scoop up a few containers of moon.

[karajorma]

What I'm wondering about is why NASA didn't send someone up there to scoop up a few containers of moon.

They did. But they could never prove that they weren't contaminated so they couldn't be certain it was water from the moon.

And this mission wasn't about proving "water on the Moon" in general so much as it was about proving the existence of significant amounts of ice in the permanently-dark regions of polar craters.

It was about that. They're just saying something different now cause they're annoyed the Indians beat them by a few weeks.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

They're just saying something different now cause they're annoyed the Indians beat them by a few weeks.

More like three and a half decades given the huge head-start the U.S. had over India.

[Mongoose]

And this mission wasn't about proving "water on the Moon" in general so much as it was about proving the existence of significant amounts of ice in the permanently-dark regions of polar craters.

It was about that. They're just saying something different now cause they're annoyed the Indians beat them by a few weeks.

Except that the instrument on the Indian satellite that discovered it was NASA-built, and the corroborating evidence was provided by two NASA probes, with Cassini's observations taking place ten years ago.