Space race to Mars in 1979 alternate timeline help, please

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I suppose research outpost is more accurate than colony.
But much more than fly-by / rock grab mission like Apollo.

Though how much time is necessary to get to colony stage is anyone's guess... assuming it's even possible without significant hand-waving.

With anything even conceivable in a non-magic TL7, you're looking at a 3-4 month stay at Mars, assuming you return at the next available Hohmann transfer window.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by RyanW

With anything even conceivable in a non-magic TL7, you're looking at a 3-4 month stay at Mars, assuming you return at the next available Hohmann transfer window.

Hohmann windows assume that scraping the edge of lowest delta V is necessary.
How quickly would the price climb outside of that window? Any idea how to calculate wider emergency windows with extra delta V?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Are you proposing a crew made up only of homosexuals?

Monks?

Elderly couples (straight or gay, it is not relevant) that have been together at least twenty years. Retired astronauts and their wives/husbands with vasectomies. Preferential treatment to couples that fit the criteria in which the non-astronaut partner is a geologist, physician, chemist, or other useful specialty.

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Anybody could have made thermonuclear weapons, it's not like Teller did it alone anyway. The Soviets had theirs not long after, and it's not clear if leaks really had anything do to with it.

Most of his fellow physicists didn't believe H-bombs could be made, the rest didn't believe they SHOULD be made. He made the case for them and followed it through.

There is no clear documentation the Soviets stole the ideas rather than came up with them. For them to follow the same path of mistakes and delays the American program did, though, seems unlikely.

The whole "no H-bombs during the 50s and 60s" is a relatively minor point in any case. Moon Race, then Mars Race, mania could overcome fears of pinpoint accurate H-bomb warheads. Maybe.

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Hohmann windows assume that scraping the edge of lowest delta V is necessary.
How quickly would the price climb outside of that window? Any idea how to calculate wider emergency windows with extra delta V?

This one shot mission idea isn't likely, is it?

You've already determined you have a supply ship reach Mars first. Why send only one? If you have the funding you may as well send a continuous caravan. Dumb supply ships sent on slow, Hohmann transfer orbits, astronauts sent via Orions.

I doubt they'd only build 1 Orion, although the first one is probably built as quickly as possible, to beat the Reds. The second one will be better thought out, but take a lot longer to get operational.

A one-way trip is pretty defeatist. Sending astronauts out to die on Mars would be a great propaganda win for the Soviets. A true colony might be decades away, but you still have corporate sponsorships, tech dispersal, and tourist dollars (in Earth/Moon orbit) to worry about. Sending a gang of old coots off to die in the most expensive tomb on record wouldn't help American prestige or corporate bottom lines.

[D10]

Might as well make mars a dying world and not a dead one by the time the astrounauts get there.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Self contained ecosystems can work fine as long as you're large enough and have occasional resupplies.
Nuclear submarines can last years between resupplies.

No, they can't. They have no ability to produce food, which is what limits their endurance. They don't even try to recycle water - they dump all their wastes into the ocean, and make more fresh water from the ocean water. They also electrolyse oxygen from the ocean water for atmosphere replenishment.

They aren't remotely closed systems in the way a spacecraft needs to be. There are a lot of useful lessons to be learned from them in how to cope with side products and contamination in a closed-cycle system, but they aren't prototypes.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Hohmann windows assume that scraping the edge of lowest delta V is necessary.
How quickly would the price climb outside of that window? Any idea how to calculate wider emergency windows with extra delta V?

Look at the pork-chop plot, which tells you exactly that.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Look at the pork-chop plot, which tells you exactly that.

How did a guy in 1761 come to be doing mathematical solutions of efficient interplanetary orbits? Did he actually envision space flight and reaction drives? Or was this simply an abstract exercise in intellectual curiosity? Most of the analytical mechanics I've read about from that era seems to have been tied to applications. . . .

Bill Stoddard

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by whswhs

How did a guy in 1761 come to be doing mathematical solutions of efficient interplanetary orbits? Did he actually envision space flight and reaction drives? Or was this simply an abstract exercise in intellectual curiosity? Most of the analytical mechanics I've read about from that era seems to have been tied to applications. . . .

Bill Stoddard

I understand that Lambert was working on finding an orbit given two observations of the object's position.