Why are they talking about usuing so much Fuel to get to Mars, when 5 years ago they announced?

Question

That they were going to use the Moon's Gravitational Field to slingshot them to Mar's?

They got the idea from what the Apollo 13 Crew did to get back to earth.

From the conference I remember NASA officials said that they would have fuel for emergency and for taking off from Mar's surface. But then they would also use Mar's Gravitational Field to slingshot them back to Earth.

So what's the deal with this recent news, where they are talking about needing lots of fuel for burning rockets in this mission?

NASA seems to be changing a lot recently . They scrapped the New Shuttle Program for an Apollo style rocket, and they are changing they're plans for the moon, and changing they're plans on how to get to Mar's.

What is going on with NASA?

Answer 1

Ever think the gravitational "sling-shot" is not powerful enough, plus to get back, you need fuel.

Answer 2

THAT IS THE SAME QUESTION I AM WONDERING ABOUT.

SEE MY QUESTION AT http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

FOR MORE INFORMATION!!!!

Answer 3

The Space Shuttle was cool and all but much larger than it needed to be, and the wings were added to satisfy a cross range requirement that the Air Force needed.

.

Slingshot trajectories can add years to a space flight and you have to bring enough fuel and supplies for the entire trip with you. There is no way to leave the surface of Mars and then use the planets gravity as a sling shot.  There are times of the year when the planets are best aligned for travel between them.

Any trip to Mars will be a logistic nightmare.  When you start to figure all the tons of fuel, supplies, water, and oxygen you will have to bring along with you, you have to begin to realize that a Mars mission ship will have to be large.  Large equates to expensive.  If recoverable water can be found on Mars it could mean all the difference.  Water can be broken down into it's two components, oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for fuel.  Living off the land so to speak will be the way that mankind will explore Mars.  

.

A Mars mission will very risky for the crew.  It will require redundancy surpassing even what was achieved for Apollo.  A crew return space craft may be sent to Mars unmanned while the astronauts will travel to the planet in an identical craft also capable of returning to Earth. This dual space craft idea leaves one on the surface for use as a habitat.  The atmosphere of Mars can also be easily converted to methane fuel.  

.

We are a very long way from sending humans to Mars.  NASA wants to practice and develop the capabilities of living off the Earth by building a Moon base.

.

Answer 4

You have to use up quite a bit of fuel to launch from the Moon.  But Mars has more gravity.  A launch from the surface of Mars requires that much more fuel.

Just getting to Mars requires less fuel than getting to the Moon.  For one thing, you can use the Mars atmosphere to slow you down during orbital capture and landing.  The distance is much greater to Mars, but that isn't much of a factor.

There's also the radiation problem.  If you are sending humans to Mars, you can reduce the radiation with shielding.  You can also reduce the radiation by sending your astronauts there quicker.  That takes more fuel.

The fuel needed to get to Mars has always been high.

There have been lots of New Shuttle concepts.  But the Shuttle is very expensive, and the reentry problem that downed Columbia has not been solved.  The new Ares rockets do build on the SRB rockets that have been used with success in the Shuttle program.  I'm not sure if the first stage Ares SRB will be reused as it was with the Shuttle.

We really need to solve these problems to get to Mars: radiation and cosmic ray shielding.  Artificial gravity for the astronauts en route.  Growing your own food.  And possibly, propulsion to shorten the trip.

Answer 5

I haven't heard about this new news you're talking about, but I do know that they'll still need fuel to get there, and, even if they use this moon strategy, they'll still need fuel to get back.

I'm heard they they plan on sending fuel ahead to Mars, so it'll already be there for their return trip.  An alternate plan to this is that there is supposedly something in Mars atmosphere that can be converted into fuel, and NASA can send some sort of collector/factory to make the fuel (I read about this a few years ago, and don't have any more information/source on it).

As far as the shuttles' retirement date, The fleet is getting old.  NASA does an overhaul of each of the remaining three before each trip into space.  Project Apollo's craft was powerful enough to carry us past Earth orbit.  We're going to need that again when we go back to the moon, and onto Mars.

Answer 6

This may have to do with the orbit of mars and its relatioship to earth orbit.  There is an optimal window for a closest point of approach of the red planet which would cetainly impact the amount of fuel required.   It can take years to wait for another optimal launch window for CPA.

Also time of flight to mars would not be an issue for unmaned flights but certainly would be an issue for manned flights. A slower gravitational slingshot and or longer flight path would require a larger craft and more stores. Perhaps traditional rocket propelled trajectory would allow a more direct route and perhaps faster speed with a net result of shorter flight time.