Mars Missions

John Fedup

The Bunker Group

Well, it's official. Another race on whose first human. JFK officialy put race for first human to the moon, now PRC set race for first human to the Mars. Question is, whose the race will be with ? With NASA or with Ellon ?
As new electric vehicles emerge from established auto manufacturers Ellon may run out of money. Bezos could be NASA’s rival.
 

Sandhi Yudha

Well-Known Member

Well, it's official. Another race on whose first human. JFK officialy put race for first human to the moon, now PRC set race for first human to the Mars. Question is, whose the race will be with ? With NASA or with Ellon ?
|" While the nation's plans also call for a permanent Mars base, ...."|

For some reason i got a view of a Spratly Sea situation soon....


|" The schedule for these and additional phases are 2033, 2035, 2037, 2041, 2043, and more, according to the academy."|

China has three strong points.
1. It has a huge budget as the 2nd economy of the World.
2. Its willing to spend large amounts of money for prestige projects.
3. Its not a democracy, so no opposition.

But even then, the schedule above is quite optimistic.
 

bearnard19

Member
@bearnard19 Text deleted because you didn't provide a link to the source AND you copied and pasted without comment. I already gave you a green ink guidance earlier exactly about this. Your reply to my guidance wasn't in good taste. This is your first warning . Don't push your luck. Six demerit points for three months.

Ngatimozart.
 
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bearnard19

Member
China has launched three astronauts into orbit to begin occupation of the country's new space station.
The three men - Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo - are to spend three months aboard the Tianhe module some 380km (236 miles) above the Earth.
It will be China's longest crewed space mission to date and the first in nearly five years.
 

OPSSG

Super Moderator
Staff member
Neat video about Chinese Mars mission.

Thanks for sharing the video. Really cool to see the progress made.

Please write 2 lines or more in the next 10 posts. Kindly note that one-liners are a technical violation of forum rules that we only tolerate at times.
 

bearnard19

Member
Mars helicopter pushes its Red Planet limits.
The rotorcraft completed its 9th and most challenging flight yet, flying for 166.4 seconds at a speed of 5 m/s. Take a look at this shot of Ingenuity’s shadow captured with its navigation camera.
Mars Helicopter
 

bearnard19

Member
Some new pieces of news came from NASA is about to use Ingenuity, which has spent $ 80 million in development, to explore areas that a six-wheeled rover cannot reach, as well as to create 3D maps of the planet’s surface and solve other scientific problems. The purpose of the rover’s mission is to try to find traces of possible existence in the distant past of life on Mars.
 
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Ananda

The Bunker Group

Ingenuity Helicopter still work fine after 12th flight. Shown its value for scouting the routes for Perdeverance Rover. Put this article because it shown the routes being taken by both the rover and helicopter.

This duo combo team, shown more than expected previously plan by NASA. Guess this open the concept of extra terestrial aerial recon.
 

ngatimozart

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro

Ingenuity Helicopter still work fine after 12th flight. Shown its value for scouting the routes for Perdeverance Rover. Put this article because it shown the routes being taken by both the rover and helicopter.

This duo combo team, shown more than expected previously plan by NASA. Guess this open the concept of extra terestrial aerial recon.
It sure is an excellent piece of technology.

Reminds me of sitting with my Nana watching the Apollo 11 moon landing on the TV in glorious black and white. NZ didn't have colour TV in 1969. She was 11 when the Wright Brothers first flew and she said it was amazing to be sitting 66 years later watching man walking on the moon. At the age of 11 she had never seen a movie or heard the radio. We weren't watching the moon landing live either because NZ didn't have a satellite ground station either, so the government had a RNZAF Canberra bomber fly to Australia and bring back a video recording of the landing which was played on the national TV that night. It was one of the first network events in NZ TV history. 52 years later look at the advances in technology. It's quite staggering when you think about it. Wonder what my Nana would think about it all now?
 

StingrayOZ

Super Moderator
Staff member
Everyday Astronaut has a 3 video walk and talk interview with Elon. Very technical and weird, but quite a lot of interesting info and some great shots of what is going on. That he has a production facility to mass produce rockets.



 

ngatimozart

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Yep he's got quite an interesting facility at Boca Chico. I have been following it for a while. They are in the process of scrapping the Super Heavy Booster 3 which was used for a static test of 3 Raptor engines. The Super Heavy Booster has 29 Raptor engines. I have a Boca Chico thread on here.
 

Ananda

The Bunker Group
52 years later look at the advances in technology. It's quite staggering when you think about it. Wonder what my Nana would think about it all now?
Yes, and keep us wondering as the article says, if next century humanity can provide more or less similar show in other planets in other solar system as the article put.

Involvement on non public agency for commercial space travel is being predicted by some science fiction novels decades ago as part to make humanity will see space exploration can be economically viable. In the end commercial drive that makes Spain Monarch want to finance Columbus to sail and open new world for commercial interest (I don't want to put discovered, as he's not the ones that discovered American continent). If the Vikings also found commercial viability of American continent, perhaps European already coming to that continent centuries before the Spanish did.
 

ngatimozart

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Yes, and keep us wondering as the article says, if next century humanity can provide more or less similar show in other planets in other solar system as the article put.

Involvement on non public agency for commercial space travel is being predicted by some science fiction novels decades ago as part to make humanity will see space exploration can be economically viable. In the end commercial drive that makes Spain Monarch want to finance Columbus to sail and open new world for commercial interest (I don't want to put discovered, as he's not the ones that discovered American continent). If the Vikings also found commercial viability of American continent, perhaps European already coming to that continent centuries before the Spanish did.
The other point is that most commercial entities aren't burdened with the same bureaucracy and bureaucratic inertia that government programs are. Commercial companies are generally speaking, willing to take more risk and more innovative. They also are more driven to succeed because in order to survive they have to break even at the bare minimum, but actually turn a profit.
 

StingrayOZ

Super Moderator
Staff member
The other point is that most commercial entities aren't burdened with the same bureaucracy and bureaucratic inertia that government programs are. Commercial companies are generally speaking, willing to take more risk and more innovative. They also are more driven to succeed because in order to survive they have to break even at the bare minimum, but actually turn a profit.
Its interesting because some of Elons companies aren't primary motivated by profit, they have other missions, but they work within a capitalistic framework.

Tesla is building cars, however, profit isn't the primary motivator
SpaceX is building a spaceship to mars, however, profit isn't the primary motivator

They do however, work within the capitalistic frame work and can be agile and dynamic and fast moving. I think they are interesting case studies for the future of private enterprise. Wealth isn't perhaps the motivator in the west it used to be. People are now, generally, living comfortable lives, for the most part. People don't want to work for Tesla or SpaceX because they pay mega bucks, but because of the mission and the energy of the place. They get a decent wage, generally, but the primary drive is the mission.

This isn't really a modern, thing, collectives, and nonprofits have existed for centuries. What I guess has changes its a technology focused mission.

Its impressive. Building manned space rockets to mars, that are reusable and land back on earth, caught by a giant mechzilla isn't where commercialized space looked like it was going in the 1990's when we first started to talk about private space enterprise.

Elon has a whole thing about bureaucracy. Classic case of a smart person, listening to smart people, then implementing policy that works for an organisation. The video goes through a whole bunch of ideas, and how development should occur.


1. Make the requirements less dumb
The requirements are definitely dumb; it does not matter who gave them to you. He notes that it’s particularly dangerous if someone who is smart gives them the requirements, as one may not question the requirements enough. “Everyone’s wrong. No matter who you are, everyone is wrong some of the time.” He further notes that “all designs are wrong, it’s just a matter of how wrong.”

2. Try very hard to delete the part or process
If parts are not being added back into the design at least 10% of the time, not enough parts are being deleted. Musk noted that the bias tends to be very strongly toward “let’s add this part or process step in case we need it.” Additionally, each required part and process must come from a name, not a department, as a department cannot be asked why a requirement exists, but a person can.

3. Simplify and optimize the design
This is step three as the most common error of a smart engineer is to optimize something that should not exist.

4. Accelerate cycle time
Musk states “you’re moving too slowly, go faster! But don’t go faster until you’ve worked on the other three things first.”

5. Automate
An important part of this is to remove in-process testing after the problems have been diagnosed; if a product is reaching the end of a production line with a high acceptance rate, there is no need for in-process testing.

Additionally, Musk restated that he believes everyone should be a chief engineer. Engineers need to understand the system at a high level to understand when they are making a bad optimization. As an example, Musk noted that an order of magnitude more time has been spent reducing engine mass than reducing residual propellant, despite both being equally as important.


This stuff should be given to every first year engineering, science and business student. Touches on concepts of responsibility, design, execution, management, oversight, productivity. The organisations have learnt from the bureaucracy at places like NASA and even private companies in defence and aerospace. Elons musings are probably more appropriate for people operating in modern organisations, within development programs and cycles.

You can see how SpaceX is able to do a lot of progress in such a short space, something NASA never really was able to do, nor was it really set up to do that. NASA was about pulling together a National capacity. The rocket technology had already been developed, essentially before NASA existed, NASA was just going to execute a very large version of it. Von Braun was often heavily critical of NASA, famously saying "Every political system is flawed. And every bureaucracy is corrupt. ". Von Braun was another who was goal focused.
 

bearnard19

Member
The Curiosity Mars rover had managed to collect 32 Martian rock samples by using a drill attached to robotic arm. Pereverance rovere mission still keeps searching for signs of past life on the red planet by analyzing the chemical, mineral, physical and organic characteristics of the rocks.
 
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