This wasn't a "stupid" question---I had wondered the same myself! Five astronauts in the CEV CM for 180 days to Mars?! One more person packed in there than for a three-day trip to the Moon?!
Then I read about the "Mars Transfer Vehicle", but searching for that gave me hits for previous human-spaceflight-to-Mars concepts and designs. And some mention of another "_____ [?] Transfer Vehicle" which was still difficult to pin down. I will look further using this more complete information.
Thank you all!
The CEV is not the living quarters for the Mars mission, the MTV is. The CEV goes along as a safe haven, and command center and earth entry vehicle
This was posted a while ago on another thread... for a European Mars plan... but it shows how going to Mars is soooo much more than a CEV and lander. It's a lot more like one (or more) ISS modules, with probably many levels of propulsion stages and tanks (each of which can be jettisoned when their task is completed), the CEV for earth entry, and of course, some form of lander(s). If you look on page 11 of this document... you'll see how the earth entry vehicle (i.e., CEV type capsule) is dwarfed by everything else.
ftp://ftp.estec.esa.nl/pub/aurora/Human_Missions_to_Mars/HMM_Executive_Summary_Final_Version.pdf
And for those who may not have seen this article at astronautix... here's a summary of many different Mars plans through the ages:
http://www.astronautix.com/craftfam/martions.htm
Pub,
DSD does not preclude the 150mT capacity of the Ares-V later. "Direct" costs less to develop than Ares-I does, so *if* the next three Presidents agree to provide the money for the bigger vehicle, it costs nothing extra compared to Ares.
But if they don't you don't lose the moon and Mars. The first vehicle is the critical one, not the second vehicle. If the second vehicle were to be cancelled, NASA isn't blocked from still going to the moon and Mars, they can still go with "Direct", but they couldn't with just Ares-I. CaLV is removed from the critical path.
Also evolving Direct into the ESAS CaLV is pretty easy compared to evolving the Stick into the 150mT-to-LEO ESAS CaLV design.
With the higher Isp of the SSME, the core does not have to be widened, and that massively reduces the costs of alterations to all the Pads, MLP's, VAB highbays, transport barges and tooling at MAF. All of that can largely remain as it is and work perfectly.
And there's no reason why you can't put a wider shroud on top of "Direct" either - this 10m diameter paylod shroud looks pretty good on top of DSD IMHO...
Ross.
Jim - 5/9/2006 12:57 PM
The CEV is not the living quarters for the Mars mission, the MTV is. The CEV goes along as a safe haven, and command center and earth entry vehicle
Right on!! If you look at page one of this thread, I recommended for my architecture a Mission Module used for the outbound leg. It could be a Double-SpaceHab, an inflatable or an armoured & upgraded 'double MPLM' ISS module. The habitable volume of such a Mission Module would be in excess of 2500 cubic feet, factoring in the stacks of consumables in the MM, which would enhance the radiation shielding abilities of the module anyway. You could count on there being polyethelene layers more than twice that needed for ISS or the walls of the CEV cabin. Or maybe the 'Block III' Orion would have thicker polyethelene anyway; more than 5-gram per cubic cm.
Just a note, the Spacehab doublemodule can't survive outside the shuttle and it is not very adaptable to other missions. The flat top reduces the volume and attachment areas
Those are all new builds and have nothing in common with the "classic" spacehab modules.
Jim - 5/9/2006 9:58 PM
Those are all new builds and have nothing in common with the "classic" spacehab modules.
Yesss... I KNOW that??!! I meant SpaceHab as a conceptual shorthand. I never meant to refurbish and use the old ones and --
Aww; you know what I meant
