Plan to colonize the moon and mars.

[spacester]

Just calling it a "challenge" doesn't really justify the exercise. I am very much in favour on space exploration as a way, when we can afford it, of investigating our world. Limited manned adventures and a huge number of unmanned projects can do this. Just going there to rubberneck and say you've been there actually achieves very little. It's like taking an expensive boat trip to the Antarctic just for the sake of it and at the same time, polluting the place a bit more.

Of those who talk about our future in space there are IMO two types: those who see the establishment of a space-faring civilization as a worthy end in and of itself, and those who do not. I am of course of the first faction. The supposition is that the investment (not cost) will be worth it many times over. As it is a mere supposition, I am not able to prove a darn thing. Formulating a proof necessarily requires formulating a plan.

I have to suppose that those who do not see space-faring capability as a worthy goal unless it comes cheap do not understand that the history of mankind is all about extending our reach until we can grasp that which was formerly well beyond us.

 

[spacester]

This is what inspired the SSTO to von braun station part of my plan

Very cool. I saw that movie when it first came out. I'm old. But I can still dream. I like it.

A. C. Clarke was a giant. Have you read his novels and short stories?

Did you know that he was one of a small handful of guys who developed the use of radar for aircraft landings at night and in inclement weather? WWII. He wrote a semi-fiction book called 'Glide Path" about it.

 

[Scia]

Very cool. I saw that movie when it first came out. I'm old. But I can still dream. I like it.

A. C. Clarke was a giant. Have you read his novels and short stories?

Did you know that he was one of a small handful of guys who developed the use of radar for aircraft landings at night and in inclement weather? WWII. He wrote a semi-fiction book called 'Glide Path" about it.

Yes a great man

 

[spacester]

Not many people are telling me if its feasible or not.

It isn't.

There, are you happy now?

What it is, is a heck of a good start.

My main problem with it is the SSTO plane. IMO it is a fool's errand to develop such a vehicle. It's a rocket equation thing. Virtually no one who works more than a little bit with the rocket equation soon realizes that it is not the way to go.

It is elegant, pretty, inspiring and utterly impractical.

Orbital refueling (and re-oxidizering) is the answer IMO. Add that capability to current rockets and off we go.

 

[Scia]

It isn't.

There, are you happy now?

What it is, is a heck of a good start.

My main problem with it is the SSTO plane. IMO it is a fool's errand to develop such a vehicle. It's a rocket equation thing. Virtually no one who works more than a little bit with the rocket equation soon realizes that it is not the way to go.

It is elegant, pretty, inspiring and utterly impractical.

Orbital refueling (and re-oxidizering) is the answer IMO. Add that capability to current rockets and off we go.

so the only impractical part if the SSTO plane?
I really only need to get to the station with a completely reusable craft. The virgin galactric idea would work.

 

[spacester]

so the only impractical part if the SSTO plane?
I really only need to get to the station with a completely reusable craft. The virgin galactric idea would work.

Well to some people the whole thing is impractical, lol.

A VASIMR powered spin-gravity ship is IMO essential for what we want to do.

The Lunar lander and Mars lander parts make perfect sense to me as well. Specific vehicles for each major chunk of delta V expended. Certainly this idea of landing on Mars without going into orbit first is not going to work for large payloads. And if we are looking at a lunar industrial park, we need up/down capabilty on a regular basis and a vehicle dedicated to doing just that is needed. Note that L-1, from a delta V standpoint, is very close to lunar orbit, and that the lumpy gravity of the moon requires more than a little orbital maintenance whereas L-1 is basically stable in comparison.

Having perhaps abandoned the Von Braun station and the SSTO, you probably need to reformulate the big picture and re-present the next version.

 

[spacester]

I worked up a basic design for what I call an "Interplanetary Cruiser" a few years back, based on 4 BA-330 habitats. This would rotate at 3 rpm to produce 1 g of spin-gravity.

Also check out
http://www.spacefuture.com/
search on 'gravity'

 

[Scia]

Well to some people the whole thing is impractical, lol.

A VASIMR powered spin-gravity ship is IMO essential for what we want to do.

The Lunar lander and Mars lander parts make perfect sense to me as well. Specific vehicles for each major chunk of delta V expended. Certainly this idea of landing on Mars without going into orbit first is not going to work for large payloads. And if we are looking at a lunar industrial park, we need up/down capabilty on a regular basis and a vehicle dedicated to doing just that is needed. Note that L-1, from a delta V standpoint, is very close to lunar orbit, and that the lumpy gravity of the moon requires more than a little orbital maintenance whereas L-1 is basically stable in comparison.

Having perhaps abandoned the Von Braun station and the SSTO, you probably need to reformulate the big picture and re-present the next version.

Abandon the SSTO? probably, I do need a way to get to LEO with a reusable ship though.

But not the von braun station. I was thinking you could use bigelow aerospace inflatable habitats for the wheel part.

 

[Scia]

I worked up a basic design for what I call an "Interplanetary Cruiser" a few years back, based on 4 BA-330 habitats. This would rotate at 3 rpm to produce 1 g of spin-gravity.

Also check out
http://www.spacefuture.com/
search on 'gravity'

Have any documents of it?

 

[Scia]

This is an update I am still working on the plan

-Outline-
I was recently thinking of a way to get to colonize Mars and the moon and provide cheap travel between them, after building space infrastructure. First we put a von braun station in an orbit around the earth, Then we take reusable spacecraft and dock with the station. After that we take a small shuttle using VASIMR technology to a second station orbiting the moon. Then use an advanced lunar lander to get to the moons surface. Once on the moon build factories there to create more space infrastructure. In the long run it's cheaper to launch things off of the moon. I envision a future where the only things carried off of Earth are humans. Then once you have a lunar industry going you can create an orbital shipyard to create a fleet of interplanetary spacecraft .

Then we can reliably colonize the red planet. While we are colonizing the moon and building factories, stations, and spacecraft we should utilize the Mars to stay plan. the point being to establish a presense on the red planet while we build the infastrure required to make cheap reliable trips there possible. Now the interplanetary ships to get to Mars and back would use centrifuges to simulate gravity on the 39 day voyage much like the centrifuge used on the von braun stations. Also when they get to Mars they will need to use a Mars lander due to the fact that VASIMR powered craft can only operate in space and does not have suiable thrust to escape a planet's or moon's gravity.

Now the reason the moon is more cost effective in the long run is that to colonize Mars we need suplies carried there. At 1/6 of Earth's gravity those launches over a long peroid of time would make it far easier/cheaper. The main point of this plan is to create a long term plan for the colonization of Mars and eventualy the solar system.

-Vehicles and infrastructure-

Interplanetary craft:
Earth station to moon station stuttle:
Earth to LEO reusable spacecraft :
Von braun station:
moon factories:

-Pros and cons-

Pros
1.Everything is reusable once the project is completed
2.Much cheaper in the long run.
3.It will allow reliable cheap travel to the moon and eventually mars.
4. The VASIMR shuttle only needs solar power and argon to function in Earth to moon distances.

Cons
1.Large upfront cost.
2.You need to devolp new advanced nuclear technology to power the interplanetary ships.
-Misc-

Links:
VASIMR:http://www.adastrarocket.com/aarc/
Mars to stay:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_to_Stay
Von braun stations:http://www.astronautix.com/craft/vonation.htm

 

[Scia]

Can some mod move this to the aerospace engineering board?

 

[spacester]

Have any documents of it?

Any documents on my Cruiser? Um not really, I mean there are calcs behind it, the 3D models of the BA-330s are accurate (as of when I did it), but nothing presentable.

Did you check out Space Future? If you want a von braun ship (wouldn't that be great?) you will want to understand about Coriolis effects and start picturing some of the configuration decisions.

 

[Scia]

Any documents on my Cruiser? Um not really, I mean there are calcs behind it, the 3D models of the BA-330s are accurate (as of when I did it), but nothing presentable.

Did you check out Space Future? If you want a von braun ship (wouldn't that be great?) you will want to understand about Coriolis effects and start picturing some of the configuration decisions.

Yes i checked the site out.

 

[spacester]

This is an update I am still working on the plan

-Outline-
I was recently thinking of a way to get to colonize Mars and the moon and provide cheap travel between them, after building space infrastructure. First we put a von braun station in an orbit around the earth, Then we take reusable spacecraft and dock with the station. After that we take a small shuttle using VASIMR technology to a second station orbiting the moon. Then use an advanced lunar lander to get to the moons surface. Once on the moon build factories there to create more space infrastructure. In the long run it's cheaper to launch things off of the moon. I envision a future where the only things carried off of Earth are humans. Then once you have a lunar industry going you can create an orbital shipyard to create a fleet of interplanetary spacecraft .

Then we can reliably colonize the red planet. While we are colonizing the moon and building factories, stations, and spacecraft we should utilize the Mars to stay plan. the point being to establish a presense on the red planet while we build the infastrure required to make cheap reliable trips there possible. Now the interplanetary ships to get to Mars and back would use centrifuges to simulate gravity on the 39 day voyage much like the centrifuge used on the von braun stations. Also when they get to Mars they will need to use a Mars lander due to the fact that VASIMR powered craft can only operate in space and does not have suiable thrust to escape a planet's or moon's gravity.

Now the reason the moon is more cost effective in the long run is that to colonize Mars we need suplies carried there. At 1/6 of Earth's gravity those launches over a long peroid of time would make it far easier/cheaper. The main point of this plan is to create a long term plan for the colonization of Mars and eventualy the solar system.

-Vehicles and infrastructure-

Interplanetary craft:
Earth station to moon station stuttle:
Earth to LEO reusable spacecraft :
Von braun station:
moon factories:

-Pros and cons-

Pros
1.Everything is reusable once the project is completed
2.Much cheaper in the long run.
3.It will allow reliable cheap travel to the moon and eventually mars.
4. The VASIMR shuttle only needs solar power and argon to function in Earth to moon distances.

Cons
1.Large upfront cost.
2.You need to devolp new advanced nuclear technology to power the interplanetary ships.
-Misc-

Links:
VASIMR:http://www.adastrarocket.com/aarc/
Mars to stay:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_to_Stay
Von braun stations:http://www.astronautix.com/craft/vonation.htm

NICE!

My first test of a proposed space architecture is self-consistency, and the second test is consistency with real world technology. Your plan is not too shabby by those tests, not bad at all really.

But it looks like you've got a long ways to go for my third test (btw I've been doing this for years, these tests aren't something I'm just now making up). What is the first step?

To state the obvious, building a von braun station in LEO is certainly beyond our current capability. But is it beyond current technology? Meaning: Can we start designing the craft stem to stern right now, or are their 'enabling technologies' that need to be developed first?

Certainly one of these enabling techs, or "risks to be retired" is to conceive and develop and deploy hardware to do the assembling. Central to this solution will be the need for some kinds of vehicles to move things around and do manufacturing ops, IOW maneuverability, IOW delta V. This ability to get around and do things would presumably require conventional thrusters and engines, it's not like they would all have VASIMR drives.

Are you assuming we need to go with the current fleet of EELVs (including Falcon 9 and considering Falcon 9 Heavy) to get the mass up there? (I have an alternative for that in mind btw).

How would you arrange the BA-330 in a wheel? The problem is that you need a large radius to create a benign environment. The main point of posting my cruiser's image was to show the scale of the ship compared to the BA-330s themselves. It has a 100 meter spin radius, which at 3 rpm turns out to be very close to 1.0 gee. Neat trick of the math when you plug in 3 RPM: divide the spin radius in meters by 100 and you have the gee force equivalent at that radius.

3 rpm is not at all arbitrary. There is only a tiny amount of research on this subject, but in my judgment after reviewing it anything faster than 3 rpm is not going to provide the benign environment I seek.

So you could reduce the spin radius to 38 meters and get Mars-level spin gravity (0.38 g) at 3 rpm. Perhaps one mode of operation would be to spin up as required to get 1.0 g, and perhaps the Coriolis forces and other strangeness would be no big deal.

We won't know until we do it, actually. It might be bad news, and we have to have a big radius like mine, or maybe it turns out that as long as you've got *some* gravity, you're good to go for long term stays. It amazes me how few answers we have to this question, and I've been meaning to find out if Obama's NASA is pursuing anything along these lines. We need that research to inform our designs.

So how many BA-330s would you be looking at? You'll have to look up the numbers yourself, my craft's calcs are buried I know not where. Bigelow's site should have dimensions.

Oh, and how many crew on a Mars voyage are you looking at? I was thinking, using a swag, 7 people per BA-330.

 

[spacester]

Yes i checked the site out.

"Required Reading"

Displaying 1 to 10 of 189 matches for gravity

1.
87%
Artificial Gravity and the Architecture of Orbital Habitats
T Hall, 20 March 1997...
2.
86%
Inhabiting Artificial Gravity
T Hall, 28-30 September 1999...
3.
82%
The Architecture of Artificial Gravity: Theory, Form, and Function in the High Frontier
T Hall, 1995...

Ted Hall is (was?) the man on this subject. To go anywhere in our space fantasies, we must stand on the shoulders of giants.

There may or may not be a test, lol.

 

[spacester]

Here's the formula:
R = (9.81 * G) / [(pi * rpm) / 30]^2
Where
R is the radius in meters
G is the desired g-force (fraction of normal Earth gravity)
rpm is revolutions per minute

If you have a 38 meter spin radius and you spin at 3 rpm,
G = (R / 9.81) * [(pi * rpm) / 30]^2
G = (38 / 9.81) * [(pi * 3) / 30]^2 = 0.382 which is very close to the gravity on Mars.
If you increase the rotation to 4.2 rpm, you get 75% of Earth Normal and at 4.85 rpm you get full Earth Normal gravity. Well not all that "normal?, is it? :D

 

[Scia]

NICE!

My first test of a proposed space architecture is self-consistency, and the second test is consistency with real world technology. Your plan is not too shabby by those tests, not bad at all really.

But it looks like you've got a long ways to go for my third test (btw I've been doing this for years, these tests aren't something I'm just now making up). What is the first step?

To state the obvious, building a von braun station in LEO is certainly beyond our current capability. But is it beyond current technology? Meaning: Can we start designing the craft stem to stern right now, or are their 'enabling technologies' that need to be developed first?

Certainly one of these enabling techs, or "risks to be retired" is to conceive and develop and deploy hardware to do the assembling. Central to this solution will be the need for some kinds of vehicles to move things around and do manufacturing ops, IOW maneuverability, IOW delta V. This ability to get around and do things would presumably require conventional thrusters and engines, it's not like they would all have VASIMR drives.

Are you assuming we need to go with the current fleet of EELVs (including Falcon 9 and considering Falcon 9 Heavy) to get the mass up there? (I have an alternative for that in mind btw).

How would you arrange the BA-330 in a wheel? The problem is that you need a large radius to create a benign environment. The main point of posting my cruiser's image was to show the scale of the ship compared to the BA-330s themselves. It has a 100 meter spin radius, which at 3 rpm turns out to be very close to 1.0 gee. Neat trick of the math when you plug in 3 RPM: divide the spin radius in meters by 100 and you have the gee force equivalent at that radius.

3 rpm is not at all arbitrary. There is only a tiny amount of research on this subject, but in my judgment after reviewing it anything faster than 3 rpm is not going to provide the benign environment I seek.

So you could reduce the spin radius to 38 meters and get Mars-level spin gravity (0.38 g) at 3 rpm. Perhaps one mode of operation would be to spin up as required to get 1.0 g, and perhaps the Coriolis forces and other strangeness would be no big deal.

We won't know until we do it, actually. It might be bad news, and we have to have a big radius like mine, or maybe it turns out that as long as you've got *some* gravity, you're good to go for long term stays. It amazes me how few answers we have to this question, and I've been meaning to find out if Obama's NASA is pursuing anything along these lines. We need that research to inform our designs.

So how many BA-330s would you be looking at? You'll have to look up the numbers yourself, my craft's calcs are buried I know not where. Bigelow's site should have dimensions.

Oh, and how many crew on a Mars voyage are you looking at? I was thinking, using a swag, 7 people per BA-330.

Yes the sad thing is I had never taken a physics class in my life(i will next year+advanced trigonometry)

After i get the mathmatical and physics down i will work out the specifics of the plan

 

[Scia]

So anyone else have any opinions of my revised plan?

 

[Scia]

So any new ideas to improve the plan?

 

[sophiecentaur]

any good plan needs a timescale. We're talking in terms of at least une hundred years for this one. When you consider a really worthwhile project like Fusion, that's the order of magnitude involved and, until energy ceases to be a problem, the Dan Dare stuff will not be affordable. There are one or two other projects that could also be said to have priority.

 

[Scia]

any good plan needs a timescale. We're talking in terms of at least une hundred years for this one. When you consider a really worthwhile project like Fusion, that's the order of magnitude involved and, until energy ceases to be a problem, the Dan Dare stuff will not be affordable. There are one or two other projects that could also be said to have priority.

Well I don't know the timescale it depends on how much funding the project gets.

 

[Pattonias]

You could start by researching the process by which a group could receive funding for a project of this magnitude. Setting yourself up as a future subject matter expert could one day be very important.

 

[sophiecentaur]

A rough costing in units of GDP might be interesting, too.

(What a curmudgeon! LOL)

 

[Pattonias]

A rough costing in units of GDP might be interesting, too.

(What a curmudgeon! LOL)

Do you want him to summarize the percentage in terms of the entire project from start to finish which may span a hundred years, or do you want him to break it up into smaller steps that would make the cost accessible. Why not offer some real advice on the matter?

Theorize how he could accomplish this instead of telling him it is impossible. Do you really think that we will be confined to the planet for eternity due the impossibly high cost, or do you think that people like this guy will eventually get us there with steady vision and determined process?


http://www.virgingalactic.com/" isn't waiting around for anyones permission to push forward.

 

[sophiecentaur]

I actually, seriously doubt that space colonisation will be a reality within hundreds of years because there is so little in it for us compared with the cost. It may be one of the sexiest idea around but it is way at the back of a very long queue of justifiable "challenges".
The very name "Virgin Galactic" says it all. What is "galactic" about the project"? It's a Fun Project in which a few rich people will see a black sky, felt microgravity and feel that they've been 'in space'. Mr B has spotted an excellent and possibly achievable commercial venture - good luck to him. But that's all it is. The numbers count in engineering and space colonisation needs to satisfy cost-benefit analysis to get off the ground. To my mind it represents extremely bad value compared with feeding the existing population. We are a long long way, even from that.

 

[Pattonias]

Well, you devote yourself to the development of better agricultural tech, and those of us whose interests are different will devote our lives to those things we want to happen. What benefit is there in just repeating the same old mantra "it is too expensive, their are other things on which we can spend money." If we devoted the money, the resoruces available in space would more than make up for the investment. Yes, it will take probably the next hundred years to happen, but so what.
You said hundreds of years, look at the progress of tech over the last hundred, we are experiencing exponential development right now. Which lacking technology do you feel will hinder us for hundreds of years?

Look at the Virgin Galactic website on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Galactic" . Virgin Glactic plans to use the launch vehicles to launch satellites as well. The tech isn't just to launch tourists in space, he intends to use the investment to advance other purposes as well. Just as we suggested here.

What purpose does all this nay-saying serve, are you working personally to feed the entire world and feel a lack of funding due to the space programs both public and private?

Why don't we start another thread discussing the cost effectivness of feeding everyone in the world and the percentage of the GDP required to do that? Surely, it is possible if we became a country dedicated to this cause. Why not devote your life to advances in this regard.

The purpose of threads like this is to look at what we want to do and then look at what we can do now to reach that goal.

Yes, if we decided that we wanted to mine asteroids at the end of the year; we would have to dedicate 40% (I made up this number) of the GDP to the cause and risk receiving little or no return.

Yes, it will take many years for the tech to develope at the current rate.

No, we should not force people to only discuss short-term goals because we don't feel like we will see the long term ones for many years.

No, we should not stop talking about the possibilities because the process of moving forward is a difficult one.

Now, if we want to be productive; we should help the OP learn what tech is lacking at the moment for him to see his dream come to fruition, and maybe he will be the one who makes a breakthrough in the field that allows his vision to become reality. (And he might just do it in his garage, thus saving you from having to worry about the GDP)

 

[Scia]

I actually, seriously doubt that space colonisation will be a reality within hundreds of years because there is so little in it for us compared with the cost. It may be one of the sexiest idea around but it is way at the back of a very long queue of justifiable "challenges". The very name "Virgin Galactic" says it all. What is "galactic" about the project"? It's a Fun Project in which a few rich people will see a black sky, felt microgravity and feel that they've been 'in space'. Mr B has spotted an excellent and possibly achievable commercial venture - good luck to him. But that's all it is. The numbers count in engineering and space colonisation needs to satisfy cost-benefit analysis to get off the ground. To my mind it represents extremely bad value compared with feeding the existing population. We are a long long way, even from that.

well that attitude never got us anywhere

 

[sophiecentaur]

Realism has got us a very long way, actually. If everyone was given resources for every 'challenge' they dreamed up there would be no resources for the less fanciful projects.
I know that there are many quotable examples of seemingly impossible dreams coming to fruition but, for every 'crazy scheme that has worked, there have be dozens of crazy schemes that were just that.
Of course the idea of zapping off to strange worlds and finding exciting things is very attractive (to me also) BUT there are certain actual quantities associated with the sort of space use that is proposed here which make it very, very tenuous. Why are people ignoring that on this thread ?

A Mars mission would be nice. Very informative and a real achievement if /when it happens. But that is not colonisation and it's not space tourism.

You will not find me 'po-pooing' medical research, LHC, fusion or any of the other big endeavours. It's just the Boys' Own, 1950s romantic thing that I can't take seriously. I sometimes think that people actually believe the Azimov trilogy is fact - right down to the Psychohistory thing. At least do some serious sums before you get too carried away with Space fiction.

 

[Pattonias]

Realism has got us a very long way, actually. If everyone was given resources for every 'challenge' they dreamed up there would be no resources for the less fanciful projects.
I know that there are many quotable examples of seemingly impossible dreams coming to fruition but, for every 'crazy scheme that has worked, there have be dozens of crazy schemes that were just that.
Of course the idea of zapping off to strange worlds and finding exciting things is very attractive (to me also) BUT there are certain actual quantities associated with the sort of space use that is proposed here which make it very, very tenuous. Why are people ignoring that on this thread ?

A Mars mission would be nice. Very informative and a real achievement if /when it happens. But that is not colonisation and it's not space tourism.

You will not find me 'po-pooing' medical research, LHC, fusion or any of the other big endeavours. It's just the Boys' Own, 1950s romantic thing that I can't take seriously. I sometimes think that people actually believe the Azimov trilogy is fact - right down to the Psychohistory thing. At least do some serious sums before you get too carried away with Space fiction.

How, in any way does his ultimate goal of colonizing detract from his interest in designing the system that would eventually lead to that goal. Since when on this forum are we supposed to shoot down people's questions because we personally don't think they are cost effective. Instead of telling him that it will never be cost effective, challenge him to find a way to make it cost effective. Explain how cost to benefit analysis works and guide him in a direction that could make it work in the long term.

I'll challenge you to quit shooting down every statement he makes with purely negative comments and try and actually teach him something about how large scale projects like this work.

You say that we are ignoring these things, but we aren't. We point them out and say here is a challenge that you need to be aware of. We don't sit here and simply say that it will never work or it isn't worth the trouble of trying.

If you can't at least take a more positive note in your comments, why don't you just take your opinions back to horizen level and let the inane dreaming carry on between us who will never understand how pointless this all is despite your best efforts.

 

[sophiecentaur]

I thought that the style of this forum was to be realistic - no anti G schemes or perpetual motion.
I very strongly feel that we are almost in those realms when talking of space colonisation.
I would be with you all the way if the thread were to be discussing ways of getting an unmanned craft somewhere with minimal energy / cost. That is a fascinating engineering problem. But colonising Mars such a different proposition. The whole idea would lead us to the starship enterprise - which is where colonisation would have to be taking us and, not surprisingly, we would have to include Warp drive to reach that stage.
Are you really doing Scia any favours by supporting the scheme?
Could we not take the feasible bits and develop them rather than encourage stuff which is so very tenuous? After all, we haven't actually established the point of doing it apart from 'because someone in the '50s proposed it'.

 

[Pattonias]

I thought that the style of this forum was to be realistic - no anti G schemes or perpetual motion.
I very strongly feel that we are almost in those realms when talking of space colonisation.
I would be with you all the way if the thread were to be discussing ways of getting an unmanned craft somewhere with minimal energy / cost. That is a fascinating engineering problem. But colonising Mars such a different proposition. The whole idea would lead us to the starship enterprise - which is where colonisation would have to be taking us and, not surprisingly, we would have to include Warp drive to reach that stage.
Are you really doing Scia any favours by supporting the scheme?
Could we not take the feasible bits and develop them rather than encourage stuff which is so very tenuous? After all, we haven't actually established the point of doing it apart from 'because someone in the '50s proposed it'.

Are you reading a different thread from the rest of us?
So far everything he proposed has either been theorized or proposed as actual solutions. He has said nothing to even hint at "anti G", "perpetual motion", "enterprise", or "Warp drive".
At what point does one take the anti-imagination stance in engineering?

 

[sophiecentaur]

I have thought a lot about this and I have now realized why I 'took against' the idea.
It was nothing to do with the engineering aspect at all. I don't think I have made any serious adverse comments about that, although there are several 50 year old ideas in the proposal. Von Braun and Clarke were giants in their time but the politics, economics and technologies are not the same now. The date in "2001 a space odyssey" shows how wrong one can be!
My problem was, essentially, with the social aspect of the ideas in the original model. The word "tourism" strongly suggests a privileged elite enjoying the benefits of their wealth. Yes, there is a certain amount of 'spreading around' of that wealth in the tourist locations and there are spin-offs but, in what would be a very high-tech project, who would benefit? Tourism is not an altruistic affair. How many space trips would the average / underprivileged citizen expect and who would be prepared to subsidise some rich guy's holiday?
Also, there may be a good reason for space exploitation - getting materials from the Moon and Mars. That would be a very laudable idea and could make economic sense. But that wouldn't involve 'colonisation'. To be economically viable a space mining project would be more like a deep water Oil rig which, even though only a few miles offshore, is very spartan and not, by any stretch, a 'colony'.

So my objections are basically against the two words "tourism" and "colony" and have not been against the Physics or Engineering aspects at all - which is, surely, what the forum is about. More power to your elbow when you want to discuss practical solutions.

 

[Scia]

So guys is there any way to make my plan cost effective?

 

[Mech_Engineer]

So guys is there any way to make my plan cost effective?

To make your "plan" to colonize the Moon and Mars cost-effective, you need to find a valuable resource (hopefully very, very valuable) that can be mined and/or produced on them but cannot be found/produced on Earth. For example, the first thing that I think of when "mining" and "the Moon" are mentioned together is Helium-3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3). I'm not sure what you could mine on Mars however, perhaps some rare minerals or something.

Overall just returning soil/rock samples of the moon and/or Mars would never cover costs, because the more you returned the less valuable it would become. By the time they were colonized, their dirt would be worthless (where as right now they're basically priceless).

 

[sophiecentaur]

So guys is there any way to make my plan cost effective?

Just find something that is incredibly valuable on Mars that you can't manufacture on Earth by using all that energy and those resources which the space trip would involve. Of course, the initial exploration / prospecting would need to be funded with absolutely no assurance that anything worthwhile is there in the first place.
I can't understand why no one seems to think this is crucial. It's not just a mere detail.