From: henry@spsystems.net
In article ,
Chung Leong wrote:
>Bar the development of some revolutionary technology, is it realistic to
>think that we can land on Mars and come back?
It's certainly feasible, just relatively costly.
>It seems to me that the size of lander would be prohibitively large, as the
>ascent module would need to carry enough fuel to enter into Martian orbit.
>Compared to the Moon's, Mars' gravity is much stronger. Mars also has an
>atmosphere, which means thermo-shieldings on both the lander and the ascent
>module.
This has been studied at some length. It's a manageable problem, although
a painful one. Remember that the ascent module doesn't need to carry a
terribly *large* payload into Martian orbit; that helps.
Another approach that helps considerably is fueling the ascent module from
fuel manufactured on Mars, rather than having to lug the fuel all the way.
>The return vehicle would be fairly large too, as it needs to carry fuel for
>returning to Earth. In addition, it would carry the reentry module and
>equipment for monitoring the Martian atmosphere.
The reentry module is quite small, and there is no atmosphere monitoring
on the sample return mission -- the return vehicle's job is sample return,
not orbital science.
>Even if we use two
>launches, the rockets used to carry them into space would be gargantuan.
Not really. It's almost certainly feasible with a pair of Titan-class
launches; they're just expensive. Doing it with a pair of Deltas is a
rather marginal project, which is one reason why it hasn't happened.
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