by LordRaven » Mon Nov 14, 2016 10:27 am
On the issue of Mars and given the latest failure of the European space agency to put a lander on Mars its self evident, as explained in this programme last night, that landing a one ton rover is difficult due to the thin atmosphere wherein it's imperative to have a heat sheild but parachutes alone will be ineffective as the atmosphere is too thin and retro rockets will be a must to land a manned vehicle.
A huge craft with people and a self sustaining habitat will need a massive amount of fuel just to land let alone take off again. Throwing off a heat sheild and firing rockets directly into the direction of ascent to slow from thousands of miles an hour and navigate to a flat landing site to land bolt upright with having to deploy huge landing gear is going to prove a major engineering feat.
On the programme last night they showed how fraught this could be with Space X failures. It's truly daunting but I'm sure man will overcome such obstacles
On the issue of Mars and given the latest failure of the European space agency to put a lander on Mars its self evident, as explained in this programme last night, that landing a one ton rover is difficult due to the thin atmosphere wherein it's imperative to have a heat sheild but parachutes alone will be ineffective as the atmosphere is too thin and retro rockets will be a must to land a manned vehicle.
A huge craft with people and a self sustaining habitat will need a massive amount of fuel just to land let alone take off again. Throwing off a heat sheild and firing rockets directly into the direction of ascent to slow from thousands of miles an hour and navigate to a flat landing site to land bolt upright with having to deploy huge landing gear is going to prove a major engineering feat.
On the programme last night they showed how fraught this could be with Space X failures. It's truly daunting but I'm sure man will overcome such obstacles