What Would the Mission Plan Look Like For a Manned Mission To Jupiter?

[Dayton3]

I've always been a little obsessed with the planet Jupiter.

I've always wanted to know what a mission to Jupiter with a landing on the moon Callisto would look like.

Realistically, because of the high radiation levels, Callisto is the only moon that humans could land on for any length of time. A recent issue of Science Illustrated suggest a maximum time of up to 4 months on Callisto with explorers there telerobotically exploring the other moons and Jupiter itself.

What do you think such a mission would look like with today or near future technology.

 

[anti-matter]

Re: What Would the Mission Plan Look Like For a Manned Mission To Jupi

With todays tech I'm against these type manned missions. For instance there's been a lot of talk about going to mars but it means an 18 month trip. To me that's totally out of the question.

Money has to be found R/D the next gen engines that can get there in 20 days or less or no manned mission.

What kind of mental capability will travelers have to run science experiments etc if they're cooped up for a year...the mind won't tolerate that kind of confinement and still be keen enough to respond to the tech demands space travel requires.

 

[Meredith]

Re: What Would the Mission Plan Look Like For a Manned Mission To Jupi

I would imagine a nice big ship with a really powerful Nuclear Fission engine would be a very nice start.

 

[Dayton3]

Re: What Would the Mission Plan Look Like For a Manned Mission To Jupi

With todays tech I'm against these type manned missions. For instance there's been a lot of talk about going to mars but it means an 18 month trip. To me that's totally out of the question.

Money has to be found R/D the next gen engines that can get there in 20 days or less or no manned mission.

What kind of mental capability will travelers have to run science experiments etc if they're cooped up for a year...the mind won't tolerate that kind of confinement and still be keen enough to respond to the tech demands space travel requires.

Not even fusion engines will get you to Mars in 20 days.

And cosmonauts have stayed confined to Mir for well over a year at a stretch.

One way to Mars using chemical propulsion only would take about 6 months.

I also assumed that a one way trip to Jupiter (using advanced nuclear electric propulsion) would take about 2.2 years. Which is what is listed as the one way trip time in one of Dr. Zubrins books.

As long as the one way trip time is three years or below would be fine.

Close quarters isn't that big a deal.

 

[watermelony2k]

Re: What Would the Mission Plan Look Like For a Manned Mission To Jupi

With todays tech I'm against these type manned missions. For instance there's been a lot of talk about going to mars but it means an 18 month trip. To me that's totally out of the question.

Money has to be found R/D the next gen engines that can get there in 20 days or less or no manned mission.

What kind of mental capability will travelers have to run science experiments etc if they're cooped up for a year...the mind won't tolerate that kind of confinement and still be keen enough to respond to the tech demands space travel requires.

I disagree. Sea voyagers of the olden days handled much worse... These astronauts will have clean food, oxygen, warmth.. They'll be highly trained and sheparded all the way by a couple thousand experts working hard back in Houston.. They'll know that the whole world is watching them and that the whole world has their back. Compare that to the maggot-infested, mutiny-filled wooden ship voyages a couple centuries back, that also went on missions that lasted months upon months. These guys will actually want to go to Mars, unlike the poor boys who were pressganged into naval service.

I'd say the astronauts are in a much better position.

P.S. Oh, this is about Jupiter? lol, i thought it was about mars.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Re: What Would the Mission Plan Look Like For a Manned Mission To Jupi

With todays tech I'm against these type manned missions. For instance there's been a lot of talk about going to mars but it means an 18 month trip. To me that's totally out of the question.

The longest Hohmann transfer orbit to Mars is eight months. You could stretch it out with a Venus flyby (Earth-to-Venus, Venus-to-Mars), but why?

Money has to be found R/D the next gen engines that can get there in 20 days or less or no manned mission.

Orion.

No, not the capsule in development. The original Orion push-plate proposals.

We couldn't launch it from Earth. We'd need some sort of infrastructure in LEO or on the lunar surface. Luna-to-Mars with an Orion would probably be the way to go. Depending on the fission bombs used, there are mission profiles that could get humans from Earth to Mars inside two or three days.

And there's nothing high tech here. We're talking using small-yield fission bombs. Tactical, bunker-buster nukes.

Hell, the military-industrial complex should be all over Orion tech, just so they can test their latest bunker-buster designs.

What kind of mental capability will travelers have to run science experiments etc if they're cooped up for a year...the mind won't tolerate that kind of confinement and still be keen enough to respond to the tech demands space travel requires.

Seriously. Build a freakin' city on the moon's surface. Loft it to Jupiter with an Orion pusher-plate. Land it on Callisto's surface. Voila.

 

[anti-matter]

Re: What Would the Mission Plan Look Like For a Manned Mission To Jupi

I think a lot of you are underestimating the dangers of space travel. It's one thing to orbit earth for an extended time and another to watch it disappear with no life line or chance of rescue.

One of many possible fatal scenarios would be the crews exposure to a burst of cosmic radiation.

Now they can enter a safe room within the capsule but once on their way to Mars or Jupiter the burst would get to them before the radio warning message. btw we monitor the sun from here on earth...there has been a system set up for quite awhile to warn astronauts of these events.

 

[Dayton3]

Re: What Would the Mission Plan Look Like For a Manned Mission To Jupi

I think a lot of you are underestimating the dangers of space travel. It's one thing to orbit earth for an extended time and another to watch it disappear with no life line or chance of rescue.

One of many possible fatal scenarios would be the crews exposure to a burst of cosmic radiation.

Now they can enter a safe room within the capsule but once on their way to Mars or Jupiter the burst would get to them before the radio warning message. btw we monitor the sun from here on earth...there has been a system set up for quite awhile to warn astronauts of these events.

cosmic radiation doesn't "burst". It is steady.

I believe you are referring to radiation from the sun.

But at distances past Mars, the radiation danger from the sun would be nowhere nearly as great.

 

[anti-matter]

Re: What Would the Mission Plan Look Like For a Manned Mission To Jupi

Well OK solar radiation it is. Look there's so many things out there that can kill or disable vital equipment...like real small BB sized meteors flying by at tremendous velocities could damage or shred space crafts.

Today's puny engines are good for the moon but not worth risking a human crew on a long range mission...it's like using an air mattress to cross the ocean sure it can possibly be done.

 

[SeerSGB]

Re: What Would the Mission Plan Look Like For a Manned Mission To Jupi

Well to, to but is a little coldy, to explore, to question, is to risk death.

I see no reason why it couldn't be done with today's tech. Yes, yes, it would be horridly in efficient and expensive and dangerous, but the point is we could do it, if we put our minds to it. As for the crew, you'd just have to select them specifically for this sort of work, make it clear that they may die at any point and that they may be stranded with no hope for rescue. People with no family (ie wives, children) would be the prime choices for this sort of mission, and with a streak of adventure and science for the sake of science mentality.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Re: What Would the Mission Plan Look Like For a Manned Mission To Jupi

Most astronauts today ARE family people, including the folks who do the six-month stints on ISS. Mars is a two-year committment, though, and you are correct that any applicants had better be psychologically willing to part from loved ones for that long. Jupiter would be three to five, and the outer planets even longer.

Mark

 

[SeerSGB]

Re: What Would the Mission Plan Look Like For a Manned Mission To Jupi

Most astronauts today ARE family people, including the folks who do the six-month stints on ISS. Mars is a two-year committment, though, and you are correct that any applicants had better be psychologically willing to part from loved ones for that long. Jupiter would be three to five, and the outer planets even longer.

Mark

The ISS is a far cry from going to Jupiter with, the very real, possibility of no-return. Even in a worse case scenario on the ISS, there's always would be a little voice of "Earth is just next-door, they'll save us" in the back of their heads. Versus a Mars/Jupiter mission where they'd be facing a guarantee of death, even slow death from starvation or asphyxiation, with ZERO chance of rescue if it all went pear shaped on them. You'd want-- need-- people that had mind where the scientific rewards-- be it fame or the quest for knowledge-- outweighed, for them personally, the dangers involved.

That's why I said it would have to be-- almost mandated-- that the crew have no close family ties; if for no other reason than to spare the families the trauma.