Traveling to Mars with Immortal Plasma Rockets

Nearly 50 years after landing on the moon, mankind has now set its sights on sending the first humans to Mars. The moon trip took three days; a Mars trip will likely take most of a year. The difference is in more than just time.

We’ll need many more supplies for the trip itself, and when we get to the Red Planet, we’re going to need to set up camp and stay for a while. Carrying all this material will require a revolutionary rocket technology.

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Where does the rocket bit fit in?

CrazyNeutrino said:

Traveling to Mars with Immortal Plasma Rockets

Carrying all this material will require a revolutionary rocket technology.

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That’s putting it way too strongly. There’s no reason that it couldn’t be done with conventional rocketry.

It’s just that using more advanced forms will make the transfers faster and might save money.

Interesting but I don’t think the plasma engine is anywhere near gruntled enough for heavy missions.
I’d be going down the warp drive path using dilithium crystals.
If you’ve got a big mother inter planetary space pantechnicon full of pots and pans and barrels of water and fencing wire and traps and bags of flower and tins of bully beef your going to need one of those babies to power it.

could multiple spacecraft use specific orbits to help with space travel

an orbit around earth

an orbit around mars

an middle orbit that intersects both other orbits

something like that

and use the sling shot effect at both ends

Peak Warming Man said:

Interesting but I don’t think the plasma engine is anywhere near gruntled enough for heavy missions.

I agree, plasma is the second slowest wat to get through space. The slowest is solar sails.

mollwollfumble said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Interesting but I don’t think the plasma engine is anywhere near gruntled enough for heavy missions.

I agree, plasma is the second slowest wat to get through space. The slowest is solar sails.

Rowing would be pretty damn slow too.

CrazyNeutrino said:

could multiple spacecraft use specific orbits to help with space travel

an orbit around earth

an orbit around mars

an middle orbit that intersects both other orbits

something like that

and use the sling shot effect at both ends

The fastest orbit is known as the Hohman transfer ellipse. “https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohmann_transfer_orbit”. A gravitational slingshot requires two planets, usually Venus and Earth, but that would be slower to Mars.

A non-gravitational slingshot – I’ve never heard of such a thing. Perhaps better to use fuel previously delivered to Earth and Mars orbit. A non-gravitational slingshot in Mars orbit is an intriguing possibility.