[Closed] Manned Mars Mission - it begins... 🙂

China gonna get there 1st

Its goonq get all Kim Stanley Robinson up there (tho hopefully a bit more than exciting)

Well, I had Curry for lunch. And something for tea that was super hot.

Don't think ive got 15 years to wait before toilet trouble arrives.

Not sure I've got 15 minutes tbh.

Sadly it will remain an 'aspiration' as much as the planned manned return to the Moon. Eventually there will be humans back on the Moon and landing on Mars, but NASA won't be leading the mission.

Items including Ernie’s rubber ducky, Oscar’s pet worm, Slimey, and the Cookie Monster’s cookie are being taken into space by Orion and will later be displayed on the children’s television show in the hope that they could inspire the next generation of astronauts. Nasa predicts that the first astronauts on Mars will be today’s pre-schoolers.

I'm not sure given the current capabilities of robot landers that manned space flight has much to offer at the moment.

FYI [img] [/img]

kimbers - Member

Its goonq get all Kim Stanley Robinson up there

Only quicker

It's a shame it's a 15 year wait, I have some fine candidates to sign up for the trip. It will need a snappy name though how about the Beta Ark.

I'm not sure given the current capabilities of robot landers that manned space flight has much to offer at the moment.

It depends what kind of work is being done on the mission. Robots haven't managed to replace scientists yet.

And when they do, we are all well and truly ****ed.

It will need a snappy name though how about the Beta Ark.

"B" Ark. Brilliant. Them Golgafrinchams were on to something.

Live broadcast under way on Nasa TV and http://spaceflightnow.com/2014/12/02/orion-eft1-mission-status-center/ Fuelling currently ongoing.

Coincidentally I'm now about half way through reading 'The Martian' by Andy Weir, about a member of one of the first manned missions who gets stranded alone on the planet. Very good read so far.

Robot probes are ace, but it'a absolutely not the same as seeing a human set foot on Mars for the first time.

The technical challenges are enormous - how do you shield the crew from radiation for example? But we absolutely have to explore and eventually colonise other planets.

Would rather see the money time and effort go towards keeping this planet habitable TBH.

@MrSmith... I get that too... But they don't have to be mutually exclusive, frankly the place to start there is stopping spending money on things that trash the world.

Thing is, space travel helps us to look up, which is exactly the sort of thing that encourages people to think bigger- whether that means mars, or this world, it's easy to ignore global issues when you don't think outside of your own local world. There's also likely to be applicable tech, both predictable and unpredictable- the obvious stuff is in biosphere management, and really efficient resource use and reuse. None of that's really stuff we couldn't possibly do here, but there we couldn't possibly [i]not [/i]do it, motivation's important.

I can't remember who said it... Humans work best at the 11th hour, which is just as well because even when we see a crisis coming we tend not to deal with it til we absolutely have to. In space travel, you start on the 11th hour- you never have the choice of putting it off for generations like you can do in a big blue world, that's always going to force results. Ironically living on a benevolent planet is what gives us the option of wrecking it.

PJM1974 - Member

The technical challenges are enormous - how do you shield the crew from radiation for example?

Why would you want to do that? Cosmic rays are awesome!

[img] [/img]

I can't remember who said it... Humans work best at the 11th hour

Great, but try and get even ten humans to agree as to when that hour tolls.

Malvern Rider - Member

Great, but try and get even ten humans to agree as to when that hour tolls.

if you've just arrived on Mars in a lander the size of a static caravan, it is right now, and then all the time, or you just die 😆

Half hour to go - lets have a bit of Carl Sagan to remind us why exploring cool..
[url=

this somebody please :-)[/url]

Unconfirmed no go 🙁

Edit; some plonker in a boat trying to get a better look delaying things while swat team takes um out 🙂

oh FFS! - we'll never get to mars if we have to 'hold' whenever:

a) there's a bit of wind
b) a boat floats onto the range - the range covers Xbillion square miles, there will always be a boat 'down-range'
c) ooh! a squirrel!
d) etc.

😀
What feed you watching on ahwiles? NASA tv keeps freezing

...and suddenly it's too windy!

twang, I'm watching PBS America - pbs.org

i WAS watching on spaceflightnow.com.

but it's bit like reading catch22; teasing with promise of a cool story, without ever actually getting to the cool story.

so now i'm off-aht, to buy a pie for my lunch.

http://www.iflscience.com/space/watch-test-flight-launch-deep-space-orion-spacecraft

I think they are going in <10 mins 12:55

Countdown restarted. 3:05 mins to go - hold!

Cheers, NASAs seems to have sorted itself out a bit, I'll stick with it.
T minus, abort, GAAHHH!

I'll never get my painting done

It depends what kind of work is being done on the mission. Robots haven't managed to replace scientists yet.

They've nailed them on the personality score though 😆

oh FFS! - we'll never get to mars if we have to 'hold' whenever:

a) there's a bit of wind
b) a boat floats onto the range - the range covers Xbillion square miles, there will always be a boat 'down-range'
c) ooh! a squirrel!
d) etc.

This +1000

Just shows how rubbish the current technology is ! We should have been on Mars decades ago.

I'm in Florida at the moment, and was at KSC on Tuesday... It's an amazing piece of engineering they're trying to get up there this morning.

I was going out to Cocoa Beach this morning to watch, but decided at 3am it was probably going to be cancelled with the weather, and went back to bed.

So I'm hoping I can catch the smoke trail if it does launch in the next hour (or so) from the side of my pool. Live Stream isn't much better over here, that much closer it would seem

just a side note.. didnt the mission to the moon already sorted out the radiation and heat shield problem? You'd think a mission to the moon would be a good test. The we're not sure how the radiation will effect chips seems a bit strange as i'm sure there has been other satellites and probes sent to mars already that are still functioning.

All a bit strange.. makes me think they never landed on the moon 🙂

Much more exposure to radiation on a Mars mission. More shielding required.

Meanwhile countdown resumes again.

countdown now at 3:30 if you want to watch [url= http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv ]http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv[/url]

[edit] aborted at 3:09.

jeebus....How the hell did they ever get to the moon?

dont think they ever did reach the moon.. the first people will be the chinese

Right, I'm off for lunch so it's guaranteed to launch in the next 30 mins. It'll probably explode in a really cool way too.

The President said it would happen. So it did.

engine problems

I suppose this is what happens when you leave it 40+ years between programmes

"A fill and drain valve on the rocket did not function correctly. Standing by as rocket and spacecraft are safed."

Cancelled or just resetting something?

they're cycling the valves to make sure they work so just on hold at the moment.

Ain't going to happen today now 🙁

Oh hang on..... 14 mins.

Could still be go, they've changed the parameters on the wind sensor but not mentioned the valve issue. I wonder if they'd abort if it were manned?

SCRUBBED 🙁

🙁

Am I right in thinking they'll try again tomorrow same time?

Am I right in thinking they'll try again tomorrow same time?

Yes, weather/squirrels/boats not withstanding.

Yep, lets do it all again tomorrow - this decorating going to cost some.. 🙂

Disappoint

they've changed the parameters on the wind sensor

my guess:

they planned all along for a dry-run, so that they get to practise various 'Hold' scenarios in an almost-live arena.

(stops anyone feeling too shy to call it for real)

all that steam is just a few boiling kettles - they've jammed a spoon* into the switches to stop them clicking off.

(*why is it always a spoon?)

(*why is it always a spoon?)

I blame Alanis Morisette. Aim for a knife, get 10,000 spoons. Oh well, I supposed its reduced stabbings in her area.

Here we go again then 🙂

2 minutes...

you are shitting me.

Nasa can't handle a few thousand people trying to watch a live feed?

cool!

"it's the age of orion, a new era in American space exploration"

Made me want to punch somebody.

Completely missed lift off too grrr. Looking forward to not see it splash down in 4 hours or so 😡

rats... missed it 🙁

*Stupid work.

Woke up 20 mins before, and got the stream to work 1:40 before launch which then crapped out at 0:01

So I went outside, looked NNE and saw the flame rip past a few clouds. Quite something!

Why is it 'a new era'? Are NASA a bit pee'd as the ESA are the coolest kids at the moment?

sharkbait - Member
Why is it 'a new era'? Are NASA a bit pee'd as the ESA are the coolest kids at the moment?

missed the launch myself, on bbc now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30343171

Launch on youtube now too if you missed it -

(how do you embed on here?)

SPLADOOOSH! Bullseye - piece a piss 😀

Poor streaming though, need to get that sorted NASA before the main event

So which bit do you figure tightens an astronaut's sphincter most?
Lift off - waiting to be burned to a crisp
Re-entry - waiting to be burned to a crisp
Or simply sitting there waiting for the chutes to open.

Still - that all seemed to go well and watching re-entry live on my iPhone on the train home was pretty good.

Sorry to hear others live stream packed up just at the key moments too. We lost it just as soon as they lit it! Looked good though.

cheekymonkey888 - Member
dont think they ever did reach the moon.. the first people will be the chinese

sharkbait - Member
Why is it 'a new era'? Are NASA a bit pee'd as the ESA are the coolest kids at the moment?
Cause no-ones been to Mars [s]before[/s] yet?

sharkbait - Member

Why is it 'a new era'?

It's the resumption of manned space travel- lately it's been all drones, industrialised satellite lifts, and commuting to the space station. Not that there's anything wrong with that but sending people to other planets is definitely a new era.

Meh. Believe it when I see it - do they not need to send more drones to see what's there first?

*not quite seeing the point in sending human beans to Mars

Well according to NASA's timeline for Orion, a manned Mars mission isn't on the cards until the 2030s. I may miss it 🙁