Word: marse
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Once your Mars ship is poised in space--either hovering at Lagrange point L1 or fresh off the surface of the moon--your next worry is the matter of in-space propulsion. Speed is everything on the way to Mars, and not only because a seven-month trip in a...
Ion-propulsion engines--in which a portable nuclear reactor heats charged gas and then fires it out the rear of the spacecraft--already exist and are capable of accelerating ships to very high speeds. But the stream of ions the engines produce is a thin one, and even a small...
There's another concern, one that worries administrators more than engineers. If NASA history has proved anything, administrators say, it's that intermediate space goals can sometimes turn into ends in themselves. "We could easily get bogged down on the moon and never get to Mars, at least not in...
If what Mars planners are really after is a stable, low-gravity place where spacecraft could be assembled and missions could begin, they might do a lot better to fly out to Lagrange point L1--a spot about 200,000 miles from Earth where the gravity of Earth and moon...
The six years remaining before the most recent--and possibly still unreliable--target date for the station's completion means six more years of money and labor poured into the seemingly endless project. With shuttle and station operations consuming about 40% of NASA's $15.5 billion annual budget, it's...