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Awesome job so far everyone! Please give us your feedback on how our article efforts are going. We still need more finished articles for our May contest theme: Remake the Classics

#ActualOlof Hedman

Posted 03 December 2012 - 01:04 PM

If a colony existed on Mars, supplies and resources would have to be shuttled back and fourth from Earth to Mars on a regular basis.  That being the case, there is no reason why a colonist should not be able to snag a ride on one of those shuttles to return to Earth.


It's several orders of magnitude cheaper to send unmanned one-way supply-ships then it is to send anything that can return.
You'd have to bring the fuel to return too, plus life-support and radiation-shielding to survive the couple-of-months travel time.
Plus have systems to go into orbit, have something that can launch to that orbit, etc...
Have the ship land? even more fuel, and a couple of magnitudes more expensive.
Not even the ship that would be built to take them there would be built to return, but be re-used to build the colony

#2Olof Hedman

Posted 03 December 2012 - 12:53 PM

If a colony existed on Mars, supplies and resources would have to be shuttled back and fourth from Earth to Mars on a regular basis.  That being the case, there is no reason why a colonist should not be able to snag a ride on one of those shuttles to return to Earth.


It's several orders of magnitude cheaper to send unmanned one-way supply-ships then it is to send anything that can return.
You'd have to bring the fuel to return too, plus life-support and radiation-shielding to survive the couple-of-months travel time.
Plus have systems to go into orbit, have something that can launch to that orbit, etc...
Have the ship land? even more fuel, and a couple of magnitudes more expensive.
Not even the ship that would be built to take them there would be built to return, but be re-used to build the colony
That's kind of the reason this is a one way trip.

#1Olof Hedman

Posted 03 December 2012 - 12:52 PM

If a colony existed on Mars, supplies and resources would have to be shuttled back and fourth from Earth to Mars on a regular basis.  That being the case, there is no reason why a colonist should not be able to snag a ride on one of those shuttles to return to Earth.


It's several orders of magnitude cheaper to send one-way supply-ships then it is to send anything that can return.
You'd have to bring the fuel to return too, plus life-support and radiation-shielding to survive the couple-of-months travel time.
Plus have systems to go into orbit, have something that can launch to that orbit, etc...
Have the ship land? even more fuel, and a couple of magnitudes more expensive.
Not even the ship that would be built to take them there would be built to return, but be re-used to build the colony
That's kind of the reason this is a one way trip.

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