Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to You're Even Further Off The Mark

Re: You're Even Further Off The Mark

I suppose "fact 4" merits a response. If you design a living area in space which which needs to function in "Zero gee" and one with artifical gravity, this will be more complicated than if you designed a living environment for either of these environments. That's a pretty basic fact. A Mars spacecraft which used actifical gravity would need to be designed for these two different environments- a basic engineering fact. I'm NOT claiming this is some "impossible" problem- just that it would complicate, which basically translates into added mass to your vehicle. Another basic aspect is that you need to point "things"- e.g., communciation devices, solar panels. And this would be complicated by having your spacecraft spin. Another aspect is any kind of docking that may be require- any spinning up and spinning down required, any variablity added to spin by crew or systems and thereby requiring correction in spin, and related to this is repairing spacecraft while spinning, etc.
Now, there are of course advantages to spinning a vehicle which will be in space for a long duration and this *may* be the best way to go to Mars.
But it's not a fact that using artifical gravity is the best way to go to Mars or that it's easy.

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