After thinking further on my human Mars flight concept, I found some parts that needed correction. The overall concept stays the same; use cheap scalable rocket design and fuel. The radioactive heater part of proposal needs to be revised. A nuclear submarine grade fuel needs to be used at least. The objective is not to fission all the fissile material in a blink of a second like in a bomb, but to generate much more heat per kilogram of weight. The energy requirement to generate thrust requires acceptable amount of fissile material. The first stage of the rocket would be recovered. Therefore, the radioactive material on the first stage can be recycled after recovery. The upper stages that fire above the Kármán line would have their radioactive parts melt down and dispersed on the atmosphere. Plutonium’s low melting temperature, 640 °C, helps with that. The rocket would be launched from the Nemo Point, which is already a space graveyard, a location far away from any habitat.
A second problem is the maximum speed at arrival to Mars. A fast speed requires a very low orbit. Mars’s atmosphere would generate a lot of drag in that case. Decelerating while approaching to Mars and accelerating during return would require additional stages which would make the rocket a giant at takeoff.
Mars stage would require modification as well. Even though it would be designed to accommodate a single crew standing. Reaching the fast-rotating service module would require a powerful rocket with multiple stages. In that case, the crew would need to use crane to descent on Mars and ascent back.
If the objective is to bring back sample to earth, it is much easier to use a humanoid robot for that. Sending a human just to grab several stones and bring him or her back alive would require an exponentially expensive mission. Sending a dead man on Mars on the other hand, is by no means a humanitarian achievement.
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