Werner von Braun wrote Das Marsprojekt in 1948. To quote Wikipedia: The Mars Project is a technical specification for a manned mission to Mars that von Braun wrote in 1948. The expected launch date was 1965. He envisioned an "enormous scientific expedition" involving a fleet of ten spacecraft with 70 crew members that would spend 443 days on the surface of Mars before returning to Earth. The spacecraft, seven passenger ships and three cargo ships, would be assembled in Earth orbit using materials supplied by reusable space shuttles. The fleet would use a nitric acid/hydrazine propellant that, although corrosive and toxic, could be stored without refrigeration during the three-year round-trip to Mars. He calculated the size and weight of each ship, and how much fuel they would require for the round trip (5,320,000 metric tons). Hohmann trajectories would be used to move from Earth- to Mars-orbit, and von Braun computed each rocket burn necessary to affect the required manoeuvres.
It was not great literature. It was, however, marvelously detailed.
But… why? Why go to all that fantastic effort? Well, because we can, and therefore we should. So said the German rocket enthusiast. Allen Steele's The Tranquillity Alternative took him up on that - suppose we had done all the Ley/von Braun/Bonestell space program? Now what? What was any of it really good for? Failing to find an answer to that question meant that by now the once-gleaming USSF space hardware was faded and duct-taped and taper-budgeted towards oblivion.
Werner von Braun wrote Das Marsprojekt in 1948. To quote Wikipedia:
The Mars Project is a technical specification for a manned mission to Mars that von Braun wrote in 1948. The expected launch date was 1965. He envisioned an "enormous scientific expedition" involving a fleet of ten spacecraft with 70 crew members that would spend 443 days on the surface of Mars before returning to Earth. The spacecraft, seven passenger ships and three cargo ships, would be assembled in Earth orbit using materials supplied by reusable space shuttles. The fleet would use a nitric acid/hydrazine propellant that, although corrosive and toxic, could be stored without refrigeration during the three-year round-trip to Mars. He calculated the size and weight of each ship, and how much fuel they would require for the round trip (5,320,000 metric tons). Hohmann trajectories would be used to move from Earth- to Mars-orbit, and von Braun computed each rocket burn necessary to affect the required manoeuvres.
It was not great literature. It was, however, marvelously detailed.
But… why? Why go to all that fantastic effort? Well, because we can, and therefore we should. So said the German rocket enthusiast. Allen Steele's The Tranquillity Alternative took him up on that - suppose we had done all the Ley/von Braun/Bonestell space program? Now what? What was any of it really good for? Failing to find an answer to that question meant that by now the once-gleaming USSF space hardware was faded and duct-taped and taper-budgeted towards oblivion.
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