Re: Exploring Mars

Brian D Williams (talon57@well.com)
Thu, 9 Dec 1999 07:07:33 -0800 (PST)

From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@www.aeiveos.com>

>>In the Mars direct plan, after a voyage of 6 months, the team
>>would spent a year and a half on the surface.
>>
>> Anybody think that is a bad idea?
>>

>Exactly how much would it cost and how long would the development
>period be?

>What you want to get at when looking at something like this
>is the opportunity cost of not using the engineers or funding
>on something that might provide a bigger net ROI.

10 years and 30 billion to develop everything we need, including a new heavy lift booster (the Ares) built primarily from existing shuttle components.

Additional missions at 2 billion a pop.

I like to add a couple hundred mill to see you get the funds for developing a self rep system.... ;)

Brian

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