Earliest man on Mars

Earliest? Somewhere between 1500 and 1900.

Just assume Hero of Alexandria's steam engine gets used for propulsion and work purposes and boom, you have steamships about 1800 years early. Scale through our timeframe of inventions after steam power (granting some time for better metallurgy and accelerated, but not on the scale of the 20th century, other technologies) and you have electricity in about 4-500 AD, propelled flight in 6-700, space exploration beginning about 1-1200, moonshot (by the HRE? ;)) in 1350 and Mars a century or so later.
 
Is is possible to rendevous with a passing spacecraft?

I'm thinking of Baxter's Voyage or something like it. Instead of sending the astronauts on a 2 year outbound flight the space craft is sent on a trajectory to get gravity boosts from Venus and another from Earth. As it approaches Earth a manned spacecraft docks with out out in cis-lunar (how close does a gravity boost trajectory come) and puts the astronauts on board. The people only have to do the last, double-gravity-assisted leg to Mars and then back.

I'd think that this would amerliorate a host of problems such as radiation exposure, supplies etc and the need to build a powerful rocket that would be needed to solve these problems. But is it possible to get a crew onto an empty spacecraft moving at interplanetary speeds?
 
@Rian: It is certainly possible, but it would be very expensive (in terms of energy). Also, while possible, it would be very difficult to successfully rendezvous and dock at interplanetary velocities. It wouldn't solve the problem of needing a big rocket, that's for sure (it's simply a function of how much mass you need to send up and where you want to go)

EDIT: An important qualification there is that most of the mass of a rocket is fuel. So, cutting back on the weight of astronauts and supplies might help some, but probably not too much.
 
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Saturn, and the proposed follow-on variants with stretched stages and strap-on boosters, are big rockets. IIRC Baxter had a modular Mars transit vehicle with chemical rockets and gravity assist, so that plan can stay the same. The difference is that another Saturn has to get out to meet the Mars transit, but that can be a stripped-down racer. Pricey, but you don't get to Mars on five bucks.
 
Good Sweet Stephenson... not this nonsense again... :(

Has anyone figured out how to get the aeolipile Sealion Status yet?


Bill
Yeah, that one annoys me too.

I think he might have meant steam engines developing from Hero's work... but since they only ever saw his spinny globe as basically an executive toy - which it was - then... yeah.
 

Archibald

Banned
Is is possible to rendevous with a passing spacecraft?

I'm thinking of Baxter's Voyage or something like it. Instead of sending the astronauts on a 2 year outbound flight the space craft is sent on a trajectory to get gravity boosts from Venus and another from Earth. As it approaches Earth a manned spacecraft docks with out out in cis-lunar (how close does a gravity boost trajectory come) and puts the astronauts on board. The people only have to do the last, double-gravity-assisted leg to Mars and then back.

I'd think that this would amerliorate a host of problems such as radiation exposure, supplies etc and the need to build a powerful rocket that would be needed to solve these problems. But is it possible to get a crew onto an empty spacecraft moving at interplanetary speeds?

Yes, you can ! Have a look at this :)
http://www.google.fr/search?hl=fr&source=hp&q="flyby+landing+excursion+mode"&meta=&aq=f&oq=

Flyby landing and exursion mode (FLEM).

the big earth-Mars ship doesn't enter Mars orbit. It just flies into heliocentric orbit.
While passing near Mars at very high speed it drops the Mars Excursion Module for direct reentry into Mars atmosphere.
That kills a lot of weight, but add a lot of dangers.
 
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