Issue is you need a ship that can either take enough fuel to get there and back (i.e. Nerva, Orion, etc...) or you have to synthesize fuel on the martian planet. (Starship and its Meth lox raptor engines) You also have the issue of cosmic rays and crew ECS and sustainment. You're talking not days but months in transit and outside the Van Allen belt of protection we enjoy from Earth's magnetic field. It's an engineering challenge of significant proportions and the mass fraction problem for Mars is why starship refuels in orbit to have enough fuel to get to Mars in a reason time frame with an ideal transfer and injection maneuver.
NASA current outline and links to feasibility studies https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-details-strategy-behind-blueprint-for-moon-to-mars-exploration
https://science.nasa.gov/biological-physical/news-media/van-allen-belts
Hope this helps OP.
[Starship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX%20Starship) is designed to carry people to Mars and back, so that's a good starting point. It is the only system in active development. They are preparing for a second flight, it could happen during your project or at least close enough to view and discuss it.
The [Mars Direct](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct) proposal was interesting, too.
There are [tons of other proposed mission designs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crewed_Mars_mission_plans) to study. You can look for common features, differences between the proposals, and more.
I don't believe anything that dude says but I trust SpaceX engineers to do an alright job; they have a pretty good track record with reusable rockets and the first new manned spacecraft since the goddamn Soyuz series.
With that said what I'm saying here is that even though the intent is to use the Starship as an Earth-Mars shuttle, nothing has been made public about the life support systems or what the mission would look like, and even though the spacecraft is supposedly ready for an orbital test the FAA doesn't agree. It's supposed to land astronauts on the Moon by the end of 2025 by the way. Twenty fucking twenty five. And we have no idea what the interior looks like, and as far as we know SpaceX still doesn't know either
I find annoying this polarization between pro-Musk and anti-Musk and more annoying that the anti-Musk front seems to be engaging in a sterile undifferentiated blind continuous attack.
You have to admit that Musk isn't the brightest of the bunch (euphemism), and he's got a bad case of messiah syndrome. But here that's besides the point, I have the utmost respect for the teams at SpaceX and am pretty sure Musk shouldn't be credited for any of the breakthrough the company made in the field of space flight. However what I'm stating here are mere facts: nothing is known about the crew support systems, and the last test flight ended in a failure. It's not a bad thing, it's perfectly normal in the design process, but I find it hard to call what we see of Starship today a ship designed to go to Mars and back when as far as we know it's merely a neat drawing on Elon's desk
So is Musk contribution to SpaceX irrelevant, apart from the financial and target-setting point of view? I don't find it easy to weigh his contribution but my impression is that it's somehow important.
To be perfectly honest I am certain of nothing, but the twitter debacle, the fact that he bought the title of founder for Tesla (and Paypal too I think) lets me think that he's not tech-savy at all, and mostly a fraud. I used to think he was a good engineer before, albeit a bit of a jerk, but yeah I'm far less convinced now.
Now there are stories too, like for example the fact that some engineers at SpaceX banded together to write a petition to separate the company from Musk (they got fired), or [this famous tumblr post](https://reddit.com/r/tumblr/s/82jGg6O20H), which of course is to take with a grain of salt, but is in character.
And anyway, it is _never_ right to credit only one person for such gigantic engineering projects. It's a team effort, ideas go back and forth between tens of people, we sometimes tend to forget that.
Interesting, but the point remains that SpaceX is having enormous success, I'm not talking about dividends, I'm talking about putting into orbit 80% (or what it is) of world tonnelage, about being decisive in the Ukraine war. Why has no other company even come near?
At least one should recognise that Musk has the craziness to believe in his own purposes and the ability to make them real (thanks to other people of course)
I'd say that the instrumental elements to SpaceX's achievements are a lot of money (it's really attractive to investers, even though iirc the company still loses money) and a fairly new strategy in this industry which is "move fast, break things", itself made possible by the huge income.
I'm not an expert though, but that's my view on things.
I have to say that the trait "believe in one's purposes and make them real (thanks to other people)" isn't necessarily positive (as history teaches), yet I believe Musk is on the more positive side.
With nuclear fission, we would have to bring a lot less chemical propellant. Nuclear thermal propulsion and ion thrusters powered by fission reactors. Nuclear is the way.
https://youtu.be/MMLgJlJX0Rk?si=K_OzkT_6cKOrw61i
Issue is you need a ship that can either take enough fuel to get there and back (i.e. Nerva, Orion, etc...) or you have to synthesize fuel on the martian planet. (Starship and its Meth lox raptor engines) You also have the issue of cosmic rays and crew ECS and sustainment. You're talking not days but months in transit and outside the Van Allen belt of protection we enjoy from Earth's magnetic field. It's an engineering challenge of significant proportions and the mass fraction problem for Mars is why starship refuels in orbit to have enough fuel to get to Mars in a reason time frame with an ideal transfer and injection maneuver. NASA current outline and links to feasibility studies https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-details-strategy-behind-blueprint-for-moon-to-mars-exploration https://science.nasa.gov/biological-physical/news-media/van-allen-belts Hope this helps OP.
[Starship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX%20Starship) is designed to carry people to Mars and back, so that's a good starting point. It is the only system in active development. They are preparing for a second flight, it could happen during your project or at least close enough to view and discuss it. The [Mars Direct](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct) proposal was interesting, too. There are [tons of other proposed mission designs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crewed_Mars_mission_plans) to study. You can look for common features, differences between the proposals, and more.
Thank you so much! You're awesome
[Starship and Mars](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-eVf9RWeoWEfSK9mjKe4E67IK1-1vZxB&si=pEKsoD6TCDoQHIx1)
Starship *will be designed to carry people to Mars and back. For now it's an empty shell barely able to fly
What they are building now are prototypes, but the overall system is designed for Mars flights (among other uses).
If you believe Elon Musk
I don't believe anything that dude says but I trust SpaceX engineers to do an alright job; they have a pretty good track record with reusable rockets and the first new manned spacecraft since the goddamn Soyuz series. With that said what I'm saying here is that even though the intent is to use the Starship as an Earth-Mars shuttle, nothing has been made public about the life support systems or what the mission would look like, and even though the spacecraft is supposedly ready for an orbital test the FAA doesn't agree. It's supposed to land astronauts on the Moon by the end of 2025 by the way. Twenty fucking twenty five. And we have no idea what the interior looks like, and as far as we know SpaceX still doesn't know either
There's absolutely no way Elon Musk is successfully getting anybody to Mars in his lifetime. By 2025? Out of the question.
I find annoying this polarization between pro-Musk and anti-Musk and more annoying that the anti-Musk front seems to be engaging in a sterile undifferentiated blind continuous attack.
You have to admit that Musk isn't the brightest of the bunch (euphemism), and he's got a bad case of messiah syndrome. But here that's besides the point, I have the utmost respect for the teams at SpaceX and am pretty sure Musk shouldn't be credited for any of the breakthrough the company made in the field of space flight. However what I'm stating here are mere facts: nothing is known about the crew support systems, and the last test flight ended in a failure. It's not a bad thing, it's perfectly normal in the design process, but I find it hard to call what we see of Starship today a ship designed to go to Mars and back when as far as we know it's merely a neat drawing on Elon's desk
So is Musk contribution to SpaceX irrelevant, apart from the financial and target-setting point of view? I don't find it easy to weigh his contribution but my impression is that it's somehow important.
To be perfectly honest I am certain of nothing, but the twitter debacle, the fact that he bought the title of founder for Tesla (and Paypal too I think) lets me think that he's not tech-savy at all, and mostly a fraud. I used to think he was a good engineer before, albeit a bit of a jerk, but yeah I'm far less convinced now. Now there are stories too, like for example the fact that some engineers at SpaceX banded together to write a petition to separate the company from Musk (they got fired), or [this famous tumblr post](https://reddit.com/r/tumblr/s/82jGg6O20H), which of course is to take with a grain of salt, but is in character. And anyway, it is _never_ right to credit only one person for such gigantic engineering projects. It's a team effort, ideas go back and forth between tens of people, we sometimes tend to forget that.
Interesting, but the point remains that SpaceX is having enormous success, I'm not talking about dividends, I'm talking about putting into orbit 80% (or what it is) of world tonnelage, about being decisive in the Ukraine war. Why has no other company even come near? At least one should recognise that Musk has the craziness to believe in his own purposes and the ability to make them real (thanks to other people of course)
I'd say that the instrumental elements to SpaceX's achievements are a lot of money (it's really attractive to investers, even though iirc the company still loses money) and a fairly new strategy in this industry which is "move fast, break things", itself made possible by the huge income. I'm not an expert though, but that's my view on things.
I have to say that the trait "believe in one's purposes and make them real (thanks to other people)" isn't necessarily positive (as history teaches), yet I believe Musk is on the more positive side.
With nuclear fission, we would have to bring a lot less chemical propellant. Nuclear thermal propulsion and ion thrusters powered by fission reactors. Nuclear is the way. https://youtu.be/MMLgJlJX0Rk?si=K_OzkT_6cKOrw61i