Landing Humans on Mars

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective of my project was to find out if humans can land on Mars and return to Earth using existing rocket technology. I hypothesize that this can be accomplished although it will take many launches. Methods/Materials First, I designed a theoretical Mars mission and calculated its mass. Then, I figured out how much propellant it would take to get it to Mars and back. Next, I added the propellant mass to the mass of the vehicle and found the total launch mass of the spacecraft. Finally, I divided this number by the amount of mass an existing heavy-lift rocket can carry to Low Earth Orbit to find the number of launches necessary. Results I concluded that the mission would have a total mass of about 1,218,000 kg. It would take 49 launches of a Delta IV Heavy rocket to get this mass to Low Earth Orbit. This proves my hypothesis correct. Conclusions/Discussion My hypothesis was correct: humans can get to Mars but it is not feasible with current technology. Forty-nine launches would require too much in-orbit assembly. The mass can be reduced, however, by employing mass saving techniques such as aerobraking into Mars orbit and in-situ resource utilization on Mars. For comparison, if the old Saturn V rocket were used, it would only take 10 launches to carry the spacecraft into Low Earth Orbit because the Saturn V was a more powerful rocket.

Competition history

• CSEF 2004 Aerodynamics/ Hydrodynamics · Entry J0104

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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