One way trip to Mars

Quote: Pacomartin

In 15 years if you go to the moon, there is a possibility of tourists circling the moon every year. At the very least they could drop equipment.

There was a TZ ep, in the 80s I think, where a girl stows away in a spaceship. Unfortunately her mass was not accounted for and there's not enough fuel for the craft to reach its destination safely (either for braking or for sustaining constant acceleration). The pilot is sympathetic, and between the two they try to lighten the ship by collecting all non-essential items, plus cutting out some pieces of the interior.

SPOILER ALERT!!



In the end they can't get enough mass, and the girl has to step out of the airlock without a spacesuit


The problem and the solution, such as it was, were completely realistic. Spaceships have very little leeway. You can't just drop supplies on the spur of the moment. You can't, either, drop supplies from a craft designed to orbit the Moon, even if you considered it beforehand. If you were to open the window, as it were, and let a package drop, it would stay in the same orbit the ship is in. When the ship breaks orbit, the package will stay in that orbit until something acts upon it and the orbit changes. It could take centuries to hit the Moon's surface, if it does at all.

What you'd need to do is out the supplies in a rocket, or attach them to a rocket engine and fuel tanks (same thing), eject or detach that from your pleasure craft (which would carry fewer passengers to make up for the extra mass), and fire it in the right direction with the right thrust to get where it's needed. You'd need some kind of guidance system as well. And as there is no air on the Moon, you'd need additional fuel to break to a gentle stop on the surface.

Any long-term mission to the Moon or Mars should consider regular resupply from Earth indefinitely, or it will likely fail.

Quote: Nareed

In the end they can't get enough mass, and the girl has to step out of the airlock without a spacesuit

Hey, each leg is around 10% of total body weight. Amputation.

1/3G?

I could finally hit a drive longer than 180yds.

Baseball fields would take up entire counties.

Quote: Face

1/3G?

I could finally hit a drive longer than 180yds.

Baseball fields would take up entire counties.

The suit would make it hard to get a full swing. How far did the golf ball travel that Alan Shepard hit with a six iron on the moon?

Quote: Ayecarumba

The suit would make it hard to get a full swing.

And the aerodynamic dimples on the ball are plain wasted.

Quote: Nareed

And the aerodynamic dimples on the ball are plain wasted.

Mars has an atmosphere, so maybe not a total waste (and NASA recently announced confirmation of water hazards!).

Quote: Ayecarumba

Mars has an atmosphere, so maybe not a total waste (and NASA recently announced confirmation of water hazards!).

Yes, but putting on the red just isn't the same ;)

Could you hit a golf ball so hard on Mars that it breaks the sound barrier?

Maybe.

1) The speed of sound depends on the medium. The thinner the medium, the lower the speed, conversely the denser the medium the higher the speed.

2) Mars sometimes has strong windstorms, which have been measured by probes as moving faster than the speed of sound.

So if you could tee off during one such storm, the speed imparted by the club plus that of the wind acting on the ball, might be enough.

But it doesn't seem likely.

You cannot hit a golf ball hard enough on the Moon to get it to go into orbit.

Quote: Nareed

So if you could tee off during one such storm, the speed imparted by the club plus that of the wind acting on the ball, might be enough.

Speed of sound on Mars is about 2/3 of the speed of sound on Earth. Not a dramatically different value.
On Mars the speed of sound is 240 m/s, much slower than the 332 m/s on earth.

The fastest wind speed not related to tornadoes ever recorded was during the passage of Tropical Cyclone Olivia on 10 April 1996: an automatic weather station on Barrow Island, Australia, registered a maximum wind gust of 408 km/h (113 m/s). The fastest win in a tornado is about 142 m/s (still under half the speed of sound).

The fastest recorded speed of a golf ball is over 100 m/s. On Mars you would have less resistance so the club would go faster and there would be less resistance on the ball.

So I agree that it might be possible, but still difficult.