Alternative Transportation Method, By Nate Castner

Mars on a Shoestring” (1)

An alternative to the commonly proposed methods of getting to Mars has been proposed by veteran inventor, Eric Knight. Knight unveiled an idea that would allow human exploration of Mars in only a few years, as opposed to the 10-year timeline proposed by most space authorities. Knight’s idea arose from his dismay of the future retiring of current space shuttles. He wanted to think of a way that would put them to use instead of packing them away in moth balls. The idea is quite simple. Knight proposes launching two space shuttles into Earth’s orbit. Once there, rendezvous and connect the two shuttles together, top to top through the use of a truss. The ends of this truss would be anchored to the base of the orbiters’ payload bays. In the middle of the truss, there would be a propulsion stage with enough capacity to accelerate the whole system to the required speed. Once up to speed, the stage could be detached along with the truss. The two shuttles would separate to a distance of a few hundred feet, but remain connected by a tether cable. There would be a large conduit between the two shuttles that would allow passage of crew members between the two shuttles. The shuttles, once fully separated, would fire thrusters to put the system into a rotating “orbit” to create a comfortable level of gravity for the remainder of the trip.
This idea provides many solutions to many of the problems associated with long distance travel. Having a level of gravity will diminish the effects on the human body in prolonged absences of gravity, such as muscle and bone deterioration. Having a two shuttle system would provide ample living space for the crew while being able to store large quantities of food and equipment. There would also be room for hydroponic gardens, which aside from providing food also help convert carbon dioxide into oxygen for the crew. Granted, usual storage space is lost with “gravity” present, since storage on the ceiling does not work out so well under gravity.

“Space Infrastructure” (2)

Another novel idea to avoid the inefficiencies of chemical propulsion, large amounts of fuel consumed, and the weight associated with the fuels is to set up “pit-stops” in space. The idea is to create a set of man-made space stations on natural celestial bodies, such as asteroids, and set them in orbits that are useful to the route. These space stations would provide human habitat and depot facilities. More importantly, they would contain electromagnetic launchers to rapidly accelerate spacecrafts without the use of conventional fuels or consuming onboard resources. One problem with this idea is that an object in the ideal orbit will have a period of about 26 months, which would represent the time between opportunities for missions to Mars from Earth. However, this technology wouldn’t stop just for missions to Mars. This would provide a sort of network infrastructure to get us to wherever we want to go, time now only being the limiting factor.


(1) http://www.remarkable.com/marsonashoestring.html
(2) http://www.marssociety.org/portal/TMS_Library/MAR_98_078/?searchterm=habitation