Are GPS satellites typically placed into orbit by NASA or by private companies?
List of GPS satellites provides a list of every GPS satellite ever launched and the launch platform used. The U.S. Air Force launches and operates the satellites.Up until 2009, the satellite launch management was handled by the Air Force, primarily with Lockheed and Boeing rockets. Since USA-206, the Air Force contracts private launch services, mostly United Launch Alliance. On December 23, 2018, SpaceX GPS 3-01 broke ULA’s uninterrupted streak by carrying a 3rd generation GPS satellite into orbit. Game on!Since it is cheaper to use private launch contractors, expect most future missions to use them.
What would happen if a private space company would go to Mars and claim it?
Well, the rule is: A private company can claim Mars.But it doesn’t have to be only about Mars. It could be the newly discovered Americas, a big river in Egypt, your kitchen, MY island in the Pacific:A private company can claim any area.But it doesn’t have to be a physical thing. It could be a line between Mexico and the USA, or refugees flooding your city, or a World Cup soccer/football trophy, or income taxes, or his religion, or your marriage:A private company can claim anything.But looking at it from the moon Triton (which for some reason is NOT spinning in the same direction as ALL the other big moons), there is no real difference between your family and a private company like Apple or all the people in a country like Spain…they are all just groups of people, nothing special about any particular group:A group of people can claim anything.But a group or an army or a party is a bit misleading. Really the members are the real thing. The group is just an idea. A group doesn’t do anything. A person does something:A person can claim anything.Now comes the interesting part. (In music, this is called the “bridge”.) How do we work it out, all these people? All these people running around. After all, claims are a dime a dozen. Are you going to co-operate? sign a treaty? help your neighbour? Be inclusive? Or are you going to not co-operate? not sign a treaty? hurt your neighbour? Be exclusive?And to take it one last step further: you can’t co-operate all the time, sign every treaty, hurt every neighbour, be exclusive or inclusive all the time…. So,if YOU claim something…what are you going to do about it?
Would a private company need government permission to land on Mars?
1967’s Outer Space Treaty makes individual countries responsible for overseeing activities done in space by companies in those countries. But it didn’t spell out how countries have to do that, so different countries have different regulatory models. What kind of regulatory OK that private company needs is going to depend on what country it operates out of. In the US, for example, these kinds of policy discussions are happening in Washington DC as people see that existing regulatory structures — Transportation Department OKs for launches, FCC OKs for communications satellites, NOAA OKs for earth imaging satellites — don’t really address up-and-coming ideas like space tourism, asteroid mining, in-orbit satellite servicing and so on.
How much does it cost to send 1kg into space?
The new, low cost, SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket can put 10,450 kg (23,050 lb) in low Earth orbit for $54 million. Doing the math I get $5,167 dollars per kilogram. Note that this is the cheapest it has ever been. Any other rocket will cost $10,000 or more per kilogram, but the exact numbers are not published, which is why you couldn't find them.
What is more realistic: creating a "floating satellite apartment complex" in space, or colonizing Mars?
There’s an imbalance to the question: an apartment complex in space is not quite in the same category as a colony. The ISS is an apartment complex in space, and so that is entirely realistic. ‘Colony’ is a fuzzy concept but generally involves multi-generational settlement, establishment, permanence. Vikings in Newfoundland are called (in Wiki) an “attempted colony” because they eventually withdrew or died out. I have not heard of the Antarctic bases spoken of as a colony, because the point is not to establish a society there. Even though the bases are in fact relatively permanent micro-societies, the population is not settled, and children are not raised as natural citizens of that new state.Putting people on Mars in the same sense as putting people on Antarctica is about equally realistic as making homes in space. It could be done. But a place to sleep and 3 squares a day doesn’t make a colony.A permanent multi-generational colony, with a growing population of Martians born and bred, is not going to happen. There is nothing on Mars. It’s an extremely hostile environment, biologically inimical to our sort of life, that could never be self-supporting. There is no reason for people to be there, the cost of sending and supporting them would be huge, and they could never be ‘settled’ in any meaningful way.So a ‘colony’ anywhere but in our own natural environment is not realistic, even though putting people in orbit, or on another large body in the solar system, is entirely possible.
Do you think Elon Musk will send humans to Mars?
No.I think he’s right that it’s technically possible.And I think he’s genuinely committed enough to spend a tonne of his own money on trying to make it happen.But by himself, he’s orders of magnitude short of the money needed. See his current estimate of it costing 10 billion dollars per person to go to Mars. And that 10 billion per person is for a one way trip.To make any kind of life worth living for potential Mars colonists you need to send around 100 people … much fewer and we’re condemning them to loneliness and inbreeding and a high risk of the colony being wiped out.So that’s a trillion dollars. Private philanthropy can’t afford that. Governments can’t afford that. And there’s no way that the first 100 Mars colonists are going to generate enough profit to make that trillion dollars a legitimate private investment opportunity.The numbers just don’t add up.Personally I’m sceptical that we’ll ever become a space-faring species. But if we do, I think it’s more likely to be after we’ve had a couple of hundred years of sending robots out to do the preparations for us. We’ll have robot asteroid mining and space construction. And perhaps even farming on Mars. Long before we can practicably send humans there.
Shouldn't the next event in exploring Mars be to send an unmanned vehicle to land there, collect soil samples, and launch back to earth?
A sample return mission is on everybody's wish list, but on nobody’s actual list for near term missions.Why?A sample return mission of this magnitude is more complex than anything ever tried before. There have a few sample return missions, but these missions usually were to much smaller bodies which didn’t have atmospheres.The only missions that were in any way similar were the three Soviet Luna series from the early 1970s. Luna 16, Luna 20, and Luna 24 returned samples of the Lunar regolith from the Moon to the Earth. These missions, while impressive, had some problems. The three successful missions represented less than a third of the attempted missions, that is a pretty low success rate. The other problem with the Luna missions is the size of the returned sample. Luna 24 returned the largest sample at 170.1 grams (6 ounces), compare that to the 22 kilograms (48.5 pounds) that Apollo 11 brought back. Apollo 17 collected 111 kilograms (245 pounds) with of samples, including a deep core sample from 3 meters down.A sample return mission to Mars would, like the Luna missions, probably involve a fairly small sample. This is because the size of sample return rocket would be quite small, but still have to have enough fuel to get into Mars orbit, boost to an Earth intercept trajectory, then slow down into Earth orbit. This is a lot to ask of a small rocket! To get a larger sample you need a bigger rocket, if you are going to build a bigger rocket, why not upsize a bit more and send a crewed mission?The basic takeaway of this answer is that a Martian sample return mission would be very complicated (so very risky) and extremely expensive. At the moment, no space agency has the budget to attempt a Martian sample return, especially given the risk involved.But there is a possible Martian sample return mission in the works, it just isn’t being planned by a national space agency.Say hello to Red Dragon:Red Dragon is a program planned by the SpaceX company, which has stated that they may send a sample return mission as early as 2022.Details to follow (hopefully!)
Will humans go to Mars by 2022?
No, but it’s far more complicated than just political will or money…It’s a very complex mission. It makes the Moon missions look simple. It boils down to the ability to build a very powerful, very large, very reliable rocket, and a complete system (as yet undefined due to so many unknowns) to complete the mission. Astronaut radiation exposure during the long voyage cannot be ignored, nor has it been solved. The isolationism of the crew confined in a very small space for many months at a time — each way — creates problems of it’s own.The rocket must be powerful enough to launch a pressurized, life-supporting spacecraft, along with astronauts, EV space suits, Mars experiment equipment (a rover?), de-orbiting/landing/take-off systems, and a mars rendezvous orbiter — into Earth orbit, then the long trip to Mars orbit. A very heavy package. Breaking free of earth’s gravity with a heavy payload requires enormous lifting power. Mars has more gravitational pull than the Moon, so the package for landing and returning from Mars must be bigger & heavier. A controlled re-entry on both planets is always tricky. A powered landing on Mars with such a big payload has never been attempted. Because so much equipment is needed for a successful mission, my guess is it might be possible only if supply spacecraft(s) precede the mission, and are safely in Mars orbit before the main mission is launched. I just don’t see how everything could be launched in one package— it would take the Mother of All Rockets, something that doesn’t exist — not even in Elon Musk’s mind.We must take into account the complexities of combining various technologies into a workable, successful mission. Space is tremendously unforgiving. Every system must work perfectly to succeed. Failure is usually fatal. Systems integration at this level is a fine art. Only Lockheed Martin or Boeing have the expertise to pull it off — certainly NOT today’s NASA or SpaceX (Elon’s PowerPoint’s notwithstanding!). Missions of this complexity require a level of integration never before accomplished — and many BILLIONS of dollars…
Is NASA dying? Will the organization eventually be replaced by private companies, such as SpaceX?
Once again: NASA Stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration.NASA is not in the business of making or flying rocketsNASA is not in the business of making or putting in orbit satellites.NASA is for research in the domains of aeronautics, astronautics and the like.NASA is NOT for profit.NASA requires federal funds for working, this is why is a federal agency.SpaceX and all the other commercial ventures are FOR profit, they sell their services to other customers including NASA.Neither Spacex nor the other commercial ventures will send a robot to Jupiter for the sake of science.Hope this answer makes sense to you, it is really tiring to try to explain why the premise of the question is amazingly WRONG!.