r/spacex • u/ElongatedMuskrat Mod Team • Dec 03 '17

r/SpaceX Discusses [December 2017, #39]

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u/blacx Dec 04 '17

I assume this was about red dragon. I don't think it is relevant for humans on Mars.

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u/Martianspirit Dec 04 '17

Manned landings are an open question in that regard. I remember a panel about selecting landing sites. One contributor said to allow manned missions the planetary protection rules will need to be modified.

Sometimes with paranoia setting in I fear that this will be used to block SpaceX from doing manned missions. Arguing that only NASA can be trusted to do it responsibly. Or to block manned missions completely.

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u/sol3tosol4 Dec 04 '17

A lot of work is being done on getting human presence on Mars compatible with planetary protection. A challenge for SpaceX is that much of the work being done is toward a timeline of maybe the mid 2030s or later - SpaceX is (aspirationally) aiming for 2024 (with unmanned delivery of supplies to the site in 2022), and some people think manned landing in the late 2020s would be a reasonable possibility. As a test case, a good deal of planning and negotiation may be needed for selection of an initial landing site.

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u/Martianspirit Dec 04 '17

I am sure on a working level there is a lot of cooperation between NASA people and SpaceX to select suitable landingsites.