Red Dragon Options

[Paolo]

'Red Dragon' Mission Mulled as Cheap Search for Mars Life
any opinion on this? would it really make sense adapting a manned spaceship to unmanned Mars landing? I am skeptical...

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[pospa]

Since payload capacity of Red Dragon to Mars surface would be couple of tons I see this concept quite suitable for MSR mission.
It could IMHO merge at least two separate missions: Sample Caching Rover and Sample Return Lander.
Don't you think?

[ugordan]

Since payload capacity of Red Dragon to Mars surface would be couple of tons I see this concept quite suitable for MSR mission.

Payload mass (i.e. launch vehicle performance) to Mars will be just one factor in MSR. A much bigger cost will be the actual spacecraft, as is usually the case. I don't see Red Dragon helping here. If a large mass is needed there, just using Falcon Heavy with a dedicated spacecraft would make more sense (coincidentally, MSR with one spacecraft was something Elon Musk suggested would be enabled by the Falcon Heavy).

This concept of using Dragon to land something on Mars is interesting but it does have drawbacks. A big chunk of the landed mass would be Dragon itself and its (for unmanned landers) unnecessary pressurized structure. It also remains to be seen if a Dragon could actually perform a successful EDL in the first place.

[djellison]

A big chunk of the landed mass would be Dragon itself and its (for unmanned landers) unnecessary pressurized structure.

The point being, when the LV can lift so much weight - then you can get away with 'wasted' mass.

The thing we have the least of, is money. If a system like this gets instrumentation onto the ground at <$ than, say, 'traditional' spacecraft design and LV's.... then it's a win.