Vessel Hermes Spacecraft from The Martian

[wllmpeek]

So, when is one of our brilliant developers going to make a kick ass replica of the Hermes Spacecraft from the movie The Martian? Is someone currently working on it? If so, who?

 

[boogabooga]

Looks to me like you can build something close now with Interplanetary Modular Spacecraft. (IMS)

What is the propulsion system?

 

[ccapeahrt1017]

im pretty sure there still using chemical propulsion

 

[Mandella]

First off, probably should move this to Addon Requests.

That said, I have to agree that the first thing I thought of when I saw the Hermes was that I couldn't wait to fly this mission in Orbiter!

We've been somewhat blessed in the last few years with Sci-Fi movies featuring reasonably realistic ships. Gattispilot is doing a great job of modeling the vessels from Interstellar, and I'm really looking forward to whoever decides to tackle The Martian.

It won't be as easy a job as it first looks either. For the full mission the MAVs will also need to be modeled, and as far as I know we were never shown what the descent stage looked like before it was decoupled from the Hermes (presumably the hab module was the descent stage reconfigured on the ground -- I've only seen the movie once so forgive me if I missed something here like a separate clearly labeled descent stage sitting off to one side).

 

[SolarLiner]

im pretty sure there still using chemical propulsion

Because of the constant acceleration trajectory, I thought the engine was an Ion one.

It won't be as easy a job as it first looks either. For the full mission the MAVs will also need to be modeled, and as far as I know we were never shown what the descent stage looked like before it was decoupled from the Hermes (presumably the hab module was the descent stage reconfigured on the ground -- I've only seen the movie once so forgive me if I missed something here like a separate clearly labeled descent stage sitting off to one side).

Andy Weir is such a geek I'm sure if someone emailed him saying they wanted to make the Hermes for Orbiter, he'd provide us with all the little details of the whole mission :lol:

 

[perseus]

Interesting site with the technical aspect of the hypothetical mission.

Inside The Spaceflight Of 'The Martian

 

[francisdrake]

The Atomic Rockets website has a chapter on Hermes concepts, with reverse-engineered data from the book and the movie.

 

[Kyle]

The engine is mentioned to be an ion engine in the book.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

It was argon fueled, iirc, so it could be a gridded ion engine, a Hall effect thruster, or even a VASIMR unit. Each of them would need the power of a small nuclear reactor to achieve the required thrust to accelerate the mass of the Hermes in a reasonable manner.

 

[Andy44]

I just finished the book. They use the term "ion engine" several times, and in one piece of dialogue the word "vasimr" is used. The ship has a "reactor room" which is a pressurized space. Few other details are mentioned, other than that the main drive is low thrust and high Isp.

I agree that inviting the author to join OF might not be a bad idea. He sounds like the kind of guy who might be willing to do it, and he's the one with all the tech research on the story.