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[sneakey pete]

To be fair, most rockets before now have been built and run by private companies, the level of NASA oversight is just reduced a bit now isn't it?

[Eric Blank]

Well, the thing about breaking down halfway to your destination in a near-zero friction environment is that as long as your current course didn't need any corrections including changing directions or further acceleration, you'll still reach the destination. Probably.

So at worst you'd need a shuttle service in orbit around Mars and Earth which could potentially fly out to intercept craft that go off course or lose control and then return. As long as life support and hull integrity isn't compromised, and supplies hauled are somewhat greater than the estimated necessary supplies, passengers should be fine.

[Starver]

Well, the thing about breaking down halfway to your destination in a near-zero friction environment is that as long as your current course didn't need any corrections including changing directions or further acceleration, you'll still reach the destination. Probably.

So at worst you'd need a shuttle service in orbit around Mars and Earth which could potentially fly out to intercept craft that go off course or lose control and then return. As long as life support and hull integrity isn't compromised, and supplies hauled are somewhat greater than the estimated necessary supplies, passengers should be fine.

Can't remember the name of the story, right now[1], but you're inadvertently making me think of that one with the distinguished astronaut who gets vertigo (in the process of distinguishing himself) and finds himself in a virtual fugue and self-grounded until a kitten's plight springs him out of it...

Not really relevant to the facts of current space flight, but (among loads of other scenarios that have been fictionalised) has some relevance to your posited happenings...


[1] "Green Hills of Earth" by Heinlein comes to mind, but it aint that, because that's the old spaceman/hitchhiker/'folk singer' one...  Might still be a Heinlein, though.

[Lightningfalcon]

PTW.  I was going to contribute, but then I saw other people have already covered it in more detail. 

[i2amroy]

Well, the thing about breaking down halfway to your destination in a near-zero friction environment is that as long as your current course didn't need any corrections including changing directions or further acceleration, you'll still reach the destination. Probably.

So at worst you'd need a shuttle service in orbit around Mars and Earth which could potentially fly out to intercept craft that go off course or lose control and then return. As long as life support and hull integrity isn't compromised, and supplies hauled are somewhat greater than the estimated necessary supplies, passengers should be fine.

Of course we do have the problem where the spaceship that was supposed to come to a gentle stop in orbit around Mars/Earth instead becomes a screaming fireball plunging through the atmosphere in a deadly crash course when the retrorockets fail to be able to be controlled due to your break down.

[alway]

Or more likely, you miss and continue off into the bounded-but-infinite virtual-particle-riddled void which is space.

[Soralin]

SpaceX and their Grasshopper is making progress. Looks very Kerbal'y to me, they've just grabbed a stock Falcon fuel tank and a Merlin engine and attached some landing struts to it (along with some extra control systems).

And another launch, this one about 3x as high, at 250m:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoxiK7K28PU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUvbh-Z8Abk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXG_nX7Exg0

Neat but isn't it overkill compared to just attaching a parachute and having a surface recovery team?

Of course I might be thinking in the shuttle mentality of needing repairs after every mission.  Maybe you could launch, refill and launch without any frills?

They actually tried a parachute for the first launches, but the stage is going too fast, and didn't have a heat shield or active control without the engines, and so it just broke apart in the atmosphere coming down.  It's going a lot faster and is a lot further up then the solid boosters on the shuttle were when they detached.

I think I saw something saying, with the first Falcon v1.1 launch in July, they're planning on using their engines to slow it down to a safe speed, after the second stage detaches, and try to "land" it on the ocean as a test run (or to see at what point it breaks, since you're going to lose the first stage regardless anyway, might as well make the attempt).  But that they eventually plan on landing it back at the pad.