US Space Policy and Mars

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I completely agree, and I agree with the article as well, at least as far as I got into it.

But you know you are going to run into trouble with such a political topic, right?
 
I completely agree, and I agree with the article as well, at least as far as I got into it.

But you know you are going to run into trouble with such a political topic, right?

Yeah, but there is a picture of a rocket in the article so it's all good. :wink:

Greg
 
I have some very strong opinions on the negative effects of politics on the space program (and who is mainly to blame) which would set this place on fire (most people have the 'blame' aimed almost completely backwards), but in the interest of not doing that, we will just leave those alone for the moment.

I am 56; I believe it is highly unlikely I will see a manned Mars mission in my lifetime due to rather momentous technical and medical obstacles standing in the way.

Keeping a crew alive for that length of time at that distance from Earth and that great a separation from possible repair/replacement resources, IMO is going to be insurmountable for a long long time. And the possiblity of a high-fatality flight accident which would tank public support for such ventures for many decades on end, very high.

That is, a manned Mars mission would have a fairly high possiblity of a critical failure which would leave the crew alive, but condemned to death, for weeks or possibly months. With Apollo, those scenarios were capped at maybe a week at the outside.
 
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I agree with your points.

IMHO, the difficulties of humans going to Mars is exponentially more difficult/expensive than the moon. That is, unless we discovered an economic high-speed propulsion system that can be adapted easily to space flight. Not holding my breath on that one.

It wasn't until much later that I learned that the Apollo missions bled off a lot of their energy due to the effects of the earth's gravity, until they got close to the moon and was influenced by its gravity. Once the S-IVB SECO'd it's TLI burn, it was coasting uphill.

spacefarerseml1[1].jpg

As an aside, it makes sense to me to take 3 ships in loose formation to Mars to increase your chances. Even then it's still a risky proposition.

Greg
 
I agree with your points.

IMHO, the difficulties of humans going to Mars is exponentially more difficult/expensive than the moon. That is, unless we discovered an economic high-speed propulsion system that can be adapted easily to space flight.

...

BINGO! Some as yet undeveloped propulsion system will be needed I think. And another Sputnik level event :) .
 
Supposedly, later in the year, Elon Musk is planning to announce a design for a rocket to take humans to Mars. I have no idea what that would be, but it's gotta be BIG! Seeing as SpaceX hasn't even flown the Falcon Heavy yet, nor flown the Dragon v2 with a human crew yet, this could all be pie-in-the-sky vaporware, but it will still be very interesting to see what he has in mind. He talks in broad strokes about having humans on Mars in 12 years and also of eventually a city on Mars. Maybe we won't see humans on mars in our lifetimes, but maybe we will.
 
I'd like to see somebody pull off an unmanned soil-sample return flight to Mars as a first step toward the concept that a manned flight would be even remotely feasible.

But even that would require -- just guessing -- probably 1/100th of the weight involved in sending a human crew, keeping them alive until your return launch window lined up, and getting them back.

I think ultimately the mission would probably include a multiple-flight plan which would have large supply and fuel-tanker ships being launched first, maybe using gravity-assist slingshot orbits around Venus, going into orbit around Mars, then landing fully automated rover/supply vehicles on the surface of Mars, and refueling with hydrogen/oxygen extracted from surface/underground water.

The manned vehicle would then land on the surface and the crew would have to surface-rendezvous with the supply vehicles already there.

The crew wouldn't even be launched from Earth until the Mars orbital and surface vehicles had already landed safely and were known to be functioning. Of course the vagaries of orbital windows might mean those surface ships might have to sit there for several years until the manned ships arrived.
 
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I agree with your points.

As an aside, it makes sense to me to take 3 ships in loose formation to Mars to increase your chances. Even then it's still a risky proposition.

Greg

You might name them, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria... but that would probably be Politically Incorrect.
 
More of the same...

Same old arguments for manned space travel, exploration, colonization, and all that... "gotta get off this rock before it blows up" and all that... yeah right. Even IF SLS/Orion and whatever modules will be required to get to Mars actually works, it's still a FAR cry from an established, self-sustaining independent colony. All that stuff is basically just space cadet dreams and nothing more, at least til MAYBE the late second half of this century, if then.

By the time we're ready and capable of sending humans to the surface of Mars with some chance of successfully getting them back alive, robotics and automation will have further developed to the point that it will be expensive and ultimately unnecessary to do so. We're already seeing a revolution in capabilities with UAV's and other military systems that are working their way out into more and more applications and we're seeing more cutting edge research creating capabilities that were undreamed of just a decade or two ago. Think of how antiquated our current robotics and automation will appear in another 20-30 years (AT LEAST) when current talk says we should be about ready to send humans to Mars...

For a tiny fraction of what a manned expedition to Mars would cost, we could send a platoon of robotic explorers, something like a cross between R2-D2, C-3PO, and a Terminator to Mars to do research, not for 30 days to a year (which is mandated by return timing for human missions-- you either leave within 30 days or you stay at least a year) but an ongoing mission for MANY years, possibly decades. All this rubbish about "robots don't know what to look for" will disappear with AI and more creative and capable programming, SPECIFICALLY to look for the "unusual" and "out of the ordinary" in any situation. Such robots could function for a decade or more on the surface, supplemented by various sample-return missions to send back interesting materials they've recovered for laboratory analysis in LEO or in labs on Earth (depending on contamination concerns) and they could cover a lot more area and a lot more dangerous situations than a human mission ever could hope to explore. They can "sleep" through the long radiation-dosed coast to Mars via standard rocket propulsion that we have now, not requiring food or oxygen or waste disposal or water or maintaining their mental stability and physical health in a manner to allow them to complete the mission, not needing radiation shelters or high levels of shielding... They can be landed on Mars with 100% of the cargo capability of the vehicle being dedicated to surface operations systems-- no need for return vehicles, ensuring that everything ends up on the surface in close enough proximity and in condition good enough to ensure a return to Earth for the human crew. Robots will stay on Mars forever. No risk of biological contamination, suit damage or seal degradation (a REAL problem that will have to be overcome), surface life support systems, pressurized rovers, and all the other systems necessary to support humans and keep them alive will not be required.

Additionally, other than this "year long" ISS flight, NASA is doing NOTHING to conquer the many problems that MUST be solved before a Mars flight is even feasible. Even this year long ISS mission is only a first step; surviving a Mars mission will require at least TWO years in deep space more than likely. The technical requirements that will have to be surmounted aren't even being addressed-- things like cryogenic propellant storage in deep space for protracted lengths of time, cryogenic propellant transfer, and many other issues are at most on the back burner, if they're on the radar at all. NASA is throwing everything it has into development of a super-expensive HLV rocket (SLS) that will STILL require at least six launches to mount a Mars mission, but which will only launch AT MOST every 2-3 years. This will make it prohibitively expensive to maintain as an operational system over the long run. In the meantime, these other serious issues, hardware and module development, etc. are all getting short shrift, as if they'll "magically appear" once the rocket to carry them is perfected... NONE of this stuff is being funded, and without these modules and systems, Orion itself can really do NOTHING-- propulsion-wise it's not even as capable as Apollo (it can't go into lunar orbit and back out again by itself without a booster stage (ICPS, CPS, lander, etc.)

All this stuff is just talk. The system isn't even being organized properly with the correct division of labor and tasks and research and development, design and testing, management and program allocation necessary to develop a Mars capability... it's currently set up to distribute gubmint pork to the SLS (former shuttle for the most part) contractors, and that's about it.

If NASA and their masters in the Administration and Congress were SERIOUS about getting to Mars, they'd have a timeline. They'd be setting up programs to develop the hardware necessary-- pressurized rovers, hab modules, in-space propulsion (and the necessary associated systems like long-term cryogenic propellant storage and cryogenic propellant transfer), crew health and medical issues research (granted this is basically ISS's main reason for existence, but it's basically at a very elementary level-- certainly not a "demonstration level" to show how these issues will be successfully addressed, and besides, doing it on ISS keeps it within Earth's magnetosphere and therefore in a radiation environment far more benign than that in deep space, through which a Mars mission will have to operate for close to two years at a minimum), etc. These are the things NASA MUST have and be able to do to go to Mars... They should have farmed out the development of the "super rocket" to SpaceX or ULA or whomever and should focus THEIR limited resources on answering the REAL questions and developing the capabilities that will enable a Mars mission to even be feasible.

A Mars mission isn't impossible-- but trying to do it on the old "Apollo" model or methodology isn't going to work, either. Heck, there wasn't the money to do an "Apollo-style" Mars mission even when the Apollo program already had developed and paid for MOST of the necessary technology (in the rocket and spacecraft and most systems, anyway... they'd have still needed the other stuff I mentioned in the way of long-term propulsion and propellant storage and transfer, modules, long-life suits (Apollo suits were literally falling apart after a couple days of operation on the lunar surface!), pressurized rovers, surface power and life support systems, etc.)

The fact that ALL NASA, Congress, and the Administration seems capable of concentrating on is the shiny new rocket tells me that this whole thing just isn't seriously thought through... If it were, it'd be better focused and better organized, at a minimum, not to mention better funded.

Oh well, I've come to expect nothing more. Politicians just don't have the vision and desire to see the long term and commit to it, ESPECIALLY in this day and age.

Later! OL JR :)
 
Supposedly, later in the year, Elon Musk is planning to announce a design for a rocket to take humans to Mars. I have no idea what that would be, but it's gotta be BIG! Seeing as SpaceX hasn't even flown the Falcon Heavy yet, nor flown the Dragon v2 with a human crew yet, this could all be pie-in-the-sky vaporware, but it will still be very interesting to see what he has in mind. He talks in broad strokes about having humans on Mars in 12 years and also of eventually a city on Mars. Maybe we won't see humans on mars in our lifetimes, but maybe we will.

He offered to build a Saturn-V class HLV for NASA for $3.5 billion... NASA turned him down and basically laughed up their sleeve at his "naivete" (cannot be done according to NASA). Then they went ahead with their own nearly $40 BILLION dollar development of SLS.

THAT is why we're not going to be going to Mars, at least not with NASA in the mindset it has NOW. Until that changes, not much else will...

A recent thread decried the "discrediting of NASA" by the reams of internet nutters and tin foil hatters and other conspiracy nutjobs on Youtube and such... In truth, NASA is doing more to make themselves irrelevant and outdated than ANY external threat (with the exception of their political masters in Congress and government) by not embracing a newer and more efficient methodology and fostering the development of the kinds of organizations and systems that will be necessary not only to do the mission, but to make it possible from a feasibility and economic standpoint in the first place.

In short-- it's not 1962 anymore... the sooner NASA realizes that the better...

Later! OL JR :)
 
I'd like to see somebody pull off an unmanned soil-sample return flight to Mars as a first step toward the concept that a manned flight would be even remotely feasible.

But even that would require -- just guessing -- probably 1/100th of the weight involved in sending a human crew, keeping them alive until your return launch window lined up, and getting them back.

I think ultimately the mission would probably include a multiple-flight plan which would have large supply and fuel-tanker ships being launched first, maybe using gravity-assist slingshot orbits around Venus, going into orbit around Mars, then landing fully automated rover/supply vehicles on the surface of Mars, and refueling with hydrogen/oxygen extracted from surface/underground water.

The manned vehicle would then land on the surface and the crew would have to surface-rendezvous with the supply vehicles already there.

The crew wouldn't even be launched from Earth until the Mars orbital and surface vehicles had already landed safely and were known to be functioning. Of course the vagaries of orbital windows might mean those surface ships might have to sit there for several years until the manned ships arrived.

O2/H2 systems are a terrible idea for the surface of Mars, at least in the short term. LH2 is EXCEEDINGLY difficult to store due to its low temperature and tendency to leak. Immersed even in the tenuous atmosphere of Mars would create such a heat load on the storage systems that it would make it very difficult to engineer and work successfully. Plus, you have to have a PROVEN source of water to even make the thing work, plus that water has to be ACTIVELY EXTRACTED (drilled into, pumped out (if liquid) or melted and pumped out (if solid) and this is a PREREQUISITE to ANY attempts to use it for propellant manufacturing. All this in ADDITION to the storage issues. Then you have to worry about filtering it and demineralizing it (it's likely to be quite salty and heavily contaminated with minerals, perchlorates, and who knows what else) so that it can successfully be used in an electrolyzer to turn it into hydrogen and oxygen for propellants.

No, a far better way is what Robert Zubrin proposed in "The Case for Mars"... using the Sabatier process, bringing about 1/10th the hydrogen you'd need for LH2/LO2 propellant systems with you from Earth, you can then react that hydrogen gas with the Martian atmosphere's abundant CO2 to produce methane and oxygen. Methane can be stored as a gas and then refrigerated/pressurized down into LNG, which we have plenty of technology to deal with in shipload quantities right here on Earth (which can be adapted for spaceflight or used to develop spaceflight hardware). Same with LO2. Rocket engines work quite well on LNG, not quite as efficient as with LO2/LH2 from a specific impulse standpoint, but more than adequate for the job at hand. No worries about having to "extract" the in-situ feedstock, since the tenuous Mars atmosphere is "everywhere" and is of known quality and constituency... we know the gases and their proportions that make up the Mars atmosphere, and all you need is a filter to suck it through to remove the particulate contaminants before processing it through the reactor system.

EVENTUALLY, if Mars has large quantities of readily accessible and usable water, with enough surface power (nuclear most likely-- solar is only about half the power on Mars it is on Earth) it could one day be quite useful for a Mars ISRU propellant infrastructure-- or at least for providing the LH2 feedstock for the Sabatier process, along with prodigious oxygen for human/vehicle/system use... That's a lot further down the road though IMHO...

Later! OL JR :)
 
We have to figure out Impulse Engines long before we work up to Warp Drive.
 
For a tiny fraction of what a manned expedition to Mars would cost, we could send a platoon of robotic explorers, something like a cross between R2-D2, C-3PO, and a Terminator to Mars to do research
,

Luke....we NEED to send a Terminator up there....dang that is funny! :lol:
 
We'll have to go to some form of nuclear powered propulsion to safely send humans to and from Mars. IMHO Chemical rockets just won't cut it.

Not necessarily... nuclear propulsion is helpful, but not absolutely essential. It saves a LOT of mass, but it comes with a host of problems of its own. Nuclear propulsion can be quite useful, especially if you have multi-mode nuclear engines that can act as nuclear thermal rockets for propulsion, as well as converting thermal energy into electricity via thermocouple or Brayton-cycle generators to power the spacecraft.

Nuclear surface power is going to be pretty much essential, however. Intensity of solar energy RAPIDLY falls off with distance from Earth. Solar energy density on Mars is roughly half what it is on Earth's surface. So you'll need about twice the area of solar panels to generate the same amount of power as a given panel can generate in the vicinity of Earth. The Moon has a similar solar energy density as Earth, given that it's average distance from the Sun is the same as Earth, but the problem for lunar surface operations is the 2 week long lunar night... Similar to operations at Mars, solar powered operations on the lunar surface would require double the size of panels required to generate a similar amount of power in orbit (where solar panels are in light most if not all the time, depending on the altitude and inclination of the orbit). You need to be able to generate the power you'll need for the day, as well as generate power and STORE IT for the long lunar nights.

The same is true at Mars, with the only difference being that the nights are about 12 hours and 20 minutes long (since the Martian days are 24 hours and 40 minutes long, roughly speaking). But since the solar intensity at Mars is roughly half that of Earth, and you need to generate not only the power you need during the day but also enough to sustain the mission at night (assuming that the power requirements are the same during both day and night), then you'd need FOUR TIMES the panel area required at Earth to support a given load during the day, since you need 2X the panel area to support the daytime load, as well as needing to generate an equivalent amount of power to sustain operations at night.

Some of this might be abated by curtailing energy use at night to a bare minimum, say life support only. BUT it won't cut it by a huge amount... you'll still need to 'charge the batteries' up to survive the night, just as you would on the Moon.

Nuclear power avoids all this-- you size the generator to deliver the necessary power requirement, day or night, and regardless of distance from the Sun...

later! OL JR :)
 
,

Luke....we NEED to send a Terminator up there....dang that is funny! :lol:

Well, maybe "Terminator" was a bad analogy, but think of the capabilities of that robot(s) and you'll get the idea... not 'liquid metal' type stuff, but more like the "original" Terminator...

Course, designing it to be more like a Centaur might be more accurate... half-man, half-horse... imagine if you will one of these things below (given another 20-30 years of development) with an advanced "robonaut" (again, with the same extra 20-30 years of development) coupled with an advanced on-board power source and with the computing power and capabilities that should be available in 20-30 years to control it, and you'll get the idea...

[YOUTUBE]a3ECelrHcV0&x-yt-ts=1421782837&x-yt-cl=84359240&feature=player_embedded[/YOUTUBE]

Here's some pics to show you what I mean... These are the "horseless carriages" of the new age of robotics... give it 20-30 years and we'll not only have the "model T's" (first mass production models that open the gates by showing how it's done and make it affordable for widespread use) but also the "model A's" (first car that really expanded the usefulness, practicality, and speed of the automobile as transportation). 9046.jpg1096801.jpg1096803.jpg1096807.jpg3392138408_a24956bc92_z.jpgRobonaut_2_and_Centaur_2.jpgteknoloji-robot-nasa-robonaut-4.jpg

It's not really THAT new or original of an idea... here's an "earlier incarnation" that springs to mind, albeit one from the fictional world of James Bond, in this case, 1971's "Diamonds are Forever" (and designed as a pressurized manned rover)... 92e3a60418284f96de1f56d0e0ce197d.jpg

I guess so long as *this* doesn't happen (as Stephen Hawking fears) we should be okay...
IMG_20141217_193024542_HDR.jpg

Later! OL JR :)
 
Hawking is no slouch.

Just look at drones and where they have gone (and where they seem to be going).

Once these sorts of things are relatively autonomous it's only a matter of time until some idiots weaponize them.
 
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