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We do not need advanced propulsion to support a growing and ambitious human outpost on Mars. Read the work of Robert Zubrin.

Furthermore, waiting for advanced propulsion just makes the mission cost balloon until its politically impossible. We can do it today. I believe the Mars Society's estimate is $20 billion for a government run mission, or $5 billion done in the private sector.

You are talking about NASA's older plan; I am talking about Mars Direct. I am not arguing that costs have decreased; only that better mission plans exist. What has advanced is not the technology or the financial situation, but the plan.

The reason I say your figures are out of date is that (unless I misunderstand) they come from the 90-day report of ca. 1989/90. Since then, NASA has itself considered Zubrin's Mars Direct plan and adopted based on it the "Mars Design Reference Mission," with costs about twice that of Mars Direct (so, 40 billion dollars). Reference here. I found the Design Reference Mission plan document itself in .gov but could not find the official estimates; the plan itself breaks down by percentage but not dollars.) So as you can see, costs of 400-500 billion dollars are way off.

And there is no need for a moon base before we go to Mars. This is part of the foundation of Mars Direct.

I encourage you to get ahold of the book A Case For Mars, which lays out the Mars Direct (though only at layman-level detail). Even NASA does not now believe Mars will take 400-500 billion dollars.

More references:

A design reference mission based on Zubrin's proposal, but considerably scaled up in personnel and equipment landed on Mars, was costed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who estimated the cost at around $50 billion for three missions. (emphasis added)

It was essentially a compromise between Mars Direct and the Ninety Day Report, and became known as the Reference Mission. A cost estimate even emerged from the Reference Mission design: $55 billion.

They then produced a cost estimate for what a Mars exploration program based upon this expanded Mars Direct would cost. Their result; $50 billion, with the estimate produced by the same costing group that assigned a $400 billion price tag to the traditional cumbersome approach to human Mars exploration embodied in NASA's 1989 "90 Day Report."

Mars Direct homepage

My rant Friday on the subject (I was hot about this issue at the time; still am, though I've cooled off somewhat)

This whole fascination with Mars thing sounds strange to me when we have a much closer, much easier, much less prone to failure environment in which we can perfect things...

A lot of those are common misconceptions. True, the moon is closer, but Mars is the easier and more promising target. For instance, going to Mars requires less fuel due to aerobraking and on-site manufacturing of propellant. Mars is the hands-down winner for permanent settlement.

Take a look at the Mars Direct and The Case For Mars sites for more information. Zubrin's book The Case For Mars is an exciting read also: Zubrin makes it clear that Mars settlement is in our hands right now.

You don't scratch build the factory on Mars. You build it on Earth, send it to Mars 18 months before the astronauts, let it churn away for that time, lots of consumables for them by the time they get there. In case of problems, you send an identical automated factory in a separate ship at the same time the manned ship leaves, which will arrive at roughly the same time. Seriously, the GP is correct; it's not that hard to get there using Mars Direct; see here, here and even here (NASA adopted a more conservative version of Mars Direct some time ago). Or read The Case for Mars .

Suprisingly, plant technology can be stored in a very low-mass, low-volume form, known as a "seed." Combined with Martian soil (which has been shown in dirtside simulations to grow plants well) and water that can be evaporated from martian soil, it expands many orders of magnitude, consuming CO2 as it goes and storing it inside itself. And while a single plant is not large enough to support a human, many plants have been shown to be sufficient in dirtside experiments. Indeed, their O2 output increases as human activity increases, always pursuing homeostasis!

Transit times from Mars to Earth and vice versa can be the same, if you schedule it right. If you can sustain yourself on the surface, there's no reason to leave, other than to return samples. Farming can do this, and a nuclear reactor would provide years of power.

And we're not going to be flying the Shuttle to Mars. It will be a specially designed vehicle. And it won't be the one we went there with. It will have landed before the people are launched, so they have their return vehicle in place. Mars has 1/3 the Gravity of earth, which means much less fuel requirements for launch and trans-Earth injection.

If you're really curious (as opposed to being an ass), you should read Zubrin's A Case for Mars.

It will be very difficult to service until we have a vehicle capable of throwing a living environment all the way up there. The Ares could do it with current technology and minimal development cost, and give us a vehicle to put 120 tons into LEO, almost 60 on the moon, and over 47 tons to Mars, without refueling. This, coupled with mass production and automated return of the engines would create cheap access to space and lower launch costs (refill the SRBs, buy and fill two more standard pressure tanks, and away you go).

If you want more reasons why the moon is just a dull rock and why Mars is the best place for an ET colony, check out the Mars Direct Home Page.

The rarest thing in the universe isn't petroleum or gold or diamonds or iridium, it is life.

Once America had been discovered and the seas charted, it was a matter of affordable logistics and courage, not technology, to get people to the US.
It isn't a matter of technology. We have the technology *right now* to go to Mars, and colonize it at the same rate as America was colonized in the 1500s. Heck, we could have done it with Apollo-era technology. The chemical reactions for processing Martian and lunar materials have been used for almost a hundred years and are very robust. All it takes is someone willing to take the risk. I'm willing, but I don't have the money. The only reason it takes a major nation-state to foot the bill isn't because the technology is all that expensive, but because the fuel costs are so high. Solve the problem of lifting 100 tons to earth orbit for the cost of electricity, and it's relatively economical. Cost-plus accounting is mostly to blame for the myth that space flight is monetarily expensive.

Why limit ourselves to this planet when we could easily (and cheaply, compared to the cost of blowing each other up) spread throughout the solar system and universe? Once you get to orbit, the cost of going to the moon or mars or anywhere else in terms of energy is very, very cheap. Focus our energies on getting to orbit cheaply and then humanity will take over.

For more information check out Mining the Sky and The Case for Mars. And for more information about the best way to get to Mars, check out Mars Direct.

Here's what I would do if I were to design a space contest: I would establish a contest so that the first person to collaborate with Dr. Robert Zubrin and get a human to Mars within 5 years would not only be rich beyond the dreams of avarice, but would become the most famous person on the planet. I would also sell ads like crazy, since that would get the funding needed - corporations would love to sponsor the first human Mars landing. It might be a tad tacky or crass, but it would get the job done. And then we would have a human on Mars within three years. ;)

> strand a group of humans 2 years away from earth.

I'd like you to examine the Mars Direct concept. "Two years away" is irrelevant. Would you rather be locked in a grocery store in the Sahara, or stranded on a life raft with no food or water, two miles off the coast of Boston? At least on Mars you can continue to make you own water and air. By sending Earth Return Vehicles ahead of time, stocked with extra supplies, the chances of anyone getting "stranded" are remote, and the consequences aren't very dire.

The moon's low gravity also makes it easier to access. Less fuel is needed to land, and take off.

As has been pointed out in other threads here, the delta-V to get from LEO to the Moon is 6 km/s, whereas the delta-V to get from LEO to Mars is 4.5 km/s. The moon is only "closer" when you speak about distance; from an energy perspective, it's farther away than Mars, and always will be.

>If for some reason something went horribly wrong, there would at least be a chance to rectify it, or help. A moon base would be a stones throw away, and with the proper planning the crew of that base could be very safe. ...right up until they ran out of food, air, water, or any of the other supplies that you sent them. At least on Mars you can make your own supplies from Hydrogen feedstock.

>From a scientific perspective examining the individuals that do staff the base will provide vital information about what living in the solar environment is like and how if affects the body.

However, while Mars' atmosphere protects Martian explorers from solar flares, there is no such guarantee on the Moon. A solar flare that occurred in August, 1972 would have killed any astronauts on the moon; nobody on earth (except the astronomers!) even noticed it. Mars explorers would be safe from solar radiation; moon explorers would be risking death (and guaranteeing a higher occurrence of cancer) every day they spent out-of-doors on the moon.

>Make no mistake - the moon must be the beginning

If the moon is the beginning, you've already made your mistake. I just hope I'm not the astronaut who has to die to prove you wrong.

Read the last part: the estimate was a total over 34 years, meaning the bill would be about $3B a year. Not too pricey given the full scope of the federal budget.

Beyond that, the original $500B proposal was probably over-estimated, because everyone in NASA (along with private contractors) tried to get their pet projects added to the mix. So you end up with things like nuclear-powered ships that aren't strictly necessary.

Obligatory Slashdot-Mars-story link: The Case for Mars, by Robert Zubrin.

A little history on this is in order. Imagine wavy vertical lines transporting you back to the past.

The year is 1989 and I'm growing out a mullet. The first president Bush makes an attempt to rejuvenate NASA by setting Mars as a goal. Since he's a politician and not a scientist, he delegates the details to a group to give him a plan and price tag. What he got was the infamous 90-day report. The 90-day report amounted to implementing a Mars exploration plan that included every pet project that NASA had. It involved building giant craft in orbit, sending them to lumbering to Mars, have a crew land for 2 weeks and then go back to Earth. The estimated cost was an insane $450 billion which they comically expected to get. At the time, I was too concerned with getting my hands on a Sega Genesis to care or understand.

NASA had lost their minds and took the presidential initiative to mean that they were getting a blank check for everything they ever wanted to fund. King George the First saw the price and turned them down flat. He wasn't aware that there were any other ways to do it so it was slated to happen in "the future". Since then, there have been several different plans developed to get to Mars on a tight budget and stay there long enough to do some real science and establish a permanent presence.

Wavy lines back to the present.

$100bn is still a shitload. If I recall correctly, the military budget is about $400bn. 25% of that is a sizable amount and more than I'm even willing to spend on NASA and I'm a space nut.

I suggest everyone check out Mars Direct. It's a plan estimated by its creator to cost around $20bn to start up and $2bn per mission. Even NASA's version is only $60bn when they ran their numbers.

One last thing. The 90-day report figure of $400 bn back in the early ninties was based on the Werner Von-Bruan plan of Mars exploration. It was impractacle and is now widely accepted to be the wrong way to do it.

NO ONE has made a realistic case as to how to have a sustainable program in a cost-effective fashion.

Yes
they
certainly
have.

Not just pie in the sky stuff either but detailed plans by experts with proven technology. Read up on it and you'll realize the only thing keeping humans off of Mars is politics.

Actually, it's cheapest to go from the MOON to MARS, which is the idea with the Lunar base.

Not really. From an energy standpoint, it is cheaper to go from the Earth to Mars than Earth-Moon-Mars. But if you have a self-sustaining base on the Moon, it's cheaper right? Well yes but there's a difference between a scientific outpost and an industrial complex/mine/power plant/farm/foundry that you would need to make Cape Canaveral on the Moon. That would take decades and hundreds of billions (possibly trillions) to make. I find it questionable that it would ever pay for itself.

You start out with Earth-Mars missions (which are shorter, and you have the free-return trajectory in case things go wrong). Once you have a small construction system set up, you stop bringing people back every time, and just start doing more and more one-way trips to deliver work and supplies that can't be grown/built/mined on-site.

I'm assuming you meant Earth-Moon in that last paragraph. First, Mars has a free-return trajectory too. Second, the only things you'll be able to get on the moon are sunshine and rocks. You'd have to ship everything from Earth. Why not just send it to Mars where you can synthesize everything you need in-situ?

You're also thinking of only ONE mission. Hopefully when we get off our cans and start doing something useful (or at least interesting) in space again, we won't just do it once or twice and go back to piddling around in low-earth-orbit like we did last time.

The moon base would be the building, training, and launching point for NUMEROUS missions to Mars, as well as serving it's built-in scientific and economic potential as a permanent low-gravity (as opposed to our current permanent micro-gravity) installation.

I'm not thinking of one mission. Read up on Mars Direct. It outlines a cheap, repeatable way to do return missions that lead into a self sustaining colony within the current NASA budget.


Heck, once it's running well, Earth-Moon missions would become less and less necessary. The cool thing about human resources is that if you leave them in a confined area long enough, they tend to build more human resources for you.

They are not necessary now. They are useful as a hardware testground and that's about it. This isn't Warcraft or Civ where you start a colony and it magically grows. It costs money, time, life and votes. If we can't go to Mars in a timely and intelligent fashion, it will be doomed from day one.

No, no, no. It is actually *more* wasteful to go to the moon on a trip to Mars... for a really great source of info, check out The Mars Society, and read Robert Zubrin's book, _The Case For Mars_.

I attended a lecture by Dr. Robert Zubrin, widely known for his Mars Direct plan, this past Friday at the National Geographic Society HQ in Washington, DC, where he made the good point that we need research on artificial gravity for missions to Mars much more than we do research on zero-gravity. Basically, the reasoning is that on a 2.5 year Mars mission, 1.5 years would be in Mars gravity, and the transit time would likely be spent in a 1-G artificial environment, since zero-G deconditioning for a 6-month trip would leave astronauts in poor shape to do their research on Mars once they got there. Since acheiving an artificial 1-G environment is easy through the use of centripital force, I'm glad to see at least the first steps in this sort of research are being done.

Not so. The Viking 1 lander was operational for over 6 years, while the Viking 2 lander lasted 3.5 years (see here). So, yes, I think we can manage a year or 18 months.

Read The Case for Mars . Zubrin has covered your objections there.

Troll, troll, troll.

First, you don't need tens of tons of metal radiation sheilding. The radiation is such that you can survive if the craft is built with the water needed for the voyage surounding the humans. a small shielded coffin/chamber is enough to survive solar flares. between that and advanced plastics you're safe. That kills the weight argument.

You don't need to assemble in orbit. that's the Werner von Braun plan that killed the Mars push in '91 and it's an outdated model. Mars Direct is a plan for launching directly to Mars and living on the land. It was developed by actual rocket scientists at the Martin company rather than Slashdot speculators and it's been adopted in one form or another by NASA, the ESA and the Russians.

Landing on the moon is easier yes but living on Mars is far easier. If politics were taken out of the equation, humans could be on Mars in 10 years within the current budget of NASA.

Do some reading.

Seems to me one of the biggest issues is sending enough water.

Mars has two ice polls and probably underground water. No need to send anything and in fact, you can make a lot of stuff just from the air water and dirt that you find there.

And I've been bothered by politicians who claim launching from the moon is cheaper. While the moon might be a decent staging area, stuff to launch still has to get there from Earth's gravity well before it goes.

me too. I've read that even if there were spaceships fully built and fuled waiting on the moon, it would still be cheaper in every way to just launch straignt to Mars. I think you should read up on Mars Direct

This argument never fails to frustrate me and I'm sure it's going to come up in this discussion.

Here's the thing, the federal budget is well over a trillion dollars. NASA's budget is around 17 billion. It's roughly 1 percent of the national budget. People get so scared about the word billion that they forget the scale of cash that the US has to allocate.

Does anyone honestly think that putting that bit of money elsewhere would solve whatever domestic problems you want fixed? Have we yet cured hunger, poverty, or undereducation? No? Well, we've been throwing billions at them so far. If you're looking for funds to cut and inefficiencies to uproot, look in defense and welfare. Diverting funds from NASA to domestic programs will not change anything except to kneecap our development as a multi-planet species.

Another misassumption is that if money is cut from one department, it automatically gets redistributed to others. That's not the way it works. And yes, I know we're running a deficit but a 1 billion increase over the next 5 years isn't going to contribute significantly to it. And IIRC, every administration except for 1 (maybe 2) has run a deficit and the country has not yet fallen.

But won't this cost a trillion dollars? No, not if done right. Father Bush's plan was scrapped because the estimate he was given was based on an outmoded model for Mars exploration. On top of that, it was subjected to a committee that took it as a chance to write themselves a blank check with their 90-day report. Bust the first was ignorant to any alternatives so he abandoned it. Read up on Mars Direct. It's a plan to do Mars missions on the same budgetary scale as the Apollo missions. Those were done for about the same budget that NASA currently gets. NASA doesn't need more money, just proper direction and it looks like they're finally getting some of that.

See my other post for more on the case for Mars and space exploration.

While we can practice (as this version of the story at Yahoo! suggests) a possible Mars mission by going to the moon, we have already done that! We did it in the 60s... that was almost 35 years ago!! What's on the moon? While a nice place for an observatory, we should go straight to Mars.

Everyone today wants to be "safe". And while there is certainly no justification for recklnessness, this country didn't get to where it is today by being overly cautious. I hope that President Bush has the courage and conviction to challenge America to take our space program to the next level and plan a mission direct to Mars.

For those of you that don't know, Dr. Robert Zubrin, in his book "The Case for Mars" has shown that a mission to Mars is not only feasible, but that it is feasible with much of the technology that existed in the 60s! For more information, see here. With the technology we have today, and the ingenuity, fortitude, and bravery that America has demonstrated for almost 230 years, we should go straight to Mars!

The Space Transportation System (STS), which is essentially the shuttle main engines + the big tank in the middle and the two solid fuel boosters on the sides, is a fantastic heavy lift vehicle which has undergone significant testing (all shuttle flights) with one failure from which much was learnt. The take-home fact:

The STS is capable of lifting over 100 tonnes to Low Earth Orbit, or throwing 40 tonnes to Mars (with an appropriate small upper stage).

Capacity like that means humans to Mars in a decade or doubling the size of the current ISS (into something useful) in ONE THROW. Or, having an Apollo-class launcher ready for the let's-go-back-to-Luna folk.

The Shuttle, on the other hand, the Winnebago of space exploration, is a horrible hybrid device. It's essentially a portable space station, which is fine when you don't have one, but now we do. It's not a good repair vehicle (a capsule would be much better and hugely cheaper), it's not a good "escape pod" (not even the ISS uses it for that purpose), and it's not a good space transport system, because it itself weighs ninety of those precious, expensive, to-orbit tonnes.

My heart sank when I read that more space dollars were going to be spent "upgrading" this thing that has trapped us firmly in Earth's orbit for 20 years.

Come on NASA! Show some balls! Show us just a little bit of the "right stuff" you used to manufacture in bulk. Pick a destination, strip the shuttle off the stack, and GO THERE.

ok, I'll throw down.

The best Mars plan on the table is Mars Direct. It calls for a manned mission to stay on the surface for a Martian year of 669 days. They will be getting hit with both solar flares and cosmic rays but so are we on earth. It's going to be about an order of magnitude worse on Mars but that's only on the order of 5 rem per day. 75 rem per day is where people start to feel barfy. Also, that 5 rem is if you're sunbathing on the surface. on day one of the landing, the explorers can just fill some sandbags and put them on top of the shelter to cut down on that figure by a lot. If people are willing to pay for tanning beds on earth, I don't think there will be a shortage of people who are willing to deal with such conditions on Mars.

in the medium term, native shelters will have to be topped with a bunch of dirt, ice or permafrost. In the long term (centuries) an ozone layer can be created and magnetic "umbrellas" (electromagnets on towers) can be created to cut down on that even more.

If you haven't already, check out The Case for Mars. It's written by the same guy who debunked the nytimes report. Before you decry it as ravings of a lunatic, keep in mind that wanting something is not exclusive to being knowledgeable about it.

You've got to be trolling me at this point. Just in case you're not, check this site out. It outlines how to do a direct from Earth launch to Mars on a shoestring and do it right.

Interesting article, but it still doesn't address the "building complex things in space" problem. I mean, we're pretty good at building things in gravity, with an abundance of raw materials, but we just haven't built much of note in hard vacuum zero gravity where you have to truck everything you need there. Even the space station was flown in modular format from Earth - at huge expense. Lagrange points are cool - but planets are cooler.

Everything you want to fly to somewhere else from a Lagrangian point you first have to fly to a Lagrangian point from some planet!

Frankly, the best place from which to get to pretty much anywhere in the solar system (including the Moon!) is from the surface of Mars. Two reasons: you can build things there, and the cost in fuel is lower. Here's a table which uses deltaV (total change in velocity required and thus fuel) to illustrate this very point.

First get humans to Mars, then the whole solar system is within reach.

You should read The Case for Mars.

Going to the moon really is a waste of time as far as a permanent venture. All materials required for the survival of men living on the moon would have to come from Earth.

There is a good chance that a mars mission could be self sufficient.

http://www.nw.net/mars/

Going directly from Earth may be cheaper than going from the space station.

Rockets will have to carry fuel for the lunar trips to the space station, and also fueling and other maintenance modules/bays will need to be constructed and lifted to the space station. Which is big dollars, dollars which probably wouldn't result in a pay off.

Here are some good papers that talk about many of these issues, be sure to have a look at the Mars Direct PDF, it discusses methods of going from Earth from Orbit and from the Moon (if a source of water could be found there)

http://www.nw.net/mars/
http://www.nw.net/mars/docs/md_reno.pdf

Going directly from Earth may be cheaper than going from the space station.

Rockets will have to carry fuel for the lunar trips to the space station, and also fueling and other maintenance modules/bays will need to be constructed and lifted to the space station. Which is big dollars, dollars which probably wouldn't result in a pay off.

Here are some good papers that talk about many of these issues, be sure to have a look at the Mars Direct PDF, it discusses methods of going from Earth from Orbit and from the Moon (if a source of water could be found there)

http://www.nw.net/mars/
http://www.nw.net/mars/docs/md_reno.pdf

That link should have pointed here

Whoops

Straight up.

NASA has been spinning its wheels ever since the end of the Apollo program. Mars Direct is a proposed path to get humans on Mars in 10 years. It's technicaly feasable, not any more expensive than the current low Earth orbit (LEO) NASA budget, and it would turn mankind into an honest to goodness spacefaring species.

Want to do something about the current lack of direction that NASA has? Check out this previous post.

What "had been" a second world country? Unlike first world and third world denominations which depend on how industrialized you are, "second world" just means a socialist or communist state. They can be the most successful country on the planet and still be a second world country if they're communist, so I don't think that particular denomination will shame NASA.

True enough but they're jumping on the capitalism bandwagon so fast, it won't be long until they are a de facto capitalist state. Elections will probably still be rigged or non existent for a while but it's definitely not good old Soviet style second world anymore.

It worked well during the cold war, because there was the whole "capitalism must win over communism before communists take over the world" mindset. Today, if China does a good job, the most change that you'll see happen will be NASA buying more chinese components.

Good point but the space race during the Cold War was more about one-upping each other on proof of concept missions. If the Moon and Mars (hell Venus, Europa...) are now viewed as land and resources to grab (which they are), that might foster a different but equally powerful competitive spirit.

I don't really care if NASA gets parts from North Korea (functional and safe of course) so long as it gets moving on something like Mars Direct.

"The Case for Mars", which makes the arguement that we should ignore the moon and instead head on out to the fourth planet.

His arguements:
1) In terms of energy, it's easier to go to Mars from LEO than the moon. (Takes longer, though.)
2) Mars is a more interesting destination: because it has an atmosphere, a lot of engineering obstacles are solved because you can do all sorts of nifty engineering tricks to steal resources from the air.
3) The moon is dead, and has always been dead. Mars, on the other hand, perhaps even once supported life. With effort on our part, perhaps it could again.

Anyways, go to the Mars Direct site.

-Brett

Mars is where we need to go. I agree that NASA does need some goal if they are ever going to do anything useful again but if they're going to set a goal, it should at least set a potentially habitable planet as a goal with the Moon as a sub goal or a proof of concept.

Robert Zubrin, president of Pioneer Astronautics and founder of the Mars Society has called for the mobilization of Mars exploration proponents to write their representatives on the future of post-Columbia NASA. From his announcement: 'This debate will play out over the next six months, and the result could determine the future of the American space program in our generation. Now is the time when anyone who cherishes hopes for a spacefaring future for humanity must step forward and speak up.'

This is happening alongside the recent testimony Zubrin gave to the full Senate Commerce Committee on Oct 29th (audio files here and the .pdf) and the proposed Bill from Congressman Nick Lampson TX to restore Mars as a goal and put NASA on a schedule. Here are a few sample letters if you want to write your congressman.

Mars is where we need to go. I agree that NASA does need some goal if they are ever going to do anything useful again but if they're going to set a goal, it should at least set a potentially habitable planet as a goal with the Moon as a sub goal or a proof of concept.

Robert Zubrin, president of Pioneer Astronautics and founder of the Mars Society has called for the mobilization of Mars exploration proponents to write their representatives on the future of post-Columbia NASA. From his announcement: 'This debate will play out over the next six months, and the result could determine the future of the American space program in our generation. Now is the time when anyone who cherishes hopes for a spacefaring future for humanity must step forward and speak up.'

This is happening alongside the recent testimony Zubrin gave to the full Senate Commerce Committee on Oct 29th (audio files here and the .pdf) and the proposed Bill from Congressman Nick Lampson TX to restore Mars as a goal and put NASA on a schedule. Here are a few sample letters if you want to write your congressman.

Mars is where we need to go. I agree that NASA does need some goal if they are ever going to do anything useful again but if they're going to set a goal, it should at least set a potentially habitable planet as a goal with the Moon as a sub goal or a proof of concept.

Robert Zubrin, president of Pioneer Astronautics and founder of the Mars Society has called for the mobilization of Mars exploration proponents to write their representatives on the future of post-Columbia NASA. From his announcement: 'This debate will play out over the next six months, and the result could determine the future of the American space program in our generation. Now is the time when anyone who cherishes hopes for a spacefaring future for humanity must step forward and speak up.'

This is happening alongside the recent testimony Zubrin gave to the full Senate Commerce Committee on Oct 29th (audio files here and the .pdf) and the proposed Bill from Congressman Nick Lampson TX to restore Mars as a goal and put NASA on a schedule. Here are a few sample letters if you want to write your congressman.

I dont think you are right to be so dismissive of the X-Prize - it has yielded so very promising designs for a very low cost, in space terms. To get true CATS, a "747" for space, I believe a range of government funded X-prize type incentives could be a way to go. Let entreprenuers take the risks - financial + literal - like the early aircraft pioneers - then we end up with a range of feasable designs, one or two of which become the LEO vehicle. With CATS, you can have LEO space stations or a moon base that could pay for themselves, in real financial terms.

Or we could stick with the Shuttle. $3+ billion/year for zero launches, until its sorted (2005?), then we are back to 3-4 missions a year to LEO. Whoopee. Maybe we get an OSP escape pod for a few billion - of course its below the US's pride to just buy a few Soyuz at under $100 million each..

So what should NASA do? I was initially sceptical of Zubrins plan, but the more I see of it, the more I like it. A first test of the hardware, or most of it, could be directed at the moon, a long (6 month?) mission with a relatively easy escape route. If that works then head for Mars. Big incentive & a big drive, will attract young engineers back to the agency - and enthusiasm means getting the job done. If you can get ESA/RKA to join in, so much the better. In the meantime, also keep on with the various robot probes and other astronomical science, something NASA still does well.

We already have loads of LEO experience that can provide enough data for the effects of long voyages, especially if the first phase consists of a prolonged moon mission to test the hardware out..

See the Mars direct homepage

For a bunch of papers on what it's all about, look at the Mars Direct page, or read Zubrin's book The Case For Mars.

We're talking $20 billion gov't money or about $6 billion if privately funded to put 4 people on mars for 18 months...then just a billion or two a year to maintain a constant human presence (cycling new people through) and start building a base that can self-sustain, not counting imports of high-tech goods.

It's not a minor amount of money, but we could colonize Mars for a lot less money that we're spending to colonize Iraq, and we probably won't even get to keep Iraq.

Lets give the credit where it is due:

Robert Zubrin (The Mars Direct mission profile)

and his cohorts The Mars Society

"This paper investigates means for achieving human expeditions to Mars utilizing existing or near-term technology. Both mission plans described here, Mars Direct and Semi-Direct are accomplished with tandem direct launches of payloads to Mars using the upper stages of the heavy lift booster used to lift the payloads to orbit. No on-orbit assembly of large interplanetary spacecraft is required. In situ-propellant production of CH4/O2 and H2O on the Martian surface is used to reduce return propellant and surface consumable requirements, and thus total mission mass and cost. Chemical combustion powered ground vehicles are employed to afford the surface mission with the high degree of mobility required for an effective exploration program. Data is presented showing why medium-energy conjunction class trajectories are optimal for piloted missions, and mission analysis is given showing what technologies are optimal for each of the missions primary maneuvers. The optimal crew size and composition for initial piloted Mars missions is presented, along with a proposed surface systems payload manifest. The back-up plans and abort philosophy of the mission plans are described. An end to end point design for the Semi-Direct mission using either the Russian Energia B or a U.S. Saturn VII launch vehicle is presented and options for further evolution of the point design are discussed. It is concluded that both the Mars Direct and Semi-Direct plans offer viable options for robust piloted Mars missions employing near-term technology."

Read the whole thing here

This is from 1993!

The Case for Mars is good, but perhaps even better is Zubrin's Entering Space.

Perhaps you should be become more familiar with Dr. Robert Zubrin (Site) before suggesting that a Mars expedition looks more and more infeasible. Just because the "popular" (and there in the sense of most people, not highest opinion) viewpoint is that it can't be done now or soon doesn't mean that is necessarily the case.

http://www.nw.net/mars/docs/nearterm.txt

http://www.nw.net/mars/docs/nearterm.txt

Check out the Mars Direct site. There are lots of good papers on suitable rockets there. The Energia would do nicely, or a revived Saturn with 7 engines instead of 5 (a Saturn VII).

We can go to Mars with the tech we have now. The real issue is politcal will / funding.

Yes, NASA has said the trip to Mars will cost $200-400 billion. It was published in what has become known as "The 90 Day Report". The truth is that for a sustanable program of Mars exploration the inital outlay is actually more on the order of $20-30 billion. And we can do it NOW.

Over five years this is only a fraction of NASA's yearly budget, which is less than 1% of the overall federal budget. Compared to medical research and defense spending the ammount we spend on space is inconsequential and imminently affordable when you consider the payoff at the end in terms of the future.

For more information and to find out how you can help see: The Mars Society

I see other problems with the report as well, but I'll stop for now.

All great colonizations started with explorers. Columbus, Hudson, Ponce de Leon. We should follow the Mars Direct plan and put outposts on the Red Planet, complete with 100KW nuclear reactors and greenhouses. This will prove our technology and provide a beachhead for the impending colonization.

Howeever, I disagree that a mission to a new star system is more probable than a Mars mission. Congress would never approve the funding, even though their constituents want it.

Since Mars is so close, it's a shame that more people haven't read "The Case for Mars" (see here, and no, I am not affiliated in any way), as now would be a very good time to put some of the principlesinto practise and land someone on Mars!

Since Mars is so close, it's a shame that more people haven't read "The Case for Mars" (see here, and no, I am not affiliated in any way), as now would be a very good time to put some of the principlesinto practise and land someone on Mars!

Since Mars is so close, it's a shame that more people haven't read "The Case for Mars" (see here, and no, I am not affiliated in any way), as now would be a very good time to put some of the principlesinto practise and land someone on Mars!

Since Mars is so close, it's a shame that more people haven't read "The Case for Mars" (see here, and no, I am not affiliated in any way), as now would be a very good time to put some of the principlesinto practise and land someone on Mars!