James Cameron's Illustrated Mars Reference Design

An anonymous reader writes "Terminator Director James Cameron commissioned renderings of the NASA Mars Reference Design [HTML, 4 PDFs]. The mission profile calls for a cargo ship sent ahead of a crew, a huge (Terminator-like?) rover, and inflatable habitats. It's not clear where Skynet and the T-800's hyper-alloy combat chassis fit in yet. Between now and then, the 5 Mars missions: 2005 Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter, 2007 Phoenix and Netlanders, 2009 Science Lab Rover, and 2011 Scout. Skynet comes in 2026."

Comments

Good idea...

[John Seminal]

Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge. I think it is a great idea to get some of the most imaginative minds to offer ideas to scientists on how to send humans to mars. My only question is, if they will send some large cargo container/ship ahead of a manned mission, how will the manned mission be able to land near enough to the cargo/habitat ship?? Or will this just orbit Mars? I hope I get to see a manned station on Mars in my lifetime.

Re:Good idea...

[pipingguy]

Didn't Cameron do deep sea exploration, himself?

I usually don't side with the Hollywood types, but he seems to be a real risk-taker, and you've got to admire that.

More stuff, less fluff.

Re:The technology is not the problem. Will is.

[Anonymous Coward]

even an immoral waste of resources.

Which, quite frankly, is difficult to refute.

Just to play a devil's advocate: what business do we have throwing our limited resources to other planets when we have so many problems already down here?

I've never figured out an answer to that question without sounding like a cold-hearted bastard.

The answer

[Tau Zero]

Just to play a devil's advocate: what business do we have throwing our limited resources to other planets when we have so many problems already down here?

I am not a philosopher, but I've got these proposed responses:

• Throwing resources? What's a few tons of aluminum to the Earth? All the money stays right here.

• We are not throwing resources, we are exercising imagination and initiative. These are not limited resources, they are amplified by being used... and they are the same things needed to solve problems on earth.

• "When there is no vision, the people perish." Giving people a reason to look up from their petty squabbles to see a possible future on another world might solve some of those problems. Crime fell drastically during the first Moon landings, because most everyone was glued to the story unfolding on live television. We should try to do this again.

• Shouldn't we consider it a general religious imperative to learn what we can about where we came from and what else there is, starting with the history of other planets (including the life on them, if any)?

That's hardly an exhaustive list, and it won't convince anybody who doesn't want to be convinced. But something along those lines might persuade even the moralists that they don't have the high ground all to themselves.

Re:The answer

[blincoln]

Consider if these could be used in a better way, such as to invent a way to de-pollute the atmosphere, replenish the ozone layer, or figure out how to stop people from starving to death.

This is a common argument, and I see three main problems with it.

1 - It assumes an exclusive-or choice between the two. I fail to see why this is the case. There are plenty of smart people in the world to go around.

2 - It assumes that people who are good at creating a space exploration program would be equally good at solving problems like starvation in poor countries. I also fail to see why this is the case. The skills and personal interests involved in those two projects are radically different.

3 - The kind of worldwide problem-solving that people who make this argument always cite (e.g. feeding everyone in the world) is the kind of pie-in-the-sky goal that can (IMO) never really be met. I think that it is important to try and better the living standards of people who are in truly terrible situations, but OTOH unless there is an incredible shift in the nature of governments and societies everywhere then it's a project that will never be completed.

The comparison that comes to mind for me is someone who says that they're going to put off having children until they have a US$1,000,000+ yearly salary, a huge house, four cars, and a personal jet. It's *possible* that it will happen, just unlikely.

Re:The answer

[Richard_at_work]

Consider if these could be used in a better way, such as to invent a way to de-pollute the atmosphere, replenish the ozone layer, or figure out how to stop people from starving to death.

If there is one thing Science has shown us over the past 200 years, it is that more people working on a project does not necessarily get it done faster. Most of the scientific advances in that period were done by either single people, or very small groups of people. Throwing every clever person in the world at a problem isnt going to get it done any faster. Throwing the right person at a problem will. The people working on space missions have done so BECAUSE THATS THEIR CHOICE. They worked to get where they are, where the hell do you get off saying their resources "could be used in a better way"?

Depollute the atmosphere - Earth does a good enough job of that on its own. It has dealt with worse things than humans in the past, and the things which we can do to limit pollution are being done already.

Replenish the ozone layer - again, leave it to earth. Our limitation actions are helping with this regard - the ozone hole over the south pole has decreased in size recently.

Figure out how to stop people from starving to death - Every year, more than a $Billion is spent sending aid to countrys that need it (world wide spendature here). Much more is sent in physical aid such as food. Show me the demonstratable permanent good this has achieved? None. Hunger still exists, droughts still happen, famines still occur and people still die. 9 times out of 10, these occur in countries that are war torn, have armed conflicts occuring, or are open to natural disasters. None of these are solvable by science, so throwing the resources that would otherwise be used on space is pointless.

there are cheaper ways to reduce crime than send people to Mars. One such way is to teach them properly in school so that they are motivated to better themselves. - maybe so, but have you looked around and seen how often fraud or other crimes are commited by people with millions in the bank, its a lot often than you think. People bettering themselves does not by far fix the underlying social issues.

We seem to be doing a pretty good job with unmanned probes. If we can visit all the planets in the solar system multiple times for the cost of one manned mission to Mars, I think we would learn more with the probes. - Oh yes. Now imagine if this had been the case when the Americas were discovered? Imagine hard. Yup, I think you have it - no USA, no Canada, no Mexico, no Argentina, no Brazil, no Peru (and any others I forget :) ). The established western world would have been all there was. Saying its stupid to send manned missions to places that have no immediate financial reward is basically capitalism boiling to the surface.

It would reduce the number of people supporting or becoming terrorists, since less people would be angry at the smug westerners who wouldn't help them out. - This is probably the worst statement ive seen in a long time. Terrorists have never stated that there are financial reasons for the acts they carried out. Infact a lot of terrorism occurs BECAUSE the western world helped them out. Look at any terrorism going on atm, its either "freedom fighting" or "religious" based. You are never going to solve any of these issues, its just human nature (religion is possibly the worst thing that has ever occurred to humanity, its caused more strife than anything else, and it does it all in the name of "God", and entity we can never confer with to find out if he really does agree with these actions)

Ever heard the term "Give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, he will eat for the rest of his life."? THats what we should be doing, not throwing our resources to eliminate the symptoms. Why are people fighting, which causes famine? Why are people trying to survive on land which has p

Re:The answer

[fucksl4shd0t]

I'll bite, too. :)

The main problem with the general argument in the GP is that we will not be able to solve all of our human problems before conquering the heavens. We'll be extinct before that happens. Many of the problems that exist down here have existed amongst humans for all of recorded history, and we have reason to believe they existed long before recorded history began. If we achieve a utopia where all of these problems are solved, then we won't need to go into space anymore.

That said:

You can save an awful lot of starving people with the kind of money it would take to send people to Mars. It would create employment at home and in the communities needing help. It would create wealth by creating new customers who can afford to watch a Mars landing rather than trudging half a day to find pulluted drinking water. It would reduce the number of people supporting or becoming terrorists, since less people would be angry at the smug westerners who wouldn't help them out.

AND

As far as religious imperatives go, I seem to remember helping the poor and dying as being a priority. It ranks above curiosity in my mind. A good 80% of all humans live in poverty, with no hope of ever working their way out of it, and they probably don't care about what's on Mars.

AND

I think it should go to raising the worldwide standard of living until nobody has to die of starvation (what a horrible and helpless way to go, really).

Can all be solved by:

I think there are cheaper ways to reduce crime than send people to Mars. One such way is to teach them properly in school so that they are motivated to better themselves.

So what's left from your post that you haven't already solved?

Labour, clever people and energy are some of the limited resources that are consumed by such an endeavour. Consider if these could be used in a better way, such as to invent a way to de-pollute the atmosphere, replenish the ozone layer,

And once again, dealing with pollution and the ozone layer are problems that have been demonstrated are solvable with better education.

Here's some interesting conclusions I've made. If you want to raise the standard of living amongst those who are poverty-stricken, you must raise the average standard of living in the area. If you try to address the poverty-stricken areas specifically, you won't make a lasting change. But if you address all areas simultaneously in order to raise the average, you will make a lasting change. Ultimately, it's raising the average standard of living that is the purpose of the space program.

Re:The answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. In our modern era, Starvation is not a technological problem, it is a political problem.

A normal HTML page would be nice

[cmacb]

That is the weirdest HTML formatted article I have ever seen. Let me guess... they converted a DOC file to PDF, printed it, faxed it to themselves, scanned it and then ran it through a OCR to HTML conversion program using a Microsoft designed XML parser (Patented of course!)

Gees whatever happened to content oriented plain old HTML.

*shakes head*

I'll read the friggin thing when I have a couple of hours to wait for the pages to load.

PS: for anyone else having trouble: you have to click on those microscopic VCR style buttons at the top of the page to get the page transitions. Then go get a cup of coffee.

News for Nreds, Stuff that Matters

[Crypto Gnome]

From the HTML page of the PDFs

Stephen J. Hoffman, Editor
David L. Kaplan, Editor
Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
Houston, Texas

July 1997

And this is NEWs how exactly?

Re:News for Nreds, Stuff that Matters

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like Cameron [2003-4] has added pictures to ilustrate the original Mars reference design [1997], assuming you read the post. Cameron's complaint was no one reads these designs for lack of visual information, which seems to be the case.

Inflatable habitat

[Muhammar]

Mars is a very windy and cold place. Hard-shell from composite pieces - the kind of they use in Antarctica - seem more appropriate habitat. The weight of shell is not that big - compared to the weight of all the necessery food, air, water and life-support equipment. (They can place inflatable tent inside the shell - to keep the leaks down).

Will is not the problem. Cost is.

[sunspot42]

None of the components you listed in your message do us much good for a manned Mars exploration program. Take the Shuttle engines you list as one component. Only they aren't. They're needed in the (remaining) Shuttles. We'd have to build more of them to make a Mars mission possible before the end of the next decade - many, many more of them. It would take several launches just to get the gadgets to Mars to make liquid water and oxygen and hydrogen and everything else for the astronauts to use once they finally arrived. It would take still more engines to get the astronauts and their giant spaceship into earth orbit. And more still to get their fuel and supplies for the outbound trip into orbit. The whole project would probably require boosting into orbit about as much mass as the ISS project - a project that'll end up costing us in excess of $100 billion.

And how do you get those Shuttle-derived engines back to earth after launch? Or do you just throw them away at X-million dollars a pop? That's gonna add up fast. Maybe you design and build a new Shuttle to haul stuff into orbit, so you can get your $100 million engines back. But whoops - it costs $10 billion to design and build a new Shuttle, and billions more to operate it.

As for landing on the Red Planet, we've had trouble with that ourselves recently (Mars Polar Lander), and we'd been doing it successfully since the mid-'70s. Designing and building a man-rated lander for Mars (one that cannot fail) could easily run up a billion in design costs. Then there are the cargo / habitat landers, which also cannot fail. Chuck in another billion. Plus a billion more to design and build the habitats, and another couple of billion to get them all to Mars. That's a LOT of mass to haul into earth orbit and then blast out to Mars.

In-situ propellant production may have been demonstrated in the lab here on earth, but we don't know yet if it would even work on Mars. Right now we're having trouble getting simple robot rovers to function correctly, at $400 million a pop. What you're proposing is that we drop a small chemical factory on Mars, along with an automated tractor and bulldozer to haul it icy rock for processing. It could easily cost $10 billion to design and build such a setup, plus a billion more to get it to Mars.

The heat shields would also have to be pretty heavy-duty, since unlike Apollo or the Shuttles, these Mars vehicles are going to be traveling at interplanetary velocities. Because we'll want to minimize the astronauts' exposure to lethal doses of interplanetary radiation, as well as the amount of food and water needed to sustain them (costs a fortune to haul that stuff into orbit), their spacecraft is going to have to be traveling fast, and their landers are going to have to rely on the Martian atmosphere to slow them down.

Their rovers would also need to be far more durable than the moonbuggy used by the Apollo astronauts, since most plans call for the astronauts to remain on Mars for weeks at least, if not a year or more. The Marsbuggy could itself cost in excess of a billion to design, and another billion to build.

And since these guys are going to be there longer, in the hard radiation environment of Mars, they're going to need spacesuits that are far more durable, far better shielded against radiation, and far less susceptible to damage (from abrasive or chemically-reactive dust in particular) than the Apollo or Shuttle-era suits. Again, you could be talking a billion or more just to design and develop such suits, and heaven knows how much to build them. And with all that radiation shielding they're likely to be heavy as heck, too. Add millions more just to transport them to Mars.

I haven't even touched on all the other tech needed to get the astronauts there and back again safely and quickly. Large, powerful nuclear reactors will be needed to supply them with electrical power and probably power their engines. I can't see doing this practically or reliably with chemical rockets

Re:The technology is not the problem. Will is.

[Aglassis]

You said: "Just to play a devil's advocate: what business do we have throwing our limited resources to other planets when we have so many problems already down here?"

I can answer that with a simple quote from Larry Niven: The dinosaurs went extinct because they didn't have a space program.

Its a silly quote but its very true. The probability of humanity being destroyed or anhillating itself will drop dramatically once we have a self-sustaining colony on an extraterrestial object. Its like insurance for humanity in a way.

Instead of making cute jokes....

[__aaltii7299]

Maybe some of you should RTFA, and see just how much work Cameron put into his research. And check out the hardware designs and mission framework he came up with.
"The thing I found about human mission architectures for going to Mars is that if you change one piece or one assumption, it has a ripple effect through the whole thing, and it looks different coming out the other end. You do things differently, your spacecraft are configured differently, your surface mission looks different, the time you spend on the planet looks different. So a certain set of fundamental assumptions had to be made and then we had to design everything for what it was going to look like."

You have some serious misconceptions going

[Tau Zero]

On top of that, you have not done your homework. On anything. Your post is so ignorant, you ought to do something really drastic to expiate your shame. I would suggest learning to study, and not posting on any subject that you have not studied.

None of the components you listed in your message do us much good for a manned Mars exploration program. Take the Shuttle engines you list as one component. Only they aren't. They're needed in the (remaining) Shuttles. We'd have to build more of them to make a Mars mission possible before the end of the next decade - many, many more of them.

Let's see, 1 launch window every 2 years, 2 vehicles per launch window, 4 engines per vehicle = 4 engines per year. Manufacture of High Pressure Fuel Turbopumps: "Production rate > 1 unit / month since first flight in July 2001 (STS-104)[1]. At the rate of 1 unit per month, you could have enough engines to fly a Shuttle every month and replace engines every 5 flights, send 4 vehicles to Mars every launch window instead of 2, and have about 3 brand-spanking new engines left over.

It would take several launches just to get the gadgets to Mars to make liquid water and oxygen and hydrogen and everything else for the astronauts to use once they finally arrived.

It would take one launch, carrying about 50 tons on a trans-Mars orbit.[2] The Shuttle orbiter weighs about 100 tons fully loaded; its engines are around 10 tons, leaving 90 tons for vehicle, payload and trans-Mars injection fuel. The required delta-V to get from LEO to TMI is roughly 4.3 km/sec. [3] Vacuum-specific impulse of an SSME is 452 seconds [4], or exhaust velocity of 4430 m/sec; the required TMI mass-ratio is 2.64 by the rocket equation. If you retained one SSME (modified to be restartable in flight) for the trans-Mars injection, you would need to start with ~53 tons * 2.64, or roughly 140 tons. This appears to be well within the capacity of a vehicle using 4 SSMEs and 3 SRBs to put into LEO.

Then there are the cargo / habitat landers, which also cannot fail.

Yes they can. You send them first, perhaps several of them, one launch window before you send people. If they don't land and work correctly, you hold the manned mission off for another launch window. If you send 3 and only 1 of them lands and works, you have one usable landing site; if 2 or 3 of them land and work, you have your choice of options. You can use the unused landers later, or for supply depots for long surveys.

In-situ propellant production may have been demonstrated in the lab here on earth, but we don't know yet if it would even work on Mars. Right now we're having trouble getting simple robot rovers to function correctly, at $400 million a pop.

You have some serious misconceptions about price tags here. The cost is almost entirely for research, development and engineering; manufacturing is a drop in the bucket. You could probably crank out rovers for a few million apiece now that we have the design.

A small chemical plant is much, much simpler than a rover. The biggest issue might be filtering dust to keep it out of the machinery, and you would have a lot of trouble claiming that we don't have any applicable experience with filters.

What you're proposing is that we drop a small chemical factory on Mars, along with an automated tractor and bulldozer to haul it icy rock for processing.

No, that's your proposal. I'm proposing Zubrin's scheme of carrying LH2 to the site and processing it into methane and LOX via the reactions

CO2 + 4 H2 -> CH4 + 2 H2O + heat

H2O + energy -> 2H2 + O2

Note that the methane-production reaction is e

Re:You have some serious misconceptions going

[sunspot42]

>On top of that, you have not done your homework.
>On anything. Your post is so ignorant, you ought to
>do something really drastic to expiate your shame.
>I would suggest learning to study, and not posting
>on any subject that you have not studied.

Insulting people is ALWAYS a good way to show how smart you are.

>>None of the components you listed in your message do
>>us much good for a manned Mars exploration program.
>>Take the Shuttle engines you list as one component.
>>Only they aren't. They're needed in the (remaining) Shuttles.
>>We'd have to build more of them to make a Mars mission
>>possible before the end of the next decade - many, many
>>more of them.
>
>Let's see, 1 launch window every 2 years, 2 vehicles per launch
>window, 4 engines per vehicle = 4 engines per year. Manufacture
>of High Pressure Fuel Turbopumps: "Production rate > 1 unit /
>month since first flight in July 2001 (STS-104)[1]. At the rate
>of 1 unit per month, you could have enough engines to fly a Shuttle
>every month and replace engines every 5 flights, send 4 vehicles to
>Mars every launch window instead of 2, and have about 3 brand-
>spanking new engines left over.

That's nice. But that doesn't address my point. I didn't say it couldn't be done. I said it would take a lot of engines, unless you plan on somehow diverting the remaining Shuttles from their ISS missions to a Mars mission, or you plan to continue flying them long after they're scheduled to be decommissioned.

Or unless you plan on using those Shuttle engines in some other launcher. Which is probably a good idea - the Shuttle engines are arguably the best part of the Shuttle program - but the R&D on a new launcher large enough to hoist those Mars payloads into orbit / off to Mars could eat up $10 billion or more. Much more if you want to build something that can haul those Shuttle engines back to earth so they can be recycled. Otherwise, you have to eat the cost of 4 Shuttle engines with every launch. How many flights will this adventure take?

>>It would take several launches just to get the gadgets to Mars to
>>make liquid water and oxygen and hydrogen and everything else
>>for the astronauts to use once they finally arrived.
>
>It would take one launch, carrying about 50 tons on a trans-Mars
>orbit.[2]

Wait a minute. You're telling us that this Martian contraption to manufacture hydrogen and oxygen and liquid water and everything else the astronauts are gonna need once they get to Mars is only gonna weigh 50 tons? An Apollo spacecraft at departure from earth orbit only weighed about 45 tons, and most of that weight was fuel. The LEM and capsule were tiny and fairly lightweight in comparison. It took a giant Saturn V to haul Apollo into orbit. Now you're saying that a rocket fuel / oxygen factory / storage facility and a bulldozer for Mars are only going to weigh 50 tons. I don't buy it. The Viking probe weighed 4 tons, not including fuel, and it didn't bulldoze rock and ice to manufacture and store rocket fuel. The Zarya module on the ISS weighs around 20 tons I think, and it didn't have to carry the equipment and fuel to slow it down and land successfully on Mars.

> The Shuttle orbiter weighs about 100 tons fully loaded;
>its engines are around 10 tons, leaving 90 tons for vehicle, payload
>and trans-Mars injection fuel.

So are you saying we'd launch on the Shuttle, or on some as-yet-to-be-developed vehicle. Because if you're launching on the Shuttle, it can only haul around 30 tons of cargo into LEO, if memory serves. So now we're talking at least two flights just to get your Mars rocket fuel factory into orbit and on its way. And if you're launch on some as-yet-to-be-developed vehicle employing Shuttle-derived technology, add at least another $10 billion to the cost of t