Glenn Urges Direct-to-Mars Trip

Geno Z Heinlein writes "Reuters reports that astronaut John Glenn testified March 4 before the President's Commission on Moon, Mars and Beyond, saying that Bush's plan 'pulls the rug out from under our scientists' and that 'It just seems to me the direct-to-Mars [route] is the way to go.' Referring to the Moon as an 'enormously complex' Cape Canaveral, Glenn said that NASA might spend all the money getting to the Moon and never get to Mars."

Comments

I fear that's the whole point

[nokilli]

Spending all our money on the moon, that is. The moon has military value. Mars doesn't. If anything should serve as a base between here and Mars it should be ISS (after all it's a big reason we built the thing.) ISS should also be exploited as a place where returning astronauts (or samples) can be studied, safely, without risk to life on Earth (as low as that risk might be.)

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[samcentral2000]

How does the moon have military value? I'm no expert, but doesn't it take like six days to go up there? Not to mention the costs. From a military perspective, wouldn't a base in orbit around earth be more practical?

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[trinitrotoluene]

The only obvious thing I can think is of is the fact that the Moon is high up in Earth's gravity well. So you can shoot a big chunk of rock from the moon and have it hit somewhere on Earth. Then you get lots of destruction with no risk to friendly troops and without resorting to nuclear weapons.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[Trigun]

wouldn't a base in orbit around earth be more practical?

As opposed to that giant thing orbiting the earth called 'The Moon'? And you can shoot down something like the ISS with less difficulty than blowing up the moon.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[squiggleslash]

Well, the obvious military use for it is to put a huge number of rockets on it that'll, if fired, cause its orbit to be slowed. Then you'd have the ultimate deterent.

Any tin-pot third-world dictator threatens you, you just threaten to crash the moon into their country. Not only will they not want that, but their neighbours will probably overthrow said dictator on your behalf as the moon crashing into a country is likely to have severe repurcussions for anyone nearby.

I can clearly see Bush's reasoning on this.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[torpor]

Pretty simple, really:

a) The moon is easy to defend from Earth-based attacks. It takes a looooot more effort to get something to the Moon from Earth than it does to get something from the Moon to Earth.
b) Anything launched from the Moon can reach any target on the planet, easily enough, using Gravity.
c) The moon has tons of resources for constructing weapons, especially new kinds of nuclear weapons. There's no Greenpeace, no protestors, and no life to destroy, so the Military-Industrial complex can do a looooot of things on the moon that they wouldn't stand a chance doing here on Earth.

This was, incidentally, a hot topic in the 50's and 60's, and I seem to remember more than one sci-fi author getting into a lot of trouble for suggesting that the moon be used militarily in the Cold War ...

A moon base would be the Top of the Hill for the Pentagon. Its very, very difficult to defend against moon-launched attacks ...

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[blue_adept]

Yes, the moon crashing into the earth would cause a catastrophic drop in cheese prices everywhere. The swiss, normally neutral, would be furious.

John Glenn doesn't want the rest of us to go moon

[baryon351]

So. why doesn't John Glenn want the rest of us to go to the moon? what's he hiding? WHAT DO THEY KNOW IS UP THERE.

whoops. ignore I said any of that. tinfoil hat slipped

Bush's Moon Plan is a 'shock and awe' tactic:

[Neuropol]

A moon base is just a way to get people thinking about votes.

Hero Gone Politician

[iammrjvo]

John Glenn lost all credibility with me when, as a US senator, he pulled that garbage line about "exploring the effects of age on space travel" as an excuse to get NASA to launch him back to space.

He was once part of a band of heros. Now he's just another politician.

China

[ultraexactzz]

Though Mr. Glenn's arguments are sound, they fail to take into account one of the most pressing reasons for a permanent moon base - China intends to build one in the next 12 years. Though it smacks of the Cold War, could the president really allow a (communist) foreign power unlimited access to the moon?

Re:How about telling the truth, Glenn?

[prgrmr]

The ISS budget is not 2.5 million, but 2.5 BILLION!

Glenn wasn't talking about the complete ISS budget, just the science portion that's projected to be cut.

Re:Goals

[cybermace5]

And I totally agree with that. I would much rather see money used for some lasting, useful space infrastructure than blow all the cash on a one-shot firecracker to put a bootprint in red dirt.

Let's try for some logical progression here. The giant leap was when a man first set foot on something other than Earth. Now let's start walking. There are no lasting benefits right now from a massive Mars bootprint operation, let's go there when it's cheaper and we have some practical Moon colony experience to build on.

There are some reasons to go to the moon

[Pedrito]

First of all, I completely disagree with the Bush agenda. However, there is at least one compelling reason to go back to the moon, and that's to put a radio telescope on the far side.

One of the big problems with radio astronomy is noise interference from Earth and the many satellites we have in orbit. The nearest zone free of this interference would be the far side of the moon.

Building a radio telescope on the moon would likely require a full-time manned base for handling repairs and maintenance. One of the disadvantages of having a radio telescope on the moon is that radio astronomy has been advancing along with other technological areas and upgrades would be needed periodically in addition to repairs.

I think Radio Astronomy would benefit enormously from such a project, but I doubt that's on the Bush agenda...

Zubrin's Mars Society seems to be doing well ...

[torpor]

I remember, a few years ago (5?) that the various Mars programs being fronted by the U.S. government were in direct opposition to the way Zubrin and his Mars Society were proposing we do it - with the "Mars Direct Program".

Now, it seems that there are a significant number of Washington players who are getting behind the scientific thinking that Zubrin's program has produced for us ... and thats good news.

When I think about where we are currently at, evaluating the Mars situation, and where we've come as a result of an independent organization, it warms my heart. The Mars Society have done a lot to get humans thinking about going to Mars properly, and finally it seems like their momentum is having a great effect.

Re:One question: why?

[Atrahasis]

This talk of trips to the moon and Mars makes me ask: why?

Because man always has and always will seek to further his horizons. We've run out of horizons on Earth.

What can people on the moon or Mars do that a robot can't?"

Experience it first hand. Describe being there in a qualitative as well as a quantitative manner. In short, FEEL what its like to be there. If you fly a kite, you can hardly say you flew, can you? Similarly, putting a robot on the moon or Mars does not justify the statement that man has been there.

Robots are even better suited because, well, they can be specially built to be suited.

No, robots are actually LESS well suited becuase they MUST be built to suit. Being specialised is not a good trait when you are unsure of the circumstances in which you might find yourself. The ability to adapt to changing circumstance is not one that the field of robotics has yet mastered. Thankfully nature has done the work for us, and we are natural adaptors.

It's harder to get to the Moon than Mars

[SB9876]

OK,
I keep hearing this idea of using the moon as a refueling station. If you haven't looked at the numbers, t seems like a good idea. However, a quick look at the actual orbital mechanics shows that the Moon is a big waste of time. Here's the breakdown for ow much Delta V is needed to get to the Moon and Mars:

Moon.........Mars
LEO to Moon/Mars..3.2.........4.0
Orbital Insertion.......0.9.........0.1
Orbit to Surface.......1.9.........0.4
Total.............. ......6.0.........4.5

Yes, it actually takes LESS fuel to get to Mars primarily because it has an atmosphere you can use to aerobrake. The Moon has no atmosphere and so you have to carry fuel to bleed off your transorbital speed. Furthermore, Landing on Mars is assited by being able to use the aerobrake to bleed off speed on the way down unlike the Moon. Those figures even assume that you don't use a parachute and rely upon retrorockets to come to a stop.

OK, what about the idea of the Lunar refuelling station? You now lose the 1.9km/s of energy you need to get back off the lunar surface. (you still pay for it but the refuelling barge now pays that cost) The problem is that the cost of getting to the Moon and in and out of Lunar orbit is as expensive as getting to Mars to begin with. Sure, you now havea refuelled ship that can go to Mars from lunar orbit which is cheap BUT you just spent as much fuel getting to the Moon as it would have taken to go to Mars without stopping!

To use an analogy, I want to drive to New York from Seattle. Now, would it a be a good idea to send a bunch of my friends out to Washington DC to build a gas station for me so that I can drive there, gas up and then drive up to New York? NO! The only way it would make sense is if we were building a spaceship in lunar orbit which is simply insane - we can't even do that in LEO right now. Hell, we have enough trouble doing it on the ground right now.

Furthermore, as the other respondant mentioned, you can't make fuel on the Moon. All rockets that aren't ion drives (which have no need to refuel at the Moon anyways) need an oxidizer and fuel. There's plenty of O2 on the moon in the form of metal oxides. The Moon's something like 70% oxygen. There's plenty of metal and O2 if we want to expend the energy to get it. However, O2 is the oxidizer - we still need the fuel. All our fuels use (to my knowledge) carbon, nitrogen or hydrogen. That includes everything from gasoline and candle wax to hydrazine and liquid H2. The moon has no large supplies of H2, C or N. You'll have to haul all of those in anyways. It really makes no sense to refuel there.

There's plenty of good reasons to go to the Moon, refuelling on the way to Mars is NOT one of them.