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First Details of Manned Mars Mission From NASA

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the martian-rocketship-looking-for-cone-shaped-head dept.

OriginalArlen writes "The BBC has a first look at NASA's initial concepts for a manned Mars mission, currently penciled in for 2031. The main vehicle would be assembled on orbit over three or four launches of the planned Ares V heavy lift rocket. New abilities to repair, replace, and even produce replacement parts will be needed to provide enough self-sufficiency for a 30 months mission, including 16 months on the surface. The presentation was apparently delivered at a meeting of the Lunar Exploration Management Group, although there's nothing on their site yet."

1 of 329 comments (clear)

  1. Re:BVLLSH1T! by DerekLyons · · Score: 4, Informative

    Each Saturn 5 cost $100 million.

    Each Saturn V cost $100 million to buy - it cost another $75-100 million to checkout and launch. (In addition to this there is also is each flights share of the annual infrastructure costs.)
     
     

    Contrast that with the "reusable" space shuttle that has to be pretty much rebuilt from the ground up after every mision - $500 million dollars a flight.

    Wrong on both counts.
     
    First a Shuttle isn't anywhere near 'rebuilt' between flights. (And don't hand me that "they rebuild the engines after every flight". They don't, and haven't for nearly a decade.) Second, the marginal cost of a Shuttle flight (I.E. adding a flight to the manifest) is under $100/million a flight. Just like the Saturn V, it's low flight rate means the per flight cost is dominated by that flight's share of the fixed annual costs.
     
    At the end of the day - the difference in cost between the two is much, much less than urban legend has it. (Especially because Shuttle flights include the costs of the manned portion, the capsule if you will, and the Saturn costs... don't.)
     
     

    A modified Saturn 5 would need a lot fewer missions to assemble shit in orbit, like the ISS.
    Sure, you could assemble it faster - if you were willing to pay in excess of a billion dollars a shot. Saturn V class payloads don't come around too often, so all those infrastructure costs come back and bite you in the ass when you have to amortize years of support costs across a handful of flights.