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First Details of Manned Mars Mission From NASA
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."
Can someone please explain to me (and this is NOT meant to be a troll-post) why someone can't volunteer for a manned mission to Mars, raise funding from private companies/organizations and just go to Mars? Yes it would be a suicide mission, known up front and with the intent of it being for pure research and in the name of science, why the hell couldn't someone hit up a few big businesses and/or private investors for the cash to make a ship, buy or make the equipment for data analysis and the necessary supplies to get there and transmit back pictures and data? And more than just the Mars Rover, being able to survey the planet much faster and with more detail.
Is NASA a governing body in the sense that they can mandate who can go into space and moreover, where in space? It is my understanding that when Columbus wanted to find a route to the far East, he submitted his plans to various people and it took two or three tries before they finally granted him the money and ships he needed and I read that some of the terms of the agreement were such that they (King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella) didn't expect him back... why not something similar for Mars? Setting aside things like training, time to build a ship, and most importantly cost, can it be done? Privately? And no, not the Astronaut Farmer-type thing. I'm talking about a legitimate, scientific exploration, in the name of pure science and discovery, privately funded, privately built and controlled, government and nationally independent.
I think we have to face facts that once the Shuttle program shuts down and the Russians lose interest in losing money and the ISS reaches the end of its service life that apart from the Chinese and Indians sending a few Nauts into orbit that manned spaceflight is going to take a VERY long break. Perhaps a century or more. Countries and societies seem to have almost no interest in it. Coupled with the enormous ignorance and misinformation about it e.g. a quarter of all Americans think NASA's budget is greater than the Pentagon, coupled with the increasing weaponization of space there just doesn't seem to be any future in it.
As long as they piddle about with chemical rockets, they won't be doing much more than a very expensive, long and dangerous flag-planting exercise.
Von Braun et. al. were working on a nuclear rocket back in the day for such a mission. Just look up NERVA.
And before anyone jumps on the "danger radiation" bandwagon, I'm not advocating a nuclear rocket for getting from the earth's surface into earth orbit. It would be quite safe to build a reactor, launch it into orbit and to install it on the spacecraft there. It would be quite harmless having never have been taken critical for the first time.
The crew could easily be shielded. Think nuclear submarine. The craft could be much bigger than one chemically-powered. There could be additional shielding for protecting the crew from solar radiation. There would be extra living space, more scientific payload and it would be easier to insert into Mars orbit at the other end.
Fission reactors have been about for 60 years now. We know how to make them safe and efficient. It would be absolutely stupid not to use a nuclear reactor to go to Mars. They could have one designed, built and tested in under 5 years if they put their minds to it.
But they won't. They'll leave that to our grandchildren...
Stick Men
As a rocket engineer myself, I can reaffirm this statement. Given the catastrohpic and costly nature of rocketry failures, rocket scientists are extremely conservative folks.
And fundamentally, nothing in chemical rocket propulsion has changed much in the 40 years since Apollo started, especially for the kinds of liquid engines required for a manned interplanetary mission. (Ion propulsion, hybrid motors, and other niche propulsion techniques have made some significant strides, but are impractical for manned missions.) Structurally there are new materials available, composites, cermet, etc., that provide marginal improvements in performance. By the 2020s when a mission like this is in the design phase, I expect even more materials improvements will have been made.
And yes, electronics has advanced by orders of magnitude. However, given the radiation environment of interplanetary space, most microelectronics would not survive the trip without being quintupally redundant, heavily shielded, or custom designed and processed from the substrate up. And remember, we're talking about ultraconservative rocket scientists designing a manned space mission.
The problem is, Moore's Law works to the detriment of radiation tolerance. As structures get smaller and smaller, they become more susceptible to damage by the small amounts of energy deposited by ionizing radiation and especially to heavy ions (cosmic rays). The circuits and structures have to be designed specifically to tolerate the damage from radiation without altering the microcircuit function too dramatically.
No, for a manned interplanetary mission, you're very likely to see most electronics be several generations old technology, and critical systems will be designed with failure-tolerant and radiation-immune technology like electron tubes and relays.
You may think I'm joking, or being hyperbolic... but I'm not.
Of course, by 2031, who knows what will be either radiation tolerant and/or "several generations old."
I can see the fnords!