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U.S. House Wants 'Sustained Human Presence On the Moon and the Surface of Mars'
MarkWhittington writes "Politico reports in a June 18, 2013 story that House Republicans have added a Mars base to its demands for a lunar base in the draft 2013 NASA Authorization bill. Both the Bush-era Constellation program and President Obama space plan envisioned eventual human expeditions to Mars. But if Politico is correct, the new bill will be the first time an official piece of legislation will call for permanent habitation of the Red Planet. The actual legislative language states, 'The [NASA] Administrator shall establish a program to develop a sustained human presence on the Moon and the surface of Mars.'"
The moon, Mars, deep space... just get them off this planet and out of our hair ASAP.
I don't suppose the house is planning to actually pay for the enormous expense of putting a permanent human colony on a different planet? They just want NASA to stop everything else that they're doing and start making manned Mars rockets? Is it any wonder NASA struggles with long term projects, with Congress meddling every year with crazy ideas and budget uncertainty?
I read the internet for the articles.
...this is it. We've got drones on Mars already. They just don't fly yet.
"Get your ass to Mars!"
Like...
Encouraging children to get into STEM Degrees. The moon landing back in the 1960's but a large boom into these careers. Although a small portion of them will be working on the space missions. The interest in these things as a kid will make them far more interested in the topics. Getting kids interested in Science Technology Engineering and Math, will help them get off their butts go to college and get in less serious trouble.
Our Environment. Sure launching a rocket into space take huge amounts of carbon. But to figure out how to get people to survive and thrive on the Moon and Mars (extremely harsh conditions, and little energy sources) will create technology that we can use here on earth. Hey that solar panel on the moon can keep a small city running with a half a month of darkness, means on earth we could at least get it to run half a small city. Plus it will need to be small and light to get there. Extracting Drinking water out of the brimy pools on mars, would help us get drinking water out of our oceans and deserts.
Agriculture, these people will need to be self sufficient, in a bubble, imagine what we could do with these ideas on earth.
Health Care. The people in colonies on the Moon and Mars can get sick, we will need to find new procedures to fix these problems. They can be transferred back to earth as a cheaper solution to many problems.
Those are just a few.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
1. insist the US Postal Service implement pension funding 75 years into the future with no known revenue source to do so, as we cannot directly defund it. pretend companies like UPS and FedEx actually want to deliver bulk mail in place of the postal service but are in fact incumbered by its existence.
2. insist NASA pursue permanent manned installations on the moon and mars despite the fact its orders of magnitude more expensive than current unmanned operations. pretend companies like SpaceX are somehow encumbered by the existence of NASA.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I want to see mankind spread out into the solar system, and ideally I'd like to see the USA at the head of it all. So I'm not unsympathetic toward the idea.
But I really want to see the space program get done correctly. So far, every trip to the moon has been via a single-use rocket, completely used up for the one trip. It made sense when we were trying to win a race, but it also meant we hadn't built out the infrastructure.
The right way to do things: build a truly reusable space vehicle, often called a "space pickup truck". Proposed heavy lift vehicles are more like a "space moving van", and they will have their uses, but what we need more than anything else is a spacecraft that can fly and fly and fly some more with minimal maintenance.
We want a craft that can fly to orbit, return, and then go again tomorrow. It might need some maintenance overnight but it should be as little as possible. The space shuttle needed man-centuries of work between flights... we can do far better than that.
Single-stage would be ideal, but two-stage might be easier to get going... just make sure both stages are reusable and don't need too much maintenance. Cargo capacity need not be huge... it would be cheaper to fly things up in multiple small loads on a truly reusable craft, than to build, launch, and use up a single heavy-lift vehicle.
Once we have the "space pickup truck" we need to build a transportation hub in Earth orbit. It would have emergency Earth return vehicles docked, would have lots of supplies (fuel, water, oxygen, food, etc.) and would have staff on board all the time.
Once you have all the above? The moon becomes trivial. Build a "moon shuttle" that could be basically a couple of fuel tanks and engines bolted to a frame, with some sort of shielded crew compartment and a lunar lander docked to it. It need not be pretty and it need not be tough because it will never land anywhere.
Ideally, also we should build a "space cannon" system that can shoot things into space. This would be the cheapest way to send up inert things like oxygen and fuel, or even dried food and tough electronics. And humans living in space will need serious radiation shielding... the cannon could possibly send up lots of shielding mass.
Imagine how expensive it would be to deliver cargo from America to Australia if we had to do it by building a single-use cargo missile. With modern aircraft the dominating factor is fuel costs. If we could get space travel costs down to chiefly the cost of fuel that would be a massive reduction in costs.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
You're currently modded flaimbait but my first thought was let's do it now. Load up all politicians, attorneys, and used car salesmen and launch em!
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
You know guys, if you want these things you're probably going to have to stop slashing NASA's fucking budget every year.
By US House, they mean TEXAS. This is just PORK for Houston and its rocket-to-nowhere--The Space Launch System (SLS). SLS has no mission, but it means money to Houston and therefor they dreamed up this ridiculous objective, And Houston will do anything to get the money, including poaching from the highly-successful unmanned mission from JPL such as Opportunity and Curiosity.
Just don't drink the glacier water...
Like everything else Congress does, this seems like nothing more than another reason for them to pat themselves on the back. What it actually accomplishments is irrelevant.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Anonymous, you will NEVER solve the problems you are indirectly referring to. Poverty, war, crime, environmental pollution: those are inevitable byproducts of existence itself. Not to mention that you fail to take into account the greatest random factor of them all: human stupidity. Stopping our march to space and spending money to solve problems here at home is the most futile fallacial notion ever; because you will waste more money trying to correct for human stupidity and the inevitable results of existential chaos than you ever would in building capability to get into deep space. Those problems will never be solved--but putting permanent encampments of humans on the Moon and beyond CAN.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
China does not recognize the treaties against the ownership of celestial objects and Republicans being Republicans want to squat on the two best pieces. This is as dumb of an idea as you can come up with for human exploration, but at least it's getting space programs some money. Problem is Politicians aren't rocket scientists and have no concept of the work and technology precursors needed for them to claim their pretty marbles. Asteroids and Comets... building material, water and all the precious metals you could ever want. So of course US wants to avoid asteroids. First asteroid you lasso with gold on it and watch all the rich folks wail and howl and scream when their gold value drops to 19th century levels. China has been mandating their rocket scientists read western Science Fiction for ideas and concepts we take for granted. But they don't even have to bother because Science Fiction is huge China now and is fueling a whole new generation of Science Fiction authors. US better watch out.
Sending someone to Mars is a complete waste of money in the short term. As is finding water or even signs of life on that planet.
And before you jump down my throat about bullshit such as Space R&D leads to beneficial offshoot technology, realize that we do not need to spend $100 Billion dollars to send someone to Mars with the offshoot of having a better memory foam for our mattresses, new flavor of Tang, or a more grippy version of Velcro.
We have real problems on Earth. We have an energy crisis. We are running out of fossil fuel and demand more electrical energy year over year. One could argue that sending someone to Mars could lead to a solution to Earth's energy crisis. However NASA could easily spend billions on R&D for energy for a space mission and find out the best solution is to tack a nuclear reactor to the end of the spaceship because you can just eject the spent core's into the void of space. A solution like this will not benefit Earth at all.
Instead, having a mandate to solve our energy crisis on Earth first, by finding real alternatives to using fossil fuel for energy and making technology use energy more efficiently, would lead to trivial solutions to generate and conserve energy on a mission to Mars. That is, NASA could operate on a cheaper budget and spend less time finding solutions for a Mars mission when we have real solutions to Earth problems.
Space R&D is limited in scope and we can only hope for there to be offshoot technology that could benefit Earth. NASA is not going to design solutions with a dual purpose, to work on Mars and provide solutions to Earth. Why create a limitation on R&D when it won't move the Mars mandate further, faster.
The problem, or course, is that a US presidency only lasts at most 8 years and its hard to hand over an easier Mars solution to the next president.
It's simply irresponsible to waste billions on Space R&D when we have significant economic, energy and climate issues on Earth. Three days after people see someone landing on Mars on YouTube nobody will give a shit and we will be stuck with the same problems on Earth, now just with even more repressive tax debt.
Fix Earth first, then lets see the planets and the stars. Why not have mandate to sustain life on this Planet?!
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Since the planet does not have a strong magnetic field, the surface is lethal.
As has been discussed elsewhere, at the time of arrival on Mars a person would already have received a lifetime's radiation dose.
Now just hold on there... I might need a used car some day.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The fastest way to get a human on Mars is to launch from Earth.
The fastest way to get a sustainable human presence on Mars is to build a base on the Moon, and use its raw materials for shielding, fuel, etc., and only getting the hi-tech & wet-ware from Earth. Why lift a lot of mass off the Earth when it is is a lot cheaper to do so from the Moon, in the medium to longer term?
It is only cheaper from Earth for a one-off mission, or at most a small number of Mars missions.
For sustainable transport between the Earth and the Moon, you want at least 5 structures, 4 of which would be easy to reuse - in order to minimise cost:
(1) Earth-LEO shuttle - the most difficult to reuse
(2) LEO station - for transfer of men & material
(3) LEO-LMO shuttle
(4) LMO station - for transfer of men & material
(5) Moon-LMO shuttle
LEO: Low Earth Orbit
LMO: Low Moon Orbit
Similar reasoning applies to Moon-Mars transport, as there is no point in landing a craft capable of going between the Moon & Mars on the surface of Mars, or the Moon for that matter - though the Mars landing is the most technically challenging.
and I want a pony.
a unicorn pony.
a well-hung unicorn pony.
Until these nimrods in congress actually come up with the funding for this, and given their history of cancellations, up front, this is just useless wheel-spinning that might fund a few shoestring studies that go nowhere. We'd get to Mars sooner if we put the project on Kickstarter than waiting for congress to fund it.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Don't forget the telephone sanitizers.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Enough hot air to heat up and terraform the planet
Actually, we would gain more out of doing a base on Antarctica, then you would on the moon. That does not mean that we can NOT do a base on the moon, but we gain nothing extra.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I find it odd the legislation would specify the "surface of Mars"... I guess they want to keep us away from that alien reactor.
All of these ppl are going for pork. Look at this:
Republican Members
Steven Palazzo, MS, Chairman
Ralph M. Hall (R-Texas)
Dana Rohrabacher (R-California)
Frank D. Lucas (R-Oklahoma)
Michael McCaul (R-Texas)
Mo Brooks (R-Alabama)
Larry Bucshon (R-Indiana)
Steve Stockman (R-Texas)
Bill Posey (R-Florida)
David Schweikert (R-Arizona)
Jim Bridenstine (R-Oklahoma)
Chris Stewart (R-Utah)
Democrat Members
Donna F. Edwards, MD, Ranking Member
Suzanne Bonamici (D-Oregon)
Dan Maffei (D-New York)
Joe Kennedy III (D-Massachusetts)
Derek Kilmer (D-Washington)
Ami Bera (D-California)
Marc Veasey (D-Texas)
Julia Brownley (D-California)
Frederica Wilson (D-Florida)
The ONLY one on this group who is NOT trash is Rohrabacher. The rest are seekers of pork.
If a one of them REALLY wanted to go to the mars and/or the moon, they would be allocating money for setting up a base in Antarctica using BA's BA-330 and/or ILC Dover's equipment as well as pushing private space. But, do they? Nope.
In addition, they would kill the SLS and instead push a COTS-SHLV for 2 SHLVs. Do they? Nope.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Encouraging children to get into STEM Degrees.
Is there a reason we need more people to have these degrees? Then encourage them to take the degree for those reasons. It's not as if the science we already need to do and the engineering we already need to do is not a challenge.
The moon landing back in the 1960's but a large boom into these careers. Although a small portion of them will be working on the space missions. The interest in these things as a kid will make them far more interested in the topics.
And after the boom came a bust. One of the big negatives of the apollo mythos is the intertwining of space exploration with sending bags of meat into space. The role of the bags of meat, is, as you say, to give the venture a human face - it's soap opera and (accesible) human drama.
But maybe the science is worth doing for it's own sake. Maybe the BIG achievements of NASA - Cassini, Voyager, the hugely successful Mars rovers - maybe these are the things we should celebrate, because these are science for the sake of science. If we are not getting kids excited about actual science then we are doing it wrong. Science is exciting.
But to figure out how to get people to survive and thrive on the Moon and Mars (extremely harsh conditions, and little energy sources) will create technology that we can use here on earth. Hey that solar panel on the moon can keep a small city running with a half a month of darkness, means on earth we could at least get it to run half a small city. Plus it will need to be small and light to get there. Extracting Drinking water out of the brimy pools on mars, would help us get drinking water out of our oceans and deserts.
We already know why we need those technologies. And we already know how to live sustainably on earth. If we are not motivated by the needs of 7 billion people and all their descendants, if we are not motivated by the need to preserve the biodiversity of the earth, then the needs of 7 people in a tin can will not motivate us. Solar panels can already power a small city on earth - we just don't want to reach into our pockets and build. We already know how to extract drinkable water from non-potable sources - we just don't care enough about the people without water to do anything about their needs.
What is is like at Antartica? COLD. Runs from -89C to -5C. Lots of high speed winds with cold temps with snow/ice that eats at material. Days that are 24 hours long. Seasons. Sun is missing in the winter. Shortage of water (though it can be picked up locally). Shortage of resources. If they really want to do well, they should bury down into the snow.
And what is it like on Mars? COLD. The mean on Mars runs from -87C to -5C. Lots of high speed winds, with cold temps with dust in it, that eats at material. Days that are ~24 hours long. seasons are similar, though 2x as long. Sun is missing in the winter. Shortage of water (though it can be picked up in various amounts). Plenty of local resources. If they want to do well, they should bury down into the frozen ground.
If this can survive at the Antarctica, then it can not survive mars. Something that works on the moon, MAY or MAY NOT work on mars. The ONLY thing that the moon has for testing purpose is life support, and that is available on the ISS.
OTOH, The moon is the worst place for testing. Little to no wind. No atmosphere. Lots of micrometeorites (mars has some, not many). Temperature extremes (mars does not get hot). Radiation galore (far far more than mars gets). In fact, mars surface gets less radiation than does the ISS (which is partially protected by our magnetosphere). The Radiation hitting the moon surface is 4-8x what the Martian surface will get. So, if BA units check out in Antartica for 2 years or longer, AND can check out for several years as a space station, then it is fully tested for Mars.
About the only advantage for the moon is testing a lander. Nothing else. All else should be tested here on earth or at the ISS.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.