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Planetary Society Pushes For Mars Orbital Mission Before NASA Landing

Posted by samzenpus on from the here's-some-advice dept.

MarkWhittington writes The Planetary Society announced Thursday the results of the "Humans Orbiting Mars" workshop that brought in a number of space experts to develop helpful suggestions for how NASA can fulfill its mandate to send humans to Mars in the 2030s and return them safely to the Earth. The plan is to send a mission to orbit Mars in 2033 in advance of the landing mission in the late 2030s. The workshop believes that this could be done for a NASA budget that increases about two percent a year after the International Space Station is decommissioned in 2024.

36 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. Because thats clearly what NASA wants to do by MichaelSmith · · Score: 2

    ISS2 will do a single transit to and from Mars, possibly with time spent in a highly eccentric orbit around Mars, waiting for the return launch window. Russia will have to built their own space station which will presumably be MIR2.

    The second mission may deploy a small vehicle to test aero-braking at Mars, and a landing on one of the moons. Maybe landing on the third mission?

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  2. Go all that way and don't get out of the car? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Really? You go all the damn way to Mars and then stay in the car when you get there? That just sounds wrong on the surface of it. Like going to the Grand Canyon and then staying in the car in the parking lot. Maybe just send the lander module on ahead, confirm it is orbiting properly, let the crew module come later and dock up and send down the lander. Anything but drive there and come back without getting out to look around.

    1. Re:Go all that way and don't get out of the car? by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 4, Informative

      Really? You go all the damn way to Mars and then stay in the car when you get there?

      Because going to the surface, living on the surface, and launching off the surface is really hard, and really expensive, and requires a lot of engineering and solving a lot of problems that we haven't yet solved. We don't know how to land something on Mars that's as large as a human habitat. This will take some work. Landing on Mars is going to be a very expensive mission.

      But, on the other hand, if we did send people to orbit Mars without landing... that might be a very powerful incentive to try to get that technology made and actually land on the next mission.

      --
      http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    2. Re:Go all that way and don't get out of the car? by MouseR · · Score: 1

      Mars would be the ONE place that is safe for a space elevators.

      No nut job wanting to asplode the base or sever the cable mid-length.

      It would make landing cargo and people trivial, including return trip.

    3. Re:Go all that way and don't get out of the car? by MouseR · · Score: 1

      0.38g really makes this a lot simpler than on Terra.

    4. Re:Go all that way and don't get out of the car? by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      At least in the car I can turn and pee into a cup. Try that locked up tight inside a space suit. It's no *walk in the park*...

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    5. Re:Go all that way and don't get out of the car? by itzly · · Score: 2

      Making a space elevator on Mars makes as much sense as building a luxury resort in the middle of the Gobi desert.

    6. Re:Go all that way and don't get out of the car? by itzly · · Score: 1

      Like going to the Grand Canyon and then staying in the car in the parking lot

      If the other choice is to drive down into the canyon, staying in the parking lot may not be so bad.

    7. Re:Go all that way and don't get out of the car? by Electricity+Likes+Me · · Score: 1

      The one where a space elevator on Mars could be made with regular high tensile strength steel like we have today?

    8. Re:Go all that way and don't get out of the car? by scottrocket · · Score: 1

      Maybe by the time we are ready for an orbital mission, we will have human-like avatars that can carry us virtually to the surface. Being in low Mars orbit, and having low latency satellites it may "feel" almost like being there.

    9. Re:Go all that way and don't get out of the car? by danbert8 · · Score: 1

      Yes, because Apollo 8, 9, and 10 were all a complete waste...

      --
      Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
    10. Re:Go all that way and don't get out of the car? by currently_awake · · Score: 1

      The money you spend on a Mars orbit mission comes out of your landing on Mars budget, that's why you don't do this.

    11. Re:Go all that way and don't get out of the car? by danbert8 · · Score: 1

      Based on that logic, the whole Apollo program was a waste. My point is that each of those missions were tests of procedures needed to actually land a man on the moon. It's not a waste to go there, orbit, conduct mission critical tests, and return to ensure the success of a future landing.

      --
      Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
    12. Re:Go all that way and don't get out of the car? by Rational · · Score: 1

      But, on the other hand, if we did send people to orbit Mars without landing...

      ...it would be a stupid waste of billions of dollars. Humans can't do anything from Mars orbit a machine (specially a 2030s machine) can't do much better. Actually, I'm not a big believer on Mars missions at all. I think the Moon is a better near-term target, and asteroid mining a much better long-term approach. We don't need more gravity wells.

      --
      "Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
    13. Re:Go all that way and don't get out of the car? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      If we send people to Mars orbit and back, we get a real-life test of our ability to send people on a long mission, which will help in getting to asteroids.

      I'd like to see a Moon base before we start on a Mars base, also. Many of the same challenges, and if something goes wrong we can get help there, or evacuate, a lot faster.

      I'm in favor of taking this a step at a time. The steps are awfully big ones in any case.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    14. Re:Go all that way and don't get out of the car? by HemoGoocheJPL · · Score: 1

      Nope. The only way that humans will get into space and stay there is to go to Mars without any chance of return. Otherwise politics and human nature will just repeat the Apollo experiment. Buzz A was emphatic on this point. You have to design the system, right from the start, to have no Mars return option. In which case, Earth will have no choice but to support the mission and work their damndest to make it self sufficient, since choosing continued supply is much more expensive.

    15. Re:Go all that way and don't get out of the car? by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      At least in the car I can turn and pee into a cup. Try that locked up tight inside a space suit. It's no *walk in the park*...

      And this, ladies and gentlemen, should be the end of the car analogies today.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    16. Re:Go all that way and don't get out of the car? by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, his logic is that the Apollo program was a waste, with which I disagree. It wasn't as much of a waste as most things that currently attract our attentions.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
  3. That is how we approached the Moon with Apollo... by garyisabusyguy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But this is a lot longer trip and a much greater up front cost.
    At the very least they should should have a remote-controlled lander to execute a land, launch and recover exercise to verify that they can pull somebody back out of the gravity well
    And, perhaps a series of launches with a 6 month separation so that they can create a Mars orbiting space station

    Oh, and just in case you didn't see this POS from Wired
    http://www.wired.com/2015/04/b...

    Bill Nye is no Leslie Knope, he rocks much harder!

    --
    Wherever You Go, There You Are
  4. because math... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So by my math that would not be 2% (which is the 'small' amount they want you to see). That is ~35% increase in 15 years. That seems reasonable if inflation holds and priorities are the same. However, it is a bit disingenuous...

    The real problem is not NASA. It is them being jerked around over and over. Then outsourcing everything to other companies that only have 1 customer of NASA.

  5. Cool Beans by phantomfive · · Score: 2

    Sounds like they have a great idea. They should Kickstarter that and get the project started!

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  6. Send an Unmanned Habitat by Irate+Engineer · · Score: 2

    Why not send an unmanned habitat lander? Something that lands, deploys a habitat, then monitors the performance of that habitat and the health of the return vehicle *before* committing a crew? Knowing that they have a safe and established home base on Mars and a ride ready to take them back home would add some redundancy and encouragement to the crew. If a meteorite crashes into the habitat or an Exogorth eats it, the crew aborts the landing and returns home.

    --

    Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!

    Vote for Bernie in 2016!

    1. Re:Send an Unmanned Habitat by painandgreed · · Score: 1

      Why not send an unmanned habitat lander? Something that lands, deploys a habitat, then monitors the performance of that habitat and the health of the return vehicle *before* committing a crew? Knowing that they have a safe and established home base on Mars and a ride ready to take them back home would add some redundancy and encouragement to the crew. If a meteorite crashes into the habitat or an Exogorth eats it, the crew aborts the landing and returns home.

      We probably will, but that is still far in the future. Besides testing any Mars lander on the scale needed to land people, it is usually part of most plans to land additional supplies including something to extract needed gases for survival and launch from the surface before hand. Probably need at least two as we'll need to not only test ability to land large crafts on the surface of Mars but also ability to land them very close to each other as astronauts won't be able to make use of supplies kilometers away from them. Still, there is so much work needed before that hard lining to do such would be putting the cart before the horse. We still need to get up to speed with getting such large objects into space, possibly assembling them, having them move probably under their own power out of orbit, and making them safe for humans. Much of this could be worked on in parallel but essentially we still need to work on getting to Mars before we can worry about landing on Mars. Personally, I bet we'll see a test of such manned technology to the Moon again before it is used on Mars.

  7. HERRO by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 1

    Cool. I've been proposing this for years.
    http://telerobotics.gsfc.nasa....
    http://telerobotics.gsfc.nasa....

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  8. Wave hello to Elon's colony by beltsbear · · Score: 1

    By 2030 Elon and SpaceX may have already landed people on the surface. Maybe not a huge settlement or anything, but an outpost. Going all the way without landing is kinda silly.

    1. Re:Wave hello to Elon's colony by danbert8 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, Apollo 8, 9, and 10 were such a waste. Should have landed the first time we went to the moon.

      --
      Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
    2. Re:Wave hello to Elon's colony by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      Sure. That's what Real Men(tm) do! Haven't you read "The First Men in the Moon". That's how explorers roll!

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
  9. Elon Musk by dixonpete · · Score: 1

    Isn't Musk far ahead of this schedule? So far as I can remember his time for getting a man on Mars is 15 years on the outside.

    1. Re:Elon Musk by Gavagai80 · · Score: 2

      Musk needs a customer. Even his massive wealth can't cover a joy ride to Mars.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
  10. Do or Do Not... by cowtamer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There is no half way. There are no viable one way missions. If you're going to send humans to Mars, then send humans to Mars and bring them back.

    It's hard enough for any project to live more than 2 years at NASA -- "a second mission sometime in the mid 2030s" is likely to be just as canceled as the previous visions of getting to Mars which would have had us there last decade.

    As NASA is publicly funded, and as the public is fickle, NOTHING less than a human walking on Mars within our lifetimes, with further trips to follow is going to convince us, the taxpayers, to not begrudge the 50 cents a day we spend on NASA's budget.

    Nothing short of an inspired public (and leaders brave enough to inspire the public) will get us funded to bootstrap ourselves into space, if this is to be done by a public agency.

    1. Re:Do or Do Not... by HemoGoocheJPL · · Score: 1

      Nope. The only way that humans will get into space and stay there is to go to Mars without any chance of return. Otherwise politics and human nature will just repeat the Apollo experiment. Buzz A was emphatic on this point. You have to design the system, right from the start, to have no Mars return option. In which case, Earth will have no choice but to support the mission and work their damndest to make it self sufficient, since choosing continued supply is much more expensive.

  11. Simple solution by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

    Declare war on Mars! All of a sudden, the budget will be 40x larger!

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    1. Re:Simple solution by cavreader · · Score: 1

      The international rivalries and tensions that result in large defense budgets will ultimately boost the pace of space exploration. If China was looking to establish a presence on the Moon or Mars the US would do everything in it's power to get there first. The US Apollo missions to the Moon were the direct result of the cold war animosity between the US and the USSR. The Russians sent up the first satellite and put the first man in orbit so the US one upped them by going to the Moon.

  12. The case for now, the case for later by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 1

    There are a lot of different pieces required to go to Mars, land, and return. Some of these, like a habitat that humans can live in for the required transit to Mars and back, we have, or at least, we can make with only small modifications to what has been developed (the Space Station). Some of them, like landers and habitats and space suits for use on the Martian surface, we don't have. Every one of these pieces is a potential bottleneck for a human mission.

    What you are basically saying is, we should delay Mars exploration with humans until we have all the pieces developed. The Planetary Society is saying, no, let's not delay, let's do a mission we can do now

    The longest usage we have gotten out of a space suit on the moon is three eight-hour walks. The report from the Apollo missions was that the suits were trashed by that point (lunar dust is very abrasive)-- they would not have been usable for another use. Mars dust is not as abrasive as lunar dust, but it is much finer. A different problem. Do you want to send humans to Mars if you then have to tell them "oh, by the way, you'll be on the surface for 500 days, but you can only go outside three times. After that we're not sure your suits will still hold pressure, so stay inside."

    Of course, we can develop and test suits for Mars. Developing and testing is something we're good at. But there are a hundred pieces that have to be developed and tested, and only so much budget.

    So the question is, do we want to delay, until all the parts for landing and habitation and launching back from Mars have been developed and tested? Or do we go now, doing what we can with what we can do?

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  13. Taking the first step gets you one step closer by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 1

    The money you spend on a Mars orbit mission sets you up for landing on Mars by developing and testing a critical portion of the technology, the part that gets humans to Mars orbit and back.

    Taking the first step gets you one step closer to Mars.

    If you waited to take you first step until you were ready to run a marathon, you'd never stand up at all.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  14. Watch out, puny human, robots are getting better by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 1

    But, on the other hand, if we did send people to orbit Mars without landing...

    ...it would be a stupid waste of billions of dollars. Humans can't do anything from Mars orbit a machine

    [can't do much better.]

    Actually, right at the moment, that's not true-- humans are vastly more capable than robots. I'm quite supportive of robots, but a human geologist could do in a day what it takes the Mars rovers a month to do.

    (specially a 2030s machine)

    Ah, now that's the question. Robots are evolving much more quickly than humans. What will the machines be able to do in 2030?

    (will they need us at all? for anything?)

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com