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Why NASA's Road To Mars Plan Proves That It Should Return To the Moon First
MarkWhittington writes: NASASpaceFlight.com published the results of current NASA thinking concerning what needs to be launched and when to support a crewed mission to Phobos and two crewed missions to the Martian surface between 2033 and 2043. The result is a mind-numbingly complex operation involving dozens of launches to cis-lunar space and Mars using the heavy lift Space Launch System. The architecture includes a collection of habitation modules, Mars landers, propulsion units (both chemical rockets and solar electric propulsion) and other parts of a Mars ship.
It doesn't "prove" a damn thing. NASA has been saying that a lunar base is a step to Mars for a decade at least .
From this article published in 2006 on NASA's website regarding why we should return to the moon:
Exploration Preparation
Test technologies, systems, flight operations and exploration techniques to reduce the risks and increase the productivity of future missions to Mars and beyond.
source: http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/home/why_moon.html
But I think it would take an awful lot of launches to get the fuel production up and running on the moon. And you'd need to design a new, hopefully reusable, moon launched vehicle/fuel depot.
I think the real problem is how expensive the SLS will be to launch, not the number of launches. Build a truly reusable vehicle, orbit the fuel depots around Earth. Send ISRU equipment to Mars (with lots of backups) and produce the fuel for the return trip. Then the cost of launching large payloads is reduced and there is no need to build a Moon base.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
Actually there is a lot to be gained by going to the moon. a stable construction site for one.
Any mars vessel is going to be dozens of big parts. Think not only ISS size, but three times that size.
You need a massive rocket to get to mars, and a second one to get back. The return rocket actually has to get there first too. You need extra fuel tanks, a mars base which has to be big enough to grow food in. You need a rocket to go from mars ground to orbit to dock with the return rocket etc.
Even if you were smart and combined a shuttle orbiter type vessel and just kept picking up extra boosters and fuel tanks, you still have to get those parts out there to begin with. Once built just putting the support equipment in place is a decade long job, before you launch people.
having a Moon base would help with construction, and more importantly storage. Even better is if the moon actually has water with which we can use as fuel. as lunar orbit is cheaper to reach than earth orbit by a significant margin.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
no it doesn't. it proves it should not go at all.
Sounds like a boring future to me.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
"no it doesn't. it proves it should not go at all."
Have you read the article at all? Its main point is quite simple, the moon could be used as a refuelling stop for a Mars mission. Since most of the mass involved in a trip to Mars consists of fuel, the use of the Moon as a sort of interplanetary gas station would greatly reduce the number of trips need to rocket people to Mars.
This is the point you should rebut to support your assertion it's bullocks to go to Mars.
We have this small planet like object orbiting fairly close by. Why not use it to test theories and equipment before blasting it off so far away it takes years to get there?
Getting more thrust out of the same amount of fuel makes a big difference.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
There is one big reason why the US should: Technology. And being the number 1 technology country. Or rather, becoming it again.
The US technology advantage was evident in the early 50s. It eroded quickly by the time the 60s came around. By 1970, the US were again the leading technology powerhouse of the planet, with US companies being the top, not among the top, but actually being THE top, of technology development. The US industry drew from this technological advantage until long into the 1980s and in some areas until the turn of the millennium. Even without any large scale investment in that area.
Screw the moon. And the mars while we're at it. Both are scientifically at best a curiosity, at worst a disappointment. But they give technology development a focus. Never before, or after, the moon program we made such incredibly fast developments in so many technological fields. Electronics. Computers. Propulsion. Metallurgy. Synthetic materials. But also some other, less "tangible" fields, from process management (which was pretty much invented back then) to organization structuring, people management and medical advances. And let's not forget the very real domestic and international boost the esteem of the United States got.
Yes, the cost was prohibitive. And one can of course argue that if you apply that money to researching these things directly, you will end up with cheaper results. But very synthetic results. Not to mention that you cannot justify those expenses to the population. And the results, as well as their value, is not immediately identifiable to those that should copy these results and put them to good use.
So yes, the direct use of such programs is insignificant. But the value of the indirect benefits is incredible.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The problem is the politicians giving the missions. We've already been to the Moon, logically, Mars is next. Except we all know there is nothing logical about it. I won't even get into the real reasons we went to the Moon; you all know them.
I might ask NASA what they think we should do. As the politician in charge, I'd take that with a grain of salt, but certainly give it due consideration. The main saltiness would be that they want to do exactly what the appropriating politicians want to do.
In the last thread a guy suggested a real spaceship. Sort of like a space station, except able to attach enough thrusters to go somewhere. A rotating habitat surrounded by a meter of water. Sounds damned expensive, but peanuts I think, compared to all this Mars shit.
Rich people would pay, scientists could study, astronauts could explore; and you don't die from being in it too long.
Then, after it's been a killer space station for a while, and perhaps looped the Moon and orbited an asteroid or something else neat; you have the option of firing it off towards Mars if you must.
That beats the shit out of focusing all our wealth on disposable stuff for the one single purpose of placing a footprint on red dirt.
Not if you just lose your guilt and fap every day. That's cheaper than US $ 100 billion.
"cis" literally means "on this side of", just as "trans" literally means "on the other side of".
cis-lunar space can be loosely defined as that part of space that is within half a million km from Earth (which includes the Moon itself, as well as all the Earth-Moon Lagrange points).
For those who have not been paying attention:
President Obama has sabotaged any plan to get to Mars in the next few decades by the following actions:
1. He initially killed the Constellation program, which was designed to go to Mars and which, while begun under Bush, was actually supported by both parties in both the House and Senate (a near political miracle). He initially tried to replace Constellation with nothing, but then supported commercial crew to/from low Earth Orbit (to service the ISS which will be splashed into the Pacific in 2024 or 2028). He has slow-walked, obstructed, and transferred funds away from the big Mars rocket congress mandated and now his administrator has indicated it will not be able to fly its first manned mission until 2024. This stalled the post-Columbia disaster bi-partisan support for a Mars push. It also did not help that Obama sent his Administrator Charlie Bolden to go on Al Jazeera TV and tell them NASA's main mission under Obama was to make Muslims feel good about their contributions to science (see it on YouTube) - this showed a complete lack of seriousness about manned spaceflight.
2. Obama claimed, as he was ordering lots of shuttle-era infrastructure destroyed and employees laid off, that he was converting Kennedy Space Center into a futuristic "multi-user" launch facility where multiple rocket types from multiple vendors would be stacked in the VAB and rolled out to the two pads (39A and 39B) which would be restored to Apollo-era-style "clean pads". The old Apollo and Shuttle support structured in the VAB were ripped-out to be replaced with structured theoretically supporting a wide variety of rockets. Each vendor would use a custom MLP adapted to his rocket, would stack in one of the 4 VAB high bays, and any would be able to launch from either pad. This was all a lie. Obama made a deal with SpaceX who have trashed the 39A pad, making it unusable by anything but a SpaceX Falcon9, and constraining SLS rockets to only 39B which will choke the maximum flight rate. Musk has built a large building, complete with huge corporate logo, right in the middle of the crawler way on OUR national historic landmark which he is mutilating.
3. Everybody knows a Mars mission will require either a handful of Large SLS-sized rockets or a LOT of smaller rocket launches. Obama has limited the manufacturing capacity of SLS to 2 per year, and the trashed 39A means all SLS launches MUST use 39B which will require refurbishing between launches as all pads do. This means there will be no way to launch enough of the large rockets rapidly enough to assemble a large Mars mission in orbit in a reasonable time. If it takes 6 SLS launches to send 3 people to Mars, just assembling that in orbit will take THREE YEARS thanks to Obama.
4. Of course, the larger problem is that Obama has DOUBLED the national debt in only 7 years. The Nation will owe $20,000,000,000,000 by the time he leaves office and will have promised to pay-out another $200,000,000,000,000 in benefits for which it has not yet found a source of funds. We now spend 70% of the national budget on welfare and other social programs, plus hundreds of billions of dollars per year just in interest on the debt. Interest rates have been held artificially-low during the Obama years but MUST eventually rise - and when they do the interest on the debt will balloon to be more than we spend on the entire military. The CBO (the non-political institutional budget analysis service of congress) says it can see no way for the government to pay all the bills beyond the year 2030. There is simply NO WAY the taxpayers will fund a space program while social security checks are bouncing in 2030. It's over. Get used to it. Obama has killed the Mars dream and don't look to Musk to keep it alive - HIS plans depend on government purchases of flights on his rockets.
First, while Mars requires a longer journey, it actually isn't substantially harder to send a rocket to than the Moon. If you use aerobraking, it's about the same delta-v. Yes, more consumables would be needed because the flight is months instead of days, which does affect the mass of the payload, but it may also be easier to build a sustainable colony on Mars (presence of an atmosphere and maybe water, higher gravity). So I don't think Luna is even really useful as a practice run.
Second, a launch schedule like this is pretty much the only thing I've heard that could justify the development of SLS. The entire project has smelled like "big bucks on development, goes over budget or budget gets slashed so it only gets used a few times" from the beginning. If they can get Congress to give them the budget for this, yes, that would be worth making SLS for. Will Congress spring for thirty-plus Saturn V-class rockets, for only three missions? I don't think so, but I hope they will anyway.
Who thinks we would have been better off spending the trillion dollars on the Iraq and Afghanistan war on space? For that money and time we could have a permanent ISS size base at one of the lunar poles. In fact it would be pretty much the same companies making the ships as make the equines for the war machines.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
You keep using that word. I do not believe that it means what you think it means.
First of all, the proposed SLS plan has nothing at all to do with getting to Mars, and everything to do with giving the illusion that SLS has a nice full launch manifest. The mission profile is deliberately designed to require the maximum number of launches of an insanely expensive rocket - so basically, the point is to take as long as possible and spend the maximum amount of money to get to Mars.
Instead, using technology that exists today (no on-orbit ship manufacturing or propellant depots) we could get to Mars in 10 or so years using something like Mars Direct. The only reason NASA isn't pursuing this, or a plan very much like it, is because it completely obviates the need for many of NASA's pet projects, and SLS. Also, it doesn't funnel maximum $$$ into certain congressional districts.
The reason we can't get shit done in space is because the politics of NASA are broken. The moon is just a distraction - it's like taking off from Kansas and stopping at Iceland on your way to Australia. There might be some things of interest on the moon, but it makes absolutely no sense as a Mars stepping stone.
"You rocket people. I want to see some dudes walking around on the Moon. You have 7 years. Do it."
And they did.
Today, not so much. Christ...it takes 20 years just to get some new airplane off the ground.
Any mars vessel is going to be dozens of big parts. Think not only ISS size, but three times that size.
It doesn't have to be nearly that big. We can get it done in a couple of launches, with today's rockets: Mars Direct
Science follows engineering, engineering follows manufacturing. All the major Science countries have high tech manufacturing industries. And the USA is actively wiping out the foundation of their science and technology industries by exporting it to the third world. Those in charge of the USA care a great deal about quarterly profits, and not much at all about the long term supremacy of America.
1950s/1960s space program also had the mundane utility of developing technology for nuclear weapons delivery. That is a solved problem now. You have that little East-Asian country as much impoverished as an African one that is working on that to troll you.
You run the risk of creating technology that is of no use anywhere else (space life support) and importantly creating new "lost technology" of which Saturn V is a good example. 30 years after SLS is shut down and the supply chain gone it will cost yet another $100 billion to start again.
I'm sure you could spend $100 billions in other ways, as in $5 billion a year for 20 years in research/industrial. Nuclear fusion, ocean monitoring, even exploring wild life.
Hell ITER was bogged down in funding but it's cheap enough that France could have paid for it all on its own (we wasted as much on a nuclear missile program, and on over-engineered over-sized fission reactors)
Wouldn't it be more of an assembly site?
We've been probing the Moon for half a century and have no conception of how to make meaningful quantities of water there.
Having a national program that jump starts American science and technology is a great idea, but you can get the same results at less cost using other types of projects. Organ regeneration, where you make damaged or missing body parts grow back (as opposed to organ transplants from dead bodies) would have huge benefits to all Americans, and massive science/technology spin-off benefits. And the payments from foreigners using the process would pay for it with interest. Terra-forming California would turn the state into a tropical paradise that also could feed the country, and you could sell the tech to rich middle east countries.
There is a plan to go to Mars, it is a fairly sensible one, and not landing on the Moon is a feature, not a bug.
That does not imply that I don't think we should go back to the Moon. I think we should, but I think we should do it commercially.
Defund NASA and give all the money to Elon Musk. Thanks. P.S.* You can add the IRS and the Mid-East War budgets too.
Why can't we just give up on this stupid idea of going to Mars which has a low probability of success and even lower probability of actually being seen through, and instead just send more robots each of which has an excellent chance of success?
Got news for you. Most of the design for the moon was already in the works in 1957. The saturn family started clear back then.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Mars is easy to get to. OTOH, It is hard to send humans there alive and in good health, or to get them back alive as well.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Watching paint dry, to me, is boring. $100B is a cheap price to pay to do something different. Besides, in the future, money is just a footnote in a history book.
Yes, they remain unsettled for a reason, but are still much more hospitable, than any other body of the Solar system. And the Internet latency will not suck.
Oh, and almost forgot, there is also ocean floor — roughly 2/3rds of the planet's surface... Today's 7 billion humans can grow to 40 or 60 before we really should start spending serious efforts to spilling over to another rock...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
a stable construction site for one.
Space is full of vacant construction sites, and few are in earthquake zones. You don't need to fall down to the moon to find a stable orbit.
Check your privilege terranlord. Your humansplaining is hurtful to those that identify as other-celestial or planet-fluid.
More seriously, thank for the info. Was curious about the term, but not enough to rtfa - everyone knows a Mun base isn't helpful. Now Minmus...
Remember when we went to the Moon? Of course you don't, because we never went back! Mars will be the same. Go once for glory, then never again.
I am marginally sorry to inform you that you are completely ignorant of the facts of space travel.
Please read about delta-V and understand gravity wells. Retake PHYS420 if you have to.
Then, learn how things actually work: If you were smart, you'd know you don't need to pick up extra boosters: you could just launch from A SINGLE VEHICLE and get a COMPLETE MISSION TO MARS. Here are some references to help you along the way:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct
http://www.amazon.com/Case-Mars-Plan-Settle-Planet/dp/145160811X
Please do your research before spouting off about "dozens of big parts", because any rocket scientist knows how mass works - and you clearly don't. Decade long job? No, it's an 18-month job, because there's NO support equipment unless you're an aerospace industry shill. "Having a Moon base would help with construction"? Do you even understand gravity, and the QA process? Do you think it's easier and cheaper to QA while wearing a EVA suit?
I am interested in your theories; can you provide documentation on either assertion?
Specifically, how is the government trying to kill private space industry? Also, how is the same government spending billions on Putin's space program?
I try to #include <assert.h>
I appreciate if you could do the same.
You post as AC and you use THINK about it! in a political argument on Slashdot.
Go the fuck home.
We can build a swimming pool there! And it will be fun! See here.
But they give technology development a focus.
I think that's it right there. Technology development on its own largely depends on profit/loss market forces to shape its direction and development. As just one example, pharmaceutical research is biased towards therapies that are profitable, not necessarily ideal therapies or even cures, since cured people don't buy medicine.
A major space exploration program focuses technology development on its utility, first and its economics later. And it's not always the technologies the space program has developed, it's the practical research done developing them that's often the enduring value.
It seems to me that the logical step before establishing a permanent base anywhere else in the solar system we need to have a permanent presence on the Moon. It is the logical step to develop the knowledge and experience needed for such an endeavour. It is close enough to earth that "relief missions" can be contemplated, yet hard enough to reach that you better had a solid plan in place requiring it to be self-sustaining. Once the bugs are out of the system on the Moon is the time to take on Mars. And yes, permanent settlements are needed to make it worth doing, otherwise they are nothing but very expensive vacations for a little bunch of people. The resource commitment needed to reach it, means that from the start, the manned mission should aim to be a permanent settlement.
Now that I have added my little bit of uninformed opinion to the general Slashdot noise, I consider my day complete.
I like my dinosaurs feathery, and my pterosaurs hairy (or is it pycnofibery?)
How it is "commercial" crew if the government pays for it and is the only customer?
What do you want next, "private" aircraft carrier?
You have to read Zubrin with a boxcar load of salt, as he's not always clear about the difference between actual proven technology, lab experiments, and back of the envelope calculations.
Most of the technology doesn't in fact actually exist today. The whole handwaving scheme relies on technologies and systems that have been tested (at best) on the the bench under strict laboratory conditions. (Some of it hasn't even made it off the back of Zubrin's envelope.)
Seriously, a manned mission to Mars now is a one off, plant the flag bit of stupidity. We go, we look around we plant the flag and take some pictures and then we come back. Complete waste. I don't want to even start buying in to the go to the moon as practice or as a stepping stone to Mars bit either. Screw Mars...For now.
There are plenty of great reasons to go to the moon again, build bases, and stay, permanently. Just for starts, science that is better done in vacuum without the debilitation of weightlessness, science that would benefit from being in the moon's EM shadow, science that would simply be safer not done on Earth at all. Perhaps, longer term, the moon is a manufacturing base to start exploring and exploiting the rest of the solar system. The moon could also be a sort of Ark to preserve bits of humanity just in case.
Whatever, the moon is only a few days a way. Getting there is doable now, or at least very soon. Getting there is doable by several different countries. It would be a great thing to cooperate and go do things on the moon together. Peaceful competition is also great motivation. Multiple countries involved in human spaceflight to the moon and around earth will necessarily help build earth orbital and cis-lunar infrastructure. With that kind of space-based infrastructure we might actually build the kind of spacecraft necessary to go to Mars and the other planets safely, and routinely. Think Discovery One, a la 2001.
Hey genius. It takes more fuel to split water than you would get afterwards by burning hydrogen...
No. It takes more energy. And transforming energy from one form to another is quite useful, as in converting solar to fuel. Look out a window and find a plant, it is converting solar energy to fuel, sugar, via photosynthesis. On the moon use solar energy to power the electrolysis of H2O into H2 and O2. Or if you happen to have a handy nuclear power source ...
Meanwhile a total copypasta of mere speculation from /r/spacex:
SPACEX, 2020: SEND A SMALL ORBITER AND LANDER. Being only four years from today, use an off-the-shelf spacecraft bus for an orbiter and a lander which is a set of ground penetrators like what was tried with Mars Polar Lander. Probe the subsurface at the MS1 or the candidate sites.
SPACEX, 2022: LAND A PAYLOAD ON MARS AT MS1 with a substantial solar array with processes that stores methane and oxygen. This should not be wasted and should have the potential to act as a backup to the second such system delivered to MS1.
SPACEX, 2024: LAND A DRAGON CARGO AT MS1 which delivers some initial supplies for the first human landing. Include an expandable module that will function as a Quonset hut for supplies. Before 2024, a standard adapter for connecting modules on Mars must be defined, a critical development milestone, so that this and subsequent deliveries can be integrated into a functional outpost.
SPACEX, 2026: LAND A HABITAT MODULE. The module must have the bare essentials to sustain the first landing crew and must operate for the next 3 years to prove the technology ready for a landing before 2030. Likewise, this module would not be wasted and would function as a backup.
SPACEX, 2026: SECOND MISSION. Land a second-generation CH4/O2 processor and an Earth-return launch vehicle at MS1.
SPACEX, 2029: THE FIRST HUMANS TO MARS. Send a crew of 7 astronauts to Musk Station 1. The 2029 mission will involve two Falcon Heavy launches - A "Red" Dragon with living habitat for the journey and a Earth-return launch vehicle with supplies. A first-gen MCT might be the transporter but time & cost between now and 2029 can only support the logistics of a small crew (7).
read up on atmospheric pressures and temperatures, specifically the extremes on Mars vs. those on the Moon, and the relative radiation levels. Basically you can use a similar design but you have to overengineer the hell out of it to make it feasible on BOTH, because the Moon has no ozone and has ridiculous 28-day cycles with insane temperature extremes.
Well any equipment dealing with water ice would be in the shade and not subject to lunar temperature extremes, that is how the the ice has survived after all. As for equipment on the surface exposed to sunlight, go underground or make shade. There are lava tubes in places waiting to be used. Or one can build walls from the lunar regolith. Or one can put up a tarp like when camping in the desert, no wind on the moon so its more practical than on mars. The lunar regolith has the advantage of also helping with micro-meteors and provides some radiation shielding.
Most of the technology doesn't in fact actually exist today. The whole handwaving scheme relies on technologies and systems that have been tested (at best) on the the bench under strict laboratory conditions. (Some of it hasn't even made it off the back of Zubrin's envelope.)
There's engineering to do, certainly. The technical details are only a small part of what matters though: if we don't get away from this institutional habit of doing engineering in the most inefficient way possible, we're never going to get anything done. Politics shouldn't enter into engineering decisions, and as long as they continue to NASA will be enormously dysfunctional.
Another great example of this - the X-33 VentureStar actually had a lot to offer as a shuttle replacement, and was showing some serious promise as an SSTO vehicle that would have a much faster turnaround and be far cheaper in the long run than the shuttle. However, NASA and LockMart administration insisted on doing new technology for the sake of new technology even when the old technology was superior . This exploded cost and risk, and ultimately the program was cancelled because the new carbon fiber tanks weren't workable, even though engineering had been saying that all along, and standard aluminum alloy tanks would have worked just fine (and likely saved weight in the end). We've got politicians and ideologues making engineering decisions, so is it any surprise that much of our space program is ineffectual?
The technology does exist.
We have submarines.
We have people on Mount Everest, in the Antarctica, we had people on the moon.
We could have gone to mars 40 years ago. There is no fancy extra technology needed. No idea why people like you always claim that. Are you waiting for a Star Trek Enterprise ship to go to Mars?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
You know, you probably should read your own link. Mars Direct involves several launches. At least one to get the ascent vehicle to Mars, then almost certainly multiple launches to build the crewed transfer vehicle and hab module. A lunar refuelling station would also make Mars Direct style trips cheaper.
If you want a one off publicity stunt trip to Mars, a pure Mars Direct scheme is probably the best way to go. If you want to do repeated trips (to Mars or elsewhere) and also build some useful space infrastructure while you're at it, a lunar fuel mining operation has a lot of advantages.
We can't even get past the Van Allen radiation.
There's several hundred satellites and unmanned missions beyond the Van Allen belts. And we had seven manned trips from Apollo (1 lunar orbit and 6 lunar landings). I don't really see the point of saying stuff that is so easy to disprove.
no it doesn't. it proves it should not go at all.
Correct. We should just let the Chinese explore space, and others explore space We'll just do more important things, like slip into a closet, and make money by selling our hats to each other.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
There were 2 lunar orbit missions, one mission that swung around the Moon due to an oxygen tank explosion changing the mission as well as 6 missions that landed on the Moon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Having a national program that jump starts American science and technology is a great idea, but you can get the same results at less cost using other types of projects.
After all, endless research has proven that we can't do more than one thing at a time. How many people you figure died waiting for replacement organs because of NASA?
And the terraforming of California has already been tried - and it's an utter failure. Already the Colorado river no longer reaches the sea, http://www.counterpunch.org/20... ground level is falling - in some places at a foot per year! - http://www.bakersfieldnow.com/... and now they want Oregon's water as well. They're framing it a sending "surplus water from the Columbia River to California." California doesn't want surplus water - they want all of it, Certainly in every case so far -I suspect they'll want to plant rice paddies if they get Oregon's water. A really bad example you chose.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
If you want a one off publicity stunt trip to Mars, a pure Mars Direct scheme is probably the best way to go. If you want to do repeated trips (to Mars or elsewhere) and also build some useful space infrastructure while you're at it, a lunar fuel mining operation has a lot of advantages.
If you want a one off publicity stunt of establishing a lunar base, then going to Mars, and coming back, you can do that too.
Can you tell me what the expenses of researching, designing and sending ships to the moon to establish a lunar colony, then sending the parts for the Mars trip there, assembling them, and reaching escape velocity - twice are going to add to a Mars mission? A percentage will be fine.
I'm calculating 1000 percent increase in the establishment, of the base and a similar increase in the needed fuel costs over a LEO construction.
As well a long time to stabilize the colony to the point where they will be able to efficiently work on the stuff. You don't just send them up with a box of wrenches, some Oreos, and tell em "Get to Work!" Gotta get food to them, or grow it, gotta take care of a lot of basic necessities completely unrelated to a Mars trip. Now imagine assembling the needed copmponents in Earth Orbit using technology we already understand. I have nothing against the establishment of a Lunar colony, but it makes no sense as a springboard to Mars, unless we want to wait a few hundred years.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I think its appropriate to rehash what is always brought up about space. It won't happen until companies are making money from it and I mean from something other than just performing the mission. Currently, there is a TON of money being made in commercial space with respect to communications satellites in GEOs, some MEO, and emerging LEO. There was money to be made and the commercial world stepped in. We have around a dozen satellites going up each year.
With respect to humans in space, there hasn't been a market to drive a need for it. Mining and things along that route are too much of a risk for commercial companies to move to. A fundamental question any company asks is what the other guy is doing. Right now, the only other human space flight guy is NASA with the ISS. LEO is space but not by much so the commercial world has mainly focused on space tourism - something that they know will work since we've been doing it for decades. That's not to say that its easy by any means but the risk involved is much smaller than doing something beyond LEO.
IMHO, the moon makes sense because NASA needs to be the one to push the risk they took to get to LEO out to the Moon. Only then will commercial space follow. Take the CRS (Commercial Resupply Service) missions, for example, which are currently flown by Orbital ATK and SpaceX. These are commercial companies who are delivering supplies to the ISS. Not to offend anyone but I will focus on Orbital ATK for my example since they represent what people think of when they think of the free market. They are a company out to make money and are responsible to shareholders. They will do what makes sense to survive. SpaceX is an oddity since it is are financially responsible to no one and is led by someone who plans to die on Mars.
The risk to fly to ISS was acceptable enough for Orbital ATK to take. While the primary mission remains to resupply the ISS, what is less publicized, is the money being made by an emerging market for space in LEO. This includes Nanoracks, who can't stuff enough of the things on the spaceships, along with other more science based experiments. The market is growing.
NASA has to be one to give the markets some data to calculate the risk to within some level of confidence. The problem with a mission such as Mars is that it will take a long time to reduce that risk. Take a look at how many shuttle flights make folks comfortable enough to accept risk to ISS. The same would happen with Mars but would take much longer (generations). The article makes that painfully clear.
The moon offers what the ISS has become. Routine flights to that destination will recreate what we have today with CRS. That is the reality - again ignoring SpaceX at the moment. Once a company such as Orbital ATK thinks it makes sense to go to a Moon base for financial purposes, we'll be where we are today with respect to ISS. Then NASA can focus on pushing that further (to Mars or elsewhere) but it makes sense that they don't leave the Commercial world behind too far. If they do, we end up with more Apollo type missions - successful but not permanent achievements.
And as former submariner, I'm sharply aware of the technology used by submarines. And it's limits. And how little of it applies to going to Mars.
None of which are relevant to the challenges of a Mars mission.
With enough money (it would have taken a great deal, more than Lunar missions), and with enough willingness to take the risks (odds are, knowing what we know now and wasn't publicly discussed then, that we'd have lost the first crew, maybe multiple crews), yeah.
I have no idea why you (clueless idiots with no reading comprehension and the IQ of used bubblegum) think I'm saying we need new technology, because I never said any such thing. A critique of another's proposed technology in no way is the same thing as claiming new technology is required.
"You get more of what you subsidize"
Apparently, what you really want is more obscenely overpriced committee-designed rehashed space shuttle hardware.
Face it, this is an extravagantly expensive social program for keeping engineers with overly bureaucratic personalities out of trouble.
a lunar fuel mining operation
And what exactly kind of fuel are you going to be mining on the moon? Please don't say Helium-3 and reveal yourself to be a complete and total retard.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
nothing mysterious about this.
Obama's budgets have ALWAYS given loads of money to Commercial space to try and build out multiple launchers. However, the GOP has gutted it over and over.
You can google for NASA budget on parabolic arc
And what is the repercussion of the GOP's cuts to the commercial space? Well, it means that a LOT more money has to flow to Putin to fly astronauts to the ISS. Most importantly, America cut a deal whereby we pay for all non-russians that fly there. So, at this time, the GOP is forcing us to pay 70-80 million / seat that goes to the ISS. And what does Russia pay? Nothing. WHy? Because 2 of the seats are occupied by westerners while the 3rd is a Russian, and it costs 140 M to launch. IOW, We are paying for EVERYBODY to go to the ISS.
So, rather than us paying for Russian flights to the ISS, it would actually be CHEAPER for us to pay commercial space to finish this development, then it is for us to spend this money on the Russians. The GOP KNOWS this (as does mark), but they do not care. Instead, they want desperately to kill off SpaceX.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It is the GOP the continues to gut commercial space.
You neo-cons continue to gut NASA esp. commercial space.
But, fools like you are too attached to your party and are unwilling to look at facts.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"Worst president of all time" sounds like a statement that needs a little bit of backup. Care to actually have evidence for the things you say?
1. He's black.
2. Er, that's it.
I think that's all the evidence most of the Trumpeteers need.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Watching paint dry, to me, is boring. $100B is a cheap price to pay to do something different. Besides, in the future, money is just a footnote in a history book.
Yes, once we work out how to generate infinite free energy and faster than light travel the universe will become a much more interesting place.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
We can't even get past the Van Allen radiation.
There's several hundred satellites and unmanned missions beyond the Van Allen belts. And we had seven manned trips from Apollo (1 lunar orbit and 6 lunar landings). I don't really see the point of saying stuff that is so easy to disprove.
I imagine OP was one of those moon landing hoax guys, as they've "proved" that it would be impossible to send a man to the moon without him dying of radiation poisoning. Or the bites of venomous space bats. Something like that.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The problem is that if we hadn't, those fuckers would have consolidated power and brought the fight here. It's much cheaper to fight at home, if you're a bean counter. It's much better to figth in some other fuckers country if you're a dad.
If you really believe that either Sadaam Hussein or the Taliban were capable of invading the US, you are deranged.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it