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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.
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.
How do you account for the cost of getting "tanker trucks" to the Moon? If you want to refuel rockets on the Moon you have to get the fuel there somehow, or create it on-site.
Currently the options for that are:
a) mine lunar helium-3. Cool, but let's get some rockets that can use it first.
b) spend unnecessary money to ship fuel there just so we can put that fuel into another rocket, which needs it because... it spent all the fuel going to the Moon instead of Mars.
c) ???
Anyone who hasn't actually read up on Mars Direct really just needs to stop commenting and do that first, so they can actually understand what the hell they are talking about. The Moon as a waypoint is completely and utterly unnecessary. It has no useful resources for this purpose other than helium-3, which we can't even make proper use of (because we're too scared of anything relating to nuclear energy to launch a damn RTG, let alone finish development on any actual nuclear engine). Doing anything on the Moon requires an absurd amount of machinery, life-support, and docking mechanisms, which are completely overkill for what you're trying to do (i.e, go to Mars, which is a balmy paradise compared to the environmental hell of the Moon.)
Anything that can survive on Mars will do just fine on the Moon, and the Moon can be a nice test bed for Martian equipment.
Uh, no. For the reasons you list and more, there is very little that will work on both the Moon and Mars, unless it's massively over-engineered.
Moon has 1/6 gravity, Mars has 1/3. Moon has no atmosphere worth speaking of, Mars has some. Moon has huge temperature variations between light and shade, Mars has far less. Moon has highly abrasive dust, Martian dust is worn down by the storms.
The list goes on and on.