Mars Mission: How would you do it?

[Romo Lampkin]

NASA is taking so long I doubt they'll get to Mars by 2039, blame the myopic lack of funding for the awesome, forward thinking challenge of manned space exploration. In any case, travelling to, landing on and lifting off from Mars presents a multitude of techincal and logistical challenges so I would be interested in hearing your ideas of how to get there. We'd definitely need a radiation shield, a lander, possibly a launcher, a crew habitat module (maybe the size of Spacelab?) solar arrays or a nuclear generator, possibly duel rocket/ion propulsion engines for the journey? All together it would take a lot of launches but they could be be made routine with enough effort and focus to assemble a ship within two years with the SLS which is more powerful than the Saturn V and I read somewhere that the ISS could be assembled in four launches with Saturn rockets. So what do you think? I think manned space exploration is actually worthwhile because the technological challenges involved advance our understanding of space flight and habitation and point the way to the future. Imo we're basically in the canoe stage, going to Mars will usher in the sail boat ship stage, steam power would be equivalent to fusion rockets and aviation would equate to FTL so we're probably about 2000 years away, given scientific method and accelerating returns, from FTL.

 

[MANT!]

..Using the following..

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSK_mymJvkM[/yt]

 

[T'Girl]

blame the myopic lack of funding

You need to be able to go the the people controlling the money (government, business, private) and present them with a compelling reason to spend the money on this, as opposed to something else.

Other than "just cuz."

On 25 November 2015, the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act was signed into law by President Obama, something similar applying to Mars might help.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPACE_Act_of_2015

.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I doubt activists such as Michio Kaku would be very happy about launching a rocket with hundreds of atomic warheads on-board given the opposition to Cassini–Huygens, which had only 33 kg of plutonium in its RTG. Only an extreme theocracy or totalitarian state would probably have the cojones to build and use nuclear pulse propelled spacecraft. However, it would take just one mistimed detonation on the wrong side of the pusher plate and goodbye spacecraft.

 

[Romo Lampkin]

blame the myopic lack of funding

You need to be able to go the the people controlling the money (government, business, private) and present them with a compelling reason to spend the money on this, as opposed to something else.

Other than "just cuz."

On 25 November 2015, the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act was signed into law by President Obama, something similar applying to Mars might help.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPACE_Act_of_2015

.

Improving the survival of the species, technological developments that come about through mission research that makes other projects/space flight in general easier etc. There have been significant economic benefits from the R&D that went into going to the moon. The reasons have been covered in depth by many around here and on the internet I expect. In any case space exploration is a better use of money than bailing out insolvent "too big to fail" banks. And given that NASA funding is about half a penny of every dollar or around 33 dollars per household per year. It surely wouldn't hurt to 1. reallocate money from pointless money pits e.g. military adventures overseas and just to double that £33 to £66. That's why I say myopic, because those in charge of the purse strings are so utterly presentist and earth bound, concerned with trivial political games, oftentimes completely irrational and wasteful, rather than forward thinking, big picture ideas.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Western governments might likely never fund Mars manned exploration and colonization. The Chinese might have a go if economic and internal problems don't derail their space program.

Billionaires seem to be much keener to leave the cradle. If you want to join them, you need to think up another way of extracting revenue from the Internet by providing people with something they previously didn't know that they needed. That seems to be the trick.

 

[Romo Lampkin]

Western governments might likely never fund Mars manned exploration and colonization. The Chinese might have a go if economic and internal problems don't derail their space program.

Billionaires seem to be much keener to leave the cradle. If you want to join them, you need to think up another way of extracting revenue from the Internet by providing people with something they previously didn't know that they needed. That seems to be the trick.

If only I had a commercial mind and an understanding of people...

I think NASA can definitely get there, the actual expenditure atm is minimal and they're still making progress, albeit slow towards getting to Mars. I think the problem is that space flight is incredibly hard when it comes down to it and there's nothing to be gained commercially from it yet. However, I think both of those situations will remain so if we don't to go to Mars, which in my opinion is a stepping stone to advancing human space flight quite a bit through the R&D that will go into such a mission. It may not revolutionise space flight overnight but it will add a hell of a lot to the art of it.

 

[sojourner]

NASA barely has enough money for SLS. It can't even afford to develop payloads worth putting on the SLS at this point.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

NASA is taking so long I doubt they'll get to Mars by 2039, blame the myopic lack of funding for the awesome, forward thinking challenge of manned space exploration. In any case, travelling to, landing on and lifting off from Mars presents a multitude of techincal and logistical challenges so I would be interested in hearing your ideas of how to get there. We'd definitely need a radiation shield, a lander, possibly a launcher, a crew habitat module (maybe the size of Spacelab?) solar arrays or a nuclear generator, possibly duel rocket/ion propulsion engines for the journey? All together it would take a lot of launches but they could be be made routine with enough effort and focus to assemble a ship within two years with the SLS which is more powerful than the Saturn V and I read somewhere that the ISS could be assembled in four launches with Saturn rockets. So what do you think? I think manned space exploration is actually worthwhile because the technological challenges involved advance our understanding of space flight and habitation and point the way to the future. Imo we're basically in the canoe stage, going to Mars will usher in the sail boat ship stage, steam power would be equivalent to fusion rockets and aviation would equate to FTL so we're probably about 2000 years away, given scientific method and accelerating returns, from FTL.

There's no logical reason to even ATTEMPT a manned Mars mission right now. Other than simple curiosity, there's nothing there we need to really look at and nothing much for us to do there if there were.

IF I were to commit a huge amount of resources to making a Mars mission happen (say, if I was some kind of crazy Bond villain and obsessed like that) I would take steps to promote the creation of a manned spaceflight industry, probably piggybacking on the telecom industry by offering the services of professional astronauts to repair and restore communications satellites. That would also require the development of communication satellites that are large enough and sophisticated enough to REQUIRE manned servicing and repair; by the time that's done, of course, your AT&T u-verse is giving you terrabyte internet from a satellite the size of the ISS and the government has become so dependent on ultra-high speed data transfers that if OF COURSE chips in a subsidy for my repair crews to keep the information hyper network running.

That gives me a launch infrastructure with an economy of scale, an experienced assembly line, and a core group of professionals I can repurpose any way I like. It's a lot easier to modify something you have for a new purpose than it is to invent something from scratch.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

blame the myopic lack of funding

You need to be able to go the the people controlling the money (government, business, private) and present them with a compelling reason to spend the money on this, as opposed to something else.

Other than "just cuz."

On 25 November 2015, the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act was signed into law by President Obama, something similar applying to Mars might help.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPACE_Act_of_2015

.

Improving the survival of the species...

Will NOT be accomplished by space exploration until we have the capacity to move a significant portion of the human race off the planet and then keep them alive in the long term. A Mars mission will not accomplish that.

There have been significant economic benefits from the R&D that went into going to the moon.

There have been spinoff products. Not the same thing.

Actually, most of the best R&D that had the most impact economically came out of Project Gemini. There are some much-hyped benefits from the shuttle program, but those are mostly (about 90%) hype. You COULD say that was part of the original moon program, but that would only be half true.

That's why I say myopic, because those in charge of the purse strings are so utterly presentist and earth bound, concerned with trivial political games, oftentimes completely irrational and wasteful, rather than forward thinking, big picture ideas.

The original impetus for landing on the moon was actually an Earth bound trivial political game, completely irrational and wasteful, and abandoned forward-thinking big-picture ideas for a less practical "Get there as fast as we can" approach that could not be sustained in the long term. That is the reason we haven't been BACK to the moon in almost 40 years: the goal was to get there before the Soviets did, and after that was accomplished, the politicians stopped caring.

 

[PurpleBuddha]

I would do it like this, because it is realistic:

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcTZvNLL0-w[/yt]

 

[Romo Lampkin]

You need to be able to go the the people controlling the money (government, business, private) and present them with a compelling reason to spend the money on this, as opposed to something else.

Other than "just cuz."

On 25 November 2015, the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act was signed into law by President Obama, something similar applying to Mars might help.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPACE_Act_of_2015

.

Improving the survival of the species...

Will NOT be accomplished by space exploration until we have the capacity to move a significant portion of the human race off the planet and then keep them alive in the long term. A Mars mission will not accomplish that.

There have been significant economic benefits from the R&D that went into going to the moon.

There have been spinoff products. Not the same thing.

Actually, most of the best R&D that had the most impact economically came out of Project Gemini. There are some much-hyped benefits from the shuttle program, but those are mostly (about 90%) hype. You COULD say that was part of the original moon program, but that would only be half true.

That's why I say myopic, because those in charge of the purse strings are so utterly presentist and earth bound, concerned with trivial political games, oftentimes completely irrational and wasteful, rather than forward thinking, big picture ideas.

The original impetus for landing on the moon was actually an Earth bound trivial political game, completely irrational and wasteful, and abandoned forward-thinking big-picture ideas for a less practical "Get there as fast as we can" approach that could not be sustained in the long term. That is the reason we haven't been BACK to the moon in almost 40 years: the goal was to get there before the Soviets did, and after that was accomplished, the politicians stopped caring.

True enough about the space race though the net result transcended the trivial political game imo in terms of inspiring the cultural imagination and being an event that was unprecedented in the entire history of the species, however subject it was to realpolitik afterwards. Yes, there's nothing really on Mars to investigate with a manned crew, that argument can be made though there is the other side of the coin that a manned mission can achieve more detailed analysis for life on Mars than you can't necessarily accomplish with a robot. But I think the primary reason is that a Mars mission will advance our knowledge of spaceflight, didn't ever say it would ensure the survival of the species in one step, just that it would be a step along the way in terms of improving our knowledge of space flight. And there's the unexpected results that come from R&D, things you can't put a price on but which may pay off. Economic benefits, yes you could debate this all day. In any case NASA are proposing to abandon the ISS financially as it's a bit of a ball and chain atm for them, which I think is a good idea, that should free up some money for further space exploration. But I think the topic is getting derailed, I'm pretty sure we'll land on Mars, not necessarily by 2039 but definitely within this century. I'm interested in the technical challenges of getting there, not in why we shouldn't go there and remain LEO bound for eternity.

 

[scotthm]

We'd definitely need a radiation shield, a lander, possibly a launcher, a crew habitat module (maybe the size of Spacelab?) solar arrays or a nuclear generator, possibly duel rocket/ion propulsion engines for the journey?

You've left out the most important "need" of all -- a reason to go. As you've pointed out, the resources that will be needed (in time, materials and money) will be huge and people will want to know why that's the best way to use these resources.

---------------

 

[publiusr]

I doubt activists such as Michio Kaku would be very happy about launching a rocket with hundreds of atomic warheads on-board given the opposition to Cassini–Huygens, which had only 33 kg of plutonium in its RTG. Only an extreme theocracy or totalitarian state would probably have the cojones to build and use nuclear pulse propelled spacecraft. However, it would take just one mistimed detonation on the wrong side of the pusher plate and goodbye spacecraft.

I was very angry with Michio over Cassini. I remember TV footage of an anti-nuke protester who had his daughter so worked up that she was crying as that Titan IV lifted off.

NASA barely has enough money for SLS. It can't even afford to develop payloads worth putting on the SLS at this point.

Not true:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2726/1

“There’s no ‘Kennedy moment’ involved, there’s no extraordinary demand for doubling of the NASA budget.”

The workshop, funded by The Planetary Society, is an indication that the organization best known for lobbying for robotic space exploration plans to take a bigger role in human spaceflight. “I’m excited to say that we’re re-engaging with the human spaceflight community,” Nye said.

That includes, he said, supporting the SLS, a launch vehicle that remains controversial in some parts of the space community. “When I first took the job [of Planetary Society CEO], I was under a lot of pressure to criticize the Space Launch System,” he said. “But it’s in the works, and the people doing it seem to know what they’re doing, and it really would be a great thing.”

http://www.planetary.org/press-room/releases/2015/humans-orbiting-mars-report.html


The Planetary Society mission seems to be solar electric/chemical at this stage--orbit first they are calling it.

No EELV depots http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1447/1

No nukes.

Links:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/09/nasa-considers-sls-launch-sequence-mars-missions-2030s/

Phobos first
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/07/mission-phobos-precursor-human-mars-landing/



This is likely how Mars exploration will go.

Now, for myself--I like the Battlestar Galactica approach that Zubrin hated. Some of you may remember the old Mars One Crew Manual
http://www.amazon.com/The-Mars-One-Crew-Manual/dp/0345318811
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2025/1

This is unrelated to the current Mars One: http://www.mars-one.com/mission

The idea was to use a large spacecraft (now this would have needed a lot of liquid fuel) for a brief stay.

I might merge this with something like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus-X

This craft then becomes a cycler, so that a Falcon Heavy can launch a Dragon to catch up with this habitat--used as a space taxi only.

SLS/BFR what have you--that launches payloads not unlike what Zubrin wanted.

This hybrid approach allows astronauts to remain comfortable, and have large payloads pre-positioned on the Martian surface, as we saw in a certain movie that the Golden Globe morons want to call a comedy.

This way, even if BFR/SLS, etc ever gets the ax, you have cyclers and base components already in place that can be used later, after the initial interest has worn away.

I'd also like to see an Earth Moon cycler.

Musk is supposed to be laying out what his MCT will look like. I've seen other artist speculate--but his plans are more up in the air than either NASA or The Planetary Society.

Best for the alt.spacers to inherit ISS--keep that running--and let NASA handle BEO.

One of the more bare bones missions was the FLEM

http://www.wired.com/2014/01/to-mars-by-flyby-landing-excursion-mode-flem-1966/

That seems to indicate two Saturn V LVs.

Wade seemed to think it needed only one:
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/flem.htm

Since the main spacecraft would not have to brake into and out of Mars orbit, huge propellant savings were possible, making a manned Mars landing expedition possible in a single Saturn V launch.

Not so sure about that one--but even FLEM is robust compared to the current Mars One approach.

 

[sojourner]

Yep, NASA will get right on that. When the money materializes.

 

[publiusr]

From the Space Review article I just cited:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2726/1

it’s possible to get humans to Mars orbit in 2033, and on the surface as soon as 2039, within NASA’s current budget, assuming increases for inflation.

Don't believe me--then take it up with Bill Nye.
Call him a liar now.

 

[sojourner]

Yet they won't say how. I read the article. Let's see the numbers.

 

[MANT!]

the other way I would have done it, was the way God and Wernher Von Braun intended..

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19680009769.pdf

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOgFIq03Nm4[/yt]

 

[publiusr]

Sadly, Nuclear Thermal has been getting some critics:
http://selenianboondocks.com/2010/02/payload-fraction-example-proof/

That's the chemical vs nuclear side.

Then there is the NEP vs NTR "war of the currents"
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1896/1

The orbit first scenario looks to use ISS technology and solar electric. You avoid liquid propellants as much you can--think of a human DAWN type mission.

Now maybe we can have a pulse -Orion one day...if we ever get a self sustaining moonbase:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSC_Moon_Base
http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/selfRepNASA.html

It is thought that the min mass for a SRS is around 100 tons.

If Pulse Orion could be launched from the Moon--then no one can protest.

Now I like NERVA myself--but that will demand shuttle-derived heavy lift (SLS)

Musk has no plans to use LH2 that I can see.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Now maybe we can have a pulse -Orion one day...if we ever get a self sustaining moonbase:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSC_Moon_Base
http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/selfRepNASA.html

It is thought that the min mass for a SRS is around 100 tons.

If Pulse Orion could be launched from the Moon--then no one can protest.

You've still got to obtain and process the fissile materials somehow. On Earth, the presence of liquid water has concentrated Uranium in quantities suitable for mining. Not so on the Moon, of course, although Uranium has been detected there.

http://www.space.com/6904-uranium-moon.html

If you want Plutonium or Uranium 235 bombs, you're going to need to build a fast breeder reactor and extensive processing facilities in situ.

I expect people will still protest at strip-mining the Moon and despoiling it with nuclear weapon facilities.