Humans may colonize the solar system. However, I believe that it will be many decades after the 2030s. I am of the opinion that most of the governments will be spending money in mitigating the effects of climate change.
Actually conducting spaceflights with greater frequency would advance our knowledge of spaceflight, which is why it was "Step 1" of my plan. You need to get five or six hundred people making regular orbital space flights per year before even a return to the MOON becomes a practical endeavor. Otherwise, it's just a high-priced one-time adventure that is unlikely to be repeated ever. That's perfectly doable, but it's not something I would want to do. It's a terrible idea. The ISS is, at this moment, the ONLY reason manned space flight is even still a thing. It's the destination of choice for Russian and American and everyone-else astronauts. China is attempting to build a space station of its own for much the same reason: a manned orbiting platform gives you a place you can launch to, build experience, experiment with technology, practice living in space for the long term. If Commercial Crew becomes regularized, NASA would be better off leasing ISS to the international community and letting them run it as a private venture until it falls apart and HAS to be abandoned just because they can't afford to fix it (sort of like Russia did with the Mir). Otherwise, the logical next step is a BIGGER space station with greater capability, a larger crew capacity, and a far greater need for support flights from Earth as well as cargo return capability. We should remain LEO bound until we have enough working infrastructure IN ORBIT to actually support a long-range expedition anywhere else. Basically: landing on Mars is Step 20. We are stuck on Step 2, forty years after attempting but failing to actually accomplish Step 3. The best way to get to Mars at this point is to slow down and go through the neccesary steps needed to actually BUILD a spacefaring society and stop deluding ourselves into thinking we need some kind of grand adventure to inspire us to do that.
100% true. The only thing NASA can afford to develop at this point are proposals and artwork depicting somebody's IDEAS of what they MIGHT develop SOME DAY if they EVER GET THE MONEY. None of the proposals currently being floated have ANY budget estimates whatsoever; even NASA's most optimistic projections assume they will be able to work on these projects on the side, one small step at a time, on a finite budget with no delays or overruns. Which is, I'm sure you know, the one thing NASA is most assuredly incapable of doing. SLS is designed to launch payloads, not powerpoint presentations.
Well they were proposing leasing it out to private companies. Yeah, those are good reasons re improving our ability to live in space. I think though that going to mars, learning how to perform inter-planetary landings and lift offs, building the radiation shielding for 'deep space' exploration and constructing self sustainable living environments among all the other technical challenges will provide us with a wealth of useful knowledge. Besides we've been flying LEO for over 40 years and there's only so many science experiments you can do in zero G before you get diminishing returns, not saying that's been reached yet on the ISS, I still support the idea of space stations, but I also want to go to Mars. We need a get up and go attitude to space to accelerate progress and there are sure to be unexpected technological dividends from the challenge alone.
The Saturn V was capable of launching the equipment for a manned Mars flyby. http://www.wired.com/2012/03/apollotovenusandmars The mission was seriously considered by the Nixon administration as well as extended Apollo "Lunar Base" missions and Shuttle development--Skylab had already been budgeted and was expected to still be operational and usable and was part of the successful Shuttle "sales pitch", ending any thought of extended Lunar missions or the Mars/Venus flybys. Budgets for the Vietnam War had increased as Nixon wanted a swift, victorious finish by the end of his first term, so operational tempo increased, and he couldn't afford the Space program too..so the ax fell where it did..and we ended up with a Shuttle that had nowhere to go, and not enough budget to launch or build a place for it to go, until the Shuttle fleet was past it's expected service life.
Sure, but none of that requires actually going to Mars. That's all stuff we should be doing BEFORE we go to Mars, and they are things we should know how to do WHEN we go to Mars. "Because I want to learn how to swim" is a very strange reason to jump in the ocean. Not for the people, companies, universities and governments who have never flown there. NASA, for example, has been operating space stations and space laboratories since the 1970s. University of Michigan? Not so much. Increasing access to space increases the demand for work and products that are deployed and used in space. That helps to increase the spaceflight infrastructure and industrial knowledge base we can draw upon to expand beyond Low Earth Orbit and put a long-term manned presence into deep space like lunar orbit or the satellite belt. When we get used to doing the easy stuff in space, we can start getting GOOD at it. And once we build a proficiency for it, a bigger challenge like Mars, a Venus flyby, or a Europa/Ganymede/Callisto landing become attainable goals. I disagree. I think all we need is to set more realistic goals and then work consistently to achieve them. Stop trying to do tricks and start doing some actual work.
I would first send several shipments of rocket fuel to Mars along with extra food provisions and replacement parts for the re-usable rocket that would be used to transport the explorers to the surface of Mars. Blue Origin comes to mind for the re-useable rocket that would have to be engineered for to allow for crew capsule reattachment on Mars after the capsule parachuted to the surface or engineered to land and return to the service module in one configuration. I would use same vehicle system used to delivery Curiosity to the surface of Mars for the fuel and fuel provision containers as then would be relatively light weight. The spare parts might have to be delivered in a standard lunar type craft design around the Lunar Lander from the Apollo Program but designed to transport replacement parts. It might be better to deliver the food provisions in a similar craft as the spare parts as each craft when the items had been removed could be used for an emergency habitat with water, air and communications to contact Earth from. I would also use the same entry telemetry from Curiosity to land the advanced craft at seeing as how the telemetry program is already successful and would only need minor adjustments for the larger craft.
I remember one of my high school teachers saying: in a country where anyone can protest, someone always will. Yes, when it comes to important matters, let's all look to the guy with a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering.
We can use robotic solutions to make both the rocket fuel and oxidiser using sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide. Testing such weight-saving technology should be a priority if we want to get our asses to Mars. As for launching from Earth, perhaps we should be looking into beam-powered propulsion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam-powered_propulsion
Send a robotic spacecraft to Mars with a return vehicle that has empty fuel tanks, manufacture fuel for it on Mars and bring it back to Earth (maybe containing samples). Proof of concept.
Thank you For the SLS bashers... Not some day. SLS is getting money--is getting a mission--a Europa lander. The hardest part of going to mars is getting the HLLV. That is done with SLS having solid support on capitol hill and getting us back to Saturn level lift. What amazes me is how so called space advocates are trying to kill SLS. Folks besides Bill Nye have pushed for hydrogen based HLVs for some time now--and ironically, JPL will benefit from the very ride they were trying to kill. We are not going to put humans on Mars--or landers on Europa--with Delta II sounding rockets. That's the past. Don't talk to me about how there is no money for payloads when Congress just keeps funding not only SLS but its payloads. Congress has been more pro-space than NASA itself recently. You should be happy. As for MCT--we don't even have a powerpoint of that, where SLS exists in metal.
SLS is getting money. The EUROPA MISSION is not. NASA's pulling the design studies with its pocket change (which is appropriate, actually, since the proposals for the Europa Mission is basically "Galileo with tits"). As for the lander: In other words: there's no lander. There's only a new space probe (which they haven't finished designing) and a pack of sensors they've asked the usual suspects to build for them. No, the hardest part of going to Mars is coming up with a compelling reason to go there in the first place. Once you have that, the launch vehicle is simple engineering. The problem is "Because we need an excuse to build a giant HLV" isn't a very good reason to go to Mars, and it's not likely one that will bear close scrutiny if the Senate Launch System fails to produce votes. And we're not going to do it with the SLS either; that's fluff. Congress is pro Lucrative Aerospace Contracts, to be sure. In that regard, the SLS would still be an unqualified success even if it never launches a single payload. That's the reason people deride the SLS, in case you missed it: the entire system was designed the way it was SPECIFICALLY to give entrenched aerospace contractors something expensive to do, and the proposed Mars and Asteroid missions were concocted specifically to justify the "something expensive" that Congress had in mind. It's not a launch vehicle, it's a political stunt. I am. SpaceX just cracked the ceiling on launch vehicle reusability; the entire case for HLVs being more efficient -- at ANYTHING, really -- just went right out the window. The capability will soon exist to assemble in orbit a larger Earth departure stage than SLS can actually launch, for considerably lower cost and greater safety margins. Which means both our hopes and our predictions are coming true: by the time first SLS rolls out to the launch pad, it will already be obsolete.
The Europa Mission got fully funded in the latest budget. Congress even added the caveat (and money) that a lander be added to it. For once, NASA actually will receive more money than it asked for this year. Referencing an article from April is (in this case) out of date.
We will just have to see about that Now that's fluff. He still wants BFR--so even he sees the need for HLVs. Remember, if was Mike Griffin--the force behind Ares V--that was with Musk to Russia when they were all but spat upon. Falcon and Atlas today, SLS and BFR tormorrow. I see them all flying. If anything--it is ULA that folks need to attack--in that the EELV lobby made life hell for both Griffin and Musk. Sadly, Shelby is as much a friend to ULA as he is to SLS. publiusr said: ↑ Don't believe me--then take it up with Bill Nye Um, that's actually a good idea. He knows what he is talking about. And on Mike Griffin, who supported Ares V (now scaled down a bit to be SLS) he actually wrote a textbook on spacecraft design for the AIAA: http://www.amazon.com/Vehicle-Design-Second-Edition-Education/dp/1563475391 So, yes, the pro Shuttle-derived Heavy Lift folks know their business. Meet some of the them: http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/i-am-building-sls.html#.VpLY97YrLcs https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/index.html
He sees the need for HLVs for what they are: evolutions from MLVs that can be used to loft bigger payloads to geostationary and/or longer-range probe missions in a single boost. But we were discussing HUMAN spaceflight, remember? You're not going to accomplish an Apollo-style direct Mars mission on a single launch HLV flight. That isn't a practical way of doing that kind of mission (hell, it wasn't even a practical way of doing a LUNAR mission, which is why we never did it again). Any sort of sustainable space exploration program is going to need the means to directly support exploration assets that are already in orbit, without having to dispose of those assets after every use, without the mission having to return all the way to Earth before another can be launched. We need the ability to service, assemble, refuel and resupply space craft IN ORBIT. This is not something that can be done with HLVs alone. And if THEY had developed the SLS the way they originally planned to, this wouldn't be an issue. The need to redesign most of the key components of the SLS architecture means the system is "shuttle derived" in name only. Which sort of glosses over the fact that the shuttle program ITSELF was vastly overpriced and its performance fell well short of its original expectations. It bears remembering that the shuttle program was so inefficient and so under-performing that even REPLACING the original shuttles with new, slightly updated designs wasn't even an option; even in the earliest days of the program, they had to use spare parts left over from the original production run to replace the Challenger. Manned space exploration requires a sustainable approach that an exploration program can maintain for a long period of time. Saturn V was not, neither was Skylab, and neither was the shuttle. SLS and Orion are simply repeating the same mistakes.
Webb was overpriced too--that doesn't mean you kill it and put everyone out of work. Saturn V had pogo problems--but we got past them. The two views on SLS--boiled down--amount to this--to use a nasaspaceflight.com quote: "So, to summarize: the pro-SLS crowd tout about its technological maturity and relatively imminent availability, even if there aren't that many payloads currently available. The anti-SLS say that since its not going to be available that soon, it doesn't have loads and it is not the bleeding edge of technology anyway, let's just abandon it as it is, adopt an exploration architecture based on Falcon Heavy and if we need something really heavy let's just wait for the BFR." To me, the second of those two religions is very damaging--since that crowd's arguement can be reduced even farther. "NASA needs to kill SLS" "Why?" Because you can't trust gov't to finish anything. ? Chris Bergin himself even chimed in: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/ind...839#msg1477839 "You can be absolutely sure SpaceX won't progress past satellite launches at any pace without NASA. In fact, they might not even be doing that without NASA. Don't trust me, trust Elon and Gwynne on that. They make a point about NASA in nearly every presser." "So the 'kill NASA and give it all to SpaceX' crowd are incredibly misinformed. Sure, some of it is lobbyists with personal and professional agendas under the "fiscal responsibility" banner where they think they will be able to clear national debt by killing an agency that gets 0.4 percent of the budget yet generates everything you get from NASA, which is vast, yet don't say boo to a goose when many more billions gets wasted on FAR LESS worthy projects." "If anything the problem is NASA is so useful it has been utilized into working on too many things, meaning the funding is stretched. It needs focus on what it's best known at achieving and gained the public imagination - and that's space exploration." Another nice quote: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/ind...732#msg1477732 Last but not least (from the previous page): ************************************************** ************************************************** It was estimated that constructing the ISS would take 40 assembly flights. Falcon 9 launches cost $61.2 million so repeating that would cost 40 * $61,200,000 = $2,448,000,000 More flights would be needed because the Falcon 9's payload is 13.1 mT against the Shuttles 27.5 mT. In addition the construction astronauts will have to go on separate flights. To construct a 130 metric ton (mT = tonne) space station SLS === 1 off SLS at about $1.5 billion a launch to launch the spacestation to LEO Say 2 off Manned Dragon flights at about $160 million each to unpack and commission the spacestation 1,500 million + (2 * 160 million) = $1,820 million Falcon 9 ====== The Falcon 9 can lift 13.1 mT but the Dragon only berth 3.3 mT, so split into 10 mT for the spacestation and 3 mT of propellant for the construction tug. An extra flight to launch the construction tug. The BEAM showed that Common Berthing Modules (CBM) cost $2 million each, with one on each end of the module an extra 20-25 CBM will be needed. ISS construction techniques imply a manned flight is needed for every module. Approx number of modules 130 mT / 10 mT = 13 modules Launch cost = 13 * ( $51.2 million + $160 million) + $51.2 million = $2,796.8 million The cost of the tug and the mission control costs of ~27 flights have not been included. Neither price includes the cost of purchasing or leasing the spacestation. Since $1.82 billion is less than $2.79 billion constructing this hypothetical spacestation using the SLS is likely to be cheaper. The superior hammerhead shroud of SLS (due to high volume hydrogen--that no SpaceX craft will carry) allows larger shrouds and BEO upper stages for better specific impulse. So maybe we can put all this SLS hate to bed at last.