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First Details of Manned Mars Mission From NASA
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Nov 28, 2007 04:47 PM
from the martian-rocketship-looking-for-cone-shaped-head dept.
from the martian-rocketship-looking-for-cone-shaped-head dept.
OriginalArlen writes "The BBC has a first look at NASA's initial concepts for a manned Mars mission, currently penciled in for 2031. The main vehicle would be assembled on orbit over three or four launches of the planned Ares V heavy lift rocket. New abilities to repair, replace, and even produce replacement parts will be needed to provide enough self-sufficiency for a 30 months mission, including 16 months on the surface. The presentation was apparently delivered at a meeting of the Lunar Exploration Management Group, although there's nothing on their site yet."
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China and Russia to Launch Joint Mars Mission 182 comments
The Interfacer writes "China and Russia are planning a joint mission to Mars that will bring back samples to earth and land on one of the red planet's tiny moons, state media quoted a Chinese scientist as saying Wednesday." From the article: "Russia will launch the spacecraft, while China will provide the survey equipment to carry out the unmanned exploration, Ye Peijian, a senior scientist at the Chinese Academy of Space Technology, told a meeting in Beijing, according to the official Xinhua news agency."
[+]
NASA Proposes Manned Asteroid Mission 219 comments
eldavojohn writes "NASA has proposed a manned asteroid mission to a near earth object. They mention this being viewed as a "gap-filler" to keep the public's attention between a lunar exploration & manned mars mission. The article also cites these goals as in line with the Constellation Program. From the article, 'Furthermore, a human venture to a space rock may well accelerate precursor robotic surveys of asteroids, Schweickart observed. "Early unmanned visits to asteroids ... it's the same pattern as we did with the Moon and we're doing right now with Mars. It's all pretty logical," he told SPACE.com.'"
[+]
Breakdown Forces New Look At Mars Mission Sexuality 528 comments
FloatsomNJetsom writes "Popular Mechanics has up an interesting story, discussing what the long-term implications of the Lisa Nowak incident could mean for Mars Mission crew decisions: With a 30-month roundtrip, that isn't the sort of thing you'd want to happen in space. Scientists have been warning about the problems of sex on long-term spaceflight, and experts are divided as to whether you want a crew of older married couples, or asexual unitard-wearing eunuchs. The point the article makes specifically is that NASA's current archetype of highly-driven, task-oriented people might be precisely the wrong type for a Mars expedition. In addition scientists may use genomics or even functional MRI in screening astronauts, in addition to facial-recognition computers to monitor mental health during the mission." Maybe observers could just deploy the brain scanner to keep track of them?
[+]
Volunteer to Simulate a Mars Mission for the ESA 209 comments
number6x writes "The European Space Agency (ESA) is looking for volunteers for a simulated trip to Mars. The simulation will put a crew of six in isolation for 17 months. The crew will be made up of 4 Russians and 2 Europeans. In all the ESA will need 12 volunteers for back up purposes. Seventeen months was chosen to simulate the time needed for the journey to Mars and back, as well as a 30 day period spent doing experiments on the red planet."
[+]
Subcommittee Stops Human Mars Mission Spending 343 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Last week's House Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, and Science FY08 budget markup would prevent work on programs devoted to human missions to Mars. According to a House Appropriations Committee press release, the markup language states that NASA cannot pursue "development or demonstration activity related exclusively to Human Exploration of Mars. NASA has too much on its plate already, and the President is welcome to include adequate funding for the Human Mars Initiative in a budget amendment or subsequent year funding requests." The Mars Society is already leading an effort to get the language removed."
[+]
NASA Does a U-Turn, Opens To Private Industry 81 comments
mattnyc99 writes "Popular Mechanics is reporting that NASA — faced with the looming retirement of the space shuttle, and planning for longer missions like the one to Mars we've been discussing — is looking to free up its budget and depend a lot more on private space startups to carry key payloads into orbit in the next few years. For an agency so steeped in bureaucracy, it seems like everyone from NASA chief Mike Griffin to contracted officials to the key players in this in-depth podcast roundtable is finally acknowledging that commercial rocketeering (space tourists aside) is a more efficient means of getting back into space for NASA. Quoting: 'Because of a new focus for NASA's strategic investments — not to mention incentives like the Ansari X Prize, which spurred the space-tourism business, and the Google Lunar X Prize, which could do the same for payloads — private-sector spaceships could be ready for government service soon, says Sam Scimemi, who heads NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. "The industry has grown up," he tells PM. "It used to be that only NASA or the Air Force could do such things."'"
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2031?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:2031?! (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, I am just glad to see that instead of sending teachers and other non-astronauts into space they are actually trying to go forward and do something productive. The mission more resembles what was seen in the movie Red Planet where everything was made to be self-sustainable and there was really not much room for problems.
Of course, the plot to that is much different then this is going to be, but whatever.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What is sad, is that we could be on the ground there before 2015 if it was budgeted like the Iraq war.
BVLLSH1T! (Score:3, Informative)
"NASA does not have the funding it had during the apollo era, so they are doing the best they can on low budgets"
The whole manned space program from mercury to apollo cost $25 billion.
Each Saturn 5 cost $100 million.
Contrast that with the "reusable" space shuttle that has to be pretty much rebuilt from the ground up after every mision - $500 million dollars a flight.
Add to that that the Saturn 5 has 5x the payload capacity (125,000 kg into LEO) of the shuttle (25,000 kg) and this doesn't add the po
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"NASA does not have the funding it had during the apollo era, so they are doing the best they can on low budgets"
The whole manned space program from mercury to apollo cost $25 billion.
Each Saturn 5 cost $100 million.
Contrast that with the "reusable" space shuttle that has to be pretty much rebuilt from the ground up after every mision - $500 million dollars a flight.
Add to that that the Saturn 5 has 5x the payload capacity (125,000 kg into LEO) of the shuttle (25,000 kg) and this doesn't add the posibbility of increasing the Saturn 5 payload capacity with SRBs, to between 250,000kg and 350,000 kg)... even taking into account inflation, the shuttle is what has been bleeding NASA. A modified Saturn 5 would need a lot fewer missions to assemble shit in orbit, like the ISS.
You are completely full of bullshit.
* Each Saturn V would cost around $500 million today due to inflation. That is for the rocket alone.
* Comparing the payload capacity of the Saturn V to the Space Shuttle is misleading. You are comparing an empty rocket to a spacecraft. If you compared the Apollo stack, they you would realize that the Apollo stack only had a few tons of payload ability outside of the spacecraft itself while each Shuttle mission has over 20 tons of payload ability. If you are talking a
Re:BVLLSH1T! (Score:5, Informative)
Each Saturn V cost $100 million to buy - it cost another $75-100 million to checkout and launch. (In addition to this there is also is each flights share of the annual infrastructure costs.)
Wrong on both counts.
First a Shuttle isn't anywhere near 'rebuilt' between flights. (And don't hand me that "they rebuild the engines after every flight". They don't, and haven't for nearly a decade.) Second, the marginal cost of a Shuttle flight (I.E. adding a flight to the manifest) is under $100/million a flight. Just like the Saturn V, it's low flight rate means the per flight cost is dominated by that flight's share of the fixed annual costs.
At the end of the day - the difference in cost between the two is much, much less than urban legend has it. (Especially because Shuttle flights include the costs of the manned portion, the capsule if you will, and the Saturn costs... don't.)
Sure, you could assemble it faster - if you were willing to pay in excess of a billion dollars a shot. Saturn V class payloads don't come around too often, so all those infrastructure costs come back and bite you in the ass when you have to amortize years of support costs across a handful of flights.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
After almost a trillion dollars and 4000 US deaths, it damn well better have.
What did we get out of it? Gas is more expensive then ever. There are now 25,000+ soliders who are crippled. Country can't even see the top of the hole we buried ourselves into financially.
Imagine what all that money could have done for the space race.
And you complain about social security. Did yo
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You know....if they would let me out of the system, even at my age...I'd sign away any and all benefits I have coming to me though SS (if it last long enough)....I'd do it if they'd let me take all that m
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:2031?! (Score:5, Insightful)
The successful, healthy, and able people would opt out, since it would benefit them. And the less successful would either die or come to rob your house. (I am exaggerating, of course, but it would greatly increase the social differences, and this would hurt society a lot.)
Parent
Re:2031?! (Score:4, Informative)
And private accounts for Social Security will only expose Americans to additional risks, and enrich a few bigwigs on wall street. Truth is, the program is not at all in bad shape, and if the rest of the Federal Budget weren't in such bad shape (due, in large part, to Bush's tax cuts and the war he started), the government would have surpluses.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You know....freedom also means freedom to fail, and freedom to fuckup. I dunno what happened to personal responsibility, such things are what grew the US to greatness (although I sadly think we're now on a downhill slope). I think if you wanna take drugs and blast you
Freedom to fail will only breed pitchfork envy. (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed we are getting soft, it is due to prostituting this nation's sovereignty with globalization(in its current form).
Parent
Re:2031?! (Score:5, Insightful)
We were kinda missing a fully-committed competitor for prestige and bragging rights, like we had when we were pushing to the Moon in competition w/ Russia.
Also, nothing (aside from a metric assload of money to go with the initiative) is stopping private interests from giving space a shot. Although there is a lot of work being done in that direction (Scaled Composites, Armadillo Aerospace, etc), I fear that most will stop cold or die off before they really get things going full-time, and some appear to be stopping short just on what they've done - e.g. Scaled Composites may become just a neat-o space tourista thingy to get into sub-orbit, but otherwise won't bother any further.
But then, I'm prepared to be pleasantly surprised and proven wrong when it comes to this ideal.
(Hell, the only reason NASA appears to be getting back into the manned-mission-to-space thing again is because the Chinese got one of their own into space, and Russia+India want to put folks on the Moon... kinda sad that it takes ego just to get people working towards what should be a solid ideal in the first place).
All that said - someone call me when an average guy can get into space without spending a shitload of cash or his whole career kissing bureaucratic arse.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We were getting our asses handed to us with regards to the space race. They put satellites orders of magnitude larger than we could into orbit. They were hitting the moon with objects and sending objects around the moon. We could do none of those things.
So, when the brass came down and said "Let's beat the Russians!" We had to pick something that was an order of magnitude harder than what the Russians were currently d
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, he was wrong. I don't know that you can compare speculative fiction to reality in this manner and I certainly don't think you can use any writer's vision of the future as a benchmark for progress. After all no matter how educated and imaginative the writer is, he is still creati
Re:2031?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, what the fuck are you talking about? There's no lack of vision. You sound like you have plenty of it.
It's lack of desire to make the tradeoff, pay the cost. How much are you personally willing to pay, to send someone?
Ok, maybe you decided to chip in a few thousand dollars out of your own pocket -- you're willing to eat Ramen for 3 months every year, or give up internet access, or otherise bear that cost at expense to your life style. But now imagine you're not a science-valuing nerd. How much are you willing to pay then?
Answer: as a non-nerd, you're willing to pay about as much as a nerd is willing to pay for $USELESS_GOVERNMENT_PROGRAM. (Fill in that var with something you don't like. Maybe it's the war in Iraq. Maybe it's cancer cure research. Maybe it's tobacco farm subsidies. Surely there's something the government spends money on that you don't feel is worth the expense.)
We have plenty of vision. What we don't have, is consensus on what things are worth. Going to Mars is "cool" but it's not worth the same amount of sacrifice to everyone. And that's a pretty good reason to keep government out of this. Let people pay what they want to pay. Now go write your check and eat your Ramen.
Parent
Re:2031?! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's in a bold step of aggressive direction that the 'Prez has led us to this great vision of greatness, to reach Mars sometime in about 15 years! Children not even born yet will be in Junior High when we make it!
Er, not.
This is just political posturing. The lame-duck President gets kudos for being "visionary" without actually doing anything but talking out his arse. NASA gets some (much needed) press, and the Chinese get a message that maybe we aren't completely out of the race to space round II.
But it means nothing, the administration will change, priorities will change LONG before we even get a prototype ANYTHING constructed, and the "vision of the trip" to Mars is half-hearted, even if its proponents aren't.
Personally, this hurts all involved since NASA will end up with ANOTHER black eye of "Well, you didn't get us to Mars, either, did you!" while the real underlying problem, which is that NASA gets about 1/2 of 1% of the budget that the US Military gets. [thespacereview.com]
But most people think of NASA as this huge, labyrinthine gubbmint agency with nearly unlimited dollars. But when you look at it, we spend 200 times as much money killing people as we spend putting anybody in space.
And yet, space projects have had an amazing ROI. For example, the amount of money spent deploying the GPS system is dwarfed by the taxes earned by all the products and services based on the GPS system, notwithstanding its original military-oriented benefits. Research that went into solar panels, rechargeable batteries, materials research, etc. continue to provide incredible economic benefits today, year after year.
It's like somebody upstairs is intentionally shooting us all in the collective foot - just pisses me off to no end.
Parent
Re:2031?! (Score:5, Funny)
That's because all the people who need killing are here on earth.
If they were in space, then we would be spending a lot more money on killing them
It's all a matter of priorities.
Parent
Re:2031?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Earth that is running out of oil. Earth that is on the verge of massive climatic change due to massive CO2 overproduction in the 20th century and the first quarter of the 21st. Earth that is so overpopulated in regards to the local economies that major religions are putting aside spirituality in order to replace it with mass suicide-warrior cults. Earth where melting ice caps threaten to disrupt ocean currents to the point of creating new ice-ages for our most productive regions.
Are these problems solvable? Sure. Will they be solved? Not a fucking chance! This is where some bozo jumps up and says that this is the exact reason that we need a space program to preserve the earth's civilization and science because the earth is doomed.
But with all that will be on the plate by 2031, there isn't going to be enough resources left to entertain such fantasies as Mars travel.
Basically, Mars travel fantasies for 2031 are what flying-car fantasies by 2007 were in the 1960's.
Realistically, by 2031, we'll be lucky to get the broken windows at the local McDonald's fixed. By 2031, there will be another three billion people wanting to come to your town and either kill you for some idiot god or take your job. By 2031, all the new cardboard and sheet-rock $750000 new McMansions built in the early 2000's will be rotting slums. And all the people who bought them will be bankrupt. Which means they aren't going to be paying taxes for fantasy space voyages. Because all the money that they do manage to pay in taxes will be going to pay for the Iraq war, which will be by then just a distant memory. But the 30-year notes will be due, and no one is going to buying the new US Treasury notes that were expected to replace them. With US dollar so worthless that it takes a hundred of them to buy a loaf of bread.
Mars voyages by 2031? Absurd. Try 2231. Start thinking of the 1000 year future.
Parent
Ares V? (Score:5, Funny)
That's right! Put some mag chrome nozzles at those old babies and nothing beats the classics!
Re:Ares V? (Score:5, Interesting)
As a rocket engineer myself, I can reaffirm this statement. Given the catastrohpic and costly nature of rocketry failures, rocket scientists are extremely conservative folks.
And fundamentally, nothing in chemical rocket propulsion has changed much in the 40 years since Apollo started, especially for the kinds of liquid engines required for a manned interplanetary mission. (Ion propulsion, hybrid motors, and other niche propulsion techniques have made some significant strides, but are impractical for manned missions.) Structurally there are new materials available, composites, cermet, etc., that provide marginal improvements in performance. By the 2020s when a mission like this is in the design phase, I expect even more materials improvements will have been made.
And yes, electronics has advanced by orders of magnitude. However, given the radiation environment of interplanetary space, most microelectronics would not survive the trip without being quintupally redundant, heavily shielded, or custom designed and processed from the substrate up. And remember, we're talking about ultraconservative rocket scientists designing a manned space mission.
The problem is, Moore's Law works to the detriment of radiation tolerance. As structures get smaller and smaller, they become more susceptible to damage by the small amounts of energy deposited by ionizing radiation and especially to heavy ions (cosmic rays). The circuits and structures have to be designed specifically to tolerate the damage from radiation without altering the microcircuit function too dramatically.
No, for a manned interplanetary mission, you're very likely to see most electronics be several generations old technology, and critical systems will be designed with failure-tolerant and radiation-immune technology like electron tubes and relays.
You may think I'm joking, or being hyperbolic... but I'm not.
Of course, by 2031, who knows what will be either radiation tolerant and/or "several generations old."
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes and no. To be effective, shielding needs to be extremely thick, not only to stop the primary radiation (the incoming stuff), but also to absorb the secondary radiation "knocked loose" when the primary radiation interacts with the shielding. In some radiation environments (e.g., polar Earth orbit), shielding intended to reduce total dose exposure can actually make the situation worse -- trapped protons and cosmic rays can create
Re:Ares V? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm kinda torn on this whole thing. I love NASA and the cool stuff they do, but the reason to put men on Mars is just gone. In the good old days, we wanted to show the USSR that we could rain nuclear hell on them from the fucking moon if we wanted to, and that served a significant purpose. But guys on Mars? Why? There's no economic, scientific, or otherwise reason other than being able to say, "hell yeah, we did it!"
That might be reason enough, but why Mars then? Why not colonize the moon, which would be just as cool and probably less costly? How about exploring the ocean, which is nearly as difficult but would probably have a much greater impact?
Parent
what's in a name? (Score:2)
One would think a craft of that form factor, named after Ares, would be referred to as a "missile"
Re:Weight of food to carry decreased by FAT astron (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Obligatory Futurama! (Score:5, Funny)
Professor Farnsworth: Well, in those days Mars was a dreary uninhabitable wasteland much like Utah; but unlike Utah, Mars was eventually made livable.
The sad thing is... (Score:4, Insightful)
(example: 500 billion in Iraq, more than enough to fund the complete development and production of everything that would be needed)
Re:The sad thing is... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is an unfortunate reality that not everyone has the same priorities. The priorities of a person living in the first world for example are very different from those of a person living in the third world. For example, 98%+ Americans do not spend much time worrying about where their next meal is going to come from, but in large parts of Africa this a serious and growing concern. That is why it is so important to bring sustained economic growth to those areas because sustained economic growth is the difference between a modern first world existence where things like a mission to mars are within our reach and living in a mud hut and trying to scrape together enough food to feed your family. As long as these economic problems remain unsolved we will continue to have lots of wars, lots of violence, and plenty of terrorism to act as a sink for our time, money, and resources.
Parent
Hmm (Score:4, Funny)
2031? (Score:3, Insightful)
Robots (Score:5, Insightful)
Can someone please expain (Score:5, Interesting)
Is NASA a governing body in the sense that they can mandate who can go into space and moreover, where in space? It is my understanding that when Columbus wanted to find a route to the far East, he submitted his plans to various people and it took two or three tries before they finally granted him the money and ships he needed and I read that some of the terms of the agreement were such that they (King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella) didn't expect him back... why not something similar for Mars? Setting aside things like training, time to build a ship, and most importantly cost, can it be done? Privately? And no, not the Astronaut Farmer-type thing. I'm talking about a legitimate, scientific exploration, in the name of pure science and discovery, privately funded, privately built and controlled, government and nationally independent.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
hey, don't shoot the messenger. You did ask.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Not for nothing, but a one-way trip would not be nearly so expensive. If the passenger anticipates dying anyway, the planners could easily forego such luxuries as plants in the passenger area, sufficient food (what's a little undernourishment to a condemnee), fuel to escape Mars' gravity, etc.
The only concern, other than survival of the "vo
Re:Can someone please expain (Score:4, Insightful)
Mars isn't a war to be won, it's a quest for humanity.
Parent
Time enough.... (and an historical anecdote) (Score:3, Insightful)
A program that completes in 25 years gives all of the top staff at NASA time enough to retire and leave the details to the people to come (who will blame his predecessors
It would be more credible if there was a middle step (what about a long -3, 4 months- to the Moon, to check that the technology is improving and see what is still lacking?)
I doubt there will be manned spaceflight at all (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's hope not, because whether you realise it or not you are talking about the survival of our civilisation as we know it, and it won't be some benign "oh well we didn't make it into space, so lets just do something else". I hope you're wrong, so so wrong, because at best you are talking about a decline into orwellian nightmare and at worst a die-off of people NEVER seen in human history and thats presuming we don't get
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Right, so lets hold off on the Mars trip for now until we have some practical means of more efficient propulsion to get there other than chemical rockets and ion drives. Mars will still be there when we get around to it. If we are going to make the Mars trip then we should do it for the right reasons and combine the mission with other technology tests so that we can make
Chemical Rockets? (Score:5, Interesting)
As long as they piddle about with chemical rockets, they won't be doing much more than a very expensive, long and dangerous flag-planting exercise.
Von Braun et. al. were working on a nuclear rocket back in the day for such a mission. Just look up NERVA.
And before anyone jumps on the "danger radiation" bandwagon, I'm not advocating a nuclear rocket for getting from the earth's surface into earth orbit. It would be quite safe to build a reactor, launch it into orbit and to install it on the spacecraft there. It would be quite harmless having never have been taken critical for the first time.
The crew could easily be shielded. Think nuclear submarine. The craft could be much bigger than one chemically-powered. There could be additional shielding for protecting the crew from solar radiation. There would be extra living space, more scientific payload and it would be easier to insert into Mars orbit at the other end.
Fission reactors have been about for 60 years now. We know how to make them safe and efficient. It would be absolutely stupid not to use a nuclear reactor to go to Mars. They could have one designed, built and tested in under 5 years if they put their minds to it.
But they won't. They'll leave that to our grandchildren...
2031 (Score:4, Funny)
Give me a break... (Score:5, Insightful)
No one has an answer to this question yet. There may not be one. It's not just engineering, there are basic scientific barriers. This is why SF always invents Warp Drive or some other back door - the constraints imposed by Newton's Third Law and the limitations of chemical propulsion make this whole thing a big pain in the ass. Funny how all these articles never bother to review the basics before launching into all the speculation.
Can't see it happening (Score:3, Interesting)
The western world is not in ascendency, it is in decline. The fact that Orion, a project with the same capabilities on paper as Apollo had, is set to take longer than it did in the 1960s is proof of this. Given the escalating costs of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and soon Iran, I can't see how NASA can maintain enough of a budget for 25 years.
Modern politicians seem aware of the dire state of things, and their attitude towards public services is to make as much money for themselves and their friends out of them, before everything implodes. Why would NASA be any different?
Why would you do that? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Question answered! (Score:4, Insightful)
But it is not like the U.S. Government won't have all sorts of other debts to pay when the Afghan/Iraq wars end.
Let's try Social Security and Medicare to start.
These two programs are all slated to start running in the red decades before any Mars mission.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
All-caps style
The most common capitalization scheme seen with acronyms and initialisms is all-uppercase (all-caps), except for those few that have linguistically taken on an identity as regular words, with the acronymous etymology of the words fading into the background of common knowledge, such as has occurred with the words scuba, laser, and radar.
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