NASA Wants Astronauts on Mars by 2010 713
FeloniousPunk writes "According to
this article
in the UK Guardian, NASA intends to send a manned mission to Mars by 2010, using nuclear propulsion. President Bush may announce this project, called Project Prometheus, at the State of the Union address." Here's
good background and context;
for technical background, I recommend
Zubrin
or
Stern.
The JPL will be involved in developing the nuclear propulsion tech, intended to cut the interplanetary trip from six months to two. Apparently the theory is that this proposal won't get shot down like the last Mars proposal because the shorter mission will save money. Here's hoping public response has progressed beyond "oh no! did he say nuclear?!"
In related news,
jkcity writes:
"according to this article by the BBC, the Chinese plan to have a man in space by October 2003."
All I have to say... (Score:3, Interesting)
Although, I am pretty sure GW doesn't.
why (Score:4, Interesting)
Why do we want to spend that much money on going to another planet? Is there that much more we can learn by sending people there? There is probably more useful information to be learned by studing physics and space here from earth, don't you think?
I'm not holding my breath. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm rooting for you NASA, but you make me feel like a chicago cubs fan sometimes.
Signifigance of Prometheus (Score:2, Interesting)
But why not? (Score:5, Interesting)
I read a book in which a guy from NASA was being quizzed on the benefits of manned space exploration. He said you cannot make a rational case for sending people rather than robots on scientific or economic grounds. But that's not the point. As long as it is possible to go, people will want to go. There's no scientific or economic reason to climb Everest, travel to the poles, or circumnavigate the globe in a hot-air balloon either, but that's not stopping people.
You also can't beat the inspirational value of the Apollo program. There's something about spaceflight that galvanizes people like nothing else on Earth.
Within the next few decades, launch costs will decline by an order of magnitude. Within our lifetimes, I believe we will see the wealthiest tycoons finance (and possibly participate in) private space exploration, in much the same way that they financed earthly exploration in the past.
Re:why (Score:2, Interesting)
Plus, we can work towards getting out of the solar system and maybe find a new place to live when we pollute/destroy/heat/exploit resources too much to live here any more.
It's a ploy (Score:5, Interesting)
1) The people who are most decisively against GW's politics are also those who are most for space exploration. It gives those folks something positive to see about the president. Think of it as a distraction from the pending war, which is a distraction from the fact that he has no idea how to run foreign policy.
2) Some of GW's closest friends and allies are going to reap billions from the program. Defense companies love space projects
3) There's no way that the program can be finished before 2010 (we'll be VERY lucky to get it by then). That means it gives the voters, if they are pro-space, incentive to re-elect him (this is corrollary to #1 I suppose) since anyone running against him is going to be likely to point out the budget pratfalls in such a program.
Unfortunately, I really like the idea of exploration
Worse
Here's hoping NASA at least finds a way to do it the right way, rather than turning this into a further mess like the ISS turned out to be.
Re:because (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:All I have to say... (Score:5, Interesting)
Assuming they are using a pellet-bed plutonium reactor, the only fuel they will need for it will be hydrogen, not only will it act as a moderator (heh), but also as the propellant as it is super-heated and vented out the back of the craft.
I assume they will still carry chemical based thrusters to maneuver and for the initial boost once leaving mars.
Plus the design that I got to work with in college uses weapons grade plutonium! What better way to get the nuclear weapon stock down than to transform it into interplanetary engines?
Re:There is use in it (Score:3, Interesting)
Nuclear Propulsion (Score:5, Interesting)
They proposed that a nuke could be detonated in front of the craft, and a giant sail would capture the energy from the blast and rapidly accelerate the craft. Do that a few times, using nukes with small enough yields to not break the astronauts necks, and it should accelerate them nicely without having to lug around shitloads of fuel.
Talisman
No. (Score:5, Interesting)
Main Entry: nuclear
Pronunciation: 'nü-klE-&r, 'nyü-, ÷-ky&-l&r
Another article (Score:4, Interesting)
NASA spokesman Glenn Mahone acknowledged that O'Keefe did talk generally about the upcoming State of the Union but did not make a prediction that Bush would use it to make any NASA-related announcements."
So don't start packing your bags, yet. There is also the question of how to keep the people making the journey alive and healthy. Even on relatively short space missions, there is a significant (~20%) muscle loss, and measurable bone loss.
I hope it works.
Man Gets 70mpg in Homemade Car-Made from a Mainframe Computer [xnewswire.com]
To the naysayers... (Score:5, Interesting)
But Mars (even the moon) is worth going to, because:
1) Big Hairy Audacious Goals [abc.net.au] are needed for progress. Linear development is often not enough, BHAGs act like a booster shot. The 20th century saw not one, but two: WWII and the Moon-landing. We need more.
2) Space has energy and minerals that man could use. Greenpeace types should be in favour of space exploration for this reason alone.
3) Space exploration means frontier societies could potentially develop again (and challenge traditional, established societies). Today, Earth resembles 15th century Europe too much for its own good -- everything charted and explored, resources dwindling... America provided a new beginning to a lot of people in the last 500 years, non-Earth settlements could do so again.
4) and finally,
Re:From the article (Score:3, Interesting)
So long as you can get close to the speed of light, it's not really a problem. What matters is subjective time (time as perceived by a spaceship's crew). If you average 0.1c over the voyage, 10n years to get anywhere, where n is the distance in lightyears. But (and someone who can do the math will have to answer this) if you can maintain 1G acceleration to the midpoint of your journey and 1G deceleration after that over say 50 lightyears, while your voyage might take 100 years realtime, it will take a fraction of the time subjectively. Think about the difference between wall clock time and CPU time. That means, if you have a drive technology that can maintain 1G, you don't need to worry about generation ships or any of that sci-fi stuff (altho' some sort of anti-aging tech, or suspended animation might be useful). And you sidestep the physiological problems of bone density and muscle mass for free.
Once you have the drive, the rest is an airtight box. We already know a lot about food storage, recycling, the psychology of confined spaces - nuclear submarines do 6 month voyages as a matter of course. I think a sufficiently motivated crew could spend (subjective) decades on a mission without insurmountable problems occuring.
The more I think about it, the more I think that the light speed limit is a blessing in disguise.
Re:why (Score:3, Interesting)
I might add defense contracts - those millions/billions of dollars are the closest thing a person can get to 'pure research'. Companies won't do it because they have to show profit (usually fast profit). You may not like the fact that money goes to fund weapon systems and their ilk first, but like any for-profit company would ever do sub atomic research? Doubtful.
Re:why (Score:3, Interesting)
Why do we want to spend that much money on going to another planet?
Because the number of nuts with nukes on this one is getting a little too high for my taste.
Seriously, a single planet will eventually be our graveyard - whether it is our own stupidity, a comet, or some other cataclysm that does us in. We need a redundant array of inexpensive planets (eventually across multiple solar systems) housing humankind if we expect to survive. And survival is the goal of any living creature.
Zubrin puts this in much more detailed terms in his books.
Re:The question will not be (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps they have been watching too much Stargate SG-1, seeing as though the ship they were building was also named Prometheus. Weird coincidence maybe?
Either way, it seems to be a weird name for the Mars mission.
Re:Signifigance of Prometheus (Score:3, Interesting)
Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus (Score:3, Interesting)
That puts an interesting spin on Project Prometheus eh? Probably because of that nu-cu-lar power or something. :^)
Re:Better question: why not private industry doing (Score:2, Interesting)
But why can't people think globally? Why must we continue this country vs. country, company vs. company mentality? Why can't the revolution of space exploration lead us instead of fighting on a micro level to representing a new entity, that of Earth? One planet, unified, rather than country vs. country. Forget money, money is inconsequential when we leave our planet-- it means nothing out there, and it'll mean nothing down here. The spending of billions of dollars on projects like this is all imaginary money anyway. Economics is a phantom, an illusion that ties it's imaginary ropes around the necks of everyone on this planet, whether they want it to or not. A collective hallucination that we are continually forced to be a part of. Why not draw the line somewhere and say that these games aren't going to be played anymore from this zone out? That money shouldn't have anything to do with the exploration of space, the investigation of a universal system that we know very little about?
Individuals are to cities, as cities are to states, as states are to countries, as countries are to the land masses that encompass them, as to the planet they are on, as our planet is to ___ what? We don't know the blank here. What's the planet's purpose in the scheme? Atoms are to molecules as molecules are to cells, as cells are to tissues, as tissues are to organs, and onwards and on and on and on -- but what's the next step? If we start messing with things before we "know" what we are messing with, rubbing our already millenia-old crap of nationalism and competition than we've come all this way without learning anything.
I know my position is naive, and in the long run totally impractical to the reality of the collective hallucination. But at some time I feel we've got to start thinking about our planet as a single entity amidst a more complex system, and that that system transcends our economic, moral, philosophical, and (fill in the blanks) models.
Re:There is use in it (Score:4, Interesting)
I would like to go to Mars.
Re:Repost (Score:3, Interesting)
Still, that is all in the past and your main point prevails. Most people have always been like this. If you look at Chinese personality types earth is the most common along with fire, and the earth types are very resistant to change. The slashdot readers are more likely to be one of the types that love change and live for it (I certainly am one of those). I think there will always be fighting, but I think it creates a healthy balance.
I can't help but wonder about what moving to the stars will do for society and culture as a whole. Our boundaries have by and large been limited to earth - but there are enough of us that which to escape its borders that such a program will eventually take place, it will have to. After all, the pioneers are the ones who foster progress, the ones who start businesses. They cannot resist us for long!
Re:Prediction (Score:3, Interesting)
I do think that going to mars before putting a permanent base on the moon (I'm thinking cities on the moon, personally. That would definitely get people excited and willing to spend money) is dumb. I also think that going to mars before putting together a larger and more useful space station and mining asteroids is dumb. Asteroid mining is the very FIRST thing we should be doing. If this mars trip is really just a test for a nuclear motor that can be adapted to be efficient enough to use for mining, then I'm okay with it, though :)
Re:Repost (Score:3, Interesting)
also this: the cost or chance to come to america was availale to only a few Europeans. It wasn't totally cheap or anything. But those who did come and landed on the shore of the "new world" were able to expand farther west cheaply, and the masses did so.
Going to mars is like going to the Americas from Europe. Not widely available. But the expansion from the east coast to the west coast IS analogous to MARS. Those who are already there can travel and expand at will. That is if the colonists can harness resources, set up factories etc.