NASA Prepping Plans For Flexible Path To Mars 175
FleaPlus writes "A group at NASA has been formulating a 'Flexible Path' to Mars architecture, which many expect will be part of the soon-to-be-announced reboot of NASA's future plans. NASA's prior architecture spends much of its budget on creating two in-house rockets, the Ares I and V, and would yield no beyond-LEO human activity until a lunar landing sometime in the 2030s. In contrast, the Flexible Path would produce results sooner, using NASA's limited budget to develop and gain experience with the technologies (human and robotic) needed to progressively explore and establish waypoints at Lagrange points, near-Earth asteroids, the Martian moon Phobos, Mars, and other possible locations (e.g. the Moon, Venus flyby). Suggested interim goals include constructing giant telescopes in deep space, learning how to protect Earth from asteroids, establishing in-space propellant depots, and harvesting resources/fuel from asteroids and Phobos to supply Moon/Mars-bound vehicles."
Why do people care so much about Mars? (Score:1, Interesting)
An alternative they never consider... (Score:5, Interesting)
An alternative they never consider is the creation of a 'mothership', i.e. a big enough spaceship that can act as a space station and as as a small planetoid, complete with its own gravity (out of rotation) and nuclear propulsion (project Orion). Assembled in space and never landing itself on planets, it can be a stepping stone for mankind to the solar system, and make the trip Mars-Earth a commodity.
Yes. Next stupid question? (Score:5, Interesting)
Only last week hard evidence was reported that asteroids themselves collide. This implies that yet another mechanism to cause asteroids to leave their relatively stable orbits and head Sunwards exists (apart from gravitational deflection by planets.)
The cost of a program to detect all credible collision threats and do something about it is, I imagine, around $1 billion per annum. The cost of a single asteroid collision in the developed world could easily run into thousands of times that. Look on it as relatively cheap life insurance, on a par with solving the Year 2000 problem and cheaper than protecting the US eastern seaboard against inundation, and it makes a lot of sense.
Re:Going Nowhere (Score:1, Interesting)
Fuck it then, 400% outsource tax and embargo on China. The dollar will crash but then we'll be forced to create our own industries. Make an exception for raw materials, but embargo everything else. We'll lose out on cheap plastic toxic crap and computer stuff, but American companies have the plans and they will create factories or someone else will take their place.
Re:nasa is not gonna get much done (Score:3, Interesting)
if it gets "rebooted" very 4/8 years by new president/administration
Yes, it seems to be a shell game. Making an "exciting new announcement" every couple of years creates the illusion of things happening without ever producing any tangible results. I've pretty well lost faith in the proposition that we're going to be going anywhere in my lifetime again. John Derbyshire wrote an insightful article [nationalreview.com] detailing a number of reasons why. I think he's hit it on the head.
Reading Between the Lines (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a bureaucratic method of killing the overall project of a Mars mission. What happens is each sub project runs into "unexpected delays and expenses" that make it impossible to complete the sub project, or delay it so that it splits up the co-ordination with the other projects for a Mars Mission. Apologists will take up the side of NASA, and they should, but in reality there are facts mitigating against NASA even existing, such as the simple fact that the USA is bankrupt and can't pay its bills, and (according to the Hirsch Report from the DoE [doe.gov]) the USA needs to spend 20 years and hundreds of billions of dollars converting itself to a non-fossil fuel culture if it hopes to maintain a technical civilisation at all.
In short: good luck with this new plan - cool if it works out - but it has "Cover My Ass" and "Plausible Deniability for Mission Failure" written all over it.
RS
NASA will never get to Mars (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:An alternative they never consider... (Score:2, Interesting)
How do you know they never consider it? I've not heard anything specific from NASA, but they do seem to have plenty of people who do dream up long terms plans and ideas. Don't forget that most of the people there read/watched science fiction just like we did and many of them were inspired to take up their careers at NASA because of it (see various bios on the NASA sire if you don't believe me).
The problem comes in turning those blue-sky ideas into reality. There is no 'just' when it comes to space. Whenever you find yourself asking, "Why can't they just..." it is almost always for a good reason. A mothership's a great idea, but how do you build one. You've got to get the parts into space. Are you going to test the nuclear propulsion? How long will this project last and will Congress give you the funds? These are the sort of real questions that need to be answered and have scuppered programmes before now (and look likely to scupper NASA's current plans - which are less ambitious than the mothership idea).
The way I look at things, I ask are they likely to cost a lot more than what is happening now. To do this, you need to assume there will be no miracle leap in technology in the short-medium term. For example, if raising parts to space cheaply relies on a space elevator, then rule out the short-medium term. Obviously, we have ideas that one could be built, but technological breakthroughs need to happen to make it a reality. While this is possible (and even likely, I hope), don't assume that we will have a functioning elevator within 20 years.
So, using only slight advances in current tech, could we build a mothership for approximately the same as what the ISS cost? I don't believe so - it would clearly need to be bigger and would involve research and testing in propulsion systems. Given that the US, Russia, ESA, Canada and Japan are struggling to find the cash to keep the ISS up beyond 2015 (when most of it is already built) who is going to fund and build the mothership?
Sorry to sound so negative, but I get fed up with all the unrealistic ideas and whining about NASA on Slashdot. Being a Brit with a government that does no funding of a manned space programme at all, I think they do a fantastic job given the resources they have to work with.
Re:They have no Idea (Score:3, Interesting)
If it is found out that Centripetal acceleration is an adequate substitute for gravity, then the asteroids may be our best bet.
If the rotation rate is low, then centripetal acceleration is indistinguishable from gravity at the human scale except for subtle effects (like things not falling straight down or a slight decline in acceleration with height). We have done experiments with people in long term rotating systems and below 1 revolution per minute there's no obvious effect (no nausea, etc). Even in faster rotating systems, people tend to adapt rather quickly. I believe current thought is that even 10 revolutions per minute should be adaptable, if the person doesn't move much (say as in a bed on the side of a rotating cylinder). So you can generate 1 gee of acceleration with roughly 9 meter radius at 10 revolutions per minute and 900 meter radius at 1 revolution per minute.
The real unknowns are simply to get a working artificial gravity system in the first place and to figure out just how much artificial gravity is needed by humans.
Experience bullshit... (Score:1, Interesting)
NASA needs to grow some balls and stop wasting the budget on gaining "experience"... We've spent the last 30 years in earth orbit pissing around with small scale experiments, sending robots to mars and other planets. We know enough to have a go at engineering a solution. Surely there would be plenty of astronauts willing to take the risk rather than waiting 30 years and watching NASA blow the budget on a "flexible plan".
Re:nasa is not gonna get much done (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You're kidding. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's done some useful stuff, but at what I consider extravagant cost. Spinoffs are one of a number of touchie feelie intangibles (inspiration to young people, national prestige, international cooperation, space science) that are used to rationalize spending money without consequence.
Re:Why do people care so much about Mars? (Score:3, Interesting)
That always bugged me too. The idea that we should be exploring other planets in case we screw this one up just doesn't work... how badly would be have to screw this one up that starting from scratch would be easier than fixing this one???
Basically by implementing one of the concepts on this page to destroy the earth utterly [qntm.org].
Seriously, there's practically nothing we could do that would make earth less habitable than Mars. Global Thermonuclear War? Even if Ferris Bueller had failed to talk down that computer, the end result would be a planet far more suitable than human life. Gigantic meteor impact? They've happened before. Mass extinction followed, but the biosphere itself pressed on, as did the oxygen atmosphere it created. On post-KT-repeat earth, you could still walk around and breath the air, maybe with the help of a dust mask, and maybe find some resilient plants and animals to eat. As opposed to requiring a massive infrastructure just to keep you from dying in moments on the surface of Mars. We could poison and kill every ecosystem on earth and what remained would still be a better starting point for 'rebooting' than any other heavenly body we know of.
And you're right, we're probably much better off preventing these situations from happening in the first place than trying to move off-world in case they happen.
On the other hand, I do believe that in the very long term self-sustaining off-world colonies are both possible and desirable.
It's just the idea that we could actually pull that off, yet not be able to pull off keeping the earth habitable even in the aftermath of severe catastrophe, seems pretty silly to me.
Flexible Path Already Incorrectly Prioritized. (Score:3, Interesting)
The Flexible Path option would be an excellent example of a pay-go approach to exploring the inner solar system. In theory, it could be able to accomodate different missions based on the value of the scientific discoveries as the program progresses, and our evolving technical abilities. However, the fact that it has no specific goal, opens the Flexible Path to political manipulation which will probably adversely affect its execution. In other words, it seems to be too flexible to ensure success in its endeavors, given the liklihood of the American political system to tinker with programs as vaguely expressed as the Flexible Path.
Although the economy is currently in a trough, an optimistic long term prediction would envision a return to healthy economic growth. In any case, the cost of a space program must be budgeted and the current costs and benefits of that program must be funded by Congress. The current situation clearly forces the prioritization of space program missions. It is crucial that the Flexible Path propose initial missions which are prioritized on cost and time to implement.
There are many possible missions which could be encompassed in the Flexible Path, including the visit to Phobos, which is discussed briefly in the linked article. A cursory examination of that portion of the article, by an interested voter, would reveal at least two fundamental, common sense flaws in the suggestion of this particular mission. These flaws are fatal in the sense that they prove that this particular mission should have a priority much later than a less ambitious Flexible Path mission of a lunar return mission, to pick but one example.
The first flaw is scientific in nature. While Phobos is a "large, dramatic world", per the article, the Moon is larger, more dramatic, and much closer. The terms "large" and "dramatic" are emotionally laden marketing terms and distinctly unscientific reasons to embark on such a mission. The term "closer" is a scientific fact, readily verified, and intrinsically linked with the cost of either mission. The second flaw is also scientific. The article suggests that the "mystery of the origin of Phobos can be resolved". If that is indeed true, then a similar lunar mission could resolve, to the same accuracy, the currently unsolved mystery of the Moon's origin.
Other flaws in that particular Phobos mission pertain to the ease of returning samples, the establishment of the initial inventory of water on either Mars or Phobos, the suggestion that material color is a sufficient criteria for collection, the implication that rover operation would be easier there than closer to Earth, and the further implication that a Phobos mission could demonstrate solutions to these problems that other missions could not.
These types of arguments will be used to prioritize other Flexible Path missions as well, but they are clearly incomplete and do not seem to pass a simple analysis for ranking on a rational basis. The major obstacles to such an ambitious mission as a Phobos visit, cost and time, are given short shrift in the article, and seem to exemplify serious problems in the early determination of the Flexible Path itself.
In contrast to the Phobos mission, for example, many people argue that any lunar mission is futile, based solely on the idea that we have been there and have done that. This particular argument can only be interpreted that human space missions are only a game to be won or lost one time, and one time only. Having won the game, one can study science at that location no longer by this immature and incomplete analysis. With respect to human spaceflight, the "been there, done that" argument is always false, and should be rejected by the voter and the scientific community every time it is brought up.
The larger issue, no matter one's preferred mission, is the question: What is the purpose of human space flight? Today, there is no shared, common sense of what this purpose should be. Part of this purpose is surely the expansion of human