Why NASA's Road To Mars Plan Proves That It Should Return To the Moon First 194
MarkWhittington writes: NASASpaceFlight.com published the results of current NASA thinking concerning what needs to be launched and when to support a crewed mission to Phobos and two crewed missions to the Martian surface between 2033 and 2043. The result is a mind-numbingly complex operation involving dozens of launches to cis-lunar space and Mars using the heavy lift Space Launch System. The architecture includes a collection of habitation modules, Mars landers, propulsion units (both chemical rockets and solar electric propulsion) and other parts of a Mars ship.
Maybe (Score:3)
But I think it would take an awful lot of launches to get the fuel production up and running on the moon. And you'd need to design a new, hopefully reusable, moon launched vehicle/fuel depot.
I think the real problem is how expensive the SLS will be to launch, not the number of launches. Build a truly reusable vehicle, orbit the fuel depots around Earth. Send ISRU equipment to Mars (with lots of backups) and produce the fuel for the return trip. Then the cost of launching large payloads is reduced and there is no need to build a Moon base.
Proves we should build a nuclear rocket (Score:2)
Getting more thrust out of the same amount of fuel makes a big difference.
NASA is just doing what they are told (Score:3)
The problem is the politicians giving the missions. We've already been to the Moon, logically, Mars is next. Except we all know there is nothing logical about it. I won't even get into the real reasons we went to the Moon; you all know them.
I might ask NASA what they think we should do. As the politician in charge, I'd take that with a grain of salt, but certainly give it due consideration. The main saltiness would be that they want to do exactly what the appropriating politicians want to do.
In the last thread a guy suggested a real spaceship. Sort of like a space station, except able to attach enough thrusters to go somewhere. A rotating habitat surrounded by a meter of water. Sounds damned expensive, but peanuts I think, compared to all this Mars shit.
Rich people would pay, scientists could study, astronauts could explore; and you don't die from being in it too long.
Then, after it's been a killer space station for a while, and perhaps looped the Moon and orbited an asteroid or something else neat; you have the option of firing it off towards Mars if you must.
That beats the shit out of focusing all our wealth on disposable stuff for the one single purpose of placing a footprint on red dirt.
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Very cool idea but that likely needs many servicing trips like the ISS. Nucular reactor to move all that dead weight and perhaps mining raw moon ice for the water (if launching dozens tons from the moon makes any sense).
Back of the envelope this costs twice as much as the Mars program.
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I'm skeptical of double.
But the fact is, you have a valuable thing that is useful for a long, long time. You haven't wasted your money on a vacation.
Two points (Score:5, Interesting)
First, while Mars requires a longer journey, it actually isn't substantially harder to send a rocket to than the Moon. If you use aerobraking, it's about the same delta-v. Yes, more consumables would be needed because the flight is months instead of days, which does affect the mass of the payload, but it may also be easier to build a sustainable colony on Mars (presence of an atmosphere and maybe water, higher gravity). So I don't think Luna is even really useful as a practice run.
Second, a launch schedule like this is pretty much the only thing I've heard that could justify the development of SLS. The entire project has smelled like "big bucks on development, goes over budget or budget gets slashed so it only gets used a few times" from the beginning. If they can get Congress to give them the budget for this, yes, that would be worth making SLS for. Will Congress spring for thirty-plus Saturn V-class rockets, for only three missions? I don't think so, but I hope they will anyway.
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However it needs to be more than that, and that's why going back to the Moon first is important. We need to build a permanent colony there. Living on the Moon will be excellent practice for living in other places in our Solar system, and it's close enough that when the inevitable mistakes happen, it'll be possible to se
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We can't even get past the Van Allen radiation.
There's several hundred satellites and unmanned missions beyond the Van Allen belts. And we had seven manned trips from Apollo (1 lunar orbit and 6 lunar landings). I don't really see the point of saying stuff that is so easy to disprove.
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There were 2 lunar orbit missions, one mission that swung around the Moon due to an oxygen tank explosion changing the mission as well as 6 missions that landed on the Moon.
Poll Question (Score:2)
Who thinks we would have been better off spending the trillion dollars on the Iraq and Afghanistan war on space? For that money and time we could have a permanent ISS size base at one of the lunar poles. In fact it would be pretty much the same companies making the ships as make the equines for the war machines.
Proves (Score:2)
We should NOT go to the moon first... or use SLS (Score:3)
First of all, the proposed SLS plan has nothing at all to do with getting to Mars, and everything to do with giving the illusion that SLS has a nice full launch manifest. The mission profile is deliberately designed to require the maximum number of launches of an insanely expensive rocket - so basically, the point is to take as long as possible and spend the maximum amount of money to get to Mars.
Instead, using technology that exists today (no on-orbit ship manufacturing or propellant depots) we could get to Mars in 10 or so years using something like Mars Direct [wikipedia.org]. The only reason NASA isn't pursuing this, or a plan very much like it, is because it completely obviates the need for many of NASA's pet projects, and SLS. Also, it doesn't funnel maximum $$$ into certain congressional districts.
The reason we can't get shit done in space is because the politics of NASA are broken. The moon is just a distraction - it's like taking off from Kansas and stopping at Iceland on your way to Australia. There might be some things of interest on the moon, but it makes absolutely no sense as a Mars stepping stone.
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You have to read Zubrin with a boxcar load of salt, as he's not always clear about the difference between actual proven technology, lab experiments, and back of the envelope calculations.
Most of the technology doesn't in fact actually exist today. The whole handwaving scheme relies on technologies and systems that have been tested (at be
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Most of the technology doesn't in fact actually exist today. The whole handwaving scheme relies on technologies and systems that have been tested (at best) on the the bench under strict laboratory conditions. (Some of it hasn't even made it off the back of Zubrin's envelope.)
There's engineering to do, certainly. The technical details are only a small part of what matters though: if we don't get away from this institutional habit of doing engineering in the most inefficient way possible, we're never going to get anything done. Politics shouldn't enter into engineering decisions, and as long as they continue to NASA will be enormously dysfunctional.
Another great example of this - the X-33 VentureStar actually had a lot to offer as a shuttle replacement, and was showing some serio
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The technology does exist.
We have submarines.
We have people on Mount Everest, in the Antarctica, we had people on the moon.
We could have gone to mars 40 years ago. There is no fancy extra technology needed. No idea why people like you always claim that. Are you waiting for a Star Trek Enterprise ship to go to Mars?
You have no idea. (Score:2)
And as former submariner, I'm sharply aware of the technology used by submarines. And it's limits. And how little of it applies to going to Mars.
None of which are relevant to the challenges of a Mars mission.
With enough money (it would have taken a great deal, more than Lunar missions)
1962 (Score:2)
And they did.
Today, not so much. Christ...it takes 20 years just to get some new airplane off the ground.
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nah. (Score:2)
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uh no. (Score:2)
No, it doesn't (Score:2)
There is a plan to go to Mars, it is a fairly sensible one, and not landing on the Moon is a feature, not a bug.
That does not imply that I don't think we should go back to the Moon. I think we should, but I think we should do it commercially.
Projects like this are unsuitable for "democracy" (Score:2)
Colonize Antarctica first (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, they remain unsettled for a reason, but are still much more hospitable, than any other body of the Solar system. And the Internet latency will not suck.
Oh, and almost forgot, there is also ocean floor — roughly 2/3rds of the planet's surface... Today's 7 billion humans can grow to 40 or 60 before we really should start spending serious efforts to spilling over to another rock...
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I live in the "Canadian woods." There are people here. American Midwest? Been there. People. Australian Outback and Sahara, ditto. I haven't been to Siberia or the Antarctic, but I know people who have, and guess what? Permanent inhabitants. These places were all colonized centuries ago, except for Antarctica, which was more recent.
Will we have Mars colonies? Probably, someday. Someone will have to think of a good reason to go there first. Moon colonies are more interesting right now. If we set u
Seems like a no-brainer (Score:2)
It seems to me that the logical step before establishing a permanent base anywhere else in the solar system we need to have a permanent presence on the Moon. It is the logical step to develop the knowledge and experience needed for such an endeavour. It is close enough to earth that "relief missions" can be contemplated, yet hard enough to reach that you better had a solid plan in place requiring it to be self-sustaining. Once the bugs are out of the system on the Moon is the time to take on Mars. And yes,
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It doesn't "prove" a damn thing. NASA has been saying that a lunar base is a step to Mars for a decade at least .
From this article published in 2006 on NASA's website regarding why we should return to the moon:
Exploration Preparation
Test technologies, systems, flight operations and exploration techniques to reduce the risks and increase the productivity of future missions to Mars and beyond.
source: http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/home/why_moon.html
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"Worst president of all time" sounds like a statement that needs a little bit of backup. Care to actually have evidence for the things you say?
1. He's black.
2. Er, that's it.
I think that's all the evidence most of the Trumpeteers need.
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no it doesn't. it proves it should not go at all.
Sounds like a boring future to me.
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Not if you just lose your guilt and fap every day. That's cheaper than US $ 100 billion.
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Moon as a gas station (Score:5, Insightful)
"no it doesn't. it proves it should not go at all."
Have you read the article at all? Its main point is quite simple, the moon could be used as a refuelling stop for a Mars mission. Since most of the mass involved in a trip to Mars consists of fuel, the use of the Moon as a sort of interplanetary gas station would greatly reduce the number of trips need to rocket people to Mars.
This is the point you should rebut to support your assertion it's bullocks to go to Mars.
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This is the point you should rebut to support your assertion it's bullocks to go to Mars.
You make a reasonable point - it makes just as much to send bullocks [wikipedia.org] to Mars as it does humans.
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Re:Moon as a gas station (Score:5, Interesting)
How do you account for the cost of getting "tanker trucks" to the Moon? If you want to refuel rockets on the Moon you have to get the fuel there somehow, or create it on-site.
Currently the options for that are:
a) mine lunar helium-3. Cool, but let's get some rockets that can use it first.
b) spend unnecessary money to ship fuel there just so we can put that fuel into another rocket, which needs it because... it spent all the fuel going to the Moon instead of Mars.
c) ???
Anyone who hasn't actually read up on Mars Direct really just needs to stop commenting and do that first, so they can actually understand what the hell they are talking about. The Moon as a waypoint is completely and utterly unnecessary. It has no useful resources for this purpose other than helium-3, which we can't even make proper use of (because we're too scared of anything relating to nuclear energy to launch a damn RTG, let alone finish development on any actual nuclear engine). Doing anything on the Moon requires an absurd amount of machinery, life-support, and docking mechanisms, which are completely overkill for what you're trying to do (i.e, go to Mars, which is a balmy paradise compared to the environmental hell of the Moon.)
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Helium 3 is useless on the short term anyway. :)
We're headed for commercial exploitation of deuterium + tritium around year 2050, with a huge reactor and perhaps that technology will power a small majority of earthly needs 30 years later. Helium 3 is like a hundred times harder. So once we can assemble a helium 3 reactor in LEO with a thousand launches and crush a thousand ton of lunar rock to fuel it, we can go anywhere using the moon as an infinite fuel station
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After most of the planet has switched to Solar and Wind and other renewables ... around 2050? ... no one is "going back" and set up fusion plants.
If we get fusion working and scaled down we only will use it for space exploration, not to power any homes on earth.
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You don't have to get fuel to the moon, you can make fuel there. Aluminum & water ice [theregister.co.uk] are all you need, and the Moon has plenty of aluminum. Sources of water are more questionable, the dark side of the moon may have some, or we could capture a comet for it, or if necessary truck it up from Earth. It's still better than towing 100% of the fuel from Earth.
As for Mars itself, there's several ways to create rocket fuel there.
Also, the Moon is a balmy hell? The moon is just radiation and straight up vacu
Re:Moon as a gas station (Score:5, Informative)
Anything that can survive on Mars will do just fine on the Moon, and the Moon can be a nice test bed for Martian equipment.
Uh, no. For the reasons you list and more, there is very little that will work on both the Moon and Mars, unless it's massively over-engineered.
Moon has 1/6 gravity, Mars has 1/3. Moon has no atmosphere worth speaking of, Mars has some. Moon has huge temperature variations between light and shade, Mars has far less. Moon has highly abrasive dust, Martian dust is worn down by the storms.
The list goes on and on.
Re:Moon as a gas station (Score:4)
Right, so engineer it to work on the Moon, and it will work just as well, if not better, on Mars. Yes, no?
Everything you listed, except for the gravity, appears to be a negative for the Moon when compared to Mars. You say "the list goes on and on", and I'm not going to argue that.
But is the Moon really such a terrible place that it deserves no further exploration, even if just a stepping stone to another world such as Mars?
Wouldn't you rather attempt to camp out in our own backyard for a little while, before we go out for the entire Wally World adventure?
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Right, so engineer it to work on the Moon, and it will work just as well, if not better, on Mars. Yes, no?
No. Mars has twice the gravity and a whole set of problems you just don't have on the moon, like dust storms. So in fact, the stuff you build on the moon will probably not work on mars. Sure, both have fines, but on Mars they get accelerated sideways. We'd still learn a lot of lessons there, though, and solve some of the problems we'd encounter on Mars.
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Dust storms on Mars? You're reading too much into The Martian [go.com].
The big problem with engineering devices to work on Mars and the Moon is going to be weight. Weight (actually mass) is precious and expensive. You don't want to send any more than necessary. So by having to spec a device to work in both environments you're going to add mass at various points in time. For Mars stuff, you have a higher gravity - you can get by with lighter materials / structures on the moon. The moon doesn't have any atmosphe
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At this stage in our ability to do stuff in space, we aren't building a TIE fighter that can navigate to Denaba and destroy the Death Star.
That would be an X-wing. TIE fighters had no hyperdrive. :-)
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At this stage in our ability to do stuff in space, we aren't building a TIE fighter that can navigate to Denaba and destroy the Death Star.
That would be an X-wing. TIE fighters had no hyperdrive. :-)
But if you shot one down, would it be TIE-died?
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Dust storms on Mars? You're reading too much into The Martian [go.com].
Don't remember Mariner 9? It had to wait for months before the planet wide dust storm settled down enough to image anything besides the tops of some volcanoes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] More recently there were issues with the rovers solar panels getting covered with dust which were solved by dust devils clearing them.
Martian dust is mostly iron oxide and very small so would likely play havoc with electronics as well as potentially blocking the Sun for months making solar energy hard to acquire.
And
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At this stage in our ability to do stuff in space, we aren't building a TIE fighter that can navigate to Denaba and destroy the Death Star.
And we sure as hell can't make the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs.
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Everything that works on the Moon will work on Mars, too.
Why would it not?
Laws of physics don't change due to a mere distance of a few AU.
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So what you are saying is; the moon is a harder place to survive.
If you can survive on the moon -- why would you NEED to over engineer for Mar? I'm not sure if you mean to refute your own statement or not.
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The Moon is locked, one side is constantly in sunlight, the other constantly in darkness. ... even they knew that the moon has a normal but lon
Where do you live that you never have had seen the moon?
You know the difference between fool moon and new moon?
Surprisingly regardless when you watch the moon, you see the same side. Surprisingly, that side is switching from fully illuminated (fool moon, full day) to complete darkness (new moon, night on the moon).
Your are even more dumb than a stone age Neanderthale
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The Moon is locked, one side is constantly in sunlight, the other constantly in darkness.
Oh
My
God
The moon is locked in relation to the earth, not the sun. Half of the moon is always in full sunshine. The phases of the moon? Those mean that the part of the moon we don't see is getting sunshine. Then when there is a New Moon - when we can't see it at all, the whole badly named "dark side" is fully illuminated by the sun.
Re: Moon as a gas station (Score:2)
Dark side of the Moon? Do you refer to the polar area where some craters don't get sunlight?
Also, you misread the GP's sentence on the balmy paradise.
Re: Moon as a gas station (Score:2)
My mistake on the 2nd point.
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the dark side of the moon may have some ... the side facing awy from earth has the same night/day cycle then the other sie: 14 earth days long "day" and 14 earth days long "night"
The moon has no "dark side"
Also, the Moon is a balmy hell? The moon is just radiation and straight up vacuum.
No it is hot as hell during day time (200 - 500 degrees centigrade) and cold as the vacuum during night time.
Mars has dust storms which are harmless in low pressure radiation no, where should that come from? freezing ass c
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Mars doesn't have any magnetic field to speak of, and the atmosphere isn't thick enough to be much help, so you're vulnerable to both cosmic and solar radiation. You're further from the sun so it's better than the moon, but in practical terms it's not really that much better.
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You don't have to get fuel to the moon, you can make fuel there. Aluminum & water ice [theregister.co.uk] are all you need, and the Moon has plenty of aluminum. Sources of water are more questionable, the dark side of the moon may have some, or we could capture a comet for it, or if necessary truck it up from Earth. It's still better than towing 100% of the fuel from Earth.
Have you calculated the costs of 2 escape velodities no needed instead of one? You will burn more fuel.
And the idea of using any water the moon has a fuel source has some bad flaws. First is that there isn't much of it if any, and you're looking at a moon colony that will need water as well. Better to not use it all up for fuel. It's like a fuel or life matter. Second is that would be a dead end resource. After using it up, waddya do then. and lugging water around still has that two escape velocites nee
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You can't do a one launch manned trip to Mars, land and relaunch back to Earth. Isn't going to happen.
It's going to take multiple launches with some construction in space. Might as well do the construction on the Moon which is easily reachable.
Creating fuel on Mars is fine for the return trip, but it does nothing for the trip from Earth to Mars, which is where using the Moon as a fuel depot comes in.
Here's the most compelling reason to start with a Moon base. We've had people there before. We know how mu
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You can't do a one launch manned trip to Mars, land and relaunch back to Earth. Isn't going to happen.
It's going to take multiple launches with some construction in space. Might as well do the construction on the Moon which is easily reachable.
Creating fuel on Mars is fine for the return trip, but it does nothing for the trip from Earth to Mars, which is where using the Moon as a fuel depot comes in.
Yes, let's put all that down at the bottom of a gravity well instead of in orbit because? The rest of your reasons are valid - as reasons for having a moon colony. Unless we got to the point where the entire Mars craft is built on the moon we'd send fuel and equipment from the moon to the mars craft (which would stay in orbit), as opposed to landing the mars craft on the moon for final construction and fueling.
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You can't do a one launch manned trip to Mars, land and relaunch back to Earth. Isn't going to happen.
It's going to take multiple launches with some construction in space. Might as well do the construction on the Moon which is easily reachable.
Back in the day, one of the concepts they were considering was several trips to bring up the various parts they needed. It lost out to the discarded parts concept, where you just continued to throw away parts of the vehicle over time, finally ending up with only the capsule.
Worked pretty good.
With a Mars trip, it will be more likley needed to assemble parts outside of the earth's atmosphere. But certainly the Mars and earth re-entry vehicles will need real life testing, but other parts? They would be
Lunar regolith - thermal, radiation, micro-meteor (Score:2)
read up on atmospheric pressures and temperatures, specifically the extremes on Mars vs. those on the Moon, and the relative radiation levels. Basically you can use a similar design but you have to overengineer the hell out of it to make it feasible on BOTH, because the Moon has no ozone and has ridiculous 28-day cycles with insane temperature extremes.
Well any equipment dealing with water ice would be in the shade and not subject to lunar temperature extremes, that is how the the ice has survived after all. As for equipment on the surface exposed to sunlight, go underground or make shade. There are lava tubes in places waiting to be used. Or one can build walls from the lunar regolith. Or one can put up a tarp like when camping in the desert, no wind on the moon so its more practical than on mars. The lunar regolith has the advantage of also helping with
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Yes!!!! Thank you, another voice of reason. There have been so many threads recently on this Mars plan, and nobody seems to realize that it is literally the most inefficient way you could ever get to Mars. It's like saying you have to build a yacht to cross the Mississippi. Mars Direct is the way to go.
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It's like saying you have to build a yacht and detour via the Panama Canal to cross the Mississippi.
FTFY.
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They're missing the fact that you don't need a gas station to land at, you can just float the stuff in orbit if you want a different number of Earth-to-orbit and Earth-orbit-to-Mars legs. Probably is a misguided concern mostly due to the use of multi-stage rockets.
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No, you're missing the point that it's actually cheaper to just burn once to get out of Earth orbit and be done with it, than it is to go to a "gas station" that's in orbit around the thing you're trying to escape the gravity well of
LMFAO click the wrong post, eh?
No, I didn't miss that point... that was the point I made! What I literally said was, "you don't need a gas station to land at, you can just float the stuff in orbit."
I sentence you to 1 hour of Hamster Dance on replay.
The physics are actually pretty simple, if you're capable of math, and reading.
I know you are but what am I!
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You don't have to "slow down" to get to an orbital "gas station". You have to reach orbital speed on the way to escape velocity anyhow, so there is no delta-V penalty. This lets you use multiple launches to put up the stuff you need to get to Mars into LEO and dock with them on the way out. As a bonus, the unmanned launches don't have to limit themselves to 3-gee acceleration. But mostly the point of this is if you don't have a big enough (or efficient enough) rocket to push it all up in one launch.
It's th
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The cost of getting fuel to the moon is a lot less in a two pilot heavy launch vehicle with no supplies. Compared to a mars destined ship with many people and months of supplies.
If the supply ship loses half its fuel to escape gravity, it can transfer the rest to replace what the travel ship lost.
I really don't see a problem with the math or logic. Arguing mars direct on its merits seems a better strategy.
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The cost of getting fuel to the moon is a lot less in a two pilot heavy launch vehicle with no supplies. Compared to a mars destined ship with many people and months of supplies. If the supply ship loses half its fuel to escape gravity, it can transfer the rest to replace what the travel ship lost. I really don't see a problem with the math or logic. Arguing mars direct on its merits seems a better strategy.
From launch to TLI the Saturn V had 1.5% payload. Since the Moon has no atmosphere landing costs you about half, so for every 1000 kg launched about 7.5 kg will arrive on the Moon. And you've not only entered the Moon's gravity well, you've also lost all outward momentum away from the Sun too. It will be much more efficient than from earth but the ascent, breaking lunar orbit and entering Mars orbit means even 20% payload is being kind. That means the 7.5 kg of fuel will deliver 1.5 kg of payload to Mars. M
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because water ice on the Moon is very scarce, present mostly in shadowed polar craters where solar power doesn't work very well (but maybe nuclear?)
Put the solar panels outside the crater, or in part of the crater that does get sunlight, and run a cable.
Energy is plentiful on the moon ... (Score:2)
Hey genius. It takes more fuel to split water than you would get afterwards by burning hydrogen...
No. It takes more energy. And transforming energy from one form to another is quite useful, as in converting solar to fuel. Look out a window and find a plant, it is converting solar energy to fuel, sugar, via photosynthesis. On the moon use solar energy to power the electrolysis of H2O into H2 and O2. Or if you happen to have a handy nuclear power source ...
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The moon is a terrible refueling station. Mars itself is an easy one though. Mars Direct [wikipedia.org]
Re:Proves That It Should Return To the Moon First (Score:5, Insightful)
There is one big reason why the US should: Technology. And being the number 1 technology country. Or rather, becoming it again.
The US technology advantage was evident in the early 50s. It eroded quickly by the time the 60s came around. By 1970, the US were again the leading technology powerhouse of the planet, with US companies being the top, not among the top, but actually being THE top, of technology development. The US industry drew from this technological advantage until long into the 1980s and in some areas until the turn of the millennium. Even without any large scale investment in that area.
Screw the moon. And the mars while we're at it. Both are scientifically at best a curiosity, at worst a disappointment. But they give technology development a focus. Never before, or after, the moon program we made such incredibly fast developments in so many technological fields. Electronics. Computers. Propulsion. Metallurgy. Synthetic materials. But also some other, less "tangible" fields, from process management (which was pretty much invented back then) to organization structuring, people management and medical advances. And let's not forget the very real domestic and international boost the esteem of the United States got.
Yes, the cost was prohibitive. And one can of course argue that if you apply that money to researching these things directly, you will end up with cheaper results. But very synthetic results. Not to mention that you cannot justify those expenses to the population. And the results, as well as their value, is not immediately identifiable to those that should copy these results and put them to good use.
So yes, the direct use of such programs is insignificant. But the value of the indirect benefits is incredible.
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Why not useful technology? (Score:2)
1950s/1960s space program also had the mundane utility of developing technology for nuclear weapons delivery. That is a solved problem now. You have that little East-Asian country as much impoverished as an African one that is working on that to troll you.
You run the risk of creating technology that is of no use anywhere else (space life support) and importantly creating new "lost technology" of which Saturn V is a good example. 30 years after SLS is shut down and the supply chain gone it will cost yet anot
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Having a national program that jump starts American science and technology is a great idea, but you can get the same results at less cost using other types of projects.
After all, endless research has proven that we can't do more than one thing at a time. How many people you figure died waiting for replacement organs because of NASA?
And the terraforming of California has already been tried - and it's an utter failure. Already the Colorado river no longer reaches the sea, http://www.counterpunch.org/20... [counterpunch.org] ground level is falling - in some places at a foot per year! - http://www.bakersfieldnow.com/... [bakersfieldnow.com] and now they want Oregon's water as well. They're framing it a sending "
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But they give technology development a focus.
I think that's it right there. Technology development on its own largely depends on profit/loss market forces to shape its direction and development. As just one example, pharmaceutical research is biased towards therapies that are profitable, not necessarily ideal therapies or even cures, since cured people don't buy medicine.
A major space exploration program focuses technology development on its utility, first and its economics later. And it's not always the technologies the space program has developed
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no it doesn't. it proves it should not go at all.
Correct. We should just let the Chinese explore space, and others explore space We'll just do more important things, like slip into a closet, and make money by selling our hats to each other.
Re:Publicity stunt & posturing (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually there is a lot to be gained by going to the moon. a stable construction site for one.
Any mars vessel is going to be dozens of big parts. Think not only ISS size, but three times that size.
You need a massive rocket to get to mars, and a second one to get back. The return rocket actually has to get there first too. You need extra fuel tanks, a mars base which has to be big enough to grow food in. You need a rocket to go from mars ground to orbit to dock with the return rocket etc.
Even if you were smart and combined a shuttle orbiter type vessel and just kept picking up extra boosters and fuel tanks, you still have to get those parts out there to begin with. Once built just putting the support equipment in place is a decade long job, before you launch people.
having a Moon base would help with construction, and more importantly storage. Even better is if the moon actually has water with which we can use as fuel. as lunar orbit is cheaper to reach than earth orbit by a significant margin.
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Any mars vessel is going to be dozens of big parts. Think not only ISS size, but three times that size.
It doesn't have to be nearly that big. We can get it done in a couple of launches, with today's rockets: Mars Direct [wikipedia.org]
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Re: Publicity stunt & posturing (Score:3)
We've been probing the Moon for half a century and have no conception of how to make meaningful quantities of water there.
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a stable construction site for one.
Space is full of vacant construction sites, and few are in earthquake zones. You don't need to fall down to the moon to find a stable orbit.
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You know, you probably should read your own link. Mars Direct involves several launches. At least one to get the ascent vehicle to Mars, then almost certainly multiple launches to build the crewed transfer vehicle and hab module. A lunar refuelling station would also make Mars Direct style trips cheaper.
If you want a one off publicity stunt trip to Mars, a pure Mars Direct scheme is probably the best way to go. If you want to do repeated trips (to Mars or elsewhere) and also build some useful space infr
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If you want a one off publicity stunt trip to Mars, a pure Mars Direct scheme is probably the best way to go. If you want to do repeated trips (to Mars or elsewhere) and also build some useful space infrastructure while you're at it, a lunar fuel mining operation has a lot of advantages.
If you want a one off publicity stunt of establishing a lunar base, then going to Mars, and coming back, you can do that too.
Can you tell me what the expenses of researching, designing and sending ships to the moon to establish a lunar colony, then sending the parts for the Mars trip there, assembling them, and reaching escape velocity - twice are going to add to a Mars mission? A percentage will be fine.
I'm calculating 1000 percent increase in the establishment, of the base and a similar increase in th
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a lunar fuel mining operation
And what exactly kind of fuel are you going to be mining on the moon? Please don't say Helium-3 and reveal yourself to be a complete and total retard.
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"cis" literally means "on this side of", just as "trans" literally means "on the other side of".
cis-lunar space can be loosely defined as that part of space that is within half a million km from Earth (which includes the Moon itself, as well as all the Earth-Moon Lagrange points).
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Funny)
More seriously, thank for the info. Was curious about the term, but not enough to rtfa - everyone knows a Mun base isn't helpful. Now Minmus...
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Considering that current operational flight rate of the SLS averages around zero per decade - I don't see that as being much of a constraint.
Seriously, the Senate Launch System exists only to funnel pork - there are no payloads funded, let alone manifested.
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So you're saying that Obama squandered so much money on social programs that now there's none left for your pet social program.
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"You get more of what you subsidize"
Apparently, what you really want is more obscenely overpriced committee-designed rehashed space shuttle hardware.
Face it, this is an extravagantly expensive social program for keeping engineers with overly bureaucratic personalities out of trouble.
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How it is "commercial" crew if the government pays for it and is the only customer?
What do you want next, "private" aircraft carrier?