NASA: We're Not Racing SpaceX To Mars (seeker.com) 98
astroengine writes: According to NASA's new science chief Thomas Zurbuchen, the U.S. space agency doesn't see SpaceX as a competitor in a race to Mars and that if any private company gets there before NASA, it will be cause for celebration and a huge science boon. "If Elon Musk brought the samples in the door right now I'd throw him a party out of my own money," Zurbuchen told reporters on Monday. He also said that polarizing topics, including science issues, need to be tackled with empathy for and patience with people who have opposing viewpoints. "Just because somebody doesn't agree with us the first time we open our mouths doesn't mean that they're stupid, or we're smart, or the other way around. I think it's really important to create, bring some empathy to the table," he told Seeker. "There's a lot of stuff that can be learned by just talking to people." The report adds: "Before joining NASA, Zurbuchen was a professor of space science and aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. His areas of expertise include solar and heliospheric physics, experimental space research, innovation and entrepreneurship, NASA said in a statement."
Good attitude (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Good attitude (Score:2)
Re: Good attitude (Score:5, Funny)
Ever hear the story the tortoise and the hare? In this version the hare blows up. It's really not that hard to be humble.
Re: Good attitude (Score:4, Insightful)
Priorities also count. So race to Mars or race to build a city on the Moon. You might find that the city on the moon is far more capable of supporting Mars exploration, than trying to do it from earth (less gravity and no atmosphere). So should NASA focus on the bleeding edge always or should they also start to focus more on building the infrastructure to give others the opportunities to make the most of that space infrastructure that NASA builds, say a landing and launch facility on the moon, Mars ship assembly, fuel generation etc.
Look at it this way, people say we can't afford, too much debt but you build space infrastructure and you add new assets to offset debts, like the entire surface of the moon or the entire planet Mars and of course a whole bunch of major asteroids and shit we ain't even out of the solar system yet, they can dump debt on all the new planets we find, those colonists will be born in hock up to their eyeballs but they will be out there exploring the galaxy.
Settling space means creating trillions in new assets and the value of those assets would be bound to the cost of getting there, that exclusivity value and only the best going means the best have something to aim for. Are you good enough to set foot on another world or not?
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You might find that the city on the moon is far more capable of supporting Mars exploration, than trying to do it from earth
The city on the Moon has to exist first. And IMHO it's not much harder to start doing stuff on Mars than to start doing stuff on the Moon. By the time, you have a city on the Moon, you'll have the means to similarly settle Mars.
A lunar colony does have two big things in its favor, it's only a few days shipping distance from Earth. And economically, it's that and a few seconds delay from Earth. There's a more economically, one can do on the Moon that's not going to be similarly feasible on Mars.
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The short distance matters a lot in terms of:
1) The amount of shielding and supplies needed in-transit
2) Ability of Earth to assist, via low-delay communications, and via emergency shipments (requires a lunar-landing-capable rocket be left available for launch with little advance notice).
The moon also has lower delta-V requirements for return (arrival is surprisingly similar, though, thanks to aerobraking at Mars, and can even be less with direct aerocapture)
The moon's surface, however, leaves a great deal
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"The moon's surface, however, leaves a great deal to be desired as a habitation location versus Mars."
Rei, I like your posts and you are well read/educated in rocketry and planetary science. But what are you basing this on? The 6 mbar CO2 atmosphere on Mars may as well be hard vacuum. Exposure to cosmic rays will be similar in either location. And it's a tough call between the abrasive dust on the moon and the perchlorate-laced soil on Mars. Neither is going to grow you some potatoes. No actual hard eviden
Re: Good attitude (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed. And that's just one reason. Here's a few more.
* We don't know at what gravity levels negative health consequences will occur and at what rate. But the moon's significantly lower gravity will certainly compare poorly to Mars in this regard, regardless of how Mars fares.
* Mars's atmosphere may be thin, but when it comes to radiation, it's a big help. Radiation levels on the surface of Mars are fairly similar to those aboard the ISS, and much lower than on the moon.
* For long-term sustainability, Mars has a much more diverse surface mineral distribution. The moon's surface is certainly not uniform, but it's been altered by notably fewer and less diverse processes than Mars. It's also relatively depleted in volatiles (aka, elements that tend to be important for life) and low in heavy metals and dense minerals (often important to industry).
* Attempts to work around the problems tend to butt up against each other. For example, "peaks of eternal light" (questionable how "eternal" they are - SELENE suggests no more than 89%) where you can get more steady temperatures and light levels, are tiny and scarce, while areas with a significant hydrogen signature (water or hydrogen-bearing minerals) are very unevenly spread (aka, not particularly likely to be associated with a particular peak's permanently-shadowed adjacent crater floors), and even if so would require long transports to and from the peak. The only real hope for that appears to be Peary Crater, which has "eternal light" peaks on its northern rim, and some indication of hydrogen enhancement, mainly in craterlets in its southeast. But it's 79km across.
* Having hydrogen alone isn't enough - you also need nitrogen, carbon, and other compounds that the moon is extremely depleted in. If they can't be found on the surface, another prospect might be drilling for trapped volcanic gases. But that's speculative, and the technological challenges in doing so render it anything but near-term.
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It's enough atmosphere to be a substantial assist in landing mass on the surface, and actually does provide significant radiation protection while also moderating temperatures. The perchlorate issue is massively overstated: they are not that toxic, and are easy to remove, and there's entire glaciers of water on Mars.
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The 6 mbar CO2 atmosphere on Mars may as well be hard vacuum. Exposure to cosmic rays will be similar in either location.
Not really. The Martian atmosphere does provide significant protection. Mars also has a full spectrum of elements needed for plants and animals. The Moon is notably deficient in hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen.
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The need for huge energy storage systems or nuclear power from the very start is a significant problem for the moon. The game-breaker though is ISRU propellant production. Getting enough water on the moon to supply return craft will require large scale mining and regolith processing facilities...meaning any return propellant will have to be imported until the colony is well established. On Mars, it should involve little more than drilling into a glacier and lowering a heat source to sublime the ice, which m
Re: Good attitude (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed - if you can't get volatiles like hydrogen (water does appear to be available in some locations, but there are limits, and we really don't know how accessible it is), your options for propellant become extremely limited. Without H, He, C or N, your best propellant option would be something like extremely fine aluminum dust burned with oxygen in an extremely oxygen rich environment (would probably need a ceramic engine). It'd have to be oxygen rich because Al2O3 condenses out of the exhaust stream at very high temperatures and can thus no longer be put to work via expansion; it needs to transfer its heat to a working fluid, and you don't have a lot of options apart from oxygen. Another potential working gas would be metallic sodium (from sodium/aluminum powder fuel burned with O2, very fuel rich). The obvious downside is that your "gas" would condense out at 1156K, so you wouldn't be able to expand it as much as you'd like. But at least you'd get a good chunk of the energy, including the heat of condensation of the Al2O3 - and it's a lighter gas than O2, so that's an advantage.
In both cases you face a challenge of how to burn the fuel and oxidizer, since you don't have a binder for a traditional hybrid, nor a liquid to gel powders into. And you wouldn't want to have to keep aluminum in a molten state; that's totally impractical. Your best option is probably taking a cue from ALICE (aluminum-ice): they have the aluminum powder embedded in an ice matrix, burned as a solid rocket. In the case of LOX as the oxidizer (aka, you don't have ice), you could use solid oxygen as the binder. So, 54K or less. As a last option, I suppose you could try fluidizing the powder and spraying it into a combustion chamber along with turbopumped LOX... but I've never even heard of an attempt to make a rocket like that.
Lots of options open up when you have carbon and/or nitrogen even without a source of hydrogen (for example, on Mars without ice mining or Venus without acid harvesting), such as burning carbon monoxide or cyanogen. But without volatiles... rocketry is tricky.
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In both cases you face a challenge of how to burn the fuel and oxidizer, since you don't have a binder for a traditional hybrid, nor a liquid to gel powders into.
Sulfur would work as a binder, assuming you need one.
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Sulfur is rare in most lunar regolith, although it's fairly common in high-titanium lavas. Question as to whether the landing site would happen to have such a source near it yet still be able to meet other mission parameters - but it is a possibility. I've actually seen the possibility of sulfur-based lunar concrete discussed (although there's significant concerns about its durability under thermal cycling).
Sulfur can be used as a rocket binder for a hybrid rocket (aka, what you'd have to do, since no non
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You could use a silicone binder. Primarily silicon and oxygen, neither of which is exactly scarce. Major downsides include being yet another fuel with solid combustion products (and a pretty terrible fuel apart from that), and requiring a rather complex chemical industry to produce.
And all of these options have the really major downsides of very poor performance, the complexities of producing large solid fuel cores, and inability to refuel the craft landing on the moon. If you want to reuse the same craft f
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The need for huge energy storage systems or nuclear power from the very start is a significant problem for the moon.
Also, there is geothermal power. That gives you the huge energy storage system and it works even better during night. As to the thermal transport fluid, oxygen is readily available anywhere on the Moon. Argon and CFCs may be available as well.
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Astronomy is better done away from the gravity, dust, and temperature extremes and without the obstruction of half the sky by a giant ball of rock. Power generation is better done in open space where you can have constant direct sunlight. And semiconductor fabrication can be done at whatever effective gravity you desire in orbit.
The biggest reason to go to the moon is to study the moon. When space infrastructure and technologies are more advanced, it'll be a useful source of raw materials in Earth orbit. Bu
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The city on the Moon has to exist first.
Yes, and books by Paul Spudis and Dennis Wingo go into great detail. However, when you talk of the Moon then you gotta come up with some money (lots of it) now for hardware. That's why everyone loves to talk about Mars because real money for real hardware (transfer stage, habitat, lander) can be deferred 20 years into the future for some other smucks to deal with that. Yes, Musk has plans to send something big in less time than 20 years but much of that is demonstration. Maybe he has grand plans but it seem
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You might find that the city on the moon is far more capable of supporting Mars exploration, than trying to do it from earth (less gravity and no atmosphere).
It is my understanding that there is not an astounding energy difference between a moon landing and a mars landing. The big difference is time. As such, the moon is unlikely to be useful here. It might be useful for learning more about habitations and dust (fines.) The moon has sharper dust, and on Mars it goes sideways much of the year, so the challenges are different but still related. It might be a useful place to practice growing plants in low-G with low light (which can be controlled down to Mars stand
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The hare should have been more realistic about the tech readiness level of submerging his carbon-fiber COPVs in sub-cooled liquid oxygen.
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> It's really not that hard to be humble.
Tell *that* to Keith Alexander.
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Well there is a key different in culture between government and private industry.
Government: When you make a mistake and failed. You get punished. Successes are treated as minor rewards quickly forgotten.
Private Industry: When you make a mistake you get a minor punishment and it is quickly forgotten. While Successes are touted and reasons for promotion.
There is a good an bad for both methods. Government needs to error on the side of caution this means things will move slower... However there will be less
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remember kids... (Score:2)
It's the LAW
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The press, dominated as it is by a liberal arts culture that doesn't really get science, is trying to understand the whole Mars exploration effort as being analogous with the Cold War race for the Moon. Zurbuchen is just pointing out that that's not how this is going to work.
Good Scientist+Good Attitude != Good Bureaucrat (Score:2)
I like his humble, collaborative attitude, befitting a true scientist. I expect that, in practice getting there in a repeatable way will be the result of various international cooperations where different organisations will bring their own skills. Empahy and dialogue can only accelerate the process.
He is no longer a scientist. He is a bureaucrat, now, so he is faced with problems where the scientific method and its associated toolbox are sub-optimal, as are his attitude of cooperation and collaboration. They are still useful, to be sure, but he will get more use out of a couple chapters of Machiavelli's The Prince than Newton's entire Principia.
The NASA director's primary challenge is to find compromises acceptable to groups of people who have divergent goals. Congress, DoD, private industry, var
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NASA had mars lander [wikipedia.org] in 1976.
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That does sound like a stretch goal.
Re: Of course they would say that (Score:1)
China is surpassing America pretty much everywhere. Surprised you Americans still think you have a chance.
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I'd be happy if India got there first. With China or Russia, their intentions may worry me, but I'll be happy for the fact we, as a species has got there.
Puts on "Insanity Wolf" head (Score:2)
Do It Anyways
Humility and Empathy (Score:5, Insightful)
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of course it isnt' a race (Score:2, Funny)
When NASA gets to Mars, SpaceX will happily welcome them in to see how the colony has been progressing and offer them some tea.
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Because of the cold and dry, almost non-existent atmosphere, tea actually has a chance to stay unspoiled on the crash site.
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Ignoring the troll-baiting parts of your post: you have it backwards. SpaceX came first. While running SpaceX, Musk heard about the tzero electric sports car, which had really redefined what electric cars were capable of (from slow lumbering short-range things to sporty, much longer-range vehicles). He sought to get AC Propulsion (its inventor) to build him one, and was willing to pay a lot of money, but they had no interest - instead, they referred him to Martin Eberhard, who had already been working on t
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That theory doesn't line up with the $4.2 billion in NASA contracts they have lined up. Plus tons (pardon the pun) of other launches lined up from non-NASA sources.
Nuts, a quick google shows that most financial experts say that SpaceX isn't just making money - they are likely making a whole lotta money. And will be likely raking in a 40% profit margin on future launches.
If Elon wants, Earth orbit launches could fund past Earth launches - until those start making a profit. Tell me that NASA wouldn't love
Maybe so (Score:2)
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This. When NASA gets to Mars, they will be going to visit SpaceX infrastructure to refuel.
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You must be new to space news. NASA has blown up more rockets that SpaceX has ever built.
If you need a refresher:
https://www.google.com/webhp?q... [google.com]
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A lot of experts disagree with you.
In terms of Delta-V, Mars isn't that much further out than the moon. Most of the cost is getting into Earth orbit.
In terms of environment, moon dust is extremely hazardous, especially over the long term. Air-tight seals are going to be a serious problem on the moon. Mars, on the other hand, has some atmosphere, and dust there is nowhere near as abrasive.
If you want a good rabbit-hole, research how we got moon dust samples back from the Apollo missions. Many of the air-t
No, we're not racing... (Score:1)
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But if SpaceX gets humans (alive, that is) on Mars first, I'm sure at NASA you'll see the then-Director move his/her/it? gaze skyward and yell at the top of 'their' lungs: "MMMMUUUUUSSSSSKKKKKK!!!!!!!".
If SpaceX gets humans to Mars, they'll probably be NASA astronauts in a project that had funding help from NASA and uses lots of tech developed by NASA. That is, unless ULA/Blue Origin don't get their BE4 engine and accompanying rocket done and beat them using those same astronauts, funding and tech. However, I think ULA is more interested in commercial missions rather than grand stunts that might pay off. The way I bet this works out if it happens, is that SpaceX will land an unmanned mission on Mars that
Good article in Nat Geo re SpaceX/NASA (Score:4, Informative)
The current issue of National Geographic has a good article which already explains that SpaceX and NASA are basically partners (SpaceX shares everything with NASA for instance).
It's paywalled, but here's the article (I read the tree based version):
http://www.nationalgeographic.... [nationalgeographic.com]
Anyway, nothing to see here, move along.
Either way we win (Score:1)
Maybe not wine (Score:2)
Grapes won't grow on Mars, but if you substitute in a glass of recycled-water from urine, you'll be OK.
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"To Kaylee, and her inter-engine fermentation system!"
Yes, you are (Score:2)
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Bummer (Score:2)
No competition (Score:1)
You can't fart at NASA... (Score:1)
without some director whipping out a credit card and throwing a party...