How NASA Will Use Robots To Create Rocket Fuel From Martian Soil (ieee.org) 79
Engineers are building a prototype of a robotic factory that will create water, oxygen, and fuel on the surface of Mars. From a report: The year is 2038. After 18 months living and working on the surface of Mars, a crew of six explorers boards a deep-space transport rocket and leaves for Earth. No humans are staying behind, but work goes on without them: Autonomous robots will keep running a mining and chemical-synthesis plant they'd started years before this first crewed mission ever set foot on the planet. The plant produces water, oxygen, and rocket fuel using local resources, and it will methodically build up all the necessary supplies for the next Mars mission, set to arrive in another two years. This robot factory isn't science fiction: It's being developed jointly by multiple teams across NASA. One of them is the Swamp Works Lab at NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center, in Florida, where I am a team lead. Officially, it's known as an in situ resource utilization (ISRU) system, but we like to call it a dust-to-thrust factory, because it turns simple dust into rocket fuel. This technology will one day allow humans to live and work on Mars -- and return to Earth to tell the story.
But why synthesize stuff on Mars instead of just shipping it there from Earth? NASA invokes the "gear-ratio problem." By some estimates, to ship a single kilogram of fuel from Earth to Mars, today's rockets need to burn 225 kilograms of fuel in transit -- launching into low Earth orbit, shooting off toward Mars, slowing down to get into Mars orbit, and finally slowing to a safe landing on the surface of Mars. We'd start with 226 kg and end with 1 kg, which makes for a 226:1 gear ratio. And the ratio stays the same no matter what we ship. We would need 225 tons of fuel to send a ton of water, a ton of oxygen, or a ton of machinery. The only way to get around that harsh arithmetic is by making our water, oxygen, and fuel on-site. Different research and engineering groups at NASA have been working on different parts of this problem. More recently, our Swamp Works team began integrating many separate working modules in order to demonstrate the entire closed-loop system. It's still just a prototype, but it shows all the pieces that are necessary to make our dust-to-thrust factory a reality. And although the long-term plan is going to Mars, as an intermediate step NASA is focusing its attention on the moon. Most of the equipment will be tried out and fine-tuned on the lunar surface first, helping to reduce the risk over sending it all straight to Mars.
But why synthesize stuff on Mars instead of just shipping it there from Earth? NASA invokes the "gear-ratio problem." By some estimates, to ship a single kilogram of fuel from Earth to Mars, today's rockets need to burn 225 kilograms of fuel in transit -- launching into low Earth orbit, shooting off toward Mars, slowing down to get into Mars orbit, and finally slowing to a safe landing on the surface of Mars. We'd start with 226 kg and end with 1 kg, which makes for a 226:1 gear ratio. And the ratio stays the same no matter what we ship. We would need 225 tons of fuel to send a ton of water, a ton of oxygen, or a ton of machinery. The only way to get around that harsh arithmetic is by making our water, oxygen, and fuel on-site. Different research and engineering groups at NASA have been working on different parts of this problem. More recently, our Swamp Works team began integrating many separate working modules in order to demonstrate the entire closed-loop system. It's still just a prototype, but it shows all the pieces that are necessary to make our dust-to-thrust factory a reality. And although the long-term plan is going to Mars, as an intermediate step NASA is focusing its attention on the moon. Most of the equipment will be tried out and fine-tuned on the lunar surface first, helping to reduce the risk over sending it all straight to Mars.
Easier way - buy from Musk's Martian Mart (Score:1)
By the time NASA gets to Mars, it will probably be cheaper to buy the excess fuel and supplies Musk's robots have already created from mining started in the next few years...
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When anybody gets to Mars with a possibility to get back, nobody alive today will still be alive.
But why would you care? (Score:2)
When anybody gets to Mars with a possibility to get back
That doesn't matter at all to what I wrote. It really doesn't matter at all to anyone, even if the lifespan there were say one year you would have tens of thousands clamoring to go.
But the reality is inside 10-15 years Musk will be making round trips to Mars and back. You may be super old but I'll sure live to see it.
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Hahahahahaha, dream on.
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But the reality is inside 10-15 years Musk will be making round trips to Mars and back.
A more reastic schedule is that in 10-15 years time, the BFR will finally be operational and could fly towards Mars. He doesn't even have the plans for the rest.
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"Musk's Martian Mart"
You must be new here. It's called 'Elon's Emporium'.
Add a century (Score:2)
And maybe that is realistic. May still be too soon though.
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Manned Moon round trips were almost 50 years ago. It made no economic sense at the time and the engineering challenges were such that only the most powerful state actors could realistically attempt it. Since then, technology has shrunk the engineering costs while the world economy has expanded exponentially. It still makes no economic sense. Permanent bases on the moon and Mars would clearly be vanity projects, but vanity projects that are now well within the economic reach of at least three of the world's
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There is an easier way.
Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to send a nuclear-thermal rocket to Mars, and then you only need to load propellant, not fuel?
Melt some ground and suck up the water from a bore.
The water could be used directly as propellant, or extract the hydrogen for a faster trip home. (Much less needed than for a chemical rocket)
gear ratio (Score:1)
Gear ratio - because millenials find "efficiency" too confusing.
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'Fuel ratio' is the rocketry term. Mass ratio of fuel/oxidizer to everything else, including cargo (for a needed total delta v).
1 over fuel ratio could be defined as 'gear ratio', but it's still a stupid overload of a term.
End of time (Score:4, Informative)
At least until the clock gets confused at January 19, 2038 03:14:07 GMT
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Dude, I think you're off a bit. My computer says the confusion begins Monday, January 18, 2038, 21:14:07 GMT.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] says January 19, 2038 03:14:07 GMT fwiw...
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Change your "GMT" to "CST" and you'll be correct.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Well, things built for space tend to last a long time - the Voyagers are still in operation after 41 years. Hubble is 28 years old. The ISS is 20. Opportunity may have died [space.com] in June but made it to 14 at least. Add the fact that a design like the JWST can take a decade or more it's quite likely there'll be 32 bit designs still active in 2038. But you would think at least somebody on the team would remember Y2K unless ageism has gone completely bonkers.
Von Nuemann machines... (Score:2)
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"The year is 2038" (Score:2)
All dead (Score:2)
No, they won't, because they would be dead from the radiation. Why does Mars fantasy completely ignore reality and basic science? It is like a blind spot in space nutters when they hear the word "Mars colony".
Wrong, radiation on Mars can be dealt with (Score:5, Informative)
"After 18 months living and working on the surface of Mars, a crew of six explorers boards a deep-space transport rocket and leaves for Earth"
No, they won't, because they would be dead from the radiation. Why does Mars fantasy completely ignore reality and basic science? It is like a blind spot in space nutters when they hear the word "Mars colony".
Citation please.
Here's NASA's own basic science:
The Mars Radiation Environment Experiment [wikipedia.org] has shown that radiation on the surface of Mars is likely no worse than on the International Space Station. The exception is during directional solar emissions called Solar Particle (or Proton) Events [wikipedia.org], during which time Martians can take cover underground or beneath better shielding. Such events are relatively short duration and could be viewed as taking shelter during a storm. Would you consider Florida uninhabitable because some fragile wood frame houses get blown away by a hurricane ever half century or so?
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Would you consider Florida uninhabitable because some fragile wood frame houses get blown away by a hurricane ever half century or so?
Nope. I would consider Florida uninhabitable because of Palmetto Bugs [wikipedia.org].
And the fact that it's Florida.
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Those articles have references straight from NASA peer reviewed studies, so I'll take their word for it over yours.
Next (Score:2)
With what??? (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh look, NASA engineers are playing in the dirt. They might as well practice mining for gold in finely shredded cash.
So far the Orion capsule [wikipedia.org], just the capsule and it's service module mind you - not a rocket, not a long-term habitat, not a lander/ascent vehicle, just a capsule, will cost the US $18,000,000,000 (so far). That's eighteen BILLION. For a capsule. That will sustain life for a month or so. With diaper wearing astronauts inside.
From the link above, here's what that 18 BILLION isn't paying for:
These prior Orion costs:
1. Exclude costs "for production, operations, or sustainment of additional crew capsules, despite plans to use and possibly enhance this capsule after 2021"[105]
2. Exclude costs of the first Service Module and spare parts[106] to be provided by the European Space Agency for the test flight of Orion in 2020 (about $1 billion)[107]
3. Exclude costs to assemble, integrate, prepare and launch the Orion and its launcher (funded under the NASA Ground Operations Project,[108] currently about $400M[109] per year)
4. Exclude costs of the launcher, the SLS, for the Orion spacecraft
There are no NASA estimates for the Orion program recurring yearly costs once operational, for a certain flight rate per year, or for the resulting average cost per flight.
So this is basically a long-term Lockheed Martin/Boeing subsidy. The US taxpayer is buying something that nobody knows how much it will cost to operate or sustain. Boys and girls, this is what happens when politicians spend someone else's money with reckless abandon. If allowed to continue, congress will be raping your ability to retire in order to pay for THEIR retirement.
In comparison, the Falcon Heavy [wikipedia.org] cost between 500 MILLION and 1 BILLION to develop. For something can can be launched far more cheaply (and re-used) the Saturn program ever dreamed of. SLS will do no better than Saturn. By the time the SLS Launcher, Orion spacecraft, habitats, and ascent/decent vehicles are designed and built, Lockheed and Boeing's cost will be in the TRILLIONS for a Mars mission, and decades will have passed.
It's time to stop throwing good money after bad and let the private sector do what it's good at, and let Lockheed & Boeing compete freely and fairly: they spend their own money to develop something, they present it, if it's good, someone buys their product or service. Enough free money, open-ended contracts and bonuses paid out for demonstrating nothing more that cost overruns and slipping schedules. Cancel Orion and SLS. If Uncle Sam wants space toys for the military, let it come entirely out of a Pentagon budget and not pollute NASA further. The shuttle was a disaster of merging civil space and military requirements that we don't need to repeat.
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You should read a line-item breakdown of the NASA budget some time, it's extremely disheartening.
Re:With what??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh look, NASA engineers are playing in the dirt. They might as well practice mining for gold in finely shredded cash. [Long rant about SLS and Orion]
Well then why are you trash talking the engineers that are actually doing what NASA should be doing? An ISRU factory for Mars is exactly the kind of unique, never been done before experiment with no obvious commercial potential that they should be working on, whether it's delivered via the SLS/Orion or BFR/BFS. I know SpaceX envisioned some day refueling their rockets on Mars but to my knowledge they haven't released as much as a sketch indicating they've seriously worked on it. With the R&D challenges they have with the BFR and the difficulty they have finding funding for it I'd be very surprised if they've done anything at all.
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Fair question. There are some worthwhile things that NASA engineers are allowed to do. They just aren't very efficient through no fault of their own.
After watching NASA and Congress sling money around for half a century, it seems that NASA and their engineers just become pawns for congress and defense contractors to swindle more money. So, I guess that's why I'm trash talking this project and why perhaps I'm throwing the baby out with the bath water.
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Oh look, NASA engineers are playing in the dirt. They might as well practice mining for gold in finely shredded cash.
Not too familiar with Orion, but SLS is hardly an engineer problem, but more of a management (Senate) problem. The engineers were told how to build something and they are doing it. For that matter, from what I remember of SpaceX history, is that it was built with NASA engineers who had ideas of what was possible but were not allowed to explore them. NASA has issues, but I doubt the problems are the engineers.
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Agreed, and another poster properly chastised me for harshing on the engineers. The whole damn industry is so inefficient and corrupt that I'm inclined to throw the baby out with the bath water. This is a character flaw that I've added to the list...
Your recollection is close, the major difference is that it wasn't NASA engineers who were doing the developing, rather an engineering team at TRW (acquired by Northrop), who were working under a NASA contract to modernize the lunar module engines used on the
Simply no other way.... (Score:5, Insightful)
We'd start with 226 kg and end with 1 kg, which makes for a 226:1 gear ratio. And the ratio stays the same no matter what we ship. We would need 225 tons of fuel to send a ton of water, a ton of oxygen, or a ton of machinery. The only way to get around that harsh arithmetic is by making our water, oxygen, and fuel on-site
Or refuel on-orbit, which is SpaceX's thoughts on the matter, because 90% of that fuel is needed to get you 150km up out of Earth's gravity well. Or..... just could develop more efficient engines. Or make bigger ion thrusters, a reactor that can deliver 1MW continuously, send all the supplies on the slow trip to Mars with the ion engines, send the people on the quick one with the chemical rockets, etc, etc.
No, but the only way around the problem is to develop tricky automated mining equipment and make all that stuff once you get there. I work with mining equipment. Maintenance intervals (oils/filters/etc) are every 50 hours of operation, machine-stopping breakdowns occur every few hundred hours, large component changeout (pumps, hydraulic cylinders, etc) is 4000 hours. 4000 hours is a year of operation at a 50% duty cycle. So you're going to ship all this stuff to Mars, and then expect it to run, continuously digging stuff up and crushing it and heating it and so on and so forth, for a couple of years? In a cold, dusty, zero-maintenance environment?
I know, I know, we're going to need mining equipment on Mars for stuff. Just send someone willing to stay a few extra years. And a whole lot of spare parts.
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Or refuel on-orbit
How does the fuel get to orbit?
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The real purpose is to mine for pork barrels.
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It's funny - you think the stuff you know is hard, and the stuff you don't know is easy (or at least plausible).
Protip on the latter: It's hard too. Much harder than you think.
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No, but the only way around the problem is to develop tricky automated mining equipment and make all that stuff once you get there. I work with mining equipment. Maintenance intervals (oils/filters/etc) are every 50 hours of operation, machine-stopping breakdowns occur every few hundred hours, large component changeout (pumps, hydraulic cylinders, etc) is 4000 hours. 4000 hours is a year of operation at a 50% duty cycle. So you're going to ship all this stuff to Mars, and then expect it to run, continuously digging stuff up and crushing it and heating it and so on and so forth, for a couple of years? In a cold, dusty, zero-maintenance environment?
That sounds like dumptrucks and the like. Air-breathing diesel-powered vehicles, which are obviously irrelevant to the surface of Mars, or basically anywhere else in the solar system.
What's the maintenance like on a bucket wheel excavator? Purely electrically powered, it's a much closer match to what mining on Mars might be like.
We Drill (Score:3)
Mars radiation problema can be solved by finding a cave or drilling underground.
The Gopher provides all the tech we need for that part.
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Zubrin did not demonstrate this. He simply pointed out that it was possible, that ISRU was the way to go. Every schoolboy knows the stoichiometry and energetics - yes, you can do this. Now go and engineer an autonomous unit that can actually do it on the surface of Mars, such that when you arrive there, there are nice tanks of oxygen, water, and methane.
Sounds like Zubrin ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Humans will be unnecessary on Marse by 2038 (Score:2)
The robots will be able to do it all by themselves. Perhaps with a little help from the friends back on earth.
Heck, robots are already doing a pretty fine job of exploring Mars today.
The real question is whether by 2038 humans will still be necessary on Earth. How about by 2138?
The surface of the Moon is not the surface of Mars (Score:2)
'Most of the equipment will be tried out and fine-tuned on the lunar surface first, helping to reduce the risk over sending it all straight to Mars.'
Because conditions on the surface of the Moon are just like those on the surface of Mars. How did this idiotic statement get in this report?
The Human Gear Ratio Problem (Score:1)
A different "gear ratio" explains why Mars will never be a backup planet for people, though it may for humanity.
I'm guessing there's a much larger ratio, say 10,000 engineers, technicians, controllers, and other workers to get 1 person to live permanently on Mars. In 2100 there will be a similar article about why the Mars colony should not accept any new immigrants, but instead make all its new Martians on-site.
The outer space debate is swamped by the clueless (Score:2)
The outer space debate is swamped by the clueless on both sides.
How is it that advocates nor detractors not understand that in space, you only expend energy to leave a gravity well and to enter a gravity well? And that its only "expensive" to leave Earth's gravity well. It should be screamingly obvious that materials needed to get from Earth orbit to Mars (H2O, O2, & propellant) don't have to be launched from Earth. A future self-sustaining Mars expedition will have to produce its own O2, H2O, and fo