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Building a spacecraft that spins around a common axis tethered to a rocket booster isn't a big deal.
And I say why bother with years of experiments when you can get all the information you need just by launching your Mars mission in the first place.
I will never understand this obsession with reducing risks for a manned Mars program when all these steps at best produce just marginal improvements in safety.
The Russian program is effectively if not officially dead. Get over it.
The Russians will never land anyone on Mars unless they are along for the ride aboard a U.S. lander.
RKA have a budget of about $1B a year, in PPP that's worth about $2B internally.
There you go.
I would stick with a four man crew on the first missions to Mars.
I said a 10% chance of the crew dying.
Not 25%.
Has anyone considered that the efforts to make space exploration "routine" and "safe" is one of the major factors sapping public support?
For a manned Mars mission, I think a 25% potential mission failure (crew survives but the majority of the objectives are not met) and a 10% risk of loss of the crew is acceptable.
In the early days of Mercury, the Mercury seven were told their chances of death were about 10%.
That worked out just fine.
Personally, I think danger can be leveraged in such a way to increase public support for the manned program by making it more thrilling and exciting.
NASA does a great many things besides manned spaceflight, and Bob Zubrin's MarsDirect is too small to accomplish much nor is it particularly safe.
I don't particularly care about either point.
The most basic and rudimentary manned mission would accomplish more scientifically than 100 unmanned missions (the samples brought back alone would do that).
As for safety.
I'll say it again,
If you can get 100 astronauts volunteering for the mission knowing full well the dangers, then it is safe enough.
12 billion a year raised by about 5% per year translates if my off the cuff math is correct to spending 130 billion dollars over the course of a decade.
Do we really believe that the U.S. can't get anywhere in space spending 130 billion dollars?
Dr. Zubrins Mars Sem-Direct Program was once cost estimated by NASA at 55 billion dollars over 10 years. And this was after NASA deliberately scaled it up by 50%.
Zubrin originally estimated that Mars Direct should cost 30 billion dollars.
Increase Zubrins program estimate by FOUR TIMES.
You still get 120 billion over 10 years.
I'm just not convinced that NASA is spending the money it has very efficiently.
I'm betting the Russians are getting by with far less than 12 billion dollars equivalent per year and with inferior technology at that.
What could NASA do if say their annual funding was cut to 12 billion a year and then allowed to only rise at the rate of inflation for a decade?
I've always been struck by Dr. Zubrins observation,
"In the real world, you can buy a lot with a billion dollars".
Perhaps we concentrate too much of our thoughts on increasing NASA funding than we do on better and more economical management.
Do we have actual statements by McCain indicating that he supports a manned mission to Mars?
One more reason for me to support him I guess.
Indeed we do, from his website: America's Space Program
"Let us now embark upon this great journey into the stars to find whatever may await us."
-John McCain
John McCain is a strong supporter of NASA and the space program. He is proud to have sponsored legislation authorizing funding consistent with the President's vision for the space program, which includes a return of astronauts to the Moon in preparation for a manned mission to Mars. He believes support for a continued US presence in space is of major importance to America's future innovation and security. He has also been a staunch advocate for ensuring that NASA funding is accompanied by proper management and oversight to ensure that the taxpayers receive the maximum return on their investment. John McCain believes curiosity and a drive to explore have always been quintessential American traits. This has been most evident in the space program, for which he will continue his strong support.
Not bad.
About as good as one can expect of any current candidate
Congress will probably continue to be generally supportive of NASA and the VSE regardless of whether more Democrats are elected or less. NASA is directed by the President, so its direction can be drastically changed at the whim of the President. Of the four potential candidates: Clinton, Obama, McCain and Huckabee, only Obama has indicated he will make changes (by cutting NASA's budget and transferring the funding to education).
NASA's slow but steady exploration strategy will work even with Obama in power. It will just take much longer. McCain seems to be the one candidate who sees manned mission to Mars, he may well accelerate the VSE. It's critical that NASA create a powerful yet affordable space transportation system otherwise lunar exploration won't be practicable, and if the Moon is beyond reach then so will be Mars.
Do we have actual statements by McCain indicating that he supports a manned mission to Mars?
One more reason for me to support him I guess.
While alot of people don't like NASA for various reasons, no private organization or corporation is ever going to lead the way in exploration.
I've heard somewhere, that Mike Huckabee has said he wants to double NASAs budget.
Now, assume he is only pandering to Florida to get votes there.
Assume he could never get a Democratic Congress to double NASAs budget.
What if he could get a 20% increase through?
That would be enough wouldn't it to keep a shuttle active to close the gap between 2010 and Orion as well as keep the Orion & Ares programs on schedule. Plus fund a couple of small unmanned missions.
Wouldn't that be a good thing?
The Space Shuttle Orbiters was supposed to be usable for 100 missions.
But even as early as the Challenger disaster, NASA engineers were finding problems with the structual integrity of the orbiters themselves.
IIRC, Challenger when it was destroyed had flown the most shuttle missions up to that time and even with those few missions there were micro fractures appearing in the wing box structure I think it was called.
I've always wanted to be president.
Lets say someone that was very heavily interested and committed to the U.S. space program was elected and was willing to fight with Congress to get the U.S. space program the resources it needed.
How much could a president actually do for our space program in 4 or 8 years.
I think a president, if they were willing to fight could get one major manned program approved by Congress and enough of the funding guaranteed to see it through.
And probably get approval for three or four major unmanned programs approve.
The key would be to get a manned program going that could have as many uses as possible
For example.
Start a manned Mars program that puts U.S. astronauts on Mars every 26 months..........but where the primary hardware can be used for 1)long duration lunar missions 2) near earth asteroid landings 3) orbital missions to Venus.
And add to that the following unmanned programs
1) Mercury orbiter & Sample Return
2) Orbiter/Atmospheric Probe/Moon Lander to Uranus
3) Orbiter/Atmospheric Probe/Moon Lander to Neptune
4) Deep Space Thousand Astronautical Unit Probe
And finally, a serious advanced propulsion technology program that could power missions to the outer planets.
I think that is the most any president could do.
I'm sure that is correct.
But could NASA ever get funding for sending a team of astronauts and not bringing them back?
I would say at least the first three missions of a Mars program will have to bring the crews back after 500 day stay times on the surface of Mars.
After three missions (12-18 astronauts total), IF the program is still going (which I think is one heck of an if) then we could focus on longer duration missions.
Indeed. A good architecture will optimize risk, cost and capability trades.
<idea>
Thinking sideways ... if the ascent and descent vehicles were split before landing, both could be optimized.
</idea>So instead of a single lander there would be two vehicles:
1 Pure lander to take crew or cargo to the surface.
2 Pure ascent vehicle that would be put on the surface first, fueled by ISRU and ready before the crew arrived.
This would allow the ascender to contain the ISRU unit and eliminate the risk of not landing near enough for refueling. Easier for the crew to go to the ascender than take the fuel to the lander. This optimizes both lander and ascender.
The ascender takes the crew to LMO where it docks with Orion and the MTV.
Isn't that the entire Mars Semi-Direct Concept?
Mars Ascent Vehicle lands. Manufactures enough methane and oxygen to lift the crew into orbit to rendevous with the Mars Transfer Vehicle for the trip back to Earth orbit.
Fuel manufacture is verified before the Mars Hab leaves orbit with a crew aboard.
No matter how you design Mars Mission architecture there are going to be risks.
One of the things I've always agreed with Dr. Zubrin on was "more launches, more expense, more risks".
I assumed that you would wait for the next launch window after verifying that the fueled ascent stage had safely reached the martian surface.
The point remains that Mars Semi-Direct factors in the possible failure of propellant production on the Martian surface.
The whole purpose of the Mars Semi-Direct route was that if something happened to prevent fuel manufacturing on Mars, you could save the mission by using a fourth launch to send a FUELED ascent vehicle to the Martian surface.
So Mars Semi-Direct took into account the possible failure of in situ fuel production.
And Mars Semi-Direct was also designed for six astronauts if IIRC.
Thanks.
Just what I was looking for.
Seven years and seven months left.
Time marches on.
By then, I'll be a head coach and God willing coaching a championship team.
My daughter will be writing reports in high school about it.
I look at it this way.
One way or another, to build a space elevator you will have to get literally hundreds of thousands of tons of hardware into orbit.
To do that, we'll have to be able to boost hundreds of thousands of tons up there ECONOMICALLY.
Which means at that point, we'll have relatively cheap surface to orbit transport already.
Which will dramatically undermine the reasons for building an elevator in the first place.
From what I've read, such as in Robert L. Forwards book "Mirror Matter" an antimatter bomb really isn't that useful.
matter/antimatter explosions would be alot more "poof!" than "boom!".
The explosion would never interact with the matter around it to be any stronger than a nuclear explosion.