New Mars Forums

i imagine that someone has seen this picture. but just what is this in the background ? im kind of a newbie at pictures, so be patient.

NASA will broadcast Phoenix's approach and landing attempt live on NASA TV from the JPL control room here,  with commentary set to begin at 6:00 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT).

Pricey and risky

There is no question that a Mars sample return mission will be a pricey and risky initiative and opinions at the meeting varied widely when it came time to discuss the best way to get the greatest scientific returns for the least money.

"We don't want to engineer the [heck] out of this and make it a $10 billion return mission. We'll never get samples back. Let's be realistic," said Clive Neal, a professor of civil engineering and geological sciences at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

"A Mars sample return will be much more costly than other Mars missions. That's not actually a thesis ... I think that's a given," said David Mittlefehldt of the Astromaterials Research Office. "Orbital study is getting increasingly sophisticated. Nevertheless, it doesn't reliably provide an accurate description of the geology of the surface. And that's really what you need in order to plan a Mars sample return mission," he said. "Therefore, I think we should go some place where wheels-on-the-ground provide that geologic context."

At this point, the report explains, NASA doesn’t have reliable price tag info on the Ares V.

But given its development, the report spotlights a number of vision missions that might benefit from the opportunities enabled by the Constellation system, and are therefore deserving of future study, such as the Modern Universe Space Telescope, a Stellar Imager, an Interstellar Probe mission, Solar Polar Imager, Neptune Orbiter with Probes, and a Titan Explorer.

The committee believes that Ares V offers the greatest potential for an impact on science. The big launcher would be capable of hurling large-diameter, large-volume, heavy spacecraft into orbit, seemingly removing the physical — although not the financial — constraints on missions that would benefit from being able to fly large, heavy payloads to their destinations.

But the report stresses that using the Ares V could have a potentially dramatic effect on the price tags of these missions. That is, incorporating the use of an expensive launch vehicle could increase costs. But it could also possibly balance increased costs by simplifying mission design - for instance, by cutting out the requirement for on-orbit assembly or eliminating complicated deployment mechanisms.

The committee found that the greatly increased payload lift capacity promised by Ares V could lead to more costly science payloads.

Also, it was determined that the Ares 1 capabilities are not sufficiently distinct from those of Atlas V and Delta IV to enable different types or a higher quality of space science missions.

...the results from this study show that structural efficiency
varies substantially across the different Habitats studied for each. Hybrid concepts proved to be
the most structurally efficient on a mass-per-unit-volume basis, with the best hardshell concepts
at least 33 percent heavier. For hardshell concepts, efficiency is improved by having larger
(longer and larger diameter) Habitats, although efficiency was shown to be degraded by choosing
inefficient shapes. The process reported here allowed insight into why the smaller Habitats
(option 2 Mini-Habs) were least efficient. The two major reasons are that common structure
(domes and frames for example) as well as structure based on the Habitat gross mass are both
more dominant in the smaller Habitats. In terms of floor area, the results show that multi-story
Habitats (Monolithics A and B) have much higher mass efficiency than the single floor options,
no matter what the size of the Habitat. For single story/floor concepts, the hybrid is most
efficient.

Lunar and Mars missions want as much payload as possible.