New Mars Forums

After reading the post by calm guy about being fed up with NASA I got to thinking. I would like to see our government, or any government for that matter, decide to make a human Mars mission possible, as to me it would represent an investment in the future of humankind. I try to remain optomistic that NASA, the Russians or maybe even the ESA will get this done. That being said  there is a distinct and frightening possibility that this won't happen, if NASA continues to be mired in the LEO paradigm that has prevented us from getting anywhere. Should there be a policy change by the next administration or, even worse, another disaster, we could see the Moon-Mars mandate disappear in a hurry. Therefore there is a chance that if we really want to get to Mars we have to come to the realization that we might have to do it ourselves. Privatization, in my opinion, would also be a stronger statement, as it would trancend nationality in our resolve to settle Mars. The best way to do this would be come up with a good detailed plan for executing the mission and then start selling it like crazy.  Granted, it's not that simple, (I won't even get into my ideas or this post would be way to long.) it would be VERY difficult to do, but sometimes people have to forage ahead despite great adversity in order to make their ideas happen. We have here bright people from all parts of this planet who undoubtably look at Mars and dream about it. Maybe it's high time we focus less on pleading with NASA and focus more on making our dream a reality for ourselves.  Would it be dangerous? Hell yes. Would it be risky? Absolutely, but sometime the greatest risk in life is not taking one.     [/quote]

So I'm up at 3:00 am once again and I find myself watching NASA TV when they just happen to be showing their animation of what they call the Mars Reference Mission v4.0. If anybody has seen this (I think they showed it in Chicago last year.) feel free to sound off on what you think about it. Is it just me or does this thing look way more complex than it needs to be. I mean the mission architecture includes assembling the TMI stage and the hab in LEO. I think that the ISS has shown us how well orbital assembly projects turn out so it's strange that NASA would want to go in that direction. Even more disturbing is that fact that the animation appears to use the Space Shuttle as the launch vehicle in the assembly process. :hm: I mean, I wouldn't count on the shuttle hauling my dirty laundry into orbit anytime soon, let alone sections of a multi-billion dollar interplanetary vessel. That fact that the mission requires something like six launches before the ship even leaves Earth orbit increases my scepticism of this even more. It doesn't even end there. upon arrival in Mars orbit the hab has to dock with what appears to be a descent stage that also contains a fully fueled ascent module, that was apparently put there by some other HLV launch. This then goes to the surface. Upon launch from Mars there is yet another orbital rendezvous with the TMI stage that then tranports the crew back to Earth. By not using any sort of Martian resource utilization this design further adds to the bulk and cost of the mission. All in all we're talking about 7 or 8 launches to complete the mission. For engineers this program will be their greatest fantasy or their worst nightmare depending on what side of the equation they are on, but to me it just seems too long and far too expensive of a project. Even if Mars Direct was beefed up to satisfy the NASA safety police it would still be a cheaper mission that could be accomplished on a much faster timetable. The engineering acronym KISS applies here big time. I just don't want the new SEI to die the way the old one did back in 1989. I might be wrong about some of this, I only saw the dang animation and a very brief summary of this way back in August so my information may be off. I just want to no what you guys think.

Ben Barrett          ???

I couldn't help but read the Mars Society bulletin about Zubrin's Op-Ed being read in front of congress. I was optimistic but then I noticed that NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe seemed to completely try to shoot it down. I then logged onto NASA's web site and noticed that they had absolutely no mention of a manned Mars mission where they used to have a whole section dedicated to a probable future manned Mars endeavor. I believe that if we are ever to go beyond Earth orbit in the near future then O'Keefe has to go. He seems more concerned with keeping the statis quo bureaucracy of NASA than real exploration. The real irony is that on NASA's home page they have this flashy animation explaining how NASA's mission is to  "Explore the universe, search for life, and inspire the next generation of explorers" and in reality they refuse to do something that would be  very substantial in doing so. I'm really starting to miss Dan Goldin. He seemed to have a lot more vision for the future. I'm still optomistic about congress taking notice. Maybe a congressional mandate will get NASA off it's ass and into space where it belongs. This is just me ranting folks, but this is my first time posting anything on this board. So, if you think I'm right in what I'm saying, or if you think I'm completely wrong I'd appreciate your responce.

     Ben Barrett, Mars Society Member