New Mars Forums

You can ask me and I'll answer un-biased honestly.... why ? Because I don't give damn who builds a lunar-colony, who finds Aliens on Europa, or what nation puts men on Mars...I'm a science fan and a fan of space explortation, and not a fan of political partys.

Everyone knows me here and knows my posts
50% of me thought the VSE was great ( we'll go to Mars )
The of half of me thinks the VSE may be flawed

We've got to look at where USA stands now, unless you want to start asking Euros or Russia for a lift to Mars ( which could happen as these guys have done good missions ) . But if you want to know where the USA is, I think we can safely start looking to the next Republican Vs Democrat election if we want to figure out where the heck we are going ?

The next would-be Presidents are easy to spot, they are the guys with the huge-ego and who think of themselves as the next G.Washington, JFK, Martin King, Catherine the great, AbrahamLincoln....
Here's is my list  Newt Gingrich, Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton, CondiRice, Mitt Antigay Romney, Kerry, McCain, George Pataki, Fred filmstar Thompson, Dick Cheney, Schwarzenegger, Jesse WWF Ventura, George P Bush the Hispanic nephew to GW ( another son of a Bush ), Lance Brown, Bill Frist, George NFL Allen, Howard Dean, Joseph Biden, Rudolph Giuliani, Wesley Clark
Bush may try and see his vision continue to 2008 but with some months United States will have a new president but what the heck does that mean for MSR, TPF or manned Mars flights ?

The only guy who totally supports space is the nutcase Howard Dean, candidate Dean would like a mirror image of nutcase Bush. Take for example FlashGordon and MingtheMerciless both are cartoon spacemen who want to fly across the universe but have totally different ideology. Dean unlike the other 2008 runners has expressed support for the concept for a human mission to Mars. The problem with Dean is that his Democrats think of him as a problem and rival Republicans will never like him because they see Dean as a radical liberal loony.

I would imagine the problems with Russians are similar to problems with using China's launch.

One must be careful with all the over-rated press the private sector gets and all the hype behind Elon and those SpaceX Falcon's, the private method is not always the best route. Yes its true you gotta admire the American and Western spirit behind the private jump to Space ( Aquarius, Canadian Arrow, DaVinci Canada, Silver Dart, SpaceX, Spaceshipone ) but what are they really offering ? They'll never be able to build a Launcher that can take you to Mars and back, they won't have the greatest launch site, nor will they ever match the very Heavy Energia or Saturn-V payloads to LEO. Someday in the future the SpaceX and their Falcon's if they are very lucky might be able to lift medium-heavy payloads similar to the Titan-Centaur or the Russian Proton, but at what price  could they do it ? Cheaper than the Russia launchers who have really low labor costs ? Some of the advert pics for the later Falcon rockets look very nice, however their small payload rocket Falcon-1 still hasn't lifted anything and will have trouble lifting a tiny 700 kg payload into a useful orbit.
Just because America's private sector is cheaper for launches doesn't mean Bush is going to buy it. Remember Bush recently went to India ( a Cold-war rival ) to defend 'outsourcing', and his lunar exploration plans might be outsourced to India as NewDelhi is getting to launch US satellites and use US technology, maybe GW will come up with some more whacky ideas for his VSE, ideas such as 'Outscouring Congress' ?

NASA begins testing CLV concept
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0602/14clvtests/

NASA officials are expected to pick a prime contractor for the CEV job this summer. The winner is likely to garner hefty bragging rights.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/a … 85,00.html
"Whoever wins this is going to be known as the major player for putting Americans into space for the next 25 years," said J.P. Stevens, vice president of space systems at the Aerospace Industries Association, an industry trade group in Washington.

Firm plans 1,000 space jobs at KSC
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.d … /603160353
ASRC work may lead to new craft to replace aging shuttle orbiters

yeah, its a big lump of cash but not a lot when used in mega-sized space exploartion

I wonder if it will happen, looks like a good project

What could happen in Kourou ?

Post Ariane5 - the Ariane-M would be the Very Heavy lift

Soyuz would be the Medium-heavy ( 7,000 or 9,000 kg LEO ? )
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0602/14kourousoyuz/
while Vega would be the light ( such as rokot, japanese-M5, delta-2, athena, tsyklon )
http://www.comspacewatch.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=15432

ESA's ATV
http://www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/phpB … php?t=3279
The European Space Agency (ESA) Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) spaceship should be ready to support International Space Station supply missions in 2007, according to ATV Project Manager John Ellwood.
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?id=3964

Europe's Venus mission
http://orbit.m6.net/v2/read.asp?id=27747
European Mars Analogue Research Station
http://marsdrive.com/node/310?PHPSESSID … b11dc8131b
Smart-1 to the Moon
http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic … 91&start=0
ESA testing Australian plasma rocket
http://orbit.m6.net/v2/read.asp?id=28516

In the theoretical event NASA can't get the Shuttle off the ground and are forced to ask ESA to fly more ATVs in order to replace STS flights, NASA would then have to pay for those additional ATVs in one form or another - an ATV isn't cheap to build so this is rather unlikely to happen in the current budget climate.

Europe has no manned flight and is still trying to hitch a ride from Russia and the USA, if they are serious about an Aurora mission to Mars, they are going to need a manned craft and a much more powerful launcher
http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3985

I think it boils down to this

What do they want out of the 'return to the Moon' ?

1
Build a Lunar settlement, use multiple launches for construction of a real moon-base, build a small colony for people on the Moon, build your power-supply or reactor or set up hyro-farms. Your lunar-site would be rather large - not as big as a soccer pitch or NFL field but the Lunar-site would be very big and the equipment, food supplies and solar panels and landers all added up might weigh a huge bulk so you'll maybe need a lift of 600,000 Kgs or 500 ton to LEO
Once the colony is finished - then do your science and experiments.
or

2
Do a few science missions, flag planting missions, collect rock samples, but never build a colony and send less food supply to the Moon however astronauts will spend long durations on the lunar surface
- this might be easy compared to Lunar-site-1 and if your astronauts complain about not having enough room or enough food you can always tell the Moon crew to "Shut up and deal with it" or "Suck it up soldier" like NASA did to Sharipov and American Leroy Chiao when the SpaceStation was running out of supplies.

Very true, the mission isn't about setting up a lunar settlement its about marking the flag planting anniversary of Armstrong and Aldrin. The advantages of a livable Lunar site is that it may take a lot less launches than Mars, a heap of nations have gone to the Moon with robots, communication delay to Earth is almost none, the USA has landed people there, and emergency supplies can quickly reach a Moon colony from Earth. A real Moon base camp and permanent human habitation will require a lot more than Apollo or 'Apollo-on-steroid'. First before we make a base a lunar site must be chosen, robotic craft like ESA's Smart-1 are scanning the chemical make-up of the Moon, and NASA's robotic LRO is due to take off in 2008. The CaLVs or AresHeavy or Magnums will be a start but it won't be enough - setting up the first Moon-base might require a lander and astronauts on the Moon plus a heap of equipment, oxygen, diggers, fuel, Moon-buggy, water, food, dumpers, lunar vehicles.....
CaLV or Ares Heavy isn't a magic wand, its power is comparable to Energia or Saturn-V, it could also be compared to designs like Angara100, the failed N1, ChangZheng-5, Ariane-6 ( Ariane-M  ?)

The most any of the original Apollo missions stayed on the Moon were only a few hours or days at max, even with a mission like 'Apollo on steroids' astronauts won't be able to stay on the Moon for long ( perhaps only 2 weeks to pick up the rocks and plant the flags after that they may begin running out of important things like air, electricity, fuel and food ).

Even the smallest of lunar bases will need

4 Ares Magnums or 4 CaLV's
http://www.safesimplesoon.com/assets/im … inline.jpg

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/sys … pic1-s.gif
http://www.safesimplesoon.com/assets/im … Inline.jpg

+ 1  CEV launch
http://a52.g.akamaitech.net/f/52/827/1d … oon_01.jpg
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=18023

http://www.bbc.co.uk/spanish/specials/i … _gal10.jpg
Astronuats will need to stay record durations of time in Space and on the Moon, it will be very difficult to launch many CaLV's in rapid sucession for maxium benefit,  however we know astronuats can't work 24/7 during their trip to the Moon, they are likely to find small problems in setting up the site or will need to be re-supplied with fuel or food, or will need new expeditions with updated equipment and new astronauts.

more likely the smallest of Lunar sites will require at least

11 CaLVs/Ares or 11 Magnum

Plus 4 CEV ( CLVs )

The first lunar site may not totally depend on the CaLVs, there may be other possible launchers designed like Angara-100, LongMarch5, Ariane-M ( Ariane6 ? )

many other people have also changed their Shuttle stance.

If you want to ignore all the cost over-runs, ignore the near miss, forget poor management - then the Space Shuttle has been fantastic, it gave us the Hubble, launched payloads into space, lifted people up into LEO, launched probes to Jupiter and helped repair satellites.

They only had 2 probelms.

1 an O-ring problem that caused the Challenger disaster, 73 seconds into the flight Shuttle exploded in a fireball

2 Wing damage or damage to critical thermal protection tiles which caused Columbia disintegration during re-entry over Texas.

AfterColumbia Bush announced the VSE, get Shuttle back on track, do a trip to the Moon, land sample returns on Mars, finish the ISS, do JIMO, and land a manned mission to Mars.....and so forth.
Many people still believed Shuttle had only two problems,
in fact I had seen reports and been reading on this website discussions of how many time Shuttle would launch aagin, some said 21 times, others said it could fly 30 trips to the ISS and finish the station, some remarked Shuttle repair the Hubble and would lift-off another 25 times.

The Shuttle did make a little return during a 2005 test-flight as Discovery did a run to the ISS led by Eileen Collins, however the foam or debris problem had not been solved. Then when asked about the debris astronaut Andrew Thomas said "it's probably a bit dramatic to say that we dodged a bullet, although there's clearly some power in that metaphor " Astronaut Thomas might be right to say they dodge bullets because reports stated '16 pieces of foam' flew off the Discovery, it now seems clear that Shuttle may be scrapped just liek the Russians dumped their own Buran-Shuttle.

The corot handbook
http://corotsol.obspm.fr/web-instrum/payload.param/
Beginning of the COROT satellite validation/integration phase, on 6 January 2006
http://smsc.cnes.fr/COROT/GP_actualite.htm
the Video
http://corot.oamp.fr/renduhr.avi
COnvection ROtation and planetary Transits (COROT)
Description: The COROT-satellite uses highly accurate photometry in the optical range to achieve two scientific goals: search for extrasolar planets and measure the pulsation of stars to study their interior.
Status: Scheduled to launch in 2006
Facility: European Space Agency

What does COROT stand for?
COnvection, ROtation and Transits.
'Convection' and 'Rotation' refers to the asteroseismic experiments and 'Transits' to the search for extrasolar planets. These two objectives are very different but depend on the same detection technique: the measurement of stellar brightness variations with very high precision.
http://www.iaa.es/corot/preguntasE.html
Corot overview
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/120372_index_3_m.html

Payoff high in risky Mars mission
Craft must get into orbit before exploration can begin
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/03/0 … r.preview/
NASA's latest mission to Mars could eclipse all previous ones if it can get into orbit on Friday.

US spacecraft makes nail-biting approach to Mars
http://today.reuters.co.uk
Jittery NASA scientists waited on Wednesday for the most advanced spacecraft ever sent to another planet to make its risky final approach to Mars, where it is due to return 10 times the data of all previous probes put together.
NASA's unmanned Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has traveled some 300 million miles since leaving Earth in August, was due to enter its most delicate phase on Friday. It will try too ease into orbit around Mars, which has defeated two-thirds of all man-made craft sent there.

Fate of Mars probe depends on Friday engine firing
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/
These are tense days at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Lockheed Martin spacecraft control centers where engineers are guiding the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to Friday's maneuvers for entering orbit around the planet.
The 27-minute firing of the six main engines on MRO will slow the craft, allowing Mars to capture the instrument-laden probe into an initial looping orbit. If the burn doesn't occur or gets cut short by a problem, the probe would be doomed to fly right past Mars.
"We have a tremendous amount of anxiety and concern at this particular point in time, which is what you'd want us to be," Jim Graf, the MRO project manager, said Wednesday, adding that his teams need to keep looking under rocks to ensure potential pitfalls don't go undiscovered and bite the $720 million mission

US Mars mission at ultra-critical stage
http://www.capeargus.co.za/index.php?fS … Id=3148081
....Some 21 minutes into that thruster burn, flight engineers will lose contact with the orbiter while it passes behind Mars.
If the orbiter threads that needle and goes into an elliptical orbit, it must spend the next six months using the drag of the planet's atmosphere to reel itself in from an elongated 35-hour loop to a nearly circular two-hour orbit.