New Mars Forums

Whichever way that CME was traveling in 2007, it's too late to start running now. For the next one, the best thing to do is start digging rather than running.

Fission Surface Power (FSP) system - reference concept layout

From System Concepts for Affordable Fission Surface Power (PDF 2MB) - January 2008

Right. Are you sure it's not a same sex marriage?

louis,

that $400 billion figure may not be so incredulous. Just returning to the Moon will cost over $100 billion, GAO estimated $230 billion but they added in ISS out to 2020. Add constructing the Outpost and supporting it for a decade and that's probably another $50 billion. Add to that the cost of the Mars robotic program and that could be another $50 billion over the next 30 years. Plus the research for human factors, high mass landing systems, reliable closed loop life support, perhaps NTP as well as the development cost of MTV and the Mars surface systems and in total there may not be much change from $400 billion.

Missions to Mars are going to be expensive in both development and operations unless some big breakthroughs happen. However spread that $400 billion over 25 years say and it's $16 billion a year, not that far away from NASA's budget today.

Gregori,

5-8 years is impossible without a national crash program like Apollo - and that only gets us back to the Moon. Mars will take longer. More than 8 years automatically means a change of president and probably two, that makes it harder but not impossible. ISS has taken 20 years and its still not compete, yet it's survived (only just) several administrations.

If McCain became president and got excited about Moon and Mars and announced a high priority program and the funding, it would enormously help. Even though Bush launched the VSE and set human exploration of Mars set as a goal, he didn't appropriate funds.

The VSE timing was bad because of the enormous cost of the WOT, yet this may change in the next few years. There's a big opportunity to convince the next president to fully support the space program. It's important that everyone pushes for this and pushes for a truly big increase in funding for the whole program, both exploration and science.

It's not quite as simple as a lack political will. The political will to fast track a human Mars program is the reflection of the agendas and interests of many groups. The largest of these groups is the public, opinion polls have not shown any great interest in such a project. The public do support the space program, but they rate many other program higher, for example medical ones as well as the usual suspects: jobs, crime, education etc etc.

If the president got excited about Mars and announced a high priority program and the funding, that would do the trick. Bush has responded, that's why VSE was launched and why NASA has Mars set as a goal, however, funds were not appropriated. The timing was bad because of the enormous cost of the WOT, yet this may change in the next few years. There's a big opportunity to convince the next president to fully support the space program. It's important that everyone pushes for this and pushes for a truly big increase in funding for the whole program, both exploration and science.

Only a small part of NASA's budget is used for true outsourcing, that is buying goods and services from non-US companies. Almost all international cooperation is done on a "no exchange of funds" basis. Flying instruments on the spacecraft of non-US agencies is a net gain as it makes more missions possible for the same amount of funding. Equally, adding non-US instruments to a US project enhances its capabilities at no cost.

Compared with the humungous cost of Federal health care and Social security, the amount of money involved in such "outsourcing" is lost in the noise. It's a red herring designed to provoke protectionism.

Packaging configuration inside the Ariane 5 fairing

From A Bigger and Better Time Machine (PDF) - dated 3 Mar 2008

Well written overview of the JWST from the ESA point of view with details of their NIRSpec and MIRI instruments. NIRSpec can take spectra of up to 100 objects simultaneously!

Texans in Congress try to boost NASA budget - 29 Apr 2008

This lecture is so good it just has to be mentioned somewhere and this seems the best place. It's not about Mars, it's about the last mission to be Moon. Jack was the first and only scientist to walk on the Moon.

Lecture can be viewed or download here - video - 65 mins - 13 Mar 2008

webpage with more stuff

McCain recently worried space supporters by backing a plan to freeze all federal discretionary spending -- including NASA's budget -- except on defense and homeland-security programs.

McCain did say he would freeze all discretionary spending, but did he specifically mention that NASA was included or was that part fabricated by Robert Bock?

McCain should be pressed on this. As he believes the scientists that tell him there's a global warming crisis caused by burning fossil fuels, he ought to  believe the NAS and space scientists that say NASA's programs are also in crisis because of a shortage of funding.

And it's much easier to land at lower altitudes because of the denser atmosphere.

Note also that those maps are based on estimates, there is no direct measurement of radiation levels at the surface. MSL will carry an instrument (RAD) to measure levels.

Some areas on Mars have weak fossil magnetic fields, these may also give extra protection from charged particles.