To the moon first... - then to Mars and asteroids...

jabe · 2004-01-08 19:17:55

seems like an interesting article...

UPI Exclusive: Bush OKs new moon missions
Keith Cowing is one of the writers of the article (is editor of Nasawatch)

any thoughts?

kippy · 2004-01-08 21:17:23

Hot Damn!!!

This almost sounds like Mars direct in at least the timescale. The first mission being just an orbit has got to go. If you spend 9 months getting there, it's kind of a waste not to land, don't you think?

Awesome.

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-08 21:32:01

Looks interesting, quite so.

Ad Astra · 2004-01-08 23:52:03

A more detailed article on the Bush Moon-Mars Initiative

The specifics: OSP is now called "Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV)," man on moon by 2013, Shuttle retired quickly, ISS abandoned by NASA, agency gets 5% increase in budget yearly, base on moon, Mars orbital flights, and finally Mars landing.

The vision presented by the article sounds pretty good and learns from the mistakes of SEI (it has strong bipartisan support and reasonable cost estimates.) I'm glad that NASA isbeing cautious about Mars with orbital missions before landings.

A few questions still remain. When will the prez announce it? On Jan. 16, the anniversary of Columbia's final liftoff? And what role will international partners play, if any?

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-09 00:02:38

I find the orbital idea very very stupid, personally. I mean, c'mon! You're at Mars, how much more energy does it take to land? Just include a freaking heat sheild...

It seems stupid to travel some 8 months or so, just to fly by and return, imho. Granted, one could operate robots and so on from orbit (I think Zubrin actually thought up this plan), but I frankly think it would be better to simply land like Mars Direct would have.

Truely.

Bill White · 2004-01-09 00:07:03

A more detailed article on the Bush Moon-Mars Initiative
The specifics: OSP is now called "Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV)," man on moon by 2013, Shuttle retired quickly, ISS abandoned by NASA, agency gets 5% increase in budget yearly, base on moon, Mars orbital flights, and finally Mars landing.
The vision presented by the article sounds pretty good and learns from the mistakes of SEI (it has strong bipartisan support and reasonable cost estimates.) I'm glad that NASA isbeing cautious about Mars with orbital missions before landings.
A few questions still remain. When will the prez announce it? On Jan. 16, the anniversary of Columbia's final liftoff? And what role will international partners play, if any?

Any hints on what would lift the CEV? Is this a new booster?

Rxke · 2004-01-09 05:22:07

samey article, on Yahoo

Aetius · 2004-01-09 05:28:23

Josh, they need to evaluate things a bit before they start sending people to the surface. I'm not a rocket scientist, but my guess is that the whole EDL sequence will put a lot of stress on the mission-critical subsystems. A dress-rehearsal is in order.

Let's just see how well those work on a crewed flight article during in interplanetary cruise phase.

This will be human interplanetary space travel at last. But we can do everything right, and people may STILL die. I say we go forward, but cautiously. Why should they cut corners on safety?

Shaun Barrett · 2004-01-09 06:12:09

If they're going to send humans out to Mars and back, without even the benefit of a period of martian gravity on the surface, I hope they plan to use cables and rotate the ship.
How long is the shakedown mission without a landing supposed to take?
???

Stu · 2004-01-09 06:35:08

Intriguing news about the "imminent" Bust statement, but I'm not celebrating yet. Words are cheap, a manned mission would cost billions, and it's okay George W saying that's what he wants NASA to do, but a manned mission would take so long to stage that the third President "down the line" would be the one signing the cheques, not him.

Added to that that around a decade ago a different President announced the very same thing then didn't hand over a cent, well, let's just say I'm interested but not convinced yet.

(What was his name...? Hang on, it'll come to me -

Oh yeah, that's it, *Bush*.

The words "poor", "track" and "record" spring to mind. )

Great news if he backs it up with money and a firm commitment, but I betcha what will come out is a request to send people back to the Moon, with Mars as "a goal in the future".

Really, really hope I'm proved wrong tho.

S

jabe · 2004-01-09 06:52:15

gees..
gotta hate CNN some times..
CNN article has a quote ..

No firm cost estimates have been developed, but informal discussions have put the cost of a Mars expedition at nearly $1 trillion, depending on how ambitious the project was. The cost of a moon colony, again, would depend on what NASA wants to do on the lunar surface.

lets just through numbers in the air why don't you....arrggghhh

I think its seems to be a good way to develop the proper technology for it. Lets hope that following Presidents don't cancel the thing and the International community will help out to some degree...

Rxke · 2004-01-09 07:58:27

informal sources... $1 trillion????

What are they smoking, might i informallly ask?

that's double the Battlestar Galactica!

atitarev · 2004-01-09 10:48:51

CNN:
Bush to seek manned flights to moon, Mars

Bravo, Americans!

dickbill · 2004-01-09 11:49:19

It's strange that 'moon base announcment' after the ISS adventure.

Why the ISS ? science
What's the price of the ISS ? astronomic
What's the mediatic coverage and public interest for the ISS (versus Mars ) ? hmmm...
does the price tag has justified the science done ? not yet

same questions for the moon:
Why a moon base with men ? don't know, military maybe
what will be the price tag ? see ISS
What will be the public interest and media coverage (especially for a secret military base ) ? see ISS

if the goal for the moon is science, let's use robots, they can make the job better and much cheaper than human. Otherwise the moon base will become a second ISS in concept.

dickbill · 2004-01-09 11:52:53

OK, i give you an interferometer on the dark side of the moon, that's real science, really useful, and could be automatically controlled without human presence.

Vir Stellae · 2004-01-09 13:25:06

God, please dont let inthe "international community"... then we can have more fights over who does the least work for them most money like the ISS.

jabe · 2004-01-09 14:41:00

Well,
here is a thought on progression for the "new exploration". The LaGrange points are a "doorway" to inter planetary travel. Why don't we go there!! Set up a mini base with artifical gravity..since we have never really done artificial gravity before, might as well try it.... Check if we can move around efficiently in a, dare I use the term, "shuttle pod". Land on a few Trojans that are orbiting the Earth/Sun L4 or L5 if one is close..not many for Earth but Jupiter has a few. Be good practice for future mining endeavours.
Once we have figured out how to stay in "intersolar" space safely, do the landing check out on the moon which we have done before but not with larger craft.. (if there is a "problem" at least a rescue mission is close at hand and since we don't have to worry about specific launch windows as much.)
then once we have all the bugs worked out head to Mars...

so give me a $6 billion a year for 10 years and I'll do it. :laugh:

Ad Astra · 2004-01-09 17:07:02

Most disappointing thing about it all is not getting an HLLV. CEV will be the current OSP plan, just adapted to handle both the ISS mission and interplanetary missions.

On the plus side, we'll be exploring the space beyond earth. On the negative side, we're leaving the business of cheaply / routinely getting to orbit up to guys like Burt Rutan. If we could get somebody to develop an RLV for the CEV, we'd really be getting serious about space. A shuttle-derived rocket would be nice, too.

Bill White · 2004-01-09 17:33:38

Most disappointing thing about it all is not getting an HLLV. CEV will be the current OSP plan, just adapted to handle both the ISS mission and interplanetary missions.
On the plus side, we'll be exploring the space beyond earth. On the negative side, we're leaving the business of cheaply / routinely getting to orbit up to guys like Burt Rutan. If we could get somebody to develop an RLV for the CEV, we'd really be getting serious about space. A shuttle-derived rocket would be nice, too.

If there is NO shuttle derivative, are my fears for Pad39, the VAB and crawler well founded or merely paranoid?

How much will it cost to maintain that infrastructure if the CEV is launched from Canaveral or Vandenberg rather than Kennedy? Won't it be tempting to plow the Kennedy overhead expenses into CEV if Pad 39 is essentially unused and either mothball or demolish those facilities?

A shuttle derivative solves all this since it will use those facilities, but is that in the budget?

Ad Astra · 2004-01-09 18:37:39

I think your fears are well-founded. After all, one of the three Apollo pads languished in a field for years. I think that it only recently was restored for display in the new Smithsonian hangar. Poorly-maintained infrastructure will hurt the chances of a future SDV. This is one of the biggest obstacles to ressurrecting Energia, and it may soon come to haunt the shuttle as well.

I'm hoping that somebody in NASA is forward thinking enough to preserve the facilities and quietly keep the SDV idea alive until there is a groundswell of support for it. But I can also see the urge to develop an all-new heavy launch system, which in the long run could prove to be a better investment than the SDV.

RobS · 2004-01-09 19:13:16

I'm surprised there is no plan to develop a heavy lifter from the shuttle; that would maintain an existing infrastructure, which has a powerful lobby. But sweeping it away is a bold move, too. And the drift of thought at NASA, I think, is that a heavy lifter, while nice and useful, is expensive and really isn't necessary. People need to go look at Michael Duke's "Lunar Reference Strategy" at http://members.aol.com/dsportree/MM22.htm. It's all right there. He used the Space Shuttle, but anything able to put 24 or 25 tonnes in low Earth orbit will do. You can establish a very nice transportation system to the moon with it, and as he notes, it's one quarter the size of a transportation system to Mars. His revision ideas are incorporated into a paper on the Colorado School of Mines about lunar water and uses a station at the L1 Lagrange Point. The station, "Gateway," has been proposed by the Nasa Exploration Team (NExT) which does a lot of the future thinking. My guess is that the Bush plan will be based on NExT thinking, and Duke's paper reflects it. And in turn, my Mars-24 plan is an extrapolation of Duke's ideas.

The key is ion propulsion, which is an existing technology. It involves nothing expensive. You have to scale up the ion engines on Deep Space 2 or the European moon probe about 200 times, but that's not hard. We're talking about 3 or 4 tonnes of solar panels and a much bigger ion engine (or 200 small ones). You can launch 24 tonnes of stuff into low earth orbit, including about 4 or 5 tonnes of ion engine propellant, and the vehicle (which is already there) will push 19 or 20 tonnes to escape velocity in six months. A small chemical kick engine can send most of that mass to Mars in 6 to 9 months. If you really can find lunar water--and they are sure to look!--lunar hydrogen and oxygen can provide the kick.

-- RobS

GOM · 2004-01-09 19:46:45

OK, i give you an interferometer on the dark side of the moon, that's real science, really useful, and could be automatically controlled without human presence.

Um....

Just a quick heads up. There is no dark side of the moon.

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-09 20:45:31

I think dick was just using a figure of speech GOM.

I totally understand Bill's position now, though.

Bill White · 2004-01-09 20:46:12

I'm surprised there is no plan to develop a heavy lifter from the shuttle; that would maintain an existing infrastructure, which has a powerful lobby. But sweeping it away is a bold move, too. And the drift of thought at NASA, I think, is that a heavy lifter, while nice and useful, is expensive and really isn't necessary. People need to go look at Michael Duke's "Lunar Reference Strategy" at http://members.aol.com/dsportree/MM22.htm. It's all right there. He used the Space Shuttle, but anything able to put 24 or 25 tonnes in low Earth orbit will do. You can establish a very nice transportation system to the moon with it, and as he notes, it's one quarter the size of a transportation system to Mars. His revision ideas are incorporated into a paper on the Colorado School of Mines about lunar water and uses a station at the L1 Lagrange Point. The station, "Gateway," has been proposed by the Nasa Exploration Team (NExT) which does a lot of the future thinking. My guess is that the Bush plan will be based on NExT thinking, and Duke's paper reflects it. And in turn, my Mars-24 plan is an extrapolation of Duke's ideas.
The key is ion propulsion, which is an existing technology. It involves nothing expensive. You have to scale up the ion engines on Deep Space 2 or the European moon probe about 200 times, but that's not hard. We're talking about 3 or 4 tonnes of solar panels and a much bigger ion engine (or 200 small ones). You can launch 24 tonnes of stuff into low earth orbit, including about 4 or 5 tonnes of ion engine propellant, and the vehicle (which is already there) will push 19 or 20 tonnes to escape velocity in six months. A small chemical kick engine can send most of that mass to Mars in 6 to 9 months. If you really can find lunar water--and they are sure to look!--lunar hydrogen and oxygen can provide the kick.
-- RobS

Okay - my wrists are safe.

Nuclear ion makes your scenario even more plausible. But is GWB really going to adopt a plan that makes our access to Mars depend on a French rocket, the Ariane 12?

From the perspective of all humanity, the ESA could approximate your (RobS) Mars 24 plan and their Aurora plan seems well thought out. Russia could still do MarsDirect as with a steroid enhanced Energia (especially from Kouru). No NASA needed for these since the fabrics of TransHab are easily replicated by others.

Lunar water remains problematic, of course.

Anyway, RobS, if shuttle derived lifters come to be off the table, your ideas make you the man of the moment.

Kudos!

Ad Astra · 2004-01-09 20:59:46

Most of the planning for a moon base that was done in the late 1950's under Project Horizon would be wise to consult right now. Check it out on astronautix.com. It's amazing to see that the 10-man moon base requires 460,000 pounds of cargo to start and 266,000 pounds annually to sustain it. It also needs two nuclear reactors. These numbers would justify a heavy lifter when we reach the permanent base phase. Horizon also provides for a direct return capability for the astronauts. This would be useful to have, but a lunar-orbiting (reusable) shuttle craft would be more economical to operate.

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#1 2004-01-08 19:17:55

Re: To the moon first... - then to Mars and asteroids...

#2 2004-01-08 21:17:23

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#3 2004-01-08 21:32:01

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#4 2004-01-08 23:52:03

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