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James Oberg's analysis of the oft repated claim that a human Mars mission would cost a trillion dollars
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4031857/ns/ … h/?mid=558
Old but still valid.
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I think that costing was well and truly put to bed here several years ago. No one I know has taken it seriously for a long time. Probably $50 billion as an upper limit is closer for Mission 1(including one time development costs).
When you hear how it was put together, it beggars belief. Essentially they went to each department and asked "How much money do you want for your bit of a Mars mission?" and then added up all the figures. That might have been appropriate for the Apollo era, but it was absurd to do that in the 70s/80s.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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That is a bit unfair, I think. When the 90 day study was prepared (and it was prepared in only 90 days!) the advantages of aerocapture, ISRU, etc, were not fully appreciated (or even properly thought through). We knew much less about Mars than we do now, and had none of the experience in long duration spaceflight or orbital assembly we have now.
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That is a bit unfair, I think. When the 90 day study was prepared (and it was prepared in only 90 days!) the advantages of aerocapture, ISRU, etc, were not fully appreciated (or even properly thought through). We knew much less about Mars than we do now, and had none of the experience in long duration spaceflight or orbital assembly we have now.
Well if I was being too harsh I think possibly you are being too generous. I did go through their lists a few years ago, and however you cut it, a lot of the tonnage allowances were extravagant. I am not convinced re your point about orbital assembly - Apollo used orbital assembly for the return leg. It wasn't a technology beyond the technology of the 1970s.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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It doesn't have to cost a trillion dollars, but if its done the way NASA traditionally does such missions the costs will inflate to Epic proportions.
I am not expecting reform its ways at NASA anytime soon.
Take the ISS for example. It started of with a projected cost of $8 Billion...which went to $35 Billion......$100 Billion.... and so on and so forth.
The same goes goes for James Webb Telescope and the Mars Science Laboratory. The SLS/Orion is already projected to have out of control costs.
Its wishful thinking to believe that these missions will cost what the initial minimum projection says, especially with something as complex as a manned mission to mars.
Bottom line is, NASA has to get its costs way down so that these mission can fit within its normal budget. The conditions that created Apollo are unlikely to happen again. It would be nice if they did but I would not count on it.
Ultimately, I think developments in re-usability and using available manufacturing plant are going to be needed to bring costs under control.
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I have two big points to make about the costs of spaceflight, manned or unmanned.
One is the impact of a small supporting logistical tail, vs the traditional gigantic one. ULA supporting the shuttle at a billion dollars (or maybe more) for 25 metric tons max per flight is the wrong approach. Spacex at $2500/lb on Falcon-9 is more like it. Atlas-5 is similar, but watch that cost rise if something happens to Spacex! That gigantic entity of Boeing plus Lockmart requires a lot of cash to feed it. Too big is just plain bloated.
The 53 metric ton Falcon-Heavy is supposed to fly next year for the first time, priced at something around $800-1000/lb. With that coming to the market, why do we need a NASA SLS at billion-dollar shuttle prices and only 100-150 tons? We know how to dock and assemble in orbit now.
The other big point is the type of lead agency and contractors that can support such endeavors without exploding overruns. We don’t have that, and it kinda shows. What we have done for half a century since Sputnik is the wrong way to do it. It’s not about flag-and-footprints, it’s about real exploration.
I gave a paper on that very topic at last August’s Mars Society convention in Dallas, Texas. You can find that paper online at the Mars Society’s site, in its electronic archive. Or you can read a version of it on my blog site http://exrocketman.blogspot.com. Scroll down to the paper at date 7-25-11 titled “Going to Mars (or anywhere else nearby)”, and see also my second thoughts about the backup scheme, in the article dated 9-6-11 titled “Mars Mission Second Thoughts Illustrated”.
The gist of the exploration definition is getting the answer to two deceptively-simple questions: (1) what all is there? and (2) where exactly is it?
That wording is not Texas slang, I meant it exactly as written, word for word.
It means you land and you dig deep and you drill very deep. Drilling kilometers down, perhaps. You have to do this in a lot of sites, too. A real planetary survey. We never even did that on the moon, so we still don’t know what is really there, even today. And none of 4 decades’ worth of robot landers has actually answered those questions for Mars.
The gist of the “right team to do it” question is that the NASA we need is not the NASA we have, and the contractor base we need is not the contractor base we have. If we had the right team, we could go to Mars at any time for under $50B, and make dozens of landings in one trip. The right contractors would look more like a Spacex, an XCOR, or a Scaled Composites. I still don’t see any credible agency or entity to lead it, not in the US, nor in Europe or Japan. Japan may come the closest, but still misses the boat by a wide margin.
It would take too long to justify all these assertions here. I suggest you look at my convention paper, or at the two cited blog site articles.
There is a third idea in the conversation thread here: reusability. Implementing reusability in one form or another is a lot less effective than reducing logistical tails, toward reducing spaceflight costs. It’s also a very tough technological nut to crack, but it can be done, at least for lower stages.
There’s a third article on my blog site, dated 12-14-11 and titled “Reusability in Launch Rockets” that addresses what might be most fruitful things to attempt.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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I have two big points to make about the costs of spaceflight, manned or unmanned.
One is the impact of a small supporting logistical tail, vs the traditional gigantic one. ULA supporting the shuttle at a billion dollars (or maybe more) for 25 metric tons max per flight is the wrong approach. Spacex at $2500/lb on Falcon-9 is more like it. Atlas-5 is similar, but watch that cost rise if something happens to Spacex! That gigantic entity of Boeing plus Lockmart requires a lot of cash to feed it. Too big is just plain bloated.
The 53 metric ton Falcon-Heavy is supposed to fly next year for the first time, priced at something around $800-1000/lb. With that coming to the market, why do we need a NASA SLS at billion-dollar shuttle prices and only 100-150 tons? We know how to dock and assemble in orbit now.
The other big point is the type of lead agency and contractors that can support such endeavors without exploding overruns. We don’t have that, and it kinda shows. What we have done for half a century since Sputnik is the wrong way to do it. It’s not about flag-and-footprints, it’s about real exploration.
I gave a paper on that very topic at last August’s Mars Society convention in Dallas, Texas. You can find that paper online at the Mars Society’s site, in its electronic archive. Or you can read a version of it on my blog site http://exrocketman.blogspot.com. Scroll down to the paper at date 7-25-11 titled “Going to Mars (or anywhere else nearby)”, and see also my second thoughts about the backup scheme, in the article dated 9-6-11 titled “Mars Mission Second Thoughts Illustrated”.
The gist of the exploration definition is getting the answer to two deceptively-simple questions: (1) what all is there? and (2) where exactly is it?
That wording is not Texas slang, I meant it exactly as written, word for word.
It means you land and you dig deep and you drill very deep. Drilling kilometers down, perhaps. You have to do this in a lot of sites, too. A real planetary survey. We never even did that on the moon, so we still don’t know what is really there, even today. And none of 4 decades’ worth of robot landers has actually answered those questions for Mars.
The gist of the “right team to do it” question is that the NASA we need is not the NASA we have, and the contractor base we need is not the contractor base we have. If we had the right team, we could go to Mars at any time for under $50B, and make dozens of landings in one trip. The right contractors would look more like a Spacex, an XCOR, or a Scaled Composites. I still don’t see any credible agency or entity to lead it, not in the US, nor in Europe or Japan. Japan may come the closest, but still misses the boat by a wide margin.
It would take too long to justify all these assertions here. I suggest you look at my convention paper, or at the two cited blog site articles.
There is a third idea in the conversation thread here: reusability. Implementing reusability in one form or another is a lot less effective than reducing logistical tails, toward reducing spaceflight costs. It’s also a very tough technological nut to crack, but it can be done, at least for lower stages.
There’s a third article on my blog site, dated 12-14-11 and titled “Reusability in Launch Rockets” that addresses what might be most fruitful things to attempt.
GW
I agree with most of what you say GW and will take a look at your articles.
For me NASA should be more of a consultant and coms provider for a Mars Consortium led by Space X and including a range of Space Agencies (including perhaps a new US space agency for Mars and Lunar Exploration).
I do wonder about drilling down...we know now that the likelihood of Mars microbial life is quite high. I think we need to be careful about digging below the surface. In searching for such life forms we will probably need to proceed very slowly and carefully.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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Ha! You know I was just thinking and maybe this is a cynical or conspiracy point of view but human mission to Mars would indeed cost trillions of dollars if not all the money in the world... but not to NASA or anyone that would actually send them they would pay something like 20 to 50 billion dollars but it would cost corporations lot more.
Human attention is worth a lot and most of people's attention is on celebrities, sports, TV shows and other stupid things that is constantly selling them stuff. For instance just yesterday I was briefly switching channels on TV and on one channel you had this ugly woman host who had thousands of plastic surgeries and she was saying to the camera "... and now let's continue our odyssey of finding your perfect hairstyle for new-year." I mean can you imagine if that type of omnipresent women were suddenly replaced with a woman astronaut that was on Mars? People would suddenly turn their attentions from this idiotic people that are so up-fronted and what they need to buy to be happy in life and start thinking about geology and other science and Mars.
It reminds me of that line in a play by Bertolt Brecht "Life of Galileo" where worried heads of church are saying "Why, all of a sudden, are people thinking about shadows on the Moon?" Right "shadows on the Moon" something that people took for granted and rarely anybody noticed it but when it was discovered that those shadows prove that Earth is revolving around Sun and not the other way around it became topic of every sort of people, something they talked about in brewery.
Church seemed to have lost lots of followers when this new scientific revelations occurred and same seem will become of today's ruling body, the corporations. You may think the politicians are in charge but lets face it who has all the money - I mean power. At least until they start to building big malls and parking lots on Mars.
Last edited by Lobster (2011-12-21 13:08:37)
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It doesn't have to cost a trillion dollars, but if its done the way NASA traditionally does such missions the costs will inflate to Epic proportions.
I am not expecting reform its ways at NASA anytime soon.Take the ISS for example. It started of with a projected cost of $8 Billion...which went to $35 Billion......$100 Billion.... and so on and so forth.
.
Apollo was only 50% over budget and it was subject to heavy time pressures. The ISS is a very bad example because it suffered from a whole slew of redesigns that occurred after metal was already being cut on the project. Including a massive redesign to bring the Russians aboard.
I've seen an estimate online that was only for 75 billion dollars including a 50% cost overrun and included the first three manned missions.
Going to Mars is no longer rocket science. It's political science.
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Ha! You know I was just thinking and maybe this is a cynical or conspiracy point of view but human mission to Mars would indeed cost trillions of dollars if not all the money in the world... but not to NASA or anyone that would actually send them they would pay something like 20 to 50 billion dollars but it would cost corporations lot more.
You are right it is a cycnical conspiracy point of view, and like almost all such views it is baseless. You could not fake a Mars mission.
Human attention is worth a lot and most of people's attention is on celebrities, sports, TV shows and other stupid things that is constantly selling them stuff. For instance just yesterday I was briefly switching channels on TV and on one channel you had this ugly woman host who had thousands of plastic surgeries and she was saying to the camera "... and now let's continue our odyssey of finding your perfect hairstyle for new-year." I mean can you imagine if that type of omnipresent women were suddenly replaced with a woman astronaut that was on Mars? People would suddenly turn their attentions from this idiotic people that are so up-fronted and what they need to buy to be happy in life and start thinking about geology and other science and Mars.
One would hope so.
It reminds me of that line in a play by Bertolt Brecht "Life of Galileo" where worried heads of church are saying "Why, all of a sudden, are people thinking about shadows on the Moon?" Right "shadows on the Moon" something that people took for granted and rarely anybody noticed it but when it was discovered that those shadows prove that Earth is revolving around Sun and not the other way around it became topic of every sort of people, something they talked about in brewery.
Church seemed to have lost lots of followers when this new scientific revelations occurred and same seem will become of today's ruling body, the corporations. You may think the politicians are in charge but lets face it who has all the money - I mean power. At least until they start to building big malls and parking lots on Mars.
Brecht wrote great literature but as a very bad historian wih respect to Galileo
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Gregori wrote:It doesn't have to cost a trillion dollars, but if its done the way NASA traditionally does such missions the costs will inflate to Epic proportions.
I am not expecting reform its ways at NASA anytime soon.Take the ISS for example. It started of with a projected cost of $8 Billion...which went to $35 Billion......$100 Billion.... and so on and so forth.
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[snip] The ISS is a very bad example because it suffered from a whole slew of redesigns that occurred after metal was already being cut on the project. Including a massive redesign to bring the Russians aboard.
Bringing the Russians onboard made in chaper because they brought a lot of off the shelf technology with them that would have had to be developed independently. Plus they carry a lot of the logistic costs. People keep assuming that the full costs of the ISS are borne by the US. They are not. They also tend to forget these costs are spread over some 30 years.
The redesigns were not the fault of NASA, they were the result of constantly changing project scope - a political decision.
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Gregori wrote:It doesn't have to cost a trillion dollars, but if its done the way NASA traditionally does such missions the costs will inflate to Epic proportions.
I am not expecting reform its ways at NASA anytime soon.Take the ISS for example. It started of with a projected cost of $8 Billion...which went to $35 Billion......$100 Billion.... and so on and so forth.
.
Apollo was only 50% over budget and it was subject to heavy time pressures. The ISS is a very bad example because it suffered from a whole slew of redesigns that occurred after metal was already being cut on the project. Including a massive redesign to bring the Russians aboard.
I've seen an estimate online that was only for 75 billion dollars including a 50% cost overrun and included the first three manned missions.
Going to Mars is no longer rocket science. It's political science.
I think we can get the costs down further by intelligent tonnage allowances, using Space X's cheap delivery system, and orbital assembly. Crucially we can get the cost down for an individual country by having a consortium. At the very least, there is no reason why we should not have say Space X, Bigelow, NASA, ESA, JAXA, a few big Universities, some major philanthropists and a few others come together on this project. I think we can get the cost well under $40billion over say ten years. That's $4billion per annum, shared between maybe ten players each averaging $400 million each. When you look at it that way, you can see it is affordable. What is missing is the political will to put it all together.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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I quite agree with the notion of a public-private consortium of some kind. I quite agree that there are multiple launchers that could mount an expedition using orbital assembly in LEO. I quite agree that this could be done for well under $100 B, probably under $50 B, perhaps as little as $30B, but the right kind of team has to do it, and they have to have the right objective, and use the right approach.
And Apollo as we did it back then, is none of those things (hindsight is very 20-20 vision, I know).
If the consortium is more private than public, the politics plays less of a role. But as long as one of the government agencies leads and funds this, we will be saddled with politics. I suspect we're stuck with that for the exploration mission(s) and the first ISRU bases. After that, government may phase out of the game. The trick is to bootstrap through the politics, and the current economic bad times may be both a problem (no money to do anything right now) and an opportunity (a way to bootstrap out of economic depression).
We in the US experienced boom times in some sectors of the economy during the mobilization required to go to the moon, back during the 60's. That sort of thing would happen again, trying to go to Mars. It doesn't lift all boats, but it definitely lifts some of them. Even the Europeans might jump at the chance to get involved. It's a way to jump start your engineering and some of your manufacturing back into good times. They need that as much as we do. Japan, too.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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I quite agree with the notion of a public-private consortium of some kind. I quite agree that there are multiple launchers that could mount an expedition using orbital assembly in LEO. I quite agree that this could be done for well under $100 B, probably under $50 B, perhaps as little as $30B, but the right kind of team has to do it, and they have to have the right objective, and use the right approach.
And Apollo as we did it back then, is none of those things (hindsight is very 20-20 vision, I know).
If the consortium is more private than public, the politics plays less of a role. But as long as one of the government agencies leads and funds this, we will be saddled with politics. I suspect we're stuck with that for the exploration mission(s) and the first ISRU bases. After that, government may phase out of the game. The trick is to bootstrap through the politics, and the current economic bad times may be both a problem (no money to do anything right now) and an opportunity (a way to bootstrap out of economic depression).
We in the US experienced boom times in some sectors of the economy during the mobilization required to go to the moon, back during the 60's. That sort of thing would happen again, trying to go to Mars. It doesn't lift all boats, but it definitely lifts some of them. Even the Europeans might jump at the chance to get involved. It's a way to jump start your engineering and some of your manufacturing back into good times. They need that as much as we do. Japan, too.
GW
Well I pleased to hear GW with your real life experience of these matters that I am not so wide of the mark with my assessment.
I agree that the key to maintaining a good colonisation effort is to have the private sector in the lead in a consortium. I think Space X fit the bill, because their CEO Elon Musk has made little secret of his desire to put humans on Mars as soon as possible and begin a new human civilisation there. He seems to tick all the boxes. I think if necessary he might go elsewhere than NASA.
The best scenario I feel is where Space X lead in mission design but use NASA as a consultant on communications, spacesuit design life support and so on. ESA could come in with mission planning, using their satellite imagery and provide some of the initial crew; they could also launch their own robot supply missions. Other space agencies could be brought in subsidiary roles and on the promise of booking a seat on the first, second or third missions, depending on how much they contribute. I think there is a good chance philanthropists would come in with big money once they saw a credible project was in place.
I agree that there are good arguments for Mars exploration providing an economic boost.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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Louis:
Hey, we're both looking for Musk to lead! He'll have to, NASA won't. Too petrified with gigantic-bureaucracy disease. The NASA we have is not the NASA we need, and hasn't been since the 70's. Excepting upstarts like Musk and a small handful of others, the contractor base we have is not the contractor base we need, either. Same stultification problem as NASA, just commercial instead of governmental. Same disease. A committee is a life form with 6 or more legs and no brain.
I wouldn't trust NASA to develop the supple space suit we need right now for everything we want to do in space, not just going to Mars. They have (or at least did recently have) MIT under contract to work on mechanical counterpressure suits, but then saddled them with an unnecessary design requirement (1/3 atm equivalent pressure), so that no material existing can do the job.
Yet NASA paid (in part) for the late 60's demonstration of the very kind of suit we need (which worked just fine at 20-25% atm pressure equivalent). Go see my posting for Jan 21, 2011 on "exrocketman" (http://exrocketman.blogspot.com) for an analysis of the proper design requirements for a mechanical counterpressure space suit. Then check out http:www.elasticspacesuit.com to see what Paul Webb did so long ago, with nothing more than pantyhose materials.
You can also check out the paper I gave at the Mars Society convention this last August in Dallas, Texas, USA. You can find it in the Mars Society electronic archives, or go look on "exrocketman" for a version of it posted and dated 7-25-2011, and some second thoughts on the back-up propulsion dated 9-6-11. If you like, just scroll down to find the first article with "space program" as a keyword, and click on that keyword. Then it shows only space-program-related postings. The order is newest-first. That's one kind of the different style of thinking that might lead to dozens of Mars landings, all in one trip, for well under $50 billion.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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NASA (and ESA) missions are massive subsidies to academic planetary science and engineering departments, not to mention the inefficiencies in contractors that have arisen out of cost-plus procurement and regulation compliance. Having NASA involved as a partner will drive up costs significantly. So if it's predominantly a private endeveour, what's the reasoning for involving the national agencies at all?
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NASA (and ESA) missions are massive subsidies to academic planetary science and engineering departments, not to mention the inefficiencies in contractors that have arisen out of cost-plus procurement and regulation compliance. Having NASA involved as a partner will drive up costs significantly. So if it's predominantly a private endeveour, what's the reasoning for involving the national agencies at all?
NASA's vision is "To reach for new heights and reveal the unknown so that what we do and learn will benefit all humankind."
It does this through the fields aeronautics, human exploration and operations, and space science. It's mandate driven by government policy in these fields.
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ESA's purpose is "ESA's purpose shall be to provide for, and to promote, for exclusively peaceful purposes, cooperation among European States in space research and technology and their space applications, with a view to their being used for scientific purposes and for operational space applications systems."
Both organisations exist because of the proven historic inability of private industry to provide leadership in these areas. Nothing as changed. Private industry does not, will not, and cannot provide the leadership to go to Mars. Why should they? There is nothing in it for them at this stage other than contracts. The role of private industry is to provide hardware in response to the requirements of the agencies who doing the pioneering work.
Once there are proven ways of making money, thanks to the pionering work of gthe agencies, this will change. This is what has happened with Earth orbit applications. Private entities round the world not only build the systems they also provide launch and tracking services, manage spacecraft operations, and drive a whole range of spinoff industries in areas like image processing communications, and surveying, they drive innovation in all these fields, with the role of agencies now supporting them in specific areas and providing the statutory framework that allows smooth operation.
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Mark Friedenbach wrote:NASA (and ESA) missions are massive subsidies to academic planetary science and engineering departments, not to mention the inefficiencies in contractors that have arisen out of cost-plus procurement and regulation compliance. Having NASA involved as a partner will drive up costs significantly. So if it's predominantly a private endeveour, what's the reasoning for involving the national agencies at all?
NASA's vision is "To reach for new heights and reveal the unknown so that what we do and learn will benefit all humankind."
It does this through the fields aeronautics, human exploration and operations, and space science. It's mandate driven by government policy in these fields.
.
ESA's purpose is "ESA's purpose shall be to provide for, and to promote, for exclusively peaceful purposes, cooperation among European States in space research and technology and their space applications, with a view to their being used for scientific purposes and for operational space applications systems."Both organisations exist because of the proven historic inability of private industry to provide leadership in these areas. Nothing as changed. Private industry does not, will not, and cannot provide the leadership to go to Mars. Why should they? There is nothing in it for them at this stage other than contracts. The role of private industry is to provide hardware in response to the requirements of the agencies who doing the pioneering work.
Once there are proven ways of making money, thanks to the pionering work of gthe agencies, this will change. This is what has happened with Earth orbit applications. Private entities round the world not only build the systems they also provide launch and tracking services, manage spacecraft operations, and drive a whole range of spinoff industries in areas like image processing communications, and surveying, they drive innovation in all these fields, with the role of agencies now supporting them in specific areas and providing the statutory framework that allows smooth operation.
Jon,
Demonstrably NASA and ESA have failed to make any real leaps in space exploration over the last 40 years. We've really been treading water as a species.
Referring to "private" is really a bit of shorthand. Musk is more of a philanthropist than a capitalist. He's ploughed his own money into establishing Space X as a private company but is clearly looking to use the surplus revenue to get to Mars.
I think the best way forward is for philanthropists, capitalists and government agencies to combine and co-operate through a consortium. Consortia have successfully completed many mega projects on Earth.
Ideally, it would be great if the USA created a Mars-Lunar Development Agency to take forward the colonisation of the Mars and Moon and left NASA as a space consultant, space communications and science agency. I am not sure NASA particularly needs to be in the rocket business - it could use Space X rockets or armed forces rockets. However I accept that the creation of a Mars-Lunar Development Agency is unlikely and the future of Mars/Moon colonisation is likely to be a rather messy business.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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It is a fallacy to extrapolate from historical data--particularly in the birth of new industries and the opening up of frontiers. These are the sorts of things where what is possible today may have been impossible yesterday, and there is a tipping point where proposed ventures have a reasonable expectation making it big and the investment floodgates open. Personally I think we have reached that point with private space enterprise. Historically there are more instances of private industry leading the way than the government, and I can't think of a single example (although I'm sure there are some) where government-organized, science-driven exploration worked as a path towards free-market enterprise.
Ultimately the proof is in the doing, and I can't offer you any more than "see you on Mars." Elon has his plan for bootstrapping--expedited by COTS and CCDev dollars, but viable even without. I have my own plan for bootstrapping that I am currently working on and can’t talk about. There are private, free-market solutions to the bootstrapping problem, just as there was for consumer internet, electricity, the railroad, and great maritime voyages.
There’s a lot more for private space at this stage than mere government contracts. There’s the potential to be the first in line in the creation of a new frontier—one with hitherto unimaginable wealth-creating opportunities.
Last edited by Mark Friedenbach (2012-01-01 18:39:42)
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NASA (and ESA) missions are massive subsidies to academic planetary science and engineering departments, not to mention the inefficiencies in contractors that have arisen out of cost-plus procurement and regulation compliance. Having NASA involved as a partner will drive up costs significantly. So if it's predominantly a private endeveour, what's the reasoning for involving the national agencies at all?
The point about subsidies is well taken by me. I think the academic world now needs to start paying for the material and data brought back from other worlds, just as they pay for rocks and data collection on Earth. By making universities compete for those valuable commodities, we can generate huge revenue to support the enterprise.
I think that the rationale for involving NASA is the access that gives to expertise (in keeping people alive in space and so on) and capital infrastructure (I think that NASA is really the only agency with a truly effective communications system in relation to Mars, for instance - they also have lots of rocket facilities and control centres that the consortium could use). The involvement of NASA is also effectively a kind of sanction of the mission I would say, which will allow the consortium to proceed with colonisation without creating a big fuss about corporations taking over other planets.
We are seeing the beginnings of co-operation between NASA and Space X on Mars exploration, together with other players. I think that is fantastically encouraging. The informal consortium is already forming up, just as many of us here always wanted.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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Louis:
Hey, we're both looking for Musk to lead! He'll have to, NASA won't. Too petrified with gigantic-bureaucracy disease. The NASA we have is not the NASA we need, and hasn't been since the 70's. Excepting upstarts like Musk and a small handful of others, the contractor base we have is not the contractor base we need, either. Same stultification problem as NASA, just commercial instead of governmental. Same disease. A committee is a life form with 6 or more legs and no brain.
I wouldn't trust NASA to develop the supple space suit we need right now for everything we want to do in space, not just going to Mars. They have (or at least did recently have) MIT under contract to work on mechanical counterpressure suits, but then saddled them with an unnecessary design requirement (1/3 atm equivalent pressure), so that no material existing can do the job.
Yet NASA paid (in part) for the late 60's demonstration of the very kind of suit we need (which worked just fine at 20-25% atm pressure equivalent). Go see my posting for Jan 21, 2011 on "exrocketman" (http://exrocketman.blogspot.com) for an analysis of the proper design requirements for a mechanical counterpressure space suit. Then check out http:www.elasticspacesuit.com to see what Paul Webb did so long ago, with nothing more than pantyhose materials.
You can also check out the paper I gave at the Mars Society convention this last August in Dallas, Texas, USA. You can find it in the Mars Society electronic archives, or go look on "exrocketman" for a version of it posted and dated 7-25-2011, and some second thoughts on the back-up propulsion dated 9-6-11. If you like, just scroll down to find the first article with "space program" as a keyword, and click on that keyword. Then it shows only space-program-related postings. The order is newest-first. That's one kind of the different style of thinking that might lead to dozens of Mars landings, all in one trip, for well under $50 billion.
GW
Thanks for the references - v. interesting although sadly the elasticspacesuit site didn't seem to have the video working. I have long thought the MCP suit is the way forward and your comments seem to confirm that.
I will check out your paper which sounds v. interesting.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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@louis, again I don't see why there needs to be a government consortium driving this. Elon is not a philanthropist (w.r.t. SpaceX at least). He is a businessman, he has investors backing him, and he has a reasonable expectation of a return on his money. He has chosen to invest his own time, money, and effort into something he firmly believes in, yes, but that's still sound business; he is a principled business man.
I'm not saying we should do it without NASA's knowledge and expertise, I'm just saying there's no need for any sort of formal government program. NASA civil servants already have an obligation to help American businesses (without showing preference), and it's easy enough to get a space act agreement granting at-cost access to facilities and researchers. That's how SpaceX has been doing it so far.
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It is a fallacy to extrapolate from historical data--particularly in the birth of new industries and the opening up of frontiers. These are the sorts of things where what is possible today may have been impossible yesterday, and there is a tipping point where proposed ventures have a reasonable expectation making it big and the investment floodgates open. Personally I think we have reached that point with private space enterprise. Historically there are more instances of private industry leading the way than the government, and I can't think of a single example (although I'm sure there are some) where government-organized, science-driven exploration worked as a path towards free-market enterprise.
Ultimately the proof is in the doing, and I can't offer you any more than "see you on Mars." Elon has his plan for bootstrapping--expedited by COTS and CCDev dollars, but viable even without. I have my own plan for bootstrapping that I am currently working on and can’t talk about. There are private, free-market solutions to the bootstrapping problem, just as there was for consumer internet, electricity, the railroad, and great maritime voyages.
There’s a lot more for private space at this stage than mere government contracts. There’s the potential to be the first in line in the creation of a new frontier—one with hitherto unimaginable wealth-creating opportunities.
Well it will be interesting to see your "bootstrapping" proposals as they emerge. I certainly think if private enterprise could get into real orbital space and create a tourist industry there, then lunar tourism will follow on v. quickly.
Both orbital and lunar tourism could potentially generate billions of dollars in surplus revenue. People sometimes take on a sceptical look when you say that. But when you think that the global economy generates something like $64,000 billion per annum, is it really so unlikely that the lunar economy would be worth say $10, 50 or even 100 billion in short order once we have a dependable and reasonably cheap way of getting to LEO - after all we are talking about a massive piece of real estate just 250,000 per annum. Just to take one example - let's suppose a commercial company is able to establish a lunar hotel, won't any number of space agencies on Earth be prepared to pay $100millions to get their exploration teams there, using the facilities of the lunar hotel to establish themselves. And won't there then be a rush to establish bases on the Moon, generating its own economy? You can imagine the Indian Space Agency base using oxygen supplied by a lunar development consortium , happily paying hundreds of millions of dollars per annum while they get themselves established.
Antarctic tourism - even without hotels on the continent - amounts to 80,000 people per annum now, and would I suggest generate 100 of millions of dollars revenue per annum.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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@louis, again I don't see why there needs to be a government consortium driving this. Elon is not a philanthropist (w.r.t. SpaceX at least). He is a businessman, he has investors backing him, and he has a reasonable expectation of a return on his money. He has chosen to invest his own time, money, and effort into something he firmly believes in, yes, but that's still sound business; he is a principled business man.
I'm not saying we should do it without NASA's knowledge and expertise, I'm just saying there's no need for any sort of formal government program. NASA civil servants already have an obligation to help American businesses (without showing preference), and it's easy enough to get a space act agreement granting at-cost access to facilities and researchers. That's how SpaceX has been doing it so far.
As far as I am concerned, he is a philanthropist disguised as a businessman, which is to say he wants to maximise the surplus revenue to be used in getting to Mars. But I think if tomorrow he could get to Mars knowing it would destroy Space X as a business he would do it (assuming he wasn't commiting any illegality of course). I don't think profit is his motive - he had several hundred million dollars in the bank to begin with...if profit was his aim he would have invested it in something much safer.
My view is that - whatever I would wish personally - we are going to see a kind of "messy" programme that will get us to Mars - not Mars Direct but Mars Messy. Space X will be key, as will NASA but there could be all sorts of combinations playing key roles along the way. I mean - why wouldn't ESA be involved along the way?
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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Demonstrably NASA and ESA have failed to make any real leaps in space exploration over the last 40 years. We've really been treading water as a species.
Other than the fact they, in conjunction and in parallel with their equivalents in Russia and Japan, have since December 1971 successfully put 15 spacecraft in orbit round Mars and landed six on the surface (including three rovers), none of which had been done before and providing 99.99999% of what we know about the planet?
Other than the fact that they and their equivalents have increased the size of spacecraft by an order of magnitude, developed recycling life support systems, perfected orbital assembly and resupply, increased the length of individual spaceflight experience by a factor of 10 and cumulative exprience by a factor of 20, continuously crewing spacrcaft for more than a decade, and routinely carrying out missions equivalent to a trip to Mars?
Other than all the ground-based work from end to end Mars mission simulations, to pressurised and unpressurised rovers, life support systems, spacesuits, communications, field robotics, and a dozen other unglamerous but essential fields?
No, they have not done much at all!
Referring to "private" is really a bit of shorthand. Musk is more of a philanthropist than a capitalist. He's ploughed his own money into establishing Space X as a private company but is clearly looking to use the surplus revenue to get to Mars.
Correct, and the most he can do is build a transportation system. Which is all Falcon and Dragon are. Both built with substantial injections from the government via grants and contracts. Which makes him no different to Boeing or Lockheed or EADS. Some items be high built as as a venture, but only with the expectation of a payoff later, which is how Falcon 1 was built. He may to the same with Falcon heavy. But unless he can get customers - the military, NASA, communications companis, to pay up and use it, it won't get very far.
I think the best way forward is for philanthropists, capitalists and government agencies to combine and co-operate through a consortium. Consortia have successfully completed many mega projects on Earth.
Quite possibly. But the leadership will have to come from governments. Very few organisations on the planet last as long as govenment instiutions.
Ideally, it would be great if the USA created a Mars-Lunar Development Agency to take forward the colonisation of the Mars and Moon and left NASA as a space consultant, space communications and science agency. I am not sure NASA particularly needs to be in the rocket business - it could use Space X rockets or armed forces rockets. However I accept that the creation of a Mars-Lunar Development Agency is unlikely and the future of Mars/Moon colonisation is likely to be a rather messy business.
This is what is happening anyway.
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