NASA: Mars colony may wait

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-03-31 10:25:19

http://www.universetoday.com/128146/nas … -may-wait/

SpaceNut · 2016-03-31 19:13:48

We have been talking about this mode of base exploration...as displayed in this cover image....

Concept for NASA Design Reference Mission Architecture 5.0 (2009).

But why no Mars mission?

NASA announced its “Journey to Mars” – a plan that outlined the steps that need to be taken to mount a manned mission by the 2030s – the agency’s was planning how a crewed mission could lead to the establishing of stations on the planet’s surface.
when it comes to Mars missions – the coming decades might be a bit too soon. Such was the message during a recent colloquium hosted by NASA’s Future In-Space Operations (FISO) working group. Titled “Selecting a Landing Site for Humans on Mars”, this presentation set out the goals for NASA’s manned mission in the coming decades.

When its says Nasa it should read a group of JPL engineers.... but who is this FISO to say we can not go....

I did bring up the landing zone of exploration in this next image..but the aartical calls for a 100 Km circle which for a first misson is excessive as we are want to put down a foot hold so as to be able to justify going back.

One way would be a mutinering astronauts desire to not come back comes to mind or just that a one way mission is the start of a foothold.

This next image is sort of some of what we are discussing in some of Tom's other topics as well...

Other than planning on how to execute the plans to build is not all that exotic in what a building is when placed under a dome.

So we are not going to Mars, then we had better be going beyond LEO or we might as well shut down all of Nasa and the senate can pay for direct mission with COT's providers to make happen.

SpaceNut · 2016-04-03 19:05:15

So can we trust what we are hearing now in NASA's Bolden: Mars mission is 'closer than ever'

title was nice but had little to tell us how mars is on our door steps....

louis · 2016-04-04 03:22:14

This is what happens when you have a lack of focus. If you have an organisation like NASA, where there are say 100 major projects, they are all going to have their advocates whether it be robotics, another Titan lander, revisiting Pluto, lunar bases, weather forecasting, climate change monitoring, deep space exploration, solar panels, EM drive or whatever. To try and get a new major project in place is extremely difficult as you have to wade through a swamp of counter-advocacy and self-interest. What is required in my view is to create a new settlement-focussed agency - a Mars-Lunar Development Agency with the specific task of developing permanent human settlement on the Moon and Mars within 10-20 years. Ideally it would be an international agency that other democratic countries could buy into. On that basis, hiving off 20% of the NASA budget for the new agency should be enough. The Agency would be more like an investor and so could then buy in services from agencies like NASA, Space X and so on.

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-04-04 07:55:26

louis wrote:

This is what happens when you have a lack of focus. If you have an organisation like NASA, where there are say 100 major projects, they are all going to have their advocates whether it be robotics, another Titan lander, revisiting Pluto, lunar bases, weather forecasting, climate change monitoring, deep space exploration, solar panels, EM drive or whatever. To try and get a new major project in place is extremely difficult as you have to wade through a swamp of counter-advocacy and self-interest. What is required in my view is to create a new settlement-focussed agency - a Mars-Lunar Development Agency with the specific task of developing permanent human settlement on the Moon and Mars within 10-20 years. Ideally it would be an international agency that other democratic countries could buy into. On that basis, hiving off 20% of the NASA budget for the new agency should be enough. The Agency would be more like an investor and so could then buy in services from agencies like NASA, Space X and so on.

Well there is SpaceX, doesn't that count? I think we have to put National Interests into space colonization and have competition, that is usually the best way to get things going. Once the UN Space treaty was signed, that took National Interest off the table, and we've had a directionless space program every since

SpaceNut · 2016-04-04 17:07:57

There can be no National interest but only pride by those individuals that go beyond...as for owning a piece of anything a company or person can but not a nation...as there has been law pass by the US to allow it to happen but there is no company that will self fund with a hard to sell comodity that could be returned by there efforts. Most oportunity is via barter from company to company or from the individuals that have property to exchange with one another as for any coming back by the individual would need to be contracted out by the company that they are working for.

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-04-04 22:18:43

There are many things Trump and Cruz don't like about the UN. I think the UN Space Treaty is a hindrance to the further exploration and colonization of space. If people are going to put up a lot of money for space colonization, they will want some return on their investment, rather than doing it "for all mankind!" Why do you think the Apollo Program ended so quickly? A senator named William Proxmire said we are spending billions of dollars on this Moon program, and what do we have to show for it? A few hundred pounds of rocks! One of the first steps to building a colony, is the significant step of planting a flag someplace and claiming it as ours, The UN space treaty prevents this. We need to take ownership of parts of the cosmos if we are expected to invest in improvements and in a space transportation system. I say we should start with asteroids, because their are many, an easy test as to whether we can claim them would be if we could significantly change their orbits. We would need to demonstratably change their orbits by over a certain threshold to demonstrate that we could claim the whole body. If something is too big to change its orbit, such as Mars or the Moon, then none of us can claim the whole thing. So the first step to claiming an asteroid is to build and attach a rocket engine that can change its orbit, or its spin. If it is an object that is small enough to manipulate, it is an object that is small enough to claim for a country, a person, or a corporation, it can be owned, it can be private property if we do that. Now if NASA successfully retrieves a small asteroid, then it becomes an American asteroid, but their are plenty of other asteroids for other nations to claim, so it shouldn't be a problem.

louis · 2016-04-05 13:49:00

I mentioned Space X. I think it could be the lead participant. However, even Space X would, I think, struggle with developing an effective Mars-Earth coms network unless there have been technological changes I am unaware of. So that makes them dependent on NASA or some other big space agency. I think most long distance low power coms involves huge ground receivers. Happy to be shown to be wrong on that!

Tom Kalbfus wrote:

louis wrote:
This is what happens when you have a lack of focus. If you have an organisation like NASA, where there are say 100 major projects, they are all going to have their advocates whether it be robotics, another Titan lander, revisiting Pluto, lunar bases, weather forecasting, climate change monitoring, deep space exploration, solar panels, EM drive or whatever. To try and get a new major project in place is extremely difficult as you have to wade through a swamp of counter-advocacy and self-interest. What is required in my view is to create a new settlement-focussed agency - a Mars-Lunar Development Agency with the specific task of developing permanent human settlement on the Moon and Mars within 10-20 years. Ideally it would be an international agency that other democratic countries could buy into. On that basis, hiving off 20% of the NASA budget for the new agency should be enough. The Agency would be more like an investor and so could then buy in services from agencies like NASA, Space X and so on.
Well there is SpaceX, doesn't that count? I think we have to put National Interests into space colonization and have competition, that is usually the best way to get things going. Once the UN Space treaty was signed, that took National Interest off the table, and we've had a directionless space program every since

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-04-05 16:43:22

louis wrote:

I mentioned Space X. I think it could be the lead participant. However, even Space X would, I think, struggle with developing an effective Mars-Earth coms network unless there have been technological changes I am unaware of. So that makes them dependent on NASA or some other big space agency. I think most long distance low power coms involves huge ground receivers. Happy to be shown to be wrong on that!
Tom Kalbfus wrote:
louis wrote:
This is what happens when you have a lack of focus. If you have an organisation like NASA, where there are say 100 major projects, they are all going to have their advocates whether it be robotics, another Titan lander, revisiting Pluto, lunar bases, weather forecasting, climate change monitoring, deep space exploration, solar panels, EM drive or whatever. To try and get a new major project in place is extremely difficult as you have to wade through a swamp of counter-advocacy and self-interest. What is required in my view is to create a new settlement-focussed agency - a Mars-Lunar Development Agency with the specific task of developing permanent human settlement on the Moon and Mars within 10-20 years. Ideally it would be an international agency that other democratic countries could buy into. On that basis, hiving off 20% of the NASA budget for the new agency should be enough. The Agency would be more like an investor and so could then buy in services from agencies like NASA, Space X and so on.
Well there is SpaceX, doesn't that count? I think we have to put National Interests into space colonization and have competition, that is usually the best way to get things going. Once the UN Space treaty was signed, that took National Interest off the table, and we've had a directionless space program every since

So long as we're dependent on government to get something done, we're going nowhere, and by that I mean, us, not someone you see on television, not a Neil Armstrong, but us. Government can't get us to Mars, government can only put on a space spectacular at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars spend over tens of years - like the ISS. The ISS doesn't do anything for us, it doesn't make a difference in our lives, at best it gives us a news story to watch on television. The revolution is when we get to go into space, much as we fly in airplanes. Watching a "flying circus" is not the same thing as air travel.

SpaceNut · 2016-06-15 16:47:46

I think this is a better place to put the following posts.

I agree that there is no need to wait for new technology to be made as we are capable of living with old tech just fine.....We just need to be cost conscious, get the modules to orbit and refuel the tanks to send it on its way....Preload the crap out of Mars landing site and go to stay....

GW Johnson wrote:

Hi Spacenut:
I sure would like to see a solution to the precision landing problem, beyond GPS/etc-type hand-waving. The problem is during the hypersonic entry with an atmosphere whose density at entry altitudes can vary by way over a factor of two. There is no radio link to a site beacon for homing during the hypersonics, because of the conductive plasma sheath. The vehicle will need one hell of a good inertial navigation rig to detect when the entry trajectory is off-profile, so the vehicle can be pitched to compensate.
Once the hypersonics are over, it's way too late to correct a big entry deceleration error. The vehicle is already too low, being high ballistic coefficient, and unlike any of the robot probes up to now. You only have like 2 minutes to impact, maybe less. The retropropulsive landing is at something in the vicinity of 2 or 3 gees (rather similar to peak entry gees, actually). It's one tough flight operation. But that's when the site beacon can be used to set it down exactly where you want it.
Back to Jupiter -- this Juno thing has been traveling, what, two years to get there? I never kept up with the details of this one. Straight trajectory or some sort of gravity assist?
GW

SpaceNut · 2016-06-15 16:51:38

So if we can not communicate via radio waves then are we able to use an optical tracking laser for orbit pointing towards the craft descending from orbit as a means to calculate the change in unit time to known values for angular change of optical alignment tracking and if we have multiple orbital units able to send a laser pulse towards the craft we should be able to tell if we are on target or not....
What I am thinking of is a sensor dome simular to sonar in passive mode where the intensity is distance and angular spot over lap direction and if we do have multiple lasers striking the target then we can know where it is in the downward path....

Grypd · 2016-06-17 09:11:40

One of the first things we need for Mars is a rudimentary GPS and Communication satellite net to be installed before we start sending more than initial probes. We are not talking the need for the global system we have here on Earth but enough to allow us to land on our previously determined base site.

Space X uses the ability to feed data to the lower stages to land rockets on its barges with enough fuel to land so can we on Mars. Actually we will have a beacon based on radio detection to improve landing accuracy at your Mars base.

SpaceNut · 2016-06-17 17:59:12

Welcome back..... The start of the deorbit path is the most critical to observe and control as it has the most impact on where you will land but less that if we use a parachute at any point in the re-entry path towards the landing site.....The issue is the ionozed air plasma which blocks the signals to the capsule electronics reciever, for radio wave reception.

SpaceNut · 2016-06-17 21:54:42

Analysis of an Electromagnetic Mitigation Scheme for Reentry Telemetry Through Plasma

RADIO SCIENCE Journal of Research NBS USNC- URSI Vol. 69D, No.2, February 1965: Electromagnetic Wave Penetration of Reentry Plasma Sheaths M. P. Bachynski

Analysis of Radio Frequency Blackout for a Blunt-Body

How To Fix Radio Blackout During Spacecraft Reentry: A Giant Plasma Sheath Antenna

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#1 2016-03-31 10:25:19

NASA: Mars colony may wait

#2 2016-03-31 19:13:48

Re: NASA: Mars colony may wait

#3 2016-04-03 19:05:15

Re: NASA: Mars colony may wait

#4 2016-04-04 03:22:14

Re: NASA: Mars colony may wait

#5 2016-04-04 07:55:26

Re: NASA: Mars colony may wait

#6 2016-04-04 17:07:57

Re: NASA: Mars colony may wait

#7 2016-04-04 22:18:43

Re: NASA: Mars colony may wait

#8 2016-04-05 13:49:00

Re: NASA: Mars colony may wait

#9 2016-04-05 16:43:22

Re: NASA: Mars colony may wait

#10 2016-06-15 16:47:46

Re: NASA: Mars colony may wait

#11 2016-06-15 16:51:38

Re: NASA: Mars colony may wait

#12 2016-06-17 09:11:40

Re: NASA: Mars colony may wait

#13 2016-06-17 17:59:12

Re: NASA: Mars colony may wait

#14 2016-06-17 21:54:42

Re: NASA: Mars colony may wait

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