New Bush Plan Set To Coincide With June Speech - Link included....talk amongst yourselves

Bill White · 2004-05-12 09:50:28

NASCAR style stickers everywhere would turn too many people off, IMHO.
I just had this vision of a rocket sitting on the pad, ready to go, with 'Viagra' emblazoned on the side.

Yup. We need billions to get to Mars.

Tax revenues are one entry point into the blood stream of the multi-trillion dollar global economy. But there are other places we can draw blood from as well.

clark · 2004-05-12 09:55:53

I would think that any reasonable person would see that PlanBush and Mars Direct go hand in hand.

Not this reasonable person.

Mars Direct is a good idea, but a bad plan. It's nothing more than Apollo redux. We spent billions with Apollo to get three people on the Moon, stretching out against all that we were capable of, and look where we are now. Mars Direct is the same thing- we spend billions over ten years, pushing the limits of what we are capable of. Yet there is no rationale for the day after Mars fall.

Does Mars increase our capability for continued exploration? No, not really. Does Mars prepare us for other space exploration exploits? No, not really.

The Moon and L1 do though. They set the stage for everything else.

But all of that aside, militrization of space is coming, regardless of the face in the White House. This neccessitates the change within NASA. It dosen't matter who you vote for, because come 2005, the contracts will have been signed, the main players will bring their lobbyists to the front, and constuiencies formed.

There is a current play in motion in case Plan Bush fails to get through Congress (which it will in some form), it's to change the charter of NASA- the mandate. Basically codifying the theme of Plan Bush into the agency itself.

And while we watch the side show about Hubble and the Shuttle, no discussion of nuclear power in space takes place, "Look at the ice cream truck, don't look at the fire."

My one eyed hobo hasn't been wrong on space, but when it comes to politcs, well, he see's as well as any other with two eyes. Bush will win, but we would all probably be better off if he didn't.

Flippant exchange of the day: "I can't believe you said that!"

"It's a free country."

"It was, once."

deagleninja · 2004-05-12 10:02:58

Whats wrong with mass-marketing? I respectfully disagree with you Bill about Jordan. Granted his hayday is passed but when he was in his prime I couldn't look around without seeing a pair of Air Jordans, a Hanes underwear or Ballpark Franks commercial, not to mention Gatorade....geez.

As far as NASCAR goes, people only know that Tony Stewart is sponcered by Home Depot or Jeff Gordan is a Pepsi man. They don't see the other 2 dozen stickers on the cars or jumpsuits, and that's my point.

Die-hards like most of us wouldn't care if the first manned ship on Mars was the ugliest shade of baby-poo green, we'd be very happy. The common person is going to see familar logos and begin to think of Mars as a rela place they can go to.

I am a firm believer that a well thought out mission to Mars could pay for itself. Don't that seem fiscally responcible to you? If it fails, the taxpayers have nothing to bitch about, pardon my language.

Bill White · 2004-05-12 10:11:24

I would think that any reasonable person would see that PlanBush and Mars Direct go hand in hand.
Not this reasonable person.

Yawn. Same old. same old.

The size and quality of your tool is not the most important consideration. Its what you do with it. :;):

Modular is good. Modular with big ships is better than modular with small ships.

Moon first or Mars first is a false dichotomy. Its both at once.
With solar ion to L1 and "Lo roads" both are the same distance from Earth.

A chess analogy. Place a Knight on e2. Is e3 closer or is d8 closer? Actually they are the same distance from e2.

= = =

Prove water exists on the Moon and I say, lets go for it and start mining ASAP.

No water on the moon? Mars resources (and asteroids) will be needed to open up Luna to commercial development.

deagleninja · 2004-05-12 10:14:28

Clark, I love ya I really do but you need to read 'The Case For Mars'. Mars Direct is nothing like Apollo. The Moon is severly over-rated.

Let me list the advantages of Mars over the Moon. Mars has a 24 hour day, the Moon has a two week day. Besides the obvious comfort a 24 hour day provides to the human psyche there are plants to be grow to feed people. On the Moon, plants would need to be grown underground requiring a lot of energy.

Mars has an atmosphere, the Moon does not. Atmopsheres are very useful when you save fuel decelerating by aerobraking. Atmopsheres also provide protection from micro-meteorites which will go right through a moonwalker. Mars' atmosphere will also be a great source of CO2 for plants as well as fuel to travel around the planet.

Mars has water. Ah, but the Moon does too you say? Big difference, Mars has a huge supply of ice in its caps and underground. Most of the planet has subsurface ice. The Moon only has maybe a million tons or so at the poles.

In short, Mars can support a thriving human development where the Moon can support maybe a small scientific outpost. I love the Moon and would love to see people there as well, but most of it's benefits can be reproduced on a NEO asteroid or comet. Only Mars can provide a home for millions and maybe billions of people.

Bill White · 2004-05-12 10:16:05

Whats wrong with mass-marketing? I respectfully disagree with you Bill about Jordan. Granted his hayday is passed but when he was in his prime I couldn't look around without seeing a pair of Air Jordans, a Hanes underwear or Ballpark Franks commercial, not to mention Gatorade....geez.

This is a question for marketing gurus. How to maximize revenue from a brand name. The genuis of marketing Jordan is how the brand continues even after he retired, again.

MarsOne would get one really big POP! in marketing revenue. Where do you get the revenue for MarsTwo? Think Apollo 11 TV ratings versus Apollo 15 TV ratings.

That is the question.

clark · 2004-05-12 10:26:06

Moon first or Mars first is a false dichotomy. Its both at once.
With solar ion to L1 and "Lo roads" both are the same distance from Earth.

It's both at once if we were ready for either one. But we are not. Okay, time ti put the sci fi fantasy book in the dresser drawer and get some fresh air boys...

We don't know much about radiation levels. We have theories. We don't know much about the long term effects of zero-g or micro-g. We have theories. We don't know much about aerobraking, or landing on Mars or the Moon. We have theories and a few small experiments as the base line. We don't have much reason to go other than to find dead life (which ain't going anywhere) and to perhaps lay the ground-floor for a trillion people to live a thousand years from now.

I've played the Moon versus Mars game to many times now, ninja. It still dosen't make sense. Living on either the moon or mars is silly. Pretending that millions or billions can live there is silly.

Live the rest of your life in an indoor mall, and then tell me you're in paradise.

You point out that the moon can be a good science base, "but Mars can support thriving...". Well here it is, why should there be anything other than a science base at the Moon or Mars?

NASA isn't in the colonization business, it does science. The people that go into space are scientists- which means they study something to expand the boundaries of human knowledge. It dosen't mean they want to go live the rest of their life inside a tin can on a barren rock of death.

Most of humanity happens to be on Earth on any given day. Doing things near Earth first makes more sense than doing something millions of miles further away for the day after next.

Moon and L1 can provide opportunity for humanity on Earth, and a greater amoyunt than might ever be realized on Mars. That's why Moon first, and Mars... later.

Bill White · 2004-05-12 10:46:38

I've played the Moon versus Mars game to many times now, ninja. It still dosen't make sense. Living on either the moon or mars is silly. Pretending that millions or billions can live there is silly.

Thats why we won't get tax dollars to do it. I agree.

GCNRevenger · 2004-05-12 12:09:59

The only hope for the colonization of other worlds is to terraform... no ifs ands or buts... the population of Earth actually is beginning to level off, down from doomsday predictions of 20Bn to around 9Bn etc, so there isn't going to be a huge need for more room unless people want to move there... and that means making it a new Earth.

But as far as setting up a base, one can be built incrimentally, but only to point, where it becomes too expensive to send more mass than the base needs to sustain itself or when you can't build rockets big enough or fast enough, whichever one comes first. I believe that with our current technology, reliance on conventional expendable rockets and low-end nuclear thermal/ion engines, that this point comes well before the colony could expand on its own with only specialty materials (certain plastics, computer chips, plant food)... There is a gap between what we can do now and what needs to be done to make more than a Martian McMurdro which exsists because of our technology.

Although MarsDirect isn't 100% a Martian Apollo, it isn't much different in philosophy or technology... MD is just enough to get people to Mars and back with a little science gear, and thats all, its as bare-boned as you can get. It also can't be expanded much without either large investment (more Ares rockets, bigger VAB, 2nd pad) or changing the arcitecture which will also be very expensive (making it to Mars in 2-3 flights into LEO rather than 1 directly) and above all MD is completly expendable.

This idea of gluing alot of MD Hab modules together and calling it a "base" is also kinda silly... there isn't much room in them tin cans, even TransHabed, on a substantial scale. You also have the problem of actually getting them down close together too, which right now I doubt you can do on Earth much less Mars with somthing that big, and I imagine they'll be pretty warn out after a year or two of operation. If you are building a base, you need somthing bigger.

Bill White · 2004-05-12 12:13:25

Expendable ain't a bad thing if manufacturing costs are low enough.

Disposable is the American way after all.

clark · 2004-05-12 12:34:38

The Vision for Space Exploration

No mo Plan Bush... :laugh:

GCNRevenger · 2004-05-12 13:25:19

Unfortunatly rockets are going to be expensive by nature of their complexity, their size, and how close they operate at the limits of the chemistry in order to beat the physics of gravity. Yes they are that bad... the economics of a reuseable vehicle are sound, it has thus far been a problem of execution.

Bill White · 2004-05-12 14:01:46

Unfortunatly rockets are going to be expensive by nature of their complexity, their size, and how close they operate at the limits of the chemistry in order to beat the physics of gravity. Yes they are that bad... the economics of a reuseable vehicle are sound, it has thus far been a problem of execution.

Someone (was it you) recently quipped that the difference between the US and Russian rocket programs was that the Russians saw their rocket technicians as being essentially glorified plumbers while the Americans see theirs as being watch-makers.

GCNRevenger · 2004-05-12 14:26:44

Twas not me... and I don't see it being possible to make rockets a whole lot simpler than the Russian Zenit. It already uses the most benign fuels in a pretty simple engine in a simple frame, and Zenit is too expensive for colonization missions... scaling this design strategy up to a big rocket won't produce a huge amount of savings either, since you need more engines and more careful rocket construction.

As far as vehicles able to get the people, the cargo mass, and the fuel mass into orbit for shipment to Mars, i'm thinking Shuttle-II will be needed for colonization. Doesn't have to be an SSTO made from unobtainium, a large high-supersonic airplane with the Scramjet or just plain old rocket space vehicle riding along. Air/LOX + RP1 for the mothership, possibly with LOX tanked up in flight to save takeoff weight, powering dual-mode engines (like Nasa's TBCC) and the upper stage with LOX/slush-LH... target payload of 25MT... expensive to develop, but the savings would add up when you have someplace to fly it to (missions to Mars colony).

Bill White · 2004-05-12 14:43:49

What about mass production of Zenit?

Must they be hand made or can tolerances be allowed that the parts can be stamped out like at an automotive assembly line and the assembled factory style?

Fuel costs are inelastic but if a colony wanted 2 Zenit shots per week (for example) - - or 100 a year - - could someone made a factory that lowered the per unit cost?

Edit to add: 100 Zenit-2 equals 3 million pounds of supplies.

= = =

Another thought. Airline travel only became affordable because GDP in the western nations rose.

Its that zero sum game business GCNRevenger was talking about. I agree 200% that economics need not be zero sum, that's the essential point (IMHO) of Adam Smoth's division of labor theory. More efficiency means a bigger pie for everyone.

19th century America could never afford a 747 jumbo jet and there was no way to make it cheap enough. Between 1900 and 1980, however, total economic activity increased so much that the share given a plumber or carpenter was sufficient to allow a 25th wedding anniversary trip to Hawaii or elsewhere on board a Boeing 747.

Prices didn't fall as much as total economic activity increased.

= = =

A nuclear propelled space tug (NERVA? just to be real simple for example) could collect payloads in LEO, go towards L1, and then accelerate towards the Moon, cutting the paylaod loose at the right time for a lunar, Earth fly-by to Mars then decelerate to return to LEO.

Colonists travel to Mars with the nuclear vessel on "point and shoot" trajectories. Beans, biscuits and boron powder travel more slowly, not being valuable enough to warrant a nuclear tug for the entire trip.

A nuclear tug may have too high an asset value to warrant a round trip to Mars, just for cargo. Its that time value of money thing.

idiom · 2004-05-12 15:47:46

MArs direct is a go and return mission plan... But Mars direct includes the ability for the fourth mission upwards to just stay... and maybe die or maybe live.

If ou import 60 tonnes of hydrogen that plenty of water and oxygen to live on... ( Mars dirct builds huge amounts of propellant... what if you simply ate your propellant and didn't leave?)

The harder part is expansion of a serious colony. Importing materials is going to be way to expensive. What is needed is the ability to manufacture steel pipes and sheet plastic. No high quality steel or plastic, just passable and then do it en masse in situ. With this you can build an unlimited number of domes, and year by year spread crops out. Only thing to be imported is high-tech bits, people and hydrogen (possibly some nitrogen too...)

Bill White · 2004-05-12 16:06:13

MArs direct is a go and return mission plan... But Mars direct includes the ability for the fourth mission upwards to just stay... and maybe die or maybe live.
If ou import 60 tonnes of hydrogen that plenty of water and oxygen to live on... ( Mars dirct builds huge amounts of propellant... what if you simply ate your propellant and didn't leave?)
The harder part is expansion of a serious colony. Importing materials is going to be way to expensive. What is needed is the ability to manufacture steel pipes and sheet plastic. No high quality steel or plastic, just passable and then do it en masse in situ. With this you can build an unlimited number of domes, and year by year spread crops out. Only thing to be imported is high-tech bits, people and hydrogen (possibly some nitrogen too...)

http://www.miraclegro.com/index.cfm?fus … MiracleGro - - the settlers will need lots of MiracleGro to get the hydroponics started. Then they will need to start soil to recycle the plant waste (plover) and human waste (incinerated and then harvested for minerals, etc. . .)

Regolith may well be laced with heavy metals and we cannot rely on it until that danger is eliminated.

Ian Flint · 2004-05-12 16:31:33

The nice thing about Mars is that there are no wasteful precedents yet. If the soils are laced with heavy metal, then great! We will simply extract all the heavy metals from the soil to make our pipes or whatever, then what's left will be better to use as crop soil.

I can see recycling becoming the leading economic ideology there.

Bill White · 2004-05-12 16:32:47

The nice thing about Mars is that there are no wasteful precedents yet. If the soils are laced with heavy metal, then great! We will simply extract all the heavy metals from the soil to make our pipes or whatever, then what's left will be better to use as crop soil.
I can see recycling becoming the leading economic ideology there.

I agree, medium and long term. But those first few years will be rough unless substantial supplies are brought from Earth.

GCNRevenger · 2004-05-12 16:53:23

My main concerns with MD is that its too light-weight to do the job well and safely and the investment and time required (the cost estimate of which I think is pretty optimistic) will go to waste since the system lacks a good route of expansion... so after we learn to live on Mars with MD, then we are back to square one when we're ready to start thinking about going to stay for real (i.e. no life support supplies from Earth).

Flying any expendable booster that often a year I don't think is much of an option because the rockets are essentially hand made and are too delicate to assembly line plus would require a very large continuous expense to maintain that high flight rate with conventional payload integration, checkout, and rollout procedures inherint to rockets.

Then there is the payloads themselves, which are fairly small on Zenit... some thing you might not want to devide up, like liquids (more volume, less tank weight) or heavy equipment, and then you are left with having to capture a very large number of payloads often once in orbit - space tug fuel mass and reliability would be an issue then and so on. And you have to get the payload down on the other end too, requiring the development of a large and probably reuseable LOX/CH4 or LOX/LH powerd lander.

GCNRevenger · 2004-05-12 16:58:34

Heavy metals make lousy plumbing...

Recycling will be important for some things, particularly life support equipment, but recycling is often alot of trouble to accomplish, often requiring pretty involved processies... in many cases, it will probably be easier and safer to simply ship it from Earth.

Edit: Its a pretty simple matter... industrial capacity on Mars is hard, so don't put it on Mars, use the capacity on Earth instead until it isn't so difficult.

idiom · 2004-05-12 17:18:35

You could send 10 tonnes of topsoil.

If you brute force the simple stuff, won't plants and bugs eventually turn the regolith into soil, as long as you don't eat any of it for three or four years?

Plants are really efficient at turning sunlight into complex molecules and structures. The right mixes of fungus etc can deal to nearly anything. Most heavy metals are required in trace levels anyway, for plants and animals to survive.

GCNRevenger · 2004-05-12 17:57:40

No, not nessesarrily... the lack of useful nutrient in the Martian soil combined with the peroxides in it might simply kill the topsoil off. You certainly couldn't use it outside either, with the low temps/press. and UV radiation.

idiom · 2004-05-12 18:36:08

Definitly could not use it outside.
My thought generally orbit around getting as many domes up as fast as possible. I tend to this would be best served if the raw materials for domes could be sourced on Mars.

The more land area under cover, the more you can stabalise the regolith with consant higher pressure, steadier temperatures and occasional spraying with water. Biological elements can deal with pretty much anything Martian soil could through at them.

The big problems will occur if some crazy trace element (like cobalt or something) turns out to be unnaturally rare on Mars. A lack of tectonic activity may have left the surface with only only small portion of the perodic table.

Bill White · 2004-05-12 21:46:24

You take this stuff:

http://www.geo.uni-bayreuth.de/bodenkun … erra_preta

http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehm … ...ome.htm

= = =

Fringe benefit? Research leads to skills useful for rehabilitating poor tropical Terran soils. A two for one deal.

= = =

A Christian Science Monitor http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0513/p14s … .html]link to a space based farming article.

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#51 2004-05-12 09:50:28

Re: New Bush Plan Set To Coincide With June Speech - Link included....talk amongst yourselves

#52 2004-05-12 09:55:53

Re: New Bush Plan Set To Coincide With June Speech - Link included....talk amongst yourselves

#53 2004-05-12 10:02:58

Re: New Bush Plan Set To Coincide With June Speech - Link included....talk amongst yourselves

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Re: New Bush Plan Set To Coincide With June Speech - Link included....talk amongst yourselves

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Re: New Bush Plan Set To Coincide With June Speech - Link included....talk amongst yourselves

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Re: New Bush Plan Set To Coincide With June Speech - Link included....talk amongst yourselves

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Re: New Bush Plan Set To Coincide With June Speech - Link included....talk amongst yourselves

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Re: New Bush Plan Set To Coincide With June Speech - Link included....talk amongst yourselves

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Re: New Bush Plan Set To Coincide With June Speech - Link included....talk amongst yourselves

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Re: New Bush Plan Set To Coincide With June Speech - Link included....talk amongst yourselves

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Re: New Bush Plan Set To Coincide With June Speech - Link included....talk amongst yourselves

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Re: New Bush Plan Set To Coincide With June Speech - Link included....talk amongst yourselves

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Re: New Bush Plan Set To Coincide With June Speech - Link included....talk amongst yourselves

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Re: New Bush Plan Set To Coincide With June Speech - Link included....talk amongst yourselves

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Re: New Bush Plan Set To Coincide With June Speech - Link included....talk amongst yourselves

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Re: New Bush Plan Set To Coincide With June Speech - Link included....talk amongst yourselves

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