What Kind of Manned Program Should We Push For? - A Time to choose

Dayton3 · 2004-11-29 18:58:22

I think one of the problems with we Mars advocates is that we never fully settle on EXACTLY what we want.

We argue to long over whether Mars Direct is a "flags and footprints" mission plan or over whether a pressurized rover can be included.

I think we should decide with some finality on what type of Manned Mars Program we can support and ask the politicians to support.

Mars Direct? Mars Sem-Direct? Mars Hybrid-Direct? Four man crew?Five?Six?

In doing so, I think we need to consider the following:

1) What would the president be willing to support. There will be no Mars program without the endorsement of the president.

2) What would Congress be willing to fund? While we might like a 200 billion dollar program, we must be realistic what any Congress would fund and for how long once the go decision has been made.

3) How much public support can we get? For obvious reasons.

4) What will the NASA centers support. Johnson, Kennedy, Goddard, Marshall, JPL...........

Be realistic, no president is going to endorse a manned Mars mission if Johnson Spaceflight Center or KSC is telling him "we can't do that".

To that end, I think I would go with basic Mars Direct but with the Comet launch vehicle. Though instead of expanding the crew to six as NASA wanted expand it just to five and use the added lifting capacity to firm up the mass budget. I think that is the term.

Opinions?

John Creighton · 2004-11-29 19:01:18

Mars Sem-Direct for me but I would like to make further modifications.

Dayton3 · 2004-11-29 19:05:42

Mars Sem-Direct for me but I would like to make further modifications.

I would be interested in hearing them?

Do you have suggestions as to crew size? booster type? as well.

John Creighton · 2004-11-29 19:11:29

I would be interested in hearing them?
Do you have suggestions as to crew size? booster type? as well.

Longer stay is the big one. I forget does mars semi direct have an interplantary transfer vehicle like the triton. I also would seriously look at the possiblity of refulling from marses moons. I like the idea of having a mobile base but I worry it might be too big. It is either that or a reasonable MAV. I would like to see the same crew able to explore large areas of the Martian landscape. I think initially research is a high priority because self sufficiency won’t be ready for at least 20 years after the first landing.

Dayton3 · 2004-11-29 19:35:11

I would be interested in hearing them?
Do you have suggestions as to crew size? booster type? as well.
Longer stay is the big one. I forget does mars semi direct have an interplantary transfer vehicle like the triton. I also would seriously look at the possiblity of refulling from marses moons. I like the idea of having a mobile base but I worry it might be too big. It is either that or a reasonable MAV. I would like to see the same crew able to explore large areas of the Martian landscape. I think initially research is a high priority because self sufficiency won’t be ready for at least 20 years after the first landing.

I think 18 months is long enough for the first crew.

After all, they will be global celebrities so the space program can get more use out of them here than on Mars.

Mars Direct is two vehicles basically for each mission.

A Habitat Vehicle that the crew flies in to Mars and lives in while there.

An an Earth Return Vehicle that flies straight from the surface of Mars till it aerobrakes at Earth.

John Creighton · 2004-11-29 19:48:15

I think 18 months is long enough for the first crew.
After all, they will be global celebrities so the space program can get more use out of them here than on Mars.

For how long. Anyway the longer they stay the greater their celebrity status should be when they get back right? The only reason to bring the back early is if no crew as qualified wants to stay any longer or if it is deemed important to further investigate the medical effects of the trip on earth.

Dook · 2004-11-29 20:22:33

I'm for Mars Direct first, four person crew, and don't take the two open rovers, just the truck and a larger pressurized rover. I wouldn't complain too much about Mars Semi-Direct though.

The President knows nothing about technology and little about anything else. He does whatever his advisors recommend so he will support whatever NASA sells him. Congress doesn't need to fund Mars Direct. NASA's current budget is about $16 billion annually. Mars Direct will cost $50 billion so if you put $8 billion a year towards it we will be there in 7-8 years but NASA would have to drop the ISS and space shuttle. Neither of them compare to a human on mars. We only need better leadership, not more money.

The public must be won over by a dynamic leader, a JFK type. People will always be more concerned with their own problems and lives but they do want their country to do great things so they will get behind a reaching mission if the government wins their trust and it doesn't cost them anymore.

NASA supports it's own. We would have been to mars already if NASA had come up with Mars Direct in their 90 day report instead of an engineer working at Lockheed Martin.

Back to the leadership issue. When JFK said we were going to the moon even NASA wasn't sure they could do it. He had true vision.

MarsDog · 2004-11-30 04:18:56

Emphasis needs to be on reliability and efficiency.
Even near Earth, safety has been the biggest problem.
Given current reliability of technology, what would betting odds be ?

I like safer mission plans, such as the use of http://www.google.com/search?q=cycler+o … f-8]cycler orbits.

Why take a chance ?

Palomar · 2004-11-30 07:26:19

I'm for Mars Direct first, four person crew, and don't take the two open rovers, just the truck and a larger pressurized rover. I wouldn't complain too much about Mars Semi-Direct though.

*Mars Direct or (based on others' posts in various threads throughout the years), at the very least, a modified form of MD.

Six crewmembers. Four isn't enough, especially if two of them would happen to die for whatever reason. Five at the very, very least.

Now who's going to cough up the $ for it? Yep, we've discussed that many times. :laugh:

--Cindy

Gennaro · 2004-11-30 08:01:47

Yes, 6 rather than 4, anyday. But how to cram them into the Transhab and Earth Return Vehicle? Boils down to the launch vehicle. Mars Direct is really pushing the limits, but with a NTR stage it probably would be viable.

Which means more development and more money, even if it's 'just' about dusting off 60's technology.

Cindy is right, you can't rule out fatal casualties. If you Americans weren't so godamm anxious about safety all the time you could achieve great things. Scott and explorers like him were willing to put their lives on the line, what's a hero worth if he's not prepared to take risks and live with it (or lives in a nation who won't allow him to)?
The real sign of greatness would have been if in case no one came back, you just learnt from the experience and launched another mission.
Often, being prepared to take risks, acting forcefully but in a simple way, is the very element that is risk minimizing. Like this thing with "cyclers". According to my understanding, the transit of such vehicles last considerably longer and they are hard to dock with. Worse in every respect, in my opinion.

The Cosmos is a cruel place and we are just people. The stay advisaged in Mars Direct is long enough and dangerous enough. I see little reason in prolonging a mission which will be highly demanding on those taking part, any way you put it.

Will they be greater heroes becasue they stay longer? No. Not with a mission that will already last for years.

Oops, just recalled I had to reply to another thread by John Creighton, if I recall correctly. Too bad I've got an exam coming up and I haven't got the time. Sorry.

Cobra Commander · 2004-11-30 08:09:33

What is our task here, what is the Mars Society's role at present in getting a humans to Mars mission done?

Creating and directing public and political support.

We need to convince people why we should go. Trying to lock ourselves into a mission architecture is counter-productive and misses the point. Four or six crewmen? It doesn't matter if the people still wonder why us crazies are raving about going to Mars. Let NASA figure out the details of mission architecture and hardware, it isn't our problem. We need to get the masses inspired by the idea, we need to convince the politicians that there's enough public support to help them if they back it.

We can't make it about hardware and we can't make it primarily about what we want. We need to convince the average citizen who knows jack-shiz about space and the pols that don't care about anything that won't help them get re-elected. What do they want? Find it, and use it.

clark · 2004-11-30 08:39:41

Bill mentioned an op-ed by Ray Bradbury in the Wall Street Journal. I went and found it.

I so worship that man.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id … =110005925

Time to Explore Again
Where is the madman who'll take us to Mars?
BY RAY BRADBURY
Sunday, November 21, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST
In this time when our freeways are frozen in place, space travel suffers the same terrible winter. Years have passed since Apollo 11, with only faint cries for a lunar rediscovery, then Mars and beyond.
How can we thaw this deep-freeze to unlock our vision so that we see the stars once more with the same fever that we knew that fabulous night we took the first Giant Step?
Let's look at the situation 500 years ago.
Columbus, financed by Spain's royalty, sailed for India. King Henry VIII, jealous, paid Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot) to track Columbus. Francis I of France, thus provoked, hired Verrazano to do the same. Of the three, only Verrazano made landfall at what became Kitty Hawk. Incredible! Verrazano sailed west and five centuries on the Wright Brothers soared east to explore space and time.
There was, then, a confluence of kings who sent their ships for spice and gold. Today there is no such desire in our Congress or our president for similar goals.
What must happen next?
Can Science Fiction writers, inspirers of futures, cause a seed change in the American imagination so that, in turn, our leaders can be influenced? For remember when Admiral Byrd touched the North Pole, he cried, "Jules Verne leads me!" Where are the Jules Vernes, alive today to change our ways?
Let me make a list of some possible alternatives. Why not encourage our original competitor, Russia, to get back in the chase.
Signs indicate that there's a slow return to Communist authority which might well mean not only authoritarian politics that kept millions in bondage, but also the arrogance which caused them to circumnavigate space with Gagarin. Properly provoked and still aggravated at our "Tear down the wall," might they not desire to beat us to Mars?
Or consider our two great enemies/friends. Germany, after all, lost two wars at our hands. France was saved from those two wars by our help. There's every reason for those two nations to hate us.
Why not irritate some new Von Braun in Berlin to invent a Mars rocket and beat us to a landing? And the French, stung by their defeats and the salvation we offered, mightn't they want to send a Foreign Legion to the deserts of Mars?
And yet again Japan, an American-conquered nation, remembering the intrusion of Admiral Perry in Tokyo Harbor. And from the ruins of Hiroshima, might they not send a rocket to touch Phobos and Deimos and move beyond Mars to Alpha Centauri.
Or perhaps Canada, that invisible nation, ignored for centuries. Might they, in a macho gesture, fling themselves into space.
Or, most incredible of all, imagine that the Vatican decided that Pope John III wished to build a spacecraft titled The Holy Ghost in order to fly across the universe in search of the beginnings of Creation. With the moon as base and Mars as second manger, that Pope might move on to study the wellsprings of the cosmos.
What then would be the effect on our prejudiced secular America? Would we not build a bigger, better, and almost more holy rocket to follow the Ecclesiastical dusts?
Or what if the Muslims . . .?
But no, perish the thought.
Put all these together, shove them in tomorrow's slot machine and pull the handle. If the totals come up with three swastikas, three hammer and sickles, or three papal crowns with honeybee insignia, the results may well be the same.
What we need now is a competition of hatreds and loves. The final reward on Mars might well be not spices or gold, but the squashing of egos and a promise of immortality.
In any event, time is running out. Congress, as usual, is imitating Sleeping Beauty. It is time to waken from the slumber.
That footprint on the moon is being filled with eternal dust and Mars still waits to have its canals filled with our dreams. Where, oh where, is the technological madman to wake us from our slumbers and provide us with the proper destiny?
Tomorrow morning, may that madman be born.

SpaceNut · 2004-11-30 08:45:51

Not just a convincing, but a justification of the dollars to what will be achieved. Impart that also means how many will go, for how long, the risk of death, and to what knowledge will be gained.

For myself a non member of any society or organization it is more in addition or to the fact of what is to follow that influences that first few flights if a means is put forth that achieves the initial goals.

So what are the initial goals to achieve?

Each step towards the goal must be incremental and not five steps forward only to fall 3 back as we have done with the current Nasa space programs since the moon was last visited.

As my handle implies I am a Space Nut... just the run of the mill person that can see the future if costs are managed.

Dook · 2004-11-30 17:07:29

Emphasis needs to be on reliability and efficiency.
Even near Earth, safety has been the biggest problem.
Given current reliability of technology, what would betting odds be ?
I like safer mission plans, such as the use of http://www.google.com/search?q=cycler+o … f-8]cycler orbits.
Why take a chance ?

Mars Direct can't handle more weight so if you add 2 more crewmembers and the required food, water, oxygen, life support, living space, pressure suits, you basically have to start from scratch. 4 people is fine.

Why would NASA send people on a mission to mars who are about to die? How would they die in transit? That's not something you plan for. It's something you build into the design to prevent.

Marsdog:
Reliability and efficiency are emphasized in the Mars Direct plan.

How has safety been the biggest problem? NASA's record is good considering the challenges it faces day after day. I don't see it as the biggest problem at all.

A cycler orbit is a free return trajectory and exactly what Robert Zubrin proposed in his Mars Direct idea.

Marsdog you can get the book from Amazon.com. It's not that much.

GCNRevenger · 2004-11-30 19:22:01

What mission we could go with depends largely on money and if we have water available. Since we aren't going to have either one most likly, then NASA's DRM mission is probobly the better choice. It isn't held hostage to the two-HLLV launch limits of MarsDirect, and could accomodate a crew of six with a much more extensive science package. It would be worth the extra expense.

comstar03 · 2004-11-30 21:47:45

What Kind of mission ? good question

Apollo style crew - flag and footprints / pathfinder type

or

starter style crew - establish the ground setup for a larger crewed mission ( assembly of food processing and water collection and living environments limited exploration )

or

a combined style crew - a six-eight person crew for assembly of outpost infrastructure and exploration missions that would entail aerial survillenance up to 150 miles diameter.

Another Question - Does the Government has the willingness to fund this program in the Long Term because of the economic and security environment of today ?

Another Question - Would the Scientific Community push for funding of human crewed missions to Moon and Mars even against the funding of robotic / probe missions because of limited funding ?

Two major questions to start with, for what program we should have and the willingness to fund the proposed push into space and the push even to the moon has major complications and reduced funding and blocks in the government and this would be funding across many years into decades and across different political parties in all governments around the world.

And you think the technological issues are the biggest issues , they are solvable , but some of the political, cultural and economic issues for each government and the earth in general have about space pioneering are large and complex and will need leadership.

Sorry to say - BUT PRIVATELY OWNED ENTERPRISE ( not public corporations ) have a better ability to get things done and not controlled by the public or politiical parties that can make a change in decision that could effect the space advances stall or disappear. For all the people that don't think its possible for PRIVATELY OWNED CORPORATIONS (POCs) have the resources to expand into space look at SpaceShipOne, and that is not public and they are aiming for the earth orbit and the moon, and they are not the only POC doing it.

SpaceNut · 2004-11-30 22:17:58

I agree stop labeling the mission but rather detail the mission goals short term and long term for all to see, that is how it will sell.

GCNRevenger · 2004-11-30 22:28:40

Sorry to say - BUT PRIVATELY OWNED ENTERPRISE ( not public corporations ) have a better ability to get things done and not controlled by the public or politiical parties that can make a change in decision that could effect the space advances stall or disappear. For all the people that don't think its possible for PRIVATELY OWNED CORPORATIONS (POCs) have the resources to expand into space look at SpaceShipOne, and that is not public and they are aiming for the earth orbit and the moon, and they are not the only POC doing it.

I don't know which planet you are living on Comstar, but it isn't this one.

Private corporations have no reasources of the scale needed for a Mars mission with current or near future technology. They do not. Being agile and able to make changes doesn't mean anything you need more determination to follow through on a long project even which corporations do not excel at.

Corporations are also bound by the neck by profit motive, that there is no profit in going to Mars or even to LEO outside of government money, and the science motive is also largely irrelivent to business.

And please, Space Ship One? Space Ship One is a pathetic toy, a Cessna with a rocket in the back, it would have to be a hundred times more powerful just to reach orbit with its own weight.

comstar03 · 2004-11-30 23:15:08

GCNRevenger,

You think that because a corporation is bound by profit motive it couldn't make the decision to go to moon and take the larger step of going to mars !!!!. Every body on this planet require income and spend their income to meet the needs of their owners ( including citizens within a country ), it just depends on the volume of income inflow and expenses outflow will determine the POCs in space development.

Well, you're ideas and cocepts of POCs and the owners of POCs are flawed. Because for those owners of POCs wanting to go into space are creative thinking individuals that see the next wave of profit potential coming from new and different industries created out of the technology and innovation from the space environment.

This same individuals are not governed by the same rules that the rest of the world work under, because they are the one group that create and build and / or maintain products and services that we all want. Most people have a limited to their thoughts on what can be done, these people work around the issues over the issues and come up with solutions.

Also you are not in the same league as the pioneer developer Burt Rutan, he is one of those individuals that see the issues and creates solutions,( yes, the spaceshipone v1.0 was cheap but did the job, so was the wright brothers' airplane did private enterprise stop there, NO ) you have a mind wall because you think and say - " I can't see private corporations doing that, because you don't want too", that doesn't fit in your nice little world, because that means a different playing board in space development, research, technologies, advancements and exploration can go in a unpredictable way that is innovation and change.

Austin Stanley · 2004-11-30 23:38:29

I favor a slight variation of the NASA DRM or Mars-Semi Direct. I would put a greater emphisis on base-building and possible add a launch dedicated to bringing additional cargo and equipment down.

If something has to be designed to last 2 years on mars without failure, then it might as well be designed to last forever. Not that it will, but equipment designed to last 2 years safely is going to have a much longer mean time to failure, why not take advantage of it. It's wastefull to launch all the expensive science equipment only to practicaly abandon it by the next mission.

To use antartica as an example, while Scott, Shackleton, and Amundsen were heroic exploerers that inspired many, they achieved little, if any science. Not untill more modern times with the establishment of permanent bases on the continent have we begun to do some real science there. Indeed, more was probably learned by the small antartic whaling camps then was by any of the great expeditions to the pole.

Another place war Mars Direct goes wrong is it's total avoidance of in-orbit redevous and construction. While I do not think that it is practicle to build a Battlestar Galatica in oribt, there is no reason that a two parts could not be launched seperatly, then docked in orbit, and then sent to mars. Both the US and Russia have done many such missions, staring with Gemini 6 & 7, Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz, and many more orbital redevues. Pretty tride and true techonology to me, no reason not to use it if necessary.

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-01 00:08:04

"You think that because a corporation is bound by profit motive..."

Thats correct, large corporations with the reasources to execute manned flight to the Moon and Mars are bound by the need to make a profit in that endeavour. Since there is no potential for profit, then there will be no corporate missions. Even LEO tourism may not be profitable.

"This same individuals are not governed by the same rules that the rest of the world work under"

Incorrect.

These dreamers you see putting up their own fortunes for small rockets and other things do not have the personal fortunes to spend on such projects. It will take billions of dollars to go any place, and they just don't have it. Ten million here, a hundred million there... pocket change. The companies do, but these companies are ruled by stock owners, not CEOs, and they are viciously protective of the profit motive... a CEO trying to spend that kind of money would be summerly fired.

"Also you are not in the same league as the pioneer developer Burt Rutan, he is one of those individuals that see the issues and creates solutions..."

I'm glad that I'm not, since that would make me crazy. There is a fundimental physical reason that getting to Moon/Mars is so difficult, that the amount of energy you can derive from chemical fuels of reasonable mass, volume, and safety is small compared to the force of gravity on Earth. You can try and dance around this all you want, but it will not go away until chemical rockets are replaced.

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-01 00:15:11

I am a little skeptical about using any direct/semidirect arcitecture for base building, I wonder how much payload can reasonably be sent before launcher and lander price becomes a major hinderance. In that case, medium reuseable vehicles from Earth/Leo, Leo/Lmo, and Lmo/Mars would be in order.

Using multiple launches for vehicles is probobly how it should be done, one for the payload and one for the TMI

Austin Stanley · 2004-12-01 00:22:32

I agree with GCN completely.

Not only is there currently no profit to be made in deep space, it is far beyond the reach private indavidules and large coporations.

Even if a big coporation honestly wanted to put its money into space exploration, they would be unable. While big coporations like Wal-Mart, Exon Mobile, Ford, IBM, GM, exct... might have billions (perhaps even trillions) of dollars in assets, they cannot simply liquidate all that and put it into space. Indeed there revenues are only about 100 million or so a year. And they can't even take all that money and put it into space, as they have debts to finance, dividens to pay, and they must re-invest the money in their own coporation to stay competative and profitable.

No, for the forseable future if space development is going to happen it is going to be the goverment that does it.

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-01 00:50:23

Another quite annoying trend that seems to be going around, is the AltSpace advocates that work with and for NASA keep trying to lower the bar on what is required in order to try and make the mission possible for the small-time no-name firms.

For example, not requiring that an ISS crew vehicle carry four crew, only that the system be able to carry crew to the station at the same rate... even if it means multiple flights. Shrinking payload requirements for proposed Lunar and ISS cargo vehicles. Smaller and smaller launchers instead of bigger ones that we obviously need. That kind of thing.

comstar03 · 2004-12-01 01:10:04

GNRevenger, and Austin Stanley

I want to give you a lesson is business dynamic of space economics, Privately Owned Corporations (POCs) can use the earth income streams to build space asset base including all the necessary infrastructure for expansion into space for individual or group POCs. Then forming alliances and working with other POCs including specialist POCs could expand the economic framework into a full economy outside the dependence on earth based income streams.

The people ( individuals or groups ) that develop and harness the technologies for space will own the rights to that technology that would be with trillions of dollars and the development of newer technologies, and processes will continue to add value to those POCs. The resources on mars, moon, asteroids and other planetary bodies in our solar system are far greater than the resources of earth.

Currently all technologies including computer technologies that formed the backbone of the IT and communication evolution on earth have all their roots back to space that is trillions of dollars in space income not received. That would change when POCs get into space.

You look at space and business in a simply terms that are not related to business in the 21st century and beyond. Different cultures bring different practices into the business mix and when you understand that you will see that POCs have a greater chance to change the world outside earth then individiual governments.

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#1 2004-11-29 18:58:22

Re: What Kind of Manned Program Should We Push For? - A Time to choose

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Re: What Kind of Manned Program Should We Push For? - A Time to choose

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