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#26 2006-03-28 19:26:15

EuroLauncher
Member
From: Europe
Registered: 2005-10-19
Posts: 299

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

NASA will take in on the order of $400Bn, perhaps more. A few tens of billions is not a big slice of this.

So it may cost a liitle more than 400 Bil or a little less, the 1.0 Trillion figure was wrong although 1/2 a trillion might not be a far off guess on the cost of VSE

Human spaceflight would get defunded, politicans making noises about how our technology isn't really ready to send humans to space except on dangerous grand-standing missions (Apollo, Shuttle, Mir) and that space science is better accomplished by robots... which will be all thats left of NASA as a space exploration entity.

In such an event, barring the invention of a space elevator or a regenerative scramjet burning spiked slush hydrogen, man will stay right here on Earth for a long, long time... China will feel no need to rush anywhere, Russia/ESA won't be able to afford to do anything, and JAXA will pretty much be relegated to probes too.

What out the other space plans, Soyuz to the Moon, Brazil, India, S.Korea and Iran advancing their rockets...., Space tourism, Private sector moves, Russia's Kliper, ESA's ATV, Oural and Soyuz from Europe's spaceport ?
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/m … 31209.html
Human Spaceflight Without NASA?
' Meanwhile, there are new political factors that go beyond votes.
China is suddenly on an aggressive path toward the Moon and Mars after launching its first man into space in October. India on Friday announced it had developed a rocket capable of putting a man on the Moon, a goal the country has set for itself.
In a black void where the U.S. government sees the laurels of Apollo, others eye rich, endless opportunity. If President Bush does not decide the future of human spaceflight, perhaps the leader of another country, or the chief of an online book-selling empire, will. '

The CaLV looks great, what a rocket and with power like a Saturn-V but what about the technical issues and budget problems with the CEV


CLV may be able to launch a payload of about 24,000-26,000 kg to LEO it looks ok but CaLV is where the power really lies.  For the CEV a single prime contractor will be selected to continue with Phase 2 however this contractor would be selected without prototyping or flight-test,  $286 million was already approved for CEV. The Katrina nightmare and Tom DeLay scandal is not helping NASA one bit, they are trying to push on with CaLV/CLV and the CEV's first flight may be getting delayed to 2011 and beyond. There could now be a serious cash-crunch or fiscal budget of shortfall of anywhere between $4-6 billion dollars. The Exploration Office manager was sent off and the Project Manager was sent somewhere else. O’Keefe was a bean-counter and knew as Iraq costs started to rise the money was tight from Congress so O’Keefe quit rather than having to deal with the axe of another mission like Hubble repair fallout. There is now a lack of dollars at Washington and budget shortfalls are to be covered by cutting back robotics, chopping astrobiology or robbing unmanned-science funds and our favourite Mars science missions have now been cut. Those Mars Methane-engines are now gone from the VSE and CLV is pushing on ahead the first part is Solid-Rocket-Motor or SRB while part two will be based on an Apollo-J2. NASA is again redefining the Shuttle replacement vehicle but there are still many budget and technical issues. The  Phase 1 contracts have now been extended longer, as many of you know they folks at Lockheed and the team of Northrop-Grumman/Boeing have been working on conceptual designs, expendable SSME is out for CLV/HLV, extensions for Phase one add up to approximately $60 million dollars for each contractor and additional solar arrays or the use of fuel cells is being debated. 
You can read more on the CEV here
http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1942
and here
http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic … 81&start=0
NASA CEV info

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#27 2006-03-29 13:37:49

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,776

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

The slate has given a much lower figure : 200 Billion ( but that's just for the Moon-trip alone )

The program cost (construction, launch, servicing, and ground support) for a stripped-down moon base might hit $200 billion, about the cost of a year of the Iraq war.
http://www.slate.com/id/2138943/
Yet it's unclear what astronauts would do at a moon base, other than survive until their return voyage. A moon base would not be useful for a future Mars expedition—quite the contrary, it would be an obstacle. Any Mars-bound mission would almost certainly depart directly from Earth orbit to the Red Planet; stopping at the moon would be counterproductive in terms of propulsion physics and so dramatically raises the price of Mars flight.

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#28 2006-03-29 15:47:17

publiusr
Banned
From: Alabama
Registered: 2005-02-24
Posts: 682

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

Angara will be awhile in coming, though they seem to be making a lot of headway in terms of their pad. Ariane M will at least be an all Euro venture. I hope they go for that.

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#29 2006-03-29 18:51:44

GCNRevenger
Member
From: Earth
Registered: 2003-10-14
Posts: 6,056

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

"but what about the technical issues and budget problems with the CEV?

Such as?

"the... Tom DeLay scandal is not helping NASA one bit"

Huh? What does Tom DeLay have to do with anything? ...The "charges" brought against him have been from the hyper-leftist jury-shopping law-ignoring prosecutor Ronie Earle in Texas anyway, to "take him out" of politics. Which worked, by the way.

"There is now a lack of dollars at Washington and budget shortfalls are to be covered by cutting back robotics, chopping astrobiology or robbing unmanned-science funds and our favourite Mars science missions have now been cut."

Why is a cut in space science such a terrible thing? Before VSE, NASA was almost purely a science agency, but now their priorities are different. Different priorities dictate different amounts of emphasis on different things. Its not that they are being "cut" to a level below what they "should" be, but simply reallocated?

"Methane-engines are now gone from the VSE"

Gone? No, just postponed until when we need it, so that its development doesn't disrupt the return to the Moon.


[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]

[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]

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#30 2006-03-30 01:07:33

TwinBeam
Member
From: Chandler, AZ
Registered: 2004-01-14
Posts: 144

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

Manned vs un-manned:  I can understand how people who dream of going into space could be irritated with those who advocate dropping all manned-space efforts in favor of un-manned (which just happens to favor those people's pet projects).   

What I have a hard time understanding is any human exploration advocate who rejects using robots in every way possible, to bootstrap humans into space as cheaply as possible.  Get enough robots up there working under remote human guidance (not direct control), and eventually it'll pay to have humans on site to eliminate the feedback delay and handle tasks that the robots have a hard time doing. 

If we *don't* use robots as much as possible to get the costs of human missions way down, so humans can get out there within a reasonable period, robots are just going to keep getting better and smarter and eating away at the domain of tasks that "need a human being on site".  At the pace human space flight is now scheduled to move - forget about the inevitable delays - we may get near-human AI before we get a decent moonbase, let alone move on to Mars.

Yeah, we could dump many billions into going directly to Mars - but that'd end up as little better than a flags, footprints and rocks mission, as cost over-runs and budget cuts erode mission plans.  Probably to be followed by another 30+ years in which we don't expand on that success.  Of course, having watched NASA waste ~30 years in which we could have been building on the moon and getting ready for Mars, maybe I should just take the attitude "screw you younger guys - I want to see someone on Mars in my lifetime, and who cares what happens after that?"

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#31 2006-03-30 08:07:30

Mars_B4_Moon
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Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,776

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

Manned vs un-manned:  I can understand how people who dream of going into space could be irritated with those who advocate dropping all manned-space efforts in favor of un-manned (which just happens to favor those people's pet projects).   

What I have a hard time understanding is any human exploration advocate who rejects using robots in every way possible, to bootstrap humans into space as cheaply as possible.  Get enough robots up there working under remote human guidance (not direct control), and eventually it'll pay to have humans on site to eliminate the feedback delay and handle tasks that the robots have a hard time doing.

I don't think the charges of Mr.Thomas DeLay is going to mess up NASA so much, Delay had many of his own ideas but he did ok for space. Delay was one of those Republicans that was a go between for NASA and Congress, or Spaceflight and the U.S. House - meaning a word in Delay's ear in Texas could get a lot of things done in the Capital. DeLay headed a subcommittee on House Appropriations Committee that oversaw the numbers of dollars for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. However Delay's reputation isn't the best, tax evasion, Abramoff indictment, mug shots, conspiracy to violate election law...you name it he's done it or got it. There was an infamous Texas redistricting of the JSC, when it wound up in TX-22 or DeLay's district, making DeLay the JSC representative in the House. Republicans are also unhappy with Delay - Bill O'Reilly from Foxnews turned his back on Delay calling him the GOP equivalent of Howard Dean and said he shouldn't have have any power anymore. So I wonder if NASA would see him as baggage rather than a political friend and distance themselves from him ? When Delay heard the word 'NASA' he was probably just thinking about money, as usual. rubbing his hands together and wondering, "What can NASA do for me?" Some posters here think Major Tom's spaceship will never achieve orbit, Republicans need a guy untainted by DeLay's legal and ethical problems. The NASA foothold would have then been another potential source of money and power for our convict DeLay : one way traffic for Tom's money pockets and trouble for space exploation.

On the robotic and Launcher side of things you don't need manned flight to get great launchers, we know that the Russians got their Energia to test out an unmanned Buran and Polyus payload, and they sent robotic landers and sample returns to the Moon. The Saturn-V was a monster but the Soviet Energia had a bit more takeoff thrust. Today the Europeans are looking at really ambitious robotic missions like a ESA VenusSampleReturn, the ATV, Europa explorer, Mars Aircraft and an IHP to travel 200 AU from the Sun and study the outer heliosphere. China on the other hand is without doubt building its launchers with manned flight in mind, Buzz Aldrin was look at the missions from China and think that it seems feasible the Chinese may well have plans to circumnavigate the Moon in the not too distant future like Apollo 8 and others like China might be developing a heavy-medium class new launcher for larger space-station sections ( a Chinese space-station ).

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#32 2006-03-30 08:25:18

Yang Liwei Rocket
Member
Registered: 2004-03-03
Posts: 993

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

Michael Griffin mailed Nasa-Watch on this Thomas DeLay issue
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2006/ … ail_o.html

Back to the subject of cash, the VSE wasn't big, it proposed spending $12 billion over five years on the effort. You might think the NASA budget sounds good but Katrina costs, DOD budget rises and Iraq costs are putting pressure on space. The NASA price could be anywhere between $200-300 billion but costs could continue to rise. However we should forget this 1 "Trillion" number, it isn't real.


'first steps are not for cheap, think about it...
did China build a great Wall in a day ?' ( Y L R newmars forum member )

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#33 2006-03-31 00:56:38

EuroLauncher
Member
From: Europe
Registered: 2005-10-19
Posts: 299

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

A Moon and Mars price for half a trillion dollars is still too much


"in the range of 20-40 T"

That is a huge range, which is it closer to? Oh wait, the rocket doesn't exsist. The Ariane-V "2010" model is supposed to hit about the 30MT mark.

Exactly, nobody can do that 30MT payload,
the STS payload is ALL SHUTTLE...except for a bay that might lift 20MT plus, the Proton a dedicated launcher has similar launch capacity to the Shuttle,  the Atlas V-Heavy isn't really heavy at all and doesn't cut it for such a payload and NewHorizons looked like an elephant sitting on top of a flea, Angara hasn't been built, Ariane currently only have an ability for 21,000 kg in LEO and that smaller payload just isn't enough, Delta-4H might be able to do it someday depsite the problems during the December launch, the Japanese H-II can't lift it and also had a failure in 2003, I'm not sure what China is doing but I know they can't do a 30MT


If you want to check China's launch ability - there's a thread somehwere about Shenzhou on this site.

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#34 2006-03-31 08:39:26

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,776

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

China can't do 30 MT, here's the thread
China eyeing new HL
25MT to LEO is what they are after but they haven't even built it yet.

It's very possible they won't really start working on Shuttle Derived until 2010, and there are only 3 big players in the lift game now, STS-Shuttle, Ariane and Proton and none of them have heavy lift ability.
For launching a 25 MT payload or a possible 30 MT CEV, Griffin already looked at a Shuttle spare-parts Stick ( RB ) and the Boeing/Lockheed EELV heavy-lift designs. The Boeing/Lockheed boys lied they can't do heavy lift, Delta can't do it and some newmars people and magazines have said Boeing is "tripple billing" its reliability while Atlas launches already look like Giant-Mammoth's going piggy-back on small mouse rocket so naturally Griffin isn't planning on using either of their rockets.

The CLV will be an SRB and with the shape and payload of the Stick you can tell why America's best astronauts are lovin' it, NASA has handed out $28 million contracts and is to select one contractor for the CEV in 2006. Back in 2005 they got $428 million, 2006 saw $753 million for continuing development of the CEV, people are now looking at the numbers and total funding of Project Constellation through 2025 inflation-adjusted is estimated at $210 billion and $217 billion as reported by orlandosentinel and spaceref.

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#35 2006-03-31 21:10:21

John Creighton
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From: Nova Scotia, Canada
Registered: 2001-09-04
Posts: 2,401
Website

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

I hope it was inflation adjusted to today’s dollars and not to tomorrows dollars, as that would be dumb unless you deliberately wanted to inflate the figure. Every think costs in the trillions if we want to but it in terms of the dollar in 4080. lol


Dig into the [url=http://child-civilization.blogspot.com/2006/12/political-grab-bag.html]political grab bag[/url] at [url=http://child-civilization.blogspot.com/]Child Civilization[/url]

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#36 2006-04-01 00:20:49

GCNRevenger
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From: Earth
Registered: 2003-10-14
Posts: 6,056

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

"The Boeing/Lockheed boys lied they can't do heavy lift, Delta can't do it and some newmars people and magazines have said Boeing is "tripple billing" its reliability while Atlas launches already look like Giant-Mammoth's going piggy-back on small mouse rocket so naturally Griffin isn't planning on using either of their rockets."

Nonsense, their rockets work well enough, the trouble is that they just aren't big enough. They are both satelite launchers, with optional boosters to increase payload. They simply aren't "heavy" lifters as the Boeing/Lockheed read, they are simply "heavier" then what you need to launch communications satelites or space probes.

There is nothing wrong with the Atlas rocket that has a much bigger payload then its body; the Atlas is a culmination of decades of improvement in rocket design, and is very efficient. The fact that its so small is a testimant to how well Lockheed has managed to cut the dry weight of their rocket down.

This business about "tripple-billing" the Delta-IV Heavy is all smoke and no flame, and why is it wrong for Boeing to do this? The first stage of the Delta Medium is essentially identical to all three cores of the big heavy version, only really with modifications to the firing sequence.

These reasons aren't the reason that M. Griffin decided not to use these rockets for the CEV, one or both could be modified to lift the CEV's mass just fine. The reason why not is (at least) three fold:
-Neither are man rated, nor intended to be
-They are delay prone
-Neither rocket's facilities are suited for CEV


[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]

[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]

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#37 2006-04-01 01:38:57

Rxke
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2003-11-03
Posts: 3,669

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

This business about "tripple-billing" the Delta-IV Heavy is all smoke and no flame, and why is it wrong for Boeing to do this? The first stage of the Delta Medium is essentially identical to all three cores of the big heavy version, only really with modifications to the firing sequence.

Initially, when reading about it, I thought it was extremely fishy myself, but it isn't.
Da Stick's safety assesment is based on something like this too, and nobody complains: every STS launch is 2SRB launches, and they are counted separately, so 'double billing' here too, but it makes sense. The detail that they are launched in tandem, attached to a big tank is just that: a detail. There *are* two launches of *one* design.

Same for the Delta, the detail they're launched, attached to each other is only a detail. I'd even say it's much harder to do it that way than if they were to do it separatlely, because all three of them have to be fueled, tested, checked-out etc. at the same time.

Gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case lol

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#38 2006-04-01 08:42:55

GCNRevenger
Member
From: Earth
Registered: 2003-10-14
Posts: 6,056

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

It is a bit harder to make all three fly instead of one...

The early days of the SSME program, they managed to get the engine to test-fire okay, but when they stacked all three together as if they were on Shuttle, the collected vibration made them explode on the test stand.

The Delta-IV Heavy also has different aerodynamic effects, which proves that the aerodynamic properties of the boosters are good enough to operate in different configurations without radical modification.

And of course, the central core has to be considerably sturdier then the regular cores have to be, so they must be pretty well built to handle the extra strain without radical modification either.


[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]

[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]

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#39 2006-04-03 15:24:26

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,776

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

Space-review says $680 billion (that's more than half a Trillion)

The American Spectator fails the Mars test
by Taylor Dinerman

....If NASA does land an American on Mars by 2035 or 2040 the space agency will probably have spent something like $680 billion in 2006 dollars. Not all that money will have been spent directly on the Moon and Mars programs, but more than half of that sum will have gone into the program. That’s a large amount of money by any standards, but the fact is that without the Moon and Mars missions NASA would almost certainly have spent the same $680 billion and still be stuck in low Earth orbit.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/589/1
The Bush plan is based on two political facts: no President or Congress is going to give up on human space exploration, and NASA is never again going to get more than one percent of the federal budget. From its apex in 1966 NASA’s budget collapsed and reached its nadir in 1975. Using numbers from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report, the space agency spent about 3.8 percent of the federal budget in 1966, and since 1975 has mostly stayed at about 0.7 or 0.8 percent of the budget. Under the circumstances NASA can hardly be considered an instrument of “Big Government”.

It is, make no mistake, a government bureaucracy, and it does not respond to market incentives but to political ones. The Moon and Mars missions, whether by design or by accident, help achieve conservative, free market ends....

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#40 2006-09-13 14:28:46

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,776

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

I think funding for the human side of the budget would get reduced if they failed.

They won't fail or they at least they can't if they want NASA to survive


and now for some bad news


NASA's hopes of manned flights before 2014 are dashed as Orion programme hits first hold-up
NEWS
NASA will fail to meet its goal of flying manned Orion missions before 2014, as the first delay emerges for the new spaceship's development timetable just a week after its prime contractor, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, was selected.

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#41 2006-09-18 16:11:26

GCNRevenger
Member
From: Earth
Registered: 2003-10-14
Posts: 6,056

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

Dashed, dashed! By a few whole months! We're doomed! It is the end!


[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]

[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]

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#42 2006-09-20 22:08:48

EuroLauncher
Member
From: Europe
Registered: 2005-10-19
Posts: 299

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

This business about "tripple-billing" the Delta-IV Heavy is all smoke and no flame, and why is it wrong for Boeing to do this? The first stage of the Delta Medium is essentially identical to all three cores of the big heavy version, only really with modifications to the firing sequence.

Initially, when reading about it, I thought it was extremely fishy myself, but it isn't.
Da Stick's safety assesment is based on something like this too, and nobody complains: every STS launch is 2SRB launches, and they are counted separately, so 'double billing' here too, but it makes sense. The detail that they are launched in tandem, attached to a big tank is just that: a detail. There *are* two launches of *one* design.

Same for the Delta, the detail they're launched, attached to each other is only a detail. I'd even say it's much harder to do it that way than if they were to do it separatlely, because all three of them have to be fueled, tested, checked-out etc. at the same time.

Gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case lol

Well I guess we'll just have to wait and see how good the predictions for the Stick's safety assesment were once it gets moving in 2015

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#43 2006-12-10 06:19:48

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,776

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

How much for a moon base?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16126918/
Don’t ask

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#44 2006-12-10 11:06:42

Tom Kalbfus
Banned
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

How much for a moon base?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16126918/
Don’t ask

Avoiding sticker shock
This way there are not the massive budget overruns that have forever dogged the international space station, which was once projected to cost $17 billion but is actually in the $50 billion range, McCurdy said. It also avoids the sticker shock of a $500 billion moon-and-Mars program proposed by President Bush’s father that collapsed when the cost was revealed.

But Taxpayers for Common Sense, a fiscal watchdog group, calls the moon plans a waste.

I don't think there ever was a time when Congress wrote a single big check for the Entire Apollo Program. Money was appropriated for each year that the Apollo program ran, the same would be true of a Moon base.

The cost of the entire Moonbase program would be a function of how long we continued to operate the Moonbase. If its for a long time, then it will cost more than if we operated it for one year.

Case 1: Suppose we build a Moonbase in 2020 and then abandoned in it 2021 How much would that costs?

Case 2: Suppose we build a Moonbase in 2020 and then continued to operate it sending astronauts their and expanding the Moonbase with time until it grew into a large community with tens of thousands of people by the year 2100, how much would that cost.

Any bean counter would conclude that case 2: would be more expensive than case one, as it would require that the Moonbase be expanded to accomodate tens of thousands of people and be operated for 80 years. Surely it would be cheaper just to establish the Moonbase in 2020 and abandon it the next year to save money.

What do you think, is there something wrong with this reasoning?

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#45 2006-12-10 12:03:25

GCNRevenger
Member
From: Earth
Registered: 2003-10-14
Posts: 6,056

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

Its not that they are idiots, they are just looking at the price tag from another direction: they don't see in terms of a program, such as with NASA which spends roughly the same amount annually, instead they see a physical project to be built. It doesn't accept the fact that NASA will probably get money to do something every year.


[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]

[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]

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#46 2006-12-11 01:42:26

Tom Kalbfus
Banned
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

In order for the Moon base to have a final price, then at some point in the future the Moonbase will have to be abandoned, so the bean counters can tally up all the expenditures that accrued while it was in operation. The only reason we can come up with a dollar figure for the entire Apollo Program is because it is not ongoing. I think ideally NASA should have enough money in its annual expenditure to operate both a Moonbase and a Marsbase at the same time, and as the US economy grows, so does NASA's budget, and technology will hopefully reduce costs allowing NASA to establish other bases elsewhere in the Solar System. Eventually these Installations should pay for themselves though and NASA will move onto other things such as Starships.

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#47 2007-03-13 23:08:11

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,776

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

Man on the Moon

In his March 2 op-ed, "Music of the Spheres," Charles Krauthammer argued eloquently for President Bush's effort to return astronauts to the moon.

But Mr. Krauthammer failed to note that, under Administrator Michael D. Griffin's plan, NASA will not begin to build actual lunar hardware in earnest until 2011 at the earliest.


Instead, Mr. Griffin is wasting precious time and tax dollars on the boondoggle of NASA's Ares I rocket, which can barely reach Earth orbit and needlessly duplicates the capabilities of existing Air Force and commercial rockets.

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#48 2007-03-14 00:51:26

Martin_Tristar
Member
From: Earth, Region : Australia
Registered: 2004-12-07
Posts: 305

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

Tom Kalbfus,

The development cost of the Moon with a Moonbase, would concern bean counters but that would be a loss on material resources, human research, training and competitive advantage over other countries of the world would be effected, IF bean counters got the base closed because of pure cost concerns.

The development of space in the short , medium and long term will cost billions moving into trillions and then more. The creation of new technology, research and society changes will evolve the human race on all levels. Our understanding and Social aspects will change as well.

I believe that we will build the moonbase, while we send tourist /eplorer missions to Mars for the eventual expansion of humanity onto the Martian Surface and throughout our solar system.

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#49 2007-03-14 02:19:24

cIclops
Member
Registered: 2005-06-16
Posts: 3,230

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

Man on the Moon

Instead, Mr. Griffin is wasting precious time and tax dollars on the boondoggle of NASA's Ares I rocket, which can barely reach Earth orbit and needlessly duplicates the capabilities of existing Air Force and commercial rockets.

So once again we have a completely unsubstantiated claim about the performance of a vehicle still in the design stage. Why do they continue to make this stuff up?  Ares I does not duplicate the capabilities of other vehicles, it's designed to be far safer and more reliable. This is absolutely critical for a human launch vehicle if exploration is to continue without enormous delays and costs each time there is an accident.


[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond -  triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space]  #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps]   - videos !!![/url]

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#50 2007-03-14 07:00:21

GCNRevenger
Member
From: Earth
Registered: 2003-10-14
Posts: 6,056

Re: How much the return to the Moon and Mars-trip costs ?

Oh come now, we all know that if rumors and lies are repeated often enough, especially without sources, they become "truthy."

Atlas-V is not nearly powerful enough without a gaggle of less-than-reliable strap on solid rocket motors nor has the required structural margin for man-rating when carrying maximum payload. It would require massive modification, and probably wind up being a triple-core rocket like Delta-IV Heavy.

Speaking of the big D-IV, it is approximately as powerful as Ares-I, but may also lack the structural strength desired to pass man-rating. It also has quite low acceleration due to poor thrust/weight ratio, but more importantly it would cost as much or more per unit and still be ten figures to modify so it wouldn't save much, and is not suited for timely delay-free launch which is critical to the "1.5-Launch" architecture.

Lastly, the hardware being built for Ares-I can also be used for Ares-V later, reducing its development costs accordingly. The booster and EDS engines will be almost identical, similar if not identical avionics, A-I upper stage and A-V EDS might be similar, and so on. Plus we might even get "Ares-IV" out of the deal if you modified the interstage to mate an A-I upper stage to the A-V core.


[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]

[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]

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