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What would be the best way to start a continous human presence on Mars?
I presume expanding from the infrastructure (energy, rovers, drills, hab?) which will already be present on the surface after a succesful DRM-III type first mission is a good way to start, rather than setting up from scratch in a new location.
What would your favorite Mars bases look like within, say, a 10 year time frame with this starting point?
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The worth of recycling old DRM-III parts is limited, since these will be first-generation systems and will probably be pretty worn out by the time a real base is established. There won't be many of them either, since the infrequency of the missions would dictate sorties all over the planet instead of a central site.
I'm thinking something like this, that while the first few or half dozen missions to various sites, base parts would be developed for the "base phase" of the Mars program. Manned missions might be reduced to every other launch opportunity, or simply more vehicle built with reduced resource requirements now that vehicle development has ended and perhaps Lunar crew/cargo taken over by COTS.
-The base might be comprised of a half dozen or so parts:
Much more powerful and long-lived nuclear power plant(s)
-A larger chemical plant, perhaps with simple polymer factory attachment
-Heavy drill rig with water extraction equipment, probably wheeled and minimally mobile
-Two or three large inflatable structures, one of which being a greenhouse, with integral airlocks and LSS equipment.
-One load of miscellaneous equipment, perhaps including "remodeling" gear for the old DRM-III HABs (which I bet there will be three or so of). These could be used as (more spacious) dormitories or laboratory space.
-Reusable light-duty crew/cargo lander with long-range suborbital "hopper" capability, fueled by methane generated by the heavy chemical plant and ground water.
-(Optional) Low-throughput steel or magnesium metal smelter, probably microwave type, with computerized machine shop and small automated digger robots. Billets go in, pieces come out.
[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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The key driver will be the cost of mass for a long time. The limitations of how much vital stuff can be placed on the surface of Mars will dominate all other considerations. Therefore Zubrin's "living off the land" strategy will be followed. Water and power are the most important factors. A combination of nuclear power with solar backup is essential to process water ice into O2, liquid water and fuel as well as to maintain the habitat temperature and of course communications etc etc.
There is a lot of leverage here from the Lunar Outpost studies. Very similar problems, choices and solutions occur in establishing a continuous presence on the moon. Given the limitations of each mission, a central base makes sense too on Mars as it does it on the moon. In the case of Mars this must be located at a source of water ice.
First develop as much ISRU capability as possible (O2, H2O, LO2, CH4, food etc etc) in order to minimize transporting such materials and to maximize equipment, medical supplies and other products that must initially be brought from Earth. With a supply of these ISRU products, the base can reused for each mission and exploration progressively expanded. Eventually the base will be able to support a continuous human presence.
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I don't like the idea of a central base being priority one like on the Moon. Mars is a much bigger place, and doesn't have as many convenient features in one place as on the Moon I bet. This "exploration progressively expanded" business just doesn't give you the same returns on Mars, since you will be on the surface about two years regardless, which should give you all the time in the world to explore to the maximum of overland vehicle's practical range.
Therefore, if you are going to have a base as the primary mode of exploration, the ability to travel long distances via suborbital hopper is the only really good option for near-global access. My problem with this is that developing a methane-powered Martian SSTO, the fuel plant for it, and delivering/setting up the infrastructure will take some time. So herein lies a few questions:
1) It is not likely that development money for these items will be available until after the first Mars mission or two (or more). Are we willing to wait that long for global access? Six, eight, ten years?
2) As a compromise, would only one or two (probably, certainly not more than three) non-base exploration missions be sufficient until the SSTO would be available?
3) If rover "gas stations" were practical, would their extended range be far enough, or safe enough, until an SSTO is available?
Although, this SSTO vehicle would be used to bring down crews (eight?) and light (<10MT) cargo from Mars orbit. This would radically reduce the cost of cargo and substantially reduce the cost of crew rotations. It would certainly mitigate the need to "live off the land" if you could send 10MT of stuff to Mars with a pair of Falcon-IX rockets for under $250M. The DRM-III HAB could loiter in Mars orbit and use its fuel to return to Earth instead of landing perhaps, which then reduces the number of launches for each crew from six to two HLLVs.
[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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The question was how to best start a continuous human presence on Mars. Sure, sorties would enable faster exploration, but they wouldn't have the synergy necessary to start a permanent base. As with lunar exploration, establishing a base will enable more extensive exploration in the long term. The enormous cost of each Mars mission makes such a base an even higher priority than in the case of the Moon.
Remote exploration via rovers and hoppers will greatly increase the accessible area. It will take a long long time to fully explore Mars, even ten sorties won't be sufficient and that will take over twenty years. Once a continuous presence is established at a base that can provide the primary power, life support and fuel, exploration will be easier and more effective.
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My point is that we will be able to send these sorties well before we will have the pieces developed for such a base. While we wait for the jumbo nuke, ISRU plant, hoppers etc we could be exploring.
[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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What would your favorite Mars bases look like within, say, a 10 year time frame with this starting point?
It would be be well sized to fit many scienfitic experiments and have room from more colonists, it would also be largely self sustaining
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Zubrin has apparently updated Mars Direct somewhere (anyone know where?)... according to Mike Cabbage reporting from the ISDC
Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, laid out his case for going to Mars directly rather than following NASA's vision of creating an outpost on the moon first. He said his updated Mars Direct concept could put people on the Red Planet by 2019 - assuming that the next president gave the go-ahead in 2009.
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Eh. I don't see how MD can be improved much without abandoning direct launch or shunning a nuclear-powered upper stage. And if we go all out for Mars, that will come at the expense of everything else.
[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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You start it by:
- building enough infrastructure for a LOT of people
- building transport system from LEO to Mars that can transport a LOT of people cheaply and safely
Since none of these two things are achieved by DRM III, you basically start by designing everything new and throwing everything from DRM away. Good start, right?
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Before you can build it you need the money, and only governments have enough of that. To get them to spend it you need public support or a national issue. If the current anti NASA movement gets any stronger, the media will pick it up and destroy the VSE and all hope for a manned mission for a very long time.
[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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What would be the best way to start a continous human presence on Mars?
I presume expanding from the infrastructure (energy, rovers, drills, hab?) which will already be present on the surface after a succesful DRM-III type first mission is a good way to start, rather than setting up from scratch in a new location.What would your favorite Mars bases look like within, say, a 10 year time frame with this starting point?
A Gerard O'Neill type Near-Earth satellite power programme, would seem like the most realistic way to go, if you were looking to send a large number of people to Mars, with the sort of infrastructure needed for permanent colonisation.
Anything other than small-scale exploration would be very difficult if launched direct from Earth, due to mass requirements.
I would guess that medium-term Mars settlements would be subsurface, brick-built structures, with small surface domes for agriculture. probably quite cramped, rather like Antarctic research stations.
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Here's how I see the advancement from simple temporary exploration bases to a permanent presence.
#1. Find a convienent location with abundant access to the most important resource on Mars, water. Water is the single largest consumable item sent on DRM style missions, so eliminating the need to transport it, or hydrogen, for every mission will enormously reduce the amount of mass needed. The mass of food is tiny in comparison to the mass of water/hydrogen that must be transported.
#2. A reusable Martian Assent Vehicle (MAV). This is the second largest item that must be sent to mars with every mission. Replacing it with a reusable version again reduces the necessary mass for each mission. It provieds global scale mobility as well.
#3. A longer lasting or refuelable nuclear power plant. The final and most complex disposable item that must be sent every mission. If this is replaced with a version that can go 15 years or so between refuelings, or one that can be refueled easily, it can be done away with saving mission weight. Nuclear material is very light, and so carrying new rods (or pebbles) for the reactor should be a relatively simple task.
If these three requirements are met, a NASA DRMIII style mission could be launched in two segments instead of three, ommiting the MAV stage. This is obviously a huge savings.
To reduce costs even further space infrastructure needs to be built up. In particular a means needs to be developed for referbushing and reusing the Interplanetary Transit Vehicles (ITV). This requires them to have reusable non-ablative heat shields and a means to refuel the stage that propels them. If this is done a DRM III style mission can be done with only one or no expendable stages at all.
The exact number of disposable stages at this point depends on the number of people you want to support on the Martian surface. If this number is held steady, then you could do it with no expendable stages at all, but if the number is set to increase, then some expendable stages will be required.
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I think the things that are most commonly talked about in terms of a permanent presence are generally either the least important, or very difficult to do. Food for example is relatively small mass requirement for a DRM III mission, so including a greenhouse is of relatively low priority. Developing the means to process metals and plastics on the martian surface on the other hand will probably prove very complex and difficult to do.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
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Concisely put Austin. Yes, water is key and so is a reusable MAV. To make the MAV reusable requires ISRU fuel production and that needs nuclear power. So the strategy is obvious: put the nuke in place first together with the ISRU fuel plant on top of a good chunk of water ice. This becomes the fuel depot and primary base. The rest follows.
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Here's how I see the advancement from simple temporary exploration bases to a permanent presence.
#1. Find a convienent location with abundant access to the most important resource on Mars, water. Water is the single largest consumable item sent on DRM style missions, so eliminating the need to transport it, or hydrogen, for every mission will enormously reduce the amount of mass needed. The mass of food is tiny in comparison to the mass of water/hydrogen that must be transported.
#2. A reusable Martian Assent Vehicle (MAV). This is the second largest item that must be sent to mars with every mission. Replacing it with a reusable version again reduces the necessary mass for each mission. It provieds global scale mobility as well.
#3. A longer lasting or refuelable nuclear power plant. The final and most complex disposable item that must be sent every mission. If this is replaced with a version that can go 15 years or so between refuelings, or one that can be refueled easily, it can be done away with saving mission weight. Nuclear material is very light, and so carrying new rods (or pebbles) for the reactor should be a relatively simple task.
If these three requirements are met, a NASA DRMIII style mission could be launched in two segments instead of three, ommiting the MAV stage. This is obviously a huge savings.
To reduce costs even further space infrastructure needs to be built up. In particular a means needs to be developed for referbushing and reusing the Interplanetary Transit Vehicles (ITV). This requires them to have reusable non-ablative heat shields and a means to refuel the stage that propels them. If this is done a DRM III style mission can be done with only one or no expendable stages at all.
The exact number of disposable stages at this point depends on the number of people you want to support on the Martian surface. If this number is held steady, then you could do it with no expendable stages at all, but if the number is set to increase, then some expendable stages will be required.
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I think the things that are most commonly talked about in terms of a permanent presence are generally either the least important, or very difficult to do. Food for example is relatively small mass requirement for a DRM III mission, so including a greenhouse is of relatively low priority. Developing the means to process metals and plastics on the martian surface on the other hand will probably prove very complex and difficult to do.
Or even better, with a surface HAB already established for the crew, there is no need to send a brand new one on each mission either. Instead the crew would be sent on an ERV to Mars orbit, transferred to the surface via the R-MAV, and 500d later go back the way they came. DRM-III goes from three major ships to one.
[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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All this lends itself to a full scale test prior to establishing the surface HAB.
A nuclear based ISRU fuel depot is the first surface element of the base. A RAV (Reusuable Ascent Vehicle) is then landed nearby, automatically fueled, flown to orbit and docked with an Orion. This test mission could be used to return samples. The RAV is then landed at the base again and refueled. The RAV can be flown back to orbit and returned as many times as necessary to prove out the system.
Once everything checks out, the HAB is landed near the base and the first crew arrive in their Transit vehicle together with an Orion. The RAV ascends and docks with the Transit vehicle and takes the crew down to the surface. Later they return to orbit, dock with the waiting Transit/Orion stack and return to Earth. The RAV could also ferry fuel to the orbital stack. RAV then waits in orbit for the next crew.
The RAV will be the hardest element to design as it will need to survive multiple reentries, be highly reliable and capable of precision automated landings.
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Or even better, with a surface HAB already established for the crew, there is no need to send a brand new one on each mission either. Instead the crew would be sent on an ERV to Mars orbit, transferred to the surface via the R-MAV, and 500d later go back the way they came. DRM-III goes from three major ships to one.
As I understand it DRM-III is broken up into three components:
#1. The hab, which the crew is sent to Mars in, and which they spend there time on the surface in.
#2. The MAV/Cargo which has the Martian Asent Vehicle (smallish, designed for one short hop to orbit where it docks with the ERV), ISRU systems, nuclear reactor, and possibly the rover as well. The MAV, at least as set up in DRM-III is set up to support the crew for only a short time, and wouldn't be appropriate for transit out to Mars.
#3. The ERV (Earth Return Vehicle) which stays in orbits and waits for the MAV to dock with it. It then returns to Earth.
So as I see it, if you have sufficient habitation space on Mars already, you could potentially just send out the ERV, have your reusable MAV dock with it and transfer the crew down to the surface, and then return via the ERV later. This would require only one HLLV launch (or maybe none if the ERV/ITV could be refurbished in Earth/Mars orbit).
The problem with this is that it doesn't support an increasing base size, and the amount of cargo the MAV and ERV can transport may be limited. If you are planning on increasing the size of the base a cargo mission might still be required.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
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That would work if the ERV was big enough to support a crew of six for 2 x 6 months, not only in terms of space but also with supplies. Unfortunately that makes the ERV quite large and heavy so it makes more sense to split it into a Mars Transit Vehicle (MTV) and an ERV such as Orion. The crew would launch in Orion and dock with the MTV that was put into LEO by an Ares V. Orion, which is in development right now and is being designed for this type of mission, would travel both ways and would provide extra space for the crew. An MTV would also be useful for NEO missions.
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Here are a couple of thoughts, arising from the recent discovery of round black holes which are suggested as offering ready-made direct access to possible deep caverns beneath the surface of Mars, in certain locations....
(1) Immediate, unmanned mission: if a beachball-like enclosure smaller in diameter than the hole could be landed and inflated nearby, it might then be propelled--by rolling-- over to the hole and plopped into the cavern below. Cushioned, automated instrument packages inside could then position themselves to observe and/or deploy robots to explore the interior of the cavern in various ways, and transmit their findings up through the hole to the passing polar orbiting mother ship for retransmission to Earth. Ideally, the ball might be reinflated with lifting gas afterwards, causing it to rise up through the hole to the surface again, for better communications, and even for reuse in other holes nearby.
(2) Future, manned mission, taking the above idea a little further: by inflating a more advanced "beachball" larger than the diameter of a particular hole, it would be the "stopper," blocking the hole to the presumed cavern beneath, with airlocks top and bottom to retain breathable air inside, and become the first colonists' initial habit, with inflatable chambers inside to form living quarters. The colonists could then descend into the cavern to excavate permanent living quarters underground, returning after each shift to the comfort of proper living quarters inside the ball-dome stopper.
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Starship: Elon Musk's SpaceX prepares to launch the most powerful rocket system ever built
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I am a historian of Antarctic science. How to grow plants and food in the far southern reaches of Earth has been an active area of research for more than 120 years. These efforts have helped further understanding of the many challenges of agriculture in extreme environments and eventually led to limited, but successful, plant cultivation in Antarctica. And especially after the 1960s, scientists began to explicitly look at this research as a steppingstone to human habitation in space.
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