Here’s why many in aerospace remain skeptical of the journey to Mars

Wouldn't it be easier to deploy a permanent base in the Moon, and then leverage it for a Mars mission?

 

[=j]

afidel[/url]":1g1l4h0n]

arcite[/url]":1g1l4h0n]What would be the scientific value of a manned trip to Mars anyway? Big picture...what could be learned by human exploration that could not with cutting edge robots and probes?

The total amount of surface exploration done by robot probes to date could be accomplished by a manned mission in an afternoon.

That may have been true in the 1960's, but is not true now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_(rover)

Furthermore, most of the "science" associated with manned spaceflight involves how to keep humans alive for manned spaceflight.

 

[shelbystripes]

I suspect that NASA has a short and medium term plan in place, but they don't want to publicize it because Congress would immediately gut it and force NASA to do something else.

The minute that Falcon Heavy launches, though, don't be surprised to see an announcement from NASA that says:

1) We have a specific plan to do X, Y, and Z

2) Falcon Heavy is viable and $20B cheaper over the next decade than continuing SLS

3) If we cancel SLS, we can afford to do all of X, Y, and Z

Not sure what exactly the plan will be, but it will probably include a new space station in lunar orbit or a Lagrange point, long-term simulated gravity tests, and additional "Red Dragon" type missions that enable unmanned research while validating eventual manned lander technologies.

The key to NASA's success is to kill SLS, by publicly showing how much cheaper they can operate without it. The biggest uncertainty is whether SpaceX (or another commercial launcher) can deliver on heavy lift. Once they can show that's viable, and that it's far cheaper than SLS, that should give them enough leverage to risk taking on Congress (and give the next President political cover to support them).

(They could even include some SLS components like Orion in these plans, and argue they can afford to build and use more Orion capsules by using cheaper launch vehicles, to reduce the amount of lobbying against this plan. I'm sure SpaceX will sell them launch space on Falcon Heavy if that's what it takes to maintain a long-term partnership with NASA, especially since NASA would still use Dragon for local missions and supply runs.)

 

[DannyB]

Dan Homerick[/url]":2dta0tg0]

vrDrew99[/url]":2dta0tg0]We can just about land a decent sized vehicle on the Martian surface - but until we solve the fundamental propellant problem - it is doomed to be a one-way trip.

I'm sure people will hold up the idea of generating the fuel for the return trip on Mars. If that's a key requirement for doing a large scale Mars expedition, we should be developing and testing the technology now. As far as I know, there hasn't even been a "Challenge" style program to get this idea started. I expect that resource extraction of any form is going to be ridiculously hard. It's energy intensive, requires move large masses of material, and isn't useful unless done on a pretty large scale.

While I am confident that 19th century chemistry does actually work on Mars, and it has the same periodic table as we do, I agree that we should be developing the ability to produce the fuel. I'm talking about the engineering challenge of making a practical and deliverable system.

 

[Commenter42]

joshv[/url]":288ck0p1]I know this is a very unpopular opinion here at Ars, but our space exploration dollars are substantially wasted sending human bodies into space vs robotic explorers.

If you are worried about a "backup" for the human population, there are probably much cheaper things we can do to make our population more sustainable and guard against existential threats (asteroids) - and those things should be done. But, if you are just interested in the glory of putting human bodies on other planets, that's great, please spend your own money in pursuit of that goal.

Yeah, people want to conquer Mars. They want boots on the ground and land rights.

This is exploration on a different planet. I say we take the reverse approach to how we explored Earth and rather than hiking all over the place we develop an global weather monitoring system with GPS capabilities (geostationary micro-satellites maybe). A permanent/near permanent non-human-habitable orbital technology base for relaying communications between the Mars systems and Earth, processing/storing data from sensory satellites/robots, ect. with docking options to expand functionality in the future (i.e. add human habitat modules). Basically, by the time the first human sets foot on red dust they should be able to whip out a cell phone and order a pizza.

The systems we use to get the tech into orbit around mars could be test beds for interplanetary travel too. Similar to how SpaceX is carrying food/robots into Earth orbit to test their systems with little risk to humans yet still serving a purpose.

I haven't read the plan that was referenced in the article and it very well may include some of what I've said here. If it does, we need to start hearing about this stuff in the news.

 

[Ragnarredbeard]

"It’s my job to get out here and communicate it, make sure it’s clear,"

With all due respect, your performance in the previous two paragraphs makes me question how you got the job.

 

[nononsense]

Greason said the documents do not make it clear what the overall goal of the Journey to Mars is: Flags and footprints? A base? Human settlement? “If you don't know why we're doing it, it's hard to know whether it is worth doing,” he said.

This is the third time this has been quoted in this thread, and it doesn't look like people are getting it.

We go because our technology is approaching making it a possibility. We don't know all the benefits that will be derived from the journey, or rather several journeys and different goalposts, but we can look back at all the technology developed going to the moon and make a pretty good guess.

My point is, it doesn't matter what we do when we get there. We can plant a flag or play golf or take samples or do things we don't even consider possible right now, because technology will be advancing right along with our efforts.

If all we can do is plant a flag, I'm fine with that, but at this point we simply don't know what we'll be capable of in the coming years. There are so many steps to be completed before that question needs to be answered. We aren't just going to shoot off a rocket and fly to Mars. It will be a many staged endeavor and the time to start is now.

None of us know where we'll be in 10 years. We need to start the basic outline of a plan now, which exactly what it seems like NASA is doing.

Perhaps Musk will make it there before NASA. We all know how much technology comes out of a space race because we've been there and done that. Let us proceed.

 

[Attitude_Check]

We have never demonstrated a long-term closed system for human habitation. The last time it was tried fairly seriously in Arizona if I remember was a complete failure. The system went biologically unbalanced and they had to "import" some things. The despite carefully screening the individuals, for social compatibility, they ended up at each others throats. Attempting to do that for the first time on Mars is a recipe for everyone dying. This has to be demonstrated on earth first, then the moon, THEN Mars. None of this is in any publicly available plans I have seen. That say this is pure political nonsense, without serious engineering nor scientific thought.

 

[spinnolio]

afidel[/url]":1birbuvf]

arcite[/url]":1birbuvf]What would be the scientific value of a manned trip to Mars anyway? Big picture...what could be learned by human exploration that could not with cutting edge robots and probes?

The total amount of surface exploration done by robot probes to date could be accomplished by a manned mission in an afternoon.

Agreed, but perhaps that should be seen as an opportunity to improve robotics technology, something that would then have many benefits outside the space program. There are many other destinations for exploration within our solar system, the vast majority of which will not be possible with manned expeditions. I'd rather that we invest into unmanned technology and manned lunar bases rather than dump a *huge* amount of money into one risky project of questionable value.

 

[edzieba]

vrDrew99[/url]":2j9cvhi1]We are decades, if not centuries, away from the technology that will make a manned mission to Mars a viable proposition.

On the contrary, the technology needed to get to Mars was developed and almost available many decades ago. Going from lunar landings to Mars landings with missions built on the Apollo architecture would easily have been doable.

The limitation now is that the US is not in a cold war. There is no reason to pile extreme amounts of money into a space program to beat the Soviets to doing the same, because there is nobody else even close to putting humans on the Moon or Mars. That means superfunding massive rockets is out of the picture, as is using the existing and tested designs for enriched-fuel Nuclear Thermal rocket engines developed under the NERVA program.
Instead, NASA needs to design a Mars architecture that is radically cheaper, and at best uses yet-to-be-demonstrated low-enriched-fuel NTRs or Nuclear Electric propulsion. THAT is much harder a task than just getting men to Mars.

 

[.劉煒]

Bigelow's stuff has me excited on that front, at least until we get non-terran manufacturing working.

 

[shelbystripes]

nononsense[/url]":3mex37ag]My point is, it doesn't matter what we do when we get there. We can plant a flag or play golf or take samples or do things we don't even consider possible right now, because technology will be advancing right along with our efforts.

If all we can do is plant a flag, I'm fine with that, but at this point we simply don't know what we'll be capable of in the coming years. There are so many steps to be completed before that question needs to be answered. We aren't just going to shoot off a rocket and fly to Mars. It will be a many staged endeavor and the time to start is now.

None of us know where we'll be in 10 years. We need to start the basic outline of a plan now, which exactly what it seems like NASA is doing.

Having a plan doesn't mean rigidly fixing yourself to anything though. As someone pointed out already, when we were planning Apollo, lunar orbit rendezvous wasn't even on the table. We ended up revising the plan as we went. But everything else was in place to do an LOR mission because we had a plan, and the plan ensured we were developing the other things we needed. You don't avoid planning because you don't know anything yet; you plan based on what you know, and improve the plan as you learn.

The point of mission objectives is to inform the planning. Flag-planting means short-duration surface missions, which means you can design and build surface habitats with a design lifetime of weeks or months. You might also be able to carry all of the mission's supplies to Mars orbit with the crew, and you'd explore that. Long-term surface missions means you need a much more durable habitat, and increase the likelihood that you'll need to send separate unmanned supply missions (and in any event increase the number of them).

It then has secondary and tertiary effects. If they'll only be there on a one-week flag-planting mission, they won't have time to both collect and analyze lots of samples, and it might make sense for them to just grab as many Mars rocks as possible and bring them back. If they're there six months for advanced research, you can justify sending a separate unmanned capsule with a full science lab inside to do sample analysis and refine where you collect samples and what you bring back. You can't just order a portable interplanetary science lab on Amazon, it'll take years to design and build it and to research ways to cram in more equipment, you should be starting that now so it's ready by the time your first long-term Mars mission is launching.

Those are things that affect the mission cost, and the trade-offs you choose to make are different because of different priorities. Nobody here is saying we need to lock in everything we're planning to do now. But you need mission objectives to even start planning. We can't wait 10 years to develop the plan, unless the goal is to start developing things 10 years from now and do nothing useful in the meantime.

 

[Wonder Chemist]

Attitude_Check[/url]":2rkeko3k]We have never demonstrated a long-term closed system for human habitation. The last time it was tried fairly seriously in Arizona if I remember was a complete failure. The system went biologically unbalanced and they had to "import" some things. The despite carefully screening the individuals, for social compatibility, they ended up at each others throats. Attempting to do that for the first time on Mars is a recipe for everyone dying. This has to be demonstrated on earth first, then the moon, THEN Mars. None of this is in any publicly available plans I have seen. That say this is pure political nonsense, without serious engineering nor scientific thought.

From what I've read the Biosphere 2 crew selection was not all the rigorous. NASA will have the advantage of selecting Mars crew members from a group that has already spent 6 months on ISS.

 

[BeowulfSchaeffer]

I would propose that we first mobilize our resources towards the creation of self sustaining, rotating habitation stations built in Earth orbit which can be moved from Earth to L2 on the far side of the moon, Mars, the asteroid belt, Callisto and beyond. If we concentrate on perfecting these types of stations first, they can be utilized for any mission in the future we might choose. Having a habitat in space from which you can launch missions in close proximity to your target is a good thing for many reasons.

To use Mars as an example, by placing a permanent self sustaining station in orbit, you can send missions to the surface to explore, harvest resources, conduct research and perhaps begin the process of terraforming. Having a permanent orbital base has huge advantages over expensive single shot missions from Earth to Mars and back.

The delays in Mars exploration by focusing first on developing stations would then accelerate Mars exploration long term by having a station in orbit. In 50 years, we would then be in a position where much more exploration is possible than if we stay on our present track.

 

[Voldenuit]

Quiet Desperation[/url]":3j6lpb2s]
I've evangelized this idea for years, but too many geeks get too erect for the glory shot to Mars. Most were not alive to see Apollo fizzle out because there was no "what next"- just the legacy of a dead president politicians were afraid to touch. They quote his flowery speech with little understanding of what was going on at the time.

Building up a permanent space infrastructure in the Earth-Moon system (don't forget the LaGrange points) is vital to our future in space. We need to get past these prestige based concepts, or simply satisfying the fantasies of SF fans. The serious, long term work needs to begin now. It's not sexy, but without it we're not going anywhere.

You criticize the allure of a glory shot as lacking deeper motivations, but from reading your post (apologies if I'm extrapolating too much), it sounds a lot as if you've made some assumptions that a space presence is innately vital in and of itself.

Don't forget that all our gains in space have been from short term military, political and economic reasons; Cold War rivalry leading to the development of rocket and satellite technology, the race to the moon, the development of satellite communications and positioning systems etc. "Pure science" missions like Kepler, Gravity Probe B, the various solar system probes etc. are an earmark in terms of human expenditure on space, and are not useful case studies for the amount of research, manpower and money that would be required for a manned Mars mission. The driving forces have always been about short term gain, and the case for short term gain for a manned mission to Mars is one that has never closed.

I'm not sure if the long term case for Mars exploration is one that will close, either. There have been many wild speculations about the potential benefits of going to Mars, but they have always been rather nebulous and not commensurate with the expenditure needed. Mine the asteroids? We can do that with robots. Colonize the planets? Survivability and adaptability of humans in Martian environments is unproven.

Considering all the unknowns, "planting a flag" (be it Corporate or Government) is as good or as bad a reason as any.

 

[MagicDot]

Miss Newman, how much will the project cost?
Real Answer: 1.5 trillion dollars
Scripted Answer: Well, if you read our plan which plans the plan we have planned for extensive planning during the planning stage. Have you read it? If not I encourage you to do so.

Miss Newman, how long until people walk on Mars?
Real Answer: 100 years
Scripted Answer: Well, if you read our plan which plans the plan we have planned for extensive planning during the planning stage. Have you read it? If not I encourage you to do so.

This is not a technical challenge. It is one of logistics and politics and both are a staggering challenge right now. Take comfort in the fact that your great grandchildren just might live long enough to see it.

 

[MagicDot]

BeowulfSchaeffer[/url]":2o2f3wit]Having a habitat in space from which you can launch missions in close proximity to your target is a good thing for many reasons.

I never understood this argument. Which habitat in space comes with a fully operational production environment in which to manufacture and prepare launch vehicles? None, so everything is originating from Earth. You can assemble things in orbit, like the ISS, but it makes no sense to do such assembly away from Earth where all the supplies and spare parts are.

 

[Bertie68]

avant[/url]":2xoido73]Wouldn't it be easier to deploy a permanent base in the Moon, and then leverage it for a Mars mission?

Put another way, if we aren't capable even of building a base in the Moon, how can we make it to Mars in first place?

 

[JohnDeL]

NetworkElf[/url]":1nndt71s]What does going to Mars give humanity that cannot be achieved by going back to the moon and building an infrastructure there, along with building viable space stations in Earth orbit?

Information on Mars. The Moon is nice but it is the result of an accident that may be freakish. Mars, on the other hand, is a fairly common sort of world. Ideally, we'd both go back to the Moon and to Mars but the way things are being run, I doubt that we'll get either anytime soon.

 

[NetworkElf]

What does going to Mars give humanity that cannot be achieved by going back to the moon and building an infrastructure there, along with building viable space stations in Earth orbit?

 

[melgross]

Dan Homerick[/url]":28e99bj6]

vrDrew99[/url]":28e99bj6]We can just about land a decent sized vehicle on the Martian surface - but until we solve the fundamental propellant problem - it is doomed to be a one-way trip.

I'm sure people will hold up the idea of generating the fuel for the return trip on Mars. If that's a key requirement for doing a large scale Mars expedition, we should be developing and testing the technology now. As far as I know, there hasn't even been a "Challenge" style program to get this idea started. I expect that resource extraction of any form is going to be ridiculously hard. It's energy intensive, requires move large masses of material, and isn't useful unless done on a pretty large scale.

I very much doubt if that's feasible. First of all, it's not likely that Mars has what's needed anywhere near the surface, and if it does, where that might be. It would need to be right at where we want to land for scientific purposes.

The second difficulty is that an entire fuel mining and processing plant would need to be designed, tested and sent to Mars, and tested there. How much capacity would this plant need? If estimates as to reliability of the surface to contain enough fuel containing deposits were incorrect, what then? What if something in the plant broke down?

If this were even possible, it would need to be sent far in advance of the mission, so that when the mission landed, it would have the fuel ready for use. Anything else would be far too risky. And if something went wrong, how would we fix it from here?

 

[jbode]

To me, there is a much more basic question that needs to be answered first:

Why have a manned space program in the first place?

What do we intend to do with people in space? If the answer is basic science exploration, then we might as well shut the whole thing down and save some money; we're doing basic science exploration on Mars and throughout the solar system right now. Yes, there are some tasks people on site could accomplish more quickly than through remotely operated probes and rovers, but there are damned few tasks people can do that rovers can't do in principle.

If the answer is flags and footprints (i.e., look at what our lovely heavy lifter can do), then that's not only a criminal waste of money, it's a waste of opportunity. Why bother with time and risk of sending people to another planet if all they're going to do is collect some rocks and take some pictures?

If the answer is long-term or permanent settlement, then we're talking, although now we have to justify why we'd want to do that. I'm fine with Musk spending his own money to found his own Jamestown, but as a taxpayer I need some real convincing as to why the US Government should fund such an endeavor.

The Obama administration had the right idea with the space technology program - develop the infrastructure and systems necessary to sustain long-term manned space flight before launching people into space, rather than just recapitulate Apollo.

But that's not sexy. And it doesn't bring home the bacon to MSFC, or JSC, or a host of other NASA offices. So we're going to (attempt to) recapitulate Apollo.

 

[BeowulfSchaeffer]

MagicDot[/url]":371kvbtx]

BeowulfSchaeffer[/url]":371kvbtx]Having a habitat in space from which you can launch missions in close proximity to your target is a good thing for many reasons.

I never understood this argument. Which habitat in space comes with a fully operational production environment in which to manufacture and prepare launch vehicles? None, so everything is originating from Earth. You can assemble things in orbit, like the ISS, but it makes no sense to do such assembly away from Earth where all the supplies and spare parts are.

I never understood why people ask a question to a quote out of context without looking at the context to the answer to their question.

 

[melgross]

jbode[/url]":7za1dwbv]To me, there is a much more basic question that needs to be answered first:

Why have a manned space program in the first place?

What do we intend to do with people in space? If the answer is basic science exploration, then we might as well shut the whole thing down and save some money; we're doing basic science exploration on Mars and throughout the solar system right now. Yes, there are some tasks people on site could accomplish more quickly than through remotely operated probes and rovers, but there are damned few tasks people can do that rovers can't do in principle.

If the answer is flags and footprints (i.e., look at what our lovely heavy lifter can do), then that's not only a criminal waste of money, it's a waste of opportunity. Why bother with time and risk of sending people to another planet if all they're going to do is collect some rocks and take some pictures?

If the answer is long-term or permanent settlement, then we're talking, although now we have to justify why we'd want to do that. I'm fine with Musk spending his own money to found his own Jamestown, but as a taxpayer I need some real convincing as to why the US Government should fund such an endeavor.

The Obama administration had the right idea with the space technology program - develop the infrastructure and systems necessary to sustain long-term manned space flight before launching people into space, rather than just recapitulate Apollo.

But that's not sexy. And it doesn't bring home the bacon to MSFC, or JSC, or a host of other NASA offices. So we're going to (attempt to) recapitulate Apollo.

I've always believed, very strongly, that being in space is far more important than for "just" scientific exploration. I know personally, scientists who are angry about any manned missions because they feel it takes away from their desire for robotic missions that will carry out their own dreams.

In the short run, they're right. Robotic missions are very valuable, and we learn much from them at far lower cost than we can from manned missions. If that the long term goal, to just keep robots in space to explore for us, then we should abandon manned missions entirely, unless we can find a short, and medium term goal that robots can't substitute for.

But, long term, we've simply got to get out there, and not in ones and twos. Not even in slightly larger numbers either. We've got to learn how to live there is large numbers. I know this is a very long term goal, but we can only get there in small steps. The Wright brothers flew for 30 seconds at first, and now we have planes that carry hundreds across the world. But it took time, two wars, and lots of money to get where we are.

There are many people, actually, the large majority, who don't get this. But it's a matter of long term species survival. This little ball we're on seems nice, but anything can happen.

 

[Bertie68]

MagicDot[/url]":2dd43571]Miss Newman, how much will the project cost?
Real Answer: 1.5 trillion dollars
Scripted Answer: Well, if you read our plan which plans the plan we have planned for extensive planning during the planning stage. Have you read it? If not I encourage you to do so.

Miss Newman, how long until people walk on Mars?
Real Answer: 100 years
Scripted Answer: Well, if you read our plan which plans the plan we have planned for extensive planning during the planning stage. Have you read it? If not I encourage you to do so.

This is not a technical challenge. It is one of logistics and politics and both are a staggering challenge right now. Take comfort in the fact that your great grandchildren just might live long enough to see it.

If we take into account that the Apollo program consumed 4-5% of the yearly US GDP during its development, we can easily make a guesstimate of how much would cost the ticket to Mars.

 

[spacespektr]

afidel[/url]":1054qtln]

arcite[/url]":1054qtln]What would be the scientific value of a manned trip to Mars anyway? Big picture...what could be learned by human exploration that could not with cutting edge robots and probes?

The total amount of surface exploration done by robot probes to date could be accomplished by a manned mission in an afternoon.

That argument cuts both ways.

For the price of a human mission to Mars you could launch 30 Flagship missions, 70 New Frontier missions, or 120 Discovery missions. And that's with a Zubrinesque $60 billion cost. At the $220 billion the National Academies estimated would be the minimum to reach Mars before 2050, you could conduct all 220 robotic missions.

 

[afidel]

=j[/url]":1f2sqiuq]

afidel[/url]":1f2sqiuq]

arcite[/url]":1f2sqiuq]What would be the scientific value of a manned trip to Mars anyway? Big picture...what could be learned by human exploration that could not with cutting edge robots and probes?

The total amount of surface exploration done by robot probes to date could be accomplished by a manned mission in an afternoon.

That may have been true in the 1960's, but is not true now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_(rover)

Furthermore, most of the "science" associated with manned spaceflight involves how to keep humans alive for manned spaceflight.

2.3m x 40,000m, a bit less than .1 km^2, pretty sure that can be covered in an afternoon.

 

[pusher robot]

jbode[/url]":15ujg5js]To me, there is a much more basic question that needs to be answered first:

Why have a manned space program in the first place?

What do we intend to do with people in space? If the answer is basic science exploration, then we might as well shut the whole thing down and save some money; we're doing basic science exploration on Mars and throughout the solar system right now. Yes, there are some tasks people on site could accomplish more quickly than through remotely operated probes and rovers, but there are damned few tasks people can do that rovers can't do in principle.

If the answer is flags and footprints (i.e., look at what our lovely heavy lifter can do), then that's not only a criminal waste of money, it's a waste of opportunity. Why bother with time and risk of sending people to another planet if all they're going to do is collect some rocks and take some pictures?

Well, there are certain realities to contend with. Mainly, the average person is not interested enough in pure space science to be willing to pour resources into it instead of something more tangible like food stamps and fighter jets. We do not live in a technocracy, for better and for worse, so to reverse the old maxim, "no Buck Rogers, no bucks."

 

[Deltigar]

joshv[/url]":xxltfibo]I know this is a very unpopular opinion here at Ars, but our space exploration dollars are substantially wasted sending human bodies into space vs robotic explorers.

If you are worried about a "backup" for the human population, there are probably much cheaper things we can do to make our population more sustainable and guard against existential threats (asteroids) - and those things should be done. But, if you are just interested in the glory of putting human bodies on other planets, that's great, please spend your own money in pursuit of that goal.

Wasted on the good paying high tech jobs for researchers , engineers, and technicians? Wasted on parts manufacturers who pay their employees? Wasted? They do not, as I have said before, they do not stuff barrels full of money and shoot them into space. Every dollar spent is spent here on Earth and flows into the economy. THIS is how you create jobs, advance technology, and increase knowledge all at the same time.

 

[Statistical]

Considering all the unknowns, "planting a flag" (be it Corporate or Government) is as good or as bad a reason as any.

Well for those who love science physics makes a plant the flag mission unlikely. It takes almost as much resources to stay on mars for a year and a half as it would to stay a week. Planets move. You launch from Earth when alignment on planets in their orbits is optimal. However when you arrived you are way outside the optimal return window so you either go science the shit ouf the planet for a year OR you plant a flag jump back into your return vehicle and have to expend an ungodly amount of fuel (fuel = mass = cost) to try non-optimal return.

I have no idea when we will go to Mars. 2040s or 2140s but when we go physics will be on the side of doing some real science.

 

[abbub]

arcite[/url]":36b7c5jr]Big picture...what could be learned by human exploration that could not with cutting edge robots and probes?

The investigation of everything that's encountered that we didn't think to program the cutting edge robots and probes to handle?

 

[enilc]

Greason said the documents do not make it clear what the overall goal of the Journey to Mars is: Flags and footprints? A base? Human settlement? “If you don't know why we're doing it, it's hard to know whether it is worth doing,” he said.

I'll join in the posts about the above quote. He's not questioning the mission, obviously...he's just questioning the goal. The goal drives the entire mission.

It's as if I have hired your consulting company to "write software to make my company successful."

You don't start with that and send me a contract with milestones and budgets, do you? I would hope that there would be a series of questions to determine what exactly I want you to do.

Unless of course you're one of those companies that is fine just continually coming up with random tech demonstrations that have no clear focus, but that you're happy to bill for for years. Like NASA.

We blame congress (rightfully, in most cases) for playing politics with funding, but NASA is perfectly fine with the lower, but steady income they continue to receive while producing...slideshows.

If you come to me for money, tell me what you're planning on doing with it. If you need a little advance to create the plan for the $300B project, then that's what you get: a little advance to come up with a solid plan. Bring me bureacratic double-talk and "high-level concept slides" and you get zip.

 

[NeutralTarget]

The question I keep asking is what can a human do on mars that cannot be accomplished by robotics.

 

[Voldenuit]

melgross[/url]":1xrk0p7m]

Dan Homerick[/url]":1xrk0p7m]
I very much doubt if that's feasible. First of all, it's not likely that Mars has what's needed anywhere near the surface, and if it does, where that might be. It would need to be right at where we want to land for scientific purposes.

The second difficulty is that an entire fuel mining and processing plant would need to be designed, tested and sent to Mars, and tested there. How much capacity would this plant need? If estimates as to reliability of the surface to contain enough fuel containing deposits were incorrect, what then? What if something in the plant broke down?

If this were even possible, it would need to be sent far in advance of the mission, so that when the mission landed, it would have the fuel ready for use. Anything else would be far too risky. And if something went wrong, how would we fix it from here?

The creation of in situ propellant would be from atmospheric CO2. No surface or subsurface extraction required.

You would need a power source and some H2 feedstock to turn CO2 into H2O and CH4.

And if the plant fails, it's easier to send a second fueling mission before your manned mission (you might have to delay the manned mission) than to send an astronaut priest and gravedigger.

 

[Chuckstar]

Dan Homerick[/url]":3h6ho7gp]

vrDrew99[/url]":3h6ho7gp]We can just about land a decent sized vehicle on the Martian surface - but until we solve the fundamental propellant problem - it is doomed to be a one-way trip.

I'm sure people will hold up the idea of generating the fuel for the return trip on Mars. If that's a key requirement for doing a large scale Mars expedition, we should be developing and testing the technology now. As far as I know, there hasn't even been a "Challenge" style program to get this idea started. I expect that resource extraction of any form is going to be ridiculously hard. It's energy intensive, requires move large masses of material, and isn't useful unless done on a pretty large scale.

There's been lots of work on in-situ fuel production, both at the theoretical level and in the form of demonstration apparatuses. Obviously, there's work that needs to be done to design an actual, flight-ready system robust enough to operate on Mars with low-probability of breakdown, but the basic science of the ilk you're describing has already been done.

You don't need to move lots of material, btw. You extract everything you need from the atmosphere, with the addition of hydrogen you bring from Earth.

 

[Chuckstar]

Bertie68[/url]":30xe1fhv]

MagicDot[/url]":30xe1fhv]Miss Newman, how much will the project cost?
Real Answer: 1.5 trillion dollars
Scripted Answer: Well, if you read our plan which plans the plan we have planned for extensive planning during the planning stage. Have you read it? If not I encourage you to do so.

Miss Newman, how long until people walk on Mars?
Real Answer: 100 years
Scripted Answer: Well, if you read our plan which plans the plan we have planned for extensive planning during the planning stage. Have you read it? If not I encourage you to do so.

This is not a technical challenge. It is one of logistics and politics and both are a staggering challenge right now. Take comfort in the fact that your great grandchildren just might live long enough to see it.

If we take into account that the Apollo program consumed 4-5% of the yearly US GDP during its development, we can easily make a guesstimate of how much would cost the ticket to Mars.

Huh? Apollo varied between 0.2% and 0.7% of GDP, with levels above 0.2% only lasting for 8 years. Basically, you're off by a factor of 10. At peak (for two years) it represented just over 4% of federal outlays, but it's a really steep peak leading up to and after those two years.

EDIT: The point of the steepness of the peak being that if you average over the 12 years (or something like that) that the program ran, Apollo represented well under 4% of federal outlays, and probably somewhere around 0.4% to 0.5% of GDP.

EDIT2: Putting Apollo in perspective in today's terms: 0.5% of GDP today would be $80 billion a year. This is about 4.5x NASA's current budget of $18 billion. A meaningful increase, but hardly rising to the level of "ridiculous", considering a total federal budget of just over $3 trillion and the annual defense budget is close to $700 billion. If you just inflation-adjust the cost of Apollo, you get a total (not annual) amount of somewhere around $150 billion.

 

[LtWiggledworth]

NeutralTarget[/url]":3n3nqd8u]The question I keep asking is what can a human do on mars that cannot be accomplished by robotics.

Die?

 

[shelbystripes]

Bertie68[/url]":4b6oofjo]

avant[/url]":4b6oofjo]Wouldn't it be easier to deploy a permanent base in the Moon, and then leverage it for a Mars mission?

Put another way, if we aren't capable even of building a base in the Moon, how can we make it to Mars in first place?

No, that's not putting it another way. The question was whether it'd be easier to build a moon base for logistical benefit. The question presupposes that we can do so, and we can. We've been capable of building a base on the Moon since 1970. All of the core technologies (landing people, life support, and resources on the moon; returning people safely from the moon; extended duration space missions; lunar surface trandportation) to make a lunar base viable.

Our failure to do so wasn't one of capability; it was one of willpower. It's not too hard to understand why; there was civil unrest at home, the Vietnam War abroad, and the space program's biggest political sponsor was dead. Nobody was ready to politically defend a system that would require regular launches of unmanned Saturn-class rockets just to lob food and water at the moon.

And that's the same problem we have today. We're not discussing building a moon base today as part of our Mars plans. But it's not lack of capability, it's lack of desire, that's the problem.

 

[charleski]

Crewed missions are actually doing pretty damn well in the current budget proposals: Commercial Crew is being fully funded and SLS has got a huge increase.

But if you're interested in science rather than romantic sci-fi the big worry is that, yet again, Planetary Exploration is the funding football that's going to get tossed around as people stake out their bargaining positions and is almost certainly looking at a significant decrease.

What's Planetary Exploration? It's Curiosity on Mars, It's Cassini around Saturn, It's New Horizons to Pluto. It's the source of the most significant hard scientific data we've acquired about our solar system, and acquired at a fraction of the cost of Apollo and the Space Shuttle. Crewed missions are all very exciting, but when I see real science being cut because people want to satisfy romantic dreams, then I get a little annoyed.

joshv[/url]":xutqrp04]I know this is a very unpopular opinion here at Ars, but our space exploration dollars are substantially wasted sending human bodies into space vs robotic explorers.

Sometimes the unpopular opinion is the right one.

 

[SgtCupCake]

spacespektr[/url]":2pvhsvya]

afidel[/url]":2pvhsvya]

arcite[/url]":2pvhsvya]What would be the scientific value of a manned trip to Mars anyway? Big picture...what could be learned by human exploration that could not with cutting edge robots and probes?

The total amount of surface exploration done by robot probes to date could be accomplished by a manned mission in an afternoon.

That argument cuts both ways.

For the price of a human mission to Mars you could launch 30 Flagship missions, 70 New Frontier missions, or 120 Discovery missions. And that's with a Zubrinesque $60 billion cost. At the $220 billion the National Academies estimated would be the minimum to reach Mars before 2050, you could conduct all 220 robotic missions.

Are we all ignoring the foolishness of comparing something like the mars science laboratory to a human? What is a human gonna do on mars that doesn't requirement equipment and tools.

 

[Madestjohn]

Mars is not a distant shore, safe harbour, or desert island.

Its does not offer a refuge after a cold dangerous trip thru space but instead imposes an entirely different set of challenges to any earthly visiter's survival to the already long list that the trip there would entail.

Future human exploration needs to learn how to keep human alive and thriving in space before we accept the additional challenge maintaining their existance on a dangerous trip down another gravity well.

I believe we need to expand into the solar system, but i find the fanatical focus on a mythologized mars to be confusing.
Mars is not an island and space is not the sea.