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]":ifvgpfvd]

=j[/url]":ifvgpfvd]

afidel[/url]":ifvgpfvd]

arcite[/url]":ifvgpfvd]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.

Its been there for over 4000 sols. If you objective is to do burnouts in your mars buggy, then yeah. You can cover that distance. I doubt you will be able to make many meaningful measurements.

 

[reever]

Statistical[/url]":2n9kg5oz]

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.

Finally a dose of reality. They can't tell you where they're going to land because just like you, they. don't. know. We do not fly things straight to Mars, we use other sources for getting us most of the way there that don't require fuel like planetary alignment. We actually have very little control of where anything lands, probe or otherwise because of this. Nor can you just up and leave with less fuel you had when you got there. If the planets aren't aligned correctly you are not going home from Mars until they do, period.

 

[Torbjörn Larsson OM]

Why should we care what people in "aerospace" thinks about space exploration? NASA has the experts, not them. They are planning an updated multipurpose observation platform to help decide on the first footholds on Mars, it is TBD budget among other budget targets. Meanwhile they do what they can with a budget that is at the mercy of political interests.

As a comparison, it took an awful lot of time and energy to establish semi-permanent footholds on Antarctica. And they didn't labor under some fanciful "plan" at the time, they got there because of commercial and political interests. Compared to that, exploration of Mars is planned six ways to Sunday.

 

[Torbjörn Larsson OM]

=j[/url]":1dmt8awv]

afidel[/url]":1dmt8awv]

=j[/url]":1dmt8awv]

afidel[/url]":1dmt8awv]

arcite[/url]":1dmt8awv]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.

Its been there for over 4000 sols. If you objective is to do burnouts in your mars buggy, then yeah. You can cover that distance. I doubt you will be able to make many meaningful measurements.

No, like all field explorers they sample and analyse in a capable laboratory. Curiosity isn't that.

The comparison would be between a cycle of rover, sample caching, sample retrieval, sample return, sample characterization, next rover, ... easily a 40 years cycle.

A semi-permanent martian outpost could do the turn around in a martian year. *Especially* if you have the sort of parallel manned/robotic supplemented mission envisioned for the future.

 

[SixDegrees]

Attitude_Check[/url]":1rwxyzqf]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.

If you're referring to Biosphere 2, that was a joke in every sense of the word when it comes to science. Poor design, lousy execution, and a host of other problems seeping over into the legal and ethical domains rendered the few results it generated pretty much meaningless.

Although the ISS isn't currently a closed system, it is a very highly instrumented one, and close, long-term monitoring make it clear that running a closed system for a few years is quite feasible.

 

[SixDegrees]

afidel[/url]":1c6k3ix0]

arcite[/url]":1c6k3ix0]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.

No, not even remotely close, unless you're only talking about covering ground - which is nothing more than a flag-planting exercise that is pretty much pointless. The amount of actual science done by probes has been utterly staggering, and even a large human team would be very hard pressed simply to duplicate it over the course of an extended visit, let alone expand on it.

 

[Joseph Acerbic]

The first step of any plan for a journey anywhere would have to be to wait for Sen. Shelby to expire and to prevent the alien parasite inside from transferring to another human body with as much power to sabotage NASA.

 

[SixDegrees]

new2mac[/url]":9swv590m]Massive example of why it's time to get rid of the vast majority of government. It's become a hinderance to society. NASA will never go to Mars except as a SpaceX passenger. By the time the government finds its ass on this, SpaceX will be roasting smores by a Martian sunset.

Not without a profit motive. And investors aren't going to sit still for future payoffs that are decades in the future.

Government plays a crucial role as a pathfinder when it comes to zero-return projects like this, so long as return is measured in dollars. SpaceX simply would not exist today if it weren't for decades of work by NASA and other government space programs.

 

[SixDegrees]

Joseph Acerbic[/url]":3e4deiks]The first step of any plan for a journey anywhere would have to be to wait for Sen. Shelby to expire and to prevent the alien parasite inside from transferring to another human body with as much power to sabotage NASA.

With any luck, maybe we can shove him back through the portal for a few thousand more years.

 

[drouu]

i'm very much convinced that NASA's for-reals plan for Mars is

1) build SLS to humor congress and waste time
2) wait for SpaceX or whoever to do it
3) buy seats

a feckless administration and only-the-pork-please congress has left them with no other option.

 

[uhuznaa]

avant[/url]":2ebw28bj]Wouldn't it be easier to deploy a permanent base in the Moon, and then leverage it for a Mars mission?

The Moon is totally different. You have 14 days of freezing night and then 14 days of scorching day. You have no atmosphere, which adds to make the thermal environment even more different. Both landing and returning your crews and cargo would be different too. To go to the Moon first is pointless if you want to go to Mars. If you want to go to Mars, go to Mars.

 

[uhuznaa]

SixDegrees[/url]":6nxv3ke4]

afidel[/url]":6nxv3ke4]

arcite[/url]":6nxv3ke4]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.

No, not even remotely close, unless you're only talking about covering ground - which is nothing more than a flag-planting exercise that is pretty much pointless. The amount of actual science done by probes has been utterly staggering, and even a large human team would be very hard pressed simply to duplicate it over the course of an extended visit, let alone expand on it.

This is a usual misunderstanding: People see rovers drive a few miles in years and think that driving around is exploration and science. It isn't. Humans do the science even with robots and being there is actually more of a disadvantage than anything else, since you need to breath and drink and eat all the time. And then the probes and robots are very little mass compared to what you'd need to bring for a crewed mission.

Land 100 tons of rovers and THEN try to beat the science that these rovers can facilitate with what a handful of guys stumbling around in the dust can do. EVA's aren't easy anyway, don't think a few months on Mars would allow more than a handful of days covering ground. At least both Apollo and the ISS seem to indicate that this is not as easy as movies make it look like. Every man-hour on the Moon was about $1B, and there is little reason to think that things would be cheaper on Mars.

 

[chromal]

Attitude_Check[/url]":3sinbn4m]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.

I suppose you could be forgiven for thinking that. In fact, NASA had a long-running Advanced Life Support (ALS) research program at Johnson Space Center that ran until 2006, at which point the shortsighted congressional NASA budget cuts forced them to gut the program to make room for the Crew Launch Vehicle program. It was a sucker-punch for me, because I was at that time following along with its exciting progress.

Of particular interest was Phase III of the Lunar-Mars Life Support Test Project (LMLSTP), a "90-day test with 4 crew members... The crew (were) living in the Integrated Life Support Systems Test Facility (ILSSTF) with oxygen augmented by oxygen produced by wheat growing in the Variable Pressure Growth Chamber (VPGC) and carbon dioxide produced by the crew being transferred from the ILSSTF to VPGC for uptake by the wheat during growth." ( http://web.archive.org/web/200511181435 ... ewIII.html ) ( https://lsda.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/missi ... _index=206 )

The daily progress updates from the crews of the LMLSTP were really interesting, too:

Phase IIA: ( http://web.archive.org/web/200602061151 ... ylife.html )
Phase III: ( http://web.archive.org/web/200602111414 ... ylife.html )

They were making some good progress, though the main limitations were likely the program's willingness to shut people into a closed-loop environment on the ground, going nowhere... These crew members deserve recognition for their sacrifice to advance the science.

 

[Chuckstar]

uhuznaa[/url]":212hlt0z]

SixDegrees[/url]":212hlt0z]

afidel[/url]":212hlt0z]

arcite[/url]":212hlt0z]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.

No, not even remotely close, unless you're only talking about covering ground - which is nothing more than a flag-planting exercise that is pretty much pointless. The amount of actual science done by probes has been utterly staggering, and even a large human team would be very hard pressed simply to duplicate it over the course of an extended visit, let alone expand on it.

This is a usual misunderstanding: People see rovers drive a few miles in years and think that driving around is exploration and science. It isn't. Humans do the science even with robots and being there is actually more of a disadvantage than anything else, since you need to breath and drink and eat all the time. And then the probes and robots are very little mass compared to what you'd need to bring for a crewed mission.

Land 100 tons of rovers and THEN try to beat the science that these rovers can facilitate with what a handful of guys stumbling around in the dust can do. EVA's aren't easy anyway, don't think a few months on Mars would allow more than a handful of days covering ground. At least both Apollo and the ISS seem to indicate that this is not as easy as movies make it look like. Every man-hour on the Moon was about $1B, and there is little reason to think that things would be cheaper on Mars.

Apollo 17 did 22 hours of EVA on the surface over the course of 3 days, covering 22 miles of ground. The idea that a Mars mission could only do a handful of EVA-days over the course of months is nonsensical.

EDIT: To put that distance in perspective, Spirit travelled 7 miles, Opportunity traveled 42 and Curiosity has traveled 4.

 

[Alhazred]

Quiet Desperation[/url]":2j917xoh]

melgross[/url]":2j917xoh]Mars is really a very long term goal. It's an end process to a much more sophisticated program which includes a more modern space station, much better people capsules, and very likely, a successful working base on the moon. In addition, if we're to have even a small ease on Mars, with people just there for a month or so before coming back, we need a way to help them if something goes wrong. There is no known way to do that right now. In addition, just getting there and back is a maximal problem that goes beyond what we think of as a normal craft. People need protection from high levels of radiation that we don't encounter in low earth orbit, or even in a moon run that just lasts a few days.

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.

Space is about pork, pork and nothing but pork. If you know how to make it work as a porkbarrel, then it will happen, but the truth is the politicians LIKE a distant and unattainable goal which they can blame some rocket scientists for not achieving. Congress is the problem, not NASA. Not the space enthusiast community either. Yeah, some people are unrealistic, always will have 'em, but they can be brought on board, and frankly they don't make the decisions.

 

[chromal]

Quiet Desperation[/url]":vo04nrbt]
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.

You say that, but there actually were very specific plans and decades of research and investment for what was to be next after Apollo. I could paste articles, but if a picture is worth 1000 words, then you should probably watch this motion picture from 1968 about exactly what was to follow Apollo. And it wasn't speculation: NASA and the Atomic Energy Commission designed, built, tested, and certified for a US Mars mission the NERVA Nuclear-Thermal rocket engine. Plus, dig the avante-garde soundtrack!

"Nuclear Propulsion In Space (1968) NERVA Manned Mars mission"
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b18HtG0DOCM)

Nixon killed this program in 1972 after two decades of progress and, apparently, some flight-ready hardware, which killed the 1978 or 1980 US Mars crewed mission they were credibly prepared to make.

 

[Nansen]

The most recent NASA Design Reference Missions (DRMs) are very explicit about goals: 1) Developing equipment/vehicles and verifying human capabilities are immediate goals; 2) Conducting geological and biological science are the intermediate goals (but the science would begin on the first expedition); and 3) Expanding the range of human habitation (a biological imperative) is the ultimate goal. For these reasons, I do not understand the author's or others' criticisms. NASA's most recent DRM (2009, with an addendum) describes goals, methods, locations, risks, and costs. Very smart people have devoted enormous effort to considering the options. Flat budgets, rather than radiation loading, is the primary factor that impedes implementation. Flat budgets for science can be traced to the anti-intellectualism of many US politicians. I am especially enraged by those who complain about wasting money in space, when every penny is actually spent here on Earth to further education and the development of science and technology. For example, hundreds of scientists are working on a countermeasure to bone demineralization, one of the negative effects of living in zero-gravity, and a problem that must be solved before we depart on a three-year interplanetary expedition. They are very close to a solution, which will change forever the fear of brittle bones as we age on Earth. The CDC estimates the cost to society from broken hips alone to be nearly 50 billion dollars per year--almost three times NASA's annual budget. I am not fond of the Phobos mission plan, which seems to be a lot of effort and sacrifice for little payoff. It only comes close to seeming logical if you view it as something to do while developing the technologies that enable an actual Mars landing and surface stay. I am convinced that a better interim activity would be to conduct shorter expeditions to NEOs to learn about composition and possible methods for influencing their orbits. Mars attracts our attention, but the asteroids demand it.

 

[danielravennest]

avant[/url]":3acibzt3]Wouldn't it be easier to deploy a permanent base in the Moon, and then leverage it for a Mars mission?

No, actually it would be easiest to put a fuel station in a near-Lunar orbit, such as L2, and leverage that to send missions to both the Moon and Mars. Near Earth Asteroids of the right type are up to 20% water and carbon compounds. An electric tug can bring back 50 times the propellant it uses in asteroid rock, and therefore 10 times the water and carbon. Water + carbon converts to Oxygen + Hydrocarbons, which is high thrust rocket fuel, suitable for landers and planetary mission departures.

Some electric thruster types are not picky about fuel, so you can use a little of what you extract for the next trip. That way your asteroid mining becomes self-sustaining. Each trip takes around 2-3 years, so the tug can make 5-7 trips without maintenance. Solar arrays and electric thrusters can be modular, and replaced as needed. In that case the tugs can keep operating indefinitely. If a tug fails completely, you send another one to bring it back, and then fix whatever broke.

With a steady supply of propellant, you can also deliver some back to Low Earth Orbit using aerobraking, which doesn't use much of the propellant you are delivering. So the entire trip beyond Low Earth orbit becomes more efficient.

 

[danielravennest]

Shlazzargh[/url]":51tlmijm]
We really, really need an overall goal and vision statement to come from the top. Perhaps one will be imposed on us by other countries and private companies.

The goal should be no less than extending civilization to the entire Solar System and beyond. Anything less puts limits on the human spirit. But to reach that goal, we have to stop trying to bring everything from Earth. That simply costs too much. We have to learn how to "live off the land' - use local materials and energy resources, and build what we need on location. The best way to do that is bootstrap from "starter sets" of basic machines, which can make parts for more machines locally, and grow to full production systems. The full production then makes parts for habitat domes, rocket propellant, etc. Whatever is needed.

This isn't a new idea. Settlers have always brought a starter set of tools with them. Once they got to their destination, they built what they needed from whatever was available locally.

 

[berrardo]

Little if any water, a very thin atmosphere with no oxygen, no fuel sources, a lot of radiation, no plants, nothing alive, temperatures that make Antarctica look balmy ...

Yeah, that sounds like a great place for a $500B vacation. And no doubt the science would at least equal the value of ISS science!!

Eh, well, yeah, -maybe- we should finish getting rid of carbon emitters on planet Earth first. Because the Mars folk who survive, stuck on that Dead Dead planet, will desperately want somewhere to return to.

 

[danielravennest]

vrDrew99[/url]":mo173bpq]We are decades, if not centuries, away from the technology that will make a manned mission to Mars a viable proposition.

For the bulk of that time, human astronauts would be outside the protection from radiation provided by the Van Allen belts. We have no practical means of shielding a human crew from the damage such deep space radiation would inevitably cause.

Mars has gravity that is approx. 40% of the earth - yet virtually no atmosphere to enable a parachute-based entry vehicle. Any craft that landed on the Martian surface needs to be large enough to blast off and dock with an orbiting mother-ship. We simply have no practical means of accomplishing that goal with current chemical rocket propellants.

I beg to differ. SpaceX is busy working on making rockets big enough and cheap enough to get there. Some of us (I'm a space systems engineer a.k.a rocket scientist) are working on asteroid mining and self-expanding factories. That way you can make stuff locally and don't have to bring it all from Earth.

For radiation protection, there are 14,500 known Near Earth Asteroids. In velocity terms, some of them will be close to an Earth-Mars cycling orbit. So we send an asteroid tug ahead of a human mission, scrape some rock off a suitable asteroid, and haul it to the desired orbit. When you launch your crew habitat later, you rendezvous with the tug, and stuff the rock into lockers around the habitat, supplying shielding. You can also process some of the rock into useful things like water, oxygen, and propellant. That saves weight, and gives the crew something to do for the 8 month trip. If you start to run low on raw rock, you send the tug off to get more.

For landing on Mars, we can mine Phobos for propellant. Phobos is a big asteroid that happens to be in Mars orbit. A second habitat module parked on Phobos can be protected with the abundant loose rock on that Moon's surface. On the surface of Mars we can get water from the soil, and carbon from the atmosphere, and convert those to Oxygen and Hydrocarbons (i.e. rocket fuel) to get back to orbit. Basically, once you learn how to make propellant from local sources, you can go anywhere you want.

 

[vrDrew99]

danielravennest[/url]":3g1odkpd]
For landing on Mars, we can mine Phobos for propellant. Phobos is a big asteroid that happens to be in Mars orbit. A second habitat module parked on Phobos can be protected with the abundant loose rock on that Moon's surface. On the surface of Mars we can get water from the soil, and carbon from the atmosphere, and convert those to Oxygen and Hydrocarbons (i.e. rocket fuel) to get back to orbit. Basically, once you learn how to make propellant from local sources, you can go anywhere you want.

Wouldn't it just be easier to invent transporters and warp drives?

Sorry for the levity. But much as I admire the imagination and capabilities of scientists, I just cannot see the American taxpayer signing up for that deal. "Mining Phobos for propellant"? How sure are we that Phobos is made up of rocket fuel? Or are you suggesting that, in addition to sending up not just ONE industrial-scale strip mine and fuel refinery - but TWO of them.

The American people can be persuaded to spend billions, maybe even trillions, of dollars to explore the heavens.

But send robots to do the job. They are cheaper by several orders of magnitude. They don't need much in the way of food, water, oxygen, or toilet paper. They only sometimes go insane. And if they perish in a fiery re-entry mishap, we manage to balance our mourning with healthy amount levity and a promise to do a little better the next time.

 

[danielravennest]

Attitude_Check[/url]":23sgg1zw]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.

That's not a correct view of the Biosphere II project. They didn't reach full closure for two reasons:

(1) They forgot that concrete "carbonates" (absorbs CO2) for years after it hardens. This removed Oxygen from the living cycle.

(2) Mount Pinatubo erupted just as they started their first two-year closed experiment. The volcano threw a lot of dust into the upper atmosphere, reducing the sunlight that powered photosynthesis.

If it were not for those, the experiment would have reached it's goals. In any case, there is no requirement for a habitat on Mars, for example, to be a 100% closed system. Mars' atmosphere is 95% CO2, so you can get more carbon and oxygen whenever you need it, simply with a compressor. The Curiosity rover found 2% water in the Martian soil, so you can get that too. As long as you can get new supplies faster than the losses in your system, you can live for the long term.

 

[danielravennest]

MagicDot[/url]":8y3ebrim]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.

You are asking the question the wrong way around. You start by hauling raw materials to a location you want to build at, or mine materials locally if you are on the surface of a larger body. Then you bring a starter-set of production machines which process the raw materials, and make parts for useful items. 5% of asteroids are the metallic type, which is mostly iron-nickel-cobalt alloy. A much larger fraction of asteroids are carbon-bearing. Iron + carbon = steel. So that's your base material to make structures and more machines, until you can process other elements like silicon, aluminum, and magnesium from rocky sources. Once you have metals production working, *then* you build habitats.

 

[uhuznaa]

Chuckstar[/url]":2o85402i]

uhuznaa[/url]":2o85402i]

SixDegrees[/url]":2o85402i]

afidel[/url]":2o85402i]

arcite[/url]":2o85402i]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.

No, not even remotely close, unless you're only talking about covering ground - which is nothing more than a flag-planting exercise that is pretty much pointless. The amount of actual science done by probes has been utterly staggering, and even a large human team would be very hard pressed simply to duplicate it over the course of an extended visit, let alone expand on it.

This is a usual misunderstanding: People see rovers drive a few miles in years and think that driving around is exploration and science. It isn't. Humans do the science even with robots and being there is actually more of a disadvantage than anything else, since you need to breath and drink and eat all the time. And then the probes and robots are very little mass compared to what you'd need to bring for a crewed mission.

Land 100 tons of rovers and THEN try to beat the science that these rovers can facilitate with what a handful of guys stumbling around in the dust can do. EVA's aren't easy anyway, don't think a few months on Mars would allow more than a handful of days covering ground. At least both Apollo and the ISS seem to indicate that this is not as easy as movies make it look like. Every man-hour on the Moon was about $1B, and there is little reason to think that things would be cheaper on Mars.

Apollo 17 did 22 hours of EVA on the surface over the course of 3 days, covering 22 miles of ground. The idea that a Mars mission could only do a handful of EVA-days over the course of months is nonsensical.

EDIT: To put that distance in perspective, Spirit travelled 7 miles, Opportunity traveled 42 and Curiosity has traveled 4.

The Apollo crews had to hurry. And their spacesuits were worn out after a few EVA's. Keeping up that pace over months would have been impossible. And again, "covering ground" is in no way a useful metric here. Landing 15 tons of rovers instead and having these slowly doing science for months or years would have bought more science for less. Even back then and more so today.

I'm all for going to Mars but we will never get there without looking coldly at the facts. Science will never be the reason for a crewed Mars mission. Or for any manned spaceflight for that matter. The only reason to go there is to go there. Reason enough, but if you pretend the reason to be science you'll be disappointed over and over again because robotics are better and cheaper for that. If you want mankind to go to Mars stop using science as an excuse. Because even the most cursory mission analysis will show you that THIS isn't going to be the reason to go. It's no surprise that SpaceX talks very little of science as a reason to go to Mars.

 

[Chuckstar]

uhuznaa[/url]":1qwuqpxx]

Chuckstar[/url]":1qwuqpxx]

uhuznaa[/url]":1qwuqpxx]

SixDegrees[/url]":1qwuqpxx]

afidel[/url]":1qwuqpxx]

arcite[/url]":1qwuqpxx]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.

No, not even remotely close, unless you're only talking about covering ground - which is nothing more than a flag-planting exercise that is pretty much pointless. The amount of actual science done by probes has been utterly staggering, and even a large human team would be very hard pressed simply to duplicate it over the course of an extended visit, let alone expand on it.

This is a usual misunderstanding: People see rovers drive a few miles in years and think that driving around is exploration and science. It isn't. Humans do the science even with robots and being there is actually more of a disadvantage than anything else, since you need to breath and drink and eat all the time. And then the probes and robots are very little mass compared to what you'd need to bring for a crewed mission.

Land 100 tons of rovers and THEN try to beat the science that these rovers can facilitate with what a handful of guys stumbling around in the dust can do. EVA's aren't easy anyway, don't think a few months on Mars would allow more than a handful of days covering ground. At least both Apollo and the ISS seem to indicate that this is not as easy as movies make it look like. Every man-hour on the Moon was about $1B, and there is little reason to think that things would be cheaper on Mars.

Apollo 17 did 22 hours of EVA on the surface over the course of 3 days, covering 22 miles of ground. The idea that a Mars mission could only do a handful of EVA-days over the course of months is nonsensical.

EDIT: To put that distance in perspective, Spirit travelled 7 miles, Opportunity traveled 42 and Curiosity has traveled 4.

The Apollo crews had to hurry. And their spacesuits were worn out after a few EVA's. Keeping up that pace over months would have been impossible. And again, "covering ground" is in no way a useful metric here. Landing 15 tons of rovers instead and having these slowly doing science for months or years would have bought more science for less. Even back then and more so today.

I'm all for going to Mars but we will never get there without looking coldly at the facts. Science will never be the reason for a crewed Mars mission. Or for any manned spaceflight for that matter. The only reason to go there is to go there. Reason enough, but if you pretend the reason to be science you'll be disappointed over and over again because robotics are better and cheaper for that. If you want mankind to go to Mars stop using science as an excuse. Because even the most cursory mission analysis will show you that THIS isn't going to be the reason to go. It's no surprise that SpaceX talks very little of science as a reason to go to Mars.

They'd only have to keep that pace up for a week to reach a "handful" of days. And their suits weren't particularly designed for any longer. We have 50 years of materials science, space experience, miniaturization and production experience we can put behind designing better suits, not to mention the fact that the design spec will be different. Covering ground is an entirely useful metric. Just ask any geologist what the most important metric for doing field geology is. They'll tell you that you the most important thing is covering a lot of ground.

No, this doesn't mean the argument for going to Mars is that it's a cheaper way to get science done. But your counterarguments don't need to be nonsensical to make the point. And claiming that you'd only get a few days of EVA time over the course of months and that covering ground isn't an important metric are both nonsensical arguments.

 

[danielravennest]

vrDrew99[/url]":21aqfkis]How sure are we that Phobos is made up of rocket fuel? Or are you suggesting that, in addition to sending up not just ONE industrial-scale strip mine and fuel refinery - but TWO of them.

But send robots to do the job. They are cheaper by several orders of magnitude. They don't need much in the way of food, water, oxygen, or toilet paper. They only sometimes go insane. And if they perish in a fiery re-entry mishap, we manage to balance our mourning with healthy amount levity and a promise to do a little better the next time.

We are fairly sure from spectral data that Phobos is similar to Carbonaceous Chondrite type asteroids. These types of asteroids' composition are known from meteorites of the same type, which can be measured on Earth, and the spectra of the meteorite compared to what we measure in space. Chondrites typically have a percentage of hydrated minerals, which have chemically bound water, and also carbon compounds as their name indicates. Ideally we want a Phobos sample return mission to verify this. If it turns out Phobos isn't suitable, Mars is at the inner edge of the main asteroid belt, so there are plenty of other asteroids (about 700,000) to choose from.

Industrial scale strip mining isn't required. Typical mining required from a low grade (4%) surface ore to fuel a 10 ton lander is 625 tons of ore. A medium construction backhoe can dig up that much material in three days, assuming the surface material is lower density than the bulk of Phobos, as is common with regolith. So if your landing frequency is monthly, you can get by with a ten times smaller excavating machine.

And I'm in favor of sending robots ahead of the people. In particular, Phobos is near enough to Mars to do real-time control of surface robots. So you can do much of the digging and equipment set-up before the first human goes down. Multiple trips down and up with the landers to place the robots and supplies for them to work with will give you confidence the landers are safe for people.

Food, water, oxygen, and toilet paper can all be supplied by a greenhouse module and rock cooking oven. The oven cooks the rock at 200-300C, which will evaporate the water from the hydrated minerals, and the also the longer-chain carbon compounds. Bulk rock can serve as a soil substrate, with the addition of some microbes and fertilizer to get things going. Certain plants can provide fiber for paper-making, or cotton plants can supply cotton balls for wiping your ass. Although toilet paper isn't very heavy, so supplying it from Earth may make more sense. Then it ends up composted and added to the food cycle.

 

[NoMorePosting]

Wonder Chemist[/url]":2whhzi06]

Attitude_Check[/url]":2whhzi06]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.

The main issue with B2 was they didn't wait long enough for the concrete to cure, so it was soaking up oxygen. Its a great place to visit. They DID solve some interesting problems like air expansion and contraction in its construction, and its doing useful science now.

 

[CRandyHill]

The first step towards Mars is to get NASA out of the launch business. The SLS boondoggle is going to easily cost $2B+ per launch (they'll be in close to $12B in startup costs before the first launch and have annual operating costs of $2B outside of actual rocket/flight costs), and it's only going to lift 50% more than a $100M per launch Falcon Heavy.

NASAs current plan is a recipe for a quarter to half trillion dollar Mars program. Using commercial launch capacity, they should be able to cut those costs by at least 80-90%. That's a feasible plan, NASA's current "plan" isn't even a plan, it's a pork barrel joke.

 

[drouu]

Pork, pork.
Who's there?
Congress.

 

[Bertie68]

Chuckstar[/url]":2mozgq39]

Bertie68[/url]":2mozgq39]

MagicDot[/url]":2mozgq39]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.

OK, I admit I had not contrasted the info just before writing. I had read the figures some time ago and what I posted was a ballpark estimate. But also did not fall too far away: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA

As you can see, the total NASA budget peaked in 1966 at 4,41% of Fed Budget (er, not GDP). I think we can safely assume most of it was devoted to the Apollo program.

 

[Chuckstar]

Bertie68[/url]":3h0plsyu]

Chuckstar[/url]":3h0plsyu]

Bertie68[/url]":3h0plsyu]

MagicDot[/url]":3h0plsyu]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.

OK, I admit I had not contrasted the info just before writing. I had read the figures some time ago and what I posted was a ballpark estimate. But also did not fall too far away: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA

As you can see, the total NASA budget peaked in 1966 at 4,41% of Fed Budget (er, not GDP). I think we can safely assume most of it was devoted to the Apollo program.

At peak, only 70% of NASA's budget went to Apollo. But even that 4.4% number is misleading, as it's peak funding and not averaged over the course of any program.
Apollo cost $25.4 billion from 1960 to 1973. Federal spending for those 13 years was roughly $2.2 trillion. The result is an average of 1.1% of federal outlays. NASA is currently about 0.5% of federal outlays. NASA as a whole was about $55 billion over those 13 years, so closer to 2.5% for all of NASA. It's interesting to note that throughout the Apollo era, NASA was spending huge sums of money on non-Apollo programs. Lots of these would have been programs with military applications -- for example, NASA ran the X-plane program -- but also included things like the NERVA nuclear-powered rocket engine suitable for missions to Mars as well as the early R&D spending on the Space Shuttle. I'm not sure whether NERVA was considered to have military applications, but the Space Shuttle certainly was. The point of the military applications being that in many politicians' eyes, at the time, a large percentage of NASA's budget was really part of military spending, even if it wasn't itemized that way.

I'm not making the military-related comments to be judgmental, just to be realistic about congress's appetite for "military" vs "exploration". In other words, in order to expect congress to fund a similar level today as they did for NASA as whole back in the 60s, one would have to give congress a similar military justification as they had in the 60s. Otherwise, it's not really apples-to-apples. The same is not quite as true when looking at Apollo in particular, as the direct military applicability was known to be rather limited, with Apollo being more driven by general concepts surrounding national prestige, rather than specific military applicability. That's a long-winded way of saying that it's hard to analyze non-Apollo spending by NASA in the 60s vs today's NASA budget without considering how/whether military applicability has changed, considering congress's differing appetite for military spending vs pure science spending in both time periods.

 

[Grashnak]

caldepen[/url]":1pxavhp0]

arcite[/url]":1pxavhp0]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?

What's the point of getting out of bed in the morning?

Every morning I feel like my day isn't really started until I see someone make at least one utterly asinine comparison or analogy. Thanks for kicking off my day early.

 

[helloukw]

Nobody expected to just send people to Mars and be done with it. It's suicidal. First there gotta be a lot of training and experiment and what better choice we have then our own moon? First make a base there and simulate everything that should be done on Mars. After that consider if it's feasible to go to Mars and do the same.

 

[Scifigod]

kirby14[/url]":n6iuuruk]I know this is off topic and plenty of people have already brought it up but I'm still amazed that when Ars does the A/B title testing the buzzfeed-esque titles always win out. You'd think the Ars readers would be better than that

It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't thing. I can either click past the occasionally horrid title to read an article about a topic I like giving more weight to the test or...not read the article.

Anymore I find myself reading the subhead more than the title to figure what the article is actually about.

 

[caldepen]

Grashnak[/url]":2khltchd]

caldepen[/url]":2khltchd]

arcite[/url]":2khltchd]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?

What's the point of getting out of bed in the morning?

Every morning I feel like my day isn't really started until I see someone make at least one utterly asinine comparison or analogy. Thanks for kicking off my day early.

It was a rhetorical question meant to point out that questioning why do we do something, like climb a mountain or why do we explore an unknown location is akin to questioning our own humanity. Why climb that mountain? Because it is there. Exploring and discovering things is an integral aspect of our species and one could argue the main advantage we have over others.

But unfortunately another integral trait, apparently is snide, with a dash of snark, glib responses meant to make oneself feel better at the expense of others... but thankfully my day isn't really started until I see someone on here make at least one utterly asinine statement such as yours. Thank you!

 

[Grashnak]

caldepen[/url]":2vkyd9kb]
It was a rhetorical question meant to point out that questioning why do we do something, like climb a mountain or why do we explore an unknown location is akin to questioning our own humanity. Why climb that mountain? Because it is there. Exploring and discovering things is an integral aspect of our species and one could argue the main advantage we have over others.

Good grief. He asked about the relative value of sending humans to Mars vs robots. If you think that's akin to "questioning our humanity", you've got a overly romanticized sense of what it means to be human.

Just because we could do something in the spirit of exploration doesn't make it a reasonable, economical, or even smart thing to do. If you think we're going to be able to justify the future of the space program by appealing to our integral human desire to explore, I assure you you're grossly mistaken.

I think there are actually good reasons to send humans to Mars. "Because it makes us human" is a particularly stupid one though.

 

[caldepen]

Grashnak[/url]":1xwlfvod]

caldepen[/url]":1xwlfvod]
It was a rhetorical question meant to point out that questioning why do we do something, like climb a mountain or why do we explore an unknown location is akin to questioning our own humanity. Why climb that mountain? Because it is there. Exploring and discovering things is an integral aspect of our species and one could argue the main advantage we have over others.

Good grief. He asked about the relative value of sending humans to Mars vs robots. If you think that's akin to "questioning our humanity", you've got a overly romanticized sense of what it means to be human.

Just because we could do something in the spirit of exploration doesn't make it a reasonable, economical, or even smart thing to do. If you think we're going to be able to justify the future of the space program by appealing to our integral human desire to explore, I assure you you're grossly mistaken.

I think there are actually good reasons to send humans to Mars. "Because it makes us human" is a particularly stupid one though.

Oh my goodness we think differently... our desire for exploration and discovery is an incredible reason to do things. Do you know how many inventions and discoveries were made by accident because we were seeking something?

There are always people who poo-poo everything, I try to align myself with people that are positive, that like accomplishment. If they take the money they spent in Iraq and apply it to something noble we could get it done and would be better off for it.

But hey, let's just virtually go there. It will be the same thing right? No Man's Sky is out next month, pretty much the same thing.

Almost all of my regrets are for things I didn't do.

 

[Jeff2Space]

melgross[/url]":qhbl0fzi]
A problem is the long term cost. If we were just talking about $10 billion over 10 years, there would be little problem. But the cost can be over $100 billion, possibly more. SpaceX isn't going to change these numbers either.

Riddle me this. With SpaceX pricing Falcon Heavy at under $100 million per launch, how many Falcon Heavy launches could NASA buy each year instead of spending that money on SLS development? For every $1 billion spent on SLS, NASA could buy 10 Falcon Heavy launches. Even adding in some overhead for in orbit assembly and refueling, that's going to add up to far more manned missions than SLS could ever support.

That's a lost opportunity. NASA is spending money on a hyper expensive launch vehicle instead of on things like a HAB module, or a lander, or actual manned missions.

 

[Jeff2Space]

Torbjörn Larsson, OM[/url]":3e20ejzb]

=j[/url]":3e20ejzb]

afidel[/url]":3e20ejzb]

=j[/url]":3e20ejzb]

afidel[/url]":3e20ejzb]

arcite[/url]":3e20ejzb]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.

Its been there for over 4000 sols. If you objective is to do burnouts in your mars buggy, then yeah. You can cover that distance. I doubt you will be able to make many meaningful measurements.

No, like all field explorers they sample and analyse in a capable laboratory. Curiosity isn't that.

The comparison would be between a cycle of rover, sample caching, sample retrieval, sample return, sample characterization, next rover, ... easily a 40 years cycle.

A semi-permanent martian outpost could do the turn around in a martian year. *Especially* if you have the sort of parallel manned/robotic supplemented mission envisioned for the future.

Most importantly, any manned mission is going to necessarily return the astronauts to earth. So, they'll also return at least some samples to earth as well.

For a historical perspective, the amount of lunar rocks returned to earth bound labs by Apollo missions far exceeds the amount of lunar rocks returned by all unmanned missions to the moon.