Manned Moon Mission axed/delayed/done in [Archive]

Darth Rotor

1st February 2010, 08:58 AM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35182959/ns/technology_and_science-space/

While this isn't unexpected, some fans of manned space flight will be disenheartened to see the president slice a NASA program that needed another $3 billion per year to stay alive.

I concur with where the President's decision takes us: looking longer term to a Mars mission, and the robotics stepping stone necessary to amp up that particular mission suite.
Funds previously earmarked for the Constellation program, initially intended to return U.S. astronauts to the moon by 2020, instead would be used for research projects that include robotics and other technologies needed to prepare for an eventual human mission to Mars, Orszag added.
The Space Shuttle program looks to be dead, with possible manned shuttle capabilities being run in the private sector to service/support the ISS. As a pilot, this disappoints me, but as a taxpayer, I see the wisdom of this.

What I didn't care for in this article is the too-cute-by-half caption attending the picture of the moon.

A full moon is seen from Ombaka Stadium in Benguela in this January 28, 2010 file photo.

What manner of "coincidence" is it that they chose a view of the moon, generic enough, that they could link to a place with a name remarkably similar to the President who just whacked the most recent manned mission. Maybe that is what journalism has devolved to: the ever rising competition to be too cute by half, and thus get noticed.

Back to the topic at hand, for my money, it represents smarter use of the dollars assigned to NASA.

What do you think?

Kilgore Trout

1st February 2010, 09:30 AM

My understanding may be off, but seems to me NASA dug itself in a major hole the past few years regarding the shuttle retirement and a replacement. If they need even more money for Orion to even get off the ground, this is probably for the best. Like ripping off a band-aid. Down the road it might have ended up hurting NASA more when they need yet even more funding or have to take it from research or other projects.

That and it seems this isn't a reduction in funds, just putting them to different purposes. If NASA would lose Orion funding and just end up getting less money I'd be entirely against it.

While I did like the idea of returning to the moon, and think we still should eventually, unmanned projects to Mars and elsewhere would satisfy me.

Beerina

1st February 2010, 09:34 AM

The ESA and Russia both have shiny new lift vehicle/systems to ferry crap to orbit, and both have been tested and used. This takes a lot of heat off NASA to come up with a shuttle replacement quickly.

The ESA one, in fact, doesn't maneuver itself for the final docking, but is designed to be grabbed by the arm.

uruk

2nd February 2010, 09:46 AM

A thing that keeps getting put off or delayed year after year has a tendancy of not getting done.

twinstead

2nd February 2010, 10:56 AM

Although I don't disagree with this entirely, it does pretty much guarantee that the next flag on the moon won't be American.

PhantomWolf

2nd February 2010, 02:52 PM

When I heard the first rumours I wasn't overly impressed with what was being said, it looked like the US Manned programme was history, however... It appears now that Obama is scratching the moon programme in favour of a Mars one. If so, and they are looking at Mars by 2025-30 perhaps that'll be an acceptable alternative, though I still believe we should be returning to the moon. We landed in six places, it'd be like visiting the Grand Canyon, the Saraha, the Nile Delta, the Andes, Mount Erebus, and Washington DC, and then deciding that you'd seen everything you needed to know about Earth.

Dorian Gray

2nd February 2010, 04:41 PM

No it wouldn't. It would be like landing on 6 ordinary areas and deciding we've already done that, so let's go on and be the first to Mars.

PhantomWolf

2nd February 2010, 04:53 PM

No it wouldn't. It would be like landing on 6 ordinary areas and deciding we've already done that, so let's go on and be the first to Mars.

Well it would if they had just picked six ordinary areas to land, but they didn't, they picked six places that they believed were going to be interesting to study.

Redtail

2nd February 2010, 05:00 PM

Sigh... Yeah it's disappointing but it makes sense. Also if they do refocus on Mars it may turn out far better than it looks now. (Even awesome if we get there before I die.:D )

Doubt

2nd February 2010, 05:12 PM

Doubt

2nd February 2010, 05:26 PM

Double post, never mind.

uruk

2nd February 2010, 06:18 PM

Doubt

2nd February 2010, 06:42 PM

Kilgore Trout

2nd February 2010, 07:06 PM

Actually I think it makes more sense to go to the moon and test the equipment and techniques we will need to developed for the trip to Mars.

I wouldn't disagree with that idea, but Constellation wasn't doing that. From the budget report (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/factsheet_department_nasa/):

NASA’s Constellation program – based largely on existing technologies – was based on a vision of returning astronauts back to the Moon by 2020. However, the program was over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation due to a failure to invest in critical new technologies.

Seems to me Constellation was only about getting back to the moon and wouldn't help much in getting to Mars.

Darth Rotor

2nd February 2010, 07:17 PM

The Man

2nd February 2010, 07:49 PM

From my understanding it was not necessarily canceling moon missions or mars, but trying to shed some of that load to the commercial lunch industry. I’m not sure what the current status is on commercial heavy lift vehicles, but certainly investing in that industry instead of just doing it all again on your own, doesn’t seem that bad of an idea to me.

Thunder

2nd February 2010, 07:52 PM

three words:

waste of money.

four words:

we've already been there.

kuroyume0161

2nd February 2010, 08:13 PM

three words:

waste of money.

four words:

we've already been there.

Not that I'm a big fan of manned space travel (which is, basically, not worthwhile) but we'll have to go to the Moon before Mars mainly because we have none of the systems and continuity that were in place in the late 1960s/early 1970s. The Saturn V rocket cannot even be rebuilt. We need a new heavy launch system.

This is a bit analogous to having walked but then being wheelchair-bound for a while and needing to get use to walking again before running. Going to Mars is going to require some comprehensive structure and preparation which doesn't exist.

That being said, the Moon should be a quick set of tests. Before the first Moon landings there was a very calculated set of tests which acclimated us for the actual event. Small steps. One big jump to sending humans to Mars will almost assuredly end catastrophically.

MaGZ

2nd February 2010, 08:28 PM

Too many White people work at NASA. Better to spend the 3 billion on the inner city poor.

Checkmite

2nd February 2010, 08:45 PM

Well, I'm glad the billions of dollars we spent finding out that there are significant quantities of water available on the Moon didn't go to waste.

Redtail

2nd February 2010, 08:58 PM

Too many White people work at NASA. Better to spend the 3 billion on the inner city poor.

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/12044467af2cd27d18.gif (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:void%280%29)

It's funny because the Ronald McNair Engineering building was across the quad from me in undergrad.

Also, we got a lot of grants from MUREP.
ETA:
Two votes for this. Three.

rwguinn

3rd February 2010, 07:37 AM

Kinda says it all, to me...
http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=d3cd367c-d70d-414c-86e1-4458e316c23d&

Captain.Sassy

3rd February 2010, 11:02 AM

Buckaroo

3rd February 2010, 11:18 AM

Too many White people work at NASA. Better to spend the 3 billion on the inner city poor.

You do know who the NASA administrator is, right?

Checkmite

3rd February 2010, 12:03 PM

I guess if I were an American nationalist I'd probably have mixed feelings about the privatization of space lunches, but technology diffusing into the private sector is a big part of how the US innovation system works.

This is true; ultimately. Still, I keep having this nightmare vision of the new Mars Excursion Module® making mankind's First Mars Landing®, brought to you by Starbucks™.

kuroyume0161

3rd February 2010, 12:07 PM

This is true; ultimately. Still, I keep having this nightmare vision of the new Mars Excursion Module® making mankind's First Mars Landing®, brought to you by Starbucks™.

At least you would know that when you get to Mars there'd be a Grande Moccha Cappuccino waiting. :rolleyes:

PhantomWolf

3rd February 2010, 12:43 PM

three words:

waste of money.

Why is putting money into the Aerospace Industry a waste of money?

four words:

we've already been there.

So we saw everything there is to see and learned everything there is to learn about the moon by visiting six randomly interesting spots on the near side of it?

rwguinn

3rd February 2010, 01:08 PM

I would find it amusing, if it were not so dire:
The Bush Administration was accused (somewhat rightly) of a "war on Science"
The Democrats, however, have always had a war, not on the study, but use, of science. Every Democratic Administration and/or Congress, cuts the holy hell out of any technology utilization, R&D, and defense programs that are uses of high technology. They also insist that education in math and science is a priority, but we certainly don't want them to actually USE that stuff.
Burger King/Wall mart jobs at $8-10 per hour are good enough...

uruk

3rd February 2010, 08:05 PM

Seems to me Constellation was only about getting back to the moon and wouldn't help much in getting to Mars.

I don't completely dissagree with this statement, but Ares II was to be a heavy lift launcher
which would be needed to lift the initial infrastructure to build upon. After which you get some of the building materials and fuel from the moon, and a lower escape velocity would also save you fuel.

I do agree that private industry needs to get involved, even though the companies that NASA contracts to build the equipment it uses are all private sector corporations.

uruk

3rd February 2010, 08:09 PM

three words:

waste of money. Money that goes to the employees of contractor companies and the private sector.

four words:

we've already been there. It's a good thing that progress and knowledge doesn't subscribe to that concept.

uruk

3rd February 2010, 08:29 PM

My understanding is that a lot of NASA's research budget is open to tender from private sources and universities, as well as from NASA labs. I read something on the news ticker about the moon money going to fund private sector research- does anyone know if this is a re-allocation of NASA funds specifically to private sector research funding, or will NASA labs also be able to compete for these funds?

I guess if I were an American nationalist I'd probably have mixed feelings about the privatization of space lunches, but technology diffusing into the private sector is a big part of how the US innovation system works.

On a somewhat related note, Iran just sent its first turtle into space.

NASA supports and depends on private sector and university research. Almost all of the Apollo hardware was developed by universities and private sector companies. General Dynamics, Gruman, Boeing, Thiokol, Hamilton, and even International Latex Corp. ( which owns Playtex, who makes bras). The navigation computer and software was developed by MIT. NASA comes up with the system requirements, parameters and standards and the universities and contractor corporation do the design, research and development of the equipment and systems.

Read Moon Lander by Tom Kelly for an interesting insight to what a company has to go through to design and build something for NASA.

And education is a big issue for NASA. NASA funds quite a lot of science and education initiatives on the primary and secondary education system to cultivate future scientists and engineers. I am a mentor to a local high school for the FIRST robotics competition amoung highschools across the nation. http://www.usfirst.org/

If people only knew all that NASA does with the comparitively miniscule budget it recieves from the taxpayers.
NASA does so much more than hauling stuff into space.

Captain.Sassy

4th February 2010, 10:14 AM

Thanks for the informative reply, Uruk. I hadn't really thought about the important catalytic role NASA might play by setting standards. It makes sense.

Jono

4th February 2010, 10:22 AM

Good call, what the heck is so special about the Moon nowadays anyways (that was catchy).

sphenisc

4th February 2010, 10:26 AM

MaGZ

5th February 2010, 03:51 PM

You do know who the NASA administrator is, right?

There was no need to put in a Black as the head of NASA.

NASA go its start with primates.

Redtail

5th February 2010, 06:55 PM

There was no need to put in a Black as the head of NASA.

NASA go its start with primates.

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/12044467af2cd27d18.gif (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:void%280%29) http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/12044467af2cd27d18.gif (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:void%280%29) http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/12044467af2cd27d18.gif (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:void%280%29)

It's funny because whites, blacks, everybody is a primate!

ETA: STUNDIE!!!!!!!!!

Travis

5th February 2010, 07:25 PM

Axing the Ares I, which seemed like it may be redundant compared to some near future commercial launchers, is not something I have issues with. But the Ares V was going to be able to launch 160 metric tons of payload. That is one hell of a useful tool. Would the Direct program be able to get anything with similar capabilities? Does anyone think the private sector will build something with that much lift on it's own?

Vox Humana

6th February 2010, 05:16 AM

My understanding is Cameron's got dibs on the studio for his next movie.
:duck:

Three.
Four.

The Man

6th February 2010, 11:11 AM

qayak

6th February 2010, 09:32 PM

rwguinn

7th February 2010, 08:11 AM

There are reasons the moon missions were stopped. They cost a ****load of money and scientists pretty much agreed there was no value to it. Nothing has changed.

The ISS is a joke. Hundreds of billions of dollars spent and, as scientists knew before hand, nothing came from it. The only bonus is it kept unemployed Russian scientists from being tempted to build nuclear delivery systems for wackos.

The space shuttle is a joke. Low earth orbit . . . What's the point?

Mars . . . yeah, RIGHT!

Scrap all the idiotic ideas of previous administrations and put all the freed-up funding into unmanned space missions. Look at the money spent on the two Mars explorers. No way would you get that bang for your dollar from anything but unmanned missions.

And you can still keep Russian scientists employed by inviting every country in the world to participate.
Do stupid ideas run the politically fundamentalists? The ideas you expressed are silly.
Most of the time, attaining the goal (man on the moon/rovers on Mars/etc) is not where the big pay-off is. It's what we learn getting there that is important.
The R&D spent getting to the moon/man in space paid off big time-transistors, medical evaluations/techniques, materials science, miniaturization, AI, robotics and a whole slew of other stuff were the pay-offs, not a fist full of rocks

jayh

7th February 2010, 10:02 AM

Do stupid ideas run the politically fundamentalists? The ideas you expressed are silly.
Most of the time, attaining the goal (man on the moon/rovers on Mars/etc) is not where the big pay-off is. It's what we learn getting there that is important.
The R&D spent getting to the moon/man in space paid off big time-transistors, medical evaluations/techniques, materials science, miniaturization, AI, robotics and a whole slew of other stuff were the pay-offs, not a fist full of rocks

This is trotted out all the time. It's just a milder variant of justifying war because of "all the technology: we got out of WWII and the cold war.

Much more materials science could have been reasonably done with non-manned flights... manned flights are just governmental stage shows (not that there faked, but that they're propaganda toys rather than necessary for science).

With the continuing development of aircraft, commercial and military hardware it is unquestionable that electronics and computer technology would have come from there instead. Actually they did. The first transisters and the first ICs long predated space flight and did their greatest explosions of technology quite divorced for the smallish manned space flight budget.

[Edited to add: actually the flight computer on the moon flights was much more primitive than the typical engineer's desktop computer of the era, but they had to go with very conservative design structure to validate it for space flight. Hence it's more of an evolutionary dead end than a link to the modern computer]

The moon flights had a primitive on board computer, but this was far from the first computer (thousands were in use on the ground before that) and computer techology took off much more as offspring from those commercial devices than any relation to the speciallized device used by the moon flights.

The the suggestion that human technology will somehow become stunted without spaceflight is handwaving at best.

rwguinn

7th February 2010, 12:22 PM

Evidence?
Without the "Stage Shows", where does the support for the program come from?
Put your head back in the sand--nothing to see here...

kuroyume0161

7th February 2010, 12:26 PM

Evidence?
Without the "Stage Shows", where does the support for the program come from?
Put your head back in the sand--nothing to see here...

The government using taxation to 'beat the Commies'?

sts60

7th February 2010, 03:12 PM

There was no need to put in a Black as the head of NASA.

NASA go its start with primates.
Ya know, I had the privilege to work a little bit with then-Colonel (now Maj. Gen.) Bolden on a Shuttle mission. Speaking, if it matters, as your basic white male, I was vastly impressed. I can't say he's worth a hundred of you because there is no multiple of friggin' nazis like you that would ever add up to a Charlie Bolden.

Now back to the Ignore list you go, you useless horse's ass.

rwguinn

7th February 2010, 05:26 PM

Ya know, I had the privilege to work a little bit with then-Colonel (now Maj. Gen.) Bolden on a Shuttle mission. Speaking, if it matters, as your basic white male, I was vastly impressed. I can't say he's worth a hundred of you because there is no multiple of friggin' nazis like you that would ever add up to a Charlie Bolden.

Now back to the Ignore list you go, you useless horse's ass.
YES!^^
I too, have met the man. Like him. Good man.

Beerina

8th February 2010, 08:44 AM

I think there is a pattern developing in the post Apollo era for space flight. New administrations cancel projects from the previous administration when the commitment of real cash is required. Then they start brand new projects where the serious cash commitments won't show up until the next administration.

Just the impression I have and I cannot prove it. At least not yet.

After Bush left office, one of the first things Congress did was put his massive space exploration program on hold. I recall commenting at the time that this was probably to prevent the "Kennedy" effect, where, once the US landed on the moon, big kudos went to John Kennedy, even though Nixon was in office at the time. "They'll be damned if they let Bush take credit for it like that!"

And now it's completely gone. BTW, the ESA and the Rooskies both have new automated lift vehicles that are servicing the space station, so the huge Atlas isn't needed so much for the space station, anyway, as a shuttle replacement. And the US has plenty of mid-sized rockets, it's just this new heavy one that's mothballed.

I'm firmly in the camp of robotic exploration. With no fear of some hideous disaster where 15 people on a Mars mission have to suffocate or bite a pill, or worst of all, are trapped with no way to return (or careening off into deep space), you can spend several magnitudes less per mission, and get a lot more bang for the buck.

Whether going to the Moon to stay, or to Mars, we should use robots and set up fully functioning, long(ish)-term bases before we even send the first humans on their way.

Then the need to have so damned much carried along evaporates, making the populated mission at least somewhat easier.

Correa Neto

8th February 2010, 09:50 AM

Yes, like many people I stick to and I am really eager to see humans in space- orbit, Moon, Mars, asteroids, you name it! I want to see people there I want to g there. However, I do realize that sending robots has a better cost/benefit ratio. Mind you, when it comes down to the Moon, one can imagine that remotely controlled robots using some sort of virtual reality environment/link/whatever are feasible, due to the small time delay. I think its not far-fetched to say one could controll a robot sampling rocks in the Moon using a notebook from some uni or even from a toilet room...

Much cheaper (no need for all the life support systems) and much safer than sending humans to do the job. And possibly with the same flexibility- actually quite possibly with a greater flexibility and endurance. If operator 1 is tired, operator 2 starts to work, no cumbersome and bulky spacesuits, no breaks for lunch, etc. And its a tech we my develop and use later while exploring other planets. Just send orbital craft and remotely-controlled probes.

My U$2cents.

Random

8th February 2010, 10:08 AM

Actually I think it makes more sense to go to the moon and test the equipment and techniques we will need to developed for the trip to Mars.

It is going to take weeks to get there and the astronauts will have to stay on Mars for extended periods time. (depending on the path we choose to get there) Alot of logistics and technologies has to be developed and tested before the big trip.

The moon is only acouple of days away if anything goes wrong. Plus we will be establishing a permanent human presesnce on another planet (planetoid) to boot.

That's more bang for your buck if you ask me.

Mars is really unlike the Earth, and the Moon is really unlike Earth, but that doesn’t mean Mars is like the Moon. The techniques and issues with living on the Moon and living on Mars are very different. It would be easier, cheaper, and safer to set up your test Mars base on Antarctica if that’s what you are looking for.

PhantomWolf

8th February 2010, 12:57 PM

I'm firmly in the camp of robotic exploration. With no fear of some hideous disaster where 15 people on a Mars mission have to suffocate or bite a pill, or worst of all, are trapped with no way to return (or careening off into deep space), you can spend several magnitudes less per mission, and get a lot more bang for the buck.

Got to disagree with you. Unmanned rovers might be all cool and sexy, but Manned missions give WAY more bang overall. What the Mars' rovers have managed is incredible, but humans could have done it in a matter of weeks, not three plus years. Not only that, humans can interact better the enviroment, explore deeper and faster. Unmanned missions could never do what humans can, nor can they do it as fast. A year long mission on Mars would bring back data and information that machines will never be able to do.

As to people dying... if we followed that we'd have never explored anywhere. How many people died trying to climb Everest? Scott and his entire team died exploring the Southern Polar regions, Magellen died exploring, as did Cook and many, many others.

Gus Grissom said "If we die, we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life."

Explorers and pioneers have always risked themselves, some have died, some have made it, if we only continue exploration today based on "no one gets killed" then we might as well not get out of bed in the morning because just going and having a shower can get you killed, not to mention driving to work.

zerospeaks

8th February 2010, 01:30 PM

Personally I think we are in good hands with SpaceX (http://www.spacex.com)

Elon musk wants to go to mars as well. It will be interesting to see who makes it first.

uruk

8th February 2010, 02:03 PM

Mars is really unlike the Earth, and the Moon is really unlike Earth, but that doesn’t mean Mars is like the Moon. The techniques and issues with living on the Moon and living on Mars are very different. It would be easier, cheaper, and safer to set up your test Mars base on Antarctica if that’s what you are looking for.

To truly test the systems and equipment there is nothing like the "real" thing. Simulated environments are only aproximations with known factors. You can build a boat on land. You can test it in giant pools of water, you can run computer simulations till transistors wear out. But you can only really know how the boat will do is when you put it on the ocean.

NASA test all the equipment and vehicles in earth orbit, translunar and lunar orbit and even a low altitude "touch and go" before finally landing the eagle on the lunar surface.

The moon is a necessary step on the way to Mars.

And besides, they already are testing equipment on earth environs. Time to start going to the next step.

Ambrosia

8th February 2010, 02:24 PM

I was born in 1975 and missed the Apollo Moon landings.

I really *really* want to see a manned mission to Mars before I die.

Was listening to a deGrasse Tyson lecture last week where he said that while the costs of putting a man on the moon were staggering, the payoff from inspiring a generation or two of people to want to become astronauts, astrophysicists, astronomers, engineers etc etc was incalculable.

If there had been anything like a space program in the UK when I was growing up I might well have chosen space based science as a career path instead of cooking.

The politicians we have these days are way too short sighted imo.

uruk

8th February 2010, 02:32 PM

This is trotted out all the time. It's just a milder variant of justifying war because of "all the technology: we got out of WWII and the cold war. War is quite different from exploration. Althought Apollo was the result of a cold war. But such things not only drive development but sometime greast leaps in development. The manhattan project being just one such project that was on the same level as the Apollo program from an scientific and technological point of view.

Much more materials science could have been reasonably done with non-manned flights... manned flights are just governmental stage shows (not that there faked, but that they're propaganda toys rather than necessary for science). No doubt. But there are some developments in biology and life science that non-manned flight could not have produced.
Manned flight produces a different set of scientific discoveries than robotic exploration does.

With the continuing development of aircraft, commercial and military hardware it is unquestionable that electronics and computer technology would have come from there instead. Actually they did. The first transisters and the first ICs long predated space flight and did their greatest explosions of technology quite divorced for the smallish manned space flight budget.

[Edited to add: actually the flight computer on the moon flights was much more primitive than the typical engineer's desktop computer of the era, but they had to go with very conservative design structure to validate it for space flight. Hence it's more of an evolutionary dead end than a link to the modern computer] I have to disagree with you here. the first digital computer flight system was not installed or tested on an aircraft untill well after Apollo. And guess which Aeronautics research facility was the first to do it? Right NASA.
Apollo's AGC computer is recognized as the first embedded computer system to collect and provide flight information, and to automatically control all of the navigational functions in real time.

And far from being an evolutionay dead end the Apollo AGC formed the basis of an experimental fly-by-wire (FBW) system installed into an F-8 Crusader. Which, by the way, was the first time this was done with an embedded digital system.

The moon flights had a primitive on board computer, but this was far from the first computer (thousands were in use on the ground before that) and computer techology took off much more as offspring from those commercial devices than any relation to the speciallized device used by the moon flights. True but the apollo computer was the first to miniaturize the computer system. If you research the AGC you will find that the alot of the design concepts that are used in modern PCs were very similar to the AGC design.

The the suggestion that human technology will somehow become stunted without spaceflight is handwaving at best. Not stunted but some areas would have been severly delayed.

Lensman

8th February 2010, 03:25 PM

Got to disagree with you. Unmanned rovers might be all cool and sexy, but Manned missions give WAY more bang overall. What the Mars' rovers have managed is incredible, but humans could have done it in a matter of weeks, not three plus years. Not only that, humans can interact better the enviroment, explore deeper and faster. Unmanned missions could never do what humans can, nor can they do it as fast. A year long mission on Mars would bring back data and information that machines will never be able to do.

As to people dying... if we followed that we'd have never explored anywhere. How many people died trying to climb Everest? Scott and his entire team died exploring the Southern Polar regions, Magellen died exploring, as did Cook and many, many others.

Gus Grissom said "If we die, we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life."

Explorers and pioneers have always risked themselves, some have died, some have made it, if we only continue exploration today based on "no one gets killed" then we might as well not get out of bed in the morning because just going and having a shower can get you killed, not to mention driving to work.

Totally agree with you Phantom.

How many people died opening up the West?
How many of Magellans crewmen lived to return home?
Cook?
What happened at Roanoke?

Exploration & colonization are inherently hazardous, does that mean that it should never be attempted?
What would've happened to the world if The Americas had never been discovered by Europeans?
What would've happened if Columbus had turned around & said, "Well lads, we've seen it, now lets go home & never come back."?

What would we be now if the earliest humans had never explored beyond Africa?

uruk

8th February 2010, 09:35 PM

After Bush left office, one of the first things Congress did was put his massive space exploration program on hold. I recall commenting at the time that this was probably to prevent the "Kennedy" effect, where, once the US landed on the moon, big kudos went to John Kennedy, even though Nixon was in office at the time. "They'll be damned if they let Bush take credit for it like that!" Politics always screws up stuff

Don't you think there is an inherent danger to continually outsourcing our endevours? Yet more more and more we are they are doing and less and less we are.

[quote]I'm firmly in the camp of robotic exploration. With no fear of some hideous disaster where 15 people on a Mars mission have to suffocate or bite a pill, or worst of all, are trapped with no way to return (or careening off into deep space), you can spend several magnitudes less per mission, and get a lot more bang for the buck. Fear of the unknown and danger has never stopped us from doing something. Heck we risk our lives doing extreme sports for littel else than entertainment.

Whether going to the Moon to stay, or to Mars, we should use robots and set up fully functioning, long(ish)-term bases before we even send the first humans on their way.
Then the need to have so damned much carried along evaporates, making the populated mission at least somewhat easier. We have been sending robots. Robots found water on the moon. India's space program made the discovery. BTW We provided technical support for them in an example of delicious irony.

It's been more than 40 years since we last made a visit to the moon. Timefor us to go back there and set up our "back yard".

qayak

9th February 2010, 09:27 PM

Got to disagree with you. Unmanned rovers might be all cool and sexy, but Manned missions give WAY more bang overall.

They only give more bang in the sense that people who don't know the costs-benefit ratio get all giddy in their pants.

What the Mars' rovers have managed is incredible, but humans could have done it in a matter of weeks, not three plus years.

Really. Well, we are still waiting. The idea of sending men to Mars has been around for many decades. In that time, many unmanned missions have reached Mars and not a single manned mission.

Not only that, humans can interact better the enviroment, explore deeper and faster.

Ummmmm . . . no. Whatever made you think this? It seems to me that humans are very poorly equipped for anything more than a cursory look around.

Unmanned missions could never do what humans can, nor can they do it as fast. A year long mission on Mars would bring back data and information that machines will never be able to do.

A year long Mission to Mars? Do you understand the logistics involved? Look at the problem of safely landing a relatively small probe on Mars. How do you expect them to land a huge space craft with enough people and supplies for a year long mission?

As for unmanned missions not being able to do what humans can, how about sending a human down into the atmosphere of Venus? Was that something a human could do better?

zerospeaks

9th February 2010, 09:31 PM

Correa Neto

10th February 2010, 05:46 AM

Well, something like this:
http://www.universetoday.com/2010/02/05/will-nasa-send-robots-to-the-moon-with-project-m/
remotely operated from Mars' orbit surely could. And IMHO is the best way to explore the Moon in the nearby future.

Note that you would get rid of everything needed to bring to the surface of Mars the material related to human life support as well as to bringing the humans back from the surface to orbit. A sample return veihcle is all that would be needed.

But we would still have the huge challenge of bringing everything needed to support the crew to Mars' orbit and back to Earth.

zerospeaks

10th February 2010, 05:58 AM

But we would still have the huge challenge of bringing everything needed to support the crew to Mars' orbit and back to Earth.

WHY?!?!?

Correa Neto

10th February 2010, 06:35 AM

zerospeaks

10th February 2010, 06:43 AM

It's the "and back" part that I have an issue with.

Astronauts would easily sign up for a "one way ticket"

Mark6

10th February 2010, 10:27 AM

Mark6

10th February 2010, 10:28 AM

It's the "and back" part that I have an issue with.

Astronauts would easily sign up for a "one way ticket"
Sure, there is no shortage of people who would volunteer.

Absolutely no chance American public would go for it.

Correa Neto

10th February 2010, 12:04 PM

It's the "and back" part that I have an issue with.

Astronauts would easily sign up for a "one way ticket"
Yes, its possible that some would. But you must view this from an ethical viewpoint. Unless there are some major, huge, humongous pressing issues, such a suicidal mission would never receive green lights or funding from anyone. A suicidal mission just to attempt to find some fossiled Martian microbes? Even back in the Moon race days, raising funds and obtaining the "go ahead" for a suicidal mission would be a hard job.

Not to mention that one could raise objections to the performance of a suicidal crew.

And if you are talking about a mission to establish a permanent colony, well, we are way behind the technology and knowledge of Mars which would be required for such a thing. Lots of more humble robotic and manned missions would be required.

qayak

10th February 2010, 01:54 PM

NO! qayak I disagree completely. And I shall tell you why ..... ..... right..... about.... NOW!

I would love to send humans to mars to do one thing! Dig for fossils! Can the rovers do that? NOOOO PPPEE...... I mean sure you could design, build, and send a rover with the intent to do that. But c'mon. Wouldn't you rather have a human there to dig?

It isn't about what we want, it is about what is feasible and what is most cost effective. Humans cannot survive in space. Without the protections of this planet we are all dead so unless you can duplicate all the protective systems of Earth, you cannot go anywhere outside of low Earth orbit which is where the space shuttle is limited to.

Unmanned space exploration has proven itself to be immensely more valuable than manned exploration. What science has come from the experiments on the space shuttle? Those experiments are so unimportant that they often open up competitions to school children to design experiments for the astronauts to perform. The same goes for the ISS.

jayh

10th February 2010, 03:56 PM

War is quite different from exploration. Althought Apollo was the result of a cold war. But such things not only drive development but sometime greast leaps in development. The manhattan project being just one such project that was on the same level as the Apollo program from an scientific and technological point of view.

You should note that I did agree that military demands provide techology, probably more so than the moon flights.

No doubt. But there are some developments in biology and life science that non-manned flight could not have produced.
Manned flight produces a different set of scientific discoveries than robotic exploration does.

Partially agree, certain info about behavior of organisms in zero G was obtained. Though a flight to the moon was hardly necessary for that (easily could be accomplished with orbital flights)

I have to disagree with you here. the first digital computer flight system was not installed or tested on an aircraft untill well after Apollo. And guess which Aeronautics research facility was the first to do it? Right NASA.
Apollo's AGC computer is recognized as the first embedded computer system to collect and provide flight information, and to automatically control all of the navigational functions in real time.

And far from being an evolutionay dead end the Apollo AGC formed the basis of an experimental fly-by-wire (FBW) system installed into an F-8 Crusader. Which, by the way, was the first time this was done with an embedded digital system.

True but the apollo computer was the first to miniaturize the computer system. If you research the AGC you will find that the alot of the design concepts that are used in modern PCs were very similar to the AGC design.

Not stunted but some areas would have been severly delayed.

1) NASA did a lot that was NOT moon or even space flight related

2) Digital computers (FAR mor sophisticated than the lunar lander computer) existed on earth years before. In fact the HP and other desktop computers on the engineer's desks were more powerful.

3) Flight computers were becoming necessary for both military and civillian aircraft. There was plenty of incentive and money (intense multibillion dollar spending), there is NO reason to assume that the moon project was required to accomplish that. Or even that it sped it up.

rwguinn

10th February 2010, 04:12 PM

You should note that I did agree that military demands provide techology, probably more so than the moon flights.

Partially agree, certain info about behavior of organisms in zero G was obtained. Though a flight to the moon was hardly necessary for that (easily could be accomplished with orbital flights)

1) NASA did a lot that was NOT moon or even space flight related and they still do a lot that is not space related.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration

2) Digital computers existed on earth years before.
Yeah-we had an IBM 360 at college. Took up a whole building, and MTBF was about 30 minutes.
It was 4 years after the first man on the moon that the HP-35 hand-held scientific calculator made an appearance--at $450 per pop.
You have more computer capability on your desk than existed in the entire world at that time

3) Flight computers were becoming necessary for both military and civillian aircraft. There was plenty of incentive and money (intense multibillion dollar spending), there is NO reason to assume that the moon project was required to accomplish that. Or even that it sped it up.
And they all stole it ffrom the moon program.
I spent every other semester from 1970 through 1974 at NASA Flight Research Center (now Dryden). The DFBW F-8 started flying sometime during that period, don't remember when, the F-16 made its first flights, all of which relied on the results of the Space program to develop their flight controls. It was no coincidence that the burst of development occurred within 5 years AFTER the first successful lunar manned mission.
We had some computer aid, but the computers were pretty basic. We mostly reduced data from o-graphs. We did have a WANG calculator (Hmph!) that was too big and cumbersome to use.
When I started at GD in 1975, they had just switched over from reading pressure gages and manometers to digital data acquisition and control for testing. And the older engineers were PISSED about it.

PhantomWolf

10th February 2010, 05:06 PM

They only give more bang in the sense that people who don't know the costs-benefit ratio get all giddy in their pants.

It has nothing to do with "get all giddy" it has to do with having people on the ground doing science where and when they find it, rather than having to rely on photos and very slow moving robots that have a limited view of things

Really. Well, we are still waiting. The idea of sending men to Mars has been around for many decades. In that time, many unmanned missions have reached Mars and not a single manned mission.

Yes, because people like you refuse to help show support for a manned program and so politicians refuse to fund it.

Ummmmm . . . no. Whatever made you think this? It seems to me that humans are very poorly equipped for anything more than a cursory look around.

That's why you send tools with them. The J-Mission Apollo Crews did far more than "have a cursory look around". They returned core samples that any machine would have failed to get, they were able to carefully and thoughtfully determine samples of rock, they were able to locate and investigate anomalies that robots would drive right past without seeing. No robot would have found the orange soil on the moon, yet a human did. Sure robots can have fancy filters and cameras fitted to them, but humans can use tools that do many of the same things and get far better results, far faster once on the ground.

A year long Mission to Mars? Do you understand the logistics involved? Look at the problem of safely landing a relatively small probe on Mars. How do you expect them to land a huge space craft with enough people and supplies for a year long mission?

Yes I do, people have been working on plans for this sort of duration mission for a very long time. You don't need to land a massive spacecraft for a mission this sort of length. You seem to forget that Mars is a planet and has most of the things we have here. Water and oxygen can be extracted from Mars itself as can many of the other things that a crew would require to remain long term. The idea had been to prove it was possible to do on the Moon, just a short trip if they needed help, before taking the longer one to Mars where help is far away.

As for unmanned missions not being able to do what humans can, how about sending a human down into the atmosphere of Venus? Was that something a human could do better?

I don't remember the probes doing all that well either, even the ones that actually survived to land didn't last more then a few hours. You seem to think that I am advocating for humans to be sent to Mars naked and with no protections, that would be dumb. Yiou also don't seem to think that I can separate jobs that robots would be better for, like orbiting Saturn and taking images. Jobs requiring intition, geology skills, the ability to go nearly anywhere to dig up and find out things, and do it all quickly and in real time does require a human, robots simply can't do it now, or in the forseeable future.

PhantomWolf

10th February 2010, 05:16 PM

Well, something like this:
http://www.universetoday.com/2010/02/05/will-nasa-send-robots-to-the-moon-with-project-m/
remotely operated from Mars' orbit surely could. And IMHO is the best way to explore the Moon in the nearby future.

If you put people in orbit about Mars, why not land them?

Note that you would get rid of everything needed to bring to the surface of Mars the material related to human life support as well as to bringing the humans back from the surface to orbit. A sample return veihcle is all that would be needed.

But you don't have to take "the material related to human life support" much of what is needed is already there. You can also send a lot of the equipment that is required ahead of time and have it waiting for the crews' arrival, ready to unpack and set up. There are already many plans that have been considered as viable if someone is just willing to support them.

But we would still have the huge challenge of bringing everything needed to support the crew to Mars' orbit and back to Earth.[/QUOTE]

Rubbish, the hard part is getting it into Earth Orbit, after that we could send it to Alpha Centuri without much more effort. (though it might take a while to get there.)

PhantomWolf

10th February 2010, 05:24 PM

Because if you want to send people to space for a long time you need to provide them water, oxigen, food, waste disposal systems, not to mention medical facilities, heat/radiation shields, cooling/heating systems and quarters. This means a lot of weight and a lot of fuel. Bringing it all to Mars orbit and back to Earth is not easy.

All things already solved on the ISS. You seem to be missing that a tank of water can act as radiation shielding, washing/drinking water, coolant, and a source of oxygen. Wow, one thing just solved four of your main issues. Waste issues are easily dealt with, solid matter can be dump, liquid proccessed and reused as is already done on the ISS. As for sleeping quarters, living quarters, and medical, we already know that a series of hollow tubes works perfectly for that. You seem to think that no engineer or space scientist has consider all of this before and that solutions are impossibly hard.

PhantomWolf

10th February 2010, 05:53 PM

Not faster once you take development time into account.

Depends, once the development costs for manned missions are completed there is little more that needs to be spent, all you need to spend is the cost of the launch and mission itself, plus corrections and improvements based on previous missions. Unmanned rovers need to be developped near enough from scratch each time you want to send a new one, reusing some parts, but having to be developed from the drawing board and tested before being sent. In the long run, development costs for manned missions spread out over each mission comes in cheaper. Consider the Shuttle for example. The 5 shuttles cost about $8.5 billion to build and have flown 129 missions, thats about $66 million a mission. When all the costs are added in (buildings, crew, etc), it comes to about $1.3 billion per launch. Compare that to the Galileo mission which cost a total of $1.35 billion and took 30 years to develop.

How much would such mission cost, and how much can a flotilla of unmanned probes costing same amount could accomlpish? Keep in mind that said flotilla would start returning data long before manned mission gets off the ground (development time again).

As you can see above, manned and unmanned aren't that different in costing over the life of the programme. Now, you could say, but we are only going to Mars, not Saturn. Well the Rover programme has cost $940 million so far, just $360 million short of a shuttle launch. On those figures, you might get four rovers for one manned mission, hardly a huge bump in favour of robots. As to how many you'd get before a manned mission.... If the resources were given to a manned mission we could be on Mars in ten years. How many umanned probes? Well in the past ten years.... there have been three, Spirit, Oppy, and Phoenix. (By the way all up Phoenix cost about $900 million when you add in the first failed mission).

PhantomWolf

10th February 2010, 06:02 PM

It isn't about what we want, it is about what is feasible and what is most cost effective. Humans cannot survive in space. Without the protections of this planet we are all dead so unless you can duplicate all the protective systems of Earth, you cannot go anywhere outside of low Earth orbit which is where the space shuttle is limited to.

What utter hogwash. If this were true, Apollo could not have happened. You really seem to have no idea what is needed, real engineers and space scientists who have studied the issue do, and they disagree with you.

Unmanned space exploration has proven itself to be immensely more valuable than manned exploration. What science has come from the experiments on the space shuttle? Those experiments are so unimportant that they often open up competitions to school children to design experiments for the astronauts to perform. The same goes for the ISS.

Again total hogwash. The Apollo missions returned far more data and science that the entire unmanned lunar program of both the US and the USSR up to that point had. Unmanned probes have only been useful elsewhere because they can be sent places that we haven't been able or willing to send people. You however bias your scales by placing a barrel of oranges against a bag a aples. How about comparing apples and apples, the Lunar missions, manned vs unmanned, then come back and show how "Unmanned space exploration has proven itself to be immensely more valuable than manned exploration." The only reason that unmanned is ahead currently is no-one is willing to give manned the chance to prove itself.

PhantomWolf

10th February 2010, 06:15 PM

1) NASA did a lot that was NOT moon or even space flight related

Agreed, however a lot of what they did from 1958-1972 was for the moon programme

2) Digital computers (FAR mor sophisticated than the lunar lander computer) existed on earth years before. In fact the HP and other desktop computers on the engineer's desks were more powerful.

Say what? The desktop computer wasn't even invented before the Apollo Missions, the first one that could have been called a "desktop" was built in 1971, and none of the NASA Engineers would have had one. Even Mission Control didn't have computers, they used TV Screens with cardboard templates over them. Other than the mainframes for huge number crunching, NASA's engineers use that wonderful thing called a slide rule for all their computations.

3) Flight computers were becoming necessary for both military and civillian aircraft. There was plenty of incentive and money (intense multibillion dollar spending), there is NO reason to assume that the moon project was required to accomplish that. Or even that it sped it up.

Again false. Flight computers were an off-shoot of the space industry and allowed engineers to start building aircraft that disobeyed aerodynamic rules. NASA proved the technology and defence contractors started to pick it up in the mid to late 70's. The Passanger industry didn't look at it till the 80's.

rwguinn

10th February 2010, 07:39 PM

Agreed, however a lot of what they did from 1958-1972 was for the moon programme

Say what? The desktop computer wasn't even invented before the Apollo Missions, the first one that could have been called a "desktop" was built in 1971, and none of the NASA Engineers would have had one. Even Mission Control didn't have computers, they used TV Screens with cardboard templates over them. Other than the mainframes for huge number crunching, NASA's engineers use that wonderful thing called a slide rule for all their computations.

Again false. Flight computers were an off-shoot of the space industry and allowed engineers to start building aircraft that disobeyed aerodynamic rules. NASA proved the technology and defence contractors started to pick it up in the mid to late 70's. The Passanger industry didn't look at it till the 80's.
Don't cha just love folks who keep saying "We would have done that stuff anyway", as though they have a pipeline to the alternative universe where we didn't go to the moon?
Clueless folks, they are.
As I said before--the major jumps in FBW, stability control, and computers, just coincidentally (couldn't be any cause and effect link, there) started appearing commercially 3 or 4 years after the successes of Apollo and NASA.
Graphite-epoxy fishing rods, tennis racquets and golf clubs started appearing in the '80's, after successes in STS and other programs.
Just coinkidinks, I am sure...

uruk

10th February 2010, 09:16 PM

You should note that I did agree that military demands provide techology, probably more so than the moon flights. Well, war has been around alot longer than spaceflight. But the types of technologies that are pushed by the demands of war are different then those that are pushed by the demands of exploration. Some are parallel.

Partially agree, certain info about behavior of organisms in zero G was obtained. Though a flight to the moon was hardly necessary for that (easily could be accomplished with orbital flights) You can't learn how to live on the moon or mars in earth orbit.

1) NASA did a lot that was NOT moon or even space flight related. But the manned space program was the impetus and initiation for NASA.

2) Digital computers (FAR mor sophisticated than the lunar lander computer) existed on earth years before. In fact the HP and other desktop computers on the engineer's desks were more powerful. These computers were also huge. the desktop units back in the 60,s were dumb terminals. The actual processing power were in those huge cabinets that took up a whole room. Computational power was not paramount in the AGC. compactness and reliability was.
The Apollo AGC was special purpose embedded computer system with all the processing, programing and memory integrated together in a small modular cabinet about the size of a large travel suitcase. This was an inovation. A first. If you look at the block diagrams and cpu layouts of the AGC you will find alot of similarities to modern desktop computers.

3) Flight computers were becoming necessary for both military and civillian aircraft. There was plenty of incentive and money (intense multibillion dollar spending), there is NO reason to assume that the moon project was required to accomplish that. Or even that it sped it up. Possibly, but that is how history transpired. Up untill Apollo flight computers on aircraft were simple, limited, analog computing and control devices. After the Apollo the flight computer, aircraft flight computers became more powerful and digital.

And we can argue could-a, should-a, would-a all day long.

Corsair 115

10th February 2010, 11:02 PM

Other than the mainframes for huge number crunching, NASA's engineers use that wonderful thing called a slide rule for all their computations.

There's a scene in Apollo 13 which shows that—Lovell has called down to Mission Control for them to doublecheck his calcuations, and then it cuts to a the controllers furiously using slide rules to perform the doublechecking calcuations.

I think it's easy to forget just how much things have changed in some ways. Youngsters today are going to look at older movies showing folks playing vinyl record albums or using rotary telephones and wonder what the hell those things are...

Random

11th February 2010, 07:10 AM

Ummmmm . . . no. Whatever made you think this? It seems to me that humans are very poorly equipped for anything more than a cursory look around.
Don’t underestimate humans compared to robots. Humans have all terrain mobility, independent real-time problem solving capability, built-in repair functions, and an all-around adaptability that scientists have been trying and failing to give robots for decades.

A year long Mission to Mars? Do you understand the logistics involved? Look at the problem of safely landing a relatively small probe on Mars. How do you expect them to land a huge space craft with enough people and supplies for a year long mission?

Not that big a space ship at all. Mars has a very thin CO2 atmosphere. All you need is an air pump and a gaslight-era chemical plant onboard and you have all the oxygen you need. Since you don’t have to bring all your own oxygen for the stay there and the trip back, you can use a lot less fuel and equipment to get to Mars. Hydrogen may be more difficult to acquire if we can’t find water ice, but it is pretty light in the first place so just bring a ton or two and you are fine on that to. Make the rocket fuel for the return trip on site. Water recycling technology is already pretty good, and a years supply of food doesn’t take up as much space as you might think.

In the mid-90’s, Robert Zubrin wrote The Case for Mars and laid out a straightforward program using off the shelf technology that would land a four man team on Mars, keep them there for over a year with a pressurized habitat, pressurized return vehicle, two pressurized rovers with an operational range of over two hundred miles, and then return them safely to Earth. And he did it with just two Atlas launches.

zerospeaks

11th February 2010, 07:15 AM

Im a fan of the mars direct plan. Has that been brought up yet?

qayak

11th February 2010, 07:36 AM

What utter hogwash. If this were true, Apollo could not have happened. You really seem to have no idea what is needed, real engineers and space scientists who have studied the issue do, and they disagree with you.

Again total hogwash. The Apollo missions returned far more data and science that the entire unmanned lunar program of both the US and the USSR up to that point had. Unmanned probes have only been useful elsewhere because they can be sent places that we haven't been able or willing to send people. You however bias your scales by placing a barrel of oranges against a bag a aples. How about comparing apples and apples, the Lunar missions, manned vs unmanned, then come back and show how "Unmanned space exploration has proven itself to be immensely more valuable than manned exploration." The only reason that unmanned is ahead currently is no-one is willing to give manned the chance to prove itself.

Yeah, right! People have been talking about a trip to Mars since before the Apollo missions. It was those missions that demonstrated the problems such a mission would have and which haven't been solved yet.

Real space exploration doesn't work like a Star Trek movie. You can't write BS science into the script and have it work out in the last couple of minutes of the show.

zerospeaks

11th February 2010, 07:58 AM

Speaking of, just watched the atlas 5 launch. Neato! Seemed to have worked they are going back into another burn we shall wait and see.

Who wants to start a liquid vs solid fuel rocket thread?
I'm game!

Correa Neto

12th February 2010, 03:12 AM

If you put people in orbit about Mars, why not land them?
I can think of a number of reasons, related to the use of some robot/ROV like the one linked at my previous post:

Crew safety- no need to land, operate on the surface and take-off
Enhanced mission capacity - an ROV can work 24/7, just changing the operators, you can send ROVs to places where you would not dare sending a human wearing spacesuits (steep cliffs and caves, for example), a landing vehicle carrying ROVs doesn't need to carry life-support systems and fuel to go back - since you can bring to Mars's surface a greater number of ROVs than astronauts as a payload, you can explore a greater area.
Biological contamination- if one assumes Mars may harbor indigenous life, this is a major issue, since we would not wish to contaminate it with our micro-organisms. If a lander's waste recycling unit is perfurated...

These orbital robot/ROV missions might serve as pathfinders, test for a later manned landing if and when it becomes needed. They would also be the only solution when it comes down to explore places like Venus.

But you don't have to take "the material related to human life support" much of what is needed is already there. You can also send a lot of the equipment that is required ahead of time and have it waiting for the crews' arrival, ready to unpack and set up. There are already many plans that have been considered as viable if someone is just willing to support them.
You will need to bring to Mars' surface all the equipment required to harvest oxigen from Mars' atmosphere and water from underground. All these equipments have mass and volume. One must think in terms of cost/benefit ratio. What woud be better- this or extra science equipment (extra robots/ROVs in this case)? The same reasoning is valid for sending material ahead of the crew.

Yes, the plans seem to be viable. The questions are-
Are these the best plans available?
Can they be improved?

Rubbish, the hard part is getting it into Earth Orbit, after that we could send it to Alpha Centuri without much more effort. (though it might take a while to get there.)
It takes fuel. Lots of it. And more lots of fuel to bring all this fuel to Mars' orbit.

All things already solved on the ISS. You seem to be missing that a tank of water can act as radiation shielding, washing/drinking water, coolant, and a source of oxygen. Wow, one thing just solved four of your main issues. Waste issues are easily dealt with, solid matter can be dump, liquid proccessed and reused as is already done on the ISS. As for sleeping quarters, living quarters, and medical, we already know that a series of hollow tubes works perfectly for that. You seem to think that no engineer or space scientist has consider all of this before and that solutions are impossibly hard.

Please read again what I wrote and look at the context, as a dialogue with zerospeaks. Nowhere its written something which could be interpreted as "no engineer or space scientist has consider all of this before and that solutions are impossibly hard". I say, however, that these are difficult tasks. Building a manned spaceship capable to be sent to Mars' orbit and back to Earth is a hard task. I doubt any engineer or space scientist would disagree. And not all problems are solved. For example, how to deal with medical situations and the absence of weight during the long period of time required for such a travel were not properly solved. All we have are proposed solutions.

Random

12th February 2010, 06:51 AM

Please read again what I wrote and look at the context, as a dialogue with zerospeaks. Nowhere its written something which could be interpreted as "no engineer or space scientist has consider all of this before and that solutions are impossibly hard". I say, however, that these are difficult tasks. Building a manned spaceship capable to be sent to Mars' orbit and back to Earth is a hard task. I doubt any engineer or space scientist would disagree. And not all problems are solved. For example, how to deal with medical situations and the absence of weight during the long period of time required for such a travel were not properly solved. All we have are proposed solutions.

Robert Zubrin solved this neatly with his Mars Direct program. Have a counterweight attached to the top of the habitat module with a tether and give the whole thing a spin for the duration of the flight. Presto, instant artificial gravity. Avoids the entire long-term issues of weightlessness entirely.

Yet another reason why NASA killed it.

Correa Neto

12th February 2010, 09:35 AM

Its one theoretical solution; it has not been tested (at least not that I'm aware of). I think a prototype in space would be desirable to solve possible issues in advance.

Not to mention that there are alternatives. Which one would be better? Zubrin's idea? Rotating cyllindrical sections? Spin the whole spacecraft? Just heavy excercise on ergometric bicycles?

And regarding this sentence...
Yet another reason why NASA killed it.
Sorry, didn't get it.

Random

12th February 2010, 10:14 AM

And regarding this sentence...

Sorry, didn't get it.

NASA is at its core a government bureaucracy. It is filled with scientists and engineers who want to do cool stuff, but also a bunch of managers who want to justify their pet projects so they can maintain their funding. Among those projects are researching the effects of zero gravity of astronauts over long periods of time, orbital construction of spacecraft at a space station/orbital drydock, and a lunar base as a refueling station.

Zubrin’s plan consisted of two Atlas launches sending the habitation/outbound craft and the recovery vehicle directly into a Martian intercept trajectory, giving the astronauts artificial gravity on the trip, and using aerobraking in the Martian atmosphere to kill most of their speed, a neat trick that actually means it takes less fuel to travel from Earth and land on Mars than travel from Earth and land on the moon.

So Zubrin basically went to NASA management and said, “Here is a cheap and effective Mars program which will render pretty much everything you guys have done for the last decade irrelevant.” The scientists and engineers loved it, but management “improved” it to the point where it was totally unworkable then abandoned it.

uruk

12th February 2010, 10:22 AM

I can think of a number of reasons, related to the use of some robot/ROV like the one linked at my previous post:

Crew safety- no need to land, operate on the surface and take-off
Enhanced mission capacity - an ROV can work 24/7, just changing the operators, you can send ROVs to places where you would not dare sending a human wearing spacesuits (steep cliffs and caves, for example), a landing vehicle carrying ROVs doesn't need to carry life-support systems and fuel to go back - since you can bring to Mars's surface a greater number of ROVs than astronauts as a payload, you can explore a greater area.
Biological contamination- if one assumes Mars may harbor indigenous life, this is a major issue, since we would not wish to contaminate it with our micro-organisms. If a lander's waste recycling unit is perfurated...

These orbital robot/ROV missions might serve as pathfinders, test for a later manned landing if and when it becomes needed. They would also be the only solution when it comes down to explore places like Venus. Exploration is not the only goal of manned missions throughout the solarsystem. Learning to live in environments other than the Earth is a valid and ligitamate endeavour both pragmaticaly and scientifically. Robotic exploration has been, is and will always be part of space exploration. But do not underestimate the scientific value of manned exploration for what it can teach and give to humanity.
Manned space flight has been a political issue for far too long. It is to treat it as it should be treated, an endeavour for the benefit of humanity. No more political stunts. Let us start a well thought out, steady manned program with well defined goals and implemintation.

You will need to bring to Mars' surface all the equipment required to harvest oxigen from Mars' atmosphere and water from underground. All these equipments have mass and volume. One must think in terms of cost/benefit ratio. What woud be better- this or extra science equipment (extra robots/ROVs in this case)? The same reasoning is valid for sending material ahead of the crew. Why not both? Costs can be spread out over several fiscal years and missions. You build roads by setting the foundations and infrastructure. The Moon and Mars always be there. Mankind may not. This could be the result of not establishing footholds of humanity on places other than the Earth.

It is simple biology and evolution. A species that is successful is one that can adapt to different environments and spread itself over a wide geographic area. The wide spread allows for the species to survive when one area's ecology changes so drasticaly as to no longer support that species in that area. If members of the species dies out in that area, the species as a whole will still continue to exist in other areas. Besides learning how to live in environment has harsh and detrimental to human beings as space or other planets and planotoids may help humaity to survive in areas that may become ecologicaly devastated.

Humanity has the capability to learn to spread itself into environments other than the earth. It would not be wise to leave that capability undeveloped or unexplored.

Yes, the plans seem to be viable. The questions are-
Are these the best plans available?
Can they be improved? How will we know if we don't explore those possibilities?

It takes fuel. Lots of it. And more lots of fuel to bring all this fuel to Mars' orbit. This depends on your technology and method of propulsion. Look into aerobraking, space catapaults, ion engines, nuclear engines, electric rockets, solar sails, anti-matter propulsion.

Darth Rotor

12th February 2010, 11:06 AM

Im a fan of the mars direct plan. Has that been brought up yet?

The manned Mars mission does not appear on Obama's policy horizon, but working on probes/robots on Mars looks to attract some funding. From the very brief link.

Is that what you are asking about?

DR

Darth Rotor

12th February 2010, 11:08 AM

Robert Zubrin solved this neatly with his Mars Direct program. Have a counterweight attached to the top of the habitat module with a tether and give the whole thing a spin for the duration of the flight. Presto, instant artificial gravity. Avoids the entire long-term issues of weightlessness entirely.

Yet another reason why NASA killed it.
While that's a neat idea, you didn't mention the matter of payload penalties that humans bring with them.

Non-trivial, at present.

I am a bit skeptical of your telling us that this is why NASA Mars Direct.

DR

zerospeaks

12th February 2010, 11:53 AM

Is that what you are asking about?

No DR, the mars direct plan was a simple multiple launch plan to get humans on mars quickly and cheaply, with current technology. Apparently NASA hated it.

Travis

13th February 2010, 02:31 AM

I'm a fan of using robots for preliminary reconnaissance but if you really want to explore someplace and understand it you need actual humans, with all the intuition and experience they bring with them, to actually be there.

It should be noted that there were problems with the Mars Direct plan. For one it proposed to use a ridiculously small craft for four people to spend nine months in.

zerospeaks

13th February 2010, 03:51 AM

For one it proposed to use a ridiculously small craft for four people to spend nine months in.

Whatever happened to the "these are the best, and have been conditioned to do what normal people can't do. They have been trained to do it!" attitude we used to have.

Travis

13th February 2010, 08:07 AM

Whatever happened to the "these are the best, and have been conditioned to do what normal people can't do. They have been trained to do it!" attitude we used to have.

They were never stuck inside an oversized closet with three other people for nine months one way.

shadron

13th February 2010, 08:18 AM

You can get a quick overview of the original Mars Direct plan and NASA's version of it and the history to go along with it here:

xKvQPrHneVY

zerospeaks

13th February 2010, 08:52 AM

They were never stuck inside an oversized closet with three other people for nine months one way.

Ummmmm ya! The MIR.

qayak

13th February 2010, 05:25 PM

Whatever happened to the "these are the best, and have been conditioned to do what normal people can't do. They have been trained to do it!" attitude we used to have.

Don't get too hung up in the propaganda. There comes a time when no matter how well trained you are, solar radiation will kill you. So will lack of oxygen, lack of food, lack of water, flames . . . etc.

Travis

13th February 2010, 09:55 PM

Ummmmm ya! The MIR.

Four people spent nine months together in Mir, then two years in another closet, then nine more months in Mir?

Random

14th February 2010, 05:32 AM

Four people spent nine months together in Mir, then two years in another closet, then nine more months in Mir?

Its not that bad really. In most of the Mars Direct/Mars semi-Direct varients the crew would spend the outbound journey and their stay on Mars in a crew habitat module the size of a house. They would have games, television, books, movies, and music to entertain them on the outbound journey, and would be able to communicate with Earth (no internet acces with a two to five minute speed of light delay however). Once they arrived at Mars, they would be working and have a good chunk of the Martian surface to explore. The trip back would be a bit cramped, but that would be the end stage of the journey anyway.

zerospeaks

14th February 2010, 05:35 AM

How did they propose to launch a house sized habitat to orbit with current rockets?
The atlas 5 can't even do that.

Random

14th February 2010, 05:55 AM

How did they propose to launch a house sized habitat to orbit with current rockets?
The atlas 5 can't even do that.

My msitake. They were planning on using the propsed Ares Heavy lift vehicle, not the Atlas. Don't know how I got that idea in my head but I can't get it out, made the same mistake five years ago...

zerospeaks

14th February 2010, 06:04 AM

What was the proposed lift capability of the Ares heavy?
The Flacon 9 heavy can do 28,000 kg.
The atlas 5 can do 29 so they claim, and I think the atlas 5 is the biggest we got.... right?

Random

14th February 2010, 12:18 PM

What was the proposed lift capability of the Ares heavy?
The Flacon 9 heavy can do 28,000 kg.
The atlas 5 can do 29 so they claim, and I think the atlas 5 is the biggest we got.... right?

The proposed lift capacity for the Ares V heavy launcher was between 150-190 metric tonnes to LEO.

zerospeaks

14th February 2010, 05:14 PM

The proposed lift capacity for the Ares V heavy launcher was between 150-190 metric tonnes to LEO.

For reals? That is seriously impressive. I'm kinda sad they scrapped it now. Even though it was the worlds largest bottle rocket.

zerospeaks

14th February 2010, 05:20 PM

Well the Ares 1 could only do 25 tonnes. So the Falcon 9 heavy beats it. Especially on cost! From wikipedia: CEO Elon Musk said: "I believe $500 per pound ($1,100/kg) or less is very achievable."[18]

THATS INSANE!

Anyway, the Ares 5 was just a drawing board concept so we will never know.

But the falcon 9 is very real and is at the cape right now!!!
Getting ready to launch! Our best option for the shuttle replacement.

Correa Neto

17th February 2010, 05:08 PM

NASA is at its core a government bureaucracy. It is filled with scientists and engineers who want to do cool stuff, but also a bunch of managers who want to justify their pet projects so they can maintain their funding. Among those projects are researching the effects of zero gravity of astronauts over long periods of time, orbital construction of spacecraft at a space station/orbital drydock, and a lunar base as a refueling station.
...snip..
I think it would be more precise to say NASA, being government-funded, is subject to the winds dictated by public opinion and the perceptions politicians have about it. Its managers must then try to steer it the best they can along the best course they can plot with those winds.

Its actually, I think, a miracle the fact that NASA managed to do what it did so far.

Correa Neto

17th February 2010, 05:30 PM

Exploration is not the only goal of manned missions throughout the solarsystem. Learning to live in environments other than the Earth is a valid and ligitamate endeavour both pragmaticaly and scientifically. Robotic exploration has been, is and will always be part of space exploration. But do not underestimate the scientific value of manned exploration for what it can teach and give to humanity.
You can find at my previous posts anything against it?

Manned space flight has been a political issue for far too long. It is to treat it as it should be treated, an endeavour for the benefit of humanity. No more political stunts. Let us start a well thought out, steady manned program with well defined goals and implemintation.
I agree, but we'll have to do lots of politics to accomplish this...

Why not both? Costs can be spread out over several fiscal years and missions. You build roads by setting the foundations and infrastructure. The Moon and Mars always be there. Mankind may not. This could be the result of not establishing footholds of humanity on places other than the Earth.
It seems you missed this part of my post...
These orbital robot/ROV missions might serve as pathfinders, test for a later manned landing if and when it becomes needed. They would also be the only solution when it comes down to explore places like Venus.

It is simple biology and evolution. A species that is successful is one that can adapt to different environments and spread itself over a wide geographic area. The wide spread allows for the species to survive when one area's ecology changes so drasticaly as to no longer support that species in that area. If members of the species dies out in that area, the species as a whole will still continue to exist in other areas. Besides learning how to live in environment has harsh and detrimental to human beings as space or other planets and planotoids may help humaity to survive in areas that may become ecologicaly devastated.

Humanity has the capability to learn to spread itself into environments other than the earth. It would not be wise to leave that capability undeveloped or unexplored.
No argument against it all from me.

How will we know if we don't explore those possibilities?
It'll take politics to do so. First convince the politicians who are in charge of dictating policies. Right now, budgets are being cut; its time to get as much science as possible with the smallest ammount of money. Since (some, not all)robotic missions have the best cost/benefit ratios. Some succesful robotic missions might change the public opinion. Currently I am tempted to put my money on the results of private enterprises to boost public opinion.

This depends on your technology and method of propulsion. Look into aerobraking, space catapaults, ion engines, nuclear engines, electric rockets, solar sails, anti-matter propulsion.
Some of these are not near the horizon. I am writing about short- to mid- term, 10-20 years maximum and with roughly the current status of public support. No, I can't be sure of what we will be able to advance, as humans, in terms of technology in this time. I suppose, however, that some of the techs you pointed probably will not be available for a manned Mars mission in such a timeframe. But I hope I'll be shown wrong.