NASA Gets To Mars; What Now?

[Puget Sound]

Suppose that SEI gets off the ground in the early 90s using a combination of Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct plan and NASA's Design Reference Mission 3.0. The Ares V is built along with the Orion capsule to replace the shuttle and ISS is redesigned to be launched on three Ares V launches. NASA also partners with private companies to encourage investment in space, especially space-based manufacturing. The U.S gets back to the Moon in the late 90s to build a lunar base at the lunar South Pole and to Mars in 2007. Assume that history otherwise stays the same as in OTL. What does NASA do after Mars, now?

[ChucK Y]

The Mars mission would suffer from the same problem as the Apollo program; it is so expensive that it can only be justified as a space spectacular for national prestige. Once it has been done, there is little to be gained from doing it again.

[Timmy811]

It depends on what they find. If they can find some native bacteria some blockbuster biological science can be done.

As for what NASA would do with manned missions, probably send a mission out to a near earth asteroid.

[Bahamut-255]

The Mars mission would suffer from the same problem as the Apollo program; it is so expensive that it can only be justified as a space spectacular for national prestige. Once it has been done, there is little to be gained from doing it again.

Not really, total spending on the Apollo programme was $23bn by the time of its termination. And for that you got nine manned flights to the Moon, of which six resulted in Lunar Landings.

A manned flight to Mars would set you back perhaps $30bn today, with recurring flights being about 10% that level since the hardware development is already done - which by the way is where a lot of the cost lies.

[Germaniac]

Not really, total spending on the Apollo programme was $23bn by the time of its termination. And for that you got nine manned flights to the Moon, of which six resulted in Lunar Landings.

A manned flight to Mars would set you back perhaps $30bn today, with recurring flights being about 10% that level since the hardware development is already done - which by the way is where a lot of the cost lies.

actually with inflation the apollo program would cost 120b

[John Fredrick Parker]

I'm guessing colonization is considered ASB here...

[Sachyriel]

When NASA gets to Mars they'll be staying at the Chinese Base down by Olympus Mons.

:p

Okay okay. So they get there first, NASA sets an American flag with 55 stripes and 200 stars down onto Mars (don't ask, long story involving Justin Bieber) and they're going to set up an observation post to look out for threats to Earth.

No, really, the first thing they do would be to build some sensors to make sure their home planet is well protected; they'll scan for unknown asteroids, comets and try to make sure their resupply mission isn't cancelled permanently.

[Mr Qwerty]

Three missions, then it's cancelled. Results: 27 person-years on Mars (as opposed to less than one person-month on the Moon for Apollo), three potentially-useful bases, and proof that manned interplanetary travel is possible. Also a working Saturn V-scale booster and proven human interplanetary spacecraft, but they'll probably be thrown away.

[Archibald]

Ot perhaps Stephen Baxter "Voyage" alt history would be a good start. But I can't see how one could write a sequel to this book...

[Tim Thomason]

- First person to the Asteroid belt?
- Permanently staffed base on the moon?
- First man on Ceres? Pluto? Eris?
- Manned probe to Venus (highly protected of course)?
- Non-orbiting space station?
- First man on Mercury?
- First man to fly one of those solar sail things I saw on the Discovery Channel once that could travel at like a fourth of the Speed of Light and therefore exit the Solar System in the thing and maybe, maybe travel to Proxima Centauri?

[caloysky]

Maybe it will jumpstar a new colonization race?

[JimmyRibbitt]

- Manned probe to Venus (highly protected of course)?



I doubt that would ever happen. Engineers would have to design a "hab" that could withstand the high temperatres and crushing pressures for 8 months. A manned mission to Venus would have to stay there for 8 months until Earth and Venus were in proper allignment for the return to Earth.

[Dan Reilly The Great]

Ot perhaps Stephen Baxter "Voyage" alt history would be a good start. But I can't see how one could write a sequel to this book...

well seeing as how everyone died, you would be quite correct in that assertion

[Archibald]

What ? Perhaps you are mixing things with another of Baxter novel, Titan (and yes, everyone dies in this one, including the whole mankind)

But Voyage astronauts are alive and well (AFAIK)

My first answer was a brain fart (got the flu when I typed it). A sequel to Voyage is doable, becuase Baxter left some clues in its narration.
The Mars Excursion Module works with LOX/ methane, and at another point in the novel, astronauts training include... deployment of a LOX/methane ISRU experiments.
Baxter did wrote Voyage in 1996, and inevitably heard of Bob Zubrin Mars Direct (1991)

IF Robert Zubrin is not butterflied away in the Voyage alt-universe, then a follow on to Ares can use the Mars Direct trick.
Future of Saturn V is safe, the ISRU thing has been deployed and checked on Mars itself, and perhaps some parts of Ares can be recycled into a Mars Direct scheme.
The HUGE difficulty (and Baxter makes that very clear) will be the political will.
The Ares program cost NASA Viking, Voyager, Hubble, most of the Mariner, Magellan, Galileo, Cassini (!) and plenty of other programs.
Food for thought !

[truth is life]

I doubt that would ever happen. Engineers would have to design a "hab" that could withstand the high temperatres and crushing pressures for 8 months. A manned mission to Venus would have to stay there for 8 months until Earth and Venus were in proper allignment for the return to Earth.

No one would be stupid enough to land humans on Venus. Any manned mission there would be a flyby or orbital mission.

[Spengler]

Not really, total spending on the Apollo programme was $23bn by the time of its termination. And for that you got nine manned flights to the Moon, of which six resulted in Lunar Landings.

A manned flight to Mars would set you back perhaps $30bn today, with recurring flights being about 10% that level since the hardware development is already done - which by the way is where a lot of the cost lies.
I think you need to heavily adjust for inflation.

Also what could be gained from going to Mars? NOt to mention the fact that you would need to ensure that the astronots surive the mission. Remember that muscular degeneration occours when one is in space for an exteneded period of time not to mention all that radiot that you would need to ensure the space craft is protected from in some way. There would also be the problem that you would probably want some other form of propulsion other than the current one used so you would have to test a new form of propulsion. (I would go for the Project Orion if you are going to use a new system of propulsion).

BTW if you want a good resource for missions to other planets try this.
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/appmissiontable.php

[The Sandman]

I doubt that would ever happen. Engineers would have to design a "hab" that could withstand the high temperatres and crushing pressures for 8 months. A manned mission to Venus would have to stay there for 8 months until Earth and Venus were in proper allignment for the return to Earth.

No one would be stupid enough to land humans on Venus. Any manned mission there would be a flyby or orbital mission.

Manned aerostats dropping unmanned probes onto the surface?

[Spengler]

Manned aerostats dropping unmanned probes onto the surface?
However you can drop unmanned probes on Venus already.

[truth is life]

I doubt that would ever happen. Engineers would have to design a "hab" that could withstand the high temperatres and crushing pressures for 8 months. A manned mission to Venus would have to stay there for 8 months until Earth and Venus were in proper allignment for the return to Earth.

No one would be stupid enough to land humans on Venus. Any manned mission there would be a flyby or orbital mission.

[Mr Qwerty]

Also what could be gained from going to Mars? NOt to mention the fact that you would need to ensure that the astronots surive the mission. Remember that muscular degeneration occours when one is in space for an exteneded period of time not to mention all that radiot that you would need to ensure the space craft is protected from in some way. There would also be the problem that you would probably want some other form of propulsion other than the current one used so you would have to test a new form of propulsion. (I would go for the Project Orion if you are going to use a new system of propulsion).


Not a week goes by and I don't see some newts-can't-breed-on-the-ISS-so-humans-can't-live-in-space article on Space.com. Free-fall medical problems are a strawman argument that still gets a huge amount of attention.

Repeat after me:
ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY IS POSSIBLE
ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY IS POSSIBLE
ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY IS POSSIBLE
Okay?

Not to mention that Russian cosmonauts demonstrated 30 years ago that healthy adults can withstand 6 months or more of free-fall and re-adapt to gravity. So if the tether jams or something, they can still land on Mars and wait 2-3 weeks before doing strenuous work.

[truth is life]

Not a week goes by and I don't see some newts-can't-breed-on-the-ISS-so-humans-can't-live-in-space article on Space.com. Free-fall medical problems are a strawman argument that still gets a huge amount of attention.

Not to mention that rats and mice can breed in space...they get a little screwy, but then, we're not expecting people to get preganant on the way to Mars, are we?

[Bahamut-255]

I think you need to heavily adjust for inflation.

Also what could be gained from going to Mars? NOt to mention the fact that you would need to ensure that the astronots surive the mission. Remember that muscular degeneration occours when one is in space for an exteneded period of time not to mention all that radiot that you would need to ensure the space craft is protected from in some way. There would also be the problem that you would probably want some other form of propulsion other than the current one used so you would have to test a new form of propulsion. (I would go for the Project Orion if you are going to use a new system of propulsion).

Germaniac already calculated it at $120bn total expenditure for the Apollo programme. But don't forget that for Apollo, a lot of the neccesary tech had to be developed from scratch, whereas for Mars Direct, most of the tech already exists - some of it dating back to the 19th Century - which significantly reduces the development costs and time. And time is a major factor, since time = man-hours = money.

Muscular degeneration isn't as big an issue as you make it out to be. Some Russian Cosmonauts spent 18 Months onboard Mir in a 0G environment, and made strong recoveries within a fortnight. For Mars, using the Mars Direct profile, you can safely use the spent TMI stage as a counterweight to simulate the 0.38 Martian Surface Gravity to cut the degeneration and slash the rate of bone demineralisation, to perhaps nothing. You shouldn't spend more than 6 months in 0G this way.

Radiation is not a significant issue, a properly designed Hab will protect the crew from the once-per-year or so Solar Flares via a storm shelter, while the background radiation is a thin trickle of high volt and almost no watt particles and rays - which can be stunted even by the thin Martian Atmosphere. Total projected exposure is 40-60 Rem pa, nowhere near enough to cause immediate illness, and only enough to increase your likelyhood of developing fatal cancer from 20% to 21% - assuming you're a non-smoker.

ISRU Propellant Production will allow you to make you're return Lox/LCH4 propellant from the Martian Atmosphere and imported LH2 via gaslight era technology, an exothermic and therefore self sustaining process. This allows all the neccesary hardware to be flown with direct throw of the booster, so long as the Return Vehicle is sent first. And the booster and haul the required payload on its own - hence some justification for Ares V - which used only chemical propulsion. You don't need new propulsion technologies for a Mars Mission, though incorporating them when they become available will help matters a lot.

As for what to gain, how's this for starters, a brand new avenue for human growth and development. Remember how the World was changed forever by the colonisation of the USA? Its growth and development forced the rest of the world to adapt or die, it will be the same with Mars. Because we can't afford more of the last 40 years, where, human advancement has been stalling, and is likely going backwards. Without Mars, we're screwed. But good luck getting our politicians to face that, which has always been the sticking point. Politics, which keeps us stuck here on Terra Firma when we could have been exploring at least this solar system by now, with people, not probes.

[The Kiat]

The Mars mission would suffer from the same problem as the Apollo program; it is so expensive that it can only be justified as a space spectacular for national prestige. Once it has been done, there is little to be gained from doing it again.

That sounds like NASA; plant a flag, pick up a few rocks, and say 'Ok, we did it!' and then never try again. If that's the goal, just send a probe; it can plant the flag and pick up rocks considerably cheaper.

[stirlingdraka]

Germaniac already calculated it at $120bn total expenditure for the Apollo programme. But don't forget that for Apollo, a lot of the neccesary tech had to be developed from scratch, whereas for Mars Direct, most of the tech already exists - some of it dating back to the 19th Century - which significantly reduces the development costs and time. And time is a major factor, since time = man-hours = money.

Muscular degeneration isn't as big an issue as you make it out to be. Some Russian Cosmonauts spent 18 Months onboard Mir in a 0G environment, and made strong recoveries within a fortnight. For Mars, using the Mars Direct profile, you can safely use the spent TMI stage as a counterweight to simulate the 0.38 Martian Surface Gravity to cut the degeneration and slash the rate of bone demineralisation, to perhaps nothing. You shouldn't spend more than 6 months in 0G this way.

Radiation is not a significant issue, a properly designed Hab will protect the crew from the once-per-year or so Solar Flares via a storm shelter, while the background radiation is a thin trickle of high volt and almost no watt particles and rays - which can be stunted even by the thin Martian Atmosphere. Total projected exposure is 40-60 Rem pa, nowhere near enough to cause immediate illness, and only enough to increase your likelyhood of developing fatal cancer from 20% to 21% - assuming you're a non-smoker.

ISRU Propellant Production will allow you to make you're return Lox/LCH4 propellant from the Martian Atmosphere and imported LH2 via gaslight era technology, an exothermic and therefore self sustaining process. This allows all the neccesary hardware to be flown with direct throw of the booster, so long as the Return Vehicle is sent first. And the booster and haul the required payload on its own - hence some justification for Ares V - which used only chemical propulsion. You don't need new propulsion technologies for a Mars Mission, though incorporating them when they become available will help matters a lot.

As for what to gain, how's this for starters, a brand new avenue for human growth and development. Remember how the World was changed forever by the colonisation of the USA? Its growth and development forced the rest of the world to adapt or die, it will be the same with Mars. Because we can't afford more of the last 40 years, where, human advancement has been stalling, and is likely going backwards. Without Mars, we're screwed. But good luck getting our politicians to face that, which has always been the sticking point. Politics, which keeps us stuck here on Terra Firma when we could have been exploring at least this solar system by now, with people, not probes.

I love your post Bahamut-255:):D:). I can`t wait until people land on Mars.:)

[ivanotter]

I read (somewhere) that the thinking is now a group of people going to Mars permantky. No coming back.

Not in a suide mission but going there to colonise Mars. The whole thing will get a bit easir if we do not plan for a return.

Re-supplying is also "fairly" easy after all.

It does put it into a different perspective, but it probably dovetails fine with Steve Hawkin's thinking that we must somehow get off the planet and go do something else in space. That probably means leaving the rearview mirror behind, once and for all.

Maybe that was what Columbus' people felt? (not Columbus because he had the Chinese map, I know).

I will bet 50c that a one-ticket to Mars will look attractive to a lot of people.

Imagine now if there is a working Mars colony, having been in business for 30+ years? being re-supplied with the stuff that they cannot grow or do themselves?

If the sole purpose would be to transport +/- 1,000 people to Mars, I somehow think the challenges would have been manageable in 1970/80.

(Build a bigger ISS as a transit station, transport 50 people per shuttle launch, use space craft designed for only flying to a Mars like ISS, as a transit station for landing on Mars. Somebody wrote something about it).

Ivan

[Bavarian Raven]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bahamut-255
Germaniac already calculated it at $120bn total expenditure for the Apollo programme. But don't forget that for Apollo, a lot of the neccesary tech had to be developed from scratch, whereas for Mars Direct, most of the tech already exists - some of it dating back to the 19th Century - which significantly reduces the development costs and time. And time is a major factor, since time = man-hours = money.

Muscular degeneration isn't as big an issue as you make it out to be. Some Russian Cosmonauts spent 18 Months onboard Mir in a 0G environment, and made strong recoveries within a fortnight. For Mars, using the Mars Direct profile, you can safely use the spent TMI stage as a counterweight to simulate the 0.38 Martian Surface Gravity to cut the degeneration and slash the rate of bone demineralisation, to perhaps nothing. You shouldn't spend more than 6 months in 0G this way.

Radiation is not a significant issue, a properly designed Hab will protect the crew from the once-per-year or so Solar Flares via a storm shelter, while the background radiation is a thin trickle of high volt and almost no watt particles and rays - which can be stunted even by the thin Martian Atmosphere. Total projected exposure is 40-60 Rem pa, nowhere near enough to cause immediate illness, and only enough to increase your likelyhood of developing fatal cancer from 20% to 21% - assuming you're a non-smoker.

ISRU Propellant Production will allow you to make you're return Lox/LCH4 propellant from the Martian Atmosphere and imported LH2 via gaslight era technology, an exothermic and therefore self sustaining process. This allows all the neccesary hardware to be flown with direct throw of the booster, so long as the Return Vehicle is sent first. And the booster and haul the required payload on its own - hence some justification for Ares V - which used only chemical propulsion. You don't need new propulsion technologies for a Mars Mission, though incorporating them when they become available will help matters a lot.

As for what to gain, how's this for starters, a brand new avenue for human growth and development. Remember how the World was changed forever by the colonisation of the USA? Its growth and development forced the rest of the world to adapt or die, it will be the same with Mars. Because we can't afford more of the last 40 years, where, human advancement has been stalling, and is likely going backwards. Without Mars, we're screwed. But good luck getting our politicians to face that, which has always been the sticking point. Politics, which keeps us stuck here on Terra Firma when we could have been exploring at least this solar system by now, with people, not probes.
I love your post Bahamut-255. I can`t wait until people land on Mars.

seconded.
plus, once the initial investment of setting up a base has been "paid for", maintaining the base and said colonists will be cheep (relatively speaking), compared to sending people to mars, only to have them return a year or two later. not to mention, using water and the such found on mars, any colony will be able to grow its own food (or most of it) and the such. (everything from greens, to root crops, to chickens and fish. beef and the such will be import luxery items, same with wheat too, sadly). imo, it should have been done (started) a long time ago.

[Michael B]

Imagine now if there is a working Mars colony, having been in business for 30+ years? being re-supplied with the stuff that they cannot grow or do themselves
A Mars colony won't be working unless it can export to Earth something that Earth hasn't got even if it is is just knowledge which would be the export that would be cheapest to transport (you radio it).

For quite sometime any Mars colony is require income from Earth whether it is government aid or the colonists are living off investments they made before emigrating to Port Lowell. If one had been built it would be have been screwed at least twice by government cuts in spending or three times by stock market crashes. Any colony would be close to the edge in just surviving.

I am not saying that Mars is not coloniseable, merely that a lot of dosh is going to have to be poured into it for years before it can stand on its own. Settling in a new world won't be anything like the European expansion 1500-1800.

[stirlingdraka]

A Mars colony won't be working unless it can export to Earth something that Earth hasn't got even if it is is just knowledge which would be the export that would be cheapest to transport (you radio it).

For quite sometime any Mars colony is require income from Earth whether it is government aid or the colonists are living off investments they made before emigrating to Port Lowell. If one had been built it would be have been screwed at least twice by government cuts in spending or three times by stock market crashes. Any colony would be close to the edge in just surviving.

I am not saying that Mars is not coloniseable, merely that a lot of dosh is going to have to be poured into it for years before it can stand on its own. Settling in a new world won't be anything like the European expansion 1500-1800.

You`re correct it won`t be easy or cheap but it could be possible.:)

[Mr Qwerty]

Not to mention that rats and mice can breed in space...they get a little screwy, but then, we're not expecting people to get preganant on the way to Mars, are we?

Well, very likely one of the crew members is a doctor (almost certainly a surgeon too). Therefore unless the pregnant woman has a complication the doctor can't deal with, it's not too dangerous... unless the doctor IS the pregnant woman.:eek: A lot less planetary science would get done with everybody doing babysitting duty.

Not saying it's a good idea-no children should be born on Mars until there's a fair-sized colony. Still, it's eventually going to happen if enough people start making the trip.

[ivanotter]

If there would be a Mars colony in say 1980's. AND they found something to export back to Earth, how fast would it grow? additional emigration to Mars? Mars born kids? Branching out? more than one moon base?