Could a manned mission to Mars have been technically feasible by the 1980's?

Around the time of the first moon landing NASA did state that Mars landings were expected by the 1980's. Assuming the space race stayed hot would that have at all been feasible?
 
Short answer is yes. The caveat is it was & is higher risk than the Lunar expeditions. The cost would have been higher & powerful fiscal conservatives like Proxmire were working hard to terminate the space programs as we know them back then.
 
Orion
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JFK didn't like it
 
Mars Direct AKA Mars Lite for me was the only feasible plan to go to Mars and the first paper IIRC was 1990

All plans before this had to involve every pet NASA project going and were prohibitively expensive

Mars Direct also envisaged a rolling mission with Astronauts staying a full Martian year before returning to earth - handing over to a new team and new series of mission units / rockets etc

The intention would be to slowly build up a series of modules over some years to allow for a more ambitious series of missions in the future without costing like a small middle eastern war (well 10% of one anyway)
 
If the space race did stay hot and Mars ended up as the goal, given the cost could you see the US trying to expand it to a "Western" space program to spread the costs? An IMM rather than an ISS (obliviously without the Russian involvement)?
 
Mars Direct AKA Mars Lite for me was the only feasible plan to go to Mars and the first paper IIRC was 1990

All plans before this had to involve every pet NASA project going and were prohibitively expensive

Mars Direct also envisaged a rolling mission with Astronauts staying a full Martian year before returning to earth - handing over to a new team and new series of mission units / rockets etc

The intention would be to slowly build up a series of modules over some years to allow for a more ambitious series of missions in the future without costing like a small middle eastern war (well 10% of one anyway)

It's been a while, but was Mars Direct the program proposed by Robert Zubrin? I read his book The Case for Mars where he outlines it, but that was as a high school freshman in 1998, so I can't remember the name he proposed.
 
I don't think so, not with a POD after 1900. Maybe a suicide mission -- and that is possible, with the right political developments -- something akin to a Man in the High Castle, but plausible, development. Staying within the context of the Cold War, it has to be earlier that the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and even that's stretching it for the 1980's.

EDIT: The only realistic possibility in the Cold war era of sending someone to Mars would have been with an atomic-powered spacecraft. The NTBT eliminated that possibility. It was signed in 1963. Kennedy announced the intention to send people to the Moon in 1961. The landing itself in 1969. So I don't see it happening, as the treaty was already signed six years before the first people landing on the Moon.
 
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One loophole would be the Russians flying something with an atomic engine to try to scoop the US. Yes, several Russian spy-satellites had an actual nuclear reactor on board, one fell in Canada and took a massive clean-up. IIRC, the Canadians duly billed the Russians, who duly covered the tab...

But, they were generators, not engines...

Analogy would be Sputnik 1. Prior to that, as international law stood, every unauthorised (*) over-fly would be 'trespass'. The Russians would have trumpeted the US gall at flouting national borders. Funnily enough, the US didn't complain about such trespass when the Russians did it first, because Sputnik set a legal precedent...

*) IIRC, the US 'scientific' launch team, beset by failures, had tried to negotiate over-fly visas, but few countries wanted to play.
 
One loophole would be the Russians flying something with an atomic engine to try to scoop the US. Yes, several Russian spy-satellites had an actual nuclear reactor on board, one fell in Canada and took a massive clean-up. IIRC, the Canadians duly billed the Russians, who duly covered the tab...

But, they were generators, not engines...

Analogy would be Sputnik 1. Prior to that, as international law stood, every unauthorised (*) over-fly would be 'trespass'. The Russians would have trumpeted the US gall at flouting national borders. Funnily enough, the US didn't complain about such trespass when the Russians did it first, because Sputnik set a legal precedent...

*) IIRC, the US 'scientific' launch team, beset by failures, had tried to negotiate over-fly visas, but few countries wanted to play.
Isn't a nuclear thermal rocket a generator in which hydrogen passes through the reactor, though? Nervas could provide a middle ground between "a more powerful rocket" and "not blowing stuff apart with nuclear bombs", and they were designed in the 1960s.

But I think the problem is also one of planning, as well as testing long term exposure to microgravity. Maybe by the 1990s, assuming there are thirty years of continous political will?
 
Mars Direct AKA Mars Lite for me was the only feasible plan to go to Mars and the first paper IIRC was 1990

All plans before this had to involve every pet NASA project going and were prohibitively expensive

Didn't NASA have a follow-up program to Apollo called the Apollo Applications Program? I think Skylab came out of that, but I also remember reading that one of the proposed plans was a manned fly-by of Venus that would have taken place in the mid-1970s (when it was first conceived in the mid-60s), and I'm pretty sure they figured they could do it without nuclear propulsion. If they had gone ahead with it, and the mission was successful, it would seem likely that the next step would be a similar manned fly-by of Mars. OTL 1968's Apollo 8 mission was essentially a manned fly-by of the moon; assuming they still did that mission in this new timeline, then manned fly-bys might become standard operating procedure for NASA.

That being said, it takes a lot longer to fly to Venus or Mars than it does to the Moon, and a manned mission like this would be planned out years in advance. I could see the first manned fly-by occurring in the 1980s, but I agree with Juanml82 above (who made his post while I was typing this one), that the 1990s are a more realistic timescale. It would be a real challenge to land men on Mars in time for the 20th anniversary of the moon landing in 1989.
 
Mitchell Hundred wrote:
Around the time of the first moon landing NASA did state that Mars landings were expected by the 1980's. Assuming the space race stayed hot would that have at all been feasible?

Simple answer is yes, short answer is no, long answer is... Well... long :)

There were a lot of assumptions wrapped up in the thinking for Mars in the 1980s and one assumed a similar effort as Apollo with similar support and financing. That was already obviously not what was happening even before July 1969, in fact funding AND support had been falling since 1965. Part of this was because the Space Race was no longer "hot" as the US was no longer obviously behind the Soviets, (in fact we looked to be ahead) and part was because Vietnam was taking up more and more financial and physical resources. There were other factors of course, (like a distinct lack of faith in NASA management and loss of confidence in its ability after the Apollo-1 fire) but these were the primary ones.

Straight up technology wise improvements in life support would be required and nuclear propulsion would have been the preferred method but chemical was possible. (Note to fraa Jad; Nuclear propulsion was in fact NOT addressed in the NTBT it only covered nuclear weapons, ROVER/NERVA wasn't shut down fully until 1973) The main problem was it would be anywhere from twice to five times the cost of Apollo depending on who was doing the accounting. While this was long before Zubrin's "Mars Direct" concept, (proposed in the 1990s) there had been planning done on using locally sourced resources to reduce the cost and complexity of the mission, however the number of unknowns about Mars itself limited the viability of such ideas until well into the 80s.

(Strangely enough one of Zubrin's complaints about the massive NASA proposed missions prior to Mars Direct was "that's not how we did Apollo" when in fact that WAS how we did Apollo with the major difference that the NASA plans built up additional orbital and Cis-Lunar infrastructure which would better support many things as well as Mars missions. MD while it does expand somewhat on-Mars infrastructure does nothing to enhance the ability to explore anyplace other than Mars, which at least Zubrin admits since he had no interest in anywhere BUT Mars. The main issue is that Zubrin has a very simplistic view of why Apollo succeeded and it appears almost no idea why it failed. His expectation that simply offering a "low-cost" mission architecture will bypass the need for political and public support as "once we go why would we stop" which was the same fallacy NASA ascribed to in Apollo)

In order for the Space Race to remain "hot" you absolutely have to have it be closer than OTL, which means an earlier and more robust amount of support given to the Soviet space program AND a lot less in-fighting and wasted effort. While single events might generate a short term burst of funding/support, (say the Soviets are successful in performing a Lunar flyby before Apollo-8) they won't generate enough long term support for the US space program. And even if the Soviet efforts are closer it is questionable that even them getting to the Moon first would generate the needed pressure to push the US to Mars. (Being second when we were promised first would be a major blow but it is more likely there would be LESS desire to push on to Mars than one would think even if the Soviets were obviously planning on doing so. Vietnam was a crisis for American morale and this would be even more so which would call into question the basic premise of American Exceptionalism)

And this assumes the Soviets can even think about pushing on which isn't as likely even under the circumstances. They were actually further behind in the needed technologies than the US and for the US this goal is marginal. I'd question the idea that the Soviets would make the effort which would lower the pressure for the US to do so. Further if you have a similar political progression to OTL then the trend will be less to confront the Russians but more to cooperate which would trend towards any 1980s Mars effort being based on a joint mission which frankly is not to the Soviet advantage. Most likely both sides would drag their feet pushing the actual mission into the 1990s and beyond even before Reagan arrives on the scene and likely cancels all cooperation and sends NASA back to square one.

If Vietnam isn't as much of a 'thing' as OTL, (quite possible if Nixon wins over Kennedy in 1960) there might probably be less time pressure on the Lunar goal because Nixon isn't as obligated to make a bold statement as Kennedy was. On the other hand we might have Cuba instead of Vietnam given Nixon's focus and funding might still be an issue. Even without a war on the US plate the President DOES have to stand up to the Russian lead in the space race so we can assume the Moon will be on the table. Sputnik and Gagarin would have made it inevitable that the US would need a clear goal that was obviously beyond the Soviets ability to do with what they had on hand.

One thing to consider is if the US had been the first to put a man in space with Alan Sheppard's suborbital flight which almost happened OTL. While it would reduce the political pressure to "do" something it was also very obviously a "lesser" achievement than Gagarin's orbital flight. Even when Glenn flies into orbit Mercury is obviously less capable than Vostok and this will be showcased as the Russians move to two man flights and space walks. Keep in mind that Gemini was an interim program designed to bridge the capability gap between the "actual" programs of Mercury and Apollo. If the Soviets are more or less as willing to move ahead as OTL then both they and the US might slow the pace as they move from the first generation space vehicles to the next being in this case orbital versions of Soyuz and Apollo and a general cooling off of the overall race itself.

But the OP suggests the Lunar goal is on the table so that obviously happens, (and it could as easily have come from Nixon as it did from Kennedy) but funding and support for Apollo itself had been falling since around 1965 and by 1968/69 Congress had already denied funding for more Saturn's or Apollo spacecraft so your "POD" has to happen before somewhere around 1965. And keeping the Space Race "hot" enough to push a Mars mission is questionable itself.

While achievements in space had been a prestige enhancement in the late 50s and early 60s by the mid-60s being 'first in space' was a lot less obviously a show of a nations "superiority" compared to more 'tangible' and 'real-world' achievements on Earth. The Soviet Union had shocked and frightened the world with their early achievements but once the US had the Saturn-1 and Saturn-V the field appeared much more even and attention focused on more Earth-bound issues. Politics and earthly moves in the Cold War held much more interest to the majority of the public and governments so that once there was any excuse to begin lowering the commitment of funding and effort towards the space program became available reductions began.

This is one of the hardest things for most space advocates to understand even today, most people have only a small interest in space and activities there. Since neither significantly impacts their lives, (even though it arguably does so much more today than in the past) directly there are always other priorities to consider. It was why once "space" had to take an equal place among the other requirements and priorities it has consistently never been as high as during Apollo. To change that requires much more than just the Space Race staying "hot" but includes a personal stake for a much higher percentage of the public, a realistic expectation that they themselves could go, cheap access to space and a compelling reason for continued higher public and governmental interest.

Sparky42 wrote:
If the space race did stay hot and Mars ended up as the goal, given the cost could you see the US trying to expand it to a "Western" space program to spread the costs? An IMM rather than an ISS (obliviously without the Russian involvement)?

One would think so, in fact that was an assumption for a long time but integration and cooperation has a cost as well and often it's higher than going it alone. I would assume we'd see some 'inclusion' of other Western nations for bits and pieces but as they'd not have major inclusion they would be disinclined to invest heavily in the project. Then again the late-60s and early-70s saw a thawing of the Cold War and a joint Mars program would appeal in such a case. However the USSR had always had more to "lose" with the close examination such cooperation would require so it is questionable if they'd agree to actually undertake such a mission. The and the US would probably dabble but put off actual commitment until "later" which probably never comes.


Probably the hardest part of the scenario to achieve is getting the US to commit to a Mars mission as it was always clear the Lunar mission would be a hugely expensive and resource intensive goal in and of itself. Anything beyond that would be massively more so, requiring equally more support and requirement. And they just weren't really there.

To review the points that had brought the US and Kennedy specifically, but Nixon would be in a similar situation, to the point of considering sending men to the Moon when at that point we hadn't even flown one in space. First there was the loss of China to the Communists, followed by the Russian's getting the bomb, then Korea which showed how unprepared the US was to confront a "minor" Communist power let alone the main ones, then the Soviets put up Sputnik and our own 'effort' blew up on the pad live on TV, and finally Gagarin. Arguably most of what the Soviets were doing was pretty limited but in truth the US was actually behind and would not be able to catch up for at least a few more years during which the Soviets would continue to hold the attention of the world. The thing was the US WAS going to catch up and probably surpass the Soviets very soon not only in actual missile capability and probably orbital lift capacity with the Saturn-1. Apollo, still in the planning stages, is going to have far more capability and utility than either Mercury, (an admitted "test" vehicle rather than an operational one) or Vostock but was years away at best.

So the US needed to do "something" to show the world it was not behind the Soviets in science and technology and though Kennedy thought long and hard about adopting a non-space related goal in the end it had to be a direct competition with the Soviets in space. Mercury was too small to cram more people into it and it was very limited by design. A space station was possible with the Saturn-1 to lift it but that was something the Soviets could easily counter by orbital assembly of smaller components. So the Moon looked to be the only goal where the ability of the US to harness industry, resources and finances would be sufficient to achieve it before the Soviets could.

Randy
 
One loophole would be the Russians flying something with an atomic engine to try to scoop the US. Yes, several Russian spy-satellites had an actual nuclear reactor on board, one fell in Canada and took a massive clean-up. IIRC, the Canadians duly billed the Russians, who duly covered the tab...

But, they were generators, not engines...

No in both cases a "reactor" is use the satellite ones were really small though. Both the US and Soviet's switched to solid-state Radioisotope Thermal Generators (RTG) to avoid working with actual reactors though both continued to pursue research. (The US stopped with the SNAP-10 though did some research on a follow on SNAP-100 it never was actually built. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A, The Russian eventually did build bigger reactors, like the one that fell on Canada but RTGs were more compact and easier to use in the end. Problem is they are power limited were as reactors are not) Reactors used in thermal rockets have a MUCH higher (megawatts as compared to kilowatts) thermal and power output capability. Needless to say they are therefore much heavier and harder to shield as a result.

Analogy would be Sputnik 1. Prior to that, as international law stood, every unauthorized (*) over-fly would be 'trespass'. The Russians would have trumpeted the US gall at flouting national borders. Funnily enough, the US didn't complain about such trespass when the Russians did it first, because Sputnik set a legal precedent...

*) IIRC, the US 'scientific' launch team, beset by failures, had tried to negotiate over-fly visas, but few countries wanted to play.

While it's likely that was somewhat of an issue in reality Ike didn't care much for the US satellite effort. He definitely didn't want "that ex-Nazi" to fly a satellite first, (specifically it would appear he not only rejected Von Braun's "Project Orbiter" satellite proposal he also may have sent people t ensure that they didn't 'accidently' launch a satellite) he also didn't provide very much funding or support for the program he DID authorize (Project Vanguard) which came back to bite him when the initial flight failed. While he wanted reconnaissance done of Russia he was to paranoid of the military to actually allow them funding to do much until after Sputnik flew and he was pretty much forced to. (And no the US nor the Soviets actually every "tried" to get over-flight permission because it wasn't actually POSSIBLE to NOT overfly other nations with orbital flights. While the Russians COULD have complained of satellite overflights they didn't have either a legal or actual leg to stand on due to the actual physics of orbital flight. Sputnik made it 'easier' of course and it's likely why there wasn't the push that could have been for the US program. On the other hand the very lack of support and funding pretty much ensured that when it DID happen the US would be significantly behind the Russians at that point and that seems to be something Ike couldn't or wouldn't understand)

Isn't a nuclear thermal rocket a generator in which hydrogen passes through the reactor, though? Nervas* could provide a middle ground between "a more powerful rocket" and "not blowing stuff apart with nuclear bombs", and they were designed in the 1960s.

But I think the problem is also one of planning, as well as testing long term exposure to microgravity. Maybe by the 1990s, assuming there are thirty years of continuous political will?

*NERVA, it's an acronym; "Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Applications-NERVA just so we're clear :)

And yes an NTR, (Nuclear Thermal Rocket) using a 'working fluid' (the lighter the better which is why most used Liquid Hydrogen but other fluids are possible or even gasses as Project Pluto showed with air as the reaction mass) which is pumped through the reactor to be heated and then expelled out the nozzle. Your ISP, (a measure of how 'efficient' a rocket is in thrust per amount of exhaust) with an NTR is far higher than with either a standard chemical rocket, (theoretical best is the mid-400 second mark) or Orion with ISPs in the low 1000s with some designs. Your main issue is the thrust-to-weight, again due to the reactor and support mass. When NERVA was finally canceled in 1972 they already had a couple of designs ready for flight testing but there was no will, (or really need) after Apollo was over.

Didn't NASA have a follow-up program to Apollo called the Apollo Applications Program? I think Skylab came out of that, but I also remember reading that one of the proposed plans was a manned fly-by of Venus that would have taken place in the mid-1970s (when it was first conceived in the mid-60s), and I'm pretty sure they figured they could do it without nuclear propulsion.

Key here was it was a "flyby" so all propulsion was done during departure from Earth. To slow into Mars orbit would require both long-term cryo-propellant storage and maintenance, (which we had no experience with at the time) long efficient, (Hohmann type orbits) which would require long-term life support systems which we also had no experience with. Both the proposed Mars and Venus, (and they even proposed a combined flyby of both which actually was faster than doing just one) could be 'brute-forced' with the life support requirements because they didn't need to slow down or park in orbit for any length of time. Nuclear propulsion allowed a bit faster transit time but due to the on-orbit mass was higher was going to be costlier than a flyby. (To be honest either was going to be much more expensive than Apollo even for a limited set of missions. It actually got more so as the number of planned missions went down)

Now an interesting "take" on flyby was called the "Flyby-Landing Excursion Mode", (yes that's FLEM... Who says engineers have no sense of humor... Or should not be allowed to come up with their own acronyms at any rate, see here: https://www.wired.com/2014/01/to-mars-by-flyby-landing-excursion-mode-flem-1966/ ) which did some juggling with the standard assumptions of the day to allow a faster and more economical, (using the word loosely here) mission. The problem is you're still talking a LOT of money and support of which there wasn't any post, (heck pre-landing) Apollo.

If they had gone ahead with it, and the mission was successful, it would seem likely that the next step would be a similar manned fly-by of Mars. OTL 1968's Apollo 8 mission was essentially a manned fly-by of the moon; assuming they still did that mission in this new timeline, then manned fly-bys might become standard operating procedure for NASA.

Problem is it probably would NOT have been a success as we had by the early 70s just begun to realize how much we didn't know about interplanetary travel. Specifically there was a huge solar flare that would have killed any astronauts on the way to Moon, let alone Mars, or Venus and though we'd estimated and planned for shielding on the basis of what we knew it was as that point we knew we needed to know a lot more.

And to make a point Apollo 8 was NOT a "flyby" at all. It was specifically a mission where they went into orbit by using the SM propulsion to both brake into Lunar orbit and to leave again. This was a major 'point' because the best the Soviets could do at the time, (in a single launch)WAS a flyby and NASA was specifically making that point. (There was a lot of concern that the Russians would try and 'preempt' the mission by doing just that)

That being said, it takes a lot longer to fly to Venus or Mars than it does to the Moon, and a manned mission like this would be planned out years in advance. I could see the first manned fly-by occurring in the 1980s, but I agree with Juanml82 above (who made his post while I was typing this one), that the 1990s are a more realistic timescale. It would be a real challenge to land men on Mars in time for the 20th anniversary of the moon landing in 1989.

Given enough money and support? An exact analogy of Apollo to Mars could happen in the 70s but is unlikely due to the above factors and most likely wouldn't happen till the 80s at best. Any less funding-and/or-support and the earliest is probably the 90s if it happens at all before 'now' ITTL. Again assuming some sort of at least marginally "Apollo" like funding and support it should become very clear very early on that repeating Apollo isn't a very sustainable or desirable mission model. Apollo is to "goal" orientated and not able to support in any sustainable or affordable way a continuing space program. That's one thing I don't understand how Zubrin and most of the vehement Mars Direct supporters can't (or won't) see. Sure it 'costs' more in the long run, (way more than a single decade) to build up and utilize an interplanetary infrastructure transport and support network but you then HAVE that infrastructure transport and support network whereas "direct" doesn't. Eventually you could get close with "direct" but you self-limit to a single destination which no matter how you try and justify it IS only a single destination and even then is limited by the amount you can launch on any single 'mission' thereafter. Sure the focus on ISRU* finally got people attention but it was/is a 'one-trick-pony' without a broader vison and overall goal. Go big or stay home, don't "settle" for a single destination when you can aim for the stars!

Randy
*ISRU was actually broadly discussed in the early 1960s but like everything else that got pushed aside by the "waste-anything-but-time" rush that was the Apollo to the Moon program, (and again, why would anyone assume that repeating the same "program" would result in a different outcome?) it got shelved and "rediscovered" all over again. Apollo has had a great effect on how people, even space cadets like me, "view" how space exploration could have and should have been done. And frankly not in a good way. Lets face some facts here, without fully understanding or knowing much about space travel the early pioneers and thinkers made some very valid and far reaching assumptions that we today have forgotten and/or dismissed because they don't "fit" our own assumptions and bias'.

Basing there plans on loose-analogies, (and there's another issue with how we 'think' today, or analogies tend to be much more direct and therefore much more incorrect than we like to admit :) ) to the age of sail exploration and discovery they "assumed" that initially there would be limited visits bringing most of our supplies with us. Followed by later expeditions using local resources to supplement and expand our efforts as we went along. That meant "ships" that were used multiple times not just thrown away every time and building and using a network of stations, depots and other infrastructure that supported and expanded out capability as we went along. And like all analogies it had issues when compared to reality but that's why it was "loose" and admittedly so. Getting to the Moon in a "decade" has given us the false sense that we can do anything given sufficient support and funding and while that's TRUE in general, if you look at it directly you can't help but understand that the LEVEL of support and funding needed was truly huge AND rather obviously unsupportable over time. People complain we haven't been back to the Moon in almost 50 years but fail to realize that this was actually pretty much 'on-schedule' for early assumptions. First we needed to built and develop a surface to orbit and orbital infrastructure allowing us to go back and forth in an affordable manner and that would be extended to the Moon and all Cis-Lunar space over the next 50 years after the first people in orbit. Then maybe by the end of the 'century' from that point we'd be going to Mars on a regular basis... (And really most people thought Von Braun was a bit of an optimist about that idea and probably we wouldn't go to Mars till well into the 21s Century or later... Funny that :) )
 
Bit of a necro but I've found another paper from 1963 which discuss' another version of "FLEM" of a sort...
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19650076423.pdf

Unlike FLEM this proposes a more "Mars Direct" (or current NASA baseline) mission where the "flyby" return craft is sent earlier on a longer, more economical orbit while the Mars Excursion Module, (MEM) does a 'dash' directly to the surface of Mars. Note it does not go into much detail on the overall mission being focused on the design requirements for the MEM based on mission type but it DOES plan on using "existing" Apollo hardware as a basis.

Randy
 
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