Earliest Manned Mars Mission

As I recall, the problem with a Mars mission has not been a lack of technology so much as the fact that the cost was estimated at being in the trillions, and there has yet to be a horribly compelling reason to spend that much money to get to Mars.

The best PoD I could think of for an earlier Mars mission is for the Space Race to escalate, perhaps the Soviets respond to the US getting first to the moon by declaring that they'll be first to Mars?
 
From universe today:

"Plainly put, with our current capabilities, a large, heavy vehicle, streaking through Mars’ thin, volatile atmosphere only has about ninety seconds to slow from Mach 5 to under Mach 1, change and re-orient itself from a being a spacecraft to a lander, deploy parachutes to slow down further, then use thrusters to translate to the landing site and finally, gently touch down."
 
Is the assumption of the nay-sayers that air-recycling and water-recycling degrades over time ? So, that after some months the ability to recycle is reduced in both the percentage that is handled, and in the quality of the output ? If so, then is it a fatal degredation ?

It's a good question. The short answer is, we don't know.

Nobody has yet tried to run air- and water-recycling systems on these scales. By "these scales" I mean time (long) and mass (very low).

The total mass of the spacecraft is going to be tiny -- some tens of tons. Mars Direct, for instance, assumes about 45 tons, of which about 11 tons is disposable food. That leaves thirty-some tons for everything else.

Thirty tons is really dinky. It's about the mass of an eighteen-wheeler truck carrying a moderate load. And that's got to include everything -- crew, solar panels, exercise equipment, radiation shelter. It's not very much.

Time: Mars Direct assumes six months to reach Mars, 18 months on Mars, and 8 months to come back. There has been only one attempt to run a closed system over a time scale of many months: Biosphere Two. And B2 was over 100 times bigger than the proposed Mars spacecraft. It was a huge building the size of a football field, filled with ponds, trees, pipes, machinery, and hundreds of tons of rock and soil. The damn thing had a coral reef inside, complete with wave generator. And they still ran into serious problems with their recycling: within a couple of months, oxygen levels had dropped by nearly half, while CO2 levels fluctuated wildly.

Biosphere 2's first mission lasted one year, but they had to inject additional oxygen twice. Even so, most of the vertebrate species died, and the environment inside was seriously degraded. There's universal agreement that the air inside was getting pretty stinky. Unfortunately, by the end of the first year, the B2 science -- never good -- was getting pretty sloppy, so AFAIK there isn't a detailed analysis of what was going wrong. (Yes, B2 involved some grotesquely wasted opportunities. Don't get me started.) But things were definitely going from bad to worse.

A Mars mission habitat would be less than 1/100 of the size of Biosphere 2 and would last about three times as long. We simply do not have that technology right now. We don't even know what might go wrong. It's like a guy in 1890 speculating about airplanes.

So, no Mars mission is going to be plausible until we have such systems. And it's going to take a while to develop them, and then another while to test them. Someone will have to be locked up in a little room for a year or two. And we're not even close to being able to do that yet.

If you want a guess, I'd say we're 10-15 years away.


Doug M.
 
AFAIK, the reason Biosphere Two kept mysteriously 'losing' oxygen was because it was being soaked up by the concrete which formed much of the structure. This wasn't realised by the people inside, because none of them were structural engineers, but it turned out afterwards that concrete soaks up oxygen from the surrounding atmosphere for years after it's set. This is something apparently the builders didn't think to mention to them, I don't know why.
Maybe the builders didn't know the big greenhouse-like thing they were building was going to be air-tight; maybe it hadn't occurred to them that this curing process would be a problem. Hell, for all I know, its as simple as 'nobody asked'.
 
If you want a guess, I'd say we're 10-15 years away.

That's why NASA is planning on going back to the moon before attempting a manned Mars mission. They recognize that they really don't know for sure how to get to Mars, but recognize that the starship (I use that word on purpose since a Mars mission will require a true starship, not just a spacecraft) that they will have to design will have to comepletely self sufficient. for long periods of time. They also need to reteach themselves how to conduct planetary exploration.
 
If NASA didn't have a stop-start approach to it vehicles/missions they would be further along the path to going to Mars in 1975 than we are today. The later moon missions 16-18 could have been long duration stay missions and 2 Skylabs could have kept people in space for extended periods of time. Enhanced Saturns would give an extra 50% lift to LEO over the moon versions. I think it would be achieveable to build a Mars capability on top of this exellent foundation, the way Apollo built on the success of Gemini.
 
I won't disagree with that. The problem was that NASA wanted Skylab AND the Space Shuttle. Congress told them that they could have one or the other, but not both. The idea was that Skyalb would provide a place for the Space Shuttle to go to, however, the underestimated the impace of atmospheric drag on the Skylab and it burned up in the atmosphere before the Shuttle was ready. Because it can take so long to develope spacecraft to point where they are flyable, I think what needs to be done to place NASA outside the usual channels that are available to government agencies and give the Agency access to funding that the govenrment will never touch. I don't know exactly what this would be or how it would be accomplished, but I think that is what needs to happen.
 
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It is true that recycling equipment isn't up to scratch but that doesn't matter so much. The main concern is shielding against radiation.
If you had a lot of money you could launch a lot of supplies and shielding and assemble a huge ship in space. I'd say... '89ish.
 
It is true that recycling equipment isn't up to scratch but that doesn't matter so much. The main concern is shielding against radiation.
If you had a lot of money you could launch a lot of supplies and shielding and assemble a huge ship in space. I'd say... '89ish.

Bush I tried to get NASA funding to do that too, around 88 or 89 if I remember correctly, but Congress turned the idea down flat when they found out that the proposed program was going to cost $400 billion.
 
Mike, You are thinking of a long time during the 70s when Skylab was still up and the Shuttle was under development and assumed to be ready in enough time to rescue Skylab. I'm thinking earlier than that, to the decisions to stop Apollo missions, cancel Saturn production and develop a shuttle. If later Apollo missions were expanded into long stay types, and a 2nd batch of Saturns were built far more impressive set of capabilities would exist in a time IOTL when NASA do no flying for 6 years.
 
With a POD after 1945?

Right around now.

A manned Mars mission is bitchin' hard. We do not, repeat, do not currently have the recycling technology to keep a man alive in a plausibly sized spacecraft for two years. We're not even close. We might have the technology in a decade if we pursued it full-blast; 20 years seems more likely.


Doug M.

Use a nuclear thermal rocket and it won't be a two year mission. You can get to Mars in 3 months with that.
 
Use a nuclear thermal rocket and it won't be a two year mission. You can get to Mars in 3 months with that.

Yeah, I've heard that as well. Supposedly the plan was to equip a Saturn V S-IVB with a NERVA engine and go to Mars. The first test was supposed to be in 1972. However with the cancellation of Apollos 18 through 20, it was felt that a nuclear Saturn V was unnecessary and the project was cancelled. And I that that will be one of the big problems with a Mars shot. Due to the length of the mission and the distance that a Mars-bound starship will have to travel, a nuclear powered space is a necessity and therein lies the problem, as the public is automatically leary about the idea of nuclear reactors in space, even though space certified atomic piles are some of the safest in the world.
 
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Bush I tried to get NASA funding to do that too, around 88 or 89 if I remember correctly, but Congress turned the idea down flat when they found out that the proposed program was going to cost $400 billion.

How much? I'm assuming that's not a typo, and they really did propose a programme costing $four hundred billion?

No politician, however much a space enthusiast they might be, is going to agree to that sort of figure. I think I have heard something about this before. Wasn't this where they essentially said 'well, we want to build a space station, and a space shuttle, and a moon-orbiting space station, and a moon lander, and a moon base, and a Mars mission, and...'
 
How much? I'm assuming that's not a typo, and they really did propose a programme costing $four hundred billion?

No politician, however much a space enthusiast they might be, is going to agree to that sort of figure. I think I have heard something about this before. Wasn't this where they essentially said 'well, we want to build a space station, and a space shuttle, and a moon-orbiting space station, and a moon lander, and a moon base, and a Mars mission, and...'

Some estimates put the War in Iraq at around 450 billion.;)
 
Some estimates put the War in Iraq at around 450 billion.;)

Oh, sure. But that's a war, its different somehow. Maybe its because it achieves something concrete.

Hang on...:confused:

Anyway, my point was that $400 billion is a stupendous amount of money, even for an economy as large as the US, even if it was over - say - 20 years (I have no idea what length of time that sum was proposed for).

I think the best time to get the backing and funding for a Mars mission may well have been no later than the mid-60s. Why?

1. Saturn V design was finalised, Saturn V was beginning to be built. The best time to gain political support for a Mars programme is surely when a run of heavy-lift launchers are being built anyway. Although it would be necessary to upgrade Saturn V to support a Mars programme, as I said earlier up the thread, there were many good ideas on how to up the payload of the Saturn V for a projected second production run.
2. At the time, it would still have been rather unclear how close the Soviets were to beating the US to the Moon. Mars may have been attractive as a mid- to long-term contingency plan, so that even if the Soviets won the Moon race, it would be the US who would have shown true foresight and technological capability by getting to Mars.

Maybe if we also have a POD of the Vietnam War either not happening, not becoming as intense, or simply not involving the US to such a degree. AFAIK this quote is accurate:
"The financial cost to the United States comes to something over $150 billion dollars. Direct American involvement began in 1955 with the arrival of the first advisors. The first combat troops arrived in 1965 and we fought the war until the cease-fire of January 1973." (From http://www.vietnamwar.com/)
I'm not going to go on with this for much longer, but I do believe that, had the US not become involved in Vietnam to any large degree, there would have been the funding available for major US space efforts post-Apollo, and - perhaps - the sense of optimism necessary for the American public to back such a project. This requires a POD of 1965 or before, since this is when the first combat troops were sent. Advisers are one thing, but it is much harder to be seen to pull out of an overt military commitment to a friendly nation.
 
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There hasn't been much mention of the Stephen Baxter scenario; ie. extended Saturn run, moon orbit Skylab, multi tank S2 trans-Mars stage, Venus flyby trajectory.
 
one
the NASA funding
if the Vietnamwar end in 1968

OTL Nixon with help of diplomat Henry Kissinger to sabotage the 1968 Paris peace talks!
so Nixon get better Position for United States presidential election of 1968. the Vietnamwar end only in 1973.

Between 1964 and 1973 the United States spent on the war. $120 billion in 1969 dollars (or $450 Billion in 2007 Dollars)
a war end of 1968 save $75 billion (in 1969 dollars)
the TOTAL Apollo Program cost $25.4 billion (in 1969 dollars)
TOTAL = Mercury, Gemini, Apollo Program, build Kennedy Space center, development of New Technolgy and Spacecraft and Test it.
so follow up Apollo Programm like the Apollo Applications Program in 1970s is Cheap so $5-10 Billion (in 1969 dollars)

SO DO SPACE FLIGHT NOT WAR !

two
Use a nuclear thermal rocket and it won't be a two year mission. You can get to Mars in 3 months with that.
NO
with Nuclear Fusion Rocket you get to Mars in 3 months
with nuclear thermal rocket you can reduce the Amount of Fuel (for 150 day trip to Mars)
a Robert Zubrin singel NTR Mars Direct Mission need One Saturn V ! (NTR use Marsatmosphere Co2 as Fuel for return trip!!!)
see Rocket ENGINE LIST
see MISSION DELTA V AND FLIGHT TIMES
see WORKED EXAMPLE

exampel
NTR with LH2 = 8093 m/s | NTR with Co2 = 3306 m/s Exhaust velocity. (enough to escape Earth an Mars Gravitation field)
Orion Fission Puls = 43000 m/s Exhaust velocity.
Orion Fusion Puls = 73000 m/s Exhaust velocity. (lets visit Pluto)
Hydrogen-Boron Fusion = 980000 m/s Exhaust velocity. (bye bye Solarsystem Hello Alpha Centaury)

To Orion Nuclear Puls Drive
a 4000 Ton Mars Ship has a Payload of 2300 Ton !
who heavy is Biosphere 2 ???
 
How much? I'm assuming that's not a typo, and they really did propose a programme costing $four hundred billion?

No politician, however much a space enthusiast they might be, is going to agree to that sort of figure. I think I have heard something about this before. Wasn't this where they essentially said 'well, we want to build a space station, and a space shuttle, and a moon-orbiting space station, and a moon lander, and a moon base, and a Mars mission, and...'

No that's not a typo. I wrote a paper in high school about futurism for a sociology class, which is how I came across that little tidbit of information. Bush I really did try to send Americans to Mars to tune of half a trillion dollars, but as I said Congress thought that that was WAY too much money for a Mars program and issued a flat refusal.
 

Thande

Donor
It is true that recycling equipment isn't up to scratch but that doesn't matter so much. The main concern is shielding against radiation.
If you had a lot of money you could launch a lot of supplies and shielding and assemble a huge ship in space. I'd say... '89ish.

From what I've read the radiation danger has been wildly exaggerated. Of course a three-year round trip to Mars is considerably more exposure than a few days around and on the moon, though.
 
From what I've read the radiation danger has been wildly exaggerated. Of course a three-year round trip to Mars is considerably more exposure than a few days around and on the moon, though.
It could be six weeks round trip with Orion, though.
 
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