A post that starts out discussing how many members the Mars Society has devolves into claims of how much Martian missions will cost.
The cost to the Moon ($150-300 B)or to Mars ($599-899 B, just small change for the better feeling) covers the round trips and the base setup for a period of 20-30 years. It would no longer be to plant a flag there stuff as the last lunar trip did. The cost is the stay and the development the new world for a period of 20-30 years each in this century. For the return to the Moon, it would cost $10-12 B each year for the 20-30 years period. For the Mars cost, it would cost $20-30 B or more each year for the period of 20-30 years.
When I see thing like this, I just shake my head. Beware prognosticators bearing costs of space activities.
No one knows, particularly because the activity itself is often ill defined, but even if not, such estimates do not, because they cannot, take into account future changes in technology, and particularly future changes in launch costs that may arise from much greater private activity. They also often make foolish assumptions about no propellant depots, and multiple launches of a heavy lifter, etc.
John Mankins offers a useful corrective, one comment later:
I’d like to make just a general observation about this topic: there is no one “firm fixed price” way to explore and develop a frontier. There are NO “prix fixe” menus for the future.
However, there are lots, and lots of choices. As it happens, some of these yield lower costs, others yield greater accomplishments, and still others result in faster (or slower) schedules. Examples include:
– What kind of propulsion will be used?
– How many crew members will go on what missions?
– Will we use local re-fueling of vehicles?
– Will missions systems be expendable or reusable?
– Will the program employ ISRU (in situ resource utilization), and if so, how soon?
– Will electrical power cost $100 per kilowatt-hour, or $0.10 per kilowatt-hour?
– Will life support closed or open?
– Will robotic systems be autonomous? capable of learning? or teleoperated? or…?etc., etc., etc.
There are two extremes to avoid. First, we should never assume that future exploration missions will be “too cheap to meter” in order to make a sale to Congress. And Second, we should never claim that human exploration missions will be unimaginably expensive as a means of indirectly supporting other goals in space.
The space community can be its own worst enemy: we cannot allow this to happen.
We should try to stay focused on the goal of extending human presence and activity into space — using both robots and humans — and work constantly to make the accomplishment of that goal as affordable, beneficial and rapid as possible through aggressive innovation, appropriate technology advancements, and well-managed systems projects…
Not to mention a much greater utilization of the private sector, and particularly that portion of the private sector whose goal is to go to Mars (e.g., SpaceX).
What would the government do if it looked like a private sector entity might beat it to Mars? Awfully easy and, for them, tempting to put up barriers or somehow co-opt the effort.
Fast, good and cheap – pick any two. (Stolen from a bulletin board in a software development company.)
A rational government, of course, would applaud them and pay them to take their own scientists along next time (certainly some other institution or entity would).
In any case, it would be very hard for Congress (save perhaps for those with major bucks being spent on the government’s Mars project in their state/district, if there is one in development at the time) to support an active shutdown of a private Mars project. We get pretty much all the benefits we anticipate from such a thing, without spending one tax dollar for a superb American accomplishment.
(And if it’s not a US entity doing it, then what ‘the government’ thinks would be irrelevant anyway, except perhaps to, for some insane reason, restrain any US citizens from participating in it…)
In other words, the minimum one could expect is polite applause…
Fast, good and cheap – pick any two. (Stolen from a bulletin board in a software development company.)
Yeah, Chris, it would be ridiculous to expect technology to get better, faster, and cheaper. Clearly, the computer industry is proof that can’t happen! 🙂
Do you believe everything you read on bulletin boards?
Edward Wright – it might have helped if I typed it correctly. The saying was “good, fast, cheap – pick any two.”
It meant that, for any project from coding software to sending men to Mars, you couldn’t do it fast, cheap AND good. It was either fast and good, but not cheap, or cheap and good, but not fast… you get the picture.
Frank Glover,
I was thinking about the government putting up regulatory barriers of some sort or clouding the legal rights of a company that landed people on Mars first. There’s also the possibility of interfering for national security reasons.
It meant that, for any project from coding software to sending men to Mars, you couldn’t do it fast, cheap AND good.
I know you meant it, Chris — and it’s still nonsense. Numerous projects have been done fast, cheap, and “good.”
This is like your infamous statement that no one ever volunteered for anything unless it was to get a free t-shirt. Just because you don’t know how to do something does not mean it can’t be done.
KC on NASA Watch had some nicely snarky comments about the Mars Society and how it inflates its membership count.
I prefer Henry Spencers’ varient. Fast, cheap, good, same old management, pick any three.
If you want a glimpse into the mind of Keith Cowing read my last 3-4 posts in Rands “HTML Deleted” post. I added to it this weekend after an incident I experienced with Cowing.
As for Mars, I believe a manned Mars base could probably be established for considerably less than 500 billion. But only if it were a not a government ran undertaking.
1. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if NASA-supporting Representatives and Senators erected regulatory barriers to a private company beating them to either the Moon of Mars. NASA is a government agency and private companies rarely make up enough of one district to cause an opposing faction to whatever the NASA-supporters want to railroad through. I wouldn’t take that danger lightly.
2. Working in software, I’ve also heard the “good, fast, and cheap; pick two” saying. Computers make things cheaper than non-computers, but “good” software is usually more expensive than lower-quality software. You don’t get a Google without serious investments in routing infrastruture, new in-memory storage for the indexes, massive facilities for the servers, etc. It’s very expensive to get high-quality software that runs quickly.
Also, it’s important to remember that in the phrase “good, fast, and cheap”, the “fast” really should be “soon”. Fast-performing software is a quality metric and falls under “good”. Or, at least, that’s how I understand it.
“I was thinking about the government putting up regulatory barriers of some sort or clouding the legal rights of a company that landed people on Mars first. There’s also the possibility of interfering for national security reasons.”
I’m sure they could somehow produce the authority to do so, I was exploring the motivations not to. Essentially the public (with space enthusiasts leading the charge) would likely have a response to the effect of:
“Hey, these guys did (or are about to do) something you want to do yourselves, but without a dime from us…and you want to shut them down?”
What you hear is the sound of government credibility descending a few more notches. Hopefully it would be seen for the state-sanctioned act of envy that it is.
Painting a Mars mission as a threat to national security is conceivable, but might even be entertaining in an absurd, barely keep a straight face, ‘do you really believe what you’re saying?’ sort of way…
All the government would have to do to stop or seriously hamper a private manned mission to Mars (or even a sample return mission) would be to make them file endless environmental impact statements about the possible danger to the Earth’s biosphere. Government bureaucrats can delay projects for years just with paperwork while driving up the costs for no good reason.
Sigh, you miss it entirely. There pro-robots element DOESN’T want people in space. They don’t have a goal, “We should try to stay focused on the goal of extending human presence and activity into space.” They just want to slake their own curiosity.