Time to finally abandon the Apollo paradigm. It was a success in terms of winning the brief “space race,” but when it came to opening up space, it was an utter failure, and I agree with Paul — Mars is a planet too far right now, and such a mission would result in another false start, even if successful. We need to focus on developing the infrastructure needed to affordably go beyond earth orbit, regardless of ultimate destination. Of the options being considered by the Augustine panel, “Flexible path” offers the most promise in that regard.
12 thoughts on “It’s Been Forty Years”
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1 – “To go carefully and slowly, to all stepping stones” (current NASA policy)
2 – “To go BOLDLY, to Mars and STAY” (My policy)
Pick your rally cry, from the above.
One would create new heroes for our age, the other would not.
One will have China or Zimbabwe greet the first Americans to Mars, the other …
One will have China or Zimbabwe greet the first Americans to Mars,
Neither of those countries, but particularly the latter, is likely to get to Mars any time soon. Or even the moon.
There is a Sci-fi ABC TV series that just started up called Defying Gravity. It is up on Hulu right now:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1449510/
The mission is to circle the solar system and swing by a number of planets on their 6 year mission. Although at some point in the past of the current setting of the story (2052) they already did a mission to Mars. Interestingly they lost 2 astronauts on the Mars mission and it appears to have not derailed the entire space program. They also use Delta rockets to get into space. It has a bit of a Lost vibe to it. It could be interesting.
My “Zimbabwe” reference was to say that with current NASA policy it will be a long, long, long, long time before the United States gets another astronaut to Luna or any astronaut Mars.
p.s. Zimbabwe was selected because it was a country that would be in my “country least likely to” category. Which just happens to be the same category that current NASA policy places the United States.
A gravity tractor mission offers a “flexible path” opportunity to integrate a number of critical technology steps.
Whether we use EELV or a Jupiter LV (lets avoid that argument for now) an NEO gravity tractor could be assembled in LEO and fueled via propellant transfer. Then it is sent to rendezvous with the chosen NEO. Hopefully one with little chance of actually striking Earth, in case we make mistakes with the calculations.
Practice using the gravity tractor to deflect trajectories and use that gravity tractor as a forward operating base for future robotic and human examination of that NEO, whether for science or resource extraction. Or both.
Seems to me that such a mission covers many bases with a single throw and takes a tangible step towards deploying a genuine defensive system against future Tunguska events.
I’m not sure I want the government taking the lead on a Mars mission but I think calling it a bridge too far is amazingly short sighted.
We are much better prepared for a Mars mission today than we were for a Moon mission in the sixties. While a Saturn V or Nova class vehicle might be a nice to have for a Mars mission; existing and soon to be available launch vehicles could easily do the job (especially with fuel depot support which NASA could take the lead on right now.)
The thing that will make a Mars mission obvious is to build a real long duration spaceship (which never lands and lasts with upgrades for generations.) We could do this now and the economic incentive already exists. Build it and you could sell tickets to any destination in the inner solar system (from Mercury to the Belt.) It should have a permanent crew (they never land either except when replaced) of about three I’d say with a passenger capacity of 10 to 20 depending on destination.
Selling tickets to take NASA to moon orbit would be one source of revenue. Paint the interior of one habitat green and movie production could finally do space operas that don’t require the antigrav technology fantasy (so they really could defy gravity.)
Mission design becomes a lot easier if fixed price passenger tickets are part of the mix. It eliminates the destination argument as well… let’s just go everywhere (but Mars is still the best place to establish a colony and get the solar economy into high gear at the fastest pace IMHO.)
One will have China or Zimbabwe greet the first Americans to Mars,
Neither of those countries, but particularly the latter, is likely to get to Mars any time soon. Or even the moon.
I wouldn’t be so quick to write off Zimbabwe, Rand. After all, Obama is following Zimbabwe’s economic policies (massive spending, printing lots of money, taking from the rich, rewarding political cronies, etc.). We have commenters here who assure us that Obama can’t possibly be wrong, after all. Since Zimbabwe started these policies years before us, then it stands to reason they’ll be a booming economy before us, too. By this line of reasoning, they’ll be able to afford a Mars mission before we do. Obama can’t possibly be wrong, can he?
Private companies will soon be able to get people to orbit and back. A private company could produce a spaceship selling passenger tickets. NASA could then focus on the science of living in space and other worlds.
Unmanned habitats, landers and provisions can be sent ahead on existing vehicles to any destination. Getting to the destinations orbit is a fixed ticket price.
It might take four dragon flights to get all passengers to an orbiting spaceship. Perhaps another for crew rotation (one crew goes first during the few months of prep for flight stage, another for the actual flight.) Along with operational fuel depots you have enough economic incentive for dozens of companies to take part.
The spaceship should have thousands of cubic meters of interior space and engine modules that can be unbolted for upgrades.
Currently prices seem to indicate a BA330 module could be put in orbit for about 200 million. I think that could be cut in half or less with the volume discount a 2 to 4 thousand cubic meter interior a spaceship would require.
Don’t forget Heinlein’s remark – When you’re in Earth orbit, you’re halfway to anywhere.
It’s not clear that ‘Defying Gravity’ is all that good…
http://io9.com/5329342/defying-gravity-sinks-to-earth-under-the-weight-of-bad-drama
…and my single biggest problem with it (as with its predicesor ‘Voyage to the Planets and Beyond’) is *why* one would want to conduct a single manned mission to almost every major body in this solar system, rather than multiple individually targeteed missions?
(Were it *another* solar system, at the end of an interstellar voyage, and one had to get the most exploration bang for the buck before returning, I’d cut them that particular slack.)
Also, I don’t think the producers were trying to say anything about Delta’s potential as a manned launcher, it was more likely just good generic ‘rocket launch’ footage of something that most viewers would not recognize, unlike a Shuttle or Saturn.
Yea, I agree there are issues with the acting on Defying Gravity and other technical squabbles. However, there needs to be a bridging in the gap of the public sentiment about what we are doing in space, how we are getting there, and where we are going. It would seem to me that destinations stand out foremost in people’s minds at the moment. IMHO, no one will be happy until we have the Mars thing under our belt and out of the way. Then we can settle in for extended duration stays of a general fact finding purpose. That was the part I thought interesting in the show that it was after we got to Mars that a fly through of the inner solar system was the next step and not the other way around.
It is disconcerting to see another sci-fi show about a small group of gov’t employees out on a grand space romp. However, just think of the high flight rates needed to build that megalith exploration craft. The small army of orbital construction engineers and the depots used to construct and supply the operation. At least the Antares appears to be modular in its nature but they don’t really get into how it got up there. I did chuckle though when i saw that after 40 years we would still be using expendables. I thought, “My god the ocean must be littered with propellant tanks”.
“I did chuckle though when i saw that after 40 years we would still be using expendables.”
Yeah that occurred to me, with reference to the ‘Delta’ launch, just after I’d made my post. *Surely* there would be assorted kinds of RLVs by that time, especially for the assembly of a larger craft of clearly modular nature (and assorted other applications). They seem to have gone to a pretty good CGI house for Antares, a reasonably believable single or two stage craft (in place of the Delta launch scene) couldn’t be that hard to do…