This WaPo piece by Joel Achenbach has something missing:
The panel will give the administration a menu of options that includes some that require a boost in funding for human spaceflight, which currently costs a little less than $10 billion a year, including the shuttle, the station and the Constellation program. Those options will include variations of a lunar program — the committee appears to prefer to see astronauts making sorties to various locations on the moon rather than concentrating on a single outpost at the moon’s pole, which is the current plan.
The committee is clearly most animated by what it calls the “Deep Space” option, a strategy that emphasizes getting astronauts far beyond low Earth orbit but not necessarily plunking them down on alien worlds. Instead, the Deep Space strategy would send them to near-Earth asteroids and to gravitationally significant points in space, known as Lagrange points, that are beyond the Earth’s protective magnetosphere.
Astronauts might even go all the way to Phobos, a tiny moon of Mars, where the spaceship wouldn’t land so much as rendezvous, in the same way a spacecraft docks at the International Space Station. That might seem a long way to go without touching down on the planet below. But the Deep Space option steers clear of “gravity wells,” which is to say the surface of any planet or large moon. The energy requirements of going up and down those steep gravity hills are so great that it would take many heavy-lift rocket ships to carry supplies and fuel on a mission to the Martian surface. A human landing on Mars is presently beyond NASA’s reach under any reasonable budgetary scenario, the committee has determined.
Note that there is absolutely no discussion of refueling, though that was a key feature of several of the Augustine options. The piece seems to be entirely focused (as the press tends to do, in its simplistic reporting) on destinations, and their various attributes, desirable or otherwise. This notion of a “long way to go without touching down on the planet below” seems to be an artifact of limited imagination.
First of all, once you’re at Phobos, if you send the right equipment, you might in fact be able manufacture the propellant needed to descend to the surface, manufacture propellant there, and come back up. The additional mass needed to do this would be trivial, compared to the IMLEO (initial mass in low earth orbit) required to do a Mars landing staged from earth. All it would take is a refuelable lander, and the equipment necessary to process the asteroid (which is what Phobos or Deimos are, other than their location).
But beyond that, what’s wrong with Phobos? I think that John Logsdon’s attitude is blinkered as well (not that that would be anything new):
Any strategy going forward must cope with the obvious problem that the United States has already visited the moon, and the solar system offers earthlings few other appealing places to go that are anywhere close at hand. Logsdon said he wasn’t sure that the Deep Space option, with its emphasis on “flybys” rather than landings, would be easy to sell to the public.
“I wonder myself if just flying around and not landing anywhere would be very attractive,” he said.
This from a guy who has never expressed any interest or desire to go himself, but thinks he knows what people want from a space program. First of all, you aren’t “not landing anywhere.” You are landing on frickin’ Phobos. The fact that it’s a lot easier than having to descend into a gravity well doesn’t make it less interesting. Yes, obviously, most people would rather walk on Mars, but (at least in NASA’s plans) most people aren’t going to be able to do any of these things. And on such a huge planet, even if someone lands on Mars, will it be the most interesting part of Mars? Not initially. Armstrong and Aldrin landed in the Sea of Tranquility not for any particular points of interest, but because it was the biggest flattest mare they knew of on the near side. It’s not like the first Mars explorers are going to climb Olympus Mons.
Seeing the earth from ISS, through glass and with their own eyes, unfiltered by electronics, is the most fascinating thing that astronauts there do. Why would we think that looking at Mars from Phobos would be of any less interest?
While I’m not that big on the voyeurism inherent in the NASA human spaceflight program as currently executed, I would think that having humans orbiting the Red Planet, and reporting back their experiences in their own words, would be pretty damned exciting (though I’d hope that given how picky they can be about astronaut selection, one of the criteria they would use was communications ability and articulateness, and even poetic ability — a lot of astronauts are good at this, but many aren’t, and when they are, it seems to be accidental, e.g., Mike Collins). There is no reason that you should have to descend into a deep gravity well to make deep space exploration exciting, and I tire of the notion that there is.
I’d support sending NASA to Phobos.
Let private players deploy the cis-lunar infrastructure needed to develop the Moon as proposed by Marburger/Wingo/Spudis.
While I’m not that big on the voyeurism inherent in the NASA human spaceflight program as currently executed
I remember back when one of those rovers first landed on Mars. There was a JPL controller gushing about how wonderful it all was, how it was as good as being there. Huh? Watching a glorified videogame or RC car on a TV screen is not the same as being there. Did he take vacations by watching Imax travelogues? It’s that sort of limited, failed vision that has got NASA into its current mess.
Landing on frickin’ Phobos would be pretty awesome. And you could do lot better job operating a robotic rover on the Martian Surface if you weren’t at the end of the Earth/Mars signal lag.
And you could do lot better job operating a robotic rover on the Martian Surface if you weren’t at the end of the Earth/Mars signal lag.
In addition, sample return would be considerably easier. The transport from Mars to Phobos just needs to be considered as it can be assumed the transport from Phobos to Earth is already a sunk cost.
There is also opportunity for optimization of samples returned to Earth as sorting could be done on Phobos by humans so that precious weight is not wasted on less interesting specimens that do manage to make it off the surface of Mars.
Phobos probably has copious amounts of ice. The Russian probe “Phobos 2” even detected what probably was H2O outgassing. The upcoming Russian-Chinese probe Phobos-Grunt (funny name, but it means “Phobos soil”) launching (I hope) in 2011 may help nail down the presence of ice. I wonder how accessible the ice is, I wonder if the first manned missions to Phobos will expect to use the water ice, and I wonder if the design of the first Martian lander will take this ice into account.
But enough of these scientific considerations. A better strategy might be to just propagate the old “hollow phobos” theory — Phobos’ surprising orbit is a little too unlikely unless Phobos is an abandoned generation ship, and Stickney crater is obviously an eroded propulsion system.
With regards to a Mars mission, is there the opportunity to build a deep-space station that is in orbit around the Sun, but synchronized in such a way to be in the vicinity of Earth and the vicinity of Mars every 6 to 9 months? Perhaps the station being built into a very small asteroid (100 meters or so) that is nudged into an appropriate orbit — the asteroid providing convenient mass for shielding from solar radiation.
With such a station built, transport between the planets involves a tug that gets from low-orbit to the station back to low-orbit with the occupants in the tugs not more than two to three weeks at a time. The bulk of the trip is in the station that is recycled each trip and can be expanded over time to transport additional astronauts, cargo and propellant.
Let private players deploy the cis-lunar infrastructure needed to develop the Moon as proposed by Marburger/Wingo/Spudis.
I think you mean as ‘advocated’ by MWS et al.
NASA tried that. It failed.
Rand is right. I’d like to add that telerobotics, advanced AI, fault-tolerant/self-healing electronics, etc. are all going to be vital engineering and operationals skills that we’ll need sooner or later if we ever plan on a thorough unmanned exploration of the Outer Solar System and nearby interstellar space.
Flexible Path sews together unmanned exploration, manned exploration, and tech development in ways a Lunar Base, or an all-out 400 billion one-off Mars landing never will.
You are betting all of the Mars mission on landing on a 11km rock that is kinda like pumice. Why not put a refueling platform in orbit around Mars? That would make much more sense then trying to land on a sponge.
Plus any object placed on the moon would change they dynamics of the object.
In order to do a manned mars mission you would need several refueling platforms in case of disaster along the way and along the way back.
Lets just go back to the moon and mine He3. That would provide the nuclear power needed to send a manned mission to mars.
Aaron Guerami
http://aaronsreality.blogspot.com
You are betting all of the Mars mission on landing on a 11km rock that is kinda like pumice. Why not put a refueling platform in orbit around Mars? That would make much more sense then trying to land on a sponge.
First, even if Phobos is a “sponge” (pumice is not a sponge BTW), it still can make sense to land on the asteroid and do things there. Second, a refueling platform only makes sense if 1) you can actually send propellant there, and 2) that there isn’t a cheaper alternative (say like an asteroid in a convenient orbit).
As to He3 mining, it would be nice. But it’s worth keeping in mind that the big obstacle to fusion right now isn’t the lack of cheap enough He3, it’s generating net power from fusion.
I think you mean as ‘advocated’ by MWS et al.
There has never been more than a token effort at serious ISRU development in the history of NASA. This is where an immense amount of leverage could be had to change the equation related to exploration.
Mike Thompson –
The thing you’re asking about is called a “cycler.” Their leading exponent is a former astronaut named Buzz Aldrin, who did a Ph D on celestial mechanics some years back.
Likely you’ve seen the name somewhere….
Why not Deimos?
A human mission to Phobos or Deimos is a little tricky because their orbits are inconvenient for Mars departure. The main spacecraft might be better off using a small landing craft to visit those moons while remaining in a different orbital plane.
It has already been mentioned how a manned Phobos mission might also teleoperate unmanned Mars rovers or receive a sample collected by an unmanned Mars lander. These jobs could also be options for a manned Mars flyby mission.
For example, as a manned flyby vehicle neared Mars, the astronauts could do intensive teleoperation of Mars rovers to select and recover only the choicest surface samples. Those surface samples could then launch from Mars and be recovered by the manned vehicle via flyby rendezvous. Once the samples are aboard the manned vehicle, the crew might have more than a year to carefully examine the samples during the return to Earth. One avenue of such a preliminary examination is finding any dangerous back contamination before the samples can enter the Earth’s biosphere.
MG, Deimos is smaller than Phobos, and orbits farther from Mars, so it attracts less interest.
One advantage can think of are that Deimos will remain in some line of sight to a point on the surface longer than Phobos.
Deimos is smoother than Phobos and more pulverized — its craters are filled-in with loose materials — i don’t know if this would be an advantage or a disadvantage for humans, and I’m not sure whether this means the interior would be less accessible or more accessible.
If you want to promote the myth that the two moons are wayward abandoned spaceships or have some other connection to intelligent activity of some sort, It is worth noting that as unlikely as Phobos’ orbit is, Deimos has an orbit which is even more unlikely and even harder to explain. I’m not making up this business about the orbits (look at any reference) but click on my name for a funny discussion.
In all seriousness, there are some pretty cool photos here (amongst a larger number of more boring ones):”www.planetary.org/data/phobos2/” or click on my name.
I like the ones showing Phobos with Mars in the background.
Delta-v to Deimos would be slightly lower, which might be a consideration early on.
The advantage of going to Phobos first is to eventually establish a supply depot and infrastructure that would permit a permanent presence on Mars. If anything, performing lunar missions and gaining experience at long-term expeditions on the Moon would only enhance any capabilities that might be established on Phobos for that matter. Using this strategy, going to the Moon is indeed one of several steps necessary to any sort of long term human habitation of the rest of the solar system.
It could be argued that one of the reasons why we haven’t been back to the Moon since the 1970’s is because the raw infrastructure wasn’t put into place to let us get there. Oh, there were plans to put that infrastructure in place, both early on with concepts like the “Earth-Orbit Rendezvous” that had been adapted later on with some of the Constellation program lunar methodologies, and also with some of the “Apollo Applications Program” missions. Even so, the basic Apollo Lunar Lander type of vehicle didn’t leave anything behind that would encourage somebody to go back to those sites… other than perhaps those with a historical interest in those things.
Certainly nothing was left that would be of substantial use to future expeditions to the Moon.
Phobos give you a point that is located in Low Mars Orbit (the analog to LEO) that can allow you to develop something akin to the ISS around Mars, and allows you to think of different kinds of more specialized vehicles like something dedicated just to landing on Mars, making a transit between Earth orbit and Phobos, and a completely different vehicle that makes the transit between the surface of the Earth and LEO. You certainly don’t need to land on the surface of Mars with the same vehicle that needs to re-enter the atmosphere of the Earth.
At the very least, Phobos is a place you can “park” the interplanetary transfer vehicles when you don’t need them on the surface of Mars, knowing that Phobos is in a relatively stable orbit. So if you are going to end up going there, it would be useful to send an expedition or two to Phobos just to find out what the environment is going to be like and to put some of that initial infrastructure there in the first place.
Phobos and Deimos also shield half of the galactic cosmic radiation, which is nice. If it’s possible to dig in or if there is regolith that can be used to fill sandbags that you can pile on top of a habitat, it may give even better shielding.
“Huh? Watching a glorified videogame or RC car on a TV screen is not the same as being there.”
Indeed. That’s why simulators can teach you only so much…
“Did he take vacations by watching Imax travelogues? It’s that sort of limited, failed vision that has got NASA into its current mess.”
I have a standard phrase for that; “Wether it’s the Moon or Hawaii, I want to be *present,* not *telepresent.*”
Still, if a rover can be on Mars during such a mission, at least operating it from orbit will give more of a real-time feel. A sample return lander that can get back to Mars orbit where humans can find it, probably stands a better chance of success than doing the same, entirely remotely from Earth, as well. And it eliminates crew quarantine issues, since they need never be exposed to the samples…
“In order to do a manned mars mission you would need several refueling platforms in case of disaster along the way and along the way back.”
You…*might* want to place a redundant propellant depot in Mars orbit (if you don’t use it, the next mission still could), but I don’t see what disaster scenarios you can have where that would be a benefit.
If you have a massive propellant leak on the way out (and even if you have the means to repair the leak), you still may have lost the ability to do an orbital insertion burn to *reach* an orbiting depot. Same problem if returning to Earth, and fuel back around Mars is useless to you. (and there is *no* practical way to do this enroute, if that’s what you’re suggesting)
“Lets just go back to the moon and mine He3. That would provide the nuclear power needed to send a manned missio”
To power what fusion reactors/rockets…?
You may want to have depots in Mars orbit anyway, perhaps even on Phobos or Deimos, though Sun Mars L1/L2 is another logical place to put one.
“a tug that gets from low-orbit to the station back to low-orbit”
I think a 2-3 day trip on a tug to the ISS would be far more comfortable then being folded up into a Soyuz or Orion capsule.
Landing on Phobos would indeed be cool. However, I think landing on Mars would be much cooler, and if you’re going to go that far, not going the last 5,000 miles to the surface is a bit silly. From a political and science viewpoint, Phobos only makes sense as a base to explore Mars.
However, I think landing on Mars would be much cooler, and if you’re going to go that far, not going the last 5,000 miles to the surface is a bit silly.
Not as silly as thinking that “miles” is a useful metric of how difficult a destination is to reach. LEO is only two hundred miles overhead. That doesn’t make it easy to get to.
From a political and science viewpoint, Phobos only makes sense as a base to explore Mars.
No one has claimed otherwise.
Rand, sometimes you miss rhetorical flourishes.
Yes, the difficulty is not miles but delta vee. From a political point of view, the average taxpayer doesn’t know delta vee from Delta Burke, so that’s the metric I used.
I agree we need to land on Mars, but saying “Phobos isn’t nowhere,” although technically correct, is not the opinion of the average taxpayer. To them, it might not be nowhere, but you can see nowhere from it.
To them, it might not be nowhere, but you can see nowhere from it.
True, but tantalisingly you can also see Mars from there, you just have to make sure you’re looking in the right direction. 🙂
Here’s a picture made in Orbiter that shows you what it might look like. Ignore the futuristic Delta Glider…
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=18339.0;attach=160090;image
Yeah, but you can also see Mars from Earth. Joe Taxpayer wants to see boots on the ground. 🙂
…you can also see Mars from Earth
Not with that visual resolution, or low time delay.
Joe Taxpayer wants to see boots on the ground.
How do you know what Joe Taxpayer wants?
Serious question.
If a rendezvous with Phobos can be shown to Joe Taxpayer as a sensible interim step to getting boots on the ground (if that’s what he wants), he’ll be okay with a Phobos rendezvous.
You don’t just throw up your hands and say, “Joe T. doesn’t understand this, so we can’t do it.” You also don’t just tell Joe T., “We know what we’re doing and it’s too complicated to explain to you. You just keep writing the checks.”
Well, I am a taxpayer, and I want American boots on the ground. So do the family members, friends and fellow SF geeks I talk to. Not that any of that is scientific, but I go with what I’ve got.
Well, I am a taxpayer, and I want American boots on the ground. So do the family members, friends and fellow SF geeks I talk to. Not that any of that is scientific, but I go with what I’ve got.
The “Deep Space” option doesn’t deny you that, unless you’re an idiot, and think it does.
Rand – you asked a question. In good faith, I gave an answer. I understand that the deep space option doesn’t preclude Mars landings. What I am saying is that any Phobos landing that is not seen as an immediate precursor to a Mars landing will be seen as a failure.
What I am saying is that any Phobos landing that is not seen as an immediate precursor to a Mars landing will be seen as a failure.
And just because you view it that way won’t mean that others will. Particularly if it’s not sold that way. It would be kind of nutty to call something a failure because it didn’t do something that it wasn’t advertised to do.
Alright, I’ll retract “failure” and substitute “waste,” as in “waste of time and money.”
Alright, I’ll retract “failure” and substitute “waste,” as in “waste of time and money.”
Again, that’s matter of opinion, not fact.
Again, that’s matter of opinion, not fact. Well, duh! Yes, it is a matter of opinion – mine. Your opinion is different. That’s the definition of a free country.
Yes, it is a matter of opinion – mine. Your opinion is different. That’s the definition of a free country.
Ignoring the fact that there’s much more to a free country than having differing opinions, my point is that it’s just your opinion — it’s not necessarily most peoples’ opinion.
it’s not necessarily most peoples’ opinion which is an opinion. Your opinion, unless of course you’ve got polling or other data to support it.
If you don’t, then your opinion, my opinion and a buck will get us a cup of coffee.
If you don’t, then your opinion, my opinion and a buck will get us a cup of coffee.
No one does — I’m sure that the question has never been polled, and it would depend on how it was polled and how the question was worded. All we have for now is our opinions.