12 thoughts on “Mission To Phobos”

  1. It’s a very nice overviewof getting to Phobos, with one little problem. It completely lacks any mention of four letters, …ISRU. The major reason to go to Phobos would be to make and store for landers the propellant those landers would use to get to the martian surface. As importantly, that propellant will be needed to move around in orbit around Mars, and return to Earth. This is important, because for Mars *settlement* those propellant loads are dream killers if they must be lifted from the surface of the Earth.

    If nothing else, given the present unwillingness to develop a nuclear plant for making propellant on the surface of Mars, several space solar power units, beaming down electricity from orbit, will be essential. That means that, even if you ship them from Earth in sizes feasible with existing launchers, you will need propellant to get them into the right orbits, and to service them, and to augment them over time. This is probably best done with the Argon in Mars’ atmosphere, which will have to be lifted from the surface, by the landers/taxis.

    Did I miss something that even hinted at ISRU?

    Is there a congressional hostility to ISRU that excludes mention of such a thing in NASA’s human spaceflight plans?

    1. Is there a congressional hostility to ISRU that excludes mention of such a thing in NASA’s human spaceflight plans?

      Tom, to the vast majority of Congressmen and their constituents, space settlement is a juvenile fantasy and a permanent Mars base is well beyond the nation’s means. Any spending on ISRU is seen as a precursor to spending vast sums on a permanent and frequent series of manned Mars missions, something that Congress has no interest in funding.

      Congress might be willing to fund the occasional manned mission to Mars or its vicinity, if it’s not too expensive, and if every mission has a decent scientific and political payback. They’re not interested in missions that are obvious precursors to even more expensive missions. In other words, Congress is not going to commit to a permanent Mars base before a single man gets to the vicinity of Mars.

      Planners interested in government funding recognize this and avoid schemes like ISRU that only serve to raise red flags.

      1. So you do ISRU research as a side mission to the primary ‘Search for Life’ ™ mission. We really need to know if microbes could survive if we had 1000s of liters of oxygen stored in tanks produced by an array of solar panels. Ditto other ‘SfL’ components.

        Then unexpectedly we would have a fully supplied base.

      2. Jim, while that may be true, it would be nice to see them say it explicitly, and actually have a national debate about it. If/when Dana introduces his space-settlement bill, that may occur. One of the main reasons for my latest Kickstarter is to show that it doesn’t have to be crazily unnaffordable, and that we could be getting much more for the money.

        1. …it would be nice to see them say it explicitly…

          It would be nice if all parties to these issues were candid about the premises they’re arguing from. But human beings aren’t wired that way.

          …actually have a national debate about it…

          A far better case for space settlement will have to be made before it rises to the level where a national debate can take place.

          One of the main reasons for my latest Kickstarter is to show that it doesn’t have to be crazily unnaffordable…

          Are you actually going to show it or are you just going to repeat your personal conviction (not explicitly, of course) that it doesn’t have to be “crazily unaffordable”?

          Just over fifty years ago von Braun claimed that “…a large expedition to Mars will be possible in fifteen or twenty years at a cost which will only be a minute fraction of our yearly national defense budget.”

          I look forward to reading your updated “Das Marsprojekt“.

          1. I’m going to show it as well as it can be shown absent actually doing it, using the same sorts of analytical techniques and cost models. And I propose neither Das, or any Marsprojekt. I only want to show the people who do that there are less stupid ways of doing one than Congress’s insanity.

  2. In contrast, should a direct Martian surface mission be chosen, not only will the nine Mars surface specific technologies need to be developed, but the seven Phobos specific requirements will also be needed and have to be funded and developed at the same time.

    16 vehicles? Ridiculous. How about just one? A two person mars lander (Red Dragon) launched directly from earth on a FH? You send as many at a time as desired; mated together with an inflated habitat enroute.

    On the surface a simple electric tractor pulls a trailer that can be configured for any task.

    Send supplies now to perfect those landers before any lives are risked.

    But perhaps the thumb in yer butt approach makes more sense?

  3. SLS gives Congress exactly what it desires. A story. For now a story is all that is needed. If SLS flies, once, bravo. But frankly until someone else makes a move there is no need for it. Chinese land on the moon? Well we’ve done that before and with a few $B to mod SLS we can put down another set of flags and footprints if need be. Russians look like they are heading for Mars? Well spend a few $B to modify SLS and we’ll land on Phobos first and claim been there done that as well. See in its own way Congress shows genius. If you take the view of SLS as a government funded insurance policy. It’s insurance AGAINST having to fund a real and costly space program. It’s there in case someone else does something that requires a response AND it keeps key districts amongst its supporter funded. Rarely is it expected a claim will be filed. And it’s about the best you can do with a government sponsored (socialist if you like) space program that is competing for resources against government sponsored terrestrial programs.

  4. Insurance is as insurance does.

    I think we can pretty much ignore these stories and just about anything NASA proposes for crewed spaceflight from here on, outside of simple stunt flights. The body politic doesn’t support it or to put it another way, you can’t win the “If this country can put a man on the moon, why can’t it…” argument.

    Bottom line, REAL human space programs will hinge on this one simple proposition:

    Can revenues generated by commercial launchers for putting commercial and military comsats, weathersats, geosats, astrosats, spysats and gunsats in orbit enable a commercial human breakout into space?

  5. If Congress somehow funded this multi-generation effort at full level requested, even then, I still don’t believe NASA could do it.

  6. Let’s first see how far we can get with Falcon Heavies (preferably partially reusable) with clustered ion propulsion sending cargo, craft, equipment (including water recycling equipment), and propellant to an EML2 staging point before TLI. Could we do a Mars flyby or a combined Phobos-Deimos (PhD) mission. And, to what extent could said approach reduce or perhaps eliminate the need for SLSs to the Martian surface?

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