28 thoughts on “The Best Route To Mars”

  1. I think lunar propellant can only be justified if the beyond low earth orbit traffic is several orders of magnitude larger than it is currently.

    It’s interesting to note that the moon does not seem to figure in the plans of the only person seriously contemplating such traffic (Musk).

    But I guess there’s plenty of time for him to come around to the idea.

    1. I completely approve of Elon, but the man does have a business to run, and that business is based on hauling as much stuff out of Earth’s gravity well as possible. Lunar ISRU is not SpaceX’s friend–at least until they open their Shackleton Crater factory.

  3. If you could divert an icy comet/asteroid into a stable earth orbit, it would work wonderfully for this. Would probably take a while, though, and I suppose people would get twitch about that whole ‘we’re just going to park it right here, don’t mind us’ thing…

  5. The best route to explore Mars is to first explore the Moon. And if NASA explores the Moon and finds that lunar water is not minable, it is still the best route to explore Mars.

    But if the assumption is that NASA is to mine lunar water in order to lower the exploration cost of exploring Mars, then this does not lower the cost to explore Mars.

    The advantage of mining lunar water, is to create a market in space.
    And the only way to lower prices and costs is to have a competitive market.
    Commercial lunar water mining makes space exploration more important and enables creation of other markets in space, which include towns on Mars. Towns are markets and are why people go to towns.

    So if NASA gets bogged down mining lunar water, it will not lower the cost to explore Mars.
    Having NASA mine lunar water will require more total budget money than Mars exploration, and this high ticket price will result is not even getting Lunar exploration or lunar mining or Mars exploration.
    NASA mining lunar water is the same problem as plans to explore Mars within the next 2 decades- it never happens.
    And NASA exploration of the Moon, changes the paradigm of planing to go to Mars and never actually exploring Mars.
    Exploring the Moon is a test project to determine whether NASA can explore, and NASA deciding it will mine the Moon is proof that NASA can’t explore.

    So a key aspect of exploring the Moon, is a low cost program to explore the Moon. And what mean by low cost is a total program cost
    of about 40 billion dollars. And this is compared to NASA’s ISS program which has cost over 150 billion dollars.
    The only way for a NASA lunar exploration program to have such low costs, is for NASA to start and finish the Lunar exploration program within a short period of time- less than 10 years.

    And a NASA lunar exploration program can take a short period of time, but it can’t take a short period of time if the plan is to make lunar bases and/or mine lunar water.
    So the purpose of lunar exploration is to enable lunar water mining and building bases, but NASA does not do this- though others could do this. I have no problem with the Chinese mining lunar water and/or making lunar bases- cause it not American tax dollars spent doing it.
    And were the Chinese to mine lunar water, this would help explore Mars. Or if the Chinese mine lunar water, space is important- even if the Chinese waste billions of dollars and fail to profitable mine lunar water [which probably would be what would occur- or Chinese aren’t responsible for lower costs the cost anything, just like NASA has not lower costs of doing anything. Rather the Chinese success has been allowing “others” to set up shop in China, and produce things at a low cost. Or Chinese success is they allowed markets in China.
    Were the Chinese not socialist, and did what they did in China, with the Moon, it might work out for them- which would complete the ironic circle of the Soviet being the first to allow tourist in space.

    But in terms of NASA they can do a low cost lunar exploration program, because, the area to be explored is a small region, and the Moon is near Earth.
    One could think of NASA lunar exploration program as massive number of robotic mission which are focused on the purpose of finding whether and where there is minable lunar water, and the program is capped off, by a few manned mission to area which have been robotically explored, in order to more throughly explore this spot and to return samples back to earth. And the Manned aspect has later focus
    of doing Mars exploration. Or a couple year of manned lunar exploration is a bridge to Manned Mars mission.
    But the Mars like the Moon, will also involve lots of robotic exploration, and with crew on the Mars, will involve a lot of teleoperation of robots.
    So lunar exploration does not just begin manned missions into space, but establishes a robust robotic program of exploration which transferred to Mars exploration.
    But more important than that, the lunar program begin the use of depots
    in space [which is part of robotic program also]. Depots need traffic.
    And if exploring the Moon within a decade, this will create some traffic- mostly robotic missions, and the robotic missions will use the depots.
    And purpose of developing an operational depot [in LEO] is to create a market of rocket fuel in space. And market of rocket fuel is space, will lower the cost of Mars exploration, and later Mars settlements. And a market of rocket fuel in space is needed for commercial lunar mining.

    1. But in terms of NASA they can do a low cost lunar exploration program

      Just like they could build a permanently manned space station for $8 billion? Do you have any evidence to support that belief?

      what mean by low cost is a total program cost of about 40 billion dollars. And this is compared to NASA’s ISS program which has cost over 150 billion dollars

      It’s foolish to make ISS the standard by which everything else is judged. You might as well make JSF the standard for military weapon systems and say that anything slightly expensive is “low cost.”

      mostly robotic missions, and the robotic missions will use the depots

      Robots are going to get smaller and smaller as the technology improves (unless Rep. Culberson designs them). Cubesats and chipsats won’t have much need for propellant depots.

      1. “Just like they could build a permanently manned space station for $8 billion? Do you have any evidence to support that belief? ”

        Didn’t Skylab cost considerably less than a Billion?

      2. –Edward Wright
        October 15, 2015 at 6:16 PM

        But in terms of NASA they can do a low cost lunar exploration program

        Just like they could build a permanently manned space station for $8 billion? Do you have any evidence to support that belief? —

        My belief is that it could be done, not that NASA would choose to do it. It seems doable to send a dozen or so lunar landers to lunar surface for less than 20 billion.

        — what mean by low cost is a total program cost of about 40 billion dollars. And this is compared to NASA’s ISS program which has cost over 150 billion dollars

        It’s foolish to make ISS the standard by which everything else is judged. You might as well make JSF the standard for military weapon systems and say that anything slightly expensive is “low cost.” —
        My point was in terms of a major NASA program it could be relatively, cheap, btw, I would expect commercial lunar mining to spend far less than 40 billion to mine lunar water- say somewhere in range of 10 billion or less if one is limiting the business to the specialized activity of mining lunar water [meaning there could/would be other enterprises which are not specifically digging and processing regolith to extract water] whereas were the same lunar mining a were NASA program, it could exceed 100 billion dollars.
        But I don’t expect any commercial lunar water occurring without there first being adequate exploration.

        — mostly robotic missions, and the robotic missions will use the depots

        Robots are going to get smaller and smaller as the technology improves (unless Rep. Culberson designs them). Cubesats and chipsats won’t have much need for propellant depots.–

        I am talking about robots mission going to lunar surface and then humans going to the surface.
        In terms of program cost, I would think all orbital assets would total less than a few billion dollars, and could involve sending many smaller orbital spacecraft for broad survey type exploration and for various communication purposes. It seems if NASA were to have lunar program, sending many smaller satellites and of a variety of purpose could done prior
        to establishing a depot in LEO.
        It seems in general, NASA should explore both poles in broad manner and then narrow the areas of exploration down to a less than say, 6 smaller regions. It seems the greatest advantage of smaller spacecraft landing on lunar surface is being able to quickly build and deploy them. And a problem with more conventional robot exploration done within a 10 year period is the inability to make many large robots missions.
        So sending many smaller spacecraft and sending crew I would see as a way of increasing the amount exploration completed within this relatively short time period.

        1. My belief is that it could be done

          “Belief.” Exactly. NewSpace operates on the basis of faith, rather than understanding the political mechanisms that drive NASA management.

          My point was in terms of a major NASA program it could be relatively, cheap,

          “Relatively” cheap does not mean cheap. The F-22 was relatively cheap compared to the F-23. And even “relatively cheap” assumes there will be no cost overruns, unlike every other major NASA program.

          To really develop space, it must be not just “relatively cheap” but *genuinely* cheap. “Slightly cheaper than the International Space Station” is not interesting.

          It seems in general, NASA should explore both poles in broad manner

          It seems that way because you cannot imagine anyone else doing it. This is what Arthur C. Clarke called a “failure of imagination.”

          1. –* It seems in general, NASA should explore both poles in broad manner*

            It seems that way because you cannot imagine anyone else doing it. This is what Arthur C. Clarke called a “failure of imagination.”–
            I can imagine some other means other than NASA doing enough exploration in order to allow lunar mining to occur.

            In addition I think the neglect of NASA to explore the Moon is due in some part to such expectation.
            But the US government has in the past been involved with exploring the “New World” with idea of encouraging future mining, and such governmental involvement in exploration has been a useful service for the people of this nation.

            Also I expect that most of the exploration of the Moon will be done by commercial interests, but I think it would helpful if NASA did things to get the ball rolling, rather than making the “bold and unique decision” to wait, and and pretend they doing something for the American people.

            So I want NASA to do it’s best in terms doing lunar exploration- which is to attempt find a few of the better locations which may be minable.

            What is needed to be found on Mars is large amounts of cheaply obtainable fresh liquid water. Such a find would be a large incentive related to settlements on Mars. With the Moon it’s different. First, it’s unlikely that there could be large amounts of water, and there is not much need of water, if the purpose is to make rocket fuel..So something like 1 square km with 10% of the volume being frozen ice within first 1 meter, is 1 million divided by 10- 100,000 tons of water which more water which could used for rocket fuel for a couple of decades.
            Such a find on Mars is meaningless, as a settlement of Mars could need billion of tons of water.
            Or on the Moon, a small pond is everything, and on Mars you looking for a river. On the Moon the 100 K of water is worth about $100,000 per ton- so 10 billion with majority of value in first 10,000 tons mined. Whereas on Mars you need water available at cost of about $100 per ton for first million tons, which could needed by people at mars in first couple decades. So Mars is about farming, the Moon is about making rocket fuel- in terms of broad strokes. Or in broad strokes, the US is about farming.
            So question is can NASA be helpful in terms getting to the point having ponds of water made into rocket fuel on the Moon and having settlements on Mars? Within say 50 years
            having lunar commercial mining, which is making over 1000 tons of rocket fuel per year [and other lunar activity which depends upon having lunar rocket fuel] and more than 100 people living on Mars- farming and other stuff.
            And doing this within 100 years, basically is not having NASA do anything useful- unless waiting is regarded as useful.

          2. Another thing:

            “Edward Wright
            October 16, 2015 at 7:30 AM

            My belief is that it could be done

            “Belief.” Exactly. NewSpace operates on the basis of faith, rather than understanding the political mechanisms that drive NASA management. ”

            The “political mechanisms that drive NASA management” is the same of any governmental bureaucracy. It’s mud and confusion, mostly.
            But anyhow, you got something against operating on the basis of faith?

            I would say rather than needing to understand what drives NASA management, what one really needs is leadership which can fired them if the fail to manage- which because are bureaucracy [nevermind a governmental bureaucracy] they are they are failing to do in an abundant and constant fashion.

            And generally, I would say the lack of a faith is problem with any bureaucracy.

          3. But the US government has in the past been involved with exploring the “New World” with idea of encouraging future mining,

            Actually, most exploration was (and is) done by the private sector. And when the US government was involved, it was usually the military (like Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery, which was an Army expedition).

            Now, if you want to argue that the US should take manned spaceflight away from NASA and return it to the military, you might have a point. Otherwise, you’re misreading history.

            Then there’s the US Geological Survey. But the USGS does not build and operate mines. Its teams who travel in pickup trucks and stay at Motel 6. They don’t build motels, design pickups, or decide which companies should build trucks and which would go out of business. It’s a very different model from NASA, and one that (like the military model) NewSpace won’t even consider.

            I think it would helpful if NASA did things to get the ball rolling

            That’s the same argument used for every big expensive NASA program. Shuttle. ISS. NASP. X-33. SLI. BVSE. They were all supposed to “get the ball rolling” so private enterprise could eventually take over.

            The problem is, NASA makes the “ball” so expensive that private investors won’t go near it. Time and again, we hear, “If the government can barely afford it, how can private companies ever compete?” An argument that people like Neil Tyson are only too happy to repeat.

            In medicine, there’s a maxim: “First, do no harm.” Unfortunately, NewSpace activists consider only the best case, the most optimistic possible outcome, when they advocate big new government programs and never consider the possible downside. Even though historical evidence shows the downside to be more likely.

            I would say the lack of a faith is problem with any bureaucracry

            I’m not surprised. Big government is a secular religion. If it fails to produce the required results, the failure is blamed not on the central dogma but on insufficient faith (and funding). But since this is a religious matter, there’s no point arguing it with you.

          4. — October 17, 2015 at 6:19 AM

            But the US government has in the past been involved with exploring the “New World” with idea of encouraging future mining,

            Actually, most exploration was (and is) done by the private sector….—
            Actually this aligns with what I said:
            “Also I expect that most of the exploration of the Moon will be done by commercial interests, but I think it would helpful if NASA did things to get the ball rolling, rather than making the “bold and unique decision” to wait, and and pretend they doing something for the American people.”
            The reason I expect this to occur, is because this is what has happened in the past and is what is happening at the present in regard to Earth, we are still exploring Earth will spend centuries exploring the Moon- it’s enormous thing to expect a government to solely do.
            And a big problem with NASA, is the delusion that NASA must do all of such exploration and do such things as mining or making rockets.
            But there are markets on Earth, and markets enable such exploration to occur. A main point of what I am suggesting is for NASA to explore with the purpose related to what could start new markets in space.
            And I think good market would be rocket fuel market in space, and such a market is related to the development of an operational depot in orbit [micro gravity]. Using depots for exploration is also the cheapest way of NASA exploring the Moon and Mars- because depot allow a completion of suppliers of rocket fuel shipped from Earth.
            And basically it’s continuation of COTS.
            And we got COTS because the shuttle program was ended, and it’s likely SLS will be terminated at some point, after it’s flying- it’s too expensive and a bad idea. Though for me, making a market in space for rocket fuel, is something we needed before the SLS program was considered- or has nothing to do with it. And we should have had COTS while we had the Shuttle program or instead of shuttle program.
            Or Shuttle program should have been considered an experimental launch vehicle which never became an operational vehicle- only wrongly considered to be one.
            And with depots we also should start with an experimental depot and work towards depots becoming operational.
            And a measure of the success of a NASA depot in LEO in terms of it being operational is other depots made and operated by the private sector.
            So instead making a depot in LEO do everything, one should start simple, such as only storing LOX. [which is easier than H2 in low earth orbit]. Starting with LOX would be in accordance with idea of it being experimental in same manner that the space shuttle though it flew, it actually was a experimental craft.

          5. — I think it would helpful if NASA did things to get the ball rolling

            That’s the same argument used for every big expensive NASA program. Shuttle. ISS. NASP. X-33. SLI. BVSE. They were all supposed to “get the ball rolling” so private enterprise could eventually take over.

            The problem is, NASA makes the “ball” so expensive that private investors won’t go near it. Time and again, we hear, “If the government can barely afford it, how can private companies ever compete?” An argument that people like Neil Tyson are only too happy to repeat. —

            So saying government is comprised of idiots.
            I think I will quote Churchill:
            “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
            ― Winston S. Churchill
            We know government is evil [and stupid]. Even a member of government, Churchill, knew it.
            So, it’s not matter of perfection, rather it’s dealing with the mess we have.
            If we ended NASA [somehow] we could only hope that American people would be smart enough to start another NASA.
            Or in terms of priority there is a lot other governmental agencies/departments which we don’t need- particular federal
            government which should be focused on defending this nation- which it currently isn’t doing very well.
            My interest is to get NASA spending the money given to it, on something useful for America people [and everyone on this planet, actually]. If there is inalienable right “missed” by the founding fathers, it was the right to leave this planet, and in that sense, it makes sense that we have a federal agency which suppose to explore Space.
            So I am fine with idea of spending more money on NASA than on the Dept of Energy and with it’s lower budget, NASA seems to be doing more for American people than Dept of Energy. And Dept of Energy is less useless than Dept of Education, or certainly more than Federal EPA [who have been experimenting on human beings which violate war crimes, and have caused massive flood mine tailing in a river, though their everyday routine operation actually are more harm than such symptoms of their evil/stupid intentions].

          6. basically it’s continuation of COTS.

            Exactly. And what was the result of COTS?

            We were told that COTS would would incentivize the development of a large number of reusable launch vehicles — not a continuation of the ELV/capsule paradigm. We were told that COTS would benefit a wide range of startup companies — the money was not going to be captured by the established players.

            What happened? SpaceX is the only startup that’s directly benefitting from COTS. Most of the startups that bid on COTS are out of business. “New” Space is now redefined to include Boeing, Lockheed, and OSC.

            And now we’re told that we should expect more of the same. More downselects, less competition, as NASA picks winners and losers. Instead of creating commercial markets, companies are to concentrate on supporting NASA’s exploration missions — while the rest of us get left behind once more.

            You say this will enable commercial markets 50 or 100 years from now, but some of us are mortal and can’t wait 50 or 100 years. Wouldn’t it be better to begin developing commercial markets now?

          7. –Edward Wright
            October 17, 2015 at 11:01 AM

            basically it’s continuation of COTS.

            Exactly. And what was the result of COTS?–
            One result of COTS is that parties other than governmental agencies could send their craft to dock with ISS.

            Also I think Elon Musk would agree that COTS has helped him develop the Falcon 9 and related to his attempts to reuse it’s first stage, and allows him to get to the point of getting a possibility manned Dragon successfully launched, and a launch of Heavy Falcon.
            The mere attempt to land the Falcon-9’s first stage, I think is significant, though it’s too soon to determine what the consequences which would follow if/when this is successfully done.
            I also think it’s too soon to see the full consequence from COTS.

            –We were told that COTS would would incentivize the development of a large number of reusable launch vehicles — not a continuation of the ELV/capsule paradigm. —

            Well I didn’t say that. I will say that development of depots could lead to this. Just the aspect of depot being in 28 inclination rather than 51, would more useful for this purpose

            –We were told that COTS would benefit a wide range of startup companies — the money was not going to be captured by the established players. —
            Again I didn’t say this and would not say this, in fact I would use established players to explore the Moon, but I want competition and just the established players are not competition.
            Also just SpaceX and the established player do not qualify as enough competition. But the success of SpaceX will breed more competition.
            The main point is COTS is a beginning which should be continued, and no where near a failure that should be stopped.
            COTS is basically leaving the insane asylum, or return to what was normal. The magic is what the private sector does in a competitive arena.

  6. Proposals for lunar ISRU would benefit greatly from a few robotic prospecting missions to determine just what R there is, in fact, on the Moon and what technologies/engineering it would take to U it.

    Initial results over the past several years are indeed surprising, interesting, even encouraging and should be followed up more energetically than they have been to date. But we still don’t know enough about, for example, lunar water to know if it occurs in quantities and forms that could be usefully exploited.

  7. I’m all for ISRU, as I think it’s the biggest key to space.

    I’m also in favor of lunar ISRU, but… IMHO, all factors need to be considered. The biggest of which IMHO is propulsive delta/v.

    One problem with the moon is that all of your entry/landing delta/v is propulsive. With Mars, on the other hand, you can (like earth) use mainly aerobraking and atmospheric entry for most of the arrival/landing delta/v.

    So, it seems to me, a major factor is how much downmass you need to set up your ISRU fuel factory.

    Fuel from the moon would be very useful for any beyond-LEO missions when coupled with fuel depots, including LEO to GEO missions. However… what’s the propulsive delta/v needed to get that fuel from the moon to LEO (utilizing aerobraking to attain LEO)? About 2.5 KPS. What is it from Demos? About 1.66 KPS (assuming optimum transfer windows). So, in many ways, Demos might be a far better ISRU source than the moon, because in terms of delta/v, it’s less.

    Delta/V for downmass to the moon and Demos? Use earth-moon transfer as the starting point. From there, about 2.5 KPS to get to and land on the moon, Vs. 1.8 kps for Demos. (utilizing aerocapture at Mars, though multipass could be used, avoid the need for heat shielding).

    IMHO, this means Demos is worth a look as an ISRU source, both for Mars missions, and LEO fuel depots. (though not for fuels with boiloff issues for the latter, of course)

  9. “…assuming the availability of resources and fuel-generating infrastructure on the Moon.”

    FAIL!!! Assuming I had $6 billion, I’d be pretty!

    1. Sorry, Ken, there’s some things that money just can’t buy.

      But, money can cause some things to be overlooked…

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