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Exploration

Panel Discussion – Building Blocks to Mars

By Marc Boucher
NASA Watch
August 13, 2014
Filed under , ,

Building Blocks to Mars – AIAA Space 2014, SpaceRef Business
“At this years AIAA Space 2014 conference a panel of experts from NASA and industry discussed the building blocks of to Mars.
The panel discussion: The first step on a path of exploration that will lead to human landings on Mars will be taken in the coming months with the Exploration Flight Test 1 of Orion on a Delta IV Heavy rocket. After that, Orion and Space Launch System will begin a series of exploration missions that will lead to human journeys to Mars. As a capabilities-driven framework, these systems will enable a variety of potential paths to the Red Planet.”

Marc’s note: The panel discussed the “current” NASA approach. Politics, the private sector, other efforts outside the U.S. were not part of the discussion.

SpaceRef co-founder, entrepreneur, writer, podcaster, nature lover and deep thinker.

77 responses to “Panel Discussion – Building Blocks to Mars”

  1. Todd Austin says:
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    How is it that a panel at a major conference purporting to discuss human exploration of Mars includes people from MSFC (2), JSC, GSFC, and LockMart, but no one from SpaceX, Bigelow, or others who have capability, determination, and cash flow to actually make it happen?

    • Vladislaw says:
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      you must have missed this:

      “Marc’s note: The panel discussed the “current” NASA approach. Politics, the private sector, other efforts outside the U.S. were not part of the discussion.”
      The discussion was only based on the current NASA approach. With congress’s repeated mantra safety at all costs, NASA is approaching it from a congressional point of view, namely .. the safest method is to never actually leave the ground.

      • Todd Austin says:
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        Thanks, Vladislaw. I actually meant my comment to be more rhetorical than factual. I don’t see the value in slogging through this unproductive domain. You might just as well convene a panel to discuss the relative merits of leather vs rubber buggy whips.

        • duheagle says:
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          Quite. I’d liken it to a symposium on transportation held in 1900 that completely ignored internal combustion engines and automobiles in favor of multiple sessions about a project to breed a Clydesdale-Arabian hybrid horse that would be bigger, stronger and faster than existing horses.

      • Vladislaw says:
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        I think of it as kabuki theater. Food for the low information voters who only want some “feel good” noise from NASA these days about where we are going. But everyone knows that congressional pork has priced NASA right out of the game and commercial is now the only option.

    • Anonymous says:
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      This is about PR, making people feel good and supporting congressional pork.
      With luck the Mars mission will be scrapped and replaced with a Moon colony. After all the best place to launch a rocket from is the moon.
      If congress wanted to achieve something they would hand out funding as a series of prizes not as pork to constituents.

  2. Brian_M2525 says:
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    Orion is not the answer.

    The idea that an Orion has much of anything to do with a Mars mission is all wrong.

    Orion does not have the heat dissipation capability for a Mars mission return. So the vehicle would have to be a substantial redesign unless they can come up with a better heat shield for considerably less weight. All you could do with an Orion is a flags and footprints Mars mission if it were really short duration. No one would pay for such a mission and certainly not US taxpayers and Congress.

    If a capsule were to go along, it should be as an ‘escape pod’ for off nominal Earth return. The idea of throwing away an entire trans-martian spacecraft, which will probably need to be a vehicle approaching the size and mas of an ISS, is ridiculous.

    Why a spacecraft that size-you are going to need to provide radiation protection and zero-G remediation. The best way to do zero-G remediation is with a partial-G vehicle which means it will need to either rotate or provide an internal centrifuge, in either case, its a larger more massive vehicle. You might get by without the zero-G remediation if you can do short flight trajectories reducing crew time in space to less than 6 months. This requires significant propulsion mass.

    In any case, NASA has not even correctly identified what a Mars spacecraft will need to look like and an Orion capsule will have little to do with it.

    The people looking at Mars missions using presently envisioned space vehicles are not on the right track at all-they’re not even thinking about the right direction.

    • duheagle says:
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      Brian_M2525,

      Nice and concise statement of issues and how the program of record isn’t even addressing most of them.

  3. Jackalope3000 says:
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    There are two ways to read the title “Building Blocks to Mars.”

  4. DTARS says:
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    Where do you find the building blocks to sustainability go to Mars?

    Wait let me think.

    Oh Oh

    The commercial industrializion of the moon.

    🙂

    • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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      How does the commercial industrialization of lunar resources make it sustainable to go to Mars?

      • DTARS says:
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        Doug,
        Better to ask Mr. Wingo, He is the expert.

        • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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          generally speaking, the technology required to go to the Moon is very different from the technology required to go to Mars, establishing a lunar base of any kind is counterproductive to the goal of going to Mars.

          it’s easier and faster to just go to Mars.

          • DTARS says:
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            Dennis Wingo @wingod tweeted this on 02 Aug

            The sustainable path to Mars goes through lunar industrialation

            I was hoping to learn more about it too Doug.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            presumably he means that being able to launch a rocket to Mars from the Moon is a more viable long-term strategy than launching from the Earth. key words here would be: “long term.” the industrialization of the Moon to the point where you could mine and refine raw materials, then fabricate and launch very large rockets without any parts coming from Earth would take several decades (at least) and cost hundreds of billions of dollars (if not a trillion or two).

            i would view this as a very expensive, time-consuming, and ultimately unnecessary side trip. there’s little need to duplicate the infrastructure of the space launch industry that already exists on Earth just to go to Mars.

          • DTARS says:
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            I don’t know Doug
            Hoping to hear from win god himself
            🙂

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            the point of my earlier post is that if the end goal is to go to Mars, then work on going to Mars. the Lunar and Martian environments are so dramatically different that the landers, habitats, and other equipment you need to survive and work with on the Moon will be much different than what you’d need for Mars. the Moon is, and is best pursued as, a destination in its own right, since its challenges are so different than those for Mars.

          • DTARS says:
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            I would think the end goal is to settle the inner solar system while finding a way to Harvest as many resources as soon as possible. And Seems to me that will require commercial activity in Leo Geo moon and Mars all kind of dependent on one another. Example Musk using falcon heavy profits from moon missions to fund his Raptor Mars colonial Transporter.

            Just don’t see a Mars alone thing being viable or sustainable.

            ??

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            you are now going very far beyond the scope of the original comment. the settling of the solar system will take hundreds of years. you need to get back to the present.

            let’s ask very simply: how does going to the Moon help you get to Mars?

          • DTARS says:
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            duheagle
            Wondering what the near surface temputure are on the moon and Mars I would think the the ground temp gets very frigged after 30 days of darkness do we have any info on that? I always figured the under ground have were mostly for radiation shielding. Hard to imagine a 30 day frigid night read a post that mining valuable metals is easy on the moon you just pick them off the surface? Don’t know?

          • duheagle says:
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            I’m not so sure hab modules need to differ much between the Moon and Mars. Lunar habs will need to be buried in regolith so as to moderate the extremes between lunar daylight and nighttime temperatures. On Mars, burying habs in regolith makes the retention of heat easier in the always cold Martian environment and is especially useful in minimizing “wind chill” heat loss when one of the periodic Martian dust storms comes ravening around the eaves. So habs for either place would benefit from being built to be buried.

            Both places also have pervasive dust problems. Lunar dust is worse owing to the sharp, uneroded nature of its microparticles. Figure out ways to control lunar dust and Martian dust is easy.

            There are other synergies, but these two came readily to mind.

            As a practical matter, once commercial space efforts become the leading edge of human expansion into the universe – starting probably about three years hence – I suspect much of the Moon and Mars efforts will go forward in parallel.

            Elon isn’t much interested in the Moon personally, but he’ll be happy to make money supplying services, and even custom-designed or modified goods to those who are. The earliest of such efforts will almost certainly get underway before Elon is ready to launch his first Mars expedition – even his first unmanned one.

            At least some of the stuff developed or modified for lunar use will likely wind up having significant uses on Mars too. And Elon’s Raptor-powered reusable BFR’s, which have Mars as their principal raison d’etre, will find many revenue-generating uses by Moon-centric people in pursuit of their own agendas.

            The future efforts at settlement of the Moon and Mars will have a lot of cross-pollination in evidence.

          • Paul451 says:
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            Pretty much every technology and technique in the habitats will carry over. Power, thermal regulation, life-support, recyc, etc. Plus the standards for connecting external systems (ie, guys in space-suits being able to connect cables from external systems (say, solar panels) to habitats. Or connect plumbing from radiators to habs, etc.)

            Landers. While one is atmospheric, one vacuum, the technology to VTOL, to reliably track the facility, to refuel, to service a lander, is common.

            Autonomous operations. This is useful for a lunar base, but essential for Mars. You cannot have a standing army on Earth monitoring every heart-beat of the astronauts. Bases must be largely self-operated, self-monitored.

            Autonomous external operations. Surface EVAs cannot be a six week planning exercise. You must be able to just suit up and go outside in order to get anything useful done. (Scuba rules, sure. Buddy up, and tell someone before you leave. But EVAs must stop being a major operation.) Again, useful for the moon, but essential for Mars.

            ISS costs $3b/yr to merely operate. That’s not a viable space program. No base can operate the way ISS is operated.

            There’s a lot of fundamental overlap between moon and Mars bases, even if not a single actual piece of hardware makes the transition.

          • duheagle says:
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            Excellent post. Agree completely. ISS will have the longest and most useful lifetime if it is privatized starting in the 2018 – 2020 timeframe. That seems the only way to keep it going while also getting it off NASA’s books.

          • Paul451 says:
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            Disagree entirely. (Sorry.) ISS needs to be refocused on a single task, doing the research necessary to make future commercial space stations and future NASA HSF more affordable.

            Essentially using ISS to hasten ISS’s end, so that NASA itself can switch to leasing space on multiple commercial stations. Commercial Resupply, Commercial Crew, and BEAM are examples of where they are actually doing this.

            “Commercialisation” (or floating the idea of “privatising”) of ISS research is the opposite of this. (see below)

            Every single piece of research done should be about working out how to lower the price of humans operating in space. Often, other research actually interferes with that goal. (The cancellation of the centrifuge module, for example, in part because vibrations from it might harm other “pure” micro-g research.)

            ISS will have the longest and most useful lifetime if it is privatized starting in the 2018 – 2020 timeframe. That seems the only way to keep it going while also getting it off NASA’s books.

            NASA “turned over” the Shuttle operations to a “commercial” contractor in order to “save money”…

            Today, NASA is trying to lamely attract commercial research to ISS via a “commercial” contractor (CASIS), in order to retroactively justify the hideous cost of the program, but that actually undermines commercialisation: Why would you invest in Bigelow, for example, when you know that NASA/ISS/CASIS is competing against you?

            NASA has a nasty habit of unintentionally smothering commercial activity in space – they see commercial interest in an area, so propose their own competing variant, which causes investors to pull out of the initial company, then NASA fails to get funding to develop their rival version anyway. (I remember this happening a couple of times in the ’90s with proposed commercial tele-op rovers on the moon. And repeatedly with launchers.) The law was actually changed to try to prevent NASA from doing this, but judging by CASIS and other efforts to “commercialise the ISS”, the message didn’t get through.

            There’s a huge difference with NASA becoming an anchor client of an actual commercial or private system and NASA trying to “commercialise” or “privatise” its own systems. NASA should never be trying to “sell” its services to others. Whenever you hear of efforts to raise funding for NASA by “selling” services, you should be deeply suspicious because chances are a bad thing just happened.

            [You made a similar, much much more concise, comment elsewhere, so I don’t think I’m really arguing too hard against you.]

          • duheagle says:
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            Yeah, I think we’re in approximate agreement, really. Having human beings bouncing off the walls already “pollutes” the environment for vibration-free micro-G experimentation. Such experiments need to be done in crewless free-fliers.

            Also agree ISS research should focus mainly on the “known unknowns” of interplanetary BEO spaceflight. ISS is probably not the ideal locale for all such. For instance, experiments with magnetic/electrostatic radiation shielding should probably be done at a Lagrange point so as to be far away from both the Earth’s magnetic field and the still significant trace atmosphere at ISS altitude. A Lagrange point is a lot more like free space than it is like LEO for such purposes.

            Ideally, I’d like to see one or two Bigelow LEO space stations on orbit by 2018. NASA can rent part or all of one of these with money gotten by cancelling Orion and SLS. The Russians will probably be well along with plans to detach their ISS modules and turn them into Mir Next. We should be generous and offer to let them take all our aging and maintenance-intensive “tin can” modules as well, especially if it simplifies the cleaving of assets.

            The backbone, solar arrays and cooling radiators should have an electric propulsion module attached to put these remaining useful pieces of ISS into a lower-inclination orbit over a period of a year or so. Bigelow would then launch an Olympus module on an up-rated Falcon Heavy and attach it to the ISS leftovers at one end. The centrifuge ring for partial gravity experiments could go on the other end along with the refuelable re-boost engines. NASA would barter the leftover ISS bits for the initial year or so of rent. After that, they’re a tenant and maybe not the only one.

          • Paul451 says:
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            Having human beings bouncing off the walls already “pollutes” the environment for vibration-free micro-G experimentation.

            That’s the advantage of multiple commercial stations. You can have specialised stations for different types of tasks, and you can keep interfering experiments away from each other.

            The Russians will probably be well along with plans to detach their ISS modules

            I’ve suggested before that responding to this would allow the US to double-up on subsidising commercial space-station research while still benefiting (and benefiting from) the ISS. A COTS-like program to develop modules and systems to replace the Russian modules’ functionality. (Mainly propulsion and docking.) Helps preserve ISS, while letting companies offset the cost of developing and testing next-gen commercial space station systems. Makes the development process more incremental.

            We should be generous and offer to let them take all our aging and maintenance-intensive “tin can” modules as well

            No, that would require all replacement systems to be ready to go on day one. No incremental development, and failure isn’t allowed. Makes everything more expensive.

            Bigelow would then launch an Olympus module on an up-rated Falcon Heavy and attach it to the ISS

            On the time-scale we’re talking, a “naked” (*) BA-330 would be a better option. Fits the basic FH. Would fit on the ISS better. And seems to be where Bigelow is focusing their efforts so far, so they are further along.

            Again, incremental development. Genesis I/II, BEAM, naked-330, full free-flying BA-330, multi-BA-330 stations, and then and only then BA-2100. (Maybe even an extra step between BEAM and n-330, and between n-330 and the full BA-330 free-flier.)

            (* No autonomous power/propulsion/comms/eclss, just a step up from BEAM, adding a core and racks and more volume.)

          • duheagle says:
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            Yours is an alternate future I could still happily live with.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            Paul wrote: “Why would you invest in Bigelow, for example, when you know that NASA/ISS/CASIS is competing against you?”
            So do you HONESTLY believe that CASIS is going to beat Bigelow on price and turn around time? The more choices the better.

          • Paul451 says:
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            how does going to the Moon help you get to Mars?

            And for the record, DTARS’ original comment was: “Where do you find the building blocks to sustainability [sic] go to Mars? […] The commercial industrializion of the moon.”

            “Building blocks”, via “commercial industrialisation”.

            What would be involved in “commercial industrialisation of the moon”?

            – Regular low cost launch to LEO.

            – Regular, low cost transport from LEO to LLO (whether that’s via the launcher or a stand-alone lunar ferry).

            -Regular, low cost transport to and from the lunar surface (which almost certainly means some kind of in-orbit and/or lunar refuelling system.)

            – Low cost commercial bases and industrial operations, cheap enough to win customers outside of NASA and still make a profit.

            Do you really fail to see how those things would serve as “building blocks” in a NASA mission to Mars?

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            if you’re going to the Moon you’re not going to Mars. it’s really as simple as that.

          • DTARS says:
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            Whether that’s by the launcher or a stand alone ferry”

            Shouldn’t Spacex’s MCT be able to do direct flights to the moon almost exactly the way it flies to Mars? As long as you have refuel depot on the moon. Don’t you have a moon ship as well as a Mars ship??

          • Paul451 says:
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            27 Merlin engines is Falcon Heavy.

            BFR is expected to use 9 of the larger Raptors.

            http://upload.wikimedia.org

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            okay, but do you really need to go to the Moon to do those things? why waste your time going to the Moon if your goal is to go to Mars?

          • duheagle says:
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            Paul’s laundry list is spot on, particularly his emphasis on making BEO missions commercial affairs that can self-sustain over time. Right now, I think it’s easier to make a case for such projects that are Moon-centric rather than Mars-centric, but Elon Musk seems to think he can not only go to Mars fairly soon but also make it pay. I’m not about to say he’s wrong.

            As a truly spacefaring race, we should have the ability to go wherever we want for whatever reasons we find suitable and to be actively pursuing multiple destinations at once. The only frame of reference in which going to the Moon and going to Mars are zero-sum competitor propositions is if one is still hag-ridden by the outdated notion that human spaceflight initiatives needs must always originate with NASA or be critically dependent upon static or shrinking NASA budgets. Abandon that steamer trunk of mental baggage and whole new vistas open up.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            okay, if you want to go to the Moon to develop BEO capability that’s fine. it’s a great place and we do need to explore it. we can even pick both! that’s fine by me too. however, that’s not the point.

            again i ask – if your goal is to get to Mars, then why waste your time going to the Moon?

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            “How many designers does it take to change a light bulb”
            Ans; “Does it have to be a light bulb?”

            Mars is just the wrong destination.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            all righty then.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Precisely said.

          • Paul451 says:
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            if the end goal is to go to Mars

            …then you failed before you started.

            The end goal is human settlement of the solar system. It then becomes obvious what value, if any, the moon offers. That is, if it can advance that goal it is a necessary step, if it cannot it’s merely a minor side path (and only when other development has made it affordable for those who wish to go.) The same is true of Mars, except I’ve seen much of any argument for what Mars offers to the rest of the solar system.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            okay then. what should NASA do right now?

          • Paul451 says:
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            Spiral.

            Same thing they should have been doing since the end of Apollo.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            and spiral is??

          • Paul451 says:
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            A system of incremental outward development. Used by Sean O’Keefe to design VSE for Bush before it got hijacked by Griffin and Constellation.

            Or in Jeff Greason’s famous “settlement strategy” talk: https://www.youtube.com/wat

            Picture 19th century government-funded explorers using a modified commercial whaling ship to explore the waters around Antarctica, then whalers follow to exploit those waters. The government program is only ever one step beyond commercial expansion, paving the way for them to follow, acting as anchor tenant, and doing research on next-gen technology to seed the next-plus-one expansion.

          • duheagle says:
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            The most important thing is what NASA shouldn’t do. Specifically, it shouldn’t spend any of its limited budget on anything the commercial sector is already doing on its own dime, though providing development funds, ala COTS, is fine.

          • DTARS says:
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            We need NACA not NASA with reguards to human Spaceflight.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            umm…. NACA was only involved with aircraft.

          • DTARS says:
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            Spaceships are aircraft. Umm airlesscraft umm flying machines 🙂

            I thinks its the assisting relationship that NACA had with the airline industry that’s the point Doug. Not the difference in the flying machines.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            NASA still does the stuff that the NACA used to do. the first A stands for Aeronautics.

            i don’t think you’re making whatever point you were trying to make very well.

          • dogstar29 says:
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            “the first A stands for Aeronautics”

            Every new administrator says this, then promptly forgets about it. Compare the economic and social impact of aviation with spaceflight. Then compare the space and aero segments of the NASA budget.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            considering how little attention is paid to it, NASA continues to do a great deal of bleeding edge aeronautical research. NASA has (in general) done very well managing to do quality work on a shoestring budget.

            see here, for starters. http://www.nasa.gov/centers

            the budget problems happen when congress throws a project at NASA, says “do this” and then throws money at it.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            Fuel depots
            closed loop life support
            aero braking
            nuclear power and propulsion
            centrifuge sleeping quarters
            Modular design
            Space Based, reusable, gas n’ go vehicles like Nautlus-X
            Radiation mitigation.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            you do realize that NASA is currently working on almost all of those things right now, right?

          • Vladislaw says:
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            nickle and diming around the edges is what I have read, not the funding stream proposed in tne 2011 budget that called for systematically raising the TRL’s of these technologies and flight testing them right away.

          • DTARS says:
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            “It’s easier and faster to just go to Mars.”

            Not if your riding Orion SLS

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            fallacy – strawman. next argument.

          • DTARS says:
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            Just a joke Doug

          • dogstar29 says:
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            There is some technology in common, particularly for Earth-to-LEO logistics. Moreover, we currently lack the resources to go to Mars. A program of human lunar exploration would provide a less expensive avenue for all our BEO impulses. However I think the first step is to build up our Earth-to-LEO logistical capility, reduce costs, and expand infrastructure in LEO.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            the things you say are true, and i agree with what you’ve said, though i’d add that we also currently lack the resources to go to the Moon, as well.

            the point of my earlier post, though, is that if the end goal is to go to Mars, then work on going to Mars. the Lunar and Martian environments are so dramatically different that the landers, habitats, and other equipment you need to survive and work with on the Moon will be much different than what you’d need for Mars. the Moon is, and is best pursued as, a destination in its own right, since its challenges are so different than those for Mars.

          • dogstar29 says:
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            I do not disagree. But I question whether Mars _or_ the Moon should be viewed as a final destination. Even if we had the money, what would we do _after_ we landed on Mars? Remember 1969? I would rather see sustainable human spaceflight as a goal. When we have the technology to make it practical, we can go anywhere we want.

            That said, the title slide, showing a squadron of fully-assembled SLSs approaching Mars, seems symptomatic of the agency itself. It elicits considerable enthusiasm among people in the NASA organization despite appearing completely implausible to many in the space enthusiast community. Truly a schizophrenic moment. It seems to me that the conference was calling for abandonment of all NASA activities other than human flight to Mars.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            and I agree with you again. it shouldn’t be either one or the other.
            NASA has been saddled with poor leadership for some time now. its funds have been mismanaged and it has been badly directed by several presidential administrations.

            the time may be coming for it to be split into two or more agencies, one focused exclusively on human spaceflight, the other on space and planetary science and exploration. remaining schizophrenic will destroy the agency.

          • dogstar29 says:
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            The schizophrenia I was referring to was between those who believe that a “strong leader” will emerge and lead us to Mars with SLS, and those who believe money will always be limited and SLS will be ignominiously cancelled a few years hence.

            I don’t see a problem with NASA having multiple objectives, indeed I believe this is essential.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            The President doesn’t really guide NASA. Reagan wanted more commercial space and had NASA’s mandate changed to reflect that. Congress systematically ignored it for decades. Bush wanted no new rockets in the Vision for Space Exploration, instead congress gave us ESAS and CONstellation. President Obama wanted no “monster” rocket but 6 billion for commercial crew, he got 270 million and 30 billion monster rocket.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            that is true. i should have said “several presidential administrations and congresses”

          • DTARS says:
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            How many billion does each one of those SLS rockets in the slide represent? How much does one SLS Orion mission cost??

            2 billion per. 3 billion??? More???

            If Musk is unable to settle Mars in his life time, he sure could easily do a few boots flags human science missions with a billion or two.

            Let Space EXPLORATION be NASA’s Human Space program.

            The reality is Spacex will explore, NASA will not

          • DTARS says:
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            What did those T shirts say? WWED

            What would Elon do?

            Follow the leader 🙂

          • Vladislaw says:
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            Best numbers I have seen is 1.5 for the SLS and 1.1 for the MPCV. But that is based on a launch every year. a launch every other year would had another 2-3 billion per launch. Boeing charged 1.4 billion per core in the recent contract award. That doesn’t count the solid rocket boosters, the upper stage, or the standing army… the PORKONAUTS in congress must happier then pigs in )(#*&$

          • Vladislaw says:
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            A small nitpic .. we have a 3.5 trillion dollar a year budget… we do not nor has America ever “lacked the resources”. We have lacked the political will for the NASA ‘do over’ and honor the mandate NASA actually has had since 1984. To seek and encourage to the maximum extent possible the commercial use of space.
            That is soon going to end, or at least get chipped at more and more every year.

            Once NASA starts buying more and more commercial it will be amazing what actually can get done in commercial space transportation activities.

          • dogstar29 says:
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            Conceptually I agree with you. But politically, taxes have become poison. The US effective tax rate is the lowest among major countries. When you want to do something with taxes, no one cares what the budget is. You have to fight for every nickel. Unless you are chairman of an appropriations subcommittee, that is.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            i presumed that by “resources” he meant the specific hardware to travel to either locations.

          • DTARS says:
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            Agree
            No one even commented in the thread about satellite repair and refueling that’s a big near term industry.

            Nothing said ???

  5. Michael Spencer says:
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    I have a sense that finding and using space-borne resources here on earth is the first step to true conquering of space: the development of tech to trans-locate minerals to earth orbit and eventually to Earth will create untold wealth while creating sustainable space activities.

    This isn’t a new idea. Heading directly to Mars while end badly, I think, with a long hiatus similar to our current situation after Apollo 18.

    At some point some really smart person will figure out how to use those resources in situ. That is when the settlement of space as a place to live will begin and it is a hundred years away.

    The notion that we will establish and maintain colonies on Mars- that’s what we are talking about, after all- simply ignores history.

  6. Anonymous says:
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    The US needs to get back to the moon to protect our national
    interests and security. The Chinese have stated that they “want their fair
    share” of lunar resources. Who determines what is
    “fair”. Maybe they think it means “all”.

    The US also needs to re-learn the techniques needed to send humans far from
    Earth and practice living more than ISS distance from the Earth.

    Then, the US LEADS the world in going to Mars.

    • dogstar29 says:
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      “The Chinese have stated that they “want their fair share” of lunar resources” Do you have a reference? Was the statement made by “The Chinese”? or “one person from China”? In the latter case there might be a billion different opinions in China. Ouyang Ziyuan, a Chinese space enthusiast and academic, made some enthusiastic comments about lunar resources: http://www.bbc.com/news/251
      But he never said that China deserved any specific part of these resources, he spoke only of their usefulness to Earth. And realistically,he said that at present returning them to Earth was too expensive to be practical.

      • Anonymous says:
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        Read their White Paper of 2011. It is full of claims for “National Strategic Interests”. The link you cit just strengthens our concern.

        • dogstar29 says:
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          I read the 2011 white paper and did not see the statement you refer to. Can you provide an actual quote and a link to the source? Not trying to pick nits, but unless we have the facts we are just spinning our wheels.

          • Anonymous says:
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            Try this one:

            http://www.strategicstudies

            However you slice it or wordsmith it, China is aiming for dominance and is using their space program as one tool. We did the same, of course, then backed away. The Chinese won’t back away this time like they did in the early 15th Century.

    • duheagle says:
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      Agree with Vultch. The Chinese are much given to big talk.

      But their manned program has averaged only a flight roughly every two+ years. They have few assets on-orbit, certainly far fewer than they’d need to undertake any kind of lunar expedition that is assembled in LEO as opposed to being launched all at once on a monster rocket.

      Perhaps they’re merely covering all bases or perhaps they’re convinced that if the U.S. is pursuing SLS they also need a monster rocket, but the Chinese have outlined a BFR of their own called Long March 9.

      What the Chinese lunar expeditionary architecture is going to look like is unknown – probably even to the Chinese at this point. But they seem in no particular hurry to get there.

      In the meantime, their various pronouncements are good for whippinng up hysteria among the Yellow Peril crowd and also cause the Sinophiles among American space advocates to mistakenly assume the Chinese are much further along than they actually are, causing them to push for including China in our own LEO and BEO projects. Neither the extreme Sinophobes nor the clueless Sinophiles have it right – as usual.

      Americans are going back to the Moon, but the Americans who do so first are unlikely to be on the civil service rolls. Commercial firms will pioneer lunar orbital space tourism, landers to support unmanned telerobotic site prep and ISRU experimentation – especially water prospecting – and hab and crew landings by resource exploitation firms, in that order. NASA may wind up being rent-paying tenants in such facilities.

      I’m sure there will be at least a modicum of vacuum-sealed green tea on the shelves of the Luna City pantry with which to serve our Chinese guests whenever they actually get around to showing up.