A New Spin on the Journey to Mars – By Way of the Moon
NASA-Funded Study Reduces Cost of Human Missions to Moon and Mars by Factor of Ten, National Space Society and Space Frontier Foundation [With video of news conference]
“Note from the authors: This study by NexGen Space LLC (NexGen) was partly funded by a grant from NASA’s Emerging Space office in the Office of the Chief Technologist. The conclusions in this report are solely those of NexGen and the study team authors.”
Executive Summary excerpt: “This study’s primary purpose was to assess the feasibility of new approaches for achieving our national goals in space. NexGen assembled a team of former NASA executives and engineers who assessed the economic and technical viability of an “Evolvable Lunar Architecture” (ELA) that leverages commercial capabilities and
services that are existing or likely to emerge in the near-term.”
“We evaluated an ELA concept that was designed as an incremental, low-cost and low-risk method for returning humans to the Moon in a manner that directly supports NASA’s long-term plan to send humans to Mars. The ELA strategic objective is commercial mining of propellant from lunar poles where it will be transported to lunar orbit to be used by NASA to send humans to Mars. The study assumed A) that the United States is willing to lead an international partnership of countries that leverages private industry capabilities, and B) public-private-partnership models proven in recent years by NASA and other government agencies.”
He was originally willing to do it, but in 2011 with the Bush Catastrophe still charring the country and noting that NASA’s lunar program”was over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation due to a failure to invest in critical new technologies. Using a broad range of criteria, an independent review panel determined that even if fully funded, NASA’s program to repeat many of the achievements of the Apollo era, 50 years later, was the least attractive approach to space exploration as compared to potential alternatives. Furthermore, NASA’s attempts to pursue its moon goals, while inadequate to that task, had drawn funding away from other NASA programs, including robotic space exploration, science, and Earth observations.”, he abandoned it.
Other likely candidates will face the same tough choices.
I have always been a loonie and think that the Moon should be our goal, but no one (in the public sector) is ultimately willing to pay for it.
Obama canceled the lunar program shortly after getting into office. He utter the “been there done that” back in 2010. He picked a Mars program that would cost much more than a lunar program and wouldn’t be building any expensive hardware until long after he was gone from office.
It was Bush that did that with Constellation. Huge commitments with no funding.
Lots of government programs are begun with funding not provided for later years. If the programs are popular, funding can usually be found. Yes there was insufficient funding planned other than stopping the shuttle and ISS with the expensive part starting to ramp up. Obama solved that by cancelling most of it and putting the expensive part out past his time in office so he could avoid that.
Constellation was controversial from the very start. Funding was not available, and would not be available.
Obama, just would not spend unavailable funds during a catastrophe on a poorly thought out program which was severely criticized by a committee set up to analyze it.
Do you have evidence that was Obama’s intention, i.e. “putting the expensive part out past his time in office so he could avoid that”, or is that just political bias speaking?
When did President Obama pick a Mars program? Sources, please. Only two Presidents have had anything to do with a Mars program in the past 30 years, they were both named George Bush and both went nowhere.
Obama Obama Obama it’s all his fault. Snore.
CessnaDriver, some advice – look in a mirror and scream “I HATE OBAMA!!” over and over. Seriously, try it for two or three hours. Hell, it’s the only thing that got me through eight years of Bush. I reckon it could help you, too. At least it would save me from having to listen to it.
I genuinely welcome your views on space, but as PsiSquared has said, the Obama stuff is really really boring. If I want predictable vitriol, I’ll rock on over to Fox News or the National Review. I’d rather leave (most) of that rubbish behind and hang on NasaWatch. But not for much longer at this rate.
Mining propellant from the moons surface is a pipe dream. The processing/power/storage equipment/operating cost would be prohibitive.
LMSC proposed visiting a moon of mars which is doable and offers scientific return.
The NRC, GER, and JPL/Aerospace, and other individual reviews of the life cycle costs of traditional Mars architectures (akin to Design Reference Architecture 5.0 like approaches) have all arrived at the same conclusion. Neither yearly NASA budgets or stretched timelines will ever add up to any Mars missions at all. These approaches lack either budget or are so stretched in time as to be consigned to irrelevance.
As a nuance, at times a hair is split between an assessment that something is “feasible” versus being “sustainable” – and groups are talking very different things. The former, feasibility”, is at times about the possibility of reaching Mars in a one-shot deal, with no real consideration to staying, or NASA or anyone being able to repeat the feat often if at all. The latter “sustainability” is more about steps that assure a first step by NASA is followed by more, with thought to how non-government economic activity would be baked into the approach.
Exactly so- but that is precisely the sort of infrastructural invention that is needed.
We keep making the same mistakes over and over: stretch our abilities nearly to the breaking point to gain the Moon or Mars landing when the Everest approach of intermediate camps is tried and true.
Our longterm future in space may involve Mars/ Lunar settlements but looking out as far as the eye can see the tech needed to handle deep gravity wells affordably isn’t there. Neither is the ability to exploit the wealth offered in raw materials by asteroids and other easily-achievable sites.
But the ability to process those materials is both an achievable goal and a necessary precursor to a true interplanetary life.
This was not a study to return to the Moon per se, but rather to assess certain economic approaches to exploiting potential resources on the Moon, to get propellant on the way to Mars.
I can maybe see lunar refueling working long term (although it will inevitably waste a lot of fuel on launching/landing). But I can’t see how it could possibly save money short-term. How many loads of fuel would they need to launch into high lunar orbit before the whole mining operation would be cheaper than just launching that fuel from earth? Sure launch costs are expensive, but so’s a moon base.
That’s certainly a bug in the ointment for those of us supporting the exploitation of low-gravity loci before we tackle moon/Mars bases.
Of course it also depends on what your Mars goals are. If its a one-off “Flag and Footsteps” mission than launching everything from Earth would be cheaper.
But if you want to have a sustainable presence over decades for science or settlement, than you will find economies of scale in developing the lunar infrastructure.
And of course the lunar infrastructure is not just about Mars. It also gives you Venus, the Asteroids and access to any place else in the Solar System.
The study assumes use of commercial launch vehicles for ground-to-LEO transport, i.e. the Falcon/Dragon and FH, or a comparable equivalent from ULA. Mr. Obama abandoned the goal of returning to the moon (and shifted the misison costs out of his administration) only after Congress denied him that option and required NASA to use the SLS/Orion.
Let me start by saying that I am not one of those people who is married to a particular architecture. I have a preferred architecture but I will not die if it isn’t implemented. As long as it expands America and humanity as a whole into the final frontier I am all for it be it NASA, commercial, or whatever.
There are a lot of good ideas out there and lot of bad ones. IMHO this architecture has a mixture.
Good ideas: Involve commercial companies with the lunar lander and follow acquisition strategy from commercial crew/cargo.
Fixed price contracts are the path forward. Even though I am an SLS/Orion fan there is no question in my mind that Boeing and LM are gouging the taxpayer to some extent. Making the fixed price contract regime permanent will help reduce costs and get us more bang for our buck.
Also getting the commercial companies involved in constructing a lunar lander would help balance the work across government and commercial sectors. Companies such as Boeing already have concepts for lunar landers and it makes a lot of sense to involve them.
Bad ideas:
Commercial making everything/SLS&Orion abandoned. Focus on lunar mining in the near term. Unrealistic cost estimates.
Throwing away a perfectly good cislunar/Mars capsule in order to make two new cislunar capsules is a bad idea. It will delay our BEO efforts, cost more, and will put all the burden of work on the commercial companies.
That goes the same for SLS. The BFR from SpaceX isn’t coming anytime soon and any architecture without it needs massive fuel depots in LEO. There doesn’t appear to be any money in the plan for development of the depots.
Lunar mining in the near term would take a gargantuan effort. It would cost much less to just go to Mars directly then to set up a huge mining facility on the lunar surface. Insistence on lunar mining and a vast array of depots was what sunk SEI. Will lunar resources be important at some point to space travel? Yes, but not for a long time. Demand is needed.
The idea that they could do all this with just $10 Billion is absurd. Just getting the commercial crew capsules up and running will cost $8 Billion. Making new cislunar craft or heavily modifying current LEO ones will not be cheap. Then there is the lunar lander and fuel depots to develop.
A few points
1) The proposal doesn’t say kill SLS/Orion – it does lower the number of launches per mars mission, but so what? No reason to take a Porche every time you go to the supermarket?
2) Why are depots bad? No justification has been provided
3) If you are going to critique the cost models, you should actually explain why
NASA did internal studies that showed that LEO fuel depots could improve mission success and lower costs.
http://www.spaceref.com/new…
By my reading the NSS proposal is predicated on use of commercial vehicles for all launches, with assembly and fueling of mission spacecraft in LEO. That is a primary reason the authors predict a lower cost than previous concepts.
They use that for smaller stuff, for fuel, and for going to the moon.
For going to Mars, they retain use of SLS for important items
Could you please point or where in the NSS study the use of SLS, or orion is mentioned?
Page 2, in the executive summary “The ELA would reduce the number of required SLS launches from as many as 12 to a totlal of only 3, thereby reducing SLS operational risks, and increasing affordability”
I actually agree with some of your points Joe. I disagree about the costs for new capsules. Whereas ComCrew started with six players and down selected I do not believe you would need or there would be as many qualified to compete in a Lunar COTS.
You stated ” It would cost much less to just go to Mars directly then to set up a huge mining facility on the lunar surface. Insistence on lunar mining and a vast array of depots was what sunk SEI.”
Could you define a couple of your terms, a ‘huge’ mining facility. Define huge, I do not see it for the initial start up. Also the ‘vast’ array. Define vast. I do not see for the initial start up.
here is a link for NASA’s internal studies on fuel depots
http://www.spaceref.com/new…
The difficulty with SLS and Orion is that it is an extremely expensive system to operate, particularly when the GSE and facilities costs are included. This was part of the difficulty with the Space Shuttle. Orion requires the SLS, VAB, crawlers, SRB shipping and assembly facilities, all of which require maintenance and specialized personnel. The SRBs are shipped fueld and are extremely heavy and hazardous from the time of manufacture. It’s hard to see how it would ever be possible to have more than a handful of people in space at any time unless a less expensive strategy is identified.
SLS/Orion aren’t that expensive. Even if billions more a year are spent on the program it will be roughly equivalent to the shuttle over 30 years. I’ll take that any day.
Last time I checked no SRBs have exploded or killed anyone in transit to the launchpad.
Here is an example of why it is so important that NASA’s goals be defined. Commercial space advocates seem to want NASA to give up or severely curtail BEO activities in order to build up commercial infrastructure in LEO. Personally I believe that NASA should promote commercial activity in LEO but not to the point where that is the only thing they are doing in HSF. NASA should be the Lewis and Clark of space, expanding boundaries and establishing initial bases. It isn’t their job to colonize space. Their job it to lead the way.
The problem is that if the commercial space industry is too heavily dependent on NASA we lose what has made them so helpful. Because NASA built the ISS and then contracted out for cargo and crew the commercial sector had a basis for expanding into LEO. Without ISS going commercial would have had little or no impact. For the case of BEO exploration no such basis currently exists. In fact right now it is still really hard to justify a business plan in LEO.
The best path forward would be for NASA to build say a lunar orbital station while also helping finance a new commercial space station in LEO once ISS is gone (NASA owns the core module or a research module lets say). This allows NASA to be a founding customer but not the only one. That way human presence in space is expanded but not at the expense of not exploring BEO.
This plan of action (NASA builds a base, initially crews it with NASA vehicles, contracts for cargo, contracts for crew) is working and it is a better way forward than “commercial all the way.” NASA takes on the initial hard work and risks which then opens opportunities for the commercial companies.
The Shuttle was also overpriced, so I’m not sure that’s the ideal program with which to make a comparison.
Lolololol
Surely you jest Sir 🙂
I referred primarily to cost. Without a major reduction in cost we will never see more than a handful of people in space. As it happens, however, a train carrying SRB segments to the launch site was involved in a fatal collision at a crossing.
Agreed but you can’t treat the NASA BEO program as the main driver of getting people into space. It isn’t meant to do that. Commercial enterprises will get more than a handful of people into space.
To use an historical example NASA is like Columbus, John Cabot, or Lewis and Clark. Government paid explorers who mapped out new areas. Did they bring over massive amounts of people on their initial expeditions? Of course not. Commercial companies like Hudson Bay and London Virginia helped colonization start.
Was the SRB the reason for the crash? We have train crashes all the time and it hardly seems fair to blame a certain type of booster for a train accident.
Much of the earliest European explorers (1200s to 1400s were commercial (for example, the Polos). Governments followed later, often in a blended partnership. John Cabot was apparently funded by Italian banks (venture capitalists) and the English king.
With modern funding mechanisms and no need to placate empires’ zones of control, basic exploration that holds the hint of future profits can create a different model then the Age of Discovery.
NASA can act as an anchor tenant/customer for commercial systems though, allowing them to buy COTS (commercial off the shelf)
“Last time I checked no SRBs have exploded or killed anyone in transit to the launchpad.”
I don’t blame the SRB, however without it the train would not have been there. The primary problem with large segmented SRBs is the high cost of sustained operations, including the array of specialized ground facilities required and the hazardous nature of almost all servicing operations.
If the HSF program isn’t part of an effort to make space a practical regime for humans to live and work, I’m not sure why it is there. Scientific knowledge and physical exploration can be carried out much less expensively with robotic systems.
You would have multiple catagories of what commercial space advocates. As I have stated BEO is ALL I want NASA doing. Space based, reusable, gas n’ go vehicles.
Wow. There’s a lot political angst in there. Surely everything you claim must true as you see things.
Let me re-post something I wrote a few days ago.
Well, maybe candidate Obama wanted to do something that the catastrophic overwhelming Bush economic disaster soon made impossible,
Remember, that speech was in AUGUST of 2008 and it was starting in SEPTEMBER that the utter financial collapse with resulting trillion dollar bailouts began in earnest. (All before he was elected)
Here is the speech:
https://youtu.be/9PucY416Nns
He proposed extending the the shuttle by another flight (which he DID), and ramping up the shuttle successor. At the time he was assuming the Constellation Ares 1/ Orion was to be the taxi, and decided to keep it.
Later, he became aware that the commercial taxis were possible and could do the job faster and cheaper.
He actively requested their funding year after year, but the Republicans kept gutting his requests and the gap grew.
Here are his requests versus Republican funding (CLICK TO EXPAND):
https://a.disquscdn.com/get…
It is just that he is not a magician and his campaign proposals had to be set aside to deal with the horrifying nightmare he inherited from Bush Jr.
When he took office in 2009, the country was in a absolute credit freeze and total financial panic.
Money to build a US space taxi system and keep ISS flying, yes. Untold billions for a long-term future adventure, no, not at that moment.
It is fairly cheap to collect the rock and tests the SEP tug. NASA can decide if we wish to visit the boulder later.
What time-scale are these cost savings going to happen on? Building a moon base, facilities for turning lunar ice into rocket fuel, and then launching it into lunar orbit for rendezvous does not sound like it will reduce the costs of spaceflight anytime soon.*
If we’re going to try a moon base anyways, then go for it – it can’t hurt to develop ISRU on the Moon, such as is available. But it’s not really some gateway to Mars if that’s supposedly your final destination.
* As others have pointed out, it will probably be cheaper to just launch fuel up from Earth rather than build it on the Moon and launch it for rendezvous.
There is no final destination. If there were, the journey would end.
This guy has a good plan to go to the moon FROM the Space Station.
https://m.youtube.com/watch…
And he has a solution for micro gravity too.
I like his one man mechanical space suits too 🙂
He had this plan in 1955
Maybe we should do it today?
The Tick pilot
ESA want to go to the moon and they already have a heavy lifer.
http://www.nature.com/news/…
last time I checked our European friends have never launched a human.
Looks like we are back to political spin. Try looking at
this whole thing from an objective POV. Going back to Bush 41, a
“study” for bold exploration was conducted which quickly after
release collapsed because of the price tag. Under Clinton no significantinitiatives were promoted (unless you want to count Faster, Better, Cheaper asan initiative), actually despite the economic prosperity enjoyed by the country, resulting from the Peace Dividend, during the Clinton Admin the NASA Budget declined year after year. During that time Human Exploration was limited to building the ISS and mention of Mars or Moon were banned as a destination. Along came Bush 43 and not much happened until the Columbia accident brought
new focus upon NASA and the Vision for Space Exploration was conceived (elements of this had for the most part been worked underground for several years before) with GWB even going to NASA HQ to announce the new Bold “Plan” to go to Moon, Mars and Beyond. Then came the task of taking that initiative from vision to formulation and on to execution, which proved to be more than our political system can handle. The original goal of Mars, soon became the Moon and not long after just getting Orion to the ISS was all that could be afforded. Once the Obama Admin came in, they convened an “independent” body to justify the cancellation of GWB’s plan to go to the Moon (thanks to Lori Garver’s steering skills of wiping out any link to the
GWB Goals) and shortly thereafter CxP was cancelled and replaced with no plan, or at least not a credible plan. Because of the un-finessed unilateral approach to the CxP cancellation by Obama, much damage to any hope of having a working relationship with Congress (both Parties) was done. Because in this world there is a reaction to every action, Congress forced Obama to walk back portions of the
cancellation of CxP and we would up with Orion and SLS in a “loosely”
coupled program. But even more serious impact was the fractured aimless plan for Human Exploration that emerged, essentially a maintenance of the workforce without any credible mission (very
few have any confidence in the diversionary ARM mission and even less in the Mars goal that is not substantiated with and rational plan to get there.) And so here we are waiting for the next administration to lead us Space Cadets to the promised program that takes us to Moon or Mars or Beyond. Just one man’s opinion.
How sad folks feel they have to justify going to the Moon as a way of going to Mars. The Moon is and always will be the gateway to the Solar System and its economic development is the logical next step for both industry and the space program.
Add to that the earlier discussion of how the possibility of NASA’s budget be increased is basically zero and it is where the focus should be for NASA future goals.
Mars by contrast is a dead end, another deep gravity well into a world far to hostile for humans to thrive on. And if it has life, a place that should probably be quarantined from humans to allow it to be studied with minimal threat of contamination and destruction.
Describing the moon as a natural gateway to the solar system is common place for sure but I never really understood the arguments.
Perhaps it’s one of those things that just ‘seems obvious’ but in closer inspection isn’t quite so clearly the case?
I get the scientific arguments. But how is it a better base of operations than, say, a rotating space station? We need to understand rotation-induced gravity at some point anyway. How is landing on the moon better than working in space at a lagrange point?
Raw materials? Why not both lots of Moon infrastructure, and a big rotating space station?
One answer to your second question would be that it’s unlikely there will ever be funding for both.
Yep
Because it already has gravity and industry and industrial processes will be cheaper to start up in a gravity well. A rotating station provides centrifical gravity like a fair ride that throws you against inside of a wheel. Also it is three days away and transportation for everything will be less costly. Toss in that Luna has H20 and it really is, economically, there really isn’t a comparison.
Because an industrial base on the Moon provides fuel at a lower energy cost than Earth as well as structural materials and shielding. Its close enough to Earth most of the workforce would be able to do the work telebotically from Earth reducing costs even more. Since its a low gravity vacuum you could use High-G acceleration railguns or mass drivers to launch your payloads off the Moon.
And then of course there will be the technology spin-offs from developing the Moon, everything from mostly self-sufficient habitats to technology for high dust environments, all developed close enough not only for telebotic support, but easy access to Earth for improvements and faster development cycles. In the time it would take a single expedition to get to Mars and return you could have a couple dozen cycles for equipment sent to the Moon along with easy return of failed components for evaluation.
Also the best location for your rotating space station as a gateport for the Solar System are at the Earth-Moon L1 and L2 points. Since they are fixed relative to the Moon it is easy to use those high G mass drivers to
deliver materials to those locations. And again, close enough to Earth for teleworkers to support the staff at the station. Imagine the workload on the ISS astronauts if it was in orbit around Mars and not the Earth.
Both the EM L1 and EM L2 are low delta departure points for anyplace in the Solar System, ideal for ion or plasma powered spaceships and uncrewed spacecraft.
And finally if you want to go nuclear there are radioactive “anomalies” that may well have the nuclear fuel you need, while mining and processing it on the Moon, not to mention launching it, will be far safer than on Earth.
Do I need to go on?
No. Point taken!
Availability of regolith for radiation shielding?
“The Moon is and always will be the gateway to the Solar System and its economic development is the logical next step for both industry and the space program.”
Reminds me of this article by Dennis Wingo,
https://denniswingo.wordpre…
We now have economic development in LEO (maybe?) so according to this plan from 1960 next will be lunar space. But it seems many want to skip that level and go straight to Mars. Someone on this forum said it was Mars Underground folks that hijacked NASA’s plans in 1970s and 80s to build LEO and cislunar infrastructure, and convinced everyone to forget about the Moon and go straight to Mars.
There was an exception in last 30 years with Constellation but that was a direct repeat of Apollo so it was a deadend.
Thanks for referring again to that piece by Mr. Wingo. I don’t remember when I first read it but I did study it again a few weeks ago and it has been on my mind since then.
A very thoughtful piece entirely at odds with the roadmap I’d always envisioned.
Planetary take off and landing vehicles are very different from the mobile medium term habitats used for interplanetary travel. These are in turn different from the ground based rovers and long term habitats suitable for the Moon and Mars. Space stations are likely to contain medium to long term habitats. Installations may be able to share parts.
When changing vehicles a station is a useful interchange point. On Earth railway stations frequently have platforms for people, shutting yards for loading cargo and car parks.
The large solar arrays used by Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) vehicles suitable for Mars transfer vehicles will have major problems dealing with atmospheres but are happy to dock to a spacestation.
A space station’s usefulness can be improved if it is equipped to repair and refuel its visiting vehicles.
Yes, angst isn’t the correct word. Words need to be used, words like political bias and lack of objectivity.
A rotten expensive dead end plan to the moon was canceled. I am almost 60 so quit whinging 🙂
You want to go to the moon or mars, then you better start praying Musk lands his little rocket. Then these cheaper smarter ideas may be taken seriously.
If he fails prepare for your next fifty years to be like the last.
Almost 60? A mere youth comparatively.
I don’t see any government anywhere getting people on the surface of Mars during your Biblical allotment 3 score and 10 years.
I am unlucky to be old(er), but lucky enough to have witnessed the whole space age from Sputnik 1 up to today. The high point was watching live TV from the Moon and being present on the press site at the last launch of the mighty Saturn V.
No “excuses”, REASONS.
I’m referring to your screed on the the things not related to NASA. Interestingly, you seem to quite frequently give Congress a pass. It’s almost as if you think that the President is the only person who exercises (or doesn’t ) control over NASA’s programs and policies. Alas, evidence shows that is not the case at all.
To remind you of Congress’ influence on NASA, feel free to take at look at the NASA budget as percentage of the national budget.
http://images.dailytech.com…
Please quantify the percentage of the US population that willingly consented to that effort in the 60’s. Then talk about how quickly that consent waned.
LEO on Soyuz is not Bush. It is the GOP Congress that gutted Obama’s requests for space taxis:
https://a.disquscdn.com/get…
Heh, that’s funny. You actually believe that elected officials actually do what the electorate want. Further, you actually believe that the entire electorate voted. For that record, that leadership went to the Moon as part of a competition with the Soviets, not as some grand scientific endeavor.
That makes no sense. We do not have BY DESIGN a strong executive branch.
Obama had a veto proof majority for <2 months in the last 6 years. The constitution REQUIRES that spending bills originate in the House of Reps. They never saw any reason to cooperate in any way. What is he supposed to take them out and shoot them?
See, you said “the entire electorate.” As for Kennedy’s bully pulpit, that only worked because people wanted to beat the Soviets and in some small assuage their Soviet fears.
More importantly what you continually ignore is the the public interest in what NASA was doing then was only short lived. It died quickly, as did funding. What is not needed now is a program that only lasts a few years. What we need are real reasons for going to space, and going to just to beat another country will only at best result in a very short lived program.
Your political views are frankly boring, worn out, and entirely devoid of any hint of objectivity. Feel free, however, to continue with your ranting.
Government got the space race done. There is microscopic public momentum from the people to engage in a push to Mars or anywhere. I do not see any path with sufficient political oomph to actually get to Mars.
BTW – You’re repeated statements that if a company ever gets any government cash it is not a private company, simply a contractor, simply does not compute.
Wrong. He got republican votes and that was the only way it happened.