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Exploration

How The #JourneyToMars Becomes The #JourneyToNowhere

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 22, 2016
Filed under , , ,
How The #JourneyToMars Becomes The #JourneyToNowhere

New NASA budget eats the seed corn of its Journey to Mars, Ars Technica
“This week, the US Senate’s Appropriations subcommittee overseeing spaceflight put forward its blueprint for NASA’s FY2017 budget. The top-line number looks promising at $19.306 billion – a $21 million year-over-year increase. Yet the Senate plan exposes two potentially fatal flaws with NASA’s Journey to Mars. Namely, the US Congress continues to place funding for the Space Launch System rocket and Orion space capsule before all other elements of NASA’s exploration program. And by raiding other areas of NASA’s budget, notably Space Technology, it is hamstringing the agency’s ability to carry out the journey.”
Larger image
NASA: We’re on a #JourneyToMars – But Don’t Ask Us How, earlier post
NAC Doesn’t Think NASA Has Tech Or Plans For #JourneyToMars, earlier post
NASA Begins Its Journey To Nowhere, earlier post
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NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

29 responses to “How The #JourneyToMars Becomes The #JourneyToNowhere”

  1. Daniel Woodard says:
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    If Congress is truly determined to force NASA to use 50 year old technology then there is no point in spending money to develop new technology. Of course it does undermine the whole idea of NASA.

    • savuporo says:
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      50 year old technology is not capable of sending humans to other planets and bringing them back

      • Daniel Woodard says:
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        Quite true, but Congress is concerned with satisfying lobbyists today, not colonists tomorrow.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        I wonder about that. Dr. von Braun et al were quite confident?

        I’ve wondered how they would have made deep space work.

        • savuporo says:
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          Von Braun’s original Marsprojekt plans were obviously very low-information. He knew nothing about radiation, interplanetary navigation, actual conditions on Mars etc at the time he wrote about it.
          Later, he was still overly focused on the transportation aspects through the evolution of his proposals, being a rocket man. He also proposed effectively sending 8 to 12 crew on a suicide trip to Mars, hoping that Congress would fund a follow up rescue mission. That was in 1965

        • fcrary says:
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          I think he was confident he could make it work. I also suspect he knew his original ideas wouldn’t be the ones to fly. The details would inevitability have depended on thing learned along the way. But I’d say the technology of 1969 was even less ready for a lunar mission, than Shuttle-era technology is for Mars. The obstacle I see is an approach based on planning everything in advance and trying to do so perfectly, as opposed to experimenting, learning and adapting plans.

    • fcrary says:
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      I wouldn’t mind if it was a gradual and incremental evolution of 50 year old technology. NACA did plenty of that sort of thing, and it was quite useful. But I agree.when it comes to just building and flying more RS-25s.

  2. TheBrett says:
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    Shocking nobody. But hey! Maybe we’ll get 1-2 trips around the Moon in testing so NASA can spin it as a huge accomplishment – “We’ve returned to the Moon, and Mars is next!”. And at least they’ll be out of Low Earth Orbit, so that’s something.

    • Zed_WEASEL says:
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      Before or after the BFS from the folks at Hawthorne do some test landings on the Moon?

    • Jeff2Space says:
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      Recreating the flight of Apollo 8 fifty years later would not be much of an accomplishment, in my opinion.

      • TheBrett says:
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        It’s admittedly a low bar for success.

        • Jeff2Space says:
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          Which is why I’m always amazed at people who support SLS as the only way to get beyond LEO when there is simply no money left to do a meaningful mission. There are no landers under development and we’re only now beginning to study a “deep space” HAB module to use with Orion.

  3. Joe Denison says:
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    While there are good points in the article I believe that parts of the “eating the seed corn” argument are flawed.

    First of all even if Space Tech had $1 Billion there is no guarantee that all of it would be spent on developing technology for human space flight. Already parts of the budget are used for satellite refueling as noted in the article.

    Developing “ground breaking technologies” should be done in the context of an actual program to get us to a certain destination. Just “developing technology” will not help HSF if it isn’t used to go somewhere. Also there is the danger of running into an SEI, “we need all the technology,” mindset that makes too many parts “mission critical.”

    Also part of the SLS/Orion budget is going to develop hab modules for cis-lunar space, which are incredibly important if we ever want to get to Mars.

    Another important point is that once commercial crew gets off the ground over $1 Billion will be available to transfer to BEO HSF.

    SLS/Orion aren’t perfect and some of their management practices need to be reformed (no more constant redesigns, pick one and stick with it). Still they can be used to great effect in the coming years if they are managed better.

    • Daniel Woodard says:
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      “once commercial crew gets off the ground over $1 Billion will be available to transfer to BEO HSF.”

      Once commercial crew gets off the ground we might consider just doing BEO HSF with commercial crew. That would free up some real money…

      • Joe Denison says:
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        CST-100 is incapable of deep space operations due to the fact that its heat shield is only rated for LEO re-entry velocities. Also, it only has enough life support for 3 days.

        Dragon V2 has a heat shield capable of re-entry from deep space. That said it may not have the life support capabilities or the redundancies required to operate outside of LEO. If it does or can be easily modified then cool I am all for it.

        It is wise to be cautious about the future. Back in 2004 everybody was certain that space tourism was just around the corner. 12 years have passed and we still aren’t there yet. It has taken a lot of time and effort just to get to the point where we have a funded system to launch humans beyond LEO again.

        Hedging our bets seems the best course of action. If commercial can do BEO then great. But if they can’t or take longer than anticipated I don’t want to have to wait 20 more years to get out of LEO.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          The way things are going, commercial is about the only viable route to BEO.

          I have an idea that Mr. Musk will shake the industry again in September with his Mars plan, which will necessarily include proposals to solve many thorny problems, not the least of which is actually getting people from Mars orbit to the ground, among other problems.

          I suppose it’s too much to hope, but perhaps Mr. Musk will propose a true spaceship? Something that transports mass from earth orbit to mars orbit? And is never splashed?

          And while I am thinking about it, the aerobraking maneuvers used to orbit satellites about Mars is damn chancy for enclosed meatbags.

          • fcrary says:
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            Aerobraking is pretty reliable and low risk. You can make it as gradual as you like (at the expense of a long wait.) You might be thinking of aerocapture, which noone has done and would be tricky. The former is using drag to go from a high elliptical capture orbit to a circular one, spreading the drag out over as many orbits as you like (and with plenty of time for corrections f you get too much or too little on one orbit.) The later is going from a hyperbolic approach to a bound orbit (but still an orbit, not slowing too much and staying in the atmosphere) all at once and in a single pass through the atmosphere. That’s tricky.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Yup.

          • Wayne Martin says:
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            Musk’s latest comments suggests something pretty “Crazy” which suggests a radical departure from current Mars strategies…

            The really cool thing is… when Musk throws an idea out there… or say a White Paper out there…. his concepts are usually very Sound if not revolutionary and certainly not anything taken apart at the Seams!

            Expect a “Revolutionary” idea!

            Whether or not Musk funds the entire journey to Mars…

            Is it not just important to have the Enabling Idea?

        • fcrary says:
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          I don’t think that was the point. Existing (or soon-to-exist) commercial crew isn’t enough for a Mars mission (or any other deep space mission, if you favor a different target.) The question is whether the same people could develop the deep space hardware more efficiently than using the SLS/Orion style of NASA managed development. Dragon would need a habitat module for a long-duration mission. But so would Orion. Developing SLS/Orion might be good insurance (hedging our bets), but that’s insurance with a real hefty premium.

          • Zed_WEASEL says:
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            The Orion is quite a bit pricey to be a LEO crew ferry.

            Even if you must use the Orion. You don’t need the SLS to launch the Orion. There are commercial alternates on the horizon.

            However any BEO trips requires some sort of hab module that the Congressional critters is not funding anytime soon.Nor are they funding some sort of lander. So the Orion can fly around the Moon or the Earth in the foreseeable future.

        • Daniel Woodard says:
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          People will go to Mars when it is practical to do so. If you want to see humans on Mars, you must first make it so practical and inexpensive to reach space that we have an average of 100 people in LEO every day. That isn’t as simple as drawing a picture of a giant rocket. But as SpaceX has shown, cost is the real grand challenge, and the best solution is ingenuity.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            What would 100 people in space actually be doing?

          • Vladislaw says:
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            each according to their specialization.

          • fcrary says:
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            What are 250 to 1000 people doing in McMurdo, Antarctica? If it’s cheap enough, there are things worth doing. I think the point was that, until residency in Earth orbit is that cheap, a Mars mission will be unaffordably expensive.

        • Jeff2Space says:
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          The Orion capsule can’t provide all life support (air, water, food, and etc.) for a crew to get to Mars and back. What is *needed* is enough life support for the periods of flight when it is not docked with a HAB module. That should be on the order of days, not weeks or months.

          Personally, I’d rather see a “deep space” CST-200 and Dragon V3 developed commercially than the Orion program continued.

          • fcrary says:
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            Just out of curiosity, does Orion have requirements for in-space storage? CST and Dragon have, so they can remain docked with ISS for months as part of crew rotation and as a lifeboat. If Orion doesn’t have similar requirements, it won’t be much use at the end of a trip to Mars.

    • Vladislaw says:
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      Or SLS – Orion are canceled and NASA takes that 3.4 billion a year asks for domestic commercial passenger service companies that are already operating in LEO to do a competitive bid for a BEO system. It would probably be done faster than the 17 years and 25 billion it will take Orion before it starts flying.

  4. Matthew Black says:
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    Cue the Talking Heads song; ‘Road To Nowhere…’