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Exploration

There Is More Than One Way To Go To Mars

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 1, 2016
Filed under ,
There Is More Than One Way To Go To Mars

Why Mars? An Astronaut’s Perspective, op ed, John Grunsfeld, Huffington Post
“Sending humans (and all that they will need to accompany them) to Mars will require substantial launch capabilities. This need for heavy launch capabilities goes back more than half a century, thus confirming concepts by Werner von Braun and others for Mars exploration. NASA is investing in the Space Launch System (SLS) to launch its large payloads for its expeditions to Mars. But there is more than one way to launch such heavy masses into space – and go to Mars. Indeed, SpaceX and Blue Origin are both investing in their own heavy lift rockets – and SpaceX plans to start sending its own missions to Mars starting in 2018. One way or another, we’re going to Mars. … ”
“… NASA is also in the planning stages for a high-power solar electric robotic mission to an asteroid. While I am in favor of learning more about asteroids (as will be done with the recently launched asteroid sample return mission OSIRIS-Rex), the stated driver for the asteroid redirect mission is technology development for Mars exploration. Redirecting this mission to Mars would allow for significantly more Mars-relevant technology development.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

44 responses to “There Is More Than One Way To Go To Mars”

  1. Brian_M2525 says:
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    The whole mars focus right about now is funny and I’ll timed. I wonder who coordinated it? Or maybe it’s fallout from the Martian movie? NatGeo has a cover story magazine article this month, there are 2 or 3 other Magazines on the newstamds. A nat geo series about to strart, and yet no plan to talk about Mars missions at least until the next Administration gets situated. Maybe in 6 months? Of course NatGeo provides an apt characterization by Mars maven Zubrin-NASAs strategy for Mars is an insult to the word strategy. It characterizes NASAs bureaucratic slowness and lack of coherent plans and instead focuses on SpaceX. Most notable too was the almost total non mention of ISS (just a bit on 1 year crew), focusing instead on ground studies. Someone at NASA is asleep at the wheel, not to convince Nat Geo that ISS os in !any respects all about developing the knowledge amd technologies for Mars. Not only no strategy, NASA can’t even communicate what they are doing today. NASA: don’t you have anyone in charge?

    • jon_downfromthetrees says:
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      “…coordinated it?”

      A bit conspiratorial.

      You want something different from NASA? Talk to Congress about its static budgets.

      • Brian_M2525 says:
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        Or look at other alternatives for how to extend capabilities. For example, compare the costs and schedule for Orion, with the cost and schedule for Dragon or CST100. Is one procurement and development process faster or cheaper? Why? I think you will find that Orion is many times more expensive and has taken about twice as long as the other 2. There is a reason and it has nothing to do with capabilities or technologies. The 3 are all similar from that reespect.

    • mfwright says:
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      (borrowing a few sentences from Tom Matula): Creation of the Mars underground in the 1980s. Prior NASA was building a Cislunar industrial capability that would have given us the Solar System. NASA didn’t even have plans to send robots to Mars. By advocating we skip the Moon and go rushing off to Mars falling back on outdated ideas like “manifest destiny” and painting Mars like a second Earth, they struck some cord among a very vocal hard core group that has shouted down any rational space strategy ever since.

    • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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      NASA has been looking forward to going to Mars for decades. Since Apollo, I don’t think there’s been a point in NASA’s history where someone hasn’t been actively studying the idea of going to Mars. I think the current push can be traced back to the latter half of the 90s, when “Follow the Water” became NASA’s goal for Mars. The next intended step was always to determine if Mars had ever been habitable, then seek signs of life, all the while preparing for human exploration.

      http://mars.nasa.gov/images

      NASA’s goals got shifted around with various presidential administrations, but Mars was always in the background. The pressure has been growing, albiet slowly, for quite a while. It’s just to the point now where Congress needs to put up serious funding or (essentially) tell NASA that going to Mars or some other ambitious project just isn’t going to happen.

      • Bob Mahoney says:
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        Not necessarily the LATE 90s. After the sticker shock for SEI had squashed any overt discussion of ‘beyond Freedom’ activities, Dan Golden dictated that the Moon was NOT to be mentioned in any discussions/planning of future HSF because it would end up being a decades-long detour from reaching ‘the ultimate goal’, a human landing on Mars. Sense came back with VSE…but then Constellation & ESAS happened, blowing all the sense behind VSE away into the ether.

        • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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          Well, yeah NASA has wanted to go to Mars for a long time. But it all really started to gain focus and momentum in the late 90s. Starting when Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Pathfinder were planned and launched to Mars.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Starting when NASA claimed it found evidence of “life” in a Martian meteor.

            http://www.space.com/33690-

            ‘Even if ALH 84001 did not conclusively prove the existence of life on Mars, the research did benefit science, researchers said.

            “The interest resulted in the Mars Exploration Program being reinstated,” Gibson told Space.com. “The Mars Exploration Rovers, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Phoenix lander, Curiosity rover, Mars Express mission with its Beagle 2 Mars lander — all can be traced to the ALH 84001 research. The excitement of the possibility of potential past or present life on Mars is too important for humans to ignore.” ‘

            This brought the NASA scientists on board with the band wagon the “Mars Underground” was pushing, steering NASA into its current dead end strategy. Dead end because it won’t happen with a huge increase in budget which Congress has zero interest in providing for it.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            Interesting idea, though I’d argue it’s not quite right. The study with that finding was published in August 1996, and while it did generate a lot of general interest in studying Mars, and definitely got them more funding for the MER and MSL programs, NASA was going in that direction already. Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Pathfinder had been planned years before that happened, and both launched in November and December of 1996. The MER rovers were already well in the planning stages in 1996.

          • fcrary says:
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            Mars Global Surveyor was basically a reflight of Mars Observer. As the first NASA Mars mission since Viking, I wouldn’t call that an obsession with Mars. Pathfinder was mostly a proof-of-concept of small, low-cost planetary missions (combined with a “prove we can still do it” after the embarrassment of the MO failure.) I can’t find the start date for MER development, but I’m fairly sure it was later than 1996. But some time in the later 1990s, NASA did shift from occasional Mars missions to a Mars program. Quite a bit of that shift was build and sold on the ideas of “follow the water”, “past and present habitability”, etc. I’d say AHL 84001 had more than a little to do with that.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            The Mars Exploration Program was started in 1993, and they had done some significant long term planning by 1995 – “in the wake of the failure of the Mars Observer mission in 1993, a long-term program of robotic exploration of Mars was established. The themes of the Mars Exploration Program are to understand life, climate, and resources on Mars, with these themes tied together by the common thread of water. The Mars Exploration Program comprises at least one Discovery mission (Mars Pathfinder), the Mars Surveyor Program, plus sample return missions and other missions to prepare for possible human expeditions to Mars. The program will launch (on average) two missions every 26 months. The missions launched between 1996 and 2001 will include a lander and an orbiter at each opportunist y[sic].”

            http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov

            I’m not saying the Mars program didn’t get a boost from the claim of life found on the meteorite, they certainly did, but as the program already existed and already had plans for the future, it was fortuitously positioned to leverage the increased interest to its advantage.

        • Daniel Woodard says:
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          It is not obvious that sense came back with the VSE. Even the earliest discussions with Congress, while Shawn O’Keefe was administrator, failed to address the problem of cost.

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        You assume Congress cares. As long as the pork flows Congress would support a human mission to the Sun’s surface.

        • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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          I don’t assume congress cares, and of course history shows they really don’t. I know NASA does care. Fairly soon, NASA will need the authorization and the funding to start the major projects that need to be done before they can do their Journey to Mars, and then Congress will need to put up or tell NASA to shut up.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Administrators of government agencies don’t talk back to Congress, not if they want to stay Administrator. So as in the past Congress will just tell them, here is your budget – Stay in it and send humans to Mars. And the Administrator will smile and say Yes and Thank You!

            And in the unlikely case of the carefully vetted Administrator saying No, its impossible they will be replaced with one that says yes, NASA will do it. But that is why you vet the Administrator first, and why no one wants the job anymore.

            Recall, that is how the TSTO Space Shuttle became the STS that actually flew. And Space Station Freedom became the ISS.

            But since there is no reason to go to Mars, they will just continue building hardware to nowhere while saying it is for Mars.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            Yep. Congress being an obstruction to progress.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            No, the real problem is NASA thinking its better than other government agencies. That because it is on a “pure and noble quest” to find life beyond Earth it should get special treatment.

            Like ALL government agencies its purpose is to make life better for Americans while channeling money to the Congressional Districts it is located in. Period.

            I have yet to hear how finding life on Mars will make life better for the average American, other than of course those scientists that get to spend their time looking for it instead of working on something that would provide practical benefits to taxpayers, like controlling an agricultural pest or improving the quality of soy beans.

            So NASA needs to get realistic and start looking at what is possible within its budget, not chasing rainbows like “Journey to Mars” in the belief the money will appear by magic. The glory of Apollo is ancient history, its time NASA, and space advocates, move beyond it and develop a realistic strategy for space and stop wasting taxpayers money on irrational goals like Journey to Mars.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            I don’t think NASA thinks it’s better than any other given agency. Every agency is always going to want more funding to do things it feels it should be doing. Congress either gives them funds to do it or they say “nope” and don’t.

            BTW finding life outside of Earth is nowhere in NASA’s charter, nor is it even among its more informal goals. I’m sure they would think it is awesome if they do, and it is a pressing scientific question, but that’s not their main focus.

            Clearly you think Congress is in the right to not fund NASA for manned spaceflight efforts. All right then.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Indeed. HUD, for instance, will tell you it plays a critical role in our lives; in fact the Driver License folks will go on and on about the ‘privilege’ they bestow, etc. And they are all right, to a greater or lesser extent. While the authority wielded by these agencies ultimately comes from us, still, we have granted them all real authority.

  2. Steven Rappolee says:
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    Send a ARRM derived SEP to Phobos not an asteroid this makes more decadel survey sense, also look for boulders that have lost surface cohesiveness (rolling rocks) so as to reduce risk https://yellowdragonblog.co

  3. Paul451 says:
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    “This need for heavy launch capabilities goes back more than half a century, thus confirming concepts by Werner von Braun”

    Actually Von Braun and his team wanted a smaller vehicle than the Saturn V, preferring orbital assembly via multiple launches. Rivals at NASA wanted a giant all-in-one launcher, with 8 F1 engines. With the short time-line, the agency settled on a compromise between the two proposals, with five engines, all-in-one-launch, but LOR to split the lunar lander and return vehicle into separate pieces.

    “Mars is unique in that it is the only planet where we can some day live in a somewhat similar fashion to the way we live on Earth. It is large enough to have a suitable surface gravity, and has an atmosphere and resources we can use to live off the land.”

    Misleading drivel. We don’t know if Mars has sufficient gravity for permanent settlement. It sure as hell doesn’t have a suitable atmosphere. And living on Mars will not even remotely approximate living on Earth.

    • jon_downfromthetrees says:
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      Pretty sure we know exactly how much gravity Mars has.

      • Bob Mahoney says:
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        Read Paul’s sentence again but this time with presence of mind. He is speaking of the question ‘Can humans live long-term in a 0.38g gravity field?’. We do not know, yet.

        • Daniel Woodard says:
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          Radiation on the Martian surface might be more of a concern than gravity.

          • fcrary says:
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            Possibly, but radiation is also an easier problem to solve. If the radiation on the surface is a problem, you can burry the habitat and stay inside most of the time. That’s undesirable but viable. If 0.38g gravity is a problem, I don’s see any viable solutions.

          • Bob Mahoney says:
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            Wear heavy boots!

            http://blog.sciencegeekgirl

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            The other problem no one wants to discuss is the toxic soil. Breathe the dust of your beautiful Martian Eden and die. And let’s not overlook how it will damage the joints in spacesuits after a few weeks. I hope they bring lots of spares as a year or two is a long time to go without a spacesuit while waiting on replacements from Earth to arrive.

          • fcrary says:
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            As far as toxicity goes, martian dust and fines aren’t all that bad. By terrestrial, industrial standards, the decontamination procedures are simple and straight-forward. Something like taking an airlock to moderate humidity and waiting for ten minutes would probably do. (The term “soil”, by the way, can have biological implications, which don’t apply on Mars.)

            I’m not sure why you think there would be any damage to spacesuit joints. We’ve had hardware on the martian surface, and some experience with wear in that environment. I’ve never heard of any problems from chemical reactions with the dust and fines.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Astronaut John Young discussed it at ASCE Earth and Space 2006. Its not the chemical reaction but the damage to gaskets and joints, which on a spacesuit need to be airtight. Its not something you would see on a rover.

            Remember, spacesuits are also a reusable “spacecraft” especially ones used for surface EVAs.

          • fcrary says:
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            You started off talking about “toxic soil,” which would be a chemical issue. Now it sounds like you’re talking about mechanical wear. Dealing with this is certainly an important design requirement for a suit. But how damaging it is to a gasket or join depends on the properties of the fines and the design of the gaskets and joints. I’d say there are many issues with the design of a viable Mars suit. I think they are all solvable, but this one isn’t at the top of my list.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            The soil being toxic to humans will impact the ability to repair the damage to the suits from it. You best plan on having a separate room by the airlocks where you are able to dress in the protective gear that will be needed when you fix and clean the suits after your evening stroll on the surface. It will also make it harder to maintain any facilities on Mars. And forget terra forming, the denser atmosphere will just make the problem worst by creating a permanent dust storm of the fine particles that cover the planet surface.

            Folks are too conditioned to the ideal environment of Earth, and too used to thinking in terms of it, to see the hazards of living on a world like Mars. I expect many will die learning the lesson that although it may look like southern Utah in the photographs it is far more dangerous than the Moon in reality. Because of the suspended dust in the atmosphere folks buy into the myth its Earth like when it has far more common with the Moon in terms of the hazards on living on it.

            The dust storm scene in the Martian is a good example. Yes, the winds may be 200 kilometers per hour, but the super thin atmosphere makes the force of them more like 10-15 kilometers per hour. There won’t be any antennas blowing around unless they were made of paper. Its not going to look like a hurricane on Earth and there would be no risk of a rocket blowing over. But panicking and launching in the middle of a dust storm would likely result in your ship being struck by lightening because of the electric energy that would accompany it.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            If we have to live underground it will diminish the experience of being on Mars. At some point we have to ask if it is work the cost.

            As to the diminished gravity, humans have tolerated 0-G for a year or more; with even a modest level of exercise muscle and bone condition remains above the level that would provoke a risk of fractures. Studies of humans with spinal cord injury show that stability is achieved within this period. Bone and muscle loss is much more severe for paraplegics than astronauts.

            My personal feeling is that with the rapid increase in the capability of autonomous mobile robots, the exploration of Mars will be primarily and perhaps entirely robotic.People will go when we have the technology to make it relatively safe and reasonably affordable.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Folks will go when someone builds a 1G habitat inside of Phobos so they are able to experience the surface using real time VR and make weekend camping trips to the surface.

        • Steve Pemberton says:
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          “Can humans live long-term in a 0.38g gravity field? We do not know, yet.”

          That’s because after five decades and untold billions of dollars we inexplicably still don’t have a centrifuge capable of finding out. It’s the elephant in the room, actually more like the emperor’s new clothes. All of the endless and ever-changing plans for going to Mars will continue to be endless and ever-changing as long as basic fundamentals like this continue to be brushed aside.

          Sure it’s possible to go to Mars without first doing centrifuge testing, but I think it’s a symptom of a mentality of haste pervasive in all of the Mars plans that inevitably leads to going nowhere.

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      What do you expect? This is just the first in a series of “op-eds” that Explore Mars is planting in the Huffington Post to make it seem that support for going to Mars is stronger than it actually is.

      In short it is just a publicity piece designed to sway the next Administration to keep NASA on the same dead end road its been on since the 1990’s and to keep the pork flowing. And you expect it to be accurate and factual?

    • Jafafa Hots says:
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      “living on Mars will not even remotely approximate living on Earth.”

      But you haven’t seen the end results of our terraforming project yet.

      Of Earth, I mean.

  4. Zen Puck says:
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    Mars. Meh.Never gonna happen.

  5. ThomasLMatula says:
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    Blue Origin has zero interest in going to Mars. Jeff Bezos is focused on space activities that will benefit humanity like SBSP, orbital space habitats and space industrialization. So its Elon Musk or nothing in terms of NASA options.

  6. Michael Spencer says:
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    There is much to learn from studies of human settlement, lessons directly applicable to Mars.

    An obvious observation comes to mind: that human settlement has occurred around exploitable transportation and around places where food and resources were abundant. Both support growing populations and, more importantly, both support trade.

    In this vision Mars is a bit of a square peg, with neither exploitable resources suitable for trade nor low-cost transportation. The eyes of history tell us that Mars will be either a failure, as the historical pillars of settlement fail to appear, or a continual money pit supported by subsidy.

    Our long term in space, in my own view and given no unseen manipulation of physics, lies nearer the exploitable resources: the asteroids, containing untold riches. As the 22nd and 23rd centuries unfold we will see our fascination with Mars for what it was: a childish 21st century sideshow informed by larcenous leadership or by impetuous individuals, all beneficiaries of the right place and time.

    It will be slow. At first there will be lonely outposts eking a living with primitive ore extraction living light-minutes or more away from Earth. They will grow, buoyed by transportation as cheap as boats on a river because easily-exploitable water resources are also rocket fuel. And they will develop enabled by a space-borne industrial base serving itself and an increasingly resource-hungry Earth.

    The enabling tech for this future is close, so close, tantalizingly close. It is much closer than that required to live buried in red sand, dependent on hugely expensive and increasingly absurd rockets that bind any Mars colony perpetually to Earth.

    Mars will be a flash in the pan, a diorama placed adjacent to The Great Luna Race in the Foolish Ventures section of the 23rd century Smithsonian.

    You heard it here first.

    • muomega0 says:
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      DSH Voyager stationed at L2 demonstrates that the crew and hardware function in the proper environment. LEO, L2, and near Mars Depots, asteroid ISRU, L2 to Mars EP cyclers to efficiently pre-position (and return) supplies, a ‘death star voyager’ near mars to service and protect and stage hundreds pf solar system and beyond science missions, land heavy objects on Mars… avoid gravity wells to reduce costs, but it is flexible path to all destinations… Cislunar 1000?
      …. if you cannot solve the problem, expand it.
      Meanwhile this USG demand for positioned propellant and hardware that can be reused reduces launch costs by providing flight rate enabling satellite servicing, debris removal, and perhaps a very fast global network for a SMARTer grid, transportation, and drone delivery. Coordinated policy on LVs rather than keep them all separate…. Deja vu?
      !!! Part of Congress thinks that only commercial and competition (duplication) and a few folks with deep pockets can have great ideas… Godspeed;) but can rest have ACA?

    • Dr. Brian Chip Birge says:
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      I like your vision and mostly agree. I would say though that for space exploration to happen it has to spark the public into caring, something it has yet to do. Mars seems to be one of the more promising flints. I also don’t see why a self sustaining off-world industrial culture, premised on asteroid belt exploitation, couldn’t use Mars as a customer in conjunction with Earth.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        The spark, sure, but to extend the metaphor, no real ‘logs’ that would continue burning. This is because there’s no real reason to go to Mars – reasons, I mean, that are consistent with the way human beings expand settlements. The ‘second Earth’ or ‘over the mountain’ arguments don’t work to anyone but governments.

        Mars will be a huge money pit, just as Antarctica is; supportable for research, but barely, given the quality of robots and remote sensing.

        Sending people to Mars will have a huge and negative effect on HSF, just as Apollo did.