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Commercialization

Going To Mars: Old Space Vs New Space

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
May 31, 2018
Filed under ,

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

30 responses to “Going To Mars: Old Space Vs New Space”

  1. passinglurker says:
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    Boeing sure loves shooting itself in the foot trying to own SLS. Denis is no classy Tory thats for sure…

  2. ThomasLMatula says:
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    Planetary Protection will never allow it.

    • fcrary says:
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      I’ve said this before, but… What NASA’s Planetary Protection office says is an administrative decision about how to apply the very vague terms of the Outer Space Treaty. Follow COSPAR guidelines and recommendations isn’t part the treaty obligation; it’s just something the US government has decided to do. That means either the President or Congress can overrule anything the Planetary Protection office says, and tell them to start interpreting and applying the Outer Space Treaty in a different manner. If NASA every gets close to sending astronauts to Mars, I’m pretty sure that will happen. If a private, US company gets close to sending astronauts to Mars, it could happen, depending on who is in office.

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        True, but what if there is life on Mars? Remember, NASA hasn’t actually searched for it since Viking. Its just been studying the chemical environment for life. It may be that Viking did actually find it.

        https://news.nationalgeogra

        Life on Mars Found by NASA’s Viking Mission?
        By Ker Than,

        PUBLISHED April 15, 2012

        “A fresh look at NASA data suggests that a robotic mission uncovered microbial life on Mars—more than 30 years ago.”

        “Now, after running Viking’s LR data through a mathematical test designed to separate biological signals from nonbiological signals, Miller’s team believes that the LR experiments did indeed find signs of microbial life in Martian soil.”

        “Despite his own conviction
        that the Viking mission detected life on Mars, Miller said he doesn’t expect most people will be convinced until they can look at a video of Martian bacteria sitting in a petri dish.”

        NASA’s next Martian mission—the Mars Science Laboratory, aka Curiosity—will arrive on the red planet later this year. Although it’s not carrying such a microscope, Miller thinks the lander could find supporting evidence for his team’s theory.”

        Remember, a key point of the argument was one of the other experiments showed no organics in the soil. Yet Curiosity did find evidence of organics…

        At the very least, before Mars is opened up to astronauts, the Viking experiment should be repeated with updated tech and the follow on measurements/procedures to distinguished between the different explanations of the Viking results.

        • fcrary says:
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          Thinking of historical examples, the results aren’t encouraging for planetary protection. Federal laws to implement a treaty and protect local species from settlers from the United States. In the case of the Black Hills, that wasn’t too successful.

          As far as the Viking life detection experiments, Mars Phoenix did detect perchlorates. Those are one of the chemicals which would have caused a false positive from the Viking Labeled Release experiment.

          I think any life detection experiment on an unmanned has problems of this sort (the Europa Lander Science Definition Team struggled with it as well.) To really understand what the results mean, you need much more than just the biological experiments; to rule out (or in) false positives, you need to measure the whole environment at well. That’s tough on a highly mass-constrained lander.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Yes, you would need a series of experiments to understand the environment and eliminate the non-organic explanations.

            That is why I think the goal should not be astronauts to the Mars surface, but to the moons. Basically use Bigelow habitats to establish a base on one of them, buried under regolith for protection, to study Mars in depth. They could operate a number of rovers, including some with HD VR systems, to explore the planet. Samples could be delivered to the station to study and analyzed.

            Then once we know Mars has no life, or if it does, what is needed to protect it, we could go to the surface. Meanwhile the focus should be on lunar industrialization to build the industrial systems needed to develop and settle the Solar System.

          • fcrary says:
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            It all depends on what we want to do, and since there isn’t a consensus, “we” isn’t a single or well-defined group.

            In a Bob Zubrin world, in situ resources on Mars might be the key to industrial development of the solar system. If some Martian bacteria are in the way, well, that’s too bad for the bugs. (To be fair, I don’t think Zubrin really feels that way, but it’s the extreme version of his side of the debate.)

            Others, such as Emily Lakdawalla with the Planetary Society, would say science and protection of any possible life are paramount. If that stops human landing and industrial development of the solar system, then that’s too bad for the would-be colonists and industrialists.

            I suspect this whole debate is going to be settled in a fairly sloppy way. People will simply find a way to do whatever they want to do, with or without a species-wide consensus on the right choice. That’s why I mentioned the Black Hills (and implying things like their nearly negligible gold deposits, and the Sioux war of 1876.)

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        I notice that some progress has been made on clean rooms- learning that bacteria remain in the clean rooms, a heretofore intractable problem, because they — wait for it! —they oxidize the cleaning fluid.

        Who knew?

        • fcrary says:
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          Not from my favorite author, but “life finds a way.” I’d be embarrassed to admit a distant relationship to a bacteria that couldn’t evolve to live in a clean room. In a way, that’s why I think the whole planetary protection business is pointless; we can’t engineer a solution which stops life from doing what it’s good at.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Now THAT is a surprising thing to hear from a scientist! 🙂

          • fcrary says:
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            At one point, I did some work with a computer technique called genetic optimization. It’s about using finding an optimal set of parameters for some problem, by simulating population genetics. I know there is quite a bit of debate about how closely it really mimics real evolution. But it works. It isn’t terribly efficient, and it never quite reaches the optimum solution. But it is really good at getting close, and doing so fairly quickly, even for the most pathologically difficult problems. That gave me a great deal of faith in a bug’s ability to overcome the most carefully designed sterilization processes.

    • Jack says:
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      How will they not allow it? Especially for a non U.S. entity.

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        Licensing, including ITAR. Since the BFR is built in the USA it is under ITAR.

        • fcrary says:
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          In the sense that landing a BFR outside the United States would be exporting ballistic missile technology? I guess that’s true.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Yes, technically it would be exporting it, especially if you are operating from a foreign location. Also payloads launches in foreign nations may still be subject to US licensing as was the case of those “rogue” satellites that FCC was upset about that were launched on an Indian rocket.

  3. Tritium3H says:
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    Elon Musk pops the clutch, and tells Dennis Muilenburg to “eat my dust!”

    • Paul451 says:
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      You mean Muilenburg pops the clutch and watches Musk disappear over the horizon in “Ludicrous” mode.

  4. Jeff2Space says:
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    I see Boeing looking at BFR/BFS in the same way that ULA looked at Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy in the early years. They don’t consider it to be a real threat because “space is hard” and we know because “we’re the experts”. Of course “the experts” inside ULA thought reuse was “impossible”. It boggles the mind how Boeing is making the very same mistakes that ULA did.

    Also, ULA underestimated the SpaceX ability to adapt. When parachute recovery proved to be unworkable, they switched to powered vertical landing, which they got to work through persistence and many tweaks.

    The same adaptability will surely happen with BFR/BFS. I don’t expect the final design to be exactly like the “Powerpoints” we’re seeing today. If something doesn’t work, SpaceX will simply change it.

  5. Bill Housley says:
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    SLS isn’t a “Boeing Rocket”. It always gives me a chuckle when Tory Bruno claims it like that.
    Reminder to everyone…EM-1 through EM-8, unless the plan has changed again since I read it last, all go to cis-lunar space. EM-2 is, what, 2024? One launch per year after that? So, (counting on my fingers because my thumbs are busy typing)…3,4,5,6,7,8…6 years. So, this “Boeing” rocket to Mars won’t actually launch until after 2030, following current plans. 2030 is 12 years from now. So, to get to Mars on the current plan, SLS (and the current plan) has to survive two or three Presidential administrations, probably at least four party flips in Congress, as many as 36 FH launches and who know how many BFR hop tests and launches with ever-increasing numbers of folks asking “Why SLS” every time SpaceX lights any rocket engine or *anyone* says the word “Mars”.
    I’m sorry. Those are really long odds of SLS ever going to Mars at all, let alone beating a human SpaceX mission there.

    • Mark_Stark says:
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      Tory Bruno is not the CEO of Boeing

    • passinglurker says:
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      Tory is the CEO of ULA not Boeing

    • Bill Housley says:
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      Sorry, I got the names mixed up.

      Muilenburg also joked about bringing Starman back. I don’t see Boeing taking the initiative to build ANY spacecraft to go and do that without the President asking Congress to pay NASA (or the Air Force or Space Corps) to pick Boeing to do it. 😉

  6. mfwright says:
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    And nobody is planning to go to the Moon… only arguing about some “mythical” place where it will always be 20 years into the future when we will send humans to Mars.

  7. Donald Barker says:
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    If only that’s what it really took, a good old fashion show-down, test of will and endurance. Both come from very different resource bases and different stakeholder responsibilities which creates different inhibiting variables. And each has a different perspective on the why and what that needs to be done to accomplish this endeavor. Unfortunately, the probability of either actually finishing this task is probably 50/50 or less at this time.

  8. Michael Spencer says:
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    He’s a new inductee into the Baghdad Bob Club. Anyone recall Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf? (I hope I spelled that right).

    “What Americans? No Americans here!”

    And, more seriously: Mr. Muilenburg is not a stupid man. He’s a space guy. He knows the ropes (I’d think). So: what does he know* that the rest of us, being armchair space policy wonks and all, what is it that we don’t know?

    (* the route to his bank, being one thing)

  9. Michael Spencer says:
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    And this just in: one of the smart people here demonstrated recently that the moon is hardly a ‘stepping stone’ to Mars, at least in terms of required delta V; this is a claim I am qualified only to repeat.

    The ‘softer lessons’ supporting the moon-as-stepping-stone argument, though, are compelling to some: we will learn how to work in deep space! being the chief claim, ignoring the simple fact that moony hardware and Mars hardware are, at least for this nascent race of space farers, entirely different beasts, not the least of which are landing vehicles, both requiring technology not developed and not easily transferable.

    Some will disagree.

    • rb1957 says:
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      I’m one of the “some”.

      How did Apollo structure itself ? Each mission something new was added. Incrementally abilities were developed.

      “Merely” getting to Mars is a monumental goal, worthy of several development flights. How do humans fair after months of weightlessness ? radiation hazards, etc ?? How well do humans perform when gravity returns ? (not well) What can we expect them to do on the surface ?

      Whilst Lunar experience is not directly transferable to Martian objectives, it is IMO a stepping stone. Whatever we learn from our Lunar missions will help future Martian missions. Yes, it will need to be adapted.

      For one thing, the turn times for the moon are, at least, feasible. If something goes wrong there is an abort option. If something goes wrong on Mars, well, remember “The Martian” is a story; so many things can lead directly to a very bad day for those involved.

  10. Doc H. Chen says:
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    Yes, Do it, the reusable vehicle is the winner for humans to the Moon and Mars in the 2020s.

    Congratulations, DO IT.

  11. Richard Brezinski says:
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    Well at least so far Boeing seems to be lagging, badly. I’ll believe Cramer’s words when I see it. I am already seeing Musks’ successes.