OK So That White House Space Event Happened …
Keith’s note: Small wonder why NASA people do not exactly look forward to these Oval Office things. No one knows what is going to happen until it happens.
The president and space experts talked about future Americans living and working on the moon during today's White House event marking the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11.
"That's a market," NASA chief Jim Bridenstine said. "It could be for tourism. It could be for resources" pic.twitter.com/GwbKaoVfgO
— POLITICO (@politico) July 19, 2019
Trump talking space travel is as you might expect pic.twitter.com/1MleeUHAF8
— Michael Crowley (@michaelcrowley) July 19, 2019
You can’t makes this sh#! up.
No you don’t have to stop at the Moon to go to Mars. As in when you actually leave Earth’s orbit. However, it’s a great idea to go to the Moon before going to Mars as a program to get your sea legs so to speak.
Does anyone except the most crazed NASA personnel what to send a vessel from Earth to Gateway then to Mars just to do it? The only benefit is if you can generate fuel from water on the Moon to refuel a vessel going to Mars (a benefit I’m not convinced is worth it).
Ultimately you go to the Moon because there is value in going to the Moon and you go to Mars because there is value in going to Mars.
Depends how big a martian cruiser you build at a lunar orbital shipyard. If it needs to refuel and resupply in between missions makes sense to pull into lunar gravity well instead of Earth’s deeper well. But you should have a cislunar shuttle to ferry folks from earth to shipyard some go to lunar base, some do science at the shipyard and a few board the ship for Mars.
I think ultimately what will happen is there will be a water depot at L2 point mostly supplied by ice from the asteroid belt. That depot will then process the water into LH and LOX
The orbital dynamics doesn’t work out for that, at least not in the way you might think. For high-thrust (chemical or nuclear thermal) trajectories, it’s actually harder to go from the Moon’s orbit to Mars, than starting from LEO. It’s counterintuitive, but the Oberth effect gives a massive reduction to the delta v if the trans-Mars injection burn happens in low Earth orbit. If you want to go from lunar orbit to Mars, the best option is to get on a trajectory going back to LEO, and then do the Mars injection burn in LEO. Except that’s more or less where you were before going to the Moon… But what you can do is get there, and at just a hair under escape velocity, with nearly full fuel tanks (assuming refueling in lunar orbit.) Overall, that doesn’t get more mass to Mars (for a given initial mass in LEO) but it lets you get there faster.
The other nice possibility for staging out of lunar orbit (or any very high Earth orbit) is what it does for electric propulsion. For those low thrust trajectories, going close to a planet is a disaster in terms of time and delta v.
Trump strikes me as one of those “yes men” kind of bosses. If he says paint the room green, you do it, because it’s just a room no one really cares. Personally I’d like to see them try living in the Sahara, before they go the Moon or Mars.
Actually, the Sahara is inhabited. It has been for quite some time, and I don’t mean just the less arid borders. It’s doesn’t exactly require modern technology to do so. Of course, I’m not sure many people would want to live there, and the sustainable population density is very low, but that’s a different matter.
OK, but the idea is to pick an area here on earth to simulate the moon or mars and try to make it work here first.
Devon Island, in the Canadian archipelago, comes to mind. That’s mainly privately funded, but I think they get some support from NASA and CSA. I think NASA has a similar station on some volcano on Hawai’i. And at one point, NASA was operating a long-duration, underwater lab. None of the analogies are perfect, and they may have been pushed as far as they can be.
If you are referring to the NEEMO program, which utilizes the Aquarius habitat off of Key Largo, that program is still in use for astronaut training. Astronauts who have done training there say it is a pretty good analog for an ISS mission as far as the type of activities that they do, working together as a team etc. in an enclosed habitat for several weeks. The habitat is on the ocean floor at a depth of about 60 feet, but due to decompression requirements the surface is effectively sixteen hours away. Their activities include EVA’s (that’s what they call them) on the ocean floor outside of the habitat in diving suits.
The top of Mount Everest would be closer to the actual conditions on Mars.
It’s up to Elon now.
My assumption has been that Bridenstine is playing a two level game between POTUS and the entrenched SLS/Orion interests. Drag SLS/Orion along but have a commercial off-ramp for when it inevitably fails or gets delayed even further.
While its true that you don’t “have” to go back to the Moon in order to get to Mars it is a really good idea IMO. Moon costs less to get to, has resources of its own that bear examination and extraction, and gives the ability to perfect closed-loop life support and other off-world living necessities while still being relatively close to home.
Moon is also achievable within the next 4-6 years, especially if crewed StarShip is successfully developed. Mars is much farther down the road, which increases the probability of program cancellation. Even if SS/SH is fully functional by 2023 there is a lot more to going to Mars than just the transportation system.
Given the proclivities of the current President I would really drive home the argument that Moon is achievable within the President’s theoretical second term if I were Bridenstine. I suspect that would be the major motivator for the President.
After watching the video, Trump was giving Bridenstine a platform for NASA’s plans, Bridenstine did a good job explaining it (the weak part IMO being the Gateway) and Trump follows up by saying Bridenstine is doing a great job turning around NASA. All the while paying deference to some American heroes standing right next to him.
The big negative I see is that NASA has as yet to develop the plan for a mission to Mars even though they have been directed to do such a year and a half ago.
You are seriously trying to defend Trump’s inability to support his own space policy or NASA Administrator by saying this was strategic? We are going for glamor and we don’t know if it is to moon or Mars and your concern is that they don’t have a mission plan?
So they just want a 2024 landing to cap a hypothetical 2nd term?
That’s exactly the reason the date was moved up. It’s a reckless ego trip.
My thoughts on going to Mars which basically is it is not going to happen with NASA. And Elon will be a fool to do it with hi chemically-propelled Starships when they could be used to open up an Earth-moon economy. https://homerhickamblog.blo…
The only reason to do ‘Mars Direct’ is to get there fast. There’s no point getting there fast. Its more risky to the crew, much more challenging technologically, and denies us the chance to fully exploit the Moon to establish a space-based economy and infrastructure that could in time fully fund space exploration in a sustainable and stable manner. Mars Direct risks the scenario where you establish a beachead, as Zubrin suggested in his book, but then government cuts the funding, and so you can’t sustain a long-term presence on the surface.
At the end of the day with a Moon first approach – Mars will still be there. We can get there faster, safer and probably cheaper in the 2030s or 40s if we prove the technology and develop the skills on the Moon and in Cislunar space first in the 2020s and 2030s. Whilst at the same time, opening up the possibility of exploiting space resources from the Moon and near-Earth Asteroids, developing a space economy, and being able to pursue large-scale goals such as space solar power, or in-space manufacturing. Mars Direct denies us all of that for a one-off ‘Marshot’ that could end up in another ‘flags and footprints’ dead-end.