News NASA cannot to Mars

[kamaz]

Report questions the safety of NASA's plan to get to Mars by 2030s

There's concern over the lack of detail.
FIONA MACDONALD
18 JAN 2016

Last year, NASA announced its three-step plan to land humans on Mars by the 2030s, and as you might expect, it was pretty ambitious. But now an annual report from the US Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) has cast doubt over whether the US space agency will actually be capable of pulling the mission off with an acceptable level of risk.

The main issues centre around NASA's limited budget, the amount of technology it needs to develop to get to Mars, as well as the tight deadline the space agency has set for itself. More broadly, the ASAP expressed concern over a lack of detail laid out in the agency's Journey to Mars report, released in October last year.

"Unfortunately, the level of detail in the report ... does not really validate whether NASA would be capable of achieving such an ambitious objective in a reasonable time period, with realistically attainable technologies, and with budgetary requirements that are consistent with the current economic environment," the report explains.

[...]

http://www.sciencealert.com/report-questions-the-safety-of-nasa-s-plans-to-get-to-mars-by-2030

 

[MaverickSawyer]

At the risk of encroaching on Basement territory... I doubt NASA will ever fly a manned mission themselves ever again because there's too much risk involved. Someone could die, and that's a deal killer for them now.

 

[Pipcard]

"Although the document does identify a few specific technologies that will be needed to accomplish the overall mission, including Solar Electric Propulsion and a Deep Space Habitat, it lacks a top-level architecture and/or design reference missions"

So that's why it hasn't been called DRM 6.0 yet.
(DRM 5.0 was the one using the Ares V)

 

[Dantassii]

Would not surprise me if the first human beings to set foot on Mars (or any place else besides the Moon) will be corporate sponsored employees.

Wouldn't surprise me if the next human beings to set foot on the Moon aren't corporate sponsored employees also, although the Chinese may try a crash program to beat them there.

Dantassii

 

[Urwumpe]

What is your problem. I read the following there "INCREASE THE NASA BUDGET, YO CONGRESS SCROOGES!"

 

[garyw]

Using Zubrin's plan, getting to Mars is not that difficult, yes, it's going to cost so as Urwumpe says "INCREASE THE BUDGET".

 

[Pipcard]

Using Zubrin's plan, getting to Mars is not that difficult, yes, it's going to cost so as Urwumpe says "INCREASE THE BUDGET".

I like most of Zubrin's ideas, but I've seen criticisms of his mass estimates for the original version of Mars Direct (such as four astronauts having to live in a 7 tonne crew cabin for 6 months as they return to Earth - this was why Mars Semi-Direct was made), and I also disagree with the idea that it has to be done without orbital assembly or refueling (unless that assembly requires expensive EVAs and not just automated docking).

 

[APDAF]

INB4 China lands on Mars first and claims it as it's own...

 

[MaverickSawyer]

I like most of Zubrin's ideas, but I've seen criticisms of his mass estimates for the original version of Mars Direct (such as four astronauts having to live in a 7 tonne crew cabin for 6 months as they return to Earth - this was why Mars Semi-Direct was made), and I also disagree with the idea that it has to be done without orbital assembly or refueling (unless that assembly requires expensive EVAs and not just automated docking).

So, let's assume that we can allow docking. (After all, that's not very hard these days.) Four launches minimum: ERV, EDS stage for ERV, Habitat, EDS for Habitat.
:hmm:
What's the LEO throw weight for a reusable Falcon 9 Heavy?

 

[Pipcard]

So, let's assume that we can allow docking. (After all, that's not very hard these days.) Four launches minimum: ERV, EDS stage for ERV, Habitat, EDS for Habitat.
:hmm:
What's the LEO throw weight for a reusable Falcon 9 Heavy?

We don't know the real numbers yet, but BrianJ's simulated [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=6659"]reusable FH[/ame] could launch 26 metric tons to LEO with boosters returning to the launch site and the central core landing on a barge.

I would imagine that some things would have to be launched with a full expendable 50-60 tonne launcher, though. Mars for Less was a modified version of Mars Direct, using 25-tonne launchers (so existing rockets can be used, saving money from the development and operation of a super-heavy lift launcher like Ares or SLS). I liked that plan, but I realized that the spacecraft such as the Mars Transfer/Surface Vehicle + its Entry/Descent/Landing system had to be assembled with EVAs, which would probably have had a lot of operating expenses.

If a 50-tonne capacity rocket is used, there would be more than four launches. Even Mars for Less required an initial mass in LEO (IMLEO) of 300 tonnes (and it is based on Mars Direct, which would have had an IMLEO of 240 tonnes; these mass estimates were later criticized for being "too optimistic"). The Earth Departure Stages would have to be launched partially filled, then refueled. They would use methane/LOX propellant (although it has lower specific impulse than hydrolox, it has less boil-off problems as the stage would have to wait in low Earth orbit for a few months prior to departure; this propellant system can also have commonality with the Mars Ascent and/or Earth Return Vehicle).

Using chemical propulsion, reducing the mission IMLEO value would have relied on the crew aerocapturing into Mars orbit. NASA seemed too risk-averse to do that with DRM 5.0 (propulsive capture with either nuclear thermal rockets or hydrolox, the latter involving an IMLEO over 1000 tonnes) and their latest plans (using advanced solar electric propulsion, which can also be an option - this would also mean that assembly would take place at a Lagrange point gateway station so the crew wouldn't have to spiral out of LEO).

Also, having a larger core and fairing diameters would be good, but Falcon 9's diameter is restricted by a need for the stages to be road-transportable.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Huh. And we have no idea what the Blue Origin orbital launcher is capable of yet. :hmm:

Well, a 5 meter fairing kinda does put a crimp on things, too. We'd need something larger. If (And this is a very long odds if) SLS survives the new presidency, that would be the optimum vehicle for this mission. Just skip the Block I and go straight to the expanded version, though.

 

[Pipcard]

Huh. And we have no idea what the Blue Origin orbital launcher is capable of yet. :hmm:

I'm guessing that it's going to be around the same level as a single-core Falcon 9.

 

[N_Molson]

Yeah. There won't be any miracles. Even without speaking about a war effort like the Apollo program required, they need MOAR MONEY ! :2cents::2cents::2cents:

 

[Urwumpe]

Yeah. There won't be any miracles. Even without speaking about a war effort like the Apollo program required, they need MOAR MONEY ! :2cents::2cents::2cents:

You can't have 100% of the goals for 50% of the money. Its plain simple.

Still, there are big problems that NASA and their partners has to solve first before they can even just fly-past Mars with a manned spacecraft. For example, they need to make manned spacecraft as robust as unmanned probes. And they will need space medicine and space doctors.

Its nothing big and nothing that sounds unsolvable. But it is something that has to be developed first and which can be developed in LEO and lunar space. But it has to be done.

 

[richfororbit]

Some here don't think the Space Launch system will remain part of a next administration's budget?

I'm still curious to know what candidates think, because who ever is in for a term, they will need to be clear about the current space program's progress, and a committment to a Mars program as Barack issued almost six years ago.

Otherwise, he'll end up like Mr W Bush, expressing an ideal that doesn't exist beyond his terms.

 

[Urwumpe]

Some here don't think the Space Launch system will remain part of a next administration's budget?

I had my doubts, but right now it seems like it progressed too far already for NOT being launched a few times - there is no serious alternative anymore.

The question is just how often will it be launched in the next budget?

 

[richfororbit]

Well early next month, the Fiscal Year 2017 budget should give an eye into that. As far as I'm aware we should expect one launch soon. After that, I don't know.

 

[Andy44]

Some here don't think the Space Launch system will remain part of a next administration's budget?

This is an old game in American politics: make a speech and start a program for the next Apollo-style space program to Mars, knowing full well you will be out of office before it gets canceled.

I successfully predicted on this board (or maybe it was the old m6 forum site) back around 2007 that after GW Bush left office the Constellation program would get canned by the next president, no matter who he was or which party he came from.

I hope I'm wrong this time. So far SLS is just a launch vehicle, not an entire program, and the Orion capsule spacecraft is in pretty good shape, so maybe it'll make the cut.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

It's also a case of NASA being risk averse these days. If there's a reasonably high (AKA better than, oh, 1%) chance that someone could die, they're never going to do it. They'd rather sit back and manage contracts. :dry:

Who else thinks we should put astronauts in charge at NASA, rather than administrators?

 

[richfororbit]

I imagine that would of been prior to Aldrin's support of the Google X prize that autumn.

Constellation went over budget as the commission expressed end of the decade. W Bush was posturing with strategic gimmicky rhetoric. He had nothing mentioned in his memoirs.

I don't own the book. But I did manage to walk into a shop back in November 2010 which had it right at the front of the shop. So I glanced through it.

I had even emailed the former head of state via the Library site, no reply not even from a assistant on why it was never put forward.

A moon outpost would need to be setup similar to something like the Mars One. Mr Schmitt who most here will ring a bell as the former Pilot aboard Challenger with his Commander fly boy Eugene Cernan has maintained that a private enterprise to the moon is in the order of twenty years or a bit more.