Mars first or Moon first?

[computerex]

Well it depends on what we are aiming to do in the long run. If our goals are indeed to search for a new location to populate, then I think going to Mars directly is probably a good idea. The moon is an excellent place for science, but the possibilities for inhabiting it are low owing to the fact that it has no atmosphere.

 

[RisingFury]

Slingshot around Earth does not work

Pardon my bad expression...

What I'm referring to is just dropping down from the Moon, to a highly eccentric orbit that will take you from the Moon to LEO.


Although if I think about it more, in some cases it might be better to just eject from the Moon to your desination, but that would deppend on the allignment at the time...

 

[Matt Decker]

I say go to the Moon first. Not only will it be a good place to practice for longer missions to Mars and scientific reasons. It will be a good place to start exploiting the resources to make space exploration economically viable. There's the H3 to start with who knows what else there might be.:chainsaw:

 

[Donamy]

WE need to start a lunar industry, that will serve both Earth and space development. It's the anly way we can afford it.

 

[Ark]

I'd like to be able to say "Screw the Moon, let's one-up Apollo and head strait to Mars!" but it's not really feasible. Much as the ISS trained us on how to survive long durations in space, the Moon can train us on how to utilize native resources, grow food, and live in partial gravity. It wouldn't be logical to invest whats required for a voyage to Mars just to camp out on the surface for a month before heading back to Earth, we need to be able to run a long-duration mission on the ground, because Mars landings are going to be fewer and farther between than the Moon landings.

 

[Unstung]

Being able to first have a base on the moon and live there would be excellent, then years later could the same be done to Mars. To habit the moon would help to live on Mars. By just visiting a planet, not nearly as much could be learned if people lived there.
The moon is also much easier to travel to and has already been done.

 

[agentgonzo]

Pardon my bad expression...

What I'm referring to is just dropping down from the Moon, to a highly eccentric orbit that will take you from the Moon to LEO.


Although if I think about it more, in some cases it might be better to just eject from the Moon to your desination, but that would deppend on the allignment at the time...

The most efficent way to get from the Moon to Solar orbit (and beyond) is to do as RisingFury mentions. Launch from lunar orbit in such a way that you'll be in a highly eccentric orbit about the Earth with perigee in LEO and apogee about lunar distance. Then burn at perigee to turn the trajectory hyperbolic and leave Earth's SOI and enter solar orbit. If you've got a low-thrust-high-ISP engine live ion thrusters, this can be done on successive orbits.

 

[Calsir]

My personal choice would have been number 1, but since number 4 contained "hail ", I had no choice but to vote it. trumps everything.

Which is also why there are some circles talking about either a lunar orbit fuel depot or one at the L5 point. a lunar base would allow for H2O to be mined, transported to orbit and made available for ships departing Earth for the rest of the solar system.

Why L5? L4-5 are generally is more expensive to reach than L1-3, due to their stability. Also, L1-3 allow for an easier disposal of unused objects: you turn off the station-keeping motors and let gravity do the rest. To dislodge stuff from L4-5 you have to use fuel. Also, in case of destruction of objects in L4-5, part of the detritus will stay there and clutter the area.

Hail .

 

[anemazoso]

When I posted this poll I wanted to see where the Orbiter community stood on this contentious topic. Nice to see such a big response in less than 24 hrs.

My opinion is that we return to the moon. But we need to do it in the correct fashion and with the appropriate tools. The way it is set to be done with our (US) space program would be a horrible wast of money. As of right now there is no budget for ISRU. The Altair lander is not reusable and the outpost will amount to little more than a camping trip. There needs to be more development with the emphasis on long term sustainable infrastructure. Also the launch vehicles that are currently being developed for this are way to over engineered and over priced, in fact, the launch vehicles price tags are sqeezing the capability out of the constellation program. I am a proponent of using EELVs for the launch vehicles. As much as it would be cool to have a 200t to LEO launcher in Ares V its just a waste of money, and don't even get me started on the Ares I boondogle. My idea for infrustructure is as follows:

1. EELVs with the Orion spacecraft.
2. Develop an electric propultion (i.e. Ion, VASIMR or other) tug that is reusable and is used to ferry the Orion and lunar cargo to/from the earth and moon.
3. Develop a reuasable lunar lander.
4. Develop ISRU for refueling the lunar lander, tug and Orion.

The cost of production for EELVs will lower because of the increased production rate, utilizing the booster as a medium lifter and in a heavy lifter configuration.

VASIMR is already in development and would not require much more money.

ISRU could be developed and tested with centenial challenge style prizes. In fact most of the equipment development could be done that way. Also, this should be an international endevour with a strong partnership of commercial intrests. The ultimate goal is to bootstrap cis-lunar infrustructure. Let private companies utilize the tug and lunar fuel depot for tourism and the like, it will help fund exploration in the future.

If we (humans) want meaningfull and purposeful development and exploration in the solar system it will not be doen with a 60's style big government Apollo style program with one country responsible for all the core components. It needs to be done smartly.

 

[insanity]

Of course you can do lots of science on the Moon.

For starters, until a few days ago most of us thought it was totally arid and had no water.

Only 12 men have been there and they've spent only a few man-hours exploring a tiny equatorial region of what is basically a small planet.

Space agencies have, until recently, ignored the moon in favor of distant planets.

The moon is an enormously important key to understanding the history of the Earth. It's half of the Earth-Luna system, and we still haven't settled the argument about its origin!

In addition, it's much easier to get scientists, scientific equipment, and samples to and from the moon, which means that you will get a lot more scientific data in a much shorter period of time, which is important to the bean-counters who have to fund all this stuff.

If we're actually going to commit to manned space flight then I think you are entirely correct. There is a lot of science that can be done on the moon that could provide us with a range of answers about how to survive in microgravity to the history of our earth.

 

[Urwumpe]

I think we should use first the technology that we have... reusable landers are a nice idea, but not very effective with current technology. making a more economic expandable lander, and maybe use the descent stage for extending the lunar outposts sounds more reasonable. We can always get to reusable landers later, when technology advanced or the construction duties on the outpost dropped so much that it is mostly about landing astronauts or small experiment racks there.

 

[anemazoso]

I think we should use first the technology that we have... reusable landers are a nice idea, but not very effective with current technology. making a more economic expandable lander, and maybe use the descent stage for extending the lunar outposts sounds more reasonable. We can always get to reusable landers later, when technology advanced or the construction duties on the outpost dropped so much that it is mostly about landing astronauts or small experiment racks there.

Admittedly there are two technologies (that I can think of) that would need to be developed 1) In space refuelling (and lunar surface refuelling ) and 2) Long term cryogenic storage in space. Any expendable lunar lander should be developed utilizing reusable components wherever possible in order to test the technology. It could be done in a phased manner where you are developing and testing the technologies needed for a re-usable lander as you operate the expendable one.

 

[T.Neo]

Only 12 men have been there and they've spent only a few man-hours exploring a tiny equatorial region of what is basically a small planet.

And Mars has had what manned exploration? It's also a much bigger and much more dynamic planet.

The moon is an enormously important key to understanding the history of the Earth. It's half of the Earth-Luna system, and we still haven't settled the argument about its origin!

Yes, but I'm talking about the conditions on the early Earth itself, which are somewhat similar to those on Mars. That and Mars may still retain original plantary crust, something which has been destroyed on both Earth and Luna. The Moon is essentially dead; if you want clues outside of Earth on how Earth-like planets evolve, the closest you're going to get in our solar system is Mars.

Look, sure it'd be cheaper to send men and machinery to the Moon, but then again it'd be cheaper to send machinary to Hawaii or Antarctica, or heck, even the American midwest. What I'm saying here is that Mars has the most to offer, from a simple perspective of scientific yield.

 

[Donamy]

Better to visit near-by islands with sailing vessels, before trying to sail to new worlds, IMHO.

 

[anemazoso]

And Mars has had what manned exploration? It's also a much bigger and much more dynamic planet.



Yes, but I'm talking about the conditions on the early Earth itself, which are somewhat similar to those on Mars. That and Mars may still retain original plantary crust, something which has been destroyed on both Earth and Luna. The Moon is essentially dead; if you want clues outside of Earth on how Earth-like planets evolve, the closest you're going to get in our solar system is Mars.

Look, sure it'd be cheaper to send men and machinery to the Moon, but then again it'd be cheaper to send machinary to Hawaii or Antarctica, or heck, even the American midwest. What I'm saying here is that Mars has the most to offer, from a simple perspective of scientific yield.

It's not about science or whats cheaper or whats cooler. It's about expanding humans into the solar system, purposefully.

 

[RisingFury]

We can't get to Mars yet! Sending a manned crew there without the experience and a tried and tested equipment is suicide!

Sure, certain things like dust is different, but a lot of things CAN be tried and tested, including propulsion, communication, water recycling, food production, fuel production, air purification, radiation shielding,... as well as providing insight into the fiziological effects to long term exposure to conditions present at the Moon/Mars, like increased radiation and reduced gravity and the proximity of the Moon offers not just a safe testing ground, but a base of operations, where you can easily assemble your ships.

 

[Urwumpe]

Better to visit near-by islands with sailing vessels, before trying to sail to new worlds, IMHO.

At least, you should learn to navigate known waters, before you set sail for unknown waters.

And we can claim we know the moon.

 

[Donamy]

Let's hope we haven't forgotten anything.

 

[T.Neo]

We can't get to Mars yet! Sending a manned crew there without the experience and a tried and tested equipment is suicide!

Yeah, but we sent manned missions to the Moon without any experience or "tried and tested equipment".

Sure, certain things like dust is different, but a lot of things CAN be tried and tested, including propulsion, communication, water recycling, food production, fuel production, air purification, radiation shielding,...

So... wait, we're supposed to spend billions of dollars on a program to help us figure out rocket propulsion (using essentially 60s tech, that we know works well), deep-space communications (in use for the MER rovers and voyager probes anyway, manned comms is just different data), water recycling (which you can't do in an isolated environment on Earth or even in a lab?), food production (again, will a lab not suffice?), fuel production (simple chemistry; something we've been doing on Earth for a few hundred years. Surely a lab test and good engineering would make this easy as pie), air purification (done on submarines and to some extent ISS and Mir) and radiation shielding (polythene blocks, which if thick enough should do the job fine)?

I honestly do not see the point behind a committed lunar program due to things which we could sort out in a lab (or sometimes, as is the case with propulsion technology, stuff we already know).

I won't even comment further on the concept of actually building spacecraft on or around the Moon. Well it is a very viable (and IMO, very good) concept, the time and cost needed to develop the infrastructure to do so would be prohibitive.

 

[Urwumpe]

You forget an important suffix: "on Earth" and "on the moon".

I bet you can easily build a house on the surface of earth. but can you do as easily in 6000m depth in the ocean?