Posted on 01/21/2008 8:41:38 AM PST by Truth29
Launch those things from the ground directly to Mars? That's ridiculously expensive and unnecessary. You're talking an insanely large booster, when it would be much easier and cheaper to use existing launch capabilties for a LEO assembly operation.
It has nothing to do with “flags and footprints”.
The problem with sending stuff on ahead is, all can be in perfect working order when the crew makes direct ascent, and fail when they’re a month away from Mars. They need to be sent with everything they’ll need for the trip. A decent level of redundancy will be a must.
If it were up to me, a roomy and well-equipped (and well-stocked) orbiting station around Mars would be built in LEO, sent to Mars, and used as a destination for human missions for a time (years) before (and after) a surface mission. But again, crews need to be able to count on a safe return.
Before any human mission is attempted, a Mars-and-back unmanned mission (actually, more than one) needs to be done, followed by a Mars-and-back non-landing mission (again, more than one). Crews in orbit should use a goodly number of expendible rovers for realtime surface recon.
EXACTLY!
I think Congress will be the hold-up. Long-term contracts take away the ability to play politics with the money.
Congress will never voluntarly give up it’s power.
So you simply direct-launch two or three sets of power and supplies, so that odds are at least one will be working by the time they get there, and send your crew on a trajectory capable of an Apollo 8-style direct abort with enough supplies to ration their way back to Earth if they have to. And, needless to say, you design redundancy and failsafes into the advance-outpost machines themselves.
The Mars rovers had a design lifetime of 90 days and are still operational after about four years on the surface.
Orbital construction is a difficult, dangerous, complex, and risky endeavor, as the constant maintenance and construction of the space station has been proving, even as far back as 2001:
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA struggled with massive work and testing delays on the International Space Station and badly underestimated costs to build and run it -- missteps that cost $4 billion and crippled the outpost's scientific promise.NASA managers failed to grasp the complexity of space station Alpha, a FLORIDA TODAY investigation found. They ignored inspectors' warnings of ballooning costs and over-optimism. And they burned through almost $1 billion earmarked for thrust and living modules that may never be built.
The Space Station has been under construction for 10 years, with hundreds of EVA man-hours, and it's still not done.
The surest way to never get to Mars is to build your Mars ship in the radiation-blasted, hard-vacuum, 500-degree temperature gradient (across a few feet from sunlight to shadow) environment of earth orbit.
We have proved that 0’g construction is possible but very slow and difficult as well as dangerous. We need micro gravity to help with a number of problems.
It would be stupid to attempt to launch a such a massive space craft from Earth and if you did and lost it, the space program would dissapear.
Much better to build a space dock on the moon where the environment can be created to build most anything we need and launch it.
All of the missions detailed above, Mars, Moon and Asteroids are only possible if we are able to build an infrastructure from the surface to LEO. Call it the Big Dumb Booster or whatever, something to shove a pile of equipment into and shoot it up to a Space Station that isn’t orbiting over Russia. From there things can be assembled on orbit.
Years ago, there was the possibility of Prizes to reach certain goals in space. Space Station, Moonbase, Mission to Mars, etc. Just put up a pile of cash and say “First guy to do this, wins!”
NASA is a jobs program that runs as slow as it possibly can. It will continue to grow and produce less, as all bureaucracies do. The large contractors do not do space on their own for it is far more profitable to build silly things for NASA and charge ridiculous sums for it. NASA remains the only game in town for this reason.
Offering Prizes is just about the only way to get going in space. It takes NASA out of the loop and reorients private enterprise from government bidding to actually working for themselves.
$20 Billion for a working Moonbase and transfer system. Can NASA do that?
Actually, probably not. Look at the X-prize won by Rutan's group. It was $10 million, and the project actually cost something like $30 million. Lucky for them that Paul Allen has money to burn.
The "orbital prize" is $50 million ... which is probably a few hundred million bucks short of what it would take to actually achieve the mission.
Going to the moon ... well, $20 billion might actually take a large chunk out of the cost, but what private group is going to be able to raise at least $20 billion in up-fron costs, in hopes that they'll make it back by winning such a prize?
You're probably correct about NASA being a jobs program, and sclerotic as a result; but it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. A relatively small, dedicated, and competent organization with (and this is the most important part) a competent and effective management team could probably get the job done fairly quickly and well. But it would require the resources of the government to be able to make it work.
The physical environment of the moon, aside from 1/6th gravity, is not much different from earth orbit - hard vacuum, radiation blasted, immense temperature extremes, not much in the way of accessible natural resources, etc. If you reckon building stuff is difficult and dangerous in orbit, how much more difficult and dangerous when you first have to get to the Moon to start the work?
The Mars rovers had a design lifetime of 90 days and are still operational after about four years on the surface.The Mars rovers are expendible. Humans have to come back from Mars.
Orbital construction is a difficult, dangerous, complex, and risky endeavor, as the constant maintenance and construction of the space station has been proving, even as far back as 2001... The Space Station has been under construction for 10 years, with hundreds of EVA man-hours, and it's still not done.One big difference is, the ISS was constructed in pretty small chunks; what is needed for human spaceflight is heavy lift capability; the Saturn V put 150 tons of Skylab into orbit, that is, five or more of the ISS modules, in one shot. Another difference should be, that there are no Russian station components. Yet another is, experience. And yet another is, an actual mission; the ISS was just a politically-correct special space olympics.
The surest way to never get to Mars is to build your Mars ship in the radiation-blasted, hard-vacuum, 500-degree temperature gradient (across a few feet from sunlight to shadow) environment of earth orbit.Yeah, it's a good thing that the human missions to Mars won't have to worry about those conditions. /sarc
(1801-1850)
The Law
(Victims of Lawfull Plunder)
"Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter — by peaceful or revolutionary means — into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.
Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize the power to make laws! Until that happens, the few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the right to participate in the making of law is limited to a few persons. But then, participation in the making of law becomes universal. And then, men seek to balance their conflicting interests by universal plunder. Instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make these injustices general. As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would demand more enlightenment than they possess.) Instead, they emulate their evil predecessors by participating in this legal plunder, even though it is against their own interests.
It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears, for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution — some for their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding."
Right, but the point is that if they can have something with a design lifetime of 90 days operational after four years, how robust would an advance outpost with a five-year design lifetime be on Mars?
Yeah, it's a good thing that the human missions to Mars won't have to worry about those conditions.
Disregarding your sarcasm, the point is that a direct-launch human mission to Mars wouldn't spend any more time than necessary in those incredibly harsh conditions, unlike an orbit-built spacecraft, and wouldn't require hour after hour after hour of hard vacuum EVA work.
Easier to troubleshoot and redesign a poorly-conceived electrical connector when there's an atmosphere.
Testing of the faulty ECO sensor system connector hardware continues at Marshall Space Flight Center. Engineers think that the super-cold liquid hydrogen fuel was causing the pins within the connectors to contract, sending faulty electrical signals to the shuttle’s computers. The new plug has been modified by soldiering the connector pins together.
Aren't engineers supposed to know a little something about the coefficient of expansion of the materials with which they're working? Of course, they're also supposed to know the difference between meters and feet, come to think of it.
See above post.
Off the top of my head, here are a few.
1. Dropping even so much as a small screw or nut, tool, or any one of the thousands of parts could be fatal to the shuttles, resupply craft, satellites and the Station it's self. So much effort and time is put into preventing this that construction is slowed dramatically.
2. The size and mass of the components are limited to the capacity to launch. On the moon, modular construction would not be hampered in this way as the modules would be constructed at the facility.
3. Personnel......On the station we are limited to the stations ability to house the construction personnel. This is a severe limitation. The way we build out the station is to train specialized people to be crane operators who are limited to a few tasks that are totally dependent on months of training. All the real construction is done on the ground. With the mission being one of research, construction is only for the station, not for future missions to mars and the Station is not designed for anything else. A totally new space dock with room to house dozens and dozens of people would have to be constructed. Look how long it has taken to build a structure to house 3 people. Look at how long a EVA it takes to install a heat exchanger or anything else, even when all they need to do is bolt it in place and hook it up.
I have not addressed the temperature problems, the constant reorientation of the stack to make it better for lighting, micro meteoroid protection and crane placement. Hell, the EVA airlock can only be made large enough for three people at a time and it takes a full 24 hours to prep them.
All this and much more would be addressed by building a construction facility and barracks on the moon. The air locks could be made to any size or the hangar could be pressurized and anything else that you can think of could be addressed. No need to worry about dropping a tool or a nut, and no limitations on a variety of issues. All they would need would be a steady stream of supplies and basic construction materials, all the welding and actual module construction would be done at the site.
More importantly, a ship of any potential size and mass could be constructed. It will take a big ship to go to mars, and even bigger payloads to stay on mars. It can all be done from the one space platform that we already have.
The Moon.
Eventually, we can also devise a safe way to transport all of our spent nuclear materials to storage facilities on the moon as well. I think it can be done safely with proper protections in place for the launch vehicle.
There is so much that can be done on the moon, that you could list hundreds of applications. The nice thing is that the Moon is free.
The Space Station Freedom cost overruns began when political figures started fighting over the location that it would be built.
Initially, it was slated to be built in Huntsville. Democratic Rep. Ronnie Flippo (Ala 5th Dist., which includes Huntsville) retired in 1989. His successor, Dem. Bud Cramer, did not have the political capitol to keep the vultures from descending on the program.
Politicians in Texas took the Space Station away from Huntsville and moved it to Houston, Texas.
In 1993, Congress suddenly “discovered” that the station was way to expensive and needed International Co-operation.. So they involved the Russians.
A thoroughly un-thought out move. The Space Station orbit was changed to a higher altitude and higher latitude. This placed it within some of the more intense radiation belts. The ENTIRE station then had to be radiation hardened.
The higher orbit caused problems with shuttle re-supply. By and large, the “incredibly costly space station” is a result of an incredibly meddlesome and politically carnivorous Congress. In truth, the Station is so expensive because of Congressional meddling.
And yet somehow people still think that NASA, funded by Congress, will somehow get humans to Mars. Go figure.
They tried that once. Commander Koenig couldn't keep it from exploding ;-)
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