NASA G2

[Guest aevans]

More motivating version...

 

"ANOTHER GIANT LEAP"!? Who are they trying to impress? Grade school kids? More importantly, who do they think they're kidding? Another giant leap would be Mars, a semi-giant leap would be an Earth-crossing asteroid. Going back to the Moon is picking up where we left off (after more than forty years, by the time we actually get people back there).

Edited July 31, 2007 by aevans

[SCFalken]

Question:

 

Pre-question disclosure: I'm a supporter of the Constellation Program.

 

 

That said, was it ever possible that an STS follow-on ("Shuttle II", etc) would be as efficient a tool for manned space exploration as the return to the capsule/service module structure?

 

IOW, would a more advanced Shuttle (metallic TPS, flyback boosters, etc) be more cost-effective (return-on-dollar) than moving to the CEV format?

 

 

Follow-up: Were the oft-stated advances in shuttle technology, such as the metallic TPS (Buran had one, and BF Goodrich had supposedly developed an amazing one for the X-33) and the flyback boosters concept, likely to make any impact upon either the horrendous turnaround time (what was the average turnaround time for an individual Orbiter, when we had 4 of them?) and giant cost/launch ratio (and thus, the high $/kg ratio)?

 

 

 

Falken

[Guest aevans]

Question:

 

Pre-question disclosure: I'm a supporter of the Constellation Program.

 

I'm a supporter of the technological direction. I'm still trying to decide whether I'm on board with the strategic plan. (There's a lot of room in it for looking like stuff's getting done without actually having to do anything very significant or risky.)

 

That said, was it ever possible that an STS follow-on ("Shuttle II", etc) would be as efficient a tool for manned space exploration as the return to the capsule/service module structure?

 

IOW, would a more advanced Shuttle (metallic TPS, flyback boosters, etc) be more cost-effective (return-on-dollar) than moving to the CEV format?

Follow-up: Were the oft-stated advances in shuttle technology, such as the metallic TPS (Buran had one, and BF Goodrich had supposedly developed an amazing one for the X-33) and the flyback boosters concept, likely to make any impact upon either the horrendous turnaround time (what was the average turnaround time for an individual Orbiter, when we had 4 of them?) and giant cost/launch ratio (and thus, the high $/kg ratio)?

Falken

 

In theory, these should be pretty straightforward technical questions, but in human reality they turn out to be essentially philosophical ones. Technically, it seems that expendable LVs and spacecraft are actually more economical at the present or reasonably foreseeable sate of the art. Philosophically, there are large and powerful constituencies that wish that weren't so, because they think that reusability just has to be more economical than throwing stuff away. (Among these are some very influential emeritus types, like a certain SF author and microcomputer columnist.) The problem is that making and operating even semi-reusable vehicles for the space environment seems to be a very expensive proposition, with no obvious technological or business direction to make things any cheaper in the future.

 

As for the specific technical question you asked, it's possible that relatively robust and durable TPSs might bring down the cost of operating flyback orbiters, but that doesn't free the class from the original sin of putting X number of tons on orbit, only to bring back 5/6 of it. You'd have to operate a reusable system at better than 1/6 of expendable operating costs per lb to just break even. With current or foreseen technologies, that doesn't appear to be possible.

[SCFalken]

Metallic TPS data: http://techreports.larc.nasa.gov/ltrs/PDF/...a-2002-0502.pdf

 

 

 

Falken

[SCFalken]

Honestly, the only reasons I can see necessitating the use of a next generation STS-like spacecraft are:

 

 

1.) Return of valuable materials from space (exotic materials, etc). So far, no requirement.

 

and

 

2.) Launch (and return) of more personnel than can feasibly be accomodated in a capsule. So far, no requirement (and rumors are that a 12-person CEV-based spacecraft is possible, for post-2020 missions).

 

For either to be even remotely worth the expenditure, LEO activity (not to mention industry) would have to radically increase. Since that is, in turn, contingent upon activities outside LEO (Moon, Mars, NEO's, The Belt), I won't hold my breath.

 

 

 

Falken

[TSJ]

Russian space ship maker is fighting bankruptcy:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/07/31/r...reut/index.html

Edited August 1, 2007 by TSJ

[TSJ]

Ex-astronaut Schmit says "let's go land on an asteriod".

 

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/should-humans...S00010000000001

[SCFalken]

Ex-astronaut Schmit says "let's go land on an asteriod".

 

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/should-humans...S00010000000001

 

 

I'm a part of the "let's go mine the asteroids" crowd.

 

 

But....

 

 

Doing so in the near term is not very useful. Why? Because we do not have anywhere near (as in, 3-4 decades away) the orbital or lunar infrastructure required to actually exploit NEOs. We know next to nothing about microgravity industrial processes (thin films aside). We don't have any space-based industry, and no current plans to build one (no market for it yet).

 

Send a probe. Send an expedition. Just don't put it in the VSE (Moon-Mars) mission pathway. The two have no relation, and it's a good way to end up stalling the Mars expeditions.

 

You have to have a certain critical mass of operations in space, before it becomes economic (or even desirable) to throw down the $$$ to establish an industrial base there. Just doing so will take the better part of two decades, going full-tilt. Lunar-based industry runs into the lack of volatiles necessary for certain industrial processes (Aluminum extraction needing Chlorine, for instance).

 

Lastly, a Billion-tonne, 1km diameter asteroid will probably contain $150,000,000,000 worth of Platinum Group metals. That had better stay in space (fabricate components for spacecraft and infrastructure). On Earth, it'll cause an economic crisis (The Spanish never did figure out why prices kept going up after they got all that Silver from the New World...).

 

Falken

Edited August 1, 2007 by SCFalken

[Guest aevans]

I'm a part of the "let's go mine the asteroids" crowd.

But....

Doing so in the near term is not very useful. Why? Because we do not have anywhere near (as in, 3-4 decades away) the orbital or lunar infrastructure required to actually exploit NEOs. We know next to nothing about microgravity industrial processes (thin films aside). We don't have any space-based industry, and no current plans to build one (no market for it yet).

 

Seriously, what is this fascination with infrastructure in space? It's all based on outdated SF concepts that have been shown to be real-world engineering and economic non-starters. (Even the technically more astute authors were basing their interplanetary economies on being able to use maximum efficiency nuclear rockets from the surface of the Earth.) Stopping in orbit -- out of the plane of any likely destination at ISS-like inclinations -- costs energy. So does landing on the Moon. (Yes, I know all about how shallow the Moon's gravity well is relative to the Earth's, but it still costs delta-v to go down it and come back up, and you have to expend the energy of the side trip to the Moon to begin with -- and it is a side trip, even when considering the planets and the asteroids.) I know it really burns the space cadets up to hear this, but it's economically cheaper and technically less challenging to directly throw from the surface of the Earth to almost anyplace in the inner solar system. Even when larger payloads to the asteroid belt are considered, it would be ultimately less expensive and less risky to build modularized spacecraft and achieve assembly in LEO by docking than it would be to do extensive assembly work on orbit at some supposed "construction shack" type space station.

 

Contrary to the old cliche that "Space is a Place", space is really just the void you cross to get to real places. You want to spend the least amount of time there as possible, and invest the minimum in orbital or out of the way (e.g. Lunar) infrastructure.

 

Send a probe. Send an expedition. Just don't put it in the VSE (Moon-Mars) mission pathway. The two have no relation, and it's a good way to end up stalling the Mars expeditions.

 

It depends on your objectives. I agree tha Mars is the primary objective, but not out of any supposed "search for life" mania or because I read Red Planet one too many times. I just don't think we should be sitting still on one planet as a species and Mars just happens to be the one place away from the Earth that has readily available life support resources that require a minimum of processing capability, and most of that very low risk, mature technology. If somebody could make a case that asteroid mining had comparable advantages (though they would be economic, not life-friendliness ones), I wouldn't for one second consider asteroids a stall.

[Guest aevans]

You have to have a certain critical mass of operations in space, before it becomes economic (or even desirable) to throw down the $$$ to establish an industrial base there. Just doing so will take the better part of two decades, going full-tilt. Lunar-based industry runs into the lack of volatiles necessary for certain industrial processes (Aluminum extraction needing Chlorine, for instance).

 

There is absolutely no reason to have an industrial base in space, per se. As you alluded earlier, it's hard and requires mostly unknown skills. People laughed at me the last time I brought this up, but seriously, gravity in and of itself is such a useful tool that trying to establish industry separate from it is going to put one way down the developmental curve from people who get to use it for free. (Just think of all the standard processes that require gravity as a fundamental compnent, and what one would have to do to make those processes work in the absence of a considerable gravity field.) Also, any extraterrestrial industrial base that has to recapitulate the entire gamut of capabilities from extraction to finnished product is going to require tens of thousands (more likely hundreds of thousands) of tons of equipment and hundreds of people to operate (plus all of the mass of equipment to shelter and support them). It seems hardly arguable that all of the lift to put that mass and those people in space would be better spent to just send it and them to the destination -- putatively Mars, at this point in the discussion -- where it can do some real good, rather than putting it in some arbitrary place (like LEO or the Moon) that suits someone's philosophical preferences.

[TSJ]

There may very well be a reason to have a moon base if the Helium 3 fusion reactor is successfully developed. Lunar soil holds a lot of it where as earth does not. So it could be worth while.

 

NASA has a lot on its schedule. Finishing up the ISS is a major effort whether we agree with it or not. Fixing Hubble will also take an extra mission before the shuttle can be shut down. Also, Congress is not happy about the US not doing anything with the ISS after it is completed other than maintaining it. A move is afoot to designate it as a US "national laboratory". Congress is also questioning if NASA has budgetted enough funds to maintain the ISS in the 4 or 5 years that we will not be making any launches during the interim shuttle shutdown and launch of Ares. And the whole Energia bankruptcy thing does not bode well either.

 

Congress will have to provide more funds if they want participation in the ISS and development of Ares. Right now, Mike Griffin is kicking all the life sciences, etc. out in favor of developing Ares. Even then, its going to be a stretch.

 

There are still all the other programs NASA has such as more missions to the outer planets (and one close to the sun) as well as more space telescopes. One scientist is proposing a scope whose size would dwarf the Hubble. It would be launched by Ares V in sections I think.

 

So while I was disapointed in the NASA decision to kick further development of the scram jet over to DARPA, really, when I go over all the things that are on NASA's plate I can understand the decision. NASA is very busy with the current mission it has. Just wish there was more funding involved.

 

Addendum:

 

Watching the NASA channel for a few minutes last night and I saw the astronauts for the next launch zooming around the KSC back roads in a M-113. Painted yellow no less! It looked to me like they were having a blast. Must be nice to be an astronaut. (Green with envy.)

Edited August 1, 2007 by TSJ

[SCFalken]

You missed my point.

 

Past a certain level of activity, the law of diminishing returns kicks in, and you end up having to either settle for what you can loft up the gravity well at $20K/kg or fabricate as much as is feasible in space. This artificially constrains the size and scale of possible operations.

 

Do we need a space-based industry to get to the Moon and Mars? Nope.

 

But if we want to expand out into the Solar System, as a species, we are going to have to build up an industrial base offworld. Somewhere. It doesn't really have to mean microgravity installations, as Mars would be fine as an industrial site (less DeltaV needed). So would the Moon, but that would require importing volatiles from elsewhere.

 

It's not something we need to start doing right this instance. But when we are established on the Moon and Mars, we are going to have to ask ourselves what we are doing, and what our long-term objectives are.

Any Martian colony larger than a dozen persons is going to require either ruinous amounts of Earth-launched materials, all year, every year, or it is going to need an independant large-scale industrial base (because, unlike on Earth, Mars needs electricity and airtight environments, 24/7. You end up short a widget, you die). Pumps, seals and copper wire don't grow on trees.

A Lunar colony is even more material-intensive (requires spacecraft to import volatiles from NEOs, Mars or The Belt).

 

You seem to think that I am advocating a backwards economic model (build first, market second). I'm not. If we continue manned expansion in space, there will be enough of a market for industry to grow (where it becomes cheaper to fabricate various items and materials offworld, than boost them up the gravity well).

 

 

Also, even NASA does not seem to think that "industrialization" means shipping a complete industrial base up into orbit (more likely, to the Moon or Mars). No one is (seriously) advocating that. You send the bare minimum required, to accomplish as much as is possible. IOW, primarily multi-function equipment that can be bootstrapped into a varied industrial base. Start small, expand from there, as much as possible. Note that all proposals are oriented towards Lunar or Martian industry (because no one anticipates a significant human population in open space, in the next few decades).

 

NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts was studying the preliminaries of this, the last few years.

 

There is a happy (and economically sensible) medium between building everything on Earth (which makes sense right now, due to the low levels of activity) and trying to establish an orbital industry that currently has no market. You seem to be thinking that anyone who advocates the industrialization of space is a space cadet. Not so. It's a gradual process. No more different than recognizing the need for large offworld activities to support themselves by producing their own food.

 

I don't expect to see any non-planetary (zero-G) industry before there is at least a self-supporting population on Mars. There has to be a niche for it to fill, and all the needs of the Mars colony can be filled locally. A Lunar colony (which I honestly do not see ever being very large) would need volatiles from Mars, NEOs or The Belt, but I don't know if that would be enough to kickstart constuction in orbit.

 

Falken

Edited August 1, 2007 by SCFalken

[Guest aevans]

I didn't say you were a space cadet, SCFalken. I was addressing those who are. If anything, I was expanding on your remarks with some very specific preemtive comments on arguments I knew would be raised, not necessarily by yourself. About the only quibble I would have with you is that there is no point in talking about LEO or Lunar industries at all. Not that they're taboo so much as they are a distracting waste of time, even in merely speculative conversations like this. If they're needed, they'll be founded. Until then, we need to concentrate on getting done what we economically can get done, and intelligent people need to stop playing the space cadets' game and just tell them to either get on board with a good technical education and positive help for the immediate future or STFU. We ain't gonna have Star Trek or even just the High Frontier, so they need to fuggedaboutit.

[Jim Martin]

There may very well be a reason to have a moon base if the Helium 3 fusion reactor is successfully developed. Lunar soil holds a lot of it where as earth does not. So it could be worth while.

 

NASA has a lot on its schedule. Finishing up the ISS is a major effort whether we agree with it or not. Fixing Hubble will also take an extra mission before the shuttle can be shut down. Also, Congress is not happy about the US not doing anything with the ISS after it is completed other than maintaining it. A move is afoot to designate it as a US "national laboratory". Congress is also questioning if NASA has budgetted enough funds to maintain the ISS in the 4 or 5 years that we will not be making any launches during the interim shuttle shutdown and launch of Ares. And the whole Energia bankruptcy thing does not bode well either.

 

Congress will have to provide more funds if they want participation in the ISS and development of Ares. Right now, Mike Griffin is kicking all the life sciences, etc. out in favor of developing Ares. Even then, its going to be a stretch.

 

There are still all the other programs NASA has such as more missions to the outer planets (and one close to the sun) as well as more space telescopes. One scientist is proposing a scope whose size would dwarf the Hubble. It would be launched by Ares V in sections I think.

 

So while I was disapointed in the NASA decision to kick further development of the scram jet over to DARPA, really, when I go over all the things that are on NASA's plate I can understand the decision. NASA is very busy with the current mission it has. Just wish there was more funding involved.

 

Addendum:

 

Watching the NASA channel for a few minutes last night and I saw the astronauts for the next launch zooming around the KSC back roads in a M-113. Painted yellow no less! It looked to me like they were having a blast. Must be nice to be an astronaut. (Green with envy.)

 

 

The M-113 is part of their emergency evac procedure. In the event of an emergency abort on the launch pad, the astronauts would egress the Shuttle and haul butt down the launch platform to where the M-113 waits nearby, and then drive the M-113 as fast as it can go, away from the launch platform, in case the rocket engines should ignite/explode.

[SCFalken]

There may very well be a reason to have a moon base if the Helium 3 fusion reactor is successfully developed. Lunar soil holds a lot of it where as earth does not. So it could be worth while.

 

If He3 is required in bulk, it will make more sense to mine it from Saturn's atmosphere (Jupiter is....difficult to deal with). To extract a kilo of He3 from lunar regolith (if current statistics are to be believed), you have to shift and process 250,000 tons of raw regolith.

 

 

 

Falken

Edited August 1, 2007 by SCFalken

[TSJ]

The M-113 is part of their emergency evac procedure. In the event of an emergency abort on the launch pad, the astronauts would egress the Shuttle and haul butt down the launch platform to where the M-113 waits nearby, and then drive the M-113 as fast as it can go, away from the launch platform, in case the rocket engines should ignite/explode.

 

Thanks. They also showed a slide for life off the tower. So that makes sense.

 

I hope the Orion will have a rocket/ejection for emergencies.

[Jim Martin]

Rocket Blasts Off Carrying Mars Lander

 

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - A robotic dirt and ice digger rocketed toward Mars on Saturday, beginning a 422 million-mile journey that NASA hopes will culminate next spring in the first ever landing within the red planet's Arctic Circle.

[Corinthian]

The M-113 is part of their emergency evac procedure. In the event of an emergency abort on the launch pad, the astronauts would egress the Shuttle and haul butt down the launch platform to where the M-113 waits nearby, and then drive the M-113 as fast as it can go, away from the launch platform, in case the rocket engines should ignite/explode.

 

I guess that's the AstroGavin then. Proof - DEFINITE PROOF! - that the indomitable Gav!n will be the main transport on the Moon and Mars.

[TSJ]

Great article about VSE and shuttle/ISS projects. Injects some common sense about the importance of the political aspect thereof. Space cranks seem to have a tin ear about this:

 

 

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/933/1

Edited August 13, 2007 by TSJ

[Guest aevans]

Great article about VSE and shuttle/ISS projects. Injects some common sense about the importance of the political aspect thereof. Space cranks seem to have a tin ear about this:

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/933/1

 

Feh. It's just another "they're hurting my precious ISS" diatribe, thinly disguised as policy commentary.

 

Note how the author asserts that "the lifting capability of the Shuttles...is not duplicated by the Orion vehicles". Technically true -- the lifting capability is not strictly duplicated -- but contextually false, since the Ares IV LV will be capable of lifting 5-6 times the Shuttle's usable payload, which means it could loft several ISS modules at once, were that a mission objective.

 

Also get a load of this doozy:

 

"Maintenance of the station must also be reshaped, with many replaceable components that were designed to be returned to Earth on the Shuttle to be refurbished and flown back now being literally tossed over the side of the orbiting outpost and new units built to replace them."

 

He makes it sound like reusable components make economic sense, and anything else is a crime. Except that it doesn't make any economic sense to mount two enourmously expensive launch campaigns to retrieve and then reorbit a refurbished component when you can just put up a new and improved one with one launch campaign.

 

At least in the end he does get around to admitting he's an ideologue:

 

"I have spent much of my adult life promoting the concepts of reusability and permanence as the cornerstones of human spaceflight."

 

IOW, I, Frank Sietzen Jr., have decided that "reusability" and "permanence" are fundamental goals (as I, FS Jr. conceive of them, of course) whether or not they have a demonstrated technical or scientific utility, and nobody can tell me that they aren't. I say again, feh.

Edited August 13, 2007 by aevans

[TSJ]

Feh. It's just another "they're hurting my precious ISS" diatribe, thinly disguised as policy commentary.

 

Note how the author asserts that "the lifting capability of the Shuttles...is not duplicated by the Orion vehicles". Technically true -- the lifting capability is not strictly duplicated -- but contextually false, since the Ares IV LV will be capable of lifting 5-6 times the Shuttle's usable payload, which means it could loft several ISS modules at once, were that a mission objective.

 

Also get a load of this doozy:

 

"Maintenance of the station must also be reshaped, with many replaceable components that were designed to be returned to Earth on the Shuttle to be refurbished and flown back now being literally tossed over the side of the orbiting outpost and new units built to replace them."

 

He makes it sound like reusable components make economic sense, and anything else is a crime. Except that it doesn't make any economic sense to mount two enourmously expensive launch campaigns to retrieve and then reorbit a refurbished component when you can just put up a new and improved one with one launch campaign.

 

At least in the end he does get around to admitting he's an ideologue:

 

"I have spent much of my adult life promoting the concepts of reusability and permanence as the cornerstones of human spaceflight."

 

IOW, I, Frank Sietzen Jr., have decided that "reusability" and "permanence" are fundamental goals (as I, FS Jr. conceive of them, of course) whether or not they have a demonstrated technical or scientific utility, and nobody can tell me that they aren't. I say again, feh.

 

Go ahead, beat around the bush and ignore the fact that Congress mandated a multi-national ISS (much to my displeasure), spent a ton of money on it, and that a number of them probably don't want it abandoned by the US. Whether you like it or not, or even if I don't like it, this thing is going to play out in the halls of congress. That means space afficionados who you call cadets, have enormous political pull. There is a reason why NASA spends a lot of time and effort at school systems where they are treated like visiting royalty. A lot of US astonomers also coordinate their findings with the timing of when the US school systems are open. So there is plenty of political cultivation going on.

 

As for me I don't understand why the first series of moon missions were dropped after spending $24 billion. The whole liberal anti-vietnam war BS that was going on killed it is what I think. "We have poor people...blah, blah, blah..why are we spending money on space?" To drop another stupendous project just as it comes to fruition is a very bitter pill for me to take. I hate that shit. I didn't choose it, the project was forced on me by Congress as far as I am concerned. But I don't take lightly dropping a project after spending billions and billions of investment and a number of lives. Face it Tony, there is about zero support for dropping everything and heading to Mars. Hell, it is going to be tough just to keep VSE alive through the next presidency and congress in order to go to the moon and establish a permanent lunar base. There are some scientists who don't even want us to mine the moon for the H3 there. They afraid we will disturb the environment there or something!

[Guest aevans]

Go ahead, beat around the bush and ignore the fact that Congress mandated a multi-national ISS (much to my displeasure), spent a ton of money on it, and that a number of them probably don't want it abandoned by the US. Whether you like it or not, or even if I don't like it, this thing is going to play out in the halls of congress. That means space afficionados who you call cadets, have enormous political pull. There is a reason why NASA spends a lot of time and effort at school systems where they are treated like visiting royalty. A lot of US astonomers also coordinate their findings with the timing of when the US school systems are open. So there is plenty of political cultivation going on.

 

I realize all of that. But that doesn't excuse me from my duty as a voter and educated space exploration advocate to use discernment. ISS is a nearly missionless boondoggle, played out in slow motion.

 

As for me I don't understand why the first series of moon missions were dropped after spending $24 billion. The whole liberal anti-vietnam war BS that was going on killed it is what I think. "We have poor people...blah, blah, blah..why are we spending money on space?"

It's not even that complicated. The geostrategic objective of beating the Soviets to an arbitary but highly visible finish line had been achieved. No more reason than that was needed to take the money away.

 

To drop another stupendous project just as it comes to fruition is a very bitter pill for me to take. I hate that shit. I didn't choose it, the project was forced on me by Congress as far as I am concerned. But I don't take lightly dropping a project after spending billions and billions of investment and a number of lives.

 

As explained above, nothing truly ongoing or short of its objective was dropped with the Apollo closeout. People -- un-and undereducated space enthusiast specifically and particularly -- just don't understand what the money was being spent to accomplish. Apollo as it stands historically was mission accomplished 100% and then some. A manned moon landing and return was accomplished on schedule. Extra experience nad science return was realized through the use of acquired skills and equipment surplus to the primary objective. But everything after Apollo 11 splashdown was gravy on top of a program that had achieved all enabling and terminal objectives just by putting Neil and Buzz down on the lunar surface and getting them back.

 

ISS is a totally different story. There never a was a clear objective beyond building the thing. Everything else is just rationalization to extract more support from those that hold the purse strings. It turns out that now that we have it mostly built, it pretty much is only worth abandoning, from all but an increasingly diminishing human spaceflight life science return, and that can be accomplished with the station as is, using the present skeleton crew.

 

Face it Tony, there is about zero support for dropping everything and heading to Mars. Hell, it is going to be tough just to keep VSE alive through the next presidency and congress in order to go to the moon and establish a permanent lunar base.

Of course there isn't, because the average space enthusiast can hardly add, much less understand the real scientific, technical, and sociological factors in play. Their alledged political support isn't worth the drag on forming and communicating realistic, achievable objectives. Serious human space flight advocates have to get over thinking that the ignorant but enthusiastic space fans are an important consituency that has to be cultivated. What they really need is to be cast out as ignornat simpletons. Certainly many will be disenchanted, but if we as a nation have in us what it takes to actually achieve anything in space, the majority will be motivated to get a clue and come back smarter and stronger. As trite and cliche as it might sound, I think it's accurate to observe that just like building muscle, negative resistance makes you stronger, not sitting around and wishing things were different.

 

As for Mars as an objective, it seems to me right now to be the logical one, if your overal policy is to establish human civilization off of the Earth. Show me a better objective or a more rational reason for humans to go into space, I'll go along. But you have to address things on those fundamental terms to get my attention. I don't carry a brief either for ideology or makework.

 

There are some scientists who don't even want us to mine the moon for the H3 there. They afraid we will disturb the environment there or something!

 

They're idiots. We'll do what is economically necessary and feasible. But once again I must issue my caveat that I don't carry a brief for anything but establishing human civilization off of Earth. Supposed economic gains or killer apps are just rationalizations. Extending the enterprise of humanity beyond one fragile cosmic locale is the only thing that has any lasting practical utility in the long run.

Edited August 14, 2007 by aevans

[DB]

They're idiots. We'll do what is economically necessary and feasible. But once again I must issue my caveat that I don't carry a brief for anything but establishing human civilization off of Earth. Supposed economic gains or killer apps are just rationalizations. Extending the enterprise of humanity beyond one fragile cosmic locale is the only thing that has any lasting practical utility in the long run.

The problem with the "big bang" approach you seem to be advocating - that is, do the right thing, and nothing else, is that it amounts to one very big throw of the dice, and although messing about in LEO and taking baby steps on the moon really does waste money if your real target is Mars (or the next solar system if you're ambitious ) is that it gets money spent in roughly the right direction, and can, unless blind alleys like the Space Shuttle sink all the funds, at least shuffle the technology along towards your main goal.

 

But you didn't buy my argument that a (manned) moon mission is a necessary step towards a Mars mission because it provides risk reduction the last time we went round this loop, did you?

 

David

[Guest aevans]

The problem with the "big bang" approach you seem to be advocating - that is, do the right thing, and nothing else, is that it amounts to one very big throw of the dice, and although messing about in LEO and taking baby steps on the moon really does waste money if your real target is Mars (or the next solar system if you're ambitious ) is that it gets money spent in roughly the right direction, and can, unless blind alleys like the Space Shuttle sink all the funds, at least shuffle the technology along towards your main goal.

 

But you didn't buy my argument that a (manned) moon mission is a necessary step towards a Mars mission because it provides risk reduction the last time we went round this loop, did you?

 

David

 

"ig bang" -- gotta love that!

 

I've never advocated a one throw of the dice approach, just a focussed one. If one accepts the ultimate near-term goal is to establish a viable subset of human civilization on Mars, then the Moon is something that must be taken with a big grain of salt -- it has the potential to divert effort into the endless picking of low hanging fruit. Simply put, the Moon, much like the ISS, is a great place to appear to be doing something, without actually getting anything significant done. As a place to work out equipment and procedures, it has some attractions. (But not many, and only limited ones, because the trans-mars orbital environment and the Martian surface environment don't resemble the lunar surface very much.) But it is also a trap because it's only going to get easier and more routine.

 

Let's put it this way. If I have any ideology, it's that about once every century this debate is recapitulated, except that the next time it's about Mars as a point of stagnation, then the time after that about the next objective, and the time after that about yet another one...

[TSJ]

Nobody has yet demonstrated that they are capable of constructing a space vehicle that will withstand the rigors of a multi year manned space expedition. Nobody. Not even the ISS can exist w/o relatively quick delivery of spare parts. And we haven't exactly performed 100% on sending unmanned sats and landers to Mars either. We're not sure the very latest polar lander is going to make it since it is a rehash of an old design (I hope it does make it).