This effort would require four launches of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket, which is currently in development and is scheduled to make its maiden flight in 2018.
The purpose of my Kickstarter is to show how it could be done, faster, cheaper, with more people.
Rand, Instapundit linked your Kickstarter about an hour ago.
Yes, I know. He also threw in a hundred bucks.
This Phobos campaign “would prove out the method for getting to Mars orbit and back,”
Moving us zilch toward actually getting to mars because it doesn’t test a mars lander whereas actually testing a mars lander also proves a method of getting to mars. A Phobos mission gives us all the risk without the reward and adds delay equal to the total Phobos program.
Of course, if the goal is to waste time and money it makes perfect sense. Directing ARM toward Phobos would accomplish much the same without wasting years of astronaut lives.
The JPL team’s concept would send a 23-ton lander to Mars orbit, where it would await astronauts’ arrival
A FH will put 13.2 tons in mars orbit. Which could be a module consisting of an inflatable for the voyage and lander (so they do not have the risk of meeting with it in mars orbit) and 2 crew. A mission would consists of multiple FH launches that meet up on the journey. How many FH + payload could we send for the cost of one SLS launch? The inflatables stay in mars orbit providing an orbital station.
A Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) should be a separate mission waiting on the martian surface and confirmed to be in good working order. Not sent with the lander which just increases mass of that mission for no good reason. If worried about the accuracy of the landing ellipse just send more MAVs.
Explain please, how six days on the surface of mars is not flags and footprints? People should be fired just for suggesting this.
Phobos is a great target for HSF! If it had been in an own orbit around the Sun, a Phobos mission would really look like a very good next step to take. But it is now in the shadow of Mars, so sending astronauts to Mars on a 25½ month’s mission, without landing on Mars, is a bad mission design. I think that the science return from a real Mars mission would outweigh the extra cost and delay by a big margin. And with respect to politics and public opinion, a Phobos only mission is undoable. The names of those astronauts, and the president who sent them there, will be forgotten the moment the first human sets foot on Mars proper.
Besides, a mission to Mars’ surface is cheaper than a mission to Mars’ surface following an “around Mars” mission. Focus the resources on the first real Mars mission instead.