Reading comments on Donald Robertson’s excellent disquisition on SLS in Space News, I don’t think anyone so encapsulates the insanity as Gary Church.
I should note that I found this link via the space-policy section of Reddit, which I’ve added to the blog roll.
Oh, and speaking of insanity on human spaceflight policy, I’d like to fisk this nonsense, but it’s long, and I just don’t have the gumption for it right now. I doubt if many have even read the stupid thing.
The article seemed to more ore less hit all the bases. This bit stuck out:
“The Martian surface has no known resources that are useful in space that cannot also be found closer to home and in more shallow gravity wells. Yet, Mr. Musk’s colonists somehow will need to earn a living. ”
Well problem is with idea of known resources. But we do know Mars has a lot of CO2- 25 trillion tonnes of it. So with the Mars atmosphere one has something which is very cheap to mine. And if going to grow crops one will need lots of cheap CO2.
The other aspect is there could very cheap water on Mars. We know Mars has a lot of water which can be extracted, but don’t know how cheaply and if there is ground water which could be very cheap [could equal price of water on Earth]. And abundance of available water comparable to total ground water on Earth possibly- but not known nor do we know quality of kind type of Mars water [permafrost or glacial ice]. Or Mars needs to be explored to determine the amount and quality of Mars water available- but broadly Mars should have somewhere 1000 times more water than on the Moon or Mercury poles.
But likewise I don’t think we really know if lunar polar water is minable- or the Moon requires further exploration before knowing what resources are available.
Getting back to Mars and earning a living, it seems a key aspect is to find best source of abundant water on Mars. Another key aspect in regard to Mars is if there is anywhere in space which is mining. Or I think if the Moon can be mined commerically for water, that this makes the lunar surface a viable location. *AND* I think if one is mining the Moon, this allows Mars to be a more viable place to earn a living.
Or as is commonly stated the Moon could be doorway to rest of solar system and the Moon become this doorway, if will open Mars for human settlements.
The nature of the Moon does tend towards isolationism, whereas many fans of Mars wrongly assume the the Mars is all about isolationism.
Rather I think Mars would be like the New World was to Europe. And New Worlds were only isolated in mostly a romantic sense and military sense, rather than commercial sense. Like the New Worlds, Mars will have separation of weeks or months of time travel [and at most about 30 mins of speed of light distance].
So I find it hard to imagine anything of significant value occurring on the Moon- say, 200 billion dollar lunar market- without it affecting Mars in terms of being able to earn a living. So Earth global satellite market is about 200 billion dollar market- so Moon become as monetarily as relevant as this satellite market is to people living on Earth.
Also a thing discussed in article is importance of lowering Earth rocket costs, and it seems to lunar commercial water mining would be greater factor in lowering Earth transportation cost to Mars.
Currently the main costs of going to the Moon is the cost of return to Earth. Or having lunar rocket fuel on lunar surface would 1/2 the cost of going to the Moon. Another factor adding to the high cost is the lack of ability to reuse spacecraft going to the moon. And if exporting lunar rocket fuel to lunar orbit, this allows one to reuse lunar spacecraft.
So exporting lunar rocket fuel should allow at least another halving of the cost to go to the Moon.
And one has a similar situation with the cost of going to Mars. Or one needs rocket fuel available in Earth orbit and Mars orbit [and course on Martian surface].
Now commercial lunar mining could start as something on the order of less than 10 billion per year- in terms all lunar activity related and enabled by lunar water mining. But one could say this has to increase over the years- ie, so as eventually get to the 200 billion dollar per year level. And well before it reaches such a size a market lunar rocket cheap would become much cheaper, and getting to Moon from Earth will become much cheaper. So say more than 2 decade after commercial lunar water, lunar rocket fuel could become less than 1/4 of the cost as compared to beginning cost of lunar rocket fuel. And as price lower one can ship lunar rocket fuel to places in low Earth orbit and Mars orbit. Or starts at lunar surface, than exports to low lunar orbit, and then high Earth orbits and Mars orbits, and finally LEO. Or to ship from Earth LEO will be half the price as compare to high earth orbits and beyond this.
Or future lunar rocket fuel [and other stuff] will supply needs of future travelers to Mars AND over time this cost be further lower.
And this related to Mars ability to earn a living. Early Mars “adopters” could expect larger numbers of people to come to Mars as it become ever cheaper to get from Earth to Mars.
And of course in terms of the Moon- people going to Mars would future market for Lunar exports.
Another aspect is future asteroid mining, but more words.
All of the negatives of the Space Launch System, except possibly its old technology and high cost, also apply to the giant rockets Mr. Musk wants to develop.
Not exactly. The SLS will launch infrequently with a standing army. The whole point of BFR is because it meets a need. Although mars windows only open up every 26 months, they intend to launch multiple BFR’s each window meaning they will manufacture many during that 26 month time-frame. Another thing is they intend to replace 9 Merlins with 1 raptor on each core. So some commonality will exist between BFR and future SpaceX vehicles.
SLS will use expensive reusable engines and never reuse them. The difference can be summed up as govt. vs. commercial. That’s the main reason they are not comparable… but it sounds like it must be true if you look at each superficially.
“Another thing is they intend to replace 9 Merlins with 1 raptor on each core. So some commonality will exist between BFR and future SpaceX vehicles.”
A small correction here: At a thrust of 550,000lbs. a Raptor *cannot* replace 9 Merlins at a thrust of 210,000 lb. thrust each. However, Raptor, the expensive part of BFR development, *will* have an impact long before any BFR flies. That will be in the reusable second stage program the AF is funding. A Raptor-powered second stage for Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9 will give them the reusable second stage they lack today. Indeed, the AF contracts specify that the engines being developed *must* be reusable. A Raptor second stage will have sufficient capacity to both boost heavier payloads and return to the launch site. Being heavier itself, it will also mean that the first stage cores will stage and re-enter at a lower velocity, making them more certainly recoverable as well.
This means that SpaceX can begin retiring a large part of the cost, the Raptor portion, of their vehicles beyond Falcon Heavy, if any, long before BFR would ever fly.
Then they need two Raptor engines to replace nine Merlins. The rocket should have a lot less engine part count and much simplified plumbing as a result. So it should be a lot cheaper to manufacture.
The mass fraction will probably not be better. It may in fact be even worse because of the cryogenic tanks you need for Methane.
As for SLS the idea was to reuse as many components as possible to save on R&D costs. The SSME is costly not just because it is reusable. It was done with the best engine design techniques know at the time but it resulted in a complex engine with a large part count and a lot of manufacturing steps. If you compare it with the largely similar RD-0120 that Energia used you can see it is possible to make a lot simpler. In fact there were programs to simplify the SSME and reduce costs. The engine pumps were redesigned to become simpler and cheaper. The last redesign required to make the engine cheaper was to replace the nozzle design to channel wall. That shouldn’t be too expensive in time or dollars to do. Look at Merlin-1C/D as an example.
The main problem with SLS is that it will not have enough flight rate to be economic. At one point I was in favor of reusing the EELVs to support the beyond earth space flight program. But right now SpaceX has the best rocket. Especially once the Heavy is available. It will have more payload than Proton. That is enough to make a lunar flyby mission in a single launch I think. There might be interest in tourism for something like that. With two launches you can go to the moon and SpaceX will have at least two pads for it so it is certainly viable.
Two Raptors on Falcon 1st stage in place of 9 Merlins? That, it would seem, would totally re-write the stage landing equation. I wonder if the 2 Raptors will be capable of throttling down far enough to perform the first stage landing?
Don’t make it reusable then. On the long run keeping two productions lines open for two different engines is probably more expensive than throwing the rocket away.
I would have thought replacing RP-1 engines with CH4 engines would mean replacing RP-1 tankage with CH4 tankage which amounts to a completely new rocket.
210 thousand times 9 is about 1.9 million pounds of thrust. At 500 thousand pounds of thrust each, you’d need four Raptors to equal 9 Merlins.
Actually, given the considerably increased thrust of the current F9, you would need at least three, and more probably four, Raptors to replace nine Merlins. I don’t see that happening.
Agree except for the last part about, “long before BFR would ever fly.” I suspect Elon’s September presentation of the SpaceX Mars settlement architecture in Mexico will contain some schedule, as well as technical, surprises. He’s already announced he plans to have the first BFR-MCT mission headed Mars-ward, uncrewed, as early as 2022 with the first crewed mission to follow in 2024. I’m guessing that means Raptor is already done or nearly done. Perhaps that will be among the things announced in Mexico. The Mexican presentation may well also include firm siting plans for the BFR-MCT factory and launch facility. Given that the fabrication technology base for these craft is going to be an enlarged version of what SpaceX has already developed for the Falcons, both factory and launch facilities could be constructed and fitted out very quickly. It would not surprise me in the slightest to find that SpaceX has the longest lead-time items for both already in hand or under construction. SpaceX has a history of being able to keep major new initiatives under wraps until nearly the last minute – Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ships, for example. Mexico might be where we get an up-front look at the next decade’s worth of SpaceX initiatives.
Again with this “Raptor replaces Merlin” meme? The Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy 1st stages are never going to be “Raptorized.” Doing so would fatally compromise both the engine fault tolerance and the recoverability of the stages. No one can know, at this point, how long the F9 and FH will remain in service – it could be for decades – but there is no technical or financial benefit whatsoever to be had by SpaceX in replacing their kero-LOX 1st stages with anything Raptor-powered. The Raptor is likely to have a long future ahead of it as well, but that future will be as power for a completely different, and larger, class of vehicles than the Falcons that will serve in parallel with them, not as replacements for them. Both Falcons will get Raptor-powered, recoverable upper stages, but that is a separate story.
I don’t know about that. For some reason you do not hear anymore about Falcon-1 or Falcon-5 anymore. If there’s one thing they do is streamlined production. If you look at Tesla, another company run by Musk, they also seldom keep manufacturing older vehicles once they get something new out.
I see your point Godzilla, but I have to agree with Dick. I actually didn’t mean to suggest Merlins would be retired for Raptors. As Andrew pointed out, a different fuel will results in a totally different vehicle. Raptor 2nd stages would certainly make sense. Especially if they are reused in space which doesn’t require them to be able to throttle down. If they can develop a market for them and refuel them in orbit then they don’t have a reason to try to recover them. The entire vehicle would then still be entirely reusable.
Tesla is still manufacturing the Model S and Model X even as they gear up for the Model 3 so I don’t see a mere two product lines from SpaceX being any problem or a violation of any alleged principle. Tesla manufactures what there are adequately large markets for. SpaceX will do the same.
The market for BFR-MCT is still a bit speculative outside of SpaceX’s own internal demand in aid of its Mars colonial ambitions, but, once built, I expect said external market will quickly develop. I wouldn’t be at all surprised, for example, if SpaceX started getting serious inquiries as soon as Elon makes his Mexican presentation of the Mars colonial architecture in late Sept. and the parameters of this new vehicle/vehicle family become known. The market for Falcon 9 is already well-established. I expect the market for Falcon Heavy to quickly ramp up following its initial flight as well.
The Falcons are at the point where they are about to become even more cash cow-ish than they already are. They will continue to be refined, mostly to improve their already very good manufacturing economics and the longevity of their reusable parts, but, except for the upcoming Raptorized 2nd stage(s), I don’t foresee any major new upgrades.
As to the specifics of the Raptorized Falcon 2nd stages, I expect there to be two of them; a smaller one for Falcon 9 and a larger, stretched version for the FH, though both will probably be of a larger diameter than the current Falcon 2nd stage – most probably 5 meters.
I further expect them to be reusable as 2nd stages. The increase in both thrust and Isp will enable them to carry enough propellant to boost their greater masses and greater payloads while still supporting RTLS landing and the addition of a heat shield on the upper end sufficient to return at least from LEO, even if, perhaps, not directly from the Moon or Mars. Alternatively, it may prove more efficient, overall, to make the propellant load large enough to allow for hypersonic retropropulsion using the Raptor as a dynamic heat shield.
Landing will probably be done using three or four pairs of deep-throttle-able metha-LOX vernier engines based on the Super Draco that will also fire on ascent to augment the Raptor’s thrust.
Some of these 2nd stages could also find other uses in cis-lunar and deep space, but ULA’s ACES appears likely to be better suited to most such applications in every way except sheer size and muscle.
Art Harman is a Capitol Hill veteran
That’s a disqualifier if I ever seen one.
You left off who he worked for: Steve Stockman, not known for being the greatest of Congresscritters.
The one thing Mars has that we know asteroids (and to some extent the moon) don’t is 1/3 earth-normal gravity.
Is that enough for longterm human health? Nobody knows, but figuring it out ought to be a lot higher on our priority than it seems to be.
I think the reason it isn’t a higher priority (even though testing humans in gravity fields other than microgravity is clearly something we could do at not that much cost, relatively) is that in the back of their minds they know it isn’t going to be a big issue regardless of their protests otherwise.
We already know that lower gravity is not an immediate health problem, but could have long term issues. We already know those long term affects are a gradient. Which makes it no different than other health issues experienced right here on earth. We can be paralyzed by boogie men or we can just go and deal with the issue like we deal with most issues. We find out over time. It’s just not an immediate threat and it can be mitigated to some degree (possibly all or not requiring any.) Or we can be wimps and cower from imagined showstoppers. Colonizing space is worth the risks.
I’m curious as to what the basis would be for “they” being able to “know” that Mars gravity will not be a prompt impediment to colonization there. I think you simply want this to be true so badly that you are willing to blow smoke out your kiester to further the project. There is certainly no way anyone can “know” such a thing with any certitude at the moment. All we know is that zero-G is long-term incompatible with human physiology. That would tend to argue for Mars gravity being regarded as guilty until proven innocent – not the other way around.
We cannot tell one way or another with only two data points. It could be there is a steep increase in adverse health effects once one gets below 0.95 gee – or only once we get below 0.05 gee. We won’t know where that line is until we start doing centrifuge experiments in freefall.
If mice cannot reproduce at less than 0.5 gee, then Mars will only ever be a place to visit, not to colonize. But we don’t know, yet.
That’s the problem: No one has done any research on how humans respond to long-term exposure to differential gravity. All we have data on is 1G, and (effectively) 0G – nothing in between. We really don’t know what all the effects will be of long term exposure to Mars’s .38G, or the Moon’s .16G.
Looks like we may have to find out the hard way, unless someone ponies up for a centrifugal station in LEO capable of recreating these gravities.
“If mice cannot reproduce at less than 0.5 gee, then Mars will only ever be a place to visit, not to colonize.”
Ever — until a medical and then ultimately genetic fix is implemented, that is — which should be a few decades, at most.
guilty until proven innocent
Using that standard we’d never do anything… which kind of defines today’s NASA. It isn’t just two data points. Microgravity by itself results in a multitude of data points with about 50 years of data. We can safely assume microgravity is worse than 0.38g so that’s a floor with a gradient level of risk.
Looking at microgravity what do we see? Returning to a full g they generally recover over time. That’s consistent with what I personally experienced being in a hospital bed for six month. I expect it will be years before I’ve just partially recovered but that doesn’t stop me from living my life and it wont stop the martian colonists.
We can certainly conceived in low g. We don’t know how the fetus would develop but that’s a major risk right here on earth at a full g. If you make it passed the first year of mortality you don’t exceed that risk level until about your 80s.
This risk isn’t your risk. It’s not any societies either. It’s the risk every parent individually chooses. Deciding on that risk will be like any other personal risk looking at the facts at the time the risk is taken. No amount of study answers that question, although it can contribute to the answer.
If it wasn’t gravity any number of other boogie men would take its place. We’re not risking death by low gravity, but only a potential level of disability. A potential we already know a number of possible mitigations for. To say we don’t know anything is grossly inaccurate.
Using my standard – and if the NASA powers-that-be were actually interested in finding out the answer – we would have done suitable experiments in LEO, long since, to establish at least rough parameters for the long-term human habitability of the Moon and Mars. The obvious unseriousness with which investigation of this matter has been “pursued” is evidence of a deeper unseriousness about the entire project of extraterrestrial human settlement on the part of NASA.
Long-term, human settlers need to be strong and to have all their wits and senses about them. The New World and the American West were not settled by invalids emerging from months- or years-long stints of bed rest. Neither will the Moon or Mars, if either is to happen at all.
Unless Mr. Musk announces otherwise in Mexico in Sept., it would seem his early colonists will be the experimental animals upon whose experiences – be they good or ill – the answer to the gravity question will be obtained. I don’t favor this approach.
Has anyone else noted that the approach described for the ISS and recommended by Robertson is also the intended approach of Von Braun and Ley back in the 1950s, especially the Colliers articles?
I took a glance at the Harman article, but stopped when he said NASA was responsible for the high-tech boom post 1970.
That and his finger-pointing at Obama when the latter’s support for free-market launch vehicles has been one of the few bright spots of this administration.
If by some post-election miracle (or rather, series of miracles, less likely than me hitting the MegaMillions this week) some sanity is injected into NASA policy, the agency will redirect to the Moon. At that point, the key tip-offs of their seriousness level will be 1) commercial or cost-plus, 2) reusability or not, and 3) the big one imho, propellant choice for landers and in-space vehicles. If hypergolics play more than a minor role, we know the targeted in-situ resource is terrestrial bacon. If lox/ch4 or lh2, a higher seriousness level can be assumed.
I think its fine is NASA or the USAF keeps funding propulsion and spacecraft tech in a DARPA like fashion like they are doing with the Raptor. They can provide testing facilities and some seed capital. Then they could use a program similar to COTS to fund the ISS replacement and/or a lunar program. Which might the purely robotic to begin with and as launch capabilities mature add a manned presence as well.
I think NASA should keep focusing their own initiatives to beyond the Moon. In this regard I kind of agree with Obama. In a decade the commercial sector will be able to go to the Moon by themselves. I think NASA should focus more on the payloads as the rockets will be there when they need them.
What they could also do is fund deeper space exploration. The idea of the asteroid missions is a possibility as are robotic probes to the outer solar system, Mars, and its moons. One thing Elon hasn’t been considering is that it would be a lot better if the Martian craft would use solar-electric or nuclear-electric. Given the current political and technical environment I think solar-electric would do it. So you would want R&D on e.g. larger capacity ion engines with a cheaper reaction mass like Argon. Or one of the other electric engine designs.
Heck even Korolev planned his later Mars missions to use them and that was decades ago.
It’s easy to show savings on future developments if you ignore development costs (which includes time as much as dollars.)
If SpaceX can do things now with a big hammer (which they certainly can) they don’t need the risk of new technology that would make things better in the far future. Note how SpaceX manages risk now. It’s a minor cost leveraging profitable activities. The way a business person is supposed to do things when they don’t have unlimited wealth.
That doesn’t mean they won’t take advantage of new technology when they can. They’ve taken the lead in 3D printing of Superdraco engines for example. They’ve made smart moves in using redundant lower cost electronics (instead of budget busting ‘space hardened’ electronics.)
“I think NASA should keep focusing their own initiatives to beyond the Moon. In this regard I kind of agree with Obama. In a decade the commercial sector will be able to go to the Moon by themselves. I think NASA should focus more on the payloads as the rockets will be there when they need them.”
I think the commercial sector would have been able to go to the Moon by themselves, 10 years ago- IF some space agency had explored the Moon with goal of finding minable lunar water.
And I don’t the commercial sector will be able to go to the Moon within a decade, unless there is first exploration of the Lunar polar regions to determine if and where there is minable water.
In terms of minimal amount of money to explore the Moon to find minable water, it could as little as about 1 billion dollars.
But I would not advocate spending the least amount of money as possible, rather I think NASA or some other space agency, or some nonprofit organization, should devote more effort and money than 1 billion dollars to ensure that this exploration has enough of chance to successfully and more definitively answer the question of if and where there is minable lunar water.
Or if it was NASA doing it’s job for the American public and the rest of the world, I believe the scope of the Lunar exploration program should be a duration about 10 years and total program cost of 40 billion dollars.
This would include:
Establishing a LOX depot at 28 inclination in low earth orbit which can robotically dock and transfer the rocket fuel LOX. For instance Falcon-9 launch could bring LOX to depot, then another rocket could be launched which brings some lunar robotic mission to Depot and gets the LOX transferred to it from depot and then goes the Moon
Another thing the lunar exploration program does build a large amount of robots missions which will go to the Moon, Building these robotic missions should be more like assemble line way of making
these vehicles. But also wants wide variety of available robotic exploration vehicles. One could broadly call it, a robotic lunar lander program. This program would continue after the Lunar exploration is completed by transferring it’s focus on robotic Mars exploration- could then call it, a robotic Mar lander program.
Broadly one want a faster, better, cheaper robotic program which first is focused on Lunar exploration and then focuses on Mars exploration and LOX depot could including in same program.
Then after 7 to 8 years, one does crewed landing on the lunar poles and such crewed landing occur over a period of 2 years or less and goes where robotic mission have already gone and manned mission can return lunar samples to Earth. So robotic and crewed mission are working together. Robots go first, and robots can be at or near site where crew land. And crew will landing in precise location which will have a beacon indicating where to land, and quite possible for the crew landing to be televised. Also crew return fuel
could at landing site before crew land on the Moon. Or crew could bring LH2 return rocket fuel and they have LOX return rocket fuel already brought to site before they get there.
Then after this lunar crewed program become Mars crewed program. And by this time period one should have a pretty significant Mars robotic program, and one does a lot of Mars robotic exploration and having Mars crew at Mars surface operating these mars robotic missions.
It should an option of Mars exploration to first explore Mars moons and perhaps used Mars moons and part of Manned Mars program.
But the idea is to get crew to Mars surface and have mars surface bases. As purpose of Mars exploration is to determine if and where future Mars settlements could “earn a living” or be viable.
where [would] future Mars settlements could “earn a living”
Anywhere (because the required resources exist everywhere on the planet.) Some places will be marginally better than others. They will only find that out once they’ve explored enough.
How will they earn? The same way everybody does, by trade among themselves. Do they have anything to trade? Yes.
Existing colonists will have time to produce trade goods before new colonists arrive. New colonists will bring trade goods with them. This is pretty basic.
Everyone will have their own skills just like on earth.
The problem is not earning a living. The problem is getting the ticket to get there paid for (this problem is not unique and exists for all destinations.) Because they are risking their lives for all of humanity, we need to structure things so the colonists aren’t paying for their tickets (which allows them to arrive rich with trade goods. which provides an added incentive for many to go.)
Trade between planets will be limited at first, but we never get beyond that if we aren’t determined to just go. Products from mars will have a lower delta V to overcome than even some places already in space. Because people will be able to make a living not directly related to export, mars will have a manpower advantage over other places. Just as earth has the manpower advantage today.
–where [would] future Mars settlements could “earn a living”
Anywhere (because the required resources exist everywhere on the planet.) Some places will be marginally better than others. They will only find that out once they’ve explored enough.–
I don’t think differences would be marginally better.
In terms of NASA exploration I don’t think that huge amount of time and dollars should spent finding the first site to put a Mars base, but this due to how I think NASA should explore Mars.
I don’t think the first crews and first base on Mars should dependent on using Mars resources. With the possible exception of extracting and processing Mars air, for use- which could be set up and be operational before the first crew land on Mars. And if it was instead a private effort
I would suggest the same tactic. So that way of starting would make there be a marginally difference in terms of site selection- though it would tend towards selecting sites at lower elevations with denser Mars air, which should also make landing stuff on Mars surface easier.
In regard to NASA exploration, one purpose of getting crew to Mars surface would make it easier to robotically explore Mars. Another purpose of having crew on Mars surface is to make easier to land payload to Mars surface, which would include improving the landing site.
Another early focus would more through exploration of area
within 200 km radius of the base.
And purpose would be experimental projects related to using Mars resources. One thing would be an experimental greenhouse.
Now, I think it’s possible to start a Manned Mars base, without first doing a Mars sample return, but if that is the case, the crew would essentially be doing same work that Mars sample return might do. So take core samples. “mine” some water to determine the quality of the Mars water. And whatever.
For entire Mars NASA exploration program [decades of exploration] would be to find ways to most cheaply extract water for farming and residential use.
And one would start this process with first Mars base and focusing on local area [within 200 km radius]. And with first mars base, one looking for water which lower the cost of future NASA manned bases [which is not same thing as primary decade long goal- though certainly aligned with such a purpose] this means one wants way to cheaply be able to extract hundreds of tons of Mars water per year. Or cheaper than simply increasing amount of water extracted from Mars air. Whereas long term program goal is finding cheapest way to min million of tons of water per year . Which could be cheaper than best way to get more 100 tons per year for NASA Mars exploration bases.
Other than water, NASA should explore Mars in regards to finding cheapest way of having living spaces. So could be related to building material and could related to finding underground areas.
Once NASA has explore local region, it should focus exploring Mars on a global basis and local exploration will inform one on how one explores Mars globally.
I don’t think the first crews and first base on Mars should dependent on using Mars resources.
They had better or we will always have a colony sometime 50 years in the future. Using mars resources the moment the first colonists arrive should be the exact plan. That goes for habitats as well. Living in the can they arrived in is a particularly bad idea. It should only be for a short time after arrival then become only emergency backup.
Actually using mars resources should be well tested before we even go which should cause no delay since it is a parallel process.
They don’t have to figure out every last detail of ISRU. They only have to figure out the essentials at first. That means we start with an automated water accumulation system. Multiple tanks of liquid water should be full in a number of spots within perhaps 20 km of each other before any colonist launches. The same for other essentials like oxygen and methane. Other resources they can take more time developing.
One of the things Zubrin points out that can make or break a mission is surface mobility which means fuel should be enough waiting. This also provides emergency power. Power is the most important long term essential for a viable community as it makes everything else possible.
–ken anthony
July 5, 2016 at 8:47 AM
I don’t think the first crews and first base on Mars should dependent on using Mars resources.
They had better or we will always have a colony sometime 50 years in the future. Using mars resources the moment the first colonists arrive should be the exact plan.–
I don’t think the first people on Mars should be colonist.
I don’t think the people who have been crew on ISS, have been colonists. Nor is ISS a settlement, nor should NASA start any settlement.
I think we should send people to the Moon, and these people should not mine lunar water.
Could the first people on Mars be colonist? Possibly. But not if they are NASA employees.
I would say, you making the same mistake that NASA has been making.
NASA has not explored to Moon to determine if and where there is minable lunar water.
Nor has NASA explored Mars to determine if and where Mars could “support” a settlement. Whether people want to go to Mars without this information is entirely up to them.
NASA has been a failure because it has not determined whether the Moon is minable and it has been failure because it has not determined whether Mars is farmable [and minable].
One almost imagine that NASA is too frightened to find out.
But NASA was established as government agency to this kind of stuff which they are apparently choosing not to do.
Anyhow, if NASA does not send people to Mars, and it’s some kind of non-profit type effort it probably going to be a stunt. Or a flags and footprints- which means a stunt.
Stunts of course can do thing which practical and important and it’s possible a stunt might evolve into the starting of a human settlement on Mars.
But the most optimal situation would be that the Moon and Mars was first explored before mining lunar water and before people bring their pigs and chickens to Mars.
Now if NASA goes to Moon and mines 100 tons of water- it is meaningless. If NASA goes to Mars and keep 1000 people there- it is meaningless. What we can assume were NASA to able to get funding to do this, is NASA is gifted with wasting a lot of tax dollars- and tax payer’s time. And Congress should line up and shot.
Or there is no need for NASA to mine lunar water nor experiment with people living on Mars [which would be a war crime, btw the way].
.
In terms of minimal amount of money to explore the Moon to find minable water, it could as little as about 1 billion dollars.
The 4th round of New Frontiers has on its short list a probe for a mission to land at the Moon’s South Pole–Aitken basin and return samples to Earth. That could certainly be one useful way to find out a little more of what’s there at the South Pole – which is one reason why I hope it’s the one selected.
–Funding of Space Ventures Gets a Lift–
“..“Space is finally being taken seriously by the investment community,” says Jane Poynter, CEO of World View. “We’ve been talking about a vibrant ecosystem of entrepreneurs and investors for decades, and finally it’s actually emerging.””
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601791/funding-of-space-ventures-gets-a-lift/
And this bit I thought was interesting:
“Similarly, Planetary Resource will use its recent investment to turn its first space telescopes, initially intended for asteroid hunting, toward Earth instead, in order to help with precision agriculture. “We have to build scalable, repeatable business models, the way any companies have to do,” says Chris Lewicki, the company’s CEO.”
One could look at it as changing direction from asteroid hunting, but
it could also be seen as adding a direction- looking at earth will increase capabilities of returning to looking for space rocks in future.
But at moment that effort has been diverted which makes wonder about Obama going to space rock idea by 2025.