Robert Zubrin (Mars Society): Mars This Decade

[DocM]

This article is causing a HUGE dust-up in the aerospace community, and it calls into question the whole idea of the $$$$ heavy lift rocket Congress wants NASA to build.

Robert Zubrin is president of Pioneer Astronautics and of the Mars Society. An updated edition of his book, The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must, will be published this June.

Wall Street Journal....

How We Can Fly to Mars in This Decade?And on the Cheap

The technology now exists and at half the cost of a Space Shuttle flight. All that's lacking is the political will to take more risks.

SpaceX, a private firm that develops rockets and spacecraft, recently announced it will field a heavy lift rocket within two years that can deliver more than twice the payload of any booster now flying. This poses a thrilling question: Can we reach Mars in this decade?

It may seem incredible?since conventional presentations of human Mars exploration missions are filled with depictions of gigantic, futuristic, nuclear-powered interplanetary spaceships whose operations are supported by a virtual parallel universe of orbital infrastructure. There's nothing like that on the horizon. But I believe we could reach Mars with the tools we have or soon will. Here's how:

SpaceX's Falcon-9 Heavy rocket will have a launch capacity of 53 metric tons to low Earth orbit. This means that if a conventional hydrogen-oxygen chemical rocket upper stage were added, it could send 17.5 tons on a trajectory to Mars, placing 14 tons in Mars orbit, or landing 11 tons on the Martian surface.

The company has also developed a crew capsule, known as the Dragon, which has a mass of about eight tons. While its current intended mission is to ferry up to seven astronauts to the International Space Station, the Dragon's heat shield system is capable of withstanding re-entry from interplanetary trajectories, not just from Earth orbit. It is rather small for an interplanetary spaceship, but it is designed for multiyear life, and it should be spacious enough for two astronauts with the right stuff.

Thus a Mars mission could be accomplished with three Falcon-9 Heavy launches. One would deliver to Mars orbit an unmanned Dragon capsule with a kerosene/oxygen chemical rocket stage of sufficient power to drive it back to Earth. This is the Earth Return Vehicle.

A second launch would deliver to the Martian surface an 11-ton payload consisting of a two-ton Mars Ascent Vehicle employing a single methane/oxygen rocket propulsion stage, a small automated chemical reactor system, three tons of surface exploration gear, and a 10-kilowatt power supply, which could be either nuclear or solar.

The Mars Ascent Vehicle would carry 2.6 tons of methane in its propellant tanks, but not the nine tons of liquid oxygen required to burn it. Instead, the oxygen could be made over a 500-day period by using the chemical reactor to break down the carbon dioxide that composes 95% of the Martian atmosphere. Using technology to generate oxygen rather than transporting it saves a great deal of mass and provides power and unlimited oxygen once the crew arrives.

The third launch would then send a Dragon capsule with two astronauts to Mars. The capsule would carry 2,500 kilograms of consumables?sufficient, if water and oxygen recycling systems are employed, to support the two-person crew for up to three years. Given the payload capacity, a light ground vehicle and several hundred kilograms of science instruments could be taken along as well.

The crew would reach Mars in six months and land their Dragon capsule near the Mars Ascent Vehicle. They would spend the next year and a half exploring.

Using their ground vehicle for mobility and the Dragon as home and laboratory, they could search the Martian surface for fossil evidence of life that may have existed when the Red Planet featured standing bodies of water. They could also assemble drilling rigs to bring up samples of subsurface water, within which native microbial life may persist. Finding either would prove that life is not unique to Earth, answering a question that mankind has wondered about for millennia.

At the end of their 18-month stay, the crew would transfer to the Mars Ascent Vehicle, take off and rendezvous with the Earth Return Vehicle in orbit. This craft would then take them on a six-month flight back to Earth, splashing down to an ocean landing.

Nothing in this plan is beyond our current technology, and the costs would not be excessive. Falcon-9 Heavy launches are priced at about $100 million each, and Dragons are cheaper. With this approach, we could send expeditions to Mars at half the cost to launch a Space Shuttle flight.

There is no question that this plan involves considerable risk, and a variety of missions, technology developments and testing programs in advance might reduce that risk. But if we try to do even a significant fraction before committing to the mission, we will never get to Mars.

Is it responsible to forgo any expenditure that might reduce the risk to the crew? I believe so.

The purpose of the space program is to explore space, and its expenditures come at the cost of other national priorities. If we want to reduce risk to human life, there are vastly more effective ways of doing so than by spending $10 billion per year for the next two or three decades on a human spaceflight program mired in low Earth orbit. We could spend the money on childhood vaccinations, fire escape inspections, highway repairs, better body armor for the troops?take your pick. For NASA managers to demand that the mission be delayed for decades while hundreds of billions are spent to marginally reduce the risk to a handful of volunteers, when the same funds spent on other priorities could save the lives of tens of thousands, is narcissistic in the extreme.

The Falcon 9 Heavy is scheduled for its first flight in 2013. All of the other hardware elements in this plan could be made ready for flight within the next few years. NASA's astronauts have gone nowhere new since 1972, but these four decades of wasteful stagnation need not continue. If President Obama were to act decisively and embrace this plan, we could have our first team of human explorers on the Red Planet by 2016.

[spudtrooper]

I wish you could have quoted the article without this rubbish :)

The purpose of the space program is to explore space, and its expenditures come at the cost of other national priorities. If we want to reduce risk to human life, there are vastly more effective ways of doing so than by spending $10 billion per year for the next two or three decades on a human spaceflight program mired in low Earth orbit. We could spend the money on childhood vaccinations, fire escape inspections, highway repairs, better body armor for the troops?take your pick. For NASA managers to demand that the mission be delayed for decades while hundreds of billions are spent to marginally reduce the risk to a handful of volunteers, when the same funds spent on other priorities could save the lives of tens of thousands, is narcissistic in the extreme.

We spend billions to make sure our cars, houses, roads, airplanes, airports, trains and other forms of transportation are safe and as low risk as possible. Sending HIGHLY SKILLED HUMAN BEINGS to outer space should NOT be an exception and "billions" spent is MONEY well spent since the technology & concepts we learn launching into space have and will continue to impact our safety down here. Safety should continue to be #1.

Armor, Vaccines and Fire Escapes already have funding and quite frankly probably have improved because of technologies developed by NASA too.

I won't support any "manned" mission that doesn't put "man" first. Space exploration is about exploration not necessarily profit.. if spaceX wants profitable missions then they can develop them or bid them to NASA as long as they adhere to NASA manned space mission ratings.

[DocM]

NASA only gets to set design and operational requirements for missions they are paying for. If private US operators do non-NASA missions then the FAA is the regulatory agency, and their reach is not so broad.

As to that research: there is an alphabet soup of agencies that could fund those without NASA being involved; DARPA, AFRL, NIH, etc etc. The reason a lot of the research was placed in NASA was to make it more "necessary" politically. Same reason why NASA agencies are in so many congressional districts, even though consolidating them into regional centers would save a lot of resources.

[spudtrooper]

NASA only gets to set design and operational requirements for missions they are paying for. If private US operators do non-NASA missions then the FAA is the regulatory agency, and their reach is not so broad.

True.. but i certainly hope the concept of private space still doesn't follow this persons idea of expendable humans to save costs..

As to that research: there is an alphabet soup of agencies that could fund those without NASA being involved; DARPA, AFRL, NIH, etc etc. The reason a lot of the research was placed in NASA was to make it more "necessary" politically. Same reason why NASA agencies are in so many congressional districts, even though consolidating them into regional centers would save a lot of resources.

Consolidation wouldn't do anything.. they're already pretty consolidated.. NASA is the administration with over site of research, i'm pretty sure that was to consolidate what was previously multiple military agencies running gung-ho with their own projects with. Which of course, nowadays doesn't really matter since the military has gone back to having their own program anyway.. I also don't see how its remotely feasible for each unit to operate their own space program independently as a cost savings measure.

Alas, private sector can take as much risk in research as they want so its moot anyway :) I'm just a firm believer in protecting human capital and if we want humans in space, it should be at all costs. You can replace a rocket/robot/satellite, you can't replace a mom or dad or sister or brother.

With that said, i'm excited to see SpaceX make their heavy lifter. I won't be happy until that said lifter has 10 missions in a row without error.. which we haven't even seen from their current lifter yet so i'm still waiting.

[neoadorable]

NO blahism, a big NO. safety isn't always first. the future of the human race is always first. this is why Zubrin is proposing two people per mission. if something goes wrong, two people die. two people who know the risks fully. if past generations followed your thinking, we'd be stuck on the veldt and extinct by now. problem is, people can't get their heads around the fact that it's expand to other worlds or die within the next 500 years. i'd like to go thinking that humanity will move on to greater things, and i don't mean the next Xbox. so, all drama aside, safety has its place but if it comes at the price of stagnation as the man says, well, screw safety. the technology Zubrin and SpaceX are detailing is safe enough. i guarantee you this mission as he detailed will go without a hitch. and once that happens, the race will be on, because those two guys will come back with enough titanium and uranium samples to wet many an appetite. this is our future, like it or not, it's just that our future has spent the last two centuries lingering in the sci-fi/fantasy ghetto so you're kneejerking against it. safety...who's safety? these people will gladly give their lives to get to be the first on Mars, you know it!

[Hum]

Safe to predict, No Mars, this decade ;)

[neoadorable]

Hum for a believer you sure know how to put a dampener on things :angry:

EDIT: PS i think you're wrong. i think any day now it will dawn on the powers that be that space is our last and only chance at sustainable growth and prosperity. when that sinks in, i wouldn't want to be a Na'vi, let's put it like that :laugh:

[Hum]

Hum for a believer you sure know how to put a dampener on things :angry:

EDIT: PS i think you're wrong. i think any day now it will dawn on the powers that be that space is our last and only chance at sustainable growth and prosperity. when that sinks in, i wouldn't want to be a Na'vi, let's put it like that :laugh:

Just expressing my observation.

Look at how bad economies are, and the USA is approaching bankruptcy.

Where are the trillion-plus dollars going to come from ?

Are the people really that interested in going to Mars ?

Personally, I'd love to see less War, and more Space projects. ;)

[neoadorable]

our governments are fully capable of making money when they need it, the wall street bailouts have cost many times more than any Mars mission Zubrin is proposing. and it's not even close to a trillion dollars. even if it was, or more, it's the greatest investment ever. i'm too tired right now to debate this, but suffice it to say, if we stay on this world exclusively, we're all dead in 500 years. i mean the entire civilization, gone. is that worth a trillion to you? i definitely think we're going to Mars this decade. moon by 2016, Mars by 2020. you'll see.

[Hum]

I definitely think we're going to Mars this decade. Moon by 2016, Mars by 2020. you'll see.

I wish you luck. ;)

[DocM]

Space Adventures is planning an Apollo 8 style lunar flyby in 2006-2008 using largely Russian hardware. Mars? I don't think 2020, but that decade is doable. Falcon Heavy and SLS should be flying regularly and Bigelow habs look to be the real deal. If NAUTILUS-X or something like it gets done, yes.

[Hum]

In 2004 the U.S. administration announced a new Vision for Space Exploration naming a manned Mars mission as one of its milestones. No concrete plan has been decided upon, and the proposal is currently being discussed between politicians, scientists, space advocates and in the public. In 2010, a new bill was signed allowing for a manned Mars mission by the 2030s.

There are several key challenges that a human mission to Mars must overcome:

1. physical effects of exposure to high-energy cosmic rays and other ionizing radiation

2. physical effects of a prolonged low-gravity environment

3. physical effects of a prolonged low-light environment

4. psychological effects of isolation from Earth

5. psychological effects of lack of community due to lack of real-time connections with Earth

6. social effects of several humans living under crowded conditions for over one Earth year

7. inaccessibility of terrestrial medical facilities

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_mission_to_Mars

[neoadorable]

Hum, quoting wikipedia again? that's not exactly authoritative. space exploration is the only way out for developed economices that are now seeing their fortunes wane and their relative advantage erode into nothing. by extension, it's the only hope for humanity. there will be no WWIII, there will be no resource wars, this isn't some juvenile comic book story. this is the real world. read Man Plus or the Word for World is Forest for reference. i think we are definitely going to Mars by 2020, but i also think Doc got some of his dates wrong...2006-2008? i think you meant 2016-2018!

[Growled Member]

I would love to see it happen, but like Hum I doubt if we will get to Mars this decade, if ever. And if we do, so what. We got to the moon in '69 and we still haven't done anything with that.

[DocM]

We didn't do anything with the moon because bad choices were made; choosing the shuttle over a larger capsule and mission habitat, a new kerosene based heavy lift launcher to replace the VERY un-economical Saturn V, and nuclear thermal Earth Departure Stages (which were 95% finished)

If the correct choices had been made we could have been on Mars in the mid to late 1980's.

[Hum]

I would love to see it happen, but like Hum I doubt if we will get to Mars this decade, if ever. And if we do, so what. We got to the moon in '69 and we still haven't done anything with that.

Hey, we have those 'national treasure' moon rocks. :laugh:

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

At their closest distance, which rarely happens, the Earth and Mars are 55 mil km apart. The maximum distance is 400 mil km.

Assuming the rocket will be travelling with the speed of sound, it will take 55M km / 1,236 km/h = 44 498 hours = 1854 days = 5 years to reach Mars when the two planets are at their shortest distance apart....So, the rocket has to be launched in 2015 to reach Mars by 2020 according to this calculation.

Of course, it's possible to go faster, but then you'd have to carry more fuel which would make the mission more expensive.

As of 2008, the price of transporting material from the surface of Earth to the surface of Mars is approximately US$309,000 per kilogram.

[mudslag]

At their closest distance, which rarely happens, the Earth and Mars are 55 mil km apart. The maximum distance is 400 mil km.

Assuming the rocket will be travelling with the speed of sound, it will take 55M km / 1,236 km/h = 44 498 hours = 1854 days = 5 years to reach Mars when the two planets are at their shortest distance apart....So, the rocket has to be launched in 2015 to reach Mars by 2020 according to this calculation.

Of course, it's possible to go faster, but then you'd have to carry more fuel which would make the mission more expensive.

I doubt that when we really do go to Mars that we will use conventual rockets, more like Ion Engine or some other new engine type. Personally I dont think NASA will be around much longer (few more decades at most), as the future of space will be in the hands of the private sector soon enough.

[Hum]

At their closest distance, which rarely happens, the Earth and Mars are 55 mil km apart. The maximum distance is 400 mil km.

Assuming the rocket will be travelling with the speed of sound, it will take 55M km / 1,236 km/h = 44 498 hours = 1854 days = 5 years to reach Mars when the two planets are at their shortest distance apart....So, the rocket has to be launched in 2015 to reach Mars by 2020 according to this calculation.

Of course, it's possible to go faster, but then you'd have to carry more fuel which would make the mission more expensive.

Let's piggy-back on an Asteroid going that way -- big fuel savings ! ;)

[DocM]

The delta-v required isn't much if you assemble the ship modules at L1 and fly from there, and as Zubrin says Falcon Heavy would be great for that.

[neoadorable]

the hostility and negativity that arises every time you mention space exploration is astounding to me. Zhivago, you were like the people in the late 19th century that were yammering about steam engines being the culmination of human science, later the same people that were actively trying to impose 20MPH speed limits on cars because going over that would be detrimental to human health. Speed of sound? what kind of interplanetary vehicle will be designed to travel at the speed of sound? have you been ignoring EVERYTHING that's happened in science over the last century? we can easily build a ship that can travel to Mars in less than a month at closest approach if the morons that run this world gave the scientists proper funding. Listen to all the suff Doc posts here, try talking to people from NASA, private sector, Mars Society...where the heck did you get five years? What are you launching to Mars, Babylon 5? The Citadel from Mass Effect? We're talking very small ships as a first step. The current Mars Direct plan calls for a travel time of less than six months, with the entire mission lasting just over two years and costing less than $600 million i believe it is. Sorry for jumping down your throat, but your sarcasm and the sarcasm of others is only putting the future of the species at peril.

The Apollo moon missions? Those were premature and like Doc said, mismanaged to oblivion. They were supposed to lead to permanent moon habitation, Martian and Venusian exploration, even asteroid belt exploration. The politicos killed those dreams. In retrospect, the moon missions were like a college grad that goes on a grand motorcycle tour around the world post graduation, blows all his money on that, then comes home, gets a low paying job, a mortgage, two car payments, a wife and three kids, and for the next fifty years never goes further than a weekend getaway. We don't want to be that person. He has no future. We need a future.

[Hum]

we can easily build a ship that can travel to Mars in less than a month at closest approach if the morons that run this world gave the scientists proper funding.

The Apollo moon missions? Those were premature and like Doc said, mismanaged to oblivion.

I read 'This craft would then take them on a six-month flight back to Earth' -- how will you get to Mars in a month ?

Again, where is the money going to come from ?

The USA is funding basic programs with borrowed money now.

We are rapidly going into a deep financial hole.

And the public simply lost interest in more Apollo Moon missions.

The way we actually get to Mars (usually), is to put our spacecraft into an elliptical orbit around the sun. An elliptical orbit is closer to the sun at one end, and farther from the sun at the other end. We work it so that at the "close end," the spacecraft is 93 million miles from the sun (just where earth happens to be); and at the "far end," the spacecraft is about 130 million miles from the sun (just where Mars happens to be).

Once we get the craft into that orbit, we turn off the rockets and it basically coasts. Its path, and the time it takes, then depends entirely on the gravity of the sun. This trip takes 7 or 8 months.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070926130319AAwQrJa

[neoadorable]

even a small VASIMR rocket can push a sizable ship to Mars at closest approach in just over a month from Earth orbit. Nuclear rockets can take a probe the size of Viking or Mariner to Neptune in less than three months. Freakin Neptune. where is the money going to come from? the same ****ing place cash for clunkers and over a trillion dollars for wall street came from. the public lost interest? the public is stupid, the public wants smartphones. but the public wants what's shown them. when they find out mining and farming jobs on Mars pay $300k a year they'll rediscover their interest. i know you're an ardent skeptic and believe that the moon isn't real and all that stuff, but that aside...well, i guess we can't really get past those beliefs of yours :whistle:

[s1k3sT]

if we stay on this world exclusively, we're all dead in 500 years. i mean the entire civilization, gone.

Why do you think that?

[DocM]

Asteroids, several of which are on track to hit Earth in the next few hundred years unless we become a spacefareing species and do something about it. Some of these are the size of Mt. Everest. There are >1,000 of concern cataloged so far..

The list of most dangerous before 2178 (so far)....

If any encounters another object before either it could be dangerous even before then. One we really have to watch is Apophis.

Then there are rogue comets and asteroids we don't knoe about yet.