Laying the Groundwork for Mars

lid (John Savard) writes:
Under what conditions would a manned mission to Mars not seem plain
silly?

Once solid compelling evidence suggesting past life or current life is found
then we'll go regardless of the arguments against going.

We've got some half evidence like the meteor "fossils" and the past/current
methane gas measurements in the martian atmosphere.

Until that day we'll continue to send probes looking for the smoking gun.

Later

Mark Hittinger

"John Savard" wrote in message
...

Thus, the *key* to creating the possibility of restoring the economic
boom times of the 1960s, on the basis of which a manned program of
space exploration would be a reasonable thing to do to celebrate
America's success, is *energy independence*.

you think people in the Middle East hate us now? Just wait until the day we
stop buying oil from them...

Better put a heavy detachment of Deltas and SEALs around that first
commercial fusion plant, dude.

--
Terrell Miller


"Married men live longer than single men, but married men are a lot more
willing to die."
Proverb

In article ,
John Savard wrote:
In fact, the idea of going to Mars right now probably seems crazy to
many people right now, and so many feel that George W. Bush's plan for
space exploration will lead only to the cuts in other elements...

That's a curious combination of statements, since Bush's announced plan is
anything but "going to Mars right now" -- in fact, it postpones Mars to
the vague far future. The only thing it does right away is a shuttle
replacement, and the only deep-space commitment it even definitely
schedules is a return to the Moon, a decade or more from now.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

In article ,
lid (John Savard) wrote:

In fact, the idea of going to Mars right now probably seems crazy to
many people right now

It does to me.

and so many feel that George W. Bush's plan for
space exploration will lead only to the cuts in other elements of the
space program, and not to any positive results.

That is a non sequitur. Bush's plan does not involve Mars. I watched
the speech live, then watched it again, read the transcripts, and read
O'Keefe's follow-up talk, and Mars is mentioned only in passing. It's
clearly just a bone thrown to the Mars fanatics. The plan is for
returning to the Moon (and even that, in a 10-15 year timeframe), and
establishing a more permanent presence there. "Mars and Beyond" is just
mentioned as something we might do after that.

It amazes me how common the misconception is that this is a plan for a
return to Mars. It is not. It's a plan for a return to the Moon.

Under what conditions would a manned mission to Mars not seem plain
silly?

Under the condition that we have a permanently staffed base on the Moon,
commercial interests are largely assuming infrastructure-building in
cislunar space, and NASA is looking for something further out (beyond
the reach of the space industry) to do next.

Thus, the *key* to creating the possibility of restoring the economic
boom times of the 1960s, on the basis of which a manned program of
space exploration would be a reasonable thing to do to celebrate
America's success, is *energy independence*.
...

I tend to agree that energy independence is vital to the long-term
health of our economy -- and perhaps the world enconomy too -- though I
don't see that this is closely tied to whether a Mars program makes
sense.

Aggressively pursue fusion power. And there's also the thorium breeder
as a reasonably long-term energy source likely much closer to being
made practical.

There's also SSP, which for a fraction of what we have already put into
fusion research, would be generating clean energy by now.

That would be a scientific research program that would
make sense to people in terms of their daily interests, their real
needs.

No, people in general have no understanding of the importance of energy
beyond the rolling blackouts (which mostly affect areas with a low voter
turnout, or so I've been told).

No, it wouldn't have made sense to wait to go to the Moon until all
Earth's social problems were solved, nor does it make sense to treat
Mars that way.

No, but it does make sense to finish what was started on the Moon before
running off for another flags-and-footprints mission to another planet.
The Moon is the key to the solar system; we should be developing that
aggressively and milking its mineral, energy, and volatile chemicals for
all it's worth in order to bootstrap ourselves into a spacefaring
nation. Visiting Mars doesn't do any of that, but it will be easy to do
anyway once cislunar space has been developed.

Fortunately, the makers of the Bush plan seemed to understand that, and
put their priorities in the correct order.

I despise Bush as a president, and will be voting for anyone but him,
but in the content of this particular plan happens to be right on.
(Something like an infinite monkey at a keyboard happening to type out
Hamlet, perhaps, but still...)

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Joseph J. Strout Check out the Mac Web Directory: |
| http://www.macwebdir.com |
`------------------------------------------------------------------'

Joe Strout wrote:

There's also SSP, which for a fraction of what we have already put into
fusion research, would be generating clean energy by now.

I very seriously doubt that.

Paul

In article ,
"Paul F. Dietz" wrote:

Joe Strout wrote:

There's also SSP, which for a fraction of what we have already put into
fusion research, would be generating clean energy by now.

I very seriously doubt that.

I didn't say it would be paying for itself, just that it'd be generating
energy (by which I meant to imply, producing more energy than it takes
to run it -- practically a tautology in the case of a power satellite,
but still elusive in the case of fusion).

I'd love to have this argument with actual numbers, but I can't find any
good references for how much has been spent on fusion so far.

But here's something: http://www.ostp.gov/Energy/ch5.html
"During the energy crisis of the 1970s to mid-1980s, U.S. investments in
fusion R&D peaked at a buying power above $700 million per year (1997
dollars), and the program pursued the advertised goal of making fusion
energy practical by the turn of the century. However, the funding
declined by 50 percent over several years, leveling in 1990."

There's not enough detail to get an accurate total, but if we assume the
average from 1970-2000 was maybe $300M/year, that's 9 billion dollars.

Now, are you really going to argue that we couldn't have launched a
demonstration power satellite (say, something in LEO that beams
intermittent power where it's needed most -- e.g., mid-day in southern
California) for a small fraction of $9M?

It's also worth noting that the same OSTP document says "The most
optimistic timetable for fusion development is half a century, because
of the extraordinary scientific and engineering challenges involved."
But if we're talking another half-century, we should be talking
seriously about SSP, as pointed out by Hoffert et al: "With adequate
research investments, SSP could perhaps be demonstrated in 15 to 20
years and deliver electricity to global markets by the latter half of
the century." (Science 298:981-987)

I think if we'd started those adequate research investments 15 or 20
years ago, we could easily have demonstration units flying now. But
even if we start now, we'll still have practical SSP before we have
practical fusion.

Best,
- Joe

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Joseph J. Strout Check out the Mac Web Directory: |
| http://www.macwebdir.com |
`------------------------------------------------------------------'

On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 10:03:02 -0500, Joe Strout wrote,
in part:
In article ,
"Paul F. Dietz" wrote:
Joe Strout wrote:

I very seriously doubt that.

I didn't say it would be paying for itself, just that it'd be generating
energy (by which I meant to imply, producing more energy than it takes
to run it -- practically a tautology in the case of a power satellite,
but still elusive in the case of fusion).

Ah. To most people, *unless* it can pay for itself, there is no reason
to expect it to be producing energy - or existing.

Sending a very tiny satellite into orbit costs several million
dollars, so sending up a *really big* solar power satellite would seem
to be rather more expensive.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

From: lid (John Savard)
Date: 6/6/2004 10:08 PM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id:

Having astronauts in space stations for long periods, and sending
probes to Mars to study it closely do seem to be steps that were
leading, all along, to a manned mission to Mars.


But right now there doesn't seem to be any compelling reason to rush
such exploration, as existed in the case of the Moon after Sputnik.


Whose rushing? Its going to be 10 years before anyone sets foot on the Moon and
that's 41 years after the last person set foot on the Moon. A person born when
the Apollo 17 Lunar Module took off from the Moon's surface would be 41 years
old by the time manned Lunar explorations is resumed according to this plan and
you call that a big hurry.

What other projects take over half of a Man's life that you would call rushed
development?

In fact, the idea of going to Mars right now probably seems crazy to
many people right now, and so many feel that George W. Bush's plan for
space exploration will lead only to the cuts in other elements of the
space program, and not to any positive results.

Which are doing what? we have to improve our technology for sending things into
space in order to explore Mars, that will yield some spinoffs for unmanned
exploration. What are you afraid of exactly? If you could wait 41 years for a
return to the Moon, putting off a few unmanned probes for about 10 years can't
seem like too much can it?

Under what conditions would a manned mission to Mars not seem plain
silly?


We need to expand our territory. You must know how precarious our situation on
Earth is, it seems one billion Muslims are rattling their sabres itching to go
to war with us, nuclear deterrent be damned. Some day there will come a time
when our enemies will simply want to kill us and they won't care about the
consequences to themselves as their religious beliefs will bolster them. We
will retaliate and the result may destroy much of humankind. We need to move
elsewhere so we won't be so vulnerable to stupid ideologies promoted by foreign
cultures. Anti-Americanism is very popular in Western Europe, as they seem to
need an enemy to rail against, perhaps someday Americans will need to move
off-planet if they don't want to be constantly at war with these people. So
long as we're a big superpower people will want to fight us. Perhaps we can be
a big superpower elsewhere besides this planet so we can live in peace.

It seems that the oceans have grown too small and people tend to visit us with
explosive personalities, so we need to find bigger oceans, such as the vast
gulf of space between the Earth and Mars.

Look at the low unemployment rates of the 1960s, compared to what we
have now,

What does this have to do with space exploration and expanding our territory?
We have to do these things to survive as a Nation. Economics is a side issue.

Tom

No, but it does make sense to finish what was started on the Moon before
running off for another flags-and-footprints mission to another planet.
The Moon is the key to the solar system; we should be developing that
aggressively and milking its mineral, energy, and volatile chemicals for
all it's worth in order to bootstrap ourselves into a spacefaring
nation. Visiting Mars doesn't do any of that, but it will be easy to do
anyway once cislunar space has been developed.


The energy requirements for going to Mars are about the same as for going to
the moon when the planets are properly aligned. I don't see that we necessarily
have to choose. We can send missions to the Moon as often as we like, the
distance stays relatively constant, the window of opportunity to Mars opens up
only every 2 years.

Tom

"John Savard" wrote in message
...

Sending a very tiny satellite into orbit costs several million
dollars, so sending up a *really big* solar power satellite would seem
to be rather more expensive.

More expensive, to be sure, but not /proportionately/ more expensive. There
is a thing called economy of scale.

--


Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We should ask, critically and with appeal to the numbers, whether the
best site for a growing advancing industrial society is Earth, the
Moon, Mars, some other planet, or somewhere else entirely.
Surprisingly, the answer will be inescapable - the best site is
"somewhere else entirely."

Gerard O'Neill - "The High Frontier"