Space Policy: Why Mars should be our top priority.

Jorge R. Frank wrote:

Not for a vehicle heavy enough to carry humans.

That's why MSL's not using it.

Not keeping up on our crappy Mars-related science fiction movies, are we?
One of the two that came out in 2000 had a lander coming down via
airbags IIRC.

Pat

David Spain wrote:
But if the goal is to preserve the "heevy" part, how about
a "roton" design where the blades are just rigidly attached
to the body of the lander and the whole thing rotates down
to a landing?


I'd like to see the size and RPM of those rotor blades to get enough
lift to make that work in that thin of a atmosphere.

Pat

Jorge R. Frank wrote:

The moon has one enormous advantage: three day return trajectory from
Earth.

That means you can learn long-duration planetary surface operations on
the moon without it killing you like on Mars.

You get a major leak in your spacesuit and either place will be just as
fatal inside of ten minutes.
You seem to be suggesting that the majority of the major health problems
encountered will be serious enough to demand evacuation to Earth, but
not serious enough to kill you inside of three days.
You also have solar storms to contend with on either world, so you had
better bring shovels to bury your habitat if you are intending to spend
much time there.
Then there's spacesuit design... on the Moon, assuming you only go
exploring for the two-week Lunar day, the big problem is not getting
cooked by the heat of the sunlight; if you want to go out at night also,
now you need a suit that has a major ability to keep you warm. That
could well be two entirely different suit designs.
On Mars you will need a suit to keep you warm, not cool you down, but at
least you can probably get away with a single suit design for day and night.

Pat

Jorge R. Frank wrote:

And it's a good thing they didn't; they *thought* they had the
technology but they didn't. There is no ****ing way that Apollo-era
life support systems would have sustained a crew to Mars and back,
plus they grossly underestimated the total radiation dose (Apollo got
lucky with the timing of solar flares, pure and simple.)

Well, they did have that solar storm watch keeping an eye on on unstable
areas of the Sun as they came into view from Earth.
If a walloping big area of sunspots and flares came into view as they
were readying a Apollo mission I'm sure they would have delayed it till
the next favorable launch geometry presented itself.
And any sort of long-term stay on the Moon is going to inevitably have a
crew up there someday when a solar storm hits.

Pat

David Spain wrote:
David Spain writes:
3) The infrastructure needed to develop a return to the moon program as
currently envisioned won't serve us well for a Mars mission, where
durations in space are far longer. What I'd rather see developed is
something akin to the next version of ISS (or perhaps MIR), but with the
ability to *travel*. First to lunar orbit, where we could conduct test
flights to and from the moon, but using the next-gen SS/orbiter to conduct
surface studies, telerobtic landing site probes, etc. In other words the
next-gen station/orbiter becomes a space habitat that also happens to
travel. I can see where this would be infrastructure that would not only
open up the moon, but would directly scale to eventual planetary
exploration. I think Constellation aka Apollo 2.0 will be good at getting
us back to the moon and back and that's about all.

If we had a traveling space habitat, an interesting second destination after the
moon might be Venus. How about the mechanics of traveling to Venus and back,
say for a few months in orbit around Venus? Send down all sorts of probes,
take atmospheric samples, etc. Venus is much closer to the Earth than is Mars.
Would transit times be significantly less? I'd think the orbital mechanics would
also yield more frequent return windows? Maybe it'd make a good stepping stone
after the moon but before Mars?

Are you off your meds, David? First you question the science utility of
a human return to the moon, where humans can actually explore the
surface to a level of detail that no robot could possibly match, then
you post this nonsense about sending humans past Venus just so you could
drop probes into its atmosphere - something you could just as easily do
without sending humans (see Pioneer Venus)?

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:


Reminds me of space bugs in the movie version of Stormship Troopers.
They apparently could far glowing gas balls out their arse at near
relativistic speeds.

Yeah, I couldn't make heads or tails of that either; how were those
asteroids getting to Earth anyway?
My God, those things could fart with more accuracy than a sniper can
fire bullets. :-)
In the animated version of SST ("Roughnecks") the bugs were running
around up on Pluto sans spacesuits.
Apparently in Europe the movie was considered a parody along the lines
of "Bill, The Galactic Hero", poking fun at the Gung-Ho Americans*.
(I have to admit when you watch it with that concept in mind, it is
pretty damn funny, as they take the story and kick it up that extra
notch into absurdity, rather like "Space, Above And Beyond"
unintentionally did.... yeah, your flight commander carries a Kamikaze
prayer around with him, and you are going to fly with _him_ into battle?)
In my series "Space Command Ultra Marines ("SCUM") we shall see the
dropping of the troops onto Glitch, the moon of Fubar in the Gremlin
System, under the command of Commander "Snafu" Burnside...his bold plan
of having the troops free-fall into the atmosphere and open their
parachutes at around 500 feet would have worked brilliantly if only
Glitch had _had_ a atmosphere. But the attack was not a complete
failure, as much Flunki** military equipment was destroyed by the
kinetic energy of the Space Marines striking the surface at around 2,000
mph, like human earthquake bombs. And even today on Glitch the craters
they made show the outstanding accuracy of their drop pattern...as well
as greatly simplifying the construction of "The Glitch Memorial
Cemetery" which merely required tombstones to be added to the
pre-excavated graves.


* If that's the case, then Heinlein's ghost must really be ****ed.
He saw BTGH as a direct slap military sci-fi in general, and his work in
particular, and didn't ever talk to Harry Harrison again after it was
published.
To see SST turned into a parody would have _really_ torqued him off.

** A slow-moving but fast-talking race of intelligent giant millipedes
bent on galactic conquest - one foot at a time.

Pat

Marvin the Martian wrote:
On Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:30:33 +0200, jacob navia wrote:

Marvin the Martian wrote:
Then Get your ass to Mars!

http://OnToMar.org/forum/


(1) Mars is beyond current technology. Only machines can live in there.
Any human expedition to Mars is just science fiction.

Actually, NASA was planning on going to Mars right after Apollo, back in
the early 1970s. This technology is almost 40 years old.


No. They were planning, but the technology wasn't there. They did not
know so many things that the feat seemed feasible.

And this fact is a GOOD thing since

(2) Mars has probably life in it. Many hints in the last years have made
this hypothesis much more real: The methane found in Mars, the
amounts of water, there are, probably underground, mars living
beings.

Life on Mars is a reason for going there, not a reason for not going
there.


Obvious. Going there with sterilized machines that do not contain any
earth bacteria that could be dangerous for marsian bacteria.

That is my point.

(3) Since any human expedition to Mars would destroy the possibility
of finding those bacteria, it is a good thing that humans can't go
to mars now

Doesn't follow that humans would destroy life on Mars just by BEING
there.


Humans can't be sterilized and contain fungi in skin and clothes,
bacteria in their digestive tract, and any number of parasites that ride
with them.

(4) The technology for living in an independent vessel for more than
3-4 months is just not there

The Soviets had cosmonauts in LEO for over 6 months. Not to put too fine
a point on it, but you seem to be making stuff up.


The people up there were resuppplied every two months or so. This
just doesn't count as an independent vessel!

(5) The landing technology for a heave vessel in Mars is not there

It's not impossible to do.


I never said it is impossible. I just say that it is not there and
must be developed first.

(6) The technology for living in Mars is not the
o -50 C in the day, -100 in the night
Heating energy would need a nuclear reactor to keep humans from
freezing
o No oxygen. All oxygen has to be brought from earth. o No food. All
food must be brought from earth. o No air pressure. You must live in
pressure suits all
the time you are outside
o Etc

We have had people on the moon, where the temperature variations are even
greater.

No. They stayed for short periods (a few days) where temperature did not
change a lot. None of them stayed during the moon night.


No, you don't have to bring all the oxygen from earth. Mars has CO2 and
H2O, and you can easily make oxygen from both.


That would cost the hell of a lot of energy and would increase the
already high demands for heating.

(7) Since Mars bacteria probably exist, we can't take the risk of
introducing them into the earth biosphere. We can't send humans
since they would bring marsian bacteria with them if we bring them
back. Machines can have a one way trip.

A Mars mission would likely last 18 months on the surface. If no bacteria
kill them, and they don't get sick on the six months back to earth, it is
highly unlikely to be a problem.



Sure sure. Just go there, if they die nobody cares. And if (eventually)
they survive 18 months then we are safe. Nobody cares about long term
problems, we just bring those bacteria to the earth.

Since we do not know what they will do in the much more favorable
conditions in the earth we just risk the lives of everybody in the
planet to see what happens.

Very good reasoning isn't it?


--
jacob navia
jacob at jacob point remcomp point fr
logiciels/informatique
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32

On Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:34:40 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Not keeping up on our crappy Mars-related science fiction movies, are we?
One of the two that came out in 2000 had a lander coming down via
airbags IIRC.

That was 'Red Planet'. And one of the passengers of that lander
sustained fatal injuries, when his chair broke away under the
sustained impacts of the landing. :-O

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...


Jorge R. Frank wrote:

The moon has one enormous advantage: three day return trajectory from
Earth.

That means you can learn long-duration planetary surface operations on
the moon without it killing you like on Mars.

You get a major leak in your spacesuit and either place will be just as
fatal inside of ten minutes.
You seem to be suggesting that the majority of the major health problems
encountered will be serious enough to demand evacuation to Earth, but not
serious enough to kill you inside of three days.
You also have solar storms to contend with on either world, so you had
better bring shovels to bury your habitat if you are intending to spend
much time there.
Then there's spacesuit design... on the Moon, assuming you only go
exploring for the two-week Lunar day, the big problem is not getting
cooked by the heat of the sunlight; if you want to go out at night also,
now you need a suit that has a major ability to keep you warm. That could
well be two entirely different suit designs.
On Mars you will need a suit to keep you warm, not cool you down, but at
least you can probably get away with a single suit design for day and
night.

While what you say is true, failures in spacecraft systems might be an area
where a three day return would keep you alive (e.g. Apollo 13) but a six
month plus return trip. The US is just now starting to learn how to do long
term life support aboard ISS. Given the Russian experience with their
equipment, there is reason to be leery of trusting such equipment on a Mars
mission.

The moon is like a weekend campout within an hour's walking distance of your
car while Mars is like hiking the Appalachian Trail over a period of months.
Note also that hiking the Appalachian Trail really wouldn't be possible
without frequent resupplies (buying supplies in towns or mail drops of
supplies).

Jeff
--
"Many things that were acceptable in 1958 are no longer acceptable today.
My own standards have changed too." -- Freeman Dyson

Jorge R. Frank wrote:
Are you off your meds, David? First you question the science utility of
a human return to the moon, where humans can actually explore the
surface to a level of detail that no robot could possibly match,

That is true. And that appeals to Dr. Schmidt and... ?

then
you post this nonsense about sending humans past Venus just so you could

Actually to orbit Venus for a few months, dropping probes, placing satellites
in orbit around it, maybe doing atmospheric sample returns, etc. A Venus orbital
exploration mission would be a great warm-up for a Mars mission.
As you said small steps. We could do all that with a traveling space habitat.
Try to do that with Constellation.

drop probes into its atmosphere - something you could just as easily do
without sending humans (see Pioneer Venus)?

The same can be said for Mars. I think there is a lot more do be done with
robotic probes to Mars as well. I'm not a big fan of MRL either. I think
we're spending too much for too little in return, but that's another discussion.

Venus has an atmosphere that has "global warming" run amok. There might be
some useful science to be done there with Earth application. The moon offers
us... ?

But putting all that aside, my actual point is a space habitat could travel.

I don't see why we need to jump down the gravity well of the moon just to
establish how to do long endurance space living. The ISS is a start. But
then it looks to me like from a policy perspective I don't know what the plan is
after shuttle. A few Orion visits? Then what? We leave it to focus on the
moon? Why?

The space habitat would need to be able to do two things:

1) Be able to be self-sufficient in terms of life support and energy
production.

2) Be able to support orbital operations for ground exploration.
If you park such a thing in lunar orbit, you are only hours away
from lunar rescue (surface to orbit) not 3 days. Landers need ferry
only between lunar surface and orbit, and need not come all the way
from the Earth's surface (every time).

A traveling space habitat would better support exploration of the moon
as well as accomplish exploration of nearby planets Venus and Mars with
one infrastructure investment. We would not have to go to all the expense
of Constellation just to replace it with what would be necessary to do
interplanetary exploration later.

We will not have to abandon the hardware left behind on the moon when
Constellation reaches end-of-life.

It does not over-focus us on the moon to the exclusion of all else.
Assuming there even is any interest in a return to the moon, what
happens when the public looses interest (again) in moon exploits?

I think Constellation is a great project to be conducted by the private
sector, esp. if we discover something on the moon worth mining, or a
moon-base in support of building SPS's. At least that's some form of
engineering I can understand. I don't see what a moon base long term
provides us in terms of important science outside of geology (maybe).
Dr. Schmidt aside, the Earth seems a far more interesting geologically
speaking, as does Io.

A space habitat could be built in LEO, travel out to the moon or elsewhere
and then return to LEO, where it would remain accessible even after a US
moon program is abandoned. We could park it near the ISS. In fact the ISS
would serve as a good construction site for the traveling habitat.

The space habitat need only support a crew of the size needed to accomplish
a mission. Maybe 6 people. I'm not talking about an O'Neill space colony.
Something far, far smaller. But it would share the goal of self-sufficiency.

A space habitat would teach us how to ween ourselves from 'mission control'.
From LEO the risk of doing this "education" is minimized.

Human exploration of our nearby planetary neighbors has not been done.
The novelty factor is important in the minds' eye of the public. The public
does not "get" Apollo 2.0.

In a way, it doesn't really matter if I'm right or wrong. The science seems
to dictate that a traveling space habitat approach will be the only way to
do manned exploration of Mars. It will be necessary to get there, and if its
not to be a one-way trip, it will be necessary to have in order to get back.

If we don't get it, our great-grandchildren will.

Dave