. . . Eh?
Eh what? You aren’t aware that the CCP has done a hell of a lot to stamp out Chinese culture?? During Mao’s time they smashed ancient Chinese statues, temples, archeological sites and basically anything historic. They changed the written language so it’s simpler, thus crushing literally thousands of years of writing. Here is a cliff notes version video on it if you really were unaware…not that this has much to do with the OP.
Thank you. I certainly recognize the common humanity of people from all countries and, as I said, wouldn’t mind an international manned mission to Mars. Not in the least. The Star Trek ideal of a United Earth venturing forth into space is very appealing to me. But the OP asked about China and Russia in particular, and that is what I responded to.
I’m glad we landed on the moon, but I don’t feel the need for another flag planting mission. I’m all for space colonization, but I’m not in any particular rush: 200-300 years is fine.
I’m puzzled why there isn’t more focus on a lunar landing. The moon could provide materials for space stations in L5, etc. and I figure a couple of feet of regolith could protect against radiation problems. The space station has taught us that zero G is pretty damaging to the body, but the effects of lunar G aren’t clear to me.
Personally, I’d like to cover the moon with dozens of robots searching for ice. I’d like space probes of Europa with HD imagery, which means that we’d have to beef up the deep space network. I’d like to fly a few parafoils with cameras and microphones into Jupiter and maybe Saturn - also their moons. A mars landing can wait.
Perhaps the emphasis by the Planetary Society on sending humans to Mars is outweighing the reasonable approach of building upon our achievements gradually. People seem to think that we have learned all that there is to learn from the Moon, so that returning would be a waste. That would be akin to saying that Columbus learned all that there was to learn about the New World, so returning would be a waste.
Many people also seem unaware of the difference between going to the Moon and going to Mars. Just because the energy required to reach Mars is not significantly greater than the energy needed to reach the Moon does not mean that the journey would be similar.
[QUOTE=Measure for Measure]
I’m glad we landed on the moon, but I don’t feel the need for another flag planting mission. I’m all for space colonization, but I’m not in any particular rush: 200-300 years is fine.
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A Mars mission couldn’t be a ‘flag planting mission’ if we wanted it to be…we will either be on the planet for several months or over a year. Only takes a few minutes to plant a flag…what do you suppose they would do for the rest of the time? 
There seems to be a feeling that we’ve already done that and there is nothing left to see or discover. Personally, I think that’s wrong, but that seems to be the consensus. Perhaps the Chinese will go to the Moon…personally, I doubt it, as I don’t think they could pull it off, but they have a lot more of a shot at that than at what the OP was positing.
I suppose Russia COULD do a manned moon shot if someone bankrolled them. They are probably the only other nation with a reasonable shot at it at this time. Maybe a joint Russian/Chinese/Iranian mission, with the Chinese and Iranians kicking in the bucks and the Russians kicking in the expertise? Probably about as likely as a Joint US/EU/Japanese/others manned mission I suppose…
Obviously anything can wait. But I wouldn’t mind funding a Europa mission or 3, maybe with an automated ice melting sub. Heck, I’d fund more slow robotic missions to Mars if asked what I’d prefer spending our budget on. Personally, I’m hoping that private companies step up before I shuffle off, since there seems to be so much resistance to the government spending money on this stuff.
There doesn’t appear to be a lot of readily available mineral deposits on the Moon’s surface, nor are there more an trace amounts of volatiles to synthesize propellants. The erosion, electrostatic, thermal, sensor, and health problems of operating in the lunar dust environment are substantial (see NASA/TM—2005-213610/REV1 The Effects of Lunar Dust on EVA Systems During the Apollo Missions, James Gaier, April 2007), and while a couple of feet of regolith would protect against charged solar particles but would provide little protection against very high energy cosmic rays. You are corrected that we have essentially no data on human physiological reaponse to low fractional gravity but the general consensus among space physiologists is that there is an expectation of significant long term health impacts. Trying to use lunar materials to support a space infrastructure makes far less sense that using more readily available materials that are already in solar orbit, e.g. the Aten and Apollo classes of Near Earth Asteroids.
For an opposition class mission the crew would have approximately a month at Mars; a conjunction class mission would have a surface stay of over five hundred days. The total mission duration would typically have an eight to nine month transit coming and going, so add another ~five hundred days. While this would give plenty of time on the surface, it leaves the larger question for keeping a crew of explorers alive, provisioned, and healthy for that period, which exceeds any experience for keeping a group of people alive without ready resupply or aid. Exteneded exploration–beyond easy walking distance–would require some kind of powered surface transportation, and given the lack of oxygen in the atmosphere of Mars, it would have to be propelled by something other than an internal combustion engine, which is a problem we haven’t even solved well for long distance transportation on planet Earth. (It is for this same reason that robotic rovers are limited in speed; they’re powered by solar or low power RTGs which limits power available for propulsion; otherwise, they could speed across the surface of Mars at the same rate that Google cars scout around our roads to take pictures.)
A Europa surface sample mission (which could analyze geyser ejecta to look for signs of organic waste products in addition to the interesting planetological science) would be fantastic, and even a complex lander mission could be done for US$3-5 billion. For the cost or a credible crewed Mars mission we could execute many dozens of rovers and probes far more complex in capability than the Mars Science Laboratory (including development and deployment of a suitable portable power source and high bandwidth communications system, both of which would also be needed for a crewed mission). But there is essentially zero motivation for any private company to perform these missions as there is no profit or return on investment in any foreseeable future.
Setting aside the proclamations of bombastic Internet tycoons to “retire on Mars”, it just isn’t reasonable that a non-governmental organization could fund even an uncrewed mission to Mars of significant exploration capability with the existing launch, propellant, and communications infrastructure. This is and will remain the provence of nations or international collaborations until such time as there is a space infrastructure to support commercialization, just as satellite navigation had to await the deployment and still massively expensive ongoing maintenance of the GPS constellation to be feasible.
Stranger
Well, I had a long and probably rambling post as a reply that got ate. So, the Cliff’s Notes version:
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
Exteneded exploration–beyond easy walking distance–would require some kind of powered surface transportation, and given the lack of oxygen in the atmosphere of Mars, it would have to be propelled by something other than an internal combustion engine, which is a problem we haven’t even solved well for long distance transportation on planet Earth. (It is for this same reason that robotic rovers are limited in speed; they’re powered by solar or low power RTGs which limits power available for propulsion; otherwise, they could speed across the surface of Mars at the same rate that Google cars scout around our roads to take pictures.)
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I don’t think this is going to be an issue, to be honest. Using 70’s technology we were able to send a buggy to the moon that could do over 20 miles out and back from base camp. Today, a Tesla can do over 200 miles on a single charge and going at over 60 miles per hour, a rate only the insane would try on Mars (you wouldn’t, of course, send a Tesla, this is just an example of what you could do with off the shelf tech today…I’m fairly sure NASA using that sort of tech could do better for the specific mission profile). There are various options for powering such a rover, electrical or even hydrogen fuel cell, though I’m fairly sure it would be electrical (hydrogen and oxygen being able to be gathered in situ from materials on Mars, given a generator which the crew would have to have if they want to live anyway). I’ve seen NASA prototype rovers that can even go out for several days or even a week away from the base camp.
Certainly. These would be long duration missions, even the fast (‘opposition class’) mission. Obviously this presupposes our ability to logistically support the crew for that duration. My point was that even the fast mission wouldn’t be flags and footprints, as you could do that literally in the first couple of days at most.
A single billionaire or company, no. But a consortium of companies and billionaires? Say SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, Bigelow Aerospace, Virgin Galactic/Scaled Composites and maybe some of the heavy hitters like Lockheed Martin, funded by some whacky billionaire types like Musk or some of those guys from Microsoft? It’s at least in the realm of possibility, anyway. I think a coalition of space faring nations with various private companies in cooperation is even more a possibility if we ever really want to do it.
NASA has just announced a further delay in the first manned flight of the Orion space capsule, until 2023, instead of 2020. This four-man capsule is supposed to be the key to unlocking deep-space exploration, including any possible Mars mission. Hopefully, any such mission would include some kind of habitat that would allow the crew to spend the majority of their time somewhere other than the capsule, otherwise we are likely to see the first murder in space.
This whole debate seems so ridiculous to me, considering the state of space access right now. We are talking about going to another planet when we are barely able to get off of our own. The most advanced technology available for space travel is circa 1960’s, requiring either large unpopulated areas or an ocean for landing, and is only able to carry three people. Four, if we consider the Orion to be on-line.
The United States has proven the technology of winged re-entry vehicles works, allowing a landing on a runway, with all that implies. And that was done with a vehicle which was a massive kludge, compromise on top of compromise. By building something which is designed only to carry people, not cargo, a reusable space vehicle could be built which would take as many as a dozen people into orbit. Right now, it takes two launches just to do a full crew rotation on the International Space Station.
Space exploration will require people, as will space exploitation. Learning how to process materials in zero gravity means learning to think in terms of zero gravity, which means living in zero gravity for a while. Robots won’t help with that. Missions to other planets will need specialists in many fields, if they are to be more than symbolic exercises. We can only cross train so much before we overload a person, and medicine is a specialty which must be included in a mission like one to Mars. Finding a doctor who is also a geologist and physicist is unlikely. And all the crew will need to know how to pilot the ship, as well as basic maintenance. The idea of four people embarking on a mission to Mars is absurd, in my opinion.
Any reasonable mission to Mars will require assembling a vehicle in orbit, testing it, rebuilding it to correct the errors, and then supplying it. This will demand a number of people, with various skills. Even simply supporting that kind of endeavor with only four people per launch is going to be horribly expensive. We need a bus to haul people to orbit and bring them back. One that flies on a regular schedule, that is safe to operate, and that does not cost billions of dollars to run.
I skimmed the Gaier paper: those challenges look pretty formidable. Questions: why did Gerard K. O’Neill push for obtaining orbital raw materials from a moon colony rather than a near Earth asteroid? What do we understand now that we didn’t understand in, say, 1976-1980? What about lunar lava tubes? Would, say, 20 feet of basalt limit cosmic ray exposure? 100 feet?
It sounds like lunar dust would be a big issue even for robotic exploration of the Moon. I imagine that crapola would be in the tubes as well and that workarounds involve a lot of engineering. Are there any known straightforward robotic solutions that might yield to research effort?
One thing which we understand now that we did not in 1976-1980 is the number of Near-Earth Asteroids. Considerable effort has been made since the early 1990’s to identify and track bodies which may impact the Earth, which resulted in many new asteroids being detected.
Until we have a lab on the Moon and people working there, I think it is unlikely that we will find a solution to the lunar dust problem. I think that there are solutions, but trying to find them while working remotely seems extremely difficult. This might go hand in hand with studying energy fields for shielding from cosmic rays, solar wind, charged particles, etc.
Generally speaking, IMNSHO there are 3 paths:
[ul]
[li]Robots[/li][li]Robots and humans[/li][li]Humans, aka flag planting.[/li][/ul]
The problem with flag planting is that it doesn’t provide a solid foundation for a colonization program.
I would imagine that a lot of testing could be done with robots. Fly 30 Tonka Toy Rovers of 6 different designs and see how they fare. Lunar dust apparently has a fair amount of iron in it, so magnetic fields might help. They can also apparently be melted together with a microwave. Robots can prospect for water; they can even scoop the dust up and ship it back to Terra for further analysis.
Will those experiments solve all the problems? I doubt it. Could they establish some fundamental principles for larger scale engineering? I would guess yes.
Though if there are near Earth asteroids with plenty of ice and iron, I can see how we may not want to bother.
Shielding: FWIW, Joe Internet at stackexchange spoke in terms of 1 meter of water as sufficient to block cosmic radiation. Loose soil is roughly as good as water. Radiation protection - Wikipedia
space station - What thickness/depth of water would be required to provide radiation shielding in Earth orbit? - Space Exploration Stack Exchange
FYI only:
Phil Plait (aka The Bad Astronomer) narrated an 11 minute Crash Course on Mars, over at You Tube earlier this year:
Humans are adapting to an environment created by them, so that our tolerance for temperature differences, pressure differences, and humidity is narrowing. Our ancestors could endure 50 degree F. temps indefinitely, while we would gradually become hypothermic. We can survive anywhere that we can maintain our environment within certain ranges. So why seek out some place which will be difficult to adapt to our needs?
Because we have evolved on a planet, we look at other planets as places where we might live. But space is mostly that, just empty space. Matter is rare, and is at the bottom of a gravity well, which makes it difficult to get to and to leave from. Space is the environment we need to conquer, the environment that we need to adapt to our needs. We are not going to be able to adapt to the environment anywhere, so we must adapt the environment to suit us.
Given that radiation is a constant threat in the greater scheme of things, we must learn how to shield ourselves from it, just as the planet Earth shields its passengers. (Usually.) Intelligence is independent of physical form, supposedly, so allowing our bodies to adapt to a zero gravity environment would not affect our intellect. Becoming part machine is looking more and more likely for humanity, as we integrate our technology with our bodies. Someday, we may become spaceships, instead of traveling inside of them.
Focusing on living on Mars is focusing on taking Earth with us when we leave. Learning to live, work, and thrive in space is what is truly important for us as a species. Our eventual survival requires that we exist in more than one place, as any single group of population is under threat of extinction. It could be from radiation from outside the Earth, a body impacting the Earth, a world-wide plague, or changes in the Earth’s environment. For certain, the Sun will die, and so will we, if we are not existent somewhere else.
Ralph124c wrote: “What happened to the Chinese manned space program? After a few orbital flights, nothing…can their economy be worse that they have admitted?”
Well unlike the early days of the US and Soviet programs, the Chinese feel no obligation to make each mission “a little bit higher, a little bit faster”. We went that incremental approach because space was a great unknown. So what they do instead is do a thing, analyze the results, then do the next thing, then do the thing after that. If they’re going slow, it’s because no on is nipping at their heels.
A couple of years back they put of a mini-station called Tiangong and sent a couple of crews up to it. I know, I have a neat model of it. This was a test of their “space station” tech (and maybe a little bit more). I expect that some time in the next year or two, they’ll put something up comparable to a Russian Salyut or Mir.
The Chinese “Project 921” crewed space program plans to launch a second single module space station (the Tiangong-2 laboratory) sometime next year, delayed from an original IOC of 2014. The multi-module Tiangong-3, which is purported to be roughly comparable to the Soviet Mir station, is projected to be launched some time in the early 2020s. Neither the Soviet nor American programs of the 1960s could be described as an “incremental approach”; throughout the Mercury, Apollo, and Gemini programs, each mission represented a substantial new advance in capability. Gemini was actually terminated with fewer flights than planned because of how well it met capability, and Apollo to pressed forward of original schedule using an approach referred to as “all-up testing”, i.e. minimizing interim flight testing by flying a full up new configuration for all stages in one operational test flight and trying to fly in as mission-like configuration as possible to vet all systems. The follow-on Apollo Applications Program, consisting of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Flight and the Skylab missions were limited in scope because the funding restrictions; the Space Transportation System (“Shuttle”) was limited because it had no essential mission or destination. The Soviet crewed lunar program was, in a nutshell, a mess, and after Apollo 11 they focused on military applications and space habitats, a capability that the Air Force had long recognized as being easier and cheaper to accomplish with the increasingly sophisticated surveillance satellites and that NASA was not adequately funded to follow through on.
The Chinese program does benefit from prior experience (especially the failures) of the Soviet and American programs as well as equipment and techniques that they have applied. They’re not making giant strides or breaking any new ground, nor is there any real expectation that they will have a crewed exploration capability beyond Earth orbit in the foreseeable future.
Stranger
While I do think that “incremental” is an apt description of Mercury and Gemini, I certainly agree w/regard to Apollo. The overall thrust of the Soviet program was incremental as well disregarding “stunts” like Voshkod.
Imagine life on Mars-even for a billionaire-sort of like living in a nuclear submarine, except much more dangerous. face it, this is all so absurd-why not just send more sophisticated robots, and film the surface in 3-D. Then, have virtual reality tours of mras.