Was discussing a theoretical trip to Mars with some buddies of mine tonight over drinks and thought I’d see what others think.
Basically my thought was that the trip to Mars would be a hybrid mission combining manned and unmanned exploration. We’d send a launch vehicle out, manned with a crew of 4 to 6 and stocked with everything they would need for a multi-year trip. In addition we’d send a large number of ground and air robot explorers and all the hardware and software needed to teleoperate them from the space craft…including basic parts and software that could be used by the crew to customize the robotic probes if necessary. Prior to the launch we’d also send another craft, again stocked with robotic explorers that would land several months in advance of the humans. These would be operated by the crew as they neared Mars orbit. They would enable the crew to do serious research while enroute, as well as plan where they wanted to set down their own robotic probes.
Once in orbit the crew would launch some of their robotic probes to interesting places they either picked prior to launch or determined while enroute from the probes sent earlier. They would be able to teleoperate these remote explorers from orbit with much finer control (thus the individual probes wouldn’t have to be as sophisticated individually) than the current semi-autonomous ones currenty operated from Earth.
This robotic exploration could continue for several months from orbit…if something striking comes up then an actual manned excursion could be launched based on the data returned by the probes (the ship would have the capability for manned landings and several days duration for staying on the surface).
The robotic exploration could continue for a time even during the return flight. This seems to me to be the best of both worlds and something that would maximize our investment giving us the most data on Mars as a whole. I think it woud also save quite a bit of money over trying to land for longer duration stays on Mars…and probably save space as well (wouldn’t need a large habitat, stores and supplies for it, vehicles for the people to get around in, etc). So…the politicians would get there foot prints and flags, and the scientists would get loads of new data on Mars. And we, the people would finally get to see a trip to Mars.
I don’t get why you would want to expend all those resources by having people orbit Mars to tele-operate robots. You’re not gaining that much value. You’re still going to have to map out how and where you are going to travel, and you are going to travel very slowly to prevent a catastrophic mistake. As the current Mars rovers have proved, this can be done perfectly well from Earth. In fact, that first part you mentioned - sending people to Mars orbit to robotically explore the planet for landing sites - is exactly what we’re doing now. We have two Rovers there, plus another polar lander coming that will look for water ice and life, plus a new orbiter that map the surface with high resolution and which will provide a high bandwidth relay back to Earth for everything near or on Mars, allowing us to send back huge amounts of data such as live video.
By the time we’re actually ready to send a ship to Mars, my guess is that we’ll already know where we want to land, and that planet will be mapped as well as Earth, down to a couple of meters of precision.
Here’s a better way to do it, IMO - you send an unmanned probe that lands on Mars and makes fuel for the return trip and stores it. After you know it’s been successful, you send the manned ship with enough fuel for the one-way trip. Then you can land on Mars by your factory, which by then will have sent out its own rovers to map the entire surrounding area, marking out a good landing spot and cataloguing features to be examined by humans.
So people land, fuel up, and do research. I don’t know if it would be feasible to take enough fuel back to the ship for the return trip, but at least the ground factory can make the few needed for the lander’s return trip to the mothership.
I’m wondering how much this trip’s going to cost, who’s going to pay for it and why, and how many dozens or hundreds of unmanned missions we could send to Mars and other planets for the cost of one manned Mars mission.
Guts, some black stuff and about a half a dozen slim jims
Seriously though, here’s a cite for manufacturing fuel on mars. I know there are other’s, this is just the first one that popped up.
I agree with Sam Stone, we should have all available data like landing spots, martian resources, potential projects, possibly even a couple of those Kodak photo opportunity signs dropped from an unmanned probe, well before we start the journey. Otherwise we would be setting ourselves up for catastrophic failure and some lousy scrapbook photos. Also there is the part about having astronauts travel to the planet, orbit for few months, then travel back. Zero gravity has some pretty nasty effects on the human body and they would probably like to catch a few Zzz’s without being strapped into a sleeping bag or take a whiz without using a vaccum hose.
As far as the Why’s go, there is already a lot of talk about mining helium-3 on the moon. I figure why not? We have already pretty much trashed this hunk of rock, let’s move on to the next one. Who knows what we might be able to scavange from Mars, or Venus before the Lizard men catch on and anhilate us
I read through the cite, but it has the familiar shortcomings as other such models – I’ve seen many times before. The model he proposes only derives HALF of the fuel from Mars… It is not a “Making fuel” process, it’s a “fuel matching” process. It requires us to continuously bombard tanks of hydrogen onto Mars and process it with CO2 before stock piling the resulting CH4 and H2O – and with some solar help, O2.
It’s a great philosophy, and I agree with the “live off the land” idea, if it is possible with current technology. I envision send a month’s supply of hydrogen (every month, hopefully) to a designated landing site to keep any colony running on the surface. It is NOT cost effective, but it might be less expensive than the alternative (maybe HALF as expensive )
If you are on the surface, you have better protection from solar rays and fast-moving particles.
[Jab ] I would say his model is HALF-assed at best!
Yes we are already doing it…but its so SLOW. If we sent people into orbit with 50 or 100 robots that they could put down where ever they wanted too, and if those robots could be under tighter control (instead of send a command, wait for command to arrive, wait to see result, send next command). I just think we could get more SCIENCE done with the kind of mission I’m envisioning than either the current robotic missions which explore an area the size of a few football fields every couple of years. It would also be better than simply landing humans in one spot for a few days or even a few months, in that the humans would be able to explore a lot more area of Mars in a lot greater detail. And if something interesting or unexpected DID crop up through the robot explorers then they could send a team of humans right to that spot to explore.
I’m sure we have a few choice spots NOW that we’d like to explore. But it would still be a crap shoot no matter what we did between now and some theoretical launch. However, waiting to choose a spot, using robotic explorers tied directly to the Mars mission and the astronaughts in orbit, using that data to pick the best or most scientifically interesting site(s) for manned exploration…well, it makes sense to me anyway but I guess I have the heart of an engineer.
There are several plans I’ve seen like this and I agree its a good plan…though I envision using a nuclear rocket to get there so fuel shouldn’t be quite the problem as with chemical rockets. I just think that my way would get more actual exploration done…and perhaps cost less doing it. Also, once you’ve seeded all those various robot exploreres (dropped precisely where the Mars team wants them) they would continue to send back data after the team returns home. They could simply go into the slow motion mode we currently use…or became semi or even fully autonomous.
The atmosphere. You could make rocket fuel on the moon too, though of course not from the atmosphere.
No idea. I’ve seen proposals like the one Sam mentioned with price tags ranging from $40 billion to several hundred billion depending on exactly how you do it. The mission I envision would probably be at the lower end of those figures since you wouldn’t need a large habitat, wouldn’t need extensive manned vehicles (just the lander) since essentially the manned explorers would stay in orbit using myriad ‘cheap’ robotic explorers to be their eyes and ears. I think it would be more value scientifically for our money. I could see in one mission (especially if the robotic explorers continued to opperate after the mission was ‘over’) giving us a large amount of data on Mars in one shot.
Who would pay? Well, were it up to me NASA would take the lead and we’d try and bring other nations on board. Countries like Japan and various European nations could provide robots. The Russians could contribute as well if they wanted too, as they still have a lot of knowledge about space travel and long duration missions. Even small countries could contribute personnel or money. If no one wanted to join the mission (which I doubt) the US could fund this alone if we wanted too.
You are right…we could continue our current glacial paced explorations of the other planetary bodies for the price of this one mission. However this one mission would dwarf everything we’ve done to this point in the exploration of Mars by the shear data we’d bring back on the planet. Also it COULD form a basis for future missions to other planets. Hybrid missions where humans remain in orbit for weeks or months while their directly linked ears and eyes do the exploring on the surface.
Perhaps the nations that agreed to the Kyoto Protocol could foot the bill, provided the key purpose for research is a clean (but not really cost effective yet) energy source. Might even get Bush to agree to the Protocol too, if we also fix the problems he laid out, and promised him a life time supply of Moon Helium Balloons to play with
Why’s it slow? Mostly because we aren’t spending that sort of big money on unmanned exploration. But we get a lot of bang for our buck.
I’d bet we could multiply our current unmanned explorations by a pretty decent multiple if we were willing to spend that sort of money. And I’m sure we could send a host of unmanned probes to Mars for that cost, to ‘dwarf everything we’ve done to this point.’
IMHO, I can see the point in going to Mars sometime between now and midcentury, but I personally don’t see that there’s any rush. We may someday have reason beyond sheer curiosity to go to other places in the solar system besides the moon and Mars, but I’m betting that’s a much longer time away.
Frankly, if we’re going to spend BIG money on one big space project, I’d like to see an unmanned mission to the Alpha Centauri system. We’d learn some new things from a close-up look at another star (and planets, if any), and the engineering problems of sending a probe across the vast gulf in between stars, without taking too many decades on the trip, would be quite interesting.
Well, part of the reason its so slow is certainly the amount we spend. Also, there is the reality of the distance between Earth and Mars. If we send out a robotic explorer from Earth and it travels all the way to Mars and then crashes…well, we are out of luck then until the next mission.
The political reality though is that you aren’t going to get mega funds for unmanned missions. You are going to continue to get a mission here, a mission there…and the pace is going to continue to be decades to explore a few square miles directly…or explore from unmanned satelites in orbit. A manned mission WOULD generate the funds necessary for a big mission. If you coupled that reality with heavy use of robots that they would take with them (hundreds as I envision it, instead of one or two every few years) they you would get a bigger bang for your buck over what you could realistically expect funding wise from the unmanned portion of the budget.
IF we would spend the money on unmanned…which we wouldn’t. The only way you would get large funds for Mars exploration in a lump sum (as opposed to a small trickle we currently have) is through a manned program which could capture the publics imagination.
No, there is no rush. However, there is no reason to NOT start now either, at least in building a coalition of nations who might wish to join us (well, say wait until Bush is gone first :)).
Love to see it myself, though I would much rather have a more powerful space telescope, perhaps placed further out in the solar system, that could look for earth like planets that are relatively near to Earth…
My point was that it wouldn’t be significantly faster if you did it from orbit. You’re thinking it’s slow because of the time delay between Earth and Mars means we can’t operate in ‘real time’, right? Therefore we have to map out a course for the rover, send it a command, then wait for it to slowly execute what we asked and send home results, then we send another command, etc.
The thing is, even if you could drive one of those things like an R/C car, you STILL wouldn’t go much faster. Because you have to be super-careful about running into a sand pit or otherwise getting stuck, accidentally rolling over, getting stuck between two rocks, etc. And the Rover is solar powered, which limits the energy it has. I just don’t see HUGE gains in science gathering from tele-operating a rover from Mars orbit rather than from Earth.
And, our rover AI is getting better, and we’re talking about at least 15-20 years from now before we can send a manned mission to Mars. By then, our AI technology will be much improved, our rovers much more sophisticated, and we’ll have had another 15-20 years to explore Mars with them.
For example, the Mars Science Laboratory, due to be launched in a few years, is the size of a small car and will be much, much more sophisticated than the current rovers. And unlike the current rovers that send back low-bandwidth data, the Mars Laboratory will relay through the Mars Telecommunications Relay, which can send back 2 gb/day - enough to send back live video from the surface. And who knows what we’ll send to Mars in the decade after that? Perhaps we’ll set up some of the Planetary Society’s Mars Outposts.
In any event, by the time we’re ready to send people to Mars, I suspect we’ll be well beyond the stage where we need to send down robotic landers to scout for interesting details and landing sites.
Already being planned. The Space Interferometry Mission is planned to fly in five years, and will be able to detect eath-sized planets around the nearest 250 stars, gas giant-sized planets around the nearest 2000 stars, along with all kinds of other astronomy.
In the next decade, the Terrestrial Planet Finder will directly image those Earth-like planets and return startling information:
That’s pretty exciting. As exciting as landing men on Mars, IMO. Just think - within 20 years, we’ll know every solar system of the nearest 250 stars, including knowing if there is large scale vegetation on any of the planets, markers for life in their atmospheres, oceans, atmospheres we could breathe, you name it. And by understanding these other solar systems, we’re going to have a much bigger and better picture of what our universe looks like.
Actually thats only part of it. Why I think it would be ‘faster’ is because they could litterally drop hundreds of rovers precisely from orbit. If some failed…well, no big deal. Also, they’d be able to have the ability to use Mars capable air craft…controlled from orbit.
Again, you are using ‘faster’ in a different way than what I meant. No, you couldn’t drive the ground vehicles much faster just because you could control them in real time (or near real time)…but you also wouldn’t have to wait for the back and forth between Mars and Earth. However, if you have hundreds of rovers dropped precisely when and where the orbital team needs/wants them then you are basically accelerating the exploration of Mars by several orders of magnitude…and you are doing it ‘faster’ than our current launch, wait, hope it lands, then get data back from a few square miles of terrain over a couple of months, rinse and repeat efforts.
As for the AI getting better, I have no doubts. However, unless we are going to accelerate SENDING out more rovers in greater densities sometime in the near future I still think my plan has merrit…it gives us the biggest bang for the potential buck and is a good marriage (IMHO) between manned and unmanned flights, taking the strengths of both.
There is also the fact that the JPL (which does the bulk of the robotic exploration of the solar system) freezes the technology two years before launch. Thus, the successful “bouncing balloon” landing tested on Pathfinder in 1996 could not be used on the failed 1998 Mars Polar Lander because the technology for that flight was frozen before the balloons had been tested. The Mars 2001 Odyssey lander (scrapped due to similarities in design to the 1998 lander) had the same problem because there would not have been time to analyze the results and design a mission-appropriate balloon system in time for the technology freeze in 1999. So we do not see the balloon landing gear again until the 2003 MER missions. Same deal with the rovers. Sojourner was a test, Spirit and Opportunity are larger versions based on sojourner’s success, and larger, longer distance rovers are already in the works for future missions.
Although we launch a mission every time the minimum-fuel window opens (roughly every two years), we can only build on our unmanned success every 7 years or so, an argument in favor of your “human on hand” approach. The JPL Mars guy who filled me in on the above shares your frustration.
Sadly, I think the political reality these days is that there is very little public support for space exploration, manned or unmanned. I’m not even sure that definitive results from China’s efforts in the same area will increase public support.
The current adult generation were told as kids that they would be the first on Mars, and now in their middle age, they don’t feel like spending money to tell their kids the same fantasy.
It would definitely have to wait for that. don’t forget, we already had an international coalition for the ISS, and Bush left everyone else in it holding the bag almost as soon as he stepped into office, by cancelling the critical Centrifuge Module and Crew Return Vehicle. I doubt they’d be willing to trust his word on a new, even more ambitious venture.
The Kepler Mission should launch in June 2008, assuming it doesn’t become a political football during a budget or election cycle. Launch has already slipped by 8 months due to budget constraints placed on the project this year.
Just wanted to say I that the current U.S. plan is to use the Moonbase as stepping stone to Mars. With that in mind, I imagine that the fuel for the return trip will be manufactured there.
The Terrestrial Planet Finder is the one mission I would not sacrifice for the Moon-Mars Initiative.
Neither would I. The various space interferometry missions are, in my opinion, the most important thing we’re planning to do in space over the next 50 years.
I’m 41 years old. When I was young I was told I’d probably be able to go to space, maybe I’d have a job on the moon, but I don’t recall being told I’d be on Mars, although it was a possibility I loved dreaming about.
I’ve always enthusiastically shared my hopes & dreams with my generation. Ever since about the age of 14 or 15, my generation has almost without exception, universally replied with the mantra, “there are starving people in the world, we need to spend money here, not on space.”
So we don’t have a generation bitter about unkept promises made them, we have a generation with no one to blame but themselves for why we’re not on the Moon or Mars, and we can barely keep the ISS up with more than one person in it.
“Makes fuel” out of what?
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