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NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

arstechnica.com

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Re: NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

#41

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

DiThi wrote: post #19
Tepix wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use Falcon Heavy by SpaceX or New Glenn by Blue Origin for a fraction of the cost of SLS. Orion may be worth keeping. It is limited to 4 astronauts which is probably too small a crew for a 2.5 year Mars mission. I do think that it could be built much cheaper, however.

I don't think FH is enough for manned mars missions. It has enough delta V to land there but not to come back.

The Falcon Heavy could send Red Dragons with supplies in advance of the ITS missions (this is in fact the plan).

Re: NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

#42

Post by thearn4 »

I'm a bigger fan of putting a semi-permanent ISS 2.0 on the surface of the moon vs. boots on Mars. I don't work directly in exploration systems, but I'm not the only one at NASA who feels this way.

But more than anything I think we and the other executive agencies would take any strong commitment on an exploration and human spaceflight direction from congress that survives across presidential administrations over any specific technical consideration.

I.e. we're waiting for strong elected leadership.

Re: NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

#43

Post by chha »

FiatLuxDave wrote: post #11

I had a conversation a few years ago with Buzz Aldrin. He was talking about his idea for a Mars Cycler which would travel continuously between Earth and Mars. I told him that I thought it was a great idea (especially as it would be investing in 'permanent' space infrastructure instead of a single-shot mission) but that I thought it was unlikely that the government would allocate enough resources to build it. He seeme…

But hasn't this generally been an issue since Apollo?

Great Ideas(TM) emerge and people get enthusiastic about them, but fail to realize that the cost makes them difficult to carry out as intended. The Great Idea is then either watered down (Skylab, Space Shuttle) or comes to an abrupt halt due to lack of funding or for political reasons (Space Station Freedom, Constellation).

I'm getting more and more convinced that it will take autocratic nations looking for prestige, or commercial companies offering cheap and exotic tourist flights for humans to get back to the moon. The US doesn't have the political strength or stability to plan such a mission at the moment, and keep it going for the ~10ish years it takes.

Re: NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

#45

Post by gallerdude »

Kazamai wrote: post #38

I don't see the purpose of landing people on Mars. Just to say, "we did it". Wouldn't it be a much more rewarding goal to research and execute systems that could send humans one way to planets in our galaxy. Even seeding organisms on other planets in the hope that they evolve into intelligent life.

Most people see Mars as great potential for a "back-up" for the human race. If something catastrophic happens on earth, humanity will continue.

Re: NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

#46

Post by carsongross »

FiatLuxDave wrote: post #11

I had a conversation a few years ago with Buzz Aldrin. He was talking about his idea for a Mars Cycler which would travel continuously between Earth and Mars. I told him that I thought it was a great idea (especially as it would be investing in 'permanent' space infrastructure instead of a single-shot mission) but that I thought it was unlikely that the government would allocate enough resources to build it. He seeme…

If you'd like to know why NASA is getting less and less funding and can expect this trend to continue, see this chart from Five38/NYT:

https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/16fi...

Re: NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

#47

Post by eduren »

FiatLuxDave wrote: post #11

I had a conversation a few years ago with Buzz Aldrin. He was talking about his idea for a Mars Cycler which would travel continuously between Earth and Mars. I told him that I thought it was a great idea (especially as it would be investing in 'permanent' space infrastructure instead of a single-shot mission) but that I thought it was unlikely that the government would allocate enough resources to build it. He seeme…

In regards to the cycler idea, he has even acted as a "customer" to a Purdue University team doing a mars feasibility study. They've recently released their report, in which they detail how a cycler might work in comparison to the original SpaceX ITS proposal.

https://engineering.purdue.edu/AAECourses/aae450/2017/spring...

Buzz Aldrin with the team:

https://engineering.purdue.edu/AAECourses/aae450/2017/spring...

Re: NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

#48

Post by crush-n-spread »

jsudhams wrote: post #39
Tepix wrote: post #7

NASA has enough funding, they are just spending it on SLS and Orion(¹). It appears that if they were to pay the "new space" companies to get them to Mars, the money would be enough. (¹) because Congress wants them to, because ... jobs (as if "new space" companies weren't creating jobs, too... even competitive ones)

They should outsource this to India or Israel.

That is insane. Take a USA tax funded public entity and spend the budget of it's most ambitious project in Israel or India. What are you talking about? And we already send money to Russia for Soyuz to get to ISS via ULA.

Re: NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

#49

Post by computerex »

thearn4 wrote: post #42

I'm a bigger fan of putting a semi-permanent ISS 2.0 on the surface of the moon vs. boots on Mars. I don't work directly in exploration systems, but I'm not the only one at NASA who feels this way. But more than anything I think we and the other executive agencies would take any strong commitment on an exploration and human spaceflight direction from congress that survives across presidential administrations over any…

I am a fan of that too, but I don't know how practical it is. What would we get out of having a manned station around the moon? It's a desolate piece of rock with little to no activity in the core. It's dead by all means, and the probes we have in orbit + instrumentation that was left by Apollo and the tons of moon rock we brought back I think already gave us an abundant amount of data to work with.

But alas, I am a computer programmer and that's just what I think. I could very well be wrong and there could be a lot of value in having a manned lunar station.

Re: NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

#50

Post by dTal »

Thaxll wrote: post #21
Nanite wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NASA programs typically span multiple decades and run in the billions of dollars, The political pendulum sways from one side to the other side every 4-8 years, every new administration is looking for ways to cut down taxes. It's amazing they get anything done imho.

They should cut the defence budget. 611B/year it's a joke.

The funny thing is, with the kind of space presence that kind of money buys you (we're talking Clarke-style rotating space stations here), nobody would dare fuck with you.

You don't need an official space weapons program to be able to drop heavy things from orbit. Nor do you need a fancy anti-satellite ballistics system when you can have one of your many astronauts sidle over and hit it with a hammer.

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