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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

#131

Post by arcbyte »

valuearb wrote: post #111
kbyatnal wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any idea how many of our modern technologies were developed as a direct result of the space program? New technologies were needed to go into space and many of them have become essential for our lives. MRI, LEDs, Anti-Icing Systems, Artificial Limbs, Land Mine Removal, Firefighter Gear, Water Purification, Pollution Remediation, etc etc...the list goes on and on. Studies estimate a $7-$14 return on investm…

Wow, you are saying if you take a massive pile of money to hire a bunch of the smartest engineers away from private companies and pay them to solve problems, they'll do it? And if NASA didn't exist, and these engineers instead worked for less bureaucratic, more entrepreneurial businesses, they'd invent nothing?

> hire a bunch of the smartest engineers away from private companies

There would be no hiring away. That's not how the government works. They'd contract the private companies the engineers already work at.

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

#132

Post by valuearb »

0xffff2 wrote: post #120
valuearb wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, you are saying if you take a massive pile of money to hire a bunch of the smartest engineers away from private companies and pay them to solve problems, they'll do it? And if NASA didn't exist, and these engineers instead worked for less bureaucratic, more entrepreneurial businesses, they'd invent nothing?

Anecdotally, my group at NASA has seen several of our smartest engineers leave for the private sector in the last couple of years. They are all making heaps more money, but not one of them is doing the kind of innovative research that we do at NASA.

Yea, their research will now actually ship.

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

#133

Post by pier25 »

habosa wrote: post #103

In many science fiction books we assume that if an alien planet ever got a whiff of us they'd quickly board their space ships and come see us. It's somewhat comforting to think the alien planet could also be in a perpetual bureaucratic budget crisis and they've dismantled their space program to make more room for tax cuts. Politics could save us from an alien invasion!

That would explain the Fermi paradox

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

#134

Post by vlunkr »

habosa wrote: post #103

In many science fiction books we assume that if an alien planet ever got a whiff of us they'd quickly board their space ships and come see us. It's somewhat comforting to think the alien planet could also be in a perpetual bureaucratic budget crisis and they've dismantled their space program to make more room for tax cuts. Politics could save us from an alien invasion!

This is one of the answers to the Fermi paradox.

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

#135

Post by LeifCarrotson »

seanalltogether wrote: post #51
maze-le wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Martian soil contains non-neglible amounts of phosphates[0]. Phosphorus is highly important for the production of fertilizers and gets increasingly rare here on earth[1]. It wouldn't suprise me if 150 years from now, phosphates are imported from martian soil. [0]: https://phys.org/news/2013-09-phosphate-soluble-mars.html [1]: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jsfa.4650/full

Surely it must be more economical to recover/recycle it from waste?

The phosphates are washed off by rainwater and diluted into the watershed (eventually the oceans). In the ocean, it is very slowly converted by bacteria and eventually brought back by geologic processes uplifting sediment. For a while, we could mine the deep ocean floor...which might be comparable to mining on Mars.

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

#136

Post by fmblwntr »

julius_set wrote: post #102
awalton wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile people are still dying for lack of access to healthcare, infrastructure is failing, education is remaining poor... I agree with the slash the defense budget part, but NASA doesn't need 300B/y (and would have a hard time spending it even). They need ~30B/y (i.e. double their existing outlay) to do SLS and continue existing operations, and it needs to be in a lockbox of some kind such that future political sw…

Money spent on NASA has provided significant breakthroughs in science that includes the internet, MRIs, ear thermometers, automatic insulin pumps, implantable heart defibrillators, fiber optics, light emitting diodes for brain cancer surgery, programmable cataracts, long distance telescopes, solar energy, artificial limbs, memory foam, shoe insoles, smoke detectors, water filters, enriched food, and tons of software.…

"NASA did not invent the smoke detector. NASA's connection to the modern smoke detector is that it made one with adjustable sensitivity as part of the Skylab project. The device was made commercially available by Honeywell. The consumer could use it to avoid "nuisance" alarms while cooking. Like the quartz clock, this device is no longer available. "

https://www.nasa.gov/offices/ipp/home/mythbuster/myth_barcod...

edit: actually pretty much none of the things you listed were invented by NASA, several predate its existence.

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

#137

Post by melling »

habosa wrote: post #103

In many science fiction books we assume that if an alien planet ever got a whiff of us they'd quickly board their space ships and come see us. It's somewhat comforting to think the alien planet could also be in a perpetual bureaucratic budget crisis and they've dismantled their space program to make more room for tax cuts. Politics could save us from an alien invasion!

It’s not just politics, it’s the entire human race.

For example, we are spending $45 billion in our healthcare bill to fight the opioid epidemic. Imagine if we were able to avoid such problems in the first place.

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

#138

Post by Robotbeat »

beisner wrote: post #118
Robotbeat wrote: post #104

The main thing NASA needs to land people on Mars (or the Moon for that matter) is a lander. NASA does not have one, nor is one being funded. All the other details for Mars can be done with variants of what already exists or will fly shortly (commercial crew vehicles or even Soyuz, ISS modules for a transfer craft, launch vehicles like the EELVs used by the military or Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy, in-orbit docking and pr…

Lander aside, the biggest limiting factor is getting astronauts back from Mars! We already know how to get things there, and I think the lander issue is relatively easy to solve, but getting all the equipment and -- most importantly -- fuel for the return flight is the hardest problem to solve economically. Of course we could send like, 12 missions to deliver all the required components, but coordinating the assembly…

Correct. In my post, I was assuming "lander" would either be a two-stage vehicle like the Apollo lunar lander capable of both landing and later ascending (with or without refueling) or a single-stage vehicle (like SpaceX is developing with ITS/BFS) that is capable of being refueled on the surface for ascending.

And yes, fueling up on the surface is a difficult problem to solve. It will involve at least extraction and electrolysis of CO2 from the Mars atmosphere (as NASA is going to demonstrate on the Mars 2020 Rover), but most probably will also include extraction of water, probably by using a robotic machine to dig up regolith (which contains at least 2% absorbed water almost anywhere on the surface of Mars) or buried ice, electrolysis of that water and reaction of the resultant hydrogen with CO2 from the atmosphere to make methane. (And in both cases of electrolysis, you'll be producing sufficient oxygen.)

This is, of course, partly why SpaceX is developing a methane-based engine for their next-generation launch vehicle.

But you have to develop the lander first otherwise you can't feasibly land enough equipment (using existing techniques limited to just a single ton) to refuel.

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

#139

Post by HarkMamilton »

justinator wrote: post #113
HarkMamilton wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Environmentalism isn't an excuse to give up on every other aspiration humanity might hold.

I personally would vote in favor of putting space exploration on hold until we get a handle on the quickly accelerating environmental disaster we humans have set up that seems that it may just wipe ourselves out. Personally. One needs beauty in the world, yes, but one also needs to breathe.

Environmentalists will never be satisfied. There is always something to improve.

If humanity dies or goes pre-industrial because someone engineered a supervirus and we refused to put effort into space travel, all our conservation efforts won't really matter much.

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

#140

Post by 0xffff2 »

paulcole wrote: post #95
BlackjackCF wrote: post #44

Is it possible for NASA to Kickstart this? I'd throw money at them.

Goal: Land humans on Mars. Stretch Goal: Bring them back!

You jest, but if I ever get the opportunity I will take a one-way trip to Mars without hesitation.
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