NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by gozur88 » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 4:33 PM UTC

dfox wrote: post #109

dTal wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Droping stuff from orbit is cool scifi weapon system, but in practice it is surprisingly hard to do (you cannot just drop stuff, you have to impart it with some deltav to cancel out orbital velocity of the station) and inefficient (you have to get the stuff up there, which when you ignore atmosferic drag requires same amount energy as the projectile would release on impact)

This. Land-based missiles are far cheaper and more effective.

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

#162

Post by ptero » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 4:35 PM UTC

mannigfaltig wrote: post #69

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…

I have trouble understanding the enthusiasm about space. Space hostile and empty. Why not simply send space probes and rovers at a fraction of the cost and spend the money more wisely, for example in projects which research aging, cancer, overpopulation and disaster management in face of global warming. Why do we need to make the exception for space and get drunk with nostalgia and romantic ideas of exploration, when…

Part of the reason is the same desire to see what is at the other side that pushed seafarers, voyagers and adventurers for ages to travel across hostile oceans, mountains and deserts.

It is not that we "need to get drunk .. with romantic ideas of exploration" as a society; but as individuals enough of us do anyway. I personally see it as a good thing. We do need to watch the costs, which is why my hopes are with the industry or eccentric [bm]illionaires, not NASA which became very bureaucratic and risk averse.

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

#163

Post by gozur88 » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 4:36 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #28

Tepix wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also Congress' fault because they insist on extremely expensive programs such as SLS and Orion. See https://arstechnica.com/science/2010/04/obama-resuscitates-o... and https://arstechnica.com/science/2009/10/nasa-panel-argues-fo... Quote: "The committee has concluded that NASA now has plans that don't reflect any sort of budgetary reality". This is back in 2010. More recommended reading: https://en.wikipedia.org…

Yeah. You can see it two ways: The SLS is an embarrassment or an admission by Congress that they don't care at all about spaceflight.

It's absolutely the latter. Congress has never really cared about spaceflight - to your Congressman it's just an opportunity to bring federal dollars to his district, because that will get him reelected.

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

#164

Post by ComodoHacker » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 4:41 PM UTC

tempay wrote: post #108

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 be nice, it's a shame it could just as easily result in an increase of military spending to fund a space program to come invade.

Let me anthropomorphically assume there will always be a closer target to spend excess planetary resources on.

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

#165

Post by mikeytown2 » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 4:41 PM UTC

SkyLX wrote: post #156

valuearb wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NASAs manned space efforts have devolved into a scam to divert funds into the state of Alabama. It literally can't build any manned space systems unless they are gold plated and cost 20 times what they should.

Cite some sources for your claims dude.

The SLS rocket is crazy expensive. It's known as the Senate Launch System because of all the pork. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2...

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

#166

Post by bluGill » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 4:42 PM UTC

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!

Science fiction almost universally assumes the speed of light is not a hard limit. At this time we have every reason to believe that it is a limit. Our theories also say that if you were to go faster than light (which you cannot) it implies time dilation and time travel - again science fiction just assumes a loop hole so that doesn't happen.

Many talk about travel at 10 times the speed of light (warp-10) as if that is fast, but if you actually notice that lack of aging during travel they have to be traveling much faster than that. (at 10 times the speed of light the nearest star to earth is just under a 1 year round trip - your kids would not remember you very well when you return)

Which is to say that any aliens with space travel that discovers us now will not be making the journey because the length of time it would take.

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

#167

Post by bdamm » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 4:43 PM UTC

eduren wrote: post #61

sametmax wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now Mars doesn't have any resource with crave enough to justify this enormous cost. If suddenly we discover that there is something we can get money from, and not just knowledge, you'll get investers.

One "resource" that might justify a human presence on Mars is its relatively weak gravity well. Combine that with fuel production, and you are looking at Mars being the gas station to the solar system. There are certainly places in the solar system that do have valuable resources and the fuel to trawl around the asteroid belt would be a lot cheaper if it could be lifted from Mars rather than Earth. Not saying it will…

There are near earth asteroids that are better fuel stops than Mars. That's the better mission IMHO.

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

#168

Post by dfox » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 4:44 PM UTC

gozur88 wrote: post #161

dfox wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Droping stuff from orbit is cool scifi weapon system, but in practice it is surprisingly hard to do (you cannot just drop stuff, you have to impart it with some deltav to cancel out orbital velocity of the station) and inefficient (you have to get the stuff up there, which when you ignore atmosferic drag requires same amount energy as the projectile would release on impact)

This. Land-based missiles are far cheaper and more effective.

Recently I've seen this quote:

"Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics." - Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC

And exactly this thing seems to be the major problem with essentially every space-related weapons platform other than ICBMs. Simply almost every such proposed system uses some expendable ammunition that is significantly more expensive to deploy or even just manufacture than what it is supposed to destroy.

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

#169

Post by CydeWeys » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 4:44 PM UTC

Robotbeat wrote: post #145

0xffff2 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 propellant transfer which is commonly used on the Space Station, etc). I'll grant you a lot of that, but do you really think re-using ISS modu…

Yes it is feasible. The radiation regimes are not vastly different. They're within roughly a factor of two of one another. And since the transit time is about half a year, and we've had multiple people experience ~year-long trips in orbit at a time, I think we're well within our existing knowledge to say they'd do fine radiation-wise, though perhaps with a slightly higher risk than usual. Still better than being a sm…

There's also the issue of coronal mass ejections (though CMEs pointing right at us are admittedly rare, so maybe you just eat the risk). They will absolutely fry anything in their path, but take 1-3 days to reach the Earth from the Sun, which is long enough to bring any astronauts on the ISS back down to Earth. I believe there are contingency plans for this; there is always a crew return vehicle attached to the station ready to go for example.

If that happens while you're on the way to Mars, though, you're all fried.

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

#170

Post by bdamm » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 4:45 PM UTC

Robotbeat wrote: post #90

maxxxxx wrote: post #3

I have been watching this since 2000. New president comes in, scraps old programs, declares new "vision". NASA does a few incoherent things and the whole thing restarts after a few years. It's pretty sad. I wish they would commit to something and actually finish it.

You can blame Congress. Congress insists on zip-code engineered space hardware whose primary mission is to ensure profit for contractors in their districts. The Administration, no matter who heads it, generally doesn't buy that approach, which is why you see the old programs scrapped (because they weren't going anywhere). (Putting the Earth-science thing aside for the moment.) It really is a mostly non-partisan divid…

Also next year; James Webb Space Telescope.