Mars Settlement precursor thread

grooble · Mar 3, 2005

About money, there are people like me willing to donate a little on a regular basis, long term, to pay for such great endeavours. Look at Trekunited.com, $3m raised in 3 weeks from a fan effort. Such things are inspiring. Enough joe's working together can pull off anything.

spacester · Mar 3, 2005

As before, if I do not specifically address any part of any post, you can take it that I do not disagree and to the extent practicable, your input will be included in the overall scheme of things. That's going to be a big theme here: Inclusiveness. Launch Technology: Here is how I propose developing the capability needed to get the payloads we need to LEO: Hire it done. Get a really really big wad of cash, specify the payload mass and container, guarantee payment on delivery, let the marketplace get it done and get back to designing a Mars Settlement. Not gonna wait for the Space Elevator. Not gonna argue what kind of HLLV we need. We don't care. Just get it to LEO and we'll take it from there. Orbital assembly is a routine activity in this plan. Enough joe's working together can pull off anything. That's the right track. Conjunction or Opposition? I hate to say it but the whole idea of classifying Mars trajectories as one or the other of these two choices is wrong-headed thinking. I’m so far past the C vs. O thing that I forget which is which from time to time. Here are the real choices: Hohmann Faster Than Hohmann. Opposition is silly for a settlement strategy, it minimizes time on surface. It’s almost a straw man argument actually: the ultimate flags and footprints mission. Conjunction is actually all we’ve got. Habitats, Factories and Supplies will all go Hohmann. For the manned flights, it’s a question of trading deltaV for time of flight. I’ve chosen 200 days each way as a benchmark time of flight. The stage that sends you to Mars has a capability of 6.5 km/s for the benchmark payload. This will get you there in 200 days even at the worst part of the 18-1/2 year energy cycle. Usually, you can get there much faster or you can take more payload. Jon, welcome aboard! I’m thr <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

grooble · Mar 3, 2005

Settlement supporting Science makes sense.

dan_casale · Mar 3, 2005

Good Questions JonClarke, And I want to add one more. Is this basically a one-way mission or will the same transport hardware be used to shuttle supplies/equipment/personnel. I know SPACESTER said to let the market decide, but I don't think that is good enough, I think we will need to make some demands of our suppliers or we will end up with STS version 2. Are we going to require Super-heavy lift or just Heavy lift capability? Are we maximizing reuseability or is single use ok?

spacester · Mar 3, 2005

Absolutely we will make demands of our suppliers, mainly: Take it or leave it. We will demand successful delivery and we will not pay a penny more than we said we would. We will pay exactly $X for Y payload successfully delivered to Z orbit. We will pay promptly and in full but not a penny more than we said we would. We set the delivered costs where they need to be to make it happen, but once decided, that's the payment, no exceptions. That's the demand: forget cost-plus projects, boys, that's not our thing. (Setting the promised payments will not be done in a vacuum, we will negotiate with interested parties first.) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

scottb50 · Mar 3, 2005

What do we mean by “settlement”? I would use the Antarctic base analogy. How long have we had a prescence their? It's only in the last few years tourist traffic has started to grow. Whether someone stays more or less permanently would have to depend on their needs and could be accomodated from the beginning if we assume multiple return flights. The only way such a facility could exist is with frequent resupply and it would be better to take extra supplies than primarily being a crew rotation service. I would have to say both then, with the understanding it would be a long time before something like colonization would be a factor. Will we use both the opposition and conjunction windows, or just one? If we plan on using a crewed transfer mission, which would be my preferred method, we would pretty much need to use conjunction. What is the maximum payload we can land on mars at a time? With mission assembly in LEO the main constraint will be launch capability. How long can supplies, especially consummables be left in LEO waiting for the rest of the load? The uplift capability we have becomes the defining factor, if it takes five or six launches and we use the demonstrated Shuttle availability it would take years to get not only 100 tons of supplies and people into LEO, let alone the transfer vehicle, surface facilities and landing/ return to LMO vehicle. What size lander modules are we going to use (remember they have to be launched from earth to start with)? I advocated a dedicated LEO to LMO transfer vehicle that would fly multiple missons and a lander/ return to orbit vehicle on the original thread. If the landers are based on Mars it would allow maximum transit payloads. Using the vehicle as a surface transport would also make sense, allowing much more research and flexibility. How many people will be transport at a time in these modules? Again it would depend on how many <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

spacester · Mar 3, 2005

Excellent post Scott, I only have little quibbles here and there. The last four questions and answers in particular are dead solid right on the money couldn't've said it better myself. It might be counterproductive to have personnel linger in LEO prior to departure for Mars. I have a role for the shuttle if they want to keep flying it, but I sure as heck am not basing any plans on STS availability. My participation in the vehicle line-up discussion will have to wait for the main thread to come soon. I've sketched it out but nothing is absolutely decided. The discussion on one-way trips was well developed previously. I've got a paragraph or two written up on that. Basically the idea is that the longer you stay the better, but the minimum "stay" (total round trip time) is about 2-1/2 years no matter how fast you travel, so we need to think in terms of "hitches". Anyone can go home at the next opportunity, but some people would be breaking their multi-hitch committment if they leave early. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

scottb50 · Mar 3, 2005

I have a role for the shuttle if they want to keep flying it, but I sure as heck am not basing any plans on STS availability. I wasn't talking about the Shuttle itself but a new vehicle based on Shuttle technolgy. The discussion on one-way trips was well developed previously. I know it was and I didn't agree with it at that time either. I still propose a cycling transfer vehicle. A permanent core that has payload modules added in LEO, transits to LMO, has payload modules picked up and returning payload modules attached using Mars based surface to orbit vehicles then returning to LEO to await the next mission. We don't even know how well humans will hold up on Mars, to demand extended stays from the beginning would possibly be inviting disaster. Not that I think it would. I was thinking more like 4 years, returning on a subsequent cycler. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

dan_casale · Mar 3, 2005

We also need FRODO. There was also someone who had experience along the same lines, but I have forgotten his handle.

arobie · Mar 3, 2005

Scottb50, What exactly are the advantages of the of a cycling transfer vehicle? You would still have to adjust the payload modules speed and orbit to be the same as the permanent core so as to be able to rendevous with it. Doing that, you might as well as not rendevous because your going to end up at Earth, or where ever the orbit takes you. Is this core a water buffalo and food supply or something? That might make it worthwhile to dock-up while en route, but whether you send a large amount into interplanetary orbit at once or just what you need for your trip included in your ship, your still sending it up there. And in the end, your still expending the same amount of fuel to get it up there. Am I missing something? What is the advantage of your cycling transfer vehicle? [Edit: Nevermind, after thinking about this...I see my mistake. The concept is to send up the entire transfer ship at once, and only have to accelerate the crew and maby a payload to the Mars-Earth orbit to rendevous with it instead of the entire ship every time. Sorry, I was thinking wrong earlier] On a side note: Thanks for the link to the website earlier. I just had a look through it, and I have to give y'all a round of applause. Very cool. Good job to everyone who contributed. <img src="/images/icons/cool.gif" /> BTW, I archived it to preserve it.

arobie · Mar 3, 2005

Dan_Casale, Excuse my ignorance, but what is FRODO?

spacester · Mar 3, 2005

Frodo is a who, a veteran sdc guy whom I would love to see join us as well. Scott, are you talking about Buzz Aldrin style cyclers or just the idea that the propulsion and payload modules should be used for multiple missions? It's not me demanding extended stays on Mars, it's that harsh mistress named Orbital Mechanics. It's approx. a 2-1/2 year round trip no matter what (ignoring flags and footprints options). The only question is how much of that time you spend in flight and how much at Mars. A faster flight does reduce the overall round trip time, but not by much at all. For our purposes, trust me, it's a 2-1/2 year hitch minimum. If you stay for a second hitch, it's something less than 5 years though. I'm away from my software right now so more later on that. I'll be posting the main thread later tonight sometime, which will answer a lot of questions. And bring up some new ones no doubt. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

summoner · Mar 3, 2005

I remember this thread from before very well, and I'm glad you're bringing it back. Couple of thoughts, even tough I could ramble on for hours. 1st missions would have to be scout missions. 2 or 3 at the least, the main thing this base will need to do is survive on it's own for some lengths of time. We'd need to find sources of air, water and minerals. 2nd is a thought brought up earlier. It would be to have a 'tug' of some sort. I envision one that would basically be an engine and control room. Modules (that could be left at Mars for upgrades to the base) would house the crews and carry cargo , these modules could also be standard built so that they could be lifted by whatever the best lift system at the time happens to be. I'll have a few more thoughts later. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width:271px;background-color:#FFF;border:1pxsolid#999"><tr><td colspan="2"><div style="height:35px"><img src="http://banners.wunderground.com/weathersticker/htmlSticker1/language/www/US/MT/Three_Forks.gif" alt="" height="35" width="271" style="border:0px" /></div>

spacester · Mar 3, 2005

Welcome aboard Summoner! I'll re-iterate to all that if I don't directly repond to parts of your posts, you can assume I don't disagree with that part. I'm not going to comment on everything and I'm reading a lot of good stuff, but my presentation leads me to choose other parts that are on track. So the lack of highlighting something as on track does not mean that I didn't really like reading it. IOW a lot of good stuff is "on file" for later in the design process. Yeah, my plan has tugs.

Orbital assembly, orbital re-propellanting. (*OK, that's it, we need to make up a word equivalent to "refueling" but inclusive of the oxidant * - "repropping" ?) I'm not sure I accept that the first missions would "have to" be scouts. As the settlement design is developed, this number (# humans on first manned flight) will float around a bit. There's a lot to be said for what a group of 24 people can accomplish working together, and the primary goal is to establish a settlement, not just survive. I'm sure now: this is another pre-conceived notion planted in the minds of many by Hollywood and legit SF as well. KS Robinson was trying to counteract this with his legendary, immortal "first 100" crew. While he went ahead and wrote a scout mission into the story, he didn't tell the scout story in detail. My thinking is that the crew size we want for Mars surface may not be the crew size we want for transit. So either we compromise or we send multiple crews. BTW, my "plan" for vehicles does not specify size in any way. Just the configuration and staging strategy. By configuration I mean a 3D layout of the ship's architecture. So we have a lot to talk about on that huge subject: ideal size of the surface crew, ideal size of the transit crew? Once we figure that out, we can size the habitat and most everything else will follow from there. Mostly what I'm trying to contribute here is a deltaV-derived vehic <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

summoner · Mar 3, 2005

Settlement has to support science. If there is to be any long term aspects to this base it needs a solid infrastructure first. Thats why the previous post mentioning crew-size becomes important. I'd like to see somewhere in the 10-12 person crew. The obvious first picks would be the captain and his fight crew(maybe 3 others?), then you'd certainly need medical doctors and maybe 2 of them. That'd be half your crew already. The rest would be made up of specialists in plant sciences/agronomy, structural engineering, environmental engineering and I'm sure a few that are slipping my mind. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width:271px;background-color:#FFF;border:1pxsolid#999"><tr><td colspan="2"><div style="height:35px"><img src="http://banners.wunderground.com/weathersticker/htmlSticker1/language/www/US/MT/Three_Forks.gif" alt="" height="35" width="271" style="border:0px" /></div>

SpaceKiwi · Mar 4, 2005

""Absolutely we will make demands of our suppliers, mainly: Take it or leave it."" spacester, this approach to your hardware delivery troubles me. Even with your Mars Mission team providing full blueprints of the hardware required, I am skeptical that LockMart/Boeing, etc would deliver on schedule and to budget. Should you actively involve them in the design process, I am even more skeptical of hardware on time and to budget. I think given your "take it or leave it" approach, I am inclined to believe most of the major space hardware players would leave it. Alternately, they may ambitiously take the projects on but leave you with 75% completed hardware when the budget cap is reached... or worse. How do you compel your hardware manufacturers to deliver within your finance and time constraints? How do you even compel the manufacturers to take on your hardware projects under a C.O.D. scenario? How do you assure that you don't face a protracted legal fight with these suppliers when they refuse to stump up the hardware without additional funding? I can't see this aspect of the mission design being a go-er, even if it were NASA and the US government cracking the whip. Which it would not be if I read the contributions to this thread thus far correctly. As a private sector "Mars Inc", you are going to have major issues of credibility bringing the heavyweight space hardware players on board under the terms you are suggesting. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Who is this superhero? Henry, the mild-mannered janitor ... could be!-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Bring Back The Black! </div>

cdr6 · Mar 4, 2005

Regarding your ship/crew configuration/mission. I was a ground crewmember on the NASA C-141, Kuiper excpeditions to Pago-Pago and to Australia. So some of this may be helpful to you... For both expeditions we had a crew compliment of about 30. Flight crew of 4, ground crew (mechanics) of 6-8, telescope technicians 4, mission ops/principal investigators/science and astronomers make up the rest. From this latter group we had the mission commander, and the mission secretary. Both seperate and dedicated positions. (Not part of the aircraft flight crew.) The expedition to Pago-pago was some whan truncated by mechanical problems which ultimately forced us back to Hickham AFB in Hawii. In the Australia expedition the aircraft was more coopertave and ran the full two month mission with out major breakdown or incident. Pago was scheduled for 14 days, went longer, and crew health was a factor. (29 of the 30 personnel had a mild case of disentary when the acft water supply was filled from the local supply at the Page-pago airport, the exception being the pilot who did not drink from the water supply, except for having coffee...there by boiling and killing the germs) For the rest of us kaopectate became the beverage of choice... Australia, was scheduled for two months, which included missions to Guam and Hawii on the way back. The 30 person crew was rotated out at the end of one month and replaced with a new 30 person contigent for the second half. Airborne infrared astronomy was the mission, and in both expeditions the scientific types "took data" en route. The Kuiper was a modified civil C141 carrying a telescope, computer control equipment, crewmembers, baggage and a small stock of spares. For both the telescope and the aircraft, plus what ever "piggy back" experiments that were available. When fully loaded the Kuiper had little extra room on board and was not heated beyond the cockpit in defference

SpaceKiwi · Mar 4, 2005

""So is there any objection to the "Settlement Supports Science" philosophy? Anyone?"" Okay I don't 'disagree' with this philosophy per se, it's as good a reason as any to go to Mars, but I wonder how relevant it will be in the short term? Surely the over-riding goal is establishment of a Human presence on Mars? Scientific or Commercial activities are an entirely secondary concern until you achieve your primary goal. Certainly 'science' will be done in the initial stages, but only as a by-product of establishing your Human beach-head on Mars. Exploration and cataloging of the environment, and how those resources can be applied to self-sustainability, would be the only 'science' undertaken in the early stages of settlement in my view. Well, that and improving the 'reliability' of your settlement, which is another side of the same concern in essence. While the Antarctic Scientific Model has merit, I don't think it can be adapted easily to the Mars situation due to the increased magnitude of difficulty in the latter; in distance, in expense, in environmental harshness. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Who is this superhero? Henry, the mild-mannered janitor ... could be!-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Bring Back The Black! </div>

spacester · Mar 4, 2005

spacester, this approach to your hardware delivery troubles me. Even with your Mars Mission team providing full blueprints of the hardware required . . . I haven't been clear. We'll design and build (contract out to qualified bidders) the payload hardware and we will launch it on the first flight-qualified system that is ready. Schedules on the whole project will be a function of technology availability, this is why the technologies must be proven and limited in number. We build the hardware in the payload, we don't tell the delivery company how to build the hardware to get it there. But we dangle a great big wad of cash out in front of their noses so their design target is clear. We pay for the hardware under normal, old fashioned business practices. 50% down, 50% on delivery. In a way, that's all I'm talking about doing: normalizing the business practices away from the aerospace way of doing things. This is how we put together the fleet of Factories, Habitats and Vehicles. We coordinate this with the launch provider, assemble and provision the stack in LEO and go. Many say that BoeLockM are dinosaurs and are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Let's find out. If they can't succeed under our terms, screw 'em. All they gotta do is move past cost-plus contracting and quit screwing around doing things the NASA way. The point is, there will be plenty of up and comers (we're seeing them already!) to get our stuff delivered. SpaceX is publishing prices, we don't have to work in a vacuum to figure out a price per pound to LEO of various payloads sufficient to draw the launch technology to market. The delivery fee would start out high, let the companies recoup their investments and maybe even turn a profit, then go down a bit to encourage additional development. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

spacester · Mar 4, 2005

Oops, lost a post, that hasn't happened in a while. The Settlement Supports Science schtick is mostly for the less informed and the scientists themselves. sdc posters want to see the logjam cleared, so they're into it. But the average joe thinks of Mars settlements as "decades away", perpetually. This line gets them thinking about it. From my point of view, settlement, in and of itself, is self-justifying, so your words are on track, Kiwi. But at some point I expect some scientists will see settlement as "competition for limited funds", so I'm trying to throw this whole discussion out there for them to ponder. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

tap_sa · Mar 4, 2005

"Any arguments on the Settlement Supports Science strategy? Going twice . . ." IMO S-S-S goes without saying when we talk about a long term mission instead of Apollo-style post-a-flag-and-run thing. I think it also goes the other way around, Science Supports the Settlement. We are talking about setting up a base on other planet, all settlement-related engineering and maintenance issues are initially more science than mundane routine. Working out these issues produces data and experience, which both are hard currency just like manhours of purely scientific work.

JonClarke · Mar 4, 2005

S-K Going there may be an end in itself for some, but not for most. There has to be a rational justification and purpose. "Manifest destiny" just won't wash. There would be a culster of reasons. The feeling I am getting is that we seem to be looking at a small relatively stable settlement. For this the Antarctic model is the best we have. It is not perfect, for the reasons you say, and more, but can you think of a better one? Some comparisons with Mars an the Antarctic are worth making, especially with the first phase of settlement, say in the 1950's. The bases driven by a mixture of reasons - science, exploration and the need to establish a presence, for example. Commerical reasons were not a factor, as the only economically viable industry was whaling and bases on the continent could not compete with either subantarctic islands or on whaling fleets.. Communications with the outside world were limited - more limited than they would be on Mars. Expeditions would be happy if they got a personal communication once a week. People typically stayed for 1-2 years. No as long as 2.5-5 years on Mars, but of the same order. Basic resources were supplied locally - water, some food and fuel - but other resources where shipped in. The environment was extremely hostile, OK you would be dead in minutes to hours not seconds without protective equipment, but still lethal. Furthermore the settlements supported a wide range of research - geology, meteorology, biology, glaciology, geophysics, some medicine and engineering. A similar range to what you would do on Mars. This is despite the fact that most of the crew were support personnel, somewhere between 50 and 75%. A Mars base could support even more science, because of automation and teleoperation, whether from the base or even from earth. Much of the research on the ISS is actually run from the ground, rather than the people in orbit. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars Arthur Clarke </div>

arobie · Mar 4, 2005

For Mars, I suggest the evolution would be from preliminary expeditions to small settlements and small balanced communities (not yet established in the Antarctic) which might eventually support adventurer tourists (assuming drastic reductions in cost) What do you mean by preliminary expeditions? Do you mean setting up a few bases first before building our permanent settlement, or do you mean sending small expeditions to build/setup the base before opening it up to the larger permanent population? I'm not sure if tourists would work on Mars. They would have to either stay 2 1/2 years, the same amount of time as required for a settler, or spend months on a trip to Mars only to stay, I don't know I guess a week. Whats the longest amount of time one could stay on Mars and be able to leave without having to wait another 2 1/2 years? If they stay 2 1/2 years, they might as well be a settler, and they better have some type of skill. I don't think the base could afford to support do-nothing tourist for so long.

JonClarke · Mar 4, 2005

Hi Arobi Preliminary expeditions as in preliminary expeditions, that explore areas of the Martain surface, study it in detail, gain experience in Martian operations, and demonstrate that it is possible to live and work for years on the planet, grow food, extract resources, locate the best place for future settlements. I don't think we need to discuss the missions, that is not what we are here for. But we should assume they have taken place, as I pointed out earlier. No rational group is going to committment to any kind of settlement without this knowledge under normal circumstances. Do we really want to consider irrational groups or abnormal circumstances? Note I very carefully said "adventurer tourists". Maybe you can think of a better description. Not all tourists travel to gamble in casinos and stay in club med. There are people today will pay millions of dollars to trek to the poles, climb Everest, fly round the world non stop, drive 800 m into caves. These efforts may take years to achieve. They do it for personal experience, adventure, and challenge, so it is not exploration or commerce, and similar to the motivation of much tourism. There are very profitable industries set up to support these groups. If a mars settlement is to earn money, this is one possible way. I can't think of too many others. But I only raise it as an interesting possibility! But if the cost of going to Mars comes down to that current needed to go into orbit then there will be those who will be dreaming about hauling sledges across the martian ice caps, climbing Olympus Mons or the walls of Vallis Marineris, I can garantee it. Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars Arthur Clarke </div>

spacester · Mar 4, 2005

I'm going to go ahead and start the other thread with what I wrote over a month ago, verbatim. I'd like to edit that first and get caught up on this thread, but too busy . . . later . . . No need to stay away from this thread, no "restrictions" on comments for the new (main) thread) . . . SSS: going three times . . . <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

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