Moon, Mars, or Asteroid? Which is the best goal?

[rockett]

I have seen a lot of debate in bits and pieces about what NASA should do to move beyond LEO. There are very good reasons for each and every contention, but no consensus. On this thread, let's bring all the debates together, to reach some conclusion about what we need to do next as a country, or as a planet.

What will give us the most return for our efforts and investment, and why?
What actually makes sense in terms of advancement of the human race?
How can one effort be used as a step to the next?
Which would just be a "boots and flags", vs a step to a permanent human prescence in space?
What effort would eventually lead to colonization?
Which one would be the easiest to achieve (meaning sooner), given today's technology?
How will we get there? (No superdrive spaceships powered by unobtanium)

 

[Yuri_Armstrong]

If what you are looking for is consensus you will not find it here. I for one am one of the few that actually support the upcoming asteroid mission. Personally I believe a lunar base is the next logical step and I think we should be actively engaged in all three of these activities. So while a lunar base would be much better than an asteroid mission, I am happy to see NASA trying to get out of LEO and push the frontier. The mission plan involves constellation equipment though so they will have to revise things once Constellation is cancelled.

A lunar base would be an excellent way to go. It's only a few days away, we've proven that we can go there before, it has nice helium 3 deposits for nuclear fusion research, the dark side of the moon would be a great place for astronomical outposts. Many papers have been published that show the feasibility of setting up a lunar base. It can also be used as a resting point for craft on journeys to Mars and other inner solar system bodies. I say go for it, that is what we should do, but I am going to support any mission that takes us beyond LEO.

 

[kk434]

A manned Mars mission is also a sample return mission, getting mars samples to earth labs in large a quantity would once for all solve the question if there was life on mars. A robotic sample return is estimated at 1 pound and only from limited locations. Human Mars trip would be a quantum leap in Mars exploration.

 

[rockett]

If what you are looking for is consensus you will not find it here.

Being an optimist, I hope that it is possible. As long as the space enthusiast community is fragmented (I am being kind here, fractured would be a better description) there will never be enough coherent support for any particular direction. Without that, we have even less hope of moving out of LEO.

 

[SteveCNC]

Go to the moon to learn what's really needed to survive on a hostile world , develop and refine such technology at short range , not on mars . You know how it is when you develop something new , it always takes a few tries to really get it right .

 

[menellom]

Ultimately the destination is irrelevant, we could pick any goal and design an exciting manned mission around it. What's important is the capability to reach destinations beyond LEO, not the destinations themselves.

One of Constellation's problems is that really the only thing it has going for it anymore is people are excited about the prospect of going back to the Moon. So excited they're willing to ignore all the program's flaws and the fact that it's probably a decade behind schedule.

The focus needs to be on securing cheaper transport to LEO and developing the technology to reliably travel beyond Earth orbit and beyond our Earth-Moon neighborhood. Obama's plan does that, the Senate's plan does that, the House's plan says 'stay the course'.

 

[emudude]

Until we can get living conditions comparable to living in a college dorm (i.e. a large structure with living accomodations featuring several different common areas, a connecting underground tunnel to the cafeteria and even connecting tunnels to some of the buildings that house lectures or even the gym), we shouldn't be setting our sights too far from LEO. Look how complicated the space station is to keep running, and it's not exactly luxurious. Get the resources to build things like this first, perhaps even by bringing an asteroid to a lagrange point and using it as a hull for the first "city" in space.

I like the moon. It's nice and close, yes, but the amount of energy that it takes to go to the surface and launch into orbit, while roughly 1/6 that of launching from the earth, is still prohibitively expensive considering the amount of launches necessary. An asteroid has negligible gravity, and as such is an economically desirable/feasible goal to begin with.

As for Mars...if we can't establish an outpost on our largest neighbour because it's too expensive, this should *not* be a goal for manned exploration in the near term. Once we have the technologies to get us on and off the moon, planning a Mars trip will involve 1-2 years, not the 20 years it would take for a highly dangerous trip with conventional technology. Work in logical steps, and we *will* get to Mars *much* faster than by making this enormous engineering challenge our first priority.

 

[DarkenedOne]

First of all, when it comes to exploration I believe in letting the humans do what humans do best and letting our robot explorers do what they do best.

Robots are great for simple exploration, such as imaging objects, doing simple tests, and simple sample return missions. Robots can do these things at a much cheaper cost than humans. Humans are best for building and operating bases, which will be needed for advanced exploration.

The moon is the best place for the first of such bases. It is close. It has resources. I also has relatively low gravity.

 

[SteveCNC]

Probes are ok if you plan to send a few of them because our record and that of others isn't so perfect when it comes to probes . Sometimes their great and go far beyond the original mission and other times they crash , just don't function or go off target all together (metric conversion error as I recall) . So we have somewhere around a 3 in 5 success rate which isn't that bad but if your looking at the cost of a single probe , count again it will need at least 2 of those maybe 3 depending on luck to do the job your after . That's not to say probes don't have their place but don't look at it as if one probe is going to do the job .

 

[vulture4]

The focus needs to be on securing cheaper transport to LEO

Definitely the first step. Until we can lower the cost of human and cargo flight to LEO by at least an order of magnitude human flight beyond LEO will be unaffordable. The three destinations are all just different versions of Apollo. They are equivalent. None of them is sustainable This isn't the Sixties, and the geopolitical rationale for Apollo does not exist. Neither do the high taxes on the upper class that paid for it. The goal of NASA should be its real original mission, to provide practical benefits for America.

 

[emudude]

The focus needs to be on securing cheaper transport to LEO

Definitely the first step. Until we can lower the cost of human and cargo flight to LEO by at least an order of magnitude human flight beyond LEO will be unaffordable. The three destinations are all just different versions of Apollo. They are equivalent. None of them is sustainable This isn't the Sixties, and the geopolitical rationale for Apollo does not exist. Neither do the high taxes on the upper class that paid for it. The goal of NASA should be its real original mission, to provide practical benefits for America.

You've nailed it 100%. How about we start spending the massive amounts of money on enabling technologies like nuclear fusion which allow for more energy dense, sustainable, and affordable technologies?

 

[CoreDave]

The only realistic option there is asteroid mission,

Moon base is unaffordable with current launch costs, Mars in nigh on impossible with current tech and enormously risky for very little gain (a bit of science and a bit of prestige).

What we really need to focus on as a previous poster mentioned is lowering the cost of access to space. This is the barrier to all of the missions you mentioned. We as a species are not going to be living off world in any numbers until that issue is solved. Thats where all the funding should be going in my view. Not on pie in the sky missions that leave us more or less in exactly the same position once the dust from the foot prints settles. Fix cost to orbit and everything else will follow.

 

[Boris_Badenov]

The end goal of Space Travel/Exploration is Colonization.
Some time ago I figured the cost to return mined material from The Moon at $6000 per gram with todays tech. :shock: The cost to bring it back from an asteroid will be in the same neighborhood.
How do you bring that cost down? Create a destination way beyond LEO that requires repeat trips. A Mars Colony is the most viable solution to that problem. And guess who's 39 years old, owns his own rocket company & wants to retire on Mars? :ugeek: :mrgreen:

 

[emudude]

The end goal of Space Travel/Exploration is Colonization.
Some time ago I figured the cost to return mined material from The Moon at $6000 per gram with todays tech. :shock: The cost to bring it back from an asteroid will be in the same neighborhood.
How do you bring that cost down? Create a destination way beyond LEO that requires repeat trips. A Mars Colony is the most viable solution to that problem. And guess who's 39 years old, owns his own rocket company & wants to retire on Mars? :ugeek: :mrgreen:

I know, I know! :mrgreen:

Barring an 'act of god,' we'll see that happen. Nanotech and fusion will have come a long way by the time that guy's ready to retire. All the best to SpaceX in the meantime.

 

[rockett]

The focus needs to be on securing cheaper transport to LEO

Definitely the first step. Until we can lower the cost of human and cargo flight to LEO by at least an order of magnitude human flight beyond LEO will be unaffordable. The three destinations are all just different versions of Apollo. They are equivalent. None of them is sustainable This isn't the Sixties, and the geopolitical rationale for Apollo does not exist. Neither do the high taxes on the upper class that paid for it. The goal of NASA should be its real original mission, to provide practical benefits for America.

That's actually why we need Super Heavy Lift capability. Launch an in-orbit fuel depot in one shot (instead of a bunch of little ones like the ISS)

 

[menellom]

The focus on the commercial development in LEO, new technology and a new heavy lift launch vehicle are why I'm backing the Senate version of the NAB over the House's version. While there is (certainly justified) concern that the Senate's goal of a new HLV to replace the retired Shuttle and canceled Constellation architecture would not be completed by 2015, the big advantage the Senate bill has is that it funds commercial and technological development as a backup if the new HLV ends up taking longer. By cutting almost all the funding to commercial development and the COTS program, the House loses any kind of backup should Ares/Orion be further delayed, or should there turn out to be some design flaw, or god forbid an accident that grounds them.

Like I said already, arguing about a destination is pointless while we lack the capability of going anywhere.

 

[neutrino78x]

We need a fleet of Mars Direct Hab type modules, which can be adapted with standard modules to be used on any of the targets in the Poll. That way you can send someone to an asteroid, then a few months later send someone to the Moon, and then a few months later send a Mars Mission, mix, rinse, repeat.

Having said that, NASA and the Government should not be the provider of Vision. The government's place is to provide Law and Order, and Regulate those who Have Vision. Those would be SpaceX et al. You guys who want NASA missions BEO are stuck in 1969. As vulture4 said, the national security interest we had in going to the moon in 1969 no longer exists. In the future, for the most part, space exploration should be done by private parties, just as most Ships on The High Seas are not US Navy Ships.

--Brian

 

[Yuri_Armstrong]

We need a fleet of Mars Direct Hab type modules, which can be adapted with standard modules to be used on any of the targets in the Poll. That way you can send someone to an asteroid, then a few months later send someone to the Moon, and then a few months later send a Mars Mission, mix, rinse, repeat.

Having said that, NASA and the Government should not be the provider of Vision. The government's place is to provide Law and Order, and Regulate those who Have Vision. Those would be SpaceX et al. You guys who want NASA missions BEO are stuck in 1969. As vulture4 said, the national security interest we had in going to the moon in 1969 no longer exists. In the future, for the most part, space exploration should be done by private parties, just as most Ships on The High Seas are not US Navy Ships.

--Brian

That sounds nice from an anti-government perspective but those companies are not going to risk going beyond earth orbit until a government organization (not necessarily NASA) have got a base going at a BEO destination. They are going to go with what's cheapest and easiest, which is providing space tourism in LEO. I don't see why the government shouldn't provide vision, they have the most resources and their number one concern isn't making a profit. I think that private companies will be following in the footsteps of government work.

 

[Yuri_Armstrong]

Also I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Phobos or Deimos yet. They are both moons and asteroids and in Mars orbit. It would be a good compromise for all parties but it looks like the majority here including me think a lunar base is the next best step.

 

[menellom]

Also I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Phobos or Deimos yet. They are both moons and asteroids and in Mars orbit. It would be a good compromise for all parties but it looks like the majority here including me think a lunar base is the next best step.

That's supposedly the idea behind a mission to an asteroid.
Asteroid -> Phobos/Deimos -> Mars surface

Also, as far as whether 'vision' is the private sector's job or the public sector's - it seems to me the most ideal partnership between NASA and commercial spaceflight is that the public space program take the lead, developing the technology to reach and survive on different destinations, and then for the private companies to apply that technology and create infrastructure in NASA's wake. Or to put it simply - NASA blazes the trail, commercial spaceflight paves a highway behind them.

 

[SteveCNC]

You know as far as mars goes we still don't have a way to land a heavy object on it's surface in one piece . The best we have attained so far is our little rovers . And without landing a heavy object it would have to be a one way trip .

 

[Polishguy]

Mars Mission. The aerobrake will be the most complex part, but with sufficient engineering, we can solve that problem. After a quick dry-run on the Moon (to test the suits, rovers, and life-support while giving the astronauts useful work), we send them off to Mars. The hardware, however, should be made compatible with all mission plans. Mars-Direct style Hab Modules will be the core, designed for landings on Mars and the Moon (Zubrin details that option in The Case for Mars), and configured for asteroid missions (Hab Module with a small reentry capsule, perhaps no bigger than an Apollo CM with more seats, like the Skylab Rescue option). While Super Heavy Lift is the best option IMO (in that it can also be used for giant space stations, giant fuel depots, giant telescopes, and unmanned outer solar system missions), it can really be done in other configurations, like the Mars For Less plan in which the modules dock with fueled stages in LEO launched by rockets no stronger than Falcon 9 Heavy.

 

[neutrino78x]

Mars Mission. The aerobrake will be the most complex part, but with sufficient engineering, we can solve that problem. After a quick dry-run on the Moon (to test the suits, rovers, and life-support while giving the astronauts useful work), we send them off to Mars. The hardware, however, should be made compatible with all mission plans. Mars-Direct style Hab Modules will be the core, designed for landings on Mars and the Moon (Zubrin details that option in The Case for Mars), and configured for asteroid missions (Hab Module with a small reentry capsule, perhaps no bigger than an Apollo CM with more seats, like the Skylab Rescue option). While Super Heavy Lift is the best option IMO (in that it can also be used for giant space stations, giant fuel depots, giant telescopes, and unmanned outer solar system missions), it can really be done in other configurations, like the Mars For Less plan in which the modules dock with fueled stages in LEO launched by rockets no stronger than Falcon 9 Heavy.

Yes!!!! I could not agree more!!! If NASA is going to do any HSF missions it should be like this.

The answer to the poll is "all three"!!! In other words, the goal is conquest and colonization of space, not to just go to a certain point and stop. We want hardware that works in all three places.!!!

I strongly support Mars Direct, or at least Mars for Less, which is basically the same thing except using commercial rockets instead of a Heavy Lift rocket. I think Heavy Lift capability is more important for cargo than humans.

We should have multiple non-rocket techniques to lift cargo, as well, such as railguns, light gas guns, maglev catapults, laser launch, etc.

btw here is a good illustrated guide to Mars for Less, it is talking about a space sim project to simulate it.

--Brian

 

[neutrino78x]

So I was just reading one of those articles about it being difficult to land heavier payloads on Mars, but this passage stood out for me:

It's not that Mars' atmosphere is useless. Manning explained that with robotic spacecraft, 99% of the kinetic energy of an incoming vehicle is taken away using a heat shield in the atmosphere. "It's not inconceivable that we can design larger, lighter heat shields," he said, "but the problem is that right now the heat shield diameter for a human-capable spacecraft overwhelms any possibility of launching that vehicle from Earth." Manning added that it would almost be better if Mars were like the moon, with no atmosphere at all.

So basically, you can, in fact, aerobrake on Mars, you just might have to launch the heat shield separately, or perhaps fold it up and deploy it in space.

--Brian

 

[sftommy]

NASA's next goal should be to develop near Earth infrastructures to support deeper explorations as our capabilities improve.

on the other hand;
NASA's best goal may be to secure full funding for what it already has on its plate!