Mars Direct: How To Get To Mars With Existing Technology On A Budget We Can Afford!

[cpast]

Remember that internet web that SpaceX said they would build? And remember how they said they would use if for funding their Mars effort?

No; link?

[PB666]

I'm not really able to contribute much here that others haven't already touched on, but I think this one small point is worth looking at.

If a self-sufficient colony could be founded on the Moon or Mars, logically that colony would eventually become independent of the government that funded it. It would make no sense for a nation or a city-state or whatever to look to a capital on another planet for leadership. But that doesn't mean there is no long term benefit to the nation that originally founded the colony. I would think that such a colony, one that speaks your language and shares your cultural roots, would likely evolve into a valuable ally and trade partner.

Not in your lifetime, the only planet that becomes independent is the one that has the same orbit and atmosphere as earth, which means some other star system at some later time and independent out of necessity.

[Albert VDS]

Remember that internet web that SpaceX said they would build? And remember how they said they would use if for funding their Mars effort?

Remember that those plans were announced about a month ago?

So you think that a company can do that in a span of 1 month?

[Ten Key]

Not in your lifetime, the only planet that becomes independent is the one that has the same orbit and atmosphere as earth, which means some other star system at some later time and independent out of necessity.

No, not in my lifetime. But someday. Mars has oxygen, Mars has water, and Mars has rocket fuel. In terms of dV, Mars is closer to the Earth than our moon is. And it takes less energy to launch a rocket from the surface of Mars than it does to launch one from Earth. Someday there will be people living on Mars, and while they will be relatively few in number, they will have a disproportionate say in whatever else goes on in our solar system.

[FishInferno]

Remember that those plans were announced about a month ago?

So you think that a company can do that in a span of 1 month?

I never said they could do it in a month:P

[Albert VDS]

Then what was your point?

[FishInferno]

Then what was your point?

That they are going to build them sometime in the near future to fund the Mars effort. The moon landings didn't happen a month after Kennedy's speech.

[Bill Phil]

That they are going to build them sometime in the near future to fund the Mars effort. The moon landings didn't happen a month after Kennedy's speech.

But they had billions of dollars.

[Nibb31]

That they are going to build them sometime in the near future to fund the Mars effort. The moon landings didn't happen a month after Kennedy's speech.

Wake me up when they have earned $10 billion of pure profit.

There is already a huge competition among ISPs around the world. It will not be easy to compete against fiber optics, vdsl3 and 5G radio networks. Lots of competition means lower margins, which means that it will take a looooooong time to earn enough money to fund a Mars expedition.

And again, regardless of where they get the money from, it would be an investment not just a money sink. You only invest that sort of money if you expect a return on that investment, meaning that you still need to find actual customers that are willing to pay for tickets to Mars.

[Albert VDS]

I never said they could do it in a month:P

I misunderstood, I thought you meant it in a negative way towards SpaceX.

As in it being a ridiculous plan.

[PB666]

No, not in my lifetime. But someday. Mars has oxygen, Mars has water, and Mars has rocket fuel. In terms of dV, Mars is closer to the Earth than our moon is. And it takes less energy to launch a rocket from the surface of Mars than it does to launch one from Earth. Someday there will be people living on Mars, and while they will be relatively few in number, they will have a disproportionate say in whatever else goes on in our solar system.

This is more romantic than it is well-thought out. This whole mars colony would be nothing but a great dependency on Earth, it would not place resources into the solar system it would consume resources like a coal-fired steam locomotive with a leaky boiler until gov'ts pulled the plug on the operation. If you want lots of carbon and oxygen just make take ammonium oxalate and transport it wherever that still is going to be cheaper than shipping the CO2 refining infrastructure to mars and build your colony on Phobos (once you have cleaned your base site, no dust storms, no need for extensive solar panel infra-structures).

[peadar1987]

That would be an amazingly inefficient and dangerous way of exploring the planet. I would go with unmanned quadcopter drones or even blimps. But then if they're unmanned, why build a base on the surface in the first place?

You would get genuine benefits from having a human in the loop without signal delay. You could probably move a robotic rover several km in a day, as opposed to several metres, and return samples for human analysis in a Mars-based lab. Whether those benefits outweigh the huge cost of actually putting those humans on Mars is debatable.

[Nibb31]

You would get genuine benefits from having a human in the loop without signal delay. You could probably move a robotic rover several km in a day, as opposed to several metres, and return samples for human analysis in a Mars-based lab. Whether those benefits outweigh the huge cost of actually putting those humans on Mars is debatable.

Yes, as you say, it would be faster, but at a huge cost. The question is what is the point of getting faster results and how much are we prepared to pay to do so. There is no hurry, so no real disadvantage in slower paced but affordable research.

[PB666]

Yes, as you say, it would be faster, but at a huge cost. The question is what is the point of getting faster results and how much are we prepared to pay to do so. There is no hurry, so no real disadvantage in slower paced but affordable research.

There are diminishing returns to Mars Rovers anyway, what is there now 4 versions of wheel landers (not counting the beagle, who apparently is still dozing in space sleep stage). Once the ESA and ASIANS have done their versions of the Rovers, it would be better to pick a spot and go down.

[Bill Phil]

Intensive research of one particular area would be invaluable. It could tell us what happened to the area around.

[peadar1987]

Yes, as you say, it would be faster, but at a huge cost. The question is what is the point of getting faster results and how much are we prepared to pay to do so. There is no hurry, so no real disadvantage in slower paced but affordable research.

Indeed, but by that same token, why bother doing anything. Why send Viking and Mariner when we could just have waited and sent Curiosity? Why send Curiosity when we will be able to do better science in 20, 50, 100 years time?

[Bill Phil]

Indeed, but by that same token, why bother doing anything. Why send Viking and Mariner when we could just have waited and sent Curiosity? Why send Curiosity when we will be able to do better science in 20, 50, 100 years time?

Because the new probes don't always go the same area.

[Kibble]

Because the new probes don't always go the same area.

I believe Peadar was being sarcastic to make a point.

[Kryten]

Indeed, but by that same token, why bother doing anything. Why send Viking and Mariner when we could just have waited and sent Curiosity? Why send Curiosity when we will be able to do better science in 20, 50, 100 years time?

You probably wouldn't have Curiosity without Viking, and certainly wouldn't with Pathfinder and MER. Any planetary probe is a masterpiece of systems engineering and technological hardening and miniaturisation; if you try to produce a complex one right off the bat with a small, inexperienced planetary community, you will fail. That's the mistake the Russians keep making.

[Albert VDS]

Yes, as you say, it would be faster, but at a huge cost. The question is what is the point of getting faster results and how much are we prepared to pay to do so. There is no hurry, so no real disadvantage in slower paced but affordable research.

The distance Opportunity traveled on Mars(40km) could easily be done by a human in a day, that's 11 years of roving in 1 day.

Zubbrin mentioned that the manned rover in the Mars Direct's plan could drive 965km, let's say it does halve of distance: 482.5km.

That's more than 10 times the distance of what Opportunity traveled in whole mission. They would spend 500 days on the surface,

that's more than 500 opportunity rovers. The cost of Spirit and Opportunity's primary mission was $820 million, were only looking at 1 rover

so it's $410 million(and we're not even counting the cost of the mission extensions).

So 500 times $410 equals to $205 billion. Estimated cost of Mars Direct $55 billion. But that was in 1993, so let's say it's double that, so $110 billion.

That's "a bit" over halve of 500 rovers.

That's only the distance traveled. Imagine all the other things that an astronaut could better and fast:

- Explorer the area of points of interest.

- Go to that area and examine that area in the same day.

- Examine rocks and retrieving them for further study.

- Drill or dig deeper.

- Can visit the same area multiple times.

Now you can argue that we shouldn't risk a human life(or multiple), but driving a car is statistically not safe thing to do but we do it anyway.

But not sending anyone to make sure no one gets killed is a dumb reason.

"Hey honey, we're not going to you mother's house because we might get killed in traffic!"

But with that attitude we wont get anywhere.

[Kibble]

*snip*

Orlan spacesuit (and the Apollo A7L suit) only has 7 hours of life support, and EMU has 8. If a Mars buggy travelled at the same speed as LRV (11 km/h) you could only go a maximum of 40 km from the base. But you can go in different directions, so the visitable areas during the expedition would be a circle of 40 km radius. Operationally, they probably wouldn't go that far though in order to maximize the amount of the drive in which, if the buggy broke, the astronauts could walk back to the laboratory. And minimize the black zone where if they lose Mars Buggy, they die.

Although if there are two buggies they could have the second one ready to drive over and rescue them - that might make it safer to explore the whole 5000 square kilometers surrounding the base.

[Nibb31]

The distance Opportunity traveled on Mars(40km) could easily be done by a human in a day, that's 11 years of roving in 1 day.

I'd like to see you walk 40km in space suit on irregular terrain and in partial gravity. That would take you over 10 hours, which exceeds the life support of any current EVA suit.

But again, what is the point of covering 40km in one day? Surface exploration is not about speed. There is no rush. The rocks aren't going anywhere. If you are studying geology, you need to actually go slow. What matters is recording as much data as you can and picking the correct samples in the area that you are surveying. To do that, you actually need to go slowly, not go rally driving or running a marathon.

Zubbrin mentioned that the manned rover in the Mars Direct's plan could drive 965km, let's say it does halve of distance: 482.5km.

That's more than 10 times the distance of what Opportunity traveled in whole mission. They would spend 500 days on the surface,

that's more than 500 opportunity rovers. The cost of Spirit and Opportunity's primary mission was $820 million, were only looking at 1 rover

so it's $410 million(and we're not even counting the cost of the mission extensions).

So 500 times $410 equals to $205 billion. Estimated cost of Mars Direct $55 billion. But that was in 1993, so let's say it's double that, so $110 billion.

That's "a bit" over halve of 500 rovers.

That's silly. You don't measure scientific relevance by mileage or speed. It's not a race.

A manned rover's range is limited to a rather small radius around the hab module or the ascent vehicle and for each km that you drive away from the base, you need to drive back.

The range of Apollo's LRV was limited by the fact that the astronauts had to be able to walk back to the LM if the LRV broke down. The general procedure was to drive out to the range limit, and then do the sampling work on the way back, so that as their life support diminished, so did the distance.

With one rover, you are limited, for safety, to a radius of say a 5 hour walk (if you have 8 hours of life support). The furthest the Apollo LRV went from the LM was 7.6km. If you want to extend your range beyond that, you actually need two crews and two rovers, so that a second crew can drive out to rescue the first crew if necessary.

So, if you spending 500 days surveying an area of 80 km², you are going to rapidly reach a point of dimishing returns. My guess is that you will have made 80% of your objectives in the first 30 days. Also, remember that humans need to drive back to their base, they need to eat, sleep, rest, which adds more constraints and limits their capacity. They have to monitor their life support equipment, their driving environment, their supplies. Their main mission objective is to stay alive.

A robot has a team of 20 people monitoring the robot itself and every single centimeter of its environment with all sorts of sensors. While a human in a dune buggy, concentrating on his life support and getting back to base before dark, might drive straight by an interesting rock, a rover simply can't miss it.

That's only the distance traveled. Imagine all the other things that an astronaut could better and fast:

- Explorer the area of points of interest.

- Go to that area and examine that area in the same day.

- Examine rocks and retrieving them for further study.

- Drill or dig deeper.

- Can visit the same area multiple times.

You could do all that with a robot too, if the robot was designed to do it.

If you can land a 30 ton manned mission, you could also land a 30-ton unmanned mission, with several high-speed 2-ton dune-buggy rovers, spare parts, a central lab, a sample return rocket, and maybe even maintenance Robonauts to change the oil on the rovers when they get back. It would still cost a fraction of the cost of a manned mission, could cover more total kilometers (since that seems to be important to you) and would work beyond the 500 days of Zubrin's plan.

But with that attitude we wont get anywhere.

One of the things humanity is good at, something that sets us apart from other known species, is that we use tools. Tools enable us to do things that we couldn't do, they enhance our capabilities. "We" are currently exploring Mars by using the best tools for the job, which are robots and telepresence. They are an extensions of our senses, just like we use binoculars or microscopes. When the best way to accomplish something is to use the proper tool, there is no glory is pulling a nail with your teeth.

Edited March 9, 2015 by Nibb31

[Albert VDS]

Orlan spacesuit (and the Apollo A7L suit) only has 7 hours of life support, and EMU has 8. If a Mars buggy travelled at the same speed as LRV (11 km/h) you could only go a maximum of 40 km from the base. But you can go in different directions, so the visitable areas during the expedition would be a circle of 40 km radius. Operationally, they probably wouldn't go that far though in order to maximize the amount of the drive in which, if the buggy broke, the astronauts could walk back to the laboratory. And minimize the black zone where if they lose Mars Buggy, they die.

Although if there are two buggies they could have the second one ready to drive over and rescue them - that might make it safer to explore the whole 5000 square kilometers surrounding the base.

I'd like to see you walk 40km in space suit on irregular terrain and in partial gravity. That would take you over 10 hours, which exceeds the life support of any current EVA suit.

Why would you want to use an open buggy? Mars Direct would use a pressurized rover. The astronauts could stay in the rover if it broke down. It would also be quite obvious to bring equipment along for repairs.

But again, what is the point of covering 40km in one day? Surface exploration is not about speed. There is no rush. The rocks aren't going anywhere. If you are studying geology, you need to actually go slow. What matters is recording as much data as you can and picking the correct samples in the area that you are surveying. To do that, you actually need to go slowly, not go rally driving or running a marathon.

That's silly. You don't measure scientific relevance by mileage or speed. It's not a race.

It was one example of what a human can do better than a robotic rover. The fact that you can is only a plus.

A manned rover's range is limited to a rather small radius around the hab module or the ascent vehicle and for each km that you drive away from the base, you need to drive back.

The range of Apollo's LRV was limited by the fact that the astronauts had to be able to walk back to the LM if the LRV broke down. The general procedure was to drive out to the range limit, and then do the sampling work on the way back, so that as their life support diminished, so did the distance.

With one rover, you are limited, for safety, to a radius of say a 5 hour walk (if you have 8 hours of life support). The furthest the Apollo LRV went from the LM was 7.6km. If you want to extend your range beyond that, you actually need two crews and two rovers, so that a second crew can drive out to rescue the first crew if necessary.

Note pressurized rover.

So, if you spending 500 days surveying an area of 80 km², you are going to rapidly reach a point of dimishing returns. My guess is that you will have made 80% of your objectives in the first 30 days. Also, remember that humans need to drive back to their base, they need to eat, sleep, rest, which adds more constraints and limits their capacity. They have to monitor their life support equipment, their driving environment, their supplies. Their main mission objective is to stay alive.

Or an area of 731382km if you actually have a pressurized rover.

You could do all that with a robot too, if the robot was designed to do it.

If you can land a 30 ton manned mission, you could also land a 30-ton unmanned mission, with several high-speed 2-ton dune-buggy rovers, spare parts, a central lab, a sample return rocket, and maybe even maintenance Robonauts to change the oil on the rovers when they get back. It would still cost a fraction of the cost of a manned mission, could cover more total kilometers (since that seems to be important to you) and would work beyond the 500 days of Zubrin's plan.

But first you would need to design a 2-ton high speed 2 ton dune buggy which doesn't crash itself into it's surroundings. A rover to repair the main rover, how else would it repair it if it can't get to it. Maybe a 2nd repair rover to repair the repair rover.

And robonauts? Really? How well do you think that would work?

One of the things humanity is good at, something that sets us apart from other known species, is that we use tools. Tools enable us to do things that we couldn't do, they enhance our capabilities. "We" are currently exploring Mars by using the best tools for the job, which are robots and telepresence. They are an extensions of our senses, just like we use binoculars or microscopes. When the best way to accomplish something is to use the proper tool, there is no glory is pulling a nail with your teeth.

There are only 2 reasons to send a robotic rover; it's cheap and it's safer. It's far from cost effective; it takes "ages" to get anything done, if it or something breaks their only option is to live with it, it's not equipped for unplanned discovery opportunities and the same spot is never researched again once a rover has been there.

[Nibb31]

Why would you want to use an open buggy? Mars Direct would use a pressurized rover. The astronauts could stay in the rover if it broke down. It would also be quite obvious to bring equipment along for repairs.

Of course the rover would be pressurized, but if it gets stuck in the sand or breaks down at more than walking distance from the base, the rover's life support won't help them walk back. Two pressurized rovers is a hard safety requirement if you want to venture beyond a safe walking distance.

But first you would need to design a 2-ton high speed 2 ton dune buggy which doesn't crash itself into it's surroundings. A rover to repair the main rover, how else would it repair it if it can't get to it. Maybe a 2nd repair rover to repair the repair rover.

And robonauts? Really? How well do you think that would work?

A manned Mars mission won't happen until at least 2030. We already have self-driving cars and autonomous rovers. The "dune buggy" thing was sarcasm, since you seem to be obsessed by speed, but it's not much of a stretch to think that in 15 years we can have autonomous off-roaders that can drive around Mars terrain at 20km/h or more (if that speed was useful, which it isn't). And I don't see why you couldn't send an improved Robonaut or some sort of AI-assisted RMS to replace spare parts or perform routine maintenance. You could even at least partially teleoperate them. The latency isn't much of a problem because you're in no hurry and the stuff you're fixing isn't going to be moving around.

There are only 2 reasons to send a robotic rover; it's cheap and it's safer. It's far from cost effective; it takes "ages" to get anything done, if it or something breaks their only option is to live with it, it's not equipped for unplanned discovery opportunities and the same spot is never researched again once a rover has been there.

You're talking about current rovers, which are fragile and designed to fit on an EELV. They are slow because of power constraints. They are fragile because they have limited redundancy. The number of instruments is limited by the weight of the platform. If you gave a robotic the same weight constraints as a manned mission, it would be capable of carrying more science payload than a manned mission, because it wouldn't have to carry all the life support and supplies to keep the squishy things alive.

There's no inherent reason why a rover couldn't be designed to revisit a place previously visited. Nor is there an inherent reason why it couldn't be equipped with redundancies to make it more reliable, with a multi-purpose RMS to fix itself, and more lab analysis equipment, more sample return capability, and so on.

Cheap and safe are pretty much of the essence. Once again, who cares if it takes ages. What's the rush? Mars isn't going anywhere. Actually doing what we can afford is much more productive than sitting around for decades dreaming about we might be able to do in a hypothetical future. Again, there is no glory in refusing to use the best tools for the job. We send robots to inspect nuclear reactor cores, collapsed buildings or underwater pipelines because they are the best tools for the job. It might be more "glamorous" to send real people to do those jobs, and their might be a small benefit in capability, but it would be simply stupid considering the risk and the cost.

Edited March 9, 2015 by Nibb31

[Albert VDS]

Of course the rover would be pressurized, but if it gets stuck in the sand or breaks down at more than walking distance from the base, the rover's life support won't help them walk back. Two pressurized rovers is a hard safety requirement if you want to venture beyond a safe walking distance.

You are assuming that a breakdown or getting stuck would strand the rover. It would be designed get out of such situations.

A manned Mars mission won't happen until at least 2030. We already have self-driving cars and autonomous rovers. The "dune buggy" thing was sarcasm, since you seem to be obsessed by speed, but it's not much of a stretch to think that in 15 years we can have autonomous off-roaders that can drive around Mars terrain at 20km/h or more (if that speed was useful, which it isn't). And I don't see why you couldn't send an improved Robonaut or some sort of AI-assisted RMS to replace spare parts or perform routine maintenance. You could even at least partially teleoperate them. The latency isn't much of a problem because you're in no hurry and the stuff you're fixing isn't going to be moving around.

You should look at the speed part as getting things done now instead of 30 years down the road. Give me one example, besides robotic space exploration, where such an approach is acceptable.

The reason why we don't have fast driving robotic rovers on Mars is safety, you don't want it to tip over, run in a ditch, break something, etc. Time delay is an important factor here as you can't intervene in something which happened 14 minutes ago.

What are you envisioning what a Robonaut would look like? Would it be able to walk? Would it be a halve rover halve robonaut setup? What can a robonaut do what a human can't? You also have to consider that it would take a lot of extra money to development cost and time to create something with those capabilities.

You're talking about current rovers, which are fragile and designed to fit on an EELV. They are slow because of power constraints. They are fragile because they have limited redundancy. The number of instruments is limited by the weight of the platform. If you gave a robotic the same weight constraints as a manned mission, it would be capable of carrying more science payload than a manned mission, because it wouldn't have to carry all the life support and supplies to keep the squishy things alive.

Their also slow because they need to assess each cm they travel, one false move and it's mission failed.

A larger, and thus more complex robotic mission, has a bigger chance of failing without the option to fix it.

There's no inherent reason why a rover couldn't be designed to revisit a place previously visited. Nor is there an inherent reason why it couldn't be equipped with redundancies to make it more reliable, with a multi-purpose RMS to fix itself, and more lab analysis equipment, more sample return capability, and so on.

Sure if it could travel faster, throwing caution in the win, then yes it could go back and visit previous sites. It couldn't do experiments it wasn't designed for. They also don't send the next mission to the same place.

More redundancies is a good point, though it would weigh it down, which would require more power. But the same could be said for a manned rover.

Is a repair robotic rover really feasible? I could see it fixing a wheel. But what if electronic components break down or if it gets stuck in a ditch?

What if the sample transfer part breaks? What if the rover position of it hinders the repair rover?

Cheap and safe are pretty much of the essence. Once again, who cares if it takes ages. What's the rush? Mars isn't going anywhere. Actually doing what we can afford is much more productive than sitting around for decades dreaming about we might be able to do in a hypothetical future. Again, there is no glory in refusing to use the best tools for the job. We send robots to inspect nuclear reactor cores, collapsed buildings or underwater pipelines because they are the best tools for the job. It might be more "glamorous" to send real people to do those jobs, and their might be a small benefit in capability, but it would be simply stupid considering the risk and the cost.

Again, why is it taking "ages" OK? Al those other things you mentioned don't require humans on site, but they require a certain amount of speed. You don't want status on a nuclear reactor core 2 years later. Collapsed building, underwater pipelines, they all require it to be done in time frame of days, maybe weeks, but not years.