Fallacy of excluded choices: Moon or Mars - but what are the other choices?

[cpast]

Would it be that hard to make a facility in orbit last a few months?

Heck, during Gemini they could launch every 6 weeks. It was smaller, though... Not to mention a replacement rocket in a few DAYS for the failed Atlas-Agena Target Vehicle (on one particular mission...)

You missed the "if there's a pipeline" bit. The time it takes to build something from scratch is much, much higher than the time between rockets built in parallel (when one Gemini mission was rolled to the pad, the next was already mostly finished). If you aren't launching a bunch of identical things, that won't help you; you can't build from scratch in days, or weeks, and months is seriously pushing it. Which is why the rest of the mission has to be able to go without for a good while, unless you're building lots of identical things at once.

For the replacement docking target: They did not build it in days. They had already built it before launching the first one, as a backup (which doesn't work if the modules are very expensive). And in their rush to launch the already-built rocket, they made mistakes that led to mission failure on the replacement (it could not be docked with, only rendezvoused with).

[Bill Phil]

You missed the "if there's a pipeline" bit. The time it takes to build something from scratch is much, much higher than the time between rockets built in parallel (when one Gemini mission was rolled to the pad, the next was already mostly finished). If you aren't launching a bunch of identical things, that won't help you; you can't build from scratch in days, or weeks, and months is seriously pushing it. Which is why the rest of the mission has to be able to go without for a good while, unless you're building lots of identical things at once.

For the replacement docking target: They did not build it in days. They had already built it before launching the first one, as a backup (which doesn't work if the modules are very expensive). And in their rush to launch the already-built rocket, they made mistakes that led to mission failure on the replacement (it could not be docked with, only rendezvoused with).

They had a pipeline, essentially. For Gemini, I mean.

The Saturn Vs got about 3 launches in a year.

I wouldn't say I missed the bit. I saw it, read it, understood it, and then came up with and argument. A pipeline is not the only way to have multiple launch vehicles in a short amount of time. There are others...

Anyhow, building from scratch when the problem arises may not be good on Earth, but on orbit, it's a whole new story. Basically, if you can get a station that builds craft in orbit, to orbit, you can make more craft in orbit.

[cpast]

They had a pipeline, essentially. For Gemini, I mean.

The Saturn Vs got about 3 launches in a year.

I wouldn't say I missed the bit. I saw it, read it, understood it, and then came up with and argument. A pipeline is not the only way to have multiple launch vehicles in a short amount of time. There are others...

Anyhow, building from scratch when the problem arises may not be good on Earth, but on orbit, it's a whole new story. Basically, if you can get a station that builds craft in orbit, to orbit, you can make more craft in orbit.

What are the other ways you're talking about? We're in agreement on Gemini. And, for that matter, on Saturn V. If you're building in parallel, you have much less time to wait. But that only works if you're already building a copy of the exact same vehicle when the first one fails, which means you have to plan on building several of these things. And that costs money; lots of it.

[Bill Phil]

What are the other ways you're talking about? We're in agreement on Gemini. And, for that matter, on Saturn V. If you're building in parallel, you have much less time to wait. But that only works if you're already building a copy of the exact same vehicle when the first one fails, which means you have to plan on building several of these things. And that costs money; lots of it.

Building fastly. For one. But that's not quite an option...

I don't know of any particular examples of non-pipeline construction... Umm... Imagine pre-assmbly line production styles...

[cpast]

Building fastly. For one. But that's not quite an option...

I don't know of any particular examples of non-pipeline construction... Umm... Imagine pre-assmbly line production styles...

By "pipeline," I don't quite mean that. What I mean is that production will proceed in parallel. SLS, for instance, doesn't seem like it'll be like that; it'll have few enough missions that at launch, the next rocket has either not started or is not far along. Most missions are like that; they spend lots of time and effort building a mission part, but only build the one. It's actually quite rare to want to build several of the exact same payload.

[PB666]

Deimos.

Deimos is actually closer to Earth (in terms of delta-v) than the surface of the Moon. And there's a pretty good chance that there's significant quantities of water ice there. And if you have ice, you have remass. And if you have enough remass, you can go anywhere.

(The incredibly informative site, Atomic Rockets, has tons more info about a potential Deimos base here: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/appcapedread.php)

On the subject of using large rockets for everything, I would argue that you really shouldn't be using large rockets at all. It's easier to build your big ship/station in orbit instead of launching it in one go. It's why Lunar Orbit Rendezvous was chosen over Direct Ascent for Apollo. Doing Earth Orbital Rendezvous instead of LOR would have allowed them to use an even smaller rocket, but would have required more launches per mission.

Over time maybe, the mass conversion to chemical energy strorage will take electricity. A electrolysis cell of extended life greater than 50% are not common, and mars produces 1/9th the electric power as earth, the inefficiency is actually a good thing since you have to keep the electrolysis warm to keep it operational. It would take a very long time to create enough hydrogen to go 'anywhere' inside the orbit of Neptune. Besides make hydrogen, it also has to pump hydrogen and also move terrain and scavenge the soil for water.

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Boil-off isn't nearly as bad once you get into space, since vacuum is a really great insulator. And if you're going to Mars, you probably want to use methane as your fuel (to take advantage of ISRU), reducing boil-off even further.

Multiple launches also spreads the risk around. If one of the launches fails, you can delay the mission until the next launch window without having to relaunch everything. If a single rocket mission fails at launch, there goes your entire mission.

Rockets don't scale linearly with payload. A rocket that can lift 75 metric tons is far less than half the size of one that can lift 150 metric tons.

A large amount of the cost of the ISS is due to politics, and the use of the space shuttle (which had so many problems, I could dedicate twenty pages to describing how stupid it was as a launch vehicle). MIR is probably a better estimate of the costs of building an orbital station or large interplanetary ship.

Shuttle as a people carrier was stupid, but as for a multipurpose carrier and people carrier is was rather versatile. I like the shuttle and I think its expenditure was rather miniscule. If you want to compare stupid with stupid lets talk about the Beagle or the mars missions that have disappeared. The shuttle was close to 99% successful in what it did. The fact is the US could afford the shuttle program, it could have been modernized and made more efficient or increase its payload to carry larger things to the space station. In the time we spend argueing about what the next platform should be, we could have executed a dozen shuttle missions, we could have assembled a mars mission in space. We talk about momentum in orbital mechanics and its importance, the shuttle program had momentum and we lost it.

If you think about the Apollo mission (very expensive compared to shuttle) had we kept it going we would not be worrying about where the next base would be, we would probably already have bases on mars and the moon.

[GreenWolf]

Shuttle as a people carrier was stupid, but as for a multipurpose carrier and people carrier is was rather versatile. I like the shuttle and I think its expenditure was rather miniscule. If you want to compare stupid with stupid lets talk about the Beagle or the mars missions that have disappeared. The shuttle was close to 99% successful in what it did. The fact is the US could afford the shuttle program, it could have been modernized and made more efficient or increase its payload to carry larger things to the space station. In the time we spend argueing about what the next platform should be, we could have executed a dozen shuttle missions, we could have assembled a mars mission in space. We talk about momentum in orbital mechanics and its importance, the shuttle program had momentum and we lost it.

If you think about the Apollo mission (very expensive compared to shuttle) had we kept it going we would not be worrying about where the next base would be, we would probably already have bases on mars and the moon.

The shuttle was stupid. Political interference meant that they tried to get it to do everything, but instead, it ended up being able to nothing well. The only thing it did that couldn't be done better and cheaper with rockets was payload return to Earth. There's a reason the Air Force developed the EELV program to replace the shuttle as a launch vehicle.

I mean, at the end of its life, the shuttle was basically nothing more than a people carrier, and a space truck for the ISS. It was planned to be able to service satellites in orbit, but launches of it were so expensive, nobody but the government could afford it. And the government decided it was cheaper and easier to just replace broken satellites, and eventually started using EELV launchers instead of the shuttle.

The shuttle was also an incredibly poorly designed and operated vehicle. If you want an idea of what I'm talking about go read Appendix F of the Rogers Commission (linked here). The decision to use solid rocket boosters (and then continue using them after Challenger was lost) was incredibly stupid, and is just one of many examples of safety and reliability being sacrificed in a futile effort to try and reduce costs. The fact that only two of the shuttles were lost is almost a miracle.

TL;DR: The Space Shuttle was an incredibly expensive deathtrap that failed at doing anything other than killing 14 people.

[PB666]

TL;DR: The Space Shuttle was an incredibly expensive deathtrap that failed at doing anything other than killing 14 people.

Hey, I hear Kim Jun Un needs advice with this space program, you might apply

[cpast]

The Shuttle was also, from a numbers standpoint, the most successful manned launch vehicle in history. It had more launches than any other system, in around 60% of the time it took the closest competitor to *approach* the same number of flights. This is leaving out that the Shuttle's crew capacity was over twice that of any other launch vehicle ever made, which is even more significant when you realize that having a crew of 7 opens up 5 slots for people who don't need to be fully qualified to handle emergencies in the spacecraft, which means the Shuttle could fly more mission specialists than any other spacecraft in history could fly total people.

If you're complaining about spaceflight being in low Earth orbit, that has nothing to do with any particular technology; it's a factor of no one wanting to spend money on manned missions beyond Earth orbit, because there's honestly serious question about how much it'd be worth the money (Apollo got funding in large part because of PR value; it had significant scientific value, but it wasn't funded because Congress thought the science was worth that much money). Meanwhile, Shuttle was rather successful at station assembly, was also rather successful at satellite repair (see: Hubble), and complaining that it was a manned space truck overlooks that that was the entire point of the program.

[GreenWolf]

The Shuttle was also, from a numbers standpoint, the most successful manned launch vehicle in history. It had more launches than any other system, in around 60% of the time it took the closest competitor to *approach* the same number of flights.

This is patently, absurdly false. Soyuz is the most successful manned launch vehicle/spacecraft in history, with both more launches and fewer people killed (4 vs the Shuttle's 14). Oh, and it's been in service for 50 years now, and probably will be for another 50. And it's a lot cheaper than the Shuttle ever was.

This is leaving out that the Shuttle's crew capacity was over twice that of any other launch vehicle ever made, which is even more significant when you realize that having a crew of 7 opens up 5 slots for people who don't need to be fully qualified to handle emergencies in the spacecraft, which means the Shuttle could fly more mission specialists than any other spacecraft in history could fly total people.

This also means more people killed if there's an accident. Also, when it's cheaper to launch a half dozen Soyuz than it is to launch one Shuttle, being able to carry seven people isn't that big of an advantage.

If you're complaining about spaceflight being in low Earth orbit, that has nothing to do with any particular technology; it's a factor of no one wanting to spend money on manned missions beyond Earth orbit, because there's honestly serious question about how much it'd be worth the money (Apollo got funding in large part because of PR value; it had significant scientific value, but it wasn't funded because Congress thought the science was worth that much money).

This is correct. However, the Shuttle sucked up a huge amount of funding that could have been better spent on other things, like more and better deep space probes, or actually building that massive space station they wanted to build in the 70s in the decade it was planned for.

Meanwhile, Shuttle was rather successful at station assembly, was also rather successful at satellite repair (see: Hubble), and complaining that it was a manned space truck overlooks that that was the entire point of the program.

The Shuttle massed over 100 metric tons, with a payload capacity of about 20 metric tons. By comparison, the Proton has a payload of 20 metric tons, and is far cheaper than the Shuttle, since it doesn't waste launch capacity trying to boost a 100 ton brick into orbit every time it launches a payload. The 35 Shuttle flights to the ISS cost somewhere around 50 billion dollars. Compare that to the 4.2 billion dollars spent on the entire Mir project, including the six Proton launches to assemble it. Yeah, if I'm building a station in orbit, I'm gonna go with Proton over Shuttle any day.

Additionaly, the Hubble repair mission was basically a one-off thing. Sending the Shuttle up to repair a satellite is almost always more expensive than just replacing the sat, with Hubble being a notable exception (and it still probably would have been cheaper to replace it).

[Bill Phil]

Do you realize that the Russians had to rude on the US for the last decade of Mir or so?

Hubble was repaired because they couldn't build another cheaply at all. Not to mention the terrible press. The manned program would be dead entirely if Hibble wasn't repaired successfully.

[GreenWolf]

Do you realize that the Russians had to rude on the US for the last decade of Mir or so?

Shuttle-Mir happened at a point in time where Russia had basically no money, what with the collapse of the Soviet Union and all. Shuttle-Mir was the US agreeing to cover some of the costs of Mir in exchange for getting to send astronauts up to it. Some cosmonauts flew on the shuttle, and some astronauts flew on Soyuz. With the US's money, the Russians were finally able to send up the last few Mir modules. And the experienced gained from Shuttle-Mir was directly used in the construction of the USOS for the ISS. But the use of the shuttle in building the ISS is one of the reasons why it cost so much more than Mir.

[Bill Phil]

Shuttle-Mir happened at a point in time where Russia had basically no money, what with the collapse of the Soviet Union and all. Shuttle-Mir was the US agreeing to cover some of the costs of Mir in exchange for getting to send astronauts up to it. Some cosmonauts flew on the shuttle, and some astronauts flew on Soyuz. With the US's money, the Russians were finally able to send up the last few Mir modules. And the experienced gained from Shuttle-Mir was directly used in the construction of the USOS for the ISS. But the use of the shuttle in building the ISS is one of the reasons why it cost so much more than Mir.

It actually cost much more than that four billion dollars. It cost a few billion per year to maintain. I'd say that value you have is the maintenance cost...

[GreenWolf]

It actually cost much more than that four billion dollars. It cost a few billion per year to maintain. I'd say that value you have is the maintenance cost...

Uh, I'm gonna call BS on this. Encyclopedia Astronautica lists the cost to keep it operational as $220 million per year. Yuri Koptev, Director of Roscosmos, has gone on record stating the entire Mir program cost $4.2 billion dollars. Unless you can give me some hard sources backing up your statement, I'm gonna go with Mr. Koptev's estimate.

Link to web archive of NY Times Article with Koptev's statement: Here

Link to Encyclopedia Astronautica article on Mir: Here

Other random link: Here

Edited March 13, 2015 by GreenWolf
missed a million after 220

[Kibble]

Uh, I'm gonna call BS on this. Encyclopedia Astronautica lists the cost to keep it operational as $220 per year. Yuri Koptev, Director of Roscosmos, has gone on record stating the entire Mir program cost $4.2 billion dollars. Unless you can give me some hard sources backing up your statement, I'm gonna go with Mr. Koptev's estimate.

If that information is accurate...wow! Chelomei might of been a bad influence on the Soviet Space Program, but his rocket sure went on to do great things.

[Bill Phil]

Uh, I'm gonna call BS on this. Encyclopedia Astronautica lists the cost to keep it operational as $220 million per year. Yuri Koptev, Director of Roscosmos, has gone on record stating the entire Mir program cost $4.2 billion dollars. Unless you can give me some hard sources backing up your statement, I'm gonna go with Mr. Koptev's estimate.

Link to web archive of NY Times Article with Koptev's statement: Here

Link to Encyclopedia Astronautica article on Mir: Here

Other random link: Here

That article lists the gross mass as 21 mTs... It's much more than that.

Anyhow, it may have been cheap. But compare it's size and tonnage to the ISS': ~120,000 kg and ~300 cubic meters of room with 3 crewmembers average for Mir, compared to 400,000+ kg and 6 constant crewmembers with ~900 cubic meters of room on the ISS. The comparison is, not a very good one...

Not to mention the fact that they used lots of cheap labor... Which is technically a cheat.

[GreenWolf]

That article lists the gross mass as 21 mTs... It's much more than that.

Anyhow, it may have been cheap. But compare it's size and tonnage to the ISS': ~120,000 kg and ~300 cubic meters of room with 3 crewmembers average for Mir, compared to 400,000+ kg and 6 constant crewmembers with ~900 cubic meters of room on the ISS. The comparison is, not a very good one...

Not to mention the fact that they used lots of cheap labor... Which is technically a cheat.

Right, so the ISS masses about 4 times as much, carries twice the crew, and has three times the volume, yet costs almost 50 times more than Mir. You're right, it's not a favorable comparison. For the ISS.

As for using cheap labor being a "cheat", that's ridiculous. Finding ways to cut costs isn't cheating, it's smart. If NASA wants to overpay their ground crews, that's their problem. Personally, if I ever need a space station built, I'm gonna ask the Russians.

Edit: If you actually read the entire Astronautica article, you would realize that mass listed is for the core module only. Which did, in fact, mass 20 metric tons.

Edited March 13, 2015 by GreenWolf

[Bill Phil]

Right, so the ISS masses about 4 times as much, carries twice the crew, and has three times the volume, yet costs almost 50 times more than Mir. You're right, it's not a favorable comparison. For the ISS.

As for using cheap labor being a "cheat", that's ridiculous. Finding ways to cut costs isn't cheating, it's smart. If NASA wants to overpay their ground crews, that's their problem. Personally, if I ever need a space station built, I'm gonna ask the Russians.

Edit: If you actually read the entire Astronautica article, you would realize that mass listed is for the core module only. Which did, in fact, mass 20 metric tons.

It's comparing one thing to a different thing. It's like comparing x and y on a coordinate plane. There's not much you can do except maybe saying one axis is horizontal...

I mean very cheap labor, for everything. It means that they cheated the people who work in conditions that are very hazardous. If you think those guys deserve peanuts, well, that's your problem.

I know it's listed for that. Heck, I use Astronautica myself.

The problem isn't the numbers, it's their source. Who are you going to trust, someone who has a government that keeps watch over them all the time and wants them to make everything they do look good (essentially disguising the majority of the costs as other programs, which is pretty likely), or someone who works for a government who controls what they do and to an extent how they do it, but makes them be honest?

[GreenWolf]

The problem isn't the numbers, it's their source. Who are you going to trust, someone who has a government that keeps watch over them all the time and wants them to make everything they do look good (essentially disguising the majority of the costs as other programs, which is pretty likely), or someone who works for a government who controls what they do and to an extent how they do it, but makes them be honest?

First off, you're engaging in the poisoning the well logical fallacy here. Second off, we've already established in other threads that NASA management has lied about the costs of their programs in the past in an attempt to secure funding. Indeed, I don't think they've ever given an accurate cost projection. So, if anything, we should believe the costs of the ISS are even higher than NASA claims.

Edit: Also, there's nothing about the US government that forces its employees to be honest. All governments try to look good. That's not unique to the Soviets. Maybe try and give some actual counter-sources instead of resorting to logical fallacies?

Second Edit: We've really derailed this thread (and the ISS one) arguing about the Shuttle. Perhaps we should take this to a dedicated thread?

Edited March 13, 2015 by GreenWolf

[Bill Phil]

First off, you're engaging in the poisoning the well logical fallacy here. Second off, we've already established in other threads that NASA management has lied about the costs of their programs in the past in an attempt to secure funding. Indeed, I don't think they've ever given an accurate cost projection. So, if anything, we should believe the costs of the ISS are even higher than NASA claims.

Not as extreme a lie as the Soviets would give...

Did you know that many test flights for many programs were labeled as Kosmos flights? Many, many of the Vostok test flights were, as well as LK test flights.

And poisoning the well isn't a fallacy, and I'm not using it. I'm basing it off of facts, such as the one where Gagarin's flight wouldn't have counted if they hadn;t lied... They already engaged in similar acts before. They did it all the time. NASA may have done it out of desperation, but that's lying to the government, not the government changing the facts.

It's known for a fact that the Soviets lied about many of their space exploits. NASA has about some. This is the Soviets' many versus NASA's few.

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Edit: Also, there's nothing about the US government that forces its employees to be honest. All governments try to look good. That's not unique to the Soviets. Maybe try and give some actual counter-sources instead of resorting to logical fallacies?

Actually, under the law, anything using tax-payer money should be told to the taxpayers. Or given, or whatever. That's why there's so many NASA pictures that are released. The government doesn't follow that law for some dumb reason, but there have been suits against it... The Freedom of Information Act I think was a result of one such case.

Second Edit: We've really derailed this thread (and the ISS one) arguing about the Shuttle. Perhaps we should take this to a dedicated thread?

Good idea...

[GreenWolf]

Not as extreme a lie as the Soviets would give...

Did you know that many test flights for many programs were labeled as Kosmos flights? Many, many of the Vostok test flights were, as well as LK test flights.

And poisoning the well isn't a fallacy, and I'm not using it. I'm basing it off of facts, such as the one where Gagarin's flight wouldn't have counted if they hadn;t lied... They already engaged in similar acts before. They did it all the time. NASA may have done it out of desperation, but that's lying to the government, not the government changing the facts.

It's known for a fact that the Soviets lied about many of their space exploits. NASA has about some. This is the Soviets' many versus NASA's few.

How is it a lie to label a mission under a different name? The mission still happened. We know what it was. Calling it something else doesn't actually change anything.

And Gagarin still went to space. The difference between landing with the capsule and parachuting out is trivial. If you think it doesn't count because of that, you have some f***** up priorities.

Once again, I ask you to provide sources for your claims. Can you prove that the Russians lied about the costs of Mir? If so, please provide a source, because I would love to know what the actual cost was. But until you provide a source, I'm lending zero credence to your claims.

Also, I again suggest we take this to another thread or a PM.

[Bill Phil]

How is it a lie to label a mission under a different name? The mission still happened. We know what it was. Calling it something else doesn't actually change anything.

I was saying that they were known to label it differently which moves the budget around. It would say "x" money for Kosmos Program and "y" money for Vostok, when some of "x" was a part of "y".

And Gagarin still went to space. The difference between landing with the capsule and parachuting out is trivial. If you think it doesn't count because of that, you have some f***** up priorities.

Not me at all. The definition of a spaceflight by an international committee. That and Baikonur didn't even exist until after his flight...

Once again, I ask you to provide sources for your claims. Can you prove that the Russians lied about the costs of Mir? If so, please provide a source, because I would love to know what the actual cost was. But until you provide a source, I'm lending zero credence to your claims.

Can you prove it wasn't lied about?

It's pretty likely either way. The low cost of Mir is what makes me suspicious... It cost less than the GEMINI program, which had up to two dozen or so spacecraft launches.

Also, I again suggest we take this to another thread or a PM.

Not disagreeing...

Edited March 13, 2015 by Bill Phil

[PB666]

I was saying that they were known to label it differently which moves the budget around. It would say "x" money for Kosmos Program and "y" money for Vostok, when some of "x" was a part of "y".

Not me at all. The definition of a spaceflight by an international committee. That and Baikonur didn't even exist until after his flight...

Can you prove it wasn't lied about?

It's pretty likely either way. The low cost of Mir is what makes me suspicious... It cost less than the GEMINI program, which had up to two dozen or so spacecraft launches.

Not disagreeing...

The thread is about alternative destinations, I replied to Grenwalds nonsense in the thread he created.

[GreenWolf]

The thread is about alternative destinations, I replied to Grenwalds nonsense in the thread he created.

Well then, let's return to the original topic. What about one of the asteroids in a horseshoe orbit around Earth? The delta-v to get to them while they're near Earth is pretty low, and it would only take a relatively small push to move them into an Earth capture orbit. The advantage of building an asteroid base is that the small size of most asteroids makes landing on one more similar to docking to another spacecraft, but they would still have enough mass to provide a non-negligible amount of radiation shielding. Construction would probably be easier than a Moonbase, since you're not having to haul materials down the Moon's gravity well. In fact, construction could be as basic as hollowing out a section of the rock and coating the walls with a sealant to make them airtight.

[Kibble]

it would only take a relatively small push to move them into an Earth capture orbit.

Minor Planets like Cruithne with mean motion resonances never get very close to Earth, by definition. It would take several years of phasing to get it here. It's probably easier to find Minor Planets that are already going to make a close approach, even if at flyby it'll have high relative velocity, cause you are going to use high-efficiency solar electric propulsion anyway.