International mars research station

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

    I really like this idea. It sees like something logical that could happen. What do you think? what changes do you think should be made?

 

http://marsbase.org/contents

[tater]

Mars One is a joke.

Mars Direct is only real to the extent the NASA DRA is a thing.

IMRS? I love how these "international" programs get funded. ISS has cost about 150 billion dollars. Of that total, over 100 billion came from... the US. 

I'm not sure what possible benefit comes from letting ESA be a "partner" when the EU has a GDP comparable to the US, but would likely only pony up the 8% they do for ISS. Russia pays more for ISS than the EU, with a smaller GDP, and it's still trivial. If IMRS is predicated upon equal sharing of cost... then it sounds interesting.

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

21 hours ago, tater said:

Mars One is a joke.

Mars Direct is only real to the extent the NASA DRA is a thing.

IMRS? I love how these "international" programs get funded. ISS has cost about 150 billion dollars. Of that total, over 100 billion came from... the US. 

I'm not sure what possible benefit comes from letting ESA be a "partner" when the EU has a GDP comparable to the US, but would likely only pony up the 8% they do for ISS. Russia pays more for ISS than the EU, with a smaller GDP, and it's still trivial. If IMRS is predicated upon equal sharing of cost... then it sounds interesting.

I see, but what do you think of the mission profile?

[tater]

It's not dissimilar from the DRA in terms of landing separate components ahead of time, which makes a lot of sense. The commercial stuff... who knows.

[SR]

Personally I think the best mars mission idea is Elon Musk's idea of getting the price down through reusability, and then making people pay to go to Mars. His aim is for a ticket to cost $500000.

As well as this he gets other people to fund his test flights for his reusability system, by launching a payload.

The main problem with the International Mars research station is the idea of bringing the astronauts back. There are enough people willing to stay on Mars that you don't need to bring the astronauts back, and bringing them back:

A: increases the cost

B: decreases the benefit

So why would you bring them back?

Edited April 16, 2016 by SR

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

On 4/16/2016 at 7:36 AM, SR said:

Personally I think the best mars mission idea is Elon Musk's idea of getting the price down through reusability, and then making people pay to go to Mars. His aim is for a ticket to cost $500000.

As well as this he gets other people to fund his test flights for his reusability system, by launching a payload.

The main problem with the International Mars research station is the idea of bringing the astronauts back. There are enough people willing to stay on Mars that you don't need to bring the astronauts back, and bringing them back:

A: increases the cost

B: decreases the benefit

So why would you bring them back?

Because, when you leave them there, unexpected things happen. It is unsafe to leave people there on the first mission.

[Frida Space]

On 11 aprile 2016 at 0:14 AM, tater said:

I'm not sure what possible benefit comes from letting ESA be a "partner" when the EU has a GDP comparable to the US, but would likely only pony up the 8% they do for ISS. Russia pays more for ISS than the EU, with a smaller GDP, and it's still trivial. If IMRS is predicated upon equal sharing of cost... then it sounds interesting.

ESA and Russia have played a crucial role in the ISS, just as much as the US. Over 50% of the habitable volume of the ISS was built in Italy alone. And without Russia, the US and ESA wouldn't even be able to take their astronauts up there. Canada has provided the Canadarm. Japan the HTVs. Every partner has contributed equally and is of fundamental importance.

Sorry for the slight off topic, but, while I love NASA, I don't want people to say that it built the ISS by itself. That's as far from true as something can be.

Edited April 19, 2016 by Frida Space

[tater]

8% of the money. That's it for ESA. It's not like all the hardware needed to be built anywhere else. My point stands, there is no reason why the EU should not commit the same funding as a % of gdp that NASA does as a % of US gdp. For a Mars mission I'd rather the US go alone than send anyone who is not pulling their weight financially. Note that Canada need only pay a fraction as their gdp is 10X lower then the US or EU.

If you are going to argue that the EU should pay less, why? Does the EU have no interest in spaceflight? I personally don't think they are any less competent, so why should they not participate as equals?

Edited April 19, 2016 by tater

[Rakaydos]

The best manned mission plan I've seen doesnt have a manned landing at all. Or even drop into martian orbit.

The ship does a flyby of mars, dropping more rovers and slingshotting into an inclined orbit that meets mars again in half a martian year. Astronauts spend that half-martian-year with less than 1 minute of comunication lag from the martan surface, operating robots with very little lag. Once they flyby mars again, they slingshot back into an earth return trjectory.

[Frida Space]

53 minutes ago, tater said:

8% of the money. That's it for ESA. It's not like all the hardware needed to be built anywhere else. My point stands, there is no reason why the EU should not commit the same funding as a % of gdp that NASA does as a % of US gdp. For a Mars mission I'd rather the US go alone than send anyone who is not pulling their weight financially. Note that Canada need only pay a fraction as their gdp is 10X lower then the US or EU.

If you are going to argue that the EU should pay less, why? Does the EU have no interest in spaceflight? I personally don't think they are any less competent, so why should they not participate as equals?

If you take away the Space Shuttle, NASA spent somewhere between 25-50 bln dollars. For as much as I loved the space shuttle, it devoured budget over budget  

Also, you cannot compare the expense of the different partners without putting them in relation to one another. In 2000, NASA's budget was almost 7 times that of ESA (it currently is slightly less than 4x). And in 2000, NASA's budget was 76 times - 76 TIMES!! - that of Russia. How do you expect them to spend the same amount of money?

Edited April 19, 2016 by Frida Space

[notsosmart]

7 minutes ago, Frida Space said:

Also, you cannot compare the expense of the different partners without putting them in relation to one another. In 2000, NASA's budget was almost 7 times that of ESA (it currently is slightly less than 4x). And in 2000, NASA's budget was 76 times - 76 TIMES!! - that of Russia. How do you expect them to spend the same amount of money?

^ this. Plus, things haven't changed that much:

[Frida Space]

Just now, notsosmart said:

^ this. Plus, things haven't changed that much:

Thanks for the interesting table. I'm sorry if this was a bit off-topic but it's an important issue to me personally

[tater]

28 minutes ago, Frida Space said:

If you take away the Space Shuttle, NASA spent somewhere between 25-50 bln dollars. For as much as I loved the space shuttle, it devoured budget over budget  

Also, you cannot compare the expense of the different partners without putting them in relation to one another. In 2000, NASA's budget was almost 7 times that of ESA (it currently is slightly less than 4x). And in 2000, NASA's budget was 76 times - 76 TIMES!! - that of Russia. How do you expect them to spend the same amount of money?

The EU has a nearly identical GDP to the USA, so I expect their budgets to be identical, at least on any future cooperative project. Russia's GDP is about the same as Canada, so I'd expect 10X less. The ISS was a jobs program for Russian rocket engineers so they'd not work for bad actors making missiles, so I get the point in them not spending the same amount, that was sort of the point. There really is no excuse for the ESA not having a budget similar to NASA's, however, particularly when the EU spends less on the defense of the EU (since the US spends for that as well).

The thread is about a Mars mission, BTW. So I'm strictly talking about that, not ISS, not Shuttle---yeah, shuttle was a waste of money, but the ESA argument to that should have been to build something better (not hard, frankly (can you tell I'm not a Shuttle fan?)). So if a Mars mission was to cost 100 billion, and ESA was along for the ride, then they pony up 50 B$ worth, or stay home, IMHO (less if other countries outside the EU drop the shares, but their share should equal NASA, regardless). I think it's entirely fair to require equal % of GDP contributions for international missions---what would be more fair?

Edited April 19, 2016 by tater

[fredinno]

On 4/16/2016 at 4:36 AM, SR said:

Personally I think the best mars mission idea is Elon Musk's idea of getting the price down through reusability, and then making people pay to go to Mars. His aim is for a ticket to cost $500000.

As well as this he gets other people to fund his test flights for his reusability system, by launching a payload.

The main problem with the International Mars research station is the idea of bringing the astronauts back. There are enough people willing to stay on Mars that you don't need to bring the astronauts back, and bringing them back:

A: increases the cost

B: decreases the benefit

So why would you bring them back?

You would bring them back if something goes kaboom, and because we have no clue how to keep people in Space for over a year. The problems of long-term space will have to be solved all the way to over 20 years.

 

And Elon is way too optimistic. Good luck getting that done in his lifetime.

1 hour ago, Rakaydos said:

The best manned mission plan I've seen doesnt have a manned landing at all. Or even drop into martian orbit.

The ship does a flyby of mars, dropping more rovers and slingshotting into an inclined orbit that meets mars again in half a martian year. Astronauts spend that half-martian-year with less than 1 minute of comunication lag from the martan surface, operating robots with very little lag. Once they flyby mars again, they slingshot back into an earth return trjectory.

What's the point? How is the lower comm lag worth a TMI?

[tater]

The comm lag issue will become less and less of a thing as the robots become more intelligent. Manned space is because it's cool, period. Science is just a happy bonus to manned missions, all possible planetary science is better done by robots than people.

[Nibb31]

8 hours ago, tater said:

The EU has a nearly identical GDP to the USA, so I expect their budgets to be identical, at least on any future cooperative project. Russia's GDP is about the same as Canada, so I'd expect 10X less. The ISS was a jobs program for Russian rocket engineers so they'd not work for bad actors making missiles, so I get the point in them not spending the same amount, that was sort of the point. There really is no excuse for the ESA not having a budget similar to NASA's, however, particularly when the EU spends less on the defense of the EU (since the US spends for that as well).

The thread is about a Mars mission, BTW. So I'm strictly talking about that, not ISS, not Shuttle---yeah, shuttle was a waste of money, but the ESA argument to that should have been to build something better (not hard, frankly (can you tell I'm not a Shuttle fan?)). So if a Mars mission was to cost 100 billion, and ESA was along for the ride, then they pony up 50 B$ worth, or stay home, IMHO (less if other countries outside the EU drop the shares, but their share should equal NASA, regardless). I think it's entirely fair to require equal % of GDP contributions for international missions---what would be more fair?

You would be right to complain if ESA had more that 8% of the usage of the ISS. Currently, that is not the case. ESA contributes 8% of the total cost of the ISS program, but its usage of the station is proportional to that expense. Since 2000, ESA has only had 15 expedition seats, vs over 90 for NASA and over 100 for Russia. ESA only has governance on the Columbus module, which itself represents less than 3% of the habitable volume of the station. Everything that goes up has to go through a NASA selection process and priority in the USOS is given to US research organizations.

So yes, the USA is the main contributor to the ISS program, and the USA gets most of the benefits of it. As long as the benefits are proportional to the contribution, there is nothing to complain about.

So if a Mars program costs $100 billion and ESA only wants to participate $10 billion, as long as European companies get to build 10% of the vehicle, and ESA gets 10% of the seats, and 10% of the science credit, then I see no problem.

[kerbiloid]

8 hours ago, fredinno said:

What's the point? How is the lower comm lag worth a TMI?

In this case you need no programming for every motion of the Mars rover.

You need a pack of geologists onboard and a pack of drider-like wheeled avatars on the surface.

Once a geologist meets an interesting sample, he doesn't report and wait for several days while his mission is being debugged.
He just makes a selfie with this stone, pries it out with an axehammer and puts into a bucket.

You don't need to code a script and test it on the Earth geologist's twin before use on Mars.
You can just tell him: "Look, Jebediah. Do you remember than stone looking like a frog near the right side of that rock? Please, return back to there and try to take a sample from a 1 meter depth."
He (i.e. his drider-avatar) takes a shovel, a bucket and an axehammer and just does all what he is wanted to.

So, this way is a combination of humans' abilities and robots' expendability. With no headache about Mars life support and about launch from Mars.
All you need to launch is a barrel with stones.

 

Edited April 20, 2016 by kerbiloid

[tater]

4 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

You would be right to complain if ESA had more that 8% of the usage of the ISS. Currently, that is not the case. ESA contributes 8% of the total cost of the ISS program, but its usage of the station is proportional to that expense. Since 2000, ESA has only had 15 expedition seats, vs over 90 for NASA and over 100 for Russia. ESA only has governance on the Columbus module, which itself represents less than 3% of the habitable volume of the station. Everything that goes up has to go through a NASA selection process and priority in the USOS is given to US research organizations.

So yes, the USA is the main contributor to the ISS program, and the USA gets most of the benefits of it. As long as the benefits are proportional to the contribution, there is nothing to complain about.

So if a Mars program costs $100 billion and ESA only wants to participate $10 billion, as long as European companies get to build 10% of the vehicle, and ESA gets 10% of the seats, and 10% of the science credit, then I see no problem.

I agree completely, though ISS is a special case for a number of reasons. How does one define getting credit, though?

As a US taxpayer who just 5 days ago read through and signed the "book" the accountant gave us to sign (our tax return report is a cm thick or more), the wound is somewhat fresh  It's like driving a quite nice car off a cliff every year, and from that perspective, 10% savings isn't worth it to me, I'd rather see us spend 100% (for Mars, I don't care about ISS).

On topic, I'd want an "international" Mars mission only if it was fairly divided, one share per flag on the outside, and astronaut/cosmonaut/whatever inside. So NASA/ESA would be 6 astronauts, 3 from NASA, 3 from ESA, cost split. Add in Russia, and I'd want 2, 2, and 2. Even split. I'm disinterested in any splits that are not totally even, I'd rather we go it alone than that.

As an aside, what are the rules for distributing imagery from ESA probes, etc? I notice that they hold images proprietary and only release them rarely (Rosetta as a recent example), vs JPL throwing most out there almost immediately (look at the raw Curiosity feeds, or downloaded New Horizons stuff for example). I assume this is because as a taxpayer expense, the images are owned by all the taxpayers, not by the PIs, so they are required to do this by law---is ESA different?

Edited April 20, 2016 by tater

[Nibb31]

1 hour ago, tater said:

I agree completely, though ISS is a special case for a number of reasons. How does one define getting credit, though?

Allocation of experiment slots, which lead directly to science publications.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station_program#/media/File:ISS_Hardware_Allocation.png

 

Quote

As a US taxpayer who just 5 days ago read through and signed the "book" the accountant gave us to sign (our tax return report is a cm thick or more), the wound is somewhat fresh  It's like driving a quite nice car off a cliff every year, and from that perspective, 10% savings isn't worth it to me, I'd rather see us spend 100% (for Mars, I don't care about ISS).

I get it, but it wouldn't be 10% savings. It could be 10% from ESA, 10% from JAXA, 20% from Russia, and another 9% from other participants (Canada, Brazil, etc...). That's a 49% discount and you still keep the decisionary stake. That can actually make a difference between actual funding and never going anywhere.

Quote

On topic, I'd want an "international" Mars mission only if it was fairly divided, one share per flag on the outside, and astronaut/cosmonaut/whatever inside. So NASA/ESA would be 6 astronauts, 3 from NASA, 3 from ESA, cost split. Add in Russia, and I'd want 2, 2, and 2. Even split. I'm disinterested in any splits that are not totally even, I'd rather we go it alone than that.

More likely you won't be going at all.

ESA's total annual budget is about $4.5 billion. There is no way ESA member states will agree to give ESA the same budget that NASA gets, so there is no way ESA can ever contribute to an international project as much as NASA does.

Also, ESA money must be spent proportionally in ESA member states, meaning that France provides 22% of ESA's budget so the same proportion of its budget must be spent in France. If ESA was to contribute 50% of a $100 billion dollar project, they would have to spend $50 billion exclusively on the European space industry. I don't even think Airbus DS, Thales-Alenia or BAe are scaled for that sort of project.

Quote

As an aside, what are the rules for distributing imagery from ESA probes, etc? I notice that they hold images proprietary and only release them rarely (Rosetta as a recent example), vs JPL throwing most out there almost immediately (look at the raw Curiosity feeds, or downloaded New Horizons stuff for example). I assume this is because as a taxpayer expense, the images are owned by all the taxpayers, not by the PIs, so they are required to do this by law---is ESA different?

I think the difference has to do with European science teams holding back the info until they get their research published.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Nibb31

[tater]

27 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

Allocation of experiment slots, which lead directly to science publications.

That makes some sense for ISS, but not really for Mars. It's really about collecting samples for the most part (plus nebulous, circular medical experiments).

Quote

I get it, but it wouldn't be 10% savings. It could be 10% from ESA, 10% from JAXA, 20% from Russia, and another 9% from other participants (Canada, Brazil, etc...). That's a 49% discount and you still keep the decisionary stake. That can actually make a difference between actual funding and never going anywhere.

That's fine, then they are passengers, though, not equals. My primary beef is really with ESA. The EU is not Brazil, they should be able to come to the table as big boys, like I said, the GDPs are functionally identical, and they get subsidized defense into the bargain. Why should space only be the major responsibility of one set of taxpayers? 

I'm pretty down on Orion/SLS, for example, but I think the SM should not be coming from ESA. If that cancels the program, good. I don't see it saving a meaningful amount of money. Heck, I don't see the Mars mission contributions as meaningful in your example. The City of NY public school system spends almost 30 billion a year. That's just school for children, not universities. The amounts we are talking about here are trivial for an entity as large as the US or EU. The school system in Albuquerque spends almost 2 billion a year, I think that an 18 trillion $ economy can manage to spare 50 billion over a decade.

Quote

More likely you won't be going at all.

I'm getting to the point that I'd rather not go at all than to foot the bill for the majority, then get to get nothing but abuse in return---not here, but generally the US seems to be the object of ridicule from Europe that makes me in my weaker moments become pretty isolationist, and I have the feeling I'm not alone in that.

Quote

I think the difference has to do with European science teams holding back the info until they get their research published.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Seems wrong that the people who the pictures belong to (the taxpayers) should have to wait, though. 

Edited April 20, 2016 by tater

[Nibb31]

1 hour ago, tater said:

That makes some sense for ISS, but not really for Mars. It's really about collecting samples for the most part (plus nebulous, circular medical experiments).

The lack of an actual reason to go to Mars is why we aren't going to Mars. Nothing new here.

Quote

That's fine, then they are passengers, though, not equals. My primary beef is really with ESA. The EU is not Brazil, they should be able to come to the table as big boys, like I said, the GDPs are functionally identical, and they get subsidized defense into the bargain. Why should space only be the major responsibility of one set of taxpayers? 

ESA is not the EU. The EU doesn't speak to NASA, JAXA, or Roscosmos. It's ESA that handles the space program, in accordance with member state governments, and it only gets breadcrumbs. Each ESA member state decides its own contribution independently by its own rules, typically by local parliaments, not administrations, in each country. It's not a federal budget decision that can be taken by a single person or even a group of ministers.

Each state only puts in what it considers it can get back in return, based on the size and capability of their industry. ESA contributions are nothing more than subsidies to the European aerospace industry, in order to maintain a certain level of independence and technological capability. That's the only reason why any country (including the US) has a space program nowadays. Prestige, science, and entertainment are only byproducts.

Different countries assign different values to their budgetary line items. Some countries prefer to spend on education, others on their military, others on their justice system. In the end, increasing their contribution to ESA means taking money from somewhere else, which is always going to upset someone. Government spending isn't extensible.

If anything, when you look at the charts, the US is the anomaly when it comes to their federal spending allocated to space, not Europe.

Quote

I'm pretty down on Orion/SLS, for example, but I think the SM should not be coming from ESA. If that cancels the program, good. I don't see it saving a meaningful amount of money. Heck, I don't see the Mars mission contributions as meaningful in your example. The City of NY public school system spends almost 30 billion a year. That's just school for children, not universities. The amounts we are talking about here are trivial for an entity as large as the US or EU. The school system in Albuquerque spends almost 2 billion a year, I think that an 18 trillion $ economy can manage to spare 50 billion over a decade.

Sure, but where it gets hard is when you choose to take those $2 billion from schools to give them to NASA. If given the choice between spending $50 billion on going to Mars or getting $50 billion in tax cuts, I know which option most people would choose.

Governments only have a tiny bit of leverage when it comes to changing where they spend money. They can take 0.5% here and increase 0.5% there, but anything more and you create more problems than you fix.

Quote

I'm getting to the point that I'd rather not go at all than to foot the bill for the majority, then get to get nothing but abuse in return---not here, but generally the US seems to be the object of ridicule from Europe that makes me in my weaker moments become pretty isolationist, and I have the feeling I'm not alone in that.

The abuse that the US gets isn't generally related to NASA's accomplishments. But I'm not going down that slippery slope, I already have 2 warnings from the mods over my head.

Quote

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Seems wrong that the people who the pictures belong to (the taxpayers) should have to wait, though. 

Different countries, different cultures, different rules.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Nibb31

[tater]

Yeah, I suppose it is the lack of real "federalism" regarding EU budgets. In the US it's long past these United States, and well into the United States as a single entity.

I'm with you on Mars---and because I consider manned flight to be a PR stunt, I don't see the RoI on spreading it around. Bragging rights are the only reason to go, so it dilutes that to have an international effort. That's a primary issue with the conception of these programs. People in favor usually pretend (and may even believe) that "science" is the reason for them, and hence internationalism makes total sense. The reality is that if it was about science, they'd be pitching an international sample-return mission sans astronauts, not a stunt.

[fredinno]

2 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

ESA's total annual budget is about $4.5 billion. There is no way ESA member states will agree to give ESA the same budget that NASA gets, so there is no way ESA can ever contribute to an international project as much as NASA does.

 

Why naut?

2 hours ago, tater said:

I'm pretty down on Orion/SLS, for example, but I think the SM should not be coming from ESA. If that cancels the program, good. I don't see it saving a meaningful amount of money.

The SM had very little work until ESA came along. It probably saved quite a bit of money, especially since it replaced the $437 Million per year (plus Ariane 5 launches) ATV program.

https://www.google.ca/?ion=1&espv=2#q=ariane%205%20cost%20per%20launch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Transfer_Vehicle#Edoardo_Amaldi

Quote

ATV spacecraft costs about US$300 million, not including launch costs.^[18]

8 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

In this case you need no programming for every motion of the Mars rover.

You need a pack of geologists onboard and a pack of drider-like wheeled avatars on the surface.

Once a geologist meets an interesting sample, he doesn't report and wait for several days while his mission is being debugged.
He just makes a selfie with this stone, pries it out with an axehammer and puts into a bucket.

You don't need to code a script and test it on the Earth geologist's twin before use on Mars.
You can just tell him: "Look, Jebediah. Do you remember than stone looking like a frog near the right side of that rock? Please, return back to there and try to take a sample from a 1 meter depth."
He (i.e. his drider-avatar) takes a shovel, a bucket and an axehammer and just does all what he is wanted to.

So, this way is a combination of humans' abilities and robots' expendability. With no headache about Mars life support and about launch from Mars.
All you need to launch is a barrel with stones.

 

Then why not spend the extra fuel to go to Deimos/Phobos, and do a double mission?

Flybys are only good as a stunt, even Zubrin acknowledged that when proposing his "Athena" Mars flyby mission.

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

Flybys are only good as a stunt, even Zubrin acknowledged that when proposing his "Athena" Mars flyby mission.

According to

Quote

Astronauts spend that half-martian-year with less than 1 minute of comunication lag from the martan surface

 

sounds like behind "flyby" author means "without landing" rather than "approach and immediately fly away".
 

[tater]

Leveraged telepresence is fine, but I really think it has a ticking clock associated with it. Driverless car work is improving the ability to drive anywhere with a robot at Moore's Law speed. Even with an optimistic launch date for any sort of manned Mars mission, robots will already make the point moot, IMO.