NRC Report: NASA Can't Afford Mars Mission

[NASAFanboy]

A 3.2 million dollar study that stated the obvious.

NASA can't afford a manned mission to Mars, at least not without a influx of cash. The report also favors a manned lunar outpost as opposed to an asteroid mission to get American astronauts to Mars before 2050, but recommends a set deadline of 2037, a delay of two years from the original plan of 2035. Mein gott, reality sucks so much. Washington Post has it covered.

A sweeping review of NASA’s human spaceflight program has concluded that the agency has an unsustainable and unsafe strategy that will prevent the United States from achieving a human landing on Mars in the foreseeable future.

The 286-page National Research Council report, the culmination of an 18-month, $3.2 million investigation mandated by Congress, says that to continue on the present course under budgets that don’t keep pace with inflation “is to invite failure, disillusionment, and the loss of the longstanding international perception that human spaceflight is something the United States does best.â€Â

http://m.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/nrc-human-spaceflight-report-says-nasa-strategy-cant-get-humans-to-mars/2014/06/04/e6e6060c-ebd6-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html

So, we can't get to Mars, and he most we can hope for by the mid-2030's is either asteroids in decaying lunar orbit or a small surface outpost that keeps getting straddled by lack of funds. As I said, "reality sucks"

Edited June 5, 2014 by NASAFanboy

[SargeRho]

Maybe (Hopefully) China or SpaceX will manage it before then.

[DunaRocketeer]

I'm coming around to the opinion that human spaceflight arrived a couple of centuries too soon.

China doesn't need to prove itself with missions to mars, so it won't pony up the cash. Spacex is impressive, more dynamic and more efficient than NASA, but even with its cheap vehicles it'll never be sufficiently profitable to make Mars missions feasable. This is especially true when you consider that this will be the century that America and the rest of the western world gets strangled by defecits.

It is more likely that human spaceflight will end this century than a human on Mars.

[Dkmdlb]

Interesting. On the SLS:

The program "cannot provide the flight frequency required to maintain competence and safety,"

How much do they think it will cost to get to Mars?

Progress in human exploration beyond LEO will be measured on timescales of decades, with costs measured in hundreds of billions of dollars

and

a $400B cost for a pathway to Mars cannot be achieved before roughly 2060.

So, any suggestions on how to raise that money?

[randomness5555]

No way human exploration's ending. Most likely it's just put off for a while. I wouldn't be surprised if we get a munbase (damnit kerbal) MOONBASE by the end of the centuary, and once we have a space elevator, space exploration will be far easier/more common.

Like I just said-how do we raise the money? SPACE ELEVATOR. OK, so that won't raise money, but it sure will put the cost of building a mars ship down a heck of a lot.

[Red Iron Crown]

I can't tell if the study is a call to cancel the Mars mission or to increase NASA funding. Here's hoping it's the latter.

[KerbMav]

Human spaceflight takes humanity's effort - meaning multi-national - but as long as we are thinking as nations at all instead of as a species ...

[NASAFanboy]

I can't tell if the study is a call to cancel the Mars mission or to increase NASA funding. Here's hoping it's the latter.

It was commissioned by Bill Nelson, one if the senators of Florida.

It's a call to increase the budget for sure.

[EpicRootHairCell]

Perhaps we should kickstart a not for profit organisation to land people on Mars. The $60 billion or so for a return mission would certainly break some records.

[DunaRocketeer]

$60 Billion for a manned Mars mission? It was going to take $40B just to make Ares 1 fly

[NASAFanboy]

$60 Billion for a manned Mars mission? It was going to take $40B just to make Ares 1 fly

Use the SLS, and go Mars Direct.

Ares I was a sorry excuse of a rocket

[jwenting]

$60 Billion for a manned Mars mission? It was going to take $40B just to make Ares 1 fly

Yes, that's AFTER the development cost of the rockets and other hardware has been paid for...

Which is another $100B or so in small change I think.

[SargeRho]

Or use the MCT for a Mars-Direct type mission once it flies. Would probably be even cheaper.

[Reddragon]

I've seen this report today and somehow saw it coming. The congress of the US already made it clear several times that they don't like the current NASA policy and wanted to see some changes. One of the most obvious change they wanted to see is a return to lunar exploration. Many voices about it could be heard since CxP was cancelled. I can understand that because they have a heavy lift launch system getting ready by 2017 which lacks a proper variety of missions after, even the first manned mission is 4 years behind this date. Only one goal has been declared. NASA was pushing this 'roadmap' to Mars full of gaps way too hard and it was already known, that without budget raising or at least realignments in the current budget we won't see MTV component being developed in the late 20's.

[okan170]

Meanwhile, estimates for the F-35 continue to go over $400 Billion in development alone, with a $1.65 trillion cost over lifetime...

Nonetheless, in a world where multiple countries possess the basic capability and billionaires can launch rockets without them exploding… no matter what it won't stop. Sooner or later, mankind will be going to the planets and into space. Its a matter of time, not if it'll happen at all.

[Mitchz95]

I think it's time all major space agencies merged into an International Space Agency. Funded by the member countries and/or the United Nations. Devoted entirely to getting mankind out of LEO and into the rest of the solar system.

[Comrade Jenkens]

Meanwhile, estimates for the F-35 continue to go over $400 Billion in development alone, with a $1.65 trillion cost over lifetime...

Imagine if NASA got 40% instead of the military... We'd have colonies in Alpha Centuri by now!

[vger]

Imagine if NASA got 40% instead of the military... We'd have colonies in Alpha Centuri by now!

Hmm... could we make an appeal to congress based on that?

A new means of defense from our enemies: Get the heck out of range.

[jwenting]

Imagine if NASA got 40% instead of the military... We'd have colonies in Alpha Centuri by now!

40% of what? The military gets 40% of nothing... The only thing getting that much of anything in the US is social security and medicaid/medicare. Those are the massive money drains.

[Spartwo]

Imagine if NASA got 40% instead of the military... We'd have colonies in Alpha Centuri by now!

That's a bit pessimistic. Isn't it closer to 50%?

Edited June 5, 2014 by Spartwo

[Tiberion]

This didn't really tell us anything new. And just because these guys say we can't afford Mars, it doesn't mean its true. It's a "Congressional Report" which means its politically driven - whether or not you think the political goal matches up with a desirable scientific goal is a matter of opinion.

To summarize history:

The Bush administration pushed the Constellation mission, which included the Altair lander and a return to the moon, and then some unspecified goals towards going to Mars eventually.

The technical side of the program ran into some issues. The program was expensive and potentially technically inadequate to meet the stated goals. As a result there was opposition support for the alternate DIRECT program (which the future SLS is based on)

Obama is elected and mandates changes to almost everything, including NASAs plan. Constellation is scrapped and the SLS is announced, and we're set upon the current plan of capturing an asteroid and studying it (and again, unspecified goals of going to Mars eventually with no development of hardware specifically for that)

The congressman and lobbyists who were with the majority during the Bush years and who supported Constellation are still there, just as the minority party now. They're going to fight back against the changes, because that is how politics work now, it pretty much takes impending government collapse to get cooperation now.

This report serves that function. This is the pendulum trying to swing back the other way, saying "we shouldn't have changed course, this isn't working out."

Personally, maybe its right. I don't know. They have a point about the dead-end technology not aiding in the path to mars - an asteroid capture platform doesn't really lend much to a Mars mission beyond giving the Orion something 'cool' to do while they prove the platform. There are some benefits to the asteroid mission outside of a Mars program, though, so it's not exactly wasted money.

Another thing the report says is that NASA should set its focus on Mars and do everything it can to get there and "avoid changes in its strategy"

It then goes on to recommend changing strategy and pursuing a Moon program again. So it's a little confusing, and the inclusion of the moon recommendation seems to be a poke at the current administration in that context.

Again, nothing we didn't already know. We know that we'd need a bigger budget before they start really trying to go to Mars. We know that NASA is poorly served being a political ping-pong ball.

In my opinion, the notion of "picking a course and sticking to it" is the best one - cancelling SLS and starting over on another program would be a huge waste of money in the same way Constellation was. I wish that NASA had the ability to set its roadmap without having to conform to a political agenda from ANY white house, past or present. Let the science and tech requirement guide the mission and the political structure figure out how to make it happen (which will always include fat paychecks for the space industry establishment, of course)

To my non-astrophysicist mind it seems that a Moon mission would better prepare us for Mars than an asteroid mission. A NASA official is quoted in the Post article saying otherwise - that landing on a small airless moon doesn't really help solve the technical challenges of Mars heavier gravity and troublesome atmosphere. It's a shame that we didn't spend the 18 month study solving that question rather than rehashing the political one.

[mdatspace]

The Augustine report comes back to haunt us.

[Nuke]

the problem is we spend 3.2 million dollars on a study to tell us the obvious. how does a study cost 3.2 million freaking dollars?

murica needs to stop spending money on buffalo chips.

[Dodgey]

International cooperation is the way to go. Create an in independant group of scientists engineers ect. Free from the dominance of any one country. Fund them as an international community, and move humanity into the future.

[Dkmdlb]

International cooperation is the way to go. Create an in independant group of scientists engineers ect.

How are they going to be independent if they are funded by the various governments?