NASA Vision of Space Exploration

You're right, how could I forget it?!

Tangy tangy tang.




You ungrateful, metal pansy!

 

Could you imagine NASA?s budget if they got even a small percentage of Tang sales?

 

In a way you can solve much of Earth's problems with NASA's budget, but not by giving it to Earthly programs. Bigelow, as I said before, took NASA technology and launched his first module into orbit last week. It is a stepping stone. Long term, there are enough resources in ther asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to meets the needs of 4 quadrillion people, comfortably, with lots of room.

 

Lord_Vivec

It already takes a few months to go the moon, and that is only because we lauche shuttles and rockets in the same direction as the Earth is spinning to use less energy.

Kimball is right about how long it takes to get to the moon.

Even if we had more efficient engines, we should launch them in the opposite direction than the earth is spinning?

I'm pretty sure that with our current technology,if we wanted to send someone to mars, they better pack for a long and boring trip. (1.3 years, I believe)

It depends on a lot of factors, but yeah it would take more than a year on a good day with current tech. So what? Should Columbus have stayed home since it took months on wind power to get to the new world?

Espaldapalabras

My point was that unless we are using space to help us out down here somehow there is little point in exploration for the sake of exploration, at least when it comes to manned space flight.

Ahh, ok. That I can respect. I feared you were saying that we should not go into space at all until social ills are cured, but what you just said I can respect a bit.

However I do feel that to some degree we need to explore (for now) for the sake of exploring. If we don't look at what is out there and experiment we will never find something profitable to do up there. I realize that is a fine line to walk, but I do feel it is true.

Jansons_Funny_Twin

Planetes is a good manga, and the show isn't bad either.

 

Most architectures for Mars trips show a 6 month trip, stay for awhile...perhaps a year or two, and 6 months back. I understand the use of the analogy of Columbus and such old time ship traveling, but I do not see it as an excuse to make the trip the hard way in tin-can conditions for an extended time. Propulsion, propulsion, propulsion; VASIMR, knock that time down. If we can make it easier then we should do so. if it can be made comfortable then we should do so. No one is going to make such a trip in a cramped Shuttle-like manner. It can be done that way. Cosmonauts and astronauts have had long stays in such conditions on Mir and the ISS, but I say give them more elbow room, privacy, and creatrure comforts for the trip with the task in mind that any trips to mars are to be ongoing and not just Flags and Footprints.

 

VadersLaMent

Dont misunderstand me, I brought up the analogy to say that we should make the attempt. That just because it is slow does not mean we shouldn't do it.

As for how long it would really take.... give me a minute, let me do the #$%^ing math...

Assuming impulsive maneuvers (modern tech) the longest it would take (but with the least amount of fuel used) would be just a hair over 2 years one way (so on a bad day it would take more than a year). However, that is assuming a Hohmann transfer between Earth and Mars; if we are willing to burn more fuel (which no doubt we would simply to lower the time) we can get there and back a lot faster.

 

Dont misunderstand me, I brought up the analogy to say that we should make the attempt. That just because it is slow does not mean we shouldn't do it.

But that to me is exactly why we should not do it, too slow while traveling in a tin can. When Zubrin put out his Mars Direct Plan which used a 6 month trip there, a 2 year stay, then 6 months back, I loved it. It showed that an ever-running Mars exploration plan can be done for an amount equal or even less than what NASA paid for the ISS which does...nothing. It was an "anti-battlestar galactica" plan; live off the land, small and affordable(by NASA standards) etc.
But I don't think toughing it out is necessary. Why do it that way? Propulsion is the answer, so even if we go in small tin cans we don't have to spend much time making the trip.

On another note, some brief notes from Hobbyspace.com(My favorite space news source) from a recent Mars Society convention about Elon Musk and NASA Chief Grffin:

Elon spoke immediately following Mike Griffin. He showed a number of interesting slides about the Dragon capsule that I've not seen before. Hope he posts them on the SpaceX site soon. Here are my notes from his talk:

- Started SpaceX to do something about costs and reliability of space launch.
- We won't become a multi-planetary species if these problems aren't solved.
- Sees humanity become multi-planetary as one of the most fundamental steps in development of life since it first came into existence on Earth.
- He is primarily interested in Mars and not in the Moon, space tourism, asteroid mining, etc.
- Falcon 1 and 9 under development
- 200 employees
- Manufacturing facility in Ca.
- Falcon 1 - highest mass fraction of any current rocket.
- Resuability key long term factor in lower costs.
- Aerospace vendors are very expensive. So had to make many components themselves.
- Demonstration launch wasn't a success but it supplied lots of good data (so he takes it as a partial success).
- Will be developing a LH/LOX upper stage engine.
- Could then put up to 100k lbs into LEO with the largest Falcon 9 configuration
- Clustering lots of engines, or thrust chambers, has been done successfully before, especially by the Russians.
- Expecting to close several more launch deals in coming months.
- Manned - Falcon 9 is really designed from the beginning as a manned vehicle that also does satellites - Designing for very high reliability.
- 40-50% design above min limit loads compared to 25% for EELVs
- Engine out capability allows for mission success even if an engine fails
- Capsule and escape tower.
- Describes Dragon capsule - solar panels (circular Mickey Mouse ears) pop out of nose after reaching orbit to provide power. Crew cargo module. Propulsion module.
- Structural material tough enough to allow for multiple reuse.
- SpaceX will produce more (25-30) liquid fueled engines next year than any other US manufacturer. Economies of scale will lower cost and raise reliability.
- Regeneratively cooled rather than ablative.
- Merlin 1C
- Dragon escape system - 7Gs max on crew.
- Offset CG reentry. Accurate landing capability.
- Huge test stand in Texas under preparation. First Falcon 9 test firing early next year.
- Pictures of Kwajalein
Q&A:
-- Can use pad at Vandenberg once they have a successful Kwajalein test.
-- Considering the use of the abort tower as additional boost during a normal flight.
-- In response to question about long term goals, he said SpaceX was laying a few stones on road to long term settlement of Mars.
-- Downplayed radiation hazards. [Zubrin - 4 cosmonauts and 2 astronauts have received doses equivalent to what would be received in a Mars mission (though at lower rate). No bad health effects noticed so far.]
-- Could fly other modules on Falcon 9 besides Dragon.
-- First manned launch in four or five years but there are some uncontrolled variables (I assume he is referring to whether they get a COTS contract.)
-- Once regular flights are established, then reusability will become important. Wou

 

I don't see the problem of trying to invent a better transportation. We won't be using fuel a hundred years from now

 

VadersLaMent

But that to me is exactly why we should not do it, too slow while traveling in a tin can.

So Columbus shouldn't have come? It took months to get anywhere in little dirty wet wood boxes back then and they did it.

Also that 2 years is practically the longest it could take. If we are willing to burn more fuel and oxidizer and take a more direct route it would be a lot shorter; 6 months may be good realistic time of flight without requiring too much more propellant.

But I don't think toughing it out is necessary. Why do it that way? Propulsion is the answer, so even if we go in small tin cans we don't have to spend much time making the trip.

The thing is that there will probably always be improvements to technology. They may be slow coming, but there will be. If the first few explorers take years to get to Mars it is likely that, assuming there is a demand to go to Mars, technology would improve to the point where it takes less time to get back and forth to/from Mars. It will take a while (unless we get really lucky), but it will happen. Look at boating technology and how it has improved since (to keep the analogy going) Columbus came to the new world.

That doesn't mean that we should just blindly push ahead; I am just saying we shouldn't wait for the perfect system before we try to explore.

Lord_Vivec

I don't see the problem of trying to invent a better transportation.

Nor do I, but that does not mean that our current forms of transportation are inefficient. We should use what we have and make the best of it until something better comes along.

We won't be using fuel a hundred years from now

Huh? Then what will we be using? A perpetual motion machine? Hamsters in little wheels powering everything?

 

I tend to just go with it, but really the Columbus analogy is not accurate. It was certainly not a comfortable trip but it only took him two months to hit land on his first journey across the Atlantic with a year's worth of provisions onboard. Even in cramped conditions a two month trip to Mars would be a good thing.

Vivec, there will always be a need for fuel. Even if we used actual wormholes for FTL travel, those travelers will still need high thrust engines to get around once the destination is reached. Even if we had some kind of...hell I don't know...gravity polarizing non-exhaust thruster it will still need energy to operate; i.e. fuel of some form or another.

 

Sorry for confusion, I didn't mean no fuel. I meant that there might be a new system, which could involve a new fuel source, etc.

 

Maybe you mean replacing chemical engines. I doubt it. Anti matter gives you the greatest bang for the buck, but chemical rockets give the greatest thrust. Without some means of FTL travel a chemical rocket cannot be used for interstellar travel, anti matter is the goal or even an advanced fusion rocket. But inside the solar system, for orbital operations, chemical rockets are needed.

Unless a space elevator becomes a reality a chemical reaction will always be used to get off a planet. There is a concept of using magnetic fields to create a plasma in front of a vehicle which removes friction from the air around it, but a chemical thrust still needs to get the thing going in a forward and upwards direction. In this case you just would not need alot of said chemicals to get the job done. Once in space a vehicle could then use an anti matter, fusion, or advanced fission motor to get from planet to planet. Perhaps that's what space travel will look like in 100 years. But basically you will always need to throw something out the back to get where you are going.


EDIT

This old thing: Space and junk might help you. I do not update it anymore.

 

NASA getting budgets cuts...hmm...

Well, firstly I agree that politics is affecting space science. It should be called space politics. But then, space science is not only a science - it has become an image. That's exactly how space science was born - the space race. In my personal opinion (you can all flame me for this if you want to) but I believe that had the space race not ended then by now man would have constructed a permanent science station on the moon, and would have walked on mars by now.

What I find really annoying is how politics is trying to turn space science into a useless image. The ISS started out as an amazing promise - the ultimate scientific hub in space. Imagine - all of man's greatest scientific apparatus on one station, observing the cosmos, effects on humans, organisms, you name it. However, I regret to say that the ISS has become nothing more than an economic black hole.

And this whole thing of human interplanetary travel is wrongly timed. I do not believe we are ready for it yet. We have yet to design rockets and propulsion systems necessary to render such a journey feasible.

However, what we do have is understanding. Recently in the "New Scientist" there was an article talking about the Interstellar Superhighway. This is essentially the gravitational tunnels that connect every large mass in the solar systems (i.e. the sun, planets and moons). Believe it or not, spacecraft can ride these tunnels, drastically reducing their need for fuel. Sure, it isn't very fast, so for human flight it's not very feasible. What is IS feasible for is for our robots.

Over the years we have made tremendous advances in robotics. We should be sending not humans (who consume a lot and are capable of serious mistakes) but robots, who don't consume anything, are very accurate, and more than that are expendable.

Phew. All of this just to say that in my opinion all space governments (i.e. USA, Europe, Russia and China) should get their act into gear, understand that space science is not a political game, and fund:

1) Designing interplanetary propulsion systems
2) Sending probes off to make observations

And leave all of the star trek stuff out. It may be appealing, but it's just not worth it.....yet

That's all.

Beam me up scotty

Horus

 

Unless we gain the capability to create an A.I. like Data, we will never truly understand a world like Mars until human beings walk its surface and spend time there.

 

^^ That's true, but it is currently more feasible to get robots to get us all the information we need - until we can construct good spacecraft. The probes that have been sent of so far certainly do their job very well. When (if?) humans go to mars, they'll still take the appartus needed with them. Currently it's easier (and maybe better? hmm...) to just send the apparatus there and control it from a distance. The current space science situation really is a bit tentative. In my opinion we should let the robots do the work while we come up with something better. Although I must admit that nothing can equal a human stepping foot somewhere, for the moment we will most likely have to make compromises.

 

But it's those very compromises, exaggerated by greed an politics, that has kept us here. The idea of "right now it's too hard so let's send robots" is backwards. It's that exact reasoning that has denied people from being able to affordably take a vacation on the Moon.

 

I've gotta disagree here. The government is the one using the "send probes" philosophy currently. They would never be the ones setting up the "vacation on the Moon" scenario.

That's all up to the private sector which, until recently, didn't have any philosophy in space exploration. Companies like Bigelow are now working to change this.

 

But that was not the original vision for NASA. NASA was supposed to make access to space cheap, and it has not been able to do so because of the cash cow called the Space Shuttle and those companies who make money supplying its components.

 

I don't believe "cheap access to space" with "cheap" having the meaning the average citizen uses (as opposed to one the government uses), has ever been one of NASA's goals. Feel free to correct me though.

 

I think I've made a slight mistake.

I was about to sit here and detail out NASA's original goals when I hit a stumbling block. I have no idea what NASA's original, or even current goals really are or were. I think it was percieved by the average Joe that one day people would be traveleing to the Moon on a regular basis, Mars to colonize, the solar system to explore. But, under what conditions? To do what EXACTLY? Explore? Sitting here thinking about it, it's all very vague.
I do know that after Apollo NASA wanted to keep going to the Moon, then build a space station in the 1908's, then go to Mars in the 1980's, and so on. Eventually we might have had a recruitment office for NASA sitting right next to armed forces offices.

Right? I really don't know. If NASA had continued on and by now have a system in place for getting payloads to orbit for say $100 a pound, would Burt Rutan have made SpaceShipOne? No, he'd probably work for NASA. But doing what? For whom? It appears perhaps that NASA has become a facade. NASA can do science and DAMN can they do R&D, but if it doesn't get me to the Moon then what's the point? What's it for?

Right now the ISS represents NASA perfectly. It costs too much, it's not even finished, it might not get finished, and it doesn't do anything, and it's not going to get us anywhere even if it is finished.

 

That's pretty much what I was getting at. NASA is primarily a research organization. Not a colonization force. They may develop some of the technology that will one day be used to push mankind to settle on other worlds, but that's not their primary goal, at least that I've ever known.

To really settle other worlds is something that the private sector will need to do. Not a government body.

 

NASA's principal objective is to discover space. As a discovery force they have to collect, analyse, and process data to further our knowledge of science. HOW they do it isn't really a problem - that's their choice. However, they are not supposed to be a "holiday in space" company, I agree - that's what politics is trying to make it. The ISS is ulitmately half NASA, half image - although it does it's job as a science post in space, it's also a very expensive image of technological prowess demonstrated by the American, European, Russian and Chinese governments. I don't really have a problem with space technology being an image - after all, that's what caused the space race. But as scientists NASA's philosophy should be to collect data (with probes, telescopes, satellites, astronauts) and futher our scientific knowledge. They should not really be trying to prove that one country is better than the next (i.e. spend billions to plant american flags on every chunk of rock in space).

 

From what I understand, the ISS has failed as a worthwhile science lab cost wise. I heard one story about an experiment in which hamsters were put in little space suits for some reason or another, but the planners forgot to take into the account that they urinate every few minutes and they all drowned in their own urine before anything meaningful could be determined.

 

LH: It is my opinion that you are underestimating the power of dreams.

The Apollo 11 image of a flag on the moon fueled a generation of technically minded individuals to become engineers and scientists. In this generation these individuals are going in to business for more money and less work. This leads to a brain drain in the US that we?ve been able to stave off with engineers from other countries. That is about to come to an end as developing countries are producing higher demand for technicians than ever before.

While NASA can?t be all about photo ops. (and the dream aspect of NASA is the least tangible and hardest to sell), it is important aspect of NASA not only for the administration its self, but the country as a whole.

Of course this is only my opinion, but I hope I?ve made an effective argument for it.

 

I don't believe "cheap access to space" with "cheap" having the meaning the average citizen uses (as opposed to one the government uses), has ever been one of NASA's goals. Feel free to correct me though.

I'm gonna even though I kinda put my foot in my mouth despite having two space threads under my belt.

The original cost to orbit per pound of payload for the Shuttle was sold to Congress to be just over $100. Of course, it is actually $10,000 per pound. When the Shuttle was in development part of its cost was based on estimates of launch frequency ranging from a dozen launches per year to as much as 50(!). The fastest turnaround was Columbia being launched twice in a two month period. Even if that could have been maintained that would still be only half a dozen launches per year.
But that's not the only reason for such high launch costs. The Shuttle's complexity is the main culprit. This complexity requires something over 20,000 people working in Shuttle operations. Not to mention that the companies that supply NASA with parts don't care to reduce costs since they make more money by keeping space travel expensive.