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ROBOTIC MISSIONS CAN DO THE JOB OF STAFFED MISSIONS AT A FRACTION OF THE COST-Scoblic '04
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- MARS PHOENIX PROGRAM GENERATING A LOT OF SCIENTIFIC DATA ABOUT MARS-San Francisco Chronicle 08
- VIRTUAL REALITY OFFERS THE OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL PEOPLE TO EXPLORE SPACE-Harmon 04
- INHERENCY: OBAMA/NASA COMMITTED TO MARS BY 2030 OBAMA PLAN HAS THE UNITED STATES ORBITING MARS IN THE 2030s-Spotts 10
- THE UNITED STATES AND THE EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY ARE COLLABORATING ON NEW ROVERS TO EXPLORE MARS-Selding ‘11
- NASA IS ALREADY INVESTING IN PLANS AND TECHNOLOGIES TO EXPLORE OTHER WORLDS-Boyle ‘10
- NASA IS ALREADY PLANNING ONE-WAY TRIPS TO MARS TO SUPPORT COLONIZATION-Williamson ‘10
- NASA ACTIVELY DEVELOPING PLANS FOR ONE-WAY TRIPS TO MARS-Firth ‘10
- NASA IS MOVING TOWARDS GOING TO MARS WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF VEHICLES FOR DEEP SPACE EXLORATION-Hover ‘11
- MUST WAIT FOR HUMAN MARS MISSIONS UNTIL WE HAVE MARS ROBOT RETURN MISSIONS-Portree 97
- UNITED STATES SHOULD FOCUS ON UNSTAFFED ROBOTIC MARS MISSIONS-Petit 03
- NASAS PHILOSOPHY IS TO LEARN AS MUCH AS THEY CAN BEFORE PUTTING HUMANS AT RISK-Portree 97
- MARS PRIVATE COUNTERPLAN: MARS DIRECT WOULD BE CHEAPER IN PRIVATE HANDS IN THE HANDS OF PRIVATE COMPETITION, A MARS DIRECT MISSION COULD BE AS LOW AS $3-6 BILLION-Zubrin 96
- PRIVATE INDUSTRY COULD DEVELOP ALTERNATIVES TO FOREIGN ROCKET POWER-Zubrin 96
- SOLVENCY: MARS IS TOO COMPLEX OF A MISSION/TOO MANY TECHNICAL CHALLENGES THE STRONG PUSH TOWARDS STAFFED MISSIONS TO MARS ARENT ACCOMPANIED BY RATIONAL ARGUMENTS WHATSOEVER-Scoblic 04
- A MISSION TO MARS WOULD BE A MINIMUM OF $600 BILLION DOLLARS-Easterbrook 04
- THOSE SUGGESTION LIGHTWEIGHT MARS VEHICLES WITH CREWS OF ONE OR TWO ARE ASTRONOMICAL LUNATICS-Easterbrook 04
- PRACTICALITIES AND COST MAKE MARS A TOTALLY UNREALISTIC GOAL-Easterbrook 04
- SERIOUS TECHNICAL PROBLEMS EXIST BEFORE HUMANS CAN GO TO MARS-Venezia and Harrison 04
ROBOTIC MISSIONS CAN DO THE JOB OF STAFFED MISSIONS AT A FRACTION OF THE COST-Scoblic '04 [Peter J.; Earth Diarist: Rational Exuberance; The New Republic; 2 February 2004; page 34] One objection to a manned mission to Mars is that robotic craft could do the job just as well at a fraction of the cost-- a compelling argument as we watch the Spirit rover successfully bound (or rather inch) over the surface of the Red Planet. On January 10, The Washington Post's editors wrote, "The success of nasa's latest Mars venture has proved the worth of unmanned missions, while manned space flight is exorbitantly expensive." The Los Angeles Times approvingly quoted physicist and space guru James Van Allen as saying that we could explore Mars with robots "at far less cost and far greater quantity and quality of results." Or, as Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, bluntly summed it up, "There's no real rationale for a manned space program.” MARS PHOENIX PROGRAM GENERATING A LOT OF SCIENTIFIC DATA ABOUT MARS-San Francisco Chronicle '08 [Bull's-eye on Mars; San Francisco Chronicle; 30 May 2008; page B10] War, famine, politics - is there anything we humans can get right? One answer may lie on the frozen north pole of Mars. NASA, the space agency that's struggled through disasters and public doubt, directed a pinpoint landing of a soil-sniffing landing craft. So far, so good on this mission: The arrival was flawless, using red-and-white parachutes and reverse rocket thrusters that made for a pillow-soft landing. A space shot may be one of the trickiest challenges imaginable. This one followed two earlier flops when landings were off-target and equipment didn't work. NASA studied its mistakes and rebuilt a mothballed Mars probe for this mission. The result was a lander christened Phoenix, a name from mythology about a bird reborn from its ashes. The job ahead is determining if life-supporting water lies beneath the Red Planet's soil. Scientists theorize the frozen polar caps once tilted in a warmer direction, thawing water that hosted organisms. Once unlimbered, a 7.7 foot scoop will dig up soil up to 20 inches deep for other instruments to examine over the next three months. Earlier missions haven't turned up convincing evidence either way on the question about prior Martian life. This mission began 10 months ago with a rocket launch and thousands of crossed fingers at NASA headquarters. Since then the mission has traveled 422 million miles to land within 10 miles of its targeted landing zone, a cosmic bull's-eye. The project is also a financial marvel, priced at the bargain rate of $420 million. NASA deserves the high fives and backslaps its scientists gave out when Phoenix finally arrived this week. This latest feat may yield valuable science, and the mission may also turn out to be a welcome success for this country's space program. VIRTUAL REALITY OFFERS THE OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL PEOPLE TO EXPLORE SPACE-Harmon '04 [Amy; An Eager NASA Is Bringing Mars Down to Earth; The New York Times; 27 January 2004; page A1] ''There has been an enduring idea that one day everyone would fly in space,'' said Howard McCurdy, author of ''Space and the American Imagination'' (Smithsonian, 1997). ''But now young people are saying maybe we all go into space but we go mentally, virtually, electronically -- we don't go with our bodies. As the technology gets better, the virtual reality could get quite profound.'' In some ways, it already is. As NASA scientists tried to pinpoint the landing location of the Spirit by matching the pictures it sent back to satellite images of the terrain, Tim McCollum's eighth-grade science students in Charleston, Ill., did the same. After making their own guess, they came in every day wondering if NASA had released the answer. They are repeating the exercise this week with the Opportunity, which landed on the opposite side of the planet. ''In a virtual way the students are literally walking across the surface of Mars through the eyes of the rover,'' Mr. McCollum said. ''It's near-real-time exploration of another world, and that's incredible.''
[Pete; Obama NASA plan: Mars shot as next generation's Apollo mission; The Christian Science Monitor; 15 April 2010; http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0415/Obama-NASA-plan-Mars-shot-as-next-generation-s-Apollo-mission; retrieved 15 June 2011] Under the administration's plan, by the early 2020s, astronauts will be conducting test flights of rockets and hardware needed to support exploration not just beyond low-Earth orbit, but beyond the moon. By 2025, the president's approach envisions sending the first humans to visit an asteroid. By the mid 2030s, "I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And landing on Mars will follow," he said. Referring to arguments that the moon should be the next immediate destination - a destination US astronauts have reached six times already - he explained that "what we're looking for is not just to continue on the same path; we want to leap into the future. We want major breakthroughs, a transformative agenda for NASA."
[Peter B.; ESA Cleared To Restart Work on 2016 Mars Mission; Space News; 27 May 2011; http://www.spacenews.com/civil/110527-esa-cleared-restart-work-mars.html; retrieved 6 August 2011] The European Space Agency (ESA) on May 26 gave a sufficiently strong endorsement of a redesigned Mars exploration program with NASA to permit contract payments to restart in July, ESA officials said, adding that the new schedule leaves enough time — but just barely — to meet the program’s launch dates. Meeting in Utrecht, Netherlands, May 26-27, ESA’s Human Spaceflight and Operations directorate agreed to the general outlines of an ESA-NASA cooperative effort that includes launches in 2016 and 2018. The two-launch program was destabilized in March when NASA said it could no longer afford to build its own rover for the 2018 mission to be launched alongside a European rover. Instead, NASA proposed a joint rover for the 2018 mission. With the rover mission facing a major review, ESA in early April issued a stop-work order on not only the 2018 rover work, but also on a 2016 mission with NASA to launch a Mars orbiter and an entry, descent and landing technology package. NASA IS ALREADY INVESTING IN PLANS AND TECHNOLOGIES TO EXPLORE OTHER WORLDS-Boyle ‘10 [Rebecca; NASA and DARPA Plan ‘Hundred-Year Starship’ To Bring Humans to Other Worlds And Leave Them There Forever; PopSci; 20 October 2010; http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-10/%E2%80%98hundred-year-starship%E2%80%99-could-bring-humans-other-worlds-and-leave-them-there-forever; retrieved 2 August 2011] NASA and DARPA have joined forces to build something called a Hundred-Year Starship, according to the director of NASA’s Ames Research Center. Simon “Pete” Worden said NASA contributed $100,000 to the project and DARPA kicked in $1 million. “The human space program is now really aimed at settling other worlds,” Worden said, according to a Singularity University blog that covered the event. “Twenty years ago you had to whisper that in dark bars and get fired.” (Worden added that he was fired by President George W. Bush.) Beyond that, there are no details. But the prospect of a DARPA-NASA spaceship collaboration for Star Trek-esque exploration sounds thrilling — even if by definition, a 100-year ship means leaving Earth and never coming back. Incidentally, that’s exactly the proposal in a new paper in press in the Journal of Cosmology, a relatively new, peer-reviewed open access journal. Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Paul Davies suggest sending astronauts to Mars with the intention of staying for the rest of their lives, as trailblazers for a permanent Mars colony. NASA IS ALREADY PLANNING ONE-WAY TRIPS TO MARS TO SUPPORT COLONIZATION-Williamson ‘10 [Jamie; NASA’s ‘Hundred Years Starship’ ‘to take you to Mars but never return;’ TopNews; 28 October 2010; http://www.topnews.in/usa/nasa-s-hundred-years-starship-take-you-mars-never-return-25693; retrieved 19 July 2011] NASA is planning a one-way mission to Mars in a program called ‘Hundred Years Starship’ in which, a manned spacecraft will take astronauts to Mars and leave them there forever. NASA Ames Director Pete Worden revealed that one of NASA’s main research centres, Ames Research Centre, has received 1million dollars funding to start work on the project. Washington State University researchers had said that while technically feasible, a manned mission to Mars and back is unlikely to lift off anytime soon and so, a manned one-way mission to Mars would not only cut the costs by several fold, but also mark the beginning of long-term human colonization of the planet. Mars is by far the most promising for sustained colonization and development because it is similar in many respects to Earth and, crucially, possesses a moderate surface gravity, an atmosphere, abundant water and carbon dioxide, together with a range of essential minerals. "One approach could be to send four astronauts initially, two on each of two space craft, each with a lander and sufficient supplies, to stake a single outpost on Mars. A one-way human mission to Mars would be the first step in establishing a permanent human presence on the planet," said Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a Washington State University associate professor. Colleague Paul Davies, a physicist and cosmologist from Arizona State University, added that they aren''t suggesting that astronauts simply be abandoned on the Red Planet for the sake of science; in fact they propose a series of missions over time, sufficient to support long-term colonization. The authors proposed that the astronauts would be re-supplied on a periodic basis from Earth with basic necessities, but otherwise would be expected to become increasingly proficient at harvesting and utilizing resources available on Mars. Eventually they envision that outpost would reach self-sufficiency, and then it could serve as a hub for a greatly expanded colonization program. NASA ACTIVELY DEVELOPING PLANS FOR ONE-WAY TRIPS TO MARS-Firth ‘10 [Niall; The Hundred Year Starship: The Nasa mission that will take astronauts to Mars and leave them there forever; The Daily Mail; 29 October 2010; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1324192/Hundred-Year-Starship-Mars-mission-leave-astronauts-planet-forever.html; retrieved 4 August 2011] The mission is to boldly go where no man has gone before – on a flight to Mars. The snag is that you’d never come back. The U.S. space agency Nasa is actively investigating the possibility of humans colonising other worlds such as the Red Planet in an ambitious project named the Hundred Years Starship. The settlers would be sent supplies from Earth, but would go on the understanding that it would be too costly to make the return trip. NASA Ames Director Pete Worden revealed that one of NASA’s main research centres, Ames Research Centre, has received £1million funding to start work on the project. The research team has also received an additional $100,000 from Nasa. Astronauts would be marooned on the planet's surface and would never be able to return home due to cost
[Siddha; NASA Moves Closer to Manned Missions to Mars; Green Answers; 30 June 2011; http://greenanswers.com/news/241396/nasa-moves-closer-manned-missions-mars; retrieved 6 August 2011] NASA has moved one step closer to sending astronauts into deep space with the announced development of the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV). The MPCV replaces the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle, commissioned under President Bush and nixed under President Obama due to budgetary constraints. Funds used in the development of the Orion ship had exceeded five billion dollars at the time of the project’s cancellation. President Obama has instead set goals of a manned mission to a near-earth asteroid in the next twenty years, and a possible manned mission to Mars in the next thirty. NASA hopes the MPCV will help meet these goals. Unlike the Orion, which had been developed with the moon as its only destination, the MPCV will be used as the primary vehicle in the manned exploration of entirely new frontiers, such as asteroids or the Martian moons. The development of the MPCV was brought about by the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, which shifted NASA’s focus away from the moon and towards a “permanent human presence beyond low Earth orbit.” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden spoke on the Authorization Act and development of the MPCV in a statement released Tuesday. "We are committed to human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and look forward to developing the next generation of systems to take us there. The NASA Authorization Act lays out a clear path forward for us by handing off transportation to the International Space Station to our private sector partners, so we can focus on deep space exploration,” he said.
[David S.F.; The new Martian chronicles; Astronomy; August 1997; page 32] According to Gooding, "the best approach designing back-contamination controls is to perform meaningful reconnaissance of the Mars surface environment before we send the astronauts. The more we know about martian materials, the more effective will be our provisions for the astronauts." Gooding's already planning for NASA's proposed robotic sample-return mission in 2005. "We are now busy identifying sample handling protocols," he says. "A few robotic sample returns will make us immensely wiser about how to send people to Mars and return them safely." UNITED STATES SHOULD FOCUS ON UNSTAFFED ROBOTIC MARS MISSIONS-Petit '03 [Charles; DREAMING OF MARS; US News and World Report; 1 September 2003; page 40] Some think all this footprints-on-Mars talk is nuts. Many scientists say robots can search for life far more cheaply. University of Maryland physicist Robert Park, author of a weekly online commentary on science and politics, adds: "I'd ban any human being from setting foot on Mars [because] the most important reason for going is to see if we can find life." People on Mars, he figures, would only contaminate the place and confuse the search for native life. NASA'S PHILOSOPHY IS TO LEARN AS MUCH AS THEY CAN BEFORE PUTTING HUMANS AT RISK-Portree '97 [David S.F.; The new Martian chronicles; Astronomy; August 1997; page 32] So NASA's philosophy is that while it cannot predict or avoid all risks, it can learn enough about Mars in the near future to consider reasonable precautions. As Joosten puts it: "The first people to go to Mars will encounter unknowns because they'll be doing something no one has ever done before--exploring another planet." MARS PRIVATE COUNTERPLAN: MARS DIRECT WOULD BE CHEAPER IN PRIVATE HANDS IN THE HANDS OF PRIVATE COMPETITION, A MARS DIRECT MISSION COULD BE AS LOW AS $3-6 BILLION-Zubrin '96 [Robert; President of the Mars Society; Mars on a shoestring; November/December 1996; page 20] But how could the Mars Prize be set as low as $20 billion? Didn't I say that a Mars Direct program would probably cost the government $20 billion just to develop the hardware? Even if you threw in a series of secondary prizes ranging from $500 million to $5 billion for meeting lesser challenges, a private organization would hardly be tempted to venture $20 billion on a Mars shot. But my estimate of $20 billion for Mars Direct hardware is based upon the conventional approach, in which NASA funds major aerospace contractors to get the job done within their existing overhead structures, and spends a lot on itself for "program management." If Mars Direct were done on a truly private basis, with the people undertaking the effort being free to buy whatever they want from whomever they want, to build whatever they want, I believe that the cost of the effort would be in the $3-$6 billion range. It sounds incredible, but if you total up what is actually needed to fly the mission, it's hard to see why the program should cost more. As a rule of thumb, aerospace systems that are comparable in sophistication to the Mars ascent vehicles, habitats, entry capsules, and other Mars Direct systems can be developed for about $10 million per tonne of dry hardware. The McDonnell Douglas DC-X single-stage-to-orbit test vehicle, for example, came in at $6 million per tonne. The total amount of hardware needed for Mars Direct, excluding launch vehicles, is certainly less than 100 tonnes. So budget $1 billion for that. To launch everything you need for a mission to Mars, including propellant (which is cheap stuff, less than $1,000 per tonne), you would have to lift about 300 tonnes. That amount could be boosted to low earth orbit by three Russian Energias, which would cost about $300 million each, for a total of $900 million in launch costs, plus maybe $500 million in startup expenses to revive the Energia production line. The total cost for all hardware development and launch would thus be $2.4 billion. Toss in another $600 million for mission operations, program management, legal costs, and other odds and ends, and you've got yourself a $3 billion Mars program. PRIVATE INDUSTRY COULD DEVELOP ALTERNATIVES TO FOREIGN ROCKET POWER-Zubrin '96 [Robert; President of the Mars Society; Mars on a shoestring; November/December 1996; page 20] If Energia or other Russian launch vehicles--such as Proton, which is in production and whose launch cost is about $4 million per tonne to low earth orbit--are not available (or not allowed under the terms of the prize), we'll have to build a new heavy-lift rocket. But even that doesn't have to add much to the cost of the mission. Existing medium-lift boosters can launch payloads for about $10 million per tonne. At that rate--which is extremely conservative since a heavy-lift launch vehicle such as our hypothetical Ares would enjoy major economies of scale--launching the required 300 tonnes would cost $3 billion. Such a booster could certainly be developed for $1 billion. Add that to the $1 billion for spacecraft hardware development and the $600 million in operational and other expenses, and you've still got a Mars program for less than $6 billion. So if the real cost of the mission is $3-$6 billion, a $20 billion prize ought to be able to mobilize the required capital from the private sector (see "A Prize Progression" on pages 28-29). SOLVENCY: MARS IS TOO COMPLEX OF A MISSION/TOO MANY TECHNICAL CHALLENGES THE STRONG PUSH TOWARDS STAFFED MISSIONS TO MARS AREN'T ACCOMPANIED BY RATIONAL ARGUMENTS WHATSOEVER-Scoblic '04 [Peter J.; Earth Diarist: Rational Exuberance; The New Republic; 2 February 2004; page 34] Space-travel enthusiasts have always had trouble explaining why men must accompany their machines to other planets. As Hermann Oberth, a pioneer of rocketeering, observed, "For those who have never known the relentless urge to explore and discover, there is no answer. For those who have felt this urge, the answer is self-evident." In their attempt to articulate that urge, proponents of space travel often resort to platitudes. Last year, for example, after the shuttle Columbia disintegrated on reentry, President Bush said, "Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on." Such sentiments do nothing to sway Mars skeptics. As Anne Applebaum of The Washington Post asked in a January 7 column, "But why should it go on? Or at least why should the human travel part of it go on?" When Applebaum received a slew of angry e-mails from Mars buffs, she noted derisively that "most contained no rational arguments whatsoever. Instead, they cited the `religious awe' that space travel inspires, or the `human quest to explore and discover.'" A MISSION TO MARS WOULD BE A MINIMUM OF $600 BILLION DOLLARS-Easterbrook '04 [Gregg; Red Scare - Bush's goofy Mars proposal; The New Republic; 2 February 2004; page 12] These are reasons why, when Bush's father asked nasa in 1989 about sending people to Mars, the Agency estimated a total program cost of $400 billion for several missions. That inflates to $600 billion in today's money and sounds about right as an estimate. Consider that the program cost of the space station is about $100 billion, and it weighs less than one-third as much as the conjectured Mars squadron and does not have to escape Earth's gravity, travel 100 million miles, land on another planet, and then come back. With current technology, a Mars program would cost at least several times what the space station did. Spirit, the rover that just landed on Mars, weighs about a ton and cost $410 million to build and send toward the Red Planet. If the spacecraft of a 1,000-ton Mars squadron costs as much per pound, then the price of a single manned Mars mission would be $410 billion! THOSE SUGGESTION LIGHTWEIGHT MARS VEHICLES WITH CREWS OF ONE OR TWO ARE ASTRONOMICAL LUNATICS-Easterbrook '04 [Gregg; Red Scare - Bush's goofy Mars proposal; The New Republic; 2 February 2004; page 12] Some lunatics--I use that word in its astronomical context--have suggested a Mars mission could be staged with a spacecraft weighing only a few hundred tons by using inflatable habitats for the Martian surface, or sending a crew of just two, or skipping the shielding and simply gambling that radiation storms will not pass through the solar system while the ship is in transit, or going to Mars without the fuel needed to come back and trying to make that fuel there. Maybe a privately financed Mars mission could proceed with rudimentary "spam- in-a-can" capsules and gamble with the lives of its adventurers. Indeed, many of the grand expeditions of the past were privately funded--perhaps some entrepreneur with dreams of riches on Mars will mount such a voyage, though the financial odds seem long. At any rate, there's no chance nasa would propose, nor any president approve, a stripped-down mission that might lead to CNN images of stranded astronauts dying on Mars. PRACTICALITIES AND COST MAKE MARS A TOTALLY UNREALISTIC GOAL-Easterbrook '04 [Gregg; Red Scare - Bush's goofy Mars proposal; The New Republic; 2 February 2004; page 12] For the moment, however, talk of a Mars mission is bunkum. The simple reason is cost, which is in large part a function of weight. The Apollo spacecraft that went to the moon weighed 45 tons at departure from Earth orbit, carrying enough material to support three people over ten days and about 800,000 miles. A Mars craft, by contrast, would be gone for two years or longer, carry perhaps six people, and travel 100 million miles or more, meaning it would have to be far heavier. The Mars Institute, a private group that strongly supports a Mars mission and whose reports are said to have influenced the White House announcement, proposes, among other things, a roughly 1,000-ton mission composed of four separate vehicles, each weighing 240 tons at departure from Earth orbit, only the last of them carrying crew. SERIOUS TECHNICAL PROBLEMS EXIST BEFORE HUMANS CAN GO TO MARS-Venezia and Harrison '04 [Todd and Bridget; MANNED JOURNEY FACES MISSION IMPOSSIBILITIES; THe New York Post; 3 March 2004; page 9] And that cost can't guarantee scientists can overcome the serious problems that Mars mission specialists would face: long-term exposure to solar radiation, a 6- to 8-month space flight, carrying enough water and oxygen to survive (or having to make it on Mars) - and that doesn't even address how to get the crew home. "It's not going to be like the Apollo moon landings when people went up for four days and came back," said Rich Talcott, senior editor of Astronomy Magazine. "We need to go to the Moon first because it turns out it is easier to launch things from there because there is less gravity." Directory: file -> fetch fetch -> 11 th Lit Semester 1 Final Study Guide!!! fetch -> Industrial Revolution Inventors fetch -> Analysis for Galveston Hurricane of 1900 fetch -> The Illuminators (Team 2) 1900 Galveston Hurricane Cycle a team Assignment fetch -> Team csi-utb ruth Reyes Jose Ferrer fetch -> Galveston Hurricane of 1900 Cycle a-teacher as a Problem Solver fetch -> Is Climate Change Starting a New Dust Bowl? Cycle A fetch -> What makes a storm a hurricane fetch -> The 1950s were the "Happy Days" because it was a time of economic prosperity, technology development, new entertainment, new fashion and family growth. The 1950s was a great time fetch -> Sputnik and The Dawn of the Space Age Download 1.49 Mb. Share with your friends:
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