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Space exploration news

You’ve made a case for first colonizing the Moon. Having a base with low gravity, no atmosphere and an abundant fuel source that can be mined, makes the Moon far better at launching humans to other planets and celestial bodies.

It takes robotic missions 6 to 8 months to reach Mars and it’s only that long because they’re being efficient on the payload launching from Earth, given limited budgets. Sending an empty ship to the Moon then filling it up with fuel on the Moon itself will enable continuous propulsion which could get a craft to incredibly high speeds, arriving near Mars in a matter of weeks then firing the rockets on approach to slow it down. A ship with that amount of fuel isn’t feasible from Earth but is from the Moon.

The World is experiencing major changes, including financial and in our priorities so I won’t try to predict how long it’ll be before Humans get to Mars, but in The pre-COVID/BLM timeline, early 2030s was entirely doable if the return to the Moon happened in 2024 as planned.

Actually the moon is volatile-poor (for fuel and life-support) in general (there are ice deposits at the poles, but not necessarily all that much and accessible) - there is no reason to detour to the moon on the way to mars at all - it doesn't make the trip any easier. It makes NO sense to go up the Earth gravity well, get down to the moon and go up another gravity well to get to mars.

Ad Astra is pure celestial mechanics BS (like launch to moon to get to mars to get to neptune - WTF? It's a crappy daddy-issues movie).

AoD
 
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What we have right now (chemical propulsion) is perfectly fine going to mars

It's getting back that is the problem.....

It makes NO sense to go up the Earth gravity well, get down to the moon and go up another gravity well to get to mars.

The real value of the moon is as a dress rehearsal. I was lucky enough to complete an Astro degree on exchange in the US. Had several astronauts teach me and ab aerodynamicist who worked on the Apollo program. The most stunning thing was the risks they there were willing to accept. Like 25% risk of failure. 10% risk of fatality on launch itself. Etc. Numbers that would not be tolerated today. That was also an era when air forces (including ours) crashed one jet a week. Today we crash one aircraft a year. Maybe.
 
It's getting back that is the problem.....



The real value of the moon is as a dress rehearsal. I was lucky enough to complete an Astro degree on exchange in the US. Had several astronauts teach me and ab aerodynamicist who worked on the Apollo program. The most stunning thing was the risks they there were willing to accept. Like 25% risk of failure. 10% risk of fatality on launch itself. Etc. Numbers that would not be tolerated today. That was also an era when air forces (including ours) crashed one jet a week. Today we crash one aircraft a year. Maybe.
Success or failure would lead to being mentioned in science history books for decades to come.

Though Apollo 13 was a failure, it was made into a Hollywood movie.
 
It's getting back that is the problem.....

The real value of the moon is as a dress rehearsal. I was lucky enough to complete an Astro degree on exchange in the US. Had several astronauts teach me and ab aerodynamicist who worked on the Apollo program. The most stunning thing was the risks they there were willing to accept. Like 25% risk of failure. 10% risk of fatality on launch itself. Etc. Numbers that would not be tolerated today. That was also an era when air forces (including ours) crashed one jet a week. Today we crash one aircraft a year. Maybe.

ISRU, and NTR is baselined under multiple studies - the latter (then NERVA) was literally 60s tech before Nixon canned it. The former will be tested on the Perseverance rover and central to SpaceX's mars efforts. None of these are sci-fi level tech - just tech that needs to be tested, improved and tested again.

You nailed it re: test-bedding and rehearsal - NASA seem to have gotten so risk-adverse and disinterested in iterative improvements that everything becomes a one-off with the latest bells and whistles (which ironically makes every instance of failure that much worse). It's not only true in human spaceflight - their unmanned program is the same. They used to launch probes in pairs, at every opportunity.

I dislike Elon Musk as a person, but I am glad SpaceX is around.

AoD
 
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I'll defend NASA. They aren't risk averse. They just don't have the funds. During the space race, actual whole percentages of GDP went to NASA. When you don't have the budget, the room for risk goes down. They were also compelled to leave a lot of development work to industry and prioritize remote sensing (due to climate change) and small sat development over launch tech and exploration.

I had profs who were seconded from NASA while down there. They wish they had the budget and freedom to do what Space X did. But there's also a recognition that developing a space sector, as opposed to a loan government agency running the show is a good thing.
 
Success or failure would lead to being mentioned in science history books for decades to come.

Though Apollo 13 was a failure, it was made into a Hollywood movie.

That is not how they thought about it at the time. Winning the moon race was entirely about the Cold War contest of symbolism and about also delivering powerful rocket tech for ICBMs. In that context, losing crew every week was simply the cost of doing business. Air forces all over NATO and the Warsaw Pact were doing just that at the time.

Also, the risks weren't entirely understood at the time. NASA used later risk management tools to go and backtest these missions. That's when they learned how risky it really was. Here's a NASA paper we read in school on their risk assessments of Apollo and the Shuttle programs. It's important to remember that fields like systems engineering were essentially being developed at the same time that they were building rockets to get to the moon.
 
I'll defend NASA. They aren't risk averse. They just don't have the funds. During the space race, actual whole percentages of GDP went to NASA. When you don't have the budget, the room for risk goes down. They were also compelled to leave a lot of development work to industry and prioritize remote sensing (due to climate change) and small sat development over launch tech and exploration.

I had profs who were seconded from NASA while down there. They wish they had the budget and freedom to do what Space X did. But there's also a recognition that developing a space sector, as opposed to a loan government agency running the show is a good thing.

Don’t forget the congressionally mandated SLS has sucked up umpteen billions with zero reusability and unimpressive lift capacity at Block I (and further improvements are unfunded). They don‘t have a small budget - they just don’t have the flexibility to use it properly. Also they were charged an arm and a leg for launches (and by the Russians for Soyuz) until SpaceX got into the scene. I mean the latest NASA is talking about launching the integrated Gateway stack using FH (and logistics to be handled commercially) - previous impossibilities under ULA.

Nice - someone who know about NTRS! This might be of interest to you - some of the latest on NTR:


AoD
 
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Is the risk and cost of sending people anywhere like the Moon or Mars justifiable? What would they be doing or finding that robotic probes had not already done by the time they get there? "Colonizing" always strikes me as a strange term to use when discussing spaceflight. Who wants to live perpetually indoors where you can't even open a window? As far as I know (according to Wikipedia) Antarctica has no permanent residents, only 1000 to 5000 people who temporarily occupy research stations, and unlike Mars, the Moon, or low Earth orbit, we can breathe the air and get there comparatively easily.

I think the money would be better spent on more useful scientific projects like probes to the outer planets and their moons, and enormous space telescopes (which may or may not require some astronaut involvement to assemble in space).
 
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As far as I know (according to Wikipedia) Antarctica has no permanent residents, only 200-1000 people who temporarily occupy research stations, and unlike Mars, the Moon, or low Earth orbit, we can breathe the air and get there comparatively easily.
We haven't even scratched the surface in exploring the oceans, but I guess space is more sexy.
 
Is the risk and cost of sending people anywhere like the Moon or Mars justifiable?

Yes. 100%. The amount of funding it should receive should be massively higher.
We've spent a lot of time and resources as a species to get away from being in the outdoors. Not having an operable window on the moon doesn't seem like a hardship.
 
Yes. 100%. The amount of funding it should receive should be massively higher.
We've spent a lot of time and resources as a species to get away from being in the outdoors. Not having an operable window on the moon doesn't seem like a hardship.

The real prize for habitability in the inner solar system is Mars - not the Moon. There is sufficient water and volatiles (not to mention other resources) to enable a self-sustaining colony that you'd be hard pressed to find elsewhere.

As to the rationale for exploring space - it isn't just about gaining basic knowledge, but also about gaining the scientific and technological know-hows to become a space-faring species. That necessitate human spaceflight. As good old Konstantin Tsiolkovsky said - The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever.

AoD
 
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I wonder if they had similar discussions in Europe several hundred years ago. 'Why are we spending all this money to send men to terra incognita?'

It's what human do. It started when the first tribe explored over the next hill.
 
I wonder if they had similar discussions in Europe several hundred years ago. 'Why are we spending all this money to send men to terra incognita?'

It's what human do. It started when the first tribe explored over the next hill.

To be fair, they did have a seemingly more immediate economic imperative - alternate trade route to Asia. The true economic return of space exploration is curently hamstrung by the high cost of access to space.

AoD
 
It's what human do. It started when the first tribe explored over the next hill.

I remember this feeling very well as someone who grew up on a housing estate in south-central Scarborough. We bordered a woods and a golf course and it was a decade of primitive tribalist fun.

Kinda like the woke bastards and racists of today...except.....we were just kids having fun. ;)
 

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