Author Topic: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars  (Read 22845 times)

Offline Rocket Science

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Re: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars
« Reply #20 on: 10/11/2016 04:22 pm »
It is all political.  He is trying to get support for Clinton.  You have to take every thing a career politician says with a grain of salt.
and a side order of fries...
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Offline Big Al

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Re: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars
« Reply #21 on: 10/11/2016 04:33 pm »
Let's go back to the moon.....nah, we have already done that......Let's go to Mars, nah it's too expensive .......Let's go to an asteroid ...... nah, it's too difficult.......Let's drag part of an asteroid near to earth.......Ya.Ya..Ya .....Let's colonize Mars before Musk does it........Ya,Ya,Ya......we can't let some crackpot get there before we do!! 

Offline Chris Bergin

Easy guys. Remember to play the ball, not the man. (Football, *cough* soccer reference to how you can break a player's leg in a tackle and it's legal if you take the ball first)...I digress, but go after the content, not the people saying it.

Only a month to go and we're doing well with the avoidance of political campaigning, so let's keep it that way.
« Last Edit: 10/11/2016 05:01 pm by Chris Bergin »
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Offline muomega0

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Re: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars
« Reply #23 on: 10/11/2016 05:19 pm »
Let's go back to the moon.....nah, we have already done that......Let's go to Mars, nah it's too expensive .......Let's go to an asteroid ...... nah, it's too difficult.......Let's drag part of an asteroid near to earth.......Ya.Ya..Ya .....Let's colonize Mars before Musk does it........Ya,Ya,Ya......we can't let some crackpot get there before we do!!
Choosing the destination (lunar) and a date (2020) allowed the 2000s Congress to retain shuttle derived and the lunar focus presented a very limited, incredibly expendable architecture that has ZERO missions. It is the exact opposite of a moonshot challenge.

Augustine said one needs 3B/yr more....Let's see the budget for SLS/Orion is about 3B/yr.   So if one shifted redundant, excess launch capacity and multiple capsules to say a DSH or other needed technologies (Closed ECLSS, lightweight crew health, demonstrating the reliability of the deep space long duration (>6 months vs 3 day trips to lunar), landing heavy objects economically through an atmosphere, ISRU- asteroids, Martian Moons, etc), it opens up the possibility of a BEO mission, rather than zero.

Inspace refueling reduces LV size, enables reuse, and expanded NASA and DOD missions (BEO, space junk, and tech maturation) lower launch costs to create/expand new markets in faster global coverage communications, SMART Electric Grid, Transportation, Drone Delivery and the IPs can also help reduce costs by providing 70% of the mission mass: dirt cheap, class D propellant.

Bottom line:  The current approach must change or it simply is Ya..Ya...Ya..   What will change:  SLS/Orion/ISS?

Offline Khadgars

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Re: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars
« Reply #24 on: 10/11/2016 05:28 pm »
Let's go back to the moon.....nah, we have already done that......Let's go to Mars, nah it's too expensive .......Let's go to an asteroid ...... nah, it's too difficult.......Let's drag part of an asteroid near to earth.......Ya.Ya..Ya .....Let's colonize Mars before Musk does it........Ya,Ya,Ya......we can't let some crackpot get there before we do!!
Choosing the destination (lunar) and a date (2020) allowed the 2000s Congress to retain shuttle derived and the lunar focus presented a very limited, incredibly expendable architecture that has ZERO missions. It is the exact opposite of a moonshot challenge.

Augustine said one needs 3B/yr more....Let's see the budget for SLS/Orion is about 3B/yr.   So if one shifted redundant, excess launch capacity and multiple capsules to say a DSH or other needed technologies (Closed ECLSS, lightweight crew health, demonstrating the reliability of the deep space long duration (>6 months vs 3 day trips to lunar), landing heavy objects economically through an atmosphere, ISRU- asteroids, Martian Moons, etc), it opens up the possibility of a BEO mission, rather than zero.

Inspace refueling reduces LV size, enables reuse, and expanded NASA and DOD missions (BEO, space junk, and tech maturation) lower launch costs to create/expand new markets in faster global coverage communications, SMART Electric Grid, Transportation, Drone Delivery and the IPs can also help reduce costs by providing 70% of the mission mass: dirt cheap, class D propellant.

Bottom line:  The current approach must change or it simply is Ya..Ya...Ya..   What will change:  SLS/Orion/ISS?

I disagree.  All active parties with current ambitions of BLEO exploration (SpaceX, Blue Origins, China, NASA) are not advancing smaller LV's with in-orbit refueling, but are in-fact designing and building SHLLV (ITS, New Glen/Armstrong, LM-9, SLS) which is counter to your argument. 

Now, you could point to the in-orbit refueling currently purposed for ITS, but ITS is an order of magnitude more powerful than Saturn V.  NASA missions may yet use in-orbit refueling,  but there is no indication this will lead to smaller LVs.

The speech by Obama is a welcomed one.  It is just reaffirming what we already knew, that Mars is NASA's HSF goal.  Hopefully in the next Administration, we can check off a couple more boxes that we need on our journey to get there.
« Last Edit: 10/11/2016 05:31 pm by Khadgars »
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Offline testguy

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Re: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars
« Reply #25 on: 10/11/2016 05:53 pm »
On the one hand I welcome the news but am also concerned.  The Administration time line is much longer than the optimistic, but not impossible, SpaceX plan.  My concern is that for SpaceX to get government funding they may have to stretch their schedule to aline with the government funding profiles, specifications and reporting.  It is a mixed blessing.  I always speculated that NASA would at some point partner with industry, SpaceX in particular, to get to Mars or risk being left behind.

I also got to wonder if SpaceX would not have already had astronauts in orbit if they had not won government contracts to do so.  I don't know if this has been discussed before but would be interested in feedback.
« Last Edit: 10/11/2016 05:55 pm by testguy »

Offline Proponent

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Re: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars
« Reply #26 on: 10/11/2016 06:08 pm »
The current approach must change or it simply is Ya..Ya...Ya..   What will change:  SLS/Orion/ISS?

I disagree.  All active parties with current ambitions of BLEO exploration (SpaceX, Blue Origins, China, NASA) are not advancing smaller LV's with in-orbit refueling, but are in-fact designing and building SHLLV (ITS, New Glen/Armstrong, LM-9, SLS) which is counter to your argument.

Khadgers, you keep ignoring the fact that what SpaceX and Blue Origin propose to do is on an entirely different scale from what NASA proposes to do.  NASA wants to send a few people to Mars every decade.  SpaceX and Blue Origin envision launching large numbers of people -- many thousands per Mars launch window, in SpaceX's case.  If their plans come to pass, their vehicles will have huge flight rates.  NASA's will not.  That SpaceX and Blue Origin envision large rockets is in no way an argument that NASA needs one, much less needs its own unique rocket.

As for the Chinese, we don't know what their plan is, do we?  It could easily be the case that to the extent China really is making progress toward Long March 9, its interest may be driven by the prestige of having a large launch vehicle.

Offline Khadgars

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Re: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars
« Reply #27 on: 10/11/2016 06:48 pm »
The current approach must change or it simply is Ya..Ya...Ya..   What will change:  SLS/Orion/ISS?

I disagree.  All active parties with current ambitions of BLEO exploration (SpaceX, Blue Origins, China, NASA) are not advancing smaller LV's with in-orbit refueling, but are in-fact designing and building SHLLV (ITS, New Glen/Armstrong, LM-9, SLS) which is counter to your argument.

Khadgers, you keep ignoring the fact that what SpaceX and Blue Origin propose to do is on an entirely different scale from what NASA proposes to do.  NASA wants to send a few people to Mars every decade.  SpaceX and Blue Origin envision launching large numbers of people -- many thousands per Mars launch window, in SpaceX's case.  If their plans come to pass, their vehicles will have huge flight rates.  NASA's will not.  That SpaceX and Blue Origin envision large rockets is in no way an argument that NASA needs one, much less needs its own unique rocket.

As for the Chinese, we don't know what their plan is, do we?  It could easily be the case that to the extent China really is making progress toward Long March 9, its interest may be driven by the prestige of having a large launch vehicle.

I fully understand the differences in architecture between SpaceX/Blue Origins and NASA.  I actually believe if ITS ever does come to pass, it will likely be using some technology demonstrated by NASA before hand (ECLSS, In-Situ,etc).

But my point is, that none of of these plans are calling for smaller LV's, none.  The whole idea of creating smaller LV's with in-orbit refueling has not been endorsed by a single entity, and that all relevant parties are in-fact moving to SHLLV, albeit with different architectures.  Whether you believe NASA's SHLLV or SpaceX SHLLV is the right path (or doable) is another argument.

I agree, a lot can change over the next 10 years.  Exciting times indeed  ;)
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Offline Proponent

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Re: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars
« Reply #28 on: 10/11/2016 08:22 pm »
But my point is, that none of of these plans are calling for smaller LV's, none.

And, since you've mentioned this a number of times, I gather you find it significant.  What significance do you attach to it?

Quote
The whole idea of creating smaller LV's with in-orbit refueling has not been endorsed by a single entity, and that all relevant parties are in-fact moving to SHLLV, albeit with different architectures.

But as you point out, SpaceX does plan refueling.  Do we know what Blue Origin's plans are?

Offline Borklund

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Re: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars
« Reply #29 on: 10/11/2016 08:47 pm »
Do we know what Blue Origin's plans are?
Nothing beyond its name (New Armstrong) and an implied bigness.

Offline Coastal Ron

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Re: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars
« Reply #30 on: 10/11/2016 09:01 pm »
I disagree.  All active parties with current ambitions of BLEO exploration (SpaceX, Blue Origins, China, NASA) are not advancing smaller LV's with in-orbit refueling, but are in-fact designing and building SHLLV (ITS, New Glen/Armstrong, LM-9, SLS) which is counter to your argument.

Did you miss the part of Musk's ITS presentation where they talked about refueling in Earth orbit prior to leaving en masse to Mars?

And we don't know enough about Blue Origin or China's BLEO plans to rule in or rule out in-orbit refueling, especially since if they aren't going to Mars it's not as important.

As for NASA, NASA does in fact plan to use interplanetary architectures that require multiple launches before leaving Earth-local space, but as of today they have very little actual hardware defined for going beyond Earth orbit.

Quote
Now, you could point to the in-orbit refueling currently purposed for ITS, but ITS is an order of magnitude more powerful than Saturn V.  NASA missions may yet use in-orbit refueling,  but there is no indication this will lead to smaller LVs.

I'm not sure why you focus so much on comparing everything to the Saturn V.  The Saturn V was built to solve a specific goal - getting to the Moon as quickly as possible, and cost was not a prime consideration.

Going beyond Earth's orbit has different goals, with probably the most important one being cost.  So the Saturn V is not a valid transportation system to reference.  Not at all.

That's also why what SpaceX is currently doing, which is very much focused on cost, is the new standard.  It may be too big of an architecture for pure science needs, which is all NASA needs today, but if it works it likely will cost NASA far less to buy an ITS and fly it around the solar system than it will be to keep trying to use the SLS.

Quote
The speech by Obama is a welcomed one.  It is just reaffirming what we already knew, that Mars is NASA's HSF goal.  Hopefully in the next Administration, we can check off a couple more boxes that we need on our journey to get there.

If this kills off any talk about NASA returning to the Moon, then I'm all for it.  NASA should only focus on what hasn't been solved.

However Obama restating his wishes still doesn't solve the basic problem the U.S. Government has with going to Mars - other than "science", there is no "National Imperative" driving a need to send government employees to Mars, which means that the 2030's is a "soft goal", not a "hard goal".  And by that time we'll know if the ITS works, and if it does then it will cost far less to just buy a ride to the surface of Mars instead of NASA operating it's own exploration architecture.
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

Offline Rocket Science

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Re: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars
« Reply #31 on: 10/11/2016 10:58 pm »
I just caught a discussion on CNN about the announcement and I heard talk of gov-private partnership for the proposed mission...
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Offline AncientU

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Re: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars
« Reply #32 on: 10/11/2016 11:57 pm »
The National Imperative is to again become a leader in science and technology... STEM.
A space program that is on the daily news (or trending on twitter...) is an opportunity to inspire a generation again.

The more mundane piece is politicians sensing which way the crowd is moving and rushing to get out in front of them to act like Leaders.
« Last Edit: 10/11/2016 11:57 pm by AncientU »
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Offline AncientU

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Re: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars
« Reply #33 on: 10/12/2016 12:40 am »
The current approach must change or it simply is Ya..Ya...Ya..   What will change:  SLS/Orion/ISS?

I disagree.  All active parties with current ambitions of BLEO exploration (SpaceX, Blue Origins, China, NASA) are not advancing smaller LV's with in-orbit refueling, but are in-fact designing and building SHLLV (ITS, New Glen/Armstrong, LM-9, SLS) which is counter to your argument.

Khadgers, you keep ignoring the fact that what SpaceX and Blue Origin propose to do is on an entirely different scale from what NASA proposes to do.  NASA wants to send a few people to Mars every decade.  SpaceX and Blue Origin envision launching large numbers of people -- many thousands per Mars launch window, in SpaceX's case.  If their plans come to pass, their vehicles will have huge flight rates.  NASA's will not.  That SpaceX and Blue Origin envision large rockets is in no way an argument that NASA needs one, much less needs its own unique rocket.

As for the Chinese, we don't know what their plan is, do we?  It could easily be the case that to the extent China really is making progress toward Long March 9, its interest may be driven by the prestige of having a large launch vehicle.

I fully understand the differences in architecture between SpaceX/Blue Origins and NASA.  I actually believe if ITS ever does come to pass, it will likely be using some technology demonstrated by NASA before hand (ECLSS, In-Situ,etc).

But my point is, that none of of these plans are calling for smaller LV's, none.  The whole idea of creating smaller LV's with in-orbit refueling has not been endorsed by a single entity, and that all relevant parties are in-fact moving to SHLLV, albeit with different architectures.  Whether you believe NASA's SHLLV or SpaceX SHLLV is the right path (or doable) is another argument.

I agree, a lot can change over the next 10 years.  Exciting times indeed  ;)

The paradigm change is that in-orbit refueling does not equal smaller launch vehicles.
In-orbit refueling allows us to multiply the capabilities of any launch vehicle.  To do a presentable job at getting to Mars, you need dozens of SLS-class expendables, dozens of use-once Mars landers, numbers of MAVs, Habs, etc...  This is all simply too expensive -- impossible -- even if you launch 1-2 HLVs a year.

Using on-orbit refueling, and IMO, reusable launch vehicles, we can finally envision sending enough mass to establish a beach head on Mars.  Go there 'to stay.'
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Offline MATTBLAK

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Re: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars
« Reply #34 on: 10/12/2016 12:50 am »
I'm bemused by the amount of attention this event has garnered in the International media. This is not in the slightest a 'Kennedy like moment' as I've seen suggested in a couple of places. This is an unfunded, feelgood mandate by a President with even less than Lame Duck stature. Bewildering...
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Offline donaldp

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Re: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars
« Reply #35 on: 10/12/2016 02:27 am »
I've not seen anything about this posted yet, but may have missed it.

The BBC have published this article  which states that President Obama would be convening leading scientists, engineers and innovators in Pittsburgh this week to "dream up ways to build on our progress and find the next frontiers".

Is this related to the recent announcements from companies planning Mars missions and does anyone think anything concrete will come from this?

Offline Endeavour_01

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Re: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars
« Reply #36 on: 10/12/2016 02:51 am »
I'm bemused by the amount of attention this event has garnered in the International media.

Same here. None of what the President has said is new. He is repeating the same "Journey to Mars" points. Yet today for some reason many news agencies here in the US are treating it like he came out and said, "We will go to Mars within the decade" and that he is devoting vast resources to NASA.  ??? ??? ??? ??? ???
« Last Edit: 10/12/2016 02:52 am by Endeavour_01 »
I cheer for both NASA and commercial space. For SLS, Orion, Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Dragon, Starship/SH, Starliner, Cygnus and all the rest!
I was blessed to see the launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour on STS-99. The launch was beyond amazing. My 8-year old mind was blown. I remember the noise and seeing the exhaust pour out of the shuttle as it lifted off. I remember staring and watching it soar while it was visible in the clear blue sky. It was one of the greatest moments of my life and I will never forget it.

Offline yg1968

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Re: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars
« Reply #37 on: 10/12/2016 03:23 am »
Here is the most relevant part of the Op-Ed:

Quote from: President Obama
We have set a clear goal vital to the next chapter of America's story in space: sending humans to Mars by the 2030s and returning them safely to Earth, with the ultimate ambition to one day remain there for an extended time. Getting to Mars will require continued cooperation between government and private innovators, and we're already well on our way.

Offline Rocket Science

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Re: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars
« Reply #38 on: 10/12/2016 07:21 am »
Here is the most relevant part of the Op-Ed:

Quote from: President Obama
We have set a clear goal vital to the next chapter of America's story in space: sending humans to Mars by the 2030s and returning them safely to Earth, with the ultimate ambition to one day remain there for an extended time. Getting to Mars will require continued cooperation between government and private innovators, and we're already well on our way.
This is what I said earlier that I heard said by Jim Acosta, CNN senior White House correspondent. He said it will not be another Apollo but a gov-private partnership. My sentiment once again is that the President is laying the foundation for his legacy and whatever comes out of a Mars mission that his name will be forever attached to it... Job done... ;)
« Last Edit: 10/12/2016 07:28 am by Rocket Science »
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Offline Borklund

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Re: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars
« Reply #39 on: 10/12/2016 07:47 am »
Isn't cynicism wonderful?

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