NASA Moon to Mars Program Office

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/new-program-office-leads-nasa-s-path-forward-for-moon-mars

Mar 31, 2023
RELEASE 23-039

New Program Office Leads NASA’s Path Forward for Moon, Mars

NASA has established the new Moon to Mars Program Office at NASA Headquarters in Washington to carry out the agency’s human exploration activities at the Moon and Mars for the benefit of humanity. Amit Kshatriya will serve as the agency’s first head of the office, effective immediately.

This new office resides within the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, reporting to its Associate Administrator Jim Free.

“The Moon to Mars Program Office will help prepare NASA to carry out our bold missions to the Moon and land the first humans on Mars,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “The golden age of exploration is happening right now, and this new office will help ensure that NASA successfully establishes a long-term lunar presence needed to prepare for humanity’s next giant leap to the Red Planet.”

As directed by the 2022 NASA Authorization Act, the Moon to Mars Program Office focuses on hardware development, mission integration, and risk management functions for programs critical to the agency’s exploration approach that uses Artemis missions at the Moon to open a new era of scientific discovery and prepare for human missions to Mars. This includes the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft, supporting ground systems, human landing systems, spacesuits, Gateway, and more related to deep space exploration. The new office will also lead planning and analysis for long-lead developments to support human Mars missions.

Kshatriya previously served as acting deputy associate administrator for Common Exploration Systems Development, providing leadership and integration across several of the programs that now fall within the new office.

Lakiesha Hawkins will serve as the deputy for the Moon to Mars Program Office. As deputy, Hawkins will support Kshatriya in all aspects of the office’s day-to-day management and operations. Stephen Creech will serve as the technical deputy for the office. In this capacity, Creech will be responsible for ensuring technical issues are identified and brought to resolution across all of the offices and programs under the Moon to Mars Program Office.

Updates to the mission directorate also include the Strategy and Architecture Office that develops the integrated master plan based on the agency Moon to Mars Objectives, alongside NASA’s Science, Space Technology, and Space Operations Mission Directorates. With these changes, NASA will continue to lead the nation in exploration while also building a coalition of international partners in deep space with the Artemis Accords.

Since establishing its Exploration Systems Mission Directorate in September 2021, NASA has worked diligently to assess and align its two human spaceflight organizations while remaining focused on Artemis and other agency mission priorities including International Space Station operations, commercial crew and cargo, and more.

The Space Operations Mission Directorate remains responsible for all low-Earth orbit space operations and is focused on the space station, space communications and navigation supporting all NASA human and science exploration missions, as well as a continued development of a vibrant and expanding commercial space economy closer to home. Space Operations also manages the Launch Services Program, Commercial Crew Program, Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program, Human Spaceflight Capabilities, and other associated resources.

Other organizational updates include a business function for each mission directorate to manage administrative processes and financial formulation, and the exploration operations function will report to the Moon to Mars Program to maximize efficiency for integrated risk management with the relevant hardware programs supporting Artemis missions.

Through Artemis, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon, paving the way for a long-term, sustainable lunar presence to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before and prepare for future astronaut missions to Mars. This is NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach.

To learn more about Kshatriya, visit his bio online:

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/amit-kshatriya

-end-

Image captions:

Through Artemis, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon, paving the way for a long-term, sustainable lunar presence to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before and prepare for future astronaut missions to Mars.
Credits: NASA

Amit Kshatriya is deputy associate administrator for the Moon to Mars Program Office in NASA's Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate.
Credits: NASA

[Coastal Ron]

I expect a lot of studies to be produced... 

[VSECOTSPE]

Amit Kshatriya... a JSC operator with little/no development experience...

Steve Creech...  a MSFC developer with a stellar X-33 and SLS resume...

At least Lakiesha Hawkins has been working HLS for a year and a half.

But no one on this team has proven experience successfully leading a human space flight vehicle (or any integrated space system) through development.

[Coastal Ron]

Amit Kshatriya... a JSC operator with little/no development experience...

Steve Creech...  a MSFC developer with a stellar X-33 and SLS resume...

At least Lakiesha Hawkins has been working HLS for a year and a half.

But no one on this team has proven experience successfully leading a human space flight vehicle (or any integrated space system) through development.

That, which is telling, and the fact that NASA being ready to go to Mars is so far into the future that I really only see them producing studies at this point.

Plus there is the whole political side of the question as to whether NASA will be allowed to send humans to Mars, and without knowing what level of effort Congress would be willing to support, I just don't see much actionable "stuff" coming out of this group.

Especially since if SpaceX does get Starship to land on Mars and return, then all NASA plans will change anyways. So this is almost like a make-work project...

[Robotbeat]

I disagree.

The strongest arguments for human missions to the Moon are to prepare for Mars (buy down risk, develop experience, maybe do ISRU), so you need to have Mars mission requirement in mind when developing the goals for Artemis missions.

[yg1968]

This thread should be moved to the Moon section. The Moon to Mars program office is mostly about the Moon.

[yg1968]

See below.

Here is one of the main provision which creates a Moon to Mars program:

17 (2) MOON TO MARS PROGRAM.—
18 (A) ESTABLISHMENT.—Not later than 120
19 days after the date of the enactment of this
20 Act, the Administrator shall establish a Moon
21 to Mars Program (referred to in this section as
22 the ‘‘Program’’) in accordance with sections
23 20302(b) and 70504 of title 51, United States
24 Code, which shall include Artemis missions and
1 activities, to achieve the goal of human explo
2 ration of Mars.
3 (B) ELEMENTS.—The Program shall in
4 clude the following elements:
5 (i) The Space Launch System under
6 section 20302 of title 51, United States
7 Code.
8 (ii) The Orion crew vehicle under such
9 section.
10 (iii) Exploration Ground Systems.
11 (iv) An outpost in orbit around the
12 Moon under section 70504 of such title.
13 (v) Human-rated landing systems.
14 (vi) Spacesuits.
15 (vii) Any other element needed to
16 meet the requirements for the Program.

[yg1968]

Amit Kshatriya... a JSC operator with little/no development experience...

Steve Creech...  a MSFC developer with a stellar X-33 and SLS resume...

At least Lakiesha Hawkins has been working HLS for a year and a half.

But no one on this team has proven experience successfully leading a human space flight vehicle (or any integrated space system) through development.

That, which is telling, and the fact that NASA being ready to go to Mars is so far into the future that I really only see them producing studies at this point.

Plus there is the whole political side of the question as to whether NASA will be allowed to send humans to Mars, and without knowing what level of effort Congress would be willing to support, I just don't see much actionable "stuff" coming out of this group.

Especially since if SpaceX does get Starship to land on Mars and return, then all NASA plans will change anyways. So this is almost like a make-work project...

The Moon to Mars program is essentially another name for the Artemis program, they will manage Artemis and will report to Jim Free.

[Coastal Ron]

Amit Kshatriya... a JSC operator with little/no development experience...

Steve Creech...  a MSFC developer with a stellar X-33 and SLS resume...

At least Lakiesha Hawkins has been working HLS for a year and a half.

But no one on this team has proven experience successfully leading a human space flight vehicle (or any integrated space system) through development.

That, which is telling, and the fact that NASA being ready to go to Mars is so far into the future that I really only see them producing studies at this point.

Plus there is the whole political side of the question as to whether NASA will be allowed to send humans to Mars, and without knowing what level of effort Congress would be willing to support, I just don't see much actionable "stuff" coming out of this group.

Especially since if SpaceX does get Starship to land on Mars and return, then all NASA plans will change anyways. So this is almost like a make-work project...

The Moon to Mars program is essentially another name for the Artemis program, they will manage Artemis and will report to Jim Free.

Sounds like scope creep to me. Going to the Moon is completely different than going to Mars, so managing it under one program makes no sense.

And again, NASA has no idea what goals the U.S. Government has for Mars, which means they have no idea how sparse or robust Mars missions should be. For instance, there is a HUGE difference between a flags & footprints missions to Mars vs setting up a constant presence (not to be confused with "permanent presence").

[Robotbeat]

It’s not scope creep, it has literally been NASA’s plan for half a century (in fact, nuclear thermal and nuclear electric propulsion research for interplanetary flight to Mars under NACA, and it became an official NASA study after the Ohio researchers pitched it to Congress in April 1959–and got approval). Constellation under Bush also envisioned going to Mars as the next step after the Moon. Obama skipped the moon to settle for a deep space orbit-only mission to an asteroid, eventually a captured boulder in lunar orbit (which itself evolved into Gateway), but that was also seen as just a stepping stone to Mars, with the propulsion system for the boulder capturing thing (now Gateway’s PPE) being a subscale prototype for a MTV (or, generally, a Deep Space Transfer vehicle) propulsion system. Trump canceled ARRM and instead wanted to land on the Moon but even he said we should really be going to Mars and Artemis has always shown Mars as the logical next step. Biden’s administration has taken the exact same approach, and if it has been any different at all it has only been just slightly more explicit about Mars being the eventual goal.

NASA has had humans to Mars as basically the plan since Apollo. space Station Freedom was to be used to construct the Mars spacecraft and be used to study the long durations in space needed for a Mars mission. ISS (essentially Freedom but with Russia) has most certainly been used for the latter (and Gateway, as successor to ISS and therefore Freedom, today IS envisioned to be where a Mars transfer vehicle would be built).

How do you get concrete goals for Mars? Well I suppose setting up an office that has that as an explicit part of its purpose would help with that. There had only been long term conceptual studies before, very little official planning and therefore little official cover for making decisions about lunar missions to address the needs of eventual Mars missions. The short stay vs long stay choice is a matter of near term strategy, as in either case NASA intends to do long stay eventually.

[Zed_Noir]

Hmm. NASA is seriously considering doing a pretended Mars program with the early Artemis (SLS/Orion/DST) hardware.

Pretended as in it will never be implemented due to high cost and low science return. Since not much science can be be done if a crew is only on Mars for about 2 weeks for a short stay.

The Artemis Moon to Mars Office seems to be a way to continued funding certain Congressional districts with make-work pork, IMO. 

[clongton]

The Artemis Moon to Mars Office seems to be a way to continue funding certain Congressional districts with make-work pork, IMO.   

That's exactly what it is

[yg1968]

Hmm. NASA is seriously considering doing a pretended Mars program with the early Artemis (SLS/Orion/DST) hardware.

Pretended as in it will never be implemented due to high cost and low science return. Since not much science can be be done if a crew is only on Mars for about 2 weeks for a short stay.

The Artemis Moon to Mars Office seems to be a way to continued funding certain Congressional districts with make-work pork, IMO. 

The reason that it was created is that Congress felt that the Artemis program should have a manager (or a Deputy Associate Administrator). Until now, each Artemis mission had a manager but there was no Artemis manager for all missions. I don't think that it is a huge change.

[clongton]

... The Artemis Moon to Mars Office seems to be a way to continued funding certain Congressional districts with make-work pork, IMO. 

The reason that it was created is that Congress felt that the Artemis program should have a manager (or a Deputy Associate Administrator). Until now, each Artemis mission had a manager but there was no Artemis manager for all missions. I don't think that it is a huge change.

Yes there is an Artemis manager. It's the NASA Administrator. That's what he gets paid the big bucks for. This move is just another (unnecessary) layer of middle management, with all the associated costs to the taxpayer.

[Cherokee43v6]

... The Artemis Moon to Mars Office seems to be a way to continued funding certain Congressional districts with make-work pork, IMO. 

The reason that it was created is that Congress felt that the Artemis program should have a manager (or a Deputy Associate Administrator). Until now, each Artemis mission had a manager but there was no Artemis manager for all missions. I don't think that it is a huge change.

Yes there is an Artemis manager. It's the NASA Administrator. That's what he gets paid the big bucks for. This move is just another (unnecessary) layer of middle management, with all the associated costs to the taxpayer.

So basically you are saying that the guy who is responsible for every single thing that NASA does should micromanage and meddle in one specific project to the detriment of his oversight duties to the entire organization?

[yg1968]

... The Artemis Moon to Mars Office seems to be a way to continued funding certain Congressional districts with make-work pork, IMO. 

The reason that it was created is that Congress felt that the Artemis program should have a manager (or a Deputy Associate Administrator). Until now, each Artemis mission had a manager but there was no Artemis manager for all missions. I don't think that it is a huge change.

Yes there is an Artemis manager. It's the NASA Administrator. That's what he gets paid the big bucks for. This move is just another (unnecessary) layer of middle management, with all the associated costs to the taxpayer.

A better argument would have been to say that Jim Free is essentially the manager of the Artemis program.

[Coastal Ron]

Hmm. NASA is seriously considering doing a pretended Mars program with the early Artemis (SLS/Orion/DST) hardware.

Pretended as in it will never be implemented due to high cost and low science return. Since not much science can be be done if a crew is only on Mars for about 2 weeks for a short stay.

The Artemis Moon to Mars Office seems to be a way to continued funding certain Congressional districts with make-work pork, IMO. 

As long as Congress mandates that NASA must use the current Artemis transportation hardware (SLS & Orion), then this Moon to Mars effort will be make-work pork.

Why? Because the current Artemis Moon program REQUIRES an operational SpaceX Starship in order to land humans on the Moon. So once Starship is operational to some degree, then there is no logical reason to use the SLS for any part of the Mars program. Hence the only reason to consider the SLS for a Mars program is for political reasons.

And any Mars mission planning that requires the use of the SLS & Orion is a wasted effort, because the cost overhead of using the SLS would force the U.S. into a minimalist Mars program, whereas using reusable rockets and reusable in-space only vehicles would allow for a more robust exploration program. But that can't happen while the SLS & Orion live, because NASA can't afford to operate the SLS & Orion while developing their replacements.

Plus, there will be a gap between NASA going to the Moon and NASA going to Mars. NASA is struggling to return to the Moon right now, with pretty much every hardware program going way over budget and falling behind schedule, so how is NASA supposed to stop the Moon missions, keep the SLS alive for many years of no need, and then start going to Mars? THAT is the study I want to see come out of this new group, because it will open some eyes...

[deadman1204]

Pretended as in it will never be implemented due to high cost and low science return. Since not much science can be be done if a crew is only on Mars for about 2 weeks for a short stay.

Sadly, ALL of human spaceflight has been minimal science. Supposedly its too late for scientists to plan much of art iii, and they might miss much input on art iv as well. Science is always an afterthought with human space flight.

[TheRadicalModerate]

Does anybody know if the Moon-to-Mars Office is going to be responsible for generating Mars design reference missions going forward?  Seems to me that this is just an Artemis management re-org--unless they suddenly start spitting out updated DRMs.

My hope is that there are no new Mars DRMs until after Starship has proven itself one way or another.  After that, a DRM that relied on ISRU refueling would be a very positive sign.  One that continued to insist that everything is limited to x number of SLS Block 2 launches would be a bad sign.

[Coastal Ron]

It’s not scope creep, it has literally been NASA’s plan for half a century (in fact, nuclear thermal and nuclear electric propulsion research for interplanetary flight to Mars under NACA, and it became an official NASA study after the Ohio researchers pitched it to Congress in April 1959–and got approval).

The government employees at NASA can wish for whatever they want, but that does not constitute a "plan". The U.S. Government can even have a "desire" to eventually go to Mars, but that doesn't constitute a "plan" either.

When President Kennedy announced on May 25, 1961 that the U.S. "should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.", that wasn't a "plan", but a goal. It took years after that to come up with a plan that would achieve that goal.

Has the U.S. Government established a SPECIFIC goal for going to Mars? Not some general "we ought to go there some day, in some way", but real goals that NASA and others can use to develop a real plan?

Constellation under Bush also envisioned going to Mars as the next step after the Moon...

NASA has had humans to Mars as basically the plan since Apollo.

Sorry, but as a scheduling professional I feel that words matter, and all the things you just described were more like desires and goals, but didn't get to the point of having a real "plan".

How do you get concrete goals for Mars? Well I suppose setting up an office that has that as an explicit part of its purpose would help with that. There had only been long term conceptual studies before, very little official planning and therefore little official cover for making decisions about lunar missions to address the needs of eventual Mars missions. The short stay vs long stay choice is a matter of near term strategy, as in either case NASA intends to do long stay eventually.

Without an actual goal from the U.S. Government all NASA can do is studies, which is what I pointed out on the 2nd post of this thread.

And studies will be important, but right now the MOST important thing to know is what are the boundaries and constraints that this new office is to adhere to? Can they produce studies that suggest what can be done without the SLS and Orion? Can they suggest piggybacking on a SpaceX effort?

Inquiring minds want to know... 

[clongton]

I expect a lot of studies to be produced... 

Sounds like a pretty Starbucky cushy job to me.

And again, NASA has no idea what goals the U.S. Government has for Mars,

The U.S. Government literally has *NO* plans for Mars beyond some wishy washy foggy dream of maybe someday it would be nice to go there. Why would the USgov do that? They haven't the foggiest idea. There literally is no plan to go to Mars. Why?, you might ask. Because there are no voting districts there.

[DanClemmensen]

I expect a lot of studies to be produced... 

Sounds like a pretty Starbucky cushy job to me.

And again, NASA has no idea what goals the U.S. Government has for Mars,

The U.S. Government literally has *NO* plans for Mars beyond some wishy washy foggy dream of maybe someday it would be nice to go there. Why would the USgov do that? They haven't the foggiest idea. There literally is no plan to go to Mars. Why?, you might ask. Because there are no voting districts there.

The relevant voting districts get government money for SLS and Orion. The Mars Program is a desperate attempt to provide longer-term justification for SLS and Orion. This makes no technical sense, but it makes political sense.

[Robotbeat]

Pretended as in it will never be implemented due to high cost and low science return. Since not much science can be be done if a crew is only on Mars for about 2 weeks for a short stay.

Sadly, ALL of human spaceflight has been minimal science. Supposedly its too late for scientists to plan much of art iii, and they might miss much input on art iv as well. Science is always an afterthought with human space flight.

Because the real point of human spaceflight is to enable humanity to take root among the stars (ie space settlement). It’s orthogonal to science, really, and it’s not a bad goal.

But anyway, a lot of the human spaceflight program has been about preparing for Mars missions. A ton of really good science can be done by humans on Mars if permanent settlements are built there, on a scale which simply isn’t feasible for robotic missions (“Singularity Santa” excepted).

[TheRadicalModerate]

But anyway, a lot of the human spaceflight program has been about preparing for Mars missions. A ton of really good science can be done by humans on Mars if permanent settlements are built there, on a scale which simply isn’t feasible for robotic missions (“Singularity Santa” excepted).

You can't serve something like that up and not expect somebody to take the bait:

[Coastal Ron]

Pretended as in it will never be implemented due to high cost and low science return. Since not much science can be be done if a crew is only on Mars for about 2 weeks for a short stay.

Sadly, ALL of human spaceflight has been minimal science. Supposedly its too late for scientists to plan much of art iii, and they might miss much input on art iv as well. Science is always an afterthought with human space flight.

Because the real point of human spaceflight is to enable humanity to take root among the stars (ie space settlement). It’s orthogonal to science, really, and it’s not a bad goal.

But anyway, a lot of the human spaceflight program has been about preparing for Mars missions.

Because of the vast distances between destinations in space, most of what we have focused on is keeping humans alive in zero G for long periods of time. That is pretty generic to all destinations, not just Mars.

A ton of really good science can be done by humans on Mars if permanent settlements are built there, on a scale which simply isn’t feasible for robotic missions (“Singularity Santa” excepted).

Is that what the charter is for this new Mars Program Office? To identify what it would take to create a permanent settlement on Mars?

[Robotbeat]

Pretended as in it will never be implemented due to high cost and low science return. Since not much science can be be done if a crew is only on Mars for about 2 weeks for a short stay.

Sadly, ALL of human spaceflight has been minimal science. Supposedly its too late for scientists to plan much of art iii, and they might miss much input on art iv as well. Science is always an afterthought with human space flight.

Because the real point of human spaceflight is to enable humanity to take root among the stars (ie space settlement). It’s orthogonal to science, really, and it’s not a bad goal.

But anyway, a lot of the human spaceflight program has been about preparing for Mars missions.

Because of the vast distances between destinations in space, most of what we have focused on is keeping humans alive in zero G for long periods of time. That is pretty generic to all destinations, not just Mars.

Well sure, but Space Station Freedom was explicitly developed to help prepare for eventual Mars missions. That became ISS. And anyone who has followed the various DRAs and DRMs from NASA understands Mars is the long-term driving factor for NASA's human spaceflight program, and it has been since the start of NASA. (The Soviet program was similar, in fact... the civilian argument in favor of the Salyut space stations and Mir was to prepare for Mars missions.)

A ton of really good science can be done by humans on Mars if permanent settlements are built there, on a scale which simply isn’t feasible for robotic missions (“Singularity Santa” excepted).

Is that what the charter is for this new Mars Program Office? To identify what it would take to create a permanent settlement on Mars?

No. But it would be the logical conclusion if they pushed on it long enough.

(That said, NASA is actually supposed to produce a report on human settlement of space regularly to Congress, although I think it was only done once?)

[Todd Martin]

First, I want to wish success for Amit Kshatriya and his team.  They've got a lot on their plate in developing a plan, issuing RFP for hardware & services, then RFQ, then awarding contracts while managing Artemis and conducting risk mitigation oversight.  What I'd personally like to see is SLS Block 2 deliver 46 ton Nautilus-X components to Gateway for assembly.  A Mars transfer vehicle, IMHO, should have centrifuge partial gravity, be reusable, and optimized for deep space travel only.  An Aldrin cycler would be difficult to maintain over the long orbits and expensive to reach in DV.  Commercial providers can be given crew and cargo contracts for resupply.  This approach would adhere to the Moon to Mars Program Office's mandate.

[Robotbeat]

The problem with that is transits would be slow without aerocapture.

[Zed_Noir]

First, I want to wish success for Amit Kshatriya and his team.  They've got a lot on their plate in developing a plan, issuing RFP for hardware & services, then RFQ, then awarding contracts while managing Artemis and conducting risk mitigation oversight.  What I'd personally like to see is SLS Block 2 deliver 46 ton Nautilus-X components to Gateway for assembly.  A Mars transfer vehicle, IMHO, should have centrifuge partial gravity, be reusable, and optimized for deep space travel only.  An Aldrin cycler would be difficult to maintain over the long orbits and expensive to reach in DV.  Commercial providers can be given crew and cargo contracts for resupply.  This approach would adhere to the Moon to Mars Program Office's mandate.

The problem with that is transits would be slow without aerocapture.

A bigger problem is trying to developed another spacecraft that is more ISS than Lunar Gateway while paying for SLS Block II and Orion hardware along with the ongoing ground infrastructure. There isn't enough funding available to do one, never mind both.

Also, why would anyone want to assembled something like the Nautilus-X in NRHO with over-sized  components delivered by SLS Block II. It will be much easier and cheaper to assembled it in LEO with commercial lift in 20 to 30  tonnes components.

Sadly the Nautilus-X concept is very expensive in both money and time to implemented. It might been what NASA needed for a Mars mission in the early 2010s. However there are cheaper and faster means of getting to Mars on the horizon.

Finally as @Robotbeat posted without aerocapture or direct reentry (my take) at Mars requires more Delta- V for the mission resulting in either a slow transit and/or a bigger vehicle.

[clongton]

The current effort, labeled Moon to Mars, reminds me of someone who spends years dreaming about somewhere they want to go, spends a very large fortune to actually go there and then when they finally arrive, they just stand there, utterly lost, look around, and say "ok, now what?". They have absolutely no idea what to do next and even if they had a foggy thought, no means to even think about doing it, because they spent everything they had just to get there. Why did they go there? What did they go there for? NASA has absolutely no idea what to do on the planet except look around to see what they can see and learn a little bit about the geology of the planet. What are they actually going to do with what they learn? Catalog it and stick it in a database somewhere, just like they did with all the moon data, most of which has been lost or forgotten, never to be put to any actual use. THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is a GOAL. The person with the goal is utterly lost in terms of what to do next, while the person with the PLAN begins to unload massive amounts of cargo which was specifically designed and built to further execute the massive requirements of the plan upon reaching the goal. That's the difference.

NASA has a GOAL to reach Mars. But NASA does not have a PLAN for Mars. NASA is totally dependent for funding its aspirations on a group of people who couldn't give 2 tinkers damn about what NASA wants, only what's in it for them (congress). NASA's Moon to Mars program is NOT a plan - it is just a goal.

There is only ONE realistic PLAN for Mars, and it's Elon Musk's plan. His plan is to actually colonize the planet. His plan begins by building a city on Mars with 1,000,000 (one million) inhabitants. He picked that number because he believes that's enough people to enable self sufficiency and self governance to actually begin colonizing the planet. These first colonizers would be naturalized citizens of Mars. Their descendants would be actual Martians. His plan includes designing, building and utilizing an enormous transportation system of at least 1,000 interplanetary vehicles, plus ground vehicles to use once at the destination, boring equipment to bore tunnels below the Martian surface, power stations to supply all the power needs of a 1,000,000 inhabitant city, all funded by a combination of his own fortune and the profits from several companies he has established expressly to provide funding, material, equipment and expertise for that plan. Enough interplanetary vehicles to not only get everything and everyone there, but to also continually resupply the colony with everything it needs while it diligently works towards complete self sufficiency, no longer needing any resupply from Earth at all. THAT is a plan.

NASA does not have a plan. Elon Musk does.
That's the difference, and that's why NASA's "Moon to Mars" effort is little more than a joke.

I'd love to be proven wrong, I really, really would. Does NASA actually have an Honest-To-God plan for Mars that I have somehow missed? Anyone? The gauntlet is down.

[Todd Martin]

First, I want to wish success for Amit Kshatriya and his team.  They've got a lot on their plate in developing a plan, issuing RFP for hardware & services, then RFQ, then awarding contracts while managing Artemis and conducting risk mitigation oversight.  What I'd personally like to see is SLS Block 2 deliver 46 ton Nautilus-X components to Gateway for assembly.  A Mars transfer vehicle, IMHO, should have centrifuge partial gravity, be reusable, and optimized for deep space travel only.  An Aldrin cycler would be difficult to maintain over the long orbits and expensive to reach in DV.  Commercial providers can be given crew and cargo contracts for resupply.  This approach would adhere to the Moon to Mars Program Office's mandate.

The problem with that is transits would be slow without aerocapture.

A bigger problem is trying to developed another spacecraft that is more ISS than Lunar Gateway while paying for SLS Block II and Orion hardware along with the ongoing ground infrastructure. There isn't enough funding available to do one, never mind both.

Also, why would anyone want to assembled something like the Nautilus-X in NRHO with over-sized  components delivered by SLS Block II. It will be much easier and cheaper to assembled it in LEO with commercial lift in 20 to 30  tonnes components.

Sadly the Nautilus-X concept is very expensive in both money and time to implemented. It might been what NASA needed for a Mars mission in the early 2010s. However there are cheaper and faster means of getting to Mars on the horizon.

Finally as @Robotbeat posted without aerocapture or direct reentry (my take) at Mars requires more Delta- V for the mission resulting in either a slow transit and/or a bigger vehicle.

Thank you for raising those points.  First, to address whether or not it is cost effective or within a possible NASA budget, let me point out that Amit Kshatriya has specific instructions on what his office "SHALL" do as was noted above in this thread: 

24 Code, which shall include Artemis missions and
1 activities, to achieve the goal of human explo
2 ration of Mars.
3 (B) ELEMENTS.—The Program shall in
4 clude the following elements:
5 (i) The Space Launch System under
6 section 20302 of title 51, United States
7 Code.
8 (ii) The Orion crew vehicle under such
9 section.
10 (iii) Exploration Ground Systems.
11 (iv) An outpost in orbit around the
12 Moon under section 70504 of such title.
13 (v) Human-rated landing systems.
14 (vi) Spacesuits.
15 (vii) Any other element needed to
16 meet the requirements for the Program.

The question for him is not whether or not to use Artemis and its elements, his question is HOW to use them to achieve the program goals.  My comments are meant to be helpful for the work allowed to be done by that office.  Assuming you HAVE to use SLS for a Mars mission, what do you do with it?  The obvious answer is that SLS must carry payloads that go to Mars.  Where does the money come from?  As components and development costs decrease for SLS and Orion (remember, things like restarting the RS25 production line is a one time cost), money can be allocated for MTV (Mars transfer vehicle) components.  If you have an SLS Block 2 available that can throw 46 tons to Gateway, it is less risk due to fewer 46 ton on-orbit assemblies than a larger cluster of 20 to 30 ton components.  The MTV can be optimized with lower thrust, higher ISP engines if built by Gateway rather than needing to exit LEO's gravity well.  This results in a better spacecraft for the intended purpose.  Those higher ISP engines can address the 2nd concern noted of higher DV requirements needed for an MTV that does not do aerocapture.  I look at avoiding aerocapture as a feature rather than a bug.  A vehicle that is designed to be efficient without aerocapture can be used for destinations without atmospheres (i.e. Moon) and is not as risky to crew (do you really want to plan a Mars mission that relies on "7 minutes of terror"?).

[clongton]

Because the real point of human spaceflight is to enable humanity to take root among the stars (ie space settlement).

I'd LOVE to see where that is actually articulated in some official document somewhere. Can you point me to it?

[Robotbeat]

Because the real point of human spaceflight is to enable humanity to take root among the stars (ie space settlement).

I'd LOVE to see where that is actually articulated in some official document somewhere. Can you point me to it?

It isn’t articulated anywhere. It’s not an official position. It is, to be clear, my opinion.

But nothing else about it all makes any sense whatsoever. There’s a reason why we don’t just send robots, why we choose to do “the irrational thing.”

[yg1968]

I'd love to be proven wrong, I really, really would. Does NASA actually have an Honest-To-God plan for Mars that I have somehow missed? Anyone? The gauntlet is down.

NASA is working on it now (per Jim Free). It will be released later this year (probably in November).

[clongton]

I'd love to be proven wrong, I really, really would. Does NASA actually have an Honest-To-God plan for Mars that I have somehow missed? Anyone? The gauntlet is down.

NASA is working on it now (per Jim Free). It will be released later this year (probably in November).

Looking forward to it. Here's hoping it is an actual plan, and not just a better articulated goal.

[woods170]

I'd love to be proven wrong, I really, really would. Does NASA actually have an Honest-To-God plan for Mars that I have somehow missed? Anyone? The gauntlet is down.

NASA is working on it now (per Jim Free). It will be released later this year (probably in November).

Looking forward to it. Here's hoping it is an actual plan, and not just a better articulated goal.

It will be the latter: a not much better articulated goal.

A goal tells people what NASA wants to do.
A plan tells people how and with what and when NASA intends to achieve that goal.

Jim Free and NASA won't have answers for the how and what and when IMO.

[Robotbeat]

I think the intent is for the office to develop such a plan, but the problem is it should be led by folks like Kathy Lueders, who actually understand how to develop capability while being restrained in resources. And she just retired.

[Paul451]

Where does the money come from?  As components and development costs decrease for SLS and Orion (remember, things like restarting the RS25 production line is a one time cost), money can be allocated for MTV (Mars transfer vehicle) components.

There's always jam tomorrow.

[Coastal Ron]

I think the intent is for the office to develop such a plan, but the problem is it should be led by folks like Kathy Lueders, who actually understand how to develop capability while being restrained in resources. And she just retired.

The challenge this office has is that absent specific goals from the Executive and Legislative branches of the U.S. Government, all they can do is create one or more proposed options.

But again, what is charter for this effort? Are they free to suggest options that don't include the SLS & Orion? Can they suggest that the U.S. Government collaborate or piggyback on the efforts of SpaceX to colonize Mars?

Understanding what their charter is will give us a view into how realistic their recommendations will be...

[punder]

The “to Mars” part is a fantasy, just the usual tacked-on fig leaf. Why not, for starters, tell us what we’re going to do on the Moon? Any ideas along those lines?

The giveaway is the “shall by law include SLS/Orion” which, in case anyone hasn’t noticed, can’t do anything on the Moon (at all!!) without the SpaceX HLS, that not-invented-here embarrassment we can’t even bring ourselves to mention by name. (At least we managed to unperson the lady who made THAT mistake.)

Sorry. Sometimes frustration must be vented.

[deltaV]

There is only ONE realistic PLAN for Mars, and it's Elon Musk's plan. His plan is to actually colonize the planet.

I wouldn't call Elon's plan realistic.  Once the novelty wears off people are likely to notice that Mars does not provide a good quality of life and move back to Earth. However Elon's plan is still better than Congress and NASA's efforts since Elon's plan will probably give us cheaper launch even if it fails whereas NASA and Congress's plan won't give us anything.

[Robotbeat]

The whole idea is you pick from the people who wouldn't care about that. Be clear about what life will be like there, and those who go will somewhat self-select.

[yg1968]

I think the intent is for the office to develop such a plan, but the problem is it should be led by folks like Kathy Lueders, who actually understand how to develop capability while being restrained in resources. And she just retired.

The challenge this office has is that absent specific goals from the Executive and Legislative branches of the U.S. Government, all they can do is create one or more proposed options.

But again, what is charter for this effort? Are they free to suggest options that don't include the SLS & Orion? Can they suggest that the U.S. Government collaborate or piggyback on the efforts of SpaceX to colonize Mars?

Understanding what their charter is will give us a view into how realistic their recommendations will be...

The office was created because Congress requested it in the 2022 NASA Authorization bill (see below and my previous post). I am not sure what you are expecting. It's just an office to manage Artemis. They are not starting off from a clean slate. The best that you can hope in this situation is that NASA pushes as much as possible public-private partnerships for new programs. Getting a CLPS-Mars program that uses Starship for cargo would be a huge win.

SEC. 10811. MOON TO MARS.

(b) MOON TO MARS OFFICE AND PROGRAM.—
9 (1) MOON TO MARS OFFICE.—Not later than
10 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act,
11 the Administrator shall establish within the Explo
12 ration Systems Development Mission Directorate a
13 Moon to Mars Program Office (referred to in this
14 section as the ‘‘Office’’) to lead and manage the
15 Moon to Mars program established under paragraph
16 (2), including Artemis missions and activities.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=53827.msg2388078#msg2388078

[Eric Hedman]

I know people want a more concrete plan for going to Mars, but that's not realistic with the way politics works.  I also think it's too early for that.  Once Starship is flying and can refuel, once Starship conducts a moon landing and returns, the elephant in the room becomes too big for even Congress to ignore.  It will also help if New Glenn is flying.  That is when I think it becomes more realistic for a plan to emerge that is more sensible and affordable than one that requires SLS and Orion.  As long as Starship keeps moving forward and starts accomplishing these goals I think this Artemis Office it is the best we're going to get out of NASA right now.  I also think once Starship flies, especially if it does with a crew around the Moon on the Dear Moon mission, that's when SLS is going to have a chance of being phased out.  In my opinion the chances become real in about four or five years.

Any firm plan that comes out now from NASA is going to waste a lot more money on SLS in the long run.  I know it's frustrating that we could be doing  a lot more with less money.  We need a little patience for things to develop and sort out a better solution.

[clongton]

There is only ONE realistic PLAN for Mars, and it's Elon Musk's plan. His plan is to actually colonize the planet.

I wouldn't call Elon's plan realistic.  Once the novelty wears off people are likely to notice that Mars does not provide a good quality of life and move back to Earth. However Elon's plan is still better than Congress and NASA's efforts since Elon's plan will probably give us cheaper launch even if it fails whereas NASA and Congress's plan won't give us anything.

You are confusing the term "realistic" with the term "practical". From the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language:

realistic: having or showing a sensible and practical idea of what can be achieved or expected.
practical: of or concerned with the actual doing or use of something rather than with theory and ideas.

Per the official definition of the terms, Elon Musk's plan certainly is realistic. While laying out both the end result (colonization) and the high level steps needed to bring that colonization to reality, it is  lacking the detail needed to actually do the things required to execute the plan. It lays out high level steps to achieving the end result of colonization (realistic). Details of how those steps would be accomplished falls under the term "practical". Given the current state of knowledge of what will actually be required to execute the plan, it is not possible for the plan to be termed either practical or not at this point. It can only be labeled realistic, not practical or not. That determination will be based on the detailed plan of action ultimately laid out to actually accomplish each individual step of the plan. Mr. Musk has not attempted to do that yet because such detail of action is not yet possible to provide. Think of Mr. Musk's plan as a standard "outline". The title of the outline is "Colonize Mars". The steps he enumerates to do that are the subtitles. The outline is realistic. The detail on exactly how to do that will be provided at a future time as the actual body of the plan, located under the subtitles. Only then will it be possible to determine if the plan is practical or not.
 
Bottom line: Mr. Musk's plan fits exactly the definition of "realistic". As for whether or not it will ultimately also be "practical" depends on the detail of steps (to be provided at a future date) that are required to actually execute the plan. At this juncture it is not possible to label it either practical or not. But it IS realistic.

[Coastal Ron]

The office was created because Congress requested it in the 2022 NASA Authorization bill (see below and my previous post).

Who authorized it doesn't matter at this point.

I am not sure what you are expecting. It's just an office to manage Artemis.

No, it is the Moon to Mars program office, not the Moon-only effort that has been working at returning humans to the Moon since 2017.

They are not starting off from a clean slate.

Actually they are, because going to Mars is SIGNIFICANTLY different than going to the Moon. I know the hope has been that some degree of hardware and knowledge from the Artemis Moon effort will translate towards landing humans on Mars, but in reality very little of it will be common.

For instance, while it would be physically possible to do a Mars mission while relying on the SLS & Orion, from a practical standpoint that would be the worst possible decision to make - and the most expensive.

Which is why we need to understand the charter this new group has, so we can understand how free they are to consider ALL possibilities, not just what the current Artemis Moon program is saddled with.

[Robotbeat]

I know people want a more concrete plan for going to Mars, but that's not realistic with the way politics works.  I also think it's too early for that.  Once Starship is flying and can refuel, once Starship conducts a moon landing and returns, the elephant in the room becomes too big for even Congress to ignore.  It will also help if New Glenn is flying.  That is when I think it becomes more realistic for a plan to emerge that is more sensible and affordable than one that requires SLS and Orion.  As long as Starship keeps moving forward and starts accomplishing these goals I think this Artemis Office it is the best we're going to get out of NASA right now.  I also think once Starship flies, especially if it does with a crew around the Moon on the Dear Moon mission, that's when SLS is going to have a chance of being phased out.  In my opinion the chances become real in about four or five years.

Any firm plan that comes out now from NASA is going to waste a lot more money on SLS in the long run.  I know it's frustrating that we could be doing  a lot more with less money.  We need a little patience for things to develop and sort out a better solution.

Fully agreed.

I do think a new office could do a better job of connecting what Artemis is doing with the long term agenda of NASA with respect to Mars, but a hyper-detailed plan would actually be very counter-productive as it’d lock us into the pre-Starship status quo of short stay Mars missions costing hundreds of billions of dollars more than what Congress is willing to spend.

NASA has previously been using SLS/Orion as the main path, with maybe someday commercial capability. They’re transitioning to tradition defense contractors as maybe a backup of commercial capability (it’s not set up that way, but that’s kind of the rhetoric), but as starship succeeds, they’ll need to transition to using those funds for non-SpaceX commercial entities as well (as SpaceX has become the de facto critical path for most of NASA’s human spaceflight program, at least when it comes to launch).

[clongton]

<snip> the long term agenda of NASA with respect to Mars, </snip>

Can anyone actually articulate what that long term agenda is - and - actually provide a source for it? Also, how Moon to Mars actually fits into that?

[Robotbeat]

<snip> the long term agenda of NASA with respect to Mars, </snip>

Can anyone actually articulate what that long term agenda is - and - actually provide a source for it? …

No, it’s written in our hearts and minds.

[yg1968]

The office was created because Congress requested it in the 2022 NASA Authorization bill (see below and my previous post).

Who authorized it doesn't matter at this point.

I am not sure what you are expecting. It's just an office to manage Artemis.

No, it is the Moon to Mars program office, not the Moon-only effort that has been working at returning humans to the Moon since 2017.

They are not starting off from a clean slate.

Actually they are, because going to Mars is SIGNIFICANTLY different than going to the Moon. I know the hope has been that some degree of hardware and knowledge from the Artemis Moon effort will translate towards landing humans on Mars, but in reality very little of it will be common.

For instance, while it would be physically possible to do a Mars mission while relying on the SLS & Orion, from a practical standpoint that would be the worst possible decision to make - and the most expensive.

Which is why we need to understand the charter this new group has, so we can understand how free they are to consider ALL possibilities, not just what the current Artemis Moon program is saddled with.

It is just an office within ESDMD. They will be leading and managing the Artemis/Moon to Mars program. Artemis was already part of the Moon to Mars program (see the quote by Jim Bridenstine below). In order to have an informed discussion, you should read the NASA Authorization bill which explains in detail what this group will be doing. See pages 982-993 of the NASA Authorization bill.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=53827.160

“How do we build a program that can endure the test of time?” he [Jim Bridenstine] said, noting the starts and stops of efforts dating back to the Space Exploration Initiative three decades ago. “We need our Artemis program, we need our moon-to-Mars program, to span generations.”

https://spacenews.com/bridenstine-departing-nasa-hopes-artemis-continues/

SEC. 10811. MOON TO MARS.
(b) MOON TO MARS OFFICE AND PROGRAM.—

9 (1) MOON TO MARS OFFICE.—Not later than
10 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act,
11 the Administrator shall establish within the Explo
12 ration Systems Development Mission Directorate a
13 Moon to Mars Program Office (referred to in this
14 section as the ‘‘Office’’) to lead and manage the
15 Moon to Mars program established under paragraph
16 (2), including Artemis missions and activities.

17 (2) MOON TO MARS PROGRAM.—
18 (A) ESTABLISHMENT.—Not later than 120
19 days after the date of the enactment of this
20 Act, the Administrator shall establish a Moon
21 to Mars Program (referred to in this section as
22 the ‘‘Program’’) in accordance with sections
23 20302(b) and 70504 of title 51, United States
24 Code, which shall include Artemis missions and
1 activities, to achieve the goal of human explo
2 ration of Mars.

3 (B) ELEMENTS.—The Program shall in
4 clude the following elements:
5 (i) The Space Launch System under
6 section 20302 of title 51, United States
7 Code.
8 (ii) The Orion crew vehicle under such
9 section.
10 (iii) Exploration Ground Systems.
11 (iv) An outpost in orbit around the
12 Moon under section 70504 of such title.
13 (v) Human-rated landing systems.
14 (vi) Spacesuits.
15 (vii) Any other element needed to
16 meet the requirements for the Program.

I didn't quote the entire thing but, like I said before, the NASA Authorization Bill discusses exactly what this office will be doing. See pages 982-993 of the 2022 NASA Authorization bill.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=53827.160

[tea monster]

Talk, wishes and power point presentations are cheap, and there isn't even a power point presentation to go with the press release. Even office space is relatively cheap when compared to flight hardware.

[AnalogMan]

For those who wish to read it, I have snipped out the NASA "Moon to Mars" section from Public Law 117-167-Aug. 9, 2022.  Its the last 5 pages of the attached pdf.

The full PL 117-167 (394 pages covering several agencies) can be found here:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-117publ167/pdf/PLAW-117publ167.pdf

[Coastal Ron]

“How do we build a program that can endure the test of time?” he [Jim Bridenstine] said, noting the starts and stops of efforts dating back to the Space Exploration Initiative three decades ago. “We need our Artemis program, we need our moon-to-Mars program, to span generations.”

I don't think Bridenstine meant that the hardware and other systems couldn't be updated over those generations. Obviously we don't still drive Model T cars and fly in biplanes. 

SEC. 10811. MOON TO MARS.
(b) MOON TO MARS OFFICE AND PROGRAM.—
...
3 (B) ELEMENTS.—The Program shall in
4 clude the following elements:
5 (i) The Space Launch System under
6 section 20302 of title 51, United States
7 Code.
8 (ii) The Orion crew vehicle under such
9 section.
10 (iii) Exploration Ground Systems.
11 (iv) An outpost in orbit around the
12 Moon under section 70504 of such title.
13 (v) Human-rated landing systems.
14 (vi) Spacesuits.
15 (vii) Any other element needed to
16 meet the requirements for the Program.

Well that does help to answer the question of whether the Moon to Mars program office will be able to recommend the BEST methods to land on Mars vs the most politically connected method. 

And the current Artemis Moon program has been able to limit the use of the SLS to only carrying the Orion spacecraft, yet the Orion spacecraft won't be useful for going to Mars - it wasn't built for long voyages (in case someone advocates it should go to Mars), and it wasn't built for staying in space for that long (for those that advocate the Orion should stay in space awaiting the return of the Mars mission to Earth-local space).

It will be interesting to see how the cobble together a Mars program from hardware and system built for a completely different set of requirements...

[TheRadicalModerate]

Seems to me that the place to start is with a Design Reference Architecture 6.0.  The last one (5.0) is 14 years old and uses Ares V as a launcher, with crew being launched on an Orion/Ares I.

DRA 5.0 had mission designs for both nuclear thermal and chemical transit propulsion.  The NTP version required 9 Ares V launches.  The chemical version required 12. 

Both used aerocapture for two cargo transits, one carrying a methalox ascent vehicle and cargo, which was landed immediately after arrival to start methalox production, and the other carrying the crew descender/hab, which stayed in LMO awaiting the arrival of the crew.  Both also assumed propulsive insertion into Mars orbit for the crew transit system, which was reused to return to Earth.  The crew did Earth EDL in the Orion.

I'd hesitate to call this a "realistic" architecture, but it made use of what they thought they'd have in the timeframe for launch (i.e., the mid-2030's).

I expect that the Moon-to-Mars Office will have to update this and produce a DRA 6.0 in the near future.  I'd be surprised if they took the risk of building up a TransHab out of anything but SLS-launched pieces-parts, but I'd also be surprised if they didn't send the uncrewed portions via an unspecified CLV that happened to match Starship's performance specs pretty closely.

I'd love to see a SpaceX response to a DRA 6.0.  There's a lot of stuff that SpaceX hasn't specified about how an early Starship mission would proceed.  Such a response would give them an opportunity to be more specific and get a public conversation going.

[Robotbeat]

The Moon to Mars part of the law has tons of language by Congress mandating the use of SLS/Orion. …which practically means NASA won’t have enough money to have any commercial providers other than SpaceX for deep space missions.

It’s ironic to me that Congress is basically limiting NASA’s ability to fund broader redundant competition beyond SpaceX because at least $4 billion per year has to be spent on one of the easier parts of the Moon/Mars architectures.

[yg1968]

NASA establishes Moon to Mars Program Office:
https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasa-establishes-moon-to-mars-program-office/

[TheRadicalModerate]

SEC. 10811. MOON TO MARS.
(b) MOON TO MARS OFFICE AND PROGRAM.—

9 (1) MOON TO MARS OFFICE.—Not later than
10 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act,
11 the Administrator shall establish within the Explo
12 ration Systems Development Mission Directorate a
13 Moon to Mars Program Office (referred to in this
14 section as the ‘‘Office’’) to lead and manage the
15 Moon to Mars program established under paragraph
16 (2), including Artemis missions and activities.

17 (2) MOON TO MARS PROGRAM.—
18 (A) ESTABLISHMENT.—Not later than 120
19 days after the date of the enactment of this
20 Act, the Administrator shall establish a Moon
21 to Mars Program (referred to in this section as
22 the ‘‘Program’’) in accordance with sections
23 20302(b) and 70504 of title 51, United States
24 Code, which shall include Artemis missions and
1 activities, to achieve the goal of human explo
2 ration of Mars.

3 (B) ELEMENTS.—The Program shall in
4 clude the following elements:
5 (i) The Space Launch System under
6 section 20302 of title 51, United States
7 Code.
8 (ii) The Orion crew vehicle under such
9 section.
10 (iii) Exploration Ground Systems.
11 (iv) An outpost in orbit around the
12 Moon under section 70504 of such title.
13 (v) Human-rated landing systems.
14 (vi) Spacesuits.
15 (vii) Any other element needed to
16 meet the requirements for the Program.

Technically, this would allow an SLS/Orion to be sent to the Gateway, where the crew could transfer to a Mars-EDL-capable Starship.  That could be a human-rated landing system.

[TheRadicalModerate]

NASA establishes Moon to Mars Program Office:
https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasa-establishes-moon-to-mars-program-office/

That's a weird org chart.  Kshatriya is in charge of everything useful.  Three possibilities:

1) Kshatriya is a figurehead in the Moon-to-Mars Office because Congress said they had to have one, but they didn't really want to re-organize ESDMD, and Free is still in charge of everything.

2) Kshatriya just got Jim Free's job, and Nelson used the congressional mandate to lead Free to the edge and invited him to jump.

3) Kshatriya and Free are now essentially co-Associate Administrators, until one of them takes the other out.

[yg1968]

Well that does help to answer the question of whether the Moon to Mars program office will be able to recommend the BEST methods to land on Mars vs the most politically connected method. 

And the current Artemis Moon program has been able to limit the use of the SLS to only carrying the Orion spacecraft, yet the Orion spacecraft won't be useful for going to Mars - it wasn't built for long voyages (in case someone advocates it should go to Mars), and it wasn't built for staying in space for that long (for those that advocate the Orion should stay in space awaiting the return of the Mars mission to Earth-local space).

It will be interesting to see how the cobble together a Mars program from hardware and system built for a completely different set of requirements...

The development of the architecture for the Moon and Mars is actually a different office, it is called, the Strategy and Architecture Office (they are replacing the Moon to Mars Architecture Development office), they don't report to the Moon to Mars office, they actually report to Jim Free directly (see the new org chart in Marcia Smith's article linked in my post above).

In terms of timeline, Jim Free said that they would come out with Architecture Concept Review on April 18th (it will be announced by Pam Melroy at the Space Symposium). Jim Free mentioned that this April 18th architectural review will discuss the Artemis missions for the rest of the decade.

There is another Architecture Concept Review for Mars that recently started their work, they are supposed to finish their work this year. I am guessing that this will be done by November because NASA wants to complete their Architecture review each year by November, in order to guide the budget process.

In terms of clean slate, Pam Melroy has mentioned in the past that they are not starting from a clean slate. So you should expect that any Mars architecture will be using SLS and Orion. Given that the Architecture Concept Review will be revised on an annual basis, perhaps that will change in the future but not in the short term.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=57221.msg2467328#msg2467328

A strategy and architecture office will complement the program office and be responsible for architecture definition based on NASA's Moon to Mars Objectives. The mission directorate will develop an integrated master plan to expand humanity's presence in the solar system. (2/3)

https://twitter.com/JimFree/status/1641495512690876432

[yg1968]

NASA establishes Moon to Mars Program Office:
https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasa-establishes-moon-to-mars-program-office/

That's a weird org chart.  Kshatriya is in charge of everything useful.  Three possibilities:

1) Kshatriya is a figurehead in the Moon-to-Mars Office because Congress said they had to have one, but they didn't really want to re-organize ESDMD, and Free is still in charge of everything.

2) Kshatriya just got Jim Free's job, and Nelson used the congressional mandate to lead Free to the edge and invited him to jump.

3) Kshatriya and Free are now essentially co-Associate Administrators, until one of them takes the other out.

Free is above Kshatriya. He is the Associate Administrator for ESDMD, so he is part of the Office of the Associate Administrator.

[Zed_Noir]

<snip>
I look at avoiding aerocapture as a feature rather than a bug.  A vehicle that is designed to be efficient without aerocapture can be used for destinations without atmospheres (i.e. Moon) and is not as risky to crew (do you really want to plan a Mars mission that relies on "7 minutes of terror"?).

Aerocapture reduces the onboard Delta-V in a spacecraft needed for destinations that have enough atmosphere.
 
The "7 minutes of terror" is needed for any mission landing on the Martian surface.

There is a risk of excessive radiation exposure from galactic cosmic radiation and Solar flares if the crew remains in orbit at destination.

It is also pointed out elsewhere in this forum that the Xenon required for NASA's Deep Space Transport is not likely to be available in the quantity needed. Never mind  paying for the very expensive Xenon at the current price of $3000 per kilogram. AIUI world's Xenon annual production is about 60 tonnes.

[TheRadicalModerate]

NASA establishes Moon to Mars Program Office:
https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasa-establishes-moon-to-mars-program-office/

That's a weird org chart.  Kshatriya is in charge of everything useful.  Three possibilities:

1) Kshatriya is a figurehead in the Moon-to-Mars Office because Congress said they had to have one, but they didn't really want to re-organize ESDMD, and Free is still in charge of everything.

2) Kshatriya just got Jim Free's job, and Nelson used the congressional mandate to lead Free to the edge and invited him to jump.

3) Kshatriya and Free are now essentially co-Associate Administrators, until one of them takes the other out.

Free is above Kshatriya. He is the Associate Administrator for ESDMD, so he is part of the Office of the Associate Administrator.

Yup.  But when you have one executive whose sole useful function is to oversee the work of a single executive, one of them is going away or being made irrelevant.

I guess you can argue that the architecture office is relevant, and therefore Free has something useful to do that Kshatriya can't do.  But... it's an architecture office.  What's its budget?  A few million?

[deltaV]

Seems to me that the place to start is with a Design Reference Architecture 6.0.

When NASA and Congress architect a human spaceflight system they usually fail at cost control and innovation, e.g. SLS and Orion. NASA therefore should not start with a Mars architecture. Instead NASA should design a procurement plan that's flexible enough to allow a wide variety of architectures to be bid. For an example of the benefits of flexibility see the unexpectedly inexpensive HLS lander.

[Todd Martin]

<snip>
I look at avoiding aerocapture as a feature rather than a bug.  A vehicle that is designed to be efficient without aerocapture can be used for destinations without atmospheres (i.e. Moon) and is not as risky to crew (do you really want to plan a Mars mission that relies on "7 minutes of terror"?).

Aerocapture reduces the onboard Delta-V in a spacecraft needed for destinations that have enough atmosphere.
 
The "7 minutes of terror" is needed for any mission landing on the Martian surface.

There is a risk of excessive radiation exposure from galactic cosmic radiation and Solar flares if the crew remains in orbit at destination.

It is also pointed out elsewhere in this forum that the Xenon required for NASA's Deep Space Transport is not likely to be available in the quantity needed. Never mind  paying for the very expensive Xenon at the current price of $3000 per kilogram. AIUI world's Xenon annual production is about 60 tonnes.

Thanks Zed for clarifying aerocapture vs descent as my post didn't do a good job of differentiating the two.  My apologies.  As I understand it, Starship Conops would rely on aerobraking to Mars in a direct descent, which I would worry (possibly incorrectly) about the density of the Martian atmosphere having a lot of variation which would increase risk of LOC. 

Personally, I favor a MTV (Mars Transfer Vehicle) having SEP (Solar Electric Propulsion).  If the MTV was assembled at Gateway, then there would be considerably shorter trip times with no spiral orbits going through the Van Allen belts.  To be specific, a Boeing design study estimated a conjunctive transit from MEO (Middle Earth Orbit) to Mars at 119 days with SEP while SpaceX advertises a 6 month transit (180 days).  Gateway's NRHO orbit would be less DV and transit time than MEO.  These numbers suggest SEP would actually expose crew to less radiation.

The solar array on the MTV can be dual purpose, serving as SBSP (space based solar power) for surface sorties.  Development of an SEP MTV would be beneficial to the commercial spacecraft industry as the solar arrays and ion thrusters would give a mild push to both the technology and scale of manufacturing forward for these common systems.  Fewer launches would be needed than chemical propulsion.  No nuclear power required with all the public backlash and regulatory headaches that would ensue if NTP or NEP was selected.  For the Moon to Mars Program Office, it seems like a good fit for using the systems they have.

As for Xenon cost and availability, it should be noted that SpaceX uses Argon for their Starlink satellites, while Krypton is another choice.  A trade study would be appropriate for the best propellant and perhaps you're right and Xenon is not cost effective.

[Robotbeat]

... To be specific, a Boeing design study estimated a conjunctive transit from MEO (Middle Earth Orbit) to Mars at 119 days with SEP while SpaceX advertises a 6 month transit (180 days).  ...

Wrong, you have that backwards. SpaceX has never "advertised" 180 day missions, they've shown transit times as short as 80-90 days on good opportunities (and 115 day average, see: https://www.spacex.com/media/making_life_multiplanetary_2016.pdf) while the Boeing SEP MTV transit times are actually like 256 days, even though it'd be departing from the lunar Gateway and using a kick stage:

https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2014/eposter/2258.pdf

What are your sources? SEP is, in every architecture I've seen (including hybrid and departing from Gateway), universally slower than an aggressive chemical refueling and direct entry approach like SpaceX is using.

[Todd Martin]

... To be specific, a Boeing design study estimated a conjunctive transit from MEO (Middle Earth Orbit) to Mars at 119 days with SEP while SpaceX advertises a 6 month transit (180 days).  ...

Wrong, you have that backwards. SpaceX has never "advertised" 180 day missions, they've shown transit times as short as 80-90 days on good opportunities (and 115 day average, see: https://www.spacex.com/media/making_life_multiplanetary_2016.pdf) while the Boeing SEP MTV transit times are actually like 256 days, even though it'd be departing from the lunar Gateway and using a kick stage:

https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2014/eposter/2258.pdf

What are your sources? SEP is, in every architecture I've seen (including hybrid and departing from Gateway), universally slower than an aggressive chemical refueling and direct entry approach like SpaceX is using.

This is the study I found with the 119 day transit time.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/4670789_Human_Mars_Transportation_Applications_Using_Solar_Electric_Propulsion

Here is the SpaceX advertisement for a 6 month transit:
https://www.spacex.com/human-spaceflight/mars/

[Robotbeat]

... To be specific, a Boeing design study estimated a conjunctive transit from MEO (Middle Earth Orbit) to Mars at 119 days with SEP while SpaceX advertises a 6 month transit (180 days).  ...

Wrong, you have that backwards. SpaceX has never "advertised" 180 day missions, they've shown transit times as short as 80-90 days on good opportunities (and 115 day average, see: https://www.spacex.com/media/making_life_multiplanetary_2016.pdf) while the Boeing SEP MTV transit times are actually like 256 days, even though it'd be departing from the lunar Gateway and using a kick stage:

https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2014/eposter/2258.pdf

What are your sources? SEP is, in every architecture I've seen (including hybrid and departing from Gateway), universally slower than an aggressive chemical refueling and direct entry approach like SpaceX is using.

This is the study I found with the 119 day transit time.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/4670789_Human_Mars_Transportation_Applications_Using_Solar_Electric_Propulsion

No, that's the spiral-out time from MEO, the heliocentric transit time they give is still 255 days (~same as what my source gave). Here's the direct quote from your study:

The power
requirement for the baseline LEO departure SEP
piloted craft is 2.9 MWe; for the MEO option, the
requirement is for 1.9 MWe. Spiral out time is 267
days in comparison to 119 days, while heliocentric
outbound Earth-Mars trip time is the same at 255
days.

The only other 2 times that "119" occurs in that document is in Figure 14 in the row "SPIRAL OUT TIME". So again, SEP is about ~255 days even if you don't count any spiral-out time.

Here is the SpaceX advertisement for a 6 month transit:
https://www.spacex.com/human-spaceflight/mars/

That's just in the section about random Mars facts, not the minimum time they can achieve for various transit windows. That's shown in the 2016 presentation: https://www.spacex.com/media/making_life_multiplanetary_2016.pdf (It's true they might go with longer transit times to save refueling launches, but they could also do the opposite, by refueling in a higher orbit, enabling even faster transits.)

[clongton]

Personally, I favor a MTV (Mars Transfer Vehicle) having SEP (Solar Electric Propulsion).

My personal propulsion preference is an HIP engine as broadly described in a AIAA paper entitled "HIP: A Hybrid NTP/NEP Propulsion System for Ultra Fast Robotic Orbiter/Lander Missions to the Outer Solar System". The term HIP means "Hybrid Integrated Propulsion".

The intent of the paper was to describe an engine that would not only allow nuclear electric propulsion between destinations, but also high thrust for landing on and taking off a planetary or moon surface. I believe that high thrust is better suited for breaking out of orbit or retro breaking into orbit on a spacecraft designed to stay in space and that never lands anywhere. The spacecraft would carry along landing vehicles better suited to that task than the interplanetary spacecraft. In addition, in terms of getting out of earth orbit, the transit time required to spiral out past the Van Alan radiation belts on nuclear or solar electric power is completely eliminated by using the NTP mode, and then switching to NEP mode for the cruise phase of the journey.

While SEP may be fine for small robotic spacecraft, I don't think Solar is a good candidate for large crewed interplanetary spacecraft because the required solar panels become extraordinarily large the further one goes from the sun, not to mention how long it takes to get past the belts. Why spend vast sums on propulsion systems that are effectively limited to just the inner solar system when those same funds open the entire solar system if aimed at nuclear in lieu of solar?

In terms of Moon to Mars, I envision an interplanetary spacecraft stationed around the moon, but at EML2 instead of the Gateway's currently envisioned orbit, which would power out of the earth-moon system on NTP power, cruise to Mars on NEP power, enter Martian orbit on NTP power, wait there while the surface mission is performed using a dedicated lander, then depart Mars orbit on NTP power after the lander returns to orbit, cruise home on NEP power, and then break into lunar orbit on NTP power at EML2, where the crew would depart for home on a spacecraft designed for that purpose.

[Coastal Ron]

The Moon to Mars part of the law has tons of language by Congress mandating the use of SLS/Orion. …which practically means NASA won’t have enough money to have any commercial providers other than SpaceX for deep space missions.

It’s ironic to me that Congress is basically limiting NASA’s ability to fund broader redundant competition beyond SpaceX because at least $4 billion per year has to be spent on one of the easier parts of the Moon/Mars architectures.

In order to have a "plan", you must first define the "goal". The problem is that there isn't a U.S. Government "need" to go to Mars, so no overarching reason to go to Mars. No "Big Goal".

Having a big goal is important because you have to know what is important when developing plans. For instance, President Kennedy's goal for the Apollo program was:

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.

So the plan was to support:
A. At least one person
B. No later than 1969
C. To land on the Moon and return safely

Doing science on the Moon was NOT the primary goal, but it wasn't explicitly excluded either, so NASA was able to leverage the primary goal to do secondary goals too.

Right now we lack a national goal for going to Mars, which means a subset of elected officials in the House and Senate have essentially provided their own goals for going to Mars, and their goals start with using the SLS and Orion.

So Congress is defining the "How" we go to Mars before anyone really knows the "Why". Which if that isn't bassackwards, I'm not sure what is.

One other thought is that this current approach will result in a minimalist proposal, because it has to deal with the limitations imposed by the SLS and Orion. And it may only support a Mars flyby, given the tremendous cost of using the expendable SLS and Orion.

If America really wanted to make Mars a goal, and wanted to do something more than just a Flags & Footprints type effort, then Congress will have to let NASA shift over to reusable space transportation hardware. The world is already seeing that reusable rockets are not a marketing gimmick, and NASA itself has published many studies showing how space exploration can only be done with reusable hardware.

As long as the SLS & Orion hardware is mandated for NASA to go to Mars, the least likely it is NASA will be able to actually go there. And in this case, with the political objectives so clearly defined, garbage in, garbage out... 

[Robotbeat]

Ron, that’s the normal argument us space nerds make, BUT!

The problem is Apollo burned itself out BECAUSE it had a big specific goal. After the first landing in 1969, the last landing was in 1972. ISS had a nebulous goal, but has been permanently inhabited for over 2 decades now.

Nebulous goal beats specific goal if you want to have staying power, which is explicitly what Artemis is about…

They’re specific enough about Mars being the goal, but nebulous enough that they aren’t setting themselves up for immediate cancellation once that occurs.

(Agreed about the silly mandating of SLS and Orion, though.)

[yg1968]

Ron, that’s the normal argument us space nerds make, BUT!

The problem is Apollo burned itself out BECAUSE it had a big specific goal. After the first landing in 1969, the last landing was in 1972. ISS had a nebulous goal, but has been permanently inhabited for over 2 decades now.

Nebulous goal beats specific goal if you want to have staying power, which is explicitly what Artemis is about…

They’re specific enough about Mars being the goal, but nebulous enough that they aren’t setting themselves up for immediate cancellation once that occurs.

(Agreed about the silly mandating of SLS and Orion, though.)

ISS has also shown that international partnerships are key to longevity. If SLS is to be replaced, it must be replaced without any gap since there is no other way to reach Gateway. Realistically speaking that likely won't happen until Polaris 3 and Dear Moon mission have flown.

[DanClemmensen]

Ron, that’s the normal argument us space nerds make, BUT!

The problem is Apollo burned itself out BECAUSE it had a big specific goal. After the first landing in 1969, the last landing was in 1972. ISS had a nebulous goal, but has been permanently inhabited for over 2 decades now.

Nebulous goal beats specific goal if you want to have staying power, which is explicitly what Artemis is about…

They’re specific enough about Mars being the goal, but nebulous enough that they aren’t setting themselves up for immediate cancellation once that occurs.

(Agreed about the silly mandating of SLS and Orion, though.)

ISS has also shown that international partnerships are key to longevity. If SLS is to be replaced, it must be replaced without any gap since there is no other way to reach Gateway. Realistically speaking that likely won't happen until Polaris 3 and Dear Moon mission have flown.

There is no current way to reach Gateway, because Gateway does not exist yet. By the time Gateway (PPE+HALO) is launched, there will be two ways to reach Gateway. One is SLS/Orion. The other will be Crew Dragon transferring crew to Starship HLS in LEO, HLS to Gateway and back (with refuelling by Depot), and Crew Dragon back to Earth. This is an expensive mission, but much less expensive than SLS/Orion. All components of this scheme will have already been tested prior to the Gateway Launch. The Crew Dragon element is fully operational and the Starship HLS element will already have been tested by Artemis III except for the LEO-->NRHO-->LEO leg. If such a test is needed, then just run it uncrewed, and then use the same Starhip for the actual flight and for any subsequent flights. The two Crew Dragon legs can use the same Crew Dragon if it can park at ISS. This scheme works is probably less risky than the current Artemis IV plan since it does not depend on SLS 1B or ML-2. Basically the extra Starship HLS becomes a taxi that goes back and forth between ISS and Gateway (or the lander) in NRHO, and the taxi can be used as many times as needed as long as you keep filling up Depot.

[Robotbeat]

Europe also wants a deep space capsule.

I know people hate on NHRO being chosen instead of LLO, but it DOES make it a lot easier to develop a capsule that can get to the Gateway than if the gateway were in a lower lunar orbit. And NHRO is much better suited to a staging point for Mars missions than LLO is, obviously.

[Paul451]

While SEP may be fine for small robotic spacecraft, I don't think Solar is a good candidate for large crewed interplanetary spacecraft because the required solar panels become extraordinarily large the further one goes from the sun, not to mention how long it takes to get past the belts. Why spend vast sums on propulsion systems that are effectively limited to just the inner solar system when those same funds open the entire solar system if aimed at nuclear in lieu of solar?

However, on this side of the asteroid belts, SEP is less massive than even the theorised NEP proposals. (And the real thing will probably be heavier than optimistic design proposals, whereas solar is a known quantity.) Since it's going to be a long time before we send humans beyond the asteroid belt, by insisting on nuclear, you are hamstringing every near-term mission.

[Coastal Ron]

Ron, that’s the normal argument us space nerds make, BUT!

The problem is Apollo burned itself out BECAUSE it had a big specific goal. After the first landing in 1969, the last landing was in 1972. ISS had a nebulous goal, but has been permanently inhabited for over 2 decades now.

The Apollo program was a political program from the beginning, and part of the Cold War. Science was always a byproduct, and creating an enduring presence on the Moon was never a goal. Plus Apollo was not built in a way to sustain a presence on the Moon, it was built to satisfy the goal Kennedy laid out (with margin).

The ISS was built as a science station, and according to NASA:

The objectives of the Station are to support scientific research and other activities requiring the unique attributes of humans in space, and establish a permanent human presence in Earth orbit.

That looks pretty specific to me, though obviously not down to the hardware level like the Moon to Mars program having to use the SLS and Orion (plus other Artemis stuff). And surveys have always shown that Americans support science in space far more than human space exploration, so Congress funding the ISS over the Constellation program makes sense.

Nebulous goal beats specific goal if you want to have staying power, which is explicitly what Artemis is about…

I disagree being specific = not be cancellable. I think it is more about having Congress agree, for whatever reason, that the goal or goals of a program are worth spending taxpayer money. The ISS started returning science output almost from the beginning of the first elements in space, but the Constellation program was going to take decades until it achieved its goal of returning humans to the Moon, so I think it depends on how programs are structured for their ROI that determines how cancellable they are.

They’re specific enough about Mars being the goal, but nebulous enough that they aren’t setting themselves up for immediate cancellation once that occurs.

As a taxpayer I don't mind the threat of cancellation for programs, if they are threatened for the right reasons. But as we know programs like the SLS never were threatened, and look at how bloated and underachieving they are.

This new Moon to Mars program office is being asked support the activities "to achieve the goal of human exploration of Mars".

Great, what does that mean? Orbital observation? Occasional short visits to the surface? A constant human presence on the surface? Collaboration with other Mars efforts? There is a difference between "nebulous" and "clueless"... 

[TheRadicalModerate]

Moving some more stuff from the Artemis Program Updates thread:

I don't expect much useful from NASA's Moon to Mars efforts because I expect two serious mistakes. The first mistake I expect is choosing a "short-stay" architecture instead of a "long-stay" architecture (e.g. https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4115/1). A short-stay architecture may reduce danger per mission a little but greatly increases the more important metric of danger per exploration accomplished by reducing the time spent at Mars by an order of magnitude. The second mistake I expect is NASA will probably restrict their focus to overly costly architectures that help everyone pretend that SLS, Orion and Gateway are useful.

I agree that's a major risk. But actually, I think short-stay actually increases danger per mission. It encourages more time spent in orbit, where almost all risks are MUCH higher (solar flares, GCR, micrometeorites, microgravity) and where resources are lower (no access to unlimited atmosphere and therefore oxygen, nitrogen, potentially even H2O and CO2, and therefore fuel, no access to unlimited regolith for shielding, no access to surface water mining, etc). Short stay still requires landing, but if there's a problem that prevents ascent, the crew is dead because there won't be resources to maintain them until help arrives.

The only argument that allows short-stay to be lower risk is things like arguing an injury or illness will randomly occur (which need access to medical personnel and facilities) and the odds are simply proportional to the total mission time. The argument AGAINST that is you can mitigate that risk by just bringing medical personnel and facilities with, i.e. by increasing the crew complement, but unfortunately I've never seen that mitigation acknowledged in these discussions. It's just used as an assumption and then not really questioned.

The main argument for short-stay is that it's short.  It assumes that total mission time, irrespective of whether it's in space or on the martian surface, is a bigger risk than anything else.  Minimum energy conjunction class missions require roughly double the crew time away from Earth as minimum energy short-stay opposition class missions.  That's double the time where something can break.  Double the time your crew needs to stay healthy, uninjured, and sane.  Double the consumables.  (ISRU is all well and good, but it also requires things not to break.)

But if delta-v becomes relatively cheap, then you can have a mission with the best of all worlds:

1) Depart from Earth to Mars in a conjunction class orbit.  Assume a free-return trajectory (i.e., a 2:1 Earth-resonant transfer).

2) Do a go/no-go prior to Mars insertion or aerocapture.  If no-go, the free return takes you home.

3) Insert into LMO.

4) Do a go/no-go prior to descent.  If no-go, return on an opposition class orbit.

5) Land on the surface.

6) Do a stay/no-stay within 30-50 days of landing.  If no-stay, return to LMO and do an opposition class return.

7) If you stay, you stay for the 700ish days needed for the next conjunction.

This is an extremely expensive conops in terms of delta-v.  The free return costs more in transfer energy and more in capture energy.¹  Having enough prop to do opposition-class return costs a lot more than a conjunction-class return.  If you're planning on a unitary vehicle with all the prop for the whole mission at departure, it's unfeasible.  If you get rid of the free-return, it's barely feasible but likely unaffordable, especially if you're using an SLS architecture.

But we all know we're not going to be using an SLS architecture.  Land a Starship to make prop in the previous synod.  Make a lot of prop:  enough for a launch back to LMO, which gets left on the surface, and enough for an oppo-class return, which gets sent to LMO.

You can reduce ISRU risk by forgoing water mining and taking your own LH2 to make prop.  Or you can incur the ISRU risk and take a one- or two-synod hit if water production doesn't pan out.

The unavoidable risks with this architecture are the need to do a rendezvous to take on more prop in LMO, and the ability to land close to your pre-positioned prop for return to orbit.  But incurring those risks defrays so many other long-duration risks that, IMO, it's a better architecture.

Right, I understand the argument, but it's a bad one, in part because of what you mention about increasing the delta-v. Short-stay requires enormous delta-v, which for long-stay missions would allow very short transit times, negating a lot of the time difference.

I just think assuming all these things are constant and only depend on total mission time is just terrible. Short stay missions have the longest time in orbit stuck in a tin can. This messes with your sanity and reduces your health. It's time in orbit, transiting from one planet to the other, that should be minimized, not mission time.

I actually preempted and addressed these arguments in the second paragraph, but you seemed to overlook them? I bolded them above, and I'll requote them here:

The only argument that allows short-stay to be lower risk is things like arguing an injury or illness will randomly occur (which need access to medical personnel and facilities) and the odds are simply proportional to the total mission time. The argument AGAINST that is you can mitigate that risk by just bringing medical personnel and facilities with, i.e. by increasing the crew complement, but unfortunately I've never seen that mitigation acknowledged in these discussions. It's just used as an assumption and then not really questioned.

IMHO, the only way to safely do Mars missions is to make Mars' surface a safe haven with plenty of redundant supplies and equipment (as well as accommodations for a large enough crew to address the psychological issues and bring along medical personnel to address the random injury argument) that you don't need to hurry back.

Even if short-stay isn't desirable as a primary conops, it's a highly desirable contingency.

The "enormous delta-v" argument doesn't hold water for two reasons:

1) If the alternative is so much suspenders-and-belt redundancy in your surface architecture that it's bulletproof, then sending enough propellant production capacity to support the contingency is almost trivial.

2) It's not that enormous a delta-v hit.  This reference (see p. 8 ) shows it's about double for an actual planned short-stay mission, but it's assuming higher outbound conjunction-class delta-v to make the stay long enough to be worth it, and a propulsive insert into LMO.  If you're doing it for contingency purposes, you no longer care about the mission, which means that the arrival into LMO can be closer to the point where the oppo-class return window closes.  I haven't done the numbers, but I'd guess that it's 2500m/s more, which is big but not necessarily overwhelming.

The first 5-10 missions to Mars are going to be insanely risky no matter what.  But reducing that risk will be essential to NASA and it'll even be essential to SpaceX if they haven't lost their minds.  You can't defray all risks, but you can defray some of them, which substantially reduces the probability of an LoC.  Top of my list:

1) Multiple engines out during TMI, which still completes but leaves the main engines in a state where they're not restartable.  Another contingency would be loss of propellant, either via leak or boil-off.  Solution:  2:1 free return orbit (v∞ = 5080m/s, based on a model where Earth and Mars are in-plane and have circular orbits). Aerocapture back at Earth shouldn't be a problem, nor would an Orion direct EDL.  Entry speed should be about 11km/s.

2) Transit ship inserts into LMO OK, but it or its descender aren't able to land.  (E.g., a stuck landing leg, descender loss-of-propellant accident during crew transfer, or an engine explosion renders the landing skirt structurally unsound.)  Solution:  oppo-class return.  We can have a lively debate about whether prop pre-positioned in LMO is good enough here.

3) The lander lands, but some combination of unknown unknowns makes it clear that there's a systemic problem that makes 500-day surface habitation untenable.  Solution:  Return to LMO, then do the oppo-class abort.

In terms of NASA politics, I think there's a pretty good chance that they'll rely on Starship for uncrewed logistical stuff but insist on feeding the Big 3 the contracts for the TransHab, its propulsion module, and the DAV.  But if you have Starship plunking down prop plants with their own LH2 feedstock, you can put a crew-ready Starship in LMO and a pre-fueled ascent vehicle (Starship or DAV-based) on the surface, ready to go.  (If somebody gets politically snippy about the idea of a crew-ready Starship, then it can just be a tanker.)

Sending a TransHab-like thingy into a 2:1 heliocentric orbit for free return is more expensive than a minimum-energy Hohmann transfer by 720m/s.  But of course if you have the Big 3 building it, it's expensive a priori.

The thing is, I think this is a pretty good set of contingencies even for an all-singing-all-dancing Starship mission.  Bad stuff's gonna happen.  A lot of the bad stuff results in contingencies where going back to Earth ASAP is less bad than staying on the surface, and certainly better than staying in Mars orbit for 500 days.  SpaceX has the luxury of being able to over-design the mission to drastically improve the crew's chances of survival.  And if everything goes great, then you have that much more prop and hardware available to build on in follow-on missions as you set up your base.

[clongton]

Since it's going to be a long time before we send humans beyond the asteroid belt, by insisting on nuclear, you are hamstringing every near-term mission.

Thanks for your thoughts Paul, but I respectfully disagree on this point. Nuclear will in no way hamstring any near-term mission. It will be every bit as efficient as solar at electric propulsion with the additional capability of on-demand high thrust maneuvering; something solar cannot ever provide.  And given everything we know at this point, it is clear that long term human crews will eventually go further out - much further out. At the very least to the Jovan and Saturnian moon systems. Even just to get to Mars with solar electric would require HUGE solar panels to generate enough electrical energy for nominal operations plus the engines. And for sure crewed interplanetary spacecraft will require nuclear propulsion into and beyond the asteroid belt because at that point solar electric just won't cut it. It makes more economic sense to bring nuclear propulsion technology to operational status sooner rather than later rather than developing solar electric for the short term because it's for sure we are going to need it later. It's not like we won't use it in the inner system. We certainly will. The longer it takes to deploy operational nuclear engines the more expensive it will be to do that. So do it sooner, while the costs are (relatively) low. Then use it in both the inner and the outer solar system. Over the years, there will be efficiencies developed for the engines that are not possible at this time. Only by running and operating the engines over time can we identify deficiencies and mitigate or improve them, so why wait till later when (1) it'll cost much more and (2) we end up starting to go deeper with engines that won't be as good as they could have been if we had started sooner.

[TheRadicalModerate]

Since it's going to be a long time before we send humans beyond the asteroid belt, by insisting on nuclear, you are hamstringing every near-term mission.

Thanks for your thoughts Paul, but I respectfully disagree on this point. Nuclear will in no way hamstring any near-term mission. It will be every bit as efficient as solar at electric propulsion with the additional capability of on-demand high thrust maneuvering; something solar cannot ever provide.  And given everything we know at this point, it is clear that long term human crews will eventually go further out - much further out. At the very least to the Jovan and Saturnian moon systems. Even just to get to Mars with solar electric would require HUGE solar panels to generate enough electrical energy for nominal operations plus the engines. And for sure crewed interplanetary spacecraft will require nuclear propulsion into and beyond the asteroid belt because at that point solar electric just won't cut it. It makes more economic sense to bring nuclear propulsion technology to operational status sooner rather than later rather than developing solar electric for the short term because it's for sure we are going to need it later. It's not like we won't use it in the inner system. We certainly will. The longer it takes to deploy operational nuclear engines the more expensive it will be to do that. So do it sooner, while the costs are (relatively) low. Then use it in both the inner and the outer solar system. Over the years, there will be efficiencies developed for the engines that are not possible at this time. Only by running and operating the engines over time can we identify deficiencies and mitigate or improve them, so why wait till later when (1) it'll cost much more and (2) we end up starting to go deeper with engines that won't be as good as they could have been if we had started sooner.

I think Paul was arguing that NEP wasn't worth it, not NTP.

Note that DRA 5.0 preferred NTP over chemical, which I thought was nuts until I read the silly thing more thoroughly.  The assumption there is that crewed aerocapture is Scary and Bad, so they designed the crewed component to do propulsive insert into LMO.  NTP actually helps quite a bit for that, although it doesn't substantially shorten time of flight, which seems to be the NTP lobby's primary (and specious) talking point these days.

[yg1968]

Ron, that’s the normal argument us space nerds make, BUT!

The problem is Apollo burned itself out BECAUSE it had a big specific goal. After the first landing in 1969, the last landing was in 1972. ISS had a nebulous goal, but has been permanently inhabited for over 2 decades now.

Nebulous goal beats specific goal if you want to have staying power, which is explicitly what Artemis is about…

They’re specific enough about Mars being the goal, but nebulous enough that they aren’t setting themselves up for immediate cancellation once that occurs.

(Agreed about the silly mandating of SLS and Orion, though.)

ISS has also shown that international partnerships are key to longevity. If SLS is to be replaced, it must be replaced without any gap since there is no other way to reach Gateway. Realistically speaking that likely won't happen until Polaris 3 and Dear Moon mission have flown.

There is no current way to reach Gateway, because Gateway does not exist yet. By the time Gateway (PPE+HALO) is launched, there will be two ways to reach Gateway. One is SLS/Orion. The other will be Crew Dragon transferring crew to Starship HLS in LEO, HLS to Gateway and back (with refuelling by Depot), and Crew Dragon back to Earth. This is an expensive mission, but much less expensive than SLS/Orion. All components of this scheme will have already been tested prior to the Gateway Launch. The Crew Dragon element is fully operational and the Starship HLS element will already have been tested by Artemis III except for the LEO-->NRHO-->LEO leg. If such a test is needed, then just run it uncrewed, and then use the same Starhip for the actual flight and for any subsequent flights. The two Crew Dragon legs can use the same Crew Dragon if it can park at ISS. This scheme works is probably less risky than the current Artemis IV plan since it does not depend on SLS 1B or ML-2. Basically the extra Starship HLS becomes a taxi that goes back and forth between ISS and Gateway (or the lander) in NRHO, and the taxi can be used as many times as needed as long as you keep filling up Depot.

A Dragon and HLS Starship combination isn't being considered by SpaceX. It will never happen. Neither SpaceX nor NASA wants it.

[DanClemmensen]

Ron, that’s the normal argument us space nerds make, BUT!

The problem is Apollo burned itself out BECAUSE it had a big specific goal. After the first landing in 1969, the last landing was in 1972. ISS had a nebulous goal, but has been permanently inhabited for over 2 decades now.

Nebulous goal beats specific goal if you want to have staying power, which is explicitly what Artemis is about…

They’re specific enough about Mars being the goal, but nebulous enough that they aren’t setting themselves up for immediate cancellation once that occurs.

(Agreed about the silly mandating of SLS and Orion, though.)

ISS has also shown that international partnerships are key to longevity. If SLS is to be replaced, it must be replaced without any gap since there is no other way to reach Gateway. Realistically speaking that likely won't happen until Polaris 3 and Dear Moon mission have flown.

There is no current way to reach Gateway, because Gateway does not exist yet. By the time Gateway (PPE+HALO) is launched, there will be two ways to reach Gateway. One is SLS/Orion. The other will be Crew Dragon transferring crew to Starship HLS in LEO, HLS to Gateway and back (with refuelling by Depot), and Crew Dragon back to Earth. This is an expensive mission, but much less expensive than SLS/Orion. All components of this scheme will have already been tested prior to the Gateway Launch. The Crew Dragon element is fully operational and the Starship HLS element will already have been tested by Artemis III except for the LEO-->NRHO-->LEO leg. If such a test is needed, then just run it uncrewed, and then use the same Starhip for the actual flight and for any subsequent flights. The two Crew Dragon legs can use the same Crew Dragon if it can park at ISS. This scheme works is probably less risky than the current Artemis IV plan since it does not depend on SLS 1B or ML-2. Basically the extra Starship HLS becomes a taxi that goes back and forth between ISS and Gateway (or the lander) in NRHO, and the taxi can be used as many times as needed as long as you keep filling up Depot.

A Dragon and HLS Starship combination isn't being considered by SpaceX. It will never happen. Neither SpaceX nor NASA wants it.

SpaceX is not considering it because it has no customer. SpaceX is a for-profit company, so if a customer is willing to pay they will put a mission together.

NASA is not considering it because the Moon to Mars Program is constrained by legislation. I was responding to your assertion that NASA has a transport (no) and that there is no alternative (no). NASA is developing a solution (SLS/Orion), and SpaceX is developing systems that could be used as a solution.

[yg1968]

SpaceX is not considering it because it has no customer. SpaceX is a for-profit company, so if a customer is willing to pay they will put a mission together.

NASA is not considering it because the Moon to Mars Program is constrained by legislation. I was responding to your assertion that NASA has a transport (no) and that there is no alternative (no). NASA is developing a solution (SLS/Orion), and SpaceX is developing systems that could be used as a solution.

I suppose that I could have been clearer but I meant one that is actually flying, not a potential one. I think that Starship Polaris and Dear Moon will change things politically. At the very least, I would expect NASA to consider crewed Starship as a second transportation system from Earth to Gateway. I hope that ESA also builds an Earth to Gateway transportation system. But that might be further down the road. 

[TheRadicalModerate]

A Dragon and HLS Starship combination isn't being considered by SpaceX. It will never happen. Neither SpaceX nor NASA wants it.

All we know is that a D2+HLS isn't being publicly considered.  I suspect that's in deference to NASA, which really doesn't want to deal with the muddied waters that such a public revelation would stir right now.  And of course it doesn't help that this year Elon is playing Dr. Evil.

But it's a no-brainer.  It's a mission planning exercise; it requires virtually no DDT&E.¹

I suspect that SpaceX wants this rather badly, albeit secretly.  They stand to make a lot of money the sooner that SLS/Orion is shown to be unnecessary.  If they can do that prior to Starship being crew-certified for launch and EDL, it's potentially worth billions.

They just need to figure out when it helps NASA, rather than hurting it.  That's a political calculation.  I suspect that NASA also wants it rather badly, albeit even more secretly.

________
¹Weasel words:
1) It requires a tested active/passive IDSS implementation.
2) It requires that a D2 have an undocked-but-powered-down loiter lifetime of 2-4 weeks, and a restart procedure.
3) They'd probably want to test it.  They could refuel the uncrewed Option A test article, return it propulsively to LEO, and have it dock with a cargo D2 returning from the ISS.
4) And of course there would be a big mound of paperwork for crew-certification.

[DanClemmensen]

SpaceX is not considering it because it has no customer. SpaceX is a for-profit company, so if a customer is willing to pay they will put a mission together.

NASA is not considering it because the Moon to Mars Program is constrained by legislation. I was responding to your assertion that NASA has a transport (no) and that there is no alternative (no). NASA is developing a solution (SLS/Orion), and SpaceX is developing systems that could be used as a solution.

I suppose that I could have been clearer but I meant one that is actually flying, not a potential one. I think that Starship Polaris and Dear Moon will change things politically. At the very least, I would expect NASA to consider crewed Starship as a second transportation system from Earth to Gateway. I hope that ESA also builds an Earth to Gateway transportation system. But that might be further down the road.

SLS/Orion has actually flown once. The SLS version is not the one that will fly to Gateway. The Orion that flew was not complete. Therefore, we are projecting from the present to at least 2027.

No version of Starship has flown, and a Starship HLS mission needs at least three different versions to succeed, but the first complete Starship HLS mission is supposed to fly at least two years before the first SLS 1B flies.

I concur that the Dragon/Starship HLS scheme is a kludge cobbled together from parts intended for other uses. However this is much more true of SLS/Gateway/Orion.

[Paul451]

[This is mostly off-topic. This is just to, hopefully, better explain my dismissal of nuclear propulsion. If Clongton wants to continue the discussion, see if you can find a more suitable thread and let me know.]

Even just to get to Mars with solar electric would require HUGE solar panels

And NEP requires a heavy reactor and HUGE radiators.

That was my point. People have shown elsewhere that the mass of the reactor+generator+radiators for any given power requirement exceeds the required mass for solar arrays anywhere closer to the sun than the asteroid belt, even accepting the optimistic numbers for proposed space-rated nuclear reactors. And the numbers are getting worse as solar efficiency improves. (Hell, now it's probably true anywhere this side of Jupiter.)

Solar has and will continue to benefit from developments and mass manufacturing on Earth, including development of space-rated solar arrays for commercial satellites, whereas NEP hasn't.

Since NEP is heavier than SEP, forcing NEP onto a mission that doesn't need it (like Mars) means you can carry less cargo. It also adds the cost of development of a new reactor to the Mars mission, whereas solar arrays are off-the-shelf technology. SEP is TRL-9. NEP and NTR are mid- and low-TRL respectively, and the proposed bimodal NTR/NEP is essentially TRL-0.

[Aside: I don't see any advantage for non-chemical propulsion for any Mars mission. However, if we are proposing a hybrid option, than the comparison is not with SEP-alone, you have to compare with an architecture where a chemical stage lofts a SEP-ship into escape. You need to show that the hybrid nuclear option is superior to a hybrid chemical/solar option.]

I'm not anti-nuclear. It makes sense to have surface reactors. But there's no reason to assume that a micro-g adapted space reactor is a suitable design for surface operation, and plenty of reason to believe it won't be. So instead of spending your extremely limited tech-development funding developing a space-based reactor you won't need for at least decades, why not develop surface nuclear reactors that are useful in this decade for Artemis?

The longer it takes to deploy operational nuclear engines the more expensive it will be to do that. So do it sooner, while the costs are (relatively) low.

What makes development costs "low" now? Why would it be cheaper to develop a technology decades before it's required?

[clongton]

What makes development costs "low" now?

I said (relatively) low, meaning - as opposed to what it would cost to develop later when everything will be more expensive.
As to the radiators I suggest thinking outside the box. The radiators don't need to fan out as if they were unfolding solar panels on a Cargo Dragon or a Soyuz. While readily acknowledging that this is fiction, notice that the geometry of this MTV is actually quite sound. Notice the configuration of the radiators outside the rotating habitation ring. It's called the Mars Umbrella ship. It's a NEP drive ship with partial rotational gravity for the crew. I'd relocate the drive engine though to the bottom, pointing down,  so it could be an HIP (Hybrid Integrated Propulsion) device.
Like I said, it's fiction; but it's the kind of fiction you come up with when you think outside the box. Imagine if the "Landing Boat" depicted here were actually a SpaceX Starship"?
And yes, I'd like to continue this discussion and I agree that it's getting off topic here. Suggestions for where to take this?

[CuddlyRocket]

However, the cost could be reduced with the use of new technologies and through international collaboration.

International collaboration doesn't reduce the cost (it probably increases it), it just spreads it around. The AI was presumably referencing documents that referred to the cost to one particular government (likely the US). Typical AI error.

[Robotbeat]

CharGPT is very sensitive to prompting and also usually just parrots back synthesis of all the many (very human, and therefore not unbiased) opinions in its training database. It’s not, like, deriving these takes from first principles or anything.

[jstrotha0975]

ChatGTP is biased because it was programmed by biased humans.

[Robotbeat]

ChatGTP is biased because it was programmed by biased humans.

That’s really not a good way to think of it, although there is reinforcement learning done which could fit that description.

A better way to think of it is:

“Okay, here’s a whole bunch of things that have been written. Use that to learn how to respond to a prompt in a way that’s consistent with all that written stuff.”

It’s very stream of consciousness-esque, like “quick! Improv an answer to this totally random question based on the first thing that comes to mind!”

[TheRadicalModerate]

ChatGTP is biased because it was programmed by biased humans.

“Okay, here’s a whole bunch of things that have been written. Use that to learn how to respond to a prompt in a way that’s consistent with all that written stuff.”

It’s very stream of consciousness-esque, like “quick! Improv an answer to this totally random question based on the first thing that comes to mind!”

You are of course describing a system that's really good at BS.  There's an argument to be made that a lot of humans aren't a lot more sophisticated than a state-of-the-art large language model.

[Eric Hedman]

ChatGTP is biased because it was programmed by biased humans.

AI systems get biased by the data they are exposed to during training just like humans do regardless of how "unbiased" the algorithms are.  You can't guarantee in preparing training data that it is truly reflective on data the software will be analyzing to make future decisions.  That is why even with AI there is no such thing as an unbiased opinion.

[whitelancer64]

ChatGTP is biased because it was programmed by biased humans.

AI systems get biased by the data they are exposed to during training just like humans do regardless of how "unbiased" the algorithms are.  You can't guarantee in preparing training data that it is truly reflective on data the software will be analyzing to make future decisions.  That is why even with AI there is no such thing as an unbiased opinion.

Reminds me of the pitfalls of GIGO

Fun example: Cancer researchers were training an image analyzing algorithm to flag pictures of skin cancers and reject pictures of benign growths. They suddenly found that pictures of rulers were being flagged as skin cancer. This is because pictures of skin cancer often had size indicators / rulers in them to show the size of the growth, so the algorithm associated them with skin cancer.

A lesson in sanitizing your databases and watching out for unintended consequences.

[Robotbeat]

ChatGTP is biased because it was programmed by biased humans.

AI systems get biased by the data they are exposed to during training just like humans do regardless of how "unbiased" the algorithms are.  You can't guarantee in preparing training data that it is truly reflective on data the software will be analyzing to make future decisions.  That is why even with AI there is no such thing as an unbiased opinion.

ESPECIALLY with modern AI.

The interesting thing about machine learning (in particular, generative AI) is that it reverses tropes of humans being fallible but flexible and creative with machines being cold, calculating, and reliable. A human doing arithmetic is far less reliable than a regular computer calculator at doing arithmetic, but a human is far MORE reliable than a large language model at doing arithmetic (but weirdly, LLMs CAN actually do arithmetic, which you wouldn’t really expect based on simple descriptions of how they work).

[Larry Golo]

ChatGTP is biased because it was programmed by biased humans.

AI systems get biased by the data they are exposed to during training just like humans do regardless of how "unbiased" the algorithms are.  You can't guarantee in preparing training data that it is truly reflective on data the software will be analyzing to make future decisions.  That is why even with AI there is no such thing as an unbiased opinion.

Reminds me of the pitfalls of GIGO

Fun example: Cancer researchers were training an image analyzing algorithm to flag pictures of skin cancers and reject pictures of benign growths. They suddenly found that pictures of rulers were being flagged as skin cancer. This is because pictures of skin cancer often had size indicators / rulers in them to show the size of the growth, so the algorithm associated them with skin cancer.

A lesson in sanitizing your databases and watching out for unintended consequences.

OMFG. So the A.I ruled out cancer ? (runs for cover)

Reminds me of my student days, to became a english-french-english translator. This was in 2002: Windows (utterly stupid) autocorrect. Got some good laughs with that
English                         
Fan = fanatic
Fan = rotating wind machine

French
Fan = fanatic
Fan = rotating wind machine = ventilateur

So, are you a rotating wind machine of that singer ?

The silly thing also autocorrected AIRBUS into ABRIBUS which means... BUS STOP. Boeing's competitor is BUSSTOP industry.

Sweet geez.

[Robotbeat]

It’s far better at that specific kind of thing before. The attention mechanism in transformers ensures long-range coherence, so it can tell from your context that you mean the fanatic, not the ventilator.

[Coastal Ron]

I asked ChatGPT-4 a question today…

Which has NOTHING to do with the NASA Moon to Mars Program Office.

ChatGPT, Bard, LLaMA, and all the other LLMs are all experiments that are NOT designed to answer questions about NASA programs. Especially since ChatGPT was only trained with data as recent as 2021, so behind the times on everything.

How about we stick with facts, questions and discussions, and stop junking up the threads with ChatGPT stuff.

[Robotbeat]

I asked ChatGPT-4 a question today…

Which has NOTHING to do with the NASA Moon to Mars Program Office.

ChatGPT, Bard, LLaMA, and all the other LLMs are all experiments that are NOT designed to answer questions about NASA programs. Especially since ChatGPT was only trained with data as recent as 2021, so behind the times on everything.

How about we stick with facts, questions and discussions, and stop junking up the threads with ChatGPT stuff.

Seriously. And I think LLMs like GPT3.5/4 are astounding in capability, but people shouldn’t be using them as “unbiased” “oracles” to decide arguments. It’s literally like googling a question and going with the first opinion piece on the topic that comes up. It’s just not doing any kind of first principles logical thinking to arrive at any answer (that’s not how it works, although it can get better if you prompt it that way), and even if it was, its output is only as good as the input or training set, which is just whatever anyone says when asked such questions on the internet.

It’s off topic. We actually do have a thread that’s sort of on this topic.

[Robotbeat]

True.

In recent news, NASA HQ offices are mostly empty. 

Congress is Wondering Why NASA’s HQ is 69% Empty of Employees
https://spaceexplored.com/2023/04/06/congress-is-wondering-why-nasas-headquarters-is-69-empty-of-employees/

So the M2M Office is just an attempt to rebrand NASA while it is on an AI generated narrative autopilot.

You give NASA way too much credit. The people who write this stuff are at least one or two hype cycles behind. They’re not using ChatGPT.

But yeah, it is super weird how empty the NASA HQ is. It was like that even before COVID, just kind of a ghost town. People telework a lot, which I don’t totally blame them since HQ is pretty cramped and the DC commute SUUUUCKS.

[Tywin]

Interesting...

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/voyager-space-awarded-by-nasas-marshall-space-flight-center-to-develop-new-airlock-concept-302142865.html

[StraumliBlight]

NASA has released the presentation slides from the Moon To Mars Architecture Workshop on February 12-13th.

[sdsds]

NASA has released the presentation slides from the Moon To Mars Architecture Workshop on February 12-13th.

LOL. Pretty clear acknowledgement that the Human Lunar Return segment of the architecture is mainly about flags and footprints.

[TheRadicalModerate]

NASA has released the presentation slides from the Moon To Mars Architecture Workshop on February 12-13th.

Attached are the summary architecture elements from the 2024 Architecture Review, and a chunk of the similar list for the 2025 workshop, respectively.  The "etc." in the latter is doing some pretty (ahem) heavy lifting...