"Flexible Path" Scenario E for Cx

[mmeijeri]

An excellent way to get absolutely nothing accomplished.

The committee fears Mars first will lead to absolutely nothing being accomplished and I share that fear. Augustine said that it would be like telling Congress to 'send money and call back in forty years' or words to that effect. If you consider NEO missions etc as absolutely nothing, then yes, there is a good chance it will be a long time before you see anything you find worthwhile. But I would find a NEO mission very exciting, especially one that was part of a sequence of increasingly more ambitious missions eventually leading to Mars and beyond. And it could happen sooner than a moon landing.

[rsp1202]

I acknowledge all the financial and "dead end" arguments against it (well, maybe not the dead end ones), but the Moon is still a pretty good beach-head and resource right in our own celestial backyard. Shame not to use it.

[mmeijeri]

Flexible Path combined with telerobotic lunar ISRU and followed by Lunar Base ten years later or so would be my favourite.

[Norm Hartnett]

Here are some reasons why I support the “Flexible Plan”.

1)   We do not have the technology to do sustainable exploration.

That’s it.

Of the total Constellation budget, only 15% is devoted to actual, on the moon, exploration and that includes the outpost. Want to bet what would get cut if there were overruns/shortfalls? I am sure that the numbers for Mars First are worse.

The Flexible Plan allows us to develop the technologies to grow our capabilities. Lowers to LEO costs through COTS development and allows NASA to develop NACA type technology research capability for LEO access. It allows NASA to develop interplanetary (beyond LEO if you prefer) capabilities in a stepwise progressive fashion. NACA for interplanetary spacecraft if you will. And finally it allows NASA, to not only stay within budget, but to adapt to changing budgets.

Yup, not inspirational. Neither was NACA but look what they accomplished.

But. If you want inspiration try this on for size. If you asked people around the world to name a spaceship which one would they name? The first on the moon? First manned capsule? The first in orbit? One of the shuttles? No, they would say Enterprise, you know they would. Suppose the international partners assembled a fully modular spaceship near or docked to the ISS. This ship would allow modular life support, engines, power sources and science that serves exploration goals utilizing an ISS schema with racks and modules. It could be very primitive to begin with but, as racks and modules are changed out, and the whole thing expanded, it would allow research into propulsion, radiation shielding, extended life support, etc while conducting missions to above the van Allen belt, GEO and beyond. It would allow the development of various refueling technologies. The thing that would be inspirational is it's name.

Enterprise.



(NASA and the Russians would hate it so it's got to be a good idea) 

[mmeijeri]

Here are some reasons why I support the “Flexible Plan”.

1)   We do not have the technology to do sustainable exploration.

That’s it.

Lol! But very true.

Enterprise.

(NASA and the Russians would hate it so it's got to be a good idea) 

Lol again, what a wonderful idea!

[mars.is.wet]

What's the photo-op for a trip to L1?  L2?

How will we differentiate the first trip to a NEO without a landing from the second?  or the third?

How will we show the public that robots controlled by humans are WAY cooler than robots that operate via delayed remote ... after the first go?

If Phobos is a destination in the "flexible path", how do you afford anything else while you are develping the systems necessary to go (without having such a long delay that it isn't a real program?)?

Isn't the public going to see orbiting a body without landing sort of like driving across country to the Grand Canyon, driving to the north rim, turning around and going home?

What do you do for interest while the crew is enroute?  At least now the Shuttle comes and goes (and lunar flights will come and go) every so often and people can get out and walk around on the surface of the Moon.

If anyone has the time to lay out a budget and schedule for flexible path based on what we have seen in the Augustine panel reports so far and the ESAS sand charts (as a first cut at costs), I'd love to see when we can do what.  I won't have time to do so before the commission reports, but I bet the answer is not satisfactory to anyone here.

It is sort of like asking a team to build a hospital ... and then when they find out they don't have enough money to build a clinic, and then where there isn't enough money for that ... they say "let's build a lean-to out of balsa wood".  Sometimes in life you have to realize when there isn't enough money, stand up and say so ... and refuse to do anything (like the ISS) that isn't worth the money they gave you.  Some things really aren't worth doing unless sufficiently funded, and human exploration is clearly one of them.

There is no way for me to prove it, but "flexible path" will have too few flights with too few "TV moments", isn't inspirational enough, and screams "cancelled due to boredom and budget pressures" to me. 

YMMV.

[Norm Hartnett]

Enterprise.

(NASA and the Russians would hate it so it's got to be a good idea) 

Lol again, what a wonderful idea!

[humor]
Yes, I can visualize the first international crew. An African astronaut handling communications, a JAXA astronaut managing navigation, a Russian cosmonaut working with the shielding, a ESA Scotsman or Irishman on the engines, a pointy eared Canadian as science officer and, of course, an American of French ancestry in command.
[/humor]

I am very serious. This is the only way I can see to go forward in exploration. Anything else costs to much and just is not sustainable. If you keep doing the same thing over and over you should not be surprised when you get the same result. We had lots of photo moments in Apollo, they didn't do the program any good when the budget ax fell.

[mmeijeri]

I know you're serious and I agree, I just wanted to acknowledge your humour.

[Norm Hartnett]

I know you're serious and I agree, I just wanted to acknowledge your humour.

I got that.

You know I was just thinking what it would be like as the Enterprise undocked from the ISS for its first mission. Gives me chills.

(There is your first photo op mars.is.wet)

[Nascent Ascent]

Sounds like the "Flexible Path" is ideally suited for the politicians.

It's FLEXIBLE...so you can promise the Moon (pun intended) but then change course and do nothing.

[A_M_Swallow]

What's the photo-op for a trip to L1?  L2?

L2 is more of a phone call - from behind the Moon.  Although you can take photographs of the far side of the Moon.
 

[Norm Hartnett]

So my imagination is running away with me (It is good to live in the Napa Valley).

What would the first rev of the Enterprise look like?

How about an up-engined Russian FGB with solar panels and batteries but no living space (replaced with hypergolic tanking and refuelable by ATV, Progress, and perhaps a US developmental tanker) docked to an American built Destiny style module (perhaps with solar panels and batteries also). This would house all the life support, habitation, and science racks (built by JAXA, ESA, CSA, new partners). This would be docked to an ESA or JAXA built command, control, and communications module that has a forward docking adapter/airlock.

Primary science goal for the first mission would be radiation shielding evaluation (probably plastic and perhaps limited magnetic) conducted over a one to three week mission above radiation belt with return to ISS. Mission would serve as a shakedown cruise and evaluation of initial design parameters. Crew size three to five?

The Enterprise would probably fly in this configuration for several short missions while lessons learned were evaluated and new/replacement modules were designed and lifted to the ISS.

I like it. We can do this. It will get us to the Moon, Mars, and Beyond. It won’t happen in my lifetime, it may not happen in your lifetime, but it will happen.

Rome wasn't built in a day and the West wasn't settled in a decade (or three).

[mmeijeri]

What's the photo-op for a trip to L1?  L2?

Have a look at this post. For the view from Phobos have a look at this one. If you play with the Orbiter flight simulator, which you can download for free, you can easily make pictures of what missions to various destinations would look like.

How will we differentiate the first trip to a NEO without a landing from the second?  or the third?

This will get old after a number of missions, but you could make sure you visited the various types and sizes. Deflecting one would also be interesting, and ESA is already studying such a mission. A more ambitious mission would be to try and capture a very small one and get it into a highly elliptical Earth orbit or move it to a Lagrange point.

Note that Apollo also got old soon, so landings are not a panacaea... I believe William Barton has suggested that may be one of the advantages of a program that does multiple sorties to different areas on the moon.

How will we show the public that robots controlled by humans are WAY cooler than robots that operate via delayed remote ... after the first go?

Because we will have school kids play with them - controlling a Dust Mitigation Vehicle on the moon and handling radiation shielding experiments in GEO (look children, little Joe is now controlling the experiment inside that dot over there) or at L1 (that dot in front of the moon).

If Phobos is a destination in the "flexible path", how do you afford anything else while you are develping the systems necessary to go (without having such a long delay that it isn't a real program?)?

I believe the point of Phobos is that it would be easier and you wouldn't need a dedicated lander.

Isn't the public going to see orbiting a body without landing sort of like driving across country to the Grand Canyon, driving to the north rim, turning around and going home?

As nooneofconsequence has pointed out, it's the look but don't touch thing. It will whet people's appetites and make them support further exploration.

I don't have answers to all of your other points.

[Archibald]

More on Phobos usefulness

http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2542

[simon-th]

A couple of things:

1. Public interest and inspiration for kids, students etc.

I guarantee that another 20 years of prepping for a Mars surface mission without doing anything except ISS flights in between isn't going to interest the public or young people.

I guarantee that more Moon landings will interest the public exactly the first 2-3 times and then they will not report about those any more due to repetition.

On the other hand, Flexible Path means there are a multitude of missions available, a multitude of information for young people and even a multitude of "photo-ops".

In any event, the ultimate goal of Flexible Path is a Mars surface mission, and thus it is noteworthy to the public + has milestones people can interest themselves.

2. Different goals and possibility to reach them + mission frequency for Flexible Path will be in the ballpark of a lunar program

A Phoebos or Venus orbital mission etc. is well in the budget of Flexible Path down the line. People misinterpret what Flexible Path is. Moon Global or Moon Base would be a repetition of one and the same mission structure (5-10 sortie missions or 10-15 lunar base crews) over and over again. Flexible Path does not want to do 10 Phoebos missions or 10 NEO missions or 10 Venus flybys or 10 Venus orbital missions or 10 Moon missions. It mixes all these missions using incrementally developed hardware which however can be reused for all these different missions. Thus, it is entirely possible to have the same operation launch frequency for Flexible Path that is planned for Moon Global or Moon Base. That is if Moon Global were to do 2 missions with 2 HLVs per year, you would have 2 mid-sized missions (NEO; flyby, Moon orbital, L1/2 tests etc.) under Flexible Path or 1 bigger mission (Venus orbital; Mars orbital etc.) per year and it would fit in the budget. Yes, those missions would be longer in duration than for instance lunar sortie missions, but from a hardware costs point of view and operations costs point of view they aren't that much more expensive.

[marsavian]

Phobos sounds like a really good interesting feasible stepping stone from the Moon to Mars to me and will whet the public's appetite for Mars proper. The thing about Phobos is that it is the size of a capital city, you could explore ALL of it in no time at all. I have been really impressed with the Commission this past week, such interesting out of the box thinking on all fronts contrasts sharply with the stale boring unrealistic statements of the 'program of the record'.  How Steve Cook could say with a straight face that Cx was the fastest path to exploration just beggars belief. It is an academic's path going for theoretical nth advantages whilst the really important metrics are just totally ignored like schedule, complexity and cost. We will all be long dead before humans finally venture beyond the Moon at this rate. Hopefully Obama will kill this current snore bore and set NASA on a really interesting and fast exploration path back to the Moon and beyond. 

[MATTBLAK]

Phobos? To spend $100 billion bucks or so to develop a transportation infrastructure, then fly tens of millions of kilometers and not even LAND on Mars!

I think you grossly underestimate what will ultimately be perceived as a 'snore fest'. You'd be better off going to a Near-Earth Asteroid, which would be very similar to Phobos, than travelling 99% percent of the way to Mars and not even land. If you do that, you might as well keep building robot rovers for a fraction of the cost.

Phobos is not a 'stepping stone' in the same sense going to a house you've had the right to inherit for decades: only to find you're not allowed to get any closer than the gate!!

Sheesh...

[Archibald]

Phobos? To spend $100 billion bucks or so to develop a transportation infrastructure, then fly tens of millions of kilometers and not even LAND on Mars!

I think you grossly underestimate what will ultimately be perceived as a 'snore fest'. You'd be better off going to a Near-Earth Asteroid, which would be very similar to Phobos, than travelling 99% percent of the way to Mars and not even land. If you do that, you might as well keep building robot rovers for a fraction of the cost.

Phobos is not a 'stepping stone' in the same sense going to a house you've had the right to inherit for decades: only to find you're not allowed to get any closer than the gate!!

Sheesh...

http://www.4frontierscorp.com/dev/assets/Braun_Paper_on_Mars_EDL.pdf

That's the reason why I would go to Phobos first. Heck, going to Phobos first doesn't mean you will never go to Mars.
In fact landing on Mars is so hard, It may be better to establish some
outpost on Phobos first. For example ISRU there.

[grdja]

Anyone spending 100 billion for a Phobos landing should receive tar and feathers.

[MATTBLAK]

I understand the ISRU angle very well, having read many papers previously. I stand by the opinion that Phobos, while fascinating (EVERYTHING in space is fascinating!!) is a destination hard, expensive and difficult to get to -- a great deal of risk -- to stop short of the real payoff. Long before Robert Zubrin said it, I believed that if you want to go to Mars: go to MARS.

Oh, I know the state of the art is barely capable of landing 1 metric ton on Mars, let alone 60 right now. But again, I say with another example that its a lot like developing Apollo to only go to lunar orbit. Because by the way: landing on the Moon is too hard!! Again, send robots to collect your lunar rocks and regolith then, don't bother with Armstrong, Aldrin or Jack Schmitt, eh?!

Once the 'battle of the boosters' song and dance is finally over soon, we can all look at a more pragmatic, realistic future manned exploration program that uses Direct, 'Shannon-Shuttle', or Delta IV-Very Heavy to send innovative, ISRU technology-equipped ships to the new world(s).

OR:










They may decide to do nothing...