Should NASA Pivot Artemis Towards Mars?

[ZChris13]

...
If they can't figure out how to support(both physically and monetary) a colony/base on the surface of the moon......Mars is a lost cause.  The amount of money and know how goes up to the ^ power going to Mars compared to the moon.

I'm not convinced that a permanent presence on Mars is that much harder than the Moon.  Apollo style quick Lunar sorties are easier of course, but once you say "permanent presence" or "base", the problems become similar (other than the transit delay; the expensive part is the hardware, the delay is just an inconvenience).

The benefit of the moon is that you can always abort your long-term stay on rather short notice, while on Mars you're locked in for years at a time. It's also much easier to bring your own propellant to Luna, due to a variety of reasons, which greatly helps abort options.

[Nathan2go]

I think it is a fiction that there is enough overlap between a Moon outpost and a Mars outpost to merit common assets. The requirements for getting to the surface, and surviving on the surface of the Moon and Mars are wildly different, and I'm not sure where anyone thinks there is commonality enough to merit standardizing hardware or procedures.

Of course the very large rockets required for Mars can also service the Moon...

We have never needed "very large rockets" to take us anywhere beyond LEO. ULA stated in their 2009 paper called "A Commercially Based Lunar Architecture":

The use of smaller, commercial launchers coupled with orbital depots eliminates the need for a large launch vehicle. ...

I had not seen the ULA paper; thanks for that. It was also interesting to see their estimate of 60 lbs/day, 10t/year of H2 boil-off for their LEO depot; that is encouraging for New Glenn's future options.  Certainly Falcon Heavy and New Glenn are adequate for small Lunar missions, particularly using distributed lift (whether that is using depots, or simply LEO and/or cis-Lunar rendezvous). 

However, the Artemis program did not choose the existing_commercial_rockets + depots option.   SLS and Starship have sufficient momentum behind them that we might as well accept the greater capability of these larger vehicles, and the superior missions that they enable.  Starship, at least, is likely to be commercially viable.

I acknowledge that getting to Mars is very different from getting to the Moon (and have backed away from suggesting common transportation).  But you haven't made any arguments that the equipment that is deployed on the surface should be any different.

The presence of a thin atmosphere makes Mars easier in several ways (e.g. CO2 is free, can make O2 very easily).  Mars and the Lunar south pole are both cold and sunny (the Moon is worse for both).  But I could still imagine rovers, habs, lab modules, construction equipment, digging equipment, electrolyzers, fuel cells, and cryo-coolers that work on either (i.e. all the stuff that makes the difference between flags&footprints and a productive long-term stay).

Like it or not, Starship will very likely go to Mars sometime in this decade, even if the only commercial market for Starship is a dozen ride-share missions per year (including Starlink), and the only Mars customer payloads they can find are a few student cub-sats.  It will look very bad for NASA if they don't participate at all.  Even if they don't have funding to send a crew, they could send, for example, a rover and test it by remote control (assuming their Lunar rover was designed to be Mars capable).

[MATTBLAK]

Tell me: has the 'Exploration Upper Stage' design been finalized and it's budget been set yet? No? Then with only the Delta IV-H upper stage only in place; it isn't going to send anything anywhere that masses much more than 20 metric tons...

The EUS passed CDR late last year.

https://www.asdnews.com/news/aerospace/2020/12/21/space-launch-system-exploration-upper-stage-passes-cdr

As the article says, NASA is transitioning into building hardware for EUS,  It has a budget line item.

While I have seen low key announcements about it's CDR recently I wouldn't count on NASA and the political infrastructure getting serious about EUS until SLS has successfully flown at least once. I've wondered if the Vulcan's Centaur V upper stage wouldn't make a decent compromise, budget-wise; it has twice the thrust and propellant load of the Delta IV stage and is already under development and 'cutting metal'.

[Nathan2go]

Everything SLS needs to do both Moon and Mars is designed.  ...

Ok, but Artemis is not just SLS; there are many new pieces of hardware that need to get built to support an Artemis landing.  The only pieces that NASA has said are relevant both to Luna and Mars missions are SLS and the Gateway.

By "Pivot to Mars", I'm suggesting that the other elements (habs, rovers, etc) should be specified to be Luna and Mars compatible.

[Coastal Ron]

I had not seen the ULA paper; thanks for that.

That is the document I have literally quoted the most over the years, both here on NSF and on SpaceNews (my other favorite space site).

However, the Artemis program did not choose the existing_commercial_rockets + depots option.

NASA, the organization, works for the NASA Administrator, who is a political appointee, and they work for the President. Plus with the Trump Administration the NASA Administrator couldn't do anything without the approval of the National Space Council, which was run by the Vice President. And then of course NASA was told to build the SLS and Orion by Congress without NASA input. So no surprise that the SLS and Orion were assumed to be used for Artemis.

SLS and Starship have sufficient momentum behind them that we might as well accept the greater capability of these larger vehicles, and the superior missions that they enable.

Please DO NOT put the Starship in the same category as the SLS. The SLS does not have any inherent "greater capability" that outweighs its tremendous liabilities. And again, I point you back to that ULA study which shows why SHLV's are NOT needed.

As a note, that study assumed that rocket technology would not change much, meaning costs would not change much. The Starship is such a HUGE change to the economics of rockets that it was not foreseen by the authors of that paper, but their assumptions were based around cost, and the Starship is able to do cost AND payload size at the same time. The SLS can't do that.

I acknowledge that getting to Mars is very different from getting to the Moon (and have backed away from suggesting common transportation).  But you haven't made any arguments that the equipment that is deployed on the surface should be any different.

It is pretty clear if you research the topic:

A. Landing on Mars requires the ability pass through an atmosphere, whereas landing on the Moon does not. So not the same vehicle for both.

B. Mars has pretty close to an Earth type day cycle, so the temperatures and availability of sunlight is regular enough that you only need to design your systems to survive overnight and through dusty days. On the Moon it will be night for 2 weeks at a time, unless you are at the only two locations on the Moon where the sun can be seen at all times. But those two small locations mean you are not really exploring "the Moon" if you stay there, so for exploring "the Moon" you have to have systems that can withstand two weeks of night, and two weeks of day. Completely different power requirements for Mars.

C. Ignoring gravity, on the Moon the sharpness of the lunar dust will likely kill humans the fastest (i.e. lung damage), whereas on Mars it is the perchlorate soil. So again, completely different environments.

There is more, but those three categories mean that whatever hardware you are building for the Moon won't be the same hardware you need for Mars.

Artemis, as currently envisioned, is only focused on going to the Moon, and the hardware under development is solely useful for the Moon. To change the program to make everything work on Mars would require a halt to the current program, the cancelling of current contracts, and the delay of years.

So no, again, NASA should NOT pivot Artemis towards Mars. If they want to send humans to Mars, then they should define a new program that is separate from Artemis.

[kkattula]

Everything SLS needs to do both Moon and Mars is designed.  ...

Ok, but Artemis is not just SLS; there are many new pieces of hardware that need to get built to support an Artemis landing.  The only pieces that NASA has said are relevant both to Luna and Mars missions are SLS and the Gateway.

By "Pivot to Mars", I'm suggesting that the other elements (habs, rovers, etc) should be specified to be Luna and Mars compatible.

Artemis is not synonymous with SLS & Orion.  SLS & Orion are Exploration capability programs.  Artemis is a Moon exploration program utilizing SLS & Orion.  A follow on program for Mars would have a different name, and use or develop whatever capabilities are necessary for Mars.

The Moon and Mars are actually quite different environments. Mar has more than twice the surface gravity and a thin atmosphere that enables heat-shield & parachute braking, plus convective cooling of surface equipment. Mars' months long dust storms are a concern for solar power, whereas the Moon's 14 day long nights, and extreme temperature swings present other issues. ISRU on Mars can be based on CO2 and H2O, on the Moon probably initially just H2O and only at the poles.  Moon dust is very sharp and abrasive whereas Mars dust is thought to be more weathered. 

So designing equipment specifically for both is likely to be slow, expensive and counter-productive.  However, the supply chain of manufacturers building parts is what matters.  We're already seeing this with the various Gateway and HLS programs. The vendors are designing mission specific vehicles, that are heavily derived from existing designs, e.g. Cygnus, Dragon, Orion, MEV, Canadarm, etc. 

Thus if industry develops to establish and support a permanent Moon presence, it will necessarily have gone a long way towards what's needed for Mars.

[Cherokee43v6]

Something to think about...

SLS is a system capable of many different missions.

Artemis is a mission assigned to SLS.

Missions are best done when they have concise parameters for accomplishment.  Scope creep is one of the quickest ways to kill off a mission on which the system you need is dependent.

A better choice would be to develop a concurrent/subsequent mission building off of Artemis leveraging developments of the Artemis equipment.  A program with its own  budget separate from Artemis for the additional developments necessary.

Smushing them together just makes the whole thing easier to kill.

[zodiacchris]

Sure, just rename Artemis into Sisyphus and point NASA at Mars. Just like the failed programs from DCX to Ares I and V, NASA will start rolling that rock uphill and not get anywhere. As long as the overpriced single use SLS is the backbone of the program, Mars is forever out of reach, physically and financially. The thing can hardly support a lunar program without bespoke landers, depots etc, and all that at a price tag that induces nausea...

The sane approach for NASA would be to kill off SLS, tag along as customer with SpaceX and tick the moon off the list during the ramping up for the first Mars missions this decade. But NASA is hobbled by political realities and allegiances, so yeah, don’t hold your breath...

Just my 2c...

[Coastal Ron]

Something to think about...

SLS is a system capable of many different missions.

The SLS is an expendable mass pusher. There are plenty of expendable mass pushers, and now an increasing number of semi-reusable (and soon fully reusable) mass pushers. Cost matters, and the SLS can be replaced.

Artemis is a mission assigned to SLS.

The SLS is one of a number of mass pushers Artemis is planning to use. But returning to the Moon doesn't require the SLS, so it's not like things can't change...

Smushing them together just makes the whole thing easier to kill.

I agree that piling too many goals into one program is a bad idea.

[zodiacchris]

Wow, that argument holds about as much water as a colander! Starship is being developed for Moon, Earth and Mars, there are multiple prototypes and a production line. In that vein, SLS is one first stage booster prototype which hasn’t even done a green run yet, never been fired up and a year away from first unmanned flight. So arguably Starship is further ahead, by about 12.5km.

Holy Saint Leibowitz...

[high road]

NASA Artemis can do both!  Artemis can do multi-mission/multi-role operations to the Moon and Mars simultaneously, plus launch/sustain Gateway and a crewed Asteroid mission as well as crewed missions to a few moons around Jupiter and Saturn.  Oh, and Venus.  And a valiant crewed sustainment mission to fix JWST.

Oh yes, all they need to do all of that simultaneously is a 1960's budget.

The only thing that needs to get figured out is how to certify Artemis for launch of highly enriched nuclear materials as well as a lot of other mission hardware. All you have to do is use Shuttle derived components and infrastructure designed in the 1970s.

The current Shuttle derived system is currently costing billions per year, steadily increasing for a decade now, and is yet to do its first static fire. 18.5 billion already down the drain, not counting the Constellation programme it was rescued from.

SpaceX is not going to Mars.  They have money.  But their location isn’t clearly able to produce the vehicles with the volume needed to colonize the local solar system while balancing sustainment of Starlink.

So what if their site to test their vehicles is not able to produce vehicles in large amounts? The whole effort is to learn how to build Starship. The factory to produce them has not been built yet. Although I do set the bar at exploration, as colonization is beyond the revenue generated by any of their efforts, IMO.

If they move their HQ to Texas, maybe they’d get their first PowerPoint charts within about 50 years.  There’s no easy way to have Starship return to Earth from Mars because production of propellant is a key challenge.

Send the hydrogen along, Mars Direct style.

SpaceX propellant is carbon based. NASA wants environmental sustainability.

They literally need to produce the fuel from atmospheric carbon dioxide. How can launching rockets be any more environmentally sustainable than that?

Not only can SLS deliver crews and payloads to a single predefined surface destination. 

But it can also deliver many payloads all over the surface with missions changed at any point during the mission.  Assuming the car keys are in the ignition, one can fly Artemis crews really anywhere in the solar system. 

It’s like a wood paneled station wagon.

I assume you mean Orion? SLS doesn't leave earth orbit. And Orion can't sustain crew on the 5 month trip to Venus or the 6 month trip to Mars, let alone a 2.5 year return trip, it can't land anywhere other than Earth, and it can't launch from anywhere.

Everything SLS needs to do both Moon and Mars is designed.  There is always this narrative that something isn’t ready or doesn’t have funding.  It’s just a psychological barrier.  It’s beyond ready. It could fly a crew to Mars this year with the exact same SLS. 

The only thing SpaceX could do to help at this point is think about adding F9 boosters to the side of SLS to replace shuttle boosters.

Starship is not ready to go to Mars in the modern age.

Well, for the moment it's not even ready for its green run static fire yet. And at 2 billion per rocket, SLS is hardly fit for spaceflight in the 21st century. If it flies a crew to Mars now, they would die when Orion supplies run out, and be reduced to a pulp when Orion adds a new crater to the Martian surface. Neither launcher is ready for Mars missions, and Starship is probably further away from carrying crew, but who's 'readier' to even make it to orbit still remains to be seen.

Starship doesn’t work for the Moon, Mars or Earth.  It is an IR&D system. 

You cannot have NASA procure a service from SpaceX to explore these places.  So when NASA (for lack of a better term) adopts the Moon or Mars mission, if it were to procure Starship, it would then destroy what Starship is/does.  The specification practice would be like going back to square 1, even if it did a proof of concept.  Then it would not work as the modifications would be out of control. 

Where you go shouldn’t change the design of the vehicle.  Starship is missing wholesale mission capabilities for real exploration, because it is a prototype.  Folks are just drunk and stupid because it flies (kind of)

In the parlance of Michael Griffin, Starship is not an elegant solution.

Just stick to using SLS. It can do ANYTHING.

If nothing else, exploration could be done privately without NASA.  But that would end up being a one off mission.  Not something that is sustainable.

Well, SLS's can't start its engines yet. Starship can lift off and do a controled descent. SLS costs 2 billion per rocket, if it ever stops costing 2.5 billion per year without launching anything. How is that sustainable? There is a reason only one crewed mission is planned so far for Artemis, which has been my issue with Gateway as well.

Where the current status of the programme is figuring out how to build the rocket and how to make it do what it needs to do, the whole programme has cost less than a single year of SLS, and is advancing at breakneck speed. It has dozens of times more missions planned than SLS: all F9 missions, and a trip around the moon like Artemis 2. Starship is likely to carry payload before SLS carries crew. And to launch its thirtieth payload before SLS does a third mission.

Although I do suggest we take all this to the poll section where there is a thread to discuss whether Starship or SLS will make it to orbit first. I'll copy this post there for my personal future reference.

On topic: Artemis is unlikely to make it given the current funding even with the current limited scope. Having it focus on Mars, which is way, waaaaay more difficult and requires much more never-before-tried technology, would seal its fate.

[Cherokee43v6]

Something to think about...

SLS is a system capable of many different missions.

The SLS is an expendable mass pusher. There are plenty of expendable mass pushers, and now an increasing number of semi-reusable (and soon fully reusable) mass pushers. Cost matters, and the SLS can be replaced.

Artemis is a mission assigned to SLS.

The SLS is one of a number of mass pushers Artemis is planning to use. But returning to the Moon doesn't require the SLS, so it's not like things can't change...

Smushing them together just makes the whole thing easier to kill.

I agree that piling too many goals into one program is a bad idea.

We actually agree across the board.

I realize on re-reading that I left out an important line that I had intended to include:

Artemis is not SLS and SLS is not Artemis.

My intent was to make the point to previous posters that the two were not 'intrinsically linked'.  Currently, the existence of Artemis justifies the existence of SLS because of its internal requirements (which can be changed).  Those arguing the pointing of Artemis at Mars also seem argue that SLS should be used for that.  My point being that piling additional requirements onto Artemis moves its functionality further out, increasing the likelihood of program cancellation resulting in the cancellation of the now missionless vehicle as well.

(Personally I'm a fan of SpaceX and Starship and think they're the future, but you don't throw out the baby with the bathwater either...)

[high road]

SLS is designed to do much more than a lunar mission.  See the attached Payload planners guide.  Thus ARTEMIS is a generational program toe. the ARTEMIS generation) that is enabled by SLS.

Starship is only designed for Earth flight demos.  It isn’t applicable to Artemis.

Starship is designed primarily for for Mars missions, and they are in the HLS (as in Artemis 3) programme at least until the downselect 🙄. SLS/Orion would only take crew to lunar orbit. If SLS can even fit inside Artemis budget. A launch on Crew Dragon and crew transfer in Earth orbit would be an order of magnitude more affordable.

[yg1968]

I am also a no on the OP's question. CLPS and HLS are both great programs that must be preserved.

[Coastal Ron]

SLS is designed to do much more than a lunar mission.

The core stage of the SLS never makes it to space, and all rockets are just mass pushers. So let's not glorify the SLS.

Thus ARTEMIS is a generational program to go anywhere (I.e. the ARTEMIS generation) that is enabled by SLS.

NASA doesn't need an SHLV to return humans to the Moon - that is Apollo-style thinking. ULA even agrees with that, and they published a study in 2009 that explains why - "A Commercially Based Lunar Architecture"

Read the first page and you'll understand. This is the quick summary:

The use of smaller, commercial launchers coupled with orbital depots eliminates the need for a large launch vehicle.

In other words, Artemis, or whatever we want to call sending more humans back to the Moon, DOES NOT need to use the SLS. America has plenty of alternative transportation architectures that we could use, and ALL OF THEM would cost less than the SLS. All of them.

Starship is only designed for Earth flight demos.  It isn’t applicable to Artemis.

I don't even understand how you could conclude that, what with Elon Musk explaining that he is building Starship to colonize Mars. That means not only people being shipped interplanetary, but equipment and supplies too. In fact according the Starship Payload Guide:

Starship was designed from the onset to be able to carry more than 100 tons of cargo to Mars and the Moon.

So no, Starship is not just designed for Earth flight demos. And you should have known that since NASA has contracted with SpaceX to build a version of the Starship that can land humans and cargo on the surface of the Moon.

To summarize:

- The SLS is the MOST expensive way to move people and cargo off of Earth

- The SLS is NOT the only way to move people and cargo off of Earth

- The Starship COULD be used as an alternative to the SLS, but so could a lot of other existing and future launchers.

And none of this changes the fact that merging the Artemis Moon program into a Mars program is NOT a good idea. Too unfocused.

[Cherokee43v6]

SLS is designed to do much more than a lunar mission.  See the attached Payload planners guide.  Thus ARTEMIS is a generational program to go anywhere (I.e. the ARTEMIS generation) that is enabled by SLS.

I specifically disagree with the underlined.

ARTEMIS is a 'lunar exploration program' that uses the SLS architecture.  Expanding the mission scope of ARTEMIS beyond its Lunar focus is a dangerous and potentially program threatening risk.  It increases both the expense and the timeline of development as additional, non-lunar necessary capabilities become requirements in the program.

It is far better, and provides for a much more stable, and thus robust and survivable program, to have missions to other planets and bodies to have their own specific programs, with separate budgets, that are able to leverage the equipment and knowledge of each other.  Lets call them Project NIRGAL (Mars) and Project APHRODITE (Venus) as examples.

ARTEMIS would be the primary active track, developing Lunar Architecture and deploying that equipment.

NIRGAL would be a secondary track, studying what is learned from ARTEMIS to develop a Mars Architecture and eventually develop that equipment

APHRODITE would be a tertiary track, studying each of the above and preparing for Venusian study and exploration.

The idea here is that by separating out the missions from each other, if there are budget constraints then less critical missions can be released without endangering the existence of the over-all program. 

If they're all smushed together, then a budget reduction would severely impact the whole thing resulting in significant delays to even the earliest steps, or even out-right cancellation of the whole thing in favor of yet another annoyingly far off from doing a damned thing clean-sheet design.

[Robotbeat]

SLS sucks up the money NASA needs for Mars.

The ideal scenario is to continue ISS and increasingly commercialize it and LEO until ISS retirement and replacement with private stations. While establishing a base on the Moon serviced commercially. And leveraging at least commercial launch and other developments to build a large base on Mars.

To do all this at the same time is possible but requires being extremely thrifty. That’s basically impossible with SLS.

[Coastal Ron]

Artemis will use SLS.  SLS will go also beyond the moon.  Payloads are already in development to go to Mars on SLS.  All that is/was Moon to Mars is now Artemis.  Artemis is already funding payloads to Mars.

Ooooookkkkkaaaayyy. Right. Whatever you say... 

Starship payload planners guide says N/A for payload mass to Moon and Mars.

Starship Payload Guide, page 5, the "CARGO CONFIGURATION" section:

Starship was designed from the onset to be able to carry more than 100 tons of cargo to Mars and the Moon.

Then you wrote:

It is dependent on another large launch vehicle to be developed in order to do so.

The SpaceX Starship is designed to be the second stage, but it does not need the Super Heavy booster stage to operate on the Moon or on Mars.

In comparison the SLS core stage NEVER leaves Earth, and the 2nd stage goes into a useless disposal orbit after it pushes its payload off to its destination. So the SLS NEVER goes to the Moon or Mars, only the payloads.

Super Heavy is well behind SLS to be demonstrated.

Um, yeah, you should know that the Starship program is on a faster development path than the SLS, and the Super Heavy is planned to fly months before the SLS. Haven't you been following Starship development? The SLS development is glacial in comparison. 

New Glenn is well behind SLS.  An upgraded Vulcan is well behind SLS.

The ULA study showed that ANY commercial launcher could be used, which today is Falcon 9/H and Atlas V here in the U.S., and plenty of other launchers with our space partners.

It’s a waste for NASA to spend money to go develop yet ‘another’ next launch vehicle to go to the Moon and/or Mars.

If NASA uses already developed launchers, it never has to.

Just stick to SLS.  It has a high TRL with the major components because it has Shuttle program heritage.

Other than the SSME's, which have been modified, there is literally nothing substantial on the SLS that is the same as on the Shuttle, and has no flight history. Plus, pieces are not certified, systems are, and as a system the SLS will take years to build up enough flight history to prove it is safe.

The Falcon 9 and Atlas V are already certified for crew & cargo, and the Falcon Heavy is certified for cargo. Plus both can fly many times per year, whereas the SLS is only planned to fly once every 12 months.

There are far less costly alternatives. Whether the Biden Administration proposes them is an open question...

[punder]

Mr. Scott: How can SLS ever accomplish anything, if it can fly only once a year, at most?

Can you provide any evidence that SLS can fly more than once a year?

[Steven Pietrobon]

I’d say a successful SH with a successful Starship landing would seriously change NASA’s plans away from SLS pretty quick to aim directly toward Mars.

You would think that Falcon Heavy at only $150M for 63.8 t to LEO would have killed off SLS. That didn't happen. The same could apply to Starship.