I wish that NASA's plan were wise and thoughtful... but it isn't.

NASA has created a plan which supports the continuation of all projects currently running and in development as part of the 'path to Mars'. While this may be a good jobs or aerospace stimulus spending program, these projects are not critical to getting to Mars. If NASA were serious about going to Mars as soon as possible, they would cancel the Space Launch System (SLS), and spend the money on in-orbit low-gravity research, ion thruster research, and SpaceX/Blue Origin/Orbital Sciences/ULA super-heavy lift capabilities. If they did this, NASA could send astronauts to Mars in 2024. As things stand, SLS is too expensive and slow a program to survive changes of administrations (i.e. presidential elections), like its predecessors, SLS and its descendants will go into cost/scope death spirals and get cancelled/restarted.

In short, if NASA really wanted to go to Mars, they'd focus on going to Mars. If you're interested in the subject, I suggest you watch "The Mars Underground", as it is a good primer on the recent history of Mars exploration ideas/initiatives.[1]

[1] http://documentarystorm.com/the-mars-underground/

Why should we want to go to Mars at this point in time? Given the choice of putting billions into going to Mars or doing something else, why should we go to Mars? It seems to me that there are far better places to put this money.

This entire thread is based on the premise that sending humans to Mars is desirable, and we are discussing how best to get there. The purpose of my comment was to address how NASA should spend its money, not whether it should have the money in the first place.

If you would like to discuss de-funding human spaceflight and/or NASA, I think there are points for and against both, and would be interested to read your thoughts on the matter.

I understand, it's just that your comment made me doubt whether going to Mars is a good idea at all :)

Why I thought that going to Mars might not be a great idea (yet):

NASA's budget is about 17 billion so lets guesstimate that going to Mars will cost 100 billion. It's probably a lot more to establish a colony, let alone a self sufficient colony. What is the benefit of having a colony on Mars? We aren't lacking space on Earth; it would be a lot easier to colonize the Saharan desert than to colonize Mars. Instead that money could go to scientific research (e.g. renewable energy generation, medical research, AI research, robotics research), or to some other cause. Wouldn't that be of much greater benefit to humanity?

If you're looking purely at space exploration it also seems to me that there are better ways to spend that money than to put humans on Mars. For the same money we could probably put a whole bunch of telescopes in space and send several probes/rovers to asteroids/planets/moons.

Even if the ultimate goal is to establish a colony on Mars, it might be a better strategy to build it with robots than with humans...?

I recommend reading the last waitbutwhy post. Also available in audio, which is nice to digest the material if you're doing a few hours of less inspirational work

The "money could be better spent" argument seems kind of silly when you think about how much more money is spent on efforts directly or indirectly related to killing people. As long as that's still a thing, I don't have a word to say about the humanistic benefits of NASA's funding.

Anyway, the point of NASA and space exploration is to inspire people, to fill them with wonder and dreams, and that is invaluable. Humans want to actually go into space, sending robots and telescopes is just in service of that. There are many ways that we could better focus our efforts to solve various Earthly problems, and we're generally doing other things with our time and resources. Of those things, I would say researching space travel is pretty low on the list of targets for redistribution.

>NASA's budget is about 17 billion so lets guesstimate that going to Mars will cost 100 billion. It's probably a lot more to establish a colony, let alone a self sufficient colony.

I would estimate that the constellation/SLS Orion program to Mars or some derivative thereof can be accomplished at a total cost of 50-100 billion USD (inflation adjusted to 2015 equivalent), as NASA projects $18 billon in development costs, and 1.5-2 billion per launch.[1] They are spending 2 billion per year on SLS/Orion, and will continue to do so for 10 years until first flight, followed by ~ one flight per 18 months at a similar cost for 10-15 years. For reference, the space shuttle program cost approximately 200 billion dollars.[2]

SpaceX/Blue Origin/Orbital Sciences could probably accomplish a similar goal with 10-25 billion dollars depending on speed of implementation, success of various reusability schemes, use of higher efficiency drives, and launch system success rates. From memory, I think SpaceX recently said that they could develop their super-heavy launch system in 5 years for 1.5 billion, and I believe Orbital said their system would have a development cost of 2 billion.

Colonization will probably cost more, though Musk has said that he aims to reduce the cost of moving to Mars to $500k USD (inflation adjusted to 2015) with a total colony cost of about $40 billion by about 2050.[3] I am not sure how to evaluate whether this is a worthy objective, but it seems that securing the future of humanity might be worth 0.13% of annual gross world product (100 billion dollars), and SpaceX aims to achieve this goal for much less money.[4]

>We aren't lacking space on Earth; it would be a lot easier to colonize the Saharan desert than to colonize Mars

Colonizing the Sahara desert is intellectually interesting, but there doesn't seem to be much point to the exercise. It is well established that people can live in deserts. Total human population will soon begin to decrease anyway, so overpopulation will not be a problem in the forseeable future, and living in the Sahara does nothing in terms of securing humanity's future against cataclysms.[5]

>Instead that money could go to scientific research (e.g. renewable energy generation, medical research, AI research, robotics research), or to some other cause. Wouldn't that be of much greater benefit to humanity?

It is not clear to me that the government is managing current research funding very well, so I would be most likely to support returning NASA's budget to the taxpayers (in the form of budget and later tax cuts), which are likely to improve everyone's standard of living (all over the world), and allow people to have better day-to-day lives.[6] However, it is very difficult to compare an improvement of daily life on Earth to the establishment of a multi-planetary species. I would likely favor the latter, though I do believe it would be much better if humanity made this great leap without coercing taxpayers (though this is probably one of the less morally problematic instances of government coercion).[7]

>If you're looking purely at space exploration it also seems to me that there are better ways to spend that money than to put humans on Mars. For the same money we could probably put a whole bunch of telescopes in space and send several probes/rovers to asteroids/planets/moons.

I would question this, on the basis that I am not sure what the goal of the robotic and telescopic exploration really is. When you say that human missions to Mars are esoteric and pointless, it is hard to simultaneously argue that it is imperative to figure out what happened long ago in a galaxy far far away or on a planet you never plan on going to. If there is to be exploration and study of space, it seems to me that establishing a multi-planetary presence, and expanding our horizons should be the top priority. In addition to providing inspiration and knowledge to those of us who remain here on earth, those astronauts (and future Martians) will be taking the first steps to securing humanity against disaster, and spreading life throughout the galaxy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program

[3] http://www.outerplaces.com/science/item/9914-elon-musk-s-pla...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_world_product

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_grow...

[6] http://eml.berkeley.edu/~dromer/papers/RomerandRomerAERJune2...

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problem_of_Political_Autho...

It's more Congress that wants SLS to continue than NASA.

I agree with you that SLS A.K.A. Senate Launch System is more of a congressional program than a NASA program, but neither NASA nor the executive branch have been vocal in opposing it, and the rest of the 'path to Mars' (as proposed by NASA) is even more wasteful than SLS.

NASA has been pretty vocally against since 2010 or so, here's an example:

http://www.spacepolitics.com/2014/03/28/bolden-and-house-com...

You have to understand that NASA is a big place and they have a public communications aspect with people who's job it is to spread word about what they are doing no matter if it's what they want to be doing or not, so rthat's why you see so much in support.

The best way to tell if it is fluff or real is to look for vague ideas instead of hard timelines.

I agree with you that there is are a wide variety of ideas about SLS and Orion in NASA, but the official policy (and the basis for this thread) is that SLS will take NASA to Mars. In the article you cited, Bolden is saying that he needs commercial crew to be fully funded to enable research on the ISS, which will allow for the use of SLS on trips to Mars. From the article:

>Bolden said that without the ISS, he would recommend that SLS and Orion be cancelled.

SLS and Orion are useless and should be cancelled without respect to what happens with the commercial crew program. SLS or derivatives thereof will not allow for the expoloration or colonization of Mars, the system is already in a cost/scope death spiral, and even if it is completed, it will be too expensive and too unreliable to be used for its intended purpose.

If NASA really wanted to go to Mars, they would propose cancelling SLS, and spending the money on Blue Origin, SpaceX, and Orbital Sciences (and possibly Skylon). BO, SX and OS super-heavy launch systems could be developed for a combined cost lower than SLS', they will have lower specific cost to orbit ($/kg) and they do not have the problems which NASA has with cost and schedule overruns. They could even fund two of the super-heavy launch systems, and use the extra money for launches to do induced low-gravity research, and high-efficiency propulsion research (amongst other things).

Honest question, why do you feel a different super-heavy lift system would be more achievable than the SLS?

NASA hasn't developed a new rocket since the space shuttle, so they simply have no relevant experience. In addition, SpaceX, ULA, and Orbital Sciences have demonstrated an ability to develop space systems much more quickly and reliably than NASA, which usually has cost/scope death spirals, largely due to slow schedules, bureacracy and lack of impetus to move forward. In addition, NASA develops launch systems for a single customer, whereas all the others are trying to develop systems which can be used for a wide variety of customers, meaning that they can amortize development over more launches, as well as offering the opportunity to improve design and manufacturing reliability and cost issues.

SLS is only the latest in a series of system designs which have been cancelled/drastically redesigned.[1] Even if SLS were completed (at over 10 times the cost of any other alternative), it is scheduled for less than one launch per year, which means that it will never demonstrate reliability or achieve economy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System

Agree with leaving the launch system to commercial partners (SpaceX, etc...), but why the need for further ion thruster research as a pre-requisite for a manned Mars mission? Wouldn't a chemical thruster and a Hohmann transfer suffice, at least for the initial few trips?

You're right that ion thruster research is not necessary to enable trips to Mars, but it would make sense to try to reduce time in transit and requirements for launch mass, as well as enable more frequent trips to Mars. Ion (or EM drive) propulsion research could (reasonably) be regarded as tangential, but I would see it as forward progress which will help us to reach and explore Mars.

Failure to perfect high-efficiency propulsion should not be a barrier to Mars travel, but use of these systems would definitely be helpful.

Or a mainstream sci-fi fan. That's pretty much one of the major themes of the well-known Mars trilogy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy

That's what makes it truly exciting to me: it seems like a lot of smart people have been putting serious thought and consideration towards what would/will be required to have a realistic shot at colonizing another planet.

I think the whole colonization angle is widely overblown and it's become embedded in our views about space by a century of genre fiction most of which couldn't break out of the colonial mindset.

Technology is going to destroy birth rates and scarcity and machines will rapidly eclipse our own abilities to do anything and so future man will smartly answer the question of inter-planetary and perhaps interstellar travel with 'machines not people'. Eventually we may leave Earth on some scale but I doubt we'll ever run out of room or resources here and be forced to leave.

People colonise not just to get more room or resources. North America was colonised by people who wanted to get away from the political situation at home. Australia was colonised because the government wanted to get criminal away from Britain. (And other strategic reasons, yes yes, whatever.) In both cases, colonisation was desirable in order for some people to be able to put some distance between them and some other people. And this desire won't go away.

Imagine, the solar system would be a more harmonious place if everyone with rather strong ideas about how the world should be run could simply go start their own world to be run that way. You could have a libertarian planet, a socialist planet, a centre-left planet, a centre-right planet, and if someone didn't like the way things were run they could move to a new planet. Of course there's not enough planets for that, but there's enough raw materials to build enough orbital habitats.

> And this desire won't go away.

I don't think that's clear at all. I think the widespread view that society is going to keep looking more or less like the present but with self driving cars is complete folly. Technology is going to -- among other things -- destroy scarcity, erase language barriers, end warfare, conquer disease and educate the masses. The societal changes coming are bigger than industrialization, maybe bigger than moving from hunter gatherers to agriculture.

> Imagine, the solar system would be a more harmonious place if everyone with rather strong ideas about how the world should be run could simply go start their own world to be run that way.

That doesn't sound very harmonious at all. That sounds like institutionalizing ignorance as an organizing principle and seems like something intelligent society would move away from.

> That doesn't sound very harmonious at all. That sounds like institutionalizing ignorance as an organizing principle and seems like something intelligent society would move away from.

I don't see how this is "institutionalizing ignorance", though on its own I agree it may not be very harmonious; it sounds like a recipe for an interplanetary nuclear conflict.

What motivates your astounding faith in technology?

The word 'colonize' evokes thoughts of British, Dutch, Portuguese, etc colonization ~500-200 years ago.

When thinking of colonizing a new planet, is there any information about who will control the resources of the colony? Will the USA control Martian resources if we get there first or will it be a collaborative effort like the Space Station?

Zigging from clem's zag, let me put this another way. There absolutely, positively, beyond a shadow of a doubt will be major political issues that arise from off-planet habitation.

But, to be honest, not particularly all that more major than any number of issues that arise on Earth all the time, and we generally muddle through them. It'll be a long time before anyone would have any reason to start a shooting war over an off-planet resource.

And science fiction has been predicting the near inevitability that eventually the off-planet colony will demand independence anyhow, a position I see no reason to modify or disagree with, personally. The structural forces in favor of that outcome are just overwhelming.

In the movie "The Martian" (not a spoiler), there is a part where they describe Mars as international waters. I think it is a pretty interesting take on the subject: "There’s an international treaty (the Outer Space Treaty signed by the US and Soviet Union in 1967) saying no country can lay claim to anything that’s not Earth. And by another treaty, if you’re not in any country’s territory, maritime law applies. So Mars is “international waters.” NASA is an American nonmilitary organization, and it owns the Hab. So while I’m in the Hab, American law applies. As soon as I step outside, I’m in international waters. Then when I get in the rover, I’m back to American law."

If and when this becomes a legitimate issue, it will be interesting to see who claims what, or if it will be it's own independent place.

I wonder how things might be handled differently depending on whether public interests (NASA) or private interests (SpaceX) colonize first.

I expect that they will be acting in concert.

> When thinking of colonizing a new planet, is there any information about who will control the resources of the colony? Will the USA control Martian resources if we get there first or will it be a collaborative effort like the Space Station?

Once they're self-sustaining, I'd say the Martians will control Martian resources. Good freaking luck trying to exert power over people several light-minutes away.

Yes. Also, if several nations have colonies on Mars, I would assume that they would all claim independence roughly at the same time and soon after would form some kind of pan-martian government.

It just makes more sense to increase collaborations between colonies if you are so far away from earth. If there would be a US colony on Mars and a Chinese colony on Mars, these people would probably have more interactions with each other than with any person or nation on earth. There are huge advantages of exchange of goods between colonies, so that not every colony has to produce every special item or mine every kind of resource.

At the moment that's something of a moot point. Is there a single resource on Mars that's worth the cost of transporting back to Earth? Until that's the case, it's only going to be the local Martian populace controlling the resources.

According to the Outer Space Treaty, Mars and other celestial bodies are "the province of all mankind." Nobody can own or control them. However, if (for example) the US mines some Martian gold for its own use, I believe the US would be the proper owner of that specific gold, though it still wouldn't be able to claim any exclusive mineral rights to Mars.

History has shown that treaties are broken by parties whose interests are disserviced by them.

They are there to maintain the status quo.

> The word 'colonize' evokes thoughts of British, Dutch, Portuguese, etc colonization ~500-200 years ago.

Maybe in your generation.

For me it evokes thoughts of Star Trek, of humanity as a whole expanding to outer space and building habitats in far away places.

I really don't think people talking about colonizing Mars think about it in terms of colonial times. And this may be a source of various misunderstandings when debating manned space missions.

It will be interesting indeed but also worrisome.

China also has plans for Mars and it has no collaborative efforts with the ISS. How much land will it claim?

And how many colonies will demand secession?

edited: typo :)

That's definitely weekend reading for me.

Right after grading these tests...

I don't know, page 8 is pretty marketingy.