Poll of the Day > NASA admits it doesnt have the funding to land humans on Mars.

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/07/nasa-finally-admits-it-doesnt-have-the-funding-to-land-humans-on-mars/

For the last five years or so, NASA has sold the public on a Journey to Mars, a grand voyage by which the agency will land humans on the red planet during the 2030s. With just budgetary increases for inflation, the agency said, it had the resources for humanity's next great step, to land crews safely on Mars, and to bring them home. The agency's new rocket, the Space Launch System, and spacecraft, Orion, were sold by NASA administrator Charles Bolden as the vehicles that would get the job done.

There were plenty of naysayers. For example, a National Research Council report cautioned that the agency had too much work, and too little funds, to accomplish these goals in the 2030s with the SLS rocket—and that sustaining a "Mars program" into the 2040s would be a tremendous challenge. NASA's remarkable response to this critical report was that it validated the Journey to Mars.

Now, finally, the agency appears to have bended toward reality. During a propulsion meeting of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics on Wednesday, NASA's chief of human spaceflight acknowledged that the agency doesn't really have the funding it needs to reach Mars (see video).

"I can't put a date on humans on Mars, and the reason really is the other piece is, at the budget levels we described, this roughly 2 percent increase, we don’t have the surface systems available for Mars," said NASA's William H. Gerstenmaier, responding to a question about when NASA will send humans to the surface of Mars. "And that entry, descent and landing is a huge challenge for us for Mars."

This seems like a fairly common sense statement, but it's something that NASA officials have largely glossed over—at least in public—during the agency's promotion of a Journey to Mars. The reality is that the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft have cost a lot to build, and therefore NASA hasn't been able to begin designing vehicles to land on Mars or ascend from the surface.

Agency officials have also been loath to mention the possibility of NASA astronauts landing on the Moon, because George W. Bush had an initiative to return to the Moon that President Obama canceled. However, Gerstenmaier opened the door to this possibility Wednesday.

"If we find out there’s water on the Moon, and we want to do more extensive operations on the Moon to go explore that, we have the ability with Deep Space Gateway to support an extensive Moon surface program," he said. "If we want to stay focused more toward Mars we can keep that."

It has been a long time since NASA, especially its chief human spaceflight official, talked openly about an "extensive Moon surface program." However after six months of a new presidential administration, the agency realizes that its destination may well change. Therefore its leadership is keeping the decision about destinations open, be it the surface of the Moon or Mars.

The reality is that NASA may not be able to go either place unless something changes. The agency doesn't have the funding to build a large lunar outpost if it must rely on the Space Launch System—which will only fly about once a year, at a cost of more than $1 billion. Mars landings, clearly, would cost even more with the big, expendable rocket approach requiring five or more launches per mission.

Another, less costly option is having the freedom to rely much more heavily on partly or completely reusable launch and in-space transports systems being built by SpaceX, Blue Origin, and United Launch Alliance. Politically, so far any reliance on commercial companies for deep space exploration has been a non-starter in Congress. But that could change, as Vice President Mike Pence has been making some noise about increasing commercial partnerships at NASA. "The truth is that American business is on the cutting edge of space technology,"

Well, it's a lot of money to send people to their certain deaths. I'm sure we can kill people more cheaply.
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Mars is a desert rock spinning out of control with no moon or water to speak of

yeah not enough money is an understatement
not enough money in the world maybe
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Zangulus posted...

Zeus posted...

Well, it's a lot of money to send people to their certain deaths. I'm sure we can kill people more cheaply.

We do. Daily. With the massively over blown military budget.

I'd be interested in whether NASA or the military is more cost efficient at killing people.
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RoboXgp89 posted...

Mars is a desert rock spinning out of control with no moon or water to speak of

yeah not enough money is an understatement
not enough money in the world maybe

Gotta wonder if people said the same thing about Columbus.
(probably not, but hey it sounds like a thing if you don't think about it too hard)
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RoboXgp89 posted...

Mars is a desert rock spinning out of control with no moon or water to speak of

yeah not enough money is an understatement
not enough money in the world maybe

Mars has 2 moons and frozen water under the surface at the poles.
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That_70s_show posted...

RoboXgp89 posted...

Mars is a desert rock spinning out of control with no moon or water to speak of

yeah not enough money is an understatement
not enough money in the world maybe

Mars has 2 moons and frozen water under the surface at the poles.

I can honestly tell you I have no idea if that's a troll account or if he's just a fucking idiot based off some of his posts.

RoboXgp89 posted...

Mars is a desert rock spinning out of control with no moon or water to speak of

Mars has 2 moons, and tons of water, it's just not easy to get to.
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Cacciato posted...

That_70s_show posted...

RoboXgp89 posted...

Mars is a desert rock spinning out of control with no moon or water to speak of

yeah not enough money is an understatement
not enough money in the world maybe

Mars has 2 moons and frozen water under the surface at the poles.

I can honestly tell you I have no idea if that's a troll account or if he's just a fucking idiot based off some of his posts.

I'm pretty sure it's the later, he's very consistent. Not to mention, he admitted his vote for Trump recently, was a mistake.
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Lightning Bolt posted...

(probably not, but hey it sounds like a thing if you don't think about it too hard)

Most invocations of Columbus are ruined by thinking, tbh.

Cacciato posted...

That_70s_show posted...

RoboXgp89 posted...

Mars is a desert rock spinning out of control with no moon or water to speak of

yeah not enough money is an understatement
not enough money in the world maybe

Mars has 2 moons and frozen water under the surface at the poles.

I can honestly tell you I have no idea if that's a troll account or if he's just a [-----] based off some of his posts.

That or it's a really weird attempt at humor. A lot of his posts seem more like bad jokes than trolling, although they could just be ignorance. He could be really young or something.
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landing humans on mars is "cool" but it's not actually useful
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Philoktetes posted...

landing humans on mars is "cool" but it's not actually useful

Except for all of the technology that goes along with actually getting to mars.

Zeus posted...

That or it's a really weird attempt at humor. A lot of his posts seem more like bad jokes than trolling, although they could just be ignorance. He could be really young or something.

You callin peeps out for ignorance is hilarious.
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Zangulus posted...

over-blown military budget

What about the several different ways that we execute people's death penalties and such?
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Well no **** they don't. Let's be dead serious here.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that humanity decided we just HAD to get to Mars NOW! No more putzing around, no more wars, corruption, or anything until we had martian dust on our species boot. Do you know how much it would cost?

The minimum amount of space for a human to actually 'live' (as opposed to simply exist) is about 300 or so square feet/92 square meters or so. An extra 45 per adult give or take. That's pretty small. Remember, these people aren't just sleeping in a tiny capsule on the Martian surface but need to do things like eat, poop, and do stuff, so this is pretty cramped on the whole.

Then these people need basic necessities like air, water, and food. Now, it's been suggested that they could obtain some of these things on Mars like growing food, which is fine, but that requires time and extra resources. While it may pay off in the long term we're only focused on getting to Mars here. This means the initial load would require enough of each of these items to sustain them for a prolonged period. These facilities also require extra building materials in order to function and every pound counts here. You're looking at, at the least, an air-filtering building, a water filtration plant, and a massive stockpile of food.

These things have to survive being launched up from the Earth, surviving the LENGTHY trip from Earth to Mars, then Martian re-entry onto the surface with basically pinpoint accuracy (since they won't be able to lug an entire water filtration plant too far) on a consistent basis until they could get things up and running enough to survive missing even one shipment.

The cost of developing these technologies, building these buildings, launching them into space, surviving a lengthy journey through space, and then Martian re-entry and assembly, is frankly BONKERS! While, MAYBE, if America threw basically it's entire budget behind the project they could pull it off along with at least some of the most productive nations in the world, no government in the world would be that stupid. Even if they pulled it off they'd have basically launched a bunch of people into a place that they could never realistically return from to do little more than try to not die in a world where even the tiniest screw-up would result in everyone dying.

No crap NASA doesn't have the money for that.
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Another problem is the fuel we have to bring.
First to leave Earth, then to give us speed towards Mars and then to break when we are getting close to Mars.
With smaller crafts we have simply used Mars atmosphere to slow down the speed when we land, but that is out of the question with bigger equipments.
...thinking about it, it will take a lot of fuel just to land everything...
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I think we should be more focused on Europa. There's more than likely nothing interesting on mars

tbh, we should be focused on finding new fuel sources before doing a lot of this space stuff.
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shadowsword87 posted...

Philoktetes posted...

landing humans on mars is "cool" but it's not actually useful

Except for all of the technology that goes along with actually getting to mars.

Yeah, but that's like saying we need to start more major wars to help accelerate the pace of technological development.


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RoboXgp89 posted...

Mars is a desert rock spinning out of control with no moon or water to speak of

Mars has two moons...
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Metalsonic66 posted...

RoboXgp89 posted...

Mars is a desert rock spinning out of control with no moon or water to speak of

Mars has two moons...

And possibly water lower down. There's evidence it once did.
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shadowsword87 posted...

Philoktetes posted...

landing humans on mars is "cool" but it's not actually useful

Except for all of the technology that goes along with actually getting to mars.

That and the fact that, if something happens to our planet, we end up like the dinosaurs, extinct. Why shouldn't we want to leave some record of our existence somewhere other than just on Earth?

GastroFan posted...

shadowsword87 posted...

Philoktetes posted...

landing humans on mars is "cool" but it's not actually useful

Except for all of the technology that goes along with actually getting to mars.

That and the fact that, if something happens to our planet, we end up like the dinosaurs, extinct. Why shouldn't we want to leave some record of our existence somewhere other than just on Earth?

If we're dead, who cares?
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TheCyborgNinja posted...

Metalsonic66 posted...

RoboXgp89 posted...

Mars is a desert rock spinning out of control with no moon or water to speak of

Mars has two moons...

And possibly water lower down. There's evidence it once did.

so instead of one random tsunami you get two!
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pretty sure that of all the scenarios i've read about nasa putting people on mars, it's a one way trip, if you know what i mean. And wouldn't that dwindle down the prospective applicants by a whole lot?