Space Program Challenge: a man on Mars by 2000

strangeland

The US space program sort of fizzled after the moon landings. The Soviet program, which was more geared towards long-term habitation of space, went on a bit longer, but by the late 80s it was clear that its glory days were long past. So how can we keep space exploration going strong into the 70s, 80s, 90s, and beyond?

Thus the challenge here is to put a man on Mars by the year 2000. If you can, try to make the POD after 1970. How you do it is totally up to you.
 

Big Tex

Your going to need a major change obviously. Perhaps the Soviets beat us to the moon so the US one ups them by putting everything they have into getting to Mars.

Perhaps plans for nuclear powered spacecraft go forward, that should keep enthusiasm up and such craft will need a mission object and Mars is perfect.

Maybe even an Armageddon like scenario where an Astreroid is on a collision course with Earth and needs to be diverted with nukes, such a project would give space programs around the world a blank check and like 40 shots in the arm. Once the threat has passed a case could easily be made to keep pushing forward with space tech, Mars would obviously be stop #1.

Whatever the scenario it needs to be a major event and the space shuttle cannot come to fruition because that is what allowed the space program to stagnate in the late 80's and early 90's more than anything (as well as derail the Soviet's program and maybe even nation).
 

Hnau

Banned
I can't help but thinking that if Russia had better leadership and avoided all the horrors of Stalinism, that with the more advanced economy, they would have landed on the Moon, forcing the United States and its allies to save face by going for a Mars landing.
 

Archibald

Banned
Maybe having Nixon assasinated in march 1969, leaving Spiro Agnew as president ?

Agnew was one of the stronger advocate for a Mars mission after Apollo.

Interestingly, the STG (Space Task Group) he chaired until september
1969 defined three levels of fundings for a Mars mission in its final report

- All out for Mars = $9 billion a year for NASA, Mars landing in 1982 (as soon as possible)

- in the second option, less funding pushed the Mars landing to 1986 (hey, that's Baxter Voyage!) :p

- last option just said "a man on mars before the year 2000", period (no date)

I think it's the most straightforward way of putting a man on Mars...

To achieve this, keep the Saturn V production line open instead of building the Shuttle.
Of course the basic Saturn V is unaffordable, not mentionning the Saturn VB upgraded with four 156 inch SRBs.

To drop cost of Saturn VB, you have to use its four stages
(SRB, S-IC, S-II and S-IVB) to build smaller and cheaper rockets.
You must create a whole family of Saturn derivative launchers, to replace every rocket in USAF, NASA, and commercial service.
That what they planned for the Shuttle, but it's easier to do that from Saturn V stages and boosters.
 

Adamanteus

strangeland said:
The US space program sort of fizzled after the moon landings. The Soviet program, which was more geared towards long-term habitation of space, went on a bit longer, but by the late 80s it was clear that its glory days were long past. So how can we keep space exploration going strong into the 70s, 80s, 90s, and beyond?

Thus the challenge here is to put a man on Mars by the year 2000. If you can, try to make the POD after 1970. How you do it is totally up to you.
Click to expand...

Until about 1964, the USSR was quite a dynamic country. Khruschev had some success in liberalizing the climate of the nation, and furthering scientific progress through research institutes. After his removal from power, he was replaced by hard-liners like Brezhnev, who retreated from visionary ideals and focused more on earthly matters. So I say that you have to keep Khruschev in power longer, so that this climate continues. Khruschev died in 1971, so it is perfectly believable that the USSR would be able to keep up with the US for at least this long. I'd imagine that the USSR would follow suit of a moon landing around 1973. This would lead to a continued space race to more distant targets, like Mars. I would guess that a manned Mars mission would be completed by the US in 1986, by which time the USSR would not follow suit, due to internal economic difficulties and a loss of the will that occurred due to Khruschev's era.
 

Trebuchet

Nixon is an obstacle, but Von Braun is actually a *bigger* obstacle, since his plans for a Mars mission are considered to be fantastically expensive and unnecessary now.

Amusingly, it's possible to solve both problems with one solution, which is to have someone else come up with the most basic concept in NASA's current Mars exploration plans, namely, in situ production of propellant on Mars. Nixon will have an excuse to put his spin on NASA and thus step on Kennedy's legacy a bit, and his doing so will sideline Von Braun's plans for on-orbit assembly of gigantic spacecraft.

With return trip propellant production on Mars, the Mars landing can almost certainly be done in 1982 using off-the-shelf Saturn V's, with a non-Skylab 'space station' being flown a few times in the intervening time to make sure people can handle being in space that long, etc. The space stations would actually be the proposed Mars hab/lander units.

Under this scenario, NASA's budget rolls back at the close of the moon landings, is slightly higher than OTL in the '70s, then increases to somewhat less than the funding they had during the moon phase.

Wait, you say, Mars is less expensive than the Moon? What you say?

It's true: from a propellant standpoint, Mars is cheaper (because you can use its atmosphere to capture into orbit) and thus you can actually send more stuff to Mars than to the Moon with a Saturn V. Also, you're launching less Saturn V's annually than the lunar missions, since launch windows for Mars are less frequent. On average, you'd be firing off one Saturn V a year.

So, yeah, it's doable.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
MrA said:
How long would it take to 'fly' from Earth to Mars?
Click to expand...

It depends on the respective orbital positions of the two planets, which continually change. Every two years, there's a launch window that would allow a vessel to travel from Earth to Mars in about nine months.
 
Michel Van

Michel Van

so we have Spiro Agnew as president

so from what proposal can he pick out ?

General Electric Mars Mission Study July 19, 1967
they proposed to uses both nuclear-thermal and nuclear-electric propulsion.
Nuclear ionengine give mission flexibility also for unfavorable opportunities
and reduce mission duration 800-1000 day to 450 day !
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,5107.0.html

Boeing 1968
Integrated Manned Interplanetary Spacecraft
sdoc29ani.gif

to that moment the best study Manned Mars flight.
in deep paper here
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/imis1968.htm
the full report here
http://www.up-ship.com/drawndoc/drawndocspacesaturn.htm

Von Braun 1969 Mars Mission
look good on paper look, like Boeing proposal of 1968
but Von Braun wandet Space Station and Fuel Depos in Orbit, Lunar Base, Nuclear orbital Shuttle.(too expensive for 1970s)
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/vonn1969.htm

the Other ?
they proposed Mission were you need A super heavy Launch Booster
with 450 tons payload in low orbit, too expensive for 1970s

i think a combination of Boeing 1968 and Von Braun 1969 gona be taken by Spiro Agnew.
because NERVA program runs already and need some year to be complet
(for General Electric proposal need additional fees for development ionengine, too expensive for 1970s)

with program Start in 1969, the first Manned mars landing is in 1984-1986
 

Whatif?

Apollo 11 fails leading to a Soviet to first set foot on the moon. Determined not to lose the US ups the goal to Mars and launches ships. The USA sets foot on Mars in 1993. The USSR holds on longer and now the goal is colonies on Mars.
 

alt_historian

To solve the heavy-lift problem, all we need is for a few people in NASA and the government to listen to Robert Truax at Aerojet in the mid '60s... then fund the Sea Dragon. low-cost, 550 metric tons to LEO, anyone? :D

Also, from here:
Sea Dragon was an immense, sea-launched, two-stage launch vehicle designed by Robert Truax for Aerojet in 1962. It was to be capable of putting 1.2 million pounds (550 tonnes) into low Earth orbit. The concept was to achieve minimum launch costs through lower development and production costs. This meant accepting a larger booster with a lower performance propulsion system and higher stage dead weight then traditional NASA and USAF designs.
​
sdragon.jpg


And yes, that is a to-scale Apollo capsule just about visible at the top...
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
Von Braun drew up plenty of Mars mission projects in the 1960s. The trouble is that the US political establishment, having won the moon race, didn't see the point in spending billions going to Mars. The Soviets seriously considered it, but the lack of a reliable heavy lifter rocket (the N1, their equivalent of the Saturn V, kept blowing up) meant that they couldn't assemble a Mars ship in orbit. So rather than trying to one-up the Americans by having the first man on Mars, they one-upped them by building lots of space stations.
 

Ferrell

strangeland said:
The US space program sort of fizzled after the moon landings. The Soviet program, which was more geared towards long-term habitation of space, went on a bit longer, but by the late 80s it was clear that its glory days were long past. So how can we keep space exploration going strong into the 70s, 80s, 90s, and beyond?

Thus the challenge here is to put a man on Mars by the year 2000. If you can, try to make the POD after 1970. How you do it is totally up to you.
Click to expand...

I'd say the mid '80s. You'd have to drop the Space Shuttle and continue to use up-rated Apollo/Saturn into the early 1980s. Instead of Pres. Regan using the arms-race to spend the Soviets into the ground, he uses a race to Mars to do the same thing. The Soviets fall and we get a small Mars base out of it.
 

Hnau

Banned
Wow, the Sea Dragon is extremely interesting. Haven't seen that before... and it was confirmed by TRW even that the costs were accurate. One of the more promising programs I've seen.

Check out LaunchPoint Technologies' Space Launch: http://www.launchpnt.com/Space_Launch.32.0.html

It would be awesome if these could be built. $750/lb, with eventual costs as low as $100/lb? That's fantastic. Seems like they would be cheaper than Sea Dragon to build. Sure, you can only use them for satellites, but maybe it could also be used for orbital construction materials.
 
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Archibald

Banned
Big problem (even with Agnew as president!) is NERVA.

NERVA is the critical technology for going to Mars. If you master nuclear rockets, you have a very efficient propulsion system for a "reasonable" mass in LEO.

The S-IVB was THE tug for going to the Moon. Powerful, restartable, mass produced and cheap.

If the NERVA reach such status for Mars missions, you've can probably mount manned Mars missions every 26 months.

why every 26 months ? that's "opportunities", Ie moments when Mars and Earth are closer. Problem = not every opportuniy is good.
The optimal opportunity happen every 15 years
1956 - 1971 - 1986 are the best known and the cycle repeat like this again and again.

But if the NERVA fail= very bad. Chernobyl in space!
And that's the problem =
Three Mile Island 1979,
Chernobyl 1986
Bugey, France, 1984
(a close call, only 30 km away from Lyon million inhabitants :eek:)
Public opinion turn against nuclear power.

chemical propulsion is very, very bulky (1000+ tons of fuel in LEO)
Leaving only Solar-electric propulsion as advanced technology.

I think about a timeline based on Baxter's Voyage "hardware" (Saturn VB, MEM, Apollo block.3 to 5...)

I have to develop this one day
 
Michel Van

Michel Van

Big problem (even with Agnew as president!) is NERVA.
Click to expand...

NASA Mars Expedition 1971
was all Chemical version of Boeing Integrated Manned Interplanetary Spacecraft
but based on Space Shuttle to get stuff in orbit

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/nasn1971.htm

Six Chemical Propulsion System (liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen stages), each equipped with a shuttle SSME engine
Each stage weight 272 tons and all need 48 Shuttle launch to get fueld. = 65 in total for complet mars ship.
that don't work, Shuttle needs 13 years for that (and see time take for ISS)

the use of Saturn V-23(L) and 3xJ-2S engine in stages goes better, only 8 launchs vrs 65 Shuttle flights

so with no need for Space Shuttle then
is likely that Shuttel Program is chanceld for Mars Program
NASA had no money for both programs
 
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