Lobbying

Mars Society: bill provision could “cripple” Vision

As you might expect, the Mars Society is disappointed that the final FY08 appropriations bill includes a provision that prohibits NASA from spending any money on work “related exclusively to the human exploration of Mars.” In a press release issued this week, the organization “expressed its disappointment” with both that language and with the overall level of funding for NASA’s exploration programs. “If this language makes it into future budgets, I guarantee that this program will slowly become a Moon-only effort – or worse,” said society political director Chris Carberry. “Congress and the next President of the United States need to accelerate this program rather than limiting it.”

The press release isn’t up yet on the Mars Society’s web site, so I’ve included the text below. Also note that Carberry will be on The Space Show program this Sunday at 3 pm EST.

Mars Society: NASA Funding Bill Could Cripple Vision For Space Exploration

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, January 02, 2008 – The Mars Society would like to express its disappointment concerning the NASA portion of the Congressional Omnibus Appropriations Bill that was signed by the President last week.

While the bill provides additional support for science missions – including for exploration of Mars – it fails to adequately fund NASA’s plans to return to the Moon and then send humans to Mars. One of the worst aspects of the bill is that it contains language that would prohibit “funding of any research, development, or demonstration activities related exclusively to human exploration of Mars”.

Not only is this language counter-productive to running a coherent multi-year exploration plan, but it is not consistent with the NASA Authorization that Congress overwhelmingly approved in 2005. In that Authorization bill, Congress approved NASA’s plans to send humans to Mars and supported the expenditures that will be necessary to make that goal possible – something that the Omnibus bill does not do.

“Although this bill is unlikely to have a large immediate impact on the program, it sets a terrible precedent,” said Mars Society Political Director Chris Carberry. “If this language makes it into future budgets, I guarantee that this program will slowly become a Moon-only effort – or worse. Congress and the next President of the United States need to accelerate this program rather than limiting it. We certainly will not be creating an effective program or be serving the tax payers well by keeping this program endlessly on ‘life-support.'”

The Mars Society calls on members of the United States Congress to oppose any efforts to include this language in any future budgets. It is time for the United States to fully commit to sending humans to Mars as soon as possible.

The Mars Society is a private international grassroots organization dedicated to furthering the case for human exploration of Mars. Since its founding in 1998, The Mars Society’s strong commitment to both outreach and research has put it at the forefront of Mars exploration proponents, with 7000 members in 40 countries. The organization currently operates multiple world class research facilities which investigate many technical and human factors associated with human space exploration. Significant political and public outreach has led to several hundred meetings with U.S. congressional offices, and has otherwise reached hundreds of millions of people through various media outlets.

For more information, please contact Chris Carberry, or visit http://www.marssociety.org

26 comments to Mars Society: bill provision could “cripple” Vision

  • Chance

    “7000 members in 40 countries”

    Maybe if they had 7000 members in one county, rather than 40 countries, Congress would give a flying flip what the Mars Society thinks.

  • reader

    i dont understand the headline. how can you cripple something that doesnt have a head or legs to stand on in the first place ?

  • Vladislaw

    NASA should publically announce they are giving up on their drive to mars and instead are going to concentrate their efforts instead on focusing on JUST moons, so Earth’s moon and Mar’s moon, phoebos will only be considered in the future.

  • ricky

    this is good, this prevents bush from cannibalizing the current limited budget for a mars mission (or prevents any president from doing that)

    this is a way to shield the current projects and a way to try to secure additional funding for a mars mission.

    the mars society needs to understand that manned exploration is incredibly expensive and we don’t even have the basics down yet. our current success rate with robotic missions isn’t that hot. give us more opportunities to look before we leap please

  • Brad

    Sorry Ricky, that ain’t rain that Congress is drenching your leg with!

  • no to mars

    humans are lowest animals in the world

    mars is beautiful planet, don’t pollute planet with human rubbish like neil armtrong

  • Paul F. Dietz

    mars is beautiful planet, don’t pollute planet with human rubbish like neil armtrong

    You are polluting the universe. Please leave.

  • Reader

    the mars society needs to understand that manned exploration is incredibly expensive and we don’t even have the basics down yet. our current success rate with robotic missions isn’t that hot. give us more opportunities to look before we leap please

    Forget the space program…at least the human part. Take 1/2 of NASA’s budget and invest it in alternative energy research and incentives for commercialization. The agency is passe’ and should be relegated to the dust bin of the cold war era.

  • ColdWater

    “Reader: Forget the space program…at least the human part. Take 1/2 of NASA’s budget and invest it in alternative energy research and incentives for commercialization. The agency is passe’ and should be relegated to the dust bin of the cold war era.”

    The first question that comes to mind is why stop at 1/2? The current course is so totally out of synch with the American public that total euthanization may be the best course. However, President Obama, I do implore that you maintain our strong push in robotic exploration.

  • Look at the VSE announcement again: “Our first goal is to complete the International Space Station by 2010… Our second goal is to develop and test [the CEV]… Our third goal is to return to the moon by 2020… With the experience and knowledge gained on the moon, we will then be ready to take the next steps…”

    Totally aside from what you may think of Bush, NASA, or the ESAS implementation as it has developed — is there anyone outside the Mars Society so divorced from the realities of politics and policy as to believe that a “readiness” supposed to begin more than sixteen years out was ever more than pretty words?

    To warn that VSE “will slowly become a Moon-only effort” is like warning that my Camry will slowly become a ground-only vehicle: I should have had a clue as soon as I noticed the dealer wasn’t offering flight, submarine, and Imperial AT Walker options.

  • Dennis Wingo

    Monte

    You rule.

  • Monte, I agree. With reluctance, I’ve declined to renew my membership in the Mars society. Part of that is because money is tight at the moment, but I selected them to drop precisely because I’m disgusted with their childish antics and Mr. Zubrin’s temper tantrums.

    It’s too bad. Mr. Zubrin has been a rare original thinker in how to achieve difficult goals in space with less money. To have an impact, though, he needs to grow up and learn that all politics is compromise and that Mars is never going to be, and should never be, the sole overarching goal of human spaceflight. Meanwhile, you could ride a lot of Mars-related development on efforts that are more likely to go forward in the near term, e.g., the Space Station and any lunar base, and even the automated science industry (e.g., ongoing development of electric propulsion).

    — Donald

  • “Meanwhile, you could ride a lot of Mars-related development on efforts that are more likely to go forward in the near term, e.g., the Space Station and any lunar base, and even the automated science industry (e.g., ongoing development of electric propulsion).”

    This is an interesting point because the VSE before ESAS included a large number of automated robotic Mars missions, almost half of which were dedicated to taking data and testing technologies (landing sites, toxins, ISRU, precision landing, etc.) for the future human exploration of Mars (as opposed to science-driven automated Mars missions). Unfortunately, between high Ares I/Orion costs and unmet budget promises, the Mars Exploration Program was flatlined and those human-oriented missions came off the books. If the VSE had been carried out as written — an efficient human lunar return effort conducted in parallel with an automated program paving the way for human Mars missions — it would have been a very powerful set of programs.

    Although I agree with the Mars Society that the anti-Mars language in the omnibus bill is objectionable, I wish the Society would have put some effort into saving those automated Mars missions intended to pave the way for human Mars missions. An effort to save those missions would have done a lot more to advance the Society’s goals than objecting to anti-Mars language after it’s been signed into law or trying to fight methane/hypergolic decisions in the lunar architecture after they’ve been made. The latter may also be necessary, but the former was much more crucial for future human Mars efforts, yet totally ignored by the Society.

    My 2 cents… FWIW.

  • Anonymous: I agree with the Mars Society that the anti-Mars language in the omnibus bill is objectionable

    Just for the record, I also agree with this; I just don’t think it’s the most important battle we should be fighting at this point in time.

    trying to fight methane/hypergolic decisions in the lunar architecture after they’ve been made

    Here, I think we have a much more important battle to fight. Methane is preferable on every ground, being “green,” allowing “living off the land” on the moon since you can burn it with (lunar) oxygen, and being applicable to Mars and other destinations with lots of carbon. I do believe the hypergolic decision was one of the more stupid of a large set of unfortunate decisions by Dr. Griffin.

    However, I only partially agree with you regarding the automated Mars missions. We should ride what development we can on Mars science that is going anyway, but if we want to go to Mars we should accept the risks and go. We can spend all eterninity, and an infinite budget, trying to retire risk from Mars missions with robots and end up with human Mars missions, at best, marginally safer than they would have been going with what we know now. Human beings are flexible and can adapt to the unknown — and, if we are going to send humans, we should use their advantages and not just reduce them to biological versions of our robots.

    I think Apollo took about the right level of risk. There were basic automated missions to check out thinks like if the surface was hard enough to land on — but most of the detailed characterization of the environment was left to the astronauts who could do it best.

    — Donald

  • “Here, I think we have a much more important battle to fight. Methane is preferable on every ground, being “green,” allowing “living off the land” on the moon since you can burn it with (lunar) oxygen, and being applicable to Mars and other destinations with lots of carbon.”

    I’m all for going the extra mile to work methane into the architecture, but the reality is that we have yet to prove that we can produce even a small amount of methane from the Martian atmosphere, forget reliable, large-scale production. Ideally, we should demonstrate the latter before (or at least while) torquing an architecture around the former.

    “However, I only partially agree with you regarding the automated Mars missions. We should ride what development we can on Mars science that is going anyway, but if we want to go to Mars we should accept the risks and go. We can spend all eterninity, and an infinite budget, trying to retire risk from Mars missions with robots and end up with human Mars missions, at best, marginally safer than they would have been going with what we know now.”

    The tasks envisioned for this automated Mars mission line were, by and large, not applicable to a human Mars mission line. We’re obviously not going to send astronauts to do landing site remote sensing from Mars orbit. We’re obviously not going to send astronauts to Mars to test the chemical toxicity of Martian dust. We’re obviously not going to send astronauts to Mars to test a precision landing system, especially if the astronauts need that system to reach their habitat, power, supplies, etc. And we’re obviously not going to send astronauts to Mars watch a methane production unit function for months on end, especially if they’re dependent on that methane for the trip back home.

    As we get closer to actually sending a human mission, you’re right that there are legitimate trades to be made. Do we erect the habitat ahead of the crew or use the crew to help erect the habitat? Do we deploy the nuclear power source autonomously or do we use the crew to help deploy it? Etc. My own bias, based on the distance risks involved and a desire to spend astronaut hours on exploration and not maintenance, is to rely heavily on pre-placed and autonomous systems. I’m sure you come down on the other side.

    But that debate, for the most part, would not have impinged on the autonomous Mars mission line in question.

    FWIW…

  • Here’s a relevant steal from RLV News at Hobbyspace.com. Presidential candidate and Senator John McCain would like to “go to Mars.”:

    “Speaking of politics, reader Armin Ellis passes along this item:
    John McCain’s vision for space exploration

    Today John McCain was at Dartmouth College on a final rally before the primaries in the Granite state There I had the opportunity to ask him this question: ‘Senator, what is your vision for America’s space program?’ Having just answered a tough question from another individual he appeared to be taken aback, as though this was the sort of question for which he had an answer but was looking for the words which would completely represent the extent of his thoughts.

    He replied ‘Sure’ then paused, ‘whats my vision?’ he asked as though trying to clarify my question ‘…go to Mars. Yeah…’ Feeling confident of this answer, he moved on to the next question.”

    Unfortunately, there’s nothing else after the “Yeah…”.

    FWIW…

  • Methane is preferable on every ground, being “green,” allowing “living off the land” on the moon since you can burn it with (lunar) oxygen

    And it’s superior to hydrogen (which unlike methane, is actually available on the moon) in those regards how?

  • Tom

    Responding to Rand, I don’t argue propellant choices in absolutes. Here are some thoughts.

    Compared to methane, hydrogen has higher Isp, but it takes a lot more storage space, has a much lower liquefaction temperature, and since it’s likely found bound to oxygen in the lunar regolith, it will take a lot of energy to separate. Assuming the oxygen and hydrogen are both produced at the moon, a craft could land ‘empty’ and be completely loaded with propellants

    Methane is denser, liquefies at a higher temperature (than even O2), and can be produced on Mars at a lower energy cost than hydrogen. Being at the bottom of the moon’s gravity well argues for denser propellants, but I’m not sure where the tradeoff works best. Since methane can’t easily be produced on the moon (other than by using CO2 exhaled by the crew of a base), the craft would have to land with methane on board and tank up with LOX.

    Either hydrogen or methane could work on the moon, but methane would be easier to do on Mars. Both have higher performance than storables. More specific statements would depend on the trade space.

    I’m sure I’ll be corrected if I missed anything.

  • I was referring specifically to Donald’s statement that methane was preferable for the moon. It may be, for various reasons, but certainly not for those stated.

  • Rand, I may not have been clear. I meant that methane was superior to storable propellants. With methane, we can produce the oxidizer on the moon; with storables, we can’t live off the land in any form — it is the worst possible choice, for just about every reason.

    Hydrogen may or may not be better than methane. If water is found, it probably is. However, separating hydrogen from regolith, because of its scarcity per unit volume, sounds like much more of a challenge for an early base than separating oxygen. And, it’s light, so it may be easier to carry to the moon (although, as Tom mentions, the storage requirements are high).

    One key advantage of methane is that carbon is widely available in the inner Solar System — on Mars, asteroids, Venus’ upper atmosphere. If you are going to use one rocket at multiple destinations, methane may make sense. Also, I’ve never heard Tom’s suggestion of using human waste products as a feed source for methane (no irony intended), and that idea seems worth exploring.

    My bottom like is that whatever we use, it needs to be burnt with raw oxygen to make it possible to get an early start on extracting a key — and the heaviest — resource we are likely to need in any quantity.

    Anonymous: We’re obviously not going to send astronauts to do landing site remote sensing from Mars orbit. [Apollo did.] We’re obviously not going to send astronauts to Mars to test the chemical toxicity of Martian dust. [Apollo did, when a lot less was known about lunar dust than is known today about Martian dust.] We’re obviously not going to send astronauts to Mars to test a precision landing system, [Apollo did.] especially if the astronauts need that system to reach their habitat, power, supplies, etc. And we’re obviously not going to send astronauts to Mars watch a methane production unit function for months on end, especially if they’re dependent on that methane for the trip back home.

    Well, all of those may be obvious. But, if we’re not willing to do some risky things and let astronauts tinker things into working, we will not be going to Mars in our lifetimes, and maybe not ever. It is hard to imagine any political and economic scenario where Mars missions will be done any other way than the cheapest possible, particularly if another, less wasteful nation is the first to attempt it. Remember that all of these test missions, while each one may be relatively inexpensive, are collectively a lot money on top of the minimum required to send astronauts to Mars. True, some of them may reduce long-term costs. But a politically and economically far more likely scenario in my mind is for someone to do this on a shoestring, or less likely as a time-constrained crash project similar to Apollo, and work on sustainability and greater safety after the first attempts succeed — if they succeed.

    — Donald

  • Let me add, in spite of what I said about him above, while “Mars Direct” may or may not be a good strategy, we need to be thinking a lot more like Mr. Zubrin than we do like most prople who are considering Mars missions today.

    — Donald

  • Tom

    I’ve read (forget the source) that some people believed the moon dust would explode when it was exposed to oxygen. Also, it will be interesting to see the list of things we “can’t live without” this time when we go to the moon compared to what we had to live without last time.

  • Tom. Excellent points.

    it will be interesting to see the list of things we “can’t live without” this time when we go to the moon

    If we allow it to, as was allowed in the once quick-and-dirty VSE, this list will expand to some large number multiplied by the number of NASA centers. Fortunately, there are other peoples in the world and an ever larger number of them will eventually become capable of human spaceflight. Already, at least one of the newcomers (China) is ignoring American equipment and adapting relatively unsophisticated but cheap Russian designs.

    — Donald

  • Dennis Wingo

    Tom

    IF the hydrogen is in the regolith as H2O or implanted hydrogen, simple heating to 700 degrees C will liberate all of the gas.

    If it is bound in hydrocarbons, which is entirely possible, then it opens up other interesting uses on the Moon. Carbon is just as valuable as hydrogen as it can be used in the carbothermal process for oxygen production and when burned with lunar oxygen it does release the hydrogen to water, where it is easily separated, creating CO2 in the process, which is also easily seperable or used to grow food.

    In all likelyhood the hydrogen is in all of the above forms as it is derived from cometary impacts as well as hydrogen implantation from the Sun.

  • Tom

    Dennis-

    I see how if the H2 is implanted in the regolith, heating would release it.

    As far as dissociation into hydrogen and oxygen, that temperature seems low. I’ve only looked at hydrolysis in the past. A quick Goggle showed me one site discussing dissociation at 2500K while another mentioned splitting some hydroxide ions at varied temperatures and pressures. I’d be curious to know the process. If you have a specific reference, please email it to me or post it here.

Leave a Reply to no to mars Cancel reply

  

  

  

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>