NASA's New Plan For Mars

Everything else
1

I posted the above as part of an off-topic discussion in the P&R forums. (I flagged my own posts, but ¯_(ツ)_/¯) Yesterday, NASA released its National Space Exploration Campaign Report, which purports to show how NASA intends to take stepping stones to Mars over the next three decades.

I’m not an expert, so can’t evaluate it as one, but to me this feels like the kind of hand-waving report I’d generate when asked to make a 5 year plan at work:

2019

  • Make early decisions…
  • Decision on a date for…
  • Decision to begin…

2020

  • Based on early results of …

2021

  • Based on results of…

2022

  • Based on results of…

2024

  • Based on results of…

Note the captions on the following image:
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/earth-moon-mars_2018-2.png

In the report, that image is found on page 5, but all three of the captions instead say “America Will Lead”, which kind of captures the general tone of the report. It’s clear who this was written for:

In December of 2017, President Donald J. Trump signed Space Policy Directive-1 (SPD-1) . . . "Beginning with missions beyond low-Earth orbit, the United States will lead the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations.” (emphasis added)

The nationalistic tone is repeated throughout the document:

NASA also advances new technologies in aeronautics and space systems that allow American industry to increase market shares and create new markets.

American leadership and commercial innovation, centered in part on the U.S.-led International Space Station, is starting to unleash a new economic arena.

America has been the unsurpassed leader on the Red Planet. American robotic craft are the only ones in history to successfully land on Mars.

etc

No mention is made, for instance, of Europe’s involvement in the development of Orion. (The ESA is building the service module for the capsule at one of Airbus’s facilities in Germany, notably dubbed the ESM, or European Service Module.)

This report doesn’t make me any less skeptical that we’re going to Mars. Even the challenges of assembling the Gateway in lunar orbit seem very high. One major SPE while that thing is occupied, coupled with media images of astronauts vomiting due to radiation sickness. . .

And if EM-1 launches by 2020, I’ll eat my hat.

2

I’m intrinsically excited by this.

That said, I feel like the 4-year cycle of a democracy makes long term projects like this really, really hard. I’ve even heard it suggested that Apollo would have been cancelled had Kennedy not been martyred – not sure if that’s a legit counterfactual.

3

If only ISIS was rushing to establish a caliphate on Mars, then we could somehow find the money to do this.

4

I’d like to unpin NASA from politics for good. We are neglecting far, far more important work (Enceladus, Europa, and even Titan) and exploration for presidential headline grabbers.

Let’s go where life might be swimming around right now.

5

China pursuing it will give the US another “Sputnik” moment, and which point it will be patriotic to give blank cheques to NASA again.

6

Well, Japan just landed two rovers on an asteroid. So they have a head start.

7

100% agree. Give me more robotic exploration missions anyday. We don’t need boots out there; we need rovers (and submersibles and aerostats and etc.)

8

I agree with the goal, but how could you do that, short of taking it private? They need Federal dollars, and those get assigned in about the most political way possible.

9

Ingenuity video was short and simple, but showed the drone flying.

So, yay us!, the humanity completed the first flight on other planet. Another day for the history books.

10
11

I’m crying a little bit here.

12

After damaging a rotor blade, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter mission ends on Mars

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/25/world/nasa-mars-ingenuity-helicopter-mission-ends-scn/index.html

After completing 72 historic flights on Mars over three years, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter mission has ended.