Back To The Moon In 2020?

NASA has announced it will return to the moon with four astronauts in 2020 and then set-up a base and remain there starting in 2024. So when and if do we go to Mars? It's apparent from this recent NASA annoucement, that Mars does not have the same priority as the moon does when it comes to establishing a scientific base there. If so, why not bypass the moon, save the majority of the moon money and spend it going to Mars? If we don't, then I'd be willing to bet the Chinese and Russians will team up and land on Mars first.

 

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From http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/dec/HQ_06361_ESMD_Lunar_Architecture.html:

As currently envisioned, an incremental buildup would begin with four-person crews making several seven-day visits to the moon until their power supplies, rovers and living quarters are operational. The first mission would begin by 2020. These would be followed by 180-day missions to prepare for journeys to Mars.​

It takes about nine months to get to Mars. We don't want to send astronauts to Mars only to have them come back home after a few days on the surface. We need to send them Mars for some time to make the long trip pay off.

We don't know how to do that. The moon is a good place to start.

We also don't have the money to send astronauts to Mars. NASA receives less than 1% of the federal budget. Going back to the moon in 2020 is straining NASA's budget as it is. We can't go to Mars unless Congress ups the ante.

 

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If I understand the launch opportunities correctly, they have to stay 600+ days on Mars. We launch when Earth and Mars are fairly close;

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(news.bbc.co.uk)

And it takes 6months to travel the distance to Mars. By this time, Mars is a long way away from the Earth, and we have to wait on Mars until Earth is close enough to return. We can't go traversing the Solar system, both planets have to be on the same side during journeys.

That said, I agree with you completely, experience gathered from a Moonbase is vital. NASA need to be able to provide a long term habitat for Mars missions, and it makes sense to test everyhing out on the Moon. Well, as much sense as manned missions make, anyway.

 

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Here's a fantastic animated online Orrery! Check it out;

http://www.schoolsobservatory.org.uk/uninow/orrery/orrap.htm

(wait for images to load and hit the 'animate' button)

This illustrates the launch windows nicely, imagine we launch to Mars when the Earth lags Mars by about 90degrees ish. It takes six months for our rocket to get to Mars, and then see the relative positions of Earth and Mars. Then count the orbits of Earth around the Sun until the Earth and Mars are in Proximity again.

That makes for two long flights (although I presume the return would be shorter as the Earth orbits faster than Mars, and 'catches it up' ) and one long stay!

 

The current U.S. hokey administration has eaten up any future potential NASA money for going to Moon/Mars with it's heavy trillion dollar futile Iraq War budget. If the money or even a part of it that was/is being spent on the Iarq war was redirected towards going to Mars and establishing a scientific base there, we might have been starting a major program to get there by 2020. Establishing a moon base for scientific study is something we should have and could have done back in the late 1970's when we already had the resources, technology, money and scientific drive to it instead of waiting until 2007 to re-invent the same or similiar space technology that got us there in the first place. Now we have to start from scratch again, spend billions just to get back to the moon. Mars should have been the goal in the first place.

 

That is pure BS. It is a red herring.

1. NASA's budget has been less than 1% of the federal budget since the end of the Apollo days. How does the spending on the Iraq war account for NASA's slim budget for the 20+ years that preceded the war?

2. We have been fighting Iraq for about 4 years.It will take a lot more than 4 years to do Mars mission planning and preparation, design, construction, and testing of multiple vehicles, astronaut training, infrastructure preparation, ...

3. Had that war not been fought, the money not spend on the war would not have been spent on NASA.

 

It's obvious we're not living in an era where a president can set a goal for space and achieve it in less than a decade. And if it takes spending more money from the federal budget to get to Mars, so be it.

 

What we did not do 30 years ago is water under the bridge. So now we have to reinvent it. That costs money.

Justify this. Justify why establishing a base on the moon is not an essential step along the way in sending people to Mars.

Presidents can set all the goals they want. They remain nothing more than wishes if Congress doesn't fund them.

You can't just say "so be it". You have to convince Congress to make it so.

 

I think it is awsome that we can give the opportunity again to an astronaute to hit a few golfballs on another planet!!!

 

What president are you talking about? If you're talking about the present adminstration and congress, forget about it. Mars is and always will be the ultimate challenge for helping mankind reach the stars and if the U.S. doesn't get there first, then whose fault was it? After several trips to the moon in the 60's and early 70's, what came of it? Nothing. The space program went literally nowhere after the Apollo program ended. So for nearly thirty years we fly space shuttles into orbit and service a questionable space station. At least the Hubble came out of it.

 

More than hubble, I'm sure a lot of the space-based advancements are military top-secret. Though they might not seem to be "bettering man kind" by advancement of technology through weapons, you have to remember(which I'm sure you do) that all space technology is based out of weapon-grade rocket technology. There is a good chance that we are more advanced than we think. All it takes is money to get to mars, which wars give us.

 

I agree completely, Bush would probably have used the money for tax returns to bribe his way back into office.

When Bush made the statement about returning to the Moon, he was just trying to have a 'Kennedy moment', but knew full well he wouldn't be in office when it came to it so it didn't matter if it didnt' happen.

The govt can't commit enough funds to the ISS, so I doubt a Moonbase is ever going to happen, as it will rely on technology that should get tested on the ISS.

 

It would be nice if they somehow could make it a joint opperation, both China and Russia whant's to go to the moon and if they are in then Europe and Japan, India,canada and perhabs brasil are in.
But I do agree that it doesn't seem likley
To bad, a moon base seems nice

 

When you launch and how fast you get there really depends on what kind of fuel/payload ratio you can achieve. If you want maximum payload for your fuel usage, Then you do have to tranverse the solar system. You will intercept Mars when it is at a point directly on the other side of the sun from where you launched. This is a minimum energy transfer orbit. Your launch oppurtunities are when Mars is about 136 degrees short of this point of its Orbit (so that you and Mars both arrive at that point at the same time).

This trips averages in length to about 9 mo. The actual time varies depending on what time of the year it is on Earth when your launch windows open. Mars has a fairly eccentric orbit, so the trip will be slightly shorter if you arrive when it is at its perhelion and slightly longer if you arrive while it is at aphelion.

 

the technology from Lockheed Martin it will employ is as it was 50 years ago. NASA needs to speed up things.

 

We would have had to re-invent it anyway, even back in the 70's. The truth is that the Apollo program was designed simply to do one thing: To land a man on the moon and bring him back safely, as soon as possible. It was in essence a demonstration meant to show how our government/economical system was superior to the Russians'. As a result, it was considered an end in itself rather then a means towards a continued presence on the Moon. A program designed to maintain such a presence would have taken much longer to develop and USSR might have gotten there first.

Once we beat the Russians, the political mood quickly changed from "to the Moon, at all costs." to "Why are we wasting money on going to the Moon?" (Though to be fair, there were those that considered Apollo a waste of money from the get go.)

 

We never went to the moon, and never can :-(

 

well people like you will stay on Earth. I and my buddies are going to moon and Mars and beyond, because it is not science fiction, because future is now...because future and space has come and it is part of our life.

 

I've considered all the evidence, and after having seen the space flag waving on the moon I think the likelyhood we ever got to the moon is so slim as to be laughable. Even that this was later explained as the moon containing atmosphere causing the thing to move slightly I cannot in all good faith say they would've been able to get to the moon using the technology of the times. It's just to unbelievable, what's even more ridiculious is the idea we got there, then never, ever, went back. There's no point to travel there, then ignore it. The establishment of a base on the moon would've been monumental in strategic warfare, it should be something the USA would strive for, instead they ignore the possibility, most likely because the reality is we never went.

 

your playing with yourself. also there is no telling what even the most primitive alien life forms can yield, wew just need to find some- :bugeye: