Plans for sending crews to Mars date back to the Space Age. However, according to recent statements from NASA, these missions are not likely to happen for another 20 years.
Host | Matthew S Williams
On ITSPmagazine 👉 https://itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/matthew-s-williams
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Episode Notes
Plans for sending crews to Mars date back to the Space Age. However, according to recent statements from NASA, these missions are not likely to happen for another 20 years.
Why does the date for this historic achievement keep slipping? Well, there are many reasons, not the least of which are shifting budgets, priorities, and a lack of consistency.
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Resources
NASA Moon to Mars Architecture: https://www.nasa.gov/moontomarsarchitecture/
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For more podcast Stories from Space with Matthew S Williams, visit: https://itspmagazine.com/stories-from-space-podcast
Mars by 2040? Why Must We Wait? | Stories From Space Podcast With Matthew S Williams
The authors acknowledge that this podcast was recorded on the traditional unceded lands of
the Lekwungen peoples.
Hello, and welcome back to Stories from Space. I'm your host, Matt Williams. And today, I'd like
to talk about the many plans that we have to go to Mars. With crewed missions, astronauts,
cosmonauts, and taikonauts, and to establish infrastructure there that is going to lead to a
permanent human presence.
Now these plans have been in the works for years, however, they have been subject to a lot of
uncertainty lately, and there are genuine doubts that NASA's planned journey to Mars is not
going to happen within the timeframe that they originally hoped. In fact, according to the latest
statements made by Jim Reuter, the Associate Administrator for the Agency's Space
Technology Mission Directorate, NASA is not likely to land a crewed mission on Mars until 2040.
And even then, as he stated, it would be an aggressive and audacious goal. These marks were
made back in May during the Humans to Mars Summit in Washington, D. C., and reflected
growing concerns that NASA was not likely to develop the key technologies that are necessary
for making a long duration mission to Mars, and that by 2033, the only mission that would be
ready to go would likely be an orbital flyby.
So while NASA could still, theoretically, send crewed mission to Mars by 2033, it would
represent a scaled down mission architecture compared to what NASA has been envisioning
since 2010. And while the news may have come as a surprise to some, for others, it merely
encapsulated and summarized the doubts that they've been expressing for years.
So for many people, the question naturally arises, why have there been such delays with the
Moon to Mars mission architecture? What's it going to take for us to accomplish the lofty goals
that were set out in NASA's Journey to Mars plan in 2010 and the NASA Authorization Act
passed that same year? Well, to answer that, you need to take a bit of a step back to when
NASA planners began contemplating missions to Mars, which date back to the days of the
space age, when NASA planners like Wernher von Braun were contemplating what the next
steps beyond the moon would be.
However, these plans never came to fruition. With the completion of the Apollo program, the
United States had declared victory in the space race. And shifting priorities in a changing
budget environment meant that new goals needed to be set for the future that emphasized
technologies that would allow for long duration stays in space and lower costs.
For this reason, NASA adopted the Space Shuttle Program. And like their Soviet counterparts,
began investigating technologies that would lead to space stations. However, by the 1990s, with
the success of the space shuttle program, and the agreement to build the International Space
Station, NASA once again began to think about the next great leap, which included going to
Mars, but also extended to returning to the Moon, this time with the intention of staying.And in 1990, this bore fruit in the form of a research paper titled Mars Direct, authored by
engineers Robert Zubrin and David Baker. At the time, the two engineers worked for the Martin
Marietta Corporation, an aerospace manufacturer that in 1995 merged with Lockheed to form
Lockheed Martin. Dr. Robert Zubrin has since become a well-known advocate for the
exploration of Mars and its eventual settlement.
In 1998, he founded the Mars Society to help realize this goal. In any case, their paper detailed
a mission concept where crews would be sent directly to Mars using a new class of heavy
launch vehicle. Return vehicles would be sent in advance. And the missions would be equipped
with the necessary machinery to conduct in situ resource utilization, where local resources are
used to manufacture fuel, water, breathable air, and anything else the missions require.
In their later book, The Case for Mars, Zubrin and Baker expanded on this, and showed how
these strategies could lead to the creation of a permanent Martian settlement, as well as the
creation of a Martian economy, the export of raw materials and manufactured goods, And
eventually, to Mars becoming a haven for Earth life through terraforming.
Between 1993 and 1998, their study also inspired four separate Mars design reference missions,
with a fifth added in 2009 and updated in 2014. These were a series of conceptual design studies
that led to designs for various elements for sending crewed missions to Mars and maintaining
them while they conducted surface operations there.
By 2005, NASA had also launched the Constellation program, with the intent of developing the
next generation of heavy launch vehicles that would return crews to the moon no later than
2020, but with the ultimate goal of sending the first crewed flight to Mars. Between 2004 and
2009, this program resulted in the designs for a new series of rockets known as the Ares Launch
vehicles.
The Ares-1 was designed to launch crude missions into space using a next generation
spacecraft known as the crew exploration vehicle, or CEV. A second launch vehicle, the Ares-
V would compliment the Ares one by launching heavy payloads into space. The program also
managed to conduct a single, uncrewed test flight of the Ares I launch vehicle.
But unfortunately, the program had to be shut down in 2009 because of the economic situation
at the time. A year later, however, NASA began working on their Journey to Mars program.
which had the same goal as the Constellation program, and relied on many of the same designs.
For instance, the Ares V launch vehicle became the basis for the Space Launch System that
NASA uses today, and the Crew Exploration Vehicle matured to become the Orion spacecraft.
But whereas Zubrin and Baker's Mars Direct proposal, and the design studies that it inspired,
envisioned sending missions directly to Mars from Earth, The new mission architecture called
for the creation of infrastructure, not only in Earth orbit, but in cislunar space, that would enable
regular trips back to the Moon and eventual missions onto Mars.The first step called for the completion of the Space Launch System and the Orion Space
Capsule, and then deploying the necessary elements of the Lunar Orbital Gateway, or Deep
Space Gateway as it was called, in a halo orbit around the Moon. According to their timetable,
NASA hoped to have this station completed by 2028, at which time it would be paired with a
reusable lunar lander that would allow NASA and partner agency crews to land on the lunar
surface for the first time in over 50 years.
The final phase of this plan was to equip the Lunar Gateway with what was known as the Deep
Space Transport or Deep Space Transfer Habitat. The plan called for a spacecraft that could
be integrated with the Orion Space Capsule or an inflatable volume. That would house a crew
of four and be able to sustain them during the many months that it would take them to reach
Mars.
Similar to the creation of the Lunar Gateway, the Deep Space Transport would initially be used
to bring all the necessary modules to create a second orbiting space station around Mars. This
station would also be equipped with a reusable lander that would allow crews, once they
docked with the station, to descend to the surface and conduct months worth of scientific
operations.
According to their timetable, the first crewed missions would launch from the Lunar Gateway
in 2033. They would then spend six to nine months traveling to Mars, when it was at opposition,
to Mars. Or its closest point in its orbit to Earth. Crews would then spend up to a year conducting
science operations on the surface of Mars, and then launch on their return trip to Earth once
Mars was at conjunction, or its farthest point from Earth.
The ship and crew would then spend another six to nine months, return to the Lunar Gateway,
and then take the Orion capsule back to Earth. With this program complete, NASA hoped that
regular missions to the Moon and to Mars, by the latter half of the 2030s. The first crewed
missions to Mars would also enable the very first Mars sample return, where, much like how
the Apollo astronauts brought moon rocks back for analysis, the Martian astronauts would be
able to return samples of Martian soil and rock that would help address the deepest questions
we have about Mars.
At the least of which is, did life ever exist there, and could it still exist there today? But as
always, NASA's plans are contingent upon changing administrations, changing budgets, and
changing priorities. Between 2011 and 2016, the development of the Space Launch System was
plagued by cost overruns and delays.
Meanwhile, The production of the Orion spacecraft proceeded apace with a successful
exploration flight test conducted in December of 2014. The next test would not come for another
five years, which was the Ascent Abort 2 mission, a test of the launch abort system aboard the
Orion spacecraft. By this time, NASA was also facing shifting priorities.
This began in 2017. When then Vice President Mike Pence laid out the administration's plans
for the future, which prioritized the long awaited return to the Moon. While this plan wasconsistent with Phase 1 and 2 of NASA's Moon to Mars mission architecture, and missions to
Mars continued to be a stated goal that would follow in the creation of lunar infrastructure, The
focus on returning to the Moon meant that all aspects of phase 3 of NASA's Moon to Mars
architecture became deprioritized.
This was followed by the announcement in 2019 during the fifth meeting of the re established
National Space Council of the Artemis program, which included an expedited timetable for
sending astronauts back to the Moon. Rather than the target date of 2028, VP Pence and then
Administrator Jack Bridenstine directed NASA to conduct the first crewed mission to the lunar
surface since the Apollo era in 2024.
This announcement, apparently intended to shake up the organization, effectively trimmed four
years off of NASA's mission timetable. In the announcement, VP Pence also made it clear that
if the administration was experiencing difficulties in meeting this goal, that changes needed to
be made at the administrative level, not to the mission plan itself.
In essence, Pence was issuing a thinly veiled threat, stating that anyone who did not believe
that this goal could be achieved would be demoted. This proved to be the case, since, in July
of 2019, just four months after the Artemis program was announced, two NASA veterans were
demoted to advisor positions.
This included William Gustemeier, who had served NASA since 1977 and had been the
Associate Administrator of Human Exploration and Operations for the past 14 years. Henceforth,
Gerstenmaier would be a special assistant to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine's deputy. In
addition, William Hill, a Deputy Associate Administrator under Gerstenmaier, was also demoted
to an advisory role under NASA's Associate Administrator Steve Yorchick.
Other indications of an internal shake up included the resignation of Mark Serangelo, a special
assistant to Bridenstine, who was appointed to oversee the agency's structural changes. In any
case, this shake up had a profound impact on NASA's planning, since many firmly believed that
the SLS would not be prepared in time to launch elements of the Lunar Gateway in advance of
a mission to the lunar surface.
This forced NASA to reconsider deploying the Gateway, which it did in March of 2020. The
decision was announced during a NASA Advisory Council meeting by none other than the newly
appointed head of human spaceflight for NASA and Gerstenmaier's replacement, Douglas
Loverro, who indicated that the Lunar Gateway was no longer our priority as part of a program
to de risk Artemis.
Coincidentally, Navarro resigned from his post at NASA roughly two months later. As a result,
NASA was forced to turn to an expendable human landing system, which the crew of the
Artemis III mission would either need to bring along with them, or would need to be launched
in advance to rendezvous with them in lunar orbit.NASA chose to go the latter route, and in April of 2021 announced that they had selected
SpaceX to develop a Starship human landing system that would rendezvous with the crew of
the Orion 3 capsule in orbit around the moon, the Artemis 3 crew of four astronauts, which
launched separately aboard the SLS and an Orion capsule.
Two of the astronauts would then transfer aboard the Starship HLS, land on the lunar surface,
conduct science experiments and operations for a period of about two weeks, and then blast
off aboard the HLS to rendezvous again with the Artemis III spacecraft, transfer the crew back
into the Orion capsule, and then return home.
The Starship HLS, meanwhile, as an expendable vehicle, would be left in lunar orbit. Meanwhile,
NASA also contracted with SpaceX to launch the core elements of the Lunar Gateway, the
Power and Propulsion Module, and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost, or HALO, aboard a
Falcon Heavy, originally scheduled for 2024, but which has since slid to 2025 at the earliest.
On its face, this plan did address the need for a human landing system that would allow NASA
to build the Lunar Gateway while simultaneously attempting to make crewed landings on the
surface by 2024. However, the plan had many flaws. For starters, contracting with SpaceX to
launch an expendable vehicle as part of the mission broke with NASA's priority for creating a
sustainable lunar exploration program dependent upon reusable systems as much as possible.
A separate launch of a Starship also meant that five orbital refueling missions would be needed
in order to send the Starship on a trans lunar injection. In addition, the Starship HLS is a massive
feat of engineering. Having it to transport just two crew members down to the surface for two
weeks, and to then leave it behind as an expendable system, would reasonably strike many as
wasteful.
What's more, the expedited timetable forced NASA planners to deprioritize other elements of
the Moon to Mars mission architecture. For instance, while NASA still plans on completing the
Lunar Gateway by 2028, Phase 3 of NASA's Moon to Mars mission architecture envisioned a
deep space transport, which could be integrated with the Orion spacecraft or an inflatable
module, which would be stationed at the Lunar Gateway after its complete construction.
And between 2028 and 2033, it would be used to deploy the modules of another orbital habitat
around Mars, which Lockheed Martin had produced a concept for called the Mars Base Camp.
However, with the shakeup imposed by Project Artemis, no design studies or feasibility studies
of any kind have been conducted on the Mars Base Camp or the Deep Space Transport since
2018 or 2019.
As a result, the many technical challenges that these elements entail have not yet been
resolved. As a result, NASA has expressed doubts on repeated occasions as to whether or not
a crewed mission could be made to Mars by 2033, at least where its original mission
architecture were concerned. Other proposals have been made for a flyby only mission.Concepts for an orbital flyby mission to Mars date back to the space age, when both NASA and
the Soviet space program were considering cost effective means of sending a crewed mission
to Mars. Failing this, NASA has also considered the possibility of more advanced means of
propulsion for getting to Mars faster.
So far, the plan for sending crewed missions to Mars involved equipping deep space transport
with solar electric propulsion. Where electricity gathered by solar panels are used to power an
ion engine should offer high specific impulse and continuous thrust, but little acceleration. Back
in 2016, however, NASA reignited its nuclear propulsion program for the purpose of developing
nuclear thermal and nuclear electric propulsion systems based on designs that dated back to
the early space race and Apollo era.
In January of 2023, NASA and DARPA announced that they were coming together through an
interagency agreement to develop a nuclear thermal propulsion system. This system is known
as the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations, or DRACO, and is expected to be
tested in orbit by early 2027. In July of 2023, DARPA announced that it had finalized an
agreement with Lockheed Martin to design and build a prototype of the system.
However, there is strong disagreement among NASA scientists and industry experts as to
whether or not this system will be ready in time for mission in 2033. With many anticipating that
2037 or 2040 would be a more realistic target date and that an orbiter only or limited stay option
should take place in the meantime.
However, no consensus has emerged on that either. As it stands, there are many challenges
that need to be overcome and a lot of things that need to be accomplished in the meantime
before NASA can contemplate sending crewed missions to Mars on a regular basis. This does
not mean, however, that other space agencies are likely to beat them there.
Not long ago, China announced its plans to send crewed missions to Mars using the same
timelines as NASA. This would commence with Taikonauts being sent to the Red Planet in 2033.
With fallout missions taking place every 26 months, culminating in the creation of a permanent
habitat on the surface.
However, this timeline is unrealistic for a number of reasons. For starters, China is facing the
exact same challenges as NASA when it comes to mounting long duration spaceflight missions
to deep space. This includes the need for a super heavy launch vehicle. And while China has
made progress with the development of its Long March 9 rocket, they have yet to produce a
single vehicle or to prove it space worthy by sending it into orbit.
Meanwhile, NASA successfully finished work on the Artemis 1 SLS rocket in 2021, which was
then launch tested in November of 2022. This uncrewed circumlunar flight not only validated
the spacecraft, but established a new distance record by traveling farther than any human rated
spacecraft has ever traveled.In addition, China is facing the exact same difficulties imposed by overlapping programs. The
Long March 9 is also crucial for their proposed International Lunar Research Station. The joint
project that they are executing with Roscosmos with the intent of building a lunar facility by
2034. And while China has also indicated that it plans to develop nuclear thermal and nuclear
electron propulsion systems that would lead to shorter transit times to Mars and other locations
in deep space, there is no indication at this point that their efforts are any farther along than
those of NASA or the European Space Agency.
At this point, there's also questions about whether or not spaceships will be ready to send
starships to Mars within the time frame envisioned by Musk before the end of this decade. In
fact, it's not even clear if the starship HLS will be ready in time for Artemis III. So despite earlier
optimism and previous timetables, it is not altogether clear who will be making it to Mars first,
or when that will be.
As to why the target date for that has slipped continuously in the past few years, there are many
reasons. These include the cancellation of the Constellation Program, delays imposed with the
development of the SLS and budget constraints, Changes in the overall mission architecture
caused by the shake up at NASA, as well as cost overruns and delays with commercial
partners.
But perhaps the problem lies deeper, within the Moon to Mars mission architecture itself. The
vision of the program was a long term build up that would see NASA return astronauts to the
Moon with international and commercial partners, Develop the necessary infrastructure for
staying there and then using that infrastructure to facilitate long duration, long distance
missions to Mars.
An overall program of this nature is incredibly ambitious and requires significant funding and a
long term commitment. Perhaps that's too much to expect in today's world. Nevertheless, some
very exciting and impressive developments are anticipated for the coming years, and within
this decade and the next, we will see missions to space that will accomplish some truly
unprecedented things, such as the creation of lunar habitats in orbit and on the surface of the
moon.
We will also see human rated missions, the likes of which have not taken place since the Apollo
era. The only foregone conclusion that anyone can offer at this point is that these things will be
happening, just not as soon as we originally hoped. All that we can do is be patient and hope
that time will bring a better budget environment, and that the technologies that will really make
a difference will have time to mature.
But, ultimately, it's pretty clear at this point. A return to the Moon and heading on to Mars?
These things are on the horizon for us. The commitment is there, the desire is there, and with
the right kind of resources and a little patience, the next great leap will happen. In the meantime,
thank you for listening.
I'm Matt Williams, and this has been Stories from Space.