Mars Is Closer than You Think - 23rd Oct 2009

A Response to the Augustine Committee Report by the Mars Society UK
For Immediate rlease: Oct 23rd, 2009
Contact: Bo Maxwell, Managing Director, The Mars Society UK
Telephone: 0709 280 5915

On October 22nd, 2009, the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee (AKA: The Augustine Committee) released its final report into options for the future of the United States space programme. In it, the Committee "... finds that Mars is the ultimate destination for human exploration of the inner solar system, but it is not the best first destination". And puts forward the ideas that either a "Moon first" (as curently advocated in the Vision for Space Exploration) approach or a more nebulous "flexible path" that appears to promote the concept of technological development without either meaningful objectives or working schedule.

But the fact remains that Mars offers significant goals that reach well beyond the further exploration of near-Earth space, as advocated by the "flexible path" idea - space we have in fact been exploring now for over 40 years - and that overall, there is little a human return to the Moon can teach us about going to Mars: the mission durations are substantially different, the technologies we would need for key phases of the mission are significantly different (descent and landing systems, ground-based propulsion systems for rover vehicles, potential power sources, etc.).

What is more, the fact remains that the energy needed to impart a crewed vehicle to Mars is almost precisely that required to impart the same vehicle to the Moon - thus, even on an economics basis, going to Mars is actually <i>cheaper</i> in terms of the energy required than staging crews from the Earth to the Moon and thence to Mars.

The Committee also, somewhat surprisingly, states that the cost of developing America's currently-planned Ares V heavy lift vehicle to be in the region of some $35 billion; with the cost of developing a lower-capacity, shuttle-derived alternative at a cost of $28 billion. Yet Lockheed Martin has put the cost of developing an Ares V-class vehicle capable of putting 150 tonnes into orbit at around $4.5 billion, with SpaceX indicating they could provide a smaller-capacity heavy lift vehicle for approximately $2.5 billion.

Given America's heritage in space exploration, it is frankly stunning that, with due respect to the members of the Augustine Committee, it should be suggested America cannot achieve a meaningful goal in space exploration in less than 15 years, and without spending several hundred billion simply to set herself on the road to ... somewhere.

In reaching its conclusion, the Committee appears resigned to the idea that any development of a launch system by NASA will be prone to "unavoidable" cost overruns and delays. The Mars Society UK therefore stands with our colleagues in the Mars Society USA and respectively suggest an alternative approach - that of accountability.

Commenting on this aspect of the Committee's report, Chris Carberry, the Mars Society USA's Executive Director states, "If the current team cannot deliver, then it should be replaced by people who can deliver a meaningful program of exploration at a reasonable level of cost over a reasonable period of time. Rather than conduct development as budget- and time-unlimited activities, fixed price contracts can be used to constrain development cost and schedule to reasonable levels."

Bo Maxwell, Managing Director of the Mars Society UK adds, "Mars is very much a valid goal. It is now over 15 years such the Society's own proposal for human Mars missions was first put forward. Today, it still stands as the most comprehensive, cost-effect and above all achievable and safe means to undertake human missions to Mars. The time is long overdue for America - for the world at large - to commit to such a goal".

This proposal - Mars Direct - comprehensively demonstrates that human missions to Mars can be undertaken using technology available today. It does not require the development of complex, multi-stage space vehicles, nor does it require sending crews to Mars in the debilitating environment of "zero gee". Instead, it provides for a direct Earth-Mars series of missions to be undertaken, one every two years, with crews travelling to the Red Planet in a Mars-type gravity environment and supported by the means to bring them safely back to Earth in the event of their primary return vehicle failing. The overall cost of Mars Direct has been shown to be some $30-$35 billion (£19-£22 billion) for the development of all the required mission hardware and launch vehicles up to and including the first mission itself, with subsequent missions costing some $5.6 billion every two years. Furthermore, these cost estimates come not from the Mars Society - but from a 2003 NASA / ESA joint study relating to Mars Direct.

America is deserving of a space programme that is worth the inevitable cost and risks. "In order for that to happen, a radically different methodology to that being accepted by the Augustine Committee must be employed," Carberry said. "A real, purposeful goal, worthy of spending serious money, must be selected. That goal should be humans to Mars. Then a minimum cost, minimum complexity, and, critically, fastest schedule plan must be selected to achieve that goal."

And America needn't undertake this alone: Mars is a goal so far-reaching in scope that it is itself deserving a truly international effort to reach out and explore it. "If President Obama really wants to reinvigorate America's capacity as a world leader," Bo Maxwell said, "The he can do no better than put the Augustine Report quietly to one side and set America on a path worthy of her heritage. That path leads to Mars - and where America leads, the rest of the world will follow, aide and assist."

 

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