Fwd: NASA Should Maintain Long-Term Focus on Mars as “Horizon Goal” for Human Space Exploration

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: June 5, 2014 8:11:55 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: NASA Should Maintain Long-Term Focus on Mars as "Horizon Goal" for Human Space Exploration

Date: June 4, 2014   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   NASA Should Maintain Long-Term Focus on Mars as "Horizon Goal" for Human Space Exploration; A Sustained National Commitment Will Be Needed, Report Says   WASHINGTON – Arguing for a continuation of the nation's human space exploration program, a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council concludes that the expense of human spaceflight and the dangers to the astronauts involved can be justified only by the goal of putting humans on other worlds.  The report recommends that the nation pursue a disciplined "pathway" approach that encompasses executing a specific sequence of intermediate accomplishments and destinations leading to the "horizon goal" of putting humans on Mars.  The success of this approach would require a steadfast commitment to a consensus goal, international collaboration, and a budget that increases by more than the rate of inflation.   "The United States has been a leader in human space exploration for more than five decades, and our efforts in low Earth orbit with our partners are approaching maturity with the completion of the International Space Station.  We as a nation must decide now how to embark on human space exploration beyond low Earth orbit in a sustainable fashion," said Jonathan Lunine, director of the Center for Radiophysics and Space Research at Cornell University and co-chair of the committee that wrote the report.   "The technical analysis completed for this study shows that for the foreseeable future, the only feasible destinations for human exploration are the moon, asteroids, Mars, and the moons of Mars," Lunine added.  "Among this small set of plausible goals, the most distant and difficult is putting human boots on the surface of Mars, thus that is the horizon goal for human space exploration.  All long-range space programs by our potential partners converge on this goal."   Public opinion of the space program since its inception has been generally positive, but the report found that most of the public does not pay much attention to or feel well-informed about the topic and spending on space exploration is not a high priority for most of the public.  Support for increased funding is highest among those who are interested in and well-informed about human spaceflight.  The committee conducted its own survey of stakeholders (defined as those who may reasonably be expected to have an interest in NASA programs and be able to exert some influence over its direction) and scientists in non-space-related fields. In both the public and stakeholder opinion data, the committee found there was no majority agreement on a single rationale for human spaceflight.    Historically, rationales used to justify a human spaceflight program have included economic benefits, national security, national stature and international relations, inspiration for science and engineering education, contributions to science and knowledge, a shared human destiny and urge to explore, and the eventual survival of the human species -- the report defines the latter two as "aspirational."   The committee concluded that although no single rationale, either practical or aspirational, seems to justify the value of pursuing human spaceflight, the aspirational rationales, when supplemented by practical benefits associated with the pragmatic rationales, argue for the continuation of a U.S. human spaceflight program, provided that the program adopts a stable and sustainable pathways approach.  The aspirational rationales are also most in line with enduring questions the report identifies as motivating human spaceflight: How far from Earth can humans go? and What can humans discover and achieve when we get there?   "Human space exploration remains vital to the national interest for inspirational and aspirational reasons that appeal to a broad range of U.S. citizens," said Purdue University president, former Governor of Indiana, and committee co-chair Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr.  "But given the expense of any human spaceflight program and the significant risk to the crews involved, in our view the only pathways that fit these criteria are those that ultimately place humans on other worlds."   The report evaluates three different pathways to illustrate the trade-offs among affordability, schedule, developmental risk, and the frequency of missions for different sequences of intermediate destinations.  All the pathways culminate in landing on the surface of Mars -- which is the most challenging yet technically feasible destination -- and have anywhere between three and six steps that include some combination of missions to asteroids, the moon, and Martian moons.   The report proposes a set of principles and decision rules by which national leadership might decide on a given pathway, measure its progress, navigate moving off one pathway to another, or cease the endeavor altogether. While the committee was not asked to recommend a particular pathway to pursue, it found that a return to extended surface operations on the moon would make significant contributions to a strategy ultimately aimed at landing people on Mars, and that it would also likely provide a broad array of opportunities for international and commercial cooperation.   Completing any of the described pathways requires the development of a number of mission elements and technological capabilities.  The report identifies 10 high-priority capabilities that should be addressed by current research and development activities, with a particular emphasis on Mars entry, descent, and landing, radiation safety, and in-space propulsion and power. These three capabilities will be the most difficult to develop in terms of costs, schedule, technical challenges, and gaps between current and needed abilities, the report says.   Progress in human space exploration beyond low Earth orbit will be measured in decades and hundreds of billions of dollars.  Although the report does not make any particular budget recommendations, it notes that there are no viable pathways to Mars under the current flat or even an inflation-adjusted budget.  The analysis does show that increasing NASA's human spaceflight budget by 5 percent per year, for example, would enable pathways with viable mission frequency and greatly reduce technical, cost, and schedule risks.    "Our committee concluded that any human exploration program will only succeed if it is appropriately funded and receives a sustained commitment on the part of those who govern our nation.  That commitment cannot change direction election after election.  Our elected leaders are the critical enablers of the nation's investment in human spaceflight, and only they can assure that the leadership, personnel, governance, and resources are in place in our human exploration program," Daniels said.   The study was sponsored by NASA. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies.  They are private, independent nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under a congressional charter granted to NAS in 1863.  The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.  For more information, visit http://national-academies.org.  A committee roster follows.   Contacts: Lauren Rugani, Media Relations Officer Chelsea Dickson, Media Associate Office of News and Public Information 202-334-2138; e-mail news@nas.edu http://national-academies.com/newsroom Twitter: @NAS_news and @NASciences RSS feed: http://www.nationalacademies.org/rss/index.html Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalacademyofsciences/sets     #       #       # NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board Space Studies Board   Committee on Human Spaceflight Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. (co-chair) President Purdue University West Lafayette, Ind.   Jonathan I. Lunine1 (co-chair) David C. Duncan Professor of Physical Sciences Department of Astronomy Cornell University Ithaca, N.Y.   Bernard F. Burke1 Wm. A.M. Burden Professor of Astrophysics, Emeritus Department of Physics Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge   Mary Lynne Dittmar President and Senior Consultant Dittmar Associates Inc. Houston   Pascale Ehrenfreund Research Professor of Space Policy Elliott School of International Affairs George Washington University Washington, D.C.   James S. Jackson2 Director and Research Professor Institute for Social Research, and Daniel Katz Distinguished University Professor of Psychology University of Michigan Ann Arbor   Frank G. Klotz (retired from the committee April 2014) Former Senior Fellow Council on Foreign Relations Alexandria, Va. Franklin D. Martin President Martin Consulting Inc. Morrisville, N.C.   David C. Mowery William A. and Betty H. Hasler Professor of New Enterprise Development, Emeritus Walter A. Haas School of Business University of California Berkeley   Bryan D. O'Connor Independent Aerospace Consultant Alexandria, Va.   Stanley Presser Distinguished University Professor Department of Sociology University of Maryland Washington, D.C.   Helen R. Quinn1 Professor Emerita Particle Physics and Astrophysics SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Menlo Park, Calif.   Asif A. Siddiqi Associate Professor Department of History Fordham University Bronx, N.Y.   John C. Sommerer Director of Science and Technology, and Chief Technology Officer Applied Physics Laboratory Johns Hopkins University (retired) Laurel, Md.   Roger Tourangeau Vice President and Associate Director Westat Inc. Rockville, Md.   Ariel Waldman Founder Spacehack.Org San Francisco Cliff Zukin Professor of Public Policy and Political Science Edward J Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy Rutgers University Highland Park, N.J.   STAFF   Sandra J. Graham Study Director   _________________________________________ 1 Member, National Academy of Sciences 2 Member, Institute of Medicine

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.     

 

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NRC says humans flight to Mars possible, but more money needed

06/04/2014 01:21 PM 

By WILLIAM HARWOOD
CBS News

Without a substantial, long-term increase in funding, sustained political support across multiple administrations and extensive international participation, the United States will not be able to send humans to Mars before the middle of the century and possibly not even then, according to a National Research Council report released Wednesday.

The long-awaited report -- "Pathways to Exploration -- Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Program of Human Space Exploration" -- was ordered by Congress in 2010 to review "the goals, core capabilities, and direction of human space flight."

The 285-page study looked into the technologies required for deep space exploration, political support, funding requirements, scientific objectives, international cooperation and feasible mission scenarios. The review panel concluded sending humans to Mars should be the long-range goal of NASA's human exploration program, but only if the nation's political leadership commits to long-term, sustained support.

"For the foreseeable future, the only feasible destinations for human exploration are the Moon, asteroids, Mars, and the moons of Mars," the report said. "Among this small set of plausible goals for human space exploration, the most distant and difficult is a landing by human beings on the surface of Mars -- requiring overcoming unprecedented technical risk, fiscal risk, and programmatic challenges.

"Thus the horizon goal for human space exploration is Mars. All long-range space programs, by all potential partners, for human space exploration converge on this goal."

A National Research Council graph showing that "as long as flat NASA human spaceflight budgets are continued, NASA will be unable to conduct any human space exploration programs beyond cislunar space. The only pathways that successfully land humans on the surface of Mars require spending to rise above inflation for an extended period." (Credit: NRC)

The report did not recommend any specific mission architecture, but clearly favored a return to the moon as the foundation of a stepping-stone "pathways" approach to Mars. Near-term moon missions presumably would attract more international cooperation and public support than the Obama administration's current plan to bypass the moon in favor of a near-term asteroid capture mission to perfect the technologies needed to reach the red planet.

As for the rest of the solar system, "the development challenges associated with any solar system destinations beyond the Earth-Moon system, Earth-Sun Lagrange points, near-Earth asteroids, and Mars are profoundly daunting, involve huge masses of propellant, and have budgets measured in trillions of dollars," the report concluded.

Getting to Mars will be challenge enough, especially given the panel's conclusion that public support for space exploration, while generally positive, does not appear to extend to greatly increased budgets.

Panel co-chair Mitch Daniels, former governor of Indiana, said the committee members "recognize that many of our recommendations will be seen by many as unrealistic, to which we would only observe that absent changes along the lines we are recommending, the goal of reaching Mars on any meaningful timeframe is itself unrealistic."

Even so, he said the panel members are optimistic about the future.

"We believe the public will support it, we believe the rationales justify it, we believe the achievement would be monumental," he said during a briefing. "But we think there is really one, and possibly only one way to get there. We've offered it up in this report."

A key theme in the report was sustained multi-decade funding. Any program aimed at Mars must be adequately funded or "it will not succeed," the report said. "Nor can it succeed without a sustained commitment on the part of those who govern the nation -- a commitment that does not change direction with succeeding electoral cycles. Those branches of government responsible for NASA's funding and guidance are therefore critical enablers of the nation's investment and achievements in human spaceflight."

John Logsdon, a space historian and former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, said the NRC's review is "another, and probably the most frank, in the line of reports that say we can't get there from here the way we're going. The word 'unsustainable' appears in this report, once again."

The International Space Station cost approximately $150 billion spread out over three decades, including the cost of shuttle assembly flights. In comparison, the NRC committee said the cost of a human flight to Mars would be two to four times the cost of the space station, or the equivalent of 75 to 150 "flagship" robotic missions in the $1 billion to $2 billion price range like the Mars Curiosity Rover and Cassini Saturn orbiter.

Assuming NASA's budget is adjusted for inflation only, and assuming a Mars program cost of around $400 billion, "a pathway to Mars cannot be achieved before roughly 2060," the panel concluded. "An alternative way to look at this information is that to achieve a landing prior to 2050 and still be affordable, the pathway to Mars would have to be technically feasible and cost less than (about) $220 billion."

With budget increases limited to matching inflation "there are no viable pathways to Mars" in the near term, the report says. "A continuation of flat budgets for human spaceflight is insufficient for NASA to execute any pathway to Mars and limits human spaceflight to LEO (low-Earth orbit) until after the end of the ISS (International Space Station) program."

NASA's human spaceflight budget would need an annual increase of 5 percent or more to "enable pathways with potentially viable mission rates, greatly reducing technical, cost, and schedule risk."

The need for sustained political support was cited repeatedly, a reminder of the turmoil NASA has experienced across the Bush and Obama administrations, including two major policy changes.

At the turn of the century, NASA was focused on building the International Space Station and planned to operate the space shuttle through 2020.

But on Feb. 1, 2003, the shuttle Columbia burned up during re-entry and the following January, President Bush ordered a change of course. NASA was told to finish the space station and retire the shuttle by the end of the decade and to focus instead on building new rockets and spacecraft for a return to the moon in the early 2020s.

A few years later, NASA endured another jarring change when the Obama administration cancelled the Constellation moon program, concluding it was too expensive and unsustainable. In its place, NASA was directed to build a new heavy lift rocket to boost the Constellation program's Orion crew capsule into deep space for flights to a nearby asteroid in the mid 2020s with an eventual flight to Mars in the mid 2030s.

At the same time, NASA was directed to fund the development of commercial spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the space station.

More recently, the Obama administration has called for an asteroid retrieval mission, using a robotic spacecraft to capture a small asteroid and tow it back to the vicinity of the moon where astronauts in Orion spacecraft could carry out a hands-on investigation. The Obama space policy bypasses the moon and views the International Space Station and the asteroid retrieval mission as stepping stones for eventual Mars exploration.

The NRC report does not favor any specific mission architecture, but it noted that the asteroid retrieval mission, or ARM, has failed to attract widespread support from the scientific community or the public and that international interest in a cooperative venture has not yet materialized.

"While this report's recommendation for adoption of a pathways approach is made without prejudice as to which particular pathway might be followed, it was, nevertheless, clear to the committee ... that a return to extended surface operations on the Moon would make significant contributions to a strategy ultimately aimed at landing people on Mars."

A return to the moon "is also likely to provide a broad array of opportunities for international and commercial cooperation."

The report also lamented current U.S. policy that forbids NASA from engaging in cooperative space ventures with China. An eventual human mission to Mars will require extensive international cooperation, the report said, on a scale that greatly exceeds that of the International Space Station project.

"It is evident that U.S. near-term goals for human exploration are not aligned with those of our traditional international partners," the report said. "While most major spacefaring nations and agencies are looking toward the Moon and, specifically, the lunar surface, U.S. plans are focused on redirection of an asteroid into a retrograde lunar orbit, where astronauts would conduct operations with it.

"It is also evident that given the rapid development of China's capabilities in space, it is in the best interests of the United States to be open to its inclusion in future international partnerships. In particular, current federal law preventing NASA from participating in bilateral activities with the Chinese serves only to hinder U.S. ability to bring China into its sphere of international partnerships and reduces substantially the potential international capability that might be pooled to reach Mars."

China aside, NASA said in a statement that it welcomed the NRC report, saying it "complements the agency's on-going approach."

"NASA has made significant progress on many key elements that will be needed to reach Mars, and we continue on this path in collaboration with industry and other nations," the statement said. "We intend to thoroughly review the report and all of its recommendations."

 

 

© 2014 William Harwood/CBS News

 

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To Send Astronauts to Mars, NASA Needs New Strategy: Report

by Robert Z. Pearlman, collectSPACE.com   |   June 04, 2014 04:13pm ET

 

An artist's illustration a manned NASA Orion space capsule in orbit around Mars, with two other vehicles nearby. A National Research Council report released June 4, 2014 found that Mars should be the ultimate goal for NASA's human spaceflight program. Credit: NASA/JSC View full size image

Landing astronauts on Mars should continue to be the ultimate goal for the United States' human spaceflight program, but a change in NASA's approach and a significant boost in funding are needed to make it happen, a new report finds.

A manned mission to Mars, specifically the Martian surface, is the most distant and difficult goal for astronauts that is still feasibly attainable within the foreseeable future, according to the nearly 300-page report by the National Research Council's Committee on Human Spaceflight. The report, entitled "Pathways to Exploration: Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Program of Human Space Exploration," was released Wednesday (June 4).

The NRC committee found that in order to reach the Red Planet, NASA's current budget-driven, capability-based exploration strategy needs to be replaced by one that is guided forward by interim destinations, including possibly the moon. NASA is currently pursuing a path to Mars that omits a return to the lunar surface in favor of sending astronauts to a redirected asteroid by 2025, followed by sending a crew to orbit Mars by the mid-2030s. [The Boldest Mars Missions of All Time]

"If a change of mind on the part of enough people — if enough sufficient leadership cannot be summoned — then we don't find Mars to be a realistic goal at all," said former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, the committee's co-chairman and current president of Purdue University, in a public briefing Wednesday in Washington, D.C. "We're suggesting that the national leadership organize itself around a new approach that will make Mars, and other great achievements of exploration en route there, realistic in a way they are not presently."

A new report by the National Research Council's Human Spaceflight Committee offers three different pathways to illustrate trade-offs among affordability, schedule, developmental risk and the frequency of missions for different sequences of intermediate destinations leading to the horizon goal of landing humans on the surface of Mars.
Credit: National Research Council

View full size image

NASA's Mars-bound path

"NASA has made significant progress on many key elements that will be needed to reach Mars, and we continue on this path in collaboration with industry and other nations," space agency officials said in a statement. "We intend to thoroughly review the report and all of its recommendations."In a response to the report, NASA officials agreed with the committee's identification of Mars as the ultimate goal.

Unlike previous reports that have sought to evaluate the path forward for U.S. space exploration and have ultimately recommended Mars as the goal, the research council's "Pathways to Exploration" focuses on making the goal obtainable, said Jonathan Lunine, the committee's other chairman and the director of the Center for Radiophysics and Space Research at Cornell University.

"Yes, the idea of Mars as the horizon goal is not new," Lunine said. "What's different about this report is that we're recommending an approach that will provide a robust way of getting to Mars in an endeavor that will take decades and hundreds of billions of dollars and, quite probably, human lives. It is the staying power of the pathways approach and its ability, essentially, to make the program resilient against changes that we think is a novel aspect of our report."

The report's broad perspective, taking into account such considerations as public opinion and the rationales for continued human spaceflight, also distinguishes this report from previous ones, Lunine said.

The committee found that no single rationale, either practical or aspirational, justified the further pursuit of human spaceflight. But if considered with the practical benefits, the aspirational rationales — including the survival of the human species through off-Earth settlement and the shared human desire to explore — could argue for it to continue, as long as the program adopts a stable and sustainable approach. 

"So, in essence here, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and it is the aggregate of the aspirational and the pragmatic that, in the committee's opinion, motivate human spaceflight and human space exploration," Lunine said at the hearing.

This NASA graphic shows the major steps required for sending a manned mission to Mars by the mid-2030s as outlined by the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 and the U.S. National Space Policy of 2010.
Credit: NASA

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Pathways to Mars

The report offers three different pathways to illustrate the trade-offs among affordability, schedule, developmental risk and the frequency of missions for different sequences of intermediate destinations. All of the pathways culminate in landing on the surface of Mars and have anywhere between three and six steps that include some combination of human missions to the asteroids, the moon and Mars' moons Phobos and Deimos.

The Dutch nonprofit Mars One aims to land four colonists on the Red Planet in 2023. Do you want to be one of them?

While the committee was not asked to recommend a particular pathway to pursue, it found that a return to extended operations on the surface of the moon would make significant contributions to a strategy ultimately aimed at landing people on Mars, and that it would also likely provide a broad array of opportunities for international and commercial cooperation.

The report also identified 10 high-priority capabilities that should be addressed by current research and development activities, with a particular emphasis on Mars entry, descent, and landing, radiation safety, and in-space propulsion and power. These three capabilities, the committee said, will be the most difficult to develop in terms of costs, schedule, technical challenges, and gaps between current and needed abilities.

"I hope [our report] carries the national conversation forward in the direction of realism — realism about public opinion, realism about risk, realism about cost and the incredibly daunting technical challenges of the horizon goal [of going to Mars] that we believe the world embraces," Daniels said.

"We're optimistic," he concluded. "We believe the public will support it; we believe the rationales justify it; we believe the achievement would be monumental if it occurred. But we believe there is one, and possibly only one, way to get there, and we've offered it up in this report."

To read the full "Pathways to Exploration" report, see the National Research Council's website: www.nas.edu/humanspaceflight.

Robert Z. Pearlman is a Space.com contributing writer and the editor of collectSPACE.com, a Space.com partner site and the leading space history-focused news publication. 

 

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