NASA Managers Mull Mission to Mars (ContributorNetwork)

According to NASA Spaceflight, NASA managers developing the exploration road map have started to focus on what must be done to fulfill the long term dream of sending humans to Mars and getting them back to Earth.

How does the mission to Mars fit in the exploration road map?

While the more immediate goals of space exploration remain the lunar surface and Earth approaching asteroids, the ultimate destination remains Mars. Indeed, the moon is seen as a practice run for Mars surface operations and asteroid missions as precursors to long duration, deep space missions to Mars.

First, a Mission to Phobos

The road map suggests a precursor mission to take place before the first human landing on Mars would be a voyage to the Martian moon Phobos. This was the target of the recently failed Russian Phobos-Grunt. The Phobos mission would be last 550 to 650 days with 30 to 40 days spent on the vicinity of Mars and Phobos. Doing a Phobos mission in advance of the Mars surface mission would allow for the testing of systems necessary for the latter. Also some good science could be conducted at Phobos, similar to the planned missions to Earth approaching asteroids.

The Mission to Mars

The voyage to Mars would be the most challenging space mission in human history. The Mars mission would require 10 to 15 launches of the Space Launch System (seven if nuclear propulsion is used.)

The first stage would assemble a cargo lander and a hab lander with a propulsion system. This assemblage would be sent to Mars, with the cargo lander touching down on the Martian surface and the hab lander remaining in orbit.

The second stage would assemble a crewed vehicle, known as the Mars Transit Vehicle, consisting of a deep space hab, an Orion spacecraft, and a propulsion unit. The crew of the Mars expedition would launch in a second Orion, dock with the Mars Transit Vehicle, board her, and take her to Mars.

Once in Mars orbit, the crew would board the Orion, take it to the orbiting hab module, then land on Mars near the cargo module. The Orion will return unmanned to the MTV. The crew would assemble a Mars base and proceed to stay on the Martian surface for 500 plus days, using insitu resource utilization and closed loop environmental systems to stretch out their consumables. At the end of their stay, they will ascend in a Mars Ascent Vehicle back to the Mars Transit Vehicle, return to Earth, and splash down in the Orion.

The Bottom Line

While no one can predict what the fiscal environment will be in the 2030s, when the Mars mission is envisioned, it is certain to be challenging and relatively expensive. Sustaining a Mars program politically over several presidencies and Congresses will be as challenging if not more so than all of the technical problems that must be solved before the first footsteps on the Red Planet.

Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker. He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the L.A. Times, and The Weekly Standard.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120125/sc_ac/10882377_nasa_managers_mull_mission_to_mars

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