In August 1994, I was invited to have dinner with House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich. At that time, I was a senior engineer working for Martin Marietta Astronautics in Denver, where I had been responsible for inventing a new plan called “Mars Direct.” By radically simplifying the mission architecture and making bold use of Martian resources starting on the very first mission, this concept offered the potential to reduce the cost and schedule of a human Mars-exploration program. NASA analysis had confirmed these advantages, and word had leaked to Newsweek, which featured it as the cover story of its July 25, 1994, issue celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. “A manned mission to Mars?” the editors asked. “The technology is already in place. And at $50 billion — one tenth of previous estimates — it’s a bargain.” Gingrich had read the article and wanted to know more.
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Thus it was that I found myself in a closed room in a Chinese restaurant a few blocks from the Capitol, providing a detailed briefing on Mars-mission design to the future Speaker of the House.
Gingrich listened to me closely and became enthusiastic about the possibilities. “I want to support this with legislation,” he said. “But I want to do it in a more free-enterprise kind of way than just gearing up the NASA budget to go to Mars.” I countered by saying that while Mars Direct might cost $30 to $50 billion if implemented by NASA, if done by a private outfit spending its own money, the out-of-pocket cost would probably be in the $5 billion range. Thus if a prize several times this amount were put on offer for the first crew to reach the Red Planet, it might be possible to ignite a privately backed space race. Newt liked the idea and assigned an aide to join me in developing the details. We did so. But a few weeks later, Newt took the House, and amidst the hectic revolution and competing priorities of the Contract with America, our draft bill never saw the light of day. Last week, however, in a speech at Kennedy Space Center, Newt finally put the idea squarely in the center of the political stage by calling for the establishment of a $10 billion prize for the first private organization to successfully land a crew on Mars and return it safely to Earth.
In the context of current realities, here is how the concept would work. Starting immediately, 10 percent of NASA’s budget would be put aside yearly to accumulate a prize fund. There would be at least two prizes: a $5 billion prize to develop and demonstrate a heavy-lift booster capable of lifting at least 100 tons to low Earth orbit, and a $10 billion prize for the first human mission to Mars. In addition, the winners of these prizes would be given contracts for the purchase by NASA of an additional five copies of their flight systems at a recurring cost of 20 percent of the respective prize per copy.
So to start with, NASA would save a good deal of money by having a heavy-lift booster developed for $5 billion, less than a third of the $18 billion it currently plans to spend over the next six years on its Space Launch System — which would deliver only 75 tons to orbit and which is unlikely to ever be completed in any case, as it is being developed in isolation from any payloads or missions that might use it. The nation would have heavy-lift capability — a matter of considerable military utility — and the competitor would be in the black, operating the single most important flight system needed to reach Mars. The team could then move forward to reach the Red Planet, recouping much more than its remaining development costs by raking in the $10 billion prize, after which it could expand its business base by selling to NASA repeat copies of its Mars-mission flight system, thereby allowing the agency to engage in a sustained and economical program of human exploration of the Red Planet. The total cost of the program, including both prizes and all the recurring missions, would be $30 billion. Spent over 20 years (ten until the first Mars mission, plus ten more years for the five follow-ons), this would amount to less than 10 percent of NASA’s budget.
This is a novel approach to human space exploration, which up till now has been entirely run by government. It has a number of remarkable advantages. In the first place, this approach renders cost overruns impossible. Not a penny will be spent unless the desired results are achieved, and not a penny more will be spent beyond the award sum agreed upon at the start. Success or failure with this approach depends solely upon the ingenuity of the American people and the workings of the free-enterprise system, not upon political wrangling. The tactic not only guarantees economical results, but it also promotes quick and smart results. When people have their own money at stake, it’s a lot easier to find and settle on practical, no-nonsense solutions to engineering problems than is ever the case in the complex and endless deliberations of a government bureaucracy.
There are other advantages to this approach as well. Economic growth would be spurred, prior to any government expenditure. Moreover, posting multibillion-dollar prizes for breakthrough accomplishments in space would call into being not only a private space race, but a new kind of aerospace industry, one based on minimum-cost production methods. The existing aerospace industry does not work that way. Rather, the major aerospace companies contract with the government to do a job on a “cost plus” basis, which means that whatever it costs them to do the job, they charge the government a certain percentage more, usually 8 to 12 percent. Therefore, the more it costs the major aerospace companies to do a job for the government, the more money they make. For this reason, their staffs are top-heavy with layer after layer of management bureaucrats, whose sole function is to add to company overhead. Of course, since the government needs proof that the expenses claimed by the aerospace companies are actually being incurred, vast numbers of accounting personnel are also employed, to keep track of how many labor hours are spent on each and every separate contract.
Nice idea, like the Ansari prize right?
But it's not the hardware that's the problem.
It's the human physiology that will leave the astronauts as demineralized bundles of jelly,,, dead jelly at that.
Until you figure out how to generate a realistic semblance of Earth's gravity field in space this project is pure fantasy.
And you know it Zubrin
I believe that Zubrin addressed this issue in his book, "The Case For Mars". There, he suggested that the astronaut's module be tethered to a part of the lauch vehicle with similar mass and then spun. The astronauts would then procede to Mars in something like 1 G of gravity.
The solution to the gravity problem is to rotate the spacecraft. I believe this was tested successfully in a Gemeni mission. I think a 2 body system is well within the capabilities of NASA and the private sector to engineer [again]. Once on Mars, there is gravity - less than Earth - but substantial gravity to slow bone and muscle loss.
Another obstacle often used as a reason to not do extended space messions is the radiation argument. The spacecraft can easily be designed to have at least as much shielding as the ISS where astronauts routinely stay 6 months at a time (roughly the same time needed to get to Mars). Once on Mars there is an atmosphere which provides some protection from radiation and the habitat can provide the rest.
The only real technology advance that needs to take place is a better compact nuclear reactor for the Mars outpost itself. This is totally, realistically achievable by NASA and/or the private sector.
The old Gemini mission where they were teathered to an Agena docking vehicle and "spun in space" made 1/100th of a G.
This isn't like the old movie "2001" with a spinning space station.
Real tests have shown a spinning space craft needs a mile of teather. Why? Because a shorter teather gives people inner ear disorders. It would be like spinning around at one of those county fair rides. If you were spinning one way and turned your head suddenly the result would be sickness and vomit.
Sheeze, people, this is NRO and not some dumb leftist magazine like "Atlantic".
Didn't you all wonder why spinning space stations were not made? If the teather is less than a mile then centrifical force motion sickness will happen. NASA and other space agencies have know about this fact for decades. Read some scientific journals and learn the facts.
Fact: no gravity kill eventually kill people. That is a fact. Fact: a mile long teather that can support a spacecraft would weigh more than the spacecraft itself.
The following have to be solved for space travel to happen:
a. Artifical gravity must be invented.
b. A good shield for the protection of radiation must be invented (we live in a giant magent called the "Earth").
c. A more effective system of getting off the ground rather than rockets has to be invented.
Anything else is just fantasy and Star Trek nonsense.
a. My understanding, perhaps mistaken, is that nausea-free 1g conditions could be created by rotating a ship or tethered pairing with less length than a football field at a rate of 2 rpms. Still a long ship or assembly, but not as hard to imagine as a mile-long craft. The main problem here is coming up with materials light enough to launch, but with enough strength to hold together for several years.
b. The radiation issue is a big problem, probably the greatest single obstacle to any sustained human flight anywhere beyond the relative protection of the Earths electro-magnetic field. To my knowledge, no one has any realistic answers ready for this one.
c. I'm not a rocket scientist, but I roomed with one while he was working on his PhD, and I had one or two fascinating but admittedly hard to follow conversations with him along these lines. Based on what he said, in so many words, it sounds like anything but chemical rockets for getting humans into orbit is just fantasy along Star Trek lines.
Re: Point B, there have been realistic answers for decades. Most background cosmic radiation poses no threat to human health, and to the extent it does it can be shielded against via enshrouding the hab module in a sheath of water or thin lead film. For instances when radiation spikes above background cosmic levels -- such as following solar flares -- a portion of the hab module is hardened to serve as a storm cellar into which the crew clamors to ride out the spike. It's not particularly sexy, but if there's one thing the dozen or so studies of the feasibility of manned spaceflight in deep space over the past three decades have come up with, it's credible ways of addressing the radiation problem.
Re: Point C, I don't want to say you're wrong, but...you're not entirely correct. There are other potentially viable methods of boosting payloads to orbit, such as Project Orion, which was heavily explored by the USAF in the late Fifties and early Sixties before being abandoned due to political considerations. Orion had prestigious talent attached to it -- men like Freeman Dyson and Ted Taylor -- who were seriously talking about boosting 1,700 tonnes of payload to LEO per launch and reaching Enceladus by 1970. Orion's "problem" was that it functioned on the principle of sticking a cherry bomb under a tin cup, with a series of 800 0.15kT nuclear shaped charges playing the role of the cherry bomb. The Partial Test Ban Treaty killed Orion as a heavy-lifter, and continued radiophobia in the post-Cold War era has guaranteed it will remain little more than an immensely promising aborted project for the foreseeable future. (Though immense engineering problems still remained to be addressed with it when it was cancelled in 1964, it had been validated via proof of concept flight testing using conventional explosives.)
Ultimately, though, talking about the feasibility of new spaceflight programming depends upon your outlook on the importance of spaceflight itself. Because at the end of the day, 98% of the problems associated with any given spaceflight program are those of an engineering sort, and enough time and money can solve almost all engineering problems. It's just a matter of whether the end result is worth it.
A tether might work for the trip if the engineering issues could be resolved. It is completely unclear whether the roughly 1/3 G on the Martian surface is adequate for protecting bone during prolonged stays. Further, the deep space field radiation exposure rate is at least twice that of ISS because of the geometric shielding provided by the Earth. Also, the Earth's magnetic field provides additional ISS radiation protection. Finally, astronauts are classified by NRC as radiation workers, and the annual whole body dose rate for radiation workers would most likely be exceeded during the trips to and from Mars even if one ignores the possibility of solar coronal mass ejection events. Thus, it may actually violate NRC regulations to send humans to Mars without additional protective measures that are not provided on ISS. Mars surface radiation rates averave roughly 50 times that of Earth's surface. The atmosphere is minimal and the magnetic field of Mars is negligible.
Mr. Zubrin,
Have you noticed how all of your ideas, from flex-fuel methanol vehicles to gallivanting around the galaxy, require that a nominally free people be unwillingly conscripted into their service? Well, I have, and it's a big clue that they're bad ones.
There are two kinds of dreamers in this world, those who dream of what they might accomplish through their own effort and hard work if only they are left free to do so, and those who dream of what they might accomplish if only every man's life, liberty, and property were theirs to dispose of. It's clear you fall into the latter category, along with all the Leftists/Progressives whom NRO is supposed to be leading the fight against.
In fairness, you're not alone among otherwise sensible, conservative people in advocating robust levels of NASA spending, so instead of just pointing out that we don't have any extra billions to spend just now it might be wise to briefly revisit the economist Bastiat's teaching on what is seen versus what is not seen.
When NASA undertakes a project, we can see the nice new shiny rocket blasting off, and it's an impressive sight, just as a lunar module on the moon is or a martian lander on Mars would be. But we need to keep in mind what is not seen: the industries, technology, prosperity, and jobs that were forfeited when all that valuable capital was taxed out of the economy and placed under the control of the government.
If a manned Mars mission were really needed, that is, if it truly met human needs and could be done feasibly (that is, the technology was available or could be economically developed, and the cost of the project were reasonable), PRIVATE INDUSTRY WOULD DO IT WITHOUT THE NEED OF GOVERNMENT. All this talk of offering a prize to induce private industry to undertake such a project is just so much window dressing, and there is no difference in either principle or practice between what you (and Gingrich) are proposing for the Moon (or Mars) and Barack Obama's innumerable "green energy" boondoggles.
Conservatives must resist the temptation to build shiny new rockets with money that doesn't belong to them - repeat, WITH MONEY THAT DOESN'T BELONG TO THEM. We already have a party of government that believes when it wins an election it has a mandate to steal and "invest" privately-owned resources. We don't need a second one doing the same thing with slightly different favored causes.
The government should only spend as much money on space as is absolutely required to achieve its legitimate purposes of defending individual rights, for example in defending against a Chinese attack against our satellites. If you and your buddy Newt want to go to Mars, spend your own money or take up a voluntary collection. If that won't get the job done, then it's a sure sign that the job shouldn't BE done.
No, Zubrin has certainly never noticed that his ideas are anti-individual freedom. And he wouldn't care, even if he did.
The editors at NRO should notice and should care. I don't know why they continue to give him voice.
Mr. Nahalkides(?), thank you for reminding everyone what liberty means.
The philosophy you're advocating doesn't seem to be conservatism so much as crypto-anarchism. A libertarianism on steroids.
If the only legitimate objective of government is the the narrowly defined "defense of individual rights," we would have no space program, or any other scientific research, either - at least none that was not directly related to national defense. Jefferson would never have sent out the Lewis & Clark or Pike expeditions.
We all agree that government prodigiously wastes money, and wastes it on things it has no real business dabbling in. But there are a lot of legitimate activities with genuine societal value but which are not economical for private industry to undertake. Robert Zubrin at least points the way to making use of market forces to better spend what money we do spend on space exploration and research.
I'm a conservative, not a Libertarian or a Crypto-Anarchist, and I stand behind what I said. Your philosophy sounds a lot like Progressivism to me. It's true that there are some minor, incidental functions of government such as acting as the custodian of ownerless land until it can be homesteaded into private land or turned into public parks, or protecting animals against mistreatment, but those functions are not of supreme importance at this pivotal moment in history.
"there are a lot of legitimate activities with genuine societal value but which are not economical for private industry to undertake." There are all kinds of problems with that statement. Here are just a few:
1. Who gets to decide what activities have "genuine societal value" - you? A panel of "experts"? The winners of an election? If you believe that the winners of an election are free to seize and "invest" (i.e., spend) the property of those who don't agree with them, then you're not a conservative and certainly no defender of liberty. Obama and his radical cohorts do no worse than this.
2. "Genuine societal value" must mean of some value to individual members of society. If so, why don't they bear the costs themselves? Is a National Symphony Orchestra of "genuine societal value" to you? If yes, you should be paying for it. If not, you shouldn't have to.
3. "not economical for private industry to undertake" must mean in practice that no one is willing to pay the real costs of the activity. What then gives you the right to steal their property by force and make them bear the costs against their will, depriving them of their right to spend what they have earned in the manner they choose? Do you recognize any limits at all to this principle? How much of a man's income is off-limits to seizure - 50%? Less? According to Barack Obama's father (the one he gets his dreams from), the government can take 100%, as long is it gives something (exactly what is anyone's guess) back in return. You sound a lot like Obama Sr. - and I hope that troubles you.
Out of context, your Lewis & Clark expedition example is particularly misleading. A nation may properly survey its boundaries or even explore adjacent territory with an eye to future expansion, WHERE SETTLEMENT OF THAT TERRITORY IS IMMINENTLY PRACTICAL AND DESIRABLE. In 1804, many Americans were prepared to move west of the Mississippi (at their own expense, mind); in 2012, no one is prepared to settle the Moon or Mars.
If many years from now private technological advances makes such settlement possible, then it might be permissible for government to conduct surveys, consider annexing territory, etc. But it is not all right for people like Zubrin and yourself to seize and squander my hard-earned money on any fantastic pipe dream that happens to pop into your silly heads!
Instead of dreaming about things you think have "genuine societal value" even though no one wants them, give some thought to the industries and jobs that could be created with the $30 billion dollars, or whatever the sum might be, if it were left in private hands where it belongs. These have real value to real people right now, not in some future science-fiction fantasy world of your imagination.
I suppose you're entitled to call yourself whatever you like. Functionally, I can't quite distinguish your position from libertarianism, especially if you are unwilling to allow state laws to promote traditional virtues.
The difficulty here is that your position leaves no room for any government backed research that does not immediately contribute to national defense. No colliders, radio telescopes, no Pioneer, Voyager, Galileo, or Viking probes, no Hubble telescope. These things provide no immediate financial return - and it's highly unlikely that a billionaire philanthropist would have funded them out of generosity or whim - but they have added enormously to our knowledge of our world and our universe.
You are willing, at any rate, to sign off on Lewis & Clark & Pike - which is gratifying - but only because settlement of the territory is "imminently practicable and desirable." But you're wrong on two counts: much of the territory they explored was claimed by the Spanish and British Empires, with no immediate prospect that either would surrender possession (that only happened in 1846-1848); and secondly, it was widely believed at the time that the Great Plains - let alone anything west of them - could not support any significant permanent population. Jefferson had no notion of large scale settlement even of Louisiana Purchase territories, nor did he sell it as such to Congress. He assumed that these areas would be reserved to native American tribes.
It's true that there are much more formidable obstacles to settlement of the Moon than there was to Oregon or New Mexico in 1805. But there is also evidence that there are very rare and valuable resources there, such as Helium 3, which could benefit us enormously if we abrogated the Outer Space Treaty and made a claim for the purposes of mineral exploitation. And as with government facilitation of the settlement of the West and Alaska (through military protection, land grants and subsidies for railroads, mineral concessions, patent protections, and government surveyors), I don't see why a more market-oriented government effort to lead the way for private exploitation of such resources in space isn't rightly within the rightful bounds of government.
It's not only the lack of gravity in-transit, but the radiation. Our Moon astronauts were only exposed to this radiation for about a week. How will it affect our spacefarers on a voyage of up to two years?
But the bigger question is, Why go to Mars in the first place? For the same reason we went to the Moon, just to get there first? There's no economic incentive in Mars, nothing there that we need back here on Earth. Sure, it might tell us a lot about exo-life, how the Solar System was formed, etc. But if there was some profit to be made from Mars, we would have started strip-mining it decades ago.
And tourism? Again, the reason there's no thriving tourism business on Mars (or the Moon, or Antarctica for that matter) is that it costs way too much to get there, and they're not very fun places to be, in the first place.
I certainly think there's a lot in the various Mars Direct ideas that Zubrin has proposed that recommend themselves if we decide to go though. Any system of prizes however could only work with a much lower buy in - noone is going to invest literally billions before they see any money back. Noone except governments, that is, and most of those are broke.
