Aldrin Is Buzzing Today

I agree with much of what Mr. Aldrin has to say, however, his idea of a manned mission to Phobos prior to a landing attempt is ludicrous in my mind. Given the expense and number of years a round trip would take, we cannot afford an Apollo 8-style circumnavigation. A Mars mission simple must include a landing attempt.

Mars is a whole other universe that's months away. We're not going to land humans on Mars unless we establish a permanent presence in Mars orbit first. Phobos and Deimos could provide astronauts with oxygen for air and fuel and possibly hydrogen from water.

But there's no logical reason to go to Mars unless we intend to go there to stay! That means setting up a Mars base before humans even arrive there.

Marcel F. Williams

To land on Mars you need a lander. This would have to be developed and transported there - pity currently we do not have the money to design both a lander and a Mars transfer vehicle.

A reusable lander needs an inspace repair hanger and a propellant depot. These could be spacestations or a base on Phobos. Phobos's gravity is so weak that a 'landing' can be done with docking/RCS thrusters.

Once the Phobos base has been built the development budget can be switched to designing a Mars lander.

The impressive thing about Buzz is that all the other apollo era folks who have surfaced look well "old". Buzz still looks like he is good for a bar fight

Robert G. Oler

"This seems more productive than simply opposing a change of course."

There is no new course Buzz. There isn't a course.

As for humans orbiting Mars instead of landing?
The whole point is getting human presence there.

It's like seducing a super model and she invites you to come upstairs, but you say "good evening to you miss" and go home.

It's crazy. But the Obama plan is pretty much nuts anyways.

I love the Phobos idea but there are tons of similar outside the box ideas that have never gotten funding. A casual perusal of NASA white papers since the 70's will tell you that. The average joe/josephina think that NASA is a luxury that takes money away from "important" things anyway. Until that horrible misconception is finally dealt with in a decisive manner I don't see any grand vision for manned space exploration coming to fruition.

Charles, if the VASIMR engine pans out, then we aren't talking about years for a round trip to Mars. We're talking 39 days to get there, 39 days back, and an undetermined period to loiter in around that planet.

However your point about Phobos is at least worthy of debate. It seems to me that Phobos is a target because of the weak gravity that would make landing relatively easy. Like you I think we need to land on Mars but I believe Mr. Aldrin's main point here is to get us a multipurpose deep space craft to get us there as well as to many other locations in the Solar System. A lander for the Martian surface would be another budgetary item down the road. First lets get to work on inventing the ability to get there.

Interesting that Buzz makes no mention of developing Orion-super lite. Boy this is a pork product being produced at US taxpayer expense for absolutelyno reason.

I agree with just about everything that Buzz says. He is forgetting one thing, and that is in order to launch some of those ISS-based components in order to build his XM modules for cruising into higher orbits, to the moon, asteroids and tro Mars, he needs a launch vehicle. Whether using Shuttle as it is, or a less expensive and more efficient heavy lifter, that launch vehicle exist now or could exist soon and at small cost based on Shuttle.

Without it, we'll be spending billions upon billions and we won't have a similar capability for another decade. But it exist right now, at very small additonal cost.

Its time to keep the Shuttle. Develop the heavy lift from it. Start now and not in five years.

Sounds like an easy trade. Take the money they want to put into the unneeded Orion super-lite, and put that money into development of the Shuttle derived heavy lift instead.

Re the Phobos, Deimos landing alternatives:
I believe the reason for the Mars moons option is that such a landing would enable real-time remote control of rovers on the surface. We could explore multiple areas, more hazardous areas, and even humanly-inaccessible areas, and all for much less cost and much less risk than a manned landing.

Well the President's speech was nice. I imagine Dr. Spudis won't be very happy though since the plan is to skip the Moon. It's a plan though. It was pretty neat to see him shake everyone's hand after talking. When I say everyone, I mean it was a real who's who in the front few rows. I wonder what Neil deGrasse Tyson's thoughts were.

I hope we get to hear what comes out of those committees.

Well I know how 80 year old astronauts who already had their shot in the sun annoyes you.

A M Swallow,

Exactly why you want to go to the moon first, to develop those technologies: building permanent living-structures, developing landers, exploiting in situ resources, etc. And the last time I looked, the closest object to earth was the moon + as we've recently discovered, there are the resources there to build a permanent colony - including plenty of water.

The idea that "we've done that" is simply boneheaded. Columbus didn't land in the New World and say "I've done that" and leave without returning! Boneheaded!

I agree that from a pure technical viewpoint Orion-Rescue doesn't seem to make a lot of sense; and the decision was politically motivated as much as anything else. That said I believe it was a brilliant tactical decision. Here is why:

Purely political aspects:

More business/technical aspects:

Summary:

Basically Orion-Rescue lets you float ULA for a couple of rounds and move them in the direction you want them to go, all on the government dime so they won't say no.

While you wait for the crew/cargo transport market to develop and clarify enough for ULA to take the plunge on it's own.

A very shrewd approach, that I hope ends up working.

On VASIMR been there, done that, and it didn't work. Try a google search for Deep-Space-1 and, also, NERVA to read about the fate of other 'promising' and otherwise defunct R&D projects. That's what happens when R&D cannot be justified in terms of supporting a funded mission.

Also, electric propulsion beyond 1AU is not practical without a nuclear reactor (it would require massive solar panels and, also, heat radiators), and it is doubtful the usual eco-nuts would allow in-orbit testing of a nuclear reactors ... much less a full scale mission (or missions).

Orion-Rescue, on the other hand, would make sense in terms of developing a real HLV come Jan. 2013 (likely if the admin. changes) and move back to a revised CxP (2-launch configuration, probably looking a lot like Ares-IV, and minus the Moon for now).

There's no need to involve ULA with Space-X/Dragon and Minotaur/Cygnus already competing for LEO access. And no, I don't work for orbital. It's just that their costing seem, at least, somewhat believable especially when compared to Space-X/Dragon.

Cessna, I am amazed by your relentless pessimism. Without facts or reasoning to provide real gravity, you manage to remain consistently nihilistic, week after week. You must have a hard life. Or maybe you're a paid political troll? I don't think you've ever said you work at NASA...

For contrast, see the above post from the Unpronounceable One. Nice list of political and practical insights about Orion-R. Particularly these:
* Orion-Rescue develops a massive number of components that ULA will need if they intend to field a taxi service in the future; and it does this in a cost-plus manner that they won't say no to.
* It develops the hardware needed to interface the Orion with the Atlas or Delta EELVs.

Looks to me like almost a guarantee that SpaceX will have competition from ULA.

Best article of the day, can anybody confirm truth:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/nasa-decision-reopens-old-wounds-for-neil-and-buzz-1946397.html

Aldrin is right about CxP, wrong about the Merchant 7.

Armstrong is right about the slow sink to mediocrity, wrong about CxP (as was implemented, not the concept).

So incredibly disappointing that the decision was based on theoretical rhetoric and presented in a lawyeresque debate style - like he was arguing a point to a jury - rather than on a scientific, technical analysis & feability basis.

Things that are made either work right or they don't.

And Neil was right choice.

If anyone wonders why America seems headed for third rate status, all you have to do is read some of these posts. Oh we can't do this. oh we can't do that. Oh why didn't he say this? Why don't we do that instead? If this crowd had been around 49 years ago on May 25, 1961 they would have whined "oh, we don't know how to do a moon flight.Never done it. So dangerous. What was JFK thinking?" or "Oh gosh we don't know how to build a Saturn V, better not try and fail."
Give me a break. Until today, people were whining there was no goal or timetable. Well, Obama said manned asteroid rendezvous by 2025, heavy lift choice 10 years earlier. Step by step were headed to Mars.
No it ain't perfect-you're using public money so it's political.
As far as Buzz is concerned: He's an 80 year old hero busting his ass to promote his vision of space exploration. he deserves to be heard. Today, aboard Air force 1, the President of the United States listened to him, walked with him down the ramp, talked with him while walking to his limo, recognized him four times during his speech.
How many times have any of YOU had the ear of any American President, eh? Instead of snarking about Buzz maybe you should thank him, for his ideas saved the Goddamn space program today.

And oh, as was once asked:
"Man? Mission? Moment?"
Today came the answer:
Buzz Aldrin. Mars by increments. April 15,2010.
I'm proud of the old buzzard for hanging in there for years, years of being the butt of jokes by people who don't have one tenth of his education, intellect, or experience. Years of being listened to but not heard. Years of spending his own time and money promoting the space program when most of his former colleagues were playing golf.
On my scoreboard it's Buzz 1 Neil 0. (and as one young neighbor of mine asked "Neil who?")
Game over.

You are being too pessimistic about the size of solar panels needed for a VASIMR solar electric tug. For Mars orbit the solar arrays only need to be two and a half times the size of Earth orbit arrays. The extra does not even have to be expensive silicon, kitchen foil acting as a parabolic mirror will do.

Note: a 12 MW VASIMR can fly to Mars in 4 months. That is a large amount of solar cells but not an impossible amount.
http://www.adastrarocket.com/aarc/ToMars

Lowly Contractor says: "Also, electric propulsion beyond 1AU is not practical without a nuclear reactor (it would require massive solar panels and, also, heat radiators), and it is doubtful the usual eco-nuts would allow in-orbit testing of a nuclear reactors ... much less a full scale mission (or missions)."

But then there's the Dawn Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) mission which is already out past Mars and on its way to Vesta and then on to Ceres. Turns out you can use SEP all the way out to Jupiter with current tech. Future tech like the FAST solar concentrators could make SEP usable all the way out to Saturn.

This is with Ion engines like XIPS and NEXT and Hall thrusters like BPT-4000... These thrusters exist now and are what we should use in the near term. VASIMR we can keep developing and use later when we have megawatt level power available. (Below a megawatt, Hall thrusters will perform better)

On my scoreboard it's Buzz 1 Neil 0. (and as one young neighbor of mine asked "Neil who?"

Actually both men are American heroes and deserve our respect. I find these kinds of remarks distasteful in the extreme.

Oh, suck it up, John.
If you can't stand the heat,.....
if Neil "the hermit" Armstrong is gonna blast Buzz's views, then by golly ol' Buzz will blast back.

For the record, the ion engine on DS1 and VASIMR are *very* different things. DS1 was a low thrust, high efficiency xenon ion drive. VASIMR can throttle between high thrust/low efficiency and low thrust/high efficiency, hence the 'variable' part of it's name. It also uses much more energetic plasma.

So, no, the two aren't really equivalent. NERVA is much closer, although that had a whole different set of issues attached to it.

C'mon Frank. Buzz doesn't waltz around the country promoting his vision of space exploration or anything else for free. Buzz has identified a valuable product -- himself -- and is an aggressive and brilliant marketeer of that product. Kudos to Buzz or anyone else to be able to do it successfully for 41 years.

Once overheard a conversation between a couple of CEOs at a conference: "Space shuttle astronauts are a dime a dozen, but those Apollo astronauts are damn expensive".

To the point, Neil Armstrong chose to pursue a different path from Buzz. That does not make his contributions or opinions any less valuable.

Should we now also denigrate the valuable contributions of the thousands of workers whose unheralded self-sacrifice made it possible for Buzz to walk on the moon and return safely?

But yet, because Buzz had the president's ear for a few hours, we are supposed to throw out engineering concerns and become emotional true-believers. It's not going to happen.

Can't have it both ways. You lecture about unwritten rules when regards to Griffin, yet when it comes to somebody else we just need to suck it up.

If Bolden\Garver can't stand the heat....

Your comments are disgusting in my opinion. You weren't addressing Neil's letter, but rather attacking his "hermit" personality and implying is unheard of, a nobody.

Neil "who"? I would have smacked that young neighbor, and I am pretty young myself (20's).

"...then by golly ol' Buzz will blast back."

I don't have any problem if Buzz Aldrin wants to make disparaging remarks about Neil Armstrong or vice versa. That's hero to hero, between two men who risked their lives to put their country on the moon. My problem is when YOU do it. As I have tried to explain to my 11 year old son, when you belittle others on the internet, it actually ends up belittling you.

Sorry but i'm entitled to my opinion just like everyone else. Neil Armstrong has made a career of living his life without, for many years, saying much of anything to support the ongoing space program. Then all of a sudden he emerges from hermithood to promote his biography and to promote the VSE-then he unleashes his critique of Obama-and Buzz?. That's fine, Mr. Armstrong but as a result you now are fair game for critics of you-and as a citizen I think i have the right to proffer my opionions. Mike Griffin, on the other hand, accepted presidential appointment and IM HO has handled the transition very poorly from public official to private professor. And nobody points out he is also at the same time defending the policy path he followed?
Neil Armstrong was a great astronaut. his opinion about today's space program however is neither informed nor insightful.
And that's my view. People have been criticizing buzz for years for his views. Armstrong should get used to it.