Category Archives: Mission Plans

Started ‘Mars to Stay’ Facebook Page

Mars to Stay is the proposal that astronauts sent to Mars for the first time should stay there indefinitely, both to reduce mission cost and to ensure permanent settlement of Mars. Under a Mars to Stay mission architecture the first humans to travel to Mars will be composed of a six-person team. After this initial landing subsequent missions will raise the number of persons on the Martian surface to 30 within a few years, thereby beginning an organically evolving Martian settlement.

Since the Martian surface offers all the natural resources and elements necessary to sustain human society—unlike, for example the moon—a permanent Martian settlement is thought to be the most effective way to ensure humankind becomes a space-faring, multi-planet species. For more information, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_to_Stay and of course… 

(Obama:)

“Now, I understand that some believe that we should attempt a return to the surface of the Moon first, as previously planned,” he said. “But I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We’ve been there before. Buzz [Aldrin] has been there. There’s a lot more of space to explore, and a lot more to learn when we do; we should set our sights on points beyond, to the near Earth asteroids and reach for Mars.”

Mars Society Response:
“As the first milestone in his allegedly daring program of exploration, Obama called for sending a crew to a near Earth asteroid by 2025.

Such a flight is achievable. To do an asteroid mission, all that is required is a launch vehicle such as the Ares 5, a crew capsule (such as the Orion), and a habitation module similar to that employed on the space station. Had Obama not canceled the Ares 5, we could have used it to perform an asteroid mission by 2016. But the President, while calling for such a flight, actually is terminating the programs that would make it possible.

From a technical point of view, we are much closer today to being able to send humans to Mars than we were to being able to send men to the moon in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy made his speech committing us to that goal – and we were there eight years later. With Kennedy-like commitment, we could have astronauts on the Red Planet within a decade. Yet Obama chose to set that goal for the 2040s, a timeline so hazy as to not require him to actually do anything to realize it. The American people want and deserve a space program that really is going somewhere. To offer that, Obama needs to stop the fakery. That means a program whose effort will commence not in some future administration, but in his own; one whose goal is not Mars in our dreams, but Mars in our time.”

Zubrin, an aerospace engineer, is president of the Mars Society and author of “The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must.” A link to the article may be found at http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/04/19/2010-04-19_obamas_failure_to_launch.html
The Mars Society is the only major space advocacy organization that has been willing to take a stand and expose the go-nowhere space policy for what it is. Help us tell truth to power. Help us save America’s human spaceflight program. Donate to the Mars Society. Come to the August 5-8 conference. Join the Mars Society. 

Burt Rutan on "Forefront Manned Exploration"

 Burt Rutan is an American aerospace engineer famous for his design of the sub-orbital spaceplane SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004 for becoming the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space twice within a two week period. He has four aircraft on display in the National Air and Space Museum. These are a few of his thoughts regarding space policy:
My basic concern is that the real value of NASA’s contributions that America realized in the 60s and early 70s is now being completely discarded. How can we rationalize a surrender of our preeminence in human spaceflight?  In my mind, the important NASA accomplishments are twofold:  1) The technical breakthroughs achieved by basic research (not by Development programs like Constellation) and 2) The Forefront Manned Exploration that provided the inspiration for our youth to plan careers in engineering/science and that established the U.S. as the world leader in technology.
In short, it is a good idea indeed for the commercial community to compete to re-supply the ISS and to bring about space access for the public to enjoy. I applaud the efforts of SpaceX, Virgin and Orbital in that regard and feel these activities should have been done at least two decades ago.  However, I do not see the commercial companies taking Americans to Mars or to the moons of Saturn within my lifetime and I doubt if they will take the true Research risks (technical and financial) to fly new concepts that have low confidence of return on investment.  Even NASA, regarded as our prime Research agency has not recently shown a willingness to fly true Research concepts.
For years I have stated that a NASA return-to-moon effort must include true Research content, i.e. testing new concepts needed to enable forefront Exploration beyond the moon.  The current Ares/Orion does not do that.  While I have been critical of Constellation for that reason, I do not think that NASA should ‘give up’ on manned spaceflight, just that they should be doing it while meeting the 1) or 2) criteria above.
Some have guessed that my recent comments are based on my overall displeasure with the Obama Administration. They are not; however it does seem that the best technical minds in U.S. industry are still striving to find HOW America can continue to be “exceptional”, while the Administration does not want America to BE “exceptional”.

Going Nowhere: Give NASA the Destination MARS!

From an essay in the Spring 2010 print edition of “The New Atlantis,” an article titled Going Nowhere by Robert Zubrin, President of the International Mars Society:

“The shuttle-era record is [not] impressive; it resulted in no new technologies of importance and reached no new destinations — despite the fact that the agency’s budget for the past twenty years has been approximately the same, in inflation-adjusted dollars, as that which it enjoyed during the Apollo period. In the Apollo Mode, NASA’s efforts are focused and directed; in the Shuttle Mode, the space agency’s efforts are random and entropic, shuffling along without a purpose, always buffeted by political winds.

Without the guidance supplied by a driving mission, under the new Obama space policy, another ten years and more than a hundred billion dollars will be spent by NASA’s human spaceflight program without achieving anything significant. We may take part in another twenty flights to low-Earth orbit, but there is no new world there to explore. Together with the Russians, we have already flown there some three hundred times over the past half-century. Spending a king’s ransom to raise that total to three hundred twenty hardly seems worthwhile.

But it must be remembered that NASA’s average annual budget from 1961 to 1973, during the years when the agency flew all the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab missions, as well as scores of lunar and interplanetary probes, was about $19.7 billion (converted to today’s dollars). That figure is very close to NASA’s current budget.

Mars is the closest world that truly has the resources needed for human settlement. For our generation and those that will follow, Mars is the New World.

Four decades of stagnation in space is enough. If any progress is to be made, a course must be set. Leadership is required. President Obama should reject the timid proposal his administration floated in February, which would mark the end of the American human spaceflight program, and should instead take the side of audacity and hope — by committing NASA to reach for Mars in our time.”

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/going-nowhere

Note the Destination Boring People Advocate…Isaac Asimov debate at the Hayden Planetarium (thanks to Landmark Pictures)

Factual corrections to points made by Paul Spudis: eight week round-trip missions to NEAs have been proposed (see earlier posts on this blog); most asteroids rotate at very, very low speeds; most do not have “co-orbiting clouds of debris;” resources will be collected at asteroids and processed in artificial ‘gravitational’ environments at LEO.  These are exciting, solvable engineering challenges.  Solvable.

Bob Zubrin:
“From a technical point of view, we’re much closer today to sending humans to Mars than we were to sending men to the Moon in 1961. […] While there are resources on the moon there are vastly more on Mars. There’re continent sized regions on Mars that are 60% water in the soil. There’s complex geological history which has created mineral ore. There’s carbon, which is necessary for life and for plastics. There’s nitrogen. There’s a twenty four hour day. […] The reason why it is important to do something as hard as exploring and ultimately settling Mars, is because of what it would do for opening up and creating the prospect of a human future with an open frontier rather than a limited frontier of a world of limited resources, in which choices are becoming ever closer and smaller and freedom is ever more limited.“

“As far as robots versus humans despite the fact that I am a robot guy, you can’t send humans out to explore the solar system soon enough — for me. As an example, what our magnificent robots have accomplished for six years on Mars — Paul is a geologist — Paul and I could’ve done it in about a week. Okay? So robots fall far short of what you can do with humans. […] I firmly believe the best exploration and the most inspiring exploration can only be done by humans. […] Asteroids have very low gravity so you don’t have to go down into a gravity well and come back out again. There are asteroids that are incredibly rich in carbon, there are asteroids that are incredibly rich in metalic minerals: iron, nickel, and all sorts of trace elements. So everything Paul Spudis is talking about on the moon, you can get it better on an asteroid. Asteroids are an incredibly rich source of raw materials. […] There’s a lot more to mine on asteroids than there is on the moon.” 

If Lunar advocates were at a bar they’d drink alone. Soda. After having attended several space-related conferences each year for over a decade, one characteristic of moon-first advocates which has been unfailingly predictable: they are boring as hell.

The full debate may be viewed here, thanks to Landmark Pictures:

James Cameron…Lone Voice in the Wilderness

James Cameron, the writer and director of “Avatar” and “Titanic,” served on the NASA Advisory Council from 2003 to 2005, and has led 6 deep ocean expeditions.  He is currently a co-investigator on the Mars Science Laboratory Mastcam team and a lifetime member of the Mars Society.  (This commentary also appeared in the February 5 edition of the Washington Post.)

.

Rockets Run on Dreams

.
What do rockets burn for fuel? Money. Money that is contributed by working families who have mortgages and children who need braces. And why do the American people support our efforts in space? Because they still believe, to some extent or another, in that shining dream of exploring other worlds. So it could be said that rockets really run on dreams.

.
The exploration of space is the grandest adventure challenging the human race. As a filmmaker I have celebrated this greatest of dreams in my movies and documentaries, and I remain as passionate about the discoveries ahead as I was when I was a kid. So it was with some trepidation that I waited for the NASA budget to be unveiled this week. I was concerned that amid the nation’s fiscal crises, space exploration would fall off the priority to-do list. But the new NASA budget reveals a pathway to a bright future of exploration in the coming years. It simply reflects the deep changes and hard decisions necessary to accomplish that goal.

.
Last year President Obama instructed the Augustine commission to report on the likely prognosis for NASA’s exploration activities. After months of study, the conclusions the panel released last October were gloomy. The Constellation program, implemented in XXX and designed to put humans back on the moon by 2020, could not possibly succeed within that timeframe or for the budgeted amount, it reported.

.
In response, the president and NASA have crafted a bold plan that truly makes possible this nation’s dreams for space. Their plan calls for the full embrace of commercial solutions for transporting astronauts to low Earth orbit after the space shuttle is retired next year. This frees NASA to do what it does best: deep space exploration, both robotic and human. By selecting commercial solutions for transportation to the International Space Station, NASA is empowering American free enterprise to do what it does best: to develop technology quickly and efficiently in a competitive environment.

.
As Peter Diamandis, chairman of the nonprofit X-Prize foundation, said in a recent blog, “The U.S. government doesn’t build your computers, nor do you fly aboard a U.S. Government-owned and -operated airline. Private industry routinely takes technologies pioneered by the government and turns them into cheap, reliable and robust industries.” When the shuttle is finally retired after more than three decades of service, the United States will be dependent on the Russian Soyuz to get our astronauts to the International Space Station, at a cost of $50 million per person. But under the new NASA plan, private industry will take over this capability within a few years, much more quickly than Constellation would have, and at a competitive price.

.
The money saved will be plowed into research and development of robotic explorers that will act as precursors and technology demonstrators, paving the way for human exploration of the moon, asteroids and Mars. Additional funding has been committed to the development of advanced propulsion technology, which can bring down the cost of spaceflight. And the space station’s lifespan will be extended several years, which in turn will increase the science yield and satisfy our international partners. This international cooperative effort is important as a model for how future large-scale missions will be organized and funded. In addition, money is being made available to both Earth and planetary science, which can help us understand climate change on our own world and the alien processes at work on some of the other worlds in our solar system.

.
Over the past 15 years, I have gotten to know a lot of people at NASA while working on projects to advance space and ocean exploration. I’ve found that many, if not most, started as starry-eyed childhood dreamers. Maybe they loved science-fiction stories, with their promise of alien worlds, or maybe they were geeks like me, peering through a telescope in the back yard until their moms yelled again for them to come inside, “it’s a school night!” They grew up to become engineers, brilliant planetary scientists and steely-eyed missile men, who collectively have pushed our human presence out to the moon and our robotic presence not just to Mars but to the outer reaches of the solar system. I applaud President Obama’s bold decision for NASA to focus on building a space exploration program that can drive innovation and provide inspiration for the world. This is the path that can make our dreams in space a reality.

New York Times Favors MARS FIRST!! $&%# the $*&@ Moon!

In its lead editorial February 9, the New York Times called on the Obama administration to make human missions to Mars the goal of the American human spaceflight program. A complete discussion of the current political situation and potential initiatives for dealing with it will be held at the 13th international Mars society convention, August 5-8, 2010, Dayton Mariott, Dayton, Ohio. Registration for the conference is now open at www.marssociety.org.

Commenting on the administration’s new space policy released February 2, the Times said:

A New Space Program

February 8, 2010

President Obama has called for scrapping NASA’s once-ambitious program to return astronauts to the Moon by 2020 as a first step toward reaching Mars. That effort, begun by former President George W. Bush, is behind schedule and its technology increasingly outdated.

Mr. Obama is instead calling on NASA to develop “game-changing” technologies to make long-distance space travel cheaper and faster, a prerequisite for reaching beyond the Moon to nearby asteroids or Mars. To save money and free the agency for more ambitious journeys, the plan also calls for transferring NASA’s more routine operations — carrying astronauts to the International Space Station — to private businesses.

If done right, the president’s strategy could pay off handsomely. If not, it could be the start of a long, slow decline from the nation’s pre-eminent position as a space-faring power. We are particularly concerned that the White House has not identified a clear goal — Mars is our choice — or set even a notional deadline for getting there. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Congress need to keep the effort focused and adequately financed.

The most controversial element of the president’s plan is his proposal to scrap NASA’s mostly Moon-related technology programs that have been working to develop two new rockets, a new space capsule, a lunar landing capsule and systems for living on the lunar surface. Those efforts have been slowed by budgetary and technical problems. And at the current rate, the Moon landing would likely not occur until well after 2030. The technologies that looked reasonable when NASA first started in 2005 have already begun to look dated.

A lunar expedition would be of some value in learning how to live on the Martian surface but would not help us learn how to descend through Mars’ very different atmosphere or use that planet’s atmospheric resources effectively. Nor would it yield a rich trove of new scientific information or find new solutions for the difficulties of traveling deeper into space.

The president’s proposal calls for developing new technologies to make long-distance space travel possible: orbiting depots that could refuel rockets in space, lessening the weight they would have to carry from the ground; life-support systems that could operate indefinitely without resupply from Earth; new engines, propellants and materials for heavy-lift rockets; and advanced propulsion systems that could enable astronauts to reach Mars in a matter of weeks instead of roughly a year using chemical rockets.

Leaping to new generations of technology is inherently hard and NASA’s efforts may not bear fruit in any useful time period. To increase the odds of success, Congress may want to hold the agency’s feet to the fire and require that a specified percentage of its budget be devoted to technology development.

The idea of hiring private companies to ferry astronauts and cargo to the space station is also risky and based on little more than faith that the commercial sector may be able to move faster and more cheaply than NASA. The fledgling companies have yet to prove their expertise, and the bigger companies often deliver late and overbudget.

If they fail or fall behind schedule, NASA would have to rely on Russia or other foreign countries to take its astronauts and cargoes aloft. That is a risk worth taking. It has relied on the Russians before when NASA’s shuttle fleet was grounded for extensive repairs. It would seem too expensive for NASA to compete with a new rocket designed to reach low-Earth orbit — far better to accelerate development of a heavier-lift rocket needed for voyages beyond, as NASA now intends.

The new plan for long-distance space travel also needs clear goals and at least aspirational deadlines that can help drive technology development and make it clear to the world that the United States is not retiring from space exploration but rather is pushing toward the hardest goal within plausible reach.

We believe the target should be Mars — the planet most like Earth and of greatest scientific interest.

Many experts prefer a flexible path that would have astronauts first travel to intermediate destinations: a circle around the Moon to show the world that we can still do it; a trip to distant points where huge telescopes will be deployed and may need servicing; a visit to an asteroid, the kind of object we may some day need to deflect lest it collide with Earth. That makes sense to us so long as the goal of reaching Mars remains at the forefront.

At this point, the administration’s plans to reorient NASA are only a proposal that requires Congressional approval to proceed. Already many legislators from states that profit from the current NASA program are voicing opposition. Less self-interested colleagues ought to embrace the notion of a truly ambitious space program with clear goals that stir all Americans’ imaginations and challenge this country’s scientists to think far beyond the Moon.

http://nyti.ms/cNdUmQ

Dr. Robert Zubrin Places Lunar Water in Perspective

“While going to the Moon may represent a more interesting activity for NASA’s human spaceflight program than flying up and down repeatedly to low Earth orbit, it is nevertheless not the right goal […] Mars, because of its richness in resources, – containing not only plentiful supplies of water, but carbon, nitrogen, and all the other substances needed for life and industry as well – is the nearest place where humans can settle”

For the coming age of space exploration, Mars compares to the Moon as North America compared to Greenland in the previous age of maritime exploration. Greenland was closer to Europe, and Europeans reached it first, but it was too barren to sustain substantial permanent settlement. In contrast, North America was a place where a new branch of human civilization could be born. The Moon is a barren island in the ocean of space; Mars is a New World. Mars is where the challenge is, it is where the science is, it is where the future is. That is why Mars should be our goal.”

Dr. Zubrin’s full statement may be found on the Mars Society’s website: 
http://www.marssociety.org/portal/ZubrinStatementLCROSS/

James Cameron: The Last Hope for Hollywood

.
James Cameron personally attended the International Mars Society Conference in 1999. He delivered the Keynote Address then spent the entire weekend moving from panel to panel with his camera crew, sitting in the audience alongside other attendees while taking extensive notes on a yellow legal pad with a ball point pen. That was before laptops and only a year and a half after the release of his record blockbuster “Titanic.” It was a bold dramatic meaningful appearance which said: I care about Humans-to-Mars; I want to get this right. For the next two years he continued to send teams of videographers to record every presentation. Then, two purely idiotic movies were released — “Red Planet,” “Mission to Mars” — and Cameron wisely decided to shelve his project until the cultural debris settled. Periodically interviewers will ask, “What about Mars?” The most important consistent reply he provides with confidence is: “I have done the research. I know Mars. When the time is right it will happen.”
James Cameron has not only laid the foundation for making one of the most important films about Mars in our generation, for a time he even sat on NASA’s Advisory Council – a panel of experts and advisers appointed by the agency’s administrator. He remains on the science team for the 2011 Mars Science Laboratory. The Mars Science Laboratory, known as Curiosity, is a NASA rover scheduled to be launched between October and December of 2011. One can only hope this window of opportunity is not corrupted by competition from less informed directors, once again.
“I’ve been very interested in the Humans to Mars movement—the ‘Mars Underground’—and I’ve done a tremendous amount of personal research for a novel, a miniseries, and a 3-D film.”
These very rough drafts of Mars mission equipment were created by Digital Domain nearly ten years ago to accompany Cameron’s Keynote Address. Although they were of high-quality for CG at that time, he nevertheless apologized for not being able to bring final renders. The point of showing these images though was to demonstrate his support for Mars Direct and in particular humans to Mars; Cameron wanted to show fellow space enthusiasts he could be relied upon to “get the facts right” and — that this is important. (As an aside, during his keynote the name for Factual Fiction was conceived: if we could get the facts right a “New Mars” in the public’s imagination might lead to a rethinking of humans to Mars.)
“Exploration is not a luxury we can’t afford; it’s a necessity we can’t afford to lose. Pushing farther into the unknown is our greatest endeavor as a civilization and our deepest responsibility to future generations.” Near-term, realistic — without aliens, laser, or guns — someday James Cameron will change the way we think about Mars. No doubt there are many right now saying, “Come on Cameron!”

The follow are excerpts from his Mars Society keynote address:
.

“People are always saying … we need to solve our problems right here on Earth before we go spending money out in space. It makes me want to vomit frankly. [applause!].

Check back in five hundred or a thousand years. People will still be talking about all the problems that need to be solved. We are never going to reach some utopian plateau where everything is solved so we can then, with lordly confidence, look around us for worlds to conquer as some kind of hobby. Not spreading ourselves outward into the solar system now, when we have the capability to do so, is one of the problems we have to be solving right here on Earth. [more applause].

We are really at a turning point. Go forward, or go back. By stopping, by stagnating, we go back. I look around at the turn of the millennium and see a prosperous, powerful, technologically unparalleled society which, collectively, has no purpose but to feather its own nest. It is a goal-less, rudderless society, dedicated to increasing security and creature comforts. .

Our children are raised in a world without heroes. [!!!!!!!!!!]

They are led to believe that heroism consists of throwing a football the furthest, getting the most hangtime during a slam dunk, or selling the most movie tickets with your looks and boyish charm. This is not heroism, and these are not valid tests of our mettle as an intelligent race.
.
Young kids need something to dream about, something to measure their value system against. They live in a sea of mind-numbing inputs, a point-and-shoot videogame world where it is hip to not care, where death and violence have no meaning, where leaders are morally bankrupt, and where the scientific quest for understanding is sooo not cool. Going to Mars is not a luxury we can’t afford … it is a necessity we can’t afford to be without.”

Bold "Can Do" Engineers vs Timid Lowbrow Cowards

MEN WANTED FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. LOW WAGES, BITTER COLD,
LONG HOURS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS. SAFE RETURN DOUBTFUL.
HONOUR AND RECOGNITION IN EVENT OF SUCCESS.”
(ad attributed to Shackleton in London papers)
.
Bizarre lunar scientists — academics who have NEVER cut metal, much less designed human-rated missions — take it upon themselves to advocate “testing Marian hardware on the moon, first.” This is cowardly and unacceptable.
.
It is astonishing lunar scientists — some of whom actually refer to the moon as a “planet” — are quick to declare the utility of Martian ISRU “practice” on the moon, effectively misleading the public into thinking Lunar architectures are applicable to Martian missions.
Pause should be taken when funds for other NASA programs (such as far-side L2 radio telescopes and robotic missions to Europa) are squandered in this bizarre angle to the Mars/Moon debate; an entire Mars base can be chilled in vacuum chambers at Ames for 1/1,000th the cost of Mars simulation on the moon. This would be safer, provide greater testing opportunities, and release funding for many other beautiful endeavors NASA ought to pursue in addition to Martian settlement.
.
We will settle Mars and the rest of our solar system without lunar overhead, without lunar rovers, without lunar habs, lunar SBSP, lunar greenhouses, lunar life support, lunar recycling, lunar space elevators…or any lunar nonsense. Mars is the only location in our solar system with enough native resources to support a thriving society of initially ten to twenty, then tens of thousands, then finally hundreds of millions. (For Martian settlement there is no need to transport elements and basic resources from Earth as would need to be done for even mere lunar “research facilities”.)
.
Settlement of Mars will start when — and only when — human beings like us (you, friendly reader) decide humans must settle Mars. Not for profit, not for resources, not even for science — but to settle Mars. Permanently.
.
A lunar “colony” dependent upon the scientific literacy of an American president does not qualify humanity as spacefaring. The moon will never have a kindergarten, and, being only two days from Maui, will always be susceptible to abandonment and closure. Apart from a few bored and boring grad students dreaming of surfing on Earth, odd tourists out for a gosh and golly stroll, and robot repairpersons with family in Houston, humans will never return the moon. NEVER.
.
PROBLEMS WITH ‘MOON FIRST’ LIE IN THE PERSONALITIES OF MOON FIRST ADVOCATES
.
Personality infuses most engineering solutions. There ought to be a term for the personality component of engineering. Two engineers can reach the same goal but through different means, simply because of decisions which can only be ascribed to individual personalities. Engineers may even advocate slightly different goals attainable with the same tools, etc., for no other reason than ultimately their personalities. One engineer might be risk-adverse, another impatient with bureaucrats and overseers; one may favor small steps, another bold insightful leaps-of-confidence…each may even achieve the same results, possibly within the same cost and risk parameters, but, through very, very different means…reflective of their individual personalities.
.
For example, given the task of driving across the country “as soon as possible” two engineers might accomplish this in very different ways: one might map the trip by hand using a florescent highlighter, call ahead to make hotel reservations, even plan restaurant stops days in advance. He or she may create a multi-page itinerary in triplicate, backed up online, and programmed into an audio GPS device. All of course pre-approved by someone else. Another engineer might just toss some clothes, a laptop, and an iPhone in the car and take off — assuming gas stations and hotels will be there when needed. The first person takes three weeks to plan the trip, the other arrives in three days. No objectively quantifiable mathematical formulas are involved — each trip is almost entirely a reflection of personality. There ought to be useful, working terms to describe this phenomenon: an engineer’s own personal sense of adventure and courage affecting engineering solutions.
.
Psychology plays an especially important role in mission planning. Moon First advocates succumb to a 1950s fantasy of “If in Space then a Base.” This combines with “Closer is Safer” to create a vortex from which lowbrow unambitious academics seem unable to escape. Lunar advocates dismiss “Mars-In-My-Lifetime” as exhibiting an unwarranted sense of entitlement. Instead they are proud to conceive of Moon First missions as “realistic, pragmatic, small steps” not dependent upon “exciting” public support. Each side sincerely wants humanity to become a spacefaring species…”as soon as possible.” (Institutional and cultural inertia — such as job security and personal reputation — affects advocates on both sides.)
.
Those on the side of Mars First contend that a Mars mission must be conceived of as a Settlement Mission, from the start: with a 180 day transit there can be no “Flags and Footprints” mission to Mars. The end goal of settling Mars is not to engender public “excitement about space” but: to settle Mars. To go to Mars — we must go to Mars. Now.
.
Once we go, we should stay. As former Lunar Astronaut Buzz Aldrin — now a vocal Mars First advocate of “Mars to Stay” — has said, “They need to go there more with the psychology of knowing that you are a pioneering settler and you don’t look forward to going back home again after a couple a years. At age 30, they are given an opportunity. If they accept, then we train them, at age 35, we send them. At age 65, who knows what advances have taken place. They can retire there, or maybe we can bring them back.”
.

Kelly Johnson’s Skunk Works — Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs — was the most successful, intellectually ambitious, courageous team of engineers ever assembled. Kelly understood the psychological component of engineering solutions.
.
Unfortunately academia does not teach proactive alpha action — in fact, the type of people who are attracted to and thrive in academia are repulsed by alphas, afraid of action, and would much rather teach formulas and testable procedures than the Personality of Competence.
Fortunately Kelly wrote an autobiography to contextualize Skunk Works principles for posterity.
.

The basic operating rules of a Skunk Works are:

.
  1. The Skunk Works manager must be delegated practically complete control of his program in all aspects. He should report to a division president or higher.
  2. Strong but small project offices must be provided both by the military and industry.
  3. The number of people having any connection with the project must be restricted in an almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good people (10 percent to 25 percent compared to the so-called normal systems).
  4. A very simple drawing and drawing release system with great flexibility for making changes must be provided.
  5. There must be a minimum number of reports required, but important work must be recorded thoroughly.
  6. There must be a monthly cost review covering not only what has been spent and committed but also projected costs to the conclusion of the program. Don’t have the books ninety days late and don’t surprise the customer with sudden overruns.
  7. The contractor must be delegated and must assume more than normal responsibility to get good vendor bids for subcontract work on the project. Commercial bid procedures are very often better than military ones.
  8. The inspection system as currently used by ADP, which has been approved by both the Air Force and Navy, meets the intent of existing military requirements and should be used on new projects. Push more basic inspection responsibility back to subcontractors and vendors. Don’t duplicate so much inspection.
  9. The contractor must be delegated the authority to test his final product in flight. He can and must test it in the initial stages. If he doesn’t, he rapidly loses his competency to design other vehicles.
  10. The specifications applying to the hardware must be agreed to in advance of contracting. The ADP practice of having a specification section stating clearly which important military specification items will not knowingly be complied with and reasons therefore is highly recommended.
  11. Funding a program must be timely so that the contractor doesn’t have to keep running to the bank to support government projects.
  12. There must be a mutual trust between the military project organization and the contractor, with very close cooperation and liaison on a day-to-day basis. This cuts down misunderstanding and correspondence to an absolute minimum.
  13. Access by outsiders to the project and its personnel must be strictly controlled by appropriate security measures.
  14. Because only a few people will be used in engineering and most other areas, ways must be provided to reward good performance by pay not based on the number of personnel supervised.
“The Skunk Works” wrote Kelly Johnson, “is a concentration of a few good people solving problems far in advance – and at a fraction of the cost – of other groups in the aircraft industry by applying the simplest, most straightforward methods possible to develop and produce new projects. All it is really is the application of common sense to some pretty tough problems.”
.
A PDF of Chapter 16 from Kelly’s autobiography — the section in which he writes explicitly about Skunk Works — may be downloaded here:
.
Mars advocates are bored to tears with small-minded cowards telling them “if we were just less ambitious” we would already be (languishing) on the moon; or “if we didn’t try to get the public excited about space” we would recognize the small pragmatic steps necessary to become spacefaring as a species. There is NOTHING pragmatic about spending another fifty years and hundreds of billions of dollars going no where but LEO/Luna. Especially to satisfy the worries of those who succumb to lowbrow “If in Space then a closer base” fallacies.
.
THE MOON IS A SIREN’S CALL!